Rescue at Cradle Lake

CHAPTER EIGHT

THERE were dogs at Ginny’s farmhouse.

Fergus pulled into the yard and he could see things had changed. There was a fenced-off area to one side of the veranda, a temporary construction of chicken wire and garden stakes.

There were three dogs inside the pen and Ginny was sitting in the middle of them.

Up on the veranda sat Madison. Every time he’d come she’d been sitting lethargic and uninterested. Now she was sitting on the top step, watching with what seemed almost eagerness.

Richard was still in bed. He was getting weaker by the day and it was too much to expect him to get up now, but Tony had hauled his bed around so that he, too, could watch. Tony was sitting on the end of the bed, overseeing the entire proceedings.

This was some strange hospital.

‘You’re going to have to be polite if you want some hot dog,’ Ginny was saying, and he hauled his attention back to her without any effort at all. ‘Sit.’

What was she doing?

Three dogs. Three disreputable mutts. One looked like some sort of whippet, long, rangy and lean. There was a black and white border collie with a little bit of kelpie thrown in for good measure, and there was a little dog, a wiry-looking terrier who looked sharply intelligent. It was this dog Ginny was addressing. The other two were already seated, waiting expectantly.

While he watched, the little dog gave a tentative yap.

‘Your friends are waiting,’ Ginny said. ‘You sit and you all get a bit of hot dog. Sit, sir.’

‘Yap.’

‘You heard what I said.’

The dog stood four square and looked at Ginny. Ginny sat on the grass and eyeballed the dog straight back.

‘You want the hot dog? Then sit.’ She raised the hot dog over the little dog’s head so it was forced to look up. She pressed the dog’s chest very gently.

The dog sat.

‘Well done,’ she said, and beamed, and handed out three pieces of hot dog.

From the veranda came the sound of clapping. Fierce clapping from Tony. Faint clapping from Richard. And-amazingly-an even fainter clapping from Madison.

‘What’s going on?’ he demanded, and all eyes swivelled to Fergus. The dogs reacted with startled aggression, hurling themselves against the chicken wire.

‘Hey,’ Ginny said. ‘Manners. You want more hot dog? Quiet!’

Her last word was a roar. Three tails went between six back legs. ‘Sit,’ she said, and beamed as they sat. She promptly distributed more hot dog.

‘They’re Oscar’s dogs,’ he said on a note of discovery, and she grinned and climbed over the chicken wire.

‘I knew you were clever.’

‘Why are Oscar’s dogs here?’

‘Ginny always was fabulous with dogs,’ Richard managed, giving his sister a faint smile.

She bounded up the veranda steps, three at a time, reached the bed and gave her brother a hug.

‘I still am. I still will be. Weren’t they great?’

‘My daddy likes dogs,’ Madison said cautiously, and Richard smiled at his daughter.

‘Your daddy certainly does.’ He had to stop there-energy was fading as they watched-but some sort of link had definitely been made, Fergus thought. My daddy… Things had happened since he’d been here last.

‘Oscar had six dogs,’ he said, feeling his way.

Ginny plumped down on the step beside Madison and hauled her in so they were linked hard, side by side.

‘These are the good dogs. The others had to go to a home for bad dogs.’

Fergus stared at the dogs. He stared at Richard and then at Ginny and Madison. Then he turned to the nurse on duty. ‘Do you know what’s going on?’

‘You know Oscar’s agreed to stay in the nursing home?’ Tony asked, and Fergus nodded.

‘Yeah.’

‘The council ranger called at the place yesterday,’ Tony told him. ‘Ginny’s been feeding the dogs and caring for the stock in general. One of the neighbouring farmers has agreed to take on the sheep until things are sorted out but no one wants the dogs. Oscar’s said he doesn’t care, so the ranger told Ginny yesterday that he’d take them to…’ He hesitated and glanced at Madison. ‘To the dogs’ home.’

‘Right,’ Fergus said, still feeling his way. He looked at the way Ginny was hugging Madison and he thought, She’s changed. Something’s definitely changed.

Was it the way he thought about Ginny?

