Prescription—One Bride Read online

  In the end it wasn’t Niall who found Harry but Harry who found Niall. Niall lifted a piece of bush and Harry’s black face lunged forward in snarling menace. Teeth sank into Niall’s leather boot—and then the dog shrieked in pain as his movement made the agony from his injuries unbearable. The dog fell back, teeth still bared in a grimace of suffering.

  Jessie had heard. She came flying from twenty yards away, half expecting Niall Mountmarche to kick out in fury.

  The Ogre of Barega did no such thing. The man knelt, just out of range of the menacing teeth, and his voice softened.

  ‘Hey, old fella,’ he said gently. ‘We’ve been looking for you. There’s no need to attack. We’re here to help.’

  He knew animals, then. Jessie’s fears receded further. This man knew a desperately injured dog would react by defending itself. The worse its pain became the more it would defend itself—to the point where a badly injured dog could even bite its owner.

  Harry was confused and in pain and, Jessie guessed, starved almost to death. They could expect no cooperation from Harry.

  Jess knelt beside Niall and looked under the bush where Harry lay. All she could see were the whites of his eyes wide with terror—and the bared teeth.

  ‘Any suggestions?’ Niall asked and his tone was sardonic again. It suggested that Jessie’s claim to being a vet was ridiculous.

  ‘I’ll dart him with a tranquilliser if I must,’ Jessie said, hauling her bag from her shoulder and flicking it open. ‘But I don’t want to. He’ll be weak enough as it is.’

  ‘So, what…?’

  Jessie lifted her tray of syringes and dressings from the top of the bag and found what she was looking for. A leather muzzle. Normally she could manage without—if she could reach the dog from behind—but Harry was wedged firmly into his hiding place and could only be faced head-on. To put her hands into his refuge was to risk losing a finger.

  ‘OK.’ She looked back at the collie. The big dog hadn’t moved. The teeth were still drawn back in a grimace half of pain, half of menace.

  ‘No sudden movements,’ she said shortly.

  Niall nodded. He didn’t move.

  ‘OK, Harry,’ Jess said gently, turning her full attention on the dog. ‘Let’s help you. Come on, boy. We’re here to help.’

  She talked for five minutes, taking all the time in the world. The dog had hurt himself by his lunge forward and Jess was prepared to wait for the agony to settle. She needed the terror to recede from those huge, pain-filled eyes.

  She knew this dog. Frank Reid was a friend and Jess saw Harry often when she dropped in to Frank’s farm. She’d removed a burr from his ear last summer and he’d let her help as soon as she had his trust.

  This time he was more desperately hurt. It would take time—but she could afford to take it.

  ‘Come on, Harry,’ she said gently. ‘We’re here to help. You can trust us.’

  Inch by inch she edged forward, her eyes never leaving the dog’s for a moment. Beside her, Niall Mountmarche watched and listened—but didn’t move either. He sensed that he could destroy all her efforts with a movement. At least the man had the rudiments of common sense.

  Jessie held the muzzle forward, letting the dog see it. He hadn’t seen such a thing before—so he didn’t know it wasn’t to be trusted. Jess let it lie like a handkerchief in her hand, holding it forward.

  ‘Hey, Harry…’

  An inch more…An inch more…

  The dog’s lips moved. His body shuddered and he lunged forward, desperately defending…

  Right into the muzzle.

  Jessie moved like lightning. She was up over the big dog, fastening the leather thong at the back of his neck and then hauling the dog from his hiding place and gathering the collie to her like a frightened child. She held him immobile and rigid against her, pulling him down to her and talking and talking as if there was absolutely no threat…

  The dog could do nothing.

  Normally Jess would have to fight for control of a big dog but, muzzled, Harry was helpless.

  He sagged against Jess and the fight left him. The collie lay limply on her knee and the huge eyes looked up pleadingly.

  I don’t know what to do, the eyes seemed to say. Help me.

  ‘Hey, Harry…’

  The dog whimpered in pain.

  There was no longer a threat from those razor-sharp teeth so Jess removed the muzzle. Now that Harry was in the open she could control him and the muzzle would only distress him more than he already was.

  Jess put her hand on the big dog’s matted coat and felt the beginnings of tears prick behind her eyes as she saw the extent of his injuries.

