Playing to Win (Summer Beach Vets 2) - sweet contemporary romance (8 page)

Ellie leaned back in her leather swivel chair and sighed. It had been a long week. She had thrown herself into work after that fiasco on Monday and had stayed late in the office every night, even taking additional work home to go over in the evenings. Sara had acted like she wanted to say something once or twice, but one look at Ellie’s face and she had kept her thoughts to herself.

Now it was Friday and all Ellie could think about was her speech at the awards dinner tomorrow night in Sydney. She had obsessively checked her notes several times already and had even practised her talk in front of the mirror. Everything had to be perfect.

She had to admit, though, that the speech wasn’t the only thing on her mind. Every so often, when she wasn’t guarded enough, Ellie’s thoughts would stray to Dan and she would feel a hollow ache in her heart. Memories of their time together flashed in her mind—laughing on the beach with Dan… swimming in the surf with his strong arms around her… learning Australian slang over breakfast at the café… sharing a bag of hot French fries while watching the sunset blaze across the horizon… She had even gone down to the wildlife sanctuary one day during the week to see Baz the Emu. Just to stroke those shaggy, brown feathers again and remember the way Dan’s grey eyes had filled with warmth and laughter as he had looked at her that day.

Ellie sat up and gave herself a mental shake, ruthlessly pushing the images away. She had to stop this. She had to get over Dan. It was fun while it lasted and she had been lulled into thinking she could be someone different, live a different life… but it was all just a fantasy. Dan had been wrong.
That
was the fantasy—this was her reality.

She shuffled some papers on her desk and her eyes fell on a leaflet which someone had put into her in-tray. It was a flyer for the Paws ’n’ Surf Beach Races. Ellie’s stomach sank as she suddenly remembered Will’s plea for her to attend. She glanced at her watch. It was three forty. If she left now, she could still just make it. In fact, several of her colleagues with kids taking part in the races had left the office already. No one would remark on it if she decided to leave early too.

On the other hand… Leaving work early—that was something the old Ellie would never do. And look at the disaster that had happened the last time she had decided to ignore her old habits and adopt a more casual attitude. Even now, Ellie still couldn’t think of what had happened in the meeting on Monday without wanting to cringe.

But I can’t let Will down
, she thought miserably. He would be waiting for her, wouldn’t he? Or was she reading too much into his plea? Would Will really miss her? She knew that sometimes kids could exaggerate things. Surely he couldn’t really have “nobody” come to watch him. What would he have done if she hadn’t come to Summer Beach? Will was Australian. He must have other friends and family here. She was sure they would be there to cheer him on.

Besides, she had decided that she needed to start distancing herself from Will and Milo too. It wasn’t good that the boy was becoming so attached to her. It would only end in heartache when she left Summer Beach…

“Ellie?”

Ellie turned to see her boss standing in the office doorway, a sheaf of papers in one hand.

“I’ve just had the new reports for the tourism board campaign come in. I’d like to discuss them with you—I think you could include some of this in your talk for the awards dinner tomorrow night. I’ve just got to take an overseas conference call first though… do you mind staying on a bit?” He gave an apologetic smile. “I wouldn’t normally ask this late on a Friday, but I know you usually work late anyway, so I thought it wouldn’t matter too much. You weren’t planning to leave early, were you?”

Ellie hesitated. Her eyes flicked to the Paws ’n’ Surf Beach Races flyer, then back up to her boss. After his kindness to her on Monday, she really wanted to show him that she deserved his faith in her.  She stood up and gave him a smile. “Sure, of course. I’d be happy to go over them with you. I can stay as late as you like.”

“She’s not coming, is she?”

Dan looked down at the small face with the big brown eyes and forlorn expression and cursed Ellie under his breath. What was she thinking? Didn’t she realise how much it meant to the boy that she came to watch him?

“No, mate, looks like she won’t be able to make it,” he said, ruffling Will’s hair. He tried to adopt a light tone. “Guess she must have had something come up at work.”

“But she promised!” Will said in a small voice. “She told me that she was going to leave work early.”

“Well… maybe something happened that she couldn’t control. Maybe she’s stuck in a meeting or something. I’m sure she would have come if she could,” said Dan, hating to be making lame excuses for Ellie.

Will nodded sadly. Next to him, Milo whined softly and leaned into the boy, who bent down and pressed his cheek against the Labrador’s soft fur. Dan felt a surge of anger at Ellie again.

“Look, mate, they’re calling people to the starting line. You’d better go with Milo if you want to join in,” said Dan, nodding towards the other side of the beach where the fun day organisers were setting up the first race.

Will nodded and, with one last wistful look at the entrance from Beach Road, he started trudging across the sand towards the group of kids gathering with their dogs. Milo pranced around him, excited by the crowds and the other dogs around them, but Will’s shoulders were drooping. 

“I’ll be cheering for you—and Sara and Craig and Matt too,” Dan called, indicating Ellie’s cousin and the other two vets from the animal hospital, who were hovering by the finish line.

It was an annual tradition that he and his colleagues took the afternoon off and volunteered at the Paws ’n’ Surf Beach Races. Usually one of them had to remain at the clinic, just in case of any emergency arrivals at the hospital, but this year, they had a new junior vet, Charlotte—“Charlie”—who had volunteered to stay behind. So they were all able to attend for once—and Dan was glad. He saw Matt, the other senior vet, come over to the boy and make a fuss of Milo—and Will’s face slowly light up in a smile. Matt had a great way with kids—he would make a fantastic father. Shame that his ambitious girlfriend didn’t seem remotely interested in marrying him and settling down—made you wonder if she really was the right girl for him.

