The Surgeon’s Family Miracle

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE chopper crew set their patients down at Sydney Central. Benjy watched open-mouthed as Sydney appeared and disappeared underneath them. He didn’t say another word until they reached Ben’s property.

Neither did Lily. It had been seven years since she’d seen anything but the island, and there was a lot to see. They followed the coast north, until they came to a mountainous region where farms seemed few and far between.

‘Here we are,’ the pilot called cheerfully, and set the big machine down to land.

A woman seemed to be waiting. They saw her first, a dot beside a house set on coastal farmland. The dot grew bigger until it became the woman.

It must be one of Ben’s managers.

In the tiny part of her mind that had dared to think ahead to what waited for them, Lily had imagined some sort of elderly family retainer, a plump and cuddly lady who made sponge cakes and beamed.

No such thing. Sure, Rosa was an older woman-in her sixties maybe?-but there the resemblance to her image stopped. She was thin and wiry, dressed in tight-fitting jeans, glossy boots and a crimson shirt with sleeves rolled up to the elbows. A defiant redhead, with auburn curls twisted into an elegant knot, she looked like some sort of retired Spanish dancer, Lily thought, tugging Benjy out from under the blades while the pilot tossed out their bags. She turned to say goodbye, but the chopper was already rising.

Her escape route was cut.

Benjy was right behind her, clinging as if the woman might bite. Lily took her son’s small hand and propelled him forward, and then thought she was almost using her small son as a shield. She had that light-headed feeling of being out of control again.

Oh, for heaven’s sake… This was nothing to worry about.

‘Hi,’ the woman called without a trace of a Spanish accent, and there was the second illusion dispelled. ‘Welcome to Nurrumbeen.’

Nurrumbeen. All she knew of this place was what she’d seen as they’d circled before landing. It was a farm seemingly carved into the wilderness, rich grazing land encircled by sea on one side and rainforest on the other.

What on earth was she going to do here for a month? No people. No medicine. She wouldn’t have minded the odd shop, she soundlessly told the absent Ben, and the thought of his possible reaction to such a whinge was enough to allow her to greet Rosa with a smile.

‘We’re Lily and Benjy. I hope you’re expecting us.’

‘We surely are.’ Rosa shook Lily’s hand with a grip as strong as a man’s and then her eyes moved past her to Benjy. ‘Benjy,’ she whispered in a tone that said she either knew or she guessed Ben’s involvement. There was intelligence in these black eyes. Not much would get past Rosa. ‘You’re both more welcome than I can say,’ she said. ‘Come into the house.’

The house was long and low, white-painted, with wide verandas all around and the all-pervasive scent of something that looked like honeysuckle running riot everywhere. They walked inside and there were so many questions in Lily’s head that she felt as if she might burst. By her side, Benjy seemed awed into silence.

Ben should be here.

In all the time she’d spent with Ben during university, never once had he introduced her to his parents or taken her to any of the properties his parents owned. Neither had he talked about his family. ‘We don’t get on,’ he’d said brusquely, and she’d never got past it. For her to come here now, with his son…

Without him…

There was a man inside, older than Rosa, small, wiry and greying. He was leaning heavily on a walking stick-and he was wearing an apron.

‘This is my Doug,’ Rosa said proudly, as if conjuring up something magical. ‘We’re here to look after you.’

‘You’re…Ben’s parents’ housekeepers?’ Lily asked cautiously, and Lily and Doug both smiled.

‘I’m Ben’s housekeeper,’ Doug said. ‘But food first, questions later.’ He sat them down in the big farmhouse kitchen and produced sandwiches, sponge cake and chocolate éclairs. Rosa poured tea for Lily and lemonade for Benjy and both Rosa and Doug beamed as they ate and drank, seeming to enjoy the fact that they were obviously disconcerted.

Ben should be here, Lily thought again. This is his house. Or…is this his parents’ house?

‘I’m not sure what the set-up is here,’ she ventured, as Benjy wrapped himself around a chocolate éclair.

‘Tell it like it is, Rosa.’ Doug pushed another éclair forward and Lily couldn’t resist. Yum.

‘We’re housekeeper and farm manager,’ Rosa told her. ‘Doug’s the housekeeper-he makes the best sponge cakes you’ve ever eaten.’ She hesitated then, glancing at Doug and then nodding, as if coming to a decision to tell more.

