by Rebecca Lang
“Cold?”
Dan put an arm around her, drawing her shoulder against his.
“Mmm,” she said, her heart giving an unexpected lurch as she reluctantly felt the pull of his attraction. “And thinking of the long walk back.” What on earth am I doing here…with him? she asked herself furiously. It was as though her mind and body had become split, and her body was responding to its own urgent needs, getting the better of her.
Again Dan sighed, putting his head back against the rough bark of the tree trunk, closing his eyes. Signy glanced at his profile, his face so close to hers. Without moving, or opening his eyes, he said softly, “Signy, I want to kiss you…I want to hold you in my arms.”
Dear Reader,
For Challenging Dr. Blake I needed a retreat for my characters, and what better place than a small island off the coast of British Columbia, with its pristine forests, wilderness and mountains.
The people who work quietly, courageously, usually anonymously, behind the scenes to try to make the world a better place inspired me. They risk life and health to bring their professional skills to areas of the world in dire need of it.
Dr. Blake is unassuming and clever, a modest yet decisive man, who has largely put his personal life on hold—until he meets Signy Clover. Signy thinks of herself as ordinary, but nevertheless feels compelled, as he does, to take her skills where they will be needed most. He and she have to deal with the often incompatible pulls between demanding work and the need for a personal life that includes intimate relationships.
I admire individuals who juggle these needs and priorities. There are plenty of them, although their qualities are not common, the unsung heroes of our world who seem all the more remarkable in times of difficulty and mayhem. Basically, they are good people who have the courage of their convictions.
Signy and Dan have the courage, also, to recognize love, to welcome it with both hands; it is a precious gift that brings a much needed balance to their lives. They know they are lucky to find it and they cannot take it for granted.
This is their story.
Rebecca Lang
Challenging Dr. Blake
Rebecca Lang
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER ONE
THE first thing she really noticed about the man she had come to meet, after the initial quick assessment, was that he had a broken nose. That is, he had at one time had a broken nose. The second thing she noticed was that in spite of the nose—or perhaps because of it—he was attractive.
Signy Clover averted her gaze, shifted her attention away from the two men who stood a few yards away from her, intent on their conversation. The view was spectacular from where she stood outside the small, private air terminus building. It was here that the float planes took off from Vancouver to some local destinations, along the coastline and to the various islands off the coast.
In front of her was the wide sheltered bay that led out to the Pacific Ocean, while to her right, to the north, were the mountains, those belonging to the coastal range, not the Rockies, so she had read. Even though she was tired and jet-lagged, Signy felt a rare thrill as she looked at them. The feeling of pleasure came as a welcome surprise. For a while she had thought that she might never be able to experience any sort of joy again or, at least, not for a long time. Her time in Africa seemed to have squeezed all capacity for pleasure out of her.
Below those mountains, below the densely forested areas of the lower slopes, as well as behind her, were the high-rise buildings of the city. Slowly she looked around her, marvelling at everything that was so new to her. Over to her left, on the other side of the wide bay, were hills that were covered with pale houses and vegetation in various shades of green, small in the distance.
The air was very clear, with a limpid quality to it that made objects seem closer than they were, like the float plane that was coming across the bay to touch down in the water. It seemed to move on the breeze, not powered at all, as it came slowly downwards to the blue water, like a toy, glowing white in the sunshine. Signy felt as though she could reach out and touch it.
The climate wasn’t always like this, so she had read in the training manual that had been sent to her before she had left England. Thick cloud could come down in a matter of moments, obscuring the mountains, the high-rise buildings of the downtown area, the freighters anchored out in the bay.
The two men appeared to be winding up their conversation, moving away from each other, so Signy’s attention was brought back to them, particularly to the man she had come to meet, the one with the broken nose. After lifting a laconic arm in farewell to the other man, he turned his attention to her, walking over to her where she stood on an expanse of concrete, surrounded by her few pieces of luggage. A taxi had deposited her there minutes before.
‘That’s him over there,’ the receptionist had informed her when she had enquired for Dan Blake at the squat, rather ramshackle terminus building with the flat roof. ‘He’s the tall one with the fair hair.’ Since then she had waited for him to finish his conversation, knowing that he had seen her and was expecting her.
‘You must be either Signy Glover,’ he said, coming to a stop about two feet away from her, ‘or Terri Carpenter. With World Aid Nurses?’ He had a pleasant voice, low and slightly clipped, a mixture, she thought, of English and Canadian accents.
Close up he looked a little older than she had at first thought him to be. There were fine lines fanning out from the corners of his grey-blue eyes as he squinted at her against the sun, lines of tiredness and exposure to the elements, she thought. He spoke slightly out of the corner of his mouth, like an actor in a gangster movie or a Western—the bad guy. Not my type, she found herself thinking cynically as they appraised each other quickly. Just as well, because I don’t want to get involved with any man, in any way, during this training and rest period. Dan Blake, she felt, was one man she could rule out in the crush stakes. Often in tense work situations it was only too easy to develop strong emotional bonds with someone, bonds which often did not hold up when the context changed. Nonetheless, she felt slightly nonplussed under his open and frank assessment.
