The Vet's Escape to Paradise, page 15
She let her mother berate her decisions as she pushed a stool over to the oven, so Aayla could reach it to turn it on. That’s right, one hundred and eighty degrees, she mouthed, just as Aayla racked it up to three hundred and Pluma decided to land on the girl’s head, making her shriek again and almost fall off the stool.
Ivy caught her, and assured her mother everything was fine, she still had time to talk equity, though Etta Malone was obviously getting worried about her mental health. Which was ironic. It had only been in adulthood, when she’d made a name and career for herself in veterinary medicine, that her mother had shown any interest in what she was doing at all. Although, maybe that was unfair, she mused, considering what her mother had gone through, losing the love of her life.
She’d still put food on the table, she’d still given her a roof and an education, and her animals. She should be grateful her mother stuck around and didn’t jet off altogether—as some people did.
As for herself, right now she was having a blast, even though time was ticking...tick-tick-tick...
‘I was about to fly home, Mum,’ she said now, sliding the tray of overspilling silicone cups into the oven. She lowered her voice. ‘But Jero’s giving evidence at an important trial and there was no one to watch Aayla.’
Silence.
Then, an incredulous snort. ‘Honestly, Ivy, listen to yourself. She’s not your child, and this Javier guy...’
‘Jero!’
‘Lives on an island. In South America.’
‘I am aware of that.’
‘And you have equally important things to consider back here! I just want the best for you, Ivy. Have you really thought about what you’re doing, or not doing...?’
Ivy held the phone away from her ear as Aayla walked back into the kitchen holding half of a crumbled plastic brick castle. ‘Pluma crashed into it.’ She sighed, as if it happened all the time. ‘We must rebuild, Ivy.’
‘You’re right,’ she agreed solemnly. ‘We shall rebuild.’
Ivy told her mother she had to go, and hung up. For the next two hours, they burned a batch of cupcakes, made one quite excellent batch that she vowed they’d deliver to poor Nina, and tried not to let Etta Malone’s authoritarian agenda pour cold water over her mood. OK, so yes, she had shut up about her upcoming flight the second Jero had mentioned Aayla needed a minder. Sucker. And she’d cancelled it in her head the second he’d suggested they might work something out, even though the clinic was playing on her mind—all the unfinished business still left to attend to. But he’d said what she’d been waiting to hear. Finally. What else was she supposed to do? She was in love. Bursting with it, for the first time in her whole life.
Now. In no way was she the perfect babysitter, as demonstrated by the layer of chocolate and feathers where the kitchen counter used to be, but...
‘Ivy, pass me that tree!’
She forgot what she’d been thinking. Aayla’s sticky fingers had created a sheen all over the brick castle but the look on her face, deep in concentration over their rebuild while Pluma waddled about the living room, was priceless. What was a few more days here, in the grand scheme of things? She’d take a few more days when Jero returned, to iron out the details of his visit to Galway, and the possibility that she might come back here to be with him in the Galapagos. She had plenty of time to talk to Mike and the stuffy men from the Blue Stream Veterinary Alliance—life wasn’t all work, work, work!
She paused, letting Aayla stop her from placing a tree on top of a castle turret, where it clearly did not belong.
Life wasn’t all work, work, work.
She’d never let a thought like that cross her mind until now.
* * *
Day two of babysitting and, Ivy had to admit, she was pretty tired. The day had been jam-packed and she’d even had a visit by a mother from Aayla’s school, along with three more six-year-olds. She didn’t mind—exactly—but the hair-braiding session that had commenced had eaten into her scheduled call with Mike, till she’d had to postpone it altogether. She was almost asleep on the sofa when Jero called.
‘How’s the trial going? Are they going behind bars for life?’ she asked as his handsome face beamed at her in the video-chat window. She was surprised to find butterflies in her belly as he told her all about it, and pride rushed through her, thinking of him standing up on behalf of the community. But she couldn’t wait to get him back here.
