‘Hey, Em, there’s no need to get your knickers in a twist. I’m not offering human sacrifice here. I’m offering a business proposition.’
‘Which is?’
‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said, and for the first time a trace of uncertainty entered his voice. Like he was a little unsure himself why he was doing what he was doing. But he had been thinking things through. It did make sense. Sort of. ‘You know I was offered a teaching job overseas before I came here?’
‘Yes.’
Em cast an uncertain glance at Lori, but Lori was riveted. She was listening to a proposal of marriage. Lori should get herself out of here and leave them to it, but she didn’t look like she intended moving for quids!
And Jonas kept right on speaking. ‘I really want at least a part-time teaching job,’ he told Em, and he was ignoring Lori now, speaking directly to her. To his intended…wife? ‘I enjoy teaching,’ he told her. ‘I’ve been doing some in Sydney but there’s not enough for a full-time position. For the rest of the time I’ve been doing increasingly technical surgery, which I haven’t been enjoying much at all.’
‘I don’t-’
But he wasn’t brooking interruptions, and he was still focusing on Em. Trying to make her see.
‘Em, increasingly, my area of expertise is patient-surgeon interaction. In fact, I’ve written papers and presented theories on healing times improving with better communication.’ He gave a self-conscious grin. ‘And they do. I’ve been working through guidelines for surgeons to discuss with their patients before and after surgery, including such things as fear of outcome, fear of pain-even such things as family problems. Things many surgeons don’t think they have time for. That’s my soapbox, really, and it’s what’s important to me. The surgery itself, although important, is no longer my chief priority.’
‘I don’t see what this has to do with me.’ This was hard. Em could hardly find the strength to speak. What had he said? Marriage! She was rocking Robby back and forth, clutching him like a lifeline, and Lori was looking from Jonas to Em and back again with the alertness of a particularly interested sparrow.
‘Simply this.’ Jonas sighed. ‘I’ve been at a crossroads. I don’t want to work myself into the ground to become the world’s greatest vascular or any other specialist surgeon. But I’m being pushed that way in Sydney, and it’s taking all my time to keep up with the current technologies. That was why I accepted the teaching job overseas but, to be honest, I was still unsure about that. I thought, even though I didn’t want to be a specialist surgeon, I’d miss surgery-medicine-itself. Hands-on patient work. So I’d sort of like…’ He cast a quick glance at Em before he kept on speaking. ‘I’d sort of like to return to general surgery in the real sense. With maybe a bit of general practice on the side.’
‘You mean you do want to practise in Bay Beach,’ Lori breathed, and Em sent her a helpless glance. Good grief! She had an almost irresistible urge to drum her heels on the door and yell.
But she couldn’t. Jonas was still speaking.
‘I talked to Chris Maitland, the doctor who works south of here,’ he told her. ‘Did you know he’s a specialist anaesthetist?’
Em did. ‘Yes, but-’
‘He did the same as me,’ Jonas told her. ‘He became fed up with the lack of human contact in big city medicine, so he went back to general practice. But if I came here I wouldn’t have to give up surgery entirely, and Chris could resurrect his anaesthetics. I could do all the surgery for the district-we’d hardly have to use Blairglen-plus I could do a bit of general practice on the side. I could keep up my research and one or two days a week I could travel to Sydney and do my teaching.’
He frowned and he was looking inward, still thinking it through. Seeing possibilities…
‘And if I’m teaching through the training hospitals, I reckon I could get teaching status for this district. If we had interns on rotation, how much easier would that make life for everyone?’
How much easier?
It made Em’s mind go blank just to try to take it in. Jonas here, and first-year doctors rotating to do part of their training here as well…
Bliss!
But that wasn’t what they were talking about. They were talking about marriage.
‘I don’t-’
‘Hey, I’m leaving.’ Em had almost forgotten Lori’s presence, but now her friend leaned down and gave her a swift hug, including Robby in her embrace. ‘This is getting far too complicated for me. All I know is that you don’t want to give Robby up tonight.’ And she smiled warmly down into her friend’s eyes, sending her a silent message. ‘And you might not want to give him up-ever.’
