Bachelor Cure (10 page)

‘What if it's a complete tear?' Tessa asked as they sat on the trainers' seats and watched the Bellanor North players storm their way to victory.

‘We'll send him to Melbourne.'

‘There's no one closer to do orthopaedic surgery?'
If the Achilles tendon was completely separated then it would have to be surgically joined. A partial tear would heal itself, given several weeks' immobilisation in plaster, but a full tear wasn't quite as easy.

‘I could do it,' Mike said heavily. He was feeling really odd, sitting beside this girl. She was acting as if they'd known each other for ever—as if they were partners in every sense of the word. And yet…

Hell, he felt strange.

‘You've done surgical training?' she asked.

‘I trained for this job,' he told her. ‘I knew I'd be isolated when I came to work here so I got myself training in everything I could get my hands on. There's not a lot of emergency medicine I can't do, but I've found it's not a lot of use if I don't have an anaesthetist.'

‘I can give an anaesthetic.'

‘You…'

‘Now don't say it like I'm a porriwiggle,' she begged. ‘The fact that I'm American doesn't mean I'm low-life. I'm not even wearing a cheese hat.' She swung her head to prove it, and her crazy purple pompoms bounced.

She wouldn't need to give an anaesthetic, Mike thought. She only had to wiggle her pompoms and she had a man mesmerised. She could do anything she wanted…

‘Look, it doesn't matter whether you can give an anaesthetic or not,' he managed. ‘You're not registered. You can't.'

‘But Maureen says she'll swing my registration within twenty-four hours from the medical board
opening for business on Monday. Jason's surgery's not urgent. We could do it Tuesday.'

‘What sort of anaesthetic work have you done?' he asked. Hell, he was fascinated. He was trying to listen—not watch.

‘General.' Once more, the pompom waggled. ‘I told you, I've always fancied the idea of moving to the country. I was thinking I might do ER in a smaller country hospital so I figured anaesthetics—you know, intubation and pain relief and the rest—might give me an edge.

‘Then I sort of changed my mind. I wanted kids and dogs and prostates instead of car smashes and drug overdoses. But I've done a solid basic training in anaesthetics. I'm not volunteering to give the anaesthetic for open heart surgery here, but I can certainly give a healthy hunk of beef like Jason a guaranteed sleep.'

Mike fell silent. He stared out over the football ground, his mind racing. What on earth…? An anaesthetist, right on his patch…

‘Look, I'm not asking you to take me on trust here,' Tessa said, mistaking his expression. ‘Ring my ex-boss on Monday and run through my credentials with him. Don't take me at face value. I wouldn't myself.' Then she grimaced as the phone on Mike's belt rang. ‘Ugh.'

That was what Mike felt. He didn't want more work now. Or did he? Maybe he did need an excuse to leave and think things through.

The game was just coming to an end. The siren blared and the field erupted into red and black mad
ness. A hundred car horns hooted. Mike turned away and covered his exposed ear while he talked into the phone.

By the time he'd finished, Tessa was clapping the jubilant players off the field, for all the world as if it was grand final day, she totally understood the game she'd been watching and she'd been supporting these players for years. To Mike's bemusement, when the losing side ran off the field she greeted them with just the same enthusiasm.

As Mike came up behind her, she turned and grinned at him.

‘OK. I've clapped till my hands are sore. Was that another call? Do we need to go?'

‘I need to go.' It wasn't that he didn't want Tessa beside him, he thought. He figured it was just that he needed to get away for a while. He badly needed time to think. ‘Stan Harper's a sixty-year-old farmer who lives out the other side of Jancourt,' he told her. ‘He rang to say he's having chest pain.'

‘Yeah?' Her smile faded. ‘Heart?'

‘In a way.' He smiled a trifle bleakly and shook his head. ‘Stan's wife died six months ago. Since then he gets chest pain every few weeks or so, and he panics. I've run the gamut of tests on him and there's nothing wrong.'

‘But you'll go anyway.' Tessa's face softened.

‘Yeah, well…' He could get Stan to drive himself in to the hospital. It'd be safe enough. But he knew what Stan really wanted.

