gazing. Which was very, very hard.
For no matter how she looked, the crystal ball didn’t show Fergus.
Her heart was screaming
If she went back to the city she could be with him. Maybe it could work. Her hands were stroking Madison’s hair and the whippet was nuzzling her leg. If she went back to the city then maybe…maybe a suburban block…
No. Fergus wanted no appendages. He’d made that clear. Even looking at Madison hurt. He wanted a sexy relationship with no strings.
Yesterday that had been fine but now… She wanted strings. She was desperate for strings, and here they were lying on her lap. She was damned if she’d cut any more strings of her own accord.
‘I’m calling you Twiggy Two after my old dog,’ she told the whippet. Then, as the other two dogs thought maybe this wasn’t a trap and maybe they, too, could get into this patting business, she granted them names as well. ‘You’re Snapper,’ she told the collie, and the collie snapped at a fly in honour of the naming ceremony. ‘And you’re Bounce,’ she told the little dog. ‘Because I’m betting that if I feed you right and hug you often, that’s what you’ll do. Like Madison… By the time I finish with her, she’ll be Maddy. You mark my words.’
It’d be OK. She was sure it’d be OK.
‘Phone,’ Miriam said from the veranda, and she sounded apologetic, as if she knew how important this discussion was and she really didn’t want to interrupt it. She still sounded sniffy. ‘It’s Fergus. He needs you.’
No, he doesn’t, Ginny thought but she handed over her charges to Miriam and went to find what the impersonal need was that Fergus wanted her for.
‘Ginny, Stephanie Horace has appendicitis. She’s the eight-year-old I admitted this morning with suspected gastro. The symptoms this morning weren’t specific but they are now. Can you give the anaesthetic if I operate straight away?’
Fergus’s voice was so formal that she almost flinched. Instead, she held the phone away from her face, took a deep breath and switched into medical mode. Or tried to. She wasn’t too sure how she’d handle being close to Fergus right now.
It’d be easier if they didn’t have to see each other, she thought bleakly, but she still needed his help with Richard, and she had agreed to help him when needed.
‘You’re sure it’s appendicitis?’ she asked, without much hope.
‘There was very little local tenderness this morning, plus there was a history of two siblings with a tummy bug a couple of days before.’ Fergus sounded more strained than the situation demanded. Maybe he was feeling the same as she was. ‘I popped her into hospital with an IV line and she settled, but she’s started vomiting again now. There’s acute tenderness on the right side and she’s looking sick.’
‘You’re thinking that an attack of gastro could have pushed a grumbling appendix into an acute infection,’ Ginny said, and got a grunt of assent.
‘That’s what it looks like. No rebound yet but I want it out fast. Can you help or will I send her on?’
Rebound pain-pain when pressure was released-was a sign of a burst appendix. If there was no rebound pain they might be in time to take out an intact appendix. Much as she didn’t want to face Fergus again so soon, there was no choice. ‘Of course I’ll help.’
‘I thought you might not…’
Oh, for heaven’s sake… If she could be clinical, surely he could be, too. ‘You thought I might not what?’ she snapped.
‘You offered to help out before,’ he said. ‘But things have changed. You’re making a family.’
‘Yes, things have changed.’ Her voice softened. ‘Fergus, there’s no either-or in this game. You’re saying I’m an unemotional clinical medico or I’m part of a family? I’m allowed to be both. You were both until Molly died. I’m both now.’ She looked down at her torn jeans with dog hair attached and grimaced. ‘Look out for the lady with so much domesticity attached to her you can’t imagine. That’ll be me. But I’m also a doctor. Have the theatre ready the minute I arrive.’
‘That’s telling him,’ Miriam said mildly as Ginny put down the phone, and Ginny turned and faced her with a slightly shamefaced smile.
‘I had no business talking to him like that. But he was being…’
‘Ridiculous?’ Miriam smiled back at her. ‘Maybe he is. He’s in love with you, Ginny.’
‘No, he’s not.’
‘Are you crazy? He can’t keep his eyes off you. Richard and I were just saying so. The man’s besotted.’
‘He’s not in love with me. How can he be? His little girl died three months ago. He’s raw with pain.’
‘Oh, my dear,’ Miriam said softly, her smile fading. ‘We did wonder. Is that why he came here? To get away?’
‘Apparently.’
‘That makes it so much harder. Now you’re taking on the little one.’
‘I know,’ she whispered. ‘But how can I not? You know our family history. Madison looks like Toby. She looks like Chris. How can I not be part of her family? I just…am.’
‘Even if it means giving up Dr Reynard.’
‘I don’t have him to give up,’ she said honestly. ‘He fancies me as an unencumbered partner when needed, but it seems encumbrances are part of who I am. I just seem to collect them.’
‘And if he loves you then he has to see the whole picture,’ Miriam agreed. ‘Encumbrances included.’
‘Like that’s going to happen. I don’t think so.’
The appendix burst just as Fergus reached it. ‘Damn,’ he muttered and glanced up to see that she’d realised what had happened. A straightforward appendectomy took only minutes and Ginny had administered a really light anaesthetic. Now that it had burst there needed to be a full wash-out of the cavity, carefully cleaning every possible trace of the infected tissue.
Ginny nodded and adjusted her dosage, then went back to watching her dials, monitoring breathing, taking care…
But Stephanie was a normally, healthy eight-year-old who’d only been ill for twelve hours. This was not a complicated anaesthetic. There was time to watch Fergus operate, to see the skill in his fingers, to think that he couldn’t be expected to stay here.
With a skill like this, he should be a city surgeon.
So what was she about, wanting him to stay here?
She didn’t want him to stay here.
She didn’t want to stay here herself. But she would. Madison needed her. The dogs needed her.
She needed to be needed.
‘Oscar’s heard you’ve taken his dogs.’ Mary, the nurse assisting Fergus, handed Fergus his threaded needle. The cleaning was finished and Fergus was starting to close. The nurse went back to swabbing to keep the site clear of blood but she was relaxed enough now to talk to Ginny. Mary was an older nurse than Miriam, another farmer’s wife. Her farm was just north of Oscar’s. ‘He’s telling everyone it’s theft and he’s talking about having you arrested,’ she said.
‘He’s angry about everything,’ Fergus muttered, concentrating on stitching. ‘The man’s perpetually twisted. You want me to kick him out of the nursing home and tell him to go and look after his dogs himself?’
‘He’d die,’ Ginny said, but there was a certain amount of reluctance in her voice. Fergus glanced up at her.
‘And you wouldn’t be sorry?’
‘I’m always sorry when patients pass on,’ she said, and made her voice prim. ‘But those dogs have been starved and beaten. It’s a wonder the whole six of them aren’t savage.’
‘He’s not happy in the nursing home,’ Mary said, threading the next needle.
‘Tell me where he would be happy.’
‘He’s never had a family,’ Mary said. ‘What he needed was a wife and six kids. Instead, he’s just sat in that farmhouse and thought about the injustices of the world. Until he’s come to this.’
That caused a bit of an extended silence where Mary appeared to think about what she’d said.
‘I mean, there’s nothing wrong with not being married,’ she said at last, a trifle self-consciously. ‘I dare say you
