Falling for Her Wounded Hero

by Marion Lennox

‘And of course it’s winter in Australia.’ Rhonda took over seamlessly. ‘No doctor will take on a locum job in Cray Point in winter. We know he advertised—we weren’t supposed to know that either but...’

  ‘Hilda saw it on his study desk?’ Tasha suggested, and Hilda flushed and then smiled.

  ‘Well, I did, dear. But of course no one answered, and the oldies in Cray Point are still getting ill and he knows how much they need him. He cares too much to let us look after ourselves. So he’s hobbling around, still working. The night before we left there was a car crash and out he went. It was filthy weather and he was crawling into the wreckage to stop bleeding...’

  ‘And then we had to leave.’ Up until now Rhonda had sounded resigned, full of the foolishness of men, but suddenly her voice wobbled. ‘You know we’re both English? We married brothers and moved to Cray Point thirty years ago but our parents stayed here. Last week our mam died and our dad’s in a mess so we had to drop everything and come. Including abandoning Tom. We’ll take our dad home with us but first there’s his house to be sorted, immigration, so much to do...’

  ‘But we’re worrying about Tom all the time,’ Hilda told her. ‘We know he’s not coping. It’ll be weeks before we can get back, and who’s to boss him around? He’ll push himself and push himself. We have one district nurse and no one else. Cray Point’s in real trouble. And then in the middle of last night Rhonda sat up in bed and said, “What about Tasha? She’s family.”’

  The word seemed to echo around the counselling room.

  Family.

  ‘I knew nothing about this,’ she said faintly, and Rhonda nodded.

  ‘Well, of course you wouldn’t. He doesn’t talk to anyone about it, and of course he worries about you. We all do. He’d never bother you. Tasha...dear, it seems really unfair to ask, but Hilda knew your address...’

  ‘From Tom’s desk?’ She couldn’t help herself but she won a couple of half-hearted smiles.

  ‘Well, yes, dear,’ Hilda agreed. ‘Though of course I didn’t go looking. I just happened to have seen it on a certificate he left out for me to post to you. So we knew you were living in a hospital apartment and I remembered which hospital. So we thought we’d just come and let you know...’

  ‘Because he needs someone,’ Rhonda told her. And then she paused and told it like it was. ‘He needs you.’

  To say Tasha’s mind was in overdrive was an understatement. She’d just finished a frantic shift. Normally it took hours to debrief herself, to rid herself of the images of the various crises bursting through the ambulance doors, but suddenly all she could think of was Tom.

  The sudden end to contact hadn’t been because he thought she should move on. It had been because he was in trouble himself.

  ‘W-what about Susie?’ she stammered. The thought of Tom needing her was such a switch that it had her unbalanced. ‘Can’t she help?’

  And the two women snorted in unison.

  ‘One thing Dr Tom Blake can’t do and that’s choose a woman who’s any use,’ Rhonda declared. ‘She’s hardly been near him since his accident. And she’s not a doctor or even a nurse. How can she help? You’re a doctor, dear. That’s why we’re here.’

  ‘You want me to go?’ Even saying it sounded wrong.

  But both women were trying to smile. Their smiles were nervous. Their smiles said they didn’t hold out much hope but they were like headlights, catching her and holding her. She couldn’t move.

  ‘Could you?’ Hilda sounded breathless.

  ‘Is it possible?’ Rhonda whispered.

  She stood and stared at the two rotund little ladies. They stared back, their eyes full of hope. And doubt. And just a touch of guilt as well.

  Tom...

  He needed her.

  She didn’t want to go.

  Why not?

  She could go. She knew she could. There’d been an intake of brand-new doctors only last week and there was crossover from the last lot. Her shift could be covered.

  She could walk out of her barren little apartment within an hour.

  But to go to Tom...

  She didn’t want to go back to Australia. Australia was full of memories of her little girl, her little fighter who’d lived just seven days. How could she go back to the place of all that pain?

  But there was more to this than grief, she acknowledged. Her reaction wasn’t all about not wanting to be where Emily had lived and died, and she had the courage to acknowledge it. She’d never avoided thinking about Emily and, to be fair, Tom had had a hand in that. He’d been with her all that time.

