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‘Tom, as adoring as he is, my father is not one to lavish me with hugs and kisses. I used to take his smiles and encouragement as his pride and affection for me. Your father comes from an even tougher background. He couldn’t look soppy, surely, in front of the other men?’

‘The blokes are certainly rough and tough out there, especially in his line of work.’

‘Well, there you are. He could be openly affectionate with your mother because that’s how a man should be with a woman – tender. But as a father, he probably thought his role was to turn you into a man. I’m sure you’ll say something like that to our son.’

‘Our son.’ He smiled softly. ‘I like the sound of that.’

‘Do you hear me, Tom Catchlove? Your father was a man used to the company of other men, out in the middle of nowhere, sleeping rough, drinking hard, eating what they could scrounge together. When he was with the woman he adored, he could show his gentle, fun side. But he was away so much of your life. He left raising his boy to her. I think you’re hurting, Tom, and you’re letting his role as a father, provider, drover and hands-off parent trick you into believing he didn’t love you. You may not be his son, but I don’t hear anything in what you’ve told me that says that. He did the best he could, and when your mother died, the light went out of his life. Can you see that?’

‘Why leave me so alone? I was a child.’

‘Grief is a curious drug, Tom. I’ve seen people acting strangely at funerals, and I’ve learned it’s not deliberate. Your father probably never recovered from losing the love of his life, and you can imagine all the guilt he felt, the blame he allowed himself to bear for her death. Let’s not forget he lost his daughter too – can you imagine his regret? And then you were there, a constant reminder of the woman he’d lost and the man she had once loved with all of her heart.’ It was Fleur’s turn to shake her head. ‘I think I can understand him better than perhaps you do. Please don’t allow your pain to override all those good memories of life with your parents. Don’t go off on a wild goose chase to find the father who doesn’t know you, doesn’t love you, probably never knew of your existence. Where do you begin, thirty years down the track, to build that relationship with a stranger, when you have such colourful, vivid memories of life at Paradise? That was your life. Keep it bright. Forgive your father his shortcomings, for that’s all they are, I’m sure of it.’

He stared at her, then dropped his gaze. ‘You’re wise beyond your years, Fleur. You always were.’

‘I’m very good at dishing out advice, Tom. I wish I could take my own medicine, though.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, here I am, blithely telling you to let go of your demons, but I can’t let go of what Irma’s done and is still doing.’

‘It’s different.’

‘Is it?’

‘Yes, because if you’re right, then my father was simply careless, whereas what Irma’s up to is wilfully committing a crime. If that’s so, then it needs to be revealed.’

Fleur gazed at him for several heartbeats before finally giving a firm nod that accompanied a relaxing of her shoulders. ‘Thank you,’ she said, then sighed, leaning into him.

‘For what?’

‘For being Tom Catchlove.’

‘Your fiancé,’ he reminded her.

Fleur chuckled and looked at the ring once more. ‘Hard to believe, and wonderful at the same time.’ She kissed him again. ‘Clearly now I have permission to undress you.’

He laughed. ‘I tricked you into saying yes to marrying me, because I’m helpless to stop you, if I’m being honest.’

‘Happy to be tricked. Lie back,’ she said in a mock-stern tone filled with levity.

With great care, she began to remove the clothes that the nurses had helped him into. She paused at each wince and let him breathe through the pain. With his shirt off, she could see the ravages of Jimmy Coglin’s steel-capped boots. The bruising was like a painting made by a drunken artist who’d lost his mind to the brush, with splodges of colour in some parts and trails of pigment in others. The word ‘purpura’ echoed in her mind from her training in physiology; she often looked at bruising in the elderly known as senile purpura, when the skin had become papery, more prone to injury and small tears. Some of Tom’s bruises looked deeply angry, while others were still finding their wrath. There were more that looked like they were sympathising and trying to share the burden, showing pinpricks of purple and red. Those last were known as petechiae.

She was showing off to herself, she thought, or perhaps she was anchoring her mind against the nervousness she felt at being this close and intimate with a man . . . a man who was alive and capable of returning her stares and her actions. The nurses had shown her where the ribs were broken or cracked and drew her attention to the more serious hematoma on one side, which they’d treated with ice and wrapped in a crepe bandage for compression. She reached gently for those places now as though her hands might heal him as she laid her cool fingers upon them.

‘Jimmy did a good job,’ Tom said, staring at the ceiling and having a brief rest now that his jacket and shirt were off.

Jimmy had. No doubt. But if Fleur was truthful, she would admit that she had stopped looking at the patchwork of pain on Tom’s abdomen and was instead gazing helplessly beyond at the body of a man who was clearly used to physical work. She could point and name each muscle, so clearly defined from his regular labours. His skin, bronzed through summer, still looked tanned and his chest was broad, flat and mostly hairless. The arches and curves of his skeleton appeared sculpted by someone wishing to show a perfect form; from the sweep of his clavicle to the dip of his sternum, Tom’s strong frame was carved as if from marble by the tools of a master. The slightly slanted ilium bones that formed the ridge of his hips were peeping above the tops of his trousers, which had fallen down slightly since she’d loosened his belt, and the taut skin that covered his hips dipped away from their high point into his belly.

She suddenly realised that Tom had spoken while she’d been gawping at him. She snapped out of her admiration of his physicality to breathe out slowly and hear in her mind what he’d said. ‘I saw him,’ she replied, glad she sounded less choked up than she felt in this moment. ‘He’s looking pretty sheepish, and I have no doubt his friends aren’t too proud of his actions. Ganging up and kicking a man on the ground . . . over a girl who doesn’t even like him, simply because he asked her to dance. It’s pathetic. You’ll heal, Tom, but as you noted, Jimmy has to live with his cowardice and his mates watching.’

‘I think we both know it’s not that simple, Fleur. To be fair, when I walked across that dancefloor, it was always my intention to steal you away from him. Frankly, I was feeling so brazen in that moment – as much as I was appalled by how he was publicly manhandling you – that I wanted to reinforce my theft by kissing you in front of everyone.’ He gave a sigh. ‘Men know. Jimmy knew what I was up to, what I was thinking, what I wanted to do.’

She looked down at his belt buckle. ‘Well, in the spirit of fairness then, I think you should know that I wanted you to do just that,’ she admitted. ‘When I heard your voice and your invitation, I couldn’t quite believe my luck. You were like a chivalrous knight of legend.’ She chuckled at the fanciful notion.

‘Good, because here we are. Exactly where we both want to be.’

‘Not quite,’ she said and smiled at his frown. ‘I just need a couple more minutes,’ she said, standing to unlace his shoes and drop them to the floor. She slipped off his socks and tucked them into the shoes. Without pausing or giving either of them a chance to hesitate, she set about undoing the button on his trousers and, as she had done many times in her work, she slid them off effortlessly, perhaps surprising him how easily she accomplished the task.