The Doctor’s Proposal

CHAPTER TEN

THE impact stunned Kirsty. There was a sharp, hot pain across her chest that threatened to overwhelm her as she sank. But Susie’s hand was in hers. Susie was still with her and as she rose to the surface she felt Susie’s grip tighten.

They’d waited almost too long. Almost. The boat’s momentum had become their momentum, so they were in the wash of white water around the rocks. And there was a spray of wood around them. Splintering parts of the dinghy that had gone forward and smashed hard into the rocks. Without them.

They were safe?

Not yet.

Kenneth would still be concentrating on getting his boat clear, Kirsty thought in the vestige of brain she had left to think of things apart from breathing and staying afloat and ignoring the pain in her chest. He’d come so close that he’d have had to pull an almost one-eighty-degree turn to haul his boat away.

Susie was tugging her. Injured and pregnant as she was, Susie was rising to their need faster than Kirsty.

The waves were crashing against the rocks. This could be a maelstrom at times, but not today. Today the sea was kind. The waves weren’t so great they couldn’t fight them, and Susie’s hand was hauling her further into the white water rather than away from it.

In the white water lay their only protection. Kenneth mustn’t see them. Both of them knew that.

Their hope lay in him being too intent on hauling his boat away from the rocks to have seen what they’d done.

So they surfaced but they surfaced with fear. With their heads barely above the water, Susie made a tiny hand movement, a movement like that of a porpoise.

Maybe he’d picked the wrong twins for a watery death, Kirsty thought, fighting back pain, and for a moment she allowed herself a glimmer of hope. She and Susie had played water polo-had lived for the game as youngsters. Susie’s hand movement meant Meet you under water in that direction.

A fast glance showed she was indicating the only gap in the line of rocks. The gap held a mass of white water but maybe it was possible. And if they could get through…

They couldn’t do it with linked hands and both of them knew it. Susie’s legs were so weak she’d be slow, but the pain in Kirsty’s chest meant that she’d be limited as well. She’d cracked a rib, she thought, and gave herself a tiny test. Breathe in. Breathe out. It hurt but her breathing wasn’t impeded.

Maybe she hadn’t punctured a lung.

Susie’s hand was squeezing hers and her eyes were questioning. She’d know Kirsty was in pain.

But they had no choice and both of them knew it.

Meet you through the rocks?

Go. Now.

And amazingly she did it. Kirsty used her feet, kicking hard under the surface of the water, duck-diving, ignoring the scream of protest in her chest.

Somehow she found the gap. The waves were crashing against her, pushing her sideways. She had to surface just for a moment to reorientate, to breathe, but the gap was right where she’d seen it and down she went again-and through.

Through.

She surfaced.

And then she had to wait. Only for seconds, but they stayed as some of the longest seconds in her life. Please, let Susie be safe. How could she get through? Her legs had no strength. She was eight months pregnant. Eight months pregnant! Please…

And then the water exploded beside her and her twin was with her, and she was even laughing!

This was the Susie who’d been at her side since childhood, a tomboy, a reckless, brave, laughing hothead who’d chosen landscape gardening as a profession because she’d loved playing in mud, and whose light had only been dimmed by Rory’s death. Somehow in the past few days the old Susie had started to resurface, and now Kenneth’s threats had lifted her right back to life.

‘Let him get us now,’ Susie said. She grabbed Kirsty’s hands and they were treading water behind the rocks. Their heads were still barely above the water and there were waves breaking between them and the horizon. Even if Kenneth brought the boat round to their side of the rocks, he wouldn’t be able see them. The only way he could was to bring his boat so far that he’d risk his own boat being smashed.

How long should they stay there?

How long would Kenneth wait? He’d see that their boat was a splintered mess. He would assume that they’d be injured at the very least, desperately injured and miles from the mainland.

He wouldn’t wait long, Kirsty thought, and they could stay treading water.

‘What’s hurting?’ Susie asked.

‘I think I might have cracked a rib,’ Kirsty told her. ‘No drama. How about you?’

‘I can tread water for hours.’

No, she couldn’t, Kirsty thought. She wasn’t as strong as she’d thought. The adrenalin was high now, but after an hour or so in the water…

Maybe they could get up onto one of the rocks. In a little while she’d check and see if it was possible.

But not yet. Not yet.

Jake, you have to find us.

The beach was deserted, but there were signs that there’d been people there. There were footsteps in the sand. Three different ones. Two smaller-women’s. One larger. And a dog’s pawprints.

There was a deep indentation in the sand. A boat had been dragged up here and then dragged off again.

