Читать книгу Falling For Her Wounded Hero - Marion Lennox, Marion Lennox - Страница 11

CHAPTER FOUR

THERE WERE THINGS to do and he should be doing them. It was driving him nuts.

Old Mrs Carstairs hadn’t had a house call for weeks. She’d been hospitalised with pneumonia in late autumn and it had left her weak. She should be staying with her daughter in Melbourne but she’d refused to stay away from her house a moment longer.

And who could blame her? Tom thought morosely. Margaret Carstairs owned a house high on the headland overlooking the sweeping vista of Bass Strait. She was content to lie on her day bed and watch the changing weather, the sea, and the whales making their great migration north. She was content to let the world come to her.

Except the world couldn’t. Or Tom couldn’t. And unlike Margaret Carstairs, he was far from happy to lie on a couch and watch the sea. Any reports about Margaret came from the district nurse and he knew Brenda was worried.

But he couldn’t drive and he’d have trouble walking down Margaret’s steep driveway when he got there. When he’d first woken after surgery he’d been almost completely paralysed down his left side. His recovery had been swift, but not swift enough. He still had a dragging weakness, and terror had been replaced by frustration.

He couldn’t ignore his body’s weakness. He couldn’t drive. He used Karen, the local taxi driver, but since his leg had let him down while crawling into a crashed car, even Karen was imposing limits.

‘He would have died if I hadn’t done it,’ he muttered to no one in particular. It was true. The driver had perforated a lung. It had been a complex procedure to get him out alive and if Tom had waited for paramedics it would have been too late. The fact that he’d become trapped himself when his leg hadn’t had the strength to push himself out was surely minor. It was an excellent result.

But he still couldn’t drive and he still had trouble walking in this hilly, clifftop town. So here he was, waiting for the next emergency that he couldn’t go to.

His phone went and he lunged for it, willing it to be something he could handle.

It wasn’t.

Old Bill Hadley lived down the steepest steps in Cray Point. He was lying at the bottom of them now, whimpering into his cellphone.

‘Doc? I know you’re crook, but I reckon I might have sprained me ankle. I’m stuck at the bottom of the steps. I’ve yelled but no one can hear me. Middle of the day, everyone must be out. Lucky I had me phone, don’t you think? Do you reckon you could come?’

Bill Hadley was tough. If he was saying he might have sprained his ankle it was probably a fracture. Tom could hear the pain in the old man’s voice, but he couldn’t go. Not down those steps.

‘I’ll call the ambulance and get the district nurse to come and stay with you until it arrives,’ he told Bill, and he heard silence and he knew there was pain involved. A lot of pain. ‘Brenda can stabilise your ankle and keep you comfortable.’

‘She...she can give me an injection, like?’

‘She can.’ Once again he felt that sweep of helplessness. He could authorise drugs over the phone but it was a risk. Bill had pre-existing conditions. Without being able to assess the whole situation...

He couldn’t.

‘Sorry, Bill, it’s the best I can do,’ he told him. ‘Just keep that ankle still. There’s no other way.’

And then he was interrupted. ‘Yes, there is.’

He looked up from the settee and he almost dropped the phone.

Tasha was standing in the doorway.

Tasha...

This was a Tasha he’d never seen before. Tasha on the other side of tragedy?

When last he’d seen her she’d been post-pregnancy and ravaged by grief. Her hair had needed a cut. She’d abandoned wearing make-up and she’d worn nothing but baggy jogging pants and windcheaters. Even the day he’d put her on the plane to return to England he’d thought she’d looked like she’d just emerged from a war zone.

This woman, though, was wearing neat black pants and a crisp white shirt, tucked in to accentuate a slender waist. A pale blue sweater was looped around her shoulders. Her curls were shiny and bouncing, let loose to wisp around her shoulders.

She looked cool, elegant...beautiful.

She was carrying a suitcase. She set it down and smiled, and her smile was bright and professional.

‘Hi,’ she said, and beamed.

‘H-hi.’ Her smile almost knocked him into the middle of next week, but she was already switching to professional.

‘Are you knocking back work? When I’ve come all this way to do as much work as possible? An injured ankle? Bill who?’

‘Bill Hadley...’

‘Ankle injury? House call? That’s what I’m here for.’

‘What the—?’

‘Is it urgent? Is it okay if I use your car? Or I can ring the taxi again. I’ll need his patient file if there is one, and an address. Can I use your medical kit?’

Tom couldn’t answer. It felt like all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room. All the oxygen was in her smile.

She shook her head in mock exasperation and lifted the phone from his grasp.

‘Bill? I’ve come in on the end of this conversation but this is Tasha Raymond. I’m Dr Blake’s sister-in-law, a doctor, too, and I’m here to help until Tom’s on his feet again. Could you tell me what the problem is?’

‘You can drive?’ Tom could hear Bill’s quavering hope.

‘I can,’ Tasha assured him. ‘You’ll have heard that Dr Blake’s had an accident, so we need to look after him. That means using me until he’s recovered. What’s happened?’

There was a moment’s pause and then, ‘I reckon I’ve sprained me ankle. If you could come, Doc, that’d be great.’

Doc. The transition was seamless, Tom thought, astounded. The community was desperate for a doctor and Tasha was here. Therefore Tasha was Doc.

‘Five minutes tops,’ Tasha said, as Bill explained the problem and outlined where he lived. ‘I walked down those very steps when I was here eighteen months ago. Hang in there.’

And she disconnected and turned to Tom. ‘Hey,’ she said, and gave him her very warmest smile. ‘It’s good to see you. I’m so sorry about your accident but Rhonda and Hilda say you need me and it seems they’re right. We can talk later but this sounds like I should go. Patient history? Anything else I should know?’

‘You can’t.’ He was feeling like he’d been punched in the solar plexus. This was a whirlwind and it wasn’t stopping. ‘Tasha, I’m coping. I’ll go.’

And her smile softened to one of understanding. And sympathy. ‘How weak is your leg, scale one to ten?’ she said gently. ‘Ten’s strong. One’s useless.’

‘Eight,’ he said, and she fixed him with a don’t-mess-with-the-doctor look.

‘Really?’

‘Okay, six,’ he conceded. ‘But—’

‘I didn’t fly from London for buts. I flew from London because you’ve been injured, you need care and Cray Point needs me.’ She stooped then and brushed her lips against his forehead, a faint touch. A sisterly gesture? ‘I’m so sorry you’ve been hurt but for now it seems you need to rest. Can I take your car?’

He stared and she gazed calmly back. Waiting for him to accept the inevitable.

He had no choice. She’d flown all the way from England to help him. He should be grateful.

He was grateful but he was also...overwhelmed? That she come all this way...

Tasha was the one who needed help, not him, but for now...he had no choice.

‘I’d appreciate your help,’ he said stiffly. ‘I... Thank you. But, Tasha, I’m coming with you.’

* * *

She drove. He sat in the passenger seat and tried to get his head around what had just happened.

A whirlwind had arrived. A woman he scarcely recognised.

The last time he’d seen Tasha she’d been limp with shock and grief. Now she was a woman in charge of her world. She was doctor reacting to a medical call with professional efficiency.

She was a woman who looked, quite simply, gorgeous.

His head wasn’t coping.

He directed while she drove but she would have gotten there fine without him. In the weeks after Emily’s death she’d walked Cray Point, over and over. He’d thought she’d hardly seen it. She obviously had.