by Tina Beckett
‘So it was. And shock and stress. And this job’s full of shock and stress.’
‘I’d imagine every single one of your nursing staff knows how to deal with a hypo.’
‘You intended telling them you were diabetic?’
‘Of course. I’m not dumb.’
‘And you’d accuse them of being like your mother, too?’
‘Only if they fuss.’ She sighed. ‘I need some...’
‘Complex carbohydrates to keep you stable. Of course you do. I’ll get some toast.’
‘I can...’
‘Dr Hargreaves, you may not be my patient but I believe I’m still your boss. Keep still, shut up and conserve energy. Hamster, keep watch on the lady. Don’t let her go anywhere.’
Hamster had just finished licking the inside of the juice glass, as far in as he could reach. He looked up, yawned and flopped sideways, as if he’d suddenly used up every bit of his energy.
That was a bit how she felt, Polly conceded. Having someone else make her toast was...well, it wasn’t exactly standing on her own feet but it was okay.
Especially as it was Hugo.
There she was again, doing the lust thing, she thought. The hypo must have been worse than she’d thought. She was feeling weird.
And Hugo seemed to sense it. He put a hand up and traced her cheekbone, an echo of the way she’d traced his cheek the night before. It was surely a gesture of concern, she thought, and why it had the power to make her want more...
‘Sit,’ he said. ‘Stay. Toast.’
And she could do nothing but obey.
‘Woof,’ she ventured and he patted her head.
‘Good girl. If you’re really good I’ll bring you a dog biscuit on the side.’
* * *
She ate her toast, sharing a crust or two with Hamster. Hugo made some for himself as well and they ate in silence. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable, though. It was sort of...all right.
It was three in the morning. She should go back to bed. Instead, she was sitting on the veranda of a strange house in a strange place with a strange man...
He wasn’t strange. He was Hugo.
Part of her—the dumb part—felt as if she’d known him all her life.
The sensible part knew nothing.
‘So tell me more about you and Ruby,’ she ventured into the stillness. The toast was gone. Hugo should be in bed too, she thought, but for now he seemed as content as she was just to sit. ‘And you. Why are you here?’
‘Do you remember me talking to you last night?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then you know I came back when my sister died.’
‘So who was the doctor here before? After your Dad died?’
‘Doc Farr. He retired here from Melbourne, thinking it was a quiet life. Ha. He intended to set up a vineyard, so he didn’t want this house—my mother stayed living here. But Harry Farr felt trapped. When Mum and Grace died and I came home for good you couldn’t see him for dust. I’ve never seen anyone leave so fast. His vineyard’s still on the market but he was so inundated with work all he wanted was to get out of here.’
‘You were working in Sydney. As a family doctor?’
‘As a surgeon,’ he said brusquely, as if it didn’t matter.
‘A surgeon.’ She stared at him, stunned. ‘Where?’
‘Sydney Central.’
‘Specialising?’
‘Thoracic surgery. It doesn’t matter now.’
‘You left thoracic surgery to come here?’ She was still staring. ‘Your life... Your colleagues... Did you have a girlfriend?’
‘Yes, but...’
‘But she wouldn’t come. Of course she wouldn’t.’
‘Polly, I don’t need to tell...’
‘You don’t need to tell me anything,’ she said hastily. ‘I’m sorry. But Sydney... Friends? Surfing? Restaurants? The whole social scene of Sydney?’
‘It doesn’t matter!’
‘I suspect it does matter. A lot. You had to leave everything to take care of Ruby. That’s the pits.’
‘It’s no use thinking it’s the pits. It’s just...what it is. Ruby would know no one in Sydney, and if I stayed in my job she’d never see me. She needs me. She’s my family.’
And there was nothing to say to that.
Family... The thing she most wanted to escape from.
She thought about it as the warmth and stillness enveloped them. It was a weirdly intimate setting. A night for telling all?
