Читать книгу Dating the Millionaire Doctor - Marion Lennox, Marion Lennox - Страница 9

HE ARRIVED at the farmhouse at nine the next morning and nobody answered the door.

He knocked three times. The same van he’d seen yesterday was in the driveway but there were no sounds coming from the house. There was no dog on the settee.

He tried the door and it opened, unlocked and undefended. ‘Hi, Tori,’ he called. ‘It’s Jake.’

Still no answer.

She’d been expecting him.

Should he come back later? He hesitated and then thought maybe she was in the surgery again, doing something that couldn’t be interrupted. He went through cautiously—and stopped at the open door.

Even from here he could tell the koala was dead. The little animal was facing him, curled on her side, still. The cage door was open.

He crossed to the cage and stooped, putting his hand on her fur to make sure. But yes, she was gone. Simply, he thought. There was no sign of distress. The IV lines Tori had attached yesterday had been removed but were lying neatly to the side, as if they’d been removed after death.

She looked as if she’d hardly moved since yesterday.

She’d simply died.

He’d had patients who’d done this—just died. The operation had been a success, yet the assault on their bodies had been too great, their hearts had simply stopped.

Mostly it happened in the aged, where maybe there’d been a question of whether the operation should have been done at all, only how could you convince a patient that you couldn’t remove cancer because there was a risk of heart failure? Maybe you tried, but the patient could elect to have the operation anyway.

He hated cases like those. He hated this.

He knelt and saw, closer now and more dreadfully, the full extent of scar tissue. He thought about what this little animal must have gone through in the past six months and he knew that yesterday’s decision to operate must have been a hard one for Tori to make.

Where was she?

He glanced around, out through the window, and then he saw her. She was out at the edge of the clearing, and he knew what she was doing.

Hadn’t she cried enough?

She didn’t get attached to her patients. She couldn’t. Getting attached was the way of madness.

She was crying so hard she could barely see the ground she was trying to dig.

This was the first of the animals she’d tried to bury. Up until now there’d been volunteers taking away bodies of the animals she’d failed.

This was the end. Her last failure. If she’d known it would turn out like this she’d have euthanised her six months ago.

She’d had to make a decision. She’d got it wrong, and there were no volunteers left to bury her.

So much loss. So much appalling waste. Dad, Micki, one tiny baby with no life at all…

One little koala who somehow represented them all.

‘I can’t do this any more,’ she whispered and hit the ground with the spade. The spade shuddered back. Was she hitting tree roots?

She swore and hit the ground again. Three spade lengths away, Rusty flinched, as if the little dog felt every shudder.

‘You and me both,’ she told Rusty and shoved the spade uselessly down again. This was dumb, dumb, dumb, but she did not want to take the little koala’s body down the mountain to the veterinary crematorium. She did not.

All she could see was the Combadeen cemetery, two graves with brass headstones. Dad. Micki. Micki’s with a tiny extra plaque, white on silver.

No.

She shoved the spade down hard again, uselessly. She gulped back tears—and suddenly the spade was taken out of her hands.

Where he came from she didn’t know. She knew nothing, only that the spade was tossed aside, two strong arms enfolded her and held her close. And let her sob.

He’d never held a woman like this. He’d never felt emotion like this.

Jake was chief anaesthetist in a specialist teaching hospital in Manhattan. Once upon a time he’d spent time with patients, but that seemed long since. Now he handled only critical cases. Patient interviews and examinations were done by his juniors. His personal contact with patients was confined to reassurance as they slipped under anaesthetic, and occasional further reassurance as they regained consciousness.

If there were problems during an operation, it was mostly the surgeon who talked to the family. As anaesthetist Jake took no risks. He did his job and he did it well. There were seldom times he needed to talk. Now, as he faced Tori’s real and dreadful grief, he realised he actively kept away from this type of anguish.

His mother had cried at him all of his life. He’d done with tears.

And this was just a koala.

