Читать книгу The Doctor's Proposal - Marion Lennox, Marion Lennox - Страница 8

OK, SO Angus was matchmaking but that was fine by him. Anything to get him to agree to have them stay, Jake decided as he made his way down the magnificently carved staircase.

He walked out the front door and stopped.

He’d left his car blocking the castle entrance, with only just enough room for a pedestrian to squeeze past. The verge on either side was rough, corrugated by recent rains.

He’d expected Kirsty and her sister to walk along the cobblestones.

What had happened was obvious. One of the women hadn’t been able to walk.

Halfway along the walkway was a wheelchair, upturned. A woman was lying in the mud. Kirsty was bending over her.

Jake took one look and started to run.

She was Kirsty’s sister. There was no doubting it. An identical twin? Maybe. The similarities were obvious but there were major differences. The girl lying in the mud was heavily pregnant. Her face was bleached white and a fine hairline scar ran across her forehead. She lay in the mud and her eyes were bleak and hopeless. Jake had seen eyes like this before, in terminally ill patients who were alone and who had nothing left to live for. To see this expression on such a young woman was shocking.

‘Oh, Susie, I’m so sorry,’ Kirsty was saying. She was kneeling in the mud, sliding her hands under Susie’s face to lift her clear. ‘There was a rut. It was filled with water and I didn’t realise how deep it was.’

‘What’s happening?’ Jake knelt and automatically lifted the woman’s wrist. ‘You fell?’

‘You really are smart,’ Kirsty muttered, flashing him a look of fury. ‘I tipped her out of the wheelchair. Susie, what hurts? Have you wrenched your back? Don’t move.’ She sounded terrified. One hand was supporting Susie’s head; the other was holding her sister down.

Jake’s fingers had found the pulse, automatically assessing.

‘Did you hurt yourself in the fall?’ he asked, and the young woman in the mud shook her head in mute misery.

‘I’ll live.’ She put her hands out to push herself up, but Kirsty’s expression of terror had Jake helping her hold her still.

‘What do we have here?’ He held the woman’s shoulders, pressuring her not to move. ‘Can you stay still until I know the facts?’ He spoke gently but with quiet authority. ‘I don’t want you doing any more damage.’

‘She suffered a crush fracture at T7 five months ago,’ Kirsty told him in a voice that faltered with fear. ‘Incomplete paraplegia but sensation’s been returning.’

‘I can walk,’ Susie said, into the mud.

‘On crutches on smooth ground,’ Kirsty told Jake, still holding her twin still. ‘But not for long. There’s still leg weakness and some loss of sensation.’

‘Let me get my bag.’

‘I can get up,’ Susie muttered, and Jake laid a hand on her cheek. A feather touch of reassurance.

‘Humour me. I won’t take long, but I need to be sure you’re not going to do any more damage by moving.’

It took him seconds before he was back, kneeling before her, touching her wrist again. Her pulse was steadying. He glanced again at Kirsty. If he had to say which was the whiter face, his money was on Kirsty’s. Such terror…

‘I’m going to run my fingers along your spine,’ he told Susie. ‘I’d imagine you’d have had so many examinations in the last few months that you know exactly what you should feel and where. I want you to tell me if there’s anything different. Anything at all.’

‘We need help,’ Kirsty snapped. ‘We need immobility until we can get X-rays. I want a stretcher lift and transport to the nearest hospital.’

But Jake met her eyes and held. ‘Your sister’s break was five months ago,’ he said softly. ‘There should be almost complete bone healing by now.’

‘You’re not an orthopaedic surgeon.’

‘No, but I do know what I’m doing. And it’s soft mud.’

‘Hooray for soft mud,’ Susie muttered. ‘And hooray for a doctor with sense. OK, Dr Whatever-Your-Name-Is, run your spinal check so I can get up.’

‘Susie…’ Kirsty said anxiously, but her sister grimaced.

‘Shut up, Kirsty, and let the nice doctor do what he needs to do.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ Jake said, and smiled.

So he did what he needed to do, while Kirsty sat back and alternatively glowered and leant forward as if she’d help and then went back to glowering again.

