A Forever Family for the Army Doc

by Meredith Webber

  So much for taking charge!

  But as the tide rose and the water in their porpoise paddling pool grew deeper, he forgot about messy heads and wars and women, determined now to get this creature back into the deeper water where it belonged. He dug until his arms ached, pushing the sleeping bag beneath the heavy body, reaching for Izzy’s fingers, grasping towards his from the other side.

  By the time the water in the hole was knee deep they had their sleeping bag sling in place, each holding one side, lifting as the waves came in and easing the docile creature inch by inch into deeper water.

  ‘Look, he’s floating now,’ Izzy said, and Mac was surprised to realise the weight had gone from their sling.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said, feeling a surge of relief for the animal. ‘But just keep the bag underneath him. We need to roll him back and forth so he gets the feel of his body moving in the water. Well, I think that’s the idea. I just know when you catch, tag, and release a big fish, you have to ease it back and forth in the water until it swims away.’

  He pushed at the huge body and Izzy pushed back, the pair of them moving into deeper and deeper water until, with a splash of his tail, the rescued animal took off, diving beneath the surface and appearing, after an anxious few minutes, further out to sea.

  ‘He’s gone! We did it—we did it!’ Izzy yelled, leaping towards Mac and hugging him so the sloppy, wet sleeping bag she was still holding wrapped around him like a straitjacket and he sank beneath the waves.

  But once untangled and in shallower water, he returned the hug, the success of their endeavour breaking the reserve of strangers.

  He was beginning to enjoy the armful of woman and wet sleeping bag when Izzy eased away, hauling the sleeping bag out of the water and attempting to fold it.

  ‘I don’t usually hug str—’ she began, then frowned as if something far more important had entered her head.

  ‘Oh, I do hope he doesn’t come back,’ she said anxiously. ‘I hope the rest of the pod are somewhere out there looking for him and he can find them. Do you know that when a whole pod is beached, and rescued, they try to let them all go at once so they can look after each other?’

  Well, that got us over the awkwardness of the ‘stranger hug’.

  He’d have liked to reply, Not our problem, but now she’d mentioned it, he did feel a little anxious that the porpoise—their porpoise—would be all right.

  Nonsense—he wasn’t even certain porpoises swam in pods, and probably neither was she. The job was done and he needed to resume his walk—without his sleeping bag and without drinking water.

  Alone?

  ‘I don’t suppose you’d like to walk with me as far as Wetherby, or as far along the track as you’re going?’

  She looked up at him and he noticed surprise in the gold-flecked eyes.

  Noticed it because he’d felt it himself, even as he’d asked the question. Wasn’t he off women?

  Taking a sabbatical from all the emotional demands of a male-female relationship?

  Not that it mattered because she was already dismissing the idea.

  ‘Oh, no,’ she was saying—far too quickly, really. ‘I have to run. I’m just off nights and I’ve got to check my daughter’s ready for school on Monday and my sister’s up from Sydney for the weekend, and I think my brother might be in town—’

  ‘Okay, okay!’ he said, holding up his hands in surrender, then he smiled at the embarrassment in her face, and added, ‘Although in future you might like to remember something my mother once told me. Never give more than one excuse. More than one and it sounds as if you’re making them up on the spot.’

  ‘I was not! It’s all true.’

  Indignation coloured her cheeks and she turned to go, before swinging back to face him.

  ‘There’s a fresh water tap just a few hundred metres along the track; you can refill your bottle there.’

  After which she really did go, practically sprinting away from him along the track—

  For about twenty paces.

  ‘Oh, the sleeping bag,’ she said, pointing to the wet, red lump on the beach. ‘You can’t carry it wet, so hang it on a tree. I’ll be back this way in a day or two and collect it so it’s not littering the track, and if you tell me where you’ll be staying I’ll get you a new one.’

  Izzy was only too aware that most of her parting conversation with the stranger had been a blather of words that barely made sense, but she did need to get back, or at least away from this stranger so she could sort out just what it was about him that disturbed her.

  Had to be more than blue eyes and a hunky body—had to be!

  ‘I won’t be needing the sleeping bag.’

  The shouted words were cool, uninterested, so she muttered a heartfelt, ‘Good,’ and turned away again, breaking stride only to yell belated thanks over her shoulder. Duty done, she took off again at a fast jog, hoping she looked efficient and professional, instead of desperate to get away.

  By the time she slowed to cool down before reaching the car park, she’d decided that the silly connection she’d felt towards the man had been nothing more than the combined effects of night duty and gratitude that there had been someone to help her with the porpoise.

  Which, hopefully, would not re-beach himself the moment they were out of sight!

  * * *

  Mac resumed his walk with a lighter pack.

  But vague dissatisfaction disturbed the pleasure he’d been experiencing for the past three weeks. Maybe because his solitude had been broken by his interaction with the woman, and it had been the solitude he’d prized most. It was something that had been hard to come by in the army, even when his regiment had returned from overseas missions and he’d been working in the barracks.

  Strange that it had been the togetherness of army life, the company of other wives and somewhat forced camaraderie, that had appealed to Lauren—right up to his first posting overseas.

