‘Myrtle, it’ll mean up to ten weeks of bed rest if we don’t send you to Melbourne,’ he told her. ‘It’ll take you much longer to recover.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘If you get it splinted you could be up and about much sooner.’
‘I’m not leaving here.’
‘If you stay, you risk pneumonia,’ he told her gently. ‘There’s also the problem of pressure sores and increased difficulty of getting you mobile again afterwards. Myrtle, at your age-’
‘I don’t care what I risk,’ she told him. ‘I’ll lie here and wiggle my toes and keep my circulation going so I won’t have a problem. And at my age I’m well old enough to decide for myself. I’m staying here.’
Maybe she was right. Myrtle was nearly ninety so there were risks whatever course of action Mike decided on. With immobilisation she risked complications, but by giving her a general anaesthetic and putting her through the trauma of travelling to the city maybe she risked worse.
And she was absolutely definite. ‘I’ve lived my whole life here and this is where I’ll die,’ she told him. ‘So if there’s a chance this’ll kill me, I’d rather take the chance that it’ll kill me here.’
‘I doubt it’ll kill you,’ he told her, adjusting the lines on gentle traction. ‘You’re tough as old boots.’
‘Well, even old boots crack in the end,’ she said wearily. ‘And now… I pulled you away from the ball. You go back and enjoy yourself.’
She was wonderful. Mike looked down at her with affection, and suddenly thought this was how Tess would end up. A feisty old lady, loving to the end.
Tess…
He didn’t do as Myrtle had ordered. He didn’t return to the ball. The ball would be over by now and Liz wouldn’t have waited for him. She knew better than that. He wouldn’t mind betting she’d have latched onto another eligible bachelor for a ride home, and he didn’t mind at all.
Now if it had been Tess…
It hadn’t been Tess. Stop thinking like that!
He paused in the corridor, strangely unsettled. It was one a.m. It was time he was in bed, but he didn’t feel in the least tired. Strop would still be snoring. After such an exciting event as a football match he’d likely sleep for a week, so there was nothing calling him home.
He’d just check on Sally, he decided. They were keeping the little girl in overnight to make sure the anaesthetic wore off with no ill effects. Her mother and father had been in earlier, abandoning their intention to go on to the ball, but he imagined they’d have gone home now.
So he’d just check…
He opened the door of the children’s ward, and Tess was there. She was sitting in a chair beside the cot, and she had Sally cuddled in her arms. In the half-dark, with her back to him, Tess was totally oblivious to anything but the toddler in her arms. She was humming the little one to sleep.
He stopped short.
For a long moment he stared. Tess didn’t see him. Her face was in the baby’s hair and she was crooning silly, half-remembered lullabies. She rocked and sang, and Sally whimpered and snuggled in half-sleep.
Dear God, she was beautiful.
Mike couldn’t turn his head away. He couldn’t back out. He stood like he’d been struck.
Tess still didn’t see him. She was wholly concerned with what she was doing, and she had no thoughts for anything but the little one in her arms.
He swallowed and closed his eyes. Hell! Tess had spent the first part of tonight babysitting Louise’s mum so Louise could have a chance at a love life, and then she’d made the effort to come back into the hospital to check on a toddler she cared about.
She had a heart so big…so warm…
Somehow he managed to get himself out into the corridor, but he didn’t know how.
This, then, was what he’d vowed never to have, he thought bitterly. He’d never understood the consequences of his vow so clearly until now. Up to this moment, his vow had been easy to keep. There’d been no one like this to tempt him.
The thought of his mother swept across his mind. Dead… When a decent doctor-a doctor who’d had his mind on his job-could have saved her life.
This woman-Tessa-did have the power to distract him, he knew. She had the power to make him think of something other than medicine, and he dared not risk it. There was no way he was getting personally involved with this woman!
His mother deserved better than this. His mother deserved that he keep his vow. He kept the vision of his mother in his head, and he held it as if he’d drown if he let it go. No! He couldn’t let himself be swayed.
Damn her. She’d have to go.
But he couldn’t make her go. The valley needed Tess almost as much as it needed him.
Swearing softly to himself, he made his way back along the darkened corridor. A nurse came out of Henry Westcott’s room-it was the horrible Hannah-and she lifted surprised eyebrows at the sight of Mike.
‘I thought you’d gone to bed. Myrtle’s resting peacefully. There’s no need-’
‘Is Henry awake?’
‘He is,’ Hannah told him, obviously even more surprised by his curtness. ‘I’ve just given him a rub. He’s been complaining that the pressure sores are hurting.’
Mike frowned. He really didn’t like Hannah on night duty. She meant well, and she would have given Henry an efficient and effective rub, but her words were often capable of inflicting more hurt than her hands could heal. And at night and alone in a hospital bed, everything seemed so much more bleak.
‘I’ll go in and see him.’
‘Suit yourself.’ Hannah shrugged and moved off down the corridor toward the lights of the nurses’ station. ‘If you don’t think you’re better off sleeping…’
Her inference was obvious. Talking to old men in the middle of the night just for the sake of talking, that was a waste of time. Hannah would never do it. She’d do what had to be done medically and no more.
She wasn’t like Tess, Mike thought bleakly. Tess, sitting up half the night to keep a grumpy old lady happy and free her daughter to enjoy herself, and then returning to the hospital to give a two-year-old a cuddle…
No wonder he’d never been tempted to break his vow when he dated the likes of Hannah, he thought. There was no comparison at all.
‘Goodnight, Hannah,’ he said firmly, and he pushed open Henry’s door. He’d check on Henry no matter how much a waste of time Hannah thought it. Maybe he needed a top-up of painkillers.
Henry was wide awake. The old man was watching the opening door with hopeful eyes and Mike smiled in sympathy as he saw the old man’s face fall. That the old man was hoping the visitor would be Tessa was painfully obvious.
‘Tessa’s in the children’s ward,’ Mike said softly. ‘Do you want me to fetch her?’
‘No…’ Henry gave a wheezy cough. He fought to get his breath as the door swung closed. ‘No. I don’t need her. I don’t need anyone. You should all be asleep, not wasting time on me.’
Mike looked at him more closely, hearing the rough emotion in the tired old voice. ‘What’s wrong, Henry? Pain?’
‘No. The rub helped.’
‘Has Hannah been upsetting you?’
‘No. No…’
‘She has. I can hear it in your voice.’ Mike walked across to the bed and dragged up a chair. ‘Hannah’s technically one of my best nurses,’ he told Henry gently. ‘She never puts a foot wrong, but as for her mouth… Medically she might never put her foot wrong, but when her foot’s not in use she stores it in her mouth. Tell me what she’s been saying.’
‘Just…’
‘Just?’
‘She’s just been telling me how good the nursing home here is.’
‘Yeah?’
‘It’s not a bad place to end up, I suppose,’ Henry said wearily. ‘Good as anywhere.’