‘Doug was a farmhand here when he was young and I worked in the stables,’ Rosa told them. ‘Ben’s parents were running the place as a horse stud but they spent very little time here. But we knew Ben when he was little. And his sister.’

A sister. Lily’s eyes widened. She’d dated Ben for years. What else didn’t she know? ‘I didn’t know Ben had a sister.’

‘Bethany died when she was four,’ Rosa said. ‘But by then Ben was at boarding school. Anyway, when Ben was about twelve Doug had an appalling tractor accident.’

‘It rolled on top of me,’ Doug said, smiling at Benjy, as if trying to make light of what must have been dreadful. ‘Damned wheel mount gave way on a slope. You ever thought how much a two-ton tractor can hurt? One day I’ll show you the scars.’

‘Wow,’ whispered Benjy through cream.

‘Anyway, Ben’s parents wouldn’t accept liability,’ Rosa said, without rancour, stating facts. ‘They said it was Doug’s duty to maintain the tractor-the fact that there’d been no money to maintain it was carefully ignored and they doctored their bank accounts to make it seem like there was. There was a court case and we lost. The fight left us in debt for years. We left here. I worked in a racing stable and Doug…well, Doug stayed home and tried to keep himself occupied.’

‘I learned how to cook,’ Doug said.

‘He did,’ Rosa said affectionately. ‘Then about six years ago Ben’s father passed away. His mother had died earlier and it wasn’t a month after his father’s death before Ben came to find us.’

‘He remembered us,’ Doug said, smiling at a memory he obviously found good. ‘His parents didn’t come here often but until my accident they’d send Ben. He’d arrive on his own for holidays.’

‘Like us,’ Benjy announced, and Doug nodded.

‘Exactly like you. Rosa taught him to ride a horse.’

‘And he remembered us all those years later,’ Rosa said softly. ‘Until his parents died there was little he could do, but as soon as he could, he did.’

‘What did he do?’ Lily asked.

‘He installed us back here,’ Rosa said with quiet pride. ‘There’s a little house behind this one-it’s beautiful. He’s given us life tenancy. He sat and talked about what Doug and I could do and we said I loved the farm and Doug could keep a house clean. So that’s what we are. Housekeeper and farm manager.’

‘You should see me hoover,’ Doug said, grinning, and Lily suddenly felt like grinning back. For the last week she’d been moving in a nightmare. This couple made her feel she was waking up. And Ben’s care…

She’d fallen in love with him all those years ago. Suddenly she was remembering why.

‘Does Ben come here often now?’ she asked, and Rosa gave a definite nod.

‘Whenever he can. We keep telling him he should bring friends here-girlfriends and the like-but he won’t.’

‘He’s a bit of a loner, and he’s not the marrying kind,’ Doug added, but Rosa’s eyes had moved to Benjy.

‘Maybe he hasn’t been until now,’ she said. ‘But things change.’ Her gaze shifted to Lily. ‘Do you and he-?’

‘Leave the girl alone, love,’ Doug said, starting to clear the table. ‘No questions. You know what Ben said. She’s worn to the bone. Just food and rest and plenty of both. Starting now. Rosa, take them to their bedrooms for a nap before they explore the farm.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Rosa clicked her riding boots together as she saluted her husband. Then she smiled and waited for Lily and Benjy to accompany her. ‘Let’s get you settled for a really long stay.’

They were at his farm.

Ben had several properties, left to him by parents who had valued everything in terms of money. Nurrumbeen was the only place he had any emotional tie to, and it was only his sense of obligation to Doug and Rosa that had created that tie.

He’d go there when he had the medicine on the island thoroughly sorted, he told himself.

But wanted to go there now.

Why?

Benjy was his kid, he thought as the days wore on. He had to learn to kick a football. He had to learn to ride a horse.

Rosa would teach him to ride.

Maybe it’d be fun to teach him himself.

But that meant involvement. The kid might even learn to need him.

He didn’t do needing. He couldn’t. It’d do his head in. He was a man who walked alone.

Until now, a little voice whispered insidiously in his head. You could stop and be a family.

And keep on doing the work I love?

You could change direction. You might even learn to love other things.

Which was a really scary thought. He thought back to his childhood. Every single thing he’d ever loved had been a fleeting attachment-to people like Rosa and Doug, people he had seen when his parents had allowed it and then who’d disappeared out of his life forever. Like his sister. Bethany. That’s what love is, he thought bleakly. He knew enough now to shield himself from it.

