Second Chance With Her Island Doc / Taking A Chance On The Single Dad

Leaving her with Leo, which left her feeling weird. Alone, vulnerable…scared?

‘Don’t you have a nurse accompany you on your rounds?’ she asked, and for the life of her she couldn’t stop herself sounding like some sort of sulky adolescent.

‘If I was in England maybe I would,’ he told her. ‘But nurses cost money and this hospital has no money. We run on a skeleton staff. This whole country runs on a skeleton staff.’

It was an accusation.

She didn’t know how to answer. He was watching her like she was some sort of unknown entity, certainly not like a woman who’d slept in his arms, who’d shared his life…

Don’t go there, she told herself fiercely. Move on.

‘My head’s fine,’ she told him. ‘I’m fine.’ Being dressed should make her feel better, more in control. It didn’t. Somehow it made her feel defenceless.

The hurt she’d felt ten years ago was all around her. It was ridiculous, she told herself. You didn’t mourn a lost love for ten years.

But the hurt had gone bone deep, and it was surfacing again now. This guy was too tall, his eyes were too dark. His hair was too black. He was too much the same as he’d been all those years ago.

‘If you’re running on a skeleton staff then I’m taking up a bed,’ she managed. ‘Discharge me now, Leo. The sooner I get out of this cell the happier I’ll be.’

‘Cell?’

‘This room’s awful. Why on earth don’t you paint it?’

He didn’t answer. The look on his face, though…

Uh-oh. She watched his fingers clench into fists at his sides, and then slowly unclench, as if he was counting to ten, and then to twenty, and then maybe to whatever it took to hold his temper.

‘We have two private rooms in this entire hospital,’ he said at last. ‘We reserve them for those who desperately need privacy, usually those in the last days of their lives. We had a death just before you were admitted, which left this room free. Because of your…because of who you are…we believed a single room was imperative. Believe it or not, if we’d put you in a shared ward you would have had half the country visiting the patient in the next bed, just to get a look at you. So we did you a kindness. We put you in what’s one of our best rooms.’

‘Best rooms…’

‘I told you, skeleton staff, minuscule budget, that’s what we have. But certainly I’m happy for you to go. We started you on antibiotics last night. You can go as soon as the script’s filled. Continue them for the full course—there are bats in those underground vaults and they carry infection. I can’t imagine what Victoir was about, taking you down there without protective gear.’

‘He was proving the place was unsafe.’ There were a hundred other things she could have said but she couldn’t get her tongue around any of them.

‘It is unsafe. Obviously. But not if you know what you’re doing.’

‘You’ve been down there?’

‘I’d imagine every adventurous child living within a couple of miles of the castle has been down there.’

‘Bats or not?’

‘They add to the challenge.’

‘Surely my cousin didn’t let kids into the castle.’

‘There are entrances from outside the castle walls. No one’s ever blocked them off. Your cousin and your uncle and your grandfather before him didn’t give a toss what went on under the castle, as long as no one bothered their secluded, indolent lives. Let’s get your head checked and get you out of here.’

‘So I can start my secluded, indolent life?’

He sighed. ‘Anna, I have no idea what you intend. I’ve heard Victoir plans to turn the castle into luxury apartments, with its own internal helipad. An oasis for the super-rich from other countries. With its location, with the Mediterranean right under the battlements, with the right design and your money behind it, such a place could be a celebrity magnet. He hired architects years ago, trying to persuade your cousin that it wouldn’t intrude on his privacy. One of those architects left his plans in a local cab and the driver had them broadcast all over the country in minutes. It came to nothing, though. Your cousin wouldn’t have seen anything in it for him, and that was all that interested him. Now, your head…’

‘So he urgently wants the underground closed off because…’

‘It wouldn’t do to let it get out that the proposed idyllic retreat can be broached by twelve-year-olds.’ He was right by her bed now, too close for comfort, but then anywhere in this tiny room was too close for comfort. ‘Your head, Anna. I’m here to examine you, not talk about plans that have nothing to do with me.’

That shut her up.

He checked her head, not disturbing the dressing over the gash but simply noting the extent of bruising. He checked her eyes, her vision, and then retreated to the end of the bed to read the obs chart. Time for discussion was over.

