Outback Doctors/Outback Engagement/Outback Marriage/Outback Encounter

by Meredith Webber

  Caitlin decided this was hopeful information, and confirmed her notion that Mrs Neil wouldn’t shoot her in the house.

  She thought of an old joke, about where did someone shoot you, in the foot, no, in the house, and had a totally inappropriate urge to smile.

  Somehow, smiling in front of Mrs Neil seemed like a very bad idea.

  Ezra Neil was standing out the back of the hospital, surveying what was left of Caitlin’s car. In an instant, all the vague suspicions Connor had harboured against this man came to the fore, and he rushed forward, intending to grab him and demand to know why he’d done it.

  And whether he’d killed Angie.

  But Ezra turned to face him, and the sorrow in the man’s face was so evident, the demands and accusations dried on Connor’s lips.

  ‘Where’s the lady doctor?’ Ezra asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Connor said, still nursing the remnants of his suspicion. ‘Do you?’

  Ezra’s eyes, deep-set and so dark as to be almost black, glimmered at him.

  ‘The Lord looks after his own,’ he said to Connor.

  ‘I thought that was the devil,’ Connor replied, and Ezra shook his head, as if to remove himself from such flippancy.

  ‘Why are you here, Ezra?’ Connor asked, genuinely puzzled by the man’s presence. And by the sense of pain emanating from him.

  ‘My wife’s missing.’

  ‘Mrs Neil? Missing? How do you mean, missing?’

  ‘Not at home—that’s how I mean missing,’ Ezra said. ‘When I woke up this morning she wasn’t there and the truck was gone. I walked to the main road and hitched into town but the truck’s not here either.’

  He rubbed his hand across his head in a gesture of such infinite weariness Connor felt a pang of pity for him.

  But pity didn’t stop him asking, ‘Why would it be here?’

  Ezra shrugged.

  ‘She works here. When I heard about the fire—Jack Griffith gave me a lift and he knew—I thought maybe she’d heard too, I don’t know how—nothing makes sense—but if she did hear, maybe she’d come in to help—’

  He broke off, and Connor had the sense that the man didn’t believe a word of his own explanation.

  ‘How long ago did you leave your place?’ he asked, and Ezra frowned as if he didn’t understand the question.

  ‘Mrs Neil might be home by now,’ Connor explained.

  ‘It was the boy getting ill like that,’ Ezra said, as if carrying on a conversation Connor hadn’t heard. ‘She couldn’t handle it—couldn’t even go to Brisbane for his treatment. I took him down and stayed there. I was with him when he died. My wife…’

  He stopped as if there was no way to explain, but he’d said enough to cause new concern to Connor.

  ‘Ezra, when you came here, were you looking for the doctor or for your wife?’

  The dark eyes met his.

  ‘On my honour, Dr Clarke, until the new doctor came, I didn’t have even the faintest suspicion that my wife could do harm to someone. I am a man of God and, though I’ve sinned and done harm, I’ve tried to make amends and to live my life without harm to even the lowliest of His creatures. My wife—I thought my wife had followed the same path, but she was agitated when Dr Robinson was here and only calmed down when she disappeared. Then lately she’s been strange again, talking to herself, then disappearing at odd times.’

  Fear coagulated Connor’s blood and he reached out and grabbed Ezra’s shoulders and shook his thin frame.

  ‘For God’s sake, man, say what you mean. If you think the doctor is in danger from your wife, tell me. We’ll find Mrs Neil, and take care of her. If she’s sick, she’ll get help.’

  Ezra shook Connor off.

  ‘I don’t know what I mean, just what I fear. Drive me back to my place. If she did this, she will have gone home afterwards, probably thinking she’d be there before I woke. I walked across country to the highway and could have missed seeing the truck drive back.’

  Connor hurried him back to the house where his car was parked.

  ‘Why is she upset?’ he asked Ezra as they sped out of town.

  ‘With the other doctor, she was upset about the blood tests. She is a simple woman, and doesn’t understand a lot of things, so all I can think is that she has some idea in her head that taking blood is bad.’

