The Doctor's Rebel Knight

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  Under Fran’s direction Jim put his arms around his daughter’s chest while Jacob helped to stabilise her position. Fran gently pulled and rotated Candi’s leg to the normal anatomical position, accompanied by a scream of pain from the girl.

  Fran felt for the dorsalis pedis pulse, which had reassuringly returned, together with a pink colour of the foot. She then took a blow-up splint from the kit, applied it to the leg and was about to show Jacob where to blow into the valve to inflate it but he was already onto it.

  ‘You did really well, Candi,’ Fran said, resting back on her heels in the dust of the paddock. ‘Your leg’s going to be fine. You’ll have to have a cast, of course, and no riding for a couple of months at the very least.’

  Candi’s eyes were a little glazed from the drugs she had been given but she still seemed determined to see where her horse was. ‘Let me up,’ she said, struggling to lift herself up on her elbows. ‘I want to see Cheeky.’

  ‘I’m sorry, love,’ Jim said, holding her back down. ‘There’s nothing we can do.’

  Fran watched as the young girl’s face crumpled, the pain of her leg quite obviously nothing to what she was going through now.

  ‘Don’t shoot him!’ Candi cried, still trying to get out of her father’s hold, her flailing hands totally ineffectual other than to stir up more dust over everybody. ‘Don’t you dare shoot him!’

  Fran felt her chest go tight as she glanced to where the horse was vainly trying to lift its head, its big, lustrous eyes wild with pain and fear. She wondered if the animal somehow knew what was going to happen to him, that this was the end of the road. Fran had seen that look in terminally ill patients’ eyes before. The light of hope fading as realisation dawned. There was no going back, no miracles to pull out of the box.

  The sound of the helicopter arriving didn’t quite deaden the sound of the rifle, but thankfully the increase in pain relief Fran had quickly administered meant that Candi hadn’t heard either sound.

  ‘I don’t know how to thank you,’ Jim said to Fran as his daughter was being loaded onto the aircraft. ‘My wife passed away two years ago. Like Sergeant Hawke’s mother, she had breast cancer. When she died last week it brought back all my memories. And now this…Candi’s all I’ve got.’ He gave another tight swallow.

  ‘If anything happened to her…’

  Fran touched him on the arm, her throat so tight she could barely speak. Jacob’s mother had died just a week or so ago? Her brain tumbled with the information, like clothes all twisted and knotted in an overloaded dryer. He had said nothing. Not a word. But, then, it wasn’t as if she knew him well enough to exchange anything but the most basic of information. But had he told anyone? If Jim Broderick knew, surely Beryl at the store would have known also. Fran could sense Jacob was a very private sort of person, but still…

  Somehow she brought herself back to the moment to concentrate on Candi’s worried father. ‘Candi will be fine, Mr Broderick. She’s a very brave girl. You must be very proud of her.’

  ‘I am,’ he said. ‘She’ll be back in the saddle for sure. Once that cast is off, you just watch her. I just know she’ll be back.’

  Fran stood a few minutes later by Jacob’s side as the chopper lifted off with both Candi and Jim Broderick on board.

  ‘I didn’t realise your mother had died so recently,’ she said, looking up at him. ‘I’m very sorry for your loss.’

  Fran was conscious of her words—her totally inadequate words—hanging in the dry, dusty air for a long moment.

  ‘Thank you.’ His eyes moved away from hers. ‘But it wasn’t sudden and she was well prepared for it.’

  And what about you? Fran wanted to ask. Were you prepared for it? But before she could get the words out he broke the small silence.

  ‘You did a great job, Dr Nin. You handled Candi’s injuries well under the circumstances.’

  Fran looked back at the scene of the accident. ‘Did they have to shoot the horse when she expressly asked them not to?’ she asked, looking up at Jacob with a frown pulling at her brow. ‘Why couldn’t they call a vet or something? Surely it would have been a bit more humane.’

