Читать книгу Wedding at Sunday Creek - Leah Martyn - Страница 11

CHAPTER THREE

WHEN THEY PULLED into the hospital car park, Jack said, ‘I can take over from here, Darcie. Go home. I’m sure you’ve more than earned a night off.’

She made a small face. ‘If you’re sure?’

‘More than sure. I’m pulling rank, Doctor. You’re officially off duty.’

‘Thanks, then.’ Darcie felt the weight of responsibility drop from her. ‘I’d actually kill for a leisurely bath.’

‘And dinner’s on its way,’ Jack confirmed, as he swung out of the car. ‘Warren’s sending over pizzas.’

* * *

Lauren stood with Jack as he made notations on Nathan’s chart. ‘How’s he doing?’ she asked quietly.

‘He has entry and exit burns on his left hand and right foot. It’s obviously been a serious shock. We’ll need him on a heart monitor for the next little while.’

‘He’s coming round.’ Lauren looked down at her watch to check the young man’s pulse. ‘You’re in hospital, Nathan,’ she said as Nathan’s eyes opened. ‘You’ve had an electric shock. This is Dr Cassidy.’

‘Take it easy, Nathan.’ Jack was calmly reassuring. ‘This contraption here is helping you breathe.’

Nathan’s eyes squeezed shut and then opened.

‘Pulse is fine,’ Lauren reported.

‘In that case, I think we can extubate.’ Jack explained to their patient what he was about to do. ‘You’re recovering well, Nathan, and there’s an excellent chance you’ll be able to breathe on your own.’ He turned to Lauren. ‘Stand by with the oxygen, please, but let’s hope he won’t need it.’

Lauren noticed the surgeon’s hands were gentle. Mentally, she gave him a vote of approval. In her time she’d seen extubations carried out with all the finesse of pulling nails with a claw hammer.

‘I want you to cough now, Nathan,’ Jack said as the tube was fully removed. ‘Go for it,’ he added, as Nathan looked confused. ‘You won’t damage anything.’

Nathan coughed obligingly.

‘OK, let’s have a listen to your chest now.’ Jack dipped his head, his face impassive in concentration. ‘Good lad.’ He gave a guarded smile. ‘You’re breathing well.

‘Thanks, Doc.’ Nathan’s voice was rusty. ‘Guess I’ve been lucky. When can I get out of here?’

‘Not so fast, mate.’ Jack raised a staying hand. ‘You’ve had a hell of a whack to every part of your body. We’ll need to monitor you for a couple of days.’

Nathan looked anxious. ‘My job—’

‘Is safe,’ Jack said firmly. ‘Warren will be in to see you about that tomorrow. In the meantime, I want you to just rest and let the nurses take care of you.’

‘And we do that very well.’ Lauren gave the young man a cheeky smile. ‘Fluids as a matter of course, Doctor?’

‘Please.’ Jack continued writing on Nathan’s chart. ‘Call if there’s a problem, Lauren. I’ll be right over.’

‘Will do. Good to have you on board, Jack,’ Lauren said as they walked out.

Jack pocketed his pen and then turned to the nurse. ‘What time do the shops come alive here in the mornings?’

‘Depends what you need.’ A small evocative smile nipped Lauren’s mouth. ‘There’s a truckers’ café that opens about five-thirty, supermarket and bakery about six, everything else around eight-thirty-ish.’

‘Thanks for the heads-up.’ Jack acknowledged the information with a curt nod and strode off.

* * *

‘This is fantastic!’ They were eating pizza straight from the box and Jack pulled out a long curl of melted cheese and began eating it with exaggerated relish. ‘Why the look, Dr Drummond?’ He gave a folded-in grin. ‘You didn’t expect us to stand on ceremony and set the table for dinner, did you?’

Darcie took her time answering, obviously enjoying her own slice of the delicious wood-fired pizza. ‘I thought the present state of the fridge would have proved I’m no domestic goddess.’

‘Who needs them?’ Jack wound out another curl of cheese. ‘Do you want the last piece?’

Darcie waved his offer away and got to her feet. ‘I found some raspberry ripple ice cream in the freezer. Fancy some?’

Jack shook his head. ‘No, thanks.’

‘Cup of tea, then?’

‘Any decent coffee going, by any chance?’

‘There’s some good instant. Near as we get can to the real stuff out here.’

‘Perfect.’ Jack got up from the table and moved across to the sink to wash his hands. Drying them on a length of paper towel, he moved closer to look over her shoulder as she reached up to get mugs from the top cupboard. ‘Turned out all right, then, didn’t it?’ His voice had a gruff quality. ‘Our impromptu dinner, I mean.’

