The Surgeon's Engagement Wish

by Alison Roberts

  ‘That looks deep enough. Let’s try getting him upright. Dad?’ Luke’s father was talking to a man as he shone a torch on one of the larger whales. ‘Could you give us a hand?’

  Don was also satisfied with the trench digging. ‘Make sure you keep his flippers flat against the body when we roll him,’ he advised. ‘They’re easy to injure.’

  The four of them managed to roll the baby whale from its side quite easily, and the trench looked as though it would keep him upright securely.

  ‘Do you know about making a moat around the flippers and tail?’ Don asked Beth.

  She nodded. ‘And Jack said we can’t make it too deep because that might make it difficult to shift him later.’

  ‘Sorry, Dad.’ Luke was draping a folded sheet over the whale’s body behind the blowhole. ‘You know Jack, don’t you? This is Beth Dawson.’

  ‘Hello, there.’ Don Savage had a smile identical to his son’s, and Beth found herself smiling back just as enthusiastically at the wiry man who looked to be in his seventies. ‘That name sounds familiar.’ He peered at her more closely. ‘You’re not the Beth, by any chance, are you?’

  ‘Um…’ Beth had no idea what she could say to that. What did he mean? Had Luke been bitter enough to describe her in lurid detail to his parents perhaps?

  ‘Your mate, Pete, is just over here.’ Luke took his father’s elbow and steered him away without acknowledging the interchange. ‘He and Doris are looking after number fifteen. You might like to come and check out their moats.’

  Doris was the woman from the dairy and Beth had been astonished at how good it was to see a familiar face amongst the volunteers. A not-so-pleasant surprise came when she saw the arrival of the pretty blonde woman she had seen Luke talking to that day. At least she was directed well away from Beth’s position to join the group caring for the large bull whale who was assumed to be the pod leader.

  Jack, Beth’s only partner in caring for the baby whale, was a man in his fifties and he was rapidly becoming a friend.

  ‘You’re going to be OK, Willy,’ he told their whale.

  Beth grinned. ‘Willy? As in Free Willy?’

  ‘Yup. It’s the only whale name I know. Unless you can think up a better one?’

  ‘Willy’s fine by me.’

  Naming the baby made it all seem even more personal. Beth joined people queuing to share buckets and make trips into the surf and back, carrying water to fill the moats and tip carefully over the whales’ backs. Beth knew without being told not to tip water into Willy’s blowhole but she hadn’t known it still needed to stay moist. Using a corner of the wet sheet to dampen the skin on the whale’s head, Beth leapt back and nearly fell over when it released a breath with a noise like the vent being opened on a pressure cooker.

  She laughed, but the spray was cold. Her legs were now soaked from the knees down from filling the bucket in the surf, and it all got colder over the next hour or two. The first of a supply of hot drinks was provided at the same time as the generators were set up to flood the area with artificial light, and the atmosphere changed as the rescue operation went into another gear under the expert supervision of Department of Conservation experts.

  No one was more determined or focussed than Beth, however.

  ‘I think number fifteen must be Willy’s mother,’ she told Jack excitedly. ‘Have you noticed how she answers every time he makes a sound?’

  Number fifteen didn’t just respond vocally to the baby. It had a tendency to thrash its tail, which had Doris and Pete scrambling out of the way at regular intervals. The operations manager became concerned.

  ‘We might have to try moving the baby. You’re kind of hemmed in here and it could be dangerous if this one gets any more distressed.’

  ‘But we think that’s Willy’s mother,’ Beth exclaimed. ‘If we separate them, she’ll only get more upset, won’t she?’

  ‘Willy?’ The Department of Conservation official shook his head, clearly unimpressed with Beth’s bond with the baby whale. ‘We’ll see how it goes,’ he said noncommittally. ‘I’ll be back.’

  Jack took a turn hauling buckets of water just after 1 a.m. ‘The tide’s turned,’ he told Beth. ‘It’s on its way back in.’