  He dusted off his trousers where the dust had clung to his knees. ‘This is the country, Dr Nin,’ he said in a pragmatic tone. ‘The nearest vet is two and a half hours away. Just like doctors and police, vets are hard to attract and keep in places like this. The community is small, so making a living for a professional is harder than in the city. We have to do what we can with what we have. Sometimes that means that animals get shot rather than another form of euthanasia, and patients go for days or weeks without medical care.’

  Fran pursed her mouth as she inspected his unreadable expression for a beat or two. ‘Are you lecturing me, Sergeant Hawke?’

  He hooked his thumbs into his gunbelt as his eyes met hers. ‘You’ve got the skills; this place has the need of those skills, and you’re here for a couple of months. You work it out.’

  She bit down on her bottom lip. ‘You don’t know what you’re asking…’

  Jacob led the way back to the police vehicle, this time via the gate rather than have her scramble in an ungainly manner over the fence. ‘Jim talked about his daughter getting back in the saddle,’ he said as held the gate open for her. ‘I would imagine, given what she’s just gone through, that will be a huge challenge. Different horse, maybe a different saddle, but the same skills apply.’

  Fran frowned as she went through the gate. Was he somehow referring to her situation? Surely Caro hadn’t told him? She had made her sister promise. No one was to know. Fran wanted to allow herself time to come to terms with what had happened without having to go over it again and again every time someone new met her. Anyway, Jacob had implied he’d only met Caro and Nick once or twice. Surely Caro wouldn’t have had time to engineer any of her matchmaking tricks. Or had she?

  Fran narrowed her gaze as she sent a covert glance Jacob’s way, but his expression was shadowed by his police hat, making it impossible for her to read it.

  ‘How are your knees feeling?’ he asked once they were back in the police vehicle.

  ‘To borrow your own words, Sergeant Hawke, you did a good job.’

  He gave her one of his fleeting smiles. ‘You really like to keep your professional distance, don’t you?’

  Fran arched her brows at him. ‘You’re the one who keeps calling me Dr Nin when I’ve told you I don’t want to be called that.’

  ‘You don’t like your name?’ he asked. ‘I admit it’s a bit unusual. But it kind of suits you. Short and to the point.’

  ‘It’s actually French,’ Fran said, deciding to overlook his provocative comment in case it led to another showdown. ‘Apparently amongst the twigs of my family tree I am related to the writer Anais Nin.’

  ‘That’s quite a name drop,’ he said, darting a quick glance her way as he turned the vehicle towards town.

  ‘My mother used to read her stuff. She said it was highly sensual, or words to that effect.’

  Fran examined his features during a small silence. ‘I really am very sorry about your mother,’ she said softly. ‘It must still seem unreal to you.’

  He sent another quick, unreadable glance her way. ‘No, actually, it’s me who should be apologising,’ he said, his tone sounding gruff. ‘I got the phone call from the hospital the day we had that near collision. I was rushing to get back to the station to sign off some paperwork needed for a court case before I drove to Sydney to organise the funeral.’

  Fran mentally cringed at how she had shouted at him on the roadside and then stormed into the station, not for a moment realising what he had been going through. She had come across as a ranting virago, intent on lecturing him when he had just received the most devastating of news. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said again. ‘Had she been ill for long?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He turned out of Valley Road into the one that led past the bay. ‘She was diagnosed a couple of years after my father was killed. It took eighteen
years to kill her but she put up a very brave fight.’

  ‘You were close to her?’

  This time his glance had a small rueful smile attached. ‘I wasn’t exactly a mummy’s boy or anything but I loved her and I will miss her. She was a good woman, brave and strong even though life had thrown her some rough stuff.’

  Fran felt herself sink even further into the passenger seat. She felt like a complete coward, baulking at the first hurdle that had come along, instead of working her way through her fears to find her rightful place back in the world.

  But the thought of going back…

  ‘I would have liked to have been with her when she died,’ Jacob added. ‘But without a doctor in town it wasn’t possible. She needed strong pain relief and a few weeks ago decided to go back to Sydney. I brought her down most weekends if I wasn’t on duty. She loved the beach. She used to sit for hours on the deck and watch the waves rolling in.’

