Читать книгу Cinderella of Harley Street - Anne Fraser, Anne Fraser - Страница 6

CASSIE HEAVED HER bag along the quayside, feeling unbearably hot in the midday African sun.

She stopped to rest her aching arms and glanced upwards. The boat was enormous—far bigger than she could ever have imagined. That was good. It would mean that there would be plenty of corners for her to hide in. Naturally she’d socialise whenever it was necessary, but she needed to know that there were places, apart from her cabin, where she could be alone. It wasn’t that she didn’t like people, she simply preferred her own company.

Her attention was caught by a man standing next to the rail, talking on his phone. Just as Cassie looked up at him he turned his head and for a moment their eyes locked. Her head spun as the strangest sensations twirled around her lower abdomen.

It wasn’t as if he was particularly good-looking—God knew, she had been out with men better looking in her life—but it was the way he carried himself, the tilt of his head, the slight smile on his lips, the way his eyes creased at the corners. If she didn’t know differently, she would have sworn she was experiencing simple, pure lust.

When he tipped his head to the side and raised one eyebrow, she flushed, knowing she had been staring. Now a deeper shade of red would be added to the beetroot colour she must already be from heat and exertion. Great. In those few seconds they had held each other’s gazes, all sorts of warning bells had gone off in her head. She decided instantly that whoever he was she’d do her best to ignore him in the coming weeks.

She was halfway up the gangway when disaster struck. Her over-filled, slightly battered and definitely seen-better-days suitcase decided it had had enough of being stuffed to the gills, and it exploded, showering her path with T-shirts, dresses and, most embarrassingly, her underwear. She watched with horror as a pair of her lace and silk panties, which had cost her more money than she cared to remember, flew over the handrail, snagged on a piece of metal and fluttered there like some sort of lacy flag of surrender.

Mortified, Cassie lunged for them and almost toppled into the sea. And that was exactly what would have happened had she not found herself caught and held fast against a broad, hard chest.

For the briefest of moments she stayed there. There was something achingly secure about being held in these particular arms.

Which was ridiculous. She didn’t need a man—anyone—to make her feel safe.

Somehow she wasn’t surprised when she reluctantly extricated herself from the stranger’s arms to find that the man who had saved her from falling overboard was the same one who only moments earlier had caught her staring. So much for her promise to herself to avoid him.

‘I know it’s hot, but I wouldn’t recommend the side of the ship for a dip.’

His accent was Scottish, warm and rich with a musical cadence of laughter.

When she looked up at him—he was a good few inches taller than she was—she was horrified to discover that he had rescued her panties and was now holding the flimsy piece of silk and lace in his hands.

‘Yours, I believe?’ he said with a cheeky grin.

Could her introduction to the ship and the staff get any worse than this? Cassie thought despairingly, noticing that several people were now lining the rails of the ship taking an unabashed interest in what was going on below them. To make matters worse, a group of locals had also stopped and were chattering away to one another in loud, cheerful voices while pointing to Cassie and giggling.

‘Thank you,’ she said stiffly, grabbing her panties. Really, was there any need for him to hold them up for all to see?

She crouched down and quickly scooped up her scattered belongings, shoving them into the suitcase. Normally, when she packed, everything was perfectly arranged, each item in its place, each T-shirt, skirt, dress and pair of trousers laid on top of each other in graduating colours. Although she knew it was a little obsessional, Cassie liked order—more than liked it, needed it. But unless she wanted to have every item of her wardrobe examined in minute detail there was nothing for it but to get the damn things back in the suitcase and out of sight as quickly as possible. She would have to wait until she reached her cabin before she could sort it all.

Her helper—she refused to think of him as rescuer; it wasn’t really an appropriate term for a man who’d mostly retrieved her underwear—crouched down in the confined space of the gangway, so close she could feel the heat radiating from him. The sensation was so intense it robbed her of her breath. However, any attempt to move away would result in her going for the swim he’d joked about. Even if, right now, it was almost tempting.

‘I can manage, thank you,’ she said. ‘I’m sure there are other places you need to be.’

‘There are, but I’m pretty sure none of them are quite as entertaining.’

