The Doctor's Proposal (2 page)

‘Let's go back to Sydney in the morning.'

‘Susie, no. You can't lose every link with Rory.'

‘I already have. And you heard the postmistress. Rory had lost any link to his uncle.'

‘Rory spoke of Angus and his aunt with affection. The postmistress said Angus was devastated to learn Rory was dead. You have to see him.'

‘No.'

‘Susie, please…'

‘The gates are opening again,' Susie said, in a voice that said she didn't care. ‘Someone's coming out. We need to move.'

Kirsty turned to see. There was a dusty Land Rover emerg
ing from the forecourt out onto the cobbled driveway leading to the road. Kirsty had driven as close as possible so Susie could watch her as she'd knocked, and the cobblestones were only a car-width wide. Their car was blocking the driveway—meaning the Land Rover had to stop and wait for them to move.

The gates were swinging closed again now behind the Land Rover. This was apparently a castle with every modern convenience. Electronic sensors must be overriding manual operations.

There was still no access.

OK. They'd go. Kirsty started the engine, and then glanced one last time at the Land Rover.

The man who'd slammed the gate on her was at the wheel. His lanky brown dog was sitting beside him. The dog's dumb, goofy—almost grinning—face was at odds with the man's expression of grim impatience. His fingers were drumming on the steering-wheel as he waited for her to move.

She hesitated.

The fingers drummed.

The man looked angry as well as impatient.

He wasn't alone in his anger. Kirsty glanced across at her sister. She wouldn't get Susie back here tomorrow, she thought. Susie's expression was one of hopelessness.

Where was the laughing, bubbly Susie of a year ago?

Kirsty wanted her back. Fiercely, desperately, Kirsty mourned her twin.

Her anger doubled. Quadrupled.

Exploded.

She killed the engine.

‘What…?' Susie started, but Kirsty was already out of the car. Her car was half off the cobblestones and there was a puddle right beside the driver's door. She'd climbed out carefully last time but this time she forgot about the puddle. She squelched in mud to her ankle.

She hardly noticed. How dared he drum his fingers at her?

In truth her anger was caused by far more than merely
drumming fingers, but the fingers had a matching face, a target for the pent-up grief and frustration and fear of the last few months. Too much emotion had to find a vent somewhere.

The drumming fingers were it.

She marched up to the Land Rover, right to the driver's side. She hauled open the door of the vehicle so hard she almost yanked it off its hinges.

‘Right,' she told him. ‘Get out. I want some answers and I want them now.'

 

He should have been home two hours ago.

Dr Jake Cameron had spent the entire day sorting out trouble, and he had more trouble in front of him before he could go home that night. As well as the medicine crowding at him from all sides, there was also the fact that his girls were waiting. The twins were fantastic but he'd stretched their good nature to the limit. Mrs Boyce would have to put them to bed again tonight; she'd be upset at not getting home to Mr Boyce, and he winced at the idea that he'd miss yet another bedtime.

Who needed a bedtime story most? The twins or himself?

The answer was obvious.

‘We could all use a good fairy-tale,' he told Boris as he watched the flaming ball of anger stomp along the cobblestones toward him. ‘Do godmothers do a line in “Beam me up, Scotty”?'

No godmother arrived, and he couldn't leave. The woman's car was blocking his path and he was forced to stay motionless while she hauled open his door and let him have it with both barrels.

She wanted answers?

‘What do you mean, you want answers?' he asked coldly, sliding his long frame out from the vehicle so he could face her anger head on. She'd said she was Angus's family but he'd never seen her before. Who was she?

He would have noticed if he had seen her, he decided. She was five feet three or four, slim, with an open face, clear brown
eyes and glossy auburn curls that tangled almost to her collar. Late twenties? he thought. She had to be—and she was lovely. She was dressed in faded, hip-hugging jeans and an oversized waterproof jacket, but her clothes did nothing to dispel his impression that she was lovely.

Apart from her foot. One foot had landed in a puddle. It was the same foot he'd squashed, he remembered, and he looked down and saw the mud and felt repentant.

