The Honourable Army Doc (2 page)

He answered the call but the voice on the other end of the line was unexpected. He had been expecting his daughters but instead he got his mother-in-law.

‘Helen? What is it? What’s the matter? Is it one of the girls?’ It was unusual for Helen to ring him. Their relationship was perfectly amicable but there was never
a real reason for them to speak. His daughters kept him in the loop and anything important he would discuss with their mother. Helen could only be ringing with bad news.

Quinn kept walking out of the room and into the hotel lobby. He needed to get away from the bar, suspecting he would need some peace and quiet. His heart was lodged in his throat as he waited for the reply. His breathing laboured.

‘It’s Julieanne.’

His wife.

Ex-wife
, he corrected automatically.

He was certain now the phone call was not good news but hearing that the call wasn’t about his daughters relaxed the muscles in his diaphragm and allowed him just enough air to speak. ‘What is it? Has there been an accident?’

‘No. It’s her headaches.’

Julieanne had always suffered from headaches and Quinn knew that of late her headaches had become more frequent and more severe. He’d asked her to speak to her doctor but Julieanne had been convinced that she could manage them by experimenting with her diet and exercise routine.

Helen continued and Quinn could hear her voice catch with emotion. ‘She had a seizure today.’

The last vestiges of calm that he’d felt when he’d been speaking with Ali vanished as Helen’s words forced their way into his head. He could almost feel his mind resisting her words. He didn’t want to hear this.

This is serious
, he thought. He closed his eyes as he
rubbed his brow with his free hand.
This isn’t about diet and exercise. I should have insisted she see someone
.

There was an ottoman in front of him, tucked into a corner of the lobby, and Quinn collapsed onto it, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands, and forced himself to take a deep breath.

‘Where is she? Tell me what happened.’

He listened as between Helen’s sobs she told him what had transpired. ‘We’re at the hospital now. The doctor has just come to speak to me. She has a brain tumour.’

A tumour
.

The rest of the conversation was a blur as Quinn spoke first to Helen and then to the doctor. He forced himself to concentrate as they discussed Julieanne’s condition but he knew he’d only registered the basic facts and they were far from good.

When the conversation ended he stood up from the ottoman on shaky legs. His hands were shaking too as he pocketed his phone. He was struggling to breathe. He could feel his larynx spasm as he tried to relax his diaphragm and take a breath. He needed air. To his right was the hotel entrance. To his left was the conference room. He looked back towards the bar, back to the room where he had left Ali. But he couldn’t go back into the bar. Not yet. He needed fresh air.

He pushed open the hotel’s front door, not waiting for the doorman’s assistance. The hotel was built on the banks of the Brisbane River and Quinn crossed to the embankment in three long strides. He gripped the railings at the river’s edge, anchoring himself as he
gulped the fresh, evening air and tried to make sense of the conversation he’d just had. But even as he was trying to get things straight in his head he knew there was no making sense of it. It was a horrible, unimaginable situation to be in.

He stared blankly into the depths of the dark water swirling below him. Growing up on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland, he’d always had an affinity for water and it was something else he’d missed while stationed in Afghanistan. Normally he found water soothing but tonight it wasn’t allaying his fears. It wasn’t soothing. It wasn’t calming. He’d been craving calm since his return from Afghanistan but now he couldn’t imagine things ever being calm again.

He had no idea how long he stood there, staring into the water, but gradually he became aware of people around him, couples and groups strolling along the pathway, giving him sideways glances as they passed by. He made himself relax his grip on the railing. Relax his shoulders. He knew he couldn’t stay outside hoping the water and fresh air would revive him. He didn’t have the luxury of time. He had things to do. He had plans to make. He had responsibilities.

He retraced his steps to the hotel. The doorman saw him coming and opened the door. Quinn nodded without really registering the service as he passed through. He headed for the bank of lifts adjacent to the conference room where he had been minutes before. He hesitated at the door, searching for a flash of red. His eyes ran along the length of the bar. Nothing. He scanned the room and found her.

He wished he could go in. He could do with some of the serenity that seemed to envelop her but she wasn’t alone. Her friends had arrived and she was gathered within their circle.

He wished he could go in but he had no right to interrupt her. No right to demand her attention. She didn’t need his problems. He had thought his life was complicated enough twenty minutes ago. If only he could have that life back. But in the space of twenty minutes his life had changed irrevocably. There was no going back.