  There was little she could do here—except put the dog out of his misery.

  The trap was still in place, cruelly cutting the foot between wrist and toe. The wound on the dog’s leg had turned into a festering mess. The tissue was necrotic, Jess thought grimly, her nose wrinkling at the unmistakable smell. She could see bone—the metacarpals—through the torn flesh. They must be broken.

  Heaven knew how the dog had managed to get this far with the trap still cutting into him—and heaven knew how he’d survived this long with a wound like this.

  ‘Oh, Harry…’

  She stroked the dog’s head with a hand that trembled and then took a deep breath. Emotion would help nothing. What had to be done should be done quickly.

  ‘Hand me my bag,’ she told Niall Mountmarche as she came to her hard decision—but the tremor in her voice was unmistakable.

  ‘What will you do?’ Niall Mountmarche was looking down at the dog’s leg and the expression on his face was pretty much how Jess was feeling. Sick.

  ‘Put him down.’

  Niall’s face swung from dog to girl.

  ‘I thought you said the dog wasn’t yours?’ he demanded.

  ‘He’s not. Could I have my bag, please?’

  Niall didn’t move. He looked back to the dog’s leg. ‘Doesn’t the owner have the cash or inclination to pay for your services then, Dr Harvey?’

  The emphasis on the word ‘Doctor’ was almost a sneer.

  Jessie flushed.

  ‘I can’t operate,’ she said stiffly.

  ‘But you said you were a vet.’

  ‘Yes. I’m a vet. And I need to stop Harry suffering even more. Could you pass the bag, please?’

  ‘But you could operate.’ Gently Niall Mountmarche moved forward and lifted the dog’s leg from where it lay across Jessie’s bare knee. The dog hardly stirred. Niall examined the leg with caution, touching the pad with infinite care.

  ‘There’s warmth in his pad,’ he told Jessie. ‘There’s still some circulation. I don’t think he’d even have to lose his leg. Once we get the trap off…’

  ‘I don’t think you understand,’ Jessie said flatly. ‘I haven’t the facilities to operate.’

  ‘But you are a qualified vet?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Niall’s face stilled. ‘Then you’ll be the vet who put my uncle’s dog down. The easy way out—is that it, Dr Harvey? You didn’t wait for my permission before killing my uncle’s dog.’

  Jess closed her eyes. Her hands still stroked the dog’s matted fur and she fought to keep her voice calm so as not to frighten Harry even more.

  ‘Your uncle’s dog was an old, old Dobermann,’ she said softly, trying not to look up at those accusing eyes. ‘He’d been trained to attack to kill anything and anybody who wasn’t his owner. He was starving and near death when we found him; he had some sort of arthritic debility in his back legs and even if I’d saved him he was too old to form a bond with a new owner.

  ‘Maybe…maybe if you’d been in closer contact with your uncle—if I could have found you quickly—but as it was we didn’t know Louis Mountmarche had a living relative…’

  ‘Are you saying it’s my fault the dog had to die?’

  ‘I’m saying, given that there was no owner, I had no choice,’ Jessie snapped. ‘As I have no choice now.
’

  ‘But this dog has an owner and he’s younger.’ Niall’s attention had changed focus again—from anger back to concentration. He bent over the wounded pad and examined it with care, seemingly not repulsed by the stinking flesh. ‘How old, Dr Harvey?’

  ‘He’s only three,’ Jessie said sadly. She shook her head. ‘I know…Given different circumstances…’

  ‘What different circumstances?’

  ‘An assistant who can given an anaesthetic.’ Jessie sighed. ‘You’re right. Maybe—maybe if I could put him under an anaesthetic and clean up the mess then he’d have a chance. But he’s in dreadful condition. It’s going to take me ages to set the bones and clean up the mess.

  ‘He won’t tolerate the intravenous anaesthetic I can give myself—and there’s no way I can operate on a dog as sick as this and intubate at the same time. Intubating and operating by yourself is like drunk driving—OK if conditions are perfect and nothing goes wrong. But there are already major things going wrong here. So…I think it’s kinder to acknowledge defeat now.’

  Niall Mountmarche’s dark brow snapped down. ‘Don’t you have a trained vet nurse?’

