The Doctor's Rebel Knight

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  ‘Don’t.’ Fran held up her hand like a stop sign. ‘I’m off men at the moment, remember?’

  Caro gave her a knowing look. ‘Frannie, you’ve always been off men. All through your teens you were totally focussed on studying. And then all through med school and ever since you qualified work was always more important to you, more’s the pity. A casual love affair with a handsome cop is just what you need right now to boost your confidence.’

  Fran hoisted her handbag strap over her shoulder. ‘I hope to God you didn’t get Nick to suggest such a thing to Sergeant Hawke,’ she said.

  ‘Would I do that?’ Caro said with that same twinkling smile.

  When Fran went to the general store the following day she ran into Jane Pelleri, who was doing a quick shop while her husband looked after the children. Ella was now back at home, showing no sign of any after-effects from her terrifying experience. The pool gate had been repaired and life was more or less back to normal. So different from so many others, Fran thought as she listened to Jane recount something cute the boys had done to welcome their baby sister home.

  Beryl Hadley wasn’t working on the cash register that day but a slim, almost thin young girl of about sixteen was filling in for her. Fran smiled as she loaded her things on the counter but the teenager barely looked up as she mechanically scanned the items. She was dressed in loose-fitting black clothes—even the top she was wearing was long sleeved which must have been sweltering for her in spite of the air-conditioning inside.

  ‘Hi, I’m Fran, Carolyn Atkins’s sister,’ Fran said to break the silence. ‘Is Beryl having a day off?’

  ‘Yeah.’ The girl scanned the packet of dog treats Fran had chosen for Rufus.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Fran asked after another few items were scanned. ‘I don’t think I’ve seen you around town before.’

  ‘Tara,’ she said dully, scanning the last item and bringing up the total. ‘Will that be cash or charge?’

  Fran handed over some notes. When the girl placed the change in her hand Fran noticed several thin white scars on the underside of the teenager’s wrist. The girl pulled her sleeve back in place and closed the drawer of the cash register with one of her bony hips.

  ‘Nice to meet you, Tara,’ Fran said, picking up her bags.

  ‘Yeah,’ Tara said without meeting Fran’s gaze. ‘Same.’

  Fran was coming out of the store, still frowning, when a man in his early sixties approached her. ‘Dr Nin,’ he said. ‘I’m so glad to meet you at last. I’m Nigel McLeod, the mayor.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Mr McLeod,’ Fran said, juggling her shopping bags to shake his proffered hand.

  ‘I was wondering if you would like to have a tour of the medical clinic this morning,’ he said. ‘Everyone is so thrilled about how you stepped into the breach, so to speak.’

  Fran took a step backwards. ‘Um…I haven’t exactly said I—’

  ‘It’s just such an amazing coincidence,’ he went on as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘It’s obviously meant to be. Here we are waiting desperately for the position to be filled since the GP who was supposed to arrive has had some doubts cast over his overseas qualifications and then you turn up. It’s a miracle, that’s what it is. An answer to a prayer and, believe you me, this whole town has been praying for someone as competent as you. The way you saved that little girl’s life and Jim Broderick’s daughter too. The orthopaedic doctor at the hospital she was flown to said she was lucky she didn’t lose that leg. You’re Pelican Bay’s latest hero. I am sure you’ll be nominated as citizen of the year after this.’

  Fran gave him a wan smile. ‘Mr McLeod…I am very grateful for your offer but I’m not planning on—’

  ‘Of course I know it’s a dreadful imposition but there are already several patients lined up to see you,’ he said. ‘As soon as they heard there was a doctor in town, they booked in. Linda Brew is the clinic receptionist. She’s been on the phone, fielding calls all morning. Oh, to be so popular!’ He beamed. ‘I wish it worked like that for me when it came to council elections.’

