‘Do you get the difference between comfort and what’s happening between us?’ Tom asked. The link between them felt warm. Strong. Right. ‘Rachel, you need to forget the fear. Leave it in the past, where it belongs. Here are people you can trust.’
He hesitated for a moment, fighting to gather his thoughts, but then he forged on. ‘Rachel, you’re with a community now, with people you could learn to love and who could learn to love you. A lot of people. And, to be honest, I want to be included in that mix. I know this sounds dumb, but for the last month every time I turn a corner and see you I feel myself breaking into a smile. There’s this thing between us. I think...’
‘Then don’t think,’ she snapped, panic-stricken. ‘And don’t say it.’ But still she didn’t pull away.
‘Don’t say what?’
‘That you care.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because there’s no way I can care back.’
But the link of her hands sent a different message. The panic on her face... She was so torn.
‘You can learn to care,’ he said, steadily now. ‘Like I’ve learned to care—deeply—for three kids. Like I’ve learned to care for one three-legged dog. Like I’m learning to care for this whole damned valley. I didn’t ask to come here, Rachel. Left to my own devices, I’d be a practising orthopaedic surgeon, dating who I liked and surfing on the side. But here I am, in Shallow Bay doing what I can. Caring. And as for you... Rachel, you’re beautiful, talented and you care as well. You wouldn’t be distressed now if you didn’t care.’
‘I accept responsibility when I need to. That’s not caring.’
‘So the kiss between us was...responsible?’
‘No!’
‘So what was it?’ His voice became even more gentle. ‘Why the fear?’
‘I’m not afraid.’
‘I think you are.’
‘Well, I’m not,’ she said, struggling to sound cross rather than panicked. ‘You have tickets on yourself if you think one kiss from you and I’m thrown for a hoop.’
‘Tickets on myself?’
‘Tom, this whole situation is inappropriate. We have work to do. We should not be standing on the hospital veranda holding hands, analysing a kiss that should never have happened. If you think that it was so important...yes, you have tickets on yourself. The conceit of the male race knows no bounds, you definitely included. Now, can I get on with my work?’
‘If you can prove that one kiss means nothing.’
‘It doesn’t!’
‘So...’
‘Tom...’
‘Okay.’ He released her hands and held up his—surrender. ‘I’m conceited enough to think that kiss was something more. But I’m excused because I’m admitting that one kiss...as you say...threw me for a hoop. Me, not you. Or was it both of us? Was it indeed an aberration? Okay, Dr Tilding, let’s take this as a clinical trial. One more kiss to find out?’
‘You can’t be serious. How unprofessional is this?’
‘A clinical trial’s professional,’ he protested. ‘Compared to hugging patients... According to your rules I should be struck off every medical register in the country. So...one kiss, Rachel Tilding. Prove to me it meant nothing.’
‘It did. I can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘Vaccinations,’ she said wildly. ‘Clinic. I’m late...’
‘Rachel...’ He grinned, putting his finger on her lips to shush her. ‘One thing Shallow Bay knows is that our medical service works on a triage system. Priorities are allocated according to need. So right now you’re looking at me with something maybe neither of us understand but it’s something we need to diagnose. That need for diagnosis puts you—and me—right up the top of the list.’
‘No! Tom, I don’t want it.’
‘Really?’ He cupped her chin with his fingers, looking down into her confused eyes. Her panicked eyes. Maybe he should walk away, but he couldn’t leave her like this.
He couldn’t leave her.
‘You really don’t want me to kiss you?’ he said gently. ‘Really?’
‘I...’
‘Say it, Rachel. Say you don’t want me to kiss you.’
‘No...yes...no...’
‘Decide, Rachel,’ he said almost sternly. ‘Say it.’
She looked so confused. Well, so was he, he admitted. He had no idea where this was going.
And this place was hardly private. A hospital veranda, mid-morning. Any minute now, nursing staff, patients, visitors could walk by. This was crazy.
So why did this feel like the most important moment of his life?
