‘Just a little bit battered,’ he told her, smiling. ‘Not so twisted as you’d noticed. Your walking is going great. Rory would be so proud of you.’
‘He would, wouldn’t he?’ she said, a trifle defiantly. And then she looked from Jake to Kirsty and back again. ‘So tonight, on the beach-’
‘I need to go to bed,’ Jake said, cutting her off. ‘I’ve only just got home. Three house-calls in a row and it’s two a.m.’
‘Tonight on the beach, were you trying to forget something?’ Susie said, deliberately and slowly. ‘Or were you both truly moving on?’
‘I’m not sure what you mean,’ Jake said, and cast a glance at Kirsty that accused her of going straight home to her sister and telling all.
Susie caught the glance and smiled.
‘Leave her alone. She hasn’t said a word. But Margie’s sister-in-law was in the car park and the phones have been running hot since. Margie popped in before she went to bed to ask what did I think and wouldn’t it be lovely?’ Her smile was tentative but it stayed fixed. ‘It’s only fair to warn you. I’m simply the first to ask the question.’
‘Well, you’ve asked it,’ Jake said, with another doubtful look at Kirsty. ‘Now I’m going to bed. Goodnight.’
‘You haven’t answered my question,’ Susie complained.
‘It’s none of your business.’
That was blunt, Kirsty thought, a bit shocked, but Susie’s smile peeped out again.
‘No. But I’m Kirsty’s twin. I know all her nearest and dearest concerns. Ask your own two if you don’t believe me. How many secrets do Alice and Penelope keep from each other?’
No, but I don’t know the answer to this one, Kirsty thought desperately, and she glanced at her twin and she saw that Susie knew this, too. And maybe that was why she was asking.
‘I have one set of twins in my life,’ Jake said, and there was a trace of desperation in his voice as he responded. ‘I can’t cope with two.’
‘Cut it out, Suze,’ Kirsty said, and there was even more desperation in her tone. ‘Let the man go to bed.’
‘Only asking,’ Susie responded, her intelligent eyes moving from one to the other. She hesitated. ‘Has Kirsty told you about her shadows?’
‘No…’
‘Our mother died when we were ten,’ Susie told him. ‘Our father suicided soon after. Since then, Kirsty’s taken on the cares of the world. She’s looked after me-protected me. She’s taken on her job at the hospice, taking care of the dying, and I’m sure that’s more of the same. Our father suicided because he couldn’t move on. I ventured out again and got hit hard. Kirsty’s watched from the sidelines and she’s decided she doesn’t ever want to go there.’
‘Cut it out,’ Kirsty said with desperation, and Susie smiled.
‘You can’t have it both ways, kid. You’ve worked on getting me better and now I am-or a bit. For the first time since Rory died I’m popping my head up from under the fog and taking notice of what’s going on around me. The gut twisting isn’t happening and I’m feeling…light. And very, very interested in what’s happening to my twin.’
‘That’s good,’ Jake said, but he was edging backwards. ‘I need to go.’
‘Of course you do,’ Susie told him. ‘Kirsty, you need to go, too.’
‘I’m staying for a bit.’
‘I don’t need you.’
‘Yes, you do,’ Kirsty snapped. ‘Goodnight, Dr Cameron.’
‘Goodnight, Dr McMahon.’
And he was gone.
With the door closed safely behind him, Kirsty turned on her twin with a mixture of indignation, anger and shock. ‘How could you? Susie, you’ve scared the man witless. You’ve scared me witless.’
‘You’re not scared witless,’ Susie said thoughtfully. ‘Oh, Kirsty, he’s gorgeous. And you kissed him.’
‘We were messing around. Having a lend of the locals.’
‘Truly?’
‘Truly.’
‘So,’ she said, fixing her twin with a look Kirsty hadn’t seen for a long time, ‘you’re saying you’re not in love with Jake Cameron.’
‘You’re delusional,’ Kirsty said. ‘I’ll take your blood pressure.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with my blood pressure,’ Susie murmured. ‘Yours, on the other hand… Ooh, Kirsty, what are you going to tell Robert?’
‘Nothing.’
‘I don’t expect you need to,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘He’s so limp he’s not even likely to notice he’s been dumped.’
