Stormbound Surgeon Read online

  ‘What…?’ Amy was practically speechless. She walked forward in disbelief.

  ‘I wonder if they’ve done the bedrooms yet,’ Joss mused. He walked out along the corridor, opened the doors and checked. ‘Yep.’ Two of the bedrooms-the one Amy had been using and the one she’d designated his-were now fully furnished. They both had new beds, complete with luxurious bedclothes. More armchairs. Dressing-tables, wardrobes, bedside tables…

  There was even a big squashy dog-bed at the foot of his bed. Bertram was already ensconced, looking up with doggy satisfaction as Joss entered. He rose and waggled his tail, but his sleepy demeanour said he’d been entertained very well-he’d had a very busy afternoon supervising all this activity.

  ‘This is fantastic.’ Joss smiled his appreciation as his dog loped over for a pat. ‘They’re fantastic.’

  ‘Um…’ Amy had walked into the bedroom behind him. She looked as if she’d been struck by a piece of four by two and hadn’t surfaced yet. ‘Who’s fantastic?’

  ‘The combined residents of Iluka. When I told Dad and Daisy how you were living…’

  ‘You told them?’

  ‘Of course I told them.’

  ‘You had no right,’ she said, distressed. ‘Joss, this is my business. How I live.’

  ‘You spend your time looking after the town. It’s about time the town looked after you.’

  ‘But this furniture… I can’t keep it.’

  ‘Of course you can.’

  ‘You don’t understand.’ She was close to tears, he thought. Her hands were pressed to her cheeks, as if fighting mounting colour. ‘Trevor and Raymond and Lysle…’

  ‘Who are Trevor and Raymond and Lysle?’

  ‘My…my stepfather’s nephews.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘I can’t accept this,’ she told him. ‘I can’t keep anything.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘The nephews… My stepfather left me nothing. Have you any idea what the land tax is on this place?’

  ‘I can guess.’ In truth, he knew. Thanks to his father. The phones in Iluka had been running hot all day.

  ‘And the land tax on the land beneath the nursing home?’ she was saying. ‘The overheads?’ Still she was pressing her face. ‘The nephews took everything I didn’t own personally, and anything I do own has to be sold to keep the bank happy.’

  ‘So what does that have to do with this?’

  ‘I can’t accept. Even if I did I’d have to sell-’

  ‘This isn’t a gift,’ he said gently. He took her shoulders and steered her back to the kitchen. Bertram was shifting his sleepy body to the rug before the range and she thought suddenly, It’s warm. It’s warm!

  But Joss was still speaking. ‘Everyone at Iluka has moved here from somewhere else,’ he told her. ‘It’s a retirement village so most people have built houses that are smaller than they’re used to. Daisy says there’s hardly a retiree who doesn’t have something that they can’t bear to sell but that doesn’t fit easily into their new home. So this furniture is on loan. For as long as you need it.’

  ‘But I can’t-’

  ‘You can. Hell, Amy, you work your butt off for these people. Allow them to repay it a little.’

  ‘But…’ She stared wildly around and focussed on the stove. There was a kettle on the hob, gently hissing steam. ‘How long have you had the stove on? And the heating? I can’t afford to pay for all this.’

  ‘The heating’s my lodging fee,’ he told her. ‘It’s self-interest on my part. I have a conference paper to write and I don’t like being cold. So I rang up the gas board and gave them my credit-card details. There’s at least a six-month supply of gas been credited to your account. You can’t use my rent to pay unimportant things like land tax. Oh, and speaking of land tax…’

  ‘Yes?’ She was so dazed she could hardly speak.

  ‘My father’s been on to Jack Trotter, the Shire President. The councillors had an emergency meeting this afternoon-in your kitchen.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t believe this.’

  ‘You should have let them know. Amy, they were horrified to see how you were living. The whole district wants to help. They voted unanimously to waive land tax on White-Breakers and the nursing home for the next six years. Retrospectively. They can’t backdate it any more than a year but last year’s tax will be refunded.’

  Amy was practically speechless, but she was becoming angry. ‘Joss, this is none of your business. I should never have let you near the place.’

  ‘Then that would have been a great shame. I’m sorry to have to tell you this but your time as a martyr is over.’

  He was enjoying this, she thought. A genie granting three wishes couldn’t have looked any more placid than Joss Braden.

  ‘You can’t…’

  But he was smiling. ‘I already have.’ He pulled a cheque from his pocket and handed it over. ‘Mrs Hobbs from the general store asked me to give this to you. I gather she’s the Shire treasurer.’

