The Doctor’s Proposal

CHAPTER SIX

FOR a moment no one spoke. The twins stared open-mouthed. Mrs Boyce’s knitting needles stilled and Angus sat back on his heels and gazed at his nephew like he was seeing a ghost.

‘Kenneth.’ There was lingering affection in his voice, Kirsty thought. Once he’d loved this man. As a boy?

‘You’re supposed to be dead,’ Kenneth snarled and any hint of affection, any trace of warmth in the sun-filled afternoon was gone.

‘I’m not,’ Angus said warily, putting a hand on his oxygen cylinder as if assuring himself it was still available.

‘I rang that bloody doctor last week and he said you were going into a home yesterday and you were dying.’

‘I said if no one cared enough to come, then he’d die.’

Kirsty hadn’t noticed Jake’s arrival but he was suddenly right behind him. He must have driven though the gates after Kenneth’s arrival, and she had been so caught up that she hadn’t heard. Now Kenneth rose, his colour flooding back. ‘You,’ he said, and his fury seemed to be escalating by the moment, redirecting itself to Jake. ‘You lied.’

‘Kenneth, take care,’ Jake said warningly. ‘There’s no need for you to think people here are against you. Would you like to meet my twins?’

He was trying to defuse the situation, Kirsty realised. She looked at the fury on Kenneth’s face and thought this had to be some sort of mental illness. Surely such anger couldn’t be justified?

But Kenneth was whirling again to stare at Susie. ‘She’s pregnant,’ he whispered. ‘Pregnant.’

‘Susie’s pregnant with Rory’s baby, yes,’ Jake said evenly. ‘We all think that’s great.’

‘And she’ll inherit…’ He choked, and Kirsty realised he’d gone past logic. ‘She’ll inherit from Rory…’

‘Rory’s dead, Ken,’ Jake said evenly. ‘Susie won’t inherit anything from anyone.’

‘The b-’

‘Get out of my garden.’ It was Angus. He was as pale as the night they’d arrived but he had himself under control. He held on to his oxygen cylinder as if he needed its support, but when he spoke his voice was completely steady. ‘If you insult Rory’s wife, you’re not welcome in my home.’

‘It’s not your home. You should be dead.’

‘Jake,’ Angus said tiredly, and Jake gave an almost imperceptible nod.

‘Ken, let’s go,’ he said softly. He took Kenneth’s arm and when Ken tried-violently-to wrench away, his hold tightened. ‘You’re not welcome here, mate,’ he said softly. ‘You know you can’t speak to people like this and stay welcome.’ He propelled him around, facing away from the others in the garden. ‘Come with me,’ he said softly. ‘Something tells me you’ve been skipping medication. I can help you if you’ll come with me. Come back and talk to your uncle when you’re feeling calmer.’

‘Don’t touch me.’ He wrenched with even more fury and because he was hauling backward, toward the gate, Jake let him go. Then suddenly he smashed forward again. But Jake must have been expecting it. As Ken blundered past he caught his arm, twisted, held. He had him locked against him, his arms up behind his back.

‘Ken, we’re going to the hospital, mate,’ he said softly.

‘I don’t need-’

‘You need help.’ Despite the violence, shocking in such a peaceful setting, Jake was speaking as if nothing untoward had happened. ‘You know you’re supposed to be on medication. You told me last time, carbamazepine.’

‘She’s pregnant. It’s mine.’

‘Kirsty, could you help me take Ken to the hospital?’ Jake asked. He smiled across at his little girls, standing open-mouthed and frightened. ‘Guys, Mr Douglas is ill. His head’s hurting and it’s making him say things he doesn’t mean. Dr Kirsty and I will take him away and make him feel better. Margie and Mr Boyce and Susie and Angus will stay and look after you. Is that OK?’

They stared a bit more but they almost visibly relaxed in the face of their father’s normal tone.

‘OK,’ Penelope whispered-or was it Alice?

‘That’s great.’ Ken seemed to have slumped against Jake, suddenly passive. He glanced across at Kirsty. ‘You want to drive or sit in the back with our passenger?’

‘I think I’ll drive,’ she said faintly. ‘If it’s OK with you.’

The drive back to the hospital was made in grim silence. Ken didn’t appear to object, which made Kirsty wonder how often these sort of outbursts had happened in the past. He seemed almost resigned.

At the hospital Jake administered a small dose of chlorpromazine and organised a hospital bed, and then he sat with Ken as he drifted into sleep. Kirsty could have disappeared then, but she didn’t. She needed to know about this man’s anger, she decided. The way he’d reacted to Susie had been terrifying.

So she made herself a coffee at the nurses’ station and waited for Jake to reappear. He finally emerged, looking grim. When he saw her, he seemed to make an effort to make his face relax.

‘I thought you’d have gone home.’