It was like two sides of a coin, he thought as he tested each vertebra in turn, lightly pressing, examining, running his fingers under Susie’s sweater, not wanting to undress her and make her colder but finding he could examine by touch almost as easily as he could if she had been undressed. They had to be identical twins, he decided as he worked. One twin battered and pregnant. One twin immobilised by terror.

But Susie’s spine was fine, he decided. Or as fine as it could be at this stage of recovery. As far as he could see, there was no additional damage.

There was still a complication. ‘How pregnant are you?’

‘Eight months,’ she told him. ‘Four weeks to go.’

‘There’s already been a false labour,’ Kirsty muttered.

‘So you decide to go travelling,’ he said dryly. ‘Very wise.’

‘Mind your own business,’ Kirsty snapped.

‘Be nice,’ Susie told her twin, and Kirsty looked surprised, as if she wasn’t accustomed to her sister speaking for herself.

‘You’ve flown from the US to Australia at eight months pregnant?’ he asked Susie, but Susie didn’t answer.

Kirsty waited for a moment to see if her twin would answer, but when she didn’t, she spoke again. ‘We came a month ago. We thought it might help Susie if she could find Rory’s Uncle Angus and talk to him about Rory. But Susie went into prem. labour and it’s taken a month before we’ve been game enough to leave Sydney. Enough of the inquisition. Could we get Susie warm, do you think?’

Kirsty’s anger and distress were palpable. She’d have liked to direct them straight at him, Jake thought, but he could see the warring emotions on her face and knew that the anger and the distress were self-directed. She was blaming herself.

But he had to concentrate on Susie. Triage decreed that psychological distress came a poor second to possible spine damage. He was helping Susie into a sitting position, and now he smiled at her, encouraging.

‘Slow. I don’t want any sudden movements.’

‘This doctor’s almost as bossy as you are,’ Susie told her sister. ‘Nice.’ She turned back to Jake. ‘But be bossy with Kirsty,’ she told him. ‘She needs bossiness more than me.’

‘I’ll deal with your sister after you,’ Jake told her, and glanced between the two of them. There was more going on here than a healing back and pregnancy. Why was Kirsty so terrified?

Susie was so thin.

‘Is anything else hurting?’

‘My pride,’ Susie told him, and some of her bravado was fading. ‘I have mud everywhere.’

‘Can we take her inside?’ Kirsty demanded in a voice full of strain, and Jake glanced at her again. OK. Enough of the mud.

He stooped and lifted Susie up into his arms. Despite her pregnancy, she was so light she alarmed him even more.

Kirsty gave a sigh of relief and started tugging the wheelchair forward, but instead of placing Susie into it he turned toward the gate.

‘Hey,’ Kirsty said. ‘Put her in here.’

‘The chair’s wet,’ he said reasonably. ‘And we still have to get past the truck.’

‘You can’t carry her.’

‘Why not?’

‘You should say Unhand my sister, sir,’ Susie told her sister, and Kirsty’s eyes widened. She seemed totally unaccustomed to her sister even speaking, much less making a joke.

‘My stupidity with the car blocked your path,’ he told Kirsty, sending her a silent message of reassurance with his eyes. Relax, he was telling her. We need to get your sister warm. The least I can do is provide alternative transport.

And it seemed that finally she agreed with him.

‘Well, if you think you can bear the weight…’

She was trying to smile, but he could still see the fear.

‘We Aussie doctors are very strong,’ he told her, striving to match her lightness, and at last she managed to smile. He liked it when she smiled, he decided. She had a great smile.

A killer smile.

‘Australian doctors are trained in weightlifting?’

‘Part of the training—just after learning where lungs are. But if you want to see strong… I have it on good authority that the man you’re about to meet was an all-time champion cabertosser in his youth. Small but tough is our Lord Angus.’

‘What’s a caber?’ Susie asked, bemused, and he grinned.

‘Who knows? That’s a Scottish secret. I’m not privy to such things. But just between you and me, I suspect it’s some sort of medieval instrument. Probably made out of boar’s testicles, meant for stirring porridge.’

And to the sound of Susie’s chuckling—and Kirsty’s gasp of amazement—he led one woman and carried another up the steps of Loganaich Castle.

He’d made her sister smile.