‘I’m missing you and Aayla,’ he said. ‘Are you having fun?’
‘We sure are,’ she replied, thinking it best not to say how exhausted she was. She recounted the trip to the shops, and the book they’d been reading on Irish folklore, but she omitted the guilt trip from her mother, which she’d been trying to forget about.
It wasn’t easy. Her mother had a habit of getting under her skin.
‘Hailey sent an email from New Zealand,’ she remembered now. The first full-time surgeon Jero had had on his books for a while had called in to announce she wouldn’t be coming back, which seemed to disappoint him. For a moment she wondered whether she should offer to take her place permanently, but something stopped her. She hadn’t even spoken to Mike yet; she was rushing into things.
‘Daddy!’ Aayla interrupted, leaping in front of her, and she hurried a goodbye, and left them to talk, wishing she weren’t suffering such a conflict of emotion. He wanted her here, she knew that now, he wanted to make things work, and so did she...but then again, what if she wasn’t what they needed?
An hour later, she’d just sat down to check her emails and finally call Mike back when something huge clattered and thudded to the floor upstairs. Tossing her laptop aside, she sent Jero’s guitar crashing to the floor, then raced up to Aayla’s room with a pounding heart.
She threw the door open. ‘What’s wrong?’
Then she saw the dresser on its side and her heart all but stopped. ‘Aayla?’ One of the drawers had been pulled out and was smashed into a thousand splintered pieces on the carpet.
‘I was standing on it,’ she admitted sheepishly from the bed, where she was nursing a ginger kitten that she’d picked up from the clinic. Another animal who’d adopted Aayla more than the other way round. ‘Lola was up on the curtain rails. Daddy doesn’t like it when the animals climb the curtains.’
It took almost an hour for Ivy to sweep up all the pieces of the splintered drawer, and right the dresser. Now she’d have to report this damage to Jero and the thought of his disappointment made her cringe. She should have been watching her more carefully! What if Aayla had been squished under the dresser? It didn’t bear thinking about.
Story time was next. She had to finish the book they’d started the night before, and by the time she got downstairs to check her email, she cursed herself at the significant chip on the neck of Jero’s guitar.
To hell with emails, they could wait, she was too tired. Ivy poured herself a glass of wine, removed the braids from her hair, and vowed that tomorrow she’d be a shining example of authority and productivity.
That same night, halfway through a TV show about the mating cycle of penguins, she spotted a suspicious Manila file sticking out from under a pile of books on the shelf below the coffee table. She tried to straighten it up—symmetry was everything after all, not that Zenon’s tattooist would agree—but then she spotted the words ‘renovation plans’ on the front, and she couldn’t help a peek.
So, Jero had plans, it turned out. Plans to redesign the clinic! She studied them, impressed, and a little awed. It was clear from the apartment buildings that he had money in assets and, despite his humble lifestyle, he had plans to make use of that fact someday, for the good of the island, and the community.
That was so Jero.
The redesign went beyond anything she’d imagined, including open-air kennels with remote-controlled ceilings in case of rain, and a separate outhouse for storage and mobile-clinic supplies. He’d never mentioned wanting to redesign. But he was always so busy with things as they were now. Plus, he always seemed so reluctant to change!
Maybe he was waiting for the right time...or the right person to encourage him, she mused.
* * *
Day three of babysitting. Mike was in her ear now, and not just about the guys at Blue Stream Veterinary Alliance. He was asking her when she was coming home, and he had decidedly fewer nuggets of spiritual wisdom to impart this time. She was annoyed with herself for letting him down, and she told him so. He just sighed.
‘I just didn’t think you’d stay this long. Business aside, you know I want the best for you,’ he said, in the strangest echo of her mother two days before. ‘But you’re not exactly the maternal type, are you, Ivy? I thought you didn’t even want children.’