‘I’m driving your car,’ she reminded him. ‘That would have left you stuck.’

‘There are hospital cars, or one of the locals would have driven me back.’

‘I wanted to know about Ken. He hates Susie. Why?’

‘Ken hates the world,’ Jake said bluntly. He started making himself a coffee, talking to her as if he was thinking aloud. ‘Ken was born with a personality disorder that makes him think the world’s against him. Angus tells me that having him here as a child was a nightmare-he was so jealous of Rory that he made life unbearable. Angus saw little of him over the last few years, but lately he’s been badgering me about Angus’s health. I figure he thinks Angus is going to die soon and he’ll inherit. Today’s behaviour confirmed that. But his behaviour is way out of normal bounds. He’s seriously ill.’

‘What can you do about it?’

‘I’m not sure,’ he told her. ‘His behaviour today was so bizarre that in the old days I’d have had him committed.’

‘Not so easy today, huh?’

‘I’d imagine it’d be just the same in the States as it is here,’ he told her. ‘Evidence of gross psychiatric disturbance and the sworn statements of two psychiatrists that he forms a risk. What I should have done was let him slug someone today. Then I could have got him arrested. But the nearest person was me and I’m not all that into being slugged for the greater good.’

‘I don’t blame you.’ She hesitated. ‘What now?’

‘I can hold him here overnight,’ he told her. ‘I’ve probably gone further than wise in giving him a dose of chlorpromazine that’ll knock him out. He could probably sue as he didn’t agree to it. But I’m hoping that a solid sleep will leave him calmer. I’ll make an urgent call to the state psychiatric database people and see if I can find someone who knows him. Then I’ll try and get him on some sort of calming medication. But he doesn’t have to agree to it, and maybe once he’s had a sleep and is back to being logical he won’t want it.’

‘Is he functioning?’

‘You mean does he make a habit of verging on violence for no reason? No. Angus has talked about him to me. He’s suffered from uncontrollable rage from childhood but he’s somehow kept it under limits enough for him to function. He’s a qualified accountant, working in Sydney. He’s had two brief failed marriages, so he must seem normal most of the time.’

‘But not today,’ she said-and shivered.

‘No.’ Jake looked at her like he was looking straight through her, seeing the problems on the other side. ‘Maybe he saw the ramifications of Susie’s baby more clearly than either Angus or Susie have seen it yet. They’re so delighted to find each other that they haven’t seen what’s obvious.’

‘Which is?’

‘Angus is an exceedingly wealthy man,’ Jake said gently. ‘Although he downplays it, he has a title many people would give their eye teeth for. He also has entailed property back in Scotland. Loganaich is a major seat and Angus has a rent roll that would make your head spin. Angus told me once that he’d never wanted it, but it’s entailed in such a way he couldn’t avoid inheriting. He said Rory felt the same. Angus was devastated when Rory died, because the next in line-’

‘Is Kenneth,’ she breathed. ‘Oh, no.’

‘Maybe not Kenneth any more,’ he said sombrely. ‘Maybe Susie’s baby.’

Kirsty’s breath sucked in as the repercussions sank home. ‘So today…’

‘For the last few months-since Rory’s death-Kenneth must have believed that he’ll be the next Earl of Loganaich, with all the wealth and privilege that entails. Today he saw Susie’s pregnancy and he realised his calculations were wrong. I watched his face. He looked angry when he saw that Angus was using oxygen-that there’ll be a delay before he inherits. But when he realised Susie was pregnant, he almost passed out.’

‘She won’t want wealth,’ Kirsty whispered. ‘She’d never want it.’

‘I figured that,’ Jake said gently. ‘Finally. You just have to know you, Kirsty, to know what a loving, giving person Susie must be.’

‘Don’t,’ she said distressfully. ‘You know nothing about us. Rory and Ken were brothers and they’re so different.’

‘Kenneth’s ill. You’re not ill,’ he said softly. ‘Kirsty…’

‘Leave it, Jake,’ she said harshly. The hospital corridor was deserted and she felt suddenly exposed. How could he say such things to her and not mean…? Not mean anything?

She didn’t want him to mean anything.

‘So what do we do about Kenneth?’ she asked, louder than she’d intended, and she flushed. ‘I mean…’

‘There’s not a lot we can do,’ he said, his eyes still thoughtful. But he wasn’t thinking about Kenneth, she thought suddenly, and her flush deepened. ‘As I said, I’ll try and find a psychiatrist who knows him and get some advice. I’ll try and arrange transport to one of the better psychiatric institutions. We can only hope that when he wakes up he’s come to terms with the new order.’

‘He never thought he’d inherit before,’ she said, struggling to move past her emotions. ‘Not until Rory died.’

‘So we hold to that. Maybe it’ll be fine.’

‘How can it be anything but fine?’

