A Magical Christmas

by Patricia Thayer

  ‘You’re pregnant, woman, you shouldn’t be lifting things.’

  ‘I told her that,’ Charlie chimed in, but Neena ignored both of them, simply opening the back of the big car so Mak could put the bale inside.

  ‘What happened with Tom?’ she asked Mak when she’d thanked Charlie and watched him drive off.

  ‘Bad sprain but no sign of any ligament damage or disruption of the joint. I’ve left him there flirting with the nurses. Phyllis and Marnie are gone and Mr Temple told me you said he could go home today, but one of the nurses said he tries that with everyone and not to believe him. Is that right?’

  The dark hazel eyes were fixed on her face and although this was very much a colleague-to-colleague conversation, Neena felt her insides heating up to rival the forty-plus temperature out there in the car park.

  ‘He does,’ she agreed, turning away from that steady regard. ‘Let’s get inside.’

  But as he began to follow her into the cool of the surgery she realised her mistake, and turned back to face him.

  ‘Actually, most of the patients have re-booked for tomorrow—I’ve one post-partum appointment and a triple antigen for a pre-schooler and that’s it. You could go home.’

  ‘Home’s a long way off,’ he reminded her with a smile that made her wish she’d kept walking. ‘If it’s okay with you, I’ll come in and talk to the staff about how they’ve found having the extra people in town.’

  ‘Louise and Lisa will love that,’ Neena muttered, again heading for the front door.

  So they’d flirt a little with him—so what? she told herself, but the cross feeling in her head and the tightness in her chest didn’t go away until she’d finished for the day and driven home—alone, as Louise had driven Mak home—and headed for the stables to see Albert.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  IT WAS obviously fate that as she struggled through the door to drop the bale of hay in the feed shed, she’d catch sight of the man she was trying to avoid. He was leading Albert around the yard behind the stables, his arm around the small animal’s neck, talking quietly to him, as if introducing him to the concept of fences and gates and yards.

  ‘Ned said he hadn’t had time to walk him today.’

  ‘Monday—baking day,’ Neena confirmed, feeling surprised Mak had taken on the job himself. ‘You could as easily make the sun rise in the west as change Ned’s housekeeping schedule.’

  This is good, she congratulated herself.You’re having an easy, normal conversation with the man. This is how it has to be. But as she moved closer to him, wanting to pet Albert and feel his rubbery lips in the palm of her hand, the zinging attraction stuff started up again and she excused herself and walked away, deciding a cold shower was better than the feel of rubbery lips against her palm.

  Rubbery legs didn’t help her escape…

  Mak watched her go, wondering if her hasty departure meant she was upset with him for walking the little camel.

  Surely not, although he was glad she was gone. Even with hay all over her T-shirt and bits clinging to her long plait, she was beautiful, and something about that beauty—the unexpectedness of it, or the sense of strength beneath the perfect features—affected him in a way he didn’t want to think about.

  But seeing her half an hour later, when Albert was back in his shed and Mak had taken the steps two at a time to reach the veranda to find her sitting on the western corner of it, drying her hair in the dying rays of the sun, made him realise that the attraction he felt for her wasn’t something that not thinking about it would vanquish.

  She had her back to him, so all he could see of her was the curtain of black hair and her hand as it rose and fell, brushing through the silken strands.

  Silken strands—where was his mind?

  Yet he knew that’s how they’d feel—as soft as silk.

  ‘Need a hand?’

  The words came out without forethought and too late he wished them unsaid, for she’d spun around and was staring at him with an expression that bordered on fear. Or was he imagining that?

  ‘Did you sneak up those steps?’ she demanded. Not fear, maybe anger—but why would she be angry?

  ‘I thundered up them,’ he told her, moving closer and taking the brush from her nerveless fingers, in spite of the voices in his head warning him to stay right away from her—voices that made a lot of sense. ‘Tip your head forward.’

  Why had she let him take the brush?

  Why was she tipping her head forward?