Kirsty helped Susie wash and undress, tucked her between sheets in the most sumptuous bed she’d ever seen and then stood back while Jake examined her. He examined her thoroughly, as if he had all the time in the world. The man who’d been in such a hurry a few minutes ago was acting now as if time was not important.

He made Susie laugh.

But as he did, he checked everything about her. Her heart rate, the baby’s heart rate, the baby’s position, her back. He examined the scarring. He checked sensation all over. He even found a set of bathroom scales and made Susie weigh herself. Normally an examination like this would have Susie climbing walls, but Susie tolerated it with equanimity and she even laughed some more.

She never laughed these days.

He told the best jokes, Kirsty thought as she stood well out of the way and watched the skilled way he drew Susie out. He made gentle cracks that you weren’t sure were jokes—or not until you looked into his eyes and saw the lurking twinkle. He was just what Susie needed.

No, he was just what she needed, she thought gratefully as she watched him take over. For the first time in months the heavy responsibility for her sister’s health had been shifted to someone else.

Maybe they could stay here for a while.

She hadn’t even met Uncle Angus yet, she reminded herself. Their host. The earl.

‘When did you last eat?’ Jake was asking Susie, and Kirsty had to haul herself together to listen to what he was saying. He had Susie tucked back into bed after the weighing. She was smiling up at him, and the sight of her smiling sister made Kirsty smile.

‘When did you last eat?’ Jake asked again, as she failed to answer, and Kirsty blinked and responded for her.

‘Um… Lunchtime. Four or five hours ago.’

‘What did you eat then, Susie?’ he asked her sister, and Kirsty blinked again. He’d gone straight to the heart of the matter. He was some doctor!

‘I had a sandwich,’ Susie said, and Kirsty opened her mouth to say something but Jake glanced at her again. This man could speak with his eyes.

She shut up—as silently ordered.

‘How much of the sandwich did you eat, Susie?’

‘I…’

‘I want the truth.’ He was smiling but there was something about the way he said it that told Kirsty he already knew the truth.

‘Half a sandwich,’ Susie whispered, and then as Jake’s eyes held hers—and held some more—she faltered. ‘A quarter, maybe.’

‘Is there a reason you’re not eating?’

‘Eating makes me feel sick.’

Kirsty was holding her breath. The world was holding its breath.

‘Has that been happening ever since your husband was killed?’

They’d been tiptoeing round the edges for so long that this direct approach was almost shocking. Silence. Then… ‘Yes.’

‘Have you talked to a professional about your problems with eating?’

‘Why should I talk to anyone about it?’ Susie whispered. ‘Kirsty keeps on and on…’

Kirsty opened her mouth but she was hit by that quelling glance again. Shut up, his glance said, and she wasn’t going to argue.

‘You don’t see not eating as a problem?’ he asked Susie.

‘No.’

‘Is that true? It’s not a problem?’

‘The only person who thinks it’s a problem is Kirsty. And she fusses. It’s just I don’t feel like it.’

‘I guess you don’t feel like much.’

‘You’re right there,’ Susie said bitterly. ‘But people go on and on at me…’

No need for the quelling glance this time. Kirsty knew when to shut up. If she could, she’d disappear, she thought. He was treading on eggshells but she knew instinctively that none would be squashed.

‘You know, Susie, I think you need time out,’ Jake said softly. He glanced at the notes he’d been taking as he’d examined her. ‘For a start, your blood pressure’s higher than it should be and we need to get it down.’

‘I’m not going to hospital.’

‘I didn’t suggest that,’ he said evenly. ‘But if you think you can bear to slum it here for a while…’

Susie gazed up at him from her massive eiderdown and her mound of soft down pillows. Astonished.

‘Here?’

‘You’re Angus’s family. I’m sure he’d be delighted to hold on to you for a week or so. I’ll talk to him about it, shall I? But meanwhile you need to eat, and then sleep.’

‘I’m not hungry.’

‘You know, I’m very sure you are,’ he told her. ‘I cook the world’s best omelette.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Susie complained.

And Kirsty thought, Ditto.

‘But you’ll eat my omelette? I’ll be hurt if you don’t.’

