Rescue at Cradle Lake

by Marion Lennox

  He’d been so close to toppling over.

  Once when he’d been a young intern in a busy emergency room, an ancient lady had suffered a cardiac arrest on his shift. He’d done what he’d been trained to do. He’d called for the crash cart, he’d applied the defibrillator, he’d worked on her hard for fifteen minutes-and he’d got her back. It had felt great.

  But two days later he’d visited her in the ward and when she’d realised who he was she’d hurled her bowl of hospital broth at him with more force than such a woman could reasonably have been expected to possess.

  ‘I was ready,’ she’d hissed. ‘They’ve all gone before me. My husband. My friends. Two of my children. They were waiting and I was ready and you hauled me back. For what? What, young man? What?’

  It had been a salutary lesson, and now he made a huge effort to learn which of his patients would elect to give the order ‘not for resuscitation.’

  Which should have no bearing on how he was feeling now, he thought dryly, but it did. He’d lain with Ginny in his arms and he’d felt so close to declaring himself in love. He’d gone so close to tumbling into the whole relationship thing again and now that he’d been pulled back…

  Now that he’d been pulled back he was feeling sick and empty. Maybe…just maybe loving again wouldn’t be so bad.

  Just Ginny, he told himself hastily in case his mind should get any funny ideas about taking it further. Maybe Ginny and I could have some sort of relationship. The thought of holding her again, of lying with her, of burying his body in hers, was infinitely appealing. And Ginny didn’t want attachments. She wouldn’t want children. They could be a career couple, carefully independent but meeting somewhere…

  Meeting where? In marriage?

  His mind closed on the idea-but then the thought of Ginny rose up before him. He let the image stay and the more he let it drift in his mind the more seductive the image grew.

  ‘Just Ginny,’ he said into the darkness. ‘If she’ll have me. If she’ll let some of her precious independence go. Not that I want her to be dependent…’

  What did he want?

  And the answer came back.

  He wanted Ginny.

  His cellphone rang again and he clicked through to the speaker on his truck console.

  ‘You on your way, Doc?’ It was Clive Horace, sounding anxious. ‘Stephanie’s just chucked again and that makes it five times since midnight. Won’t she be getting dehydrated?’

  Yeah, Fergus thought, shoving away the image of the seductive Ginny until he had more time to focus. Stephanie would. He needed to concentrate on medicine.

  Ginny would have to wait.

  But not very long, he told himself fiercely. She was still at the boatshed, lying sleepily in her cocoon of ancient blankets.

  Maybe if he was fast…

  He wouldn’t be fast. If Stephanie had vomited five times since midnight, she’d probably need to be admitted.

  Medicine was for now.

  Ginny was for tomorrow.

  Their paths didn’t cross in the morning. Ginny came into the hospital early and spent two hours running a prenatal clinic she’d organised. She’d done it simply by putting a notice in the window of the general store.

  “If you’re pregnant and would like your check-ups done here instead of Bowra, come along on Tuesday morning.”

  The obstetrician in Bowra was delighted to have pressure taken off what was a vast workload, and Ginny ended up with twelve ladies to see. She did the antenatal checks but it ended up as an impromptu get-together of Cradle Lake’s prospective mums-something just as valuable as any medical advice she could have given.

  Fergus came in at the end, but Ginny had just left.

  ‘She’s left us to natter,’ one of the ladies-a woman who by the look of her was planning on delivering her entire family in one hit-told him. ‘Oh, but she’s lovely. We were just telling her that when you leave we’ll try to persuade her to stay, and she didn’t say no. Wouldn’t that be fantastic?’

  Fantastic?

  Fergus frowned. Richard didn’t have long left. Ginny would leave straight away-he was certain of that. She’d organise Madison’s adoption and then head back to the city.

  Which was where their relationship could maybe become something they could take seriously. Maybe they could take a step or two toward permanence.

  Hell, it had been a one-night stand so far, he told himself, startling himself with where his thoughts were going. He’d made love to a woman who’d made him feel alive again, and it had started him thinking that maybe he didn’t need to cut himself right off from the world.

  Fine. But one step at a time. If it worked out…

  It had to work out.

