The Doctor's Longed-For Family

by Joanna Neil

  ‘You must have had a hectic couple of days, trying to pull everything in. I’m not surprised you didn’t manage to call me with any news.’

  His mouth straightened. ‘I tried, but I couldn’t get a signal, and then my battery died on me, and in the end I thought I would be back with you soon enough anyway. I would have liked to say hello to Jacob and Sarah, but I knew that they would be all right, and that you would take good care of them.’

  She absorbed that, but didn’t comment. At least he had tried, even if it hadn’t been her he had wanted to speak to. She countered her disappointment about that by telling herself that it was only natural that he would be concerned about his niece and nephew.

  He was heading towards the ambulance bay as they spoke, getting ready to receive his incoming patient, and Abby needed to go and find the next patient on her list.

  Helen caught up with them as they were about to go their separate ways. ‘I made the appointment for you, Abby,’ she said. ‘It’s for lunchtime today. You hadn’t made any plans for then, had you?’

  ‘Um…I thought…’

  Helen shook her head. ‘“Um” is not the right answer. One o’clock. I’ll go with you to offer moral support.’

  Abby winced. ‘There’s no need for you to do that.’

  Helen wasn’t having any of it. ‘It’s already a done deal. I’ll come and find you.’

  Matt gave Abby a concerned glance. ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Nothing’s wrong.’ Except that her world seemed to have been turned upside down of late. She hadn’t been able to understand why it mattered so much to her that Matt might have made the effort to talk to her while he’d been away, but it had dawned on her just now with aching certainty.

  She had fallen in love with him. Over these last few weeks she had gone full circle in her feelings towards him, and all she wanted now was for him to return her love.

  It wasn’t going to happen, though, was it? He was self-sufficient, a man who was in control of himself at all times, and he simply didn’t need her the way she needed him.

  She would have done better to keep her heart intact and do away with any emotional entanglements. They only led to pain and heartache.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘WOULD you give me a hand here, Sam?’ Abby asked, putting her head around the treatment-room door and calling out to him as he was passing by. ‘I need you to set up an intravenous line while I finish preparing an infusion.’

  ‘Sure. What are we dealing with?’ He came into the room and looked at the young girl who was lying on the bed. He frowned. She was around eight years old, pale and sweaty, and her blood pressure had dropped to a dangerous level.

  ‘I think it’s an adder bite. The weather’s warming up and the family were out for a walk in the countryside when Angie here felt a nasty sting to her leg.’ Abby showed him the two puncture marks and Sam winced.

  Looking at the girl, he said, ‘How are you feeling, Angie?’

  ‘Awful,’ she mumbled. ‘I feel faint and dizzy, and there are pins and needles in my legs.’

  ‘The faintness is because your blood pressure is so low. I’m going to give you something that will stop all that, and we’ll soon have you on the mend.’ He started to prepare the line, and added, ‘Did you see what it was that bit you?’

  ‘No. I just saw something slither away into the bracken.’

  Abby had finished cleaning the wound and was preparing the antivenin in a saline solution, when Angie said convulsively, ‘I’m going to be sick.’

  Sam reached for a kidney bowl just in time. ‘Phew, that was a close one,’ he said. He glanced across the bed at Abby.

  ‘That’s why I needed a hand,’ she murmured. ‘All the nurses are rushed off their feet, and Helen has gone with a patient up to the children’s ward. As to Matt, he dashed off to take a phone call just before his shift was due to end, and I’m assuming he must have gone home by now.’

  Sam helped Angie to wipe her face and then dispensed with the bowl. ‘Better now?’ he asked, and she nodded. ‘Good. I’ll get you a fresh bowl, just in case.’

  To Abby, he remarked, ‘Helen said she would look in on the four-year-old who fell from a window and fractured his skull. I heard he was getting along all right, but he would be in hospital for a little while longer.’

  ‘That’s right. He seems to be doing well.’

  Sam set up the infusion of colloid, and Abby added the antivenin. ‘We’ll give her this slowly, over the course of an hour so that we can avoid any adverse reactions.’

