Dating The Millionaire Doctor

CHAPTER SIX

SOMEWHERE towards dawn they made their way back to the lodge. Jake drove. Tori sort of…wafted. She felt beautiful. She felt cherished. More.

She felt as if her world had transformed-like the grey had shifted and the sun was shining through. It marked an end of the dreariness, she thought, and as Jake refused to let her walk but carried her from the car to the house-and that meant carrying Rusty as well because she wasn’t letting him go-she felt as if she’d moved to another life.

The dawn was beginning to glimmer over the mountains. When the household woke, life would begin again.

Life on the other side…

‘You’re smiling like the cat that got the cream,’ he murmured, as he climbed the verandah steps and her smile broadened.

‘I believe I am. I believe I did.’

‘Tori…’

‘No.’ She reached up and touched his lips. ‘Not a word. Nothing. That was just…perfect. It woke me up. It was like life started again. I don’t know if you can understand…’

‘All I understand is that you’re beautiful. Can I carry you to my bedroom?’

‘No,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t want to wake up beside you.’

Something shuttered in his face-an expression she didn’t like. Pain? No. It was a closing of something that had barely started to open.

‘Jake, no,’ she said, swiftly-she did not want to hurt this man but this was important. She was struggling to explain it, struggling to understand it herself, but somehow she had to find words for what she was feeling. ‘What happened tonight was magic, time out of frame. I needed it so much-I needed you-and I’ll be grateful for the rest of my life. But if I wake up beside you in the morning…’

‘It is morning.’

‘You know what I mean. If I wake up beside you, then I might hold and cling. I might even get needy. I don’t want that. I don’t want anything to mess with what we had tonight.’

I don’t want to fall in love.

Where had that come from? No matter, it was there, hovering between them as if both had thought it. Who knew what Jake was thinking, but she felt it, knew it, and accepted that it was to be feared.

Love… After one night? She didn’t think so.

She knew she had to move on. Somehow Jake seemed to have given her the strength to do just that, and she would not mess with it.

‘I loved tonight,’ she whispered. ‘Tonight I loved you. But we both know our worlds don’t fit together. Let’s just accept tonight’s magic and move on.’

‘I’m not sure I can.’ He was pushing open the door to her bedroom with his foot. ‘To leave you here…’

‘It’s what I want.’ Was it? No, part of her was screaming, but the rest of her was sensible and it had to be sensible for all of her.

‘You’re so…’

‘And so are you.’ And then she paused. They both paused.

Tori’s room was right at the end of the house. The room next to hers was Doreen’s. From the other side of the wall came the muffled sound of terror. Whimpering, sobs of fear. Real pain.

They couldn’t ignore it. Neither of them could. Tori slid down from Jake’s arms and slipped Rusty onto the bed, but before she’d straightened Jake was heading out the door.

She reached him before he reached Doreen’s door, tugging him back.

‘Let me. She knows me.’ She knocked. ‘Doreen, it’s Tori. Can I come in?’

‘I… No. Oh, my dear, did I wake you?’ It was a breathless gasp. ‘I’m so sorry.’

For answer Tori opened the door a sliver. Jake was beside her, but she motioned him to stay where he was. She slipped in, but she left the door open, just a little, so Jake could hear.

‘Doreen, what’s wrong?’ she asked, and then, as her eyes grew accustomed to the dim light and she made out the figure huddled among the vast nest of pillows, her heart wrenched. She was with her in a heartbeat, gathering the elderly woman to her, simply holding.

‘Oh, my dear, don’t tell Glenda,’ Doreen gasped.

Jake stayed outside, silent as a panther. She couldn’t hear him, but she knew he was there, waiting to see if he was needed.

‘You mustn’t tell Glenda,’ Doreen gasped again. ‘She’s asleep at last. It’s just angina. Nothing. It hurts and I wake up and you know how the night terrors take over.’

