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Josh shrugged. ‘Often enough. Two weekends off in a row is like winning the lottery, but one of the other consultants owes me a few favours so I’m taking them while the surf is good.’ His eyes scanned her face. ‘You look tired.’
‘I’m fine,’ she lied, reluctant to confess just how exhausted she felt in case he thought she couldn’t cope with the job. ‘I’m still busy unpacking and getting the house sorted.’ And running around after a six-year-old boy. Unlike most people’s, her day didn’t stop when she left the hospital. But Josh had worked longer hours than her and she’d seen enough to know that he carried a huge weight of responsibility. ‘What about you, Dr Sullivan? Don’t you ever get tired?’
He gave her a lazy smile that made her heart shift. ‘I have plenty of stamina.’
Somehow his comment brought colour to her cheeks and she cursed herself. What on earth was the matter with her?
Thoroughly unsettled, she stood up quickly and walked towards the door. ‘Thanks for all your help this week, Dr Sullivan.’
‘Stop calling me “Dr Sullivan”,’ he said, his tone mild. ‘It’s Josh.’
She hesitated. ‘Josh.’ Using his name somehow made everything much more personal and suddenly she needed to get away. ‘I’ll see you on Monday.’
By then she would have talked some sense into herself.
* * *
Kat woke slowly, still deliciously half-asleep, reluctant to move from the bed. She could have stayed there all day but the sun was blazing through the thin muslin curtains and already it was uncomfortably warm.
It must be late.
Driven by a maternal instinct more powerful than her need to snatch more sleep, Kat forced herself to sit up. She scraped her tangled hair out of her eyes with her fingers and checked the clock.
Then she checked it again.
It couldn’t possibly be nine o’clock! Archie was always up at seven, and he always woke her up. He must still be asleep, too, worn out after his first week in his new school.
Feeling faintly uneasy, she slid her legs out of bed. ‘Archie?’ Still in the strappy silk nightdress she wore to bed, she walked out of her bedroom.
There was still no response and she frowned and popped her head round his bedroom door. His pyjamas lay abandoned on the floor and several wooden boats were scattered on the bed.
He must be in the living room, watching television.
She hurried downstairs but there was no sign of him and she forced herself to be rational. What could have happened to him? Nothing, she reasoned firmly as she pushed open the door of the downstairs toilet and put her head round the door of the kitchen. He was just playing hide and seek, or maybe—
She stopped dead.
The back door was wide open.
Rational thought was replaced by overwhelming panic and her heart catapulted into her mouth. Had she left it unlocked all night? Had someone come into the house? Had…?
Various scenarios, all of them alarmingly dark and unpleasant, played across her brain and she jabbed her feet into a pair of trainers which she’d left by the back door and rushed out into the garden, yelling at the top of her voice. ‘Archie!’
There was no response and she felt the panic rise and swamp her. Think. Think. She lifted fingers to her forehead and raced to the bottom of the garden. She tried to be rational—tried to think as he would. He loved the sea and everything about it, but surely he wouldn’t have gone onto the beach on his own? If he had then he could have been swept out to sea and drowned—She shook herself and forced herself to be calm. He just wouldn’t have done a thing like that! He must have just wandered into the garden. In which case someone must have taken him, someone must have…
She looked around frantically
, forcing herself to breathe, searching for a calm that she just couldn’t find. She needed to think and she couldn’t think if she was panicking.
She felt dizzy, faint and completely nauseous. More horrible scenarios flitted through her brain. Someone had definitely taken him, or maybe he’d drowned or been—
And then she heard his laughter and she froze.
‘Archie?’ Weak with relief, she leaned over the garden gate and then she saw him. In the garden of the converted lifeboat station, talking to a man who had his back to her. He was dark-haired and powerfully built and was wearing nothing except a pair of cut-off jeans. Together they were examining the hull of the boat. ‘Oh, my God, Archie…’
Her fingers sliding and fumbling with the gate, she somehow opened it and sprinted the short distance next door, her hair flying around her shoulders as she ran, her breath coming in snatches.
What was he doing there?
