Stormbound Surgeon Read online

  ‘Leaving you the lot.’ Joss frowned. ‘Maybe because he felt sorry for the way he treated you.’

  ‘No.’ Anger flashed out then. ‘Not because he felt sorry for me. No way. It was a last gesture to get at me. He knew I’d come. Because of my mother’s distress and because her friends here were in such trouble, he knew the idea of setting up a nursing home would be irresistible. But he and his nephews after him have made sure that I haven’t a cent other than what was put into the terms of the will.’

  ‘He’s left you nothing else?’

  ‘He’s left barely enough to cover the running costs of the home-though we do get government subsidies now and it’s improving. But still… I’m allowed to take out my nurse-manager salary and that’s it. Even that often has to be ploughed back to make up shortfalls. The nephews removed the furniture-everything that wasn’t nailed down. Their plan is to make me as uncomfortable as possible so I’ll leave, because if I go before the ten years is up they’ll have the lot.’

  ‘And how many of your ten years have gone?’

  ‘Four.’

  ‘Six years to go?’

  ‘Six years of purgatory,’ she said-lightly, but he knew it was just that.

  ‘Is there any relief?’

  ‘I… Yes.’ Amy sighed and then managed a smile. ‘Oh, of course there is. Heck, in six years’ time I’ll be fabulously wealthy.’

  ‘Is that why you’re doing it?’ Somehow he didn’t think it could be, and her answer was no surprise.

  ‘No.’ Her response was fierce. ‘I’d walk away if I could, but the covenants he’s put on this place are unbelievable. People like your stepmother moved here in all faith but they found they’ve done their money cold. There’s nothing here for them. The nursing home is their only hope for future support.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Talk to the lawyers,’ she said wearily. ‘They’ll tell you. The place is a disaster and if I walk away there’ll be three or four hundred couples who’ll have to walk away with me. They’ll lose everything they own.’

  ‘As bad as that?’

  ‘As bad as that.’

  Silence. Then: ‘Do you have any support at all?’

  She caught herself then. ‘I… Of course I do. There’s Malcolm.’

  ‘Malcolm?’

  ‘My fiancé.’

  Her fiancé.

  Of course. There had to be a fiancé. For the first time he concentrated on her hands and there it was, a diamond solitaire, declaring to the world that she was taken.

  Well. That was fine. Wasn’t it?

  Of course it was. There was no reason in the world for his gut to wrench.

  But she’d risen and was laying her coffee-mug on the sink, intent on the next thing. ‘I need to go.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah. I’ll call you if I need you.’

  ‘Did you come home just to offload me?’ he asked, and she grinned.

  ‘Of course. Why else would I come home in the middle of the day?’

  ‘Because you’re off duty?’

  ‘There is that. But I have paperwork to do, and I really would like to be there for our new mum.’

  ‘You’ll ring me the minute you’re worried?’

  ‘The minute I’m worried I’ll be here in my wreckage-mobile to cart you back to the hospital so fast you can’t blink.’

  ‘Wreckage-mobile permitting?’

  ‘Wreckage-mobile permitting.’

  ‘You realise if you leave then I’m stuck?’

  Amy thought about that. ‘Do you want me to drop you off at your father’s?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘There you go, then.’ She smiled. ‘A willing captive. My very favourite sort.’

  Humph.

  Willing captive or not, as soon as she left that was how Joss did feel. Trapped.

  He explored the house-sort of-but a proper tour could take days. He figured out which bedroom Amy used. That’d be the room with blankets on the single bed and one ancient and overflowing dresser.

  Then he figured out his bedroom-the one with the single bedstead and nothing else-though surprisingly there were blankets and linen folded at the end. It seemed as if Amy did have guests.

  Guest, he corrected himself. One guest and one guest only sometimes. Not often.

  ‘So where’s this Malcolm?’ he asked, and was surprised to hear the note of anger in his voice.

  But there were no answers.

  Bertram was loping along by his side and he apologised in advance for the sleeping arrangements. ‘This is a single bed,’ he told his dog. ‘That means me. On my own. No bed-sharing with you!’