‘That’s right,’ he said, but he looked worried as he glanced at his watch. ‘I might get the Boyces and the kids to stay on at the castle for the rest of the day,’ he went on slowly. ‘It’ll take everyone’s mind off what’s happened and…’

‘And it’ll provide more security for Angus and Susie?’

‘It will,’ he said gravely, and then he paused for a moment and kept on thinking. ‘You know, the castle is very big. There’s lots of bedrooms.’

‘You’re thinking of filling them?’

‘It might be fun for the Boyces and the twins,’ he told her. ‘Not to mention Susie and Angus. I’ll phone Angus and run it past him. Maybe I’ll say it’ll make you free to help me.’

‘If the twins stay there…’

‘I’ll stay there, too,’ he said. ‘Just until I know Kenneth’s out of the district.’ He hesitated and then confessed, ‘He makes me nervous.’

‘Me, too.’

‘And we should be able to keep our hands off each other for a few days.’

She stiffened. What on earth was he playing at?

‘I don’t know about your hands but my hands haven’t got the slightest inclination to wander your way,’ she snapped. ‘Unless it’s to give you a good swipe across the ears. Of all the arrogant, egotistical statements…’

‘You do feel it, too.’

‘Get lost,’ she retorted, the emotions of the afternoon venting themselves in anger. ‘Take your rotten feelings and play with them somewhere else. I have no idea what you’re talking about.’ And she turned and stalked out of the hospital with her nose in the air.

‘How will you get home?’ he called after her.

‘I’ll walk.’

‘Wait a few minutes and I’ll drive you.’

‘I wouldn’t trust myself,’ she managed without pausing. ‘You and me in a car with all that molten passion… We’d be a road safety risk, Jake Cameron. I’m not coming near you again until you have your passion safely in a glass jar in a locked cabinet. And me… I’m taking my molten whatever for a good long walk.’

She stalked out-past the unsuspecting Babs, who was just coming in.

‘Molten passion?’ Babs asked. ‘Am I missing something?’

‘We both are,’ Kirsty told her with a tired smile. ‘Dr Cameron and I have just admitted a patient with psychiatric disturbances, but if I were you I’d be worrying about who’s treating who. As far as psychiatric disturbances go, it might be a case of physician heal thyself.’

And she left, with Babs staring after her.

She didn’t know whether Jake was staring after her. She didn’t trust herself to look back and find out.

It was a long walk but she needed it. By the time she reached home she was only just nearing a state where she could think with anything approaching calm. And that was only when she very carefully made herself think of anything other than Jake Cameron.

She walked into the forecourt and swung the gate closed behind her. Home, she thought, and then gave a wry grin. Two days ago could she ever have imagined herself thinking of this crazy place as home? But she made her way to the bathroom and greeted Queen Victoria almost like a friend.

It’d be OK. Kenneth might be threatening but this place was built like a fortress after all.

‘You and me will keep them safe,’ she told Queen V. ‘We don’t need any Jake Cameron.’

She got a disapproving look for her pains. Victoria had had her Albert, and then her Mr Brown. Was she egging Kirsty on toward the involvement she’d always forsworn?

‘I don’t need anyone,’ Kirsty declared, more than a little self-consciously, and went to find the rest of the castle inhabitants. She might not need anyone but a little company would be nice. If only to stop her talking to dead monarchs!

In the end it was harder to find someone to talk to than she’d thought. Angus and Susie and the twins were all asleep. Finally she tracked down Margie who was peeling potatoes in the kitchen while Ben supervised.

‘It seems you’re stuck with us, dear,’ Margie said, welcoming her with a wave of a floury hand as Kirsty entered. ‘I hope you don’t mind, but I thought I’d make pasties for dinner.’

‘Jake’s talked to you?’

‘Dr Jake’s talked to His Lordship and he’s talked to us. We all think it’s a fine idea. Don’t we, Ben?’

Ben, a wisp of a man who’d practically disappeared in the fireside chair, nodded emphatically.

‘Kenneth is a worry to us all,’ he said gravely. ‘Angus is very upset. It took his mind right off his pumpkin.’

‘But we’ve reassured him,’ Margie assured her. ‘He and Susie were in a right state, but the twins decided mud pies were boring so we’ve made brambleberry pies instead. There’s a great patch right outside the gate. I had everyone pick while I made the pastry and it’s kept everyone nicely distracted. Now we’ve all eaten so much it’s coming out our ears-there’s some in the pantry for you, lass.’

This was real medicine. Kirsty served herself pie-still warm-and decided maybe Kenneth needed pie instead of tranquillisers. If only it were that easy.

But for Susie and Angus it had been that easy. They’d been distressed and they’d been cured by a big dose of family.

Jake’s idea of everyone staying together was an excellent plan, she decided, and she wondered again about the difficulties of being a country doctor.

