His hands rested on her shoulders, gently, yet with a message he didn’t need to say. I’m with you, was his unspoken message. You’re not alone.
But he had to leave her for a moment. She was growing colder.
‘Wait,’ he said, and strode swiftly into the house, searching for what he needed. When he returned she hadn’t moved.
He set an eiderdown around her shoulders. He put another across her knees, tucking it under her, and then, because he had no taste for martyrdom, he wrapped a third around himself. Then he sat down beside her. Close.
‘That’s piles taken care of.’
‘Piles,’ she said, cautiously.
‘Never let your backside get cold,’ he said seriously. ‘First thing they should teach any medical student. Nasty things, piles.’
He felt rather than saw her smile, and felt also a tiny lifting of tension. Great. Those smile lines round her eyes had come from somewhere. He didn’t like it that they seemed to be getting rusty from disuse.
His arm wrapped around her waist and held. He could feel the warmth of her body through the eiderdown. That meant she could get warmth from him. That felt okay, too.
More than okay.
‘You want to explain the calves?’ he said, for want of a point to start. For a little while he didn’t think she’d answer, but then she started, staring out at the stars like her story was written there.
‘It’s Gran’s dream. The great plan. To get me back here, to have William’s son inherit the farm, to give Angus back his milking herd.’
‘William’s son,’ he said cautiously. ‘As in the little girl you’re incubating right now?’
‘Yeah, and Archibald turning into Annie’s the least of our problems. It’s all a bit of a dream,’ she said dryly. ‘Gran’s dream and my dream, all mixed up.’
‘Do you want to share?’
‘Do you want to listen?’ But then she seemed to catch herself. ‘Look, this is nothing to do with you. There are probably places you should be. To ask you to stay the night is big-to make you share any more is crazy.’
‘I’m not volunteering to fix anything,’ he said. ‘Just listen if you want to talk.’
And it seemed she did. She sighed and unconsciously leaned closer. ‘Okay, potted history. I’m English and so was William’s mother. William’s father-Betty’s son-is a hot-shot businessman who left the farm when he was eighteen, moved to England and has never been back. William was therefore brought up in London. We met as interns, we fell in love, we married, and we were typical Londoners. Only William used to talk about the Australian farm his parents had sent him to when they’d wanted to get rid of him over the school holidays. He spoke of an awesome gran, a fabulous farm and a wonderful community at Yandilagong. He kept saying we’d move here one day, set up practice, have bush kids.’
‘Dreaming?’
‘It was more than that,’ she said softly. ‘Neither of us had happy childhoods. The thought of a farm and country medicine and family sounded so magical we thought we’d get the training we needed and go. Only then Will died. I was miserable and alone, working in a dreary little haze, until I got a letter from Betty.’
‘Reigniting the dream?’
‘That’s a good way of putting it,’ she said, still staring out at the stars. Still letting her body share warmth with him. ‘I have no idea why Will told his father he’d stored sperm, or why his dad told Betty, but she knew. She wrote and said if I wanted to have Will’s baby then why not come here and live. She told me there’s a self-contained apartment at the back of the house so I could be as independent as I wanted. She could help with the baby. I could get a part-time job helping the doctor in town. She even enclosed a lovely letter from the Yandilagong doctor saying there was a vacancy here for as much work as I wanted.’
She gave a wry chuckle then, which made him think she should laugh more. Her laugh was rusty, with traces of bitterness, but still he liked it.
‘And so?’ he asked, and she sighed and the chuckle faded.
‘So then I got dreamy and impractical. I’d been in a fog of grief and apathy since Will died, and suddenly I thought why not? I don’t intend to marry again-not after the sort of heartache Will and I went through-but to have Will’s baby seemed like a giant leap into the future. I thought if it didn’t work out at the farm I could always leave. There’d be lots of jobs for part-time doctors in Australia. So I went through IVF in London and when I was four months pregnant I came.’
‘To find…’
‘What you see,’ she said, and he could tell she was trying hard now to keep bitterness at bay. ‘Betty’s here, and Angus. Angus is Betty’s son, Will’s uncle. Will had met his shy Uncle Angus who lived in a separate house on the farm, but he knew little about him. Now I realise how disabled he is. He has high-level Asperger’s, which means he’s intelligent enough to care for himself, but he’s pathologically afraid of the outside world. Betty’s been in and out of hospital for the last couple of years, and by himself Angus has let the farm fall apart. Betty’s had to sell the milking herd and half the land to recoup, and she’s now terrified that when she dies he won’t be able to stay here. So her plan was to induce me to come, help her care for Angus, and work as a doctor while she minded the farm and the baby.’
‘But she must have been ill when she wrote to you.’
‘Yes, but she didn’t intend the chemotherapy not to work. Hope has to feed on something. So I walked straight into a mess, but by the time I’d been here for twenty-four hours I knew I couldn’t walk away. I am…I
‘I see,’ he said slowly, and he did, and he was seeing chasms everywhere. He’d also seen the way she’d looked at Betty. Maggie’s husband had loved his grandmother. Like it or not, deception or not, Maggie’s allegiance was inviolate.
She was some woman. A feisty, loyal, doctor.
A woman to make his heart twist…
‘It’s not a great story,’ she said across his thoughts. ‘I…Thank you for listening.’
‘I wish there was more I could do.’
‘There isn’t.’ She hesitated. ‘So why gynaecology?’
‘Sorry?’ he said, startled.
‘I’ve told you mine. You tell me yours.’
‘We need to get those wounds dressed.’
‘You’ve been saying that for hours. Another ten minutes won’t hurt.’
‘There’s nothing to tell.’
‘I watched your face as you watched my baby. There’s shadows.’
‘My shadows are none of your business.’
‘They’re not,’ she agreed obligingly, and tugged her eiderdown closer and pushed herself to her feet. ‘Sorry. Of course I don’t want to know if you don’t want to tell me.’ She looked thoughtfully out to where he’d parked his car beside the last tractor in the row. ‘There’s probably a really logical reason, like gynaecology makes more money than obstetrics.’
‘So it does.’
‘And you can sleep uninterrupted at night.’
‘So I can.’
‘But that’s not the reason.’
How did she know? He couldn’t figure it out, but there was something about this night, something about this woman, that said only the truth would do. It was none of her business, but suddenly it was.
‘I lost my wife when she was six months pregnant,’ he said, and she plumped straight back down beside him. Close. Her hand took his and held it.
‘Oh, Max…’
‘Past history,’ he said. ‘Six years ago. A case of the doctor’s wife getting the worst care. I was an obstetrician. She died of pre-eclampsia.’
‘You’re saying it was your fault?’