‘Yes or no, Rachel?’ he said, and he looked down into her gorgeous eyes and saw her panic and he saw her confusion, but he also saw...something else.
His hands were cupping her face, tilting her mouth. She was so close. So lovely.
This was crazy. He shouldn’t...
‘Yes,’ she whispered—and then there was no need for words for a very long time.
* * *
She was mad. Utterly, incomprehensibly mad.
She’d let Tom kiss her and she’d kissed him back. Again!
She had no idea why she’d done it. Hormones, she told herself as she headed to the library to her waiting babies. It was the same hormones that saw fifteen-year-olds get pregnant when pregnancy was the last thing they wanted. Total, idiotic madness.
She wasn’t fifteen years old now. The fact that Tom’s understanding, his gorgeous smile, his crazy reasoning about clinical trials had broken her defences...
It was definitely hormones and she needed to pull herself together fast.
Once at the library she coped with vaccinations with professional competence. She smiled when she needed to smile. She comforted, she complimented, she gave injections to protect the babies of Shallow Bay from danger.
But why did it seem as if she’d just walked over a cliff herself?
* * *
‘So...’
Clinic was finished. Tom was sitting in the hospital kitchen wolfing down a sandwich before he headed out on house calls. He was also waiting on phone calls from Canberra and New Zealand, which was the reason he was eating fast, aware that slabs of time would be taken up as soon as these calls came through.
Roscoe had come to find him. The big nurse had taken two weeks’ paternity leave after the birth of his son and he was now back at work, looking a little sleep-deprived but also absurdly happy. And wanting to share his happiness with everyone.
‘So?’ Tom said cautiously between mouthfuls.
‘What’s happening?’
‘With Lois?’ He’d given Roscoe a fast explanation before clinic. ‘The tablet should be here by now.’
‘Yeah, Lachie’s in there now, explaining video calls. Bob’s there, too. Sandra hasn’t received hers yet but it’s happening. Meanwhile, they’re practising calling my Lizzy. Lizzy’s a huge fan of video calls—she uses them all the time to talk to her mum and dad in Sydney. When I left the room, Lois and Bob were being coerced into sharing nappy changing by video link.’
Tom grinned. Great. This was a terrific little community, he thought, and once they had Sandra here the community would protect its own.
‘But that’s not what my “So” was about,’ Roscoe said, and plonked himself down and snagged one of Tom’s sandwiches. ‘You and Our Rachel.’
‘Our Rachel?’
‘She’s been here over a month. She’s therefore one of ours. And Our Poppy swore she saw you snogging out on the veranda this morning. And we both know it’s not the first time, don’t we, Doc? Anyway, Poppy said it’s none of her business and she hates being a gossip, so she managed not to tell anyone for a whole three minutes. Which is huge for Our Poppy.’
And, despite the dismay he felt at being sprung, he had to smile at that. Poppy was Shal
low Bay’s most junior nurse. She lived and breathed romance, and now she’d seen a real live kiss...
‘She has you married and living happily ever after, and she’s already predicting three more kids,’ Roscoe said. ‘Two girls and another boy. She hasn’t named them yet but she’s close.’ He munched his—Tom’s—sandwich and Tom gave up trying.
‘A bit premature,’ he managed.
‘You think?’ Roscoe’s grin was huge but then it faded. ‘Seriously, Doc... You and Rachel...?’
‘She feels good to hold,’ he said simply, and his friend stared at him.
‘You’re serious.’
‘Hell, Roscoe...’
‘She’s hardly warm and cuddly,’ Roscoe said, obviously thinking it through. He frowned. ‘I know, it’s none of my business. But who knows what’s under that cool surface?’
Tom shrugged, abandoned his sandwiches and gave up any pretence of keeping how he was feeling to himself. ‘That’s what I intend to find out.’
‘You’re kidding.’ Roscoe even forgot his sandwich. ‘Wow, Doc...’
‘I know.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m playing with fire.’
