‘This is your last move, Marilyn,’ she told the dog and Marilyn looked up at her with a mournful expression that said she didn’t believe it for a minute.
Erin followed Dom into the house. Inside a mini working bee had begun. They were greeted with good-hearted cheer and the guy with the dog kennel took one look at Marilyn and swore.
‘Sheesh, Doc, there’s no way that butt will go through this opening.’
He was talking to her, Erin realised. She’d just become…Doc.
She smiled, but absently. She walked through the little house, carrying puppies, while Dom and Marilyn followed behind.
The house looked like it had been built back in the 1920s. Heavy oak wainscotting, diamond-patterned windows with thick, irregular glass. Heavy furniture, well used. Lots of leather, worn carpets, a fireplace in the front room already set for lighting.
The afternoon sun was glinting through the panes of glass, throwing diamonds all across the room.
She pushed open the door into the kitchen. An ancient cooker took up half the far wall. The same diamond- patterned windows were on either side of the cooker. This room, though, faced east, and through the windows… The sea.
‘It’s fabulous,’ she breathed. She’d seen it briefly that morning but now the sun was out it was amazing.
‘We put locums up here,’ Dom said. ‘When we can get them. It only has one bedroom.’
‘Marilyn and I only need one bedroom.’ Everyone was looking at her-men and women who’d moved heaven and earth in record time to get this place looking inviting, she realised. There was a basket of bread, fresh made and smelling wonderful, on the kitchen bench. There was a box of groceries on the table. A big bunch of crimson poppies was scattered in a blue striped jug on the dresser.
‘Home,’ she breathed.
‘It’s blackmail,’ Dom muttered. ‘How do you think they got me here?’
‘The same route?’
‘The job was advertised, I came here for an interview and met Tansy. She was on the hospital board. She showed me this house. I said I fostered kids, and needed room for kids and a housekeeper. Tansy took me on a tour of the town, stopped to give me a coffee at the local cafe and before I’d finished my coffee, the locals had my house set up. I was taken to the house I’m in now. Same deal. Even the same bread.’ He grinned at a white-haired old gentleman out in the passage. ‘Pete makes the best bread in the district. And Tansy was part of the package.’
‘Tansy…’
‘“You take a job here, you get to eat this bread, you get to live in this house and here’s your housekeeper,” I was told. With their marketing strategies I couldn’t believe the town had been without a doctor for ten years.’
‘But have they worked?’ It was Graham, standing at the back of the pack of onlookers. ‘Do we have another doctor?’
‘I think so,’ Erin whispered, though she already knew the answer.
‘Go away, the lot of you,’ Dom said, shaking his head in exasperation. ‘The lady’s crashed her car and is stuck. I’m not taking advantage of her.’
‘You’re more of a gentleman than I am, then,’ Pete said, and cackled.
‘We need to talk medicine,’ Dom retorted. ‘Enough of the salesmanship. You’ve made your point. Leave the lady to me.’
‘As long as you keep her,’ Pete retorted, and looked Erin up and down in absolute approval. ‘’Cos the rest of us can see she’s a keeper. Graham, let’s go chop a mutt-sized butt-hole out of this kennel.’
They were left alone. Standing in the perfect little kitchen, looking at each other.
Dom was still holding Marilyn. Erin was still holding pups.
First things first. Dom set Marilyn down, disappeared into the bedroom and came back with a pile of blankets.
‘They’re old,’ he told Erin. ‘We set the bed up with duvets for the locum. There’s more than enough to spare for Marilyn.’
So they set up a bed for Marilyn, beside the stove, in a corner of the kitchen where she’d be out of the way. The morning sun would stream in on her. The back door was at hand.
‘If you stay I could chop a dog flap in the door,’ Dom said, sounding reluctant.
‘I’m staying.’
‘You don’t know that yet.’
‘I do know it.’ She was arranging the pups on the blanket, showing each of them to Marilyn in turn. ‘There you go, sweetheart, all your babies are present and correct. This is your permanent home. I’ll paint a sign on the wall if you like-“Marilyn Sleeps Here”.’
‘I’ll show you our hospital. If you really mean it.’
‘I mean it.’
‘You’re not doing it because…’ He hesitated, and then suddenly he swore. ‘I should never have kissed you.’
‘Maybe I should never have kissed you.’ Wrong, her heart said, but she had some pride.
‘Anyone I work with…it has to be purely professional.’
She put her hands on her hips. ‘So why wouldn’t it be professional?’
‘I have no idea,’ he said, sounding goaded. ‘Or maybe I do.’
‘So? Everyone says you’re desperate for a partner. Do you like being the only doctor for miles?’
‘No.’
‘Then it’s just this attraction thing.’
‘Which is nonsense,’ he snapped. ‘Okay, so we get over it.’ He turned away abruptly, heading out into the hall and then through a door to the side.
The door led to a hospital in miniature. There was an office and four small wards, each with two beds. The beds weren’t made up but the walls were painted in cheerful pastels. The green linoleum gleamed with polish. Dom led the way to a room at the rear and Erin found herself in a miniature theatre. It was big enough to perform not- so-minor surgery. The lights overhead were new and modern. The trolley under the lights looked ready to receive a patient right now.
‘The old doc used to operate by himself,’ Dom said. ‘During the war he was the only doctor for a hundred miles. He’d take out an appendix all on his own.’
‘And do a crossword on the side, I expect,’ Erin said ruefully. ‘Boy, do those old guys make us look pussycats. What do you use it for now?’
‘Minor stuff-and I mean minor stuff. Certainly not an appendix. My surgery back home is too small, so I’m back and forth here, at need.’
‘Will I get in the way?’ she asked. ‘If I’m in the background helping?’
‘Look, Erin…’
‘What?’ She hitched herself up onto the examination couch and met his gaze straight on. ‘Look, what?’
‘You can’t really be serious.’
‘Of course I’m serious. This place is fantastic. Graham tells me this place is desperate for a doctor; he’s shire president and he’s offered me a contract. It seems just what I’m looking for, except the current incumbent-which would be you-looks like he has a mouthful of sour grapes.’
‘I do not.’
‘You certainly do,’ she said. ‘If you’re worrying about my qualifications, they’re excellent, and Graham says the district’s so desperate if I was three-quarters dead and three-quarters drunk they’d still be interested.’
‘You know I’m not looking for a relationship,’ he said flatly, and she almost fell off the couch.
‘Excuse…excuse me?’ she tried to say-but it turned into a choking cough. He was watching her from the far side of the room like she was a ticking bomb.
It took her a couple of minutes to recover. He didn’t move.
‘Some doctors,’ she said at last, when she could finally talk, ‘would have fetched their patients a glass of water when that happened. Especially after last night. I might have impaired lung capacity from smoke inhalation.’
‘If that’s a possibility you’d better go home. With Charles.’
‘Why do you want to get rid of me?’
‘I told you. I’m not-’