  Neena had no answer to the questions, or the dozens of others her body was posing. All she knew was that sitting here on the corner of her own veranda, feeling the brush run down through her hair, was the most exciting moment of her life thus far.

  And if that wasn’t the most ridiculous thought she’d ever had, then she didn’t know what was!

  ‘Not good, is it?’ the man wielding the brush said quietly in a voice that rasped its way past his lips.

  And though she knew, she had to ask.

  ‘What?’ she whispered.

  ‘The attraction between us. The attraction we both felt when we danced on Saturday night—remember?’

  There, it was said—well, he’d said it but did she have to admit to it?

  ‘You’re not going to deny it, are you?’ he continued, his voice still husky with the emotion she didn’t want to acknowledge.

  ‘At least I’ve got the excuse of my hormones being in a tangle because I’m pregnant,’ Neena told him. ‘And speaking of which, I don’t see how you can possibly be attracted to a pregnant woman anyway.’

  ‘A very beautiful pregnant woman,’ he said, touching her head to tilt it to the other side. ‘Although the fact that she’s pregnant by my dead nephew does complicate matters somewhat.’

  Neena pulled away, but not before a shiver went through her when he mentioned Theo. She reached around her head and caught the shining mass of hair between her hands, then with nimble fingers moving almost too quickly for him to follow she plaited her hair and slipped a band around the bottom of the pigtail, flinging it back over her shoulder.

  She’d drawn away from him—not physically but mentally—folding in on herself, bringing up an almost tangible shield.

  ‘You still love him?’ Mak probed, taking the chair beside her, allowing her space but not too much.

  She turned and stared at him, a frown between her brows.

  ‘Why would you ask that?’

  ‘Because if you do, then this attraction might feel wrong to you. As if you’re letting down his memory or something. That would make you feel you have to fight it.’

  ‘You’re assuming the attraction,’ she said, her voice stronger now, so Mak realised she was ready for a fight.

  ‘I am,’ he said. ‘But I’m nearly forty years old—I’ve felt attraction before and I know darned well that one this strong is never one-sided. People talk about pheromones and give all kind of reasons for attraction, but as far as I’m concerned, what strengthens an initial interest and builds it into attraction is the response of the other person. In part, I agree it’s probably chemical, but it has to be more than that. Something bred into us to ensure the continuation of the species, I imagine.’

  Neena stared at him, then shook her head.

  ‘I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.’

  Mak smiled, which sent her heart into excited palpitations.

  ‘It’s not exactly a conversation as I’m doing all the talking, but it would help if you put in a bit now and then. Do you find it as inconvenient as I do? Should we agree to ignore it as much as possible, which seems to me the sensible thing to do, especially as neither of us really trusts the other?’

  ‘Well, you’re right about that—about the trust.You’re the last man on earth I’d trust. So of course we’re going to ignore it—that’s if it exists at all. What else can we possibly do? Have an affair? As if I haven’t made enough of a mess of my life already!’

  Neena stood up and walked away, sha
king her head, unable to think straight when Mak was sitting next to her, spouting all kinds of rubbish about attraction. He talked as if it was something you could turn on and off at will. She wished!

  Although she could ignore it! Just pretend it didn’t exist—that would be the best idea. She hadn’t admitted she felt it—or had she?

  Maybe she had!

  She tried to replay the conversation in her head, but all she could remember was the feel of the brush running through her hair, guided by Mak’s hands.

  Mak’s hands…

  Don’t go there! Her head screamed the warning and she knew she had to listen. Back in the sanctuary of her bedroom she shrugged off the light cotton robe she’d put on after her shower and clambered into shorts and a T-shirt. Even with the air-cooler working, it was hot enough to make her cheeks burn.

  Although that could have been the hair-brushing thing…

  Mak watched her walk away, the last rays of the sun shining through the light wrap she wore so he could see the slim lines of her body, the neat bulge of the baby, the full breasts…

  A gentleman wouldn’t be looking.

