Of course she did. She pinned on a bright smile and opened the door-and Jake was in the waiting room.
He was reading a copy of
Harley’s owners, an elderly couple who’d been frantic about their dog, sprang to their feet. Jake gave her a tiny smile, acknowledging her priorities, and retreated again to his horses. Or hounds.
‘Hi,’ Tori said, as much to him as to Paul and Ida Clemens, and then somehow forced herself back to professional mode. ‘It’s okay,’ she told them quickly. ‘More than okay. It’s good. We’ve taken about twenty percent of the liver but that includes a wide margin of healthy tissue. We’re sure we have it all. As long as we can keep his cholesterol under control there’s no reason why he shouldn’t live happily into a ripe old age.’
The elderly couple stared at her in silence for a long moment-and then Paul put his hands on his face and sank back into his chair. The elderly farmer’s shoulders shook with silent sobs. His wife sat down and hugged him. Tori produced a box of tissues and Paul grabbed about a dozen.
He needed them all.
They waited then, all of them, for Paul to recover. Tori was achingly aware of Jake watching from the sidelines, but she couldn’t hurry this. Paul and Ida had lost their farm in the fires. They’d barely survived by holding blankets over their heads as they lay in shallows of their dam. Harley had been under the blankets with them.
If they needed time, she’d give them all the time in the world.
Finally Paul had himself under control-or almost. He sat while Ida held his hand, and while Tori gently repeated the good news. Then their questions started. She repeated the initial diagnosis. Hypercholesterolemia-massively elevated cholesterol-had caused the liver abscess. Schnauzers were genetically prone to it, and of course Paul and Ida had treated Harley as a human before the fires, and afterwards they could refuse his pleading eyes nothing. So Harley had eaten cheese and sausages and chocolate, and finally his liver had started to disintegrate under the strain.
‘So you think you can resist now?’ Tori asked them, and Ida managed a strained smile.
‘Once upon a time we were firm parents,’ she said. ‘We can go back to that. Can’t we, Paul?’
‘I guess…’
‘And we move into our new home next week.’ Ida was sounding firmer, ready to move on. ‘We’ll be able to take Harley home to somewhere permanent.’
‘No chocolate?’ Paul said.
‘No chocolate,’ Ida said and looked speculatively at Paul’s rotund girth. ‘I have the men in my life back, and I’m not risking anything again, thank you very much. Can we see him?’
‘Of course you can. Our nurse will be taking him through into recovery,’ Tori said-and they thanked her and Tori was left with Jake. He put down
‘Hi,’ she managed finally, but it didn’t come out properly. ‘Um, why are you here?’
‘You’re supposed to say, “Welcome.”’
‘You’re very welcome,’ she said, and he was. Could he feel it, she wondered. Just how welcome he was?
‘I was hoping for five minutes of your time.’
‘Five minutes?’
‘All the best dates are five minutes,’ he said. ‘You can meet the love of your life in five minutes. Or, as it happens, in one and a half minutes if you try hard enough.’
There was enough in that to take her breath away. It did take her breath away. She wanted to sink onto the seat Paul had just vacated and maybe hyperventilate.
Where was a paper bag when she needed one?
‘So Harley really will be okay?’ he asked, giving her time to recover, and she thought she could do this; she could talk medicine until she got herself coherent. Maybe.
‘It was a beautiful resection of the liver,’ she managed. ‘Textbook case. Guy Saller’s our surgeon-he’s the best.’
‘So you didn’t do it.’
‘I don’t have the skills.’
‘You tried antibiotics and closed drainage first?’ He was definitely giving her time.
‘We tried everything. I know, resection’s last-resort stuff, but believe me, this was last resort. If we’d waited any longer we risked rupture. He’s young and healthy. The liver has every chance of regenerating, and best of all he’s abstained from alcohol so cirrhosis isn’t a problem.’
‘You checked for cirrhosis?’ he said faintly.
‘It’s happened,’ she said, recovering enough now to start to smile. ‘Ida and Paul have given him everything else-why not a wee drop of sherry with theirs at night?’
‘You’re kidding me.’
‘I’ve seen cases of alcoholic poisoning in dogs,’ she told him. ‘The stupidity of owners sometimes defies belief. Jake, why are you here?’ And then as he didn’t answer straightaway, she jumped in for him. ‘Is there a problem at the lodge?’
‘There’s no problem.’
‘Do you need to sign papers for sale or something? Rob tells me the farmhouse had been cleaned up and is looking great.’
‘That’s what I’d like to talk to you about.’
‘It is?’
‘It is,’ he said. ‘So about that five minutes…’
‘You’ve already had it,’ she said, but she couldn’t get her voice to work properly again. She was sounding breathless.
She was feeling breathless.
‘Nope,’ he said. ‘The five-minute date has to start at a designated place. The first date was in a booth in the Combadeen Hall. Our second date has to be somewhere else. I have a rental car outside. Can I take you to my designated date spot?’
‘Your designated date spot,’ she said, faintly.
‘It’s not so far.’
‘I need to collect the dogs.’
‘I dropped in on Glenda and Doreen,’ he said, and at the look on her face he grinned. ‘I had to do something. I landed five hours ago-I made a beeline for you, only to be told you were in surgery and weren’t expected out until now. Unlike Manhattan Central, there’s a dearth of people to talk to. Even Paul and Ida had taken themselves off to stay with their daughter, and
‘You’ve bought Bitsy.’ She was suddenly feeling faint.
‘I wanted him,’ Jake said. ‘I’ve wanted him for months. Like some other things I’ve wanted. I’ve been telling myself I was stupid, but a man can only do that for so long before he starts believing it and starts to act stupid. So I’ve been to see the breeder, and yes, she kept him for herself, but money talks, and I can pick him up as soon as I’m ready. There’re just a couple of things I need to sort first.’ He hesitated. ‘No. There’s only one thing. One really important thing. Five minutes, Tori. Will you come with me and listen?’
‘I don’t think…’
‘No, don’t think,’ he said. ‘Thinking does your head in. I’ve been thinking and thinking and it’s doing me no good at all. And finally…you know what? I stopped thinking and I’m letting my heart decide.’
They drove in silence, past the lodge, through the burned-out state forest and up onto the ridge.
The year had been kind, with above average rainfall and gentle weather, and the Australian bush had regenerated as only the Australian bush can. Burned trees had new shoots spurting manically out of blackened trunks. Grasses and ferns had pushed up through the ashes. It still looked dreadfully scarred; there were places where the heat had been so intense that it’d take years to come back, but it was no longer grey.
And rebuilding had begun in earnest. Every second house site had been cleared of debris and was now a half- built home. With the kinder weather many families had brought caravans up to the ridge so they could live close to where they were rebuilding.
