by Fiona Lowe
This was his father’s modus operandi every time he visited—socialising non-stop.
Warragurra was too small to avoid running into Emily’s family but so far he’d managed a distant wave in the crush at the Royal and the same today with Nadine and Hayden. Dealing with that uncomfortable reality would come soon enough. Sadness settled over him. He’d enjoyed the friendship of the brothers.
‘You played well.’ Penelope’s voice purred as she handed him a glass of champagne.
He clinked her glass. ‘Thanks. I’m a bit rusty.’
She stared at him brazenly, her eyes hungry. ‘You looked pretty good to me.’
He ignored the comment and took another sip of champagne. Any other time he would have taken the flirting bait. He would have linked his arm with hers, told her she looked stunning, complimented her on her natty new handbag and strolled with her toward an evening that would have finished with the two of them in bed.
She raised her perfectly waxed eyebrows. ‘Where have you been hiding yourself lately?’
Emily’s face washed through his mind. He steeled himself against the sensation of loss that seemed to grow inside him every time he thought about her. ‘Work’s been busy.’
‘Too much work makes Linton a dull boy.’ The pout of her mouth closed around the fine glass flute.
Exasperation flared inside him. He was a doctor, for heaven’s sake. Doctors by the nature of their jobs worked hard. He’d never had to explain that to Emily, she just knew. She understood.
‘That’s what I’ve been telling him.’ Peter Gregory’s voice boomed beside him as he stepped up next to Penelope.
‘But sons never listen to their fathers.’ Pen appraised his father’s expensive casual clothes, his hand-made Italian shoes, his trendy Sydney haircut and his designer watch. ‘You look too young to be Linton’s father.’
Peter’s chest puffed out and Linton braced himself for the line he’d heard all his life.
‘Well, I’m more like an older brother than a father.’
Peter extended his hand toward Penelope. ‘Peter Gregory, seeing as Linton’s a little slow on the introductions.’
She seized his hand. ‘Penelope Grainger. Lovely to meet you.’
‘And you. I must say that shade of pink suits you perfectly, but, then, I’m sure you could model any designer’s clothes to their advantage.’
Linton cringed and quickly downed the last mouthful of his champagne. What was his father thinking? Penelope was too young for him.
Penelope’s hand fluttered at her throat. ‘Peter, would you like to watch the next chukka with me?’
Peter slipped his arm through hers. ‘That sounds delightful.’
As they strolled off, Peter turned back toward Linton and winked.
Linton knew that wink. It meant the game was on and he thought he was in with a chance.
His blood suddenly dropped to his feet and white noise buzzed loudly in his head as reality hit him. He was his father. Hell, he even acted like his father, using the same lines, the same mannerisms.
His stomach churned, the champagne burning and fizzing as his future rolled out before him and he hated the way it looked.
Did it ever occur to you that your father is wrong? Emily’s pointed question hit him between the eyes. He sagged against the pole of the marquee, needing the support it offered.
For the first time in his life he’d just seen his father for who he truly was.
A very lonely, emotionally shallow, fifty-two-year-old man.
A man who’d never enjoyed a successful adult relationship because he rejected every woman before they’d got close to him. A man who had never known a soulmate.
He forced air down into his lungs against the tightness constricting his chest. He didn’t want to end up like his father. He wanted more out of life than that.
We have a chance. Emily’s voice sounded through the swirling mess that was his mind. All this time he’d thought that, by committing to Emily and the baby, he was being trapped.
But, in fact, he was being rescued.
Oh, God. What had he done? Yesterday he’d sent away the best thing that had ever happened to him. He’d rejected Emily’s love and he’d rejected his one chance at real happiness.
He loved her. She was his soulmate.
The realisation slugged into him so hard his legs trembled.
‘Are you all right, sir?’ An anxious waiter hovered.
The words cut through his shock and bewilderment. ‘I’m fine. There’s just something I have to do.’
He ran from the marquee straight to his car. He’d drive direct to Woollara, straight to Emily.
