The best way to be convincing was to be honest, wasn’t it?
‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly. ‘But it’s who I am now. I can’t get attached. To places. Or people.’
‘You can’t just walk away from your responsibilities here.’ Her voice was tight. ‘You’d leave Cutler’s Creek without a doctor. The hospital will get closed down.’
‘I’ll advertise for a locum, unless you want to change your mind about staying?’
She avoided his glance. ‘And you’ll stay until you find one?’
‘If I can. Your dad managed pretty well by himself for a long time before I came here. It takes a special kind of person to want to live in a place like this, I guess. Maybe this time we can try and find a couple of married doctors who like the idea of running their own hospital and bringing their kids up in a pretty magical part of the world. That way, Don could retire any time he wants to.’
‘You can’t do that. He might think that he’s not wanted any more. This is his hospital.’
Zac almost smiled. ‘You sound like you care,’ he said quietly. He was reminded again for a moment about the assumptions he’d made about Olivia when he’d left that voicemail—that she was someone who could simply walk away from someone that loved her. That she had no compassion for others.
How wrong had he been? She’d been in there, boots and all, to help save that pilot’s life. She’d helped deliver Chloe’s foal and had missed her chance to get away from Cutler’s Creek because she’d taken the time to retrace her steps to tell him about the birth so he could make sure the foal was kept safe. And she’d been so afraid that she might lose her father today. How ironic was that when the only reason she’d come here in the first place had been because she had believed he was about to die and wanted to tell him how little she thought of him? From the atmosphere he’d felt in the room between father and daughter when he’d gone in to find Olivia, something huge had changed for the better.
Life could change in an instant, couldn’t it?
Things you had come to believe were absolute truths could be thrown into doubt. Like being able to fall in love again? It was confusing. Alarming.
Olivia was staring at him. ‘Why wouldn’t I care? My grandfather worked here. I expect my father will work here again as soon as he’s back on his feet because I don’t think he’s anywhere near ready to retire. His mother’s about to have a significant birthday and knowing that the hospital might be closed would not be a great way to celebrate that occasion, would it?’
‘And you think that’s my responsibility? It’s your family, Olivia.’
‘You can’t tell me you don’t care. Well, you can and you did and maybe you even believe it yourself but I saw how hard it was for you to operate on someone you care about but you did it, Zac. You saved my dad’s life. And I don’t believe that you’re going to let him lose what matters most to him.’
Oh, God...she’d seen that momentary hesitation in Theatre. Of course she had. She’d seen the flashback he’d had when that plane had exploded and she’d known exactly how significant that had been. Had she also known why that tiny wobble had happened? That it hadn’t just been the respect he had for her father that had made it matter so much but how he was feeling about Olivia herself? He couldn’t say anything. Because...
Because he didn’t dare admit—to himself, let alone someone else—that he cared that much.
Because caring that much was something he simply couldn’t allow himself to do again. He knew where that led to. That dark space. Where it was too real and too raw to pretend it was any kind of a movie. He’d learned how to control his mind. And his heart—in the same way he’d finally gained control of those flashbacks after Mia had died. Sure, he’d come here to try and balance that control because not feeling anything was just as bad as feeling too much, but the seesaw was teetering too much right now. The holes in that protective wall were getting too big. If he didn’t take control he might lose himself and that couldn’t be allowed to happen. It was very obvious what the first step in taking that control back needed to be. To get far enough away from this woman who was messing with his head. And his life.
‘I already told you what matters most to your dad,’ he said as he stepped past Olivia to get to the door. ‘But that wasn’t enough to make you want to stay, was it?’
* * *
Nothing could have made Olivia stay a minute longer than she absolutely had to so she was in that rental car heading back to the airport in Dunedin almost as soon as the helicopter evacuating her father had disappeared in the same direction.
She’d said goodbye. She’d told her father and grandmother that she would be calling the hospital regularly to get updated on his progress and that she would be in touch as soon as she’d had time to get her head around everything.
She was still wearing hospital scrubs under her coat because that had been preferable to putting Zac’s borrowed clothes back on. If she didn’t find something new at the airport, she’d just fly back to Auckland like this because she was that desperate to try and find the solid foundations of the life she had chosen for herself again. She’d told Zac that she’d post the scrubs back as soon as she’d had them laundered.
‘Don’t bother,’ he’d said. ‘They’re no great loss.’
He wasn’t bothered that she was leaving, either. He’d just told her to drive carefully and then raised a hand in farewell as he’d walked back inside the hospital without a backward glance.
It was still raining but the damaging winds had lessened and she’d been assured that the road was passable as long as she took enough care.
‘Not that we’re chasing you out of town or anything,’ Bruce said after updating her on road conditions in the gorge. ‘And we’re all hoping you’ll be back real soon now that you and your dad have reconnected. When the doc gets out of hospital, maybe?’
‘Yes, of course. But I’m not sure how soon that will be.’
All she wanted was to get going and put as many miles as possible between herself and Cutler’s Creek.