Of course she did. Night terrors must surely be reality for every person who’d been on the ridge that day, Tori thought. But as she held her, as she felt her thin frame shake, she thought this was more than nightmares. And maybe more than angina, too? Her hands were cold and sweaty and she could feel her tremors. She put her fingers on her neck, finding her carotid pulse. It was fast, erratic, frightening.

‘Doreen, I’m not sure this is just angina,’ she said, trying to keep her voice steady, not wanting to put fear into the equation as well. ‘I think we should get this checked. Can I call an ambulance?’

‘No!’

‘At least let me call Jake.’

‘No,’ Doreen whispered, but she said it much less force-fully-and then she stopped breathing.

One minute she was sitting on the edge of her bed, half supported by Tori. The next she simply swayed backwards, falling onto her pillows, unconscious.

Tori’s fingers had been on her neck, feeling her pulse. Her hand followed her down-and there was no longer a pulse.

Doreen had said not to call Jake. That was five seconds ago. This was now.

‘Jake,’ she yelled at the top of her lungs. ‘Jake, I need you now.’

He was with her before she’d stopped yelling. She was still searching for a pulse, but with her other hand she was hauling Doreen’s legs back onto the bed, shoving away the bedclothes that were half covering her.

‘She said angina. I think now…cardiac arrest. No pulse.’

Jake was on the other side of the bed, like her, searching for a pulse, then hauling pillows away, lying her flat, checking her airway.

‘Breathe for her,’ Jake snapped, and took the neckline of Doreen’s flannelette nightgown and ripped it to the waist. His big hands rested on Doreen’s chest for a moment, steadied, then moved rhythmically into cardiac massage. ‘Breathe,’ he snapped at her again. ‘Tip her head back, hold her nose and fill her lungs with your breath. Twice. Then I pump. Come on, Tori…’

She needed no third bidding. She breathed while Jake took a short break from chest compressions. Fifteen pumps per minute, down, down, down, while Tori breathed and prayed and breathed and prayed and breathed and prayed.

They needed an ambulance, defibrillator, oxygen, adrenaline, but there was no time, no space, to call for help. If they didn’t get Doreen back now, no amount of equipment or expertise would help her.

No more deaths. Please, no. Not Doreen.

Breathe and pray. Breathe and pray.

‘Don’t panic,’ Jake said softly and he must have sensed rather than felt her surge of despair. ‘Steady, Tori, slow and steady, don’t stop breathing until you’ve seen her chest rise.’ He wasn’t altering his rhythm. Down, down, down, over and over, over and over.

How long now? Please, please…

‘Early days,’ Jake said. ‘Two minutes, no longer. Big breaths, Tori, deeper, I’m going harder.’

He did, and she heard the unmistakable sound of a rib cracking. She winced but kept on breathing, kept on breathing. Another crack. And then…

A ragged, heaving gasp, so harsh it caught them both by surprise. Doreen’s whole body shuddered. Tori drew back a little, hardly believing, but Doreen dragged in another breath and then another.

Life.

Jake was hauling her onto her side, clearing her mouth again, supporting her, making sure she didn’t gag, choke, while Tori sat back on her heels and stared and felt sick to the stomach. And then suddenly…not sick.

She could hear Doreen breathe.

Itsy bitsy spider, climbed up the waterspout…

Where had that come from? It was weird little song, a child’s tune from her past, and suddenly as she watched Jake work, as she waited to see that she was no longer needed, that she was free to go for help, the song was in her head. Her mother had taught it to her. She remembered sitting on her mother’s bed singing it. And then after her mother’s funeral, she remembered her father bringing home two puppies, one for her and one for Micki.

‘I’m calling him Itsy,’ she’d told her father, and Micki had called her puppy Bitsy. She thought suddenly, crazily and totally inappropriately, if Doreen lived, then she wanted another dog and she wanted to call him Itsy. It was part of her prayer.

Doreen’s breathing was steadying. Tori was grinning like a fool, and Jake’s smile was almost as wide as hers.

