A Forever Family for the Army Doc

by Meredith Webber

  The family knew she’d talked about a formal adoption, but although they may have guessed, she’d never voiced her fear of losing Nikki.

  ‘Does this happen with all the women you take out to dinner?’ she asked, turning back to her companion. ‘Do they all pour out their deepest, darkest secrets to you?’

  She hoped the words came out lighter than they felt inside her head, because inside her head was a mess, what with having to resist the attraction and then the unguarded conversation, and the totally unnecessary moon over the ocean.

  ‘Not usually on the first d—dinner,’ he said, a smile in the words, eyes twinkling, although he was serious when he added, ‘but I do understand how you must feel. I’ve seen drug-addicted babies before so those first years must have been hell, and having fought for her to stay alive, to be well at the end of the withdrawal time, it would make her extra-special to you.’

  ‘I had good teachers in Hallie and Pop. Most of the kids they took in had problems, some of them horrendous ones, yet they showered us all with love.’

  ‘And you, did you have problems?’

  The question was so unexpected, she answered automatically.

  ‘Not really. My mum dumped me on Gran when I was about three—we never quite figured out when—then Gran died when I was six, and after a while in temporary foster homes I was lucky enough to be given to Hallie and Pop.’

  ‘You make is sound like an ideal childhood, which it can’t possibly have been.’

  He was frowning, but Izzy couldn’t help smiling at his words.

  ‘Compared to some it was, and the love we all got from Hallie and Pop made us a happy family and our world a very happy place.’

  She checked the moon again—still there—and the ocean, silvered in its light, and sighed.

  ‘We should probably go.’

  Not that she wanted to, but the scene must have bewitched her and she’d already told Mac far too much about herself. Stay here and who knew what else might come out?

  ‘I suppose we should. Will I see you at the hospital tomorrow?’

  Izzy repeated the words in her head. Did he sound as if he wanted to?

  Not that it mattered, of course! No dating!

  ‘Not tomorrow. I’m still on days off, and with Nikki back at school it’s a chance to do a big spring clean.’

  ‘You do know it’s autumn?’ he teased, smiling at her again.

  One smile, that’s all it took to put her heart back into fibrillation! She had to get over this. Every fibre of her being was yelling at her to keep right away from him. He was a dangerous distraction and the less she saw of him the better.

  Work would be okay—well, kind of okay—and unavoidable—but she could handle things at work.

  ‘Autumn clean would sound stupid, but spring clean—well, people know what you mean.’

  It was such an inane remark she wasn’t surprised he raised his eyebrows at her.

  But that was better than him smiling.

  And he’d pushed back his chair so they were leaving.

  Which meant she could get out of there without making an even bigger fool of herself.

  She caught up with him at the bar and reminded him it was just dinner and they should go Dutch, but the beautiful surfie chick behind the bar had already taken his credit card and given him a dazzling smile.

  He returned the smile with a pretty good one of his own, and Izzy walked away, reminding herself it didn’t matter who Mac smiled at, they were colleagues, nothing more.

  But that made walking along the esplanade towards the hospital, and Mac’s house beside it, very uncomfortable, because the presence of moonlight and rolling surf and the old lighthouse on the hill was a scene for romance, and the presence of Mac’s body, so close to hers, was an agonising distraction.

  ‘I was looking at pictures of the old hospital when you were showing me around,’ he said. ‘I hadn’t realised that the nuns had once run the place.’

  Well, that tells me there will be no further personal conversation, Izzy realised, which isn’t fair because he now knows far more than I’m comfortable with about me and I know zilch about him.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, playing the game. ‘The church used to be the other side of the hospital so the three—church, hospital and doctor’s house where you live—formed a curve of the old brick and stone buildings. The church burned down and there was damage to the rear of the hospital so it was all rebuilt, keeping the old façade. Your house was saved, and although it’s been renovated from time to time, it’s pretty much as it was when it was built.’

  ‘It’s certainly a lovely old building,’ Mac confirmed. ‘I’m lucky to be able to live in it.’

  Tension tightened Izzy’s body. This matter-of-fact, almost tourist talk felt wrong after all they’d shared.

  Well, after all she’d shared...

  Somehow during their dinner—during most of the time they’d spent together—Mac had shown he was a kind and caring man, not a robot mouthing platitudes about old buildings.

  It’s just attraction, Mac reminded himself, when his determined discussion of the old hospital buildings had failed to distract him from thoughts of the woman by his side.

  And she’s a colleague...

  And she doesn’t date, let alone dally—

  The stupid thoughts were brought to an abrupt halt as the blare of a horn split the night air, and a roaring sound filled his ears.

  Some sixth sense made him grab Izzy and together they rolled back onto the road, while a massive semi-trailer ploughed straight past where they’d been standing and crashed into the massive fig tree that was a feature of the hospital’s grounds.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked, as he helped Izzy to her feet, steadying her for a moment as tremors of fear, or perhaps relief, ran through them both.

  ‘Fine!’ she said, ‘But whoever was behind the wheel of that rig isn’t.’

  But Mac was already on his way, running towards the crushed cab, as staff came hurrying from the hospital.

