The Doctor’s Proposal

CHAPTER EIGHT

IT WAS a long night. Kirsty lay awake and wondered what on earth she’d done. She’d tossed her dignity aside and behaved like a twit. She’d thrown herself at the man.

‘I had fun,’ she told herself, trying desperately to lighten what had happened in her head. ‘And he had fun, too. We were a mature man and woman play-acting for the local gossips.

‘That might be what Jake was doing, but it was far more than play-acting for you, and you know it.’

Sleep wouldn’t come. She rose and padded softly into Susie’s room, as she’d done so often over the last week, and she found her sister staring at the ceiling as well.

‘What’s up?’ she asked, and Susie turned and smiled at her in the moonlight.

‘Nothing’s up, stoopid. That’s the problem.’

‘Huh?’

‘I was woken by Rory junior practising his gridiron,’ she said. ‘Then I had to get up for a pee for the fourth time tonight. And now…I’ve just been lying here thinking that life suddenly seems hopeful again. Just a little bit,’ she said hastily, as if her sister might read too much into her confession. ‘But these last days…it’s been like slivers of light breaking through fog. Just glimpses, but they’re getting longer.’

‘That’s great,’ Kirsty said warmly, perched on her twin’s bed. ‘Depression is such a ghastly illness. I’ve been so frightened for you.’ She lifted her sister’s hand and squeezed. ‘I guess I still am.’

‘You’re thinking the clouds will re-form,’ Susie whispered. ‘I’m afraid they might, too. It’s great that I’m having this…this little bit of happiness but then I remember that Rory isn’t here to share it with me. He won’t see his baby. Then I think I’ve got no right to go on.’

Kirsty had left the door open. Angus left a nightlight on-actually a night chandelier-and now a shadow crossed the door. Susie’s eyes flew to see who it was, and she smiled a welcome.

‘Jake.’

Jake paused in the doorway. Boris was by his side, wagging his tail in greeting. He’d obviously been waiting in the hall for Jake to return and now his tail was sweeping his pleasure.

‘Susie.’ Jake’s voice was warm and caring. ‘Is anything wrong?’ Then he saw Kirsty, and his voice changed. ‘Sorry. You have your personal physician in attendance already. I’m on my way to bed. Come on, Boris.’

‘Come in and join us,’ Susie called.

Kirsty thought, Rats. But it was callous to say rats so she calmly moved up the bed a bit so Jake could come in and sit down.

He came instead to stand, looking searchingly down at Susie.

Ignoring Kirsty.

‘You really are all right?’

‘I really am,’ Susie told him. ‘And tomorrow Angus and I have organised to see the physiotherapist you told me about.’

That was a huge step forward, Kirsty acknowledged. Up until now Susie had resisted all attempts to get her moving. But Jake had talked about the physiotherapist who visited town once a week. He’d told Angus Susie would benefit, but she wouldn’t go by herself-and then he’d told Susie that physiotherapy could prolong Angus’s life but he wouldn’t go by himself either. Hey, presto, problem fixed. Together they’d go. Country doctor doing what he did best. Sorting out a multitude of problems with interlacing solutions.

Up until now Boris had been standing by Susie’s bed. But Kirsty had made room for Jake; the spot was vacant and a dog could only stand temptation for so long. He leapt up, realised how comfortable it was and wriggled forward on his stomach until he was near enough to give Susie a long, slurpy kiss.

‘Urk,’ Susie said-and giggled.

It was the best sound, Kirsty thought. It was an amazing sound. No matter what sort of emotional mess this man was making of her head, she forgave him all because he’d made her sister giggle.

It had to continue, she thought desperately. But would it? After the baby’s birth, hormonal changes could propel her further downward, postnatal depression mingling with an existing diagnosis.

‘Susie’s feeling guilty that she’s started to have glimmers of enjoyment,’ she told Jake, jumping in feet first. ‘Rory’s not here to share it. She’s feeling dreadful that she’s here and he’s not, and she’s scared the depression’s going to descend again.’

‘It’s an awful feeling,’ Jake said softly. ‘I know when my sister died, that was one of the hardest things to come to terms with.’

‘Your sister died?’ Susie asked. Kirsty didn’t say anything. It was like he poleaxed her every time he opened his mouth.

