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She was surprised by the pride in his voice. He obviously enjoyed his role. If he was that fond of kids, why didn’t he have a few of his own? Wasn’t that what Greek men wanted? A boy to carry on the name?
Red stopped to collect their trays, and Isobella gave her a polite smile. Alex passed his tray up, reaching across her slightly, and Isobella felt her body hum in response to his. What would a child of Alex’s look like? Dark hair and eyes and a chubby, cherubic face? Like a little dark angel?
‘Do you want to go over our timetable for the week?’ Alex asked, placing his briefcase on his now cleared table.
Isobella blinked. Anything. Anything to keep her mind off her sudden crazy desire to see Alex’s son. ‘Sure.’
‘Okay. So, Saturday and Sunday is the symposium in Cairns. It kicks off tonight with welcome cocktails.’
Alex wondered if Isobella had brought anything suitable for a cocktail party. Did she even own anything that wasn’t drab and two sizes too big?
‘My paper on the effectsFleckeri antivenin has on dermonecrosis is on Saturday morning. Yours outlining the up-to-date study findings is on Sunday afternoon. Then on Monday we have the clinic all day. Did you bring the charts?’
Isobella nodded and opened her own briefcase. ‘All twelve cases.’
Part of the research project involved following up as many pastFleckeri envenomations as possible. Recent stings were reasonably easy, but tracking down older cases had proved very difficult. People changed addresses, and quite a few box jellyfish victims had been overseas tourists.
But it was vital to the project to be able to get a good archive of pictures of the progression of the scarring over the years, and it was part of Isobella’s job to track down the victims.
She’d found twelve who still lived in the Cairns area, and they were using this time up north to see those people, take a history, and gather more photographic data. To be able to build up a picture of the scarring as it evolved from the initial stages of dermonecrosis to the hallmark deep purple scars was invaluable to the study.
But it was another reason she wasn’t looking forward to this trip. Confronting other victims, hearing their stories and seeing their scars would be challenging.
Reg was supposed to be doing it.
‘Did you manage to locate that model who was stung sixteen years ago? What was her name? Izzy someone?’
Isobella’s hand stilled momentarily on her briefcase as her heart thumped loudly in her chest. ‘Izzy Tucker.’ She’d used her mother’s maiden name when she’d been modelling.
This was too close for comfort.
‘No. All my investigations led to a dead end.’
‘Pity,’ Alex mused. ‘Her records are an impressive read—her abdominal scarring was quite extensive. It would be interesting to see all these years down the track.’
If only he knew…‘Do you want to go over these cases now?’ Isobella asked, her fingers trembling on the front cover of the first chart.
‘Nah, we’ll have some spare time on the weekend.’
Isobella nodded, shaken by his reference to Izzy Tucker—to her—and grateful for the reprieve from what was difficult subject matter for her. Talking to those twelve people on the phone had been surprisingly trying. The longer she put off having to delve into their lives and reflect on her own misfortune, the better.
‘On Tuesday we get a small plane to Temora Island, and then a boat to Piccolo.’
Goody, goody gumdrops.‘Excellent.’
Alex smiled to himself. She sounded as if he’d just announced they were parachuting into a desert for forty days and nights. With no rations. He placed the itinerary back in his briefcase and stowed it at his feet.
‘Another coffee, Dr Zaphirides?’
Red was back, and Isobella found herself bristling at Alex’s charm as he nodded his thanks. ‘I’ll have one too,’ she called after the hostess.
The coffee was before them in record time. Alex reached across her slightly to take his from Red’s eager fingers, and Isobella found her gaze drawn to the slashes on his neck—as they had been most of the morning. His open shirt and olive skin were in stark contrast to the thin white lines—it was hard not to notice.
She knew enough about scars to know that each one told its own story of torment and pain, and guessed that he must have suffered significantly. She wondered if it had been as bad as the scars seemed to suggest, and again found herself itching to touch them. Press her mouth to them.
‘Why don’t you just go ahead and ask?’