‘Headache?’ he asked as he finished reading.

‘Only when I laugh, and when you’re here I find it difficult to even smile.’

He didn’t respond.

‘Any dizziness?’

‘When I stand up fast but that’s to be expected.’

He nodded. ‘Take it easy for a few days, then. Do what Victoir suggests. Go lie in your castle and enjoy your view.’

Oh, enough. She pushed herself to her feet and glared. ‘That’s mean. What have I ever done to you, Leo Aretino, to make you act like I’m something the cat dragged in?’

‘That’s an exaggeration.’

‘It’s not. What have I done?’

‘You haven’t done anything.’

‘Once upon a time you asked me to marry you.’

‘That was a long time ago.’ He closed his eyes—remembering?—and when he opened them there was a hint of softness there. Regret? ‘We all do stupid things when we’re young. Proposing to someone you barely know might count as one of them.’

‘You did know me, though. You slept with me for—’

‘I don’t want to go there. It’s history.’

‘Which is affecting how you’re treating me right now.’

‘I’d be treating you the same if we hadn’t slept together.’

‘That’s a lie and you know it. I watched you train as a doctor. I’ve seen you with patients. You’re caring and kind, and last night you couldn’t stop yourself moving in for a hug. Now I’m not going to be a patient any more, you’re back to cold and sarcastic and all the things you suddenly became the moment you learned who my mother was.’

‘Anna…’

‘You owe it to me, Leo,’ she said, calmly now. ‘It’s a question that’s hung over me for years. I know I should have put it aside, but I’ve never understood. I suspect I’ll be spending a bit of time here now, not only in your country but in this town. We may well meet again.’ She took a deep breath, because what she was about to say was a concept so big she was having trouble getting her head around it. ‘I may even be the one who decides on funding for this hospital.’

‘Are you blackmailing me?’ He was suddenly incredulous. ‘What are you saying? Tell me why I didn’t marry you or you’ll cut off our funding?’

Whoa. It was her turn to be angry now.

She’d been confused about Leo for years. They’d had a glorious six months and then nothing. She’d felt hurt, betrayed, sick at heart, but he wouldn’t talk of it. For what had remained of their training, he’d avoided any tutorial she was in. They’d been scrupulously polite when they’d been forced together.

She’d hurt every time she’d looked at him.

She’d been a kid, though, and those feelings should have long gone. She was now an experienced doctor in charge of her world—mostly—and there was no way she was letting this man insult her. Her anger was holding sway but she had herself in hand.

‘Do you think I’d do that? Blackmail?’ Her voice was so quiet that maybe only her dogs would have understood. It was the voice she used when she’d found them with a cornered, injured hedgehog.

Just before they’d decided never to annoy a hedgehog again.

‘It’s nothing to do with me, what you do,’ Leo snapped.

‘If I cut off your hospital funding, of course it’s something to do with you.’ She was having trouble getting the words out. ‘You really think I would?’

‘It’s your right. Heaven knows, we’ve had to fight for what we have. You know you own this building? As landlord—’

‘You think I’d close you down?’

‘You’re a Castlavaran.’

‘So you think ruthlessness is genetic. It’s like the name comes with a money-sucking piggy bank welded to my head.’

‘I know the terms of your inheritance,’ he said wearily. ‘Of your Trust. You have no choice. Money goes into castle maintenance or your comfort. Our funding’s limited to providing provisional medical care for Castlavarans and castle staff. We stretch that as far as we can, to provide for the rest of the island. The Trust’s been in place for hundreds of years, written into the fabric of our constitution. You think we don’t know that you can’t break it?’

‘I know I can’t break it but I’m not about to change things. Your hospital is safe.’

‘That’s great. Thanks very much.’

‘Stop the sarcasm.’ She was getting very close to yelling. ‘So I’m not threatening your hospital but there’s still so much I don’t understand. Ten years ago… Isn’t it about time you told me why you wouldn’t marry me?’

The junior nurse who’d helped her shower appeared at the door. Her eyebrows hit her hairline.

She disappeared, really, really fast.

Uh-oh.

Anna had spent enough time in hospitals to know what she’d just said would be all over the hospital—all over the country!—in minutes. Hospital grapevines were the same the world over.

