A Magical Christmas

by Patricia Thayer

  ‘But no time for an affair?’ Mak prompted, still looking at the photo.

  ‘When all those people had faith in me? When all they wanted was for me to graduate and come back to them so the town had a doctor again? What if I’d fallen in love with someone in the city? One of those young men? Someone who wouldn’t live in the country? Couldn’t live in the country? I’d have been letting all the townspeople down, I couldn’t have lived with myself.’

  Mak shook his head.

  ‘That was some burden of obligation you took on,’ he murmured, but as Neena retrieved the photo, she shook her head, smiling as she did so.

  ‘Not really,’ she said, her forefinger touching the faces in the photo, her smile serene. ‘They all loved me, you see. You talk about your family and what they mean to you—well, these people are my family so it was no sacrifice at all.’

  ‘And Theo?’

  That story was too tawdry to tell, so Neena shook her head, already regretting sharing even this small part of her life with this man.

  ‘I’d like to know,’ he said, his voice deep and husky as if he really meant the interest he was showing.

  The timbre of the words shivered across her skin, reminding her just how dangerous he was, while the unspoken memory of the kiss lingered in the room like a large, unwanted ghost.

  ‘I’m sure you would,’ she said, putting on a smile so he wouldn’t guess how his voice—and the ghost—was affecting her. How his presence was affecting her! ‘But a girl can only handle so much true confession in one night. Now I’m off to bed. The last few days have been a bit hectic and a good night’s sleep’s in order.’

  She stood up and though she’d intended leaving the room, she noticed the photos on the piano were out of order and moved across to straighten them.

  ‘Do you play?’ he asked, as she hovered by the instrument.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, lifting the lid and tapping out a few notes from a tune her father had loved.

  ‘Play for me?’

  Mak’s voice was husky again but this time instead of slithering over her skin it went straight to her knees, which weakened so she had to sit down on the piano stool, her hands spreading across the keys, the notes of the sad love song filling the room.

  ‘Is it Theo you’re remembering?’ Mak asked, coming to stand behind her as she sat on the stool, her head bowed over the yellowed keys.

  ‘Never!’ she told him, strength returning with the denial, enough strength to shut the lid of the piano and stand up so she could escape Mak’s presence. ‘Apart from the baby, I have no good memories of Theo.’

  ‘Yet you kept his child? It is his child?’

  ‘Would he otherwise have left it something?’ she said, looking into the hazel eyes, daring him to repeat the question she’d ignored.

  He took the dare.

  ‘Why?’

  Was it a night for confession? Was it something to do with the moon and stars being in some celestial conjunction that she felt a need to tell someone why she’d made a decision she knew the whole town wondered about? Although maybe the town didn’t wonder? Maybe they assumed it was because she’d loved Theo, rat that he had been!

  ‘The baby wasn’t to blame for what had happened and I suppose, if you go right back to the beginning, it was because I had been a thirty-four-year-old virgin! My marriage prospects weren’t all that bright. All the young men in town had been snapped up while I’d been at university, and I don’t know that I’d have fallen in love with any of them if they had been available. The pregnancy was an accident yet when I realised I was pregnant, it seemed as if it was meant to be.’

  She moved away from Mak’s too intense scrutiny because she didn’t want him seeing the emotion that was stirred up in her body.

  ‘The baby would be family,’ she said quietly. ‘My family! I know that is totally selfish but I haven’t had a family for a long time…’

  And on that note she escaped, heading for her bedroom, her insides churning so badly she thought she might be sick.

  Was it all about family? Mak wondered when she’d departed so precipitously. His family—her family!

  Shouldn’t it be about the baby?

  He found he had no answer to that or any of the other questions so he, too, went to bed, where sleep took a long time to come, the memory of Neena’s lips on his, her body pressed against him, caused him so much physical discomfort he eventually got up and showered again, telling himself the trip out to the Harrises’ property had left him hot and dusty.

  Neena heard the water running in the shower and couldn’t help but wonder what he looked like naked—imagining him, skin slicked with water, standing under the cooling jets. Her knowledge of anatomy and her experience with naked male patients meant that the masculine body held no secrets for her—she’d seen them all, fat and thin, big and small, but Mak’s body would be something else! Taut and trim, the muscles beneath the skin—and she knew they were there from the effortless way he’d lifted and carried her—beautifully defined.

  And imagining, her own body grew hot and she felt the fever of desire flooding through her veins.

  Damn it all! Hadn’t she learned her lesson from Theo—hadn’t one lot of fever given her immunity from a recurrence?

  Although the Theo fever had been purely physical and, as it had turned out, very transient. Mak fever was different. She’d known that as soon as she’d met the man. Mak wasn’t anything like the charming, conceited, spoiled young man his nephew had been.

  Or was he?

  Who was she to judge?

  Hadn’t her judgement been proven wrong a couple of times before?

  She felt her cheeks heat against the pillow as she remembered the youthful indiscretions that had brought Ned into her life, the night he’d caught her in the back seat of a car with the wildest teenager in town…

  Why is it we remember the bad things—the things we feel guilty about? she wondered for the hundredth time. She could remember Ned’s voice, his anger, as clearly as if it was yesterday, yet couldn’t remember her mother’s voice.

