Maggie didn’t lean on Max?
Without Max it would have been a ghastly morning. As it was…showered and fresh, she said her goodbyes to Betty while Max hovered in the background, filling in technicalities, smoothing the way for Betty’s departure.
It was he who contacted the priest from Betty’s church, and who let him in as Maggie finished a needfully long shower. It was Max who hiked his brows as Maggie produced a list of instructions as long as her arm to give to the priest. It seemed Betty had planned her funeral right down to the Wellingtons and moleskins she wanted to be buried in, but it was Max who went through the list with the priest, ensuring Betty could have exactly what she wanted.
It was Max who stood beside her as she rang William’s parents-as she heard their irritation that Betty’s death had come at such an inconvenient time and really they couldn’t come right now.
‘Told you so,’ she mouthed at Max as they talked, and he smiled and gave her a thumps-up, you-were-right sign, and what would have been an appalling call was made lighter.
Then he made calls to more distant relatives for her-yes, sadly Betty was dead, no, sorry, Maggie couldn’t come to the phone right now, she was understandably upset, the funeral arrangements would be in the local paper tomorrow if they wanted to come. While Maggie nursed her third mug of tea for the morning and watched and thought this was hero material and all Max needed was a Superman outfit and he’d be right up there, leaping tall buildings, with her tucked neatly under his arm.
No one could deny Superman.
So calls made, he accepted no more arguments, but put her in the car and headed for Yandilagong. It took half an hour to navigate the main street as the festival was still going full swing but finally they reached the clinic. This had been set up by the old doctor, and Maggie now used it as her surgery. She went to clamber out of the car with her crutches but there were crowds of people on the pavement and someone jostled her, and Max swore and was at her side in an instant, picking her up yet again and carrying her through, regardless of her protests. Superman still.
But then he paused.
‘Max!’ It was a shout from across the street. Max turned with his burden still in his arms.
A woman was running lightly across the road. Beautiful. Sleek, cream jacket, casual jeans, lovely silver ballet flats. Gorgeous blonde hair, straight and glossy as a shampoo advertisement, the fringe pushed back with designer sunglasses. A wide, white smile.
‘Fiona.’
Fiona. The girlfriend.
Lois to Superman’s Clark Kent, while the wimp in his arms was simply some woman he’d rescued before he moved onto the next task.
‘I thought you had a call back to Sydney,’ Fiona said, clearly astounded.
‘I did,’ he said. ‘But I had an accident on the road and was forced to stay. Fiona, meet my accident. Dr Maggie Croft, meet Dr Fiona Hamilton. I told you about Fi last night. She’s a radiologist.’
‘Hi,’ Maggie said, feeling really, really at a disadvantage. Lying back in Superman’s arms was scarcely a way to endear yourself to Lois. Or to Fiona.
This woman was also a doctor. That made three of them, but there wasn’t a lot of professional recognition in the way Fiona was looking at her. Well, what do you expect if you go around carried in Superman’s arms, she demanded of herself. She was the victim here. The rescuee. Superman’s armful.
‘You didn’t go back,’ Fiona said blankly, looking from Maggie back to Max.
‘No. As I said, I was stuck.’
‘You really did have an accident?’ Fiona’s gaze shifted to the Aston Martin. As if to verify the claim, there it was, a smashed headlight, a crumpled left panel and a crack running the width of the windscreen.
‘Oh, your car,’ she said in horror, and put her hand to her eyes as if she couldn’t bear such hurt. ‘Oh, your gorgeous car.’
‘Maggie was hurt, too,’ he said brusquely. ‘I’m taking her in for an X-ray.’
‘You’re X-raying her here?’
‘Apparently it’s not as much a backwater as you might think,’ Max said. ‘I gather there’s basic X-ray equipment.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Fiona said. ‘Why are you carrying her?’
‘Because he’s bossy,’ Maggie said, finally deciding she needed to be helpful if she was ever going to get this over with. ‘Max won’t let me use crutches. The fact that I was fine on them last night…’
‘Max stayed with you last night?’ Fiona asked, incredulous.