How could her sister resist an appeal like that? Kirsty wondered. And if there was a tiny seed of bitterness in what she was thinking, who could blame her? Sure, persuade Susie to eat his omelette or she’d hurt his feelings. How many uneaten meals had she cooked for Susie?

She was being ridiculous. She looked up at Jake to find he was watching her, and the amusement was back behind those calm grey eyes. Drat the man—was he psychic? Could he read what she was thinking?

‘I’ll make some for your sister, too,’ he told Susie, and Kirsty flushed.

‘I’ll make my own,’ she told him. ‘If Uncle Angus says I can. It is his castle after all. Isn’t it?’

‘It is indeed,’ Jake said gravely. ‘Susie, if you’ll excuse us, I’ll take your sister to meet him. We’ll make your apologies. You can meet him in the morning.’

‘What gives you the right…?’ Kirsty was almost speechless but as soon as the door was closed against Susie’s ears she found speech was close to overwhelming her. ‘What gives you the right to invite Susie for an extended stay with a man she hasn’t met? With an uncle who’s dying? Are you his doctor or his keeper? Who are you? And weren’t you late before?’

‘I’m his doctor and his friend,’ he said bluntly. He was striding down the hallway so fast that she had to almost break into a run to keep up with him. It seemed his time constraint—his sense of urgency—was operating again. ‘We have it in our grasp to save three lives here, Dr McMahon, and in the face of that, who am I to quibble at being later than I already am?’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Susie, her baby and Angus,’ he told her, wheeling into the next corridor. This mansion was vast, Kirsty thought as she struggled to keep up. It was astounding. It was furnished like a palace. Actually…

‘It’s not a very exclusive palace,’ Jake commented. ‘Louis XIV meets Discounts-R-Us.’

It was so much what she was thinking that she gasped.

‘Angus’s wife had grand ideas,’ he told her, reaching the stairs and taking them three at a time. ‘But by the time the mansion was built Angus said enough was enough. He’s rich but he’s not stupid. One day this place will be a glorious tourist hotel—the views alone are enough to sell it for millions. He didn’t stint on the building, but furnishings to suit were another matter. So we have a fabulous ballroom with a magnificent but very plastic chandelier. Plus the rest.’

It was amazing—but it was great, Kirsty thought, looking around her in awe. There were aspidistra plants winding up every column—and there were many, many columns. Grecian columns. If she looked closely, she could see the plants were plastic. Made in China. The Louis XIV chairs scattered along the wall were of a construction about three classes below chain-store.

What was she doing, being distracted by furnishings? She was still annoyed. She decided to go back to being furious. But before she could resurrect her indignation, he let loose with his own.

‘Do you mind telling me what you’re doing, travelling the world with a woman who is eight months pregnant? A woman who has a shattered back and who’s anorexic to boot? What madness propelled you to bring her halfway across the world? I’m not talking lightly when I say we’re working on saving three lives. She’s risking her life and her baby’s life.’

‘You think I don’t know that? She would have died if I hadn’t brought her here,’ she said flatly. ‘And there’s the truth.’

‘Why?’

‘You can see why. She fell for Rory so hard she couldn’t see anyone else, and when he was killed she wanted to die, too. I think she still does.’

‘Is she being treated for depression?’

‘She refuses. She can’t take antidepressants because of the baby, if she’d take them—which she wouldn’t. She won’t talk about Rory. She just sits. I hoped that by bringing her here, where people knew Rory, she might break her silence.’

He reached the landing and said over his shoulder, ‘You said she’s a landscape gardener.’

‘That’s part of the problem,’ Kirsty told him. ‘Susie’s not fit to work. She has nothing, so she sits and thinks of what she’s lost.’

‘She still has the baby,’ Jake says. ‘It’s not altogether tragic.’

‘That’s easy to say,’ Kirsty said, and he flashed her a look that she couldn’t read.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘To meet Angus.’

‘You said he’d be asleep.’

‘I’d said he’d gone to bed. There’s a difference. He’ll be waiting for us.’

‘He’s so ill he wouldn’t come to find out what’s happening?’

‘He’s a bit like Susie,’ Jake said, his voice softening. ‘He should be in a downstairs bedroom but he refuses. He refuses anything that might help. He just sits and waits.’