‘Lori-’
‘Don’t be too hasty,’ Lori told her. ‘Listen to what the man has to say. And think about what you could get out of this.’
‘I wouldn’t-’
‘You might,’ Lori told her firmly. ‘I’m going. You just listen!’
Silence.
The silence went on and on and on. The echo of the door slamming after Lori seemed to reverberate for minutes, while Em sat and hugged Robby and tried to come to terms with what Jonas had just offered.
It still didn’t make any sense.
‘You want to stay here,’ she said at last. ‘Is that what it is?’
‘I want a base,’ he told her. ‘I’ve decided that. I like your kind of medicine. I’ve fallen for Anna’s kids in a big way. I see that her need of family will be ongoing, and this way-’
‘You could just work here,’ she said desperately. ‘Heavens, we need you enough. There’s no need for this ridiculous talk of marriage.’
‘No.’ His eyes turned thoughtful. ‘I didn’t think so either. But then there’s Robby. If I marry you, Robby will have a family.’
‘You don’t want to be Robby’s father. You just said so.’
‘I did,’ he admitted. ‘I don’t want to be anyone’s father.’ And then his voice changed.
He was watching Robby. Robby was very close to sleep. He’d been lying contentedly in Em’s arms, looking out at this bright wondrous world around him. Now he was snuggling close, his tiny lashes were fluttering closed and his little fist closed around Em’s fingers.
He was so damaged! The elastic bandages on his arm looked stark and white, real evidence of what was before him.
‘I don’t want him to stay in an orphanage,’ he said, and his voice was still changed-husky with emotion, and strained-as if he couldn’t believe what he was feeling, and he was fighting it every inch of the way.
‘You’ve fallen for him, too,’ Em said, watching his face, and he gave a reluctant nod.
‘Yes. I guess I have. He’s a brave little kid. So if by marrying you I could get him a home…’
‘That’s some sacrifice!’
He smiled at that, a wry, half-mocking smile. ‘Hey, you’re not that bad.’
But I’m not that good, Em thought desperately, and waited.
‘Would we live together?’ she asked curiously.
He raked his hair and thought about that for a bit. ‘I guess we’d need to if we were to formally adopt Robby, but I can’t see it as a problem. I’d be in Sydney a bit, and this house is plenty big enough for all of us. And if we had a trainee doctor living here as well, it wouldn’t get too personal.’
Not too personal!
Personal! A fate worse than death, obviously!
‘But this would be a long-term thing,’ Em said wildly. ‘You’d have to tell Tom you’d be prepared to be Robby’s father. If we…we, Jonas. Not me. If we were to adopt him then you’d need to be involved.’
‘I don’t see that. Not if he has you.’
She took a deep breath, fighting back the emotions surging around her so fast she felt her head was about to spin off her shoulders. ‘Jonas, I want Robby so badly it hurts,’ she told him. ‘But Robby needs a family.’
She closed her eyes, trying desperately to stay calm. To think clearly. Because what Jonas was offering was almos
t unbelievably tempting.
But she knew she couldn’t take it.
She had one small problem. And she had to tell him. The only way forward here was honestly, no matter how much pride was at stake.
‘Jonas, I think you should know that I’ve fallen in love with you,’ she said bluntly, and her eyes didn’t leave his face. ‘I think you should factor that into any equation you make. You see, I don’t think I could live in the same house as you-as your wife-and stay…impersonal.’
His face froze. He stared at her like she’d just uttered an obscenity.
‘You what?’
But the time for prevarication was over. There was only room for the truth.
‘I’ve fallen for you in a big way, Jonas Lunn,’ she told him, tilting her chin and meeting his look head on. With dignity and with courage. ‘So if you’re asking me to marry you-for keeps-then I’d say thank you very much, I’d love to, because I’d like nothing better than to be your wife. But I would be your wife, Jonas. In every sense of the word.’
‘Em!’ He was clearly flabbergasted.
