‘You know you’d get over it.’
‘But I shouldn’t care.’
‘Why shouldn’t you care?’
‘Because it hurts,’ she said miserably. And then she looked down at her hands. ‘Like my fingers…’
‘Your fingers.’ He followed her gaze and his face snapped into a frown. ‘Hell! Lizzie, why didn’t you say?’
‘We were a bit busy, if you’ll remember,’ she said dully.
‘OK.’ Harry’s voice gentled still further and it was as much as Lizzie could do not to crumple right there. ‘Sorry, Phoebe, but you need to get off your mistress’s knee. She needs a doctor.’
He had the gentlest hands.
She sat in his room and watched as he gently probed every inch of her fingers. One, two, three slivers of glass… They’d been hurting badly but she’d hardly noticed. The pain in her heart was greater than the pain in her hands.
Because she knew now what she had to do.
‘You know when you asked me to stay and work here?’ she whispered as he bathed her hands with antiseptic and placed dressings over the deepest of the puncture wounds.
‘Yes?’ He looked up at her, with that smile that made her heart do back-flips. Only it had no business doing back-flips. He belonged to Emily. He belonged to Birrini. His smiles were not for her.
‘I’ve decided I do want to be a family doctor,’ she told him. ‘I saw it today. I love what you do here. I love the way the community cares for each other. This life…it’s what I want. I tried so hard not to care. I’ve been trying to be the ultimate professional-to not get involved in people’s lives. But it hasn’t worked. One locum with one caring doctor and it all slams back-what I loved about country practice. Why I wanted to be a doctor in the first place. You don’t have to convince me to be a family doctor, Harry McKay. It’s what I’ve always wanted. I just…lost courage for a while.’
‘Then you’ll stay?’ It was like the sun coming out-the way he smiled. The way his eyes lit up.
It was so darned tempting.
But that was the way of madness and she knew it. She might be a family doctor, but not here. No!
‘No, Harry, I can’t stay.’
Silence. ‘Why not?’
But he knew the answer. She read it in his face. He knew what she was going to say, but she knew before she gave her reasons out loud that no matter what she said-no matter what her reasons-he wasn’t going to do one thing about it.
He couldn’t. It was her problem, not his, and she knew that, too. But she said it anyway. It was embedded in her heart, and there was no way she could hide it. Not from herself. Not from him. Maybe not from anyone. The only thing she could do was finish her work here and leave.
But first it had to be said.
‘Because I don’t just love Birrini and the community here and the work,’ she whispered, her eyes not leaving his face. Hoping against hope. ‘I love you, as well as everyone else I’ve met in this crazy, gorgeous little town. But that’s the problem. You see, Harry, the real problem is that it’s you that I love the most of all.’ Then, as he closed his eyes and she saw the shuttered look slam over his face, she shook her head. ‘Harry, this isn’t fair. It’s not fair to land this on you and I’m expecting nothing. I know you’re engaged to Emily. I know you don’t want this. But it’s there. I’m sorry, Harry, but there it is, and now you know why I have to leave.’
She’d known that he wouldn’t do anything with it but this was awful. The night stretched before them. They had to eat together. They had to share a kitchen. But there was nothing to say that wasn’t loaded.
‘You’re engaged to Edward,’ he said at some time over a desultory dinner, and his voice was almost desperate.
‘No.’
‘You’re not engaged?’
‘No.’
‘You lied?’
‘I guess. Sort of.’ She looked up at him, her face bleak. ‘Edward asked me to marry him before I came down to Grandma’s funeral. I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. Edward and I have been an item for ever. On and off. He keeps wanting to get married and I keep thinking I should. It’s the sensible thing to do, but I can’t. That’s why I used the excuse of Phoebe’s pregnancy to stay here longer. To give me breathing space. To think.’
‘So you’ll go back and marry him now?’
‘What do you think?’ she said on a note of anger. ‘Of course I won’t. Did you take in anything I just said?’
‘Lizzie, I wouldn’t interfere-’
‘You already have. Leave it, Harry. If you can’t go and stay in your wedding house that’s waiting for you then stay here, but don’t give me grief. Let’s keep it formal from this moment on.’
Lizzie lay in her bed that night and she’d never felt so bleak in her life. Phoebe lay right on top of her. Usually she heaved the big dog off. She was so heavily pregnant that she weighed a ton-all right, she weighed a ton even when she wasn’t pregnant-but tonight she was the only comfort Lizzie had.
Why on earth had she told Harry that she loved him?
He hadn’t wanted it. She’d watched his face and it had shuttered so fast that she couldn’t begin to imagine that she’d ever get close. He hadn’t wanted her declaration, and why should he? He was engaged to be married to Emily. Sure, he had a fear of bridesmaids, but he’d never given her the slightest reason to think he didn’t want to marry Em herself.
‘He kissed me. He kissed me, Phoebe, and I’ve never been kissed like that. And the whole town was watching.’
Maybe men kissed like that…
‘That’s crazy, Phoeb. I’ve been solidly kissed in my time and there’s never been the least suggestion in my head that my toes would drop off.’ Which was what it had felt like when Harry had kissed her.
So maybe it hadn’t felt like that for him?
It couldn’t have.
She didn’t have the first idea what he was thinking, she told herself as she huddled into her pillow. Not one idea in the world. She didn’t know the man.
So how could she love him?
And what had she done in telling him? What damage? She’d thrown herself-and her pride-straight at a man who was engaged to someone else, and both were in tatters now.
‘You wouldn’t debase yourself like that, would you, girl?’ she asked Phoebe, and Phoebe opened her mouth wide and snored at a thousand or so decibels.
It was all the response a stupid question like that deserved.
‘Why are you here?’
It was three in the morning. Harry was silently checking his patients. Not because he needed to-Isobel was on duty and she was extremely competent. She’d call him if he was needed. But still he walked the wards, limping slightly and leaning heavily on one crutch. He was better at walking than this, but he was tired. And where was sleep when a man needed it most?
In Ward Three May should have been asleep too, but as he opened her door she saw him and waved him weakly inside. Her face was swathed in bandages, she looked pallid and shocked, but her eyes were alert and awake. She even managed a slight smile of greeting.
‘Are you in pain?’ he asked, and she gave a faint shake of her head and then winced.
‘Not much.’
He grinned, limping inside and crossing to the chair beside the bed. But he didn’t sit. She needed to sleep, not socialise. ‘You’re lying,’ he told her, and the smile behind her eyes deepened.
‘Yeah, well.’
‘I’ll give you something.’ He picked up her chart. ‘According to this, you’re overdue. A nice little cocktail of