But he wasn’t relaxing yet. His smile was there but it was intent, and his attention was totally fixed on Doreen. He was moving on, she thought, totally concentrated on medical need. She, however, could back away a little. With Doreen’s breathing settling they could risk Tori leaving for a moment.

‘Call the ambulance,’ Jake said. ‘You have mobile cardiac units here?’

‘MICAs, yes. Mobile intensive-care ambulances.’

‘That’s what I want and I want them here yesterday. Then wake Rob. I want the first-aid kit he keeps. We have oxygen. Move, Tori.

She moved. She might be a vet and not a doctor but she didn’t have to be a doctor to know the situation was still grave. Something had stopped the flow of blood to Doreen’s heart, and that something was still not resolved.

‘See if Rob has dissolvable aspirin,’ Jake snapped, and then as Doreen’s eyes widened, focused, his tone changed. He sat down on the bed beside her and he took her hand in his.

‘Hey, Doreen, you’ve given us all one hell of a fright,’ he told her, as Tori headed for the door. ‘You passed out on us. I’m supposed to be an anaesthetist, not a cardiologist. And I’m not supposed to practise medicine in Australia. Are you trying to get me into trouble?’

He was wonderful, Tori thought dreamily. She fled.

When the ambulance arrived it came complete with its own paramedical team. They moved swiftly and efficiently, and Tori and the now wide-awake Rob were no longer needed. And Doreen still wouldn’t let them wake Glenda.

‘She hasn’t slept for weeks,’ she whispered. ‘I checked on her before I went to bed and she was sleeping like a baby. Please don’t wake her. I don’t need anyone to go with me.’

‘I’ll go with you,’ Tori said.

‘I don’t need anyone.’

‘Of course you do.’ Tori smiled down at her, the events of the night making her feel spacey and happy and floaty. Nothing would happen now. Jake had saved Doreen. And somehow…somehow it felt as if Jake had saved her. The leaden weight that had hung around her heart for six long months had lifted.

She glanced down as something brushed against her leg and it was Rusty, but he wasn’t brushing against her. He was simply positioning himself so he could press more closely against Jake.

You and me both, she thought mistily, and then Doreen’s hand reached out and took Jake’s and she thought, You and me, three?

‘Could you come with me?’ Doreen whispered to Jake, and the force she’d used to forbid them to wake Glenda was gone. She sounded frail again, and frightened. ‘You’re Old Doc’s son.’

‘I’m-’

‘That’s a really good idea,’ Rob said, sounding relieved. ‘It’d be great if she had a doctor go with her.’ In case she arrests again. It was unspoken but definitely implied.

And for reasons of her own, Doreen agreed. ‘Old Doc’s son,’ Doreen whispered. ‘Combadeen has its doctor back.’ Her hold on Jake tightened. ‘It’s so good to have you home.’

Who could sleep after that? The ambulance left, with Doreen and Jake aboard. Despite Rob’s protestations Tori sat on the verandah and watched the dawn. Rusty was watching the road again, but things had changed. Who he was watching for had changed.

‘There’s no use changing your allegiance in that direction,’ she told him. ‘But as a transitional tool he’s very useful.’

The only problem was, Jake didn’t seem like a transitional tool. He felt permanent.

But, of course, he wasn’t.

When she’d run into him tonight he’d been shocked to the core, thrown out of kilter by what he’d heard about his father. He had a lot of thinking ahead of him.

She’d seen his face as he’d followed Doreen to the ambulance. There was no choice in what he had to do. He’d care for the old lady, he’d do his best, but he was thrown.

What had Doreen said? He’d come home.

He was a long way from home.

She was sitting outside Glenda’s bedroom. The French windows were open, and when finally she heard her stir she went in to tell her what had happened. To her surprise Glenda seemed almost relieved.

‘I knew something was wrong. I’ve been so worried, but all she’d do was worry about me. I had to pull her out of the fire. I was sure she’d collapsed and it wasn’t from the smoke but everyone was so busy… They just treated the burns.’ She sat up in bed and nursed her bad wrist and she looked almost happy. ‘And Old Doc’s son is with her. Jake. Jake’s home. I’m sure she’ll be fine.’

