City Surgeon, Small Town Miracle / Bachelor Dad, Girl Next Door

by Marion Lennox / Sharon Archer

  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.

  She didn’t have a love life. She’d kissed him and it was entirely inappropriate. He had a girlfriend. What was she thinking?

  She was grief stricken, she decided as she let the two undertakers into the house. Of course she was. That was it. Anything could be excused on the basis of shock and loss.

  She wasn’t herself. Tomorrow she’d wake up and be back to nice sensible Maggie, who knew her place and was properly horrified by today’s behaviour.

  Was he gone?

  It was so hard not to look back.

  He drove back to town to collect Fiona and the further he drove the worse he felt. He’d left Maggie alone with the undertakers. How would she cope?

  She’d cope magnificently. She was one magnificent woman.

  She was bereft, alone and hurt.

  She’d kissed him.

  There were so many conflicting emotions he didn’t know where to start sorting them into any sensible order. For, of course, there was no sensible order, and when he collected Fiona and she started talking serious clinical medicine, serious hospital politics and the difficulties of progressing up the hospital’s hierarchy, he was grateful.

  Medicine blocked out the white noise. He’d learned that when Alice died and he retreated back to it now.

  Only…when he arrived back to the hospital the white noise followed him, ready to descend at any sliver of opportunity. He worked until midnight, he did a session in the gym and confusion followed him to bed.

  Maggie, Maggie, Maggie.

  He’d organised her a locum. John seemed delighted at the chance to help, and he was having a tough time not shoving him aside to take the job himself. He was jealous?

  How stupid was that? Really stupid.

  But still he lay and stared at the ceiling until dawn.

  Maggie. Babies. Family.

  The whole heart thing.

  He could still feel Daniel in his arms. He could remember every wrinkle, every precious feature of his tiny son. He could remember the joy of being married to a woman he loved, but superimposed on that joy was aching, tearing loss.

  To open himself again to that sort of pain…

  No.

  So stay away.

  But the funeral…

  He could bear everything else, but the thought of Maggie at Betty’s funeral was too much. The thought of her standing at a graveside as once she’d stood at William’s grave, as he’d stood at Alice’s and Daniel’s…

  No.

  So…This last thing he’d do for her. He’d arrange work so he could go to the funeral. He’d stay well back—if possible she wouldn’t even see him. If she was surrounded by family and friends then he didn’t have to go near. If she saw him he was simply paying his respects, visiting John to see if things were working out, taking his car for a run.

  No harm there.

  The decision released a twist of pain in his gut and he closed his eyes in relief.

  But still he didn’t sleep.

  Maggie.

  CHAPTER SIX

  AS FUNERALS went it was a biggie. Betty had lived and worked in Yandilagong all her life, so even though it rained—sleet, in fact—half the population of the district turned out for the service.

  But as Betty’s only close family member, Maggie was left alone, regarded with deference and respect. When William had died, her friends and colleagues had surrounded her. No one in this community knew her well enough yet to think they had that right. So the undertaker’s assistant held an umbrella over her while she tossed roses down onto the coffin in the little graveyard overlooking the sea, and she felt more alone than she’d ever felt in her life.

  Angus hadn’t come. Of course not. He’d said his goodbyes the night his mother had died and that was that.

  He was okay, though, Maggie thought, for now he had two little girls intruding on his solitude. John, the locum Max had miraculously found, had been at the farm for three days now. It had taken John’s children—Sophie, six, and Paula five—about three minutes to find the calves and Bonnie. Angus was attached to them, so they attached themselves to Angus. Angus watched them with the same kind of wariness he used for anything he didn’t understand, but after only a day he decided they were just like the calves, not posing any threat to his personal space.

  Neither did their parents. John and Margaret seemed wary about sharing a house with Maggie, cautious of her privacy and carefully respectful. They were lovely people but they let her alone.

  But right now she didn’t want respectful isolation. She wanted to be hugged.

  It wasn’t going to happen.

  The ceremony was over. She turned away from the grave and the undertaker’s assistant left to bring the car close. People moved respectfully back from her. She looked bleakly out toward the road—and Max was coming towards her.

  He was dressed for a funeral, in a dark suit and tie, a magnificent, deep grey overcoat—cashmere?—and a vast, black umbrella. He looked absurdly handsome. He was moving toward her as others moved back.

  She was still on crutches. He waited until she reached him and then he smiled, that crinkly, tender smile that made her heart do back flips.

  ‘Why are you here?’ she asked, suddenly breathless.