Maybe she shouldn’t have said it.

But, then, this guy had hurt her. Badly. For ten years she’d needed an explanation and right now she felt strong enough—and angry enough—to demand it.

‘I told you why I couldn’t marry you.’ He raked his fingers through his dark hair, a gesture she remembered. A gesture she could almost feel. She knew what it was like to have those fingers…

Don’t go there.

‘You said there were family problems,’ she threw at him. ‘You said you could never marry a Castlavaran. You said if you did then you couldn’t come home.’

‘Which was the truth.’

‘And I said if the feud’s that bad then we could leave, go to Australia or Canada. I was ready to go anywhere with you, Leo. But you walked away.’

‘I walked back here. To a country that needed me.’

‘So you couldn’t face family hostility. You chose your family over me.’

‘I chose my country over you. I still do.’

‘What, like I’m still available?’

‘I never said that. I never meant—’

‘I don’t have a clue what you meant. You never explained. You just closed down.’ She sighed. ‘Enough. I’m over it or at least I should be. Falling in love with a toe-rag when I was a kid hasn’t defined my life and it won’t define me now. Neither will this inheritance. I have a lovely life back in England. I’ll do what I need to do and go home and let you get on with it.’

‘And let Victoir have his way.’

‘He’s head of the entire castle administration. You think I have any way of figuring out any better plan?’

‘You could try.’

‘And walk away from my life in England?’ She shook her head and the dressing felt suddenly very heavy. ‘Why would I do that? You were asked to change your life when you were nineteen and you made it clear that was impossible. Why should I even contemplate doing the same?’

So that went well.

Or not.

Leo left Anna’s ward and stood in the corridor, staring at the plain, whitewashed wall in front of him.

Memories of ten years ago were all around him. Of Anna’s white, shocked face as he’d told her he couldn’t marry her. Of her reaction of total betrayal.

But how could he have done better? How could he have explained the contempt and hatred that was felt toward her family? As soon as he’d found out who she was, he’d felt his own dumb adolescent heart break. How to explain that his studies, his time in England, his hopes for his future and the trust his people had put in him, they’d all be destroyed if their relationship went further.

Ten years ago he’d faced a bleak choice. Marry Anna and take her back to Tovahna? Impossible. If her uncle accepted her as part of the family she—and he—would have been incorporated into a family he hated. The community who’d scraped to give him an education would have been betrayed.

And being honest, he had to accept there’d been another problem that had been bone deep. He and his mother had been dependent on charity since his father had died. To marry a Castlavaran and take her home, for her to be accepted as part of the Castlavaran family, and for him to be married to her… It’d be the story of Cinderella turned on its head, and at nineteen, sexist as it was, the idea had made him feel ill.

He’d tried to think of other options. Moving overseas, anywhere where two doctors could make a living without baggage? Cutting all ties to her family and to his island?

He couldn’t do it. As soon as he’d heard her name he’d known he had to turn away.

So now… She was still angry? Maybe she had the right to be.

As he’d grown older he’d realised he should have explained better, but at nineteen, bewildered by the complexity of a love he’d been subsumed by, he’d hardly been able to get words out. To explain to his carefree, joyous Anna the abject poverty of his country, the hurt her family had inflicted on his… Explanations would have achieve nothing, he’d decided. It was better to walk away fast.

‘Leo, I said you should charm the Castlavaran. I didn’t say propose!’ Carla’s voice from the end of the corridor made him start. It was incredulous.

‘What?’

‘Luisa said she heard you talking about marriage!’

What the…? ‘She was mistaken.’ He turned to face her, willing his expression to be bland.

‘She was sure.’

‘We spoke in English. How’s Luisa’s English?’

‘Poor,’ she admitted. ‘But she was adamant marriage was in the mix somewhere. She said you sounded intense. If not marriage… You weren’t being accusatory, were you?’

‘I wasn’t.’ He sighed and decided to be honest. ‘We do have…baggage. Anna and I met at med school when I didn’t know who she was. We were in the same class for six months. I haven’t heard of her for years.’

‘And you didn’t tell us because…’

‘Because, as I said, we have baggage,’ he said, exasperated. ‘We dated. Not for long, but what teenager spreads the word about his love life?’

