Bachelor Cure

by Marion Lennox

  It was almost a relief to leave. He left Liz to the attentions of the remaining Bellanor bachelors, and Liz didn’t mind him going in the least.

  So… That was the way he wanted it-wasn’t it?

  Yes, it had to be, so concentrate on medicine, he told himself fiercely. Concentrate on Myrtle. His medicine had to be the only thing that mattered.

  Myrtle certainly needed him. It took him ten minutes to get into the house because she wasn’t capable of reaching the front door to unlock it. In the end he broke a bathroom window, to find her lying on the hall floor by the phone. She’d broken her hip, but what was of even more concern to the old lady was that she’d lost control of her bladder.

  Myrtle was rigid with mortification, and it took him a while to figure out just how much of her distress could be put down to embarrassment and how much was due to pain.

  ‘It’s OK, Myrtle,’ he told her. ‘No one’s going to judge you by this. It often happens after an accident-even to young, fit teenagers.’

  But Myrtle would have none of it. She sobbed weakly in distress so, despite his reluctance to move her more than necessary, he administered morphine and then set himself to fix things. By the time the ambulance arrived, Myrtle had been sponged with warm water and was dressed in a clean, soft nightgown. Her soiled night things were soaking in the laundry.

  ‘Now no one will ever know except you and me,’ he told her, smiling. ‘And you and I go back a long way, Myrtle. I reckon you might even have changed a nappy or two of mine, so that must make us about quits.’

  ‘I reckon that’s right,’ she said weakly, clutching his hand in gratitude. ‘You were the sweetest little boy. And you’ve turned out… Well, your mother would be proud of you. This new lady doctor’s a lucky young woman.’

  ‘This new lady doctor…?’

  ‘Mrs Abbot saw her at surgery this morning and she told Henrietta Smiggins and Henrietta told me. She’s just what you need.’ The morphine was kicking in, her dignity was restored and Myrtle was bouncing back to her old impertinent self.

  ‘As a medical partner-’

  ‘No, dear.’ Myrtle patted his arm and fixed him with a knowing look. ‘As a proper partner. That’s what you need, dear. You need a wife, and I won’t let you tell me any different.’

  ‘Myrtle-’

  ‘I think I need to go to sleep now, dear,’ Myrtle said weakly, closing her eyes on his protest. ‘I just thought you ought to know…the whole valley’s very happy for you. And so am I. You and Henry’s granddaughter… Well, well.’

  He couldn’t stand it.

  Tessa had been in the town for a whole three days and the entire district was matchmaking. He travelled back to the hospital behind the ambulance with his mouth set in a grim, angry line.

  This was nonsense, stupid, crazy stuff. Fluff! It seemed like the whole town was going nuts.

  ‘Everyone except me is crazy here,’ he said into the night. ‘I’m not going nuts. I’m the one that’s level-headed here. For heaven’s sake, if she thinks she can bulldoze me…’ His voice died away.

  If Tess thought she could bulldoze him, how on earth was he to stop himself being bulldozed?

  It took a while to settle Myrtle. He X-rayed her hip and, at Myrtle’s insistence, decided on a conservative approach. The bone wasn’t displaced. With care and bed rest she could recover without internal splinting. Splinting required a trip to an orthopaedic surgeon in Melbourne and a general anaesthetic, and Myrtle wasn’t having a bar of it.

  ‘Myrtle, it’ll mean up to ten weeks of bed rest if we don’t send you to Melbourne,’ he told her. ‘It’ll take you much longer to recover.’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘If you get it splinted you could be up and about much sooner.’

  ‘I’m not leaving here.’

  ‘If you stay, you risk pneumonia,’ he told her gently. ‘There’s also the problem of pressure sores and increased difficulty of getting you mobile again afterwards. Myrtle, at your age-’

  ‘I don’t care what I risk,’ she told him. ‘I’ll lie here and wiggle my toes and keep my circulation going so I won’t have a problem. And at my age I’m well old enough to decide for myself. I’m staying here.’

  Maybe she was right. Myrtle was nearly ninety so there were risks whatever course of action Mike decided on. With immobilisation she risked complications, but by giving her a general anaesthetic and putting her through the trauma of travelling to the city maybe she risked worse.

