Bachelor Cure Read online

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘No. Don’t be. My family history has nothing to do with you.’ She sighed again and shrugged, turning back to face him. ‘Dad was always against me coming back, but he was pig-headed and…well, he was stubborn enough to make me wonder whether the disagreement had all been one way. So when Dad died…Mom said I should know my background so she sent me out to stay. I spent a summer vacation here with Grandpa. I stayed here for three months, just after high school.’

  Three months. When Tess was sixteen…

  He must have been away at medical school then, he thought. Otherwise he’d surely remember this girl.

  ‘Since then we’ve kept in touch,’ Tess said. ‘I write often, so does he, and now I ring him every Saturday. We seem to be getting closer the older he’s getting. It’s like he’s finally acknowledging he needs family. Anyway, when I didn’t get an answer this week, no matter how many times I rang, I contacted the police and was told he was missing. So I came.’

  So she came. She came halfway across the world to check on her grandfather. That was some commitment.

  ‘But…I didn’t know he had heart disease,’ she said slowly. ‘You would have thought he’d tell me. How bad is it?’

  ‘I guess he hasn’t wanted to worry you. He’s been taking digoxin and is fairly much under control, but if he was over-exerting himself with no tablets, and if he got too far away from the house…’ He hesitated but there was no way to gloss over the truth or make it any easier. ‘His pulse rate’s been up around a hundred and twenty or so, and without digoxin or even aspirin…’

  He didn’t continue. He didn’t need to.

  Tessa’s heart wrenched within her, and he saw the pain. His hand came up to touch her lightly on her cheek.

  ‘Don’t, Tess,’ he said softly. ‘I’m hoping that your grandfather’s heart just quietly gave out and the end was fast. That’s what he would have wanted, to die in the bush he loved.’

  ‘Yes, but…’

  But… But they didn’t know. They didn’t know he had died quickly. The alternative was unspoken between them-the thought of the old man lying helpless in the bush and dying a slow and lingering death.

  ‘Sergeant Morris and a heap of the locals have scoured the farm,’ he told her. ‘I’ve been out there, too. We’ve been everywhere we can think of and we’ve found nothing. We’ve called, Tess. If your grandfather was alive then he could have called back. He could be somewhere we’ve overlooked, but surely he’d be within earshot.’

  ‘Not if he’s had a stroke. Not if he can’t make his voice work.’ Her voice broke off and she choked in distress. ‘Mike, I need to look. I need to search myself. There are places… One special place…’

  ‘Yeah? Is this somewhere the police would have found?’

  She shook her head. ‘I thought of it all the way here. Grandpa showed it to me when I was here as a teenager, and he talked as if it was a really special privilege for me to know about it. It was his secret. It’s a cave…’

  ‘In the hills?’

  ‘Yes. I remember it as being just past the boundary of the farm, where the hills start turning rugged. I can’t remember much more. In fact, I can’t even remember which direction it was. There was no way I could tell the police about it on the phone. And when I got to the farm last night I thought how stupid it was to come all this way on a hunch. Things have changed and my memory’s playing tricks on me. Maybe…maybe I can never find it or maybe it’s accessible now and someone’s already looked. But that’s why I came. I want to check. Just as my own contribution to the search.’

  She sighed and turned to stare sadly out the window. ‘I know my dad and Grandpa disagreed, but Grandpa sort of saw things in the same way I do.’ Then she managed a fleeting grin as she turned back to face him. ‘Me and my dad fought, too.’

  ‘Don’t tell me. Your dad had red hair as well?’

  ‘And a temper to match. My dad could say some pretty unforgivable things. And Grandpa was…is…a redhead, too.’

  ‘I see.’ But he didn’t see at all. He stared down at this amazing woman in confusion. She’d come from the other side of the world to search for a grandfather who was probably dead. She had a good job in the States. Had it been OK-just to walk away?

  ‘Hey, my mom’s behind me in this,’ Tess said quickly. ‘She always felt bad about my dad never coming home. She’s paid half my airfare.’