She had breakfast, refusing to be worried, her faith in Jake absolute. When Rob offered to take her to the hospital, to relieve Jake, to bring him home, she accepted with pleasure.

They left-and finally Tori went back to bed.

Jake’s home?

It didn’t make any sense at all, but it kept playing, and she slept with it in her head.

Jake’s home.

It was midday before Jake drove Rob’s car back to the lodge.

Doreen had been transferred to the large teaching hospital in the city-without Glenda accompanying her. Stubborn and Independent R Us, described the two sisters, Jake thought wryly. They worried about each other and not themselves. Thus, ‘You stay here and get that hand seen to,’ Doreen ordered Glenda as she was wheeled away to the waiting ambulance on her way to get a cardiac stent.

Rob offered to stay on with Glenda. He had things to do in town and was happy to wait, if Jake came back later in the afternoon to pick them both up. That should have left Jake free to return to the lodge, but the Combadeen hospital was short-staffed, and once she’d heard the story of Glenda’s hand, once Glenda told her what Jake did for a living, the local doctor grabbed him and held.

‘If you’re an anaesthetist I’d like some solid advice,’ she said, so firmly he had nowhere to go. ‘I can’t get Glenda into see a specialist before the end of the month, yet I can’t have her in this level of pain until then. If she’d told me…’

It seemed she hadn’t. Discharged from hospital, Glenda had made perfunctory follow-up visits to the city outpatients and then had simply ceased complaining.

‘Neuropathic pain’s horrible,’ Dr. Susie Fulton said gently to Glenda, still fixing Jake with a gimlet eye. He wasn’t escaping on her watch. ‘But anaesthetists are better at diagnosing it than family doctors. So can you bear Dr. Hunter examining you fully, so he can tell us what he thinks is going on? That way I can care for you until we get you some specialist help.’

‘Jake is specialist help,’ Glenda said stoutly. ‘He’s Dr. McDonald’s son.’

‘Charlie McDonald?’ The plump little country doctor straightened and beamed. ‘Charlie’s son? Oh, my dear, have you come home?’

‘No,’ Jake said shortly. ‘This is not my home.’

But as he examined Glenda with a lot more care than he’d done the night before, as he gave solid advice, and then finally as he drove back to the lodge, the phrase kept playing in his head.

Had he come home?

Of course he hadn’t. This could never be home.

Why not?

It didn’t make any kind of sense. This was the place his mother hated.

‘The walls closed in on me in that place,’ she’d told him. ‘Everyone knew everyone else’s business. You couldn’t get away. Your father was everyone’s best friend. Everyone thought he was their own property. Everyone thought I was their property. It’s claustrophobic-people clutching you, needing you, you can’t imagine.’

He could imagine. Doreen had clutched him, and as soon as Glenda arrived at the hospital she’d done her own clutching. Then the local doctor. Even Rob…

‘Great that you were here,’ he’d said. ‘You know, if you were to consider staying, this valley needs doctors more than it needs rain.’

It was as though he was being hammered. Too much had happened too fast. And on top of the myriad emotions he was feeling towards a family he felt he no longer knew, he’d made love to a woman who’d twisted his heart.

Was it only two days ago that he’d met her?

Disturbed, and tired beyond bearing, he pulled the car over to the verge and closed his eyes. He desperately needed to sleep. A power nap would keep him going, and it’d also clear his mind. He’d used this technique often during his career, when things were closing in on him, seemingly too difficult. He’d simply stop, clear his mind of everything, sleep a little and, when things percolated back, the white noise would be gone and only the urgent issues would stay.

He lay back in the car seat, letting everything fade. Maybe he slept for a little. When he opened his eyes a flock of white cockatoos had landed in the paddock beside the car. They were screeching and wheeling like something in an Alfred Hitchcock movie.

And yes, things were clearer.

No matter the pressures mounting on him, he didn’t belong here. No matter that it had been his father’s home, it wasn’t his home. The screeching of these unfamiliar birds cemented it.