  No, it didn’t, he told himself, saying farewell to the happy cluster of mums-to-be and striding out to the truck to take a quick ride out to see Richard. He’d promised to drop in on Richard this morning and it was almost lunchtime.

  And Ginny would be there.

  There was no reason at all for his steps to quicken as he strode out of the hospital toward…

  Toward Ginny?

  His steps definitely quickened.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THERE were dogs at Ginny’s farmhouse.

  Fergus pulled into the yard and he could see things had changed. There was a fenced-off area to one side of the veranda, a temporary construction of chicken wire and garden stakes.

  There were three dogs inside the pen and Ginny was sitting in the middle of them.

  Up on the veranda sat Madison. Every time he’d come she’d been sitting lethargic and uninterested. Now she was sitting on the top step, watching with what seemed almost eagerness.

  Richard was still in bed. He was getting weaker by the day and it was too much to expect him to get up now, but Tony had hauled his bed around so that he, too, could watch. Tony was sitting on the end of the bed, overseeing the entire proceedings.

  This was some strange hospital.

  ‘You’re going to have to be polite if you want some hot dog,’ Ginny was saying, and he hauled his attention back to her without any effort at all. ‘Sit.’

  What was she doing?

  Three dogs. Three disreputable mutts. One looked like some sort of whippet, long, rangy and lean. There was a black and white border collie with a little bit of kelpie thrown in for good measure, and there was a little dog, a wiry-looking terrier who looked sharply intelligent. It was this dog Ginny was addressing. The other two were already seated, waiting expectantly.

  While he watched, the little dog gave a tentative yap.

  ‘Your friends are waiting,’ Ginny said. ‘You sit and you all get a bit of hot dog. Sit, sir.’

  ‘Yap.’

  ‘You heard what I said.’

  The dog stood four square and looked at Ginny. Ginny sat on the grass and eyeballed the dog straight back.

  ‘You want the hot dog? Then sit.’ She raised the hot dog over the little dog’s head so it was forced to look up. She pressed the dog’s chest very gently.

  The dog sat.

  ‘Well done,’ she said, and beamed, and handed out three pieces of hot dog.

  From the veranda came the sound of clapping. Fierce clapping from Tony. Faint clapping from Richard. And-amazingly-an even fainter clapping from Madison.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he demanded, and all eyes swivelled to Fergus. The dogs reacted with startled aggression, hurling themselves against the chicken wire.

  ‘Hey,’ Ginny said. ‘Manners. You want more hot dog? Quiet!’

  Her last word was a roar. Three tails went between six back legs. ‘Sit,’ she said, and beamed as they sat. She promptly distributed more hot dog.

  ‘They’re Oscar’s dogs,’ he said on a note of discovery, and she grinned and climbed over the chicken wire.

  ‘I knew you were clever.’

  ‘Why are Oscar’s dogs here?’

  ‘Ginny always was fabulous with dogs,’ Richard managed, giving his sister a faint smile. />
  She bounded up the veranda steps, three at a time, reached the bed and gave her brother a hug.

  ‘I still am. I still will be. Weren’t they great?’

  ‘My daddy likes dogs,’ Madison said cautiously, and Richard smiled at his daughter.

  ‘Your daddy certainly does.’ He had to stop there-energy was fading as they watched-but some sort of link had definitely been made, Fergus thought. My daddy… Things had happened since he’d been here last.

  ‘Oscar had six dogs,’ he said, feeling his way.

  Ginny plumped down on the step beside Madison and hauled her in so they were linked hard, side by side.

  ‘These are the good dogs. The others had to go to a home for bad dogs.’

  Fergus stared at the dogs. He stared at Richard and then at Ginny and Madison. Then he turned to the nurse on duty. ‘Do you know what’s going on?’

  ‘You know Oscar’s agreed to stay in the nursing home?’ Tony asked, and Fergus nodded.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘The council ranger called at the place yesterday,’ Tony told him. ‘Ginny’s been feeding the dogs and caring for the stock in general. One of the neighbouring farmers has agreed to take on the sheep until things are sorted out but no one wants the dogs. Oscar’s said he doesn’t care, so the ranger told Ginny yesterday that he’d take them to…’ He hesitated and glanced at Madison. ‘To the dogs’ home.’