Stan wanted Mike to care about him a bit—to fuss like his Cathy had and to tell him he wasn't alone in
the world. He wanted someone to share a beer and stare at a few cows and talk about the outcome of a football match that Stan wasn't ready to face without Cathy.

‘Yeah, I'll go, but I do need to go by myself. Sorry.' He bit his lip at the sound of the words. He sounded surly.

How else was he supposed to sound? He didn't know. He needed to figure out some way to get things on a solid, sensible footing here, he decided. Maybe he needed to talk to this girl for a while. Yeah. That was it. He needed to know all about her medical training, and he needed to know soon, before he made a decision about sending Jason away for surgery.

‘Tess, I should be back in town by about seven,' he said slowly, thinking his mental diary through. He wasn't expected at the shire ball until nine. There was time to talk first, especially if they did it over a meal. ‘There's some steak in my refrigerator. I'm going out to the shire ball later but, well, we could eat first. Talk about things…'

‘I'd love that.' She beamed and the thing was settled before he had a chance to say another word—or before he had a chance to decide whether he was totally stupid or not.

‘I'll meet you in your apartment at seven,' she said. ‘Unless you need me beforehand. Meanwhile, I'll stay here and celebrate or commiserate, and then I'll go and sit with Grandpa a while. But I'll be there at seven, Mike. Steak sounds fantastic.'

Hell! He felt like he was being steamrollered here, but there was little he could do about it. And
maybe…maybe it was what he wanted. ‘I just…need to collect Strop,' he said weakly. ‘He's over at the pie tent.'

‘Of course he's over at the pie tent.' Tess grinned. ‘I should have known Strop would be here and where Strop would be while he was here. Don't worry about him. I'll take him home.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘Absolutely. It would be my very great pleasure to take care of your dog, Dr Llewellyn.'

And, as he moved away, Mike swore he heard a faint echo.

‘And it would be my very great pleasure to take care of you.'

Surely he must have been mistaken!

 

As he'd thought, there was nothing the matter with Stan Harper.

Mike gave him a thorough once-over, but his vital signs were all just as a healthy sixty-year-old's should be. Stan accepted the verdict with resignation—hell, it was almost as if the man wanted a heart attack—and poured him a beer. They went out to sit on the back verandah to drink it in what was almost becoming a ritual.

‘I missed you at the game,' Mike told him, staring out over the mountains at the setting sun. ‘Your team lost. They don't play the same without you holding up the bar and cheering for them.'

‘Or Cathy hooting for all she's worth in the car,' Stan said morosely. ‘I know we never stayed together at the footy, but she was always
there
. I don't know,
Doc. It doesn't seem the same without her. Nothing's the same.'

There was nothing to say to that. Mike took a swig of beer and stared some more out over the paddocks. This was all he could do for this man. To be here. To be a mate.

‘Why the hell don't you get married?' Stan demanded suddenly. He filled his glass again and turned his attention full on Mike. ‘A man's a fool if he doesn't get married.'

‘Everyone's different.'

‘Yeah, but you're not a natural loner. You could do with a good woman.' Stan eyed Mike with speculation in his eyes. ‘Your mum was a bonzer woman.'

‘Maybe that's why I don't get married,' Mike said uneasily. ‘No one measures up.'

‘There's good women around. Your mum. My Cathy. You just gotta look.' Stan frowned into his glass, deep in thought.

At one level Mike welcomed this conversation. It made him uncomfortable, but at least Stan was thinking about something other than his misery.

‘What about this new lady doctor?' Stan said, and all of a sudden the conversation was totally unwelcome.

‘What about her?'

‘They say she's a knockout.'

Mike thought of the purple pompoms and could only agree.

‘How about it, Doc?' Stan demanded. ‘Are you interested?'

‘No.'

‘Why not?'

‘I'm too busy to be thinking about a love life.'

‘Then think about this girl instead,' Stan said warmly. ‘Not a love life. A future. A lady doctor as a wife… That'd mean half the workload and someone warm beside you in bed at night. A man'd be a fool to look a gift horse like that in the mouth.'

‘Yeah. A man'd be a fool.'