He was very close and Darcie felt warning signals clang all over her body. The zig-zag of awareness startled her, unnerved her. With her breathing shallower than usual, she said, ‘It was great.’ She took her time, placing the mugs carefully on the countertop as though they were fine china, instead of the cheerful, chunky variety from the supermarket.

‘So, Darcie...’ Jack about-turned, leaning against the bench of cupboards and folding his arms. ‘Do you think we’ll rub along all right?’

She blinked uncertainly. In just a few hours Jack Cassidy had brought a sense of stability and authority to the place, his presence like a rock she could hang onto for dear life.

Whoa, no! Those kinds of thoughts led to a road with no signposts and she wasn’t going there. The water in the electric jug came to boiling point and she switched it off. ‘We’d better rub along,’ she replied, ignoring the flare of heat in his eyes and waving light-hearted banter like a flag. ‘We’re the only doctors for hundreds of miles. It won’t do much for morale if either of us stomps off in a hissy fit.’

Jack gave a crack of laughter. ‘Do male doctors have hissy fits?’

‘Of course they do! Especially in theatres.’ She made the coffee quickly and handed him his mug. ‘They just call it something else.’

‘Thanks.’ Jack met her gaze and held it. She had the most amazing eyes, he thought. They were hazel, coppery brown near the pupils, shading to dark green at the rims. And they were looking at him with a kind of vivid expectancy. ‘I suppose men might have a rant,’ he suggested.

‘Or a tirade?’

‘A meltdown?’

‘Ten out of ten. That’s an excellent analogy.’ She smiled, holding it for a few seconds, letting it ripen on her face and then throwing in a tiny nose crinkle for good measure.

Hell. Jack felt the vibes of awareness hissing like a live wire between them. Enough to shift his newly achieved stable world off its hinges.

But only if he let it.

Lifting his coffee, he took a mouthful and winced, deciding he’d probably given his throat full-thickness burns. He had to break this proximity before he did something entirely out of character.

And kissed her.

‘Uh...’ His jaw worked a bit. ‘Let’s grab what’s left of the evening and take our coffee outside to the courtyard.’

Darcie looked surprised but nevertheless picked up her mug and followed him. ‘I’ll just turn on the outside light,’ she said. ‘We don’t want to break our necks in the dark.’

‘There’s plenty of moonlight.’ Jack looked around him as they sat at the old wooden table. The smell of jasmine was in the air. It twisted around a trellis at least six feet high. ‘I guess this place would have a few stories to tell,’ he surmised.

‘Probably.’ Darcie took a careful mouthful of her coffee.

Tipping his head back Jack looked up, his gaze widening in awe at the canopy of stars, some of which looked close enough to touch, while myriad others were scattered like so much fairy dust in the swept enormous heavens. So very different from London. ‘You’re a long way from home, Darcie.’

Darcie tensed. She’d expected the question or something similar but not quite so soon. For a heartbeat she was tempted to lower her guard and tell him the plain, unvarnished truth. But to do that would make her feel vulnerable. And perhaps make him feel uncomfortable, or worse even—sorry for her. And she so did not want that from any man. ‘This is Australia.’ She feigned nonchalance with an accompanying little shrug. ‘So I imagine I must be a long way from home. But this is home now.’

Jack heard the almost fierce assertiveness in her voice. OK, he wouldn’t trespass. Darcie Drummond obviously had her ghosts, the same as he did. But he liked to think he’d laid his to rest. On the other hand, he had a feeling young Dr Drummond here appeared to be still running from hers.

‘So, tell me a bit about Sunday Creek,’ he said evenly. ‘No GP here, I take it?’

‘Not for a long time. Anyone with a medical problem comes to the hospital.’

‘So we take each day as it comes, then?’

‘Yes.’ She smiled into the softness of the night. ‘I’ve treated a few characters.’

He chuckled. ‘It’s the outback. Of course you have.’ With subtlety, he pressed a little further, determined to get to know her better. ‘Any one instance stand out?’

‘Oh, yes.’ She smiled, activating a tiny dimple beside her mouth. ‘Pretty soon after I’d arrived here I had a call out to one of the station properties. There’d been an accident in the shearing shed. I was still at the stage of being wide-eyed with wonder at the size and scope of everything.’

‘That figures.’ Jack tilted his head, listening.

‘When I stepped inside the shearing shed I was thrown with the hive of activity. I’m sure I must have stood there gaping, wondering where to go or whom I should speak to. Then one of the men bellowed, “Ducks on the pond!” and suddenly there was this deathly kind of silence.’

Jack’s laughter rippled.

Darcie pressed a finger to her lips, covering an upside-down smile. ‘You know what it means, of course?’

‘Yep.’ He shot her a wry half-grin. ‘It’s simply shorthand for, “Mind your language, there’s a lady present.”’