‘She’s not my child,’ she heard herself say. But the very words from her mouth made her feel quite sick; Aayla felt unwanted enough by her own mother. Thank God she was dancing around the kitchen to Irish folk by The Dubliners—her new favourite—and hadn’t heard. She lowered her voice. ‘Anyway, why can’t I change my mind?’
Mike stuttered a moment. ‘Well...that would be great, good for you.’
He doesn’t sound convinced, she thought. He sounds like he thinks I’m losing the plot. Am I losing the plot?
No...don’t let him get in your head. Or your mother. Or yourself for that matter. Maybe you should meditate?
* * *
No time for that. Aayla was vying for her full attention again, this time with a dance performance. Ivy pulled her legs up under her on the familiar sofa and tried to ignore her calling laptop, and the chipped guitar.
Just focusing on Aayla’s joy, with Pluma and her new stray kitten, Lola, as sidekicks quickly blocked everything out. The kid looked a picture with the hairstyle she’d given her. Ivy got to her knees and snapped a hundred photos with Aayla’s new camera, in a hundred different exciting angles that made Aayla shriek in delight at having her own star gig photographer. The camera was the old one she’d asked Mike to post to the clinic; it had finally arrived.
In moments like this, she forgot everything else in the world, but in Jero’s bed alone in the dark, she suffered through fevered dreams of missing planes and dodging falling furniture or sleeping in late from exhaustion and missing her shift. She couldn’t let Jero or Aayla down. They’d been through so much. And she couldn’t do this to Mike—he needed her. The guilt was insufferable. Old insecurities kept piling up like Lego bricks.
She was terrible at multitasking, she just wasn’t equipped... She’d been trying to prove something to Jero because she was falling in love with him, but this wasn’t her world and she’d never be good enough for him, or this little girl.
What was she doing?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE HOUSE WAS empty when Jero stepped inside. Tossing his keys onto the table, he called for Ivy and Aayla. No answer. He sprinted upstairs, thinking maybe he’d surprise them and walk in on them playing a game or something. Then he saw the smashed-up dresser. Frowning to himself, he scraped a hand over his head—what happened there? Where were they?
He grabbed his bicycle and found them both several minutes later, at the clinic. Dudders and Zenon greeted him with high-fives and Aayla rushed from the storeroom to hug him, abandoning the litter of kittens she was playing with, save for a ginger one that clung to her shoulder like a fuzzy accessory. Ivy pressed her back to the wall in Reception and started unbuttoning her white coat.
‘Why didn’t you tell me you were here?’ He went to kiss her, but something wasn’t right. Instincts primed, he took a step back. Her face was a picture of concern in the light from a small lamp shining onto an aquarium with a lizard in it. A tangle of cables was wrapped around the tank, which annoyed him, but he couldn’t exactly fix it now.
‘It was an emergency, another amputation,’ Ivy said, gesturing to a cage with a black puppy in it. One hind leg was bandaged, the other missing. ‘Good to have you back.’
Then she tossed her coat to the basket and pulled Aayla into a huge embrace that both warmed his heart and sent a chill straight through him.
‘I have to go,’ she announced to Aayla, smoothing down her hair. Aayla had the strangest hairstyle he’d ever seen, all backcombed like an eighties singer. ‘It was so much fun hanging out with you!’
Aayla hugged her, as if she’d known this was going to happen. ‘Bye, Ivy!’
‘Bye Ivy? Where are you going?’
‘To the airport.’
Jero’s heart kicked up a storm and thundered in his chest. Ivy threw him a look he didn’t like one bit before making for the door.
‘Guys, watch Aayla for me, please,’ he said, and followed her outside.
* * *
The taxi was waiting down the street. Ivy hurried across the gravel towards it, red hair flying. He called out to her, but she didn’t answer. Without looking back, she yanked the door open urgently and climbed inside.
What the...?
Jero sprinted back for the bicycle and sped after the cab. The sun was starting to sink behind the trees and anger prickled his arms like mosquitoes. She was leaving now? Without so much as a goodbye?
