The Doctor’s Special Touch

CHAPTER SEVEN

THEY hadn’t told Ally.

Stunned, Darcy was propelled by the insistent Betty up Ally’s front steps and through her front door.

‘Here’s your first client,’ Betty called up the stairs. She grinned at Darcy, then disappeared, slamming the door after her.

Ally appeared at the head of the stairs-and stopped.

‘You.’

He couldn’t think of a thing to say. Nothing.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘It seems,’ he managed, almost apologetically, ‘that I’m your first client.’ But he was having trouble saying anything.

Until now he’d only seen Ally in jeans. She was still casually dressed, but she’d changed. She was wearing baggy, three-quarter-length trousers, an oversized sweatshirt with the sleeves rolled up, and bare feet. Her hair was twisted into a casual knot. Her freckles were subdued with a tiny application of make-up, and her lips were painted the same soft pink as her sweatshirt.

She looked gorgeous.

He was staring.

‘What?’ she said crossly, as she hauled herself together and came on down. ‘Have I got a blob on my nose?’

He shook himself, trying to shed this overwhelming feeling of unreality. ‘Sorry. I was staring.’

‘I know you were,’ she said cautiously, as if she might be humouring a lunatic. ‘That’s why I was asking. So if I haven’t got a blob on my nose…’ She sighed and gave up. ‘OK. Let’s not go there. But for a moment I thought you said you were my first client.’

‘I am.’

She thought about it and finally she nodded. With caution. The lunatic approach obviously still had appeal.

‘You’re supposed to be working,’ she told him.

‘It appears I’m not,’ he said, a shade grimly. ‘My patients have organised that no one’s sick for the next couple of hours.’

‘Your patients?’

‘The town,’ he told her. ‘The town has donated a massage. To me. Apparently I’m to be your first customer. What you did last night in saving Marilyn has flown round the town and everyone’s fascinated. And grateful.’

‘But…you…’

‘They’re also grateful to me,’ he said, trying not to sigh. ‘It’s the way it is in the country. I get given things.’

‘What sort of things?’

He hesitated. But the tension had to be overcome somehow. Why not try talking?

‘When Rachel died I went overseas,’ he told her. ‘One of the airlines I flew with gave away tiny bottles of some sort of blue liqueur. The bottle caught my fancy. I started looking out for miniature bottles, and when I set up here I organised a dozen or so in a wall frame.’

‘So?’ she said, still with that cautious edge.

‘So my patients knew I was interested in collecting little liqueur bottles,’ he told her, digging his hands deep into his pockets and trying not to sound stupid. ‘As of the last count I have two thousand, three hundred and twenty-five bottles, and that’s not counting the ones that have come in this week.’

She gazed at him in astonishment, and her face creased into a delighted smile of recognition.

‘They used to give Grandpa fish,’ she told him. ‘We lost count of the fishermen who couldn’t afford to pay and brought fish instead. Grandpa and I had a burial ground out the back of the hospital. One day someone will dig it up and wonder what sort of ancient tribe wasted so many fish. Grandpa sneaked heaps into the hospital kitchens, but even hospital patients get sick of fish.’

He grinned.

The tension between them dissipated. A little.

‘So they’ve given you me to massage,’ he told her. ‘Instead of liqueur. And instead of fish.’

The tension zoomed back.

‘Um…what are we going to do?’ she asked.

‘I’m booked for a massage.’

‘Do you want a massage?’

‘No.’

‘Have you ever had a massage?’

‘No.’

‘Then how do you know you don’t want one?’

‘I guess…’

‘They’ll ask,’ she told him. ‘If you were given it as a collective present, you’ll be asked. Boy, were Grandpa and I grilled about our fish. Which one was the tastier? Do you like barracuda better than flathead? What are you going to say about my massage?’

‘It was a very nice massage?’

‘That’s pathetic. You could say that about fish.’

‘Then you tell me what to say.’

‘Nope.’ She pushed her sleeves higher with a determined little shove. ‘There’s only one thing to be done.’

‘No.’