  Fran was starting to see why he thought her refusal to perform as a part-time doctor in the Bay seemed so selfish and shallow. No wonder he was on her back all the time, trying to bully her into a job she felt unable to perform with any competency. She considered telling him but then swiftly changed her mind. He might feel compelled to take her on as some sort of project, just as some of her colleagues had tried to do.

  ‘I’m so sorry things didn’t work out for her or for you,’ she said, drawing in a scratchy sigh as she looked at the sparkling waters of the bay as it came into view.

  The waves were rolling in evenly now, the fringe of white sand against the turquoise water picture-postcard perfect.

  If only her life was as perfect, but, then, whose life ever was? Even the happiest and most successful people eventually had to face some sort of tragedy during the course of their lives. The Pelleris very nearly had, and the Brodericks, although saved from disaster this time, had not been so lucky in the past. And then there was Jacob and his mother…

  After a moment she turned back to look at him. ‘You said your father was killed. How did he die?’

  His face changed, his mouth becoming a flat line of tension, his jaw with its shadow of dark stubble locking like a padlock. ‘He was shot.’

  The three words hung in the air.

  Bang. Bang. Bang.

  Fran pressed her lips together as she let the silence ring with the echo of his gunfire statement.

  ‘Was it…?’ She searched for the right words, even though she knew deep down there were none. ‘Was it an accident?’

  The look he gave her was bitter, angry. ‘He was murdered,’ he said, ‘in cold blood.’

  She was barely conscious of the way her hands were twisting into knots. ‘What happened?’ she asked in one of those crime-show-character whispers that usually irritated her so much.

  ‘My father owned a service station—like Joe Pelleri’s here in the Bay,’ Jacob said. ‘It was a family affair. Mum did the bookwork; I worked there after school and Saturdays.’

  ‘You don’t have siblings?’ Fran asked.

  He shook his head. ‘Nope. There was just me. Mum had a bit of trouble in that department. She’d had about three, it might have even been four, miscarriages before me. Once I arrived safely she decided to quit while she was ahead.’

  Fran let the silence stretch, waiting for him to fill it.

  He took his time about it. He drove all the way to her sister’s house, parked in the drive and switched off the engine before he turned in his seat to look at her. ‘I’m probably keeping you from something important.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘You’re not. Please…why don’t you come in and have a coffee or something? It’s been a long day and I think I owe you some sort of apology for how I bawled you out the other day. If only I had known…’

  ‘A coffee sounds great,’ he said, surprising her. Fran had somehow thought he would want to hightail it out of her presence, especially since he had let his guard down, which she suspected he rarely did.

  He suited his name. Those piercing blue intelligent eyes of his reminded her of a bird of prey, looking down as he rode the thermal currents that elevated him above the rest of the world, patiently assessing when it was time to strike.

  Fran was conscious of how dusty and dirty she was as she led him into the house, conscious too of how his presence behind her made her limp seem more of a disfigurement than normal. One of the first things she had noticed about him had been his long, strong legs, the way they’d strode across the ground with purpose, the way they’d hugged his powerful motorbike, the way he’d stood without a hint of a wobble in his stance.

  ‘Do you mind if I take a minute to freshen up?’ she asked, hoping she wasn’t blushing as much as she felt she was.

  ‘No problem,’ he said, bending down to scratch Rufus’s ears. He had bounded up to greet him with his ebullient personalityon show. ‘This boy here looks like he needs a run. I’ll be back in ten.’

  ‘Right…’ Fran said, wondering why her heart was playing leapfrog as she watched him leave the house, with Rufus bounding excitedly at his side.

  ‘Stop it,’ she said in an undertone, turning towards the bathroom. ‘Stop it right now. You’re not yourself right now. You don’t even know what you want to do with your life, much less who you want to spend it with. Just stop it.’