  Fran’s smile turned to a grimace. She could see worming her way out of this was going to take more flexibility than that of an Olympic gymnast. She thought of the patients who had their hopes up, probably already sitting there on the edges of the waiting room chairs, eagerly anticipating her attendance. What if one of them was like Jacob’s mother, in desperate need of pain relief? How could she say no? It wasn’t as if a drug-crazed maniac was going to barge through the doors out here. This was Pelican Bay, a quiet seaside village, not the centre of Melbourne’s nightclub scene. The sort of stuff she would be dealing with here would be things like chickenpox, for example, or chest infections, the occasional laceration, maybe some broken bones like Candi Broderick’s, but hopefully no more near-drownings like little Ella Pelleri’s. Maybe she could do it as a once-off, a sort of favour to the town, but that was all.

  ‘Look, Mr McLeod, I’m not making any promises or anything, but since there are patients already wait—’

  ‘So we’ll expect you at, say…‘ Nigel McLeod checked his watch ‘…ten-thirty?’

  She nodded in resignation, a sigh escaping her lips. ‘Ten-thirty it is.’

  Fran put her shopping in the boot of her car but didn’t notice the parking infringement ticket tucked under her left-hand windscreen wiper until she was behind the wheel with the engine already running.

  She sucked in a breath and got out of the car. Limping across, she snatched up the ticket, peering at the officer’s signature at the bottom. The handwriting was virtually impossible to read, but she could make out an H and a K without any difficulty. She seethed with anger as she got back behind the wheel. She had just enough time to take her shopping back to the house before going down to the station to have it out with Sergeant Jacob Hawke.

  ‘You have a visitor, Sarg,’ Nathan Jeffrey announced via the intercom.

  ‘Who is it?’ Jacob asked as he lifted the ice pack off his eye, wincing when he saw he was still bleeding high on his cheekbone.

  He hadn’t expected Wayne Clark to be quite so aggressive about his bald tyres.

  Jacob knew things were tough on some of the locals who tried to make a living off the land backing onto the bay. Wayne was one of them. The rain that fell on the coast didn’t always fall on the hinterland. Like Jim Broderick, Wayne had lost his wife, not from death but from desertion to another man, leaving him with a son who had a record of petty crime and a daughter who had played truant more days from school than she had attended during the last term.

  ‘Dr Nin,’ Nathan said.

  Jacob gave an inward groan. That was just what he needed right now. ‘Send her in,’ he said, holding the pack to his throbbing eye again.

  Fran stepped into the office and frowned when she saw the ice pack on Jacob’s face. ‘What happened to you?’ she asked.

  He looked at her with one steely eye. ‘Nothing that should concern you since you’re so determined not to practise medicine.’

  She gave him a slitted-eye look. ‘Which you have very cleverly circumvented by making it virtually impossible for me to refuse to conduct at least one clinic, if not more.’

  He leaned back in his chair, the ice pack on his eye like a pirate patch. ‘I take it our hard-working mayor, Nigel McLeod, has been putting the hard word on you.’

  She planted her hands on her hips. ‘No doubt at your command.’

  He leaned forward in his chair. ‘I had nothing to do with it.’

  She stared at him, her mouth set in a tight line. ‘I don’t believe you.’

  He leaned back and pressed the pack even more firmly against his eye. ‘This town needs a doctor but if you feel you’re not up to the task then that’s fine. The last thing we need around here is someone who is less than enthusiastic or—worse—lacking in confidence.’

  Fran bristled, trying to hold on to her temper. ‘I will do the clinic but only once and only because there are patients waiting there for me, n
ot because you’ve engineered it.’

  He put the ice pack on his desk. ‘I had nothing to do with engineering anything.’

  She tried to stare him down but she couldn’t help noticing how the cut on his cheekbone just below his eye was seeping a slow but steady trickle of blood. He was going to have a bruiser, if she was any judge.

  ‘How did you get that?’ she asked.

  ‘One of the perks of the job,’ he quipped. ‘Believe me, today has been a good day.’

  She rolled her eyes before she could stop the impulse. ‘You should get that checked. It might need stitching.’

  He leaned back even further in his chair, the leather creaking in protest. ‘It’s just a scratch,’ he said, reapplying the cold pack as he crossed one ankle over his muscular thigh. ‘Now, what did you want to see me about?’

  Fran slapped the parking infringement notice on the desk in front of him. ‘If this is how you do things around here then you’re going exactly the wrong way about convincing me to commit to this community,’ she said. ‘I didn’t expect a police officer of your rank to be so petty.’