  ‘How deep does it need to get before we start refloating the whales?’

  ‘We’ll be about knee deep by the time the adults can be shifted. We’ll have to hang onto this little chap for a while, though, or even shift him further up the beach. Once we get them all back into the water we have to keep them together in a group for an least an hour to try and reorientate them.’

  ‘Is that so they won’t just beach themselves again?’

  ‘That’s right. And after we’ve let them go, we’ll all have to stand in a line in the waves and bang metal things together to try and persuade them to head out to sea. We’re in for the long haul, I’m afraid. You’re not too tired or cold yet, are you?’

  ‘No.’ Beth’s tone was valiant but she was tired. And very cold. And her stomach was hurting. When the next cup of soup came her way she found she couldn’t swallow more than half of it. The warmth was welcome but it made her feel sick.

  Cramp, she decided, from crouching over Willy too long without stretching her muscles.

  ‘I’ll get some more water,’ she told Jack. ‘Be back in a minute.’

  Luke saw Beth struggling to carry a full bucket of sea water.

  She looked exhausted. And very pale. Luke couldn’t suppress the memory of how much he’d always loved the smooth, milky quality of Beth’s skin, but seeing her right now did not make him want her the way it had in the swimming pool the other day.

  What it did make him want to do was to take her in his arms and hold her until she warmed up. Until the lines of strain on her face eased. He wanted to tell her what a great job she was doing and how impressed he was at the way she threw herself so wholeheartedly into helping others—people or animals. He wanted to tell her that everything was going to be all right. She didn’t have to be so worried.

  The only comfort he could offer, however, was a smile and an outstretched hand to relieve her of the burden of the heavy bucket.

  ‘Here, let me help you with that. You look done in.’

  Beth hesitated, as though she was about to refuse his assistance. She gave in and let him take the bucket but she didn’t return his smile. She grimaced, in fact, and dug the fingers of her right hand into her abdomen just beside her hip.

  ‘I’m OK,’ she said. ‘I’ve just got a stitch from carrying that bucket.’

  ‘Have a rest for a minute.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Beth looked away abruptly. Had she read a level of concern she didn’t appreciate? Luke carefully made his expression and tone as neutral as possible.

  ‘I’ll bet you’re wishing you hadn’t come to live in Hereford after all.’

  A startled glance let him know he’d said the wrong thing…again.

  ‘I meant this,’ he added quickly. ‘There’s not many places you could go to and end up having to knock yourself out saving whales.’

  ‘No.’ Beth sounded incredibly weary. Was she thinking of other reasons why she might wish she hadn’t come to live in Hereford? Like seeing him again?

  The mournful cry of a nearby whale seemed to echo Luke’s melancholy thought. He stared at the back of Beth’s head for a second as she started walking slowly back towards her own whale. Then he followed.

  ‘Why did you come here, Beth?’

  ‘I told you. I wanted a new start.’

  ‘But why here? In Hereford.’

  Beth shrugged. ‘The job just happened to be in the nursing gazette. I’d been out to the airport to say goodbye to a friend and I guess the time was right to make a decision. I didn’t want to do anything as drastic as Neroli had done, though, like leaving nursing. Or New Zealand.’

  ‘Neroli? Your friend with the red hair and freckles? The one that always laughed a lot?’

  ‘That’s her.’ Beth turned and smiled, as though
pleased that Luke had remembered so clearly. ‘She hadn’t been laughing much in the last few months she was here, though.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘She got held at knife point in ED by a gang member who was as high as a kite on drugs. It was terrifying enough to make her throw in the towel and give up nursing. I can’t say I blame her either. It was pretty scary.’

  Luke caught his breath. ‘Were you there when it happened?’

  ‘Yes.’

  And she’d been caught in the middle of a gang war on her first night at Ocean View. She must have been as terrified as Neroli had been and yet she’d defended herself without hesitation. More than that—she’d set the tone for the whole department to cope with a nasty few hours.