Sure, that had changed, but there was more. Until yesterday Ginny had treated Madison with kindness. She’d held her at the funeral. She’d treated her feet, she’d told her stories, she’d done the physical caring, but there’d been that tiny distancing. A professional distancing, he’d thought.

Today there was no such distance. Today she was hugging Madison as if she meant it.

‘I went over this morning,’ Ginny told him, still hugging Madison. ‘On the way back from…where I’d been. I knew the whippet-or sort of. Years ago, when we left our farm, Oscar took over our two dogs. He always liked a dog pack, even if he never trained them, and back then when I was a teenager it was either leave our dogs with Oscar or have them put down. The social worker who…who took me away said I didn’t have a choice.’ She gestured down to the whippet in the pen. ‘I’m guessing this one’s related. Anyway, I ran them all through their paces.’

‘Paces?’

He still sounded cautious, he thought, but it behoved him to be cautious. He’d come out here with plans for himself which just might include Ginny. But suddenly Ginny’s side of the equation didn’t look quite as uncomplicated as it had last night.

‘I fed them and took their food away halfway through their meal,’ she said. ‘I’d fed them last night so they weren’t all that hungry but, despite that, three of them tried to bite me. The other three looked at me like I was being mean but they let me do it. That was test one. I sat down with them for an hour and at the end of the hour I had the three non-biters on my knee, all telling me they were prepared to be devoted. The other three took themselves off to the other side of the yard and refused to be friendly.’

‘She’d gone over prepared to take on the whippet,’ Richard whispered into the silence. ‘Trust our Ginny to bring back three. Her heart’s bigger than the Titanic. Only it’s different. It’s unsinkable.’

He subsided. Fergus glanced at him, concerned, and gestured Tony to adjust the oxygen flow. Tony gave an almost imperceptible shrug, which told him a hundred per cent oxygen was already running.

Richard’s time was fast running out. Maybe a week, Fergus thought. Maybe less. He looked back at Ginny and saw the wash of pain cross her face. He knew that his diagnosis had found concurrence.

‘Is there anything you need?’ he asked softly, but he was asking the question more of Tony than of Richard. Richard had slumped into sleep. Soon his sleep would be more than that.

‘Things are fine,’ Ginny whispered, tugging Madison up onto her knee and burying her face in her hair. ‘Your daddy’s sick but he’s not hurting, is he, love? He’s gone to sleep now. Soon he’ll sleep all the time.’

‘My daddy and mummy are going to be together,’ Madison whispered, so softly that Fergus had to stoop to hear her. ‘But Ginny and the puppies will look after me.’

What…? Fergus stared down at Ginny as if she’d taken leave of her senses. ‘What are you saying?’ he asked, and she gave him a rueful smile.

‘What I ought to have been saying two weeks ago. The heart expands to fit all comers.’

‘Sorry?’

‘I went to Oscar’s to get a dog,’ she said. ‘One dog. Only two other dogs put their heads on my knee and I thought, OK, I can fit three dogs into my life.’

‘In your hospital apartment?’

‘Things might have to change.’

‘How?’

‘I think I might make a cup of tea,’ Tony announced into an atmosphere that was suddenly charged. ‘Does anyone else want a cup of tea?’

‘I’d love one,’ Ginny told him, and gave him a grateful smile.

‘You want to come with me?’ Tony asked Madison. ‘There’s cookies with smiley faces in the biscuit barrel.’

‘You’ve been making cookies?’ Fergus was so astounded that he almost barked the question, and Madison flinched at the unexpected noise. He winced. ‘Sorry,’ he told the little girl. ‘I didn’t know your… I didn’t know Ginny knew how to make cookies.’

‘I don’t,’ Ginny agreed. ‘One of the neighbours brought over a bunch of baking. But I might learn.’

‘You might learn.’ He stood, feeling winded, while Tony gathered Madison up and carried her into the house. Richard had seemingly drifted into a deep, untroubled sleep. There was suddenly only Fergus and Ginny.

And the future?