  But a gentleman probably wouldn’t have mentioned the attraction, either. Just because she’d been honest with him about her feelings towards his family, it didn’t mean she’d want him being honest about his feelings.

  Not that attraction had anything to do with feelings. As he’d said—it was a chemical thing. And as she’d quite rightly pointed out, there wasn’t a thing they could do about it. Talk about living in a fishbowl!

  And for the first time it occurred to him just how hard her decision to go ahead with this pregnancy must have been, the doctor in a small country town suddenly joining the ranks of unmarried mothers. No matter how much people loved her, there’d have been criticism and snide remarks and quite a lot, he imagined, of disapproval.

  Yet she’d gone ahead with it, which brought him back to whether or not it had been a deliberate act, as he’d first suspected!

  Although she’d sounded regretful when she’d talked about the mess she’d made of her life…

  Was it the heat making it too hard for him to think straight?

  Or the attraction?

  He’d have a shower.

  A cold shower.

  And not entirely because the temperature out here was hot enough to melt the fillings in his teeth…

  They were sitting down to what, according to Neena, was Ned’s Monday night special—home-made meat pies—when the phone call came.

  ‘I’ll keep them hot,’ Ned said, whisking the plates off the table before Mak could take a mouthful.

  ‘But it mightn’t be a callout,’ he protested, his taste buds in revolt over the denial of the tantalising meal.

  ‘It will be,’ Ned said, shaking his head at Mak’s naiveté.

  Neena appeared at that moment, sticking her head into the kitchen.

  ‘Come on, Dr First Response, you can tell me what to do with this situation.’

  He followed her out of the house and down the front steps.

  ‘Where to?’ he asked.

  ‘A property about forty kilometres out of town. The flying doctor’s on the way. They’ll land on the property, our job is to stabilise the guy.’

  ‘Can’t the ambulance attendants do that? Does it always have to be you?’

  ‘It does when the ambulance is out of town the other way, taking a woman in labour to Baranock.’

  ‘Maybe next time someone gives the town money they should get a second ambulance,’ Mak grumbled, his mind still on the dinner he was missing.

  Or was it being back in the car with Neena that was making him cranky? In the confines of the car all the chemistry she was able to deny or ignore seemed to be stronger.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ he asked, thinking work talk would be a good diversion from food and pheromones.

  ‘Guy nailed his foot to the floor.’

  ‘You have to be joking!’

  She turned towards him and grinned.

  ‘Why ever would you think that? You must get nail-gun accidents at your ER.’

  Light dawned and Mak had to admit that they did get regular nail-gain accidents showing up.

  ‘But that’s not the point,’ he said. ‘Think about it. I’ve been here two days and we’re had burns victims—okay, they are fairly common—rescued a baby camel, treated a guy from a gyrocopter crash and now we’re heading out to a bloke who’s nailed his foot to the floor. I know diversity makes medicine more interesting, but this much?’

  Neena laughed. He sounded so put out by it all.

  ‘Isn’t variety the spice of life?’ she teased.

  ‘Maybe, but there’s another cliché that fits—the one about having too much of a good thing,’ he muttered, so grumpy she wondered what was really upsetting him.

  ‘Is it missing your dinner making you so tetchy?’

  She glanced his way as she asked the question and saw his frown.

  ‘Men don’t do tetchy!’ he told her, but there was no further elaboration, although his frown stayed firmly in place.

  Given the conversation they’d had earlier—or he’d had earlier—perhaps it was better not to ask what was upsetting him. So instead she talked about the country through which they were driving, explaining that originally it had all been sheep grazing land, although now more and more farmers were going into cattle.

  ‘And what do the animals eat?’ her non-tetchy companion demanded, looking out at the landscape lit now by a nearly full moon. ‘Stones?’

  Neena laughed again.

  ‘It does look barren, but the little bushes and dried clumps of grass contain good nutrients for sheep or cattle, and after rain or when flood waters wash through this country, it comes alive again, green and lush.’