She glanced up at him and again there was that odd frisson running down her spine. She shoved the remaining clothes into her suitcase and almost immediately realised if she tried to close it, first, she would have to sit on it on the steep gangway and, second, even if she did get it closed there was every chance it would burst open again before she could reach her cabin.

It appeared as if the same thought had struck him. He picked up her suitcase, snapped it shut with a single easy movement and tucked it under his arm. ‘Deck and cabin number?’ he asked. ‘At least, I’m assuming you are joining the ship as staff?’

Cassie studied him for a moment. He was tall, almost six-four, she guessed, with sun-lightened brown hair and a wide, full mouth that turned up more at one side than the other. But it was his eyes, an unusual shade of green that drew her. She had the uncanny feeling he could see right into her, see all her secrets, and the sensation wasn’t a welcome one.

She became aware that he was waiting for her response with a quizzical smile on his face. ‘Dr Ross. Cassie Ross,’ she said, holding out her hand.

His smile widened. ‘Dr Leith Ballantyne. Welcome to the African Mercy Ship.’

Damn—he was one of the doctors. That would make him difficult to avoid. But, with a bit of luck, he himself would be leaving soon. Cassie had been told that although the nurses tended to stay for a minimum of three months, most of the doctors held permanent jobs elsewhere and, like her, only usually managed to give a few weeks of their time in any one year.

At the top of the gangway she reached for her suitcase. ‘I’ll take it now, if you don’t mind.’

‘No. I insist. You must be tired from travelling.’ He raised an eyebrow in question. ‘London?’

‘Yes,’ she responded tersely. Then, realising she was being rude, she added, ‘Seems days since I left England. I must have experienced every form of transport Africa has to offer over the last forty-eight hours. It’s great to finally be here.’

‘It’s an excellent ship with an excellent team.’

‘And I’m looking forward to getting stuck in this afternoon.’

‘There’ll be no work for you until tomorrow.’ Without waiting for her reply, he headed off down a narrow corridor, still holding her suitcase, and she was forced to follow him.

‘I’ll be fine once I have a shower,’ she said to his back.

He turned round. ‘Believe me, you’ll have enough to do while you’re here. How long are you staying anyway?’

‘Just over two weeks.’

‘Then take the rest while you can. You’re going to need it.’ When he gave her a lopsided smile she had the crazy sensation of not being able to breathe. She dragged her eyes away from his, hoping he would put the heat in her cheeks down to the sun.

‘Perhaps we could have dinner later and I could explain how it works around here?’ he continued.

She hadn’t been here five minutes and already he was hitting on her. Normally that wouldn’t bother her—she’d dealt with men like him plenty of times before, usually brushing them off with a light-hearted quip—but there was something about Leith that disturbed her usual composure.

‘I’d like to get to work straight away,’ she replied stiffly.

Immediately the laconic manner was gone. ‘It’s not going to happen. A tired doctor is a dangerous doctor. You are forbidden from working until you’ve had a good night’s sleep.’ Then he smiled again. ‘So, dinner? It’s not haute cuisine, I’m afraid, but it serves its purpose.’

Just who did he think he was, telling her what she could and could not do? She was about to open her mouth to say as much when he swung round and carried on walking. He opened the door to her tiny cabin and dropped her bag on the narrow bunk. There was barely room to swing a cat and she was acutely aware of him standing just a few feet from her.

‘I can take it from here,’ she said quickly. ‘If I can’t work, I think I’ll skip dinner and have an early night. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I should find the showers.’

‘They’re at the end of the corridor.’ As he stepped towards her she backed away. She didn’t want to be any closer to him than she was already. Annoyingly her pulse was still beating a tattoo in her temples. It had to be the heat.

He grinned again, amusement glinting in his deep green eyes as if he’d noticed her instant reaction to him and it hadn’t surprised him. ‘If you change your mind about dinner, I’ll be in the canteen about seven.’

When he left, Cassie closed the door of her cabin and sank down on the bed. If at all possible, she was going to avoid Dr Leith Ballantyne.

Leith was whistling as he made his way to his cabin. From the moment he’d first clapped eyes on her, he’d known that life was going to get way more interesting. He normally preferred women with long hair but Cassie’s short silky black bob suited her heart-shaped, delicate features, making her eyes appear almost too large for her face.

