Outback Doctors/Outback Engagement/Outback Marriage/Outback Encounter

by Meredith Webber

  ‘It was important enough to make you cry,’ he reminded her. ‘And having seen you in a plane crash, I happen to know you’re not the kind who cries easily. Neither do I believe you’re a quitter, yet apparently you gave up surgery.’

  She couldn’t scowl any harder if she tried, and scowling wasn’t stopping him anyway. So she sighed instead, then took a deep breath, whittled that heart-wrenching bit of the past down to bare bones and said, ‘I was involved with someone also heading towards surgery. We were engaged, living and studying together, then the night before the first exams he happened to mention he didn’t think having two specialists in a marriage would work. Listed reasons, mainly to do with stressful occupations and long hours, nights on duty, etcetera.’

  Remembering her reaction to that terrible night, she found herself not scowling but smiling.

  Viciously…

  ‘Naturally, I asked him if he thought he’d be happy doing something else. I may even have thrown a few things—I definitely threw the engagement ring—but, hell, I’d been the one who’d always wanted to do surgery and I’d been studying my heart out for that exam.’

  She paused, blowing out the steam just thinking about that night had generated.

  ‘What I should have done was forget the conversation had ever happened and gone to bed but, no, I packed my gear, went back home and cried all over Mum, and by that time it was nearly morning and I’d had no sleep. I blew the exam, of course, then later I found out he’d been seeing a nurse and the ‘‘two specialists in one family’’ story was his cute way of breaking off our engagement so it didn’t seem like his fault. Of course, he passed the exam and moved up to registrar, and the thought of having to work on his team any time in the future put me off the idea of trying again.’

  She smiled at Cal and shook her head.

  ‘Tacky story, isn’t it?’

  He didn’t smile back, which made Blythe regret telling this tale. What was it about this man that she was always saying things she’d feel embarrassed about later? It wasn’t that he was the most chatty of people, inviting confidences because he offered his own so willingly. He was as tight-lipped as an oyster about his personal life—the little she knew she’d had to pry out of him.

  Cal watched her stack the cups and saucers neatly back on the tray. Slim, capable fingers moved surely and swiftly, but he knew she was covering whatever emotion telling him this story had generated.

  He wanted to say something, but apart from, ‘I could kill the bastard who did this to you’ he couldn’t think of anything that would do. Holding her would have been another option, kissing her an even better one, but now that he understood why she didn’t want to get involved with a colleague, neither of those options would be appropriate.

  Neither would either of them be a good idea from his viewpoint. He might be attracted to this woman, but in a couple of weeks she’d be gone. In less than a couple of weeks if his shoulder was OK.

  So Cal sat and watched her stand up, lift the tray, then walk out of the room, head held defiantly high and the cups on the tray only rattling slightly.

  Rattling slightly because she was upset, and he’d caused it by practically forcing her to tell the story?

  Good idea or not, he had to follow.

  He caught up with her in the kitchen, but evening meals had just been served and the place was a bustle of activity as pots were washed and preparations put in place for the following morning’s breakfast.

  ‘I’ll check on Byron, then pop home for an hour or so, get some gear so I can spend the night here. I wondered if you’d mind taking off my shoulder bandage while I’m there.’ He could begin to exercise his shoulder after a week, and being close to her while she unwrapped him would give him time to make amends.

  ‘Shouldn’t you wait until the physio comes later in the week and let her do it and give you exercises?’

  Blythe was obviously suspicious, but he knew she was so good a doctor she would be unable not to respond to a medical plea.

  ‘She gave me the exercises—simple stretches, nothing strenuous—last week when she was here. But the sooner I get started the sooner it will be better.’ He tried a smile, then reminded her, ‘The recommendation is bandaged for a fortnight but gentle exercise after a week.’

  ‘OK, but we could do it here if you like.’

  Not exactly a gracious response but he was getting there, though if they stayed at the hospital someone would be sure to come barging in no matter where they sought some privacy.