Yeah, who am I to judge other people’s love lives?
thought Dan wryly. He was making a pretty good mess of his own! The truth was—contrary and infuriating as she was—he just couldn’t get Ellie out of his mind. He had come home from their bust-up on Monday night fuming and vowing that he would have nothing more to do with Ellie. A bloke didn’t need that kind of headache in his life! But as the week wore on, he found that he kept thinking of her—remembering the way her dark eyes sparkled when she laughed, her hilarious attempts to learn to surf, the way her curvy body had felt in his arms… He wanted to forget about her—write her off as a holiday fling gone wrong—but he just couldn’t.

Well, maybe it’s time I came to my senses about her
, Dan thought grimly, his gaze returning to Will. She wasn’t the woman he thought she was if she could ditch the boy so carelessly. And as soon as the fun day was over, he was going to find Ellie and give her a piece of his mind.

Ellie had barely kicked off her shoes and dropped her handbag on the sofa when there was a pounding on the front door. She turned back towards the door and frowned. Who was it? She knew that Sara was staying over at Craig’s tonight and she wasn’t expecting anyone else.

She opened the door and stepped back in surprise to see Dan. He loomed in the doorway, his huge frame dominating the room, but it was the expression on his face that she found intimidating. He looked furious.

“Why didn’t you come to the beach races?” he asked without preamble.

“I…” Ellie floundered. “I was busy… I had work…”

“What, was there some emergency? The resort burn down or something?”

She squirmed under his caustic gaze. “No… well, not an emergency exactly, but…”

“So you just decided not to come. Did you even think about Will?”

She squirmed even more. “Yes, I did… but I thought… well, I didn’t think it would matter that much if I was there or not. I mean, he probably has lots of other friends and family who would be cheering him—”

“It doesn’t matter if he had the whole town barracking for him—he was waiting for
you
.” He leaned forwards. “You made him a promise.”

Ellie dropped her eyes. She felt flooded with guilt. Dan was right. It had been unforgivable, breaking her promise to the boy. She should have told her boss “No”… she should have insisted on leaving work early…

“Is he very upset?” Ellie asked in a small voice.

“What do you think?” Dan said sarcastically. “How could you do this to him, Ellie? You know how much you mean to him—”

“That’s exactly it!” cried Ellie. “I don’t think it’s so good that he’s so emotionally attached to me. I thought… I thought it would be better if he didn’t get too dependent on me, too used to having me around. I’m not going to be here forever, Dan, and it’ll hurt him less when I leave if we don’t get too close.”

“That’s the biggest load of rubbish I’ve ever heard.” Dan rolled his eyes.

“It’s not rubbish!” said Ellie hotly. “I’m speaking from experience. When I was about Will’s age, my parents were going through a really nasty divorce. I was so lost and lonely. The neighbour’s daughter was really nice to me—she was in her late teens and I worshipped her. She became my emotional crutch, my substitute for the attention and affection I should have got from my parents. Until she suddenly left for college. It was like my world fell apart. It took me months to recover. I don’t want Will to have to go through the same thing I did.”

“What?” Dan looked at her incredulously. “You don’t even know when you might leave Summer Beach—you’ve got a career here that could well keep you in place for several years—but
just
in case Will gets really upset
if
you go back to the States, you’re shutting him out now? What kind of crazy reasoning is that?”

“It’s not crazy!” Ellie cried. “It’s a way to protect yourself. Why introduce something into your life if you might get hurt? It’s best to just avoid it in the first place. Why risk all the stress and heartache?”

“Because that’s just life!” Dan roared. “Life is full of stress and heartache and triumph and happiness too. It all comes together. You can’t just divide your life up into little boxes and have everything in perfect little doses—”

“What would you know about it?” snapped Ellie. “Your life is just like one big slumber party! You’ve got it great here, with your vet clinic and your fancy car and a beautiful beach on your doorstep. You take everything so easy, you wouldn’t even know what real pain was if it jumped up and smacked you in the face!”

Ellie stopped, slightly horrified at what she had said. She had never lost her temper this badly before—or started hurling personal insults like that. She had always prided herself on remaining cool during arguments and despised girls who got vindictive and hysterical—and here she was as bad as any of them!

Dan didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he stepped forwards, his grey eyes smouldering. He said, “My mother passed away from breast cancer when I was just seven years old and there isn’t a day that goes by without me thinking of her. But I know she would have wanted me to focus on the positive things in life—yes, even if it means having a happy-go-lucky attitude. And on the day we met… I had to put my dog to sleep that morning. Sheba had been there for me for fifteen years, through university and vet school and multiple moves through different cities… and I had been fighting for her for the last six months, trying to do everything to stop the osteosarcoma from spreading. But letting her go with peace and dignity was the kindest thing I could do in the end, even though it killed me to look into her eyes and say goodbye.” His voice hardened. “So don’t talk to me about pain and loss—I’m no stranger to that. I just don’t let it define my life. Yeah, you’re right—maybe if I never had Sheba, I could have saved myself the heartache of losing her—but that pain was more than worth it for all the years of joy she brought into my life.”

Ellie stared down at her hands. She didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t even look at Dan. Her cheeks were burning again now—but with shame this time. She wanted to say something, to apologise, but the words stuck in her throat.

He turned and walked out the door, pausing on the front step and looking back at her.

“You let Will down today, Ellie. You, who are so proud of never making mistakes—of always having the perfect reputation… Well, let me tell you something—
this
was a mistake. A hell of a mistake. Because this one actually matters. The big mistakes are not the ones on some stupid Excel spreadsheet—they’re the ones you make in
life
that really hurt others. You had the chance to make a small boy really happy with just a simple gesture—instead, you hurt him and let him down at a time when he really needed a friend.” He shook his head. “I was wrong about you, Ellie. I thought you were just a bit lost and gone on a detour by mistake—but no, you don’t actually
want
to find the way.”

Then he was gone and Ellie was left staring at the empty doorway.