‘She’s only a little girl,’ Jess told him. ‘Not so very different from a wounded joey or fawn…’
Niall stared at her. ‘Dr Harvey, you’re a vet, for heaven’s sake. Not a psychologist.’
‘OK.’ Jess spread her hands. ‘I’m willing to be argued down. By a child psychologist. Are you any more qualified than me, Dr Mountmarche?’
‘No. But…’
‘You’re a doctor,’ Jessie said politely. ‘So what special qualifications does that give you?’
‘None. But…’
‘Then pull holes in my argument,’ Jess said evenly. ‘If I were you, Niall Mountmarche, I would be sitting with that child and cuddling her and cuddling her and not doing a lot else. And if the physiotherapy and general rehabilitation is desperately important then I suggest you get someone else to do it. Bring her down to the hospital. Geraldine’s done a massage course and she’d love Paige to bits.’
Niall’s face flooded with anger. ‘You’re saying this to get your own way, Dr Harvey. To get me down to the hospital.’
‘I’m saying this because it makes sense.’
‘Look, I can’t work at the hospital.’
‘Are you registered for Australian work?’
‘I am-not that your board seems to worry about minor details such as registration and training,’ Niall snapped. ‘But I’m damned if I’ll leave Paige.’
‘I agree you can’t leave Paige. There’s an apartment free, though, Dr Mountmarche. If you need to do night work then you and Paige could stay overnight. While you’re doing clinics or house calls we can take care of her. You can let us see how we can help-while you help us.’
‘
‘We,’ Jess said firmly. ‘Geraldine is a first-class masseuse-and I can help with this little one, Dr Mountmarche. I know I can.’
The trembling that she’d felt in Paige had been the same trembling she’d known in all of her wounded wild creatures. Instinctively Jess knew the path to go-and she knew that she could help both father and daughter.
Without getting involved?
Never get involved with your patients, they’d told her at veterinary school. Once your heart is involved with a patient your clinical efficiency goes out the window. You end up making stupid decisions that aren’t in the animal’s or the owner’s best interests.
It was the one training edict Jess had never been able to follow. Somehow Jessie’s heart seemed to get tangled up in every one of her cases.
And how to apply heartlessness to a five-year-old child?
Impossible.
Or was it?
Jess looked up into Niall’s drawn, strained face and knew that she was going to have to work desperately hard at keeping her heart uninvolved.
Impossibly hard.
‘You mean I should uproot Paige all over again?’ Niall asked slowly. ‘Is that what you’re suggesting?’
‘No.’ Jess spread her hands. ‘This is your home and Paige thinks of it as her home. But you could also have a base at the hospital. Sleep down there when you need to-with Paige nearby and myself and the nurses caring for her. And come here when you can. The medical work’s not arduous yet.’
‘Yet?’
‘There’s a hotel being built on the bay,’ Jess told him. ‘You may have noticed. And plans for more. By next autumn the population of the island looks like doubling with the influx of tourists. But by then our permanent doctors will be back, ready to take over. We only need you until then.’
‘And then what?’ Niall asked harshly.
Jess stared. ‘I don’t know,’ she said blankly. ‘You go back to doing whatever you were doing before, I suppose. I mean, you never intended to stay here forever, did you? Don’t you intend to go back to your London medical practice?’
‘I suppose I do.’
‘Well, then…’ Keep it clinically calm, Jess thought briskly. ‘Will you help us?’
‘I don’t want to hurt Paige.’
‘Then ask Paige if she’ll come.’ Jessie’s eyes softened. She took a step forward and laid a hand on Niall’s bare arm. ‘We can advertise for a doctor immediately but until then we’re desperate. And, Niall, maybe isolating the child here won’t force her to trust you. Maybe this is so different to what she’s been used to that she can’t learn to trust. Maybe…Maybe having people around and things going on, with you as the absolute constant, is the way to go. It sounds right to me.’
Niall didn’t move. He stared down at Jessie’s slim hand on his bare arm and his lips moved into a sneer.
‘It sounds convenient to you.’
‘That, too,’ Jess admitted. She lifted her hand away with an effort. A stupid gesture…’But I won’t hurt Paige. If I thought…’
She stopped as the sound of crutches in the passage signalled Paige’s entry. The child hobbled in.
‘Are we ready to go, Daddy?’ Paige asked and the child was smiling. ‘To see Harry?’
Niall looked from Jess to Paige and back again-and then swore softly to himself.
‘You’ll advertise for a locum immediately?’
‘If you won’t do it for the full six months…’
‘I’ll do it while you’re desperate, Dr Harvey,’ Niall snapped. ‘I don’t like being manipulated.’
Jess shook her head. ‘I’m not trying to manipulate you. I’m just…’
‘Saying it’s me or air-ambulancing emergencies to the mainland. If that’s not manipulation I don’t know what is.’ He sighed. ‘OK, Paige,’ he said and his tone was of a man driven against the wall. ‘I’ll just have a few words with Hugo and put some things in a suitcase to leave at the hospital in case of emergencies-and then we’ll go.’
‘Daddy…’The child stood stock still. ‘Are we going to stay with Jess?’
‘Do you want that?’ Niall was watching his daughter with eyes that betrayed nothing of how he was feeling.
‘Yes,’ Paige said definitely. Her small mouth set in a determined line as though here at last was what she was looking for. ‘Yes, please.’
And Niall Mountmarche looked like thunder.
CHAPTER FIVE
JESS left Niall and Paige organising themselves and drove slowly back to the hospital. It was still early. She stopped midway and did some overdue herd testing but she was still well on schedule for her morning’s work as she turned into the hospital car park.
In the space marked ‘Medical Superintendent’ was a gleaming black Range Rover.
Niall hadn’t wasted time.
Swiftly Jess showered and changed her cow-soiled clothing, checked her menagerie and walked through to the hospital.
Geraldine met her as she walked through to the sister’s station.
‘You’re a magician, Jess,’ Geraldine beamed. ‘However did you talk the man into it?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Jess confessed. ‘Has he been here long?’
‘An hour. He’s seen Frank and given me orders and seen old Mrs Fryor, too. Guess what? He says she can go home. He says she’s risking making herself really ill lying on her back recuperating from a sprained ankle and he’s ordered a walking frame, a few lessons to make sure she’s stable and then an ambulance trip home. She’s tickled pink.’
‘I’ll bet.’ Jess hesitated. ‘Geraldine, have you or have you not been on duty for over twelve hours?’
‘Sixteen,’ Geraldine grimaced. ‘But I thought…Well, Sarah doesn’t like being on her own and there’s the little