If he loved, he lost.

Forget it. You have work to do here, he told himself severely. Stay here, stick to your medicine and get them out of your mind.

As if.

For the first three days Lily threw herself into her holiday as if she only had days to get to experience everything. She rode, she fished, she swam, she built the world’s biggest sandcastle, she read late into the night, she rose at dawn to jog on the beach…

Rosa and Doug watched and said little. Benjy was drawn to them, she knew. They offered to take over his care and let her rest, but rest wasn’t on her agenda. Neither was clinging to her son, but her legacy from the last few days was one of fear, and everywhere she went, Benjy went, too.

Benjy loved the horses. Rosa and Doug grazed beef cattle-that was the farm’s main income-but Rosa had four mares and one stallion-just to give her pleasure-and they gave Benjy pleasure, too.

One of the mares was heavily pregnant and Benjy was fascinated. ‘We can’t go until Flicker’s had her foal,’ he told Lily, and Lily thought she wasn’t sure how long she could stand being there.

She was still in overdrive, playing as hard as she’d worked on the island. The events of the past few days haunted her. The effects they’d had on Benjy haunted her as well, making her worried sick that there might be long-term repercussions. He hardly talked to her of the time in the compound. He hardly spoke of Kira. He never spoke of Jacques.

She’d betrayed her son by loving Jacques. Or…by thinking she’d loved Jacques?

She hardly slept.

‘You’re like a wound-up clockwork toy,’ Rosa said on the third night. Doug was feeding the dogs, Benjy was supervising and Lily and Rosa were picking peas from the vegetable patch. ‘Why don’t you go for a walk by yourself after dinner? Let Doug read to the boy. It’d do them both good.’ Her smile faded a little. ‘I worry about Doug.’

‘Why?’

‘He has chest pain.’

Lily frowned. ‘What sort of chest pain? Do you want me to talk to him? You know I’m a doctor.’

‘No.’ Rosa grimaced. ‘He’d hate it that I said anything. He hardly admits it to me, and I’m sure it’s worse than he lets me see.’ She hesitated. ‘But when Ben comes…maybe Ben will do something.’

‘Rosa, if it really is chest pain, he needs urgent medical assessment.’

‘If he goes to the doctor when Ben’s not here and the doctor says he has to stop doing housework then we’ll leave here,’ Rosa said, sounding desperate. ‘After Ben’s been so good to us there’s no way Doug would stay on if he can’t work for his keep.’ She hesitated. ‘But maybe if it was Ben that was to do the telling… I know it sounds foolish but pride’s one of the few things left to Doug.’

‘Rosa, chest pain can mean-’

‘There’s nothing you can do or I can do,’ Rosa said with finality. ‘We wait for Ben. And as for now, you’re to go for a walk. Ben says you should.’

‘When did he tell you that?’ she demanded, startled, and Rosa smiled.

‘He rang us when you were at the beach. He worries about you.’

Then, as if on cue, the phone rang again. ‘What’s the bet this’ll be Ben?’ Doug called from the veranda. ‘Rosa told him this morning that you wouldn’t slow down, and he’s worried.’

Suddenly she found she was shaking. Maybe Ben was right, she conceded. Maybe she was cracking up.

‘It is Ben,’ Doug called.

She walked up the steps to the kitchen. Rosa and Benjy followed. So much for privacy. They were all watching her. She turned her back on the lot of them. Rosa, Doug and Benjy were gazing at her as if she was their evening’s entertainment.

She was cracking up.

‘Hi,’ she said, and took a deep breath and tried again. ‘Hi.’ That was better. Her voice didn’t squeak this time.

‘Rosa says you’re running on overdrive,’ Ben said.

Lily thought, Great, cut to the chase, why don’t you?

‘I’m fine,’ she told him. ‘I need to come home.’

‘The island’s OK without you,’ he said softly, as if he understood where her head was, which was crazy for how could he know? ‘Sam and Pieter and I have the medicine here under control. You’re not coming home until you’re well.’

‘I am well.’

‘You’re not well. I want you to do something for me.’

‘Not unless I can come home.’

He chuckled, that deep throaty chuckle that had once made her smile but now suddenly made her want to weep. ‘It’s not going to happen, sweetheart,’ he said.

‘Don’t call me-’

‘Lily,’ he corrected himself. ‘If I’ve figured out the time difference right, you should be just about to have dinner.’