  The dog looked at him mournfully and Joss folded his ears back. In truth he liked the dog sleeping with him as much as Bertram liked obliging.

  Sleeping by himself was the pits.

  ‘Can you tell me where this fiancé comes in?’ he asked of Bertram, and Bertram cocked a head to one side as if thinking about it. ‘Yeah, like me, you don’t understand. If he’s such a hero, why doesn’t he loan her some furniture? If she was my girl…’

  Now that was not a thought worth pursuing.

  Damn, what was he going to do with himself? Isolation was all very well, but…

  He needed things. Like a razor. Like a spare shirt. He thought about his belongings. They’d been in the trunk of his car and the trunk had been mangled into the steering-wheel. Any razor would be matchsticks.

  His laptop had been sitting on the floor of the front passenger seat. Maybe it was OK. Please…

  He could ring the police sergeant and find out if anything was salvageable. Jeff would probably still be out at the wreck, clearing debris and making the roadblocks safe.

  But he’d quite like to return to the hospital. Charlotte’s head injury was a worry. In her condition, not to have a doctor on standby seemed downright dangerous.

  There was only one solution.

  Sighing, he lifted his phone from his belt and called his father.

  ‘So tell me about Amy Freye.’

  He was still sitting at Amy’s kitchen table while his father and his father’s new wife clucked their concern about his accident and stared around them with open-mouthed astonishment. It seemed they’d never been in Amy’s home and they were stunned. ‘No, Daisy, I don’t want another cup of tea. I want some gossip.’

  But he wouldn’t get gossip from this pair. He’d get nothing but praise.

  ‘Amy’s wonderful,’ Daisy declared. ‘She’s saved this town single-handed.’

  ‘Explain.’

  And he got the story again-the same story Amy had told him, embellished with gratitude.

  ‘The old man robbed us blind,’ Daisy told him, easy tears appearing in her eyes at the memory. ‘We-my late husband and I-moved here because we were stupid, and as soon as we bought we were stuck fast. Oh, we thought it was fantastic when we first arrived but then John got sick and there was nothing. Not even a pharmacy. I spent my life on the road between here and Bowra, and then when John got worse he had to go into the Bowra Nursing Home. I figured that I’d have to sell-but people had woken up by then that there was never going to be any commercial development.’

  ‘No commercial development at all?’

  ‘No.’ She sighed and shook her head. ‘There’s one general store and a post office-that’s it. During the height of the season there’s supplies from Sydney delivered to the millionaires, but that style of shopping is out of the range of ordinary people like us. The wealthy like their isolation but for us…it’s the pits. So I was stuck. I couldn’t get a buyer at half the price we paid. Then John died. And fortunately so did Amy’s stepfather. Then Amy arrived and it’s all different.’

  ‘How is it different?’

  ‘Every way you can think of,’ Daisy said roundly. ‘She’s built the home but she’s done so much more. She runs meals on wheels to take decent dinners to the old folk stuck at home. She runs shopping rosters so we’re not always in the car to Bowra.
The nursing home’s set up so the Bowra doctor can visit and do minor procedures here. She’s organised pharmacy supplies so we can get urgent medicine. Everything. Half the people in Iluka are still in their homes today because of Amy.’

  ‘I could never have moved here without her,’ his father told him. ‘I met Daisy when I came to play an interclub bowls match and it felt like heaven. But then Daisy told me the problems she’s been having… We still couldn’t sell her place, but with Amy we’re safe for another six years.’

  ‘For as long as she’s stuck here,’ Joss said thoughtfully.

  ‘Yes. And even after that. As long as she puts up with us for the legal ten years, then the nursing home will be a going concern for ever.’

  ‘There’s a lot riding on her staying.’

  ‘She has a good heart,’ Daisy said roundly. ‘She’ll stay.’

  ‘And she’s engaged to a local man.’

  ‘Sort of. Malcolm is an accountant in Bowra and his dad’s a lawyer. He met Amy when his father was looking after Amy’s legal affairs and…well, there’s a bit of a dearth of young men around here.’