Ginny was silent. Fergus hesitated, then sat on the step beside Ginny and stared out over the yard. The dogs had slumped into a pile of canine contentment in the shade of a cotoneaster. Ginny looked as if she was watching them.

Maybe she was, but who knew what she was seeing?

They remained silent for a couple of minutes. Ginny didn’t seem inclined to talk and Fergus was struggling to find the right words. He didn’t know the right words.

‘Ginny…’ he said softly at last, and she nodded.

‘Mmm?’

‘Last night was fantastic.’

‘It was, wasn’t it?’ she agreed, and there was a note of smugness in her voice that had him taken aback.

‘You agree?’

‘Mind-blowing sex,’ she said in satisfaction. ‘If I’d known that was what I’d needed to jolt me out of my misery, I’d have had it years ago. Mind, it’s a bit hard to find. Mind-blowing sex, that is.’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ he said faintly.

‘You don’t know how hard it is to find? You haven’t been looking?’

‘Ginny…’

Her smile faded. ‘It was fantastic,’ she said softly. ‘And not just the sex. Thank you, Fergus.’

‘You’re thanking me?’

‘I surely am.’

‘For what?’

‘For jolting me.’

‘I thought…what we had…it was more a joining than a jolting,’ he said, cautious again.

She thought about that, considering it from all sides. ‘You mean, joining in more than a sexual way?’

‘I haven’t always been celibate in the six years since my wife left,’ he told her. ‘But last night was different.’

‘Mind-blowing.’ The smugness was back.

He smiled, but persevered. ‘Ginny, you and I could have something special. We do have something special. I feel it.’

‘As in?’ she whispered.

He hesitated but it may as well be said. It was how he was feeling. ‘There’s no need for us to be alone,’ he said. ‘Just because we’ve been wounded in the past.’

‘No,’ she whispered. She stared out at the dogs, but the dogs were doing nothing, going nowhere. ‘I figured that last night. I’d always thought…well, you know I’m a carrier for cystic fibrosis.’

‘That doesn’t mean you’ll have children with cystic fibrosis.’

‘No,’ she agreed. Her tone was blank, almost businesslike. ‘That would only happen if my partner is also a carrier. But even if my partner was free, I still have a fifty per cent chance of passing on carrier status to a child.’

‘So?’

‘So this damnable disease would live on through me. I’ve always sworn that will never happen.’

That was fine as far as it went, he thought. He nodded. ‘There’s life without children.’

‘There is,’ she said, and her voice softened. ‘You’d know that all too well.’

‘We could make it happen.’ He couldn’t stop the urgency entering his voice. He’d seen a glimpse of an escape-a sliver of something that might be a way of life he could embrace. A beautiful woman, smart and funny, a professional colleague with a life of her own. Someone who’d make him smile, who’d lie in his arms at night and take the emptiness away.

‘I’m keeping the dogs,’ she said, and his vision took a back step.

‘That’s crazy.’

‘What’s crazy about giving dogs a home?’

‘We’d never be able to keep them.’

‘We?’

‘If you and I…’

‘Fergus…’

‘I’m just thinking, Ginny,’ he said. ‘I… Last night… You and I… For the first time since my wife left I thought that I might have met someone I could make a future with.’ He lifted her hand, linking her fingers through his. ‘Ginny, it was, as you said, mind-blowing. It made me think that maybe we could make something for ourselves. Be selfish. Just…put away the pain and create a partnership that would edge out the darkness.’

‘Forget the darkness?’ she whispered. ‘How can we forget?’

‘Block it out.’

‘You can’t do that,’ she said softly. ‘I’ve been running for years and it doesn’t work. That’s what I figured last night. I lay there after you left and I stared at the darkness and I thought the way I’ve been trying to block out the pain is by pretending to be someone I’m not. And I can’t do that. I’ve been trying but it doesn’t work. I’m just me. Ginny. And I need people. You made me see that last night.’

‘You need me?’ he asked, not understanding, and she shook her head.

‘Not just you. Though you’re definitely in there if you want to be in.’

‘Gee, thanks.’

She smiled but her smile was troubled. ‘Don’t thank me, Fergus, because I don’t think you want what I’m offering.’