  ‘But you’re a doctor, not a soldier,’ she’d protested, although she’d seen other medical friends sent abroad. ‘What will happen to me if you die?’

  He could probably have handled it better than promising not to die, which he didn’t on his first mission. But by the second time he was posted to Afghanistan she’d stopped believing—stopped believing in him, and in their marriage—stopped believing in love, she told him later, while explaining that the excitement of an affair gave her a far bigger thrill than marriage could ever provide.

  On top of the disaster that had been his second deployment, this news had simply numbed him, somehow removing personal emotion from his life. He knew this didn’t show, and he had continued to be a competent—probably more than competent—caring doctor, a cheerful companion in the officers’ mess and a dutiful son to both his parents and whichever spouses they happened to have in their lives at the time.

  He’d always been reasonably sure that his parents’ divorce, when he was seven, hadn’t particularly affected him. He’d seen both regularly, lived with both at various times, got on well with his half-siblings, and had even helped them, at different times, when their particular set of parents had divorced. Walking the coastal path, he’d had time to reflect and had realised that perhaps it had been back then that he’d learned to shut his emotions away—tuck them into something like a memory box and get on with his life.

  Had this shut him away, prevented him from seeing and understanding what had probably been Lauren’s very real fear that first time he’d been sent abroad?

  She’d contacted him, Lauren, when she’d heard he was back this time—an email to which he hadn’t replied.

  He’d wondered if the thrills she’d spoken of had palled, but found he didn’t want to know—definitely didn’t want to find out. In fact, their brief courtship and three-year marriage seemed more like some fiction he’d r
ead long ago than actual reality.

  A dream—or maybe a nightmare...

  Not wanting his thoughts to slide back into the past where there were memories far worse than that particular nightmare, he shut the lid on his memory box and turned his thoughts to what lay ahead.

  Inevitably, to the golden girl—woman—who’d popped into his life like a genie from a bottle, then jogged right back out again.

  She must live in Wetherby, he realised, but the seaside town and surrounding area had a population of close to ten thousand, probably double that in holiday time.

  It was hardly likely they’d run into each other...

  And he’d be far too busy getting used to his new position, getting to know his colleagues and learning his way around the hospital and town to be dallying with some golden sprite.

  Besides which, she had a child to get ready for school so was probably married, although he had checked and she didn’t wear a ring.

  Not that people did these days, not all the time, and there were plenty of couples who never married, and women, and men, too, he supposed, who had a child but weren’t necessarily in a relationship.

  But she had a child, and even if she wasn’t partnered, he was reasonably certain that women with children would—and should—be looking for commitment, for security, in a relationship.

  Not that he did relationships.

  He was more into dallying, and since he’d been a single man again, the only dalliances he’d had were with women who felt as he did, women who were happy with a mutually enjoyable affair without any expectation of commitment on either side.

  The path had wound its way to the top of a small rise and he halted, more to stop his rambling, idiotic thoughts than to look at the view.

  But the view was worth looking at, the restless ocean stretching out to the horizon, blue and green in places, fringed with white where the surf curled before rolling up the beach.

  Off the next headland he could see surfers sitting on their boards, waiting for the next good wave, and beyond that what must be the outskirts of the town.

  Wetherby!

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE KITCHEN TABLE at the Halliday house could have seated twenty people quite comfortably, but Izzy and her sister Lila were under orders to set it for eight.

  ‘I thought it was just us—how did we get to eight?’ Izzy asked, as she obediently laid placemats while Lila added cutlery.

  ‘Uncle Marty’s coming and he’ll probably have a new girlfriend,’ Nikki, who was arranging a bowl of flowers for the centre of the table, volunteered.

  ‘But that’s you and me, two, and Lila, Hallie and Pop, five, then Marty and presumably his latest flirt, that’s seven.’

  ‘Plus the new doctor from the hospital. As chairman of the hospital board it seemed only right I get to know him,’ the woman her foster children all called Hallie explained.

  ‘She’s matchmaking again,’ Lila whispered to Izzy.

  ‘Hopefully for you, not me,’ Izzy retorted.

  ‘But Lila doesn’t live here,’ Nikki pointed out. ‘And, anyway, Mum, he might be The One.’

  Izzy groaned. Thirteen-year-olds—nearly thirteen-year-olds—shouldn’t be acting as marriage managers for their mothers!

  ‘Now, don’t start that again. I am perfectly happy with my single state, besides which he’s the new doc and I’ll be working with him, and while some people seem to manage to combine their work and social lives, it’s always been a disaster for me.’

  ‘It was only a disaster once,’ Hallie reminded her, ‘and that was probably my fault. He seemed like such a nice man when the board interviewed him. How was I to know he had two ex-wives he didn’t happen to mention?’

  ‘Two ex-wives and a jealous lover who damned near shot our Izzy.’

  They all turned towards the back door and chorused Marty’s name as he spoke. Nikki was first into his arms for a hug.

  But Izzy hung back, shuddering at the memory of that ill-fated relationship, only looking up when Marty added, ‘Okay, I’m home and it’s great to see you all but just stand back, girls, because I found this bloke out in the garden, looking a little lost, and apparently he’s come for dinner. Hallie’s latest stray, I’d say, the new doc in town. Says his name’s Mac.’

