The Doctor’s Proposal

by Marion Lennox

  ‘The leg may well turn black if you don’t take more care of it,’ Jake said bluntly. He looked up at Barbara. ‘Is it OK if Dr McMahon and I perform a piece of minor surgery on your veranda?’

  ‘It’s Mum’s veranda,’ Barbara said. She smiled and motioned to where her mother was watching through the bedroom window. ‘As long as you don’t mind an audience, go right ahead.’

  This was seriously weird, Kirsty decided.

  Jake propped the farmer on cushions. He spread newspapers under his leg and asked Kirsty to administer a full shin block. Then he proceeded to clean the wound of accumulated debris-of which there was plenty-getting rid of the dead flaps of torn skin and checking the circulation around the wound. Dirty wounds were best left open as much as possible. They both knew that to Herbert cosmetic appearances were a very minor consideration, but the tear was big and Jake needed to pull it together with a few stitches.

  The kids watched. A couple of hens clucked past, and all the while Herbert lay back and discussed the state of the poddy market with Barbara.

  ‘Those damned Friesians of mine only got fifty quid last week,’ he complained. ‘You and your old man got seventy.’

  ‘That’s because we feed ’em right,’ Barbara said severely. ‘You’re too much of a skinflint to give them what they need, and whoever buys them has to go into TLC mode.’

  ‘What’s TLC?’

  ‘Tender loving care,’ Barbara retorted. ‘Something you ought to have used on your leg, you dopey git.’

  There was a wealth of affection between them, Kirsty realised, and then she thought, more-there was a wealth of affection within this whole community. Jake cared for all these people. They cared for Jake and they cared for each other. He was right. This was the best community in which to raise kids.

  What if Susie wanted to stay here after the baby was born?

  What was she thinking that for? Why would Susie want to stay?

  Why would she want to go home?

  Not for family, Kirsty thought ruefully. They had no one but each other.

  But here…here Susie had Angus and the Boyces and Jake and a vegetable garden and people who were prepared to love her.

  Maybe Susie might want to stay.

  Which left Kirsty where?

  Home was where the heart was. Another platitude. She was getting good at platitudes.

  So what did she have back in Manhattan to tug at her heart? Who did she have?

  Robert?

  Ha.

  Oh, stop it, she told herself fiercely as she watched Jake dress the farmer’s leg. You’re being maudlin.

  She’d go back to the castle right now, she decided. Jake put on a last piece of sticking plaster. She administered a dose of intravenous antibiotic with care and rose to leave. Her work here was done.

  ‘Surgery tomorrow morning at nine to have this checked,’ Jake was telling Herbert.

  ‘Aw, Doc, you know I don’t have time to come to surgery.’

  ‘I’ll ring Maudie and tell her to tip out your stock of homebrewed if you’re not there,’ he retorted, as the farmer struggled to his feet as well. The downside of using the veranda floor as an operating table was that patient access wasn’t so great. Jake took one arm and Kirsty the other. Herbert was a bit wobbly. He reached into his pocket for his car keys but Barbara was before him, darting forward and snatching them from his hand.

  ‘I’ll call Sam from the dairy to take you home,’ Barbara said. ‘Milking’s finished. He won’t mind.’ As he opened his mouth to argue she took a couple of steps backward with the keys. ‘You and Maudie can pick up your car after the doctor’s surgery tomorrow, and if Maudie doesn’t tell me you’ve been looking after yourself, you’re not getting your keys back at all.’

  The farmer glowered, but only for a minute. His glower slowly faded and became a rueful grin.

  ‘Dratted women,’ he told Jake. ‘You know what you’re doing, not getting leg-shackled again.’ He cast an appraising look at Kirsty. ‘Though from what I hear, you’d better look out.’

  ‘I will,’ Jake said, and Kirsty released the farmer’s arm as if it burned.

  ‘Though she’s a looker,’ Herbert said, grinning.

  ‘Do you mind?’ she said faintly.

  ‘Not a bit,’ Herbert said, his grin broadening. ‘I can see what they’re talking about now.’

  There was a choking sound from Barbara.

  ‘Now, don’t get offended,’ Barbara begged. ‘You can’t hold it against Herbert-or any of us, for that matter. This district has been matchmaking for Dr Jake for years. We just have to set eyes on an eligible woman and we’re at it. Indulge us.’

