‘Because?’
‘Because Betty has a blue crib,’ she breathed. ‘She’s been knitting blue matinee jackets for ever. Someone should alert the share market. It’s about to be flooded with blue.’ She looked again at the screen, seeing the irrefutable evidence, and she was smiling again, this time like she meant it. ‘Don’t tell Betty,’ she whispered.
‘You think she’ll be upset?’
‘She wants a boy so much, and why tell her?’ The smile faded and her voice was suddenly bleak again. ‘Do you think Betty will live to see my baby born?’
He glanced across at Betty. She’d collapsed into sleep but it was more than sleep. The amount of morphine he’d given her couldn’t explain the look of total lack of consciousness. He shifted slightly so he could reach over and take her wrist. Her skin was parched and dry, her pulse was thready and her fingers were cold to touch.
‘She needs fluids,’ he said. ‘She’s dehydrated. And blood tests. Is she hypoxic?’
‘I’m assuming so. She hasn’t let me do anything but give her pain relief for weeks now. But it’s okay. It’s what she wants. And now…now I know my baby’s okay…If you could just check the other one before you go…’
‘The other one?’
‘The one you left in the bathroom,’ she reminded him.
He knew that. But he was moving past it in his head. Facing the inevitable.
‘Okay, here’s the plan,’ he said softly. ‘I stay here. I attend to our bathroom baby. I dress your head and your knee, I keep a check on you tonight to make sure your head injury’s not causing trouble, and in the morning I find a way to get you X-rayed. Until those things happen I’m not leaving.’
She stared up at him for a long moment-and then she closed her eyes. For a moment he thought she was going to react with anger. With denial.
Instead she opened her eyes again and the relief he saw there was stunning. Her face looked lighter, younger. Free. As if an unbearable burden had been lifted.
He’d given her a promise of one night. Her eyes said it was much more.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered softly. ‘You have no idea how much I would love you to stay.’ And she reached up and took his hand and held it.
He’d finished the ultrasound. He’d sorted Maggie’s need for the night. His next priority was the baby in the bathroom. He should move.
Instead he stayed, looking into her eyes while her hand held his. Just looking.
Feeling the touch of Maggie’s hand, and knowing it was so much more.
Feeling a web he’d taken years to break free from tighten once more inexorably around his heart.
This woman was pregnant. This woman represented everything he ran from.
Yet still he couldn’t disengage his hand.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE tepid bath had worked. When he finally made it to the bathroom he found the little family comforted and happy.
‘We need two doctors so much,’ the woman said as he saw them to their car a little later, the baby wrapped in light cotton and nothing else. ‘We had old Doc Sharrandon, but the minute Maggie arrived he left. Said he’d waited ten years too long for retirement and he wasn’t waiting a minute longer. So instead of having one ancient doctor we have one pregnant one. Not that we’re complaining. Maggie’s lovely, only it’s too much for her.’
It was.
He saw them off from the veranda-then as he turned to go inside he paused. There was a dark shape moving down the track, behind the tractors. Or…Several shapes.
He stood watching, waiting for his eyes to become accustomed to the moonlight.
It was a figure in some sort of greatcoat, behind three-no, four-calves. And one dog.
Bonnie and the calves, he thought, and this must be Angus. Until now he hadn’t realised it was weighing on him-the thought of calves and dog on the beach alone-but it felt great to see them come. He walked down through the garden to meet them, only to have both man and calves start away from him. Fifty yards away it was clear he wasn’t getting closer-indeed, it looked as if only the dog stopped both man and calves from bolting.
He left them, walking slowly back into the house to find Maggie propped up on her cushions, watching the door with anxiety. Was she wondering whether he was true to his word-that he’d come back? More and more the knowledge settled in his mind. He couldn’t leave her. The part of him that was fearful of relationships was screaming at him to stay dispassionate but it was being firmly overruled by sensations he wasn’t close to understanding.