He had them in a boat, Jake thought, his heart almost stopping. Where…?

‘We’ll call in the chopper.’ Fred Mackie, Dolphin Bay’s only policeman, was looking as grim as Jake felt. ‘If it’s not being used, they can get here in less than half an hour.’

‘Half an hour.’

Fred’s hand was on Jake’s shoulder. ‘Meanwhile I’ll have every boat out of harbour searching.’

‘If he kills them at sea…’

‘He’s mad but not that mad,’ Fred said, uneasily, though, since Fred had known Kenneth as a boy. ‘I’ll call in the psychiatric crisis assessment team.’

The phone sounded on Jake’s belt. If he’d been sensible, Jake wouldn’t have answered it, but he answered automatically.

‘Jake?’

It was Angus. What the hell?

‘They’re saying he has the girls.’ Angus sounded breathless and desperately worried.

‘Now, don’t-’

‘Don’t protect me,’ Angus snapped. ‘The nurses here have been doing that. I knew something was wrong. Word travels round this place faster than you’d believe, and the girl who came to take my obs looked sick. Wouldn’t tell me why and that made me think it had to be Kenneth. So I rang Ben Boyce and he’s with me now.’

‘Don’t worry-’

‘Of course I’m worrying,’ he snarled. ‘I should have found the strength to say something this morning. I saw Spike and I knew it had to be him. The thing is…I know where he might have taken them.’

‘Where?’

‘He’s dead scared of guns,’ Angus said. ‘Fascinated by them but when they go off he turns to jelly. His father used to tease him with them, which helped a whole lot, I don’t think. I’m telling you now that he might threaten them with a gun but I doubt he’d use it. But if he wanted to do mischief…’

‘Tell me.’

‘There’s Rot-Tooth Rocks,’ Angus said, and Jake thought he should stop him now because he could hear from Angus’s whispered speech that the old man was pushing himself past the limit to impart what he felt he ought to. ‘A line of rocks about two miles out to sea. Nor-nor east. You look on a nautical map…’

‘I’ll find them,’ Jake said quickly. ‘Why do you think they’re there?’

‘Kenneth killed a dog that way once,’ Angus whispered. ‘Rory’s dog. That was why Rory left. Rory was staying with me-him and his great black Lab that went everywhere with him. Kenneth came down and hated Rory being here. He took the Lab out to sea on a makeshift raft and dashed him against the rocks.’

‘Oh, God.’

‘Move fast, Jake,’ Angus whispered. ‘Move fast.’

They had to get out of the water.

They’d crouched behind the rocks for fifteen minutes now, growing colder and more terrified by the minute. Kirsty’s chest was hurting but that was the least of her worries. Susie was growing quieter. Finally she stopped talking altogether; she stopped responding to Kirsty’s prompts. Kirsty thought, Enough. It was a risk to leave their safe haven but a bigger risk to stay.

One of the rocks had a flattish surface, just clear of the water. If they could manage…

‘Susie, I’m climbing up. I’ll tug you up after me.’

Susie didn’t answer.

Kirsty hauled her round to face her. Susie’s eyes were wide with pain, focused inward.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing.’

Yeah, right. But she had no choice.

At least the tide was going out. More of the rocks were being exposed, meaning once they got onto the rock they’d be out of the water for hours.

Long enough for Jake to find them?

As long as Kenneth had gone.

Please…

She grabbed Susie’s hands and tugged her across the gap to the flat rock. If they had both been well, this would have been a cinch, but Susie’s legs were so weak, and she was so bulky and Kirsty’s chest hurt…

She paused and did a bit more test breathing. If it hurt this much she surely must have punctured a lung-but her breathing was OK.

‘I’m being a wuss,’ she whispered to Susie and Susie managed a reply.

‘Twin wusses. Wusses who have to climb a rock.’

And somehow they did. Kirsty first, waiting for a wave to give her momentum, hauling herself up, trying not to cry out as her chest hit the flat, unforgiving surface. Trying not to stay flailing like a beached whale, trying to look up, searching the horizon, fearful that Kenneth would be just…there.

The horizon was empty.

Problem number one despatched, she thought with a twinge of triumph before the bigger twinge of her cracked rib washed back.

Ignore the rib. Now Susie.

And she did have to ignore the rib. The only way to get Susie onto the rock was to reach down with both hands and pull.

Where was her doctor’s bag when she needed it? Her kingdom for morphine.