He took one last look at Ali’s red lips and wished he could taste them. Just once. But he couldn’t go back. He could only go forward. He had to do what he had to do. His daughters would need him and, as always, he would put them first. He turned his back on the bar and headed for the lifts with heavy steps.

The lift doors closed, cutting him off from Ali, taking him out of her life.

Quinn took another deep breath as he prepared himself for what lay ahead. There was no time to think about anything else. There was no time for ifs, buts and maybes. There was only reality. His present no longer consisted of raven hair and cherry lips. His present consisted of responsibility and duty.

Ali

A
LI PUSHED OPEN
the clinic door and unwound her scarf as she felt the warmth of the waiting room begin to defrost her face. She was so over winter. It had been unseasonably cold and long, even by Adelaide Hills standards, and the few days she’d spent in the Brisbane warmth for the medical conference seemed a lifetime ago. Her skin had forgotten the feeling of the Queensland sun over the past six weeks and she couldn’t wait for summer.

She undid the buttons on her new winter coat, a scarlet, woollen swing coat that she’d bought to lift her spirits and help her get through the last weeks of cold weather. Her spirits needed lifting, she needed something to look forward to. She loved her job but lately it had lacked excitement. It had become routine. The last time she’d felt excited about anything had been in Brisbane. The night she’d met Quinn.

She sighed. Her life was a pretty sad state of affairs if a ten-minute conversation was the highlight of the past
few months. But there was no denying she’d enjoyed it and no denying she had spent far too much time thinking about him. Wondering why he hadn’t come back. Wondering what had happened to him.

Despite telling herself she no longer believed in fate, she hadn’t been able to shake off the idea that they had been destined to meet. But even she wasn’t delusional enough not to realise she was romanticising things. Quinn had probably had no intention of coming back, he’d probably thought she was dull and ordinary and had been desperate for an escape, whereas she’d thought he was interesting and charismatic.

She’d spent so much time thinking about him that on occasions since getting home her subconscious had tricked her into thinking she’d caught fleeting glimpses of him. But of course it was just her imagination working overtime because when she’d look a second time she would see it was just another solidly built man with cropped blond hair or that the person had disappeared from view completely.

Imagined sightings, unfinished conversations and scant memories were all she had.

She knew she wanted to find love but she was sensible enough to realise it wasn’t going to be Quinn Daniels who would sweep her off her feet. No matter how much she wished it. Daydreams weren’t going to change anything, she thought as she shrugged out of her coat. It was time to move on.

She glanced around the waiting room. There were a couple of patients sitting quietly but no one she recognised. She wasn’t actually due at the clinic for another
hour as she’d finished her nursing-home visits earlier than expected so she assumed they weren’t waiting for her.

‘Ali, there you are.’ The receptionist’s chirpy voice greeted her as she emerged from the back of the clinic. It sounded as though Tracey had been waiting for her but Ali couldn’t imagine why as she was well ahead of schedule. ‘Your mum wants to see you as soon as you get in,’ Tracey added.

The medical practice had been started by Ali’s mum when Ali and her brother had still been in nappies. The building that was now the surgery had been their family home but as the practice had expanded their family had moved into a bigger house nearby and the clinic had taken over the building. Ali had spent many hours in the practice, playing in her younger years and helping out with various odd jobs as she’d got older, and she’d always known she wanted to work there one day. Her mum had shown her it was possible to balance a career and a family successfully and that had been Ali’s dream too. Until recently.

Until recently Ali had been quite content working as a GP. She enjoyed knowing her patients and being a part of their lives and the community. But until recently she hadn’t ever expected that she might never have more than this. She was twenty-six years old and at a crossroads in her life. She was restless. Her future lacked direction and excitement and she was at a loss as to how to remedy this.

‘Do you know why?’ Ali asked.

‘She wants to introduce you to the locum. He’s in with her now.’

‘He?’ The locum position was a part-time one, to cover for Ali’s mother who was accompanying her husband to an overseas conference followed by a short holiday. Ali knew her mother was hoping that if things worked out she could then persuade the locum to stay on, allowing her to reduce her working hours further. Ali had assumed, incorrectly apparently, that the job would go to a female doctor as part-time hours were highly sort after by working mums, but perhaps the new doctor was also nearing retirement age, like her own mother. ‘Is he old?’