But Tori…

Tori was different. The thought of her was front and centre in his mind, still right where she’d been when he’d gone to sleep. She was one special woman.

The white noise was the claustrophobia of this environment, of the needs of this valley. That had to be removed. It had nothing to do with him. Tori was separate.

Maybe they couldn’t be separated.

Well, if not… He had no place here. His life, his work, his future were in Manhattan. The past two days had changed nothing.

Except he might have fallen very hard for a woman called Tori.

Tori rang the hospital as soon as she woke. ‘Things are fine,’ Susie told her. ‘Doreen’s already in Melbourne North Western. She’s seen a cardiologist and they’re putting a stent in later this afternoon. It seems a relatively straightforward block and amazingly there looks to be little long-term damage. He thinks she’ll be fine. Glenda’s still here. Jake told me your suggestion about the hand therapist, and she’s with her now. Jake’s lovely, by the way. Glenda says he was your five-minute date. How about that?’

She blushed. Nothing was secret in this valley.

‘He’s nothing to do with me.’

‘No, dear, but if you could have him be something to do with you I’d very much appreciate it,’ Susie said briskly. ‘The valley needs someone like him so much, and his father’s reputation has gone before him. People would trust him.’

‘He lives in the States.’

‘He has houses here,’ Susie pointed out. ‘So if you could think of any way to make him stay…’

‘Suse…’

‘Just saying,’ Susie said and laughed. ‘Is he home with you now?’

‘No.’

‘He should be soon, then. Rob’s got a couple of things to do in town. The arrangement is that Jake’ll bring back the car at five and pick up Rob and Glenda, so that gives you a whole lot of time all by yourselves. So see what you can do, my dear. I’ve been advertising for a partner for years. If you can do it with one five-minute date I’ll be very pleased indeed.’

She chuckled and disconnected. Tori stared at her phone as if it was poison.

The valley gossips had been at it already.

No one knew about last night. All they knew was that she’d walked out of a five-minute date, and she was sharing a house with Jake. Yet already… Already…

She felt her cheeks flush. Jake would hate it. She hated it.

She would not have last night sullied by gossip.

So move on, she told herself. Move on fast. Jake was on his way home. She needed to be out of here.

Make another phone call.

‘Yes, of course,’ she was told by a women whose sympathy was matched with the efficiency of six months’ post-bushfire organisation. ‘You’ve been almost the last one left living up on the ridge. There’re three homes left in our relocatable village. You can take your pick.’

Feeling more and more panicked, Tori decided she could sort her gear later. She gathered Rusty and headed out the drive.

She turned out the stone entrance-and almost hit Jake coming in.

She stopped. It was only courteous. She had to say goodbye.

She’d made love to this man. What had she been thinking?

She knew exactly what she’d been thinking.

He climbed out of the car and she was caught again by how good he looked. Yes, his pants were creased and when she looked closely there were a couple of grass stains on his shirt. He needed a shave. His hair needed a brush.

He looked incredibly hot.

He climbed out and smiled at her and hot didn’t begin to describe it. He made her heart turn over.

‘Where are you going?’ he asked, peering in her passenger-side window and Rusty practically turned himself inside out in order to reach him. Tori pressed the window button, the window slid down and Rusty was in Jake’s arms in a flash. Jake submitted to being licked, and even laughed as the little dog squirmed his ecstasy in finding his friend.

His friend. Her friend. This man was seriously, seriously sexy.

‘I’m going to see my new home,’ she said, frantically attempting to firm something inside her that felt very much in need of firming.

‘Can I come with you?’

Could he come? Um, no. Um, not wise.

But Rusty was licking his nose again, he was laughing and what was her head doing, saying no? Of course he could come. She could no sooner deny this man than fly.

‘Of course,’ she said, and he opened the door and climbed in. Uh-oh. Where was her escape plan now?

‘You don’t have anything else to do?’ she asked, half hopeful.