‘How did-?’

‘Doug’s meals are like clockwork.’

‘How often do you come here?’

‘We’re talking about you. Not me.’

‘We shouldn’t be.’

‘Just shut up for a minute. If you go out straight after dinner-’

‘I can’t.’

‘Let me speak,’ he said, exasperated. ‘There’s a track from the house to the ridge up on Blair Peak. It’s a full moon here so it’s a full moon there as well. We’re under the same moon, Lily. Remember that. Anyway, I want you to put some decent boots on and take yourself up to the peak.’

‘Tonight?’

‘Tonight,’ he said. ‘Sit up at the peak for as long as you need. Then walk straight down to the beach and wander back with your toes in the water.’ She heard his smile again. ‘Take your boots off first.’

‘Is this some sort of order?’

‘It’s a medical prescription.’

‘Benjy can’t-’

‘This is not for Benjy,’ he said. ‘It’s for you.’

‘It’s dumb.’

‘It’s a medical prescription, Lily,’ he repeated, his voice softening. ‘Trust me.’

‘Why should I?’

‘For no reason other than I’m asking,’ he said. ‘Lily, do this. For you.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Yes, you can, my love. Or, at least, you can try.’

‘Don’t tell me what to do.’

‘OK. I’m not telling. I’m suggesting. You can be angry while you do it, but I still think you should do it.’

And the phone went dead.

She replaced the receiver on its cradle, and turned slowly to face the rest of them. They were all looking at her, expectant, waiting for news. You can, my love… He had no right to call her that.

But he had.

‘He said I should go up to Blair Peak,’ Lily said, noticing in some abstract way that her hand was no longer shaking.

‘That’s a fine idea,’ Rosa approved. ‘Wear boots.’

‘That’s what Ben said.’

‘The snakes don’t move so much at night,’ Doug added. ‘But you should err on the side of caution.’

‘Snakes,’ she whispered, and suddenly her mind was sharp again. ‘Are you out of your minds?’

‘Nope,’ Rosa said cheerfully, dumping peas on the table and starting to pod. ‘It’s a tiny risk and with boots it’s negligible. And so worth it. Ben’s right, dear. You have to go.’

‘I don’t have to do anything.’

‘If you want to get well, you need to go,’ Doug told her. ‘It’s better than all the medicine in the world.’

‘Go, Mama,’ Benjy said. ‘You want to be better.’

She stared down at her small son, confounded. ‘I’m not sick.’

‘No, but you want to be better,’ Benjy said. ‘It might stop your hands from shaking.’

‘So it might,’ she whispered. Just how much had her small son noticed?

‘There you are, then,’ Rosa said, and beamed. ‘Benjy, do you want your mama to read you a bedtime story first, or do you want her to go straight after dinner?’

So she went. She hadn’t the least idea why she was going, but there were four bulldozers forcing her to go, Rosa and Doug and Benjy-and Ben.

What right did Ben have to propel her to do anything? she demanded of herself, trying to be angry. Trying to be anything but deeply in love with him. But how could she be angry? He’d never been anything but honest with her. And now he’d been the means of sending her to this place, and already Benjy was looking better, the terrors of the past few days becoming something they could face down together.

Regardless, the desire to be angry was still there. The track was easy to follow in the moonlight, but it was steep. She was puffing with effort and kicking stones in front of her as she climbed. Anger was a much simpler emotion to concentrate on than anything else. Anything else was just too darned complicated.

‘Just pity the snake that gets in my way,’ she said out loud, and then she thought, Lucky it’s not Ben who’s here, the toad. Pushing her around…

It wasn’t working. She tried a bit harder to justify it-and couldn’t-and suddenly it was Jacques who was before her.

She’d hardly been able to think of him until now, but suddenly it was Jacques she wanted to kick.

Jacques had seemed caring and compassionate and loving. He’d wooed her for years and she’d finally let herself agree to marry him.

‘And you were a criminal,’ she said into the darkness. ‘You rotten, deceiving toe-rag. You bottom-feeding maw worm.’

She tested out her vocabulary a bit more. That led to frustration. She didn’t have the words to match her anger.

Nancy Sinatra’s song came into mind, an oldy but a goody-‘These Boots Are Made For Walking’. She hummed a few bars and then broke out in song, setting up a squawk in the undergrowth as night creatures were startled out of their peaceful activities.