He only hoped she would forgive him.
Emily had finished the rosters, completed the stock order for the supply room, scrubbed the pan room and now she’d run out of things to do. Sunday afternoon in A and E could be frantic but today, when she needed to be busy, it had failed to deliver.
Technically, she wasn’t even due back until Monday but she’d reworked the rosters, making sure she worked most weekends and afternoon shifts. That way she would see a lot less of Linton and work more with Daniel and Michael.
Mostly she just wanted to run back to the Flying Doctors but she had an obligation to work out a two-week resignation period and she wasn’t going to leave abruptly and end up looking petty.
Once she was back working with the Flying Doctors, she wouldn’t run into Linton very much at all. And then he’d be gone, back to Sydney, where he belonged.
The aching sadness inside her grew with every passing minute. She pulled the calendar off the wall, counting how many weeks Linton still had left in Warragurra. She closed her eyes against the evidence. It was months. He’d leave around the time she’d commence maternity leave.
Maternity leave. It all seemed so surreal. She was going to be a mother. She hadn’t mentioned the pregnancy to her family yet—it was all too new, too raw. Emotionally she wasn’t ready to tell them because her brothers would probably go ballistic. She grimaced. Linton might decide it would be safer to leave Warragurra early after all.
And her dad? How would he react when he found out his little girl had got herself knocked up? She hoped he’d do what he often did when faced with big dilemmas. He’d hug her briefly and then get practical.
Well, she needed practical. Juggling a baby and full-time shift work would be…impossible? She shook herself. It had to be possible, she had no choice.
‘Em.’
She turned to see her father gripping the edge of the nurses’ station, his face a deathly grey.
‘Dad?’ She shot to her feet, terror gripping her. She grabbed a wheelchair, and pushed it behind him.
He fell into it, groaning. ‘Hurts.’ He gripped his chest and his lower abdomen with both arms.
‘Jason.’ She called the medical student, who’d been studying in the staffroom.
He appeared immediately. ‘What’s wrong?
‘Ring Michael now! Tell him it’s my father.’ She pushed the wheelchair quickly into the resus room. ‘Dad, can you get up onto the trolley if I help you?’
Beads of sweat lined Jim’s forehead as he gasped for breath. ‘I…drove…here so…I…can…do that.’
She locked the chair and, putting one foot between her father’s and one on the outside of his leg, placed her arms under his armpits and heaved.
Jim stumbled to his feet and together they shuffled around until his bottom touched the trolley.
She swung his legs up on the trolley and pulled off his boots, terrified by how her usually stoic and in-control father was dwarfed by this pain.
‘Where does it hurt, Dad?’ She fitted him with nasal oxygen.
‘Everywhere.’ He slumped against the pillows, sweaty and ashen, his face streaked with fear. ‘I’m dying, aren’t I?’
‘Not today.’ Her words sounded more confident than she felt. She flicked on the ECG machine, her fingers fumbling with the packaging that held the dots. She applied the do
ts with shaking fingers. Where was Michael? She calculated the amount of time it should take him to arrive at the hospital from his house.
Hurry up! She needed her dad. Her baby needed his granddad. She couldn’t do motherhood without him.
Jason walked through the door. ‘Doctor’s on his way.’ He gently took the leads from her numb fingers and connected them. Staring past her at the screen, he confidently announced, ‘Sinus rhythm, elevated rate.’
Relief rushed through her. It wasn’t a heart attack.
The door swung open. ‘Jim, you look lousy.’ Linton strode into the room, his mud-splattered polo whites outlining his long, strong legs. He tossed his quilted leather vest onto a chair and rolled up his royal-blue sleeves. ‘Where does it hurt?’
Emily struggled to breathe. Fear for her father tripped over her shock at seeing Linton. Every painful moment of their conversation twenty-four hours ago reverberated in her head. He’d rejected her and in doing so he’d rejected her family.
‘Michael is my father’s doctor.’ The words whipped out of her mouth, harsh and uncompromising.