‘If you don’t,’ she told him, ‘then I’m going to be honest. When asked, I’ll tell them that Dr Darcy Rochester was too shy to have a massage.’

‘I’m not too shy.’

‘Too chicken?’

‘And I’m not afraid.’

‘Then what? Do you disapprove of the profession so much you won’t even try?’

‘I don’t disapprove.’

‘That’s what it looks like from here.’ She tapped her foot. ‘You know, it really doesn’t hurt.’

‘I…’

‘And I’ll bet you’re tense as all get-out. I can practically see the tension from here.’

‘I’m not tense!’

‘Yeah, and I suppose you’re raising your voice because you always raise your voice.’

‘Look-’

‘The way I see it,’ she told him, ‘is that people will be watching. The locals saw you come in this door five minutes ago and they’ll expect you to leave in a little over an hour looking nicely relaxed, as if you’ve had a really good massage. So the options are that you can stalk out right now, hurting people’s feelings in the process. You can sit here like a dummy for an hour and a half-and I’m warning you I don’t even have any magazines for you to kill time with. Or you can have a massage. Why don’t you want a massage?’ she asked. ‘Are you scared I’ll jump you?’

His eyebrows hit his hairline. ‘No, I…’

‘I’m a professional,’ she told him. ‘I’m a registered massage therapist. I can be struck off for behaving unethically, and jumping you is definitely unethical. Besides…’ She grinned. ‘Strange as it seems, I’m not even tempted. So are you going to accept a massage or are you going to look a gift horse in the mouth?’

‘You being a gift horse?’

‘That’s the ticket,’ she said approvingly, and tossed him a towel from the pile on the warming rack. ‘I’m going upstairs. You need to undress down to your jocks, lie on the table and cover yourself with a towel. I’ll come down when you’re decent. Sandalwood, Dr Rochester?’

‘Sandalwood?’

‘For relaxation. Or something else. Check out the list on the wall before you lie down. Headaches, tension, constipation…you name it I can rub you with something that just might make you feel better.’

‘Constipation?’

She grinned. ‘I won’t take a case history,’ she told him. ‘And if you just happen to choose marigold for premenstrual tension, then I won’t ask any questions at all.’

Darcy undressed. Slowly.

He was feeling really, really weird. This was a bad idea. Stupid.

He lay on her sun-warmed couch and covered himself with her pre-warmed towel. Sunbeams were filtering through the blinds. This was a lovely place for a massage, he thought. She’d known what she was about when she’d chosen her premises.

But then the reasons why she’d chosen her rooms faded, as did any other logical thought. He couldn’t think of anything other than the fact that any minute Ally would walk down those stairs and begin her massage.

He tried again. This was crazy. He should be next door. If he’d known he had cancellations he could have gone out to dress old Martin Pegg’s leg ulcers.

He’d let her give him a quick rub just to keep the locals happy, he decided with the frayed remnants of the senses left to him. Maybe he could go out the back way so no one would see him leaving early. OK, he couldn’t take his car away, but he could catch up on some medico-legal paperwork.

Maybe…

Maybe he couldn’t do this. He’d draped the towel from his waist down but the sun was streaming in over his bare back. He felt… He felt…

‘Ready?’ Ally’s soft voice floated down the stairs.

‘Yes,’ he said, and it came out as a croak. He coughed. ‘Um…yes.’

He was lying face down, his face pillowed by a soft, circular rim that left him clear to breathe. He heard her walk down the stairs and it was all he could do not to get up and run.

‘I don’t think-’

‘Did you choose an oil?’ A soft murmur started behind him-harps with a stream rippling in the background. Oh, for heaven’s sake, how corny was this?

‘Sandalwood,’ he said, and his voice was desperate. He couldn’t see, but he heard her smile in her response.

‘How original is that? And expensive.’ He could hear her smile. ‘I’ll have to charge you an extra dollar if you choose sandalwood.’

‘Can we just get on with it?’

‘Sure.’ She was draping another warm towel over him, adjusting him so he was covered from neck to toe.