‘Sorry, guys,’ she told them, but she sang some more, and suddenly she wasn’t thinking about Jacques any more. She was thinking about Ben.

‘Well, I don’t need you either, you macho army medic.’

Anger faded. She did need Ben.

But he didn’t need her.

But then she reached the top, a rocky outcrop at the height of the ridge. Here, for about twenty yards in either direction, no trees grew. She could almost see her island from here, she thought, and she found herself scanning the horizon, looking for home.

There was a rustling in the bushes at the edge of her rock ledge. She turned and a pair of tiny wallabies had broken cover, maybe for no other reason than to look at her. They gazed at her for a long moment. Finally they decided she was harmless and started to crop the mosses at the edges of the rock.

The sky was vast and endless. The moonlight shimmered over the water. Behind her was the mountain range dividing the coast from the hinterland. It looked as if the whole world was spread out before her.

She felt tiny. Insignificant. She turned to the two wallabies, awed and wanting to share. ‘Does this spot put you in your place?’ she asked them. They gazed at her, not answering but taking in every detail of what was obviously a very interesting specimen.

‘Yes, but a specimen of what?’ she whispered.

Ben had sent her up there. ‘I’m under the same moon,’ he’d said. She let his words drift, and they felt OK. Her island was under the same moon she was under right now. Ben was out there somewhere, caring for her island.

The awful feeling of being bereft, without anchor, without purpose slowly melted.

‘Trouble is, he’s been under the same moon since the first time I met him,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t get him out of my mind.’

Do you need to?

Maybe we can be friends, she thought, and for a moment felt so bleak that she winced.

But the night wasn’t going anywhere. It seemed like she couldn’t go down the ridge until she’d thought this through, and the wallabies were waiting for answers.

‘He’s a good man,’ she told them, and they looked as if they might agree. ‘He sent me up here.’

It was a bit of a one-way conversation. She needed a bit of feedback, she decided, so she turned back to conversation with herself.

You should have sorted this out seven years ago, she told herself. You know you should. You should have told Ben about Benjy. You should have taught Benjy to care for Ben, and you should have given Ben access. Other parents do that. And maybe you could have even grown to be friends.

It would be good to be Ben’s friend.

You don’t want to be Ben’s friend.

Yes, I do, she told the night, fiercely answering her own accusation. Ben walks alone but that doesn’t make him any less of a person. He’s a wonderful man and he’ll make a wonderful father. Just get things in perspective.

Like how?

Like telling yourself to be sensible. Like admitting you find Ben seriously gorgeous-heck, you know that already. You’ve had his baby. There’s no harm in admitting how sexy you think he is. And if he wants to be part of Benjy’s life, you’ll see him lots.

That was a good thought. It was even a great thought.

And you can stop feeling guilty, too, she told herself. It wasn’t that you were looking for a replacement for Ben that made you accept Jacques. If Ben hadn’t been in the back of your mind you probably would have married Jacques a long time ago, and where would that have left you?

Her eyes widened at that. ‘So Ben saved me from marrying Jacques,’ she whispered. ‘Good old Ben. Maybe I should tell him.’

She grinned. She thought about it a little longer, and it felt…OK. ‘I’m giving myself my own psychotherapy here,’ she told the wallabies. ‘Courtesy of Ben.’

She rose, stretched and gazed out to sea. Ben was over there. Just over the horizon.

‘I love him,’ she told the silence. ‘Now I just have to learn to like him.’

You can do that.

‘Yes, I can,’ she told the wallabies, and she grinned at them both and turned to take the track down the ridge. ‘I might have to come up here a few times and talk to you guys again but, hey, you’re cheap. Now, if you don’t mind, I have a holiday to start.’

How the hell had she done all this?

Ben had told Lily he had the medical needs of the island totally sorted-which wasn’t quite true. He and Sam were both working full time and they never reached the end of the queue.

‘Do you think these people have been saving their dramas for the last forty years, just waiting for us to arrive?’ Sam asked a week after Lily had left. ‘I thought medicine in a war zone was hard. This is ridiculous.’

‘There is a financial issue,’ Ben said thoughtfully. He’d talked to Gualberto at length now, and he had a clear idea of the problems Lily was facing. ‘When Lily first started here there was no money for decent medical facilities. No one’s looked at the broader picture since they found oil.’