  The driver’s-side door was jammed, but he could see the driver slumped sideways in the seat, his hand still on the steering wheel, on the horn that had warned them of danger.

  Then Izzy was there, climbing into the cab from the passenger side, gesturing him to join her.

  Not altogether easy, as the tree prevented him from going around the front of the vehicle, and getting around the back would take too long.

  He went over the top, using broken branches of the tree to steady himself, sliding off the bonnet and into the cab.

  ‘Faint pulse at first, but I lost it. His feet are trapped,’ Izzy said, as she pumped the man’s chest, counting her compressions.

  ‘I’m too big to get down there, but I’ll do the CPR if you can edge your way in and maybe release them.’

  He watched her squirm her way down into the compressed foot space.

  ‘It’s no good.’

  Her voice was muffled by the sound of the engine.

  Engine!

  ‘Can you reach up and turn off the engine?’

  The silence was almost more deafening than the noise had been.

  ‘Now, tell me exactly what’s holding his feet in place.’

  A nurse Mac hadn’t met had arrived from the hospital with a resus bag, and a siren told Mac that help was on the way—hopefully a fire truck with cutting equipment.

  ‘It’s the engine block, I’d say—come back with the impact. I can see his feet, just can’t budge them.’

  Mac’s mind flashed through dozens of road accidents he’d seen, some caused by carelessness, others by the dreaded IEDs.

  ‘Try taking off his shoes,’ he suggested, as he slipped a mask over the man’s nose and mouth while the nurse attached the tube to the small oxygen
tank in the bag.

  You try taking off his shoes! Izzy wanted to retort, but she could see it was a good idea—just not easy to do. She wriggled and squirmed, finally getting one shoe off the size-twelve foot, and, like magic, the foot was free.

  The other was harder, but by now she could hear voices outside the cabin, and knew more help was at hand. Metal shrieked as some kind of tool was used in an attempt to pry the driver’s door open, and although the door remained shut there must have been some movement, because now she could reach the other shoe—well, steel-capped boot, in fact—and pulling a boot off was far harder than removing a shoe, something she must remember to tell Mac.

  ‘Who’s in there?’ she heard someone ask.

  ‘Driver and a nurse,’ Mac replied. ‘Driver’s feet are trapped.’

  ‘Get her out. We have to start cutting and although we’ve got foam to cover the cab, if there’s spilt fuel, the welding torch could still spark a fire.’

  ‘You hear that, Izzy? Out now!’

  It was an order, but—

  ‘One minute. Give me one minute,’ she said, as fear for the trapped driver gripped her. She grabbed the boot with both hands and gave an almighty tug, crashing backwards into Mac as the boot came off.

  Her held her for a moment, then lifted her bodily out of the cab, passing her to a fireman as if she was a weightless bundle of skin and bones. The fireman set her on her feet, grinning as he recognised her.

  ‘Seen you looking better, Iz!’ he teased, passing her over to Roger, who was on call for the night.

  ‘You okay?’ he asked, and she nodded, easing away from his side so the comforting arm he’d put around her shoulders fell away. Roger’s hugs were fine, but if she’d wanted a hug right now it wasn’t from him.

  Dangerous thoughts!

  She walked back towards the crash site, keeping out of the way of the ambos now lifting the driver onto a trolley. Mac was there beside it, keeping the resuscitator tube free from kinks, checking oxygen flow and the rise and fall of the patient’s chest.

  ‘Have you brought some kind of curse down on us?’ Roger was asking Mac. ‘Two nights here and two accidents! We can go months without an emergency!’

  Mac shrugged, passed the tube and oxygen bottle to Roger, then stepped back, looking around, his gaze coming to rest on Izzy.

  Remembering the ambo’s comments, she realised she should have gone straight home once the cavalry had arrived. Now Mac was going to see her in whatever state she must be in.

  And just why was that bothering her?

  She wasn’t interested in Mac.

  Attracted to him, yes, but interested?

  Definitely not!

  ‘I’ll walk you home,’ the person in whom she was not interested was saying, and although she’d have liked to refuse, her legs were suddenly shaky and the hand that took her firmly by the elbow was comforting.

  ‘Had he had a heart attack, do you think?’ she asked, to distract herself from comforting.

  ‘I’d say so.’

  ‘He must have known something was wrong,’ Izzy suggested. ‘Big rigs don’t usually come through town but he was headed for the hospital and he was giving everyone warning that he was on the way. His hand was definitely on the horn.’

  She hesitated, then added, ‘It could have been Pop! We all keep telling him it’s time to retire and he’s not driving as much these days, but when you see something like that...’

  Mac heard the tremor in her voice and shifted his hand from her elbow to put his arm around her shoulders—comforting her, nothing more.

  Although when the fireman had mentioned fire, he’d felt his lungs seize up.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said to him when they’d climbed the path behind the hospital and reached the nunnery. ‘And thanks for dinner. I’m sorry I talked so much. You know my entire life story and I know nothing more about you.’

  It was too dark in the shadow of the building to see the flush of embarrassment he was sure was colouring her cheeks, and he knew, for certain, that he should let things go right there.

  So what prompted him to speak again?