  It was Tom who’d made sure she’d shared every precious moment of Emily’s tiny life. It was Tom who’d sat by her, fielding well-meaning professionals, admitting those who could help, firmly turning away those who couldn’t.

  There had been so much support. There had been so much love.

  For Tom had loved, too. ‘She’s my niece,’ he’d told her when she’d been so exhausted she’d had to sleep but the thought of closing her eyes on her little girl had been unbearable. ‘You sleep and I’ll hold her every single moment. And I promise I won’t sleep while you’ve entrusted her to me.’

  He’d just...been there. She could hardly think of Emily without thinking of Tom.

  And then, after Emily had died...

  Being bundled back to Cray Point. A simple, beautiful ceremony on the headland because she couldn’t think where else was right. Then sleeping and sleeping and sleeping, while Tom picked up the threads of...being Tom.

  Which included his women. Alice was there, vaguely resentful of Tasha’s presence. And then Alice was no longer around and Tasha knew it was partly because of her.

  She’d said something to him—apologised—and Tom had grinned. ‘Don’t fuss yourself, lassie,’ he’d told her. ‘Alice knows I don’t take my love life seriously. The whole town knows it.’

  So he was like Paul. That was the thought that was holding her rigid now.

  He was lovely, kind, gentle, caring.

  He went from woman to woman.

  He’d just suffered a cerebral bleed from a surfing accident. He was yet another man who took crazy risks...

  The Blake brothers spelled trouble. She didn’t want to go anywhere near him, but she owed him so much.

  She thought of him now, the image that was burned into her mind. Waking up from sleep and finding him crooning down to her little daughter.

  ‘Surfing’s awesome,’ he’d been telling her tiny baby. ‘The feel of cool water on your toes, the strength of the wave lifting you, surging forward... Feel my fingers as I push under your toes. Imagine that’s a wave, lifting you, surging... That’s right, our Emily, curl your toes. You have such a tiny life, our Emily, but we need to fill it with so much. I wish I could take you surfing but feel the power under your toes and know that surfing’s wonderful and you’re wonderful and I hope you can take all this with you.’

  And Tasha found herself blinking and Hilda gasped and glared at Rhonda, who grabbed a handful of tissues from the counselling table. Tasha suddenly found she was being hugged. ‘Dear, no,’ Rhonda gasped. ‘We shouldn’t have come. We never should have asked. Tom will be okay. Cray Point will survive. Forget it, sweetheart, forget we ever came.’

  Somehow she disengaged from their collective hug. Somewhere she’d read a research article that said hugging released oxytocin and oxytocin did all sorts of good things to the body. It made you more empathic. It made you want to connect more with your fellow humans.

  With Tom? She’d be playing with fire.

  Why? Because he was like Paul? He wasn’t. Not really. She’d stayed with him for a month and there’d never been a hint that he was interested in her...that way.

  Besides, she was older, wiser, and she knew how to protect herself.

  A
nd this time she didn’t need Tom. Tom needed her, and Rhonda and Hilda were waiting for an answer.

  And in the end there was only one answer she could give. No matter what Tom’s personal life was like, what he’d done for her had been beyond price.

  And then the idea that had been playing at the edges of her mind suddenly, unexpectedly surfaced. The idea had been growing, like an insistent ache, an emptiness demanding to be filled, a void it took courage to even think about.

  She could still scarcely think about it but if she went to help Tom she’d be returning to Australia, where an IVF clinic still held Paul’s gift.

  She’d agonised over using Paul’s sperm last time, but in the end it had come down to thinking her baby could know of its father. This time the tug to use the same sperm was stronger. Another baby would be Emily’s brother or sister.

  And suddenly that was in her heart, front and centre, and she knew what her answer would be.

  ‘Of course I’ll go,’ she told them swiftly, before she had the time to change her mind. Before fear took over. ‘It’ll take me a couple of days to get there but I’ll do it.’

  ‘Oh, Tasha,’ Hilda breathed.

