‘I need to go back to work full time.’
‘But do you want to, with Rose so young? If there were supports in place so you didn’t need to?’
‘Max…’
‘Maggie, don’t distract me,’ he said. ‘Or don’t distract me more than you’re already doing. Blue hair ribbons, hey?’
‘You said you wanted pretty. I let Sophie and Paula choose.’
‘Sophie and Paula have fine taste,’ he said, and grinned and then schooled his features into mock gravity. ‘Enough. Let me get it all out in one hit so I can figure whether I should unload this van or just hightail it out of here.’
She was trying to figure out whether he was laughing or he was serious. She wanted to be closer to him, but still he stood back, watching her, as if he had to lay it all on the line before any movement was possible.
‘We need more doctors,’ he said.
‘More doctors.’
‘For our hospital,’ he explained, as if she was a little bit thick. ‘You know the old hospital out on the headland? It’s used now as a holiday camp, but apparently it’s still government owned. There’s such medical need in this area it’s becoming a political hot potato, and I have assurances that if we can guarantee staffing, they’ll reopen it. So John’s written to a friend of his who’s also emigrating from Zimbabwe. She’s a surgeon, her husband’s a farmer and her sons dream of surfing. They think this place sounds great. And then there’s Anton, my anaesthetist. His wife’s going nuts, him leaving home at six in the morning and not getting home until well after the babies are in bed. This place is just what he needs as well.’
‘You’ve done…John’s done…’
‘Nothing you can’t undo,’ he said, smiling, and smiling was all he had to do to have her so deeply in love she could never climb out. ‘All you need to do is say the word,’ he said. ‘John and I didn’t want to say anything to you until we knew it was possible, but we’re almost sure now. So sure I’ve quit.’
‘You’ve quit.’
‘You sound like a parrot,’ he said, and his smile widened. ‘My beautiful parrot. Yes, I’ve quit.’
‘Wh-why?’
‘Because I want to be a baby doctor again,’ he said, simply and surely. ‘Maggie, I want to deliver babies. There’s a huge population of young families locally, and if Anton and I are here then the mothers won’t need to go to Sydney for their confinements. So that’s what I want. It’s what I want almost as much as the thing I want most in the world. The really big thing. The thing on which everything else depends.’
‘I don’t…I don’t…’
‘You don’t know what that is?’ He paused, a long drawn-out silence where the world stretched out before them, infinite in its possibilities.
‘I told you the night Rose was born,’ he said softly. ‘I’m saying it again now. Maggie, we’ve both been battered,’ he said softly. ‘But we both know what love is and how wonderful it is that we’ve found it again. It’s time now we acknowledged it, took it in both hands and never let it go. The night Rose was born I knew that you had my whole life in your hands. I love you, Maggie, with all my heart. For now. For ever.’
His words took her breath away. It was like there were suddenly a thousand gifts, showering down like the Christmas morning of a child’s dreams, only better and better and better.
‘I also want to live here,’ he said, and it was like a tiny prosaic jolt that had her thinking, no, this wasn’t dreaming. This might even be true.
Why didn’t he move? Why didn’t he take her in his arms? Was this a dream? She couldn’t quite believe it could be real.
‘John’s found another farm,’ Max said, and there was that in his eyes that said he understood exactly what she was feeling. Maybe he was feeling like that, too. ‘He’s put in a provisional offer.’
‘Provisional…’
‘Provisional on you marrying me.’
She loved this man.
Marriage.
‘So…so let me get this right,’ she stammered. ‘You want to leave Sydney and come here. For…always?’
‘I never wanted to live in Sydney anyway,’ he said, and his smile was a caress all by itself. ‘When Alice died I walked away from my career and I didn’t much care what direction I was heading. There’s a few of us like that at Sydney South. John, escaping from the troubles in Zimbabwe. Anton, who came from France after a broken love affair and never left. And then there’s John’s friend, the surgeon. There’s a whole queue, waiting for you to say the word.’
‘The word?’
