The Doctors' Baby

‘I…yes.’ Everyone knew June. She ran the local minimart. June was a stunning strawberry blonde. Or, to put it more truthfully, she was an interim strawberry blonde. Until she tired of it.

‘June doesn’t dye her hair.’ Em’s smile widened. ‘Whenever June tires of her hairstyle, she just buys a new one.’

‘You’re kidding!’

‘I’m not kidding.’ Once more, Em’s voice gentled. ‘She doesn’t mind me telling people who need to know, as long as I ask that you don’t tell anyone else. June suffers from alopecia—hair loss—and she’s been wearing a wig for twenty years.’

‘I don’t believe it!’ This was clearly a side of June that stunned Anna, temporarily diverting her from more serious issues. Which was just what Em wanted.

‘Believe it. And I know there’s nothing June would rather do than help you choose a wig if it ever becomes necessary. She adores wig-buying. She told me once that choosing hair is better fun even than sex!’

Then, as Anna blinked in astonishment, Em pushed home her advantage. She smiled her most reassuring smile. ‘But, Anna, we’re crossing way too many bridges, and we’re crossing them way too fast. As I said, chances are we’re talking about a cyst.’

‘You’ll be fine, Anna,’ Jonas added, and Em heard the catch of emotion in his voice. This was his baby sister after all.

Em looked at Jonas and she realised with a sense of shock that he, too, was asking for reassurance. For facts! As a surgeon, he must know the statistics, but he wanted to hear them out loud.

Cancer was a frightening word, she thought, no matter who faced it, and the only way to lessen the fear was to confront it head on.

Help me, he was asking, and it was suddenly all Em could do not to put out a hand and touch his. Her smile died.

Because brother and sister were both afraid of one thing. Anna was taking a long, drawn-out breath, searching for courage for the next question.

‘If…if it’s cancer, it’ll come back,’ she said finally, and her voice was now strangely calm. ‘I’ll die. My kids… Sam and Matt and Ruby. Ruby’s only four. Who’ll look after them?’

‘Anna, I’ve spent the last twenty-four hours giving piggy-backs to your three terrors,’ Jonas said, in a tone of one much maligned. ‘I love your kids dearly and of course I’d take care of them, but for the sake of my aching back, can we arrange to have you live?’

‘I…’

‘Please, Anna.’

Anna took another deep breath. ‘I don’t have a choice, really. Do I?’

‘We don’t,’ Jonas said. He rose and his hands clenched and unclenched. He’d also been under a huge amount of strain, Em realised, wondering just what was wrong with his sister. This must come almost as a relief. There were so many worse diagnoses than early breast cancer. ‘Anna, I love your kids but, let’s face it, they’d be much better off with their mum than with their Uncle Jonas.’

He grinned then, a wide, lazy grin that sent Em’s insides doing crazy things again. Stupid things! She had to force herself to focus on what he was saying.

‘I’m willing to stay in Bay Beach while you need me,’ he was telling Anna. ‘In fact, I have a feeling that Dr Mainwaring could use some help, too, and with two women in need, what’s a man to do but stay?’ He flashed them another grin, even wider than the first. ‘So can we organise these tests and get on with it, please?’

Anna looked up, long and hard, at her brother—and then she turned to Em. In her face was a slackening of terror. There was still fear, but less. The hardest decision had been made.

And the smile she finally gave almost matched her brother’s. ‘Yes, please,’ she said.

‘Then let’s do it.’ Em reached for the phone and started dialling.

CHAPTER TWO

EM WOKE to afternoon sunlight.

The feeling was so novel that for a moment she thought she must be dreaming. Then the morning’s events came flooding back, and with them came emotions so complex she had trouble taking them all in.

First there was Charlie’s death. Despite his age, there was a sensation of emptiness and grief which she needed time to absorb.

Em tried hard to stay dispassionate but, as the only doctor in a small country town it was impossible. And she’d known Charlie all her life. Em’s parents had died when she was tiny. She’d been raised by her grandfather, and Grandpa and Charlie had been close mates.

With Charlie’s death had gone one of her last links to her childhood—to memories of weekends fishing in Grandpa’s old tub of a boat, or sitting on the pier baiting hooks while the two men yarned in the sun—or having them make her endless cups of tea as she’d studied her medical texts while they’d gossiped easily over her head.

She’d loved them both. Grandpa had died two years ago, and now Charlie had gone to join him.