  ‘I thought you might like me to be.’ He glanced around at the crowd, backed to a respectful distance. ‘I’m so sorry I’m late. I had an emergency at dawn that took a lot longer to sort than I expected, and I couldn’t leave halfway through. But now I’m here, can I help? Do you want a ride to the wake, or do you need to ride in the hearse?’

  ‘I don’t…I don’t…’

  ‘I’ve put my hood up,’ he said enticingly, and he sounded so eager she almost smiled.

  She did smile. It was so good to see him.

  And then he had his arm around her waist, tugging her against him so
she was under the shelter of his umbrella with him. She was wearing a raincoat with a hood. It hadn’t been working. Now she was held hard against him, protected from every quarter.

  It was so good to feel him.

  ‘I came via the farm,’ he told her as he ushered her into his lovely car. ‘John and Margaret told me where to find you.’

  He’d had the paintwork fixed, she noticed. She was glad. She really liked this car. Or maybe it was the way she felt about its owner.

  Maybe…maybe she should listen to what he was saying.

  ‘John thinks this place is great,’ he said, sliding in behind the wheel. Taking charge with smooth authority. ‘He can’t believe the medical set-up. I gather Margaret’s already talking about setting up a dental practice. You guys have done a lot of organising in three days.’

  He was deliberately making his voice practical. He must know instinctively that emotion was the last thing she needed now.

  Of course he knew. He’d been to funerals himself.

  ‘There’s work for half a dozen doctors in this district if I could ever get them to come,’ she said, struggling to come to terms with too many emotions and match his composure. That was what she needed—composure. No matter that the man beside her made her feel so breathless she was practically gasping.

  ‘No one wants to be the only doctor in a small town, because there’s no back-up,’ she managed. ‘To find John was a miracle. You want to wave your magic wand and produce more?’

  ‘I’m no magician.’

  ‘No.’ She paused. Maybe no was the wrong word. He felt like a magician. Her personal genie, appearing when she most needed him.

  ‘No family at all?’ he asked gently, looking back at the clusters of people dispersing into their cars, and his look acknowledged that she wasn’t a part of any cluster.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Surely there’s someone…even back in England…Someone who cares.’

  Hey, this was getting personal. What about composure?

  ‘I have lots of friends,’ she said, drumming up indignation, and he smiled.

  ‘I’m sure you do. But do you have any friends who might drop everything and race to the aid of a Maggie who needs them?’

  ‘I don’t need them,’ she said with dignity. ‘I…Thank you for coming, though.’

  ‘My pleasure.’ He hesitated. ‘If I’m welcome I thought I’d stay for the wake—or whatever you call it here. We’ve both done this,’ he added strongly, as she made to shake her head. ‘I’ve buried Alice and Daniel. You’ve buried William. This can’t be nearly as bad, but from what I remember it’s an endless process of standing, tepid tea in hand, thanking, thanking, thanking.’

  She couldn’t think what to say. She glanced across and saw in his eyes the recognition of shared pain.

  A funeral of an old lady should be a celebration of a life well lived—and this was—but it inevitably brought back memories of funerals that hadn’t been timely. Funerals where pain had been raw and deep.

  ‘You’ve got the whole day off?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ve rearranged things. I need to be back in Sydney tonight but I thought I could give you this day.’

  ‘Gee, thanks,’ she retorted before she could help herself, and his smile returned, deepening, making his grey eyes dance.

  ‘Noble’s my middle name and I’m addicted to tepid tea. You want to make use of me or you want me to go away?’

  What was he asking? Was he mad?

  Did she want to stand in the funeral parlour’s reception rooms, as he’d said, alone, drinking endless tea, receiving words of consolation from hundreds of people she didn’t know? Or did she want Max’s solid presence beside her? Just there if she needed him. There if she just wanted him.

  This was an extraordinary gesture. If he’d phoned last night and said ‘Should I come?’ she’d have said no, but he was here now. He was here and it’d take a stronger woman than she’d ever be to knock back his offer.

  ‘Yes, please,’ she said, in a rush before either of them could change their minds.

  He was offering his strength for a day and she’d take it.

  Secretly, she knew she’d take anything this man was prepared to give.

  It seemed, as he’d predicted, an endless day, and at the end of it, when everyone had gone, when the last neighbour had wrung the last bit of nostalgia from the occasion, Max drove her back to the farm.

  It was still raining. They drove along the long line of tractors and Maggie felt herself trying to work out a way she could make him stay longer.

  That wasn’t fair. She knew it. But…

  ‘Would you like to come in and have dinner?’ she asked as they pulled to a halt. ‘Margaret’s cooking for me as well tonight. I…I’m sure there’ll be enough to share.’

  ‘She already asked me,’ he said gently. ‘I refused.’

