In Dr. Darling’s Care

CHAPTER SEVEN

Memo:

I will not break another leg.

I will not think about Dr Lizzie Darling watching me every step of the way.

I will not think about how much more fun life is-how much more alive I feel-and why…

THEY raced an hour later, and by the time they started the entire hospital was out to watch.

Certain rules had been decided. Once Lizzie agreed to take part she decided she was there to enjoy herself.

Lillian was given the wheelchair built for speed. Harry was removed from his slick little set of wheels and put in the hospital’s spare chair, which looked more like a bath chair than a wheelchair.

‘It was built for pushing elderly dowagers around fashionable watering spots last century,’ Harry complained, and Lizzie raised her eyebrows in gentle mockery.

‘We have two wheelchairs. Do you want Lillian to have this one?’

‘Yes,’ he said, and there was general laughter.

And Lillian… It had been a great day for her. She’d been put into hospital because she’d been starting to show signs of kidney failure. Her weight loss was making her cachectic. So she needed to stay. She needed medical supervision. But her problems weren’t purely physical. The long-term answer to anorexia wasn’t to be found by keeping her huddled in a hospital bed, though, with the stresses of the real world ready to crowd in on her the moment she was released.

So…maybe it was a good thing that she was here, Lizzie conceded, in this tiny community hospital where the boundaries between in and out were so blurred.

They had all the patients lined up to see, plus every staff member. There were also a few visitors. In particular, one very interesting visitor.

There was Joey-the drummer-out of his school uniform now. He’d just happened to be wandering through. He’d expected to visit a girl in a hospital bed, Lizzie thought, and she watched in satisfaction as he tried really hard to look cool and disinterested. How much better that he see this glowing, laughing kid lining up at the start of a wheelchair race and raring to go.

‘Your brakes are still on, Lillian,’ Lizzie called, and it was Joey who ducked forward and fiddled with the lever.

‘Hey, that was my only advantage,’ Harry complained. ‘You weren’t supposed to tell her that.’

‘She’d beat you even with the brakes on,’ Joey said stoutly. And then, because he was standing right beside her and suddenly his cool disinterest didn’t seem as important any more, he bent and gave Lillian a swift kiss on the lips.

It was her first kiss. The whole audience could see. She stared up at Joey in amazement and her face flushed with colour.

‘That’s for luck,’ Joey said softly.

Lizzie thought, What have we done?

But Lillian was growing more flushed by the moment. They needed to get the attention off her.

Harry sensed it almost as Lizzie did and he had the perfect solution.

‘What about me?’ he demanded, affronted. ‘Don’t I get a kiss for good luck?’

‘Not from me,’ Joey said, and grinned.

Whew! This felt great, Lizzie thought. Great. She dug her hands into the pockets of her white coat and thought, I’m working. I’m on duty as a doctor and here I am out in the sun with a whole bunch of people whose laughter is a medicine all by itself.

‘Dr Darling, you need to do that,’ Lillian retorted, and Lizzie hauled herself back to attention.

‘What?’

‘Give Dr McKay a kiss for good luck.’

‘I’m the referee. I’m meant to be impartial.’

‘It’s the referee’s job to make sure both contestants start on equal terms,’ Harry told her. ‘You’ve given me a turn-of-the-century bath chair and now you’re refusing to give me a good luck kiss.’

They were all watching her. The oldies were especially delighted-they’d toddled out en masse from the nursing-home section of the hospital and their faces were all alight with interest.

Go jump, she should tell them. This man is engaged to Emily.

But that would be making too much of it. This wasn’t the time to be talking of engagements or weddings. It was purely a good luck kiss and it meant nothing at all. If she didn’t…If she didn’t, then they could well ask why not and…

And she’d waited too long already. The silence was growing loaded.

Right. One good luck kiss coming up. She stepped up to Harry’s chair and bent and her lips lightly brushed his forehead…

No.

That was not his intention. Before she could guess what he was about he’d caught her, reaching up, and taken her face between his broad hands and directed her kiss.

To his mouth.

And this wasn’t some feather-light kiss of good luck. This was a kiss! While the entire population of Birrini Bush Nursing Hospital cheered and applauded, Harry McKay kissed his doctor-cum-partner.

And his doctor-cum-partner’s senses shuttered down right there and then.

She managed a gasp-sort of-but then her brain decided it had other things to concentrate on that were much more important than gasping. There was the vague sound of clapping and cheering, but it was only vague and then it disappeared entirely. There was just Harry.

He was pulling her down to him, his lovely hands were through her hair, holding her close. His mouth was on hers. In hers. The feel of his mouth… It was the only reality there was.