  ‘Right,’ Fergus said, still feeling his way. He looked at the way Ginny was hugging Madison and he thought, She’s changed. Something’s definitely changed.

  Was it the way he thought about Ginny?

  Sure, that had changed, but there was more. Until yesterday Ginny had treated Madison with kindness. She’d held her at the funeral. She’d treated her feet, she’d told her stories, she’d done the physical caring, but there’d been that tiny distancing. A professional distancing, he’d thought.

  Today there was no such distance. Today she was hugging Madison as if she meant it.

  ‘I went over this morning,’ Ginny told him, still hugging Madison. ‘On the way back from…where I’d been. I knew the whippet-or sort of. Years ago, when we left our farm, Oscar took over our two dogs. He always liked a dog pack, even if he never trained them, and back then when I was a teenager it was either leave our dogs with Oscar or have them put down. The social worker who…who took me away said I didn’t have a choice.’ She gestured down to the whippet in the pen. ‘I’m guessing this one’s related. Anyway, I ran them all through their paces.’

  ‘Paces?’

  He still sounded cautious, he thought, but it behoved him to be cautious. He’d come out here with plans for himself which just might include Ginny. But suddenly Ginny’s side of the equation didn’t look quite as uncomplicated as it had last night.

  ‘I fed them and took their food away halfway through their meal,’ she said. ‘I’d fed them last night so they weren’t all that hungry but, despite that, three of them tried to bite me. The other three looked at me like I was being mean but they let me do it. That was test one. I sat down with them for an hour and at the end of the hour I had the three non-biters on my knee, all telling me they were prepared to be devoted. The other three took themselves off to the other side of the yard and refused to be friendly.’

  ‘She’d gone over prepared to take on the whippet,’ Richard whispered into the silence. ‘Trust our Ginny to bring back three. Her heart’s bigger than the Titanic. Only it’s different. It’s unsinkable.’

  He subsided. Fergus glanced at him, concerned, and gestured Tony to adjust the oxygen flow. Tony gave an almost imperceptible shrug, which told him a hundred per cent oxygen was already running.

  Richard’s time was fast running out. Maybe a week, Fergus thought. Maybe less. He looked back at Ginny and saw the wash of pain cross her face. He knew that his diagnosis had found concurrence.

  ‘Is there anything you need?’ he asked softly, but he was asking the question more of Tony than of Richard. Richard had slumped into sleep. Soon his sleep would be more than that.

  ‘Things are fine,’ Ginny whispered, tugging Madison up onto her knee and burying her face in her hair. ‘Your daddy’s sick but he’s not hurting, is he, love? He’s gone to sleep now. Soon he’ll sleep all the time.’

  ‘My daddy and mummy are going to be together,’ Madison whispered, so softly that Fergus had to stoop to hear her. ‘But Ginny and the puppies will look after me.’

  What…? Fergus stared down at Ginny as if she’d taken leave of her senses. ‘What are you saying?’ he asked, and she gave him a rueful smile.

  ‘What I ought to have been saying two weeks ago. The heart expands to fit all comers.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I went to Oscar’s to get a dog,’ she said. ‘One dog. Only two other dogs put their heads on my knee and I thought, OK, I can fit three dogs into my life.’

  ‘In your hospital apartment?’

  ‘Things might have to change.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I think I might make a cup of tea,’ Tony announced into an atmosphere that was suddenly charged. ‘Does anyone else want a cup of tea?’

  ‘I’d love one,’ Ginny told him, and gave him a grateful smile.

  ‘You want to come with me?’ Tony asked Madison. ‘There’s cookies with smiley faces in the biscuit barrel.’

  ‘You’ve been making cookies?’ Fergus was so astounded that he almost barked the question, and Madison flinched at the unexpected noise. He winced. ‘Sorry,’ he told the little girl. ‘I didn’t know your… I didn’t know Ginny knew how to make cookies.’

  ‘I don’t,’ Ginny agreed. ‘One of the neighbours brought over a bunch of baking. But I might learn.’