  ‘At home might be better. While the bandages are off I can have a proper shower, and Mrs Robertson left a lamb casserole for dinner so we could pop that in the oven and it will be ready by the time I’m finished.’

  Then, before she could think of any more objections, he added, ‘My car’s out the front. I won’t be long.’

  Blythe walked slowly towards the front door. She didn’t know what she’d expected him to say when she’d finished the story about David, but she felt he could have managed some response. Now he was acting as if it had never happened—as if she hadn’t wrenched open bits of the past and offered them to him on a plate.

  Well, to hell with him. That was the last bit of Blythe he’d ever learn about. She’d take a leaf out of his book and make herself scarce at all times when she didn’t have to be near him.

  This would be good from the attraction point of view as well as he obviously wasn’t suffering the same chemical surges in his body when he was near her as she was when she was near him.

  Even when he’d kissed her, and for a moment it had seemed as if it might go on, he’d drawn away, leaving her uptight—and angry about her reaction.

  Muttering all this to herself, she waited for him in the car, though she’d cooled down by the time she drove him back to the house. But once inside, the situation deteriorated. She sat him down on a kitchen stool, then stood behind him, thinking that would be better than standing in front, but wherever one stood, unwinding a figure-of-eight bandage from a man’s torso necessitated getting close to him.

  Close to the ruthlessly cropped hair that twisted as it grew so the back of his tanned neck was decorated with tiny kiss curls.

  Kissing kiss curls would be fun…

  ‘I can understand you not wanting to be on that rat’s team, but didn’t you consider doing surgery somewhere else?’

  Cal’s question, as she put her arms around his shoulder to roll up the bandage as she unwound it, diverted her from kissing kiss curls.

  ‘Only on a certain part of his anatomy when I found out about the nurse,’ she told him, and felt his chest move as he laughed.

  She finished unwinding and rerolling the bandages before adding, ‘Yes, I did consider it, but I’d no sooner applied for a post in a teaching hospital in Sydney than I got Ross River Fever and it struck me really badly, probably because I’d been studying hard, and working, and not eating properly. All the things doctors warn people not to do. It took me twelve months to get fully over the debilitating effects, and though I worked part time during that year, I was so far behind by then I knew I wouldn’t have the stamina to catch up.’

  She was pressing her fingers into his shoulder as she explained then carefully lifting his arm to check range of movement, and though he winced occasionally, he didn’t actually complain.

  ‘So London beckoned?’

  Blythe let go of his arm and stepped around in front of him to lift his arm towards her and turn it.

  ‘Not London, except as a jumping-off place. I might not have been a qualified specialist surgeon, but I had more surgical experience than a lot of people and I thought with that I might be able to offer something to one of the aid organisations. I was due to join a team going to central Africa when Lileth and Mark announced they were getting married.’

  She was talking to distract herself from the impact of being close to him—touching him—the words not nearly as important as the distraction, so she was startled when he pulled away, stood up and positivel
y loomed over her.

  ‘That is so typical of so many people’s thinking!’ he growled. ‘Let’s go overseas and do good. Didn’t you ever consider the good you could do right here in Australia? Do you have to suffer privation to really feel you’re doing good, so living in central Africa is more meaningful than living right here in Creamunna? Do you know how many Australian doctors join aid teams abroad each year?’

  He paused to shake his head in frustration.

  ‘I know those people in Third World countries need all the help they can get, but we’re importing doctors—hundreds a year—while as many of our own are going off overseas to do their good deeds. Do they never think of doing it in Australia, of spending even a year in a country town like this? That’s what I’m trying to do, Blythe. I’m trying to make country service for medical staff at least as attractive as Africa. And it’s darned hard.’

  ‘Because it doesn’t seem as ‘‘good’’ a deed, if you know what I mean,’ she said, feeling out each word. ‘And then there’s the fear thing. I mean, joining an aid team, you go knowing there are specialists with you. Taking a position in the country, where there’s only you? That’s scary stuff. If I ever thought about it, which I’m sure I did because there were always recruitment drives going on, I would have assumed I didn’t have what it takes to practise in isolation from all the people and equipment available in a city hospital.’