‘Lily won’t have had time to look. She’ll have been too busy to think past the next case of coral poisoning.’ Sam lifted his day sheet, summarising his daily patients, and winced. ‘Do you have any idea-?’

‘How many times islanders cut themselves on coral and get infected? Yes,’ Ben said. ‘I saw six cases yesterday myself.’

‘Maybe we could bomb the hell out of the coral,’ Sam said morosely. ‘That’d fix it.’

‘There speaks a surgeon. If it hurts, chop it out.’

‘You got any better ideas?’

‘I have, actually,’ Ben said. ‘Use some of the oil money. Set up a first-rate health system, with a state-of-the-art hospital and medical bases on all outlying islands. We could advertise to medics from Australia initially but we need to organise more of the island kids into medical training. Lily was an exception-there’s been none since. We need island kids thinking about medicine and ancillary services as careers. We also need a helicopter service devoted to medical needs, and staff to run it.’

‘So…’ Sam was regarding his friend in awe. ‘A complete medical service for all the islands. This sounds serious. You’re seriously thinking of setting this up?’

‘Not me. But I can advise.’

‘You wouldn’t be tempted to stay?’

‘It’s not what I do.’

‘You need to establish some sort of relationship with Benjy.’

‘I’ll see him at the farm when I leave here.’

‘For a few days, on your way to the next disaster.’

‘That’s what I do.’

‘Yeah,’ Sam said, still thoughtful. ‘So it is. I forgot.’

‘Just as well I haven’t,’ Ben said, but as he walked away his friend’s eyes stayed on him.

Thoughtful.

Life had slowed to a crawl. The biggest excitement was the impending arrival of Flicker’s foal and after three weeks at the farm Lily was having trouble even sharing that.

She slept long and deeply, untroubled by dreams or nightmares. Benjy slept in the big bed beside her and after the first few days his dreams also seemed to disappear. He had needed this, Lily conceded. Ben had been right.

‘We didn’t need Jacques,’ he confided to Lily, and Lily agreed.

‘He wasn’t a good man, Benjy.’

‘I shouldn’t have gone to him,’ Benjy whispered. It was late at night and he was cuddled against her before sleep-a time when demons could be faced together and dispersed as unimportant.

‘When Kira was killed I was really scared,’ he whispered. ‘I was running toward the beach and I heard shooting. Men were running up the road toward me so I ducked into the trees until they were past. Then I saw what had happened on the beach. I started running back to you but then I saw Jacques yelling at the men, really angry, and they weren’t shooting at him so I came out of the trees and he said come with him.’

He snuggled even closer, trembling. ‘But I shouldn’t have, Mama.’ He hesitated and then he added, ‘Ben’s nicer than Jacques.’

It wouldn’t take a lot to be nicer than Jacques, Lily thought bitterly, but she made herself answer mildly. ‘He is.’

‘Is Ben our friend?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is he a better friend than Jacques?’

‘He is,’ Lily repeated, trying to figure what else to say. How to tell a child that Ben was much more than a friend? How to tell a child that a stranger was his father?

‘He likes me better than Jacques did,’ Benjy murmured.

‘I went to university with Ben,’ she told him. ‘He’s been my friend for a long time.’

‘But he hasn’t visited us before.’

‘He’s been busy, Benjy. He looks after everybody when there’s trouble.’

‘You look after everyone when they’re in trouble.’

‘No, but…’ She hesitated. ‘Benjy, on the island…when those men came…they were friends of Jacques and they wanted our oil. Jacques didn’t know they were going to shoot anyone but they did. I think Jacques wanted to be rich. Ben doesn’t want to be rich. He just wants to stop people hurting.’

‘Like you.’

‘A bit like me, but Ben travels all around the world. We stay on the island.’

‘But you like it here,’ Benjy reasoned. ‘There might be lots of other places that are cool.’

‘One place at a time,’ she whispered, floundering.

‘Doesn’t Ben go to one place at a time?’

‘I guess so.’

‘Then he could still be our friend. We could visit him.’

‘He goes to dangerous places.’

‘Then he could keep visiting us,’ Benjy persisted. ‘We could tell him our place is dangerous and he would come then. It is dangerous.’

‘It was only dangerous once. It’s safe now. You know that.’

‘Then he won’t come and visit?’

‘I don’t know, sweetheart,’ she said helplessly. ‘Let’s just wait and see.’

‘She’s only agreed to take four weeks off. If you leave it any longer, you won’t have any time with her at all.’