‘You had a love life with a Castlavaran?’ Carla eyed him with incredulity. But then she winced.

Her wince had him distracted. He wanted to be distracted—he wanted Carla to be distracted—but not like this. ‘Carla, your headache…’

‘It’s nothing.’ She sounded annoyed with herself. ‘It’s almost gone.’

‘Is there anything else wrong?’

‘Apart from too many patients to see? So what’s new?’

There was nothing new. The hospital normally had two fully trained doctors and two nurse-practitioners, nurses trained by Carla and Leo to take over many of their responsibilities. It was all they could manage when the cost of sending people abroad for medical training was prohibitive. But Bruno was on leave because his small son had fallen from a tree and fractured his leg. The little boy was currently undergoing corrective surgery in Italy. Freya was recovering from a filthy bout of the flu that had swept through the town, doubling their workload.

Carla had coped brilliantly during their absence, but for the first time ever Leo thought she looked…fragile?

‘Carla, you look strained. Are you sure it’s just a headache?’

‘Truly, I’m better, but thanks for asking.’ Their friendship went back a long way, and now she reached up and gave him a swift kiss on the cheek. ‘There. A kiss better and I’m done. But a love affair with a Castlavaran? See me astonished. I demand that you take time later to tell me all about it. By the way, you’re scratchy and I still think you should charm her. Teenage romances can be resurrected and if you want to charm our heiress you’d better go and shave.’

‘I know where I’m going,’ he growled. ‘Off to check the morning list.’

‘I didn’t even look,’ she told him. ‘It’s enough to terrify a woman stronger than me. But our heiress—your ex-girlfriend!—is a doctor? Maybe we could ask her to see a few coughs and colds before she goes back to her castle.’

‘A Castlavaran? Treating peasants? In your dreams.’

‘Don’t be so cynical,’ she told him. ‘It isn’t like you, and dreaming doesn’t cost anything. I might just pop in and introduce myself.’

‘You know there’s no time.’

‘There’s no time for anything but medicine in this place,’ Carla said, and suddenly she was deadly serious. ‘But this woman holds our fate in her hands and she needs to be onside. I know what triage is, Dr Aretino, and triage says being nice to the Castlavaran is top of the list, for all our sakes. And you… I’m thinking a shave is the least of it.’

‘Carla…’

‘I know. I need to shut up and see the next patient, like I do all the time.’

The snap was so unlike her that he took her shoulders and forced her to meet his gaze. ‘Carla? What is it? You’re not coming down with the flu, are you?’

‘Of course not,’ she said defensively. ‘It’s just a headache.’

‘How bad?’

‘Nothing a good night’s sleep won’t fix. Or another doctor. This country…this health service… I try to be cheerful but sometimes it gets me down.’

‘It gets us all down but we need to cope with what we have.’

‘Or try and charm a Castlavaran,’ she said grimly. ‘I can but try, even if you won’t. Off you go and start our list, Leo. I’ll talk to the heiress and join you when I’m done.’

CHAPTER THREE

VICTOIR WAS BRINGING a car back from the castle. It’d be here in ten minutes, the nurse had told her. Anna was ready to go.

She practised sitting and standing a few times. No dizziness. Breakfast seemed to have settled her. Facing Leo should have settled her even more, and in a way it had.

For ten years she’d wondered what she’d say to him, and somehow she’d said it. It felt empty, desolate even, but it was done. It was time to head back to the castle and cope with the enormity of what lay before her. That was enough to make anyone dizzy.

She wasn’t dizzy now, though. She was being realistic. What had been landed on her shoulders was far too much for one woman to take in.

Her life waited for her back in England—her dogs, her friends, her lovely little cottage. Her friends had been coaxing her to try a dating site. Maybe she could.

But relationships never seemed to work out for her. Her solitary childhood, her mother’s constant abandonment and then Leo’s bombshell rejection seemed to have left scars in the trust department. She dated men who were safe and steady, but then there was always that element of…boredom? Whatever it was, it seemed to stop things moving to the next level. She needed to get over it. It was time she dated someone who thought the world was fun.

And this? She didn’t need to tell a prospective date about the enormity of her inheritance, she decided. There was nothing she could do about it for another twenty years. She’d hand it back to Victoir and set out to enjoy her uncomplicated life.