  To say, ‘Well, we could fix that. You could show me one of the other restaurants tomorrow night—and I’d let you pay half to prove it’s not a date. I have meetings at the hospital in the morning but if I know anything at all about hospital meetings, mine will probably go on all day and I’ll have no time to shop. So, shall we say six o’clock? Helping out a new colleague, nothing more. Please?’

  He heard her sigh and held his breath. Though every functioning cell in his brain was telling him he needed to see less of her, not more, he wanted her to come, wanted to get to know more about the woman to whom he was so inexplicably—and inconveniently?—attracted.

  ‘Okay,’ she finally agreed, ‘six o’clock.’

  And with that, she vanished.

  Well, she probably hadn’t vanished, there was obviously a door somewhere along the wall that he hadn’t noticed and certainly couldn’t make out in the darkness.

  Izzy escaped into the building, heading quietly up to the small suite of rooms that Pop had turned into a flat for her and Nikki. She looked in on her daughter, thankfully sound asleep, then headed for the bathroom, turning on the light and seeing her dirt-streaked face and scratches here and there where she’d obviously rubbed against something.

  At least the path home, mostly in the shadow of the nunnery, had been dark so Mac might not have noticed.

  Mac might not have noticed?

  The question shrieked in her head. She wasn’t interested in Mac. It was attraction, nothing more, and right now, with the adoption process under way, the last thing she needed was a man making things difficult.

  She stripped off her clothes, showered, and went to bed. In five hours she’d have to be up, getting Nikki organised and off to school.

  Life would return to normal, whatever normal was.

  * * *

  Mac woke bathed in sweat and shivering uncontrollably. The nightmares he thought he’d left behind somewhere on the coastal track had returned, possibly because of the near miss he and Izzy had suffered when the big rig had crashed.

  He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, murmuring the words he’d adopted as a mantra—‘truthfulness, compassion, forbearance.’

  He’d first heard them used at a meditation session his psychologist had suggested he attend, and for some reason they had made sense to him. Now they helped to clear his mind and calm his body so meditation could be followed by dream-free sleep.

  Sometimes!

  Tonight his mantra didn’t work.

  Concern over a new job?

  He didn’t think so.

  Regret over the mess his marriage had been because surely Lauren wouldn’t have gone looking for excitement if their marriage had been better?

  No, he’d been down that track so many times he’d accepted it was just one of those things.

  Which left Izzy.

  Hearing her story—he’d seen drug-addicted babies and knew just how much they suffered and how big a task it must have been for her to take on—had added admiration for the person she was to the attraction that had sprung between them in the beginning.

  But he also understood just how important her daughter was to her, and he had to be careful not to cross any lines that might put Nikki’s adoption into danger.

  And apart from that, the nightmare had been a reminder that he hadn’t fully recovered—another reason not to get involved with an attractive redhead!

  Who definitely didn’t want a man in her life!

  Just now, or any time?

  ‘Get over it, Mac, get back to truthfulness, compassion and forbearance, breathe in, breathe out, breathe...’

  * * *

  Izzy was slippin
g a casserole into the oven when Nikki returned from school.

  ‘Yum,’ her daughter said, sniffing the air in their small flat. ‘Chicken Marsala. Pity I’m going out. Sorry, Mum, I forgot to tell you. Shan and I need to work on our new media assignment so I’m sleeping over at her place.’

  ‘The new media assignment you were going to do in the holidays?’

  Nikki laughed.

  ‘We did make a start—we decided on a topic. Has the rise in the ocean temperature contributed to the increasing number of great white sharks off east coast beaches?’

  ‘That’s media, not biology?’

  ‘Oh, Mum, of course it is. What makes the biggest headlines in a newspaper these days? Four people injured in a traffic accident or a surfer bitten by a shark?’

  ‘Shows how much I know,’ Izzy said. ‘Well, the casserole will do for our dinner tomorrow night, because I’m showing Mac around town tonight and thought we might end up at the new Moroccan place.’

  ‘Mac? Two nights running? You’re dating! And another doctor! Oh, Mum!’

  Izzy knew she should have kept quiet, but when did she not react to Nikki’s teases?

  ‘I am not dating the man,’ she said firmly, although the disbelief in her daughter’s blue eyes suggested it hadn’t been firmly enough. ‘If and when I decide to go on a date with a man, I will let you know.’

  ‘Well, if and when you do decide, I hope you know not to go too far on a second date—that’s coming on too strong, Mum.’

  ‘Coming on too strong?’ Izzy growled. ‘It is not a date and, anyway, who made you an expert?’

  ‘It’s in all the magazines, Mum, and people talk about it in online chat rooms—the ones you let me join.’

  Izzy smiled. This was an easier conversation—her daughter’s grievance that she had limited online options was a common argument. And one in which she’d held the line—so far!

  But tonight Nikki wasn’t going to air it, flitting away with, ‘I’ve got to change and pack a few things,’ and popping her head back into the combined kitchen and living room to say, ‘Just check there’s no mad ex-lover in his life.’

  Cheeky brat! Izzy thought, but she was still smiling, pleased that she could have these conversations with her daughter—pleased Nikki could have them with her.