Jake had been upset that she knew more about palliative medicine than he did, but his cures were so much more diverse. He’d looked at this problem and he’d cured it by a case of lateral thinking. But…

‘How can you all just move into the castle?’ Kirsty asked, confused, and Margie raised her eyebrows in astonishment.

‘Wouldn’t you come here if you were asked? There’s not a person in this district who wouldn’t give their right arm for such an invitation. My Ben here and His Lordship go back a long way. They’ve been comparing pumpkins for ever. And with Ben’s arthritis we don’t get out all that much any more. When Jake rang and suggested it we thought, well, it sounds just like a holiday. Now you’re here, I’ll pop back home and get our night things…’

‘And water our veggie garden,’ Ben said from his cavernous chair.

‘It rained yesterday so there’s no need,’ his wife said serenely. ‘You see, no trouble.’

‘But… Jake…’ Kirsty said slowly. This was so far away from the city medical practice she knew that it seemed a different world. Jake was worried about his patients so he moved in with them? Unbelievable.

‘I think our Kenneth has put the wind right up our doctor,’ Margie said, watching her face and guessing her thoughts. ‘Mind, it’ll be good for him to be out here for a bit as well. His hospital apartment’s a dreary place.’

‘Why doesn’t he find himself somewhere nicer to live?’

‘Practicalities, dear,’ Margie told her. ‘When he first came he bought himself a lovely home a few blocks from the hospital but, of course, he’s the only doctor and if he’s called during the night then there’s no one to take care of the girls. Ben and I come in during the day but he’s an independent man. He doesn’t want a live-in nanny.’

‘So what does he do now?’

‘His apartment is a part of the hospital. When he gets called out at night, the nursing staff take over caring for the twins. Minimum disruption. But being by the hospital the girls need to stay quiet. No whooping downstairs like they do here.’ She pounded the pastry with a satisfied thump. ‘It’ll do them all good to get out of the place.’ She cast a cautious glance at Kirsty. ‘Mind, what the man really needs is a wife. But we’re not expecting miracles.’

‘I wouldn’t expect miracles either,’ Kirsty said flatly. ‘The man’s a loner.’

‘He thinks you’re a bit of all right,’ Ben piped up from his chasm, and Kirsty winced.

‘We all think Kirsty’s a bit of all right,’ Margie said, casting a severe look at her husband. ‘No matchmaking, Ben. You know it only leads to trouble.’

‘Trouble’s what’s life’s about,’ Ben said, with a satisfied yawn. ‘Life’s boring without it.’

‘Kenneth’s trouble,’ Margie retorted.

‘There’s trouble and there’s trouble,’ Ben said sagely. ‘Some comes looking for you and you run a mile. Some you go looking for yourself. I’d reckon our Dr Jake is right in the middle and he doesn’t know which is which. And neither do you, miss,’ he said obscurely to Kirsty. ‘Maybe it’ll be fun to stick around for a while and watch.’

To Kirsty’s surprise, what followed were a few really restful days.

Jake and his family moved into the castle but, apart from mealtimes, Kirsty hardly saw Jake. OK, she avoided him as much as she could and maybe he was avoiding her. If so, she wasn’t asking questions.

Kenneth seemed no trouble at all.

Jake reported that he’d sent him by ambulance him to Melbourne with a request for psychiatric evaluation. The authorities rang back and said that he seemed settled and rational, they could see no reason to hold him and they’d released him with instructions to maintain his medication. For a couple of days they expected him to return breathing fire, but there was no sign of him.

‘You could go home again,’ Susie told Jake over dinner on the third night, but she said it reluctantly. He heard the reluctance and smiled. He must feel how good this was, Kirsty thought. It was great for all of them. Angus and Susie were almost unrecognisable from the two invalids they’d been only days ago.

‘If it’s OK with Angus, we might extend our stay for a few more days,’ Jake said softly. ‘The man still makes me nervous.’

‘And your kiddies would be having an excellent time,’ Angus said in satisfaction. ‘This place sounds as it ought to. Full of noise and life.’ He ladled out more of Mrs Boyce’s casserole. ‘There should be more of it.’

‘If you’re sure we’re not intruding…’

‘I’m hardly seeing you, Jake,’ Angus said bluntly. ‘The kids and the girls and Margie and Ben are intruding all over the place and I love it, but you’re never here.’

‘I’m working.’

‘Let our Kirsty share, then. She’s aching to.’

‘Kirsty’s helping.’

‘Not enough,’ Angus said bluntly. ‘Let her help with clinics.’

‘She did inoculations today.’

She had, Kirsty thought. She’d visited the local primary school and administered seventy inoculations. Sure, it had saved Jake a few hours so he could be home earlier to his kids, but it was hardly earth-shattering medicine.