‘What’s wrong?’ Maggie demanded. Maybe his emotions were showing on his face. Who knew? If he was having trouble quelling them internally, how did he keep his face in order?
‘Nothing’s wrong,’ he told her. ‘Angus has the calves. Four calves and Bonnie, walking up the driveway right now.’
‘He’s brought them here.’ For a moment he thought she was about to cry-and once again came that stab of need to comfort. He stayed where he was but it was hard.
‘He must have seen you bring me home,’ she said, so happily that she was obviously oblivious to what he was feeling. ‘He’d have walked back looking for them.’ She sighed and managed a wavering smile. ‘Thank heaven. Can we wake Gran and tell her?’
Wake Betty? That was the last thing he wanted to do. ‘I’m about to clean your head.’
‘This is more urgent.’
‘Waking Betty?’
‘Please,’ she said, suddenly passionate. ‘It really is. If you knew how Gran’s connived for this, you couldn’t doubt it. Gran’s sole focus for the last year has been to get me and my baby here, to set Angus up with a milking herd again, and keep him safe. She’s so close to running out of time and she knows it. I had to get the calves today no matter what, and she’s desperate to know they’re here. Please.’
‘So we wake her up and tell her?’
‘No. We wake her up and show her. Can you get me a set of crutches? You’ll find some out in the garage. There’s three pairs-I reckon I’m the middle.’
‘Why do you want crutches?’ he demanded, appalled at the sudden change in her. From passive and frightened patient she was suddenly all purpose.
‘I’m going with you. And you’re carrying Gran over to see Angus’s calves.’
‘In the morning, maybe.’
‘No! Look at her,’ she said urgently. ‘Can you guarantee there’ll be a morning? Max, I know this seems dumb,’ she admitted, ‘but medicine’s not only about drugs and bed care. Betty needs this more than anything in the world and I need to give it to her. This whole night will leave me with a debt I can never repay, but you’ve said you’ll stay and we have to do this. Please can you carry Gran over to see what she’s achieved.’
He stared down into her face, saw desperation, saw passion, and more. There was love, he thought. Maggie had spoken of coercion but, whatever was between these two women, her commitment to her now was absolute.
And suddenly he thought, It’s not just for Betty. Maggie must be a wonderful doctor. She cared. Where he’d spent the last six years pushing his emotions away, hers were out there, front and centre. Her husband’s death hadn’t taught her to protect herself. She was way too exposed.
What should he tell her now? ‘You’re not fit to do anything more tonight. Betty needs to sleep. To do what you ask would be crazy.’
He couldn’t. Her passion was shifting his armour, finding a way in.
Tomorrow he’d put this behind him, he thought, but for tonight…he had to do it her way.
He stared down at her and she stared straight back, those luminous eyes meeting his with a directness he found disconcerting. More than disconcerting.
He should run a mile from what he was starting to feel, he thought inconsequentially, and then he thought maybe he was running out of time to run.
Maybe he couldn’t run if he tried.
Time out of frame.
He was walking across an unused cow-yard in the moonlight, carrying a dying woman in his
arms, with a seven-months-pregnant colleague limping along on crutches beside him.
Gran was still half-asleep. She’d roused when he’d lifted her, but Maggie had simply said, ‘The calves are here, Gran. You’ve got what you want. You need to see them.’
She shouldn’t be on crutches. He was walking slowly, worrying about her, but she wasn’t complaining. Her whole focus was on what lay ahead.
Ahead was a haystack, dark and forbidding against the night sky. As they neared it Maggie paused and so did he.
‘Angus?’ she called, and there was no answer, but a soft lowing told them the calves were there.
‘Angus, Gran wants to see the calves she’s given you,’ Maggie called. ‘I have the doctor who helped me home from the crash. You’ll have seen him. His name’s Max and he’s carrying Gran because she can’t walk. Angus, Gran really wants to see you with the calves.’
Again, there was no response, but Maggie looked up at him and nodded, a tiny, definite nod. ‘It’s as good as we’ll get,’ she whispered. ‘Let’s go.’ She limped on.