  So maybe Jake had his reasons for saying he wasn’t wanting a relationship up front, Kirsty thought, a flash of sympathy filtering though her anger.

  ‘I’m not offended,’ she managed. ‘Just bemused that you can think anything so ridiculous.’

  ‘Ridiculous is this district’s specialty,’ Jake said wryly, but then his cell phone rang. ‘Dammit, please, let this not be more work.’

  She should take this chance to leave, Kirsty thought. She should. But she hesitated just a moment too long.

  ‘You’re kidding,’ Jake was saying into the phone. ‘How can you do that? It’s almost grounds for dismissal without a reference.’ He heaved a doleful sigh.

  ‘Fine, then,’ he said, even more dolefully. ‘We’ll just starve. No, no, think nothing of it. We’ll fade to shadows of our former selves, but we’ll fade as martyrs.’

  He replaced the phone on his belt and found them all looking at him.

  ‘It’s a tragedy,’ he said, still doleful.

  ‘Tragedy?’ Kirsty asked, cautious. His eyes were twinkling in that dangerous way he had that said there was no tragedy at all.

  ‘Angus and Susie are feeling better.’

  ‘Um…that’s a tragedy?’ She didn’t want to ask, Kirsty decided. But his eyes were laughing openly, even though his mouth was trying to be tragic. He had her intrigued.

  ‘Mrs Boyce has made soup and sausage rolls for dinner,’ he said sadly. ‘Everyone’s been exercising, they were hungry and we’re late. She couldn’t make them wait for us and I’m sorry to have to inform you, Kirsty, that they’ve eaten the lot.’ His face grew even more mournful. ‘Which leaves you and me with no dinner. Margie says we need to buy fish and chips on the way home.’

  ‘Have something here,’ Barbara said, and hesitated. ‘I can stretch…’

  Country hospitality at its best, Kirsty thought. This lady was managing kids, a farm and a dying mother, and she still offered to feed all comers.

  ‘Margie can give us eggs on toast,’ Jake said, sighing his martyred sigh again. ‘But no.’ He held up a hand to stop Barbara’s protest. ‘Dr McMahon and I are true medical heroes. We know how to exist on a piece of stale bread and dripping and tea made with a used teabag. Fish and chips will be sheer luxury.’

  ‘Have it on the beach,’ Herbert said approvingly. ‘Just like me and the missus. We take a bottle of wine down there every Friday night, and nine times out of ten it ends up in a spot of hanky-panky.’ He suddenly realised what he was saying and gave an embarrassed snort. ‘I mean…when we were younger it ended up in hanky-panky.’ His colour deepened as he realised they were all looking at him, fascinated. ‘In the old days. I mean…’

  Ooh, sexy, Kirsty thought. Fish and chips and hanky-panky with Herbert.

  ‘That sounds just what you both need,’ Mavis volunteered from her window behind them. ‘If I was forty years younger, I’d join you.’

  Fish and chips and hanky-panky with Herbert and Mavis, too?

  Or just fish and chips with Jake. On the beach.

  Where was she going? Into territory that was very dangerous indeed.

  ‘We’ll buy fish and chips and take them home,’ Kirsty said, a trifle desperately, but Barbara shook her head.

  ‘I can guess what’ll happen if you do that, and I bet you can, too. They’ll all have had sausage
rolls, and they’ll be as full as googs, but you step inside the castle with fish and chips and suddenly they’ll be hungry all over again. They’ll be gone in a flash, mark my words. You take her down the beach, Dr Jake.’

  ‘Yeah, Dr Jake,’ Herbert said, and nudged Jake in the ribs. ‘Take her down the beach.’

  ‘I don’t need fish and chips,’ Kirsty said, with an attempt at dignity, but she was howled down by everyone.

  Except maybe Jake? But Jake said nothing as plans were made around them. As they were told sternly what to do.

  ‘You are hungry?’ Jake asked as silence finally reigned, and she had to agree that she was.

  ‘Right, then,’ he said with resignation. ‘It’s fish and chips on the beach. By order.’