‘Just relax,’ she told him. ‘Think of nothing. Sink into the music.’

Her hands came to rest on the broad stretch of his back, and through the warmth of the towel he felt a wide, soft pressure as she gently pressed down. She stayed where she was for a long, long minute, her hands simply resting. Being in contact with him.

Then, ever so gently, she lifted the towel away-the towel that covered his back from the waist up. The other-the one that covered his legs-she left in place.

‘Think of nothing but the water you’re hearing,’ she murmured. He heard her rubbing her hands, warming the oil, he thought. Then, very lightly, her hands returned to his back. Her hands floated downward, barely touching him but sweeping down in long, curving strokes that followed the curves of his body as she spread the warmed oil over his skin.

Over and over.

Her feather touch became firmer, a broad, definite sweep that was doing more than spread the sweet-smelling oil. It warmed him to the core. It made him feel…

He didn’t know how he felt.

Forget asking. Think of nothing.

The strokes became firmer still, rolling up in wide arcs from his thighs to his shoulders. Her hands circled out from the small of his back, under his arms, back to his shoulder blades, sweeping down over his shoulders, warming his neck.

‘It’s effleurage,’ she murmured. ‘Just used to warm and relax.’

It certainly did. He was feeling hazy already.

Then the long strokes stopped. Her hands rested for a moment on his back, as though considering.

Then her magic hands started work again.

‘Petrissage,’ she murmured, and he realised she was explaining to try and stop the tension he was feeling at the touch of her. Turning it into technical terms he could relate to.

She was working on one side, using the whole of her hands, kneading, pulling, working the mass of muscles in his broad back. Her hands weren’t leaving his body between strokes-there was total contact-but she was working him as if he was warm dough.

Then the pulling… Using her entire hand from fingertip to wrist, she pulled up from his sides with alternate hands, carefully overlapping her hands at each pull, so each hand came to rest at the place where the other hand had been.

She kept explaining as she went and her voice was a soft murmur in the background, merging into the sound of the water and the music and the sensation of her hands and the sunlight on his back.

Deep tissue strokes…frictions…thumb rolling…percussion, pummelling, cupping, half-locust leg lifts…

He was close to sleep at one level, but at another he was deeply aware of every move. She rolled him over and he was hardly aware that he’d helped-that he’d moved. She was massaging his neck, and then her genius fingers were rolling in tiny circles from forehead down along his cheekbones to his jaw.

He could feel her breast against his head. He could smell her. She wasn’t wearing perfume but she still smelt clean. Pure.

The sandalwood, he thought weakly. It’d be the sandalwood he was smelling.

Yeah, and it’s the oil you’re feeling, and not Ally, he told himself wryly but then went back to just experiencing. Just being.

Her fingers were slowing now. She left his face and he was aware of a stab of sheer regret.

Warm towels were being laid back over his body and her hands were moving lightly over him. Lightly. Lightly. Feathering. Barely brushing.

Then her hands came to rest on his chest, ever so lightly. They pressed down as if in one long gesture of farewell-and then they were gone.

The face mask she’d laid over his eyes as she’d rolled him to his back was lifted away.

He kept his eyes closed. He didn’t want to break this moment.

This might be a massage-well, of course it was a massage, that was all it was-but at another level…

He’d released something he hadn’t known he’d been holding, he thought, dazed. In these last few minutes his head felt as if it had been lifted from his shoulders. The tension was gone.

And what a tension. It was a tension he’d held since Rachel had died, he thought, dazed beyond belief. He felt…free.

Was that massage? Just massage?

‘I’m going upstairs,’ Ally whispered, and he fought to bring himself back to reality. ‘Lie still for a few more minutes while you fully wake up, and then get dressed. I’ll come back down a few minutes after I hear you moving round.’

He thought about that and didn’t like it.

‘Stay.’

‘I have other clients,’ she told him, and he could hear the smile back in her voice. ‘And maybe so have you.’

‘Didn’t they book you for an hour and a half?’

‘You’ve been here for an hour and forty minutes,’ she told him, and that woke him right up. His eyes flashed open and she was laughing down at him.