She’d miss Charlie so much.

And now there was Jonas…

She was so muddled in her thoughts. She’d lain down for a few minutes and two hours later she was waking to confusion—the intermingling sadness of Charlie’s death, the tension of the lump in Anna’s breast…

And the thought of Jonas.

Why did he keep overriding everything else? He was just there, a lightening of the dreariness of her awful day, and the sensation was so novel that she let it dwell.

Well, she let it dwell for all of thirty seconds. Then she rose, rinsed her face, gave her mirror a good talking-to for being lax enough to allow another doctor—about whom she knew nothing—to take over her duties.

She needed to check on him, she told herself. She needed to know who this man was. She might instinctively believe him, but she was trusting him with her patients and the medical board would look pretty darkly at someone who just stood aside and let a quack take over their duties.

And one phone call was all it took, to a long-time friend who was an anaesthetist at Sydney Central.

‘You have Jonas Lunn working for you?’ Dominic’s voice from the staffroom at the Sydney hospital was an incredulous squeak. ‘Em, the man is brilliant. Brilliant! He’s been offered a plum teaching job overseas and the powers that be here are already wondering how we can fill his shoes. He’s the best—as well as being one of the most caring professionals I’ve ever worked with!’

Now, how had she known he’d say that?

‘You hang on to him,’ Dominic said seriously. ‘Em, if he’s offering to help, you take all the help you can get.’

Hmm. Maybe. He was only here for the day, she told herself.

So with a struggle she hauled her muddled thoughts into order and sallied forth to once again become Bay Beach’s sole doctor.

But she was no longer sole doctor. Jonas wasn’t giving the position up lightly.

‘Go home,’ he growled as she opened the surgery door and peeped in. ‘I’m busy.’

He was, too. Young Lucy Belcombe, nine years old and accustomed to lurching from one catastrophe to another, was now suffering from a greenstick fracture of the forearm. Jonas had the X-ray up on the screen so Em could see at a glance what was happening. Jonas was applying a last layer of plaster as Lucy’s mother watched, and Mrs Belcombe was obviously deeply impressed that such a splendid-looking male was taking care of her daughter.

These people don’t even know for sure Jonas is a doctor, Em thought in a little indignation.

He was, though. He looked up at her and he smiled, and Dominic’s words were confirmed. The impression he gave was of pure competence. ‘We’re doing really well without you, Dr Mainwaring,’ he told her. ‘Aren’t we, Lucy?’

And Lucy agreed. ‘Dr Lunn told me I was the bravest kid in Bay Beach when he gave me the needle,’ Lucy told her proudly. Then she gave a sheepish grin. ‘And he also said I was the dopiest.’

‘Hmm.’ Em looked again at the X-ray. Lucy had certainly done her arm some damage, though she’d been lucky in that it was just a greenstick fracture. ‘Tree-climbing?’ she guessed.

‘A really big one out on Illing’s Bluff,’ Lucy admitted, not without pride, and Em winced.

‘Oh, Lucy. If you climb then you’re supposed to hang on. I guess Dr Lunn’s not far wrong when he says it was stupid.’

‘Yeah, it was a bit dopey.’ Lucy gave her a rather white-faced smile and then looked sideways at her mum, as if wondering whether she should admit the next bit. ‘It won me five bucks, though, ’cos it was a bet and I got to the top.’

‘And did you get an extra payment for coming down the fast way?’ Em demanded, and Jonas chuckled.

He had the nicest chuckle, she thought. Sort of deep and resonant and infectious. It made you want to smile just to hear it.

‘The very fastest way,’ he told Em, still chuckling. ‘Lucy’s just lucky she didn’t land on her head. Will you deduct the five dollars from the clothes she’s torn, Mrs Belcombe?’

But Mary Belcombe just gave him a reluctant smile and shook her head. Lucy was the youngest of her six daredevil kids. Broken bones were part of her lifestyle.

‘I’m good at patching,’ she said simply. ‘I have to be.’

‘And so are we.’ Jonas gave the arm one last long look, tied a sling around it and popped the plastered arm inside. ‘Right. One patched arm. I want to check it again tomorrow to make sure I’ve allowed enough for swelling. Meanwhile, if it starts hurting much more than it is now, give us a ring.’

‘Give me a ring,’ Em butted in, and got a sideways grin from Jonas for her pains.

‘Scared I’m doing you out of a job, Dr Mainwaring?’