His jaw stiffened, as if he’d been punched, but he reached for a stethoscope as he barked at Jason, ‘Obs?’
She turned on the hapless Jason. ‘I specifically told you to ring Michael.’
Jason blushed bright red. ‘I—’
‘I don’t care who the hell looks after me—just take the pain away.’
Her father’s anguished voice grounded her. ‘Sorry, Dad.’ She shot Linton a blistering look but the expected satisfaction from such an act didn’t come.
Instead, he met her gaze, his eyes flickering with something akin to an apology. She quickly looked away and assisted her father into a gown so he could be examined.
‘When did the pain start?’ Linton’s focus was one hundred per cent on Jim as he tapped the man’s abdomen.
‘I got a twinge a couple of hours ago just after I’d arrived in town for the historical society’s meeting.’ He flinched as he leaned forward. ‘I think I’m going…to be…’
Jason thrust a bowl under Jim’s chin as the grazier vomited into the bowl.
‘He needs fluids.’
Linton’s concerned voice tore at the fragile scab on Emily’s heart. How could he come in here and act all worried and caring for her father when he couldn’t love her or their baby?
Emily hung up the primed IV that Jason had prepared and then slipped a tourniquet around her father’s arm. ‘I’m just going to put in a drip, Dad.’
‘I’ll do it for you.’ Linton ripped open an alcohol swab, his face stern and unyielding.
‘That won’t be necessary. I can do it.’ She spoke through gritted teeth, the cannula box in her hand. She didn’t want his help.
Jim glanced between the two of them and tilted his head toward Jason. ‘I want the lad to do it.’
Jason hesitantly stepped forward, putting his hand out for the equipment.
‘If that’s what you want, Jim.’ Linton gave a rueful smile and passed the swab to Jason.
Surprise rocked her. She hadn’t expected him to capitulate to her father’s request. Or let Jason execute the task.
‘We’ll give you morphine for the pain, Dad.’ She clipped a drug chart under the clip of the chart board and handed it to Linton.
‘Are you allergic to anything, Jim?’ Linton pulled out his pen. ‘Can you take pethidine?’
‘Both are opiates, aren’t they?’ His face contorted in agony. ‘Either one will do as long as it…stops…the…pain.’ He closed his eyes, clearly exhausted. ‘Do you always contradict each other?’
‘I just want what’s best for you, Dad.’ Emily’s frustration pumped though her as she checked the dose of pethidine with Jason. It was bad enough that her father was so ill, without having to deal with Linton.
‘Linton will do that. Go wait outside.’ Her father patted her arm.
‘Ah, Jim, I need Emily here, so if you can go back to being the patient, that would really help.’ Linton winked at Emily as he listened to Jim’s chest.
Her heart bled a little more. Her father was treating her like a child, and Linton should be behaving like the low-life he was, but instead he was completely understanding and being kind.
None of it made any sense.
She injected the pethidine into the rubber bung on the IV line, knowing that within a minute it would act, easing her father’s pain.
Jim suddenly gripped his lower back. ‘Here. The pain’s here but it goes all the way around the front and down here.’ He pressed his groin area.
‘He’s got a temperature of 39.2.’ Jason read the display on the ear thermometer.
‘Renal colic.’
She spoke at the very same moment as Linton.
He smiled at her and nodded, his eyes full of warmth and adoration.
She staggered under the gaze. How could he look at her like that and yet tell her he couldn’t love her?
‘Well, it’s good to see you two finally working together.’ Jim’s opiate-induced, glassy eyes stared at them both. He turned to Jason. ‘Do they normally misbehave?’
Jason’s mouth opened and shut, stunned at the question, unsure if he should answer it. ‘Um, usually they’re a team, Mr Tippett.’
‘Well, of course they are.’ Jim relaxed against the pillow. ‘Had a lovers’ tiff, did you?’
‘Dad!’ Emily’s face burned with embarrassment and indignation pounded through her, despite the fact she knew it was the drug talking.