‘Yes,’ he said softly. ‘Just say yes.’
There was too much to take in.
She’d spent three months trying to work out how to break a promise, yet here was the man she loved with all her heart telling her she needn’t break it. That the dream that had started with William was still precious, but he was willing-no, he was demanding-that she share it.
It was too big. It was making her head explode.
‘You’d seriously come here to live?’ she whispered, awed.
‘And work. It’s what I should be doing, Maggie,’ he said, his smile fading. ‘I should be taking care of mothers having babies. That’s what I’m trained for. And I should be taking care of you.’
‘I don’t need-’
‘To be taken care of? I think you do. But, Maggie, if I can take care of you I promise to let you take care of me right back.’ He said it quickly, as if he seriously thought she was going to argue. ‘I want you to yell at me if you think I’m spending too much time working and not enough time with you. I’d even like you to yell at me if I squeeze the toothpaste the wrong way. I might yell back but if that’s what you want…a spot of yelling…I don’t see me objecting. I want you to teach me to surf, and I want us both to teach Rose. I want to help Angus with his tractors. I want to help train Bounce. I want us to have more babies.’
‘You want…’
‘Most of all I want what you want, Maggie,’ he told her. ‘I want a happy beginning. A family. Love and laughter from this day forth. So what do you say, Maggie? Will you marry me?’
‘You’re too far away,’ she whispered, and he was with her before she finished saying it. Taking her in his arms. He smiled down at her, loving her with his smile, and then suddenly he was kneeling before her.
And suddenly Margaret, with Rose in her arms, and John and Sophie and Paula were out on the veranda again. Not making a sound. Bearing witness.
Suddenly the removalists had put the desk down to watch.
And suddenly Angus was standing up on the tractor, holding a dog firmly under each arm, as if he was afraid they might interrupt.
Nothing interrupted.
‘Marry me,’ Max said again, and he took her hand in his and held it to his lips.
This was crazy. Mad.
It was muddy. He was kneeling in the mud, asking her if she’d marry him.
She had an audience hanging on her response.
Joy began to well up inside her-clearly, this could be no dream.
She knelt down, too.
‘Your dress,’ he said, in mock horror.
‘Blue and brown’s great,’ she said, and her eyes were inches from his. She had both his hands in hers. She had him right where she wanted him.
‘Ask me again,’ she said.
‘I think I’ve forgotten. What was the question?’
‘Something about marriage.’
‘Right, that,’ he said, sounding dazed. And then he swore. ‘I knew I forgot something. Hang on a minute.’ And he reached round to his back pocket and found a box. A tiny crimson box.
He flicked it open.
It wasn’t a ring. It was a single diamond, perfect, sparkling in the sunlight. Making her catch her breath with wonder.
‘I didn’t know how you’d like it set,’ he said. ‘So I thought…There’s so much you’ve done because you had no choice. I thought if you said yes…’
‘If I said yes…
‘If you said yes,’ he went on resolutely, ‘we can get it set any way you want. We can surround it with rubies. We can embed it in gold or mount it on platinum. You can have a woven plait band or a smooth one. Anything you like, my love. As long as you take me.’
‘A package deal, huh?’
‘A package indeed,’ he said, and cast an amused look around at their audience. ‘A family. A medical centre. A medical partnership. Love. All or nothing, my beautiful Maggie. So I’m asking you again, and I’m thinking surely this time you need to answer. Maggie Croft, love of my heart, please will you marry me?’
And what was a girl to say to that?
She put her hands on his face. She drew a deep breath and she smiled into his loving eyes.
And she cast her future to the wind, to blow where it willed, with this man beside her.
‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Yes, I will. My love. My heart. My life.’
Bachelor Dad, Girl Next Door by Sharon Archer
CHAPTER ONE
LUKE DANIELS ran an idle glance over the sleek silver motorcycle stopped in the lane beside him at the traffic light. Through his closed windows he could hear the throb of the powerful engine. An unexpected spark of interest fought with deep unease.