‘You can have all of my job that you like,’ she told him, and the smile died.

‘Yeah. There’s certainly a heap of it. Far too much for one person.’

‘One person is all there is,’ she told him, and ruffled Lucy’s hair. ‘Goodbye, Lucy. Take care.’

‘Care isn’t in her vocabulary,’ his mother said bitterly, ushering her daughter out the door. ‘Thank you, Dr Lunn.’ And then she turned to Em and added in a conspiratorial whisper that Jonas couldn’t help but hear, ‘Oh, my dear, he’s gorgeous. I’d hang onto him if I were you.’

And she left, with Em blushing from ear to ear.

‘I’ve left detailed notes on everyone I’ve seen, if you’d like to review them. With the Belcombes gone, Jonas gave her an efficient summary of the last two hours. Mrs Crawford’s the only one of any real concern, and that’s mainly because of her diabetes. She’s had intermittent vomiting for two days. I don’t think it’s anything major—she says she ate some fish she thinks was off—but she’s starting to look dehydrated and her blood sugar’s up. So Amy and I admitted her.’

‘You and Amy admitted her?’ Jonas’s businesslike tone was designed to bring her down to earth, but in truth it did the opposite. To have someone take over was such a novel experience it practically took her breath away. ‘You what?’

‘Amy and I admitted her,’ Jonas said, and his eyes twinkled. ‘With the help of your nursing staff. I’ve put up a drip and left her on hourly obs. Not a tricky concept, Dr Mainwaring.’

‘But strange,’ she threw back at him. ‘No one admits anyone to hospital around here except me.’

‘Welcome to the new order, then,’ he told her, and watched with interest while her eyebrows hit the roof.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Wouldn’t you like a new partner—temporarily?’

She could only stare, and the laughter lines in his broad face creased further. ‘Close your mouth,’ he told her kindly. ‘You’ll collect flies. And do stop looking like I’ve slapped you across the face with a wet fish. I’m only asking for a job.’

‘Asking for a job?’

‘A temporary one,’ he told her kindly, as if she were just a little bit stupid. ‘I need it.’ He still smiled, but his look softened as if he understood just what his offer meant. As if he knew just how exhausted she really was. ‘Sit,’ he told her calmly, and, shocked into submission, Emily sat.

‘You’re going to explain?’ she asked without much hope, and the laughter was back again.

‘I might.’ And then the smile died. ‘Em, Anna needs me but she won’t let me close. Regardless of the outcome of her tests, I need to be here for her for a while. Thank you for getting those tests organised so quickly, by the way,’ he added. ‘Breast Screen in Blairglen rang an hour ago and said they’ve fitted Anna in at ten-thirty tomorrow.’ He gave a rueful shake of his head. ‘Though I’m afraid that means I can’t start work properly until the day after tomorrow.’

‘You can’t start work properly…’

‘Em, Anna doesn’t let me near,’ he said, still with the patience of someone dealing with a person who was terminally stupid. ‘Kevin—Anna’s de facto husband—was a creep who treated Anna like dirt. I knew he was a creep at the outset. I was unwise enough to say so, and it’s haunted me ever since. She kept me away while she was with him, and she probably stayed with him far too long just to prove me wrong. And now she needs me, though she won’t admit it. She’s desperate for help.’

‘She’s very proud.’

‘Too damned proud,’ Jonas growled, and Em gave him a curious look. How would he like it if the shoe were on the other foot? she thought, and she knew instinctively that this man was as independent as his sister.

But he wasn’t thinking of his independence now. ‘There’s a large bridge for us to build, and it isn’t going to happen overnight,’ he told her, and Em nodded.

‘Do you have other family?’ she asked curiously, and he shook his head.

‘No. There’s only Anna and me. That’s probably why this has happened. After our Dad died, I was overly protective. She had to rebel and a miserable partnership with an undeserving creep was the result.’

‘You can’t blame yourself for ever,’ she told him, and received another of his blinding smiles for her pains.

‘No. I can’t. But I can still try and help her. If you’ll let me.’

‘Like…how?’

‘By employing me.’

She looked up at him. He was large and self-possessed and supremely sure of himself, she thought. And she didn’t need Dominic’s words to know he was competent. She just had to look at him to know that this was a surgeon with skill.

And yet…

‘A surgeon wants to work in Bay Beach?’ Her voice was incredulous. It sounded unbelievable.