  Damn it all, she thought again, sitting up this time, readjusting the sheet which was the only covering the hot night allowed. I have to think happy thoughts, not gloomy ones. She settled down again, her hands massaging her tummy, talking to the baby about sunsets, and cup cakes, and birthday candles, and the pets they’d have.

  Talking until she fell asleep.

  She was playing with Albert in the little yard, encouraging him to walk towards her, tempting him with his bottle, when Mak appeared. Another green shirt so his eyes seemed greener than ever, his shoulders broad enough to carry any burden, though green shirts couldn’t make a man’s shoulders appear broad, and the ‘carry any burden’ part of that thought was nothing more than sentimental nonsense.

  She was not a sentimental person. The loss of both parents before she’d legally become an adult at eighteen had taught her that bad things happened and sentiment didn’t come into it, yet here she was thinking sentimental thoughts.

  ‘He seems to be doing really well,’ Mak remarked, leaning over the top rail of the fence, looking for all the world as if this hot, dry, far west country was his natural habitat.

  ‘Physically,’ Neena agreed, wishing she’d had a shower and dressed in something better than her ancient red shorts and tattered T-shirt before coming out into the yard.

  Then wishing she hadn’t thought of that at all! She didn’t care, she reminded herself. She was ignoring the attraction!

  Which was about as easy as ignoring the sun that was now beating down from the eastern sky, or the dust that whirled around Albert’s feet as he gambolled around her.

  ‘Physically?’ Mak queried.

  Actually, he’d queried it some seconds earlier while her mind had been worrying about her clothing. Now, probably because she hadn’t answered, he added, ‘Don’t tell me you’re worried he has mental health problems?’

  ‘Well, he might have!’ Neena told him, disliki
ng the smile that lurked behind Mak’s words, for all he had a carefully sober expression on his face. ‘Not so much mental as emotional. Do you think he knows he’s an orphan? That he hasn’t got a mother?’

  ‘He probably doesn’t know mothers exist and as long as he’s fed he probably won’t worry about anything.’

  But even as he said it Mak knew he was wrong. Camels were herd animals, they were used to company. And she caught him out on it, raising her eyebrows to question his assertion.

  ‘Okay, so he’d be better with company, but the hours you work you can hardly bring another animal in here to keep him happy, especially with Ned away.’

  Neena nodded but he sensed her agreement was reluctant, while the look of sadness on her face made him wonder if Albert was the only thing on her mind. She walked towards the gate and he held it open for her so she could lead Albert back into the stable, and being close to her—close enough to drop a quick kiss on her lips—he remembered the kiss of the previous night and wondered what on earth had got into him. The very last thing he needed was to get involved with Neena Singh.

  He’d brought up the attraction and while not quite admitting to it, she’d shied away, making it plain she’d prefer it if they both ignored it. In fact, she’d pointed out that there wasn’t any other option—a brief affair during his time in town being out of the question.

  And she was right, but as he watched her bend over the little camel and saw the taut curves of her backside in the battered red shorts she was wearing, heat stirred in him again.

  He couldn’t keep showering—it didn’t work anyway. He’d get back to work on his thesis—spend his spare time in his room, checking references on the internet, contacting specialists in other countries, maybe get a discussion group going on first response best practice.

  He made his way back to the house, walking into the kitchen. Ned was already gone but cereal packets and bowls had been left on the kitchen table. Mak could find his way around the kitchen—did Neena have her one cup of coffee for the day at breakfast? He could put on the machine.

  Or maybe cut some fresh roses. The ones on the kitchen table were wilting. Had cutting roses been part of Ned’s duties or did Neena like to cut them herself? A quick search of the drawers produced a pair of secateurs and he ducked down the back steps and into the rose garden, where the heavy scent filled his nostrils. There—the dark red ones like his mother grew, the ones the colour of Neena’s lips…

  Neena left Albert in the stable, glad it was school holidays—she’d get the two Winship kids from down the road to come up and check on Albert for her during the day. They were sensible and big enough to be able to handle him, to take him out into the yard and put him back in the stable, making sure he had milk and water. She’d have to check on when young camels started eating solid food. Perhaps if she left a biscuit of the bale of lucerne hay in his stable he’d nose around and eat it if he felt like it.

  As long as it didn’t make him sick…

  Worrying about Albert’s diet occupied her mind while she showered and dressed for the day ahead, but when she wandered into the kitchen, the scent of roses wiped all other thoughts from her mind.

  ‘You or Ned?’ she demanded of the man who was fiddling with the coffee machine.

  ‘Me,’ he said, and she could have sworn he looked embarrassed. ‘Actually, I just went out to get three or four to replace the ones that were wilting, but they were so beautiful I just had to take one of those and one of those and before I knew it I had too many.’

  He was embarrassed, and there was something so—vulnerable?—about this tall, strong, capable man going mushy over flowers that Neena felt a peculiar twinge in the region of her heart. Not attraction this time—definitely not attraction…

  ‘We’ll take some into work,’ she said. ‘The girls will enjoy having them on the front desk.’