Up until her suitcase had spewed her belongings over the gangway she’d looked impossibly cool and sexy in her white blouse and light cotton trousers that clung to her curvy figure. And as for those eyes! The icy look she’d given him when he’d caught her staring could have destroyed a lesser man, so the way she’d blushed when he’d retrieved her underwear had been a surprise—a good one.

She intrigued the hell out of him. Cool, almost shy one minute—and in Leith’s experience women who looked like Cassie weren’t in the least bit shy—sparky and determined the next.

Pity she was only here for a couple of weeks. He would have liked to take his time getting to know Dr Cassie Ross and, if she was only here for a couple of weeks, time was one thing he didn’t have.

Cassie wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her arm and looked down at her line of patients, stretching along the dusty road and way into the distance. There wasn’t room on the Mercy Ship to see outpatients, all the space being needed for the wards and theatres.

She’d seen more kids already than she could count and there were more still to be seen—most waiting patiently with their mothers, some playing in the dust and others tucked up in shawls on their mothers’ backs.

It was the quiet ones you had to worry about most. Children who cried or played had to be fit enough to react to their environment. Those who lay limply in their mothers’ arms were almost always the most in need of urgent attention.

On her first morning, she’d been allocated her duties by the medical officer in charge and she’d had her nose to the grindstone ever since. As the only paediatrician, Cassie was responsible for all the children the nurses referred to her at the daily morning outpatient clinic. She also had charge of the small but well-equipped children’s ward and special-care facility on board and, in addition, she would assist with paediatric cases in Theatre whenever her help was required.

None of it fazed her in the slightest. She’d done a year as a surgical resident as part of her paediatric training and although didn’t want to specialise in surgery had enjoyed her time in Theatre. In fact, the more challenges, the harder the work, the better.

She stopped for a moment to drink some water. In this heat it was important to keep hydrated. Suddenly, she heard a commotion in one of the other lines. Although the patients had to wait for hours in the burning sun they rarely complained so any disturbance had to mean something was wrong. With a quick word to the nurse who was assisting her, she went to see what it was about.

When she reached the point in the line where the cries had been coming from, the patients stood back. A young woman, perhaps no more than seventeen, was lying on the ground, clutching her swollen stomach and moaning with pain. Cassie dropped to her knees. Judging by the size of her abdomen, the woman was close to giving birth. Then Cassie saw something that instantly put her on red alert. There was a pool of blood soaking the woman’s dress.

‘Get help!’ she shouted to the chattering bystanders. She instructed some of the women to form a shield and lifted the woman’s dress. Her thighs were covered in blood. This was a possible placental abruption—an obstetric emergency—and not Cassie’s area of expertise. Unless the woman had a Caesarean in the next few minutes and was transfused, she would die.

As Cassie lifted her head to shout for a stretcher, someone crouched down next to her. It was the man from the gangway—Dr Ballantyne. Apart from that first day, four days ago, she hadn’t spoken to him. She’d seen him about, of course, he wasn’t exactly the kind of man that blended into his surroundings, but, as she’d promised herself, she’d gone out of her way to avoid him. Why that was she wasn’t quite sure. Only that he unsettled her—and she didn’t like being unsettled.

‘Hello again,’ he said quietly. Without Cassie having to say anything, he took in the situation at a glance. ‘Looks like a possible placenta abruption,’ he said grimly. ‘There’s no time to take her to Theatre on board. We’ll have to get her inside and operate here.’

Cassie looked around. They could do with some help—a nurse and an anaesthetist for a start. But most of the doctors and nurses had stopped for lunch and retreated to the shady, cool dining room on the ship.

‘We need a stretcher over here,’ Leith called out. Cassie breathed a sigh of relief when two nurses emerged from the interior of one of the huts. One of the local volunteers brought a stretcher and working together they loaded the stricken woman onto it.

‘I need an anaesthetist,’ Leith said. ‘Like now.’

‘They’re all on board,’ the nurse said. ‘Do you want me to send for one of them?’

‘Yes. Go!’ As soon as the nurse had taken off, Leith looked at Cassie. ‘Even if she finds someone straight away, by the time they get here it will be too late. Have you ever given a spinal?’