A man was a fool anyway.

M
IKE
was late for dinner, but Tess didn't wait for him. He arrived back at the hospital to find Tess had taken dinner into her own hands. He opened his apartment door, and there she was.

‘What are you doing here?' He stopped dead at the door, his nose wrinkling in automatic appreciation of the smells wafting toward him.

‘You asked me to dinner—remember?' She glanced at her wrist. ‘Half an hour ago. Strop and I had the choice of sitting on the doorstep and looking bereft, or taking some action. And looking bereft isn't our style.'

‘I can see that,' he said faintly. Bereft? She looked anything but bereft. ‘That's a great outfit!'

She looked down and grinned. She was wearing a soft white frock, but had covered it with a green theatre gown from the hospital linen supply.

On someone else it might have looked ridiculous. It didn't look the least bit ridiculous on Tess.

‘You don't have an apron,' she said accusingly. She looked around the flat. ‘In fact, you don't seem to have a lot, Dr Llewellyn. Do you believe in a nice, spartan existence?'

‘It's what I like.' Holy heck, he was out of his depth here.

‘But you like your dog?' Someone—it must have
been Tess—must have fed Strop, or maybe he'd eaten one pie too many to appreciate the smells Tess was conjuring up. He was lying full length under the table, gently snoring. Now Tess motioned out the window, towards one truly magnificent, hand-built doghouse. It was about four feet in length, painted in gold and red, with magnificent Greek lettering across the front.

“‘Stropacropolis”.'

‘You built that?' Tess asked, awed.

‘He had a broken hip when I got him,' Mike said weakly. ‘It was the least I could do.'

‘And, like Jacob, you always do the least you can do. I can see that about you.' Tessa's eyes were warm. ‘You know, Dr Llewellyn, I think I'm beginning to like you. Very, very much.'

‘Good. I mean…great.' Mike clipped his words, desperately precluding further discussion. Domesticity was threatening to swamp him here. The feeling that this was right. That this was how it could be. That he was beginning to like this woman right back…

He walked over and scooped up a finger-load of fried onions, trying to shake off the feeling of unreality. Tess hauled the pan away with the firmness of a matriarch.

‘No, you don't. Go and wash while I cook the steak. I'll bet you're all covered with patient or antiseptic or something disgusting and I won't have my steak compromised. Do you like it medium or rare? I don't do well done. It's a crime to burn meat like this.' She motioned to Mike's steaks—two enormous
T-bones. ‘We believe in steak in the US but I haven't seen steak like this for years.'

‘Welcome to Australia, then, Dr Westcott.' Mike smiled faintly and went obediently towards the bathroom. As ordered. He walked slowly, though, and looked back over his shoulder at the slim girl presiding over his stove in her theatre gown and vivid curls. Good grief!

Mike did more than just wash. He changed from his tailored work trousers to casual jeans and open-necked shirt, taking the time to try and calm his thoughts. He emerged to his kitchenette to find Tess, minus her theatre gown now, attractively demure in her lovely white dress. She looked every inch the hostess as she served up two laden plates, with Mike her invited guest.

And Mike's pleasant, calm thoughts, which he'd taken such pains to achieve, got all stirred up again. He didn't speak. Even if he could have thought of something to say, he wasn't given the chance.

‘Sit down,' his own personal matriarch ordered. ‘I hope you don't mind me opening your wine. Hannah gave me the key to your apartment from the nurses' station. She looked at me every which way when I said we were eating together. Sort of with a “you too” look in her eye. And she wasn't very nice. Have you two had a relationship?'

Mike's eyebrows hit his hairline.

‘No! I mean, I don't see what business it is—'

‘So there's never been anything between you? Don't let your steak get cold,' Tess added kindly, as Mike sank down at the table. ‘It's fabulous.'

‘No.' Mike chopped into his steak and took a large mouthful of meat. His eyebrows rose even further. The wine marinade Tess had used on the steak was magnificent. ‘Tessa, this is great.'

‘It is, isn't it?' she said warmly. ‘We
do
steak in the States, but you Aussies do
steak
!'