  And five minutes later she was meekly following Jake’s car to the Dolphin Bay fish and chippery-and to the beach beyond.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  WHILE Jake purchased fish and chips, Kirsty walked across the park separating the town from the beach. The park was a gorgeous little triangle-beach on one side, river with harbour on another and the town on the third side. It was a great little town, Kirsty thought, falling deeper in love with this strange mix of bushland and harbour and sleepy village.

  There was a pair of kookaburras in the gums above her head. Their mocking chortles made her feel weird. She shouldn’t be here. Why was she here?

  They both knew this was dangerous territory.

  Oh, for heaven’s sake, this was fish and chips on the beachfront. It wasn’t one of Jake’s scary dates. It was…nothing.

  Safe or not, Kirsty found a table close to the shops-just because-but then Jake strolled up bearing a fat parcel of fish and chips and a couple of bottles of lemonade. He smiled as he put his load on the table and she didn’t feel safe at all.

  ‘We should take these home,’ she managed, but Jake’s smile became rueful.

  ‘Barbara’s right. The scavengers would have it in minutes and I’m starving.’

  So was she. When he ripped the paper to reveal slivers of flathead, tiny, succulent scallops, fresh oysters and enough chips to feed a small army, she decided that no way was she taking this home.

  ‘This is my half,’ she said, putting a hand through the halfway mark, hauling her fish, chips, scallops and oysters to her side of the paper and thus delineating shares.

  ‘Hey,’ he said, startled. ‘I thought women were supposed to pretend they didn’t eat.’

  ‘Not this woman. I’ve been watching Susie peck at her food for months now. She gags at the sight of anything fried so we’ve been having healthy little morsels of not very much at all. To have a nice carbohydrate-loaded meal in front of me-where I have to fight for every mouthful-is the stuff of dreams.’

  ‘I’m happy to oblige,’ he said, but he still looked disbelieving and Kirsty was aware that she was being watched all the time she ate.

  ‘What?’ she said at last as the final scallop found a thoroughly satisfactory home. ‘You look like you’ve never seen anyone eat a chip before. You must have.’

  ‘I’ve never seen anyone like you.’

  ‘Watch Susie, then. She’s identical.’

  ‘She’s not identical.’

  ‘Because she’s pregnant and battered? She’ll recover. But she’ll be a stronger person than I’ll ever be,’ Kirsty agreed.

  ‘You mean because life’s tossed her around?’ he asked curiously. ‘You don’t think you might be just as strong?’

  ‘I’m not strong.’

  ‘When I rang to check on your credentials for registration, I got a glowing report,’ he said. ‘Smart, caring, ambitious and poised to become one of the youngest-ever medical directors of the hospice you’ve been working in. Strong was one of the biggest words they used. You have the reputation for fighting with everything you have to see your patients get what they need to make them comfortable to the end. It’s a hugely prestigious establishment, and to have the credentials to take over at your age seems amazing.’ He paused. ‘But then you walked away,’ he said softly. ‘You haven’t been near the place for the last three months and the appointment’s been given to someone else.’

  ‘There’s lots of jobs,’ she said a trifle self-consciously. ‘It’s no big deal.’

  ‘The woman I talked to said it was a big deal. A really big deal. In the cutthroat medical establishment, for you to walk away because you cared so much for your sister is tantamount to professional suicide.’

  ‘That’s nonsense,’ she said, suddenly angry. He was intruding on her personal space here-her personal doubts? ‘Oh, maybe it’s the truth in a sense-to get where I was headed you need to be blinkered to everything else in the world. Maybe I was for a while but maybe being blinkered is dumb. Family comes first.’

  ‘My ex-wife’s still dumb,’ he said inconsequentially, and for some reason that made her angrier.

  ‘Good for her, then. Each to his own and every other platitude I can think of.’ She rose and stalked over to the nearest rubbish bin, depositing her empty wrappings with force.

  ‘Um…platitudes?’ he said cautiously, and she shook her head without turning back to him.

  ‘Don’t ask. I’m going for a walk on the beach. You go on home.’

  ‘You’re dismissing me?’

  ‘I am,’ she told him. ‘If we’re seen walking on the beach together in this town, I don’t think we need a wedding certificate. It’ll be seen as a done deal.’

  He grinned at that. ‘You’re starting to see what I’m up against.’