  ‘I find that very hard to believe,’ Mak said, but his voice sounded more relaxed and he was peering with more interest at the country through which they passed.

  Finally she pulled across a grid into the property they were visiting.

  ‘Why would someone have been using a nail-gun at this time of the evening?’ Mak asked.

  ‘I didn’t ask so I can only guess, but I’d say he finished his real work for the day—the outdoor stuff—then decided to get on with his renovations. The property owner is Wilf Harris. He’s only recently married, and his and his wife’s families are coming to stay for Christmas so he decided to enclose his veranda to make some more room for the influx.’

  ‘And he just happened to have a nail-gun?’

  ‘He probably borrowed it,’ Neena said, as the lights of the homestead appeared in the distance.

  ‘And used it with no proper training in its use,’ Mak muttered, and Neena realised he was tetchy again.

  She said nothing, hoping he’d get over whatever was upsetting him before they met up with the Harrises.

  Megan was waiting on the front veranda and she raced towards the car as Neena pulled up.

  ‘I kept him warm but he said not to touch his foot so I didn’t, although I gave him a chair to sit on,’ she said, the panicky words tumbling over each other as they came rushing out.

  ‘That’s fine,’ Neena assured her. ‘And this is Dr Stavrou. He’s a city doctor so he sees a lot of nail-gun accidents.’

  Megan turned to Mak as if he were an angel sent from heaven.

  ‘Oh, thank you so much for coming,’ she said, throwing her arms around him and giving him a hug. ‘He’s round here.’

  She led the way around the veranda to the back corner where her husband sat, wrapped in a blanket as she’d said, his face ashen with pain.

  ‘I didn’t want to make it bleed more by taking it out,’ he said.

  ‘What have you had for the pain?’ Neena asked, knowing the flying doctor’s medical chest that every property had would contain morphine.

  ‘Only a couple of paracetamol. Megan’s new to the bush and I didn’t want to pass out from the morphine and leave her on her own.’

 
Neena heard Mak’s grunt of disbelief, but he was already kneeling at Wilf’s feet, examining the injury.

  ‘I think a saw—a hacksaw—to detach it from the flooring,’ he suggested, standing up and turning to Megan, asking her to show him where Wilf kept his tools.

  ‘On the wall in the shed,’ Wilf told her, and she led Mak away.

  Neena checked her patient, taking his pulse and blood pressure, but thinking how easily Mak seemed to be fitting into country medicine, although his patients usually came to him with their accidents, so he didn’t have to deal with them in situ. She found some local anaesthetic in her bag, and concentrated on her patient.

  ‘I’m going to try to deaden all around the wound so you won’t feel it while we cut you free,’ she told him. ‘Did the flying doctors give you an ETA?’

  ‘Depends on a delivery they’re doing,’ Wilf told her. ‘But the latest will be in two hours.’

  What could happen in another two hours? The nail had already been in there for an hour. It would have oil on it but be relatively clean and while it was there, it was plugging any holes it had made in veins or arteries. But was it also stopping blood getting to Wilf’s toes?

  They wouldn’t know until they got his shoe off and to do that they’d have to remove the nail.

  Mak was back, although she didn’t want to ask him his opinion of the best option as a first response person in front of Wilf and Megan. They might be concerned to hear people they trusted with their lives debating options.

  ‘I’ve deadened the area around the wound,’ she told Mak, who squatted beside her, the hacksaw in his hand.

  ‘You right, mate?’ he asked, looking up at Wilf.

  ‘Go for it,’ Wilf said, but rather than watch what Mak was doing he turned away, and Megan wrapped her arms around him so his face was hidden against her chest.

  The screeching of the hacksaw set Neena’s teeth on edge, but she sat on the floor across from Mak and held Wilf’s foot as still as she could.

  ‘Okay, you’re free,’ Mak said, within minutes that had only seemed like hours. ‘Stay where you are for the moment. Neena, I’ll show you where the hacksaw goes in case you ever need it.’