Just a koala. Even as he thought it, he recalled the limp little body lying alone down at the house, the scar tissue, the evidence of a six-month battle now lost. He looked around him and saw the blackened skeletons of a ravaged forest. His mother had cried for crying’s sake. He knew instinctively that Tori’s tears were very different.

So much death…

Tori was trying desperately to pull herself together, sniffing against his shirt, tugging back. ‘I’m sorry,’ she managed. ‘This is stupid. It was a risk, operating on her. I should have put her down. I should have…’

‘You weren’t to know what you should or shouldn’t have done,’ he said gently. ‘You did your best. That’s all anyone can ask.’

‘No, but she was wild. She’s been through so much.’

‘You didn’t add to that. Tori, you had to give her every chance.’

‘But was I operating for me?’ she demanded, sounding desperate. She’d managed to pull back now and was wiping her hand furiously across her cheeks. ‘I named her! How stupid was that?’

‘You told me you didn’t.’

‘I told everyone I didn’t. All the volunteers I’ve worked with. The nurses. The drivers. The firefighters who brought animals in. I told them we can’t afford to get attached. There are so many. If we get attached we’ll go crazy. Let’s do our best for every individual animal and let’s stay dispassionate.’

There was nothing dispassionate about Tori. She looked wild. Her face was blotched from weeping. The spade she was working with was covered with ashes and dirt. Her hands were filthy and she’d wiped her hands across her sodden face.

She looked like someone who’d just emerged from this burned-out forest—a fire victim herself—and something inside him felt her pain. Or felt more than that. It hurt that she was hurting, and it hurt a lot.

He wanted to hug her again—badly—but she was past hugging. She had her arms folded across her breasts in an age-old gesture of defence. Trying to stop an agony that was unstoppable?

This was much more than the death of one koala, he thought, as bad as that was. There were levels to this pain that he couldn’t begin to understand.

‘Keep yourself to yourself.’ His mother’s words sounded through the years. ‘Don’t get involved—you’ll only get hurt.’

Wise advice? He’d always thought so, but right now it was advice he was planning to ignore.

‘What did you call her?’ he asked, and she hiccupped on a sob and tried to glare at him. It didn’t come off. How could it?

‘Manya’

Why was she glaring? Did she think he’d mock?

Maybe she did. He knew instinctively that Tori was assessing him and withdrawing. As if he’d think she was stupid—when stupid was the last thing he’d think her.

‘Why Manya?’ he asked, searching for the right words to break through. ‘What does it mean?’

‘Just…“little one.” It’s from the language of the native people from around here. Not that it matters. It was only…I talked to her.’ She sounded desperate again, and totally bewildered. ‘I had to call her something. I had to talk to her.’

‘I guess you did,’ he said. And then, as she still seemed to be drawing in on herself, he thought maybe he could make this professional. Maybe it’d make it easier. ‘Do you know why she died?’

‘No.’ She spread her filthy hands and stared down at them, as if they could give her some clue. She shook her head. ‘Or maybe I do. She’s been under stress for months but I thought we were winning. I knew she wouldn’t be able to go back to the wild, but there are sanctuaries that’d take her, good places that’d seem like freedom. And she was so close. But one tiny abscess…It must have been the last straw. She was fine when I checked on her at seven, and when I checked at eight she was dead. Everything just…stopped.’

‘It does happen,’ he said softly. ‘To people, too.’

‘Have you had it happen to patients?’ she managed, and he knew she was struggling hard to sound normal. Her little dog nosed forwards and she picked him up and held him against her, shield-like. He licked her nose and she held him harder.

The dog was missing a leg, he saw with a shock, and his initial impression of him as an old dog changed. Not old. Wounded.

As Tori was wounded.

Have you had it happen to patients? Tori’s question was still out there, and maybe talking medicine was the way to go until she had herself together.

‘Not often,’ he told her, ‘but yes, I have. That it hasn’t happened often means I’ve been lucky.’