She felt herself sinking…sinking… He was tugging her in closer; warmth and desire were flooding her body from the toes up… And then he slipped his tongue into her mouth. She was bending to meet his kiss-the man was in a wheelchair, for heaven’s sake-but she wasn’t aware. She was only aware of the taste of him. The feel of him. Her knees were giving way. Dear heaven, was she going to sink to the ground while the entire population of Birrini Bush Nursing Hospital looked on?

They wouldn’t mind. The cheering and laughter were gaining momentum so that even she could hear them.

She didn’t care. She couldn’t care. She grabbed at his arms for support and her eyes closed, and he was all there was.

Here was her heart. All there was in her world was the heat of his mouth, the feel of his fingers running through her hair and the sensation that all that had ever been wrong in her world was suddenly right.

She was where she belonged. She was home.

‘Do you think we should run the race without them?’ It was Lillian, choking back laughter. Joey was behind her and his eyes were sparkling with mischief. ‘Should someone ring Emily and tell her the wedding’s off, then?’

Emily.

The word was enough to haul them back. To have them pulling away from each other. To have Lizzie step back, confused and disoriented, her hand flying to her lips, reluctant to lose the sensation of such sweet pressure.

Emily. The race. Medicine. Edward. Queensland.

Jim, the hospital orderly, had been standing to one side, holding Phoebe by the collar. The big dog seemed to have been adopted by the entire hospital, and wherever there was action there was Phoebe. Now, sensing Lizzie needed something to ground her-anything-Jim released her collar and the basset nuzzled her way forward and pushed against her mistress with a whine.

It helped. The dog’s flabby warmth against her legs gave her back reality. It enabled her to say with a voice that was almost steady, ‘Now, are you still saying you’ve been disadvantaged, Dr McKay? If you want a longer good luck kiss than that, you’ll have to ask Phoebe.’

It broke the tension. Almost. There were faces in the crowd that stayed speculative, but it gave them the footing to pretend that the kiss had been a joke.

As it had been, Lizzie told herself desperately. It couldn’t mean anything. Could it?

‘It’s time to race,’ she told them. ‘Anyone want a good luck kiss from the dog or shall I start you off?’

‘Let’s go,’ Harry told her, and the look he gave her was strange. There was laughter there-teasing-but there was also something…something more.

Something she didn’t want to think about.

‘On the count of three,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Beat him, Lilly. Show him what a woman can do. One, two, three…Go!’

Lilly beat Harry. Of course she beat him. Some things were never in doubt.

The path was wide and strewn with leaves, weaving in and out of the big gums overshadowing the gardens leading down to the headland. The first part was cultivated garden but outside the hospital boundary it became a rougher track, flattened by locals exercising their dogs or kids putting their trail bikes through their paces.

Lilly was a wraith-like figure but with the anorexic’s typical compulsion for exercise she was a fighting fit wraith.

Harry was super-fit.

Lilly’s chair was streamlined and light. Harry’s was big and cumbersome, but it was more stable, meaning that he didn’t have to slow as much over the worst of the bumps.

For Lizzie, following behind, she could almost see the moment when Harry backed off-not much. He surged ahead a few times as if desperately trying to maintain the lead. But enough…

They reached the point where the headland gave way to sand dunes and then to beach. Jim had dashed ahead, Phoebe waddling beside him, to set up flags.

Lilly hit the flags a nose ahead and the cheers could well have been heard in Tasmania.

‘You didn’t let me win,’ Lilly demanded as, flush faced and triumphant, she turned to face her opponent.

Harry gasped for breath, took a couple of seconds to answer and then told her, ‘Of course…’ gasp. ‘Of course I let you win. It was sheer good manners on my part.’ Gasp. Gasp. ‘I’m the world’s kindest doctor.’

And Lillian’s face relaxed into a wreath of smiles. ‘You didn’t,’ she announced with jubilation. ‘I beat you.’

‘Thanks very much,’ Harry said morosely, and then, as Phoebe waddled up to Lillian, wagging her tail, he groaned.

‘That’s right. A kiss for the winner.’ Then he looked around for Lizzie. ‘Hey…’

‘Don’t even think about it,’ she told him. ‘Winner takes all.’ And she walked over and gave Lillian a kiss that wasn’t anything like the one she would have liked to have given Harry.

He was a wonderful doctor, she thought. This community was so lucky to have him. He was so caring. So giving…

Emily was lucky to have him.

And that was a stupid thought. Stay uninvolved, she told herself severely. Stay out of the hearts and minds of this community. Of Harry.