  ‘The girls?’ Mak queried, and the smile he offered with the words twisted the twinge thing in her heart.

  ‘They worked for my father,’ Neena explained, pouring cereal into a bowl to cover her inner agitation. ‘But you’d probably guessed that. When he first came to Wymaralong, no one wanted to work with him—this was a town that wasn’t used to foreigners, particularly those of a different skin colour. Helen had been a nurse at the hospital and had retired years before to have a family, but they were all grown up by then so she answered my father’s ad and she brought Mildred along. Mildred’s husband was the head of the town council at the time, and once Mildred came on board that signalled acceptance to the townspeople.’

  ‘Apart from the fact that they obviously needed a doctor,’ Mak suggested, and Neena smiled.

  ‘There was that,’ she admitted, ‘but Mildred and Helen made his acceptance so much easier.’

  ‘And is that why you keep them on?’

  Neena studied him for a moment. Was he really interested or was he just making conversation?

  ‘I am interested,’ he said, correctly interpreting her look.

  ‘I kept them on because they know everyone so well. This was especially important when I first came back to work here and had to get to know people I already knew as people as patients. It was probably even harder for them—the patients—particularly the older men who were suddenly stuck with only one option—well, two if they wanted to drive to Baranock to see a doctor. Mildred and Helen made it easier for them and also taught me so much. They knew which people came in because they needed company and which ones, if they came, must have something seriously wrong because doctors weren’t at the top of their popularity lists.’

  Mak was frowning at her, looking so distracted she had to ask.

  ‘What?’

  He added foaming milk to the coffee cups and passed a cup to her.

  ‘I was trying to imagine the situation. I’ve always worked in hospitals, so I have no experience in general practice to compare your situation to, but in the ER, ninety per cent of the people we see are emergencies. We get the odd person who just wants some attention from another human being, and when we’re busy the nurses work a triage system, but it hadn’t ever occurred to me that patients in private practice could be graded in the same way.’

  It was Neena’s turn to frown.

  ‘I didn’t mean to trivialise any of my patients,’ she said. ‘The ones who come in for company or for reassurance are just as important as the others, you know. It just helped me to know their backgrounds so I wasn’t wasting time and taxpayers’ money ordering reams of tests for people who needed a chat more than they needed medicine.’

  Mak still looked puzzled, but as it was almost time to leave for work and she had to phone the Winships and introduce the two boys to Albert, she excused herself and took her coffee through to the office. Talking about medicine, especially the kind of medicine she practised, was such a rarity she found herself enjoying it, and she didn’t want to get used to discussing things with Mak—it would leave too big a hole when he disappeared back to the city.

  Mak watched her go, being careful to keep his eyes above the level of her backside, although the short skirt she was wearing was nearly as enticing as the shorts had been. He put the dishes in the dishwasher, found some silver aluminium in the pantry and wrapped up half the bunch of roses, but his mind was replaying the conversation they’d had and again he found himself wondering about his career choice—not questioning it exactly, but wondering…

  And what had happened to his resolve to put all thoughts of Neena out of his head and concentrate on his job out here, and his thesis when he wasn’t working? He left the roses on the hall table near the front door and went into the bathroom to freshen up before they left the house. Today if Neena wasn’t busy at the surgery he’d talk to Mildred and Helen about the extra medical workload, and maybe check out the ambulance station and talk to the personnel there—Paul and Pete he’d met, and there were two more. Someone would be on duty.

  One day at a time, Neena told herself as she came out of her room and saw the rose
s on the table. That’s all she could do, get through one day at a time and before she knew it Mak would be gone and life would return to normal—or as normal as it could be again once a baby arrived.

  ‘How are you going to manage once the baby comes? A nanny?’

  Neena turned and frowned at the man who’d come up behind her in the hall while she’d been smelling the roses.

  ‘Can you actually read thoughts?’ she asked him.

  His smile awakened the attraction, which hadn’t been all that dormant but had been suppressed enough for her to ignore.

  ‘Worrying about it, were you?’ he teased.

  ‘Not worried. I’ve had plenty of offers, mostly from mothers of girls due to leave school this year. One of them, Rachel—the girl, not the mother—wants a gap year before she goes to university but doesn’t want to go haring off overseas. She just wants to get some money tucked away before she hits the big city. She’s the eldest of five so has plenty of experience looking after children—even babies—so I’ve been thinking she might live in. Then there are a couple of others who are regular babysitters around town who will fill in on her days off.’ She sighed, then, because it was one of the things she worried about in the night and talking about it might help, she added, ‘My main problem is Ned. He’s quite convinced he’ll manage the baby and the house but he’s not getting any younger and it’s too much responsibility for him, but he’s going to be upset—’

  ‘For Pete’s sake, woman, do you worry over every single person in this town?’

  Mak’s demand was so loud Neena was startled, but before she could protest he was speaking again.

  ‘You worry about people who waste your time because they need a chat and you keep on your elderly staff because you’re grateful to them, and you worry about Albert’s mental health—’

  ‘Emotional health,’ Neena corrected, not liking the way the conversation was going. ‘And I’m the local doctor, I should worry about people.’