‘Yeah, and with Grandma and Angus and our cows and our dog,’ she said, deciding to pre-empt trouble before it got a hold. ‘He was really useful. But I don’t want him to drop me, so…’
‘I’ll come in with you,’ Fiona said, sounding bemused, and stood aside and let them both pass. ‘You stayed with her last night, Max? You stayed in the same house as real people?’
‘Don’t be impertinent,’ Max retorted, and Fiona grinned as if it was a shared joke.
Great. She so didn’t want to be here, Maggie decided. If they were in Superman territory she wouldn’t mind a telephone box to disappear into.
Or was she thinking Doctor Who? A bit of time travel to a different place.
But there was no avoiding practicalities. Max had to let her down to unlock the building. She opened it, entered her security code, then sat down speedily in the chair next to the door, because to tell the truth both knees were wobbly now. She could cope with Max here, but Fiona’s presence completely unnerved her. She made her feel about ten.
‘The X-ray machine’s in there,’ she told Max, pointing to the next room. ‘If you set it up, I’ll come in when you’re ready.’
‘How out of the ark are we talking?’ Max said cautiously, while Fiona looked on in obvious bewilderment.
‘State of the art,’ Maggie retorted. ‘Or,’ she added honestly, ‘it was state of the art ten years ago. The old doctor got it second hand from Gosland hospital when they extended. For nice plain skull and knee pictures it’s fine.’
‘You’ve used it recently?’
‘It really is fine,’ she said, growing incensed. ‘What, you think we should have brought a small animal to test it on first? How about if Fiona volunteers a toe?’
Maybe that was uncalled for. Dumb, really. She didn’t know this woman, and to include her in a stupid joke…
But Fiona looked as if she hadn’t even heard. She tugged open the door and stared through at the X-ray equipment, becoming efficient. ‘I’ll check it for you, Max,’ she said briskly.
‘Wow,’ she muttered. ‘I have my own gynaecologist and radiologist.’
She was ignored. They were both in clinical mode. She had a sudden vision of them both back in Sydney, two hugely qualified specialists, totally focussed on their work.
Beside them she felt like a country hick. A patient to be cared for with clinical efficiency and kindness.
That’s what Max had been doing all night, she thought dully. Caring for her with kindness.
‘There’s nothing complicated here,’ Fiona called. ‘So what were you intending to do today? Make sure she’s okay and then come back to end the festival with us?’
She? She’s the cat’s mother. A saying used to teach children it was impolite to refer to people impersonally.
She, the patient. She, the inanimate object, causing trouble.
‘I’m still heading back to Sydney,’ Max told her, equally brisk, ‘just as soon as I know Maggie’s not going to do anything dramatic.’ Without waiting for a response-or an okay-he lifted Maggie again and carried her through. Still talking to Fiona. ‘We were always going back separately anyway. You know I have a list in the morning, and Clarissa and Doug are staying until it ends. I can’t wait until then.’
‘It’s pretty dreary,’ Fiona said. Max laid Maggie down on the prepared trolley, and Fiona manoeuvred the overhead X-ray machine over her knee. She slid a pillow underneath with the ease of a professional, as if she’d done it a million times before. As she mus
t have. This was a simple technical procedure. She wasn’t X-raying a patient. She was X-raying a knee.
‘Clarissa and Doug are bickering,’ she said. ‘Brenda’s boyfriend turned up and I’ve had enough music. I’ll come home with you, as soon as you’re ready.’
‘Fine,’ Max said. ‘Are you okay there, Maggie?’
‘Fine,’ she repeated. Feeling like a sack of potatoes. Wanting, pathetically, to say, ‘Hey, this is about me.’
‘Do you have leather shields?’ Fiona demanded, still not looking at her. ‘We need to protect the pregnancy.’
The pregnancy. Not the baby. Not her baby.
‘In the side cupboard,’ she said through gritted teeth, and Max fetched them and set them up so they formed a barrier between the X-ray machine and her belly. Her daughter.
Annie? Not Archibald. She had a bit of thinking to do on that one.