  ‘Bully for your mom.’ He hesitated, thinking things through, and he raked his fingers thought his thick hair in thought. Tess had come so far, and she needed to conduct her own personal search, but he hated the thought of her scouring that bushland alone. The locals reckoned they’d searched every inch of the farm. Tess would be on her own now.

  For her to be alone was unthinkable! And even if she found her grandfather alone…well, that was more unthinkable.

  Finally he nodded, flicking through his mental diary at speed. OK. He and Strop could do it.

  ‘Tess, I need to do a couple of hours’ work right now,’ he told her. ‘Have a meal and rest for a bit. Ted’s brought your car in. It’s parked in the hospital car park and your gear’s being brought inside as soon as the orderly has a spare minute. So get yourself into some sensible clothes.’ He eyed the stilettoes with caution. ‘And some sensible shoes. I’ll be back in two hours, and after that I’ll come out to the farm with you.’

  ‘You don’t have to come with me,’ she started, but he stopped her with an upraised hand.

  He had work piled a mountain high in front of him, and he was dead tired-the labour he’d looked after last night had been long and difficult and he’d managed all of two hours’ sleep-but the thought of Tess searching by herself for what he feared she’d find was unbearable.

  ‘I want to, Tess,’ he told her. ‘So let me.’

  He clicked his fingers. Strop heaved one end up after the other and lumbered to his side, and they left.

  Which was just as well. If he’d stayed in that room for one minute longer, with that look on her face-half scared, half forlorn and as courageous as hell-he would have gathered her in his arms and hugged her.

  And where was the professional detachment in that?

  ‘I should have refused his offer of help,’ Tess told Bill Fetson two minutes later. The hospital’s charge nurse had come to check on her and had found her pacing in front of the window. ‘Mike was up half the night with me and Doris, and didn’t he say he had a baby to deliver after he brought me in? What’s he doing, offering to spend hours tonight searching for someone he’s sure is dead?’

  ‘He cares about your grandfather.’

  ‘I guess…’

  Her voice sounded totally confused, Bill thought, as though there was something about Mike she didn’t understand in the least. Well, maybe that was understandable. Mike was a fabulous-looking doctor, with a smile that could turn any girl’s head, a dog that was just plain crazy and a presence that played havoc with Bill’s nursing staff.

  But this girl was different. Bill watched the emotion playing over her face and strange ideas started forming in the back of his mind. Well, well, well…

  ‘Would you like a tour of the hospital?’ he asked mildly-innocently. He was busy, but something told him it might be important to get to know this girl…

  Tess showered and dressed, then explored the little hospital. It had fifteen beds, eight of them nursing beds and seven acute. It was a tiny bush nursing hospital, efficient, scrupulously clean and obviously beautifully run. It was almost new, and the man who introduced himself as Charge Nurse showed Tess around with pleasure.

  ‘It’s all thanks to Dr Mike,’ Bill Fetson said with obvious pride, as he showed Tess though a tiny operating theatre with facilities that her made blink. These facilities would be more in place in a big city teaching hospital. ‘Mike fought the politicians every legal way-and a few illegal too, I’ll bet-to get this place, and he practically bullied the community into fundraising. Now we have this hospital, though, well
, there’s no way we’re losing it. The valley’s never had a medical service like this.’

  ‘How long’s he been here?’ Tess asked.

  ‘Three years, but in a sense he’s been here much longer. Mike’s a valley kid and he started fighting for this before he even finished his medical training.’

  ‘And…’ There were so many things she didn’t understand here. ‘He’s always had Strop?’

  Bill grinned. ‘Strop was an accident. Mike drives an Aston Martin-the sleekest car in the valley. The salesman brought it up here for a test drive and drove it too fast, putting it through its paces. Strop was lumbering across a road on a blind bend and the salesman couldn’t stop. Mike felt dreadful, and then the woman who owned him said he was a stupid dog anyway and seeing Mike had hit him then Mike could put him down. As you know, the Aston Martin only has two seats. The salesman drove to the vet’s with Mike carrying Strop, and by the time they reached the vet’s there was no way he was being put down. So in one afternoon Mike got the sleekest car and the dopiest dog in Christendom.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘No way. And, believe it or not, he is a great dog.’ Bill’s grin deepened. ‘The patients love him and all the valley knows now that if Mike pays a house call then so does Strop.’ He paused, and his smile faded. ‘But what about you? I gather you’re practically a valley girl yourself. I’m not local myself, but Mike says you’re Henry Westcott’s granddaughter. And he also says you’re a doctor…’

  His eyes asked all sorts of questions, but he didn’t voice them. Not yet.