Cassie nodded. She brought up a mental image of a medical textbook. Luckily she had an almost encyclopaedic memory, one of the few benefits of a childhood spent mostly with books.

Although she’d been warned that working on the Mercy Ship might mean stepping out of her own area of expertise, she hadn’t expected to be assisting with a case of placental abruption quite so soon after her arrival. She was glad that Leith was there and appeared to be taking it all in his stride.

As he prepped the patient’s abdomen, Cassie loaded a syringe with local anaesthetic. Then they turned the woman on her side and Leith held her firmly while Cassie cupped the expectant mother’s hips, feeling for the bones of the pelvis. Bringing her thumbs towards the middle line and on either side of the spine, she found the space between the L3 and L4 vertebrae. She moved up to the next space. It was important to take her time. If she gave it in the wrong place, the woman could be paralysed, but in the end the spinal went every bit as smoothly as she’d anticipated.

While they waited for the anaesthetic to take effect Leith took blood for cross-matching and gave the sample to the nurse to take to the ship’s laboratory. Waiting for the results would take time—when every minute could mean the difference between life and survival.

In the meantime, the midwife had returned, bringing some bags of saline back with her, and Leith immediately set about putting up a drip.

‘They are preparing a theatre for you,’ the midwife said.

‘It’s too late,’ Leith replied. Cassie ignored the flutter of anxiety in her abdomen and made sure to keep her expression noncommittal. Another skill she had mastered in her childhood.

As soon as she was satisfied that the woman couldn’t feel anything below her waist, she nodded to Leith, who started to operate. With Cassie keeping an eye on the woman’s breathing, he sliced into the abdomen and a few minutes later pulled out a small, perfectly formed baby, who was, however, disturbingly limp and still. Cassie stepped forward and as soon as she had checked that there were no secretions blocking the airway of the baby girl, she immediately began to breathe into the newborn’s mouth. Go on, little one. Breathe for me. If not for me, for your mummy. Come on, you can do it.

To her relief, after a few breaths the child gave a gasp and a cry. When she glanced at Leith he grinned and gave her a thumbs-up. She smiled back at him. They’d saved this baby.

They weren’t out of the woods yet. The neonate needed to be taken on board the Mercy Ship and straight to the special-care nursery.

Thankfully, just at that moment another two nurses, pushing a portable incubator, rushed into the room. Now the baby would get the mechanical support she required and once she got to the ship she would have the all help the singing and dancing tiny special-care unit could give her. As the midwives transferred the baby to the incubator, Cassie glanced back at the baby’s mother and was alarmed to see that blood had pooled in her abdomen.

‘Damn. I’m going to have to do a hysterectomy,’ Leith said. ‘But she’ll need to be fully anaesthetised first. That isn’t something I can do here. We need to get her to Theatre.’

As Leith started to pack the pelvis with swabs, one of the other doctors hurried into the room. Knowing that she would only get in the way if she stayed, Cassie left the mother in their hands and accompanied the baby and incubator back on board.

Once the baby was settled, Cassie handed over her care to the neonatal nurse. Although the baby was slightly smaller than Cassie would have liked, she was breathing well on her own. As soon as the mother had recovered from her anaesthetic, a nurse would bring baby to her to have a feed.

By now it was after one and Cassie had to return to her clinic to see the patients still waiting, and after she’d finished there she was due in Theatre to assist with an operation. Knowing it was unlikely that she would have time for a sit-down lunch, she grabbed a sandwich from the hospital canteen before making her way on deck for a five-minute break.

She closed her eyes and let the sea breeze cool her cheeks. Immediately an image of Leith filled her head. Whenever she’d seen him on the ship, he’d been playing cards or teasing the nurses, as if medicine was the last thing on his mind. Occasionally, he’d glance her way, but she avoided his eyes and always found a seat as far away from him as possible.

Which one was the real Leith? The flirtatious, I-know-I’m-sexy-doctor of their first meeting or the one who’d been so focussed on his patient he’d barely noticed her? She shook her head. Why was she even thinking like this? She wasn’t beyond having an affair, especially with someone she was unlikely to ever see again, but not with a co-worker. That, she knew, could get uncomfortable when it came to the parting of ways, which it inevitably did, as soon as they tried to turn the relationship into something it wasn’t.