  And she was absolutely definite. ‘I’ve lived my whole life here and this is where I’ll die,’ she told him. ‘So if there’s a chance this’ll kill me, I’d rather take the chance that it’ll kill me here.’

  ‘I doubt it’ll kill you,’ he told her, adjusting the lines on gentle traction. ‘You’re tough as old boots.’

  ‘Well, even old boots crack in the end,’ she said wearily. ‘And now… I pulled you away from the ball. You go back and enjoy yourself.’

  She was wonderful. Mike looked down at her with affection, and suddenly thought this was how Tess would end up. A feisty old lady, loving to the end.

  Tess…

  He didn’t do as Myrtle had ordered. He didn’t return to the ball. The ball would be over by now and Liz wouldn’t have waited for him. She knew better than that. He wouldn’t mind betting she’d have latched onto another eligible bachelor for a ride home, and he didn’t mind at all.

  Now if it had been Tess…

  It hadn’t been Tess. Stop thinking like that!

  He paused in the corridor, strangely unsettled. It was one a.m. It was time he was in bed, but he didn’t feel in the least tired. Strop would still be snoring. After such an exciting event as a football match he’d likely sleep for a week, so there was nothing calling him home.

  He’d just check on Sally, he decided. They were keeping the little girl in overnight to make sure the anaesthetic wore off with no ill effects. Her mother and father had been in earlier, abandoning their intention to go on to the ball, but he imagined they’d have gone home now.

  So he’d just check…

  He opened the door of the children’s ward, and Tess was there. She was sitting in a chair beside the cot, and she had Sally cuddled in her arms. In the half-dark, with her back to him, Tess was totally oblivious to anything but the toddler in her arms. She was humming the little one to sleep.

  He stopped short.

  For a long moment he stared. Tess didn’t see him. Her face was in the baby’s hair and she was crooning silly, half-remembered lullabies. She rocked and sang, and Sally whimpered and snuggled in half-sleep.

  Dear God, she was beautiful.

  Mike couldn’t turn his head away. He couldn’t back out. He stood like he’d been struck.

  Tess still didn’t see him. She was wholly concerned with what she was doing, and she had no thoughts for anything but the little one in her arms.

  He swallowed and closed his eyes. Hell! Tess had spent the first part of tonight babysitting Louise’s mum so Louise could have a chance at a love life, and then she’d made the effort to come back into the hospital to check on a toddler she cared about.

  She had a heart so big…so warm…

  Somehow he managed to get himself out into the corridor, but he didn’t know how.

  This, then, was what he’d vowed never to have, he thought bitterly. He’d never understood the consequences of his vow so clearly until now. Up to this moment, his vow had been easy to keep. There’d been no one like this to tempt him.

  The thought of his mother swept across his mind. Dead… When a decent doctor-a doctor who’d had his mind on his job-could have saved her life.

  This woman-Tessa-did have the power to distract him, he knew. She had the power to make him think of something other than medicine, and he dared not risk it. There was no way he was getting personally involved with this woman!

  His mother deserved better than this. His mother deserved that he keep his vow. He kept the vision of his mother in hi
s head, and he held it as if he’d drown if he let it go. No! He couldn’t let himself be swayed.

  Damn her. She’d have to go.

  But he couldn’t make her go. The valley needed Tess almost as much as it needed him.

  Swearing softly to himself, he made his way back along the darkened corridor. A nurse came out of Henry Westcott’s room-it was the horrible Hannah-and she lifted surprised eyebrows at the sight of Mike.

  ‘I thought you’d gone to bed. Myrtle’s resting peacefully. There’s no need-’

  ‘Is Henry awake?’

  ‘He is,’ Hannah told him, obviously even more surprised by his curtness. ‘I’ve just given him a rub. He’s been complaining that the pressure sores are hurting.’

  Mike frowned. He really didn’t like Hannah on night duty. She meant well, and she would have given Henry an efficient and effective rub, but her words were often capable of inflicting more hurt than her hands could heal. And at night and alone in a hospital bed, everything seemed so much more bleak.

  ‘I’ll go in and see him.’