She could help in his clinic. Her provisional registration was all in order, but there was a problem. Working in the clinic meant working side by side with Jake, and it made both of them nervous. They’d performed all the outstanding surgery, and now Jake was accepting her help only when it meant they worked apart.

Which was probably just as well, she thought and looked across to where Susie was teasing the twins into eating their vegetables. This was working out better than she’d ever dreamed. If Susie had a few weeks of this before her baby was born, maybe the depression could be put behind her.

Which was the important thing.

She returned her attention to her casserole, but suddenly she was aware that she was being watched.

Susie knew things were wrong. Her twin antennae had her asking questions Kirsty couldn’t answer. And Margie and Ben were very astute.

So was Jake. He’d heard the sudden stillness, and he’d heard the unuttered questions.

‘I need to go,’ he said, pushing his chair back abruptly. He placed a hand on each of his daughter’s heads. ‘I have evening clinic. Will you let Margie put you to bed?’

‘Susie’s reading me a story tonight,’ Alice told him. ‘Kirsty’s reading to Penelope. Tomorrow we’re going to swap.’

‘I can read to both girls if you need Kirsty to help you,’ Susie ventured, but Jake was already walking out the door.

‘I’m fine alone,’ he told them. And went.

The days dragged on. When Jake had said he was fine alone, he meant he was fine alone. It was as if since he’d admitted he needed help he’d backed off and changed his mind.

Between them they’d operated on Dorothy Miller’s veins, Mark Glaston’s skin cancer and Scotty Anderson’s osteochondroma, but they were small operations and all they did was give Kirsty a taste of what she was missing. She offered to do more, but the work Jake offered was minor.

‘Your major effort is to keep Angus and Susie healthy,’ he told her.

Fine. But Angus and Susie were taking care of each other.

Angus had hardly moved over the past few weeks. With his oxygen levels vastly improved, he was now ambulatory but he was still very shaky. About as shaky as Susie.

So he and Susie organised a track around the vegetable patch, where a railed wall gave them a handhold. Then they set themselves to see who could make it around the patch fastest.

As supervising medical officer, Kirsty was supposed to watch and pick them up if they fell over-but as races went, it would be faster to watch grass grow.

What was wrong with her? Kirsty demanded of herself after a week. Why was she miserable?

She should be happy. Susie was happier and healthier every day. So was Angus. There was no sign of Kenneth. The only reason the castle was still full of people was because everyone acknowledged how wonderful this arrangement was for Angus and Susie. Now the two little girls were tumbling with Boris on the grass in the late afternoon sun. The invalids were practising their walking. Ben had gone home to tend his own vegetable garden. Margie was cooking. Kirsty had a great book to read. God was in his heaven, all was right with her world-and all she could do was think about where Jake was.

She was going nuts.

‘I think I’ll go out and see Mavis,’ she decided when Ben returned and offered to take over race supervision.

‘Jake goes there most afternoons,’ Ben told her, grinning, but she decided dignity was the only way to react to his teasing.

‘If I’m not required, I won’t go in,’ she said in her very smoothest professional manner.

‘You go in, girl, and see her anyway,’ Margie said firmly. ‘Ben, you keep your nose out of what doesn’t concern you.’

‘You will watch Susie and Angus?’ Kirsty asked, trying to ignore the pair of them. Two identical grins. Drat them.

‘It’s the tortoise versus the tortoise,’ Margie said, looking over to where Angus was considering taking a couple of steps without the rail and thus overtaking Susie. ‘How exciting. Of course we’ll supervise. Off you go, dear, and see if you can move a little faster than this odd couple. Dinner’s in an hour but if you don’t get back in time it’s no problem. I’ve made sausage rolls and there’s plenty.’

What was wrong with her?

She sat in her car and glowered at her own stupidity. It was a relief to be away from the castle. She needed time. She needed…

She didn’t know what she needed.

She slowed down and then pulled off the road to admire the scenery. The views here were fabulous. Dolphins were surfing in the waves just beneath the cliff-side road. That made her glower lessen. She watched in fascinated delight, but then the dolphins gave up on their surfing and disappeared off to wherever dolphins went. Life had to go on.

Mavis. She was going to see Mavis.

But when she reached the farm, Ben was proved right. Jake’s car was already there, and her glower sprang right back. Jake should be back at the hospital doing all his very important work that kept him away from the castle all the time, she thought savagely, and then she made a valiant attempt to regain some semblance of professionalism and thought maybe Mavis was in trouble.

And if Mavis was in trouble, then she, as consultant specialist, ought to be in there with her, instead of sitting out here glowering like a lovesick teenager. Her dumb emotions had no basis in logic. She had to stay in this place for a few weeks yet, so she may as well get on with acting normal right now.

Right. Normal.

She headed up the porch steps as Jake came out the front door, and she had to struggle really hard not to start glowering again.