  ‘This is a tiny island,’ Jessie told him. ‘What I really need is another vet—but, no, I don’t even have a trained nurse.’

  ‘But…’ Niall’s fingers had moved to fondle the dog’s soft ears. The big collie seemed almost unconscious. He’d gone past fear. He lay, passive and trusting, and Jessie’s heart went out to the magnificent animal. ‘What about the island human medical services? Surely there’s a doctor and nurses on the island who could help out?’

  ‘There are.’ Jessie’s face set. ‘But the nurses haven’t the training to give anaesthetic. And the doctor won’t.’

  ‘“Won’t”?’

  Niall echoed the word blankly and it hung between them in the soft morning sunshine. A question…

  ‘“Won’t”,’ Jessie repeated. She held out her hand in silent demand. ‘Please…Could you pass me my bag?’

  Niall Mountmarche ignored her. ‘What do you mean, “won’t”?’

  Jess sighed. ‘The island’s two trained doctors—a husband-and-wife team—are away for twelve months doing further training on the mainland. The locum replacing them had to leave because of family problems and the present locum—well, Lionel Hurd won’t touch animals. He says it’s not in his contract and he’s right.’ She sighed again. ‘I can’t force him.’

  ‘So Harry dies.’

  ‘So Harry dies,’ Jess said sadly. She looked up at Niall then and met those dark, angry, eyes full-on. ‘Unless you have any other suggestions, Mr Mountmarche?’

  There was a long, long silence.

  ‘Hand me my bag,’ Jess said finally again into the stillness—but Niall Mountmarche shook his head.

  He touched the injured dog’s leg once more and gentle fingers carefully probed the rotten flesh. His touch was so gentle that the dog didn’t so much as flinch.

  Finally Niall nodded, as if coming to a hard decision.

  ‘I do have an alternative suggestion,’ he told Jess, his voice firming as he spoke.

  ‘Which is?’ Jessie sounded sceptical, she knew. Her voice was flat and hopeless—but she loved this dog.

  ‘I’ll give the anaesthetic.’

  ‘You!’

  He shrugged. ‘I can do it.’

  ‘But how…?’ Jess looked down at those long, sensitive fingers, skilfully and gently examining the wound. ‘You’re not…’

  ‘A vet? No.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m not. So you’re going to have to talk me through it, Dr Harvey. But I do have medical skills. I’m a doctor.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  A DOCTOR…

  Jessie’s jaw sagged. It took a real effort to haul her mouth closed again.

  ‘I don’t believe…’ she started and then, at the look on Niall Mountmarche’s face, she stopped.

  He hadn’t believed that she was a vet—and now she was showing the same distrust.

  A doctor…

  From Ogre of Barega to medical doctor—like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde…

  ‘What…what sort of a doctor?’ she asked cautiously, and for the first time she saw a glimmer of a smile touch Niall Mountmarche’s face.

  ‘Not a doctor of philosophy,’ he reassured her. ‘Or of basket-weaving, for that matter. A people doctor. Doctor of medicine with a piece of paper from London University to prove it.’

  ‘An English doctor!’

  ‘I’ll confess I’m an English doctor,’ he agreed. ‘Does that make me less qualified?’ The smile deepened. ‘You colonials really are getting uppity.’ Then Niall looked down at the dog on Jessie’s lap and the smile faded. ‘Enough. We’re wasting time: Let’s get this trap off and move him. Is your car near the gate on the ridge?’

  ‘Yes.’ Jessie’s mind was working at a hundred miles an hour. ‘But…’

  ‘But what?’ Niall had risen and was standing over girl and dog, looking down. ‘Now what, Dr Harvey?’

  ‘You really are a doctor…?’

  ‘I really am.’ Once more that glimmer of a smile. The Ogre took a giant step back, to be replaced by someone altogether more human.

  ‘Then…’ Jessie hesitated. ‘My car is fifteen minutes’ walk—more if we’re carrying Harry without jolting him. I don’t want to remove the trap until I have Harry under anaesthetic. It may bleed like crazy and I’ll have to work fast. But I don’t want him carried far with the trap in place. Do you have a car at your home?’

  ‘Yes.’ His face had lost expression.