She took a last bite from her sandwich and chucked the remains into the bin.

No, she decided, it was better to trust her first instinct and keep well away from Dr Leith Ballantyne.

Just over five hours later Cassie was still in Theatre. The surgeon she was assisting was operating on a patient Cassie had examined at her first clinic and put forward for surgery. The teen had the biggest tumour Cassie had ever seen. Untreated, it had swollen to the size of a football, pushing the boy’s features out of alignment so that his nose and mouth were grotesquely out of place. It wasn’t that the benign tumour was life-threatening, but his unusual appearance had meant that he was ostracised in his village. Her heart went out to him. She knew what it felt like to feel as if you didn’t fit in, and it had to be a hundred times worse for him.

Cassie stretched to ease the kinks from her back. The operation had been fascinating. The surgeon—Dr Blunt, who had worked on the Mercy Ship for the five years since she’d retired from a hospital in Boston, had told Cassie that she’d had more experience of dealing with this kind of tumour than she liked. However, she’d removed the growth with the minimum of bleeding and damage to healthy tissue.

There had been a scary moment when one of the blood vessels had started bleeding but Cassie had kept calm and managed to clamp it off without too much difficulty.

They stood back for a moment and surveyed their work. Even with the swelling, the boy looked much more normal. He’d never be a pin-up, but he wouldn’t look out of place.

‘Good job, Dr Ross,’ Dr Blunt said. Although the operation had been a success, Cassie couldn’t help but wonder if they could have made a better job of putting the boy’s face back together. That was the problem. She was never satisfied. Only perfection would suffice.

She let the theatre nurse remove her gown and dropped her gloves into the bin. The thought of still having to pound the decks for her nightly run made her feel even more exhausted, but the habit was ingrained and she knew she would sleep better for it afterwards. First, though, she needed a few minutes to unwind.

She stepped out on the deck of the ship and drew in deep lungfuls of fresh air. Although the sun had dipped below the horizon, the air was still muggy and almost immediately she felt perspiration trickle down her back under her scrubs. She would wait until it was cooler to have her run and besides she wanted to check on her patient when he’d recovered from the anaesthetic.

A spurt of laughter came from below her. The staff not in Theatre or on the wards had gathered for dinner and were no doubt sharing their stories of the day. Cassie moved away, seeking the quieter starboard side—the one that faced the sea. There was a spot there behind the lifeboats where she often went when she wanted to be alone—no easy feat when there were four hundred staff on board.

To her dismay, someone had got there before her. A tall figure was leaning against one of the struts, staring out over the ocean. She was about to tiptoe away when he turned. She recognised him immediately.

He smiled at her. ‘Dr Ross.’ She had to admit she liked his voice with its attractive Scottish burr. ‘I didn’t get the chance to thank you for your help earlier today.’

‘I didn’t do much.’ Cassie shrugged. ‘How is your patient?’

‘I had to do a complete hysterectomy. She won’t be having any more children.’

‘Perhaps that’s for the best.’ The area was so drought-stricken that despite everything the Mercy Ship and aid workers were doing, too many children were dying from starvation and, with clean water still a scarce resource, disease.

Leith looked at her in surprise. ‘I doubt she’ll see it that way.’

‘At least she has a living child. I saw the baby earlier and she’s going to be fine. Surely it is better for a mother to have one healthy child than several sick children?’

‘I don’t think we can apply our Western standards here, at least not without understanding more about the culture.’

Feeling as if she was being lectured, Cassie bristled. But before she could respond he went on.

‘I watched you while you were assisting in Theatre earlier. You have deft hands.’

She hadn’t noticed him among the observers in the gallery.

‘Thank you—er—Dr Ballantyne. ‘

Amusement glinted in his jade-green eyes. ‘How very formal. Call me Leith.’

‘Very well. Thank you, Leith.’ God, she sounded as if she was an awkward teen being introduced to her first boy. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I have to go and check on my patient.’ She didn’t really want to get into a conversation. Quite the opposite. For some reason she wanted to run away from this man as fast as she could.