  Sam nodded. ‘I thought Matt looked a bit grim when he went to take the phone call. It was an international call from Greece, the desk clerk said, so I guess it must be about his sister and her husband. I hope it wasn’t more bad news. Did he say anything to you before he left?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, not a word. I was with a patient and he might have decided not to interrupt.’ It was the best interpretation she could put on it, but it hadn’t really surprised her that he had gone without saying anything. He might be an extrovert in front of the cameras, but he could be remarkably close-mouthed when it came to his private life. He hadn’t even confided in anyone that his sister was missing until she’d been gone for a couple of days.

  Abby grimaced. It hurt that he didn’t feel able to confide in her.

  She was still dwelling on that when her shift finished later that afternoon. A phone call from Greece could potentially be earth-shattering for him, and she so much wanted to share the important things in his life. Would he ever be ready to include her in them?

  Back at the cottage she started on her chores, making sure that everything was neat and tidy, but her heart wasn’t in it. Her home had always been special to her, a small but cherished haven, yet now it seemed desolate without Matt or the children there.

  She started on a baking session, making a batch of fruit tarts, and the aroma of sweet pastry filled the air. It was a comforting kind of smell, and it tweaked her appetite, so that after she had turned her efforts out onto a wire tray she set about preparing a light meal for herself.

  The front doorbell rang as she was tossing a salad. Wiping her hands on a towel, she hurried to answer it, and her face lit up in a smile when she saw who was standing there.

  ‘We brought you some flowers,’ Jacob said, giving her a shy glance from under his lashes and thrusting a posy of carnations and freesias into her hands.

  ‘They’re to say thank you for looking after us,’ Sarah added, giving her a beaming smile.

  Matt stood behind the children, a hand on each one’s shoulder, so that they presented a united group.

  ‘Oh, they’re absolutely lovely. Thank you so much.’ She bent to hug the children and then stood back to let them scamper into the house. She glanced up at Matt. ‘Thank you for that, it was a beautiful thought, but I was glad to be able to help out. I want you to know that I’m here for you any time you need me.’

  His mouth curved. ‘Now, that is a delightful prospect. Could I have it in writing?’

  She grinned at him. ‘That depends. Would I get the same kind of commitment from you?’

  ‘Now, that is something to definitely think about,’ he said.

  They walked into the kitchen where Jacob was eyeing up the food that was laid out on the table. His eyes were wide. ‘You have cake,’ he said, ‘and little fruit pies. I like those. Especially the fruit pies.’ He gave her an appealing look. ‘I haven’t had my tea yet because Uncle Matt said we were coming straight here.’

  Sarah dug him in the ribs. ‘You’re being cheeky,’ she said.

  ‘No, I’m not. I’m just saying I like fruit pies.’

  ‘You are, too.’

  ‘Am not.’ He glowered at his sister.

  ‘I think,’ Abby said, ‘that it would be good if you all had tea with me. I was going to have a cheese salad, but there’s some ham and chicken in the fridge, so we could have that as well, if you like.’

  ‘
Yes, please,’ Jacob said. ‘Were you going to eat all that cake and all those pies yourself?’

  Abby chuckled. ‘No, actually, I couldn’t make up my mind which of them to have.’ She started to lay cutlery out on the table, and Sarah fetched plates from the cupboard and set them out.

  ‘I’ll make a pot of tea, shall I?’ Matt suggested, and she nodded. Suddenly, life was so much brighter now that he was there.

  ‘I’ll sit down at the table and make sure you don’t forget anything,’ Jacob said, and Abby laughed.

  ‘That sounds like a good idea.’ She sent Matt an oblique glance. ‘You look as though you’re in a good mood,’ she murmured. ‘I heard about your phone call this morning. Has Kim managed to come up with some news?’

  ‘Better than that,’ he said. He brought the teapot over to the table and set it down, adding cups and saucers.

  ‘They’ve found my mum and dad,’ Sarah put in quickly, her mouth breaking into an excited smile.