‘I had to ask Maggie when I got back to the hospital,’ Darcie confessed. ‘But the men were very kind to me and, fortunately, the emergency was only a case of a rather deep wound that needed suturing. I stayed for morning tea in the shed. I think I managed OK,’ she added modestly.

‘From the sound of it, I’d say you managed brilliantly.’ In the moonlight, Jack’s gaze softened over her. She was gutsy and no slouch as a doctor. He already had proof of that. He wondered what her story was. And why she’d felt the need to practise her skills so far from her roots.

Leaning back in his chair, he clasped his hands behind his head. ‘I’ll cover the weekend. I want you to have a break.’

‘Oh.’ Darcie looked uncertain. ‘Shouldn’t I hand over officially?’

‘We can do that officially on Monday. Meanwhile, I’ll get a feel for things in general, talk to a few faces.’

‘I won’t know what to do with myself...’ The words were out before she could stop them.

‘Have some fun,’ Jack suggested. ‘See your friends.’

He made it sound so simple—so normal. And it would look pathetic if she hung around the house for the entire weekend. Her brain quickly sorted through the possibilities. She supposed she did have a couple of friends she could visit—Louise and Max Alderton. They lived on a property, Willow Bend, only ten miles out. Louise was on the hospital board and somehow had sensed Darcie’s need for a no-strings kind of friendship.

She could give Lou a call now. She’d still be up. See if it was OK to visit. Maybe they could go for a ride... ‘OK. I’ll do that. Thanks.’

* * *

Next morning, Darcie couldn’t believe she’d slept in. If you called seven-thirty sleeping in, she thought wryly, sitting up to look out at the new day. The sun had risen, the temperature climbing already. Blocking a yawn, she stretched and threw herself out of bed. She had a holiday.

And she’d better remember there was a man in the house. Slipping into her short dressing gown, she sprinted along the hallway to the bathroom.

As she dressed, Darcie sensed something different about the place. A feeling of the house coming alive. And there was a delicious smell of grilling bacon coming from the kitchen.

And that could mean only one thing. Jack was up and around and amazingly he must be cooking breakfast. She hoped he’d made enough for two because she intended joining him.

As she made her way along the hallway to the kitchen, her newly found confidence began faltering. Perhaps she was being presumptuous. She didn’t expect Jack to feed her. She really didn’t.

But already her preconceived ideas about him had begun falling like skittles. He wasn’t strutty—just competent. And from what she’d observed, he seemed straightforward and she liked that. If he’d only made breakfast for one, then he’d tell her so.

She paused at the kitchen door, ran her tongue around the seam of her lips and said, ‘You’re up early.’

Busy at the cooker top, Jack turned his head and gave her a casual ‘Morning. How do you like your eggs?’

‘Um...’ Darcie’s mouth opened and closed. ‘Scrambled, I think.’ She joined him at the stove. He was turning sausages and the bacon was set aside in the warming oven.

‘Me too.’ He gave her a quick smile. ‘Will you do that while I watch these guys?’

‘Yes, sure.’ She looked around and saw a pile of groceries had been unloaded onto the benchtop. ‘Have you been to the supermarket already?’

‘I was awake early,’ he said. ‘Thought I’d do a quick swoop. I borrowed your car. I hope that’s all right?’

‘Of course.’ Darcie searched for a bowl and began cracking the eggs. ‘You must let Lauren and me pay for our share of the groceries.’

‘We can talk about that later,’ Jack dismissed. ‘Tomatoes for you?’

‘Yes, please.’ Darcie’s mouth began to water. All this home cooking was beginning to heighten her taste buds. ‘And I’ll make some toast. Did you get bread?’

‘I did. The baker had his front door open a crack. I gave him a shout, introduced myself and he obligingly sold me a couple of loaves.’

‘That’ll be Jai.’ Darcie found the wholemeal loaf and hacked off a couple of slices. ‘He and his wife, Nikki, relocated from Thailand. He makes gorgeous bread.’

Jack piled the cooked sausages onto a plate. ‘Should we keep some of this food for Lauren?’

‘Uh-uh. She’ll sleep for ages. And she’s vegetarian anyway.’

‘Oh—OK. Good for her,’ Jack said, though he sounded doubtful. ‘We won’t have continuous tofu to look forward to, will we?’

Darcie chuckled. ‘Tofu is the new meat. But she’s more a risotto person. Although she does a great grilled halloumi and courgette salad.’

‘You mean zucchini? Well, that sounds all right, as long as there’s a nice T-bone steak to go with it,’ he said with wry humour. ‘This is about ready. Should we tuck in?’

‘I’ll get the plates.’

‘I hope it’s up to scratch,’ he said.