Tracey grinned and Deb, the practice nurse, laughed. ‘Not by our standards,’ she said, ‘but every minute you stand out here he’ll be another minute older. If I were you I’d be hustling in there.’

Ali gave a quick glance over her shoulder at Tracey and Deb as she headed for her mother’s consulting room. They were giggling like a pair of schoolgirls. She frowned, wondering what on earth had got into the two of them.

She knocked and opened her mother’s door. The physique of the man in front of her was instantly recognisable and he was far from old. Her heart leapt in her chest.

Tall, solid and muscular, he stood lightly balanced on the balls of his feet. His hair was longer, not so closely cropped, and the blond was touched with flecks of grey that she was certain hadn’t been there six weeks ago. He looked a little leaner and a little older but when he turned to face her she saw that his eyes were unchanged.
They were the exact same extraordinary, intense, backlit, azure blue.

His name slipped from her tongue. ‘Quinn?’

He stared at her. Did he remember her?

Her heart was in her throat, making it impossible to breathe. She had dreamt of meeting him again but in her dreams there had been no hesitation. In her dreams he hadn’t forgotten her.

‘Ali?’

She exhaled. ‘You’re the new doctor?’

He nodded.

‘You two know each other?’ her mother asked.

Ali had barely noticed that her mother was in the room. She only had eyes for Quinn. She forced herself to turn her head and look at her mother. ‘We met at the conference in Brisbane,’ she explained.

‘Good.’ If her mother noticed Ali’s preoccupation, she gave no sign of it. She was already moving ahead, pressing on with the next issue. She very rarely stopped and today seemed to be no exception. ‘Alisha, I have patients waiting, can I leave you to show Quinn around the surgery and let him get settled into his consulting room? He starts with us tomorrow.’

Her mother didn’t wait for her to agree or to argue. She shook Quinn’s hand and hustled out the door to call her first patient, leaving Ali temporarily frozen to the spot and at a loss for words. Her brain was full of questions. There was no room in it for motor functions. Her body appeared to have shut down as she stood and feasted on the sight of Quinn and struggled with the questions that were racing through her head.

What was he doing here? What about the army? His proper job? What on earth would he want a part-time locum job in a small clinic for? Why had he left her at the bar? Why hadn’t he come back?

Quinn couldn’t believe his eyes. Ali was standing in front of him. Ali of the raven tresses, grey eyes and cherry-red lips. After the chaos of his last few weeks, to see her standing a few feet away was nothing short of amazing. To say he was surprised would be an understatement. Astounded, perhaps. No, flabbergasted, that was a better word. He’d never had an occasion to use that word before but it was the perfect word for this situation.

He’d just been employed by Ali’s mother? The petite, colourful Indian woman was Ali’s mother?

That would at least partly explain Ali’s unusual colouring, Quinn thought as he absorbed the fact that she was here, in the flesh, in front of him. He’d suspected Spanish or maybe Mediterranean heritage but an Indian lineage made sense too.

He hadn’t taken his eyes off her. He couldn’t. She was even more beautiful than he remembered. She was wearing a red silk shirt that exactly matched the colour of her lips. He hadn’t forgotten those lips. The colour had imprinted itself on his subconscious and had not faded in his memory over the past weeks. He didn’t think he’d ever be able to see the colour red without thinking of her.

She looked healthy and vibrant. Her olive skin glowed. It looked warm and soft, alive.

She hadn’t moved. He had no doubt she was equally as surprised as he was. He knew not all surprises were good ones but from where he was standing this surprise was all positive. He hoped she agreed.

Seeing her made him feel that applying for this position had been a good decision. For the first time in a month and a half he felt as though his life wasn’t completely out of control. He recalled the sense of calmness he’d felt on the night they’d first met. Now, more than ever, he could use some peace and serenity.

He watched as her frown deepened. He could see the questions in her grey eyes.

‘I don’t understand. What are you doing here?’ Her soft, sultry voice caressed his senses. He wanted to close his eyes and relax and let her voice wash some of his troubles away. ‘Aren’t you with the army?’

‘It’s a long story.’ And a complicated one. Quinn knew that, as surprised as Ali was to see him, his reasons for being here would surprise her even further. It wasn’t something he could explain in a couple of sentences. He needed time and no interruptions. ‘Can we go somewhere else? Your mother will want her room; I’ll explain but not in here.’