It’d been years since seeing a bike had had any sort of effect on him. How odd that it should be now, when he was back in Port Cavill to stay-at least for the year-long term of his contract.
But perhaps that was why.
Port Cavill. The scene of his first medical failure.
‘Are we nearly there?’ His daughter’s sulky voice interrupted his dark thoughts.
‘Not far, Allie.’ He rolled his neck, feeling the tiredness and tension in his muscles.
‘Alexis,’ she corrected with all the disdain a ten-year-old could muster.
Luke stifled a sigh. He wasn’t popular and there wasn’t anything he could do about it.
Except get on a plane back to England.
Even the weather conspired to make things unpleasant. The earlier sunny heat had given way to oppressive humidity, which the car’s air-conditioning was struggling to cope with. Glowering banks of cloud still pressed down with the threat of more rain to come.
He studied Allie’s sullen profile and debated whether to point out again that they’d only be here for a year. Long enough for him to help his father get back on his feet. Long enough to seem like a lifetime in a child’s eyes. Times like this he longed for Sue-Ellen’s wise counsel. But his wife, Allie’s mother, had been buried two years ago. So loving, so giving. And too damned young to die.
‘That person on the bike’s waving at you, Dad. Who is it?’
He looked in the direction of Allie’s pointing finger.
‘I don’t know.’
The pillion passenger began pulling at the rider’s shoulder until the person must have retaliated with an admonition to keep still. Catching Allie’s eye, Luke smiled. ‘Kind of hard to tell with that helmet on, isn’t it?’
His daughter shrugged, letting him know a moment of shared humour couldn’t woo her.
The lights changed and the bike pulled away sedately enough to merge into his lane ahead. Following slowly, he allowed the distance to stretch because of the wet road. The pillion passenger turned to check behind. Luke shook his head in irritation. The action would shift the weight, unbalance the bike. He felt a twinge of sympathy for the poor rider.
Movement from a side road caught his peripheral vision. A car fishtailed into the intersection.
Had the motorcyclist seen it?
Heart pounding, hands clenched on the steering-wheel, he waited for the inevitable disaster. Suddenly the rider reacted, the brake light flicked on.
‘Too late,’ Luke muttered. ‘Counter-steer.’
A split second later, the rider obeyed his command. Relief quickly swooped into despair as the wheels skidded precariously on the slick surface.
In the time it took for rider to control the bike, graphic memories of another, less fortunate motorcycle leapt out of the past to assault him. A battered racer, twisted metal. The smell of hot tar and spilled petrol.
The smell of blood.
His cousin’s moans of pain.
A line of sweat chilled Luke’s upper lip as he remembered the helplessness. The hopelessness when he’d realised the extent of Kevin’s injuries. Nausea rolled through his stomach.
Super-sensitised now to the progress of the bike and the actions of the cars around it, Luke could feel irrational, burning anger growing. He’d successfully suppressed the anguish for the thirteen years since the accident. Now in the blink of an instant it was all there, raw and powerful.
He wished the rider would turn off so he could stop worrying about them but they were travelling inexorably in the same direction. Slowing more, he let the distance widen, until several other cars filled the gap.
By the time he got to his turn-off, they’d disappeared.
Relief was short-lived. He turned into his parents’ driveway to see the bike parked on the gravel.
Still helmeted and astride the machine, the rider seemed to be delivering a well-deserved lecture to the dismounted pillion passenger.
‘That’s Aunty Megan,’ said Allie.
Hell! Luke clenched his jaw as a cold chill swept his body. What was his baby sister doing hooning around Port Cavill on the back of a bloody motorcycle?
‘Stay here,’ he ordered his daughter as he flicked his seat-belt catch off.
He stalked towards the pair at the bike, relishing the thought of tearing strips off them after the fright they’d given him.
‘Luke!’ Megan launched herself at him, enveloping him in an enthusiastic hug. He clamped her close, intensely thankful for her vitality and safety. Determined to make sure she stayed that way. ‘We weren’t expecting you until tomorrow.’