‘Car accident when she was sixteen,’ he said briefly. ‘The first time I forgot…my friends dragged me out to a movie and it was a silly, dopey movie where we all ended up drunk on laughter and life and sheer teenage silliness. And I came out into the night and thought, Elly’s never going to see that movie. It was so gut-wrenching that I threw up. My body reacted to mental anguish by physical revolt.’

‘Your friends wouldn’t have understood,’ Susie whispered.

‘I told them I had a stomach upset,’ he told them. ‘Maybe they believed me. They probably did, come to think of it, as how can you know what loss feels like until you’ve experienced it? What followed then was months of pseudo-stomach upsets, and even now I have moments. But I’ve learned…’ He hesitated, glancing at Kirsty as if unsure that he should reveal himself so completely in her presence. ‘But I’ve learned that I can’t not see movies. Or go to the beach, or have my twenty-first birthday or get married and have kids just to stop my gut wrenching. Because it doesn’t help. Grief and loss twists your gut into such a knot that every now and then you just have to let go, let it all out, sob or vomit or kick inanimate objects or whatever you find helps-but you have to do it. If you don’t you stay permanently twisted inside.’

‘I guess that’s what I have been,’ Susie whispered. ‘Twisted inside.’

‘Just a little bit battered,’ he told her, smiling. ‘Not so twisted as you’d noticed. Your walking is going great. Rory would be so proud of you.’

‘He would, wouldn’t he?’ she said, a trifle defiantly. And then she looked from Jake to Kirsty and back again. ‘So tonight, on the beach-’

‘I need to go to bed,’ Jake said, cutting her off. ‘I’ve only just got home. Three house-calls in a row and it’s two a.m.’

‘Tonight on the beach, were you trying to forget something?’ Susie said, deliberately and slowly. ‘Or were you both truly moving on?’

‘I’m not sure what you mean,’ Jake said, and cast a glance at Kirsty that accused her of going straight home to her sister and telling all.

Susie caught the glance and smiled.

‘Leave her alone. She hasn’t said a word. But Margie’s sister-in-law was in the car park and the phones have been running hot since. Margie popped in before she went to bed to ask what did I think and wouldn’t it be lovely?’ Her smile was tentative but it stayed fixed. ‘It’s only fair to warn you. I’m simply the first to ask the question.’

‘Well, you’ve asked it,’ Jake said, with another doubtful look at Kirsty. ‘Now I’m going to bed. Goodnight.’

‘You haven’t answered my question,’ Susie complained.

‘It’s none of your business.’

That was blunt, Kirsty thought, a bit shocked, but Susie’s smile peeped out again.

‘No. But I’m Kirsty’s twin. I know all her nearest and dearest concerns. Ask your own two if you don’t believe me. How many secrets do Alice and Penelope keep from each other?’

No, but I don’t know the answer to this one, Kirsty thought desperately, and she glanced at her twin and she saw that Susie knew this, too. And maybe that was why she was asking.

‘I have one set of twins in my life,’ Jake said, and there was a trace of desperation in his voice as he responded. ‘I can’t cope with two.’

‘Cut it out, Suze,’ Kirsty said, and there was even more desperation in her tone. ‘Let the man go to bed.’

‘Only asking,’ Susie responded, her intelligent eyes moving from one to the other. She hesitated. ‘Has Kirsty told you about her shadows?’

‘No…’

‘Our mother died when we were ten,’ Susie told him. ‘Our father suicided soon after. Since then, Kirsty’s taken on the cares of the world. She’s looked after me-protected me. She’s taken on her job at the hospice, taking care of the dying, and I’m sure that’s more of the same. Our father suicided because he couldn’t move on. I ventured out again and got hit hard. Kirsty’s watched from the sidelines and she’s decided she doesn’t ever want to go there.’

‘Cut it out,’ Kirsty said with desperation, and Susie smiled.

‘You can’t have it both ways, kid. You’ve worked on getting me better and now I am-or a bit. For the first time since Rory died I’m popping my head up from under the fog and taking notice of what’s going on around me. The gut twisting isn’t happening and I’m feeling…light. And very, very interested in what’s happening to my twin.’

‘That’s good,’ Jake said, but he was edging backwards. ‘I need to go.’

‘Of course you do,’ Susie told him. ‘Kirsty, you need to go, too.’

‘I’m staying for a bit.’

‘I don’t need you.’