  ‘But these days you’re not so isolated. You can lift the phone and talk to a specialist far more easily than you could as a GP in the city, because these guys are there for country doctors. You can get the most recent papers and join discussions on just about anything on the internet, and while we don’t have all the latest technological bells and whistles, we have access to specialist services. In fact, the flying surgeon will be here this week. We don’t have much to do with him, apart from referring patients. He sees the patients on a previous visit then Sue as Theatre Sister draws up the theatre list. A lot of what he does is basic surgery—hernia repairs, removal of skin cancers, tonsillectomies if someone’s suffering recurrent infection. You’ll meet him Monday—that’s tomorrow, isn’t it? Bloke called David Ogilvie.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  AFTERWARDS Blythe wondered how she’d avoided passing out on the spot. To hear David’s name again so soon after she’d told her pathetic story—and to find he was coming here. Far too many shocks for one woman to handle!

  But she’d calmly walked away, telling Cal to do his exercises, heading for the kitchen where she put the casserole in the oven and started peeling potatoes. Her preferred option would have been to head for her bedroom, climb into bed and pull the covers over her head, but Cal might have wondered about that!

  Think, brain, think!

  But ordering it into action had no effect. Her thinking powers were blotted out by memories of David, and the anguish he had caused her.

  She’d leave—get the bus out of town.

  No, she’d missed the bus. It had left today at midday and there wasn’t another until Wednesday.

  Besides, she’d run from David once before. She wouldn’t run again.

  But she wouldn’t go out of her way to meet him either. Why should she? She’d be busy and as the patients he’d be operating on were Cal’s anyway, he could handle any consultations necessary.

  That was the answer. She needn’t see David at all.

  Cal moved his arm, stretching the tendons in his shoulder, grimacing at the pain yet at the same time welcoming it as it took his mind off his colleague.

  Surely he’d imagined Blythe going pale when he’d mentioned David Ogilvie’s name! And her hurried escape to the kitchen was nothing more than her usual habit of keeping things between them on a purely professional level.

  Yet something in the air, a sudden tension, told him there was more to Blythe’s reaction than he could understand. He just hoped David Ogilvie wasn’t the man who’d caused such devastation in her life. The man about whom Cal had been harbouring murderous thoughts!

  He finished stretching and went through to his bedroom, digging out clean clothes then throwing a toilet bag and his pyjamas into a small bag, ready to take back to the hospital.

  He showered, relishing the warm water sluicing over his body after the dusty rodeo, though he wasn’t getting much better at shaving left-handed. Then, with the bag and walking stick in one hand and his bandage in the other, he went through to join his visitor in the kitchen. He dropped the bag by the door and held out the bandage to her.

  ‘I hate to be a nuisance, but would you mind wrapping it up again?’

  Blythe took the bandage, but try as he may to read something in her expression, he saw only the way her lips pursed slightly as she concentrated, a trick he noticed all too often and which, at times, nearly drove him to distraction.

  It was because her lips were so kissable, but for him to be affected by them at times when she was so totally focussed on her job was not good.

  She finished, and gave his shoulder a little pat, then she frowned at his bag.

  ‘At the country recruitment talks I attended, most of the jobs on offer were hospital positions. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it earlier, but shouldn’t the hospital here have a medical superintendent? A government-appointed doctor resident at the hospital?’

  ‘Yes,’ Cal told her. ‘It should. But because there’s always been a private practice here—Mark bought the practice from a couple when they retired—finding a doctor for the hospital has never been a priority. We’re not even classed as an area of need for doctors recruited from overseas, so if a foreign doctor wanted to work here, he or she wouldn’t get special consideration as far as qualifying to work in Australia goes.’

  ‘Because there’s already a doctor in the town?’ she queried. ‘That doesn’t seem fair.’