  She looked down at the figure on the cheque and gaped. ‘This is crazy. And as for you paying the gas… You know I didn’t intend charging you rent. You mustn’t.’

  ‘It’s been done,’ he said virtuously. ‘You try getting refunds from the Gas Corporation. Good luck is all I can say.’

  Heat. She had heat. She had furniture. And enough money for essentials.

  She had Joss, and a dog.

  ‘Now to dinner,’ he told her, lifting her chin with one long, strong finger. ‘Bertram’s hungry, even if we’re not. Are you hungry?’

  She couldn’t take it all in. All she could absorb was the question.

  Was she hungry?

  ‘I’m starving,’ she told him and it was the truth. She was.

  ‘Good. Let’s eat.’

  It was the strangest meal. Joss had brought one of Mrs Hobbs’s famous beef pies, and he had side dishes to match. Amy ate as she hadn’t eaten for months-no, years-and all the time Joss watched her with that curious look of complacency.

  ‘You look like a Scout who’s just received his knot certificate-and I’m your very tricky knot,’ she complained, and he grinned.

  ‘I can see that. A knot, huh? Would you like some lemon meringue pie? Mrs Hobbs threw it in free.’

  ‘Does the entire population of Iluka see me as their do-a-good-deed-to-Amy project?’ she asked cautiously, and his grin widened.

  ‘Don’t knock it. It’ll be a damned sight more comfortable than the way you’ve been living for the last four years. Why no one did anything about it…’

  ‘Yeah. You come sweeping into town-’

  ‘Guns blazing.’

  ‘Ego blazing,’ she retorted, and he chuckled.

  ‘Egos are good for something. Does Malcolm have an ego?’

  ‘Malcolm?’

  ‘Your fiancé.’

  ‘I know who Malcolm is,’ she snapped. ‘And, no, as a matter of fact, he doesn’t have an ego.’

  ‘That’s why he hasn’t come to the rescue of his maiden in distress.’

  ‘I’m not in distress.’

  ‘You are. Or you were. You know, a knight in shining armour with ego to match can sometimes be a very good thing. He gets things done.’

  ‘Because he rides roughshod over people.’

  ‘I haven’t ridden roughshod over anyone,’ he said gently, and her indignation took a step back. OK, he hadn’t. Or…he had but in such a way…

  ‘Um…’

  ‘Wrap yourself around your lemon meringue pie,’ he told her kindly. ‘We don’t want to upset Mrs Hobbs, now-do we?’

  ‘No.’ Of course she didn’t.

  But it wasn’t Mrs Hobbs she was thinking of.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  AFTERWARDS Joss helped Amy with the dishes and then settled himself down at the table with his briefcase and laptop.

  ‘Sergeant Packer rescued these, but the rest of my luggage is matchsticks,’ he told her s
adly. ‘All I’m wearing is courtesy of my dad.’ He looked ruefully down at the splendid example of Daisy’s handiwork on his chest. ‘Fair Isle sweaters aren’t really my thing.’

  ‘I think you look very…fetching,’ she managed, and he glowered.

  ‘Fetching what?’

  ‘Fetching not very high stakes in fashion contests?’ she ventured, and ducked as a wad of paper sailed across the room and hit her on the forehead. ‘Ow.’

  ‘You asked for that.’

  ‘Hey, I like your sweater,’ she said, laughing, and his glower deepened. But he didn’t want to glower. She was smiling across the room at him and he wanted…

  Damn, he knew exactly what he wanted, but the lady was engaged to be married. He was a guest in her house.

  He couldn’t.

  ‘At least Sergeant Packer retrieved my briefcase,’ he managed, and he wondered if she’d heard that his voice sounded odd. For heaven’s sake, what was the matter with him? He was behaving like a schoolboy.

  ‘You really do have a conference to prepare for?’

  ‘Hey, that’s what I told Dad and Daisy. Do you think I’d lie?’

  ‘Only if you couldn’t get what you want any other way.’

  He tried a glare but it didn’t come off. She was gorgeous! But he had to stay serious. He had to concentrate on something other than that beautiful smile. ‘She’s maligning me, Bertram.’ Joss bent and fondled his dog’s velvety ears. ‘You hear that? I cook her a meal to die for and she maligns me.’

  ‘There you go again. Who cooked the pies?’

  ‘Mrs Hobbs might have,’ he admitted grudgingly. ‘But who fetched them. At great personal cost.’

  ‘Personal cost?’