He’s getting married and you’re moving on.

‘I’m going back to the hospital,’ she told him. ‘Some of us have work to do, even if others can afford to spend their time in idle wheelchair racing.’

‘All your patients are here,’ Harry pointed out.

‘I’ll find some who aren’t.’

‘Lizzie?’

‘Yes?’ She met his eyes. The community was crowding around now-there were people between them-but somehow their eyes locked and held.

‘Thank you,’ he said simply, and she knew he was talking about much more than refereeing the race. ‘Thank you, Lizzie.’

‘I’m just glad you didn’t break your leg.’

‘Me, too.’

It was still…more. They were grinning at each other like fools. It was ridiculous, Lizzie thought desperately. What she was feeling was really, really ridiculous.

But she couldn’t help what she was feeling.

‘Are you still on duty?’

Lizzie had run a shortened version of the evening clinic-or not so short as everyone was talking about the race and everyone wanted to quiz her about the kiss-and by the time she returned to the hospital it was almost eight. She found May carefully changing the dressing on old Mrs Scotter’s leg. Mavis Scotter had cut it a week ago-chopping wood, of all things-and by the time she’d come to see Lizzie it had been an infected mess. The old lady’s skin was so parchment-thin that they’d be lucky if it healed without a skin graft, but they were doing their best.

The dressing had to be changed. But May shouldn’t be doing it.

‘Am I imagining things or have you been on duty for over twelve hours-plus, you had barely eight hours off last night?’

‘You’re imagining things,’ May told her, and Lizzie looked more closely at the normally cheerful nurse.

‘May?’

‘Yes?’ May smiled brightly at Mrs Scotter. ‘The leg’s going really well, Mavis. And did you hear about our Dr Darling kissing Dr McKay?’

‘Stop changing the subject,’ Lizzie told her, but the nurse kept on.

‘Where’s Dr McKay now?’ May asked.

‘Phoebe-sitting, I hope. And resting his leg. Which is what you should be doing.’

‘What?’

‘Resting.’

‘I need to-’

‘I’ll finish Mavis’s leg.’ Lizzie smiled at the old lady. ‘That’s OK, isn’t it?’

‘Oh, yes, dear.’

‘I’ll do it,’ May said, but Lizzie wasn’t listening.

‘There are other nurses available to relieve you.’ Refusing to take no for an answer, Lizzie lifted the crêpe from May’s hands and started winding. ‘I’ve seen the roster. Emily leaving hasn’t made us that short-handed.’

‘No, but…’

‘But what?’

‘I’d kind of like the overtime,’ May confessed. ‘And I’m not tired. I’m really not.’

Lizzie looked at her. Really looked at her. Not tired? Ha! There were shadows under her eyes and the normally effervescent nurse looked strained to breaking point.

Why hadn’t she noticed that?

There was an easy answer to that. She’d been caught up in her own emotional turmoil.

But it wasn’t the time to press for reasons now. Not with Mavis hanging on every word and her wound still half-dressed.

‘Ring one of the relieving nurses,’ she told May gently. ‘Do it now. I’ll finish here. Go home.’

‘But-’

‘Or go and sit in the nurses’ station and put your feet up until I get there,’ she told her. ‘But you’re officially off duty. I’m taking over. Go.’

At least it was something to talk about. Something she needed to talk about, rather than facing this tension that was between them. Lizzie finished the dressing, went out to discover a relief nurse already on duty and May gone, and went through to the doctor’s quarters to find Harry cooking steak and chips.

‘If you were any longer I’d have shared the steak with Phoebe instead of you,’ he told her. He was back on crutches-or rather he was using one crutch and one leg while he stood supervising the steak. And he had his frilly apron on again, which for some stupid reason had the capacity to make her want to melt into a puddle of sheer, stupid desire.

How could she want a man who wore a frilly pink apron?

How could she not want him? She wanted him with a fierceness that was threatening to overpower her!

Boy, should she take a cold shower.

Instead, she talked about May. Somehow.

‘She carries a load and a half,’ Harry told her, nicely deflected as she helped him carry his steak and chips to the table. ‘She thinks the world of her Tom, but he has a weakness for gambling. He got himself into a real mess a couple of years back. I arranged for him to go to counselling in Melbourne-he did a full residential course to try and kick the habit and he’s pretty much controlled, but he’s confessed to me that he’s struggling. If May’s looking grim then my guess is that that’s what it’ll be. She’ll have just received a bank statement. I’ll go out and talk to him tomorrow.’

Lizzie ate a few chips and thought about it. ‘Um…what business is it of yours?’ she asked at last.