  ‘How could they find them?’ Jacob said, as though his sister didn’t have a clue. ‘They weren’t lost.’ He looked at her as though she was slightly dotty, and Abby guessed that he had no idea at all about what had been going on.

  Sarah gave her brother a quelling look, but by then he was tucking into cheese and coleslaw and he was oblivious to what was going on around him.

  ‘So they’ve been found?’ Abby said, her eyes bright with wonder. She turned to Matt and he nodded.

  ‘They were picked up from a small uninhabited island this morning.’ He sat down and started to help himself to food. ‘Apparently they had managed to get themselves to shore after the boat broke up, but they were exhausted and shocked from the cold of the water. They had to find shelter among the trees, and I suppose that’s why no one was able to find them.’

  ‘Oh, Matt, that’s wonderful news. Have you spoken to them?’

  He nodded. ‘This afternoon. They sound as though they’re well enough, but they were both suffering from exposure and dehydration, so they’ve been taken to a hospital to recover. They’ll probably be staying there for a day or so.’

  ‘How was it that they were found?’

  ‘Tim managed to rig up a flagpole from a tree branch and then he tied his shirt to it in the hope that it would catch the attention of anyone in a passing boat. He wrote SOS in pebbles on the shore. There wasn’t much of a shore, apparently, because the island was mostly sheer rock faces, but some sightseers from a nearby island went exploring one day and caught sight of them.’

  ‘Uncle Matt had left some photos and notices with the people on the islands around there,’ Sarah put in, ‘so we think they were looking to see if anyone was there. Most people thought they wouldn’t have been able to climb up the rock sides, but my dad’s good at that sort of thing. He helped Mum get up to the top.’

  Matt grimaced. ‘He said it was either that or be pulled back out to sea by the tide.’

  ‘It was a good thing that you went out there,’ Abby said with a relieved smile, ‘otherwise the islanders might not have been looking for them for much longer. You must have stirred their interest.’ She sent him a curious glance. ‘I don’t suppose, after all that effort and mayhem, they managed to find a villa?’

  Matt smiled and shook his head. ‘No, they didn’t, and, to be honest, I think they’ve changed their minds about looking any further.’

  ‘Mum says she doesn’t want to look at another property in Greece or the islands—not for a long while anyway.’ Sarah put down her fork. ‘She said she kept thinking about us and worrying, and she won’t be happy until she’s back home again, so Uncle Matt is going to take us over there to fetch them.’

  ‘I’m really glad for you,’ Abby said. ‘This must be the best news ever.’

  ‘Does anyone want that last apple pie?’ Jacob put in. ‘Because, if you don’t, I could eat it up. I’ve still got room.’

  ‘You always have room,’ Sarah declared. ‘That’s why Dad says you’re a bottomless pit.’

  Jacob frowned. He didn’t understand what his sister was talking about, but after due consideration he must have decided that it didn’t matter anyway, and as no one laid claim to it, the pie was his.

  ‘I’m not surprised he likes them so much,’ Matt said. ‘They’re home-made, aren’t they?’ He glanced at Abby, a dark brow lifting.

  Abby nodded. ‘I was at a bit of a loose end when I came home from work. I knew you’d had a phone call and it felt a bit strange, not knowing what was happening. I just needed to be busy, so baking seemed like a good idea.’

  Matt gave a rueful grimace. ‘I wanted to tell you earlier, but you were with a patient and I’d promised I would ring Kim back. I decided to make all the arrangements for going out there to pick them up, and I thought it would be good if I brought the children here with me so that we could tell you when we were all together.’

  ‘It was good. I’m really happy that you came here.’

  ‘Can we go and play in the garden?’ Jacob wanted to know. ‘I made a den in the shed when we were here before, and I want to see if it’s still there.’

  ‘It is,’ Abby said. ‘I haven’t moved anything. Just be careful you don’t trip over the lawnmower.’

  ‘I want to play as well,’ Sarah cut in. ‘I’m going to be the lady who makes the house look nice.’