‘How close is he to death?’ she asked bluntly, and saw him wince. He really did care.

‘Until you arrived, I’d have said it’d be a matter of weeks.’ Suddenly he was slowing his stride, as if it was important that she hear what he had to say. ‘Days even. Once he’s in a nursing home I imagine he’ll lose any last vestige of will to live. He lives for this place.’

‘For this castle?’

There was a wry grin at that. ‘No. Loganaich Castle gives him pleasure but, as amenable as he was to building it, this was his wife’s baby. He doesn’t love it. His vegetable garden, though, is a different matter. But now…’ He hesitated.

‘Now?’ she prodded, and he seemed to think for a bit before continuing.

‘Now we have a landscape gardener and a doctor on hand,’ Jake said. ‘Who knows what difference that could make?’ He paused before a pair of vast oak doors, set with two plastic plaques. DEIRDRE LIVES HERE was engraved on a teddy-bear-embossed plastic plaque hanging on the left-hand door and ANGUS LIVES HERE was hung with decorative fishing lines on the right.

It was too much for Kirsty. She started laughing. Jake swung the door wide, and she was laughing as she met the Earl of Loganaich.

Serious lung deterioration was difficult to disguise and Angus showed all the symptoms. He was seated at the window but he stood as they entered, a frail man who groped for his walking frame before taking a faltering step toward them. His breathing was shallow and rasping, and his lips had a faint blue tinge.

If he was my patient, I’d have him on oxygen, Kirsty thought, and caught a flash of grim amusement from Jake.

She wasn’t going to look at him any more.

That was easy enough to arrange—for the moment. Angus was coming toward her, a quizzical smile on his wrinkled face.

‘Here’s my visitor,’ he said, his obvious pleasure giving lie to Jake’s declaration that he couldn’t have visitors. ‘But not…’ His face clouded in disappointment. She’d held out her hand to greet him and he stared down at her bare ring finger. ‘Not Rory’s widow? Jake’s made a mistake, hasn’t he? Rory never married.’

‘He did,’ Kirsty told him, confused. Why hadn’t Rory kept in touch with his family?

‘But you’re not…’

‘My sister married your nephew,’ she told him.

‘And she’s not here.’

‘Susie’s here, but she’s ill herself,’ Jake said softly. ‘We’ve popped her into bed. She’s exhausted.’

‘She’s ill?’ This old man was anxious on her sister’s behalf, Kirsty thought with more than a little incredulity as she listened to his laboured, painful breathing.

‘My sister’s looking forward to meeting you very much,’ she told him. ‘Jake seems to think it’s OK for us to stay the night.’

‘Of course it is.’

‘We won’t bother you. And we’ll leave first thing in the morning.’

His face fell. ‘So soon?’

‘We don’t want to disturb you.’

‘No one wants to disturb me,’ he snapped, so harshly that he made himself cough. ‘Why didn’t Rory tell me he was married? Why didn’t Kenneth tell me Rory was married?’

Kirsty had no answers. She knew Rory had a brother, but she’d never met him. As far as she knew, there was a deep and abiding dislike that had been the major decision behind Rory’s decision to emigrate.

‘Maybe Susie knows more than I do,’ she murmured. ‘You can talk to her in the morning.’ She cast an uncertain glance at Jake, and then looked back at Angus. His lips were still tinged blue and his distress was obvious. He was struggling to stand. As she turned back to him he staggered slightly. She caught his hand and helped him sit on the bed.

‘Th— Th—’ It was too much. He lay back on the pillows and gasped.

‘You need oxygen,’ she said urgently, and turned to Jake. ‘Why isn’t he on oxygen? It’d surely help.’

Jake sighed. ‘Thank you, Dr McMahon. The US has heard of oxygen, then, has it?’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, backing off in an instant. What was she about, interfering in a doctor-patient relationship that had nothing to do with her? ‘Of course it’s none of my business. And Angus—your… I’m sorry, I don’t know what to call you.’

‘I haven’t done the introductions,’ Jake said. ‘Dr Kirsty McMahon, this is His Grace, the Earl of Loganaich.’

She glowered, and then shot a cautious smile at Angus. ‘Gee, that makes it easier to know what to call you.’

