Dating The Millionaire Doctor

straight into Jake coming in the opposite direction.

For a moment all her breath was pushed out of her. Shock left her speechless. Jake had caught her, steadied her by her shoulders, looked quizzically down at her. Then, as Rusty whimpered, he squatted and patted the little dog under the ear.

‘Hey, it’s okay,’ he told him. ‘I’m a friend.’

Rusty nuzzled his hand and moved closer to Jake’s ankle. Which was surprising all by itself, Tori thought, feeling breathless. Rusty hadn’t responded to anyone since his master’s death.

‘Are you running away?’ Jake asked mildly, looking up at her in polite enquiry. ‘Aren’t you supposed to have a pole with a bandana slung over your shoulder? I don’t think running away’s proper without them.’

‘We’re not going far,’ she managed, struggling to make her voice work. ‘Why are you up?’

‘I couldn’t sleep,’ he said simply. ‘I had a whole lot of my preconceptions stood on their head at dinner. It’s taking a bit of getting my head around.’

‘Like, your father loved you?’

‘There’s a way to go before I’ll believe that,’he said, and his smile faded. ‘Words are easy. But you…You’re going where?’

‘Up to the ridge.’

‘You forgot something?’ He’d straightened. His gaze held hers, serious, compassionate.

‘I… Yes.’

‘Do you want company?’

‘I don’t…’ She faltered. Say no, her head screamed. But there was something about this night. There was something about this man.

‘We left too fast,’ she whispered. ‘Tomorrow Rusty and I will move on-we need to. We’ll start a new life. But for six months we’ve simply been putting one foot in front of another, over and over, and in Rusty’s case we’ve even lost a foot doing it. I thought… Tonight I wanted to just say…’

She faltered but his gaze didn’t waver. He took her hands. ‘Of course you do,’ he said softly. ‘Can I drive you?’

‘I don’t-’

‘If you don’t want company, then I’ll wait here for you to come back,’ he said. ‘If you need to be alone, then I understand-of course I do. I’ll sit here and wait, and see if I can get rid of my own demons, and if you don’t come back by dawn, then I’ll come up to the ridge and demand the ghosts give you back. You belong in the real world, Tori. Tonight the real world will look out for you. I’ll look out for you.’

And she knew that he would. Trust? There was that word again, raising its ugly head, but the night was still and beautiful and Jake was watching her with a look that was nonjudgemental, nonpossessive or needy. It was simply…caring?

The sensation was insidious in its sweetness and there was no way in the wide world she could resist.

‘Then yes, please,’ she whispered, stupid or not. ‘I’d love it if you would come with me.

So they headed up to the ridge, with Jake driving and Rusty cradled on Tori’s knee. Only instead of glancing out the window all the time, as Rusty always did, the little dog kept glancing across at Jake.

As did Tori. She didn’t understand what she was feeling. She mistrusted the instinct that had her accepting his company, but for now Jake’s presence was warm and solid and real, and strangely it made what she wanted to do feel even more right.

They drove past Jake’s darkened farmhouse, the hub of so much activity over the past six months, and that felt strange. Then they turned into the drive of what once had been her home and that felt worse.

Even the night couldn’t disguise the destruction. Blackened fence posts, massive trees, felled and not yet cleared, a gaping void in the blackened bushland where the house had once been.

A chimney rising out of the ashes like a lone sentinel, a monument to what had happened.

‘I can’t begin to imagine what it must have been like,’ Jake murmured, and Tori shook her head, tears not far away. What was it with this man? She hadn’t cried for six months. How could she cry now?

‘I was in the valley,’ she whispered. ‘I couldn’t get back. The whole mountain was on fire. I was going out of my mind. Everyone with people we love up here was going out of their minds. It took three days before we could get back. Three days…’

He didn’t respond, just looked steadily out at the ruins, and she knew by his silence that he could see how it must have been.

She climbed out of the car, and he didn’t follow as she made her way carefully over the ruins. Jake knew instinctively that she didn’t want him to follow. Rusty came with her, limping by her side, but he had the right. This had been home for both of them.

Home.

If she could turn back time…

If only she hadn’t trusted.

She picked her way across the rubble to the chimney stack. The fireplace was almost intact. A few bricks at the corner had fallen when a roof beam had dropped across the mantel-that’s how Rusty had lost his leg.

She placed her fingers on the ledge above the fire cavity. There’d been a wooden mantel resting here, and on it an ancient clock that never kept time, pictures of her parents on their wedding day, pictures of Tori and Micki as kids, her graduation photo, Micki at some glamorous, want-to-be-model shoot.

This hearth had been the heart of their home, and in the end this small fireplace had succeeded in saving one little dog. One small thread to connect her past to her future.

At least Micki and her father had thought she was coming, she thought bleakly, letting herself think back as she so seldom allowed herself to do. That was the only thing that kept her sane-that last, frantic call from Micki.

‘Tori, the fire’s on this side of the ridge.’

‘I’ve rung emergency services,’ she’d said, as she pushed her van past the speed limit, heading into smoke so thick she knew she’d have trouble getting through. ‘The fire trucks are on their way. I’m on my way. Stay cool.’

Stay cool. It had been their farewell line for ever, between two sisters and taken up as a joke by their father.

She’d said it then, with love; her sister had laughed, and she knew her father and Micki had died knowing she was moving heaven and earth to get to them.

And suddenly it was okay. Their ghosts were here now. She could feel them, a soft and gentle presence. It was right to come tonight, she thought.

She’d loved her family more than life itself, and they were still with her, in this place. Rusty was by her side, pressing against her, a link to them. She knelt and fondled him.

‘We can go on,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t forgive Toby, but maybe…maybe I can forgive myself for trusting him. Dad and Micki trusted him, too. They wouldn’t want me to beat myself up forever.’

Jake was waiting. Life was waiting. The night was still and warm, and the moon’s gentle beams were almost a blessing.

It was time to go.

She straightened and turned. Jake was at the edge of the clearing, watching gravely from the shadows.

‘I’m all right,’ she said, managing a smile. ‘I’m not about to wail or rend my garments.’

‘I’m pleased to hear it.’

‘Thank you for coming.’

‘It was my honour,’ he said gravely, and it was so much the right thing to say that she caught her breath. She picked her way back over the ruins but he met her halfway, catching her hands as she stumbled and helping her the last few steps.

‘Okay?’ he asked softly, and she managed a smile and a sniff, and if she left her hand in his, then who could blame her?

‘It was so lovely here,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t tell you. My mum and dad, my sister, our friends, our dogs, chooks…’

‘Chooks?’

‘Hens. All sorts. My dad bred Rhode Island Reds. They spent their lives clucking around the orchard. Can I show you the orchard?’