The Doctor’s Special Touch

CHAPTER TWELVE

THEY were left alone.

Elizabeth took the dogs with her. She had their leads in her hands and they were bouncing along by her side as if they belonged there. Ally stared after them as if she couldn’t believe her eyes.

‘What have you done to my mother?’ she whispered at last, and Darcy, who’d been standing on the wharf watching her watching her mother, grinned and swung himself down onto the deck.

‘Nothing,’ he told her. ‘Not a single drug. Not a prescription in sight. You did the curing.’

‘I think saving Jerry did the curing,’ she managed, still watching her mother’s retreat along the wharf. ‘If he’d died…’

‘I think your mother would be strong enough to cope with even that now,’ Darcy said thoughtfully. ‘She’s an amazing lady. Mind, she didn’t help very much in the initial drama. Talk about getting her priorities wrong. She called in the medics to a murder scene and didn’t worry about calling the police.’

Ally frowned. ‘Um…yeah.’ The events of the afternoon had been puzzling her. ‘I don’t understand how I was second on the scene.’

‘Third,’ he told her. ‘Helga Matheson, the sergeant’s wife, was first.’

‘So?’

‘Helga let Kevin in to say goodbye to Jerry. Kevin produced the knife and stabbed him. So she went screaming next door for help, and next door was the refuge. But instead of saying there was a man still wielding a knife and he was still stabbing, she said that Kevin had stabbed Jerry, he was bleeding to death and I had to go. Everyone at the refuge-me included-assumed the sergeant was on the scene and he’d sent his wife to fetch me. So I went alone. If your mother hadn’t decided you’d be needed, and if you hadn’t agreed to come to help-and come fast-heaven knows what might have happened.’

‘If Kevin had realised Jerry was still alive, he might have attacked again,’ Ally whispered.

‘Yeah. I didn’t see the knife when I walked in. He was standing back from the bars looking appalled. I grabbed the cell keys from the desk and let myself into the cell. He made no move to stop me. Jerry was spurting blood and I had to move fast.’

‘So you helped Jerry first.’

‘Yeah.’ He gave a wry grin. ‘But I wasn’t noble. I was just stupid. As I said, I didn’t see the knife and I wasn’t thinking. I hadn’t realised Kevin would think he was dead. After all, any medic would know that with the sort of blood flow I was facing the heart had to be pumping.’

He hesitated and he was suddenly taking her hands in his and holding them as if he urgently needed to reassure himself that she was here. She was real. She was alive. ‘And then you came,’ he said softly. ‘My Ally. You came and you saw the threat and you disarmed a potential murderer.’ He leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the lips. It was a feather kiss, but it was so important. It warmed parts of her that she hadn’t realised were cold. ‘Well done, you,’ he whispered. ‘My Ally.’

‘I didn’t-’

‘You did,’ he said, and he kissed her again. ‘We’re a partnership, Ally.’

‘So my mother says,’ she managed. Just. How was she supposed to make her voice work? she wondered desperately. How was she supposed to make anything work? It wasn’t possible. Not when Darcy was looking at her like that. Not when he was kissing her as if he loved her.

As if he truly believed that they belonged together.

It was an amazing thought. It was a concept that was so overwhelming it was almost frightening.

‘You’re angry?’ He raised his brows and he smiled at her in that heart-flipping way he had that made her heart do backward somersaults, one after another. Try as she would to make it behave itself, it kept right on somersaulting.

‘My mother is organising my life,’ she managed with what she hoped was asperity. ‘And you…’ She fought for something she could be angry about. ‘Lending your dogs to my mother without so much as a by your leave.’

‘It seems your mother’s gone and cut the apron strings,’ he said, smiling at her with gentle humour. ‘Your mother…taking my dogs for a walk without asking your permission first. Tch, tch.’

‘Don’t laugh at me.’

‘I’d never laugh at you.’ His smile died. His hold on her hands tightened, and the look in his eyes made her somersaulting heart stop its somersaulting and almost stop beating. ‘How can I laugh at you?’ he asked. ‘I’ll laugh with you, my Ally. Now and for ever. I’ll laugh with you and I’ll live with you and I’ll share my life with you. With all honour. I love you.’

Her heart not only had stopped beating, it had stopped existing. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. That this man could say those things. ‘But-’

‘You know, there’s always buts,’ he said, almost conversationally. ‘You’ve been telling me you want to live here but you can’t be a doctor. You can’t be a doctor’s wife. Well, I’ve decided the buts are OK. You don’t have to be a doctor. You don’t have to be a doctor’s wife. You can just stay as Ally. Then it’s up to me. You don’t have to be a doctor’s wife but…can I be a massage therapist’s husband?’

She gasped at that, but suddenly, as if from nowhere, came belief. This was real. He was sitting on the deck of her favourite old boat, and he loved her.

Darcy Rochester loved her, no strings attached.

Her crazy heart started up again somehow, but this time it was doing handsprings.

‘You’re kidding.’

‘Nope.’ He was still smiling at her, with that wonderful smile that was a caress all on its own. ‘I’ve been doing my homework,’ he said, and there was a sudden mock smugness in his tone. ‘I reckon I can start being your helpmeet straightaway. I know my herbs. What would you like as I give you your massage, my sweet? Angelica for gout and flatulence? Or cypress for constant running of the nose?’

She choked. ‘You’re crazy.’

‘No.’ He tugged her against him so her breast curved against his chest. She could feel the strength of him-the sheer arrant maleness. ‘No, I’m not crazy. I’m in love. I’m in love with you and I believe-and I really, really hope I’m right here, Ally, because if I’m not I’m in all sorts of trouble and I don’t know where to start-that you love me right back. Please.’

