‘Kitchen!’ Cam answered, and she headed there to find him sitting at the kitchen table, a pen in his hand and a writing pad on the table in front of him.
‘I’ve been thinking about your lack of patients,’ she said, ‘and I’ve had some ideas.’
He looked up at her and grinned. ‘Me too, but I’ll need help to know what will work.’
‘I was thinking the local paper first,’ Lauren said. ‘The Lake News—Madge might have brought home a copy. It’s printed right here in the village, but it goes around the lake. You could do an “Ask the Vet” column once a week.’
Cam’s grin made her heart flip just a little, and his fingers tangled with hers as he passed her his list.
‘Third idea down,’ he said. ‘Now, come and sit beside me and we’ll go through them. You want coffee?’
‘Yes, please—and a sandwich if you can manage one. I came straight from work and I really want to hear what’s happening with the police.’
‘You go through the list while I fix you something, then we can talk.’ There was a slight pause before he tease, ‘If that’s what you really want to do?’
She frowned at him. ‘Yes, it is. This is serious! I want to know about the dog-fights...but, far more important, you can’t just let Henry’s business die—’
She stopped, looking at him, searching his face, wondering...
‘Unless that’s what you want?’ she whispered, with thoughts of him selling the house and fleeing back to England to domestic pets and no possibility of a snake in his house swirling through her mind.
He crossed to the table and put an arm around her shoulders, giving her a gentle hug. ‘Don’t be silly,’ he said. ‘Take a look at my list and then tell me if I’m thinking of abandoning Henry’s gift to me.’
The arm around her shoulders was reassuring—as was the list, now she looked at it. But the gut-wrenching, heart-stopping pain she’d felt when—just for a moment—she’d imagined him gone, told her how completely she was entangled with him now...how deep her emotions ran and how very important he’d become to her.
And yet she knew she was all wrong for him.
She concentrated on his list and actually smiled, because every single thing she’d thought of was there.
‘Henry had a weekly talk on local radio,’ she said to Cam, who’d returned to his coffee and sandwich-making. ‘Just ten minutes, and he covered things like the best way to treat midge bites as well as animal health.’
Cam put coffee and a plate of sandwiches in front of her, then pulled out a chair so they sat together, thighs touching, the heat of his body transferring to hers.
‘And how do you treat a midge bite?’
Lauren grinned at him. ‘I’m not sure I remember Henry’s advice because they never worry me. I think I’ve grown immune to them. But when in doubt use vinegar, my father always said. For bluebottle stings in the sea in summer, midge and sand fly bites—vinegar or bi-carb soda: his panaceas for most painful bites and stings.’
‘Apart from funnel web spiders?’
Lauren had to laugh. ‘Definitely not spiders of any kind! Spider bites you need to treat like a snake bite. You should keep four or five elasticised bandages somewhere handy, then you can bandage over the bite, down to the extremity of the arm or leg then back up again, phoning an ambulance as you do it.’
‘Really?’ Cam asked.
She nodded, because even a sensible conversation about health matters hadn’t quelled the disturbances caused by Cam’s proximity, and she was reasonably sure there’d be a tremor in her voice if she tried to speak.
She moved her chair, just a little, and pulled the notepad towards her, and together they went through their ideas to give his animal patient numbers a boost.
‘I really should be going,’ she said suddenly.
‘You’ve only just arrived,’ he said, taking her hand in his, folding her fingers so it fitted inside his palm.
It was hand-holding, nothing more—yet for some reason it was so erotic she squirmed in her seat.
She removed her hand from his clasp and shifted her chair a little further away.
‘We’re going to drink coffee, eat our lunch and talk about your list,’ she said firmly.
‘Even though we’re all alone in this great big house?’ he murmured, and the rasp of his voice scratched at her skin.
‘I’m back!’
The call came just in time, and while Cam went to welcome his new employee properly Lauren hastily ate a sandwich and drained her coffee, then departed, yelling goodbye through the surgery door.
Madge and Maddie would be back from the village and wanting to get in, she told herself as she hurried away.
But she knew she was hurrying from—not hurrying to.
She forced herself to slow down, finding an even pace that would allow her to think.
But how to think about Cam?
About the way he made her feel?
About the physical reactions he could cause in her body with nothing more than a glance?
And why him?
She had met other men over the years since David, but none had turned both her mind and her body into such a state of turmoil.
She paused, forcing herself to think, telling herself she was a mature middle-aged woman and she should be able to rationalise this...whatever it was...
But standing still didn’t help—and it didn’t stop her hearing Cam’s teasing voice in her ears, or feeling his touch on her skin...
* * *
‘You’ve been called out to the alpaca farm.’
Cam was startled by the voice as he made his way back into the surgery. Once again, he’d forgotten he had a new nurse. He really would have to sit down and have a talk with her—find out about her qualifications, things like that—but for now just having someone to answer the phone was a bonus.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I hope it won’t take long and we can have a chat when I get back. In the meantime...’