  ‘He doesn’t look after her very well.’

  ‘Well, they’re not married.’

  ‘If I was engaged to Amy…’

  ‘Yes, dear, but you’re not,’ Daisy said patiently. ‘And, of course, Malcolm can’t move here. His practice is in Bowra and when it rains it floods and the road’s cut. Though not always as spectacularly as it is now.’

  There was a lot he still didn’t understand but it was time to move on.

  ‘You guys have two cars, right?’

  His father and stepmother looked at each other. ‘Yes, but…’

  He saw where their thoughts were headed. ‘No, I’m not planning to try a stunt jump over the river. I know I’m stuck here.’

  ‘You’re very welcome to stay with us for as long as you like,’ Daisy told him, and his father beamed his consent. They’d come out to Amy’s practically twittering with excitement, and now they were aching to take him home.

  ‘I’m happy here,’ he told them, and Daisy looked around and shuddered.

  ‘Yes, dear, but it’s hardly cosy.’

  ‘And that’s something else I wanted to talk to you about. Look at this place.’

  They looked-and they could only agree.

  ‘We didn’t think she lived like this,’ Daisy told him. She was clearly puzzled. ‘We thought…well, she lives in such a huge house we thought that her clothes and her car were a sort of eccentric choice.’

  ‘She has no money.’

  His parents looked shocked at the thought. ‘Of course she has money. She lives in this place…’

  ‘Which is costing her a bomb, but she can’t even afford to heat it. I gather she has no money at all.’

  ‘She told you that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you’ve only just met her.’

  ‘I have a very confiding nature,’ Joss told them, and got an odd look from his stepmother for his pains.

  ‘She really has nothing?’

  ‘So I gather. The old man left everything but the house and the nursing home to his nephews.’

  They practically gaped. And then Daisy moved straight into the organisational mode Joss was starting to dread. ‘Well! I’m sure we could find all sorts of furniture to give her and so could half the population of Iluka. If we’d had any idea… Most of us are in a position to give. We think so much of Amy…’

  ‘It wouldn’t work.’ Joss was doing some on-the-spot thinking. ‘She’d sell it. She’s strapped for cash and the nephews are breathing down her neck for more. But if you lent her things…’

  ‘Lent?’

  ‘Like, for six years. Would you do that?’

  He watched their faces and saw the measure of respect and affection in which Amy was held. There was no hesitation at all. ‘Of course we would.’

  ‘We’ll get onto this straight away,’ his father told him. ‘It’ll be a pleasure to do it. If the town had known… I know Jack Trotter-he’s Shire President. I’m sure there’s things we can do. This town’s coffers are very healthy indeed-there’s not a lot of traffic lights that need maintaining around here. Come to think of it, there’s not a lot of anything that needs maintaining. Now, how about you, lad? You don’t want to stay here, I assume?’ He looked around the barren room in distaste. ‘It puts a man off money, seeing the place like this.’

  ‘It does.’ But Joss hesitated. ‘If it’s all the same to you, Dad, I might stay on. If you can lend me one of your cars…’

  ‘Surely.’ But his father’s face was a question. ‘But why?’

  ‘It’s just… The reason I was leaving was to get down to work on this conference paper. That still applies. This place is quiet…’

  ‘And you need to be here as our furniture arrives.’ Daisy was smiling in a way Joss didn’t like. It meant his stepmother was reading far too much into his intention to stay. ‘You leave the boy be, David. He doesn’t want to be staying with a couple of oldies like us when he could be staying with Amy.’

  ‘Amy’s engaged,’ David said, surprised. He’d caught the gist of where Daisy was headed but he didn’t follow.

  ‘Yes, she is,’ Daisy muttered, and Joss raised his eyebrows.

  ‘You don’t like this Malcolm?’

  ‘No.’ Daisy was blunt and decisive.

  ‘That’s not really fair.’ Joss’s father was frowning. ‘You hardly know the man.’

  ‘I know that he’s wishy-washy.’

  ‘He’s a decent bloke.’