‘What are you offering?’

‘I’m keeping the dogs,’ she whispered.

He stared out at the canine pack. ‘Why?’

‘They’ll be great when I’ve trained them.’

‘You can’t keep them in your Sydney apartment.’

‘No.’ Flat. Definite. Resolute.

‘You’re not seriously thinking about staying here.’

‘No.’ Her chin jutted a little and he thought he could see a trace of fear. She might be determined but this determination was very new and very…scary. ‘I’m not thinking about staying here. I’ve decided to stay here.’

‘After Richard…’ He hesitated and glanced toward the bed.

‘After Richard dies,’ she said, and her voice steadied. ‘I talked it through with Richard this morning and I have his blessing.’

‘To do what?

‘To make this house a home again,’ she said. ‘If I can. To give Madison a place to live.’

‘You’ll stay at Cradle Lake with Madison?’ He forgot to whisper. If he sounded astounded, he couldn’t help it. This was a woman whom he’d thought was running from commitment as fiercely as he was.

‘I thought I hated it,’ she whispered. ‘Cradle Lake was claustrophobic. I knew everyone and everyone knew me. You know how many times I’ve had to cook since people found out Richard was back?’

‘I don’t-’

‘I haven’t had to,’ she continued, ignoring his interruption. ‘I’ve been away for almost fifteen years yet I’m still one of them. I have a community.’

He flinched.

A community.

‘I have that where I work,’ he said. ‘It’s not so rare. People care. It’s why I’m here. To get away from it.’

‘Yeah, but you’ve only been running for months. I’ve been running for fifteen years,’ she whispered. ‘I thought last night…I can stop.’

‘Do you have any idea what you’re saying?’

‘I have,’ she said, and again her chin jutted forward. He could see fear behind her eyes, he thought, and he knew she wasn’t as determined as she made out. ‘I’m jumping into the human race again. I thought…after I lost Richard that that’d be the end. It’s not. It can’t be and for some reason last night made me see that I don’t want it to be. I don’t want to hand Madison over to adoptive parents. Madison’s my last link with my family and I want to teach her to use a canoe on the lake.’

‘I could be your family,’ he said, suddenly urgent, and she gazed down at their linked hands and her smile became almost wistful.

‘You felt it, too, then. Last night.’

‘I surely did.’

‘More than mind-blowing sex.’

‘Ginny, we fit together.’

‘You and your wife,’ she said cautiously. ‘Did you fit?’

‘It’s different. We were professional, and our sole mutual interest was our work.’

‘So you and me…what would our sole mutual interest be?’

‘Ourselves,’ he said, but it sounded lame even to him.

‘I bet that’s what you and your wife thought at the start. Fergus, I want something more from a relationship than a mutual involvement in medicine.’

He paused. Out in the pen one of the dogs, the collie, rolled over on her belly and started to scratch in an entirely undignified manner.

‘This isn’t what you were saying last night,’ he said cautiously and she nodded.

‘No. It’s not. But I made you no promises last night, Fergus. I went into last night thinking it was a one-night stand and I can’t help that it changed things.’

‘What changed things?’

‘You see, I don’t know,’ she whispered. ‘I’m still trying to figure it out. I only know that I woke up different. I don’t even know what’s different.’

‘Ginny, I want you.’

‘That’s lovely,’ she said. ‘I want you, too, Fergus. But I come with strings.’

‘Dogs.’

‘And a daughter.’

‘You’re not serious about Madison?’

‘I’ve never been more serious.’

‘She’s damaged. She needs specialist care.’

‘You think I can’t give her that?’

‘She needs two parents.’ He spoke more roughly than he’d intended and both of them turned to look at Richard’s bed. But Richard wasn’t moving.

‘I can’t help that,’ Ginny said apologetically. ‘I only know that when I woke up this morning she was mine. I went to sleep in your arms last night thinking I had no family at all and when I woke up I did have family and I’ll fight to the death to defend it.’

He stared at her, baffled. How could things have changed so fast? He’d driven out here thinking that his world was starting to make sense again-just a bit. That he could find a little joy.