Morphine wasn’t available. Forget morphine. She pulled and Susie tried to help and couldn’t. Twice Kirsty hauled and she didn’t think she could do it, but then a wave, bigger than the rest, washed in and lifted Susie’s body momentarily. She slithered onto the rock so there were two beached whales now.

They lay, unmoving, not speaking, while Kirsty’s pain subsided from agony to just plain awful.

But they’d done it. They were out of the water and Kenneth was gone.

Jake would come.

‘We’re OK,’ she whispered, and reached out to squeeze Susie’s hand.

Susie squeezed back with such force that Kirsty yelped.

‘We now only have one problem,’ Susie whispered at last.

‘Which is?’ Kirsty wasn’t so sure about not having punctured her lung now. She found she could scarcely breathe.

‘I think I’ve just had my fourth contraction.’

‘How fast can we make this thing go?’

Rod Hendry’s fishing trawler was the only boat in harbour that was complete with skipper when Jake and Sgt Mackie arrived to commandeer anything that moved. The policeman was now barking orders into his radio while Jake stood by Rod at the tiller and pushed him to go faster.

‘If we go any faster, mate, the engine will go ahead without the boat,’ Rod told him. ‘I’m doing faster’n safe as it is.’ Then his eyes narrowed against the sun. ‘Speaking of fast…who the hell is that?’

Jake looked. He grabbed Rod’s field glasses and focused. A speedboat. Powerful. A man crouched low in the back.

‘That’d be Scott Curry’s speedboat,’ Rod said. ‘I saw it go out earlier.’ He frowned. ‘That can’t be right. Scott’s in Queensland.’

‘It’ll be Kenneth,’ Jake said flatly. The speedboat was altering course now, moving away from the fishing boat rather than closer to it. ‘Fred!’ he yelled to the policeman, and Fred gazed through the glasses as Jake explained.

‘You want me to chase him?’ Rod asked, semi-hopeful, but they all knew chasing a speedboat with a fishing trawler was impossible.

‘I’ll contact base,’ Fred said grimly. ‘He’s alone in the boat now. I’ll have someone else pick him up. Meanwhile…’

‘We get to the rocks,’ Jake demanded. ‘Go!’

‘If he was towing a dinghy with a boat that powerful…’ Fred said thoughtfully, but Jake cut him off before he could finish. They all knew what could have happened. What had probably already happened.

‘I said I wouldn’t date her,’ Jake whispered, and Fred looked at his family’s doctor in surprise.

‘That’d be a first,’ he said, gently teasing. ‘You wanting to date someone.’

‘I don’t want to date her,’ Jake said desperately. ‘I want to marry her.’

‘Two-inch dilatation. Susie, you’re moving like a train. You have to slow down.’

‘How can I slow down?’ Susie whispered desperately. ‘Cross my legs? I don’t think so. Ow!’

‘Pant through contractions,’ Kirsty told her. ‘Whatever you do, don’t push.’

First labours were supposed to be long, she thought desperately. But, then, Susie had already gone into premature labour once and it had been suppressed.

There was nothing here to suppress labour. She needed alcohol drips, sedation, quiet.

And if the baby was born…

They were wet and cold already. They had nothing to warm a premature baby.

It would hardly be prem. Susie was only three weeks before full term.

It couldn’t come.

She hauled her soaking windcheater over her head and folded it so Susie had something approaching a pillow. Their rock was all of five feet long by three feet wide. It sloped, two feet above the water at one end, one foot at the other.

As a delivery room, it made a great rock.

‘I’m scared,’ Susie whimpered, and Kirsty hauled herself together and tried to sound professional.

‘Now, now, Mrs Douglas, what on earth is there to fret about? Women have babies all the time. This is just a water birth with a difference.’

Susie tried to smile-but failed. ‘I want my bath heated, please, Doctor.’

‘Nonsense.’ She had to pause as another contraction washed over her twin. Less than two minutes apart. Uh-oh. Susie was gripping her hand so tightly she was almost reaching bone. ‘You’ll write a book about this,’ she told Susie as the pain eased. ‘Natural birth with a difference. Sea, sun and dolphins, and no intervention at all.’

‘I’d like Enya on the stereo,’ Susie said, trying to match her mood.

‘No Enya.’ Kirsty was clutching at straws. ‘We’d need technology to play Enya, and think of the germs we’d have to contend with. Hospitals are full of golden staph, and I bet sound systems have their share, too. You wouldn’t want your baby catching golden staph.’

‘No, indeed.’ Susie took a rasping breath and humour died. ‘Kirsty, I can’t really have my baby on this rock.’