Hugo had bared so much. There were things unspoken, things that didn’t need to be spoken. He was trapped, more than she’d ever been trapped. By Ruby... A needy seven-year-old.
‘Tell me about the Christmas thing,’ she ventured, and he started, as if his mind had been a thousand miles away.
‘Christmas?’
‘Why is it so important?’
‘I guess it’s not,’ he said heavily. ‘Except I promised. Actually, Grace promised her last year. She said they’d go to the beach for Christmas and then...well, I told you what happened. This year Ruby came out and asked— “Can we have a beach Christmas?” What was I supposed to say? I booked an apartment at Bondi and then spent three months advertising for a locum.’
‘And bombed out with me.’
‘There’s no bombed about it. You saved me.’
‘And you saved me right back, so we’re quits.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Right. Christmas at the beach is important. Hugo, you can still go. Today’s only Wednesday. Christmas is Saturday. You haven’t cancelled, have you?’
He gave a wry laugh. ‘An apartment at Bondi Beach for Christmas? I prepaid. Non-refundable. Somewhere in Bondi there’s a two-bedroom flat with our name on it.’
‘So go.’
‘And leave you here?’
‘What’s wrong with leaving me here?’
‘Are you kidding? Look at you.’
‘I’m twenty-four hours post snake bite. It’s three days until Christmas. Two more days and I’ll be perky as anything.’
‘You’re an unstable diabetic.’
‘I’m a very stable, very sensible diabetic who just happens to have been bitten by a snake. You told me yourself that the venom will have messed with things and you’re absolutely right. Usually my control’s awesome.’
‘Awesome?’
‘Well, mostly awesome,’ she confessed. ‘After the third margarita it can get wobbly.’
‘You have to be kidding. Margaritas!’
‘One margarita contains alcohol, which tends to bring my levels down, and sugar, which brings them up. It’s a fine line which I’ve taken years to calibrate. I’ll admit after the third my calibration may get blurry, but you needn’t worry. I only ever tackle a third when I have a responsible medical colleague on hand with margarita tackling equipment at the ready. So for now I’ve left my sombrero in Sydney. I’m anticipating a nice and sober Christmas, with not a margarita in sight.’
He was looking a bit...stunned. ‘Yet you still brought your Christmas tree,’ he managed.
‘Christmas trees don’t affect blood sugars. Don’t they teach surgeons anything?’
He choked on a chuckle, and she grinned. He had the loveliest chuckle, she thought, and she felt a bit light-headed again and wondered if she could use a bit more juice but the light-headedness wasn’t the variety she’d felt before. This was new. Strange...
Sitting beside this guy on the back step in the small hours was strange. Watching the moon over the valley...
The step was a bit too narrow. Hamster had wedged himself beside her—something about toast—and she’d had to edge a bit closer to Hugo.
Close enough to touch.
Definitely light-headed...
‘So tell me why you’re not in Sydney?’ Hugo asked and she had to haul herself away from the slightly tipsy sensation of sensual pleasure and think of a nice sober answer.
‘Smothering,’ she said and she thought as she said it, why? She never talked of her background. She’d hardly confessed her claustrophobia to anyone.
He didn’t push, at least not for a while. He really was the most restful person, she thought. He was just...solid. Nice.
Um...down, she told her hormones, and she edged a little way away. But not very far. An inch or more.
She could change steps. Move right away.
The idea was unthinkable.
‘You want to elaborate?’ he asked at last and she wondered if she did, but this night was built for intimacy and suddenly there seemed no reason not to tell him.
‘My parents love me to bits,’ she said. ‘They married late, I’m their only child and they adore me. To Mum, I’m like a doll, to be played with, dressed up, displayed.’
‘Hence the Pollyanna...’
‘You got it. Pollyanna was her favourite movie, her favourite doll and then, finally, her living, breathing version of the same. That’s me. Dad’s not quite so over the top, but he’s pretty protective. They’ve always had nannies to do the hard work but there’s no doubting they love me. I was diagnosed with diabetes when I was six and they were shattered. I’d been smothered with care before that. Afterwards it got out of control.’