‘As opposed to me,’ she said grimly. ‘I’ve lost countless patients in the past six months.’

She looked exhausted to the point of collapse, he thought. Had she slept at all last night?

When had she last slept?

‘Your patients are wild creatures,’ he said, and he felt as if he was picking his way through a minefield, knowing it was important that she talk this out, but suspecting she could close up at any minute. ‘My patients are the moneyed residents of Manhattan. There’s no way a rich, private hospital will cause them stress, and there’s the difference.’ He hesitated. ‘Tori, let me dig for you.’

‘I can do it.’ She put the little dog down and grabbed the spade again.

‘Can you?’

She closed her eyes, gave herself a minute and then opened them. ‘No. This is dumb. I accept that now. The ground’s one huge root ball. I’ll take her down the mountain and get her cremated.’

‘But you don’t want to.’

‘Just…just because I named her,’ she whispered, hugging the spade, while the little dog nosed her boots in worry. ‘I wanted her buried here. At least the edges of the bush here are still alive. I wanted her buried under living trees. Does that make sense?’

‘It does,’ he said, strongly and surely, and before she could protest again, he took the spade from her hands and started digging.

She was right. The ground was so hard it would be more sensible to cremate her. Only there was something about Tori that said this burial was deeply important on all sorts of levels. So he put all his weight behind the spade and it slid a couple of inches in. Slowly he got through the hardened crust to the root-filled clay below, while Tori watched on in silence.

After a couple of minutes she sank to her knees and gathered the little dog against her.

‘What’s his name?’ he asked, trying not to sound like the digging was as hard as it was.

‘Rusty.’

‘How did he lose his leg?’

‘Fire,’ she said harshly, and he glanced at the little dog in surprise. He’d lost his leg but he wasn’t otherwise scarred.

‘He was burned?’

‘Wasn’t everything around here?’ She hugged him closer and got another nose lick for her pains. ‘But Rusty was lucky—sort of. He was…I found him in the fireplace of…of where I lived. Over there.’ She motioned to the neighbouring property. ‘Part of the bricks had collapsed, trapping his leg, but otherwise he was okay. He was my dad’s Rusty. He’s just waiting ‘til he comes home.’

Her voice broke. No more questions were allowed, Jake thought, while she struggled for control, so he kept right on digging.

It took time. Ten minutes. Fifteen. He wasn’t in a hurry. This was giving Tori time to catch her breath, figure if she wanted to tell him more.

There were cockatoos screeching in the gums about his head. Apart from the birds and the sound of the spade against the earth, there was nothing but silence.

What had happened to this woman? He shouldn’t ask, but finally he had to.

‘So who did you lose?’ he asked into the silence, and for a while he thought she wouldn’t answer.

Then, ‘My father and my sister,’ she said flatly, dreadfully. ‘My sister was eight months pregnant.’

Dear God, he thought helplessly. Where to take this from here? ‘You all lived over there?’ he tried.

‘We did. Micki…Margaret…My sister’s relationship had fallen apart and she’d come home, so she could have her baby with us. Toby and I were going to look after her for the first few weeks after the birth.’ She took a deep breath. ‘But then they died. Dad and Micki and Benedict. Benedict was Micki’s baby. A little boy. She was going to call him Benedict. I found Rusty three days later when I finally got back up here, but there was nothing else left. Nothing.’

It took his breath away. He felt ill. But desperately he wanted to help, and somehow he knew that the only way to do that was to keep on going. Keep digging—and keep on talking.

‘So…Toby?’

‘Toby was my fiancé.’

‘But he wasn’t killed?’

‘What do you think?’ She laughed, mirthlessly, and buried her face in her dog’s soft fur. Her laugh sounded close to hysteria.

He let her be for a moment, pushing the spade deeper into the tree roots. The grave was deep enough, but he knew instinctively that if he stopped, then so would she. She’d get back to the business of living—but maybe talking about the dying would help?