  ‘You might learn.’ He stood, feeling winded, while Tony gathered Madison up and carried her into the house. Richard had seemingly drifted into a deep, untroubled sleep. There was suddenly only Fergus and Ginny.

  And the future?

  Ginny was silent. Fergus hesitated, then sat on the step beside Ginny and stared out over the yard. The dogs had slumped into a pile of canine contentment in the shade of a cotoneaster. Ginny looked as if she was watching them.

  Maybe she was, but who knew what she was seeing?

  They remained silent for a couple of minutes. Ginny didn’t seem inclined to talk and Fergus was struggling to find the right words. He didn’t know the right words.

  ‘Ginny…’ he said softly at last, and she nodded.

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘Last night was fantastic.’

  ‘It was, wasn’t it?’ she agreed, and there was a note of smugness in her voice that had him taken aback.

  ‘You agree?’

  ‘Mind-blowing sex,’ she said in satisfaction. ‘If I’d known that was what I’d needed to jolt me out of my misery, I’d have had it years ago. Mind, it’s a bit hard to find. Mind-blowing sex, that is.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ he said faintly.

  ‘You don’t know how hard it is to find? You haven’t been looking?’

  ‘Ginny…’

  Her smile faded. ‘It was fantastic,’ she said softly. ‘And not just the sex. Thank you, Fergus.’

  ‘You’re thanking me?’

  ‘I surely am.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For jolting me.’

  ‘I thought…what we had…it was more a joining than a jolting,’ he said, cautious again.

  She thought about that, considering it from all sides. ‘You mean, joining in more than a sexual way?’

  ‘I haven’t always been celibate in the six years since my wife left,’ he told her. ‘But last night was different.’

  ‘Mind-blowing.’ The smugness was back.

  He smiled, but persevered. ‘Ginny, you and I could have something special. We do have something special. I feel it.’

  ‘As in?’ she whispered.

  He hesitated but it may as well be said. It was how he was feeling. ‘There’s no need for us to be alone,’ he sai
d. ‘Just because we’ve been wounded in the past.’

  ‘No,’ she whispered. She stared out at the dogs, but the dogs were doing nothing, going nowhere. ‘I figured that last night. I’d always thought…well, you know I’m a carrier for cystic fibrosis.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean you’ll have children with cystic fibrosis.’

  ‘No,’ she agreed. Her tone was blank, almost businesslike. ‘That would only happen if my partner is also a carrier. But even if my partner was free, I still have a fifty per cent chance of passing on carrier status to a child.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So this damnable disease would live on through me. I’ve always sworn that will never happen.’

  That was fine as far as it went, he thought. He nodded. ‘There’s life without children.’

  ‘There is,’ she said, and her voice softened. ‘You’d know that all too well.’

  ‘We could make it happen.’ He couldn’t stop the urgency entering his voice. He’d seen a glimpse of an escape-a sliver of something that might be a way of life he could embrace. A beautiful woman, smart and funny, a professional colleague with a life of her own. Someone who’d make him smile, who’d lie in his arms at night and take the emptiness away.

  ‘I’m keeping the dogs,’ she said, and his vision took a back step.

  ‘That’s crazy.’

  ‘What’s crazy about giving dogs a home?’

  ‘We’d never be able to keep them.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘If you and I…’

  ‘Fergus…’

  ‘I’m just thinking, Ginny,’ he said. ‘I… Last night… You and I… For the first time since my wife left I thought that I might have met someone I could make a future with.’ He lifted her hand, linking her fingers through his. ‘Ginny, it was, as you said, mind-blowing. It made me think that maybe we could make something for ourselves. Be selfish. Just…put away the pain and create a partnership that would edge out the darkness.’

  ‘Forget the darkness?’ she whispered. ‘How can we forget?’

  ‘Block it out.’

  ‘You can’t do that,’ she said softly. ‘I’ve been running for years and it doesn’t work. That’s what I figured last night. I lay there after you left and I stared at the darkness and I thought the way I’ve been trying to block out the pain is by pretending to be someone I’m not. And I can’t do that. I’ve been trying but it doesn’t work. I’m just me. Ginny. And I need people. You made me see that last night.’