  A peculiar sensation sneaked up on Luke. It wasn’t that Beth had changed into some stroppy individual who went around sorting out anybody who displeased her. She had always been amazing. Brave and clever. She wouldn’t attack anyone without justification.

  He’d never understood why she’d wanted so little to do with her family until her bitter remarks in the car park that morning.

  He’d never understood quite why she’d dumped him either, but the thought that she might have been justified was not one he wanted to explore. He’d been put down enough by Beth, and this wasn’t the time to go looking for any more emotional injuries. Besides, she’d made it quite clear that she didn’t want to start raking up the past.

  ‘What?’ Beth had turned again and was looking at him oddly.

  Luke blinked. ‘What?’ he echoed.

  ‘You just muttered something about raking up the past.’

  ‘Did I?’ Luke tried to dismiss the embarrassment of having spoken that last thought aloud. ‘Maybe that’s what I was doing when I came back here.’

  Beth gave him a sharp look. ‘I had no idea you were living here.’

  Her tone implied that it was the last place she would have come if she had known. Luke gritted his teeth. And he’d been trying to avoid a put-down, too.

  ‘This is the last place I would have expected you to be,’ Beth continued. ‘You told me you grew up in Nelson.’

  ‘I went to school in Nelson,’ Luke corrected.

  ‘And you called that Hicksville. I seem to remember you saying you wouldn’t be caught dead, trying to practise any kind of medicine in some provincial backwater.’

  Luke’s shrug dismissed the comment as irrelevant now. ‘Things change. People change.’

  Not that much they didn’t. Beth took the last few steps towards Willy in silence.

  Things didn’t change to that kind of degree unless something absolutely catastrophic happened. The new chill that suddenly ran through Beth was enough to make her shudder.

  Was Luke sick? Had all the stress of his ambition and workload and then his sister dying given him a heart attack at an early age, maybe, and forced him to slow down?

  The fear the thought provoked was powerful enough to make Beth realise just how much she had been kidding herself.

  She had never stopped loving Luke Savage.

  She never would.

  Turning back, Beth searched his face but she could find no answers.

  ‘What changed, Luke?’ she asked quietly. ‘Why are you living here?’

  ‘It’s home.’

  The simple words explained nothing and yet they explained it all.

  It was precisely what Beth was searching for, wasn’t it? But home could be a person as much as a place. And the home that Beth’s soul craved had nothing to do with any real estate or stupid casserole dishes.

  Her home could only be with the man she loved.

  A man who no longer loved her.

  She was still staring at Luke when she heard someone call his name with some urgency from near the car park.

  And Luke, with a smile that seemed almost apologetic, handed the bucket back to Beth.

  Then he turned and walked away.

  CHAPTER SIX

  WHY had he been embarrassed to admit that Hereford was home?

  The only place Luke wanted to be. Would Beth see him as a failure, having traded his dreams of fame and fortune to be a simple country doctor? Living in a place small enough to ensure he was recognised wherever he went? Being on call every second night and quite likely to have some member of the community stop him in the supermarket to ask advice about some minor ailment?

  And did it really matter what Beth thought of him?

  Yes and no.

  Luke smiled at the man waiting beside his Jeep, whose injury someone had alerted him to.

  ‘What’s happened, mate?’

  ‘I fell over my bloody shovel,’ the man growled.

  ‘Let’s have a look.’ Luke shone his torch onto the man’s shin. ‘You’re going to need a couple of stitches in that, I’m afraid,’ he said seconds later. ‘You might need a tetanus booster as well if that shovel was rusty. I’ll put a dressing on it and someone will be able to run you down to the hospital.’

  ‘Can it wait? The tide’s turning. I wouldn’t want to miss refloating these guys. Not when we’ve worked this hard already.’

  Yeah. Some things were worth putting up with a bit of discomfort for, weren’t they? Luke did his best to make sure the owner of the leg wound wouldn’t suffer from waiting for a while. He cleaned the wound and covered it with a sterile dressing and then bandaged it carefully. He even scored a plastic bag from the team manning the barbecues and taped it securely over the bandage to keep it dry.