She nodded and led him into the corridor and across the hall. He followed and his eyes were drawn to the sway of her hips, which made the hem of her black skirt kick up, exposing the tops of a pair of long black boots. Even though he couldn’t see her legs he could remember the shape of her calves, the narrowness of her ankles, and he felt the unfamiliar kick in his stomach that he knew was desire.

Ali opened the third door on the opposite side of the building and turned to face him. He made himself focus, dragging his attention from her backside as she spoke to him.

‘This is the spare consulting room. It will be yours while you’re here.’

She sounded far from convinced and he couldn’t blame her. It was an odd situation to find themselves in and it was obvious neither of them quite knew how to handle it. But he’d have to do his best to explain his circumstances.

By silent consent he took the chair in front of the desk. The desk was positioned in front of the window and he was vaguely aware of a view onto a side garden but he was having difficulty dragging his gaze from Ali. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail that spilled over one shoulder and she sat in the chair beside the desk and crossed her ankles, tucking her feet under the chair. She was sitting very upright, her posture as perfect as the night he’d met her, but he sensed that now it was more of a conscious effort. Her shoulders seemed tense, as though she was holding herself together, keeping up appearances, and he wondered what it was about the situation that was making her nervous.

‘What are you doing here?’ Ali repeated her earlier question. ‘Have you left the army?’

He shook his head. ‘Not exactly. I’ve taken leave, carer’s leave.’

‘Carer’s leave?’ she parroted. ‘Who for?’

‘My wife,’ he replied.

‘You’re married?’ He saw her glance at his ring finger. It was bare. Just as it had always been.

‘Ex-wife,’ he corrected quickly. ‘We’re divorced.’ Their marriage had hardly been a textbook one but even now he struggled with the ‘ex’ part. Not because he still wanted to be married but because it was a reminder of his failings as a husband. For someone who was, by nature, a perfectionist, it bothered him that he hadn’t been able to keep a marriage together.

Ali was frowning again. ‘You’re caring for your ex-wife? Why?’

‘It’s complicated.’

‘I’m sure it is.’ She smiled, inviting him to tell her more. But telling her more would wipe the smile from her face. He had no doubt about that. And he wasn’t sure if he wanted to be the one to make her smile disappear. If Ali was smiling he could pretend that things were fine with the world.

‘You’re not doing a very good job of explaining why you’re here.’ Ali spoke into the silence that stretched between them.

Quinn pinched the bridge of his nose and ran his thumb and forefinger out along each eyebrow, trying to ease the tension he could feel through his forehead as he summoned the strength to tell her what she was waiting to hear. He was yet to find an easy way to deliver this sentence. ‘My wife, ex-wife,’ he corrected himself again, ‘has a brain tumour.’

He was relieved when she didn’t gasp or hesitate or stammer something inane, like most people did. Being a doctor, she grasped the situation better than most.
‘What grade?’ she asked. Her question was matter-of-fact. There was no room for emotion, just the facts.

‘A GBM IV.’ He could see by Ali’s expression that she understood the poor prognosis. Her olive skin paled slightly. Ali didn’t know Julieanne, she didn’t owe her any sympathy, but Quinn could see that she felt for her. Astrocytomas were the most common primary brain tumour in adults but their characteristics and prognoses varied widely. Glioblastoma multiforme IV was a fast-spreading, highly malignant tumour. It was not the one you wanted to be diagnosed as having.

But Julieanne’s condition still didn’t completely explain his reasons for being there. ‘My mother-in-law has moved in with them,’ he continued, before Ali could ask more questions, ‘but she can’t manage to care for Julieanne and the children. I’m doing it for my kids. After all, they are my responsibility.’

‘Children?’

He’d forgotten Ali didn’t know about his daughters. Forgotten she knew virtually nothing at all about him. There was a part of him that felt as though he’d known her all his life. An idea in his head that they’d shared more than just a brief conversation many weeks ago. He nodded. ‘Two girls.’

Her shoulders relaxed as she leaned forward in her chair, closing the distance between them, letting her guard down. She stretched a hand towards him, as though to touch him, before she thought better of it. Her hand dropped into her lap and Quinn’s heart dropped with it. The movement served to highlight to him how
much he wanted to feel her touch. How badly he needed to be connected to another person. To Ali.