Then he thought of Angus and he stopped feeling repentant.

‘My sister and I have travelled all the way from New York to visit Mr…Lord Douglas,' she snapped. ‘We need to see the earl.'

‘You mean Angus.' He'd only referred to Angus as His Lordship to intimidate these two into leaving. It hadn't worked so he may as well go back to using Angus. Angus, his friend.

What else could he do for the old man? he wondered as he waited for the virago to speak again. Angus needed oxygen. He needed round-the-clock nursing, and if he didn't get it…

‘My sister's not well,' the woman snapped.

So what was new? ‘No one's well,' he said bitterly. ‘And there's only me to deal with it. I need to do three more house calls before dinner. Can you move your car, please?'

‘You're a doctor?' she asked blankly, and he sighed.

‘Yes. I'm Dr Jake Cameron, Angus's doctor.'

‘You don't look like a doctor.'

‘Would you like me to wear a white coat and stethoscope? Here? An hour ago I was shifting cows blocking the track to my next patient. This is not exactly white-coat country.'

‘I thought you might have been a nephew.'

‘You are indeed a close family,' he said dryly. ‘Does your sister need medical attention?'

‘No, but—'

‘Then, please, move your vehicle. I'm two hours late and you're making me later.'

She wasn't listening. ‘Is there anyone else we can talk to?'

‘Angus is alone.'

‘In that huge house?'

‘He's accustomed to it,' he told her. ‘But if it'll make you happier, he won't be here much longer. He's being transferred to the Dolphin Bay nursing home tomorrow. It'd be much easier to call there, don't you think? But if you're thinking of pushing him to change his will, don't bother. You bring a lawyer near him and I'll call the police.'

She gazed straight at him, her eyes wide and assessing.

‘Why are you being horrible?'

‘I'm not being any more horrible than I have to be. Angus is weary to death of family pressure and I'm in a hurry.'

‘So be nice to me fast. Tell me why we can't see the earl.'

He sighed. He'd had this family up to his ears. ‘Angus has severe breathing difficulties,' he told her. ‘He's settled for the night and if you think he's coming downstairs to indulge a couple of money-grubbing—'

‘You see, there's the problem,' she said, and her own anger was palpable. ‘You're treating us as if we're something lower than pond scum. We don't even know Angus. We never knew he was an earl or that he was living in something that looks like a cross between Disneyland and Camelot. And as for money-grubbing—'

He was hardly listening. He couldn't. He was so late! He'd promised Mavis Hipton that he'd look in on her this afternoon, and he knew she needed more analgesic to make it though the night. Mavis suffered in stoic silence. She wouldn't complain, but he didn't want her suffering because of these two.

He glanced at his watch. Pointedly. ‘You said you're family,' he told her. ‘Why do you know nothing? You're not making sense.'

‘My sister was married to one of Angus's nephews,' she told him, standing square in front of him, making it quite clear he wasn't going anywhere until she had answers. ‘Susie's never met her husband's family, and she'd like to.'

‘Especially now he's dying,' he snapped. It had only been this afternoon that he'd fielded yet another phone call from
Kenneth, and Kenneth had been palpably pleased to hear that Angus was failing. The phone call had left Jake feeling ill. And now…was this Kenneth's wife?

He didn't have time to care.

‘I need to go.'

‘We didn't know Angus was dying,' she snapped, her colour mounting. ‘As far as we knew, Rory's uncle Angus was as poor as a church mouse, but he's all the family Rory had—except a brother he didn't get on with—so we've come all this way to see him. Of all the appalling things to say, that we're fortune hunters!'

He hesitated at that. For a moment he stopped being angry and forced himself to think. What had she said?
Rory's Uncle Angus
. Not Kenneth, then. Rory. The nephew in the States.

She was so indignant that he was forced to do a bit more fast thinking. OK, maybe he was out of line. Maybe his logic was skewed. Angus was one of his favourite patients, and telling him he had to go into a nursing home had been a really tough call.

Kenneth might be nasty and unbalanced but there was no reason to assume everyone else was.

Maybe these two really were family.