Angus managed a smile back—and so did Jake.

‘Call me Angus,’ the old man managed. But then he started to gasp again and Jake’s smile died.

‘Angus, you need to let me help you,’ Jake said urgently, and Kirsty could hear the raw anxiety in his tone. This was something much deeper than a doctor-patient relationship.

‘Angus won’t use oxygen,’ Jake added, startling her by referring to a conversation she thought he’d effectively closed. ‘I know it’s none of your business, Dr McMahon, but now you’ve brought it up we may as well give Dr McMahon an answer, don’t you think, Angus?’

‘No,’ Angus gasped, and struggled for some more breath.

‘Angus won’t use oxygen because he’s decided to die,’ Jake said, still roughly. ‘Just like your sister. Just like Susie.’

‘Susie wants to die?’ Angus gasped. ‘Rory’s wife wants to die? Why?’

‘The same reason you do, I expect,’ Jake growled. ‘No point in going on.’ Then, as Angus started coughing again, he lifted the old man’s hand and gripped, hard. ‘Angus, let us help. Stop being so damned stubborn.’

Kirsty took a deep breath. She glanced sideways at Jake—and then decided, Dammit, she was going in, boots and all.

‘You know, the way you’re looking, without oxygen you could well die in the night,’ Kirsty said softly. ‘Susie’s travelled half a world to meet you. She’d be so distressed.’

‘I’m not… I’m not likely to die in the night.’

Kirsty cast another cautious glance at Jake but for some reason Jake had turned away. Go ahead, his body language said. This may be none of her business but he wasn’t stopping her.

‘Jake’s told you I’m a doctor,’ she said, and Angus took a couple more pain-racked breaths and grunted.

‘Aye. Too many of the creatures.’

‘He means two too many,’ Jake said. He’d crossed to the window and was staring out at the sea. ‘Until you arrived I was the only doctor within a hundred miles. Why he should say there’s too many doctors when he won’t even agree to see a specialist…’

‘No point,’ Angus gasped. ‘I’m dying.’

‘You are,’ Kirsty said, almost cordially. ‘But don’t you think dying tonight when Susie’s come all this way to see you might be just a touch selfish?’

There could have been a choking sound from the window, but she wasn’t sure.

‘Selfish?’ Angus wheezed and leaned back on his pillows. ‘I’m not… I’m not selfish.’

‘If you let Dr Cameron give you oxygen then you’d certainly live till morning. You might well live for another year or more.’

‘Leave me be, girl. I won’t die tonight. No such luck.’

‘Your lips are blue. That’s a very bad sign.’

‘What would you know?’

‘I told you. I’m a doctor. I’m just as qualified as Dr Cameron.’

He gasped a bit more, but his attention was definitely caught. The veil of apathy had lifted and he seemed almost indignant. ‘If my lips were blue then Jake would be telling me,’ he managed.

‘Jake’s told you,’ Jake muttered from his window, and glanced at his watch. And did his best to suppress a sigh. And went back to staring out the window.

There was a moment’s silence while Angus fought for a retort. ‘So my lips are blue,’ he muttered at last. ‘So what?’

Kirsty considered. Back home she worked in a hospice and she was accustomed to dealing with frail and frightened people. She could sense the fear in Angus behind the bravado.

Maybe he wasn’t ready to die yet.

Another glance at Jake—but it seemed he was leaving this to her.

‘Let us give you oxygen,’ she said, wondering how she was suddenly taking over from an Australian doctor, with a patient she didn’t know, on his territory—but Jake’s body language said go right ahead. ‘And let us give you some pain relief,’ she added, guessing instinctively that if he was refusing oxygen, he’d also be refusing morphine. ‘We can make a huge difference. Not only in how long you’re likely to live but also in how you’re feeling.’

‘How can you be knowing that for sure?’ he muttered.

‘Angus, I have a patient back home in America,’ she said softly. ‘He’s been on oxygen now for the last ten years. It’s given him ten years he otherwise wouldn’t have had—ten years where he’s had fun.’

‘What fun can you have if you’re tied to an oxygen cylinder?’