He’d done a bit of psychology in medical school but he’d never practised it. Now, however, what to do seemed to be instinctive. A human skill rather than a professional one? Whatever, it seemed to be working.

‘Sorry,’ she said at last, sniffing and giving Rusty a bit of slack. ‘That…that sounds dumb. Of course you’d think he’d be killed. But Toby…well, Toby was a charmer, and he was also a survivor. He was a lovely, vibrant guy, a photographer who came up here last autumn and took pictures of the mountains, took pictures of my vet clinic—and finally stayed.’

She paused again but then went on, more in control now. ‘I need to tell you…Dad started the vet practice up here when Micki and I were kids. Mum died early but Dad looked after us really well. We had a great childhood. Micki married and moved interstate—I did veterinary science. Then Dad was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. The past couple of years have been hard. But then along came Toby and he made us both laugh. He brought the house to life, and when he asked me to marry him I don’t know who was happier, me or Dad. Toby didn’t have any money, but what could be more natural than he stay here? His photography would take off, I’d do the vet work I love and we’d live happily ever after.’

He let that sink in for a bit, and dug a few more spadefuls. This was getting to be a very deep hole and still he didn’t have the full story. ‘But…’ he prompted softly, and he thought she wouldn’t answer but finally she did.

‘So then Micki came home for Christmas because her relationship had ended. She was having a tough pregnancy but Toby charmed her as well. Maybe…maybe things between Toby and me weren’t as good as they could have been but Micki and Dad loved him.’

‘And then the fires hit.’

‘Then the heat hit,’ she said dully. ‘Micki was so pregnant she could hardly move. Dad was having one of his bad spells. He could hardly move. On the day…It was so hot. There was no sign of fires, but I was nervous. Everyone was nervous. Then the district nurse rang to say she didn’t want to come up the mountain because she was scared her car might boil. But Dad had run out of his medication. So I made a run down into the valley. I’d only be away for an hour or so. Toby was here with the other car. What could go wrong? And then the fires hit.’

‘There’s no need…’ he said, hearing the raw anguish in her voice and not wanting to make her say it. He’d stopped digging now. He moved towards her but she waved him back.

‘Let me finish,’ she whispered. ‘He heard on the radio that there were fires on the other side of the ridge—that’s where they started. So Toby took the van and went to see. He took magnificent photographs. You probably saw them—they were the ones beamed around the world the next day, after the wind changed and over a hundred people were killed, and Dad and Micki and Benedict and all the animals in our vet clinic were left without a vehicle to escape in. Dad put Rusty in the fireplace and protected him with his body. Our three big dogs—Mutsy and Pogo and Bandit, they died, too. One little dog was all they could save.’

Once more he made a move to go to her, but she flinched. She swiped her hand across her face again and she sniffed. Trying desperately to move on. ‘Enough,’ she said bleakly. ‘Toby made a fortune, and I lost everything. I promised Micki she’d be safe here, but it didn’t happen. I failed her as I failed…so many. Trusting Toby. Leaving the mountain. But it’s dopey to keep crying. We’ll bury Manya, and then Rusty and I will move on.

‘Where?’

‘I don’t know,’ she whispered. ‘This is where I belong but I don’t know any more. Look, it’s deep enough. I can do the rest.’

‘You’ll do nothing,’ he growled. ‘I’m the undertaker, today. Stay.’

He helped Tori gather sheaths of fresh eucalyptus leaves. He carried the little body from the house. They laid her on a bed of the leaves she’d loved, they covered her with more leaves and then he filled in the grave. They spread more leaves on the freshly dug earth, and then Jake stood back, silent, not knowing where to go next.

Not knowing how to help.

He wanted to hold her again, but Tori was standing apart, rigid, as if ashamed at her previous show of emotion.

‘Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘Thank you so much. I…When do you want your house back?’

‘Let’s look at it now,’ he said and held out his hand. She looked at it but she didn’t take it. Her reserve was back again. The woman who’d sobbed her heart out was well hidden.