All in all, she hadn’t been very lucky with men in her life so far, which wasn’t really saying much as she was only in her mid-twenties, but from time to time she felt a poignant angst that she no longer had a man to love, or to love her. Sometimes in quiet moments she felt the ticking of the internal clock.
For all she knew, Dan Blake might be married, with three or four children in tow. Somehow she didn’t think so, though. There was something about the way he looked at her, a very masculine perusal of controlled interest…
‘Clover,’ she said, ‘not Glover. I’m Signy Clover.’
‘As in the flower?’ he said, raising eyebrows that were dark in contrast to the straight fair hair that flopped to one side over his forehead. The hair didn’t make him look boyish, as it might have done on someone else. To her he looked completely adult, very experienced, hard, not a man to be crossed, she suspected.
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Hey, that’s cute,’ he said, his very masculine mouth twisting slightly in a wry grin.
Signy thought that perhaps he was being a little sarcastic, and decided that she didn’t like him. Maybe I’m being paranoid, she told herself uncertainly. These days she didn’t always trust her own judgement where people were concerned. Usually she didn’t prejudge people, preferring to give them many chances, to give them the benefit of the doubt at first until they either proved
themselves worthy, or confirmed her thoughts. Anyway, she didn’t have to like him. When this four-month retreat and training period was over she would almost certainly never see this man again.
‘I’m Dan Blake,’ he said, holding out a hand to her, then gripping hers firmly. ‘Welcome to Canada and to British Columbia. Sorry to have kept you waiting. I’m trying to organize about half a dozen things at once. I’m going to be flying you and Ms Carpenter—when she shows up—to the island.’
‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘It gave me a chance to look at the scenery.’
‘Let’s get ourselves a cup of coffee while we wait for Ms Carpenter,’ he said, lifting up her two larger bags effortlessly, leaving the small carry-on bag for her.
Under a calm exterior, Signy hid a nervous excitement as she followed him the few yards to the building. She was a long way from home, she knew no one in this country and she was haunted by memories of recent work experience that hadn’t been pleasant. This man she was with knew something about her past, she suspected, if he was with the organization, while she knew almost nothing about him. This imbalance left her feeling a little on edge, somehow at a disadvantage, defensive. She wasn’t sure at this point what position he held.
‘You haven’t been with World Aid Nurses very long, have you?’ he said.
‘No,’ she confirmed. If only he knew how green she’d been when she’d signed on with the organization in London, after she had broken up with Simon. Then she had wanted to get out of the country quickly, to have a change of scene, and had requested to go to Africa. London had become poignant with memories. They had trained her quickly and sent her out, taking her at her word. Her life had taken a complete about-face, from living cosily, obliviously, with the man she loved, going to work every day to a job she enjoyed in a teaching hospital, to a place where nothing could be taken for granted other than the fact of one’s mortality. She wasn’t about to tell this man, Dan Blake, how naïve she had been, how shattered by what she had witnessed there.
‘So you’re from England?’ he said, elbowing open the door for them.
‘Yes,’ Signy said, following him into a utilitarian, all-purpose room. As she glanced around her quickly, she could see that it was part reception, part waiting room, freight office, and area of relaxation for staff.
‘Hi, Dan. Good to see you,’ several people called to him, passing through, while he raised a casual arm to them in greeting.
Perhaps this guy was the embodiment of the term ‘laid back’, Signy thought, grinning to herself. The observation made her wonder, and hope, that perhaps her sense of humour was finally coming back, having thought over the past six months that she had lost it for ever. Once again she pushed those nagging memories and images from the forefront of her mind, where she didn’t want them to intrude during the day. It was bad enough that they plagued her nights…
‘We can leave the bags here,’ he said, putting them down by the door.
Signy followed him over to the corner of the room where two coffee-urns were set up on a utilitarian table, together with several trays of doughnuts and biscuits. Surreptitiously she eyed Dan Blake as he led the way, noting that he was very thin, albeit hard and muscular, as though he had, perhaps, been ill and lost weight. The light khaki-coloured trousers that he wore hung on him loosely, as did the shirt with the sleeves rolled up. As though to belie this observation, the thinness was contrasted by the tanned skin of his face and arms.
‘Help yourself to coffee, Signy,’ he said. ‘May I call you that?’
‘Yes…please,’ she said, softening a little towards him, warmed by his politeness. These days most men left her indifferent, as though her experiences in Africa, her failed loves, had wrung her out emotionally, had used up all her reserves. She didn’t pretend that she could understand it; for now, she was just going to go with the moment.
‘And I assume I can call you Dan?’ she asked.
‘Sure,’ he said, as he helped himself to coffee. ‘When did you get in from England?’
‘I came in yesterday,’ she said, recalling the long flight from London, after which she had recuperated in a downtown hotel. ‘I really needed that night’s sleep.’