He looked into her eyes for a second longer than was strictly professional before giving her a grin that sent her heart spinning.

Most days, as soon as she’d finished her early morning ward rounds, Cassie would make her way on shore and over to the school. Since their brief encounter on deck, Cassie found herself searching more often than she cared to admit for glimpses of Leith, but although they’d exchanged nods and smiles of greeting, to her relief—at least she told herself it was relief—he hadn’t sought her out.

As often happened, the sun was beginning to set by the time the last patient had been seen. Cassie was taking a few moments to admire the reddening sky when she sensed, rather than saw, Leith come to stand next to her. To her dismay, her heart rate went into overdrive.

‘Finished for the day?’ he asked with a smile. His white, short-sleeved cotton shirt emphasised the dark hairs on his chest and his muscular forearms. Why on earth was she even noticing?

‘Yes. Apart from ward rounds before bed.’ Cassie turned her face upwards, enjoying the feel of the early evening breeze on her overheated skin. ‘What about you?’

He rubbed his stubbly chin. ‘Me too.’ They stood together in silence as the sun flared, turning the soil pink.

‘Such a beautiful country,’ Cassie said softly, ‘despite its problems.’

When he looked at her, her pulse upped yet another notch. His eyes were the colour of summer grass, she thought distractedly. She gave herself a mental shake and glanced away. What was wrong with her, for heaven’s sake? Never before had she felt such instant attraction and it scared her.

Just then she noticed that a woman from the village was standing a couple of feet away, waiting patiently.

‘Doctor—come with me. Please?’ she said.

‘What is it?’ Leith asked. ‘Is someone in trouble?’

The woman glanced around anxiously. ‘Please. Just come. You both.’

Leith raised an eyebrow at Cassie. ‘Are you up for it?’

It was as if every nerve in her body was screeching at her to run—to keep her distance from this man. Which was ridiculous. Someone needed their help and of course she wouldn’t—couldn’t—say no.

When she nodded the woman smiled with relief. ‘My name is Precious,’ she said. ‘It is my sister, Maria, I want you to see.’

They followed Precious in the failing light along a narrow track. The cicadas had started chirping and the sounds of Africa permeated the night air. As the path entered a small stretch of trees the sun disappeared completely. Soon it was too dark to see properly, although the woman leading the way appeared to have no difficulty. Cassie stumbled over the root of a tree and Leith caught her hand. A spark shot up her arm and she had to resist the urge to pull away.

Still holding her hand and close on the heels of Precious, he guided Cassie along the path, pointing out intruding thorns from acacia trees and other obstacles for her to avoid.

A short while later they came to a cluster of huts. The villagers, lit only by the glow of the evening meal fires, were making preparations for the night.

But instead of stopping at one of the huts, the woman led them through the village and back into the darkness. Cassie had a moment’s doubt. This was a poor country and it was possible that the woman was leading them into a trap. But they couldn’t turn away now.

The thought clearly hadn’t crossed Leith’s mind as his footsteps never faltered. About two kilometres further on, with the village left far behind them, the woman stopped. At first Cassie could see nothing but then, as the woman pointed, she could make out a small hut in the shadows. This was unexpected. The villagers lived in close proximity to one another. Who could be living so far away from the comfort and help of others?

Precious led them inside. A young woman was crouched over a small fire, mixing a pot of mielie meal with a stick while a small child, no more than two, sat on the bed, watching her.

‘This is Maria,’ Precious said, before turning back to the woman and speaking rapidly in the vernacular.

Cassie couldn’t understand a word but it sounded reassuring. When Precious had finished talking, the mother looked at them with a mixture of hope and despair.

‘Maria has been sent away from the village.’ Precious said.

‘Why?’ Cassie asked.

When Precious hesitated, Leith’s brow knotted. ‘I suspect I know the reason.’ He turned to their guide. ‘Has Maria been wetting herself?

‘Will she allow me to examine her?’ Leith asked.

Precious translated and, blushing deeply, Maria lay down on top of the bed after lifting the child and placing him on a rush mat. He stared silently with big, brown eyes.

‘I will go and fetch some water,’ Precious said, and slipped outside.