  ‘And I’m the pirate who brings the jewels back.’ Jacob was already following her out of the door.

  ‘It’s good to see Sarah looking so happy,’ Abby commented, watching them go.

  Matt nodded. ‘She’s been under a tremendous strain lately. She doesn’t always show it because she’s a quiet girl, but still waters run deep with her and a lot goes on in her head.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve noticed that.’ She stood up and started to clear the table. ‘You must be so relieved to know that your sister is safe and well.’

  He got to his feet and began to put things away in the fridge. ‘I am. These last few days have been a living nightmare, but all this has made me stop and think about life in a different way. Things can change in an instant, and I realise that you need to go for whatever is uppermost in your mind. Grab it while you can, because you never know when you’re going to run out of time. I don’t want my life to be full of missed opportunities.’

  She paused, closed the dishwasher and leant back against the worktop, looking him over thoughtfully. ‘Such as? What have you missed out on?’

  ‘A loving relationship and family, perhaps. Not that I would want a family straight away, but I know that Amy and Tim have a good marriage, and having Jacob and Sarah stay with me made me see how much fun there is to be had when the house is full of children. It had never occurred to me before that there was any other kind of existence than the one I’m living now. It makes me wonder what it would be like to lead a different kind of life.’

  ‘Different from being the wayward bachelor who flits from one woman to the next, you mean?’

  He laughed. ‘Whatever gave you the idea that description had anything to do with me?’

  She gave him a quizzical glance. ‘Well, there’s Amy and Tim, and Jacob and Sarah’s take on it for a start.’

  He made a wry face. ‘You’ve been listening to the children.’

  ‘Shouldn’t I have?’

  He came over to her and placed his hands around her rib cage, leaning into her and kissing her softly on the mouth. ‘I think,’ he murmured, ‘that you should take your cue from me.’ He kissed her again, and ran his hands over the curve of her hips, easing her against him so that her soft feminine curves melded with his hard, strong body. ‘Life is for living, for making the most of what comes our way. You’re beautiful, sexy, sweet and caring, and you drive me crazy with wanting you. Did you know that?’

  He nuzzled the column of her throat, brushing his lips against the silkiness of her skin. ‘You once said you would be here for me whenever I needed you—how can I let that offer pass me by? We could be so good together.’

  He kissed
her hungrily, and she wound her arms around him, running her fingers over the nape of his neck and letting them tangle with the crisp line of his hair.

  He made her long for so much, and all of it had to do with him. He was everything she wanted…his touch, his warmth, the passionate intensity of his kisses. She could lose herself in him and never give a thought to the outside world.

  ‘Do you think you could ever learn to trust in anyone again?’ he asked in a roughened tone. ‘Enough to share your life with someone else and all that goes along with living together as a couple?’

  Abby eased herself back from him and studied his features for a moment or two. There was a far-away look in his eyes, as though he was thinking aloud, and she wondered what he was really saying to her. Was he asking her to live with him? Was he talking about an affair, rather than marriage? Or was he thinking about the prospect of having children at some point in the future?

  ‘I’m not sure what you’re asking,’ she said, ‘and who can say that they know for sure that what they want is within reach? You could live with someone and find that it didn’t work out, and as to children, who knows what might happen? There must be a lot of people who long for children and then find that it’s not possible to have them.’

  He looked at her curiously, his head tilted a little to one side. ‘I suppose that’s true, but I don’t see how that would come into the picture right now…unless…’ He held her away from him a fraction and gazed into her eyes. ‘Unless you’re trying to tell me something…Are you saying that you can’t have children? Is that what you mean?’

  ‘I suppose so. I mean, I don’t know for sure. It’s a very big step to take, isn’t it, deciding that you want to share your life with someone, and knowing that things might not turn out the way you want them to? It wouldn’t matter if neither of you was particularly bothered about starting a family at some point.’

  He cupped her shoulders with his hands. ‘Abby, you’re talking in riddles. Tell me what’s wrong. Is there some reason why you think you might not be able to conceive? Is it because you were attacked?’