  ‘Oh.’

  His face grew suddenly grim. ‘Maggie, I don’t think I can ever go down the road I went with Alice. I can’t get involved again.’

  Well, that was blunt to say the least. ‘Involved?’ she said cautiously.

  ‘I think we both know what I mean.’

  Whoa. Suddenly things were going where they had no right to be going. At least he was being direct, but…

  ‘You’re thinking I’m on the catch for another husband,’ she whispered, and suddenly anger was there, surging whether she willed it or not. She did will it.

  He thought she was a victim, she thought suddenly, incensed by the knowledge. A passive, needy woman who might cling. A woman who’d kissed him the last time they’d met, whether he’d willed it or not, and he probably hadn’t willed it; he was probably just being kind. To a sex-starved widow, seven months pregnant with another man’s child.

  ‘I don’t think that,’ he started.

  ‘Just as well,’ she retorted. ‘So what about Fiona?’

  ‘Fiona?’

  ‘Your girlfriend.’

  ‘Fiona is my colleague. I don’t have a girlfriend. There’s been no one since Alice.’

  ‘How very noble,’ she snapped. ‘I hope Alice is up there polishing your halo, ready for you to join her.’

  ‘Look, it’s just that I can’t do relationships any more,’ he said, forcing out the words. Trying to explain something he didn’t fully understand himself. The impotence and the grief of not being able to help his lovely Alice, and the knowledge that such pain again would kill him. ‘It’s not fair to mess you around.’

  But Maggie wasn’t looking at him with sympathy, or with understanding.

  Whew. Anger was good here. Anger was great. It pushed away any embarrassment, gave her the words that needed to be said and the dignity to say them.

  ‘How can you be messing me around?’ she said, stiffly and coldly. ‘I kissed you—yes, I did kiss you, and very nice it was, too. Given half a chance I’d do it again. Only that’s all it was—a kiss—nothing to do with my life. And if you think I’m about to turn into some helpless, clinging female…’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘You didn’t need to.’ She gritted her teeth. ‘Thank you very much for today. It was very kind. You’ve been very kind to me all round, and if there’s any way I can repay you, please let me know. But I don’t need anything else. I’m sorry you can’t stay for dinner, because you know what? John and Margaret are fun and the kids are gorgeous and it would have made a grey day better. You might even have enjoyed it. But for anything else, forget it. Okay, enough. Thank you again.’ And she grabbed her crutches from the back and climbed out of the car.

  The rain was pelting down. He grabbed the umbrella and headed for her side of the car but she turned away from him.

  ‘No,’ she threw over her shoulder. ‘Go away. You don’t want to get involved and neither do I. And you never know when a desperate widow might change her mind, grab you by the hair and drag you into her lair before you can fight back. Get out of here, Max Ashton, and keep safe.’

  ‘I didn�
�t mean—’

  ‘Yes, you did,’ she retorted, and limped away fast through the tangle of garden. ‘Yes, you did,’ she yelled again. ‘Go find some other maiden to rescue. This one’s been rescued enough, so you need to move right on.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  SHE was right. He needed to move on.

  He didn’t hear from her for six weeks. He put her right from his mind. Or he tried to.

  Work was his salvation but he extended his operating schedule to the point where Anton, his anaesthetist, finally said cull it or find a second anaesthetist to share the load.

  ‘That break was supposed to do you good,’ he said morosely. ‘Instead you’ve come back ready to work the rest of us into the ground. You know what? We were hoping you and Fiona might have worked something out. You could both do with a love life.’

  ‘I don’t want a love life,’ he growled.

  ‘But you need one,’ Anton said bluntly. Anton had a wife, a three-year-old and one-year-old twins, he was permanently sleep deprived and he thought the rest of the world should join him in his glorious domestic muddle. ‘A good woman and half a dozen kids would take the edge off your energy and protect us all.’

  ‘You do the procreating for both of us,’ Max growled. ‘You’re good at it. I’m not.’

  ‘Practice, man. Just find the right lady. I’ll admit Fiona’s not perfect—I can’t see the chief radiologist of Sydney South having much time for diapers—but there must be someone to suit you somewhere.’

  There was, Max thought grimly. He’d found her. He just didn’t have the courage to take it further—to step into the abyss of commitment.

  So he’d stay clear of entanglement and he’d work.

  But like it or not, as he worked he realised he was feeling the same roller-coaster of emotions he had felt in the months after he’d lost Alice. There was an abyss in front of him, only he didn’t know where. If he put his foot down he wasn’t sure the ground would still be solid. The feeling left him even more sure that the only way forward was to keep right away from Maggie.