‘Hi,’ she said, and he looked at her blankly, like he’d forgotten who she was.

‘Why are you here?’

‘I thought you asked me to stay in touch with Mavis.’

‘I did. But I thought you were back at the castle.’

‘Well, I’m not,’ she said crossly. ‘How’s our patient?’

‘Sitting up in bed with two grandchildren and a paint-a-Rembrandt-by-numbers kit,’ he told her, allowing himself to smile. ‘There’s paint everywhere and Barbara’s trying to act crabby. You want to see?’

‘I do,’ she said, and she even smiled back-but then she remembered who she was talking to and she stopped smiling. ‘But I won’t keep you. You’re obviously busy.’

‘Not so busy that I can’t enjoy your reaction to what you’ve done,’ he said, standing aside and letting her past. ‘You’ve done great, Dr McMahon.’

She flushed. She had to walk right by him and she flushed some more.

She needed to go back to the States, she thought desperately. She was losing her mind.

But she wasn’t losing her touch with her medicine. She walked into Mavis’s bedroom and stopped in astonishment.

The room was full of family. Mavis was propped up on pillows, with a grandchild on either side of her. The bed had been pulled out from the wall so the kids could have a chair apiece either side, and they’d added a few books to get the children-a boy and a girl of about five and seven-to the right height. A tray had been set up over Mavis’s knees to hold paints and brushes and canvas.

There was as much paint on the bedspread as there was on the canvas but no one seemed to be minding. Everyone looked up as Kirsty walked in, and everyone smiled. Barbara was by the window, and as she came forward Kirsty saw the faint glimmer of tears on her lashes.

But they weren’t tears of despair, she thought. The change in the sickroom since the week before was little short of miraculous. Pain was an absolute killer all by itself. It ruined lives before death. If it could be held at bay…

She’d succeeded. There was no need to ask. It was written all over Mavis’s face.

‘So you don’t need me to adjust anything?’ she said softly, doing a fast blink herself. Mavis’s smile broadened.

‘Oh, no, dear. I’m doing very nicely.’

It would change again, Kirsty thought. This disease was cruel and it was terminal. The bone metastases would be growing and the pain regime would have to be tweaked every day for as long as the old lady had left. But for now she was enjoying life, and Kirsty could keep tweaking the pain regimen.

Kirsty could keep tweaking until Susie delivered her baby and she left.

‘You’ll train me before you go,’ Jake said softly, and she knew he was thinking the same thing. And it slammed into her all over again-that Jake seemed somehow to share her thinking. The knowledge was extraordinarily intimate. More, it was just plain extraordinary. She saw him smile, and she wondered how it was that she could meet such a man when he wasn’t interested. When she lived half a world away. When she didn’t want involvement. When the whole thing was ridiculous.

And she wondered whether he knew she was thinking that, too.

‘Of course I’ll run through the latest pain management regimen for this sort of disease with you,’ she said, a trifle distractedly. She managed to smile at Mavis and turned determinedly away from Jake. ‘Can I interrupt the painting to do a quick check? Do you have any sore spots?’

‘My hip’s bothering me a little,’ Mavis admitted. ‘But it’s so much better than last week that I don’t like to complain.’

‘The squeaky wheel gets the oil,’ Kirsty told her, still trying her best to ignore Jake. If dumb platitudes filled the uneasy silence, then he’d get dumb platitudes, but platitudes weren’t going to stop her being acutely aware of him every minute. ‘Dr Cameron, why don’t you take these two aspiring artists for a walk?’ she said desperately. ‘Then their grandma and I can have a discussion about a sore hip.’

She could still help. Once Jake left she relaxed. Not only did she assist Mavis with her hip pain, she spent some time talking about the future, reassuring the old lady that the pain could be kept at bay for as long as it took.

‘We may have to change the cocktail over and over again,’ she told her. ‘But we can. Even when I go, I’ll leave instructions as to what to do in the future, and I’m always on the end of the phone. And Dr Cameron is good. He was about to phone for help from a city pain specialist when I arrived, and if I leave he’ll still do that.’

‘I wish you could stay,’ Mavis said wistfully, but Kirsty thought there might well be six months or so left to the old lady-maybe even more-and she could make no promises.

The sun was losing its warmth when she left. She checked her watch and realised she’d dawdled too long on the way there. They were expecting her back at the castle for dinner.

But when she went out to the veranda there was another patient lined up. Jake was sitting on the veranda steps with a farmer by the looks of him, a man in his sixties or early seventies. The man glanced up at her, grinned, a gap-toothed grin in a battered and not-so-clean face.

‘This’ll be the other doc,’ he said in satisfaction. ‘Two for the price of one. Barbara said Doc’d be coming tonight and I watched the road for his car. Now I have the pair of you.’