‘Stupid, isn’t it?’ she said cordially. ‘Unprofessional. Self-destructive even. For me and for Robby. Because if I didn’t…love you…maybe I could accept what you’re offering.’
‘What I’m offering makes sense,’ he said explosively. ‘Whereas what you’re saying…’
‘Doesn’t make sense at all,’ she agreed.
‘So forget you said it. You don’t mean it.’
She closed her eyes again. How could he be so blind?
‘I do mean it,’ she said at last. ‘I mean it more than anything I’ve ever said in my life. I didn’t mean to fall in love. I never intended it. It just sort of happened. So…so it wouldn’t work. Having half the cake but not the half I want most. I’d have a child and a husband-but a husband who treats me as a professional colleague.’
‘What more do you want, for heaven’s sake? How can you need more?’ He sounded angry, and suddenly so was she. He was so damned insensitive. So…
So Jonas.
‘I want it all,’ she told him simply, and her chin was still tilted at that dangerous angle that said she was taking on the world. Or she was giving it up. ‘I knew when I came here that my chances of having a husband and children were about nil. I accepted that. But now you’re offering half of what I want most in life, and I find…I find that I’d rather not have anything at all than constantly living-seeing-the other half. The half that’s out of my reach.’
Silence.
He looked baffled, she thought. He so totally didn’t understand.
‘You want Robby,’ he said.
‘I do.’ She was close to tears. ‘But you don’t want us.’ She bit her lip. ‘Oh, sure, you say you don’t want Robby to have to stay in an orphanage. So you’ll sacrifice yourself for us. Marry me. But I’m not prepared to carry that load of sacrifice. Not marriage, Jonas. Not…not without love.’
‘We don’t…love,’ he said slowly. His anger was fading as he saw the distress on her face. ‘Not my sister and I. We can’t. Em, I’m sorry, but we’ve had love knocked out of us from an early age.’
‘And you can’t get it back?’
‘I don’t want to,’ he said honestly. ‘It hurts too damned much.’
‘It takes courage.’
‘No. It takes courage to be independent. If you knew how much I wanted…’ He caught himself, and almost perceptibly drew back. ‘No! I’m sorry, Em, but that’s the offer.’
‘And is it all or nothing?’ she said bleakly. ‘Either I marry you on your terms or you’ll ride off into the sunset without a backward glance?’
He glanced down at Robby. ‘I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it. You really won’t marry me?’
There was only the one answer possible. ‘No.’
‘I still need a base.’
‘Not with me.’
He thought about that, and then slowly nodded, readjusting his thinking. ‘OK. OK, I’ll accept that. I think it’s stupid, but maybe if I stayed anyway we could work things out. If I told Anna I was staying here so you could adopt Robby, she’d accept that. She wouldn’t think I was just doing it for her.’
‘Are you doing it just for her?’ Em asked curiously, and then watched Jonas’s face change. He didn’t know himself, she thought. He was trying so darn hard to be independent, but he wasn’t independent at all.
He’d told himself he was making this offer for Anna, but a part of him wanted Robby-and a part of him wanted the sense of community he’d found in Bay Beach.
If only a part of him wanted her…
But he wasn’t admitting to that! Concentrate on Robby.
He was thinking that, too. He could persuade her by thinking of Robby. ‘You might still be able to adopt Robby, if I was here to help,’ he told her, thinking it through as he spoke. ‘If I could arrange the medical needs of the community so you had free time, then Tom might be swayed to let you keep him.’
He might. That was something at least. Em’s heart gave a tiny lift, but she looked across at Jonas and the spurt of joy faded. Jonas was so near. So close.
And she had to drive him away.
‘It’d be so much easier if you married me,’ he said, and waited.
This was her second chance.
But she couldn’t do it. Not for Robby.
And not for herself. Marriage without love was the way of madness.
‘No, Jonas, it’d be much harder,’ she told him gently. ‘For all of us.’
CHAPTER NINE
‘YOU are out of your mind!’
‘Sorry?’