‘I suspect you don’t have a choice,’ Kirsty said, and as the next contraction hit she thought, no, it was more than a suspicion.

They were miles from anywhere. When the tide came in they’d be in the water. Somewhere there was Kenneth, intent on murder.

And they were having a baby.

‘If I ever suggested I didn’t need a man in my life, can I change my mind now?’ she said under her breath. ‘Jake, I need you. Now!’

‘Rot-Tooth Rocks are that white line on the horizon.’

The moment Rod said it, Jake had the field glasses fixed on the horizon. ‘Can’t we go faster?’

He was ignored.

Closer.

‘I think…’ Jake was straining to see and Rod grabbed the glasses back from him. The big fisherman’s eyes were creased from staring at the sea all his life. He focused. And what he saw…

He dropped the glasses and gunned the motor so hard black smoke started coming out the rear.

‘Hey,’ the police sergeant said, startled. ‘You’ll kill us.’

‘They’re on the rock,’ Rod snapped. ‘From here…one’s crouching over but one…hell, maybe one’s dead.’

‘There’s a boat coming.’ Kirsty whispered it to Susie but Susie was no longer listening. She was in a mist of pain and terror. She should have an epidural, Kirsty thought numbly. To have this type of pressure on her already damaged back… To have this level of pain…

There was a boat coming.

Was it Kenneth? It was still too far away to make out.

They couldn’t slip back down into the water now. They couldn’t hide.

Another contraction, merging into the last.

‘No,’ Susie screamed. ‘Kirsty, no…’

‘Breathe into it,’ Kirsty said, firmly releasing the clutching fingers and moving to where she needed to be. Which gave her exactly six inches of balancing space before she toppled into the sea. ‘OK, Susie, if you must, you must. Push.’

‘Kirsty!’

They were near enough to be heard. Jake was at the side of the boat, yelling frantically to the girls on the rock.

Kirsty was kneeling over Susie and he couldn’t see…he couldn’t see…

She must be able to hear him.

‘Kirsty!’

Fifty yards. Thirty.

‘I daren’t go closer,’ Rod muttered, but before he finished saying it Jake was over the side, stroking his way desperately through the white water.

One minute Kirsty was frantic. Despairing. The next Jake was beside her, hauling himself up on the rock. Assessing fast.

‘What’s happening?’ he snapped, and Kirsty gave a choked cry of fear and shock.

Jake was grasping her shoulders, pulling her aside. She was too close to Susie for him to be able to see.

‘Back into medical mode here, Dr McMahon.’

And, snap, just like that, it returned. Somehow. Enough for her to be able to falter, ‘The cord. It’s round the neck. I can’t stop…’

She was picked up and lifted to the other end of the rock where there was a tiny amount of space by Susie’s head. Jake was crouching down, his big hands moving.

‘Susie, stop pushing,’ he snapped, so loudly that Kirsty jumped in shock.

‘Pant. Don’t push. You’re not to push, Susie. Stop!’

Kirsty knew what he was doing. It was what she’d been trying to do but her hands were so cold they were numb, the pain in her chest was too sharp, she didn’t have the strength…

He’d be pushing the baby back. Just a bit. Just a little so he could manoeuvre…

‘There.’ It was a sigh of triumph, and Susie cried out.

‘I can’t-I can’t…’

‘It’s OK,’ Jake said, still triumphant. ‘Push, Susie, love. Go for it.’

And ten seconds later Rosie Kirsteen Douglas emerged into the world. Two miles out to sea, on a flat piece of rock not much bigger than a man. Seven pounds eleven ounces, and with the healthiest set of lungs a baby could be blessed with.

Jake held her in his hands, moving swiftly, ripping up his shirt, tying the cord with a scrap of fabric, holding her up-just for a second-so the men in the boat could see, holding her for another millisecond so Kirsty could see, and then smiling down at Susie, showing her her baby and tucking the tiny newborn under Susie’s sodden windcheater, tight against her skin.

After the mammoth effort Susie had made, her breasts had to be warmest place available, Kirsty thought. It was the warmest place until they could get themselves off the rock.

Sensible.

But Kirsty was no longer sensible. Susie was smiling and smiling, cradling her body into a protective curve, no longer aware of anything but this new little life that was gloriously hers.

Kirsty was weeping. Her head was in her hands and she was out of control, and when Jake swore and managed to get himself to where he could reach her, touch her, take her into his arms and hold her, the weeping only grew worse.

She was lost.

She didn’t cry. She never cried.

She cried now as if she’d cry for ever.