He pulled his list out of his pocket and found Lauren had put ticks against some of his ideas—two or three ticks in some cases.
‘Do you think putting leaflets into letterboxes around the lake, telling people I’m here, is a good idea?’ he asked Debbie.
‘An excellent one,’ she said. ‘I was doodling something on the computer that might do.’
She swung the screen to show a page with cats, dogs, birds and, yes, alpacas, depicted around the edge, with his name, address and phone number clearly printed in the middle. Then he noticed the heading:
Under new management!
Henry’s nephew has arrived!
‘That looks great,’ he said, ‘but is it okay to put the bit about Henry?’
She smiled at him. ‘Everyone loved Henry,’ she said, as if that automatically meant they’d all love Cam too.
But he knew full well he’d have to prove himself—and it appeared he’d have a lot to live up to.
Debbie was speaking again. ‘You’d better get out to the alpacas—something about pregnancy testing? That Celia out there does run on and on.’
Pots and kettles, Cam thought, leaving Debbie to her work and getting the portable ultrasound out of the equipment cupboard.
Debbie was printing off the leaflets when he came back through the reception area.
‘I’ll stay on and answer the phone and print out more leaflets—do some larger ones for shop windows,’ she said. ‘Your mother phoned to say she’ll be back soon, so I won’t leave to put up the posters until after she comes. Is that okay?’
Still befuddled by the force that was Debbie, Cam nodded, locked the treatment room door, and departed.
* * *
Lauren, taking advantage of finishing early, had decided to walk Maddie and Madge back to their home. The dog and the cat would stay at her place, and she’d bri
ng their gear over later.
‘There’s Daddy going out!’ cried Maddie, who was running on ahead, and they saw the four-wheel drive reversing out of the garage.
‘Stop where you are,’ Madge called to Maddie, who obeyed immediately, although she was bouncing up and down with excitement at seeing her father.
Cam stopped and climbed out, swinging his daughter into the air and settling her on his hip, giving Lauren a twinge of something she couldn’t understand. Not jealousy, certainly, but perhaps a kind of envy at the picture they made.
The family they made.
‘Are you done for the morning?’ Cam asked.
Lauren nodded. ‘We have a very healthy population around here.’
‘Same with animals,’ he said. ‘But if you’re free, I could do with a hand.’
‘Can I come too, Daddy?’ Maddie asked.
Cam shook his head. ‘Not today, sweetie—but go on in and say hello to my new vet nurse, Debbie.’
Maddie skipped away to catch up with Madge.
‘Debbie?’ Lauren asked as she climbed in the car, her pleasure at seeing Cam only slightly marred by the warnings of that stupid voice in her head—that useless mantra...
‘Believe me, you can’t possibly be as surprised as I was when she turned up and—’
‘And started talking—if she’s Debbie Bradley from further up the lake?’
‘That’s the one,’ Cam said.
Lauren laughed. ‘She’s actually very good, and people trust her. I’m sure she’ll give the practice the boost it needs.’
‘It’s almost as if she’s read my list...’
He turned to look at Lauren, sharing his rueful despair, and she saw the gleam of amusement in his blue eyes and felt her heart contract.
She loved him.
It wasn’t so much a question as a certainty that had suddenly struck right at her heart.
Just like that, out of nowhere, the realisation had come—and she had no idea what to do with it or about it.
She was too old for him—she knew that...knew he needed a younger woman. Someone who’d get him involved in the social life of the area—such as it was—who would have parties and go to music festivals...all the things young people in their twenties did.
She also knew she couldn’t condemn him to what might lie ahead.
The shadow of her father’s illness sat like a black cloud above her head whenever Cam’s silly idea of marriage was mentioned. Dementia wasn’t necessarily a genetic disease, but it did have genetic links in some families. Her father had often spoken of his ‘mad grandmother’, who, Lauren suspected, had probably had it too.
And, knowing the soul-destroying task that caring for a loved one with dementia could be, how could she risk handing that on to Cam—ten years younger than she was, who would probably still be a very active man at fifty-five if she, like her father, had her first symptoms at sixty-five?
‘Anything that can help build the practice,’ she said, realising it was her turn to speak in their conversation, and thankfully remembering where it had stopped.
But her mind wasn’t on it. It was far too busy coping with what was in her heart.
Damn it all—why couldn’t life be easy?
Hadn’t she been happy enough before this man had erupted into her life?
Satisfied with her lot?
Enjoying her life?
She was happy to have an affair with him—delighted, in fact—but marriage...?
* * *
‘So I think Celia will run them through the chute she has out there, and isolate one animal at a time, so all we’ll have to do is the ultrasound. I’m reasonably sure she can read the screen as well as I can, but having you there to hold it will be a blessing.’
And Lauren was a blessing in other ways, Cam thought, remembering Jake’s eagerness to see his wife and kids, and feeling aware of how good it was simply to have her by his side.
And a lot later in that day he’d be aware that he’d never have managed without her...