‘I’m sure you did,’ he said, watching her as she helped herself to coffee. With a quick flick of his wrist he looked at his watch and added, ‘I trust that Ms Carpenter won’t keep us waiting much longer.’
‘I’m not sure exactly who you are,’ Signy said apologetically. ‘Are you our pilot? I was originally expecting a Dr Max Seaton…although I didn’t know exactly where I’d be meeting him. Then there was a message at the hotel to say that I would be meeting you.’
‘I’m the pilot this time,’ he said, his shrewd blue-grey eyes going over her features. ‘I’m also one of the medical guys who will be on Kelp Island, some of the time, with your group.’
‘Oh…you’re Dr Blake?’
He nodded. ‘Yes. You’ll be meeting Max Seaton later. Maybe he’s already on the island, I don’t know. We should all be there by lunchtime. As I expect you know, we’ll be using this weekend for rest and orientation to the surroundings.’
Signy digested this information, having taken him for something other than a medical man. Perhaps it was the broken nose, and the absence of any apparent ego that had made her jump to that conclusion. There was also something in his manner that hinted at a certain antipathy to Dr Max Seaton. Having worked for years with many different people of all types, in a wide variety of settings, she had become adept at picking up nuances and vibes from people, reading between the lines. She sensed that Dan could do the same.
‘We have at least a couple of things in common,’ he said. ‘I have an English mother…spent some of my childhood and schooling in Devon, where we still have a home. My father’s Canadian, which is why I’m in this part of the world. The other thing is that I was also in Africa.’
Something seemed to click into place with Signy. She’d had a sense that he’d been there, from the thinness, the ingrained, yellowish tan, the aura of exhaustion not quite left behind. Those were all the things that she had experienced, and a lot more besides.
‘With World Aid Doctors?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Do you work with them all the time?’
‘No, just once in a while, when they need me. I’m a working doctor here. I have to earn a living, maintain commitments here.’
‘I see,’ she said politely, knowing that most doctors who worked with World Aid Doctors did a certain number of weeks a year in their vacation time from regular jobs, or on leave of absence, to go where they were needed around the world. Others stayed longer, those who hadn’t settled on a permanent career pattern.
‘Did you get involved in any wars in Somalia?’ he asked.
‘Not directly,’ Signy said, hesitating, reluctant to talk about it now while outside the sun was shining with a pleasant, bearable heat, the ocean was very blue, the sky the same. It all felt very benign and safe, and she wanted to savour that. ‘We did have some…trouble, which meant that we had to…um…get out in a hurry.’ What an understatement that was, she thought with the usual pangs of regret and bitterness that came flooding back to disturb her spurious calm. ‘Otherwise…it was mostly disease, malnutrition and starvation.’
Dan was aware of her reluctance as he looked at her discerningly, his eyes narrowing slightly as he took in her stiff features, as though he was aware of the effort it took her to keep her equilibrium. Then he shifted his gaze through a window that looked out over the area where he had just greeted her. ‘Ah!’ he said. ‘It looks as though the tardy Ms Carpenter has just arrived. Excuse me.’
As Signy stood, sipping coffee, glad that they had been interrupted and watching out of the window, he strode out to meet a young woman who was just scrambling from a taxi, dropping bags as she came. The taxi driver unloaded more bags. This must be Terri Carpenter, Signy surmised as she watched a tall, slim, blonde young woman with very short spiky hair gath
er her bags around her then turn to shake hands with Dan. She would be one of the other nurses with the organization who would be sharing the retreat-cum-training session with her on Kelp Island.
It was a very small island off the coast of British Columbia which had once been a military base, so Signy had read in the information that had been sent to her. In fact, World Aid Nurses and World Aid Doctors were using the buildings of this now disused base, which had been built during the Second World War and added to since. Signy expected the accommodation to be somewhat spartan but comfortable, with the necessary amenities of modern living.
She finished her coffee and went outside, shifting her baggage with her, one bag at a time. As she went through the motions automatically, she was aware of her own vulnerability, of feelings that had been stirred up by this man’s questions.
Dan Blake—Dr Blake—had seemed anxious to get going, so she didn’t want to be the one to hold him up now. She found that she was having difficulty in thinking of him as a doctor. Not that she had a stereotyped view of what a doctor should be like, she told herself. It was just that he looked like someone who made his living out of doors. He also had that unassuming air that she found slightly disconcerting, she wasn’t sure why.
In her experience so far, many doctors had at least a touch of arrogance, although World Aid Doctors tended to differ somewhat from the common mould. Perhaps some doctors were arrogant because they were making life-and-death decisions for other people, taking the initiative away from those people. Some of the best doctors she had known had acquired a degree of humility over the years, conscious that they could make and break lives, could make mistakes that could have dire consequences.
She sighed, once again pushing down images and memories that haunted her. With determination, she looked at the blue sky, the haze that hung over the water, the green mountains.
‘Meet Terri Carpenter,’ Dan Blake said to her when they came over.