‘Maybe that’d be for the best,’ Ben said for the tenth time or more.

‘But what about Benjy? He’s your kid,’ Sam said, letting his exasperation show. ‘Doesn’t he deserve a father?’

Sam talked so much that occasionally he said something sensible. Ben had almost managed to turn off. But that comment… It hit a nerve.

Benjy deserved a father? He hadn’t thought of it like that.

Until now he’d thought of this from his own point of view and from Lily’s. Not from Benjy’s.

‘You can get by without one,’ he said, trying to sound confident.

‘Says you,’ Sam said mockingly. ‘Says the man whose parents tossed you into boarding school at five and paid people to look after you on holidays. You survived, so Benjy should, too? Is that what you think?’

‘Where the hell do you get your information?’

‘I’m a doctor,’ Sam said smugly. ‘We learn by listening in medical school. Plus I looked up your army notes. When you applied to this unit they gave you a psych test. As a medical officer I just happened to look…’

‘You could get struck off for that.’

‘I never look at anything that’s not available from other sources if I had time to look,’ Sam said virtuously. ‘I’m just being time-efficient. But the psych test said you were a loner and listed your background as evidence. Hence you get the frontline work, while good old Sam, who has his Christmas with thirty or so relatives, gets to stay home till you clear up the villains.’

‘So quit asking questions,’ Ben growled. ‘Use those sources of yours to find out what you want.’

‘Med school taught me to get patient profiles from a variety of sources,’ Sam said, still virtuous. ‘The best source of all is the patient.’

‘I’m not your patient.’ His patience at an end, Ben’s voice was practically a roar. They were in the staff quarters of the field hospital. The walls were canvas. There was a startled murmur from outside and Sam grinned.

‘Great,’ he said. ‘That’s started a bunch of rumours. Doctor cracks under pressure. You need a break. A nice family holiday?’

‘Will you cut it out?’

‘I’m playing family counsellor,’ Sam said. ‘It’s my new role, starting now. Go make friends with your son and get yourself reattached to Lily.’

‘You’re single,’ Ben snapped. ‘Go find yourself a family.’

‘Ah, but there’s the rub,’ Sam told him. ‘You’re not happily single. Me, I’m meeting ladies, shortening my list, figuring out where I fit in before I settle down. But you…You’re running in fear, my friend. And I also got to know Benjy. He’s a great kid and he deserves more than you’re prepared to give. So I reckon you should reconsider. You’re not needed here any more. You’ve set up the bones of the new medical service. We can do the rest. There’s a chopper leaving in the morning. You should be on it.’

‘Butt out.’

‘Not until you’re on the chopper.’ Sam eyed him, consideringly. ‘There’s levels of brave, Lt Blayden,’ Sam said softly. ‘Off you go and face the next level.’

‘Do you think Ben will come while you’re here?’ Rosa asked, and Benjy looked worried.

‘We want him to come, don’t we, Mama?’

‘Mmm.’ Lily tried to be noncommittal. They were walking back to the house, leading Flicker. The mare was growing heavier every day with the weight of her foal. She loved the lush pasture by the river but she couldn’t be trusted to graze there by herself.

‘Her normal paddock’s on the far side of the river,’ Rosa had explained. ‘With the dry weather, the river’s dropped and the ground on this side is marshy. If we left her be she’d end up stuck in mud.’

Lily wasn’t sure if that was true, or it was an explanation designed so she and Benjy had to spend a couple of hours each morning supervising Flicker’s grazing, but, contrivance or not, it was working. There was a lot to be said for supervising a pregnant mare and doing nothing else. This place was the Ben Blayden cure for post-traumatic stress.

Or the Ben Blayden heart cure?

No. His prescription hadn’t worked for that.

‘He’s very busy,’ she told Benjy. ‘He’s probably needed somewhere else by now.’

‘There’s time if you make time,’ Rosa said darkly. She shook her head. ‘He’s so unhappy. Since he was a little boy he’s been looking for a family.’

‘Rosa…’

‘I know.’ Rosa smiled down at Benjy. ‘I have big ideas for your mama and our Ben. But big ideas are not necessarily bad ideas. I just wish that he’d come.’

And two hours later he did. They were washing for lunch when they heard the helicopter, and Benjy was out of the house in a flash.

‘It’s got to be him,’ he told Lily as she joined him on the veranda. ‘It has to be.’

And it was.