‘So don’t tell me...you ran away to the circus?’
‘I would have loved to,’ she said simply. ‘But there’s a problem. I love them back.’
‘That is a problem,’ he said, softly now, as if speaking only to himself. ‘The chains of loving...’
‘They get you every which way,’ she agreed. ‘You and Ruby...I can see that. Anyway, I seem to have been fighting for all my life to be...me. They adore me, they want to show me off to their friends and, above all, they want to keep me safe. The fight I had to be allowed to do medicine... To them, medicine seems appallingly risky—all these nasty germs—but we’re pretty much over that.’
‘Good for you.’
She grimaced. ‘Yeah, some things are worth fighting for, but you win one battle and there’s always another. Two years ago, I started going out with the son of their best friends. Marcus was kind, eligible and incredibly socially acceptable. But...kind was the key word. He wanted to keep me safe, just as my parents did. I felt smothered but they were all so approving. I came within a hair’s breadth of marrying him. He asked, and I might have said yes, but then I saw a video camera set up to the side and I recognised it. So, instead of falling into his arms, I found myself asking whether Dad had loaned him the camera and of course he had, and I pushed him further and he told me Mum had told him what kind of ring I’d like, and his parents knew and they were all having dinner together at that very moment and we could go tell them straight away.’
‘Whoa...’
‘You get it,’ she said approvingly. ‘They didn’t. But I didn’t just say “no” and run. Even then I had to let them down slowly. I pretended to get a text on my phone, an urgent recall to the hospital, and Marcus offered to drive me and I told him to go have dinner with the parents and then I went to a bar and risked having a very bad hypo. That was when I figured I needed to sort my life. I told them all kindly, in my own way, but since then... I’ve fought to take control. I need to back away.’
‘Which is why you’re here? Doing locums?’
‘Exactly,’ she said with satisfaction. ‘It’s five whole hours’ drive from my parents’ Christmas. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas, but they’ll all be there, at the most exclusive restaurant overlooking the harbour, all my parents’ friends, though not Marcus this year because he had the decency to accept a posting to New York. He’s now going out with an artist who paints abstract nudes. He’s much happier than he was with me, and his parents are appalled. Hooray for Marcus. But the rest of them... Mum will be trying to figure who I can marry now. She’s indefatigable, my mum. Knock her back and she bounces back again, bounce, bounce, bounce. The rest of them will be smiling indulgently in the background, but feeling slightly sorry for Mum because she has an imperfect daughter.’
‘Imperfect...?’
‘Perfection has perfect teeth and skin, a toned body and designer clothes. Perfect doesn’t argue, she moves in the right circles, she marries the right man and never, ever has diabetes. So here I am and I’m here to stay, so you and Ruby might as well go to Bondi because I’m a very good doctor and you’ve contracted me to work for two weeks and that’s just what I’ll do.’
‘Polly...’
‘Go,’ she said. ‘Enough of this guilt stuff. If I have this right, you’ve left a perfectly good career, I suspect a perfectly satisfactory girlfriend, a perfectly acceptable lifestyle, all because you love Ruby. That’s some chains of loving.’
‘And you’ve left a perfectly good career, a perfectly satisfactory boyfriend, a perfectly luxurious lifestyle all because you want to cut the chains of loving?’
‘Exactly,’ she said.
‘So why encourage me to break away?’
‘Because if you stay I’ll feel guilty and I’m over guilt. Go.’
‘I don’t think I can.’
‘Hugo,’ she said, figuring a girl had to make a stand some time and it might as well be now. She was full of toast. Her blood sugars had settled nicely. She was back in control again—sort of. ‘This is nuts. You’re a surgeon, and a thoracic surgeon at that. I’m trained in Emergency Medicine. If a kid comes in with whooping cough, who’d be most qualified to cope?’
‘Whooping cough’s lung...’