He stared upward.

Her eyes were dancing. Her hair had fallen forward. She looked flushed from the exertion of the massage, flushed and happy and ready to move on.

She looked…beautiful.

‘Ally…’

‘I have to go,’ she whispered, and her smile slipped. She took an involuntary step back. ‘I…I…’

Her eyes were locked on his.

Ally.

He didn’t say it. He just thought it. Ally, Ally, Ally.

It was like a shout in his head. A release. A flood of pure sweeping joy that had nothing to do with the massage. Or maybe everything.

‘Ally,’ he said again, and this time his voice was more urgent.

‘I need to go,’ she told him, and took another step backward.

‘It can’t be an hour and a half,’ he said, and looked up at the clock over the door.

And blinked.

An hour and forty minutes, she’d said. How could that have happened?

‘I’ll see you when you’re dressed,’ she said-and fled.

He didn’t blame her. Things were entirely out of control. Maybe he should run, too.

Hell, no. Not feeling like this.

It was like a huge black weight had been lifted from his chest and he hadn’t known it was there.

In the last few years he’d worked through the grief of Rachel’s death. He’d moved on. Or he’d thought he’d moved on. He was aware that he was lonely but he was too damned busy to do anything about it. Anyway, comparing anyone to Rachel was impossible.

But he wasn’t comparing Ally to Rachel. There was no comparison. They were two different women.

Two different…loves?

He lay there with the sunlight dappling over him. He heard Ally running a sink full of water upstairs-getting rid of the oil on her hands. Preparing herself for the next client.

He had patients waiting.

Amazing as this new sensation was, it’d have to wait. He rose from the massage table and once again felt that sweep of unreality. That a massage could do so much…

Ally was right in calling this a remedial massage. Working through this extraordinary sensation would take adjustment, but even making allowances for his personal sensations he knew what she was offering had huge value. If Ally could take a client out of the problems of the present…

Claire Manning. Claire’s husband had prostate cancer and was fading slowly with as much agony to those around him as he could manage. Claire loved Doug with all her heart, but she had four children under twelve and she worked full time to try and keep the family afloat. The demands Doug was making on her were driving her to the point of collapse. Doug could well live for years but in a sense he’d buried himself already. He lay in front of the television and demanded and demanded and demanded.

Claire was coming here, Darcy decided as he hauled on his boots. If he had to drag her. Once a week.

How could she fund it?

The Rotary Club, he thought. The local service club had been aching to do something for Claire. Maybe he could suggest they donate three or four massages a week and he could use them to refer people who needed them.

Bob Proody.

There was another one. Bob had copped polio when he was ten. Now in his seventies, he was so stiff he could barely manage on two sticks. His wife was dead and his only daughter was in Canada. To have a rub like this once a week…to have his aching muscles eased and to have human contact…

It was like being given access to a new wonder drug, he thought, his feeling of excitement intensifying. Then he heard footsteps on the stairs and he turned to find Ally smiling at him.

‘All done?’

‘I’m done,’ he told her, rising and trying to keep his composure. She looked… Damn, she looked…

He was all at sea, he admitted to himself. For the last few years he’d been self-contained, calm and aloof-a spectator on other people’s lives. And suddenly he was into territory he didn’t recognise.

‘What do I owe you?’ he asked, and he didn’t recognise his voice.

‘It’s all paid for. I thought you knew that.’

‘What, even the sandalwood?’

‘The town paid for sandalwood. The best is what they ordered. They think a lot of you, Darcy.’

‘Yeah, well…’ Damn, he was trying not to blush. ‘They’ll think a lot of you, too.’

‘You liked your massage?’

‘Um…yeah.’

‘You’ve really never had a massage?’ she asked curiously, and he shook his head.

‘No.’

‘It wasn’t too unpleasant?’

‘You could say that.’ He hesitated. ‘Ally, if that’s how you make everyone feel…’

‘I didn’t do anything special to you.’

Like hell she hadn’t. He gazed at her and wondered if she had any idea at all what his emotions were doing.