He sped up and veered into a narrow lane that he knew would come out right in the taxi’s path. Swerving in front of the car, he held his hand up, blinded by the lights. The driver skidded to a halt right in front of him, sending a shower of gravel into the air.
Jero tossed the bike aside and flung the taxi door open. ‘What are you doing?’
Ivy squared her shoulders at him in the back seat, but her tears defied the fierce look on her face.
‘I thought I’d save us both a goodbye, Jero. I can’t pretend this is my life any more.’
‘Get out of the car.’
She shook her head. His eyes found the bags piled up next to her; the stupid boots she’d arrived here in and tried to leave in before. ‘Not this time,’ she said. ‘I have to go. I’m sorry, Jero, it’s better this way. My flight leaves in two hours. I should have left ages ago.’
He bit his tongue. He should have seen it coming.
You are a total idiot, Jero!
She was leaving the second he’d relieved her of her babysitting duties!
Ivy liked Aayla enough, but she’d only been helping him out because of this little ‘thing’ between them. Now she’d had a taster of his real life and she was done.
He glowered at her, seeing red.
‘How could you do this?’ he hissed, gripping the top of the door, turning his knuckles white. He was about to tell her how much he’d trusted her, with himself, with Aayla, but the words were too humiliating to even say out loud. Why had he even let her in, and let himself fall for her?
‘I’ll pay for the damage to the dresser. And your guitar.’
My guitar, too?
‘That’s not what I’m talking about! I was falling in love with you.’
Ivy’s eyes widened.
Jero faltered. Did he just say that out loud?
Ivy just sat there, rooted like a leaden weight, clutching her bag. She couldn’t wait to go. The driver cleared his throat. It was all he could do not to kick something.
‘Ivy, talk to me.’
Ivy squeezed her eyes shut and, this time, he did kick something—the tyre. The driver told him to back off and he apologised. This was all his fault. He’d let her in, fallen for her, even made tentative plans for a future when he should have known better. Hadn’t he learned anything? They all left...all the tourists. He knew it and he’d dived right in again anyway and taken Aayla down with him.
‘I’m sorry, Jero,’ she sobbed, making to reach for him, but he moved from her grasp, gathering the strength he needed not to break something next. He’d already snapped, he had to cool it.
Before he could get his thoughts in order the taxi rumbled off, and he stood there in the fading light, shaken and fuming, willing himself not to go after her.
This wasn’t some lame movie; this was how it ended.
* * *
Ivy heard the explosion as they reached the town borders. She almost hit her head on the car ceiling as the driver swerved to a stop again. What the hell was that?
Glancing behind her, she swiped at her wet eyes and tried to make sense of the tower of flames she could see, roaring out from behind the tree line.
The driver was talking fast in Spanish, asking if she wanted to keep going towards the ferry, but now she could hear screams. Oh, God. Each one froze a little more of her blood. People were running out of their homes. Panic consumed her as grey smoke clouded the horizon. It was coming from the direction of the town, and the clinic.
‘We have to go back!’
In seconds they were speeding back the way they came. Her brain was a cyclone tearing through horrific possibilities. The driver’s radio buzzed, and she almost threw up as she recognised words: Darwin Clinic. Fire brigade. People inside.
No!
‘Hurry!’ she yelled. ‘I’m a trained medic! What if there are injured animals?’
What if there are injured people?
Aayla was in there. Dudders and Zenon. Jero must have been on his way back...after she’d left him there, reeling.
No...
Ivy felt sick to the core as the driver put his foot down harder. Jero’s face flashed into her mind...the look he’d given her when she’d told him she was on her way out, without even saying goodbye. He’d been falling in love with her. He’d said it. She’d almost got out of the car to say it back, but she hadn’t.
Why hadn’t she? Coward. ‘Hurry up, please,’ she urged again in Spanish.
All this time she’d told herself he was in it for some fun with a tourist, but it had meant just as much to him as her. And she’d hit him where it hurt: straight in his own fear of abandonment by someone else he trusted.