  Finally, his tour at an end, Bill showed her into a gleaming little kitchen, introduced her to Mrs Thompson, the hospital cook, and left her to be fed. A meal was no trouble, Tess was assured. No trouble at all.

  She certainly needed it. Tess ate Mrs Thompson’s meat pie with potato chips and lashings of salad. She washed everything down with two huge tumblers of milk and she hardly felt the meal touch sides. Thinking back, she couldn’t remember when she’d last had a meal. Maybe she’d fiddled with something on the plane, but how long ago was that? Too long, her stomach said.

  Replete for the moment, Tess tentatively broached the idea of she and Mike taking food out to the farm with them. With the size of this hospital, a sole doctor must be run off his legs, and she was starting to feel really guilty about dragging him away.

  She needn’t have worried about the reaction of the cook. Mrs Thompson practically beamed.

  ‘That’s a really good idea,’ the middle-aged lady told her, hauling a picnic basket out of a top cupboard. ‘Doc Llewellyn hardly stops to eat, and he’ll miss dinner entirely if you don’t bully him into it. Either that or he’ll eat six pieces of toast and three eggs at midnight, which is his usual way. No, dear. I’ll pack you a meal fit to feed six of you, including dog food for that misbegotten hound of his, if you promise to see he eats it.’

  ‘He works too hard?’ Tess asked cautiously, and the woman nodded with vigour.

  ‘Driven-that’s what our Dr Mike is,’ she said. ‘There’s demons driving him, that one. He’ll end up in an early grave, mark my words.’ Then her look softened. ‘But you’ve more to be worrying over than our Dr Mike. Oh, child, I’m so sorry about your grandfather. I just hope…’ She sniffed vigorously. ‘I just hope the end was quick!’

  ‘Thank you,’ Tess said weakly. She didn’t know what else to say.

  While her picnic was being prepared, she retreated to her bedroom. She needed the privacy. The hospital was abuzz with who she was, and every nurse and patient in the place was burning with the need to know more. Like…did she have any ideas where her grandpa was?

  And there was so little she could tell them.

  Mike collected her an hour later.

  He walked into her room and stopped in stunned amazement at the transformation. He’d seen Tessa bloody and exhausted and in pain. He hadn’t see her like this.

  Tess was certainly a beauty in anyone’s book. He’d thought so last night and he’d thought it when he’d seen her asleep in her hospital gown. In fact, he thought it every time he looked at her.

  She wasn’t a classical beauty, but she was a beauty none the less. She was slim and neat and her legs stretched on for ever. In her figure-hugging jeans, she seemed all legs.

  Or all eyes, depending on which end you looked at, he thought. Tessa’s face had the pale, creamy complexion of a redhead and she’d come straight from the end of a United States winter. There was a faint spread of faded freckles over her nose-echoes of last summer. Tessa’s mouth was rosebud-shaped, her nose pertly snub and her face almost all eyes, the greenness framed by her red-gold hair.

  She was thin. Well, maybe not too thin, he thought to himself. She was just…just well packaged. She was thin where it counted and not thin where it counted more! In her figure-hugging jeans and close-cut T-shirt, her figure was revealed to perfection. She had an old windcheater draped around her waist, and the trainers on her feet were nearly as old as the clothes he’d changed into, but the age and the casualness of her clothes didn’t detract from her beauty one bit.

  It was all he could do not to whistle.

  He didn’t, though. He paused for one millisecond-and then caught himself, smiled and picked up the picnic basket.

  ‘Provisions, Dr Westcott? Hasn’t the hospital fed you?’