  ‘Then can we take him to your place?’

  ‘You mean you want me to drive him to your clinic? Is that what you’re suggesting?’

  Jessie took a deep breath. She glanced down at Harry and the very limpness of his body strengthened her resolution. The Mountmarche house—and Niall Mountmarche’s car—was a few minutes’ walk away. Taking Harry to Jessie’s car meant a rough fifteen minute walk with the trap in place—or taking the trap off now and risking further bleeding.

  And if Niall Mountmarche could give the anaesthetic then the dog had a chance!

  ‘Yes,’ she said firmly. ‘If we carry him together then we can move him with little jolting to the pad.’

  Niall’s smile had faded once more, gone as if it had never been. ‘I don’t like strangers at my house,’ he said shortly, and Jessie flinched at the coldness of his words.

  Back cometh the ogre…

  ‘I thought I introduced myself,’ she made herself say, replacing his smile with one of her own. ‘That makes me not a stranger, Dr Niall Mountmarche.’

  She was fighting here. For Harry…

  For a moment she expected a stinging rebuff. He wanted to give her one—she could tell.

  Then Niall looked down again at the dog in Jessie’s arms and his look softened. If he was fighting a war then he was losing. Somewhere inside was a soft core.

  ‘I guess you’re not,’ he said slowly and in his voice was a small note of discovery. ‘Well, Dr Harvey. If you’re not a stranger then I suggest you act like a medical colleague. And we’ve got a job to do. So let’s get on with it.’

  He stooped and took the dog from her as though the creature was weightless and, as Jessie supported the trapped pad, Niall swung Harry gently up to lie cradled against his body.

  The impression of a man of compassion was stirring and beginning to grow. Jessie looked up at man and dog—and there was something else stirring within that she didn’t want to think about.

  Niall Mountmarche met her look and his eyes widened.

  It was as if he’d read her thoughts.

  As if there was some sort of communication channel between them that needed no words. That was beyond words…

  She was being ridiculous.

  With a mammoth effort Jessie tore her eyes away, made sure Niall’s hand was supporting the injured pad and then turned to find her bag.

  ‘Let…let’s go, then, Dr Mountmarche,’ she said unsteadily
and fumbled in the undergrowth for her belongings.

  ‘Let’s go.’ Niall Mountmarche repeated and by his words Jessie knew that she wasn’t imagining it.

  Whatever she was feeling, Niall Mountmarche was feeling it too.

  They didn’t talk on the walk to the house.

  Jessie walked swiftly beside Niall, struggling to keep up with his long strides, support the trap and watch the big dog’s pain-dulled eyes at the same time. He was so far gone. At any moment she expected to see those big eyes glaze over…

  The Mountmarche house was three minutes’ walk along the creek bed. It was a ramshackle old homestead, grand in its day but long fallen into disrepair. Jessie had expected the house to be deserted but as they neared the house she stared in astonishment as a man emerged from the back door.

  The man was elderly, wiry and wrinkled to almost prune-like appearance. He looked like a man who’d spent his life in the sun. Like he’d been dried in the sun…

  ‘What the…?’ The elderly man stopped short as he caught sight of the group emerging from the bushland. His hand rose to scratch his bald head in a gesture of bewilderment. ‘What’ve you got there, Doc?’

  Doc…So Niall really was…

  ‘An injured dog,’ Niall said brusquely. He motioned with his head to Jessie by his side. ‘Hugo, this is Jessica Harvey, the local vet. The dog’s been caught in a trap, Hugo. Can you bring the Range Rover round before Paige sees us?’

  She’d already seen. There was someone else emerging from the house behind Hugo.

  ‘Daddy…’ The word was a cry of shock.

  Niall’s face changed. He faced the door of the house like a man expecting trouble.

  ‘Paige…’

  A tiny, elfin-like creature was limping into the doorway.

  She was maybe five or six—no more—with a body that was thin to the point of malnourishment. The child’s white-gold hair was tied with a red ribbon that only added to her paleness and her eyes were huge in her pinched, wan face.

  The little girl’s body swayed a little as though she was unused to the crutches she was using for support. Both her stick-like legs were encased in callipers—iron frames that seemed too big for her tiny body.