‘Of course,’ she said, stiffly, and led the way back down to the house, with Rusty limping along behind them. She ushered him into one room after another, letting him see it all.

Apart from yesterday he’d never been in this house. When his father died it had already been let to tenants who’d wanted to keep renting. A realtor had acted as intermediary, and there’d been no opportunity or need for him to see it.

The grand old homestead was battered now, from years of renting, from six months of being used as an animal hospital and from the fires themselves. The building hadn’t burned but it was still smoke stained and grim. The only furniture was what they’d needed for the animal hospital.

The last room Tori showed him was what was obviously the master bedroom. He stood at the door and saw how she’d been living for the past six months, and he drew in his breath in dismay.

There was a camp stretcher in the corner. There were half a dozen cardboard cartons acting as storage and as a bedside table. A basket lay in the corner for Rusty.

Nothing else.

At speed dating he’d thought she’d looked dowdy. It was a miracle she’d managed to look presentable at all.

‘No mirror?’ he asked, trying to make it sound as though he was joking.

‘No mirror.’ She’d recovered a little now; her voice was firmer. Moving on. ‘Just as well, as I suspect I’d scare myself silly.’

‘You look all right to me.’

‘Said the man who looked at me like I was a porrywiggle on our five-minute date.’

‘A what?’

‘A tadpole. Something that wiggles out of pond scum.’

‘I never said…’

‘You never had to. Have you seen enough?’

‘More than enough. Are these all your possessions?’

‘I live light,’ she said, in a tight voice. ‘I can be gone in half an hour.’

‘Where are you staying tonight?’

‘You’re not kicking me out tonight?’ she demanded, alarmed, and he shook his head.

‘I’m not kicking you out at all. I’m asking if you have an alternative—something a bit less appalling than here.’

‘Here’s fine.’

‘Here’s not fine. This place needs an army to make it habitable.’

‘It’s a lovely house.’

‘It could be a lovely house. It’s anything but now. Do you have anywhere you can go?’

‘Of course I do,’ she retorted, but he thought that she was lying.

There were all sorts of emotions twisting inside him right now. He didn’t want to get involved—when had he ever?—but walking away from her…

He’d be as bad as Toby if he left her anchored to this place, to her grief, to her loss.

‘Come down to Manwillinbah Lodge,’ he found himself saying. ‘You know the lodge?’

‘I know it, but…’

‘But what?’

‘I can.’t’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s your place.’

‘It’s a guesthouse and it’s almost empty. So I’m offering, and I believe you’d be sensible to accept.’ He spread his hands. ‘Tori, either you stay here tonight in this bleak and lonely place and, I suspect, cry your eyes out again for a little koala called Manya, or you come down the mountain and let Rob take care of you while you regroup.’ Then, as she hesitated, he added, ‘You know, you’d be doing Rob a favour. He loves the lodge being full and he loves company. Since the fire, all his guests have come and stared out into the night and not wanted to talk.’

‘I don’t think I want to talk.’

‘No, but our housekeeper can cook for you, and Rob can make you smile. Rob’s good with people.’

She looked at him curiously at that. ‘You talk as if you mean you’re not.’

‘I’m not a people person.’

‘Yet you let me soak your shirt.’

‘Sometimes I’m compelled to be a people person.’

‘That sounds like your five-minute date. Like you want to be out of here.’

‘I didn’t mean it to sound like that,’ he said, flinching. Hell, he had to figure out how to sound nice.

But to his relief she was smiling, a faint smile but a smile nonetheless. ‘Yeah, okay, you’re not a people person but you did very well just now,’ she said. ‘I was really grateful for your shirt and you held on manfully. So whether you wanted to bolt or not, the fact is you didn’t and I’m not asking questions.’ She turned and looked down at her camp bed, at the detritus of six months’ camping in this sooty, makeshift home. He could see her indecision.