  His eyes briefly scanned the notice before meeting hers. ‘You do the crime, Dr Nin, you pay the fine.’

  She ground her teeth and, snatching up the notice, tore it into shreds, letting them scatter like snowflakes on his desk. ‘So book me, Sergeant Hawke,’ she challenged him.

  Jacob put the ice pack on his desk and, pushing back his chair, got to his feet. ‘You seem pretty convinced I wrote that ticket,’ he said, holding her stormy gaze.

  She curled her top lip at him. ‘You’re going to deny it?’

  ‘I am not the only cop in town, Dr Nin,’ he reminded her.

  She tilted her chin, her eyes still flashing at him. ‘Maybe so, but I bet there isn’t another J. Hawke, is there?’

  ‘No, there’s not,’ he said. ‘There is, however, a John Hank.’

  Her blue-grey eyes widened for a second before dropping to the little snowstorm on his desk. ‘Oh…’

  ‘I can ask him to show you the duplicate,’ Jacob offered. ‘But either way, if you parked in the wrong zone you need to pay the fine.’

  Her eyes slowly came back to his, her tongue sweeping over her lips in a tell-tale movement of discomfiture. ‘I—I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s just when I saw the J and the H and the K, I assumed it was your signature.’

  ‘It’s an easy mistake to make,’ he acknowledged.

  Her eyes went to the shredded ticket on his desk again. Taking a deep breath, she stepped forward. ‘I’ll clean this up for you. It won’t take a—’

  Jacob put his hand down over her smaller one, pinning it to the desk. ‘Leave it.’

  Fran looked into his unusual blue eyes, her heart giving a little stumble. She glanced down at the desk. His hand dwarfed hers, his long fingers warm and dry and determined. Her mind began to wander…to imagine how it would feel to have his long, strong body pinning hers beneath his, to have his warm, beautifully sculpted mouth feasting hungrily on hers, to have his hands shape her breasts, each one in turn, exploring the tightly budded nipples, bringing his hot, moist mouth down, licking, stroking, sucking on her until she writhed with pleasure.

  ‘Um…I should go now…’ she said, trying to slide her fingers out from under his. Like right now.

  ‘Wait.’ The pressure of his hand was firm but not brutally so.

  Fran could feel the slightly rougher skin on the pads of his fingers, as if he was no stranger to manual work. She suddenly thought of each of her past boyfriends, none of whom had seemed able to change a toilet roll, let alone a tyre.

  Sergeant Jacob Hawke looked the sort of man who could do just about anything, like make her think thoughts she had no right to be thinking. Dangerous thoughts, thoughts of furnace-hot kisses and sensually stroking hands…

  ‘Forget about the parking fine,’ he said. ‘I’ll sort it out with Senior Constable Hank.’

  She looked back into his eyes, her lips feeling as if his dark-rimmed gaze had scorched the moist surface of her mouth. God knew what would happen if his lips touched hers, she thought, glancing at his mouth as the tip of her tongue quickly darted out to moisten her own. She would probably sizzle like a fried egg on a hot tin roof.

  ‘Er…that’s very kind of you,’ she said. ‘But I don’t mind paying my dues, really. It’s the law, as you say, and I did stay a bit longer than the time on the sign…or at least only a couple of minutes but I’m used to parking meters in the city so I guess things are different down…down…here…’

  Fran lost track of what she was saying. The cut on his cheek had stopped bleeding but she could see the slight swelling around his eye, a hint of a bruise already making its way to the surface of his tanned skin.

  ‘Um…would you like me to dress that for you?’ she asked. ‘It’s stopped bleeding but it probably needs cleansing to avoid infection.’

  ‘There’s no need,’ he said, removing his hand from hers. ‘I’ll see to it myself.’

  ‘Fine then,’ she said, readjusting her handbag strap on her shoulder as she stepped back from the desk on legs that felt like those of a string puppet’s. ‘I’m…er…sorry to have taken up so much of your time.’

  ‘Not at all.’

  There was a silence, broken only by the sound of the clock ticking on the wall behind Jacob’s desk.

  Tick.

  Tick.

  Tick.