Between herself and Isaac Cameron.
There was no pause to swipe away tears near the rugby field this time. It was tempting for a moment to stop at Zac’s house and go and have a peep at Chloe and her foal but Olivia knew she couldn’t afford the time and it would only make it more difficult to settle the confused emotions that kept ambushing her. At least there was no chance of a plane crashing to bring her journey to an unexpected halt this time and no irresistibly attractive doctor with an Irish accent to ply her with wine and make her break so many of her own rules.
Well, she’d learned her lesson, that was for sure.
Olivia might not have been crying as she drove away from both old and new memories but she’d never felt so...hollow.
Empty.
Crushed, even.
And how stupid was that? She barely knew Zac. It shouldn’t matter that he had so little interest in her that he couldn’t wait to get out of the country and head back into some war zone. It really, really shouldn’t make her feel like she’d been dumped, let alone that she’d been abandoned. That she had been prepared to take the risk to trust someone and that trust had been broken—again. It was casting a shadow on the hope that she and her father could rebuild their relationship. Feeding into a fear that Olivia had always had—that, deep down, maybe there was something wrong with her that made men not want to stay around...
Oh, let it go, Olivia told herself sternly. You knew all along that over-the-top emotional reactions can never be trusted. That disappointment was the best outcome you could hope for and that devastation was the real risk. Her mother had taught her, by example, that staying in control and true to your ambitions was the key to success in life and you could only stay in control if you didn’t give in to emotions that probably wouldn’t last very long anyway.
Was that why she’d been sent to boar
ding school at such a young age?
Why her mother might have felt quite justified in changing her mind about going to work in a country hospital with the man she must have loved enough to marry?
Why she might have tried to teach her daughter that a career was more important than relationships with people?
Was Olivia like her mother because she had inherited her personality traits or was it due to the way she’d been brought up? No. She wasn’t like her mother. Not at all. If she ever had a child, she’d make sure it knew it was loved. She wouldn’t send it away to boarding schools and she would call it “darling” at every possible opportunity. She knew that from now on her father was going to be a part of her life—she just didn’t know how big a part that would be.
That small box of letters and parcels was on the back seat of this car. But there were still echoes of her mother’s voice there, too. Warning her not to throw away the belief that her career was the most important thing in her life. It was too hard to keep a coherent thread of thought going so Olivia knew she had to give up and just let things settle in her head.
She wasn’t going to think about it any more right now. She could see the flashing lights ahead that were a warning of the road crew that were clearing the slide of mud and rocks on the narrow gorge road. She needed to focus completely on her driving from now on and make sure she reached the airport safely.
Hopefully, there would be a late plane she could take to Auckland. A shop that was open for some form of clothing. And a phone charger. She needed to ring the hospital and find out how her father was doing because, once she knew that he was going to be fine, she could draw a line under this extraordinary couple of days and normal life could resume.
* * *
Nothing felt normal.
When the rain had stopped a few hours after Don had been evacuated Zac had made a late round to check on the few inpatients at Cutler’s Creek Community Hospital. He had phoned Shayna’s mother to remind her that extra pillows were needed for tonight to help any facial swelling to go down and he’d spoken to Faye Morris to check that all was well now that she was at home, coping with her toddler as well as her newborn baby.
Now he was at home, too, and there was a newborn baby in the barn. The foal had astonishingly long, gangly legs that were already fluffy, and Chloe rubbed her head up and down Zac’s arm as if nodding in response to being told how clever she was to produce such a beautiful baby. It was warm and cosy in the barn and there was a lovely smell that was a mixture of sweet straw and hay and horse but eventually Zac had to go inside the house and he knew the minute he walked in that he’d had good reason to be dreading this moment.
There were dishes piled up in the sink. There was the frying pan he’d used to cook the eggs in the middle of last night and plates that were still smeared with the onion jam they’d put into those sandwiches. The room felt so empty that Zac had the weird impression that he was catching a glimpse of Olivia from the corner of his eye. A ghostlike image that was felt rather than seen and it made his skin prickle. It was going to be worse in the bedroom. Even if those rumpled sheets didn’t still hold an echo of her scent, he wouldn’t be able to lie there without reliving every single moment of the most astonishing night of his life.
Well...he could fix that. He just needed something else to think about, didn’t he? Dealing with the dishes in the sink was a good start. He’d change the sheets on his bed as well, but not just yet. Taking his laptop from his bag, Zac sat down and logged onto a website he had used many times before.
There would be more than one place in the world where Doctors without Borders would be currently more than welcome. Like Afghanistan and Yemen. Bangladesh, Bolivia and Myanmar. Sadly, there were more than seventy countries in the world that were in need of the humanitarian assistance Zac was more than qualified to provide.
He just needed to decide where in the world he wanted to go next.