‘Suze!’
‘Get out of it,’ Susie told her twin. ‘Off you go. Leave me to my dreams. But something tells me they’re not all dreams. You can’t be a twin without knowing a thing or two, and I know a thing or six!’
How was a girl supposed to sleep after that?
She hardly did. She woke up early, and decided she’d make herself breakfast. But when she reached the kitchen door she heard Jake’s voice and paused.
‘We’ve got to get you fat somehow,’ he was saying. ‘An accompanying bag of bones does nothing for my medical image. If you want to be a super-doctor’s dog, you need to look a walking advertisement for vitamin pills. Have another rasher.’
Jake and Boris.
She leaned back against the wall, unashamedly eavesdropping.
‘We have to go home soon, mate. We’re only here in protection mode and it seems there’s no threat.’
There was a faint whimper and she could imagine Boris’s dopey ears sprawled over Jake’s knee.
‘Yeah, it’s been good. But to pretend it could be like this all the time is dumb. Happy families are an illusion.’
Another whimper.
‘It’s coming.’ He sounded exasperated. ‘You don’t want your bacon non-crispy, do you?’
Silence. The sound of spitting bacon.
‘If she wasn’t here, I’d stay on for a bit,’ he said softly. ‘But she is. And it’s a dangerous road. The twins and you and me…we’re a unit and I’m not letting anything threaten that. Or anyone.’
She should go in. The bacon smelled terrific.
She didn’t. She went upstairs to check on Angus.
Jake wasn’t letting anything threaten his precious family unit, she thought as she trudged upstairs. She didn’t intend to let him threaten her independence. Fine. They were of like minds.
All she felt like doing was bursting into tears.
Check Angus. Forget the tears.
Forget men! Or every man but Angus…
She knocked. When Angus didn’t answer she opened the door a crack, as she’d been doing since they’d arrived, assuming he was still asleep.
He wasn’t asleep. He was sprawled on the floor by the window.
He’d tripped on the mat, she thought in dismay. His oxygen cylinder was on its side and his nasal tube had been ripped from his face in his fall.
No!
‘Jake!’ she screamed in a voice that was meant to be heard in the middle of next week.
He’d stopped breathing. She couldn’t find a pulse. Damn, where was it? She was feeling his carotid artery. His neck was warm to the touch but she couldn’t find…she couldn’t find…
Airway. Check airways, stupid. Keep the panic for later. Her fingers were in his mouth, seeking for an obstruction and finding none.
Heart attack? Stroke?
Get the breathing back and find out. Get oxygen. A defibrillator?
‘Jake!’ Angus must be dead if that scream didn’t have him jerking to wakefulness.
Don’t die, Angus.
Keep yourself professional.
Ha!
She ripped his pyjama coat open, hauling him onto his back. She was kneeling over him, breathing for him, cupping her hands to start the rhythmic pounding of CPR.
How long had he been on the floor? She’d checked him at four a.m. and he’d been fine. How long hadn’t he been breathing?
He was still so warm. Maybe…maybe…
From behind her she heard boots
taking the stairs three at a time. Then Jake’s barked query. ‘What the-?’
‘It must be cardiac arrest. Have you got-?’
‘I’m going.’ The boots retreated. Steps retreating, stairs taken four at a time.
She went back to breathing. Went back to pounding. Breathe, then fifteen short, sharp thumps, breathe…
Come on. Come on.
Susie was in the doorway now, leaning heavily on her crutches. How had she got up the stairs? Behind her was Margie, and the twins behind her. Their faces were appalled.
‘Keep the littlies away,’ she managed between breaths, but every ounce of energy was going into rhythmic pumping.
Jake was back then, pushing them unceremoniously aside, dumping equipment on the floor. A portable defibrillator. Thank God.
Please.
He worked around her, ripping Angus’s pyjama jacket further, sticking on patches, readying…
Checking the monitor.
‘There’s pulse,’ he told her. ‘There’s still pulse.’
‘But-’
‘It’s slow as bedamned. Keep breathing for him, Kirsty.’ He was hauling an oxygen mask from his kit. As he readied, Kirsty moved aside. In seconds Jake had the mask fitted and was breathing for him, pushing pure oxygen into Angus’s lungs.
