to die as soon as she could-and what I was doing wasn’t helping.’
‘You were keeping her pain-free. Or giving her the choice to be pain-free.’
‘By doping her to the eyeballs.’ His fingers clenched round the steering-wheel, so hard they showed white. ‘There’s so much I don’t know in this job,’ he said grimly. ‘I barely touch the surface, and there’s so much more. You have this information at your fingertips.’
‘Caring for terminally ill patients is what I do every day of my working life. Of course I know my stuff. But I’d imagine my general medicine is a whole lot more limited than yours. Give me a good dose of chickenpox, and I’ll run a mile.’
He grinned at that. ‘Anyone in their senses would run a mile from a good dose of chickenpox.’
She chuckled. This felt good, she thought. More. It felt great. She could work with this man. She could even enjoy herself. For the next month…
‘Would you be prepared to give an anaesthetic for minor surgery?’ he asked, almost as if he was echoing her thoughts about them working together.
She nodded. ‘Sure. Um…what needs doing?’
‘I have a middle-aged farmer with a hernia who’s desperate for an operation,’ he told her. ‘Francis is almost totally incapacitated by a hernia in his groin, but he’s scared silly of city hospitals. He has it in his head that if he leaves here he won’t come back. So he puts up with a hernia that makes him an invalid. For nothing. With a competent anaesthetist I could fix it in my sleep. If you’re here…’
‘You may as well make use of me, huh?’
‘That’s what I intend.’
Silence. Contented silence. Jake flicked the radio on, and something soft and happy drifted over the airways. On Kirsty’s left was the sea, glistening sapphire, broken only by a battered blue fishing boat chugging ponderously back to harbour.
‘This is heaven,’ she whispered, and Jake glanced at her with a strange look.
‘As you say.’
‘It really would be a fantastic place to bring up kids.’
‘That’s why I’m here.’
She hesitated. They were nearing the castle now, and the car was slowing. ‘What do you intend doing now?’
‘This afternoon?’
‘Yes.’
‘Dropping you at the castle, collecting the Boyces, the twins and Boris and taking them all home,’ he said promptly.
‘But you have more work to do.’
‘Yes, but you’ll be back at the castle to take care of Angus and Susie, so there’ll be no need for Margie to stay. Margie will take care of everyone back at the hospital residence.’
‘You live in the hospital residence?’
‘Yes.’
‘Would you like to leave everyone at the castle for the rest of the afternoon?’ she said impulsively, thinking of the pile of food she’d seen in Angus’s freezer. ‘Come back when you’ve finished work for the day and I’ll cook you all dinner.’
His face stilled.
‘No,’ he said brusquely. ‘Thank you.’
She stared. His tone had changed so dramatically that she was reminded of their first conversation, when he’d thought she and Susie were here after money.
‘What have I said wrong?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Wouldn’t you like to have dinner with m-with us?’
There was a moment’s hesitation. ‘Kirsty, I may as well say this straight out,’ he said bluntly. ‘It might sound dumb to state this so early, but I don’t want you getting the wrong idea. I don’t have relationships with women. My twins need all my attention and I can’t mess them around.’
Silence.
More silence.
Her jaw seemed to hit her ankles. Lower. As a statement it was as effective as a wash of cold water, seemingly just as shocking.
‘You don’t have relationships with women?’ Kirsty said at last, carefully, as if not trusting her voice. She didn’t trust her voice.
‘The twins and I manage very well by ourselves,’ he told her. ‘I’ve made a resolution not to mess with their lives by getting involved. I’m a dad first and foremost. Then I’m doctor to this district. My sex life comes a sad last.’
Her jaw dropped a bit more. Count to ten, she told herself fiercely. One, two…
She didn’t make it.
‘You don’t have relationships with women,’ she repeated, and he’d be a dope if he hadn’t heard the anger surging in her voice. They’d arrived at the castle gates. He’d drawn to a halt and hit the remote that had the gates swing open. But he had to stop while they opened. ‘What exactly do you mean by relationships?’ she asked.
‘You know.’
‘I don’t know,’ she snarled. ‘I’ve been working with you for the last hour. Does that define a relationship?’
‘No, I-’
‘I’ve been talking to you. I’ve been daring to impose on your personal space by making you talk back. You even smiled a couple of times. Does that constitute a relationship?’
‘You know very well what I mean.’ He looked flustered.
She thought, Good!
‘So you’re scared of coming to dinner with me and my sister and Angus and the twins and the Boyces and Boris. You’re scared because that’ll cause what you call a relationship. You’re terrified that halfway through pudding I’ll jump over the dining table and rip your clothes off.’
‘Don’t be-’
‘Melodramatic?’ she flung at him. ‘Of course I won’t be melodramatic. Don’t you think it’s you who’s being just the faintest bit melodramatic, deciding that a casual invitation to you means I’m after your body? And don’t you think that you’re being just the tiniest bit insulting? You know nothing about me, Dr Cameron. For all you know, I may have a husband and six kids back home in Manhattan, and here you are suggesting that not only am I propositioning you but I’m betraying my…my darling husband’s trust. Not to mention all the little rug-rats that my husband is caring for while I cart my sister halfway around the world.’
‘Are you married?’ he asked, startled at her not-so-coherent outburst, but she was already out of the car.
‘That’s none of your business,’ she snapped. ‘Oh, it might be if I was propositioning you, but, believe it or not, incredible as it might seem, I’m not propositioning you at all. So you can take your dinner invitation and shove it, Dr Cameron. We do not have a relationship. No relationship. Nix.’
‘Kirsty…’
‘What?’ It was practically a snarl.
‘Will you still do the hernia with me tomorrow morning?’
No apology, then. Did he really think she was making a pass at him? Of all the…
Swallow your anger, she told herself frantically. She was stuck here and she really wanted to do some medicine. She’d been bored for a month in Sydney. She didn’t want to be bored here.
Swallow your pride.
‘We can do your hernia if we stand at separate ends of the table and have an interpreter in the middle,’ she muttered. ‘After all, we can’t talk if we don’t have a relationship, and you’re setting the rules. No relationship.’
‘Kirsty, I’m sorry.’ Finally an apology, she thought-but not a very good one.
‘So am I,’ she snapped. ‘Because we might just have had a very nice dinner tonight. All of us. It might just have been what everyone needed. And we might just have had a decent working