‘Yeah, if this goes belly up, we either lose a doctor or we have doctors who won’t speak to each other for two years.’
‘And if it doesn’t go belly up?’
‘Doc, she’s damaged. Even I can see that.’
‘Then we fix it,’ he said simply. ‘This community...’
‘You really are playing with fire.’
‘Something has to warm her up,’ he said. And then, more seriously, ‘And something has to warm me up. Roscoe, I think I need this.’
‘Wow,’ Roscoe said again and whistled. ‘And double and triple wow. Right, then. I have faith. I’ll get straight back to Poppy and tell her to start sorting baby names. Two girls and a boy? Let’s get this show on the road.’
* * *
One semi-public kiss and everyone in Shallow Bay was looking at her sideways. Sometimes not even that. Broad smiles greeted her, and she knew she was being looked at differently. It seemed the population of Shallow Bay was no longer seeing her as a temporary doctor but a long-term solution to what they saw as the gaping hole in Tom’s inherited family.
‘This isn’t fair.’
‘What’s not fair?’ Tom asked. It was Friday afternoon and they were passing in the corridor between patients. She’d been avoiding him all week. Now she had two more patients to see and then Tom was off duty for the weekend. Unless there was an emergency she wouldn’t see him. She had promised to attend Kit’s birthday party but that could be a quick drop in and run.
Run was the operative word, she decided. This community was driving her nuts. Her last patient had practically offered to do the flowers for her wedding—‘I’ll give you a great rate’—and everywhere she went there were conspiratorial grins.
She’d had it—and when she turned a corner in the corridor and practically bumped into the cause of the trouble she was ready to vent some spleen.
‘How many women have you kissed in the past?’ she demanded before he could say a word, and Tom looked taken aback.
‘I couldn’t say,’ he said cautiously. ‘Does it matter?’
‘It does,’ she said crossly. ‘You’ve dated, right?’
‘I...yes.’
‘Teenage romance? Med school? All those parties as an intern?’
‘I had spots in adolescence,’ he admitted. ‘I was a bit handicapped.’
‘I don’t care,’ she snapped. ‘Guesstimate, Tom Lavery. A hundred?’
‘Surely not.’
‘I bet I’m right, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. Let’s say eighty-seven. You can adjust it up or down after you’ve thought about it.’
‘Adjust it...where?’
‘On the community noticeboard outside the library,’ she told him. ‘In big, bold lettering. And in the nurses’ station. And anywhere else you can think of that might have all the sticky-nosed people of Shallow Bay saying, “Ooh, he kissed Dr Tilding, this means happy-ever-after.” I want huge signs saying Dr Tilding was Kiss Number Eighty-Eight and she doesn’t intend to be Eighty-Nine.’
He grinned, folded his arms and leaned back against the wall. ‘What if I’d like you to be Eighty-Nine?’
‘Get over it. It’s complicating my life.’
‘Maybe life’s meant to be complicated.’
‘Not mine. Tom, back off.’
‘I don’t want to back off,’ he told her. Hospital corridors were definitely not the place for this kind of conversation, but it seemed there was no choice.
‘Tom...’
‘Rachel, I think I’m falling for you,’ he said bluntly. ‘And please don’t ask me why. Maybe it’s your warm and cuddly persona. Maybe it’s the way you embrace life...’
‘Cut it with the sarcasm.’
‘Okay,’ he said gently. ‘I’ll be serious. Maybe it’s because I can see underneath that armour you protect yourself with, to the warm, vibrant woman you want to be. All you need is the courage to admit that you can care.’
‘No one can give me courage.’
‘I expect you’re right,’ he said, still serious. ‘To be honest, I suspect it’s already there, used now to keep yourself distant but ready to be used...for life.’
‘Tom, you’re scaring me.’ She had no idea where this was going.
‘I don’t want to scare you. I want to get to know you.’
‘Because you see me as a rescue pet,’ she snapped, and watched his brows hike.
‘What?’