* * *
As they drove up—not towards the house, but to the paddock near the chute, where they could see Celia waiting—the woman suddenly fell to the grass.
Cam pulled up as close as he safely could, and he and Lauren both shot out and raced towards the fallen woman.
‘Celia? Celia, can you hear me?’ Lauren shouted as she ran, then she dropped to her knees and gave the woman a little shake, feeling at the same time for a pulse beneath her neck.
Cam reached Celia’s side just as Lauren checked her mouth, then gave her two full breaths of air.
‘Ring triple zero,’ she said to Cam as she began compressions, counting aloud as she went.
He made the call, then dropped to his knees. ‘I’ll take over here—you do the breaths,’ he said.
Lauren reached thirty and sank back, again feeling for a pulse.
‘Nothing?’ Cam asked, and Lauren shook her head.
‘There might be,’ she said, ‘but if there is it’s very weak. Often it’s hard to tell, so we’ll just keep going.’
He had kept the compressions going, and again Lauren breathed air into Celia’s unconscious body. But this time, as Cam continued compressions, she ran her hands over Celia’s head, feeling for any contusions.
There were no trees with branches she could have hit—in fact there was nothing at all anywhere near her that could have knocked her out.
‘I’ll do these breaths, then we’ll swap,’ she said to Cam, aware how tiring compressions could be, even on practice dummies.
‘I’m fine.’
It was the response she’d expected. ‘Yes, for now you are. But if we have to wait thirty minutes for an ambulance, you won’t be.’
The look of disbelief he gave her was priceless, but he didn’t argue when she took over once he’d reached thirty. Lauren counted while she watched him administer air, then looked around in frustration. She imagined the city streets where he’d lived regularly rang with the sirens of approaching fire engines or ambulances.
‘It won’t be too much longer,’ she said, and as if conjured up by her voice an ambulance appeared, the big four-wheel drive vehicle coming smoothly across the paddock towards them.
Cam explained that they’d actually seen Celia fall and phoned immediately, while the paramedic fitted an oxygen mask to Celia’s mouth and nose, then attached a valve bag to it to deliver continuous positive pressure air.
‘Can you hold your thumbs to the mask either side of her mouth to seal it?’ the paramedic asked Cam.
Lauren got out of the way as the second paramedic knelt by Celia’s side with a resuscitator, fixing pads to her skin, checking lines and preparing to shock her heart.
The ‘Clear!’ signal rang out and they all moved slightly back.
The paramedic closest to Cam felt for a pulse once she’d been shocked. He shook his head, then held up a hand. ‘Maybe...’ he said. ‘It’s faint and thready, but it’s there, I’m sure.’
They shocked her heart a second time, with a steadier result.
‘Okay, we’ll take it from here,’ one of the paramedics said, and in what seemed like a remarkably short time they had her loaded into the ambulance and were driving away.
‘Poor Celia,’ Cam said.
‘Poor you,’ Lauren replied with a grin.
‘Me? What? Why me?’
Lauren’s smile broadened. ‘Well, as well as having to preg-test the alpacas without her help, you’re now going to have to work out how to look after them while Celia’s off in hospital.’
‘Me?’
‘You’re the vet,’ she reminded him. ‘Now, let’s get on with what we came to do, and later we’ll think about the animals.’
* * *
Cam, still shaken by seeing Celia so stricken, decided that was a very good su
ggestion—although it was slowly dawning on him that he couldn’t just abandon the animals. There was plenty of grass in the paddock, but they would need some supplementary feeding, water, and definite overseeing.
Should he forget the pregnancy testing and just seek out someone to keep an eye on them? Then visit Celia in hospital and tell her he’d not done the job?
He didn’t think so.
‘Okay, let’s go,’ he said, retrieving his gear from the car, passing the laptop to Lauren and grabbing the bag with the ultrasound machine, thrusting away the thought that perhaps they could have used it on Celia, to see if her heart had been beating.
Stupid! It would have wasted precious time.
Alpacas—that was where his head had to be.
The animals had already been herded into a small paddock close to the chute, but the beasts weren’t the silly, friendly creatures they’d appeared to be on first acquaintance. They circled towards the chute and then ducked off at the last minute, with Lauren herding them, while he stood ready to push the sliding gate across to secure them one at a time for the test.
‘They must be friends,’ Lauren said—totally unhelpfully—as two of the alpacas tried to cram into the chute together. ‘Where one goes, the other goes.’
She was trying to use a garden rake she’d picked up to hold one of them back, but didn’t have a hope.
Cam tried pushing the other one backwards, but got nowhere.
‘Can you possibly do them both while they’re crammed in like that?’ Lauren asked. ‘Maybe you do the one on your side, then we’ll swap gear and I’ll do the one on this side.’
Cam shook his head at just how much his professional life had changed, but as they successfully tested both animals with just a little extra effort—clambering up onto the lowest rung of the chute to swap implements—he found himself enjoying it all.
‘Did you put the ear tag number of the one you tested onto the computer?’ Lauren asked.
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