Dr Blake's Angel

by Marion Lennox

  ‘If I’d known,’ Harriet said darkly, and Nell shook her head.

  ‘No. How could you know? But now you do and you’ve agreed to make it for me so I’ll have the wool ready as soon as you’re transferred back. And I’ll also ring Sonia, Matt’s wife. She’ll bring her latest set of twins in to see you and I’ll bet she has you knitting for them before you can blink.’

  Nell was fantastic, Blake thought reluctantly. Absolutely fantastic. In one fell swoop she’d persuaded Harriet to go to Sydney, she’d organised her company while she was there, she’d taken the depersonalisation out of Harriet’s medical process—when Harriet met Matt she wouldn’t think of him as a cardiologist but as the father of two sets of twins and one dopey dog—and Nell had given her something to look forward to on her return.

  Whew!

  ‘I probably need to go now,’ Nell told Harriet, smiling down at her like a co-conspirator. ‘I’m just about ready for a cup of coffee, and I’ll bet Dr Sutherland wants to examine you.’

  ‘There’s probably no need,’ Harriet said, but her eyes twinkled up at Nell. ‘Oh, very well. We don’t want to put his nose out of joint, I suppose.’

  ‘Of course we don’t.’ Nell stooped and kissed her. ‘That would be perfectly appalling.’

  He found Nell fifteen minutes later. She was sitting in the hospital kitchen, tucking into an enormous plate of eggs and bacon. As soon as he arrived she waved to the stove.

  ‘Yours is there. Cook made it for you. I told her you were coming. If you’re quick the eggs will still be runny.’

  ‘I don’t have time to eat.’

  ‘Of course you have time to eat,’ she said firmly. ‘It’s one of life’s imperatives. Mrs Condie will be back in a few minutes and if she finds you haven’t eaten it she’ll be very hurt—especially when I told her how hungry you were.’

  Was there no end to this woman’s interference? ‘How did you know I was hungry? I could have had breakfast at home.’

  ‘I saw what was in your refrigerator,’ she said darkly. ‘Green bread, and bacon to match. Even Ernest would turn up his nose at that.’

  The smell was delicious. She was infuriating—but she was also right. OK, he’d eat. To refuse would be petty. ‘Ernest eats fillet steak, does he?’ he muttered, scooping bacon and eggs onto a plate.

  ‘If he can get it. Why wouldn’t he?’

  ‘Why indeed?’

  Her green eyes widened. ‘You don’t like my dog?’

  ‘Your dog,’ he said with a glower, hunkering down in a chair on the other side of the table, ‘is currently sleeping in my bed. My bed!’

  ‘Whoops,’ she said contritely. ‘I couldn’t have pulled the door fully shut when I switched off your alarm.’

  ‘Now, about that—’

  ‘Eat your breakfast before it gets cold,’ she told him, popping another bacon rasher between her teeth. ‘This is yummy.’

  Blake ate a bacon rasher. And then another. And he glowered all the time.

  ‘The wind’ll change,’ she said kindly.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘If you keep that horrid expression on your face you could be in real trouble. I’m sure you don’t mean to look bad-tempered, but if the wind changes while you look that way then you’re stuck with it for life.’

  ‘That’s superstitious nonsense.’

  ‘Oh, no. My best friend told me that when I was five so I’m sure it must be right.’

  ‘Dr McKenzie—’

  ‘Nell.’

  ‘Dr McKenzie,’ he repeated through clenched teeth.

  ‘I suppose it’s better than Miss McKenzie.’ She sighed. ‘What?’

  ‘You had no business turning off my alarm clock.’

  ‘But you were tired and I’m your Christmas present.’ She said it as if it made everything fine.

  ‘You still had no business interfering, and as for taking my calls in the night…’

  ‘That’s what I’m here for—and they’re not your calls. They’re our calls. The hospital board’s employing me, so you have no right to act as if everything medical is yours. Now, this morning—’

  ‘You’ve done enough already. This morning you can take yourself off.’

  ‘Nope. I’ve organised it all with Marion.’

  ‘You’ve what?’