It was unbelievable.

‘Only for a month or two. Depending…’

‘Depending on what?’

‘On Anna’s diagnosis.’

‘You want to be here for her.’

‘Of course.’ It was simply said, but Em knew she was hearing the truth. And it stunned her. How many high-powered city surgeons would drop their lifestyles for their sister’s sake?

‘You can take time off?’ she asked, and he nodded—as if his decision was of no importance.

‘Yes. As it happens, I was about to take an overseas posting—a teaching job in Scotland. I came down here to say goodbye to Anna, and found her in such a state that I put the job on hold. I knew whatever was frightening her wasn’t going to go away fast, and I need time. To build those bridges.’

Once again he’d taken her breath away. To simply walk away from his profession…

‘Why not stay with Anna, then?’ she suggested. ‘I assume you’re not married? If you’ve been on surgeon’s wages, then surely you can just take a holiday.’

‘Anna won’t let me stay with her, and if there’s no good reason for me to stay in the town then she’ll reject me completely. I’m staying in a hotel—I’m not even staying with her now. As I said, we have a long way to go.’

He was totally brisk—businesslike in what seemed, to him, to be a very sensible arrangement. ‘Which reminds me,’ he said, ignoring her raised eyebrows. ‘If I’m working here as a doctor, are there doctors’ quarters where I can stay?’

‘Nowhere big enough for you,’ she said without thinking, and his ready laughter sprang back.

‘Hey, I’m not that big.’

Maybe not in size, but in presence, Em thought a little desperately, and she tried hard to get her scattered wits in order. OK. He needed accommodation. He’d help out for a month or so, but he needed somewhere to stay.

The thought of his help was tantalising. Even if he just did a couple of nights’ call a week he’d be a blessing, she thought wistfully. Two nights’ guaranteed sleep a week…

‘I can willingly share your load,’ he said softly, and she blinked. Heck, was she so transparent?

‘I can manage on my own.’

‘Just like Anna.’

‘We don’t have a choice,’ she snapped, and with that the laughter died completely.

‘Yes,’ he told her, and a trace of sternness sounded in his tone. ‘You do have a choice. I’m here for both of you—if you let me.’

Jonas meant it.

He was absolutely positive, he’d brook no argument, and an hour later Em watched him drive away in his exotic little Alfa Romeo while she blinked back her disbelief.

She had a partner—for a month.

‘Maybe for more if I need to be here for longer,’ he’d growled, and then had added, ‘And, please, God, I don’t need it.’

She could only agree with him. Please, let Anna not have cancer. But if she did then Em would welcome Jonas with open arms while they waited for Anna to heal, she decided. To share her workload would be bliss. Her surgery was big enough for both of them.

But…her home?

That was the only part of the arrangement which left her less than satisfied. The doctors’ house at the back of the hospital had been optimistically built to accommodate up to four doctors. It therefore had four bedrooms and four bathrooms. Em, and her ancient dog, Bernard, rattled around in it.

But it still only had one living room and one kitchen!

So Jonas was heading back to his hotel tonight, but as of tomorrow she’d have him permanently under her feet.

A partner and a housemate—for a month!

But not until tomorrow, she told herself desperately. By then she should have time to get her wayward emotions under control!

Em met Jonas again sooner than the next day. She met him that night.

Two hours later, Em parked outside Home Two, one of the homes making up Bay Beach Orphanage, and recognised the car parked out front straight away.

How many people in town drove silver Alfa Romeos? None that she knew of, she thought. Except Jonas.

What on earth was he doing here?

Drat her stupid emotions, she thought. Why did the sight of his car make her heart jolt?

As her friend opened the front door, Em had to school her expression to hide her surprise, and she had to force her voice to sound normal. It was no mean feat, but somehow she did it.

‘Hi, Lori.’ She smiled at her friend but gave a sideways, cautious glance at the Alfa. ‘Am I intruding?’

‘Of course you’re not.’ Lori pulled the door wide, allowing her to see Jonas sitting at the kitchen table. He looked up at her and smiled, and Em’s heart did that lurching thing she was becoming familiar with and didn’t understand in the least. ‘Jonas and I are having a cup of tea. Do you have time to join us?’

‘I might have,’ Em said, wary. ‘Thanks to Jonas.’

‘He told me about taking over your surgery.’ Lori pressed her friend’s hand. ‘And about Charlie. Em, I’m so sorry.’