‘Yes, you do,’ Kirsty snapped. ‘Goodnight, Dr Cameron.’

‘Goodnight, Dr McMahon.’

And he was gone.

With the door closed safely behind him, Kirsty turned on her twin with a mixture of indignation, anger and shock. ‘How could you? Susie, you’ve scared the man witless. You’ve scared me witless.’

‘You’re not scared witless,’ Susie said thoughtfully. ‘Oh, Kirsty, he’s gorgeous. And you kissed him.’

‘We were messing around. Having a lend of the locals.’

‘Truly?’

‘Truly.’

‘So,’ she said, fixing her twin with a look Kirsty hadn’t seen for a long time, ‘you’re saying you’re not in love with Jake Cameron.’

‘You’re delusional,’ Kirsty said. ‘I’ll take your blood pressure.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with my blood pressure,’ Susie murmured. ‘Yours, on the other hand… Ooh, Kirsty, what are you going to tell Robert?’

‘Nothing.’

‘I don’t expect you need to,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘He’s so limp he’s not even likely to notice he’s been dumped.’

‘Suze!’

‘Get out of it,’ Susie told her twin. ‘Off you go. Leave me to my dreams. But something tells me they’re not all dreams. You can’t be a twin without knowing a thing or two, and I know a thing or six!’

How was a girl supposed to sleep after that?

She hardly did. She woke up early, and decided she’d make herself breakfast. But when she reached the kitchen door she heard Jake’s voice and paused.

‘We’ve got to get you fat somehow,’ he was saying. ‘An accompanying bag of bones does nothing for my medical image. If you want to be a super-doctor’s dog, you need to look a walking advertisement for vitamin pills. Have another rasher.’

Jake and Boris.

She leaned back against the wall, unashamedly eavesdropping.

‘We have to go home soon, mate. We’re only here in protection mode and it seems there’s no threat.’

There was a faint whimper and she could imagine Boris’s dopey ears sprawled over Jake’s knee.

‘Yeah, it’s been good. But to pretend it could be like this all the time is dumb. Happy families are an illusion.’

Another whimper.

‘It’s coming.’ He sounded exasperated. ‘You don’t want your bacon non-crispy, do you?’

Silence. The sound of spitting bacon.

‘If she wasn’t here, I’d stay on for a bit,’ he said softly. ‘But she is. And it’s a dangerous road. The twins and you and me…we’re a unit and I’m not letting anything threaten that. Or anyone.’

She should go in. The bacon smelled terrific.

She didn’t. She went upstairs to check on Angus.

Jake wasn’t letting anything threaten his precious family unit, she thought as she trudged upstairs. She didn’t intend to let him threaten her independence. Fine. They were of like minds.

All she felt like doing was bursting into tears.

Check Angus. Forget the tears.

Forget men! Or every man but Angus…

She knocked. When Angus didn’t answer she opened the door a crack, as she’d been doing since they’d arrived, assuming he was still asleep.

He wasn’t asleep. He was sprawled on the floor by the window.

He’d tripped on the mat, she thought in dismay. His oxygen cylinder was on its side and his nasal tube had been ripped from his face in his fall.

No!

‘Jake!’ she screamed in a voice that was meant to be heard in the middle of next week.

He’d stopped breathing. She couldn’t find a pulse. Damn, where was it? She was feeling his carotid artery. His neck was warm to the touch but she couldn’t find…she couldn’t find…

Airway. Check airways, stupid. Keep the panic for later. Her fingers were in his mouth, seeking for an obstruction and finding none.

Heart attack? Stroke?

Get the breathing back and find out. Get oxygen. A defibrillator?

‘Jake!’ Angus must be dead if that scream didn’t have him jerking to wakefulness.

Don’t die, Angus.

Keep yourself professional.

Ha!

She ripped his pyjama coat open, hauling him onto his back. She was kneeling over him, breathing for him, cupping her hands to start the rhythmic pounding of CPR.

How long had he been on the floor? She’d checked him at four a.m. and he’d been fine. How long hadn’t he been breathing?

He was still so warm. Maybe…maybe…

From behind her she heard boots taking the stairs three at a time. Then Jake’s barked query. ‘What the-?’

‘It must be cardiac arrest. Have you got-?’

‘I’m going.’ The boots retreated. Steps retreating, stairs taken four at a time.