Kirsty didn’t stop. They needed an IV. Sodium bicarb. Atropine…
What was happening?
Angus had ischaemic heart disease. She knew that. If his pulse hadn’t completely gone then maybe this was a mild infarct. Maybe they’d get him back. That was the best-case scenario.
The thought that it could be a stroke with all its ramifications was unbearable.
Her fingers were flying. Jake had the old man’s chest moving up and down with a reassuring rhythm. They just had to get him breathing for himself again. Maybe the sodium bicarb. could be enough to prevent any long-term damage.
If he still had a pulse… It must have just happened. Maybe he’d woken with the smell of bacon and the sound of voices in the kitchen. He must have stumbled. As Jake worked to set up an IV line, she was thinking all the time.
Please.
And then a tiny gasp, so small they might have imagined it. But then another. Another and a choking, gasping cough.
Breathing re-established. Breathing re-established!
Dear God.
The old eyes fluttered open. Angus winced as though in pain, and then seemed to focus. On Jake. On to Kirsty.
‘Sue…Susie,’ he murmured, and Kirsty’s eyes flew to the door. But her twin pre-empted her. Susie couldn’t have heard Angus’s whisper, but sometimes what was said to Kirsty was said to Susie, and Susie was already manoeuvring herself within Angus’s field of vision.
‘I’m here, Angus.’
He stared up at her, bewildered. Trying to talk. ‘Shush,’ Jake murmured, but he lifted the mask back so Angus could say what he obviously desperately wanted to say.
‘Stay safe,’ Angus murmured at last. ‘Susie… Rory…’
‘I’m safe,’ Susie said gently, and she laid her hand on her swollen belly, guessing the core of his fear. ‘Rory’s baby is safe. We’re worried about you.’
‘Spike,’ he whispered. ‘He’ll die…’
Kirsty even let herself smile at that. If he was worried about his pumpkin then surely there was hope. Surely there was a tomorrow for this gentle old man who she and her sister were only starting to know.
Who she and her sister were starting to love.
‘Susie will take care of your pumpkin,’ Jake said softly, and by the look on his face Kirsty knew he was as emotional as she was. ‘She won’t let him die. Meanwhile, Susie’s come a long way to have this baby where you can play great-uncle, so you’d better make an effort for her. You’re going to hospital.’
‘I’m not.’ That was said so loudly, so indignantly that Kirsty wanted to laugh out loud. There were still miracles in this job. Sometimes-just sometimes-she loved being a doctor. To have this outcome…
‘Oh, yes, you are, you old coot,’ Jake was saying, and there was no disguising the emotion in his voice now. ‘You’re coming in for complete assessment, and that’s an order. Do you really not want to be around to support Susie as she has her baby?’
‘I… No.’ Kirsty was administering morphine. She could tell he was hurting-badly. Understandably. The way she’d pounded his ribs was enough to make anyone hurt.
‘Then you’re coming to hospital.’
‘Spike,’ Angus whispered, and closed his eyes.
‘I promise I’ll look after your pumpkin,’ Susie told him. ‘Me and Ben.’
‘Come on.’ Jake stooped and lifted the old man into his arms, motioning to Kirsty to lift the various pieces of attached medical paraphernalia. ‘Kirsty, will you come with me?’
‘I can walk,’ Angus said weakly.
‘Yeah, and I can fly,’ Jake retorted. ‘But let’s not do either unless we have to.’
CHAPTER NINE
TWO hours later Kirsty drove back to the castle in a borrowed hospital car, feeling as if maybe, just maybe things would be OK.
The electrocardiogram showed minor damage, as did the cardiac enzymes. Nothing that couldn’t repair itself. Angus was sleeping, recovering from the combined effects of painkillers and shock, but his breathing was deep and almost normal.
‘He’ll go to Sydney and get thorough cardiac assessment now,’ Jake growled. ‘I haven’t been able to get the stubborn old coot into this hospital before this, and I’m going to move so fast he won’t know what hit him.’ He hesitated. ‘Kirsty…’
‘You’d like me to go with him?’
His face cleared. ‘If you would. I’ll take care of Susie for you.’