‘Herbert lives just over the rise,’ Jake said dryly, with a look that was almost apologetic. ‘Herbert, this is Dr McMahon. Herbert doesn’t like clinic because he doesn’t like waiting.’

‘The missus makes me have a bath before I go to clinic. A man could waste a whole day on a visit like that,’ Herbert said indignantly. ‘Me leg’s a bit of a mess and the missus said she’d drag me in tomorrow regardless. But now I’ve found you…’ He beamed. ‘If you could just fix me up.’

He hauled up his trouser leg and revealed a gory haematoma, with a long jagged gash in the centre. There were angry red weals leading up the leg toward the groin. It didn’t take a brains trust to realise this injury had taken place some days before and had been ignored.

‘So what happened?’ Jake asked. They had an audience. Barbara was standing watching, holding a child by each hand. These were farm kids, Kirsty thought in wry amusement. A kid from Manhattan might well faint, but all these children showed was fascinated interest.

‘Blasted heifer kicked out as I was putting her into a bail last Monday,’ Herbert said sourly. ‘It was her first time in. I should know better by now and keep myself out of the way, but I’m getting slower in my old age. Anyway, the missus saw it last night and had a pink fit and said the leg’d drop off if I didn’t see you. So I’m seeing you.’

‘I don’t suppose there’s any chance you might come to the hospital,’ Jake said, but he sounded amused more than annoyed and he didn’t look surprised when Herbert shook his head.

‘The leg’ll have to turn black before that happens.’

‘The leg may well turn black if you don’t take more care of it,’ Jake said bluntly. He looked up at Barbara. ‘Is it OK if Dr McMahon and I perform a piece of minor surgery on your veranda?’

‘It’s Mum’s veranda,’ Barbara said. She smiled and motioned to where her mother was watching through the bedroom window. ‘As long as you don’t mind an audience, go right ahead.’

This was seriously weird, Kirsty decided.

Jake propped the farmer on cushions. He spread newspapers under his leg and asked Kirsty to administer a full shin block. Then he proceeded to clean the wound of accumulated debris-of which there was plenty-getting rid of the dead flaps of torn skin and checking the circulation around the wound. Dirty wounds were best left open as much as possible. They both knew that to Herbert cosmetic appearances were a very minor consideration, but the tear was big and Jake needed to pull it together with a few stitches.

The kids watched. A couple of hens clucked past, and all the while Herbert lay back and discussed the state of the poddy market with Barbara.

‘Those damned Friesians of mine only got fifty quid last week,’ he complained. ‘You and your old man got seventy.’

‘That’s because we feed ’em right,’ Barbara said severely. ‘You’re too much of a skinflint to give them what they need, and whoever buys them has to go into TLC mode.’

‘What’s TLC?’

‘Tender loving care,’ Barbara retorted. ‘Something you ought to have used on your leg, you dopey git.’

There was a wealth of affection between them, Kirsty realised, and then she thought, more-there was a wealth of affection within this whole community. Jake cared for all these people. They cared for Jake and they cared for each other. He was right. This was the best community in which to raise kids.

What if Susie wanted to stay here after the baby was born?

What was she thinking that for? Why would Susie want to stay?

Why would she want to go home?

Not for family, Kirsty thought ruefully. They had no one but each other.

But here…here Susie had Angus and the Boyces and Jake and a vegetable garden and people who were prepared to love her.

Maybe Susie might want to stay.

Which left Kirsty where?

Home was where the heart was. Another platitude. She was getting good at platitudes.

So what did she have back in Manhattan to tug at her heart? Who did she have?

Robert?

Ha.

Oh, stop it, she told herself fiercely as she watched Jake dress the farmer’s leg. You’re being maudlin.

She’d go back to the castle right now, she decided. Jake put on a last piece of sticking plaster. She administered a dose of intravenous antibiotic with care and rose to leave. Her work here was done.

‘Surgery tomorrow morning at nine to have this checked,’ Jake was telling Herbert.

‘Aw, Doc, you know I don’t have time to come to surgery.’

‘I’ll ring Maudie and tell her to tip out your stock of homebrewed if you’re not there,’ he retorted, as the farmer struggled to his feet as well. The downside of using the veranda floor as an operating table was that patient access wasn’t so great. Jake took one arm and Kirsty the other. Herbert was a bit wobbly. He reached into his pocket for his car keys but Barbara was before him, darting forward and snatching them from his hand.

‘I’ll call Sam from the dairy to take you home,’ Barbara said. ‘Milking’s finished. He won’t mind.’ As he opened his mouth to argue she took a couple of steps backward with the keys. ‘You and Maudie can pick up your car after the doctor’s surgery tomorrow, and if Maudie doesn’t tell me you’ve been looking after yourself, you’re not getting your keys back at all.’

The farmer glowered, but only for a minute. His glower slowly faded and became a rueful grin.