  ‘I had to drive a pink Volkswagen.’

  ‘There is that.’ Then she frowned as the front doorbell pealed. ‘Who on earth…’

  ‘Maybe it’s another sofa,’ Joss told her. ‘Daisy told me there was more to come.’

  ‘Another sofa? How many do you think I need?’

  It wasn’t another sofa. It was a crate of good china, with a problem attached.

  ‘I thought I’d drop these in and ask…’

  Amy knew Marigold Waveny well. Her husband, Lionel, was the kite builder in the nursing home, and since Lionel and his kites had removed themselves from her ultra-neat home she’d never been happier. Neither had Lionel. Sometimes Amy wondered whether he’d feigned his senility to get more room for his kite-making. He and Marigold were still happily married-possibly much happier apart than they’d ever been together. Marigold spent her days at the nursing home, admiring kites, but at night she returned to her immaculate little home where there wasn’t a kite in sight.

  ‘I would have brought these earlier,’ she told them, handing over her box to Joss with gratitude. ‘But I was… I wasn’t very well. I had my phone switched to the answering machine so I didn’t hear about what Daisy was organising until just now.’ She gave Joss a shy smile. ‘Then I thought, Of course, I have all this china that I don’t even like.’

  Amy lifted a cup and gasped. ‘Marigold! It’s Royal Doulton. It’s beautiful.’

  ‘You enjoy it. Heaven knows, you do enough for my Lionel.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be brave enough to use it,’ Amy told her, and Marigold shook her head.

  ‘I have Royal Doulton, too,’ she told them. ‘But not such a loud pattern. This belonged to Lionel’s mother, and if you dropped it I’d be very pleased. And I thought…’ The voluble little lady faded to silence for a minute and then worked up courage. ‘I thought…if I brought something…a gift…while the doctor was here…’

  ‘Yes?’ Joss was ushering her into the kitchen while she was speaking. His eyes were twinkling and he was smiling at Amy over the top of the elderly lady’s head. He’d been a doctor for long enough to know what was coming. ‘You didn’t need to bring a gift to speak to me.’

  ‘No, but I thought…’

  ‘Tell us, Marigold,’ Amy prodded, and Marigold took a deep breath and started.

  ‘Well…’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I think… I think I’m dying.’

  Joss blinked. He set down the carton of china and thought about it. ‘You what?’

  ‘I just…’ She shook her head as if trying to get rid of something. Get rid of terror? ‘My heart’s failing,’ she whispered. ‘It’s going to stop. I can feel it. I’m dying and who cares about fancy china then?’

  She stared wildly from Joss to Amy and back again-and burst into tears.

  Finally they got it out of her-the reason for her terror. She was sitting in one of Amy’s new chairs while Amy knelt before her, holding her hands, and Joss listened. And watched.

  ‘I’ve been so tired,’ she told them. ‘For weeks I’ve been so tired I feel like I’m about to fall over. But when I go to bed at night I can’t sleep. I just lie there and my heart hammers and hammers and I get so upset… I have thumping in my chest-it’s thumping now. The palpitations are awful. I can’t seem to get enough breath. Everything’s just too much effort. I try… I’ve been going into the nursing home every day to see Lionel but it’s been too much. Today I felt so dreadful I didn’t go.’ She looked distressfully at Amy. ‘I didn’t go!’

  She should have realised, Amy thought ruefully. Marigold spent every day at the nursing home and today Amy hadn’t even missed her. It was just…well, today had been different.

  Lionel hadn’t realised-but, then, Lionel had been taken up by a new kite and Joss’s dog.

  ‘I stayed in bed,’ Marigold told them. ‘But it didn’t help. My heart’s thumping just the same. And it hurts. I thought… I thought I might die carrying that box but then I thought at least I’d die on the doctor’s doorstep and not at home by myself.’

  Gee, thanks, Amy thought wryly. Just what every home needs-a corpse on the doorstep.

  But Joss kneeled beside her, and his expression said he was taking this deadly seriously. He took Marigold’s wrist loosely between thumb and middle finger, counting her pulse as he glanced at his watch. His brow was furrowed in concentration.

  ‘Do we have a stethoscope, Amy?’ he asked, and she nodded and rose. Her bag was by the door-she acted as district nurse so she always had her bag handy.

  ‘Am I going crazy?’ Marigold whispered.

  ‘I don’t think you’re going crazy.’ Joss was watching her closely, his mind obviously in overdrive. ‘You’re very thin. Have you always been this thin or have you lost weight recently?’

  