‘I don’t want to upset you.’
‘It’s not you doing the upsetting.’ He fell silent for so long that she thought he was sleeping, but as she moved to turn away his hand reached out and grasped her wrist.
‘I was engaged,’ he told her. ‘To Melanie. Before Emily.’
‘I knew that,’ she whispered. ‘Lillian said she was killed.’
‘She was. We came down for the weekend.’ His voice was suddenly dragged down with exhaustion, but she sensed it wasn’t his leg that was making him tired. This was some bone-deep weariness that had been with him for years. ‘Melanie was driving her new toy-an open-topped roadster. All the horsepower in the world. Melanie was another surgeon, and money was the least of our problems. And Melanie…she was…well, Melanie was really something. Smart, ambitious, beautiful. I thought I was so in love.’
‘You weren’t?’
He shrugged. ‘Love? What the hell would I know about love? I was stupid. We were stupid. Anyway, she was so proud of her new car. And my dad…he was always so kind. So kind. He asked her to take him for a ride in it. My dad, who didn’t know one end of a car from another and couldn’t care less about them. So Melanie took him out on the coast road. You’ve seen the bends. She was showing off. City doctor showing the country hick what it’s all about. They went off the road about a mile from town and hit the rocks twenty metres below.’
‘Oh, Harry…’
‘Melanie died instantly,’ he said, and his weariness was palpable. Bleak and unforgiving. ‘My father had massive internal injuries. Maybe if we’d had another doctor here…maybe… But there was only me. There were no facilities. I couldn’t operate on my own and he died being transported to Melbourne.’
He was still grasping her wrist. Lizzie stared down at their linked hands and slowly she sank down onto the chair she’d just risen from and took his hand in both of hers.
‘So you decided to be sensible.’
‘Of course I did.’ His eyes were closed but his free hand came up to stroke the back of hers. So there was a linking of four hands. She needed it. She needed every vestige of warmth she could get.
‘My mother was still here. Of course. I couldn’t leave her. I came back here and applied to open the hospital. It had been shut for years because they couldn’t get a doctor. I settled down and worked my butt off.’
‘And your mother?’
‘She died last year. She never got over my father’s death.’
‘And neither did you?’
‘No.’ There it was, in all its bleakness. The truth.
‘So where does that leave Emily?’
‘Emily?’
‘Your fiancee,’ Lizzie said gently, and Harry flinched. She felt it in his hands. She saw it in his face.
‘I think I’ve been stupid,’ he told her. ‘Again. For different reasons but still stupid. Six bridesmaids.’
‘It’s a lot of bridesmaids,’ she agreed, and received the first trace of a smile in return.
‘A veritable horde.’
‘Scary.’
‘Very scary.’
She smiled. Enough. All she wanted to do for now-for some reason she couldn’t figure out even to herself-was to stay sitting here. Holding this man’s hand. Lighting the bleakness of his night.
But she had things to do. She needed to check on Lillian. She needed to…needed to…
She needed to leave.
‘You ought to sleep,’ she told him, and slowly, reluctantly she extricated her fingers from his. She rose and stood looking down at him. ‘Do you want anything for the pain?’
‘I don’t have pain.’
‘I’m sure you do.’
He smiled again, that wry self-deprecating smile she was coming to know. ‘I’m fine, thank you, Dr Darling.’
The way he said it… The softness in his voice…
It was really, really stupid to find tears welling behind her eyes. Ridiculous.
And it was even more stupid to do what she did next. To lean over and let her lips just brush his.
The gentlest goodnight kiss.
It was not what most doctors did to their patients.
It was right, though. It was meant to be. It was…
It was very, very scary. She stood looking down at him in the half-light and she felt her world shift on its axis. She didn’t have a clue what was going on here, but she knew that nothing could ever be the same again.
Emily. Edward. Queensland. Phoebe. Life…
The expression in his eyes was as confused as hers was. He couldn’t leave, though. He was stuck in his bed.
It was up to her to break their gaze. To walk out of that room and close the door behind her.
And she’d never done anything so hard in her life.
‘Phoebe?’
The big dog was sprawled full length over the kitchen floor, her nose pressed hard against her supper dish. She hadn’t been fed for years, her expression said, and Lizzie managed a smile as she knelt and gave her great fat dog a hug.
‘So you’re pregnant. You must have been in love,’ she whispered. ‘What would you do?’
And then she thought about what she’d said. In love?
‘That’s one crazy thing to think,’ she told herself. ‘You’ve known him for how long?’
Ridiculous.
‘How long did you know the father of your puppies?’ she asked Phoebe, and Phoebe looked soulfully up at her and then looked again at her supper dish.
‘Right. Think of practicalities. Men are no use at all, unless you want kids, right?’
Phoebe nudged her supper dish again.
‘Right.’
She should ring Edward.
Why on earth?
‘To ground myself. To remind myself that this is a tiny part of my life and as soon as Harry McKay gets himself married I’m out of here.
‘You could leave now.
‘What, and leave him like this?’ It was a ridiculous conversation, and Phoebe wasn’t the least bit interested. She’d figured that Lizzie’s attention wasn’t where it should be and was gazing at her dish now as if it was the last bastion of hope for the entire canine race. Hopelessness personified. Starvation was just around the corner. The end of the world was nigh.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake…’
Lizzie gave herself a shaky laugh, hugged her dog again and rose to her feet.
‘The vet said no. You’ve had enough tonight. You’ve had more than enough.’
Phoebe looked up at her, her great ears almost lifting with effort. Hope, her eyes said. Death had been looming but now the kitchen cupboard was opening. A sliver of light was appearing in the darkness of desperation.
And Lizzie couldn’t help herself. She smiled. ‘OK. Half a cup. No more. I’ll buy your love with half a cup of dog food and then I’ll forget love altogether.’
Phoebe looked at her as if she was out of her mind.
‘Until suppertime tomorrow,’ Lizzie corrected herself. ‘Fine. I have the devotion of a dog and I’d better look after it. Because that’s all I’m going to get.’