Jim grinned at Linton. ‘I always found it worked best to say sorry, son. Oh, and flowers and chocolates never go astray either.’
Jason’s eyes enlarged, incredulous at the conversation.
Linton seemed to choke on laughter. ‘I’ll keep that in mind, Jim. Meanwhile, hopefully, with the analgesia relaxing you, you’ll pass the kidney stone that has been giving you so much grief. I’ll start you on antibiotics and we’ll monitor your urine output, but right now the best thing for you to do is sleep.’
He turned to the stunned Jason. ‘Mr Tippett is your patient, Jason. Do half-hourly observations, strain all urine and call us if there is any change.’
‘Yes, Dr Gregory.’ Jason stood a little taller.
‘Emily, I need to talk to you.’
The supplication in Linton’s voice battered at all her defences but she needed to stand firm. ‘I need to stay with Dad.’
‘No, you don’t. I’ve got Jason looking after me.’ Jim mumbled, ‘Go and sort out whatever it is you need to sort out. Your mother and I never let the sun set on an argument.’
Emily sighed. Her father had no idea that the argument that lay between Linton and herself was insoluable. When two people wanted opposite things, resolution was unreachable.
She wasn’t sure she had the strength to rehash the same arguments. But her father wasn’t going to let her stay so she kissed him on the cheek and left the room.
She marched straight to the desk, opened her father’s history and started to write up the nursing notes.
‘That can wait.’ Linton’s quiet words sounded behind her. ‘Come and have a cup of coffee.’
She spun around. ‘Coffee makes me nauseous.’
‘Ginger tea, then.’
She expected him to smile, the way he always did when he aimed to get his own way. Instead, his expression looked almost sad.
‘Please, Emily.’
She could have resisted his smile. She could have stood resolute against the charm. But his complete lack of artifice disarmed her.
‘All right.’ She walked to the staffroom, each step filling her with dread.
He filled two cups with boiling water from the rapid-boil urn and jiggled a ginger teabag through one and regular tea though the other. He sat down on the couch next to her, handing her the cup.
‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome.’
Stifling politeness expanded between them like a bubble. It was hard to believe that they had once rea
ched for each other with such passionate need that everything else had faded to insignificance.
He cleared his throat. ‘Michael rang me because his car wouldn’t start.’
She nodded, resignation sliding through her. Was this their future? One of excessive politeness and treading with extreme caution?
‘But I would have wanted to be here anyway. I have enormous respect for your father, he’s a good man.’ He delivered the words to the opposite wall.
She put down her tea, the drink far too hot at the moment. ‘Well, that’s good to know.’ She couldn’t hide the sarcasm from her voice. ‘I’m not sure he’s going to feel quite the same way about you.’
She wanted the barb to sting, to wound, to hurt him as much as he’d hurt her.
He flinched. ‘I deserved that.’ Putting his cup down on the side table, he turned to face her, his eyes dark with indecipherable emotions. ‘Yesterday I behaved abysmally and I’m sorry.’
Exhaustion hit her as she realised why he wanted to talk to her. To give her a hollow apology. ‘Are you here for absolution? Because if you are, I don’t think I’m the right person to give it to you.’
He ran his hand across the back of his neck. ‘I’ve been the biggest fool on earth.’
She didn’t want to recognise the penitence on his face or hear the sorrow in his voice. ‘You won’t get an argument from me.’
He struggled to smile. ‘You never let me get away with anything, Emily, and that is one of the many reasons why I love you.’
Her ears heard the words but her brain struggled to compute them. ‘You love me?’ The disbelief in her voice roared in her ears.
He reached for her hands, his palm closing over her knuckles with a touch so gentle it was as if he thought she might break. ‘I love you. I’m sorry it took me so long to work it out.’
‘But…but yesterday you told me you couldn’t love me.’ Her heart pounded so hard she could hear it in her head. Incredulity fought with want and need as she searched his face, looking for clues to solve this abrupt turnaround.