But Ginny wasn’t content with a little joy. She wanted the whole catastrophe.

He stared out at the disreputable dogs and thought, Could he? Could he?

The screen door swung wide and out came Tony, who was carrying Madison, who was carrying a plate of cookies with exorbitant care.

‘I didn’t spill any of them,’ Madison said, and Ginny beamed and bounced up and took the biscuits.

‘That’s brilliant, poppet,’ she said, and Madison frowned.

‘My name’s Madison.’

‘Yes, but you’re also a poppet,’ Ginny said. ‘That’s because you look very, very cute. I had a little brother like you once and my mum used to call him poppet.’

‘Ginny,’ Fergus said, almost explosively.

‘Would you like a cookie, Dr Reynard?’

‘No.’ He took a grip-almost. The sight of Madison smiling was suddenly almost overwhelming. The pain…

Ginny saw it. Her face softened and she took a step toward him. ‘Fergus, I’m sorry,’ she murmured. ‘I know it’s much too soon.’

‘It’s never going to be any better,’ he muttered, backing off. ‘Is there anything else you need-medically?’

She saw it and responded immediately, as if she’d expected no less. ‘We need orders for an increase in morphine. Richard was unsettled last night and I promised him he needn’t be tonight.’

‘I’ll write it up now.’ He turned to Tony. ‘Tony…’

‘I’ll take Madison down to talk to the dogs while you sort out medical needs,’ Ginny told him, setting down the cookies and gathering her niece into her arms. ‘You look after the medicine. I’m looking after my family.

‘Ginny…’

‘That’s the way it has to be, Fergus,’ she said softly. ‘I knew when I figured it out last night that it wasn’t going to be easy. I don’t want to hurt you. But I know what I have to do.’

He couldn’t do it.

Fergus drove away from the farmhouse feeling sick. He’d driven out here with his heart full of Ginny, feeling like he was waking from some sick, grey trance.

But now…

Dogs maybe. But Madison?

A little girl.

Like Molly.

She wasn’t in the least like Molly, he thought savagely. She had all her chromosomes. She had a healthy heart. She could be a vibrant, happy little girl.

Ginny had no right to keep her. She needed two parents.

Molly had been OK with one parent. And the hospital community.

Madison was no Molly.

Molly.

The pain around his heart tightened, burned, threatened suddenly to almost overwhelm him. The thought of her small arms around his neck, the way she had of burrowing her nose into his shoulder and saying Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, like it was a mantra.

Madison wasn’t burrowing her face into anyone’s neck yet, he thought, but if she had proper parents she would be. She should be.

But it wouldn’t be his.

No.

How could he lift a child and cuddle her and give her the love she deserved? He couldn’t. Hell, it was hard enough caring for patients. It had been hard enough last night caring for Stephanie Horace. Stephanie was eight years old. She’d had to be admitted, and her father had a bad back. Fergus had carried her out to the car and even that had hurt. Having a child’s body limp and warm against his chest.

What Ginny was asking was too much.

She wasn’t asking it of him.

‘Hell,’ he said into the silence, and then he thumped the steering-wheel so hard that he hurt the back of his hand. ‘Hell, hell, hell.’

Where were the answers?

There weren’t any.

‘Do you know what you’re doing?’

Fergus had been gone for ten minutes. Ginny and Tony and Madison had consumed milk and cookies-or coffee and cookies for the grown-ups-and then Tony and Madison had gone inside to wash up. Soon Miriam would be there for handover.

They really didn’t need a nurse here any more, Ginny thought as she sat on her veranda step and stared down over the lake. She’d agreed to a nurse being here because she hadn’t wanted to get close to Madison, but now…

‘He’ll run a mile,’ her brother whispered, and she turned to find Richard wide-eyed and watchful.

‘You’re awake.’

He managed a smile. ‘Sometimes I can be.’

‘How long have you been awake?’ she asked cautiously, and he shrugged.

‘Long enough to hear you scaring the good doctor into the middle of next week. He wants you, Ginny.’