He stood back and watched her for a moment, knowing how much she must be hurting, knowing how desperately she needed to be in her own bed, but knowing she wasn’t going to stop.
She paused and glanced back at him, questioning, and he caught himself, tightened his grip on Gran and kept going. He was rounding the haystack, following a woman he was starting to be in awe of. More. A woman who left him feeling disorientated, as if his world was shifting on its axis and he was having trouble getting it the right way up again.
And here were the calves. At the foot of the haystack, bales had been shifted to form an enclosed, warm place. Angus was behind them, a dark figure in a dark coat, out of the pool of light from a lantern he’d set up. He was holding Bonnie as if holding a shield.
‘How did you find them?’ Maggie asked, and he appeared to shrink even more.
‘Bonnie,’ he said at last, and it was as if the words were dragged out of him. ‘Brought ’em along the beach. Came up to find me. Knew something was wrong when you come home in that car. Bonnie made me go down the beach.’
‘Oh, Bonnie,’ Maggie said, and she sounded close to tears.
He wanted to hold her. He couldn’t. He was holding Betty, and Betty was awake and looking across at the calves.
Maggie was looking at Betty and in the lamplight he could see the shimmering of her tears.
‘What…what do you think of them?’ Gran whispered. Gently he set her down on a couple of hay bales, still wrapped in the blanket he’d carried her in. The calves shifted nervously as he stepped back, but they were still close enough for Betty to reach out and touch them.
There was a long silence. Max thought maybe he should say something but Maggie’s hand came out to catch his. She leaned on him, heavily, and instinctively his arm wrapped around her waist to support her.
She leaned on him some more, and the pressure of her hand told him to stay silent.
He stayed silent. He held onto Maggie.
Family, he thought suddenly, and the same feeling he’d had when he’d seen the farmhouse came over him. It was a longing, deep in his gut, for something other than the solitary path he’d elected to travel.
Family? This? There were commitments all over this place. For Maggie to accept such responsibility…Her strength left him awed and his hold on her tightened instinctively.
Betty had asked Angus if he liked the calves. She was waiting for him to answer, and Max could see Angus knew he had to say something. And he knew by the tension in Maggie’s body that she was desperate for Angus to respond.
‘Yeah,’ he said at last, and it was a beginning.
‘They’ll be milkers,’ Gran whispered. ‘It’s just the start. Now Maggie’s here you can have your herd again.’
‘We could use the milk from these for cheese,’ Angus said, in a voice that sounded rusty from disuse. ‘Until we build the herd up enough to sell milk to the co-op again.’
‘Yes!’ It was still a whisper but Gran’s tone was almost triumphant. She turned to Maggie. ‘Four calves are a start. If you buy Angus another every time you can afford it…Promise me you will. Promise.’ The last word was such a fierce demand that he felt Maggie flinch against him.
‘I’ll do my best,’ she said.
‘And you’ll help her.’ The old lady was suddenly staring at him. ‘You’ll help her. Yeah, you will, I know it.’ She closed her eyes, as if exhausted and Max was spared having to answer. ‘It’ll be okay. Farm’s safe. Will’s son’ll be here. It’s okay.’
‘Gran,’ Maggie said roughly, sounding desperately anxious.
‘Yeah, it’s time to go to sleep,’ Gran said, without opening her eyes. ‘And if your fella’ll give me another shot of that morphine stuff, I’ll take it with pleasure. You’ll do that?’
‘I will,’ Max said, because there was nothing else to say, and the pressure of Maggie’s hand in his increased.
Thank you, the pressure said. Thank you.
More and more he had no idea what he’d been propelled into. This was a weird setting, so strange he felt as if he’d been transported to another world.
But there was peace here, of a sort. Angus was waiting with ill-concealed impatience for the people in the tableau to disappear so he could be alone with his animals. Maggie was leaning against him, taking strength from him and giving him warmth in return. An old lady was saying goodbye.