‘Not like this we don't,' Mike said warmly. The sensation of coming home to this was almost taking his breath away.

‘So tell me why Hannah Hester looked at me like she'd enjoy taking me out at dawn with a pistol apiece—with hers loaded and mine jinxed so it'd blow up in my hand.'

‘I have no idea.'

‘You haven't gone out with her?'

‘Tessa, I don't know what business of yours my relationships are. What have you put on this steak? It's marvellous.'

‘Red wine, garlic, lemon juice and a few herbs. Nothing special.' Tessa's face was serious as she spoke and he could see her mind wasn't on the meat. ‘Mike, Hannah says I should make arrangements for Grandpa to move into the nursing home. She says its impossible for him to stay on the farm and she says I'll go around the twist here in a matter of months. She thinks I won't stay.'

‘Yeah?' Mike sliced another piece of steak and it followed its predecessor. His smile faded to match Tessa's look of seriousness. Hannah Hester was an interfering busybody whose chief skill was upsetting relatives. If it wasn't so hard to find good nurses he'd sack her on the spot. And she'd upset Tessa…

The silence continued, but it wasn't uncomfortable. He watched Tessa's face as they ate, and finally he probed. ‘Hannah's really upset you?'

‘Worse than that,' Tess said. She finished the last of her steak and pushed her plate away. ‘She upset Grandpa by talking right in front of him. She treated him as if he wasn't there, and any nurse worth her salt knows better than to think stroke victims can't hear. No matter how paralysed they are.'

He frowned. ‘Tess, Hannah's a fine nurse.'

‘She might be fine with her clinical skills, but she's not good with people. In fact, she's awful.'

Mike sighed. He could only agree. ‘Tess, this place, well, it's a closed community. I know Hannah's not great. It's as if she has a permanent chip on her shoulder and, try as I may, I can never seem to get her onside. I'll speak to her, but I can't afford to sack her and she knows it. Well-trained nurses are like hen's teeth around here. They're so scarce they hardly exist.'

‘I know that,' Tess said tightly. ‘That's the reason—the
only
reason—I didn't slug her.' She cheered up then, and smiled. Heavens, the girl was a real chameleon, changing in front of his eyes. ‘That and the fact that she's bigger than me.'

‘I see.' He grinned. ‘I can just see the pair of you, slugging it out in the hospital corridor. Very professional.' His smile faded again. ‘Seriously, Tess, you need to get along with the only professional staff the valley has. You value their skills, and in time you learn to undo the damage an uncaring person can do.'

‘Yeah.' Her smile was back again now in force. ‘I
know. And I think I did. I told Grandpa he had to get better now, just to prove Hannah wrong. It's given him another motivation—as if he didn't have enough already.'

‘See? You're learning.'

‘Yeah, well, as long as she's just not being hurtful to Grandpa to get at me. Because she's jealous.'

‘Well, that's just plain ridiculous,' he said firmly attacking his steak again.

‘Why is it?' she asked slowly. ‘Why is it ridiculous for Hannah to be jealous?'

‘She has a boyfriend.'

‘Did she have one when you first came back here?'

‘No, but—'

‘Then maybe she fell for you.'

‘Women don't fall for me.'

Tess raised her eyebrows and said nothing. She finished her steak, carried her plate and wineglass to the sink, set her plate down and then stood and eyed Mike thoughtfully as he finished.

He could sense there was something coming here. Something really important. She had that ‘major impertinence' look in her eye he was beginning to know. This woman didn't understand the meaning of the word personal.

And finally she said it.

‘You're sure you're not gay, Dr Llewellyn?' She frowned into her wineglass and then fixed him with a speculative look. ‘I know. You've told me you're not gay, but you're kind and you're sensitive and you're good-looking. You make good money and you drive a smashing car. So how that combination hasn't
been grabbed and held onto…' She brought her eyebrows together and her eyes probed his—as though sticking an insect on a pin for examination. ‘Are you
sure
?'

He might have known. He grinned. ‘No, Dr Westcott, I am not gay,' he said firmly. He rose and carried his plate towards her.

Instinctively Tess took a step back, putting distance between herself and Mike until she had the information she wanted.