‘Maybe he does. But…’

‘But what?’

‘He doesn’t want what comes with me.’

‘Yesterday you had nothing,’ Richard whispered. It was almost beyond him to speak now, and Ginny walked over and sat on his bed, taking his hand in hers, bending close so he didn’t have to strain to speak. ‘Yesterday you were running as fast as I have been.’

‘Maybe we’ve both come to the end of our running.’

‘I surely have,’ he whispered. ‘Hell, Ginny, you know it’s OK with me if you have Madison adopted. We’ve asked so much of you. Big sister to a family of tragedy.’

‘I loved you all,’ she whispered back, speaking almost to herself. ‘I loved Chris and Toby to bits. I loved Mum even when I knew she was drinking herself to death. I understood why you ran…’

‘I behaved so unfairly. I wasn’t so sick that I couldn’t have helped.’

‘No, but to watch what you’d have to go through yourself eventually…I understood.’

‘Everyone has to die some time. I was just a coward. Like Dad was a coward. But not you. You were always the bravest, Ginny, and I’ll not let you be taken advantage of. I’ll organise Madison into foster-care myself.’

‘You do so over my dead body,’ she said, and her sudden flash of anger startled them both. ‘She’s my family.’

‘We don’t do family,’ he whispered, but her fury was still there.

‘Like hell we don’t. Who did you come back to when you were ill?’

‘That’s different?’

‘Why is it different? You know I slept with Fergus last night?’

‘I guessed,’ he said, and managed a wry smile. ‘Was it good?’

She smiled back, aware that her face was flushed but also knowing that there wasn’t a thing she could do about it.

‘It was excellent. The thing is…’

‘The thing is, what?’ he asked, closing his eyes and she withdrew her hand from his.

‘You’re so tired. I shouldn’t-’

‘I have all the time in the world for sleeping,’ he said, and the anger was in his voice now. He left his eyes closed but his hand still held hers. ‘The thing is, what?’

‘I fell in love,’ she said softly, and his eyes flew open again.

‘You fell in love.’

‘Just like that,’ she whispered. ‘And he left-he had a house call-and I lay there and I thought I’ve been trying to seal up the jagged edges. Every time there’s a death… Chris, Toby, Mum and now you… It hurts so much and I’ve been trying to shrink my heart, make it less and less exposed. And it’s been grey and horrid and I didn’t know what to do about it except to keep on shrinking. Only then, this morning, suddenly all those jagged edges opened up again and it was like my heart was suddenly…beating again.’

‘Oh, Ginny…’

‘It feels better,’ she said, almost defiantly. ‘Sure, it’s crazy-it’s terrifying if you like, but the alternative’s worse. You’ve had fun since you’ve been diagnosed. You’ve had lovers. The result of one of them is in our kitchen eating cookies right now. But you always knew you were going to die. It didn’t stop you learning to surf, seeing every part of Australia you could, having fun…’

‘Yes, but…’

‘But that’s what I’m saying,’ she whispered. ‘It’s the same thing. I figured it last night. Yeah, I might get hurt again but if I don’t take those risks then I might as well wither right now. So I’m taking on the dogs and I’m taking on Madison.’

‘And Fergus?’

She hesitated. ‘He has his own figuring out to do,’ she whispered.

‘He’s been hurt?’

‘He’s lost a child. Recently.’

‘A little girl.’

‘Mmm.’

‘Then it’s not fair to ask him to take on Madison.’

‘It’s not,’ she agreed. ‘And I’m not asking him to.’

‘But you want her.’

‘I’ll fight to the death to keep her.’

‘Even if it means losing Fergus.’

‘I don’t think I can lose Fergus,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t think I have him to lose.’

‘He loves you.’

‘I don’t think he’s figured what love really is,’ she said. ‘What it can be.’

‘So what will you do?’

‘Take care of my brother for as long as he needs me,’ she whispered, and stooped to kiss him lightly on the forehead. ‘Look after three dogs. Look after one little girl. And…maybe even look after the medical needs of Cradle Lake. For as long as Cradle Lake will have me.’