  ‘Make sure you get into the emergency department as soon as you can,’ he warned. ‘This isn’t going to hold it together for that long and I’d hate you to end up with an infection.’

  He watched the determination with which his patient headed back towards the whales. They were reaching the low point of this rescue operation. It was an ordeal to hang in there and keep going. Some people had given in and gone home for a rest.

  Beth wasn’t one of them. Luke found his gaze wandering as he searched for the small shape of the baby whale and its carers.

  Of course it mattered what Beth thought of him. He’d lost so much in his life already. He was about to lose even more, with his best mate only having such a short time left. The sadness that clouded Luke’s life could easily shift to encompass what he’d lost with Beth and override any lasting bitterness.

  The bitterness had only lasted this long because he’d never understood quite why it had gone so wrong. Sure, they’d started having arguments. Silly arguments over things like which restaurant he’d chosen to take Beth out to or the wine he’d chosen to accompany the dinner.

  Nothing he’d done had seemed to be right and, yes, it had got his back up. When the disagreements had started on important things like his friends and his career, of course he’d had to take a stand. And, of course, he had started spending longer and longer hours at work. Why go home when time with your partner made you feel you just weren’t good enough?

  It hadn’t been anything like that to start with, though, had it? Time together had been so precious. He had loved everything about Beth. Just being with her. Talking to her. Listening to her. Touching her.

  Oh…God!

  Luke shoved the last of his supplies back into his first-aid kit and zipped the pack shut.

  Why had it gone so terribly wrong?

  He hadn’t deserved to be dumped but sadness still outweighed anger. Maybe if he could understand what had happened he might be able to move on and be confident that he didn’t make the same mistakes in a future relationship.

  What if Beth decided to stay in Hereford and they spent years avoiding really talking to each other because he was too proud to ask what he’d done that had been so wrong?

  If they spent years missing out on a potential friendship because of his pride?

  Luke was all too aware of just how precious friends were.

  He pushed the first-aid kit into the back of the Jeep. The next opportunity he got, he was going to talk to Beth, dammit.

 
; Really talk.

  It was all becoming an ordeal.

  A second adult whale died and a whisper of gloom spread along Boulder Bay beach. The waves crept a little further up the sand each time they rolled in and as they got closer, the chill increased. Jack seemed as miserable as Beth was now feeling and for some time now he had said almost nothing. They crouched on either side of the baby whale, scooping water from the moats around his flippers and tail to splash over the sodden sheet covering his back.

  Beth was on autopilot, trying to ignore her wet jeans, the cold gritty sand in her shoes and the irritating pain in her side that wouldn’t go away. She just needed to distract herself enough to hang on and see this through. Another half-hour or so and the waves would be covering her feet, and by then they should have started to refloat the first of the mammals.

  The best method to distract herself was to watch what was happening in the circles of light away from her own, but the way her gaze invariably found Luke in the crowd of people only added to her despondency.

  He was moving between the groups. Administering first aid when needed, but more often he was just talking to people. Encouraging them. Helping. Beth saw him touch someone’s arm, pat someone else on the back and once he was enfolded in an enthusiastic hug from a very large and very short woman.

  What became even more noticeable than the physical connection he constantly made with these people was the effect his presence clearly had. Women and men smiled when they saw him approaching and the only laughter to be heard on the beach now was always close to where Luke was.

  This was his home, wasn’t it? These were his people. Beth wanted to be a part of the community that Luke cared about so much.

  No. If she was honest, she wanted to be singled out as special. She wanted to be the one person Luke cared for more than anyone else.

  The way she cared about him.

  And it could never happen. Beth had made sure of that, hadn’t she, by ending their relationship in the first place? At the time it had seemed like she’d had absolutely no choice. But now, with the changes she saw in Luke—even if she didn’t understand how they had happened—it felt like she had made a huge mistake.