  Jacob didn’t need to find a ball to throw. Rufus did that part for him, coming up to him with it in his smiling mouth, his plumy tail slashing from side to side in glee. Jacob grimaced as he took the slimy and ragged tennis ball from the dog’s mouth, and then threw it as far as he could, watching as the mutt bounded off, ears flapping as the ball rolled down the embankment into the wild part of the garden.

  The sun was still warm and another storm seemed to be brewing. He could feel the tension in the air, or maybe he was kidding himself. Maybe it was the tension he could feel in his body every time he was near the little pint-sized blonde doctor who didn’t want to be a doctor any more. Apart from the near disaster at the Pelleris’, Fran had handled Candi’s emergency with the sort of calm competence this town needed. She was exactly what Pelican Bay needed. Hell, maybe she was exactly what he needed right now.

  But did he really want to get entangled with a woman who was prepared to throw away her career on a whim? As far as he was concerned, a broken leg sustained while on a skiing holiday was no excuse for walking away from a profession that was in such demand these days. A huge amount of public money had been invested in her education, and for her to walk away from it seemed almost criminal. But maybe she was one of those shallow types, a member of Generation X or Y or whatever it was called these days, who wanted to flit from place to place on a permanent holiday, not unlike his ex, Melissa. He didn’t know much about Fran’s background but he could see there was no shortage of money. She drove a top-end car with all the safety features, and her clothes were high-street fashion—and she wore them well, he had to admit. She wore a bikini and a sarong even better. He could still see her sexy figure in that filmy shroud—the image was burned at the back of his eyeballs. Every day since, he had dreamed of peeling it off her to reveal what was underneath.

  Rufus came back with the ball in his mouth, his tail wagging proudly.

  ‘You want me to throw this again?’ Jacob asked.

  Rufus dropped the ball and, wriggling his back end, barked in reply.

  Jacob smiled and, bending down, picked up the salivasodden ball and threw it down the pathway to the beach. ‘Go get it, boy,’ he said, and then, taking his own advice, turned and went back to the house.

  Fran looked at herself in the mirror and grimaced. A quick shower had removed the dust and grime but it had done nothing about the shadows under her eyes. Her hair was in limp strands over her back and shoulders, but it would take at least twenty minutes to dry it.

  Hmm…Twenty minutes with a hand-held hairdryer when she could be spending the same time with the best-looking man she had seen since…well since for ever. Anton Leeton, her expart-time boyfriend,
was no billboard model but he was certainly no reason to reach for the soothing eyedrops either.

  In the end Fran came out dressed in one of her sister’s sundresses. That was one of the best things about having a sister, especially a recently pregnant one who had a whole wardrobe of designer clothes that were currently useless.

  Jacob turned to face her as she came in, his eyes sweeping over her in a blood-heating manner. ‘Wow, that was a quick change,’ he said. ‘I can’t promise the same transformation but if I could at least remove your sister’s dog’s saliva from my hands I might be able to turn myself into presentable company.’

  Fran’s lips flickered with a smile as she waved an arm towards the bathroom. ‘It’s all yours,’ she said. ‘I’ll put some coffee on.’

  ‘Sounds great.’

  While the coffee was brewing Fran took the cake she had baked for her sister…had it only been the day before? It seemed like so much had happened in the short time since she had creamed the butter and sugar and carefully folded in the flour.

  Her sister was now a mother, a young toddler’s life had been saved and a young teenager was now on her way to hospital with a leg that would mend a whole lot sooner than her heart, if she was any judge.

  Jacob came out just as she was placing the pink iced coconut cake on a pretty flowery plate she had given Caro for her thirtieth birthday.

  ‘Mmm, that coffee smells good,’ he said. ‘And is that cake home baked?’

  ‘Sure is,’ Fran said, pushing a cup and plate across the island bench towards him. ‘My mother is a hospitality teacher at high school. She was pretty adamant Carolyn and I learn how to cook from a young age. I used to hate it when I was forced to do it, but now I’m glad she persisted with it. I find baking relaxing, although it’s no fun baking for just one person.’

  His eyes met hers across the bench. ‘So when you’re not skiing in New Zealand or visiting your sister, you live alone?’