  ‘Mrs Thompson has personally insisted I eat enough to feed a small army,’ she assured him. ‘But I wouldn’t be the least surprised if I feel the need to eat again quite soon. Even my toes seem hollow.’

  He grinned. ‘No anorexia, then? Excellent. I like a girl with a healthy appetite.’

  ‘Do you want a cure for anorexia?’ she demanded. ‘I’ve just invented it. Put a girl on a plane for thirty-six hours with airline food for company and fear in her stomach, and then toss her among pregnant pigs and dislocate her shoulder. Then put her to sleep for fifteen hours and-hey, presto-you’ve a girl with a healthy appetite. Magic, Dr Llewellyn! I think I’ll write it up as a new wonder treatment for one of our prestigious medical journals.’

  ‘You’ll make your name as a medical whizkid,’ he told her.

  ‘I know,’ she agreed, and fluttered her eyelids in assumed modesty.

  Whew! Good grief! He smiled at her, and Tess chuckled-and when Tess Westcott smiled, his body started to heat from his trainers up.

  ‘OK, then, Tess,’ he told her finally, and only a faint hesitation under his words hinted at what he was feeling. ‘You’re fed and rested. Are you ready to face the farm?’

  Tess nodded. ‘I’m ready.’

  ‘OK. Strop’s waiting in the car. Let’s go.’

  She set her face, and Mike saw grimness replace the laughter behind her eyes. Hell, she had courage. She knew what could lie ahead of them.

  This was some woman!

  And suddenly he wasn’t the least sure he was ready to spend any time with her. There was something deep inside that was telling him he should run a mile.

  But there was something else that was telling him to stay.

  The farm was dreadful. Even Strop, having made the first half of the trip straddling the gearstick and the second half where he really wanted to be-sitting high on Tessa’s lap with his ears flapping out the window-seemed depressed by the place. His mournful ears flopped lower and his eyes welled with moisture. Good grief, you just had to look at the dog and you’d burst into tears! He lumbered off to sniff in the bracken and Tess was pleased to see him go. She was depressed enough without him.

  They made a courtesy call on Doris first. She was too preoccupied with her eight babies to notice human visitors. Jacob had done his job well. Mike had rung him early this morning and asked him to make sure the sow was fed and watered, and there was nothing more she needed. Now she had everything she could want, except maybe a spare set of teats.

  After paying their social call on Doris, they tackled the house.

  There was nothing here to help them-no clues as to where Henry could be.
The place was deserted, but it still held the signs of an occupant who hadn’t intended to leave. There was milk curdling in the refrigerator. Someone had taken a heap of sausages from the freezer and left them by the stove to defrost. That had been four or five days ago and they were starting to stink.

  They cleared up in silence and Mike thought he was glad he hadn’t let Tess face this alone. It was only bad sausages, but there were so many dreadful thoughts crowding in, and the smell of rotting meat didn’t help one bit.

  ‘Where do we search?’ he asked, as they came outside again, and she shook her head.

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t think. I’m trying to remember. It was ten years ago. I… It’s like going back in time. I’ve lost my bearings.’

  ‘Let’s eat, then,’ he told her gently, watching her distress with concern. It was early for dinner but they needed to get some fresh air into their lungs after the dreary house, and Tess needed time to get her emotions under control before they tackled the walk, even if she remembered where to go…

  Afterwards-after they’d searched-they might not feel like eating at all.

  They spread their picnic under a massive gum tree beside the shed. Tess was so depressed she was close to tears. Even Mike’s comforting presence, and the way Strop cheered up at the sight of sandwiches, couldn’t help this deadening misery.

  The sun was sinking lower in the sky and she didn’t know where to start, what to do. She was aware that Mike was letting her decide, carefully holding back from what he saw as her domain, and she was grateful that at least she didn’t have to concentrate on small talk. It made for a cheerless silence, though.

  But it also made for thinking. She was hardly hungry after her meal two hours before. She lay on the picnic rug and watched Mike demolish the picnic-and thought back to when she was sixteen years old and she and her Grandpa had roamed this farm together.

  And then…

  He was watching her and Mike saw the instant when remembrance hit. The feeling that this place was familiar.