  Izzy could feel her face heating while her body went stiff with shock. A long drawn out no-o-o-o was screaming somewhere inside her, while her hitherto reliable heart was beating out a little tattoo that had more to do with how the stranger looked than who he was.

  Clean-shaven, with his long shaggy hair trimmed and slicked neatly back, his blue eyes framed by dark arched brows, he was possibly the most attractive man she’d ever seen.

  Any woman’s body would react to him, she told herself, glancing at Lila to see if she was similarly struck.

  But, no, her beautiful, dark-haired, doe-eyed sister was shaking hands with the man called Mac and asking where he’d come from, where he’d trained, doctor-to-doctor questions.

  Not that Mac had time to answer them, for Hallie had taken charge and was introducing him to the family.

  ‘Marty you’ve met—he doesn’t live here, just arrives from time to time, though usually not alone...’

  Hallie frowned and looked around as if realising for the first time that Marty hadn’t brought a woman.

  ‘I took Cindy straight upstairs,’ he explained. ‘She wanted a shower before dinner, then I went out to see Pop in the shed and met Mac on the way back.’

  ‘Ah,’ Hallie said, nodding as if the world was now back in its rightful place. ‘So, Mac—you do like to be called Mac, don’t you? Isn’t that what you said at the interview?’

  The poor bewildered man nodded, and before Hallie could go off on another tangent—something they were all only too used to—Marty stepped in.

  ‘Mac, the smallest of the women in the room is Nikki, and the redhead cowering in the corner is her mother, Izzy. It’s not your fault that the last hospital director had a mad ex-lover who tried to shoot Izzy.’

  Marty waved his arm.

  ‘Come on over, Iz, and say hello to your new boss.’

  ‘We’ve already met,’ Izzy said bluntly, her anger at Marty for singling her out overcoming all her weird reactions to Mac.

  ‘And I’m Lila.’

  Bless her! She’d read the tension in the room, had probably felt it emanating in waves from Izzy, and had stepped in to defuse things.

  Now she was doing doctor talk again with the newcomer, smoothing over the earlier awkwardness and giving Izzy time to recover.

  * * *

  Mac tried to make sense of the place and people around him. He’d been directed to walk up the hill from the hospital and the only place on the hill was a big, old, stone-built building that looked as if it could house the hospital as well as all the staff.

  He’d walked around it, wondering if the chairman of the hospital board might have a real house hidden somewhere behind it, and had ended up in a huge vegetable garden.

  The man called Marty had rescued him, leading him into the old building through a cave-like back entrance and directly into a kitchen where, amidst what seemed like a dozen chattering women, stood his sprite. She had clothes on now, stretch jeans that hugged her legs and lower body and a diminutive top that showed a flash of golden skin at her waist when she moved.

  Mrs Halliday he recognised, and the young girl with long golden-brown hair—okay, that was the daughter—while the real beauty of the room, the exotic dark-haired, black-eyed Lila, was finding it hard to hold his attention so his replies to her questions were vague and disjointed.

  The sprite rescued him.

  ‘This is the man I was telling you about,’ she said to the room at large. ‘The man who helped me with the porpoise.’

  After
which she finally turned her attention to him.

  ‘Sorry about the chaos here tonight, Mac, but with—’

  ‘With your sister up from Sydney, and your brother might be home...yes, I know,’ he teased.

  He saw the colour rise in her cheeks, but the flash of fire in her eyes suggested anger rather than embarrassment.

  Bloody man! Izzy muttered inwardly. Now the whole family was looking at her.

  Waiting for her famous temper to flare up?

  No way! She would not react to this man’s teasing. Bad enough her body was reacting to his presence, sending messages along her nerves and excitement through her blood. If this kept up she’d have to leave—town, that is—given that a distracted nurse was no help to anyone.

  But Nikki—school...

  Pop saved her from total, and quite ridiculous, panic by appearing through the kitchen door with a long, and remarkably dangerous-looking spear in his hand.

  It stopped both the conversation and the sizzle in her blood.

  ‘This’s the best I can do, Nik,’ he said, passing the lethal weapon to Izzy’s daughter. ‘I don’t know if the aboriginals in this area made ceremonial markings on their spears but old Dan at the caravan park will know. You can ask him, and he’ll show you what it needs.’

  ‘Put that away right now!’ Izzy ordered as Nikki began to caper around the room, flourishing the spear dangerously close to several humans.

  Nikki disappeared, Hallie introduced Mac to Pop, she and Lila finished setting the table, and peace reigned, if only momentarily, in the Halliday kitchen.

  Pop was explaining to Mac the project Nikki would be doing when school resumed, and why she needed a spear.

  ‘I’ve made so much stuff for so many kids over the years,’ he added. ‘Izzy, was it you who was the robot? That was probably my most ingenious design, although I did go through a lot of aluminium foil.’

  Any minute now he was going to dig out the old photos and she’d be squirming with embarrassment all night!

  ‘Okay, dinner is ready.’