‘We came straight through from the airport,’ he said after a moment. Holding her away from him, he frowned. ‘Your bad luck I was here to see that stunt you and your friend here pulled back in town. You think I want to spend my first day home scraping you two off the road?’
‘Oh, don’t you start, too.’ Megan threw her hands up. ‘Terri was just going off at me about it.’
‘Yeah?’ Luke aimed a black look at the rider. ‘Maybe he’ll think twice before he takes you on the bike again.’
‘But Terri’s-’
‘In fact, let’s make that official.’ God, he’d been back in town for less than half an hour and he was already standing toe to toe with his sister. Part of his anger was tiredness. But most of it was fear. If he had the power to prevent it, he wasn’t going to lose another member of his family.
And this was definitely within his power. ‘You’re grounded.’
‘Honestly, Luke!’ Megan planted her hands on her hips.
‘Does Mum know what you’re up to?’
‘I’m nearly eighteen.’ Her chin jutted defiance as she glared at him.
‘Is that a no?’
‘No, it’s not a no. She doesn’t mind if I’m with Terri.’
‘She will after I’ve spoken to her,’ he said grimly.
‘But Terri’s a really careful rider.’
‘Too bad. I don’t want to see you on the back of this bike, any bike, again.’ He directed a narrow-eyed look at the rider.
Brown eyes, so dark they were nearly black, watched him. The hint of wry amusement in them had him clenching his jaw against a scathing comment.
The motorcyclist took off the padded gloves and began fiddling with the helmet strap.
Luke was reluctantly impressed that the boy was prepared to stay in the face of the conflict. ‘Look, Terry, this is a family argument. You don’t want to get involved, mate. All you need to know is Megan’s off the social circuit until further notice. There’s no point hanging around.’
‘Gee. That’s going to be kind of tough, Luke,’ said Megan smugly. ‘Since you guys are going to be working together.’
‘What?’ He turned on hi
s sister. ‘You mean Mum’s letting you go out with one of the hospital staff?’
‘One of the doctors.’ The sly look she slanted him should have been a warning. ‘Terri’s taught me heaps.’
Luke felt his anger crank up several notches.
‘That’s a recommendation I can do without,’ said a husky feminine voice beside him.
The tirade he’d been about to unleash faltered on his tongue.
The rider slipped off the helmet and balanced it on the handlebars. Long black hair slithered over the protective leather jacket as the woman dismounted and turned to face him.
‘Hello, Luke. Long time, no see.’
‘Terri?’ He gaped, his stunned brain struggling to put the name together with the evidence before his eyes. ‘Theresa O’Connor.’
‘Close enough. How are you?’ She held out a hand and he stared at it stupidly for a long moment.
‘Bloody hell. Theresa O’Connor.’ He used her hand to tug her into a hug. It was quick, lasting only a second. Meant to be social, asexual. Nothing to precipitate the volcanic heat that swept through him.
He swallowed and set her away at arm’s length.
Her continued stillness, her composure, unsettled him out of all proportion. Especially the small smile curving her lips.
Suddenly, Luke remembered the last time he’d seen her. On the moonlit beach at the bottom of the hospital grounds. Could it really have been twelve years ago? The memory felt too intense. She hadn’t been so calm then. Though neither had he. He’d just kissed her.
He focussed on her mouth. Those lovely full lips had been soft and hesitant then eager, even demanding, beneath his.
Until he’d pushed her away.
He blinked and dragged his gaze back to hers. She stepped away, unruffled by their contact except for a tell-tale wariness in her eyes. ‘It’s Terri Mitchell these days.’
‘Yes, of course.’ He had so many questions but he felt oddly tongue-tied. His body’s unexpected response to her, that hot fizz of recognition, left him unbalanced.
His memory tripped in with details supplied over the years by his mother and Theresa’s brother, Ryan. Theresa was widowed, her husband killed when they’d been working with an aid organisation in Africa. An explosion. She’d been injured, too.
City Surgeon, Small Town Miracle Page 17