  ‘But this doctor isn’t talking about taking blood,’ Connor protested, adding a silent, Not yet.

  ‘But she’s talking about families, and relationships. That would be enough.’

  Enough for what? Connor wanted to scream at him, but the man was shaking with tension, so Connor concentrated on driving.

  ‘Turn here,’ Ezra said, and Connor turned, nearly hitting a huge tree that had fallen across the track.

  He saw the detour and drove around it, then down the narrow lane until it widened out and he saw the house and outbuildings.

  And a car!

  ‘The truck’s there,’ Ezra said, pointing to a shed beyond the house.

  ‘And the car?’ Connor asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Ezra replied, then he turned to Connor.

  ‘I want you to stay here in the car. Let me go and speak to her.’

  Ezra’s eyes pleaded with him and though Connor’s instincts shouted at him to find Caitlin—if she was here—he knew Ezra was right. If Mrs Neil was already unbalanced, seeing Connor might push her over the edge.

  Ezra got out of the car and, although anyone in the house would have heard their approach, he didn’t shut the door.

  He was walking purposefully towards the house, calling to his wife, when the shot rang out, then Mrs Neil appeared in the doorway, a small black object in her hand.

  Another shot and Ezra fell to the ground, then Mrs Neil screamed and ran towards him, the gun flying from her hand when she tripped and fell only feet from her fallen husband.

  Connor flew out of the car and raced towards the house, sure someone had been injured by the first shot.

  Praying it was injured, not dead.

  Praying it wasn’t Caitlin…

  Caitlin was sitting on the floor under the table, her left hand clasped to her side, with her right elbow clamped against it—blood seeping through her fingers.

  ‘Did you get the gun off her?’ she asked, her voice so calm Connor found the words hard to understand.

  ‘Caitlin—’

  He came towards her, made to kneel, but she held up her hand.

  ‘I’m all right. Find where she is, get the gun, or she’ll kill us both, Connor.’

  Her fingers were red with blood but he knew she was right, and he turned back to the door, peering cautiously out. Mrs Neil was kneeling beside Ezra, wailing loudly. The gun was on the ground where it had fallen and Connor left the house, hurrying across the grass, picking up the deadly weapon and pocketing it before crossing towards the fallen man.

  ‘He’s dead. Jerry’s dead. Now everyone’s dead,’ Mrs Neil cried, but though Connor didn’t know much about guns, he couldn’t believe a small one could kill a man at such a distance.

  ‘Let me look at him,’ he said, but Mrs Neil flung herself across her husband’s body.

  ‘Jerry’s mine, don’t touch him,’ she cried, and rather than argue he continued on to his car, pulled out his mobile and phoned for an ambulance and the police. Ned Withers was having a busy few days!

  Then Connor lifted his bag from the back of the vehicle and hurried back to the house.

  Inside, Caitlin had edged towards the wall and was leaning back on it, her cheeks as white as the shirt she was wearing.

  ‘I’ve got the gun,’ he said, squatting beside her, wanting desperately to take her in his arms and hold her tightly, but worried about the wound, the blood—her lungs. Dear heaven, had the bullet penetrated her lungs? Was she drowning in her own blood? He steadied himself and told her what she needed to know. ‘Ezra’s been shot but Mrs Neil won’t let me near him, and I don’t want to upset her more by forcing the issue. Now, let
me look at your wound.’

  He was trying to act normally but he could hear the tremor in his voice and the fingers reaching into his bag for a pressure pad were shaking so much he couldn’t pick it up. He took a deep breath to calm himself, then touched her hand, lifting her fingers away and pressing the pad in their place. Blood prevented him seeing the extent of the damage, and for now stopping the bleeding was a priority.

  ‘It hurts, Connor,’ she said faintly, then she tried to smile and he thought his heart would break. ‘It didn’t hurt at first. She wanted me to go outside—but I was scared of snakes.’

  Her eyelids fluttered closed, and a slight change in her breathing suggested her brain might have chosen to shut down rather than bear the pain.

  He bandaged the pad into place, talking all the time, telling her how much he loved her, how she had to stay alive, get well.