Medicine. Concentrate on patients.

‘There are people in this town who this could really help,’ he told her, and she raised her brows in disbelief.

‘Yeah? But I’m the one who’s here to rip people off,’ she reminded him. ‘Pretending to be a doctor and ripping off the life savings of people like Ivy.’

‘I was out of line,’ he growled. ‘Can we forget it?’

She put her head on one side and thought about it. And then she smiled again. Hell, that smile… It made his gut clench.

‘Ally.’

‘Hmm?’ She glanced at her watch and then at the door. It was time for him to leave, he thought. But…

‘Ally, can we start again?’ he asked. ‘I’ve said some pretty unspeakable things to you.’

‘Basket weaving,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Yeah, you have.’

‘Let me take you out to dinner.’

Silence.

‘You don’t want to do that.’

‘I do.’

‘Nope.’ She crossed and pulled the door wide. ‘Sorry.’

‘What do you mean, nope?’

Her smile widened. ‘Sorry, Darcy. But you’re a doctor. You know as well as I do that dating patients is out of the question.’

‘Dating patients?’

‘I’ve just given you the best massage I know how to give,’ she said gently, taking pity on his look of confusion. ‘You’re feeling warm and soporific and like everything’s right with your world. Like you giving a patient a shot of pethidine. Would you give a patient a mind-altering drug and then try to date her?’

‘Of course I wouldn’t.’

‘There you go, then,’ she said cordially. ‘I’m sorry, Darcy, but I do need to move on. If you’ll excuse me.’

‘Hell, Ally, the way I’m feeling…’

‘You’re feeling pretty good,’ she agreed. ‘And I’ve done that for you. Well done me. Now, off you go and see your patients and I’ll see mine. If you want another massage at any time, then of course you’re free to make an appointment.’

‘I don’t want another massage.’

‘Really?’

‘Ally…’ He took a step toward her and she moved so she was halfway out the door. It was a practised technique, he saw suddenly. She gave massages in the main street during business hours, and if a patient made a threatening move toward her she only had to step outside. And here she was, stepping outside.

‘I am not threatening you,’ he told her.

‘No,’ she said encouragingly. ‘You’re not. But I have another patient booked in ten minutes and I need to clean the room. Can you leave?’

He was making a fool of himself. He took a deep breath. In the last hour and a half his world had tilted and he had no clear idea how to straighten it.

Get out of here and think about it, he told himself. Get away from her smile. From the feel of her. The scent of her.

Help.

Deep breath here.

‘I’m sorry.’ He managed a rueful smile and stepped out, into the day. Breaking the forced intimacy of the little sunlit room. He walked down the steps and then turned to look back at her.

‘That was an inappropriate time to ask,’ he told her. ‘Stupid. But this massage was a one-off. From now on we’re professional colleagues.’

‘Are we?’

‘Of course we are. And there’s lots of professional issues we need to talk over.’

‘I’m not practising medicine.’

‘I might need to rethink my position that massage isn’t medicine,’ he told her. ‘I can think of at least a dozen people in the district who could really benefit from this, and there’s many, many more who’ll love it.’

She raised her brows as if she was politely incredulous.

‘Come out with me tonight and talk about it,’ he urged, but her look of polite incredulity didn’t change.

‘I don’t date clients.’

‘Ally-’

‘Thank you for coming,’ she said, and her smile was rigidly formal. It was strained, he thought, and decided that maybe she wasn’t as much in control as she made out to be. But their conversation was over.

‘Good afternoon,’ she told him, in a voice that was as rigidly impersonal as that of a receptionist in any mainstream medical centre.

‘I need to check your foot.’

‘My foot’s fine.’

And before he could respond, she’d retreated, closing the door behind her.

‘Hey, Doc…’

There was a call from next door. He turned to find Harold Pipping waving to him from the door of his own consulting room.

‘Hey, Doc, I gotta appointment at two but I came early,’ the old fisherman told him. ‘I thought… I got an ingrown toenail and I figured if I came early you might have time to cut it off.’