‘Plenty,’ she said solidly. ‘Cyril babysits his grandson. He gardens. He—’

‘How can he garden?’ Angus interrupted.

And Kirsty thought, Yes! Interest.

‘He wheels his cylinder behind him wherever he goes,’ she told him. ‘He treats it just like a little shopping buggy. I’ve watched him weeding his garden. He used a kneepad ’cos his knees hurt, but he doesn’t even think about the tiny oxygen tube in his nostril.’

‘He’s not like me.’

‘Jake says you have pulmonary fibrosis. He’s just like you.’

‘I haven’t got a grandson,’ Angus said, backed into a corner and still fighting.

‘No, but you’ll have a grand-niece or-nephew in a few weeks,’ she said with asperity. ‘I do think it’d be a shame not to make the effort to meet him.’

The effect of her words was electric. Angus had been slumped on the bed, his entire body language betokening the end. Now he stiffened. He stared up at her, disbelief warring with hope. The whistling breathing stopped. The colour drained from his face and Kirsty thought maybe his breathing had totally stopped.

But just when she was getting worried, just when Jake took a step forward and she knew that he’d had the same thought as she had—heart attack or stroke—Angus started breathing again and faint colour returned to his face.

‘A grand-nephew.’ He stared up, disbelief warring with hope. ‘Rory’s baby?’

‘Susie’s certainly pregnant with Rory’s child.’

‘Kenneth would have said—’

‘Kenneth—Rory’s brother—doesn’t want to know Susie,’ Kirsty told him, trying to keep anger out of her voice. ‘He’s made it clear he wants nothing to do with us. So we came out here hoping that the Uncle Angus who Rory spoke of with affection might show a little affection to Rory’s child in return.’ She steadied then and thought about what to say next. And decided. Sure, this wasn’t her patient—this wasn’t her hospice—but she was going in anyway. ‘And you can’t show affection by dying,’ she told him bluntly. ‘So if you have an ounce of selflessness in you, you’ll accept Dr Cameron’s oxygen—and maybe a dose of morphine in addition for comfort—you’ll say thank you very much, and you’ll get a good night’s sleep so you can meet your new relative’s mother in the morning.’

But he wasn’t going so far yet. He was still absorbing part one. ‘Rory’s wife is pregnant.’ It was an awed whisper.

‘Yes.’

‘And I need to live if I’m to be seeing the baby.’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re not lying?’

‘Why would she lie?’ Jake demanded, wheeling back to the bed. ‘Angus, can I hook you up to this oxygen like the lady doctor suggests, or can I not?’

Angus stared at him. He stared at Kirsty.

His old face crumpled.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, please.’

Jake had an oxygen canister and a nasal tube hooked up in minutes. He gave Angus a shot of morphine and Angus muttered about interfering doctors and interfering relatives from America and submitted to both.

Within minutes his breathing had eased and his colour had improved. They chatted for a little—more time while Kirsty noticed Jake didn’t so much as glance at his watch again—and finally they watched in relief as his face lost its tension. He’d been fighting for so long that he was exhausted.

‘We’ll leave you to sleep,’ Jake told him, and the old man smiled and closed his eyes.

‘Thank God for that,’ Jake said softly, and ushered Kirsty out the door. ‘A minor miracle. Verging on a major one.’

‘You really care,’ she said, and received a flash of anger for her pains.

‘What do you think?’

There was only the matter of Susie’s omelette remaining.

‘I can do it,’ Kirsty muttered as Jake led her down to the castle’s cavernous kitchen. Somewhat to her relief, Deirdre’s love of melodrama and kitsch hadn’t permeated here. There was a sensible gas range, plus a neat little microwave. And a coffee-maker. A really good coffee-maker.

‘I’m staying here for ever,’ Kirsty told Jake the moment she saw it. She hadn’t seen a decent coffee since Sydney. ‘Dr Cameron, I can take over now. We’ll be fine.’

‘Call me Jake.’ Boris had followed them into the kitchen. The man and his dog were searching the refrigerator with mutual interest. ‘If you take your sister an omelette, will she eat it?’ he demanded. She stopped being flippant and winced.

‘Um…no.’

‘How did I guess that? I’ll take it.’

‘But you have more house calls.’