  ‘But don’t tell him,’ Rhonda urged. ‘He won’t let you come if you tell him. He’ll say he’s fine. He’ll fire us for contacting you.’

  ‘I’d like to see him try,’ Hilda declared, but she sounded nervous and Tasha summoned a grin.

  ‘Okay,’ she told them. ‘I won’t warn him. But he’d better not be in bed with Susie when I get there.’

  ‘I wouldn’t think so,’ Hilda declared, though she didn’t sound absolutely certain.

  ‘Sure,’ Tasha said, but she didn’t feel sure in the least.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THERE WERE THINGS to do and he should be doing them. It was driving him nuts.

  Old Mrs Carstairs hadn’t had a house call for weeks. She’d been hospitalised with pneumonia in late autumn and it had left her weak. She should be staying with her daughter in Melbourne but she’d refused to stay away from her house a moment longer.

  And who could blame her? Tom thought morosely. Margaret Carstairs owned a house high on the headland overlooking the sweeping vista of Bass Strait. She was content to lie on her day bed and watch the changing weather, the sea, and the whales making their great migration north. She was content to let the world come to her.

  Except the world couldn’t. Or Tom couldn’t. And unlike Margaret Carstairs, he was far from happy to lie on a couch and watch the sea. Any reports about Margaret came from the district nurse and he knew Brenda was worried.

  But he couldn’t drive and he’d have trouble walking down Margaret’s steep driveway when he got there. When he’d first woken after surgery he’d been almost completely paralysed down his left side. His recovery had been swift, but not swift enough. He still had a dragging weakness, and terror had been replaced by frustration.

  He couldn’t ignore his body’s weakness. He couldn’t drive. He used Karen, the local taxi driver, but since his leg had let him down while crawling into a crashed car, even Karen was imposing limits.

  ‘He would have died if I hadn’t done it,’ he muttered to no one in particular. It was true. The driver had perforated a lung. It had been a complex procedure to get him out alive and if Tom had waited for paramedics it would have been too late. The fact that he’d become trapped himself when his leg hadn’t had the strength to push himself out was surely minor. It was an excellent result.

  But he still couldn’t drive and he still had trouble walking in this hilly, clifftop town. So here he was, waiting for the next emergency that he couldn’t go to.

  His phone went and he lunged for it, willing it to be something he could handle.

  It wasn’t.

  Old Bill Hadley lived down the steepest steps in Cray Point. He was lying at the bottom of them now, whimpering into his cellphone.

  ‘Doc? I know you’re crook, but I reckon I might have sprained me ankle. I’m stuck at the bottom of the steps. I’ve yelled but no one can hear me. Middle of the day, everyone must be out. Lucky I had me phone, don’t you think? Do you reckon you could come?’

  Bill Hadley was tough. If he was saying he might have sprained his ankle it was probably a fracture. Tom could hear the pain in the old man’s voice, but he couldn’t go. Not down those steps.

  ‘I’ll call the ambulance and get the district nurse to come and stay with you until it arrives,’ he told Bill, and he heard silence and he knew there was pain involved. A lot of pain. ‘Brenda can stabilise your ankle and keep you comfortable.’

  ‘She...she can give me an injection, like?’

  ‘She can.’ Once again he felt that sweep of helplessness. He could authorise drugs over the phone but it was a risk. Bill had pre-existing conditions. Without being able to assess the whole situation...

  He couldn’t.

  ‘Sorry, Bill, it’s the best I can do,’ he told him. ‘Just keep that ankle still. There’s no other way.’

  And then he was interrupted. ‘Yes, there is.’

  He looked up from the settee and he almost dropped the phone.

  Tasha was standing in the doorway.

  Tasha...

  This was a Tasha he’d never seen before. Tasha on the other side of tragedy?

  When last he’d seen her she’d been post-pregnancy and ravaged by grief. Her hair had needed a cut. She’d abandoned wearing make-up and she’d worn nothing but baggy jogging pants and windcheaters. Even the day he’d put her on the plane to return to England he’d thought she’d looked like she’d just emerged from a war zone.