  ‘That’s all that matters, Caitlin. We’ll work things out from there. Just stay alive, my darling.’

  Her breathing was steady, but that didn’t stop terrible scenarios presenting themselves in his head, and fear that he’d lose the woman he loved so dearly reduced him to a stuttering mess.

  The ambulance arrived, followed closely by Ned Withers, and Connor had to muster every last remnant of his self-control in order to leave Caitlin’s side and go out to tend to Ezra. He kissed her gently on the cheek, still murmuring his love, and went outside. With the help of the two attendants, he managed to administer a sedative to Mrs Neil. Ned put her in the back of his vehicle, where she sat as if totally uninterested in the havoc she’d caused. Ezra was alive, but the bullet had hit him high up in the chest. Even as he was loaded into the ambulance, Connor knew he’d need to be airlifted out.

  He was bandaging a pressure pad to the wound, anxious to stop further blood loss, when the ambulance attendants carried Caitlin out of the house. The fear that had fluttered in his chest since he’d realised she was missing, had settled into a lumpy kind of ache, and, looking at her pale face framed by the golden hair, he wondered how he would have survived if anything worse had happened to her.

  Wondered how he’d survive when she went away—for what would keep a research scientist in a town like Turalla? Especially a research scientist who’d fled a small country town at sixteen!

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ‘LOVE?’ Caitlin suggested, when Connor actually put this question to her a week later.

  She was sitting in the sun on his veranda, her legs resting on a small table.

  Smiling at him!

  ‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘I didn’t think Turalla featured in your long-term plans.’

  He settled on a chair in front of her, where he could see her face and rest his hand on her ankle—still needing both sight and touch to reassure himself she was alive.

  ‘It didn’t,’ he said, trying to put into words some of the things that had passed through his mind during the traumatic days after the fire and the shootings. ‘I was going to find out what had happened to Angie and leave.’

  He hesitated, wondering how to explain and knowing, however the words came out, they were a signal that what had barely begun between them was about to end. Caitlin might talk of love, but her work was such a huge part of her life—

  ‘Come on,’ she prompted. ‘You’ve been trying to work out how to say what you want to say for days—just spit it out.’

  ‘I can’t leave the town right now. This kind of thing doesn’t just affect one family. It causes ripples right through the population.’

  He sighed. ‘When I first applied to come here, getting back to the city was always a priority, but now I don’t know, Caitlin. I like working here, I like the people, and the lifestyle, and I also believe that country towns, however small, deserve a better deal with medical services. Why shouldn’t they have a local doctor who stays put, as your father did, instead of a series of young medicos intent on doing a year here then hightailing it out? Angie would have stayed, and although I’m not obligated in any way to take her place, I can’t help feeling I could have a happy life here.’

  Caitlin heard the commitment in his voice, but she also felt his love for her in the tender way he wrapped his fingers around her ankle. She knew there was more, and waited for it.

  ‘Of course, things changed when you drove into town.’ He thrust his free hand through his hair in the helpless gesture she’d grown to love. ‘Now I’m reasonably sure I wouldn’t have a happy life anywhere you weren’t, so staying here for ever doesn’t seem to be an option.’

  ‘Not even if I stayed, too?’ she asked, and saw his eyes widen, then a frown draw his brows together as if he couldn’t understand the words.

  ‘But why? Your work! It’s too important to you. You—’

  The protests might have continued forever if Caitlin hadn’t interrupted, leaning forward and capturing the hand that had been toying with her ankle.

  ‘Didn’t you hear what I said earlier?’ she asked him. ‘I know the question about what would keep me here was hypothetical, but my answer wasn’t. Love would keep me here, Connor. If you wanted me to stay…’

  ‘If I wanted you to stay? Of course I’d want you to stay, but that’s not fair on you.’

  With an effort that caused exquisite pain in her damaged floating ribs, she leaned further forward and rested her hand against his cheek.

  ‘Connor, I can work from here. Even after I finish what I’m doing at the moment, with a computer link to the lab I can continue doing analysis, which is mainly what I do anyway.’

  ‘Here? In Turalla? You mean you’d stay?’

  Caitlin chuckled.