  ‘Organised with our receptionist,’ she told him sweetly. ‘She’s pulled out all the patient files and I thought I’d run through them with you now. Before I see patients.’

  ‘But I’ll be seeing patients.’

  ‘You’ll see patients this afternoon.’ She smiled again. ‘I expect I’ll be feeling a bit weary by this afternoon so I imagine I might take an afternoon nap, so you can take over all you want. Then.’

  ‘Dr—’

  ‘Won’t you call me Nell?’

  ‘It’s impossible,’ he burst out, and slammed his fist down on the table. Her coffee-cup jumped and coffee sloshed into the saucer. He glared across the table and found she was surveying him with care.

  ‘You have a temper,’ she said.

  ‘I have a temper?’ He thought back to the day before. ‘How about you?’

  She considered that, and found it reasonable. ‘OK, we both have tempers, so let’s moderate. Marion says you have any number of house calls banked up. The district nurse has a list and she says you’ve been going through them on a priority basis. But she says a morning off surgery would let you get the worst of them cleared. Is that right?’

  Blake thought it through. ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

  ‘So there you go. I would appreciate it if you could run through the patient list with me first. Just so I know who’s a hypochondriac and who’s likely to be in trouble.’ She smiled. ‘I do miss the good old days before lawsuits where you could write “complete and utter nutcase” in the patient’s history and get away with it.’

  He struggled against a smile. ‘But…’

  ‘But what? Is that all you ever say?’ Suddenly exasperated, Nell laid down her knife and fork and pushed back her plate. ‘Are you still intent on arguing? Dr Sutherland, what have you got against me seeing our patients while you do our house calls?’

  Our.

  The word took Blake aback. It was a word that hadn’t entered his vocabulary for two years. Our…

  ‘I guess—’

  ‘It’s sensible,’ she said firmly. ‘Isn’t it?’

  It was. It was also…wonderful. To clean up his outstanding house calls… Whew!

  ‘Now, you don’t have to do them all today,’ Nell urged, seeing where his thoughts were headed. ‘I’ll be here again tomorrow so you don’t need to clear the decks completely. Marion thought you could spend a couple of hours doing home visits, then come back and take a run on the beach before lunch.’

  ‘What business is it of—?’

  But Nell was unstoppable. She had it all figured out. ‘Marion says that’s your very favourite thing and you haven’t been able to go for a proper run for months. You’ve had to run near the hospital so you’re available for emergencies. But today you can run where you want. Then you can come back about one o’clock, shower, lunch and be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for afternoon surgery.’

  ‘You have it all organised.’

  ‘That’s what I’m here for.’ She rose and took her dishes to the sink. ‘And you can’t fight city hall. So you’d best just roll with the punches, Dr Sutherland. And who knows? You might even end up enjoying it.’

  How could he enjoy it?

  Blake spent the morning doing house calls but his thoughts flew back to the surgery at every available minute. What was Nell doing? Who was she seeing?

  ‘I hear we’ve got a new lady doctor,’ old Desmond Scott told him as he dressed his ulcerated legs, and Blake couldn’t keep back the grimace.

  ‘Is she that bad?’ Des asked sympathetically.

  Blake caught himself at that. What had Daniel at Sydney Central told him? She’s extremely competent… Coming from Daniel, that was praise indeed
.

  So what on earth was he worrying about? he demanded of himself. Why couldn’t he simply roll with the punches and enjoy it?

  Because Nell was…bossy?

  ‘Women make a real difference around the place,’ Desmond ventured, seeing his thoughts stray sideways and trying to guess the reason. ‘They stick their noses into everything. Can’t help themselves. And they say she’s moved into your house. You’ll have a filing cabinet in the bathroom with a drawer marked “Razor” before you know it. And you’ll be in trouble for leaving the toilet seat up! You mark my words.’

  ‘There speaks a long-married man.’ Blake relaxed a bit and allowed himself to grin. OK, maybe he was overreacting slightly.