He forced himself to think a bit more. Angus had talked affectionately of his nephew Rory. Jake remembered the old man had been devastated to hear he'd died.

If Rory had been married, then this pair really were part of Angus's family.

Caring family?

The idea that hit him then was so brilliant that it made him blink.

‘You really don't know Angus?' he asked, thinking so fast he felt dizzy.

‘I told you. No.'

‘But you'd like to see him tonight?'

‘Yes, but—'

‘And maybe stay the night,' he told her, ideas cementing. He hated leaving Angus. He needed a full-time nurse, but Angus refused point blank to have one. With the state of his lungs, leaving him by himself seemed criminal. He should be in hospital but he refused to go. There was a bed at the nursing home available tomorrow and the old man had agreed with reluctance that he'd go then.

Which left tonight.

If he could persuade these two to stay, even if they
were
after the old man's money…

‘I'll introduce you,' he told her, doing such a fast backtrack that he startled her.

‘What, now?'

‘Yes, now. If you promise to stay the night then I'll introduce you.'

She was staring at him like he had a kangaroo loose in the top paddock. ‘We can't stay the night.'

‘Why not?'

‘Well…' She looked at him in astonishment. ‘We're not invited.'

‘I'm inviting you. Angus needs his family now more than he's ever needed anyone. Tomorrow he's being moved into a nursing home but he needs help now. He has pulmonary fibrosis—he has severely diminished lung capacity and I'm worried he'll collapse and not be able to call for help.' He eyed her without much hope, but it was worth asking anyway. ‘I don't suppose either of you is a nurse?'

She eyed him back, with much the same expression as he was using. Like she didn't know what to make of him but she was sure his motives were questionable.

‘Why?'

‘I told you.' He sighed and glanced at his watch again. ‘He's ill. He needs help. If you want to see him…are you prepared to help? If one of you is a nurse…'

‘Neither of us is a nurse. Susie is a landscape gardener.'

‘Damn,' he said and started turning away.

‘But I'm a doctor.'

A doctor.

There was a long pause.

He turned back and looked at her—from the tip of her burnt curls to the toe of her muddy foot.

She was glaring at him.

He wasn't interested in the glare.

A doctor.

‘You're kidding me,' he said at last. ‘A people doctor?'

‘A people doctor.'

A tiny hope was building into something huge, and he tried frantically to quell it.

‘You know about lung capacity?'

‘We have heard of lungs in America, yes,' she snapped, losing her temper again. ‘The last ship into port brought some coloured pictures. The current medical belief in Manhattan is that the lungs appear to be somewhere between the neck and the groin. Unless we've got it wrong? It's different in Australia?'

Whoa. He tried a smile and held his hand up placatingly.

‘Sorry. I only meant—'

‘Oh, it's fine,' she told him bitterly. ‘Who cares what you meant? You've insulted us in every way possible. But…' She hesitated. ‘Angus is dying?'

His smile faded. ‘He's dying,' he said softly. ‘Maybe not tonight, but soon. Much sooner if he's left alone. He's refusing oxygen and pain relief, he has heart trouble as well, he won't let the district nurse near, and if you really are a doctor—'

‘If you don't believe me—'

‘Sorry.' He needed to do some placating here, he thought. Fast. ‘Angus is my friend,' he said softly. ‘I'm sorry if I've sounded abrupt but I hate leaving him alone. If you agree to stay here tonight you'll be making up for a lot.'

‘Making up for…?'

‘Neglect.'

Mistake. ‘We have not neglected anyone!' It was practically a yell and he gazed at her in bewilderment. She turned a great colour when she was angry, he thought. Her eyes did this dagger thing that was really cute.

Um…that meant what exactly?

That meant he was being dumb.

Cut it out, he told himself crossly. You have hours of house calls. Move on.

‘OK,' he agreed. ‘You didn't neglect Angus. You didn't know about Angus. I'll accept that.'

‘That's noble of you,' she snapped. She glanced behind to the car, but the woman in the passenger seat didn't appear to be moving. ‘Angus really does need help?' she asked. ‘Medical help?'