‘Are you married, then? Divorced? Widowed? Separated?'

‘Who wants to know?'

‘Me,' she shot back at him.

‘And what business is it of yours?'

‘None at all,' she said calmly. ‘But you're intending to be a working partner of mine and at least one nurse has now insinuated I'm setting my cap at you. I just want to know whether to tell her such a thing is ridiculous. And I'd really like to know that it's not.'

That was pretty blatant.

He blinked. What was happening here? Mike stared down at Tess and she stared straight back up at him—and he could read her mind like a book. It was almost as if she was propositioning him. If she'd been a man, she'd be buying roses and chocolates and laying siege….

Grabbing!

Whoa…

‘It is ridiculous,' he said curtly. He gave her a strained look and put his plate on the sink. How the hell was he expected to handle this?

Tessa looked just lovely. Her soft, white dress was low-cut and clinging. Her eyes were huge in her elfin face and the few freckles scattered across the bridge of her nose were immensely—incredibly—appealing. They needed to be kissed.

Whoa!

‘No, Dr Westcott,' he managed weakly, ‘I'm not married, engaged, widowed, involved or even gay. But neither do I intend to be.'

‘Why ever not?'

‘I'm married to my work,' he said shortly.

‘I've just taken a heap of your work off you. Does that mean I'll be hauled up before the divorce courts as co-respondent?'

Her voice was gently teasing, but he hardly heard. He stood by the sink and stared at her, fighting for control.

‘There's more than enough work to keep us both frantic,' he told her heavily.

‘But I don't intend to be frantic.' She lifted her chin. ‘My medicine's important to me, but it's not everything. I still intend to look after my grandfather. I still intend to have a life.'

‘My life is my medicine.'

‘I can see that.' She moistened her lips. She felt strange. As if someone else was inside her body and that someone was a woman she hardly knew. That someone was so strongly drawn to Mike that she had hardly any control at all.

‘It seems such a waste,' she murmured.

‘A waste?' He looked sardonically at her. ‘Waste for who?'

‘A waste for me.'

Silence. The words echoed round and round the room, astounding in their simplicity.

‘What on earth do you mean by that?' he said at last—and then his face closed as if he regretted the question.

Tess also should have regretted her statement. His question was a question Tess shouldn't be able to answer. She should just mumble an apology—give a silly giggle and get the hell out of here before she made a real fool of herself.

Instead, she took a long, deep breath and met his eyes with a look of pure defiance.

The woman's role was to stay demure and shy, Mike thought wildly. That was how he could cope. But how could he cope with a woman who was coming on like Tessa was coming on? Like she found him wildly attractive and didn't care who knew it. Especially she didn't mind if Mike knew it. She wanted him to know exactly how she felt, and how she felt was written right across her face.

‘I mean that you're the most attractive male I've ever met,' she said softly. ‘I mean that you're gentle and kind and caring and I just have to look at you and my knees sort of wobble underneath me. I mean that Hannah got it right when she said that one of the reasons I want to stay here is that I'd like to get to know you better.'

‘She said that?'

‘She said that. And it's true. Oh, it's not the only reason,' she added hastily as his face closed. ‘Of course, I'm staying for my grandfather.' She took a
deep breath, fighting for words. ‘But if you want a partner with knees that don't wobble, you'd better tell me now that you find red hair a real turn-off. Or that you're into stamp collecting instead of women.' She gave a twisted smile. ‘And I don't believe I'm saying this.'

‘I don't believe you are either,' Mike said faintly. ‘Women don't say these sort of things.'

‘I just did.'

‘Well, no one has before,' he said bluntly. ‘Tess…'

‘Don't tell me women don't find you attractive,' she shot at him. She took a deep breath and managed a smile. Damn, there was a glimmer behind her eyes that told Mike that a part of Tess was enjoying herself here. She was enjoying knocking his socks off.

And the rest!

Tess put her hands on the kitchen bench behind her and hitched herself up so she was sitting, her lovely stockinged legs swinging free as she watched the man before her. And he stared back at her as if she'd just crawled out of a spaceship!