‘He’s my patient.’

‘But this is gambling. Not medicine.’

‘You don’t think that gambling is a medical problem?’

‘I don’t see much of it in the emergency department where I work,’ she admitted. ‘I’d have thought it was more to do with Social Services or family counselling.’

‘There’s no Social Services counselling available in Birrini-and even if there was, Tom wouldn’t go. Not in the first instance. Not without my intervention.’

‘So you take it on board…’

‘I don’t have a choice,’ he said gently. ‘If Tom becomes obsessed with gambling again…well, you’re telling me May’s looking exhausted already. She starts taking on more shifts to make things pay. Her health suffers. She works long hours and the kids suffer. Tom gets more and more isolated. I’ve seen suicides as a result of problem gambling and that is very much my business.’

‘But-’

‘Medicine’s not just bodies,’ he told her. He was watching her, his eyes strangely questioning. Challenging. ‘It’s about the whole person. The whole family. I’m a family doctor, Lizzie. I believe I’m a good one. I didn’t want to come here but now I’m here I wouldn’t swap it for anywhere else. And…’ He paused as if thinking about it but then obviously decided to go ahead anyway. ‘I believe you’d make a fine family doctor, too,’ he told her. ‘If you could find the courage.’

‘The courage…’

‘You’d like to work here,’ he said gently. ‘You had one disaster-’

‘And that’s where I’m stopping.’

‘Stay here,’ he told her. ‘There’s no stopping. You’re a family doctor and you know you are.’

Silence. She’d started eating her steak, but now she laid her knife and fork down. And looked across the table at him.

He looked straight back at her, his eyes calm and steady.

‘You kissed me,’ she said, and his gaze didn’t waver.

‘That’s got nothing to do with this.’

Like hell it didn’t. ‘I see.’ She bit her lip. ‘So you’re offering a professional partnership here.’

‘Of course I am.’

‘There’s no “of course” about it,’ she snapped, and speared a chip with her fork so savagely it went flying off the plate and landed on Phoebe’s nose. Phoebe looked stunned. She surveyed the chip from all angles, decided that to refuse it would be denying the gods, ate it with care and then put her nose skywards in the hope of another gift from heaven.

‘See what you’ve made me do?’ Lizzie demanded, furious. ‘Phoebe’s a pregnant mum and she’s on a pregnant mum diet.’

‘Hey, you fed her the chip.’

‘You made me.’

‘Oh, yeah, right.’

This was a ridiculous conversation. She refused to continue. She went back to demolishing her chips with a ferocity born of anger. One after another. Eat and get out of here…

‘It’s only a job,’ he said at last, and got a king-sized glare for his pains.

‘So why did you kiss me?’

‘If I remember rightly, it was you who kissed me.’

‘You know very well that it was you…’ She faltered at that. No. He didn’t know very well it had been him. It had been both of them. What she’d felt had been a coming-together of a man and a woman that had packed a lethal punch. She’d never felt anything like that. Not even with Edward.

Edward. Now, there was a steadying thought. Edward was enough to steady anyone, she thought miserably, and he was a good note to end this conversation on.

‘I can’t stay here,’ she told Harry, standing up and taking her half finished plate to the sink. Phoebe’s tail started rotating like a miniature-or maybe not so miniature-helicopter. ‘Forget it, kid,’ she told the dog. ‘You need vitamins. Not fat.’

‘Why can’t you stay here?’ Harry looked interested-no more-and the urge to throw the plate of leftovers right at his unfeeling head was almost overwhelming. ‘Because you kissed me?’

‘You kissed me. And no!’

‘Then why?’

‘Because I’m engaged to be married,’ she told him. ‘Just like you. You have your Emily right here in Birrini and I have my Edward. In Queensland. As soon as Phoebe’s pups are born, that’s where I’m heading. Where I belong. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have things to do.’

There was a long silence. Her words had changed things. The silence was almost overwhelming.

But why had her words changed things? she thought sadly. All she’d done had been to put things on an equal footing. Harry was engaged. So was she. He could take it and lump it. At least it gave her some pride. At least it let her meet his gaze and tilt her chin and not feel as if she was melting…

Who was she kidding? She was definitely melting.

Maybe he could see it. His eyes were speculative. His eyes saw too much for their own good.

‘The hospital’s quiet,’ he said at last. ‘There’s no work. What do you have to do?’

‘Lots of things.’

‘Like?’

This was crazy. She’d had enough. ‘I need to go into my bedroom and watch my toenails grow,’ she snapped. ‘Anything. But I’m not staying here with you a moment longer than I need to.’