  He grinned at her. ‘Any more than the scarcity of doctors in Africa is fair?’

  Blythe saw the spark of laughter in his eyes and felt her heart judder in her breast. Oh, no, it certainly can’t be love, she told herself. She was done with love, and even if she wasn’t, Cal most certainly was. The judder must simply have been a different physical reaction to grey eyes rimmed with black, sparkling with laughter at her.

  ‘I’ll serve the dinner,’ she said quickly, giving herself an excuse to turn away from him.

  The phone rang as they sat down, and Cal reached out his good hand to lift the receiver.

  Blythe, thinking of Byron, watched him anxiously.

  ‘It’s OK—good news, in fact,’ he said, putting down the receiver. ‘A plane’s available to pick Byron up tonight. ETA ten o’clock so we’ve got an hour. We’ll need to go back to the hospital and make sure his notes are up to date, then get him ready for transport. It’s an RFDS plane so he’ll have a doctor on board for the trip.’

  Blythe smiled as the tension drained out of her, but Cal had already turned away, thumbing the buttons on the phone handset then holding it to his ear.

  ‘Merice? Cal Whitworth. We’ve got an emergency airlift going out tonight. Plane ETA nine o’clock. Will you organise the volunteers?’

  There was a pause, then he said thanks and disconnected.

  ‘Volunteers?’ Blythe echoed, but if she thought Cal would explain she was disappointed. He simply grinned at her, the mischievous expression causing more movement in her chest as her heart seemed to tug at its moorings.

  ‘You’ll see,’ he promised. ‘Now, eat up. We’ve got things to do.’

  Cal went out to the airfield in the ambulance, with Blythe following in his vehicle. As they reached the outskirts of town and turned onto the main road which passed the airfield a few kilometres out of town, there were a number of other cars on the road. It was almost as if she’d joined a procession.

  Wondering where they could all be going at this hour on a Sunday evening—late open-air church service? Full moon revels in some hallowed spot? Was the moon full?—Blythe continued to follow the ambulance. Then it turned off and she real
ised all the other cars were also heading for the airfield with her.

  The ambulance pulled up by a small, corrugated-iron shed, and she stopped beside it and got out, watching in amazement as the cars continued on past the shed.

  ‘What’s this?’ she asked Cal as he climbed awkwardly out of the ambulance. ‘Do the locals have so little excitement in their lives they come out to see a plane land? Is that why you rang someone? To tell her to spread the news?’

  Cal smiled at her again, then reached out and turned her around.

  ‘Look,’ he said, and she realised the cars were slowing down and seemed to be moving into set positions—some on one side of the runway, some on the other. But their headlights remained on, illuminating the narrow strip of concrete down which the plane would land.

  ‘No lighting in country areas,’ Cal explained. ‘The locals provide it.’

  Blythe shook her head, unable to believe the number of things she took for granted as part of civilised life which simply didn’t exist out here in the bush. Yet these people made do. They worked with what they had, and lived rich, full lives.

  The sound of an approaching plane made her look up, and she saw the car headlights reflecting off silver wings. Byron’s transport had arrived.

  Cal handled the transfer of paperwork while Blythe watched the efficient way the patient was moved from one conveyance to another. His parents, who had arrived at the hospital shortly after the operation, were also watching anxiously. They would travel to Brisbane by car and Blythe didn’t envy them their thousand-kilometre journey, with worry eating at them every metre of the way.

  Yet because emergency air services existed, Byron would be seen by a thoracic specialist tonight—less than twelve hours after his accident.

  ‘There he goes.’

  Cal came to stand beside her as the plane took off.

  ‘You could have another trip out here in the morning if you like,’ he added. ‘Someone brings a car out from the hospital to meet the surgeon and his crew.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ll bother,’ Blythe said, hoping Cal hadn’t been able to feel the sudden tensing in her body. ‘I remember the back-up of patients we had last Monday, and I think Cheryl told me the first appointment was at eight tomorrow.’