  ‘He’s never going to set the world on fire,’ Daisy retorted. ‘He’s an accountant in Bowra and he’s the sort of man you’d know from five years old that was where he’d end up.’

  ‘That’s a bit harsh. Amy must like him,’ Joss said mildly, and Daisy snorted.

  ‘Yeah. Like she had a choice. He’s a presentable young man and presentable young men are a bit thin on the ground here. And as for Malcolm… He’s onto a very good thing with Amy Freye and he’s enough of a money manager to know it.’

  ‘In six years, maybe.’

  ‘Would you take great trouble to hold onto a gold mine even though you knew it wouldn’t pay out for six years?’

  He thought that through. ‘I guess I would.’

  ‘There you go, then,’ Daisy said triumphantly. ‘He’s wishy-washy and a gold-digger. I rest my case.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  JOSS returned to the hospital to find Charlotte was sleeping. Amy was taking her obs as he walked into her room. She had her white coat on over her clothes again and he thought again how strikingly attractive she was. Once she was out of those dreary clothes…

  Maybe he could get Daisy onto that, too.

  But Amy was smiling and he thought, Why bother? She was gorgeous enough as she was.

  Luckily, Amy wasn’t into mind-reading. She was concentrating on her patient. ‘She’s hardly stirred.’

  ‘She’s due for some pain relief.’ He took the chart and wrote up what was needed-and then he hesitated. ‘I suppose we have the necessary drugs…’

  ‘Because we’re isolated I have permission to run a limited pharmacy. I have what’s needed.’

  He shook his head in appreciation. ‘This is an amazing nursing home.’

  ‘It is,’ she said without any false modesty. ‘But didn’t I have you trapped at home?’

  ‘My father and Daisy came to the rescue. I am currently driving Daisy’s pink Volkswagen.’

  She grinned. ‘I bet your dad’s relieved. He might be in love but even he blanched when she had it spray-painted pink.’

  ‘Bertram took one look and elected to stay at home.’

  ‘Wise dog.’

  ‘But I thought I might be needed here.’

  ‘So you decided to brave even a pink Volkswagen. What a man!’

  She was laughing at him. He liked it, he decided. He definitely liked it.

  ‘Maybe I’m not needed,’ he
said, moving on but not without a struggle. ‘Things are looking good here. The baby’s still fine?’

  ‘Yep. She’s in the sitting room with the oldies. My nursing staff decided that while her mother slept they could babysit.’

  ‘So we have…twenty babysitters?’

  ‘At least. Charlotte will be lucky if she gets her daughter back. Talk about a case of collective cluck.’

  ‘I wonder who she is.’

  ‘I wonder.’ Amy followed his gaze to the sleeping mother. ‘She looks exhausted.’

  ‘But she’s not a local?’

  ‘I’d reckon every single one of our residents managed to get a look at her on the way in and no one recognises her.’

  ‘Her truck looks like a farm truck.’

  ‘And that’s what she looks like. A farmer. Her hands…they’re work hands.’ She lifted the girl’s fingers gently from the counterpane. Joss saw and thought that they had matching hands. The stranger’s hands were work-worn but so were Amy’s. Both women knew how to work hard.

  ‘She’ll tell us soon enough when she wakes.’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ Amy was still watching the girl’s face. ‘She woke for a little but she seems…she seems almost afraid.’

  ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of here.’

  ‘Apart from being cosseted to death. What a place to have a baby. There are no fewer than five sets of bootees and matinée jackets being knitted as we speak.’

  ‘Fate worse than death.’

  ‘As you say.’

  They left Charlotte sleeping and made their way to Amy’s office. Charlotte was nicely stable and the baby was doing beautifully. There was no reason for him to stay, but Joss made no move to leave.

  There wasn’t a good reason for him to leave, Amy figured, remembering where he was going home to. So she might as well make use of the man.

  ‘How do you feel about checking Rhonda Coutts’s lungs?’

  ‘Rhonda Coutts?’

  ‘I think she might be building up to pneumonia. She had a fall last week and spent a few days on her back. She’s up now but she’s coughing and she’s weak. As the Bowra doctor can’t get through…well, would you check her?’