She’d have fun without the baggage her mother and then Leo had left her with.

‘Can I come in?’

A woman peered around the door, short, rounded, her glasses perched low on her nose. She was wearing sturdy shoes and a white doctor’s coat. A stethoscope dangled from her pocket, her white hair was bundled into a tousled bun and her face made Anna feel instinctively that here was someone she should welcome.

‘Of course,’ Anna told her. She was perched on the bed but stood up. Anna wasn’t overly tall but the newcomer barely reached her shoulders.

‘I’m Dr Rossini,’ the woman said. ‘Carla. I’m Leo’s colleague.’

‘It’s good to meet you,’ Anna said, and found her hand gripped in a hold that was strong and warm and strangely welcoming. It seemed a warmer welcome than she’d had from anyone in the three days she’d been in the country.

‘I’ve brought you your antibiotics,’ Carla said, handing over a box. ‘I picked them up from the pharmacy. It’ll save you fetching them as you go out. You understand you need to take the whole course?’

‘I do. Thank you.’

‘And I wanted to meet you,’ Carla said. ‘You should meet at least one member of the medical staff who doesn’t think your name makes you poison.’

‘Is that what everyone thinks?’

‘Yes,’ she said bluntly. ‘With reason. If you want me to say nice things about your family you should ask me to go away. But I’m not judging you.’

‘That’s good of you,’ she said wryly, and Carla gave her a rueful smile.

‘Sorry. But I thought I should lay our cards on the table. Something I suspect Victoir won’t do on our behalf. Maybe not even Leo.’

‘Your cards?’

‘The country’s cards.’

‘Right,’ Anna said, and the ache in her head suddenly returned. Or maybe it was a different ache. It was the dull throb that had been there ever since she’d realised the enormity of her inheritance.

Strangely, Carla was putting her own hand to her head. Matching headaches? The last thing Anna wanted to do now was talk about the complexities she’d inherited, but she could see strain in the older woman’s eyes. She suspected that what was about to be said would be hard to say.

‘What’s Leo told you about our country?’ Carla asked.

‘You know I know Leo?’

‘He said you dated briefly, at med school. Did he explain the set-up here?’

Briefly? The word hung. It hurt. But she wouldn’t talk about Leo. He didn’t fit into this conversation—in any conversation she intended having.

Briefly…

‘You know the Castlavarans own everything on this island,’ Carla was saying. ‘Everything. We’re a tiny country. We should be centrally governed by a larger state but we’ve always been independent. Our own language. Our own resources. And, sadly, our own official family, a family that’s scourged the land for its own ends and paid to subdue any unrest.’

‘I understand that,’ Anna said stiffly. ‘I also understand there’s little I can do about it for now. You know about the Trust? The terms of inheritance are that money from the estate is tightly held, used only for the upkeep of the castle or for my personal welfare. There’s a twenty-year holding period before I can change that. Victoir says the Trust was put in place to prevent wild spending by past Castlavarans.

‘I have trouble understanding the complexities, but legal opinion says I can’t break it. It seems it’s best if I go home, forget about it for twenty years and then put a team of lawyers in place to try and sort the mess out.’ The ache in her head seemed to tighten. ‘Even that boggles me.’

‘I can imagine. But meanwhile you could try and help.’

‘Like how?’

‘Well, a steriliser for a start,’ Carla said, suddenly sounding hopeful. And a little bit cheeky? She lifted a spoon from the cup and saucer, left from Anna’s morning’s coffee. ‘This spoon, for instance. This is for your personal use and you’re fussy. You could order a steriliser right now, to be delivered as soon as possible. We can’t help it if you’re discharged before you get to use it, and you could graciously allow us to use it until you need it again.’

Anna’s lips twitched, and for the first time in what seemed weeks she found room to smile. In the enormity of what she’d been landed with, this seemed tiny, but the lovely thing about it was that it was something she could do right now.

Carla was looking hopeful, her head cocked to one side. Wondering if she was up to the challenge?

Maybe she was. Fun. The word was suddenly right before her. This was a baby step in how her life could continue from now on, but…could she have fun with this? Could she be of use?