‘It’s OK.’

But it wasn’t. She’d hardly had time to think of Charlie, but now she blinked back unexpected tears. Damn, she had to give herself time to mourn.

When would she fit that in? Tuesday week, eleven to twelve?

‘I… Maybe I won’t have that tea. I’ll just see Robby and then I’ll go,’ she told Lori. Robby was the reason she’d come. Whatever Jonas was here for, she had to concentrate on her work.

Which was Robby.

And he needed concentration. Robby was eight months old. He’d been orphaned in a car crash two months ago. Badly burned, he’d only recently been transferred from hospital to the Bay Beach Home.

Robby still really needed city medical facilities—physiotherapy, occupational therapy and the associated bevy of health-care services—but his aunt lived in Bay Beach and she wouldn’t hear of him going anywhere else.

Neither would she take him in herself—or allow the thought of someone else adopting him. So Robby was being cared for by Lori at the home, with Em providing daily medical care.

There were worse fates, Em thought. Lori offered no long-term solution for the little boy, but she loved him to bits.

As did Em. Robby had spent two weeks in hospital in Sydney and then, at his aunt’s insistence, had spent six weeks at Bay Beach General Hospital. In that time he’d twisted himself around Em’s heart like a hairy worm, so much so that when she entered his bedroom now and the little boy reached up his arms, she pulled him to her and hugged as hard as his burned little body would allow.

He was tiny, underweight for his age, with scarring, healing wounds and skin grafts still covering his left side. He’d been burned right up to his chin. The only parts of him that seemed unhurt were his bright little brown eyes, his snub nose and his mop of silver blond curls.

Yes, Em loved him. She’d unashamedly lost her professional detachment, and she’d lost her heart completely.

‘Have you been waiting for me?’ she whispered. ‘I thought you’d be asleep, you ragamuffin!’

‘He’s supposed to be.’ Lori had followed her friend into the room. ‘He’s been down for half an hour. But he’s so accustomed to seeing you in the evenings that I can’t get him to sleep until you come.’

‘What’s the problem?’ Em started at the sound of the deep tones. Jonas also had followed them in and was leaning against the door, watching them.

Em and baby were quite a pair, he thought, and if Em could have known what he was thinking she would have blushed to her socks.

She was a strikingly good-looking woman, tall and dark and beautiful, and now, with the child pressed against her breast, she looked stunningly maternal. Robby was still heavily bandaged. He wore a smooth elastic skin to stop his grafts from scarring, and his white dressings were in stark contrast to Em’s smooth and darker skin.

The sight set Jonas back more than he cared to admit. He shifted against the door and rephrased his question. ‘What happened to the baby?’

And Lori told him, while he watched Em’s skilful hands lift away dressings and elastic to check the healing wounds.

He could have helped, he thought—it took several minutes and Lori assisted, but with Jonas’s help it would have been quicker—but he was content, for the moment, to watch.

He was getting to know Emily Mainwaring, and the more he saw, the more he approved.

‘What?’ Em said crossly, as she taped the last dressing, and he started at her tone.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You’ve been staring at me for ten minutes. I suppose you have seen burns dressed before.’

‘I have,’ He smiled at her, defusing her crossness. ‘Many times.’

‘There’s nothing different here.’

‘By the look of those burns, he should still be in hospital,’ Jonas said cautiously, feeling his way. Lori was watching both of them with interest, but the tension was all between Jonas and Em.

‘Probably. He has more skin grafts to go,’ Em told him, once more gathering the little boy to her breast and cradling him like her own. ‘But he was becoming institutionalised. I couldn’t bear it.’

‘And Lori’s a good house mother?’

‘The best,’ Em said warmly, and looked over Robby’s fuzzy head at her friend. ‘We’ve had some wonderful housemothers here. Wendy. Erin. The most committed women… And Lori’s the absolute best.’

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Jonas said simply. ‘I suspected as much, and I’m grateful. I persuaded Lori to look after Anna’s kids today on a temporary basis—I gather she’s the only home mother without a full house—but if there’s a major problem and Anna needs an operation then they’ll need to come here for a while.’

Em frowned, thinking it through. ‘Is that possible, Lori?’

‘It is,’ Lori told her. ‘I’ve just got off the phone from the powers that be. We can juggle it. Jonas wants something concrete to tell his sister tonight. She needs to know that, no matter what, her kids will be safe.’