‘Of course you will,’ she said softly, and then looked away.
Her job in a hospice at home was often heart-wrenching, but her heart had never been wrenched as it was now. What was it with this place, these people…this man?
She’d fallen in love with a whole community, she thought bleakly as she drove home, and she didn’t know what to do about it. Because although she’d fallen for this place, she knew she could never separate the two. Her love for Dolphin Bay and its people.
Her love for Jake.
Maybe a couple of days away would be good for her, she thought. Jake was arranging for air ambulance to transport Angus that afternoon and the plan was for her to accompany him. As his medical attendant-but also as his family.
Because that’s what I am, like it or not, she admitted to herself. Family. Somehow this whole place has wrapped itself around my heart, and I don’t know what to do about it.
Do what comes next and nothing more, she told herself fiercely. Go home. Reassure Susie and everyone else. Pack an overnight bag and go to Sydney. Stay there until you’re sure Angus is out of danger.
Get away from Jake.
Right.
But when she drove into the castle forecourt there was more drama. She couldn’t have time out just yet.
‘Spike’s dying.’
Kirsty was barely out of the car door before Susie appeared from the gate leading to the kitchen garden. Boris was by her side, looking as concerned as Kirsty.
‘Kirsty, Spike’s dying,’ Susie yelled again. ‘Angus must have been trying to tell us…’ She was balancing precariously on her crutches. As she saw her twin she took hasty steps forward-too hasty-and started to stagger. Kirsty reached her before she hit the ground.
‘Jake phoned,’ her sister said. ‘He said Angus would be OK and you were going to Sydney. Everyone left and then I came out to see. Kirsty, Spike-’
‘Susie, calm down.’
‘I’m calm, but-’
‘You’re not calm. Be sensible. Where’s everyone else?’
Susie took a deep breath. She closed her eyes, obviously fighting for composure. ‘Ben’s gone home to water his own vegetables. Margie says that’s the first place he goes when he’s upset. Then when Jake phoned and said he wanted you to go to Sydney, Ma
rgie said she’d shop now as she doesn’t want me to be alone for too long, and after you go I will be. So she and the twins have gone into town. But when they left…’ Her voice broke on a sob.
‘Hey, hush.’ Kirsty put her hand on her twin’s, trying to stem what sounded like rising hysteria. ‘It’s OK.’
‘But it’s not,’ Susie sobbed. ‘I know why Angus had his heart attack. He must have seen. When they left I went to check. Angus and I cleared all the leaves near the pumpkin, leaving the stem exposed. Someone’s pulled it. They’ve hauled the roots right out of the ground. I’ve replanted him, but it’ll take days for his roots to re-establish themselves. He’s wilting while I watch.’
The pumpkin was indeed poorly. Kirsty’s specialty was dying people, not pumpkins-but she knew a dying pumpkin when she saw one. If she’d been selecting pumpkins for a hospice, Spike might well have met her criteria.
He wasn’t totally limp. Some of the leaves closer to the roots were still stiff and healthy, but the leaves close to the pumpkin itself were visibly wilting. Susie had rigged up a sheet to give shade. She’d soaked the ground with water, so the patch was sodden, but obviously not enough water was getting through.
‘Someone’s wrenched him out of the ground,’ Susie whispered. ‘I guess we were lucky the whole plant didn’t break off, but as it is, Spike can’t get water and he’ll die.’
‘Won’t it ripen anyway?’ Kirsty said doubtfully-and received the look she’d used not so long ago on a junior intern who’d suggested using aspirin for renal colic.
‘It’s too soon. He’ll get bigger before he ripens. If he’s picked now he’ll never be any good. This must have been why Angus had his attack. He’ll have looked out the window and been rushing to help. Who can have done such a thing?’ Susie sank onto the wet ground and lifted the main stem into her hands. ‘This will break Angus’s heart. The damaged roots can’t supply enough water to get through.’
Kirsty opened her mouth to say something, and then she stopped.
No. What she was thinking had to be dumb.
‘What?’ Susie said. ‘Why is it dumb?’
‘You know, Jake does this to me, too, now,’ Kirsty complained. ‘Can’t a girl even think by herself?’
The Doctor’s Proposal Page 14