Chloe didn’t seem right any more.
‘Right. Keep still,’ Fiona said. ‘Hold the position. Max, get out of range.’
So Max moved back behind the door and Fiona clicked and then clicked again.
‘And her head,’ Max said,
‘Her head. Why?’
‘She gave it a bang when we hit last night.’
‘So why didn’t you X-ray it last night.’
‘Maggie’s grandmother died last night. We couldn’t leave her.’
‘She died…’
‘Of old age,’ Maggie said wearily, not wanting any more questions, wanting this conversation to be over. ‘That’s why Max stayed. He was wonderful. But I don’t need him any more and you both need to be in Sydney. Can we get on with this, please, because, like you, I need to go home.’
Her X-rays were fine, beautifully read by Fiona. Torn ligaments in her knee that would heal in time. Nothing wrong with her head. Fiona wished her all the best for her recovery-and for her pregnancy-and left to go back to their ‘camp’ to pack. Max drove Maggie back to the farm and the closer to home they got the drearier she felt.
Why had meeting Fiona made everything seem worse? Heavier?
They pulled into the driveway and she recognised the vehicle at the front gate. Who wouldn’t? A silver hearse is unmistakable in anyone’s language.
Max cut the motor and went to get out, but she put her hand out and stopped him.
‘You don’t have anything inside?’
‘No, but-’
‘But then it’s time for you to go,’ she told him, trying to make her tone firm and sure. A man and a woman were waiting for her on the veranda, dressed in sombre grey. That was her future, she thought. Grey.
Grey with a baby daughter? She gave herself a mental slap to the side of the head and made herself smile. Maybe grey until she’d buried Betty and her knee stopped hurting, but in the long term she’d be fine. More than fine. Max had conjured up a locum. Even the sight of the staff from the Yandilagong Funeral Parlour didn’t have the capacity to dim that.
‘You’ve been wonderful,’ she said. ‘But Fiona’s waiting.’
‘She’s not-’
‘You know she is. And I don’t need you any more. Last night I did need you, and I’ll always be profoundly grateful that you were here for me. And you’ve found me a locum. You have no idea how grateful I am for that.’
‘You know that John might stay long term if you want to share.’
‘I might just want to,’ she said. ‘But that’s for the future. So thank you again.’ She tugged her crutches over from the back seat and opened the car door.
‘Maggie?’
She turned back to him.
‘I could stay another night and leave at dawn. I don’t want you on your own.’
‘I have a sore knee,’ she said, pushing herself out of his gorgeous car. ‘That’s all. I can manage by myself. And, besides, I have Angus and cows and dog and tractors. What’s alone about that? Meanwhile, you have your own life you need to get back to. Thank you.’
He looked across at her-and then before she knew what he intended he was out of the car, coming around to her side, taking her crutches and placing them against his precious but increasingly battered car.
‘Maggie, thank you,’ he said heavily. ‘You’ve reminded me…’
He paused. Reminded him of what? she thought, but she looked at his face and knew he wouldn’t answer. Knew he didn’t know how to answer.
‘John’s good,’ he said inconsequentially, and she nodded.
‘If he’s worked with you I imagine he must be.’
‘He can work with everyone. Kids. Babies. He’s okay.’
‘Are you saying you’re not okay?’ she asked gently. ‘Because you no longer work with babies?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘I hope you are.’ And then, because he looked…lost? No, surely that was too strong a word for it, just a little bewildered, as if Superman’s world was a bit out of kilter and he didn’t know how to put it right. And she thought, Why not?
Why not? She really wanted to do this. She wouldn’t see this guy after today. What was the harm?
When she really, really wanted to do it. Fiona or not. What difference would a kiss make?
And before she could examine the thought any further, her hands came up to take his face and draw his mouth down to hers.
Only his mouth was already moving. To hers.
And for one long, sweet moment sanity flew out the window.
There was nothing sensible about kissing Maggie. There was nothing planned. He only knew that her lips were on his, that his hands were on her waist, drawing her into him, feeling a blast of want and need so great it threatened…
Well, it didn’t threaten. It simply did. Did remove sanity. Did remove acknowledgement of how crazy this was, how inappropriate, how stupid.