Maggie was weeping openly now, tears slipping down her cheeks unchecked. He held her tighter, and he felt her shudder against him.
‘Can you carry Gran back to bed?’ she whispered.
‘I’ll do that, and then I’ll come back for you.’
‘I’ll make my own way,’ she whispered. ‘I always have and I always will.’
He looked down at her in the moonlight, a woman who needed to be cared for, yet who was worrying about everyone around her. She worried about more than just these two people, he knew. She worried about the whole community.
Maggie. The word alone was making him feel strange, like he’d never known what a woman could be until now.
He was involved until the morning, he told himself. No more.
Did he believe it?
First things first.
Leaving Maggie-as ordered-he carried Gran back to the house. She roused enough to direct him to her bedroom, a room of grand proportions overlooking the front garden. He tucked her into a huge bed heaped with faded eiderdowns, he injected more morphine and he thought she was asleep. But as he made to leave, her hand came out and grasped his.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘You’ve made it perfect. I can go now. Look after them for me.’
Her eyes closed again and he stood looking down at her, trying to take in what she’d just said.
It was a farewell, and by the look of her…
She desperately needed fluids, he thought, touching the back of her hand, pressing the dry skin back a little and watching it stay where he’d pressed it. She was so dehydrated.
She was emaciated. Weary. Done.
If this woman presented at Emergency right now, the wheels of medical technology would move into overdrive.
He should at least set up a drip to get fluids in.
But he knew instinctively that this woman wouldn’t thank him for extending her life. He didn’t need to talk to Maggie to know it. The decision had already been made.
She was dying and she knew it. So how did he react to the old lady’s request. Take care of them?
What sort of request was that?’
Should he rouse her and say ‘Hey, I’m a passing stranger, stuck for the night but out of here first thing in the morning.’
As if he could rouse a dying woman and tell her that. But not to tell her…
He could tell her nothing. She was already asleep.
He flicked off her bedside lamp and left, feeling that a promise had been made regardless. By failing to deny her…
Nonsense. She had no
right to ask anything of him, and he had no need to answer.
Move on, he told himself harshly. Move on to Maggie?
He came out into the living room, expecting her to be there, but there was no sign of her. He’d come ahead with Betty, and he thought she’d have struggled back on her crutches. Apparently not.
He swore and went out again, to find her sitting on a low stone wall by the garden gate. Just sitting, staring into the night.
She should be in bed, too, and those wounds still needed dressing. He came up behind her and saw her shudder. Involuntarily his hands rested on her shoulders. She flinched, and then, unexpectedly, she leaned back into him.
‘She’ll go now,’ she whispered. ‘Thank you for caring for her.’
The night was growing more and more surreal. He’d turned into Gran’s treating doctor?
There was nothing for it but to agree. ‘I expect she will,’ he agreed. ‘Unless we get proactive.’
‘There’s no point. But today…It would have been a disaster without you.’
‘I suspect it was a disaster because of me,’ he said ruefully. ‘If I hadn’t driven around that bend…’
‘You had every right to drive around that bend.’
‘Come inside, Maggie,’ he said gently. ‘Can I carry you?’
‘No point,’ she said, and sighed. ‘Sorry. That sounded ungracious, but there’s not a lot of use in getting accustomed to leaning on anyone.’
Yet still she leaned on him.
‘You’re cold.’
‘I do need to go inside,’ she agreed with reluctance.
‘You don’t want to?’
‘I want to run,’ she whispered. ‘I’m so tired.’
He hesitated. There were things he should be doing. Carrying her inside, cleaning her face, strapping her knee, putting her to bed as he’d just put Gran.
But out here the stars were hanging low in the sky. From over at the haystack came a soft lowing as the calves settled down for the night. Angus would be with them. As Max had left, carrying Gran, he’d turned back and seen the elderly man settling onto the straw with an expression on his face that was almost joy. Angus and Bonnie wouldn’t be leaving their charges.
City Surgeon, Small Town Miracle Page 5