‘Oh, it will be.’ Darcie was adamant. ‘You seem like an amazingly good cook.’

‘I was reared on a cattle property,’ Jack said, as they settled over their meal. ‘We all had to learn to throw a meal together, especially at mustering time. If you were given kitchen duties, you had to have something ready to feed the troops or risk getting a kick up the backside. Sorry...’ His mouth pulled down. ‘That sounded a bit crass.’

‘Not at all.’ Darcie dismissed his apology. ‘So, are there a lot of you in the family?’

‘I’m the eldest of five. Two brothers, two sisters. I recall some pretty rowdy mealtimes.’

And he made it sound so warm and wonderful. Darcie felt the weight of her own solitary childhood sit heavily on her shoulders. Meals on your own didn’t have much going for them. But that was her old life. She shook her head as if to clear the debris and firmly closed the lid on that particular Pandora’s box. She drummed up a quick smile. ‘So, happy childhood, then?’

‘Mmm.’ Jack hadn’t missed the subtlety of her mood change or her quickly shuttered look. But he didn’t want to be stepping on any of her private landmines. One thing he did know, he’d shut up about his happy childhood.

‘So, what are your plans for today?’ He’d already noticed her boots, jeans and soft white shirt.

‘I’m going riding.’ She filled him in about the Aldertons and Willow Bend. ‘You’ll probably meet Lou sooner rather than later. She’s on the hospital board and a great innovator.’

‘Excellent. As the sole MOs for the entire district, we need all the help we can get.’

They batted light conversation around for the rest of the meal.

‘You’ll find a set of keys for your use at the nurses’ station,’ Darcie said, as they finished breakfast and began clearing the table. ‘Including those for your vehicle.’

‘Thanks.’ He bent and began stacking the dishwasher.

Darcie blinked a bit. Heavens, he really was house-trained. ‘Natalie Britten will be the RN on duty and with a bit of luck a couple of our ancillary staff should turn up as well. There’s a list of numbers to call if there are any staffing problems.’

‘You like all your ducks in a row, don’t you?’

Darcie’s chin came up. ‘We’re running a hospital,’ she countered. ‘We have to make some effort for things to be orderly.’

‘That wasn’t my first impression.’ He smiled then, a little half-smile that seemed to flicker on one side of his lips before settling into place.

‘A tiny glitch.’ Darcie shrugged away his comment. ‘I think you enjoyed surprising us.’

‘Perhaps I did.’ He considered her for a long moment. ‘Will you be home tonight?’ Oh, good grief! He squirmed inwardly. He’d sounded like her father!

Darcie looked up warily. Was he enquiring whether she had a boyfriend who might be wanting to keep her out all night? Well, let him wonder about that. ‘Yes, I’ll be home. But I may be late.’

Jack closed the door on the dishwasher and stood against it. ‘Have a good day, then.’

‘I shall.’ She hovered for a moment, pushing her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. ‘Thanks for this, Jack. The day off, I mean.’

He shrugged. ‘You’re probably owed a zillion.’

‘If there’s an emergency...’

He sent her a dry look. ‘If I need you, I’ll call you. Now scoot.’ He flicked his fingers in a shooing motion. ‘Before I reassign you.’

She scooted.

Jack wandered out onto the veranda, the better to take in the vibe of his new surroundings. Leaning on the timber railings, he looked down at the wildly flowering red bottlebrush. The hardiest of the natives, it simply produced more and more blossoms, regardless of the vagaries of the seasons.

Raising his gaze, he looked out towards the horizon. There was a ribbon of smoke-laden cloud along the ridge tops. So far it obviously wasn’t a cause for concern. He hoped it stayed that way...

The clip of Darcie’s footsteps along the veranda interrupted his train of thought. He swung round, a muscle tightening in his jaw, an instinct purely male sharpening every one of his senses. She’d gathered up her hair and tied it into a ponytail and she’d outlined her mouth with a sexy red lipstick.

His heart did a U-turn. His male antennae switched to high alert. Hell. This was right out of left field.

He fancied her.

Darcie stopped beside him, dangling her Akubra hat loosely between her fingers. ‘Taking in the scenery?’ Her quick smile sparkled white against the red lipstick.

‘Just getting acquainted with the possibilities.’ And wasn’t that the truth.

‘Good,’ she said lightly, and proceeded down the steps. At the bottom she turned and looked back. ‘Don’t wait up.’

Cheeky monkey. Jack dipped his head to hide a burgeoning grin and countered, ‘Don’t fall off.’

Then, with something like wistfulness in his gaze, he watched as she reversed out of the driveway and took off.

His hands tightened their grip on the railings, some part of him wanting to rush after her, flag her down.

And spend the entire day with her.