  This woman, though, was wearing neat black pants and a crisp white shirt, tucked in to accentuate a slender waist. A pale blue sweater was looped around her shoulders. Her curls were shiny and bouncing, let loose to wisp around her shoulders.

  She looked cool, elegant...beautiful.

  She was carrying a suitcase. She set it down and smiled, and her smile was bright and professional.

  ‘Hi,’ she said, and beamed.

  ‘H-hi.’ Her smile almost knocked him into the middle of next week, but she was already switching to professional.

  ‘Are you knocking back work? When I’ve come all this way to do as much work as possible? An injured ankle? Bill who?’

  ‘Bill Hadley...’

  ‘Ankle injury? House call? That’s what I’m here for.’

  ‘What the—?’

  ‘Is it urgent? Is it okay if I use your car? Or I can ring the taxi again. I’ll need his patient file if there is one, and an address. Can I use your medical kit?’

  Tom couldn’t answer. It felt like all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room. All the oxygen was in her smile.

  She shook her head in mock exasperation and lifted the phone from his grasp.

  ‘Bill? I’ve come in on the end of this conversation but this is Tasha Raymond. I’m Dr Blake’s sister-in-law, a doctor, too, and I’m here to help until Tom’s on his feet again. Could you tell me what the problem is?’

  ‘You can drive?’ Tom could hear Bill’s quavering hope.

  ‘I can,’ Tasha assured him. ‘You’ll have heard that Dr Blake’s had an accident, so we need to look after him. That means using me until he’s recovered. What’s happened?’

  There was a moment’s pause and then, ‘I reckon I’ve sprained me ankle. If you could come, Doc, that’d be great.’

  Doc. The transition was seamless, Tom thought, astounded. The community was desperate for a doctor and Tasha was here. Therefore Tasha was Doc.

  ‘Five minutes tops,’ Tasha said, as Bill explained the problem and outlined where he lived. ‘I walked down those very steps when I was here eighteen months ago. Hang in there.’

  And she disconnected and turned to Tom. ‘He
y,’ she said, and gave him her very warmest smile. ‘It’s good to see you. I’m so sorry about your accident but Rhonda and Hilda say you need me and it seems they’re right. We can talk later but this sounds like I should go. Patient history? Anything else I should know?’

  ‘You can’t.’ He was feeling like he’d been punched in the solar plexus. This was a whirlwind and it wasn’t stopping. ‘Tasha, I’m coping. I’ll go.’

  And her smile softened to one of understanding. And sympathy. ‘How weak is your leg, scale one to ten?’ she said gently. ‘Ten’s strong. One’s useless.’

  ‘Eight,’ he said, and she fixed him with a don’t-mess-with-the-doctor look.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Okay, six,’ he conceded. ‘But—’

  ‘I didn’t fly from London for buts. I flew from London because you’ve been injured, you need care and Cray Point needs me.’ She stooped then and brushed her lips against his forehead, a faint touch. A sisterly gesture? ‘I’m so sorry you’ve been hurt but for now it seems you need to rest. Can I take your car?’

  He stared and she gazed calmly back. Waiting for him to accept the inevitable.

  He had no choice. She’d flown all the way from England to help him. He should be grateful.

  He was grateful but he was also...overwhelmed? That she come all this way...

  Tasha was the one who needed help, not him, but for now...he had no choice.

  ‘I’d appreciate your help,’ he said stiffly. ‘I... Thank you. But, Tasha, I’m coming with you.’

  * * *

  She drove. He sat in the passenger seat and tried to get his head around what had just happened.

  A whirlwind had arrived. A woman he scarcely recognised.

  The last time he’d seen Tasha she’d been limp with shock and grief. Now she was a woman in charge of her world. She was doctor reacting to a medical call with professional efficiency.

  She was a woman who looked, quite simply, gorgeous.

  His head wasn’t coping.

  He directed while she drove but she would have gotten there fine without him. In the weeks after Emily’s death she’d walked Cray Point, over and over. He’d thought she’d hardly seen it. She obviously had.