‘You’ve seen my arms. The moment you saw them things changed. I saw your reaction—so here comes Dr Lavery to the rescue. You helped your friend, Claire, and you rescued her three needy children. You even rescued a dog with three legs. And here I am, damaged as well, a good fit for your houseful of welfare cases.’
‘My boys are not welfare cases,’ he said, suddenly angry. ‘And neither is Tuffy. They just need...’
‘They need you. I agree. But I don’t.’
‘What if I say I need them? And more. What if I need you?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. You’re the hero. Sadly, I have no taste to be Rapunzel, waiting for rescue.’
‘Your hair’s too short,’ he said, and he tried a smile. She had a sudden, stupid urge to smile back.
He copped a glower instead. ‘Tom, please...’
‘Could we just relax and enjoy this?’ he asked her. ‘Could we admit we’re attracted to each other and see where it goes?’
‘With the whole town watching? We have a quick romantic fling and then I’d be...’
‘Left again?’ He was watching her face and his eyes told her he was understanding. ‘Rachel, there are decent people in the world. People who won’t hurt you. People who won’t walk away.’
‘They won’t have the chance,’ she told him, totally discombobulated. ‘I don’t need anyone, including you. Tom, I don’t need rescuing. Please, leave me alone. This is scaring me.’
‘You like kissing me.’
‘Okay, I do, but I don’t like what goes with it.’
‘What goes with it?’ He unfolded his arms and held up his hands, as if in surrender. ‘So... Rachel, I know this isn’t fair, but will you give me a sop to my pride? Tell me if it wasn’t for the boys you’d be all over me like a rash?’
All over him like a rash? What sort of romantic question was that? Weirdly, it broke the tension.
‘You’re comparing me to measles?’
‘In the nicest way.’
‘I can see that,’ she said. ‘But no, the boys have nothing to do with my reaction to you. If you were still a playboy doctor in Sydney I wouldn’t be interested, but I bet you wouldn’t be interested in me, either.’
‘You’d be wrong there.’
She shook her head—and then looked around in relief as Jenny appeared along the corridor, bearing a covered bedpan.
‘Clear the path, people,’ Jenny said warningly. ‘You guys look intense, but old Joe Crazer’s enema has finally taken impressive effect.’
Which brought that interlude to a fast end.
Medicine had its uses, Rachel thought as she fled. But Tom’s words followed her. Tom’s question.
If it wasn’t for the boys, would she be all over him like a rash?
No, she thought. In fact, the boys seemed almost a safety net, though they’d got her into trouble in the first place. They’d made her let down her guard. If Tom needed her rather than wanted her then maybe... Maybe.
She wasn’t making sense, even to herself. Why would anyone want her? And how could she let herself want Tom? It was all too hard.
What she wanted was to pack her car and head back to the city, away from the prying eyes of a small community, away from a house with a makeshift family next door. Away from the threat Tom posed to her carefully built armour.
How to rebuild her armour?
She’d promised a birthday cake. Tomorrow.
She’d make it, drop it off and run, she decided. But after that...
She was stuck here for two years. How could she cope with that when running seemed the only safe option?
CHAPTER NINE
THE PARTY WAS scheduled from two to four. The kids had slipped an invitation under her door while she was hunkered down on Friday night, avoiding the world, avoiding even her own thoughts.
There’d be lots of people there. She could do this.
On Saturday morning she rang Tom. ‘Do you need the cake before three? I might be late,’ she told him. ‘Jill Salter won’t come in for check-ups and I’m darned if I’ll give her another month’s insulin without looking at what her sugars are doing. She won’t be home until two.’
‘That smacks of avoidance.’
‘Who? Me? Plan to be late to a party, with noise, sugar, mess? How could you accuse me of such a thing? The cake will be there at three and that’s a promise.’
He laughed and let her off the hook, but she disconnected feeling guilty. She could have been there earlier to help. She could have...been with him.
Rescued by the Single Dad Doc Page 13