  ‘Suit yourself.’ Hannah shrugged and moved off down the corridor toward the lights of the nurses’ station. ‘If you don’t think you’re better off sleeping…’

  Her inference was obvious. Talking to old men in the middle of the night just for the sake of talking, that was a waste of time. Hannah would never do it. She’d do what had to be done medically and no more.

  She wasn’t like Tess, Mike thought bleakly. Tess, sitting up half the night to keep a grumpy old lady happy and free her daughter to enjoy herself, and then returning to the hospital to give a two-year-old a cuddle…

  No wonder he’d never been tempted to break his vow when he dated the likes of Hannah, he thought. There was no comparison at all.

  ‘Goodnight, Hannah,’ he said firmly, and he pushed open Henry’s door. He’d check on Henry no matter how much a waste of time Hannah thought it. Maybe he needed a top-up of painkillers.

  Henry was wide awake. The old man was watching the opening door with hopeful eyes and Mike smiled in sympathy as he saw the old man’s face fall. That the old man was hoping the visitor would be Tessa was painfully obvious.

  ‘Tessa’s in the children’s ward,’ Mike said softly. ‘Do you want me to fetch her?’

  ‘No…’ Henry gave a wheezy cough. He fought to get his breath as the door swung closed. ‘No. I don’t need her. I don’t need anyone. You should all be asleep, not wasting time on me.’

  Mike looked at him more closely, hearing the rough emotion in the tired old voice. ‘What’s wrong, Henry? Pain?’

  ‘No. The rub helped.’

  ‘Has Hannah been upsetting you?’

  ‘No. No…’

  ‘She has. I can hear it in your voice.’ Mike walked across to the bed and dragged up a chair. ‘Hannah’s technically one of my best nurses,’ he told Henry gently. ‘She never puts a foot wrong, but as for her mouth… Medically she might never put her foot wrong, but when her foot’s not in use she stores it in her mouth. Tell me what she’s been saying.’

  ‘Just…’

  ‘Just?’

  ‘She’s just been telling me how good the nursing home here is.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘It’s not a bad place to end up, I suppose,’ Henry said wearily. ‘Good as anywhere.’

  ‘As good as your farm?’

  ‘No, but-’

  ‘But nothing,’ Mike said solidly. Damn Hannah. He’d have to give her a few solid orders about what she could and couldn’t talk to patients about. ‘Tessa has you all sorted out,’ he told the old man. ‘Like it or not, she’s dragging you back out to your farm as soon as you’re on your feet, and she has every intention of you and her and Doris the pig living happily ever after.’

  ‘That’s no life for a girl.’

  ‘Says who?’

  ‘Says Hannah. It’d be all right if she was right…’

  ‘If who was right?’

  ‘Tessa. Tess says…’ Henry paused for a moment to cough. He was still as weak as be damned. It took him two minutes before he collected himself enough to continue, but Mike waited as if he had all the time in the world. This was important.

  And finally it came. ‘Tess says it’s not just she and me and Doris,’ Henry managed. ‘It’s…’

  ‘It’s?’

  Henry hesitated, and then his face creased into a shame-faced grin. ‘It’s you, boy,’ he confessed. ‘Tess told me she intends to marry you.’ Then, as Mike’s face stilled, he hurried into an explanation.

  ‘Oh, she was just kidding, mind. I told her I wouldn’t have her wasting her life here and she said, nonsense, her intended husband lived here and she had no intention of leaving. Ever. So I thought…’ He smiled. ‘Maybe it’s nonsense but I thought…just for a bit, until I felt more myself…I’d let myself believe it. Only…I told Hannah, just as a joke, like. And Hannah says that’s crazy because there’s no way you’ll ever marry anyone, even someone like Hannah or Liz Hayes, much less Tessa.’

  Good grief. What was he to say to this?

  ‘But, Henry, I’ve only known your granddaughter for three days,’ Mike said helplessly. He was totally at sea here. It was as if he were being washed by waves he couldn’t even see. ‘That’s crazy.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Henry grimaced. ‘But Tess said three minutes was enough for her. She knew.’ He sighed heavily and tried to twist in bed. His paralysed side held him back. He gave a grunt of frustration and Mike moved to ease him over.