‘The girls will already be asleep,’ he muttered. ‘I may as well stay.’

‘Your wife goes to bed early?’ Kirsty asked, and he looked at her as if she was stupid. Which, seeing she was hugging a coffee-maker, might well be a reasonable assumption.

‘Forget it,’ he said. ‘You. Toast. Me. Omelette.’ And he grinned down at the hopeful Boris. ‘And you—sit!’

‘Fair delineation.’

‘Speaking of delineation—you don’t want a medical partnership, do you?’ he asked, without much hope and from the depths of the refrigerator.

‘You don’t even know me,’ she said, startled.

‘I know you enough to offer you a job.’

‘You can’t be so desperate you’d offer a strange American a medical partnership.’

‘I’m always desperate.’ Backing out from the fridge with supplies, he separated eggs and started whisking the whites as if they’d offended him.

Kirsty cast him a sideways glance—and decided his silence was wise. She’d be silent, too. She started making toast.

For a while the silence continued, but there was obviously thinking going on under the silence. Kirsty was practically exploding with questions but Jake exploded first.

‘Where are you expecting Susie to have her baby?’ he asked at last, and his voice held so much anger that she blinked. He’d moved on from offering partnerships, then. He was back to thinking she was a dodo.

‘Sydney,’ she told him. ‘We’ve booked her into Sydney Central.’

‘You mean you’ve thought it through.’

‘I’m not dumb.’

‘You’ve towed a wounded, damaged, pregnant, anorexic woman halfway round the world—’

‘I told you. I had no choice. She was dying while I watched. Susie’s my twin and I love her and I wasn’t going to let that happen.’

‘So what did you hope to achieve here?’

‘Susie loved Rory so much. I thought she might just find echoes. And maybe she will yet,’ she added a trifle defiantly, flipping the toast onto a plate. ‘Angus’s smile…when he smiles, it’s Rory’s smile.’

‘He was very fond of Rory,’ Jake said, relenting a little.

Maybe he’d been afraid she’d intended dumping Susie’s pregnancy on him, she thought, and if she were a medical practitioner in such a place, maybe she’d be angry, too.

‘That’s what I’m hoping,’ she said. ‘You know, this castle is just the sort of crazy extravagant thing Rory might have built. Tell me about it.’

‘It saved this district’s soul,’ Jake told her and she paused in mid-toast-buttering.

‘Pardon?’

‘This is a fishing town,’ he said, flipping the omelette then moving in to remove her toast crusts with meticulous care. Boris moved in to take care of the waste. ‘The town was dependent on ’couta. Fish,’ he told her when she looked mystified. ‘Nearly all the boats were designed to catch barracouta, but forty years ago the ’couta disappeared, almost overnight. The locals say there was some sort of sea-worm that decimated them. Anyway, the boats all had to be refitted to make them suitable for deeper sea fishing but, of course, no one had savings. The locals were desperate—half the town was living on welfare. Then along came Angus, Earl of Loganaich, and his eccentric, wonderful wife. They took one look at the place and decided to build their castle. The locals called it a crazy whim, but now, after knowing Angus for so long, I’d say it’s far more likely he knew the only way to save the town was to give the locals a couple of years’ steady income while they worked on their boats part time and regrouped.’

‘You think that’s what happened?’

‘Who knows? But the locals won’t have a word said against him. No one laughs at this castle. Do you think this’ll do?’

She looked down at his plate. He’d cut two pieces of toast into perfectly formed triangles, without crusts. He’d flipped his perfect omelette into the centre.

‘Whoops,’ he said, and crossed to the back door. Seconds later he was back with one tiny sprig of parsley. It looked wonderful.

The man wasn’t a doctor. He was a magician.

‘Stay here,’ he ordered. ‘I need to feed my patient. You reckon she’ll eat it?’

‘I…um, I reckon,’ she whispered. Her stomach rumbled.

‘The rest is for you,’ he told her, motioning to the remaining eggs. ‘I’d do it for you, but I really am busy.’

‘Sure,’ she said, but he was already gone, striding toward the bedroom where Susie lay, not wanting to eat.

I’d eat, Kirsty thought, dazed. If Jake was standing over me having cooked me a meal…

How could she help but eat?