She went back to breathing. Went back to pounding. Breathe, then fifteen short, sharp thumps, breathe…

Come on. Come on.

Susie was in the doorway now, leaning heavily on her crutches. How had she got up the stairs? Behind her was Margie, and the twins behind her. Their faces were appalled.

‘Keep the littlies away,’ she managed between breaths, but every ounce of energy was going into rhythmic pumping.

Jake was back then, pushing them unceremoniously aside, dumping equipment on the floor. A portable defibrillator. Thank God.

Please.

He worked around her, ripping Angus’s pyjama jacket further, sticking on patches, readying…

Checking the monitor.

‘There’s pulse,’ he told her. ‘There’s still pulse.’

‘But-’

‘It’s slow as bedamned. Keep breathing for him, Kirsty.’ He was hauling an oxygen mask from his kit. As he readied, Kirsty moved aside. In seconds Jake had the mask fitted and was breathing for him, pushing pure oxygen into Angus’s lungs.

Kirsty didn’t stop. They needed an IV. Sodium bicarb. Atropine…

What was happening?

Angus had ischaemic heart disease. She knew that. If his pulse hadn’t completely gone then maybe this was a mild infarct. Maybe they’d get him back. That was the best-case scenario.

The thought that it could be a stroke with all its ramifications was unbearable.

Her fingers were flying. Jake had the old man’s chest moving up and down with a reassuring rhythm. They just had to get him breathing for himself again. Maybe the sodium bicarb. could be enough to prevent any long-term damage.

If he still had a pulse… It must have just happened. Maybe he’d woken with the smell of bacon and the sound of voices in the kitchen. He must have stumbled. As Jake worked to set up an IV line, she was thinking all the time.

Please.

And then a tiny gasp, so small they might have imagined it. But then another. Another and a choking, gasping cough.

Breathing re-established. Breathing re-established!

Dear God.

The old eyes fluttered open. Angus winced as though in pain, and then seemed to focus. On Jake. On to Kirsty.

‘Sue…Susie,’ he murmured, and Kirsty’s eyes flew to the door. But her twin pre-empted her. Susie couldn’t have heard Angus’s whisper, but sometimes what was said to Kirsty was said to Susie, and Susie was already manoeuvring herself within Angus’s field of vision.

‘I’m here, Angus.’

He stared up at her, bewildered. Trying to talk. ‘Shush,’ Jake murmured, but he lifted the mask back so Angus could say what he obviously desperately wanted to say.

‘Stay safe,’ Angus murmured at last. ‘Susie… Rory…’

‘I’m safe,’ Susie said gently, and she laid her hand on her swollen belly, guessing the core of his fear. ‘Rory’s baby is safe. We’re worried about you.’

‘Spike,’ he whispered. ‘He’ll die…’

Kirsty even let herself smile at that. If he was worried about his pumpkin then surely there was hope. Surely there was a tomorrow for this gentle old man who she and her sister were only starting to know.

Who she and her sister were starting to love.

‘Susie will take care of your pumpkin,’ Jake said softly, and by the look on his face Kirsty knew he was as emotional as she was. ‘She won’t let him die. Meanwhile, Susie’s come a long way to have this baby where you can play great-uncle, so you’d better make an effort for her. You’re going to hospital.’

‘I’m not.’ That was said so loudly, so indignantly that Kirsty wanted to laugh out loud. There were still miracles in this job. Sometimes-just sometimes-she loved being a doctor. To have this outcome…

‘Oh, yes, you are, you old coot,’ Jake was saying, and there was no disguising the emotion in his voice now. ‘You’re coming in for complete assessment, and that’s an order. Do you really not want to be around to support Susie as she has her baby?’

‘I… No.’ Kirsty was administering morphine. She could tell he was hurting-badly. Understandably. The way she’d pounded his ribs was enough to make anyone hurt.

‘Then you’re coming to hospital.’

‘Spike,’ Angus whispered, and closed his eyes.

‘I promise I’ll look after your pumpkin,’ Susie told him. ‘Me and Ben.’

‘Come on.’ Jake stooped and lifted the old man into his arms, motioning to Kirsty to lift the various pieces of attached medical paraphernalia. ‘Kirsty, will you come with me?’

‘I can walk,’ Angus said weakly.

‘Yeah, and I can fly,’ Jake retorted. ‘But let’s not do either unless we have to.’