  ‘Do you fancy a drink after work this evening?’ he asked.

  Fran blinked. ‘Um…pardon?’

  ‘A drink at the pub after work,’ he said. ‘You and me and two glasses, usually with something alcoholic in them, but it’s not mandatory—the alcohol, I mean.’

  She continued to stare at him. ‘You’re…you’re asking me on a…on a date?’

  His expression and his tone seemed to communicate a take-it-or-leave-it attitude, which irked her.

  The last thing she needed was a date with a man she didn’t even like. Attractive he might be, but unlike some of her peers she was not interested in casual dates to fill in the time. She could just imagine what he would expect from her at the end of the evening, but that was one game she wasn’t going to play. Perhaps he thought she was desperate for a date on account of her limp. When she’d first come out of hospital a workman had called out something rude to her as she’d hobbled past a building site on her crutches, and ever since she had struggled with her self-esteem, seeing every man’s interest as pity rather than genuine interest.

  Fran straightened to her full height which, without heels, meant she had to crick her neck to meet his gaze. ‘Actually, I am busy tonight,’ she said, and stood there, waiting for him to suggest the following night, but he said nothing.

  The ensuing silence throbbed for several seconds, as if an invisible finger had reached up and stopped the second hand on the clock.

  Fran felt the heat begin to crawl like a slow-moving tide from her neck to her cheeks. ‘Um…I’d better go,’ she said. ‘I apparently have patients waiting for me.’

  He gave a nod without saying anything, his arms now folded against his chest, his hips leaning against the filing cabinet, the gunbelt around his lean waist like a menacing third presence in the room.

  ‘Have a nice day, Sergeant Hawke,’ she said as she turned to leave.

  He didn’t say a word.

  Not a single word.

  Damn him.

  Triple damn him.

  Fran closed the door and walked past Nathan Jeffery with a stiff smile pasted on her face. ‘Have a nice day, Constable.’

  ‘You too, Dr Nin,’ he said with a friendly smile. ‘It’s great you’re filling in down at the clinic, by the way. My girlfriend is booked in to see you this morning.’

  ‘I’ll look forward to meeting her,’ Fran said, and with another tight smile left.

  As soon as Fran turned off the engine outside the clinic she felt her body break out in a cold sweat. She looked at her hands where they were still grippi
ng the steering-wheel, each of her knuckles looking like they were going to break through her skin. She tried to control her breathing, in and out, slowly, thinking of peaceful, calming things, but nothing helped. She felt nauseous, hot and clammy and, winding down the window, she gulped in some fresh air.

  Still sitting inside the car, she looked at the clinic, taking in its cottage-like appearance, which should have been of some comfort but unfortunately wasn’t. The clinic was painted white with grey trim and a small recently painted white picket fence surrounded the block. A peppercorn tree provided some shade on one side and a wattle tree on the other. There was a pair of magpies chortling to each other in the wattle tree and a soldier bird was picking at some crumbs near the rubbish bin at the side of the cottage. It was as far away from a frantically busy city A and E department as could be, and yet Fran’s heart was beating like a drum in staccato.

  After a few more minutes she opened the car door and eased her legs out, taking her time, mentally taking the steps to the front door.

  She could do this.

  It would be hard but she could do it.

  She had to start somewhere. This was going to be a lot easier than a busy city hospital. Way easier.

  As she stood, waiting for her legs to steady enough to negotiate the pathway to the front door of the clinic, she saw a police car take the corner at breakneck speed, the blue light flashing and the siren blazing as the vehicle sped past the clinic, whipping up a cloud of dust in its wake.

  The flashing lights and piercing siren of the volunteer fire engine that came around the same corner at a slightly lower speed did nothing to help Fran’s already jittery nerves. Her brain exploded with flashbacks, zigzags of light blinded her, she could hear raised voices, screaming voices, one louder and higher and more terrified than the rest. And then there were the footsteps racing down the corridor, squeaky nurses’ shoes, and heavy ones…

  She clutched at her chest where her heart seemed to be intent on pushing its way out of her body, her eyes clamped shut against the images that haunted her.

  Breathe.

  All she had to do was breathe and it would all pass…