‘Dratted women,’ he told Jake. ‘You know what you’re doing, not getting leg-shackled again.’ He cast an appraising look at Kirsty. ‘Though from what I hear, you’d better look out.’

‘I will,’ Jake said, and Kirsty released the farmer’s arm as if it burned.

‘Though she’s a looker,’ Herbert said, grinning.

‘Do you mind?’ she said faintly.

‘Not a bit,’ Herbert said, his grin broadening. ‘I can see what they’re talking about now.’

There was a choking sound from Barbara.

‘Now, don’t get offended,’ Barbara begged. ‘You can’t hold it against Herbert-or any of us, for that matter. This district has been matchmaking for Dr Jake for years. We just have to set eyes on an eligible woman and we’re at it. Indulge us.’

So maybe Jake had his reasons for saying he wasn’t wanting a relationship up front, Kirsty thought, a flash of sympathy filtering though her anger.

‘I’m not offended,’ she managed. ‘Just bemused that you can think anything so ridiculous.’

‘Ridiculous is this district’s specialty,’ Jake said wryly, but then his cell phone rang. ‘Dammit, please, let this not be more work.’

She should take this chance to leave, Kirsty thought. She should. But she hesitated just a moment too long.

‘You’re kidding,’ Jake was saying into the phone. ‘How can you do that? It’s almost grounds for dismissal without a reference.’ He heaved a doleful sigh.

‘Fine, then,’ he said, even more dolefully. ‘We’ll just starve. No, no, think nothing of it. We’ll fade to shadows of our former selves, but we’ll fade as martyrs.’

He replaced the phone on his belt and found them all looking at him.

‘It’s a tragedy,’ he said, still doleful.

‘Tragedy?’ Kirsty asked, cautious. His eyes were twinkling in that dangerous way he had that said there was no tragedy at all.

‘Angus and Susie are feeling better.’

‘Um…that’s a tragedy?’ She didn’t want to ask, Kirsty decided. But his eyes were laughing openly, even though his mouth was trying to be tragic. He had her intrigued.

‘Mrs Boyce has made soup and sausage rolls for dinner,’ he said sadly. ‘Everyone’s been exercising, they were hungry and we’re late. She couldn’t make them wait for us and I’m sorry to have to inform you, Kirsty, that they’ve eaten the lot.’ His face grew even more mournful. ‘Which leaves you and me with no dinner. Margie says we need to buy fish and chips on the way home.’

‘Have something here,’ Barbara said, and hesitated. ‘I can stretch…’

Country hospitality at its best, Kirsty thought. This lady was managing kids, a farm and a dying mother, and she still offered to feed all comers.

‘Margie can give us eggs on toast,’ Jake said, sighing his martyred sigh again. ‘But no.’ He held up a hand to stop Barbara’s protest. ‘Dr McMahon and I are true medical heroes. We know how to exist on a piece of stale bread and dripping and tea made with a used teabag. Fish and chips will be sheer luxury.’

‘Have it on the beach,’ Herbert said approvingly. ‘Just like me and the missus. We take a bottle of wine down there every Friday night, and nine times out of ten it ends up in a spot of hanky-panky.’ He suddenly realised what he was saying and gave an embarrassed snort. ‘I mean…when we were younger it ended up in hanky-panky.’ His colour deepened as he realised they were all looking at him, fascinated. ‘In the old days. I mean…’

Ooh, sexy, Kirsty thought. Fish and chips and hanky-panky with Herbert.

‘That sounds just what you both need,’ Mavis volunteered from her window behind them. ‘If I was forty years younger, I’d join you.’

Fish and chips and hanky-panky with Herbert and Mavis, too?

Or just fish and chips with Jake. On the beach.

Where was she going? Into territory that was very dangerous indeed.

‘We’ll buy fish and chips and take them home,’ Kirsty said, a trifle desperately, but Barbara shook her head.

‘I can guess what’ll happen if you do that, and I bet you can, too. They’ll all have had sausage rolls, and they’ll be as full as googs, but you step inside the castle with fish and chips and suddenly they’ll be hungry all over again. They’ll be gone in a flash, mark my words. You take her down the beach, Dr Jake.’

‘Yeah, Dr Jake,’ Herbert said, and nudged Jake in the ribs. ‘Take her down the beach.’

‘I don’t need fish and chips,’ Kirsty said, with an attempt at dignity, but she was howled down by everyone.

Except maybe Jake? But Jake said nothing as plans were made around them. As they were told sternly what to do.

‘You are hungry?’ Jake asked as silence finally reigned, and she had to agree that she was.

‘Right, then,’ he said with resignation. ‘It’s fish and chips on the beach. By order.’

And five minutes later she was meekly following Jake’s car to the Dolphin Bay fish and chippery-and to the beach beyond.