  ‘Maybe,’ she conceded. ‘But you weren’t polite.’

  ‘I’ve forgotten how to be polite.’

  ‘Sure.’ She’d reached the sand and was hauling off her sandals, then rolling up her jeans. When she straightened she found he was beside her, doing the same.

  ‘You’re supposed to be going home.’

  ‘The kids ate my sausage rolls. They all ate our sausage rolls. There’s no bedtime story for sausage-roll eaters.’

  ‘What you mean is that they won’t even notice that you’re not there,’ she said, softening. ‘There are people queued for bedtime reading rights. You’ve made so many people happy by lending us your family.’

  ‘Good old Kenneth,’ he said softly. ‘He doesn’t know what he’s started.’

  ‘I suppose it was Kenneth that pulled everyone together,’ she said. ‘You’ll have to forget him soon though, and let everyone go home.’

  ‘Who wants to go home?’ he said enigmatically. ‘I’m for walking on the beach. How about you?’

  ‘Different sides of the beach?’ she said cautiously.

  ‘Of course. You want me to go get Boris to chaperon?’

  ‘We should.’

  ‘If I went and got him then everyone would come back and join us.’

  ‘Which would make this a really big deal,’ she said softly. ‘And we don’t want that, do we, Dr Cameron?’

  In the end it was a really long walk. She’d been strained to the limit, Kirsty thought as they walked. Maybe ever since Rory had died. Caring for Susie, trying to juggle her work commitments, trying to figure out the best for everyone had taken all her mental energy. Even the time of enforced idleness in Sydney while Susie had been threatened with early birth had been frighteningly tense-watching Susie’s depression increase, knowing how helpless she was.

  But this last week had been a gift for her, too, she decided as she walked. She wasn’t the least sure what sort of emotional jumble her head was in, but for the rest…she’d relaxed about Susie. There was now only three weeks to go. The baby could be born now and be safe.

  As well as that, she’d practised medicine again. It was an odd sort of general practice-anaesthetics, pain management and the odds and sods that Jake didn’t want. But it had been fun giving assorted schoolkids their shots, watching them screw up their faces in terror and offer their bare arms like lambs to the slaughter-only to be astounded when she’d managed to give the shot with hardly a pinprick of pain.
r />   She’d also had fun at the castle. Kenneth’s threats had become a catalyst to make everyone seem a family and…

  And for the first time in a very long time she’d seemed part of a family. Most of that was because of the man beside her.

  It was no wonder that her hormones were playing tricks on her, she thought dimly, and then she thought it didn’t help that he was so drop-dead gorgeous and he was so drop-dead caring and he was so drop-dead…everything.

  ‘Penny for your thoughts,’ Jake said, and she jerked out of her reverie, surprised to see they’d walked almost half a mile. They’d been walking in the shallows, separated by a few feet so the splashes she was making didn’t hit him and vice versa.

  ‘I’m just thinking this has been fun,’ she told him.

  ‘Fun?’

  ‘Giving kids shots. Watching Angus and Susie have races. Bouncing around the castle with Boris and Penelope and Alice.’

  ‘They’ve had fun, too.’ They paused. The sun was a vast, golden ball dropping low over the distant mountains, slipping every moment until, pop, it suddenly disappeared altogether, leaving only the glorious hues of sunset. ‘We’d better go back.’

  They turned but he seemed as reluctant as she was.

  Silence again. Why didn’t he talk? she wondered. He acted as if he was afraid of her.

  ‘So you’re never going to have a relationship again?’ she asked softly, and the silence intensified.

  ‘Sorry?’ she said at last. ‘I didn’t hear your answer.’

  ‘I was trying not to hear your question.’

  ‘I’m allowed to ask,’ she said, a trifle indignantly. ‘After all, remember hubby and the six kidlets back home.’

  ‘I’d forgotten them,’ he said, starting to smile. ‘Maybe because you don’t wear photos of them in a locket round your neck.’

  ‘Too many,’ she said sagely. ‘I’d get a sore neck.’

  ‘But if you did, it’d stop the locals talking about us,’ Jake told her.

  ‘That really gets to you.’

  ‘It does,’ he agreed. ‘Every single woman in this place seems at some time or other to be bracketed with me. It gets tiring.’