  ‘My Lorna would organise from dawn to dusk and never be happier,’ Desmond told him proudly. ‘She’s gone across to her sister’s now with a casserole because Madge is poorly, and she’ll be so mad that you’ve come while she’s away. She likes being here when you come, so she can give you a cup of tea and have a bit of gossip on the side. House calls in surgery hours is not what we’re used to.’ He chortled. ‘I guess she’ll have to get used to them now, though. This new doctor will free you up to do your house calls whenever. That’ll mess with Lorna’s routine no end.’

  ‘Dr McKenzie’s only here for four weeks.’

  Des frowned at that. ‘That’s not what I hear. Grace Mayne popped in earlier this morning and she reckons she’s home for good.’

  ‘She’s having a baby.’

  ‘So Grace said, but should that stop her working? There’s plenty of women these days work with a littly.’

  Blake carefully re-dressed the worst of the ulcers, concentrating on the wounds rather than allowing himself to think about Nell being here permanently. Desmond’s ulcers were deep and nasty. The old man’s skin was like fine parchment stretched taut across the bone, and the least scratch turned into a mess. Usually dressing his ulcers upset him so it was good to see his attention diverted, even if it was toward the new lady doctor.

  ‘We’ll see,’ Blake told him. ‘There’s time enough to worry about how much she works after she has the baby. And she can’t stay in Sandy Ridge to have it.’

  ‘You won’t deliver her?’

  ‘You know as well as I do that I need back-up if I’m to set myself up for deliveries.’ Des was the retired town pharmacist and enjoyed talking medicine. In the interminable time it was taking to treat Desmond’s succession of ulcers, they often talked about the problems of Blake’s practice.

  ‘I guess you have antenatal back-up now,’ Des said thoughtfully. ‘With Nell here you can deliver anyone but her.’

  Blake applied the last of the adhesive and stood up, thinking it through. Des was right. Maybe he wouldn’t make a habit of delivering babies—he’d still like a paediatrician on call before he did that—but he was better able to cope with emergencies now. Not just for antenatal work. For everything.

  It was a really strange feeling. There was someone right at this minute doing the work he usually did, and the thought was taking some time to sink in.

  He had back-up. Up until now he’d been too wearily confused and hostile to see it. Now he drove home and let himself think about what that back-up could mean.

  The possibilities were endless.

  He thought of Lyn Slater. Lyn was due to deliver in two weeks and the rule was to leave town and find somewhere to stay in Blairglen at least two weeks before the baby was due. But Lyn had been holding out until the last minute. She had two other children and hated the thought of uprooting the family for Christmas.

  The risks of delivering her had been a burden on his tired mind. Now at least they could cope with a Caesarean if they had to.

  So Nell’s Christmas present would be a gift not just to him. Nell could help him improve the standard of care to the whole district. If she was competent.

  She’s extremely competent, Daniel had said.

  The thought was suddenly immeasurably exciting.

  If only she wasn’t so damned infuriating. So damned bossy. But what else had Daniel said?

  She’s such a mousy little thing.

  If only she was, Blake thought grimly. Sure, it’d be great having a competent doctor around for Christmas, but she wouldn’t be much help if she was strangled before Christmas Eve.

  She’d told him to run. He did six house calls and was tempted to do more, but Nell’s words rang in his ears. Go for a run on the beach… He hadn’t run on the beach for months!

  His running was his time-out. His only time-out. Ever since Sylvia… Well, ever since he’d needed to, he’d escaped into himself by running. He’d pound the pavements until his heart thumped inside his chest and the pain around his heart eased because there simply wasn’t room for pain and exhaustion at the same time. Running had become almost a drug. He’d run or he’d go nuts, so every day, no matter how exhausted he was, he’d don running gear and do some miles.

  And the beach here was lovely—long and golden and sun-drenched, it stretched for miles. The thought of it now was almost irresistible.

  He shouldn’t do it. He should go back to the surgery. But finally he couldn’t withstand Nell’s offer. He headed back to the house, disturbed Ernest’s steady snooze, enquired politely if Ernest would like a run, too—well, you had to be courteous about these things, but Ernest looked at him like he’d lost his mind—and then headed to the beach.