‘Okay, bad example. Itch. In he comes, scratch, scratch, scratch. Is it an allergy or is it fleas? What’s the differential appearance? Or could it be chickenpox? Some kids don’t get immunised. And if it’s chickenpox, what’s the immunisation period? Then the next kid comes in, sixteen years old, cramps. How do you get information out of a sullen teenager? Do you suspect pregnancy?’
‘Not if it’s a boy. Is this an exam?’
‘Do you know the answers?’
‘I’ve been working as a family doctor for twelve months now.’
‘And I’ve been training as an emergency doctor for five years. I win.’
‘Did you know you look extraordinarily cute in those pyjamas?’
‘Did you know you look extraordinarily sexy in those jeans? Both of which comments are sexist, both beneath us as medical professionals and neither taking this argument forward. If you can’t come up with a better medical rebuttal then I win.’
‘You can’t.’
‘I just have. Give me one more day to get my bearings and you leave on Thursday.’
‘Friday,’ he said, sounding goaded. ‘Tomorrow’s another rest day and I spend Thursday watching you work.’
‘That’s ridiculous, plus it’s discriminatory. I have diabetes, not gaps in my medical training. Tell you what, for the next two days we work side by side. That’ll give you time with Ruby and it should set your mind at rest. If at the end of Thursday you can truthfully say I’m a bad doctor then I’ll leave.’
‘Go back to Sydney?’
‘That’s none of your business.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s not. Polly, it’s not safe.’
‘Go jump. Ruby’s Christmas is at stake. You’re leaving, I’m staying, Dr Denver, and that’s all there is to it. I have a nice little Christmas pudding for one in my suitcase, and I’m not sharing. Go away.’
‘I can’t.’
‘You have no choice. Ruby needs you.’
‘Everyone needs me,’ he said, sounding even more goaded.
‘I don’t need you,’ she retorted. ‘I don’t need you one bit. So get used to it, and while you’re getting us
ed to it, you might like to pack and leave.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
HIS STIPULATION WAS that Polly stayed in bed until noon. She agreed, but reluctantly. She also didn’t like it that Hugo had pulled in yet more help.
His housekeeper was away. Ruby was on school holidays. He needed to care for Ruby, but Polly figured she could at least do that.
But she’d got tired of arguing last night. She’d fallen back into bed and when she woke it was nine o’clock. Okay, Hugo had a point. As a childminder she was currently less than efficient.
She snagged her glucose meter and took a reading. Six point three. Nice. ‘I’ve won, Snake,’ she said out loud and settled back on her pillows feeling smug.
Or sort of smug. She was still sore. She’d made origami gifts with Ruby the day before, but in truth it had been a struggle. Maybe Hugo was right with his two days of rest.
He looked like a man who was used to being right, she thought. Typical surgeon.
But the thought didn’t quite come off in her head. It sounded a bit...lame.
Hugo wasn’t typical anything, she thought.
There was a scratch on the door.
‘Yes?’
Ruby’s head poked around. Looking scared. She’d relaxed a little the day before when she’d been engrossed in origami frogs, but tension was never far from this little one.
‘Hi.’ Polly smiled, hoping for a smile in return.
‘Are you awake?’ she whispered.
‘Yes.’ She edged over on the bed. ‘Want to come and visit?’ The bedspread was pretty—patchwork. Had Ruby’s grandma made it?
The house was cosy. A family house. Home of Hugo and Grace and their mum and dad.
She found herself hoping Grace had had a happy childhood and suddenly she thought she bet she had. Depression usually didn’t strike until the teens. She looked out of the window at the valley beyond. A tyre swing was hanging from a huge gum nearer to the house.
Hugo would have used that swing...
She was still feeling odd. How bad had that hypo been last night? She shouldn’t be feeling weird now.
Ruby was still by the door, still looking nervous, but she was obviously on a mission. ‘I have to find out your blood sugar level before you get up,’ Ruby quavered and Polly pulled herself back to the here and now.