‘You have turned down Jonas Lunn? Emily Mainwaring, you are nutty about the man. I have eyes in my head. You’re head over heels in love with him and you’ve turned down a proposal of marriage!’
Lori’s voice rose so high it was practically a squeak.
She plonked herself down on the chair beside Em’s desk and gazed at her friend in stupefaction.
‘All our problems would be solved,’ she said bleakly. ‘We’d have a new doctor for Bay Beach. We’d have parents for Robby. End of loneliness for you. Plus a sex life. And you turn the man down!’
‘He didn’t mention a sex life.’ Em said very carefully, staring at her prescription pad rather than at her friend.
That set Lori back.
‘You mean…’
‘I mean, after you left we stayed in exactly the same positions-him on one side of the room and me on the other-while we talked technicalities about how a marriage would work. He thought it was a really sensible business proposition. In fact…’ She took a deep breath. ‘In fact, I think he might even let himself get fond of Robby. But from a distance.
‘He’s not that tough,’ Lori said weakly, but Em bit her lip.
‘He is. He’s been taught the hard way how to be impersonal-tough, as you say-and he’s not about to unlearn it. Just because…’
‘Just because you love him?’
‘Just because I love him.’ Em raised her face and met Lori’s concerned gaze. ‘That’s it in a nutshell, Lori. I love the guy.’
‘And it’d drive you crazy to be married to him when he doesn’t love you.’
‘You do understand,’ Em said gratefully. ‘If Ray didn’t love you…’
‘I’d go quietly insane,’ Lori told her. ‘I didn’t realise until I nearly lost him. That’s one of the reasons I’m here. We’re getting married in a month’s time and I want you as my maid of honour. Will you do it?’
‘Of course I will.’
‘But there’s no chance of you marrying first? Of you being my matron of honour?’
‘Lori, I can’t.’
Lori looked at her friend over her surgery desk and knew that Em spoke the absolute truth.
And she also knew that her friend was breaking her heart.
‘I don’t want him adopted by a single mother.’
It was Robby’s aunt. She was facing Tom and Em in Em’s surgery, a
nd she was angry. ‘What’ll people think? That I let my sister’s kid be adopted by a single mum when I should take care of him myself?’
Tom’s hands clenched on his knees. Em could see them from where she sat. As the director of the children’s homes, Tom was accustomed to all sorts of family dramas, but he still had the ability to be emotionally involved. And who could help being moved by Robby’s situation?
‘Laura, you’re saying you don’t want him, but you also demand that he must stay in Bay Beach and he must be adopted by a married couple?’
‘That’s right.’
‘But he’s badly scarred,’ Tom said gently. ‘There’s ongoing injury. You know that. Robby has years and years of skin grafts ahead of him. He needs constant medical attention. Em wants to give him just that-and a mother’s love as well. I don’t think you’ll find anyone else to take him on. Not with his injuries.’
‘Then he stays in the children’s home,’ Laura said obstinately. ‘You’re not blackmailing me into anything else. I know what my sister would want if she was alive to tell me.’
‘Surely she’d just want someone to love Robby.’
‘But she wouldn’t want the community to say I’d shoved my sister’s kid off onto a single mum. Dr Mainwaring can look after him short term if she likes,’ she added diffidently. ‘I can say it’s a short-term arrangement until he’s better and people will see that it’s sensible. In fact, I don’t care who does the short-term caring as long as he’s treated properly. But no adoption. Unless she’s married. No way!’
‘That short term is likely to become long term,’ Tom warned. ‘Which is unsatisfactory for everybody. Robby needs permanence.’
‘Then find him a family. Here. A family who’ll accept him, injuries and all.’
And that was that.
Em went back to Robby that night, cuddled him to sleep and thought about what she was doing. No adoption…
It meant she could care for Robby for now, but he could be taken from her at any time.
It couldn’t matter. She was all he had, for now.
Bernard was lying at her feet. Amazingly, the big dog lifted his head and stirred his tail, looking up at her with soulful eyes that told her he was missing the noise and excitement of Anna’s kids, and he didn’t understand where they’d gone.
The Doctors’ Baby Page 12