  ‘For an intelligent man, you take a bit of getting through to! I know I’ve only been here a couple of weeks, but it’s been a revelation, coming back to a country town. I didn’t realise how much I missed the sense of community.’

  Connor clasped her hand in his, holding it pressed against his cheek.

  ‘I love you, Caitlin,’ he said quietly, and she felt the warmth of his affection swamp her body.

  ‘Hey, stop snogging on the veranda, you two. It sets a bad example for the youngsters.’

  Mike stood below them, his four children chasing each other around him, the twins using his legs as an escape tunnel.

  ‘I’ll throw the surgery keys down to you,’ Connor said. ‘Grab the box of blocks out of the waiting room and come on up. I’ll shout you a cup of coffee and you can tell us what’s happening while the kids play with the blocks.’

  It took a while to organise, but eventually Mike was settled in a chair beside them.

  ‘I’ve just had a call from Anne. Ezra’s out of danger, and should be well enough to be flown back next week.’

  Connor shook his head.

  ‘I still can’t believe the Anne part of the puzzle,’ he said, ‘even though I was there when she came up to the hospital before he was airlifted out and actually saw her reaction to his injury.’

  ‘Sue’s pieced it all together, and when I spoke to Anne she filled in the blanks,’ Mike said. ‘Sue and Anne both trained in Brisbane, living in at the nurses’ quarters. And although Anne was older, Sue remembers seeing Ezra around the place. That’s one part. Then, Connor, you said Mrs Neil kept calling Ezra Jerry. After she shot him.’

  ‘Jerry was Ezra’s brother,’ Caitlin offered, remembering someone telling her about the two boys.

  ‘Exactly!’ Mike said. ‘Apparently he left home while still a youngster, and led a wild life. Ezra was always the good son, and he went off to Brisbane to university—he was doing religious studies so he must always have wanted to be a preacher. He met up with Anne and they began an affair. He had no idea what had happened to Jerry until Mrs Neil—whose name, by the way, is Candace, would you believe—came to him to tell him Jerry had been killed in a bikie fight and she was pregnant with Jerry’s baby. Ezra, who because of his religious beliefs was already riddled with guilt about his affair, did what he thought was the right thing—broke it off with Anne and married C
andace.’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ Caitlin spluttered. ‘How do people make such a mess of their lives? I assume Anne then found out she was pregnant, and Harry is Ezra’s child.’

  She thought for a moment, then said, ‘Oh!’ And covered her mouth with her hand.

  Connor smiled. ‘I bet you’re thinking this is good for your research,’ he said, and she had to agree that it might just provide the extra links she needed.

  But she forgot about the research when Connor added, ‘I think Rachel could be Ezra’s child as well. Ezra told me he took Jonah down to Brisbane. If Anne was there with Harry at the same time, it’s only logical the two of them would have shared just a little comfort.’

  ‘Oh, dear, how sad it all is,’ Caitlin murmured, thinking how terrible it would be to have to hide one’s love. Especially when the loved one lived in the same small town!

  ‘But why did Angie have to die?’ Connor asked Mike. ‘Did Sue work that out, too?’

  ‘No, but Ned Withers did. Mrs Neil—no way I can even think of her as Candace—won’t be judged fit to stand trial, but she’s told Ned enough for him to work out what had happened. She isn’t very bright, but one thing that she seemed to know was that blood tests could prove paternity. She didn’t know how or why—or that it would take a specific request—but had it in her head that if Angie took blood from Ezra a sign would flash across the blood bank computer saying, This man is not Jonah’s father. And it was important to her that no one knew that.’

  ‘Her respectability was important to her,’ Connor said quietly, and Caitlin reached out and took his hand, knowing he was thinking of Angie, and how she’d died for such a stupid reason.

  ‘I suppose some good’s come out of it all,’ Mike said. ‘Ezra and Anne can eventually get together.’ He looked out over the veranda railing as if seeing into the future. ‘And maybe you two as well.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Caitlin echoed, turning to Connor with a teasing smile.

  ‘Definitely maybe,’ Connor said. ‘Or should that be maybe definitely?’

  He turned to Mike.