  He ran for an hour. Half an hour north. Half an hour south. Then, on impulse, because it was a gorgeous day and he may as well go for broke, he ran into the water and swam like a ten-year-old.

  When he turned to the shore there was a woman and a dog sitting on the beach, watching. Nell and Ernest.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  HE WAS quite something, Nell thought dispassionately as she watched Blake come out of the water. If she was interested in men—which she wasn’t—and if she was into bodies that looked like they’d come out of the centrefolds of Women Only, then maybe…

  But she definitely wasn’t. No.

  ‘I’ve been stupid enough in that direction to last a lifetime,’ she told Ernest, hugging him close. ‘You’re the only man in my life from now on.’

  But there was no harm in watching.

  Blake had hauled off his shirt and running shoes before he’d entered the water and he’d swum in his shorts. ‘That’s quite a six-pack,’ Nell told Ernest knowledgeably, looking at the muscles rippling across Blake’s chest and abdomen. ‘Wow!’ Then she looked down at Ernest’s saggy midriff and grinned. ‘Something you can only dream about.’

  Ernest looked up and licked her.

  ‘You don’t want a body to die for?’ Nell’s grin widened and she hugged him again. ‘I don’t think Blake does either,’ she told her dog. ‘Em says he lost his wife three years ago and has been driven ever since. That’s why he runs. It’s also why he’s not sure he wants me here.’

  She thought back to the conversation she’d had with her friend when they’d been arranging this deal.

  ‘He doesn’t stop for a minute,’ Em had told her. ‘Maybe if he really tried he could get a partner at Sandy Ridge—or maybe Chris would have stayed on and worked part time in semi-retirement. But no. Blake has to take the weight of the world on his shoulders, and if he’s not frantic with medicine he runs as if the world’s chasing him. It’s like if he stops the pain’s going to catch up.’

  ‘Was his wife really special?’ Nell had enquired, and Em had shaken her head.

  ‘I don’t think she was, and I think that’s the cause of the trouble.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘It’s not my business to explain,’ Em had said primly. Then she’d looked at Nell and her primness had faded to mischief. ‘At least, that’s what Jonas tells me, and I’m sure it means he doesn’t know either. We’re only going on hints of medical gossip and they lived in Western Australia before she died, which means the gossip’s not very forthcoming. So you’ll just have to find out for yourself!’
>
  Drat! But there was enough to go on that was intriguing. Nell sighed. Then she went back to watching Blake walk out of the shallows, admiring the splendid muscles of the man—and waiting for him to register that she was sitting on the beach.

  He couldn’t get away from her. It was weird, coming out of the water and finding her there. It felt like a huge intrusion into his personal space.

  People didn’t wait for Blake Sutherland. Not like this.

  But Nell was definitely waiting. She was wearing a maternity dress today. It wasn’t as loud as her patchwork overalls. It was pretty and flowing—he’d glimpsed it under her white coat this morning—but now, on the beach, it was summery and nice and…

  For heaven’s sake, what was he doing, noticing what she was wearing? he demanded of himself. What did it matter? And she’d brought her blasted dog to the beach. Why? It wasn’t as if Ernest was the slightest bit interested in exercise.

  He glanced at his watch, suddenly hopeful. Afternoon surgery was due to start at two. Maybe he was rushed.

  Damn. It wasn’t yet one. He wasn’t rushed at all and the novelty of being unrushed was almost indescribable.

  But he still felt trapped. He saw her watching him—waiting—and there was nothing to do but to towel himself dry and stroll on up the beach, as if meeting pregnant women and crazy dogs on gorgeously sunlit beaches was something he did every day of his life.

  ‘I’ve brought sandwiches.’ She didn’t greet him as such—just motioned to her picnic basket, and by the look of the crammed contents it didn’t just hold sandwiches. It held a feast.

  ‘You made this lot in between patients this morning?’ he said in disbelief, and she chuckled.

  ‘Yep. Superwoman. That’s me.’ Then she relented. ‘Actually, Mrs Condie packed it up for me.’

  The hospital cook. He frowned. At last—something he could object to. ‘Mrs Condie has better things to be doing than making us picnics.’