Nothing mattered but the surety that he was kissing her.
She tasted of honey. Honey, he thought, and had a flash of recall, hours ago, sharing toast and honey. It must have stayed. Or maybe honey always clung to this woman.
As did sweetness.
As did heat.
For heat was what he was feeling-heat surging through the linking of their mouths, through the fire he felt in his hands at her waist, through the way her body curved and clung as her lips parted to welcome him into her. She was aching for him to deepen the kiss, showing a need that was at least as great as his own.
Did he need her?
That was a crazy thought, too, for of course he didn’t need her. He never could need. To expose himself to that sort of pain…No!
So he’d leave this afternoon and never come back. She’d get on with her own life and he’d get on with his. But strangely, unaccountably it made his immediate need even greater. Knowing that this might be the only time-this would be the only time-that he could hold her in his arms and let desire hold sway.
She was so lovely-achingly lovely. She was simply dressed in pregnancy jeans and windcheater, she was battered and tired and very pregnant-yet lovely had been one of the first things he’d thought when he’d seen her, and he thought it again now.
Her body was all soft curves. Her pregnant belly moulded against him and he found himself curving to accommodate it. A man taking his woman unto him.
He was deepening the kiss-deepening, deepening, deepening, until all he felt was her and all he knew was her, and the rest of the world could float away for all he cared.
Only, of course, it didn’t. It couldn’t. The woman on the veranda was clearly not amused at being kept waiting. She’d walked down to meet them. She’d stopped four feet away from them and coughed, a cough that said this wasn’t appropriate, she could understand sympathy this morning but she couldn’t understand passion.
Dammit. He felt Maggie shift in his arms, withdraw, become conscious again of her surroundings, and he wanted to shout ‘No’ and tug her closer, but the woman coughed again and he wanted to strangle her.
Reluctantly, achingly, he let Maggie pull away, then stood, holding her at arm’s length, gazing
down at her bewildered eyes. Her mouth was lush and full, her lips just kissed…
But behind them the woman was looking confused.
‘Dr Croft?’ she said.
‘That’s me,’ Maggie said, and there was a definite shake to her voice. ‘I’m sorry I’ve kept you waiting. ‘Dr Ashton was just kissing me goodbye.’
Goodbye.
The word stung-but that’s what this was. For one long moment he teetered, a part of him wanting to say, no, it’s not goodbye, this is just the beginning. But then Archibald-or was it Ernestine?-kicked, and Maggie glanced ruefully at her abdomen and so did Max. And there was her baby between them.
Reality slammed back, and remembered pain. No. He wasn’t ready for this. He’d never be ready. Exposing himself to the pain he’d felt six years ago…No and no and no.
Where to go from here?
Nowhere.
To leave seemed impossible. To leave seemed like leaving part of himself behind.
‘Fiona’s waiting,’ Maggie said. ‘I’m sorry about the kiss. You don’t have to tell her.’
‘Fiona’s not-’
‘Max, just go,’ she said, and her voice was really trembling. ‘Please. I can cope myself. I will be fine. I’ll be better if you go.’
‘I don’t want to leave you.’
‘You must,’ she said gently. ‘You have your world and I have mine.’ Her chin jutted a little and she forced herself to smile. ‘You go and get back to your life. But thank you for being wonderful. My hero.’
She hesitated for a moment, then lightly stood on tiptoe and kissed him again. Only this time it was different. It was a fleeting, final kiss of farewell.
And then, very deliberately, she turned her back on him. She nodded decisively to the woman waiting. ‘Let’s go inside. I’ve kept you waiting long enough.’
She made her way slowly on her crutches up to the veranda and he watched her go and she didn’t turn back once.
Max was free to go.
She didn’t look back. If she had she would have wept. As it was, the woman from the undertaker kept giving her odd glances.
This was a small community. It’d be all over town by nightfall that she’d kissed a stranger-that Dr Maggie had a love life.
City Surgeon, Small Town Miracle Page 8