Silence. He was holding her, waiting for her response. Just holding her. Touch, she thought suddenly. It was the most important thing.

Darcy’s touch.

His love.

‘I looked up from Jerry this afternoon,’ he said softly, and his voice was suddenly unsteady. ‘I’d run in and gone straight to him and I hadn’t checked. I saw Kevin but Jerry was bleeding to death in front of my eyes and he had to be the priority. That took over. When you walked in, all I felt was relief. And then I looked up and saw that damned knife. Hell, Ally…When you moved your body between Kevin and me, I swear it was all I could do not to launch myself across the room. I knew it was mad. I knew our best chance lay in having him believe Jerry was dead and I had to stay where I was. But, dear heaven, Ally, you were within reach of the knife. You were between him and his victim and I never want to be that terrified again.’

She couldn’t bear that. She couldn’t bear the pain in his eyes.

‘You’ve lost once,’ she said softly, reaching up to take his face in her hands. To take away that look of remembered horror. ‘To risk that again… Darcy, how can you possibly love me?’

‘How can I not?’

She looked at him for a very long moment but it was her turn now. Her turn.

She took his face strongly between her hands, she stood on tiptoe-and she kissed him.

She kissed him with all the love in her heart-and the beginning of the rest of her life started right then.

It wasn’t very often that a mother got to be a bridesmaid at her daughter’s wedding.

‘But I feel like you’re my friend and I don’t feel ready to be the mother of the bride,’ Elizabeth had declared, so at this most wonderful of weddings they compromised. She gave Ally away but she also stayed by her side as her attendant. Mother and best friend rolled into one.

The wedding took place in the little stone church in Tambrine Creek’s main street. This church had seen generations of their family wed, baptised and buried.

It was right that Ally should be wed here. More, it was perfect. It was almost winter, but on this day the sun came out to shine on them all.

How could it not come out? The whole town came out. Everyone was invited and everyone was in a mood to sigh in pleasure.

And there was almost as much attention paid to Elizabeth as there was to her daughter.

As mother of the bride cum chief attendant, Elizabeth’s dress was beautiful-pale apricot shantung, a dress the like of which Elizabeth had never worn in her life. It was a fairy-tale dress and she and Ally had taken as much care to choose it as they had the glorious dress of white shot silk that Ally wore.

Elizabeth looked beautiful and radiantly happy.

Ally looked stunning.

They almost looked like twins.

Well, why not? Elizabeth was blooming with newfound confidence. Already her little massage business was booming. She had more clients than she could handle.

Robert was one of her favourites.

Robert’s face was healing now after extensive skin grafts. He’d returned to Tambrine Creek to move to the farm which the rest of Jerry’s people were already turning into a successful commercial venture. Elizabeth walked out to see them most nights-but it hadn’t taken many nights before Robert had started walking her home.

It’d take time, though, Ally thought as she watched their relationship grow. They’d been under a shadow for so long that neither was brave enough to trust. But Robert had taken to his role as farmer with skill and commitment. It was only a matter of time before he took on a share farm of his own, and then the future would be his to share with whoever he pleased.

He was waiting now, in one of the front pews. Ally knew that as she walked down the aisle Robert’s eyes would be on Elizabeth. Not on her.

Which was how it should be. She was truly content.

Ally’s attendants were fussing now-all her attendants, and she had so many of them. All the children from the commune had come to regard Ally as a kind of magical aunt. This day seemed such a celebration for all of them that not to include the kids would have been a crime. So Marigold and Jody and David and Tommy and Deidre and Lilly and baby Dot were all dressed in truly splendid clothes-provided by an excited Tambrine Creek Ladies Guild with much twittering and with even more love.

They looked wonderful. They all looked wonderful.

And Darcy would look more wonderful still.

Ally couldn’t see him yet. Sergeant Matheson was holding the big oak doors firmly shut until just the right moment, when he’d swing them wide to let the bride start her walk. But Ally could imagine how he’d look.

Darcy. Her love.

He looked younger, too, she thought. The lines of strain around his eyes had eased. She was working beside him as a doctor now, sharing the burden that no longer seemed a burden. Medicine was fun. Life was fun.

She was still giving massages, but only to special clients-clients her mother worried about, or clients who really wanted Ally.

Like Darcy.

He was her favourite client.

As she was his.

Never fall in love with your clients, she thought. First rule of medicine. First rule of massage.

Too late. She’d fallen for him and the only way to make the whole thing equitable had been to have him massage her in return.

Luckily he was a very fast learner.

It was just perfect, she thought. Perfect.

Even the news of Jerry was good. He’d recover, which meant that Kevin could be cared for as a psychiatric patient without the stigma of murder to make his carers treat him with fear. Jerry himself was facing the first of many court cases. He’d be in jail for a very long time.

But enough of Jerry. He could be forgotten as a bad memory-a nightmare of a past that could no longer affect their future.

The music was starting now. Mendelssohn’s Wedding March was being played-appallingly-by Doris on the church’s hundred-year-old organ. It didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered.

The doors were swinging wide. Her twitter of excited page-boys and flower girls started throwing rose petals, and her mother squeezed her hand.

‘Are you ready, love?’

Ally smiled at her mother. Then she lifted her head and gazed down the long church aisle.

Darcy was waiting for her.

Darcy was smiling. He was smiling and smiling. Her love. Her future.

‘I’m ready,’ she whispered, and took her first step forward to her beloved. ‘Let’s begin.’