In the silence the little boy continued to watch them. Then he slid off the mat and toddled over to Cassie, lifting his hands. Instinctively Cassie reached down and picked him up. The child snuggled into her, peeping out at his mother.

‘Seems he’s taken a liking to you,’ Leith said with a smile.

‘Children seem to like me—which is an advantage given my line of work,’ she responded lightly. Without warning an image flashed into her head. She couldn’t have been very much older than this child—perhaps three or four. She’d fallen over and scraped her knee and had gone crying to her mother and held up her hands, wanting to be lifted, to have her hurt made better.

To her bewilderment her mother had turned away, saying it was only a scrape and not to make a fuss. But before she’d turned away, Cassie had seen something in her eyes that had made her forget about the pain in her knee and feel pain in her chest instead. Later she’d come to realise it had been dislike she’d seen.

When the time had come to choose which medical speciality to pursue, she’d been drawn to paediatrics. Perhaps because she wanted to rescue all the little Cassies out there. But she would never risk becoming a mother herself—experience had taught her that too often the worst parents were those who had been badly, or inadequately, parented themselves. Nevertheless, just because she wasn’t going to have children herself, it didn’t mean she didn’t love having them as her patients.

‘Cassie? You okay?’ Leith’s voice pulled her back to the present. She forced a smile and tightened her hold on the little boy in her arms. ‘Sure. A little hot—that’s all.’

Looking puzzled, Leith continued to hold her gaze, but when she returned his stare steadily he gave his head a little shake and focussed his attention back on Maria.

Leith examined the woman discreetly and gently, before straightening. ‘As I thought, she has a fistula from her bowel into her vagina, which has led to her being incontinent. I’ve treated a few women with this condition since I’ve been here. They tend to be ostracised by their fellow villagers and rarely come for help, although I suspect that finally word is getting around that we can often do something for them.’

‘Poor thing,’ Cassie said. ‘And can you? Help her?’

He smiled. ‘Yes, I’m confident I can fix her problem.’ He turned to Precious. ‘She must come to the hospital ship. Tomorrow. Tell her I will have to operate, but it is a simple procedure and after she will be much better.’

Precious broke into a wide smile. ‘She will be so happy. It has been hard for her here, all alone with her child. I can only help a little—I have my own family to care for.’ She turned to her sister and spoke rapidly. With tears in her eyes, Maria reached out for Cassie’s hand and said something Cassie couldn’t understand.

‘She asks if you will be there. She says you have a kind face. Like the other doctor.’ Precious glanced at Leith and smiled shyly. ‘But she will feel better if there is another woman.’

Cassie thought rapidly. She had a full clinic in the morning and was scheduled to assist with a couple of operations before then. Then she looked at the small child and the mother and knew that, whatever it took, she would find a way to be present. How could she deny Maria this one small thing?

Precious led them back to the village but once there Leith assured her that he and Cassie would find their own way back to the ship. Cassie wasn’t so sure. The night was dark beyond the village and without so much as a torch to light their way it would be difficult to find the path. But as Precious clearly wanted to return to her sister, Cassie swallowed her anxiety and followed Leith. As he strode confidently into the bush, it seemed as if he had no problem seeing in the dark.

She kept her eyes on his broad back, pausing when he did and stepping over the roots of trees that he pointed out. They must have been almost halfway back to where the ship was docked when suddenly Leith stood stock still as if listening for something. Then he let out a yell and hit something from the back of his neck. It fell to the ground and Cassie heard the rustle of leaves as it scuttled away.

‘God! What the hell was that?’ Leith said, his face pale in the light of the moon.

‘A bird or a spider, I suspect,’ she said, trying not to laugh.

‘If it was a spider it must have been a bloody huge one.’

‘Whatever it was, it’s gone. You’re safe now. I promise I won’t let that horrible beastie get you.’

He must have heard the amusement in her voice as he looked sheepish. ‘Not very macho, was it? Jumping four feet in the air.’ He grinned, his teeth flashing whitely in the dark. ‘Spiders and I don’t go together very well.’

Cassie smiled back. ‘Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me. I won’t tell anyone.’ And then, just like that, she knew that whatever she’d been telling herself about staying away from this man, it was too late.