to use him and you have the operation here, we can transfer you back to Bay Beach Hospital for aftercare almost immediately. That means the kids can visit you.
‘But the chemotherapy…radiotherapy…how will I cope?’
‘Radiotherapy is just like having a chest X-ray once a day. And if the tumor’s as tiny and self-contained as it looks, then chemotherapy would be optional extra insurance. That’s all. Do it and get on with your life.’ Anna closed her eyes. ‘You’re not lying to me?’ she asked weakly. ‘You’re not all lying?’
Em’s hand tightened on hers. ‘Absolutely not.’
‘How the hell did you manage it?’
Anna was dressing, and Jonas had hauled Em out into the corridor, out of Anna’s hearing. ‘How did you get away from Bay Beach to be here for Anna?’ His voice was incredulous, as if he was having trouble taking everything in. ‘You could have floored me when you walked through the door.’
‘Miracles sometimes happen,’ Em said lightly, and glanced at her watch. ‘I work on producing them when they’re needed. But…’ She hesitated. ‘This miracle is due to end. I can’t be here for long.’
‘For long enough. You were the person she most wanted to see.’
‘I figured that,’ Em said seriously, accepting it as the truth. ‘Half the fear of this type of investigation is that it has to be done by strangers. So, when I can, I try to get here.’
‘You’d do this for anybody?’
She stiffened. ‘You mean, I’d do it not just for your sister?’
He gave a weary smile at that, and an apologetic shrug. ‘I guess you must. Anna is special to me, but to you she’s just a patient.’
‘No one’s just a patient,’ Em said roundly. ‘And if I ever feel like that, I’ll walk away from medicine and never come back.’
There was a sudden silence. A nurse walked by, carrying a tray of pathology specimens, but she was ignored. Jonas was watching Em, and he had eyes for nobody else.
‘City GPs don’t do this for their patients,’ Jonas said slowly, and Em shook her head.
‘That’s unfair. How many family doctors do you know?’
‘It’s not unfair. It’s true.’
‘Then your knowledge of family medicine is biased,’ she told him. She smiled then, determined to keep things light. ‘What a good thing you’re going to be one for a couple of months.’
‘A couple of months…’
‘Three,’ she said promptly. ‘That’s how long at least Anna will need you.’
‘If she lets me.’
‘She’ll let you. So you’re facing three months of trying to be a good brother and a good family doctor. It’s going to be quite a learning experience.’ She shook her head and glanced at her watch. ‘Jonas, I really need to go.’
‘I know.’
But she didn’t want to leave.
And Jonas himself didn’t want her to go. She could feel it. There was a moment’s silence while Em looked at the floor and Jonas looked at Em. Wondering.
And then, before she could stop him, he reached out and took her hands in his. Both her hands. He held them tightly, looking down at them with a twisted, self-mocking smile.
They were good hands, he could see. Em’s hands bore the scars of too much use-of being washed a hundred times a day, every day of the week, for years and for years as she moved from patient to patient. These weren’t the hands of the women he normally mixed with, he thought, but they looked wonderful hands to him.
‘Thank you, Emily,’ he said simply, and then he did the only thing he could think of to do-and he did it because he couldn’t bear not to.
Right there and then, in the busy hospital corridor, with people striding by every few seconds, he pulled her into his arms and he kissed her.
And by the time he’d let her go, Em’s life had changed for ever.
Em said it to herself over and over, like a mantra, as she drove back to Bay Beach, and all afternoon and evening she worked with the same mantra ringing in her head. He’s a charismatic bachelor who’s drop-dead gorgeous. He kissed you out of gratitude, and it means absolutely nothing at all. And even if it did mean anything… even if he’s attracted to you like you are to him…he’s here for a short time while his sister is treated and then he’s off. He’s out of here, and you have to carry on with your life!
But it wasn’t quite as simple as that. The mantra had flaws. Because…
Because-‘He’s gorgeous!’ Lori said, as Em dropped by to treat her little burns patient that night. She was watching as Em changed dressings and made Robby’s small limbs do their exercises, but Lori’s mind wasn’t on Robby. It was definitely on Jonas. ‘He’s one of the best-looking men I’ve seen.’
And then she watched with interest as her friend’s colour turned to a slow-burn crimson. Her eyebrows rose. ‘Hey, and you think so, too.’
‘But, then, I’m sex-starved,’ Em retorted, and she managed a grin. She was trying desperately to keep it light. ‘Me and my old Bernard have a thing going, but I’ll admit the relationship’s been rocky lately. Bernard’s snoring’s getting out of hand and, frankly, Jonas Lunn doesn’t look bad in comparison.’
‘In comparison to a moth-eaten mongrel who does nothing but sleep and whose only party trick is to trip people over when they least expect it? Wow, that’s saying something.’ Lori watched as Em’s deft fingers gently massaged Robby’s legs. ‘Robby’s doing really well.’
‘He is.’ Em smiled down at baby Robby, who smiled just as happily up at her. Even when she hurt him he smiled at her, she thought, and her heart twisted again. Damn. Robby and now Jonas were twisting their way into her heart. Bernard was facing some pretty stiff competition these days.
‘Robby’ll have two brothers and a sister as of tomorrow,’ Lori told her, and watched her face change.
‘You mean Anna’s kids are coming here while she has the operation?’
‘Yep. Anna and Jonas were here two hours back, collecting the kids but organising a longer-term stay for them. Apparently the surgeon wants to operate as soon as possible and, now she’s made up her mind, Anna can’t see any reason for putting it off. So it’s tomorrow. In fact, I think she would have liked to get it over with this afternoon.’
‘I don’t blame her.’ Em nodded as she thought it through. ‘So Jonas is dumping the kids on you.’
‘That’s hardly fair,’ Lori said mildly. ‘He’ll be back and forth, visiting Anna, he’s offered to work for you-which I think is a really good idea-and he’s hopeless with kids. He hardly knows them.’ She shrugged. ‘And we’re lucky. For once, the homes aren’t full. Kate and Anna-the twins who’ve been with me while their parents sorted themselves out-left me yesterday, no one’s been sent down from Sydney and Robby is all I have left.’
Then, as Em finished Robby’s dressing, Lori scooped the baby up and hugged him tight. ‘That leaves just me and Robby tonight, doesn’t it, scamp?’
But not quite. Robby pursed his lips and his little mouth puckered. He held himself rigid against Lori, twisted his tiny body and held out his arms to Em. It was absolutely transparent where his affections lay.
Damn.
Lori handed him over, but her pucker of concern remained. ‘He’s still attached to you, Em.’
‘Maybe it’d be best if I didn’t see him any more,’ Em said, but her heart flinched at the thought. She had to harden it. Long-term commitment to a baby wasn’t an option. ‘Now Jonas will be here every day-at least I assume he’ll be here, checking on his niece and nephews-he could do the dressing changes.’
‘Which leaves Robby with no one.’
‘It leaves him with you. He has to reattach some time, and it mustn’t be to me.’
‘I don’t know to who, then,’ Lori said. ‘It’s a disaster if he attaches long-term to me. I’m just an interim home mother. I must get his aunt to agree to long-term foster care.’
‘She still won’t?’
‘No. She has the attitude that the town will think she’s uncaring-that it’s a betrayal of her sister to put Robby into foster-care.’
‘So she’ll leave him in an orphanage instead!’