‘I need to be back at the hospital at five to collect Rob and Glenda. That’s four hours.’

‘You don’t need to sleep?’

‘I’ve slept.’

‘You’ve slept?’

‘For at least an hour. Any more is for wusses,’

‘Right,’ she said, thoroughly disconcerted, and restarted the engine and headed down the valley to her new home. With her man beside her.

Her man who wasn’t her man. A Manhattan doctor.

Jake.

The relocatables were set up as a village. From a distance they looked like rows of shoeboxes lined up side by side.

Even from the road Tori could see there was no use checking out the three she’d been offered and choosing between them. They’d be exactly the same.

‘What is this place?’ Jake demanded, staring around in dismay.

‘Home,’ Tori said resolutely, heading for Shoebox 86. The key was in the door. She pushed it open and bit back a gasp of dismay.

Home?

Not.

She’d need to make it home fast, she thought, or the resolution she’d decided on would fail her. Somehow what had happened last night had seemed the catalyst for moving on, but now… Staying near Jake any longer seemed dangerous. This was the sensible option.

But this was beige. And Jake was still here.

So… She’d use him again, she thought. She’d use his energy.

‘We need to shop,’ she said briskly, but Jake wasn’t listening.

‘You can’t stay here. It’s like a budget motel.’

‘It’s better than a budget motel,’ she snapped. ‘It’s new and it’s comfortable and it’s mine.’

‘So what will you do here?’

‘I’ve been offered a job in a pet clinic on the outskirts of the city.’

‘Was that what you were doing on the ridge?’

‘My father and I ran a horse clinic,’ she said, ‘with a small-animal practice on the side. There were scores of horse studs on the mountain. There’s not a lot of horses up there now, though, and there won’t be for years, so it’s pets only.’ A furrow appeared between her eyes and she shrugged. ‘No matter. Last night showed me I can move on and I will.’

She was looking around, taking careful assessment. ‘But you’re right, I can’t live here like it is now,’ she said. ‘I need to go shopping.’ She glanced at her watch, hesitating. ‘I should have come alone, but we have time before you’ve promised to pick up Glenda. If I wait until after then I won’t have stuff today, and I need this place to be cheerful tonight.’

‘You’re not staying here tonight?’

‘I am,’ she said, flatly and definitely, and then she smiled, taking the sting from her words. ‘Today’s the first day of the rest of my life. Do you want to come shopping?’

Did he?

‘There’s-’

‘Time,’ she said, refusing to be deflected by his dismay. ‘There’s a great Asian trading centre a couple of miles from here. I reckon I could get all I need there and more.’

He stared at her, stunned. The difference between the Tori of now and the Tori of yesterday was, quite simply, extraordinary. What had happened between them last night had shaken his world, but for Tori it seemed to have marked a turnaround, transforming her from grief-stricken victim to woman about to embark on her new life.

‘We should have brought the two cars,’ she said, but cheerfully, as if she wasn’t very sorry. ‘You’re welcome to stay here and wait. Or are you happy to watch me shop?’

She smiled and there was determination behind the smile. She might be transformed, he thought, but the grief was still with her. She was moving forwards, with shadows.

And the least he could do was come along for the ride.

‘Shopping’s my favourite thing,’ he lied.

‘Really?’

‘No, but it’s like hard work. I can watch it being done for hours.’

She chuckled, a lovely rich chuckle that had the power to transform this stark little apartment into something else. Tori’s home.

Bleak as a great man’s house without a fireplace in it…

The words came from…where? He hardly recalled the analogy, so why should they spring to mind now, dredged from literature or a play he’d once seen?

But he knew why they’d come. A house without Tori in it seemed the same. Unthinkable. She had the power to light from within, and that’s just what she was doing as she grabbed her bag and jingled her car keys.

‘Rusty’s due for a nap. I bought him a doggy chew so he’ll be happy enough staying here. You want to drive or will I?’

‘I will,’ he said faintly. ‘I kind of like the challenge of driving on the left-and you should save your energy for shopping.’