  ‘Her grandma was the same,’ Henry said finally when he was comfortable again. ‘Tessa’s grandma took one look at me and told me that was it. Forget bachelorhood, she told me. I was the one. It took Ellen a year to talk me round, but I might have saved myself the effort of fighting. Marrying Ellen was the best thing I ever did. But you…’

  ‘But I’ll not be talked around,’ Mike said heavily. ‘This is nonsense.’ He took a deep breath. ‘So is the thought of a nursing home for you. There’s a job and a life for your granddaughter in this valley without me in the equation. So let’s just make you comfortable and get you back onto your feet and back to Doris. Doris…now, there’s a nice, uncomplicated female.’

  ‘Ain’t no such thing,’ Henry said morosely. ‘Uncomplicated female? Hah!’

  Mike spent most of what little remained of the night staring sleeplessly at the ceiling. About dawn he fell into an uneasy slumber but at seven Strop heaved himself up on the bed and took over the pillow-and by eight Mike was up and ready for work.

  In work lay his salvation.

  Sunday morning was his easiest time, and it was often his only rest for the week. There was no surgery. He ran an evening clinic for urgent cases-mostly just to lighten his load on Mondays-but apart from emergencies he was free.

  There was nothing urgent happening in the hospital this morning, and after Tessa’s intervention there was nothing hanging over from the day before.

  He let Sally go home with her relieved parents-proudly carrying her ‘toe ring’. He talked Jason through accepting a full tear of his Achilles tendon and the possibility of fixing it in the valley if Tessa’s registration came through. He made sure Myrtle was comfortable and settled and still determined to stay where she was, and then he turned his attention to the rest of the day.

  Tess was nowhere to be seen. He’d visited Henry but Henry was visitor-free and sleeping soundly, no doubt tired after his busy social life the night before. Louise was acting charge nurse, cheerful and still slightly flushed after her night at the ball.

  ‘Tess went out to the farm early,’ she told him. ‘She’s moving there today.’

  Great. That meant he had the hospital to himself.

  The day suddenly seemed drab and totally uninteresting.

  There was one really nasty task that had to be done. Sam Fisher’s dental records had been dropped off at the surgery the night before. Mike mentally squared his shoulders and headed down to the morgue.

  By the time he’d finis
hed making absolutely certain that what lay there was definitely what remained of Sam, the day seemed more than just drab. He was depressed past belief.

  Hell!

  So, now what?

  He collected Strop and emerged from the hospital to brilliant autumn sunshine. The day was gorgeous. He stood in the car park breathing in huge lungfuls of fresh air, trying to drive away the smell and remembrance of what he’d just done.

  Who’d be a doctor?

  It did have advantages. One of them lay just before him. His Aston Martin was the pride of his life. It was a bit dog-haired, but it was still gorgeous.

  It needed a woman in the passenger seat, he decided, looking at it with affection. Not a dopey Basset. To really set it off, it needed a woman, with red hair flying free…

  Oh, terrific. He was going nuts here. What the hell was he thinking of? He’d known Tess for three days and he was going nuts.

  Strop cast him a reproachful look and he laughed and climbed into the driver’s seat. ‘OK, I’m not thinking of replacing you. Or maybe I could get you a cushion so the gearshift doesn’t bruise your butt.’

  More dirty looks, and Mike grinned. Strop knew the priorities. He needed no one else in this car. No one!

  Maybe he should go and collect Liz. She’d always come for a drive with him. But…she didn’t like Strop.

  So… He’d go for a drive with just Strop.

  He didn’t. Instead, he nosed his beloved car northwards, up toward the mountains. He had his phone on his belt. He could be contacted if needed. He’d just see…

  And the sleek sports car purred its way straight to Henry Westcott’s farm, and it turned into Henry’s gate as if it were magnetised. It was just to see that Tess didn’t need help, he told himself firmly, but he didn’t believe it for a minute.

  It was just because he wanted to see Tess. Hell, he had the self-control of a mating newt!

  Tess was in the shed with Doris. Today she was dressed for farm business, with stained jeans that were just a tad too tight-gloriously too tight-a work-stained T-shirt and a gorgeous blue scarf, tying back her red curls.