CHAPTER NINE
THE OVAL WINDOW of the plane framed a very familiar cityscape with the needle point of the Sky Tower amongst high-rise buildings and the gorgeous backdrop of the rising sun on a sparkling blue sea and scattered islands. Olivia let out her breath in a heartfelt sigh as the plane banked to head away from the central city towards the airport.
‘Gorgeous, isn’t it?’ The man in the seat next to her was leaning to see out of the window, as well. ‘It’s no wonder that Auckland gets rated every year as one of the top cities in the world for quality of life. I certainly wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.’
‘Me neither,’ Olivia murmured, stamping on any tiny voice in the back of her head that might try arguing with that.
‘Been away on holiday?’
‘Not exactly.’ She offered a wry smile to her fellow passenger on this red-eye flight from Dunedin. ‘It was supposed to be a day trip but I got caught out by a storm in Central Otago.’
‘Oh... I think I saw something about that on TV. Or was it a plane crash or something?’
Olivia made a noncommittal sound and was grateful for the announcement about putting away tray tables and making sure her seat was in the upright position for landing. She wasn’t about to start telling a stranger about her unexpected adventures. She could feel her lips curling into another almost-smile as she imagined the questions that would have come her way if she had still been wearing the scrubs she had borrowed from Cutler’s Creek Hospital.
It had been a blessing in disguise that there’d been no late-evening flights from Dunedin last night. The five-star hotel she had chosen had not only offered a luxurious room and range of beauty products but there was also a boutique clothing shop that they were only too happy to open for her to choose a new outfit—the kind of skirt and jacket that was entirely appropriate for her position as a private surgeon.
The two-hour direct flight had left Dunedin before dawn and she was going straight to the Plastic Surgery Institute. She would hopefully be able to step seamlessly back into her work and her real life would fold itself around her. Surely she only needed to be back where she belonged to know that everything was going to be okay? She agreed wholeheartedly with her neighbour’s sentiments about this city and she could feel her spirits lifting noticeably as the plane’s wheels bumped onto the tarmac. She wouldn’t want to live anywhere else in the world. This was where she had been born. This was home.
More than an hour later, Olivia was still in the back of a taxi, caught up in a traffic jam on Auckland’s motorway system because there had been an accident somewhere miles ahead of her. Sitting there in four lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic was bad enough but then it started to rain. Watching the drops splatter onto the windows and then trickle down the glass made it impossible not to get dragged back into memories from the last couple of days.
Like the splatter of rain on a tin roof that had made being in Isaac Cameron’s bed even more cosy.
Feeling the rain on her skin as she’d carried that huge foal into the barn.
And...oh... Zac’s touch on her skin...
The ringtone of her phone was a jerk back to reality and Olivia snatched it from her bag. Part of her brain was still letting go of what had just been on her mind with such startling clarity, however, so she actually thought it might be Zac calling her and her heart rate accelerated as she looked at the screen, expecting the call to be from an unknown number. It wasn’t. It was her boss.
‘Simon... I’m so sorry. I thought I’d be at the Institute a lot sooner than this.’ Would Simon notice that her tone was artificially bright? ‘That bad weather seems to have followed me up the country and I’m stuck on the motorway now.’
‘Not to worry. Your first appointment’s not till eleven. I’m sure you’ll get here by then.’
‘I certainly hope so. I can’t believe how bad this traffic is.’ Olivia looked out of the window as she spoke. How different was this from driving on a country road with a backdrop of a moun
tain range? The closest thing she’d seen to a traffic jam around Cutler’s Creek had been that mob of sheep that had escaped when they had been rescuing the pilot of that small plane.
‘The downside of living in the biggest city of a small country.’ Simon didn’t sound upset that she was late yet again. ‘Let’s catch up tomorrow. I’m tied up with an out-of-town consultation for the rest of today. I can’t say much yet but you’ll hear all about it soon.’ Simon was sounding very pleased. ‘It’s celebrity stuff. International... Could be the start of something big. New Zealand is the perfect place to come and hide away from the media if you want to get some work done and then recuperate in privacy.’
She should be interested, Olivia thought. As excited as Simon even, but she wasn’t. ‘Are you near your computer?’ she asked. ‘Could you tell me if my eleven o’clock is a new patient or someone I know?’
She needed to get her head into the right space to be ready for what the rest of this day was going to bring because Olivia had the horrible feeling that it was not going to be as easy as she’d hoped. On a par with actually getting into work, judging by how slowly this taxi was inching forward in the traffic jam.
‘Someone you know,’ Simon said a moment later. She could hear the smile in his voice. ‘Someone we all know rather well. How ’bout that? Peggy Eglington has asked for you specifically.’
Peggy was famous for her charity work in Auckland. She was also famous for the amount of plastic surgery she’d had over the years. Had it only been a few days ago that Olivia had reminded herself that she needed to do some more research into body dysmorphic disorder? Peggy was a prime example of the condition. She was probably due to have more filler injected into any tiny lines she was noticing. Or that she had a new bump on her nose and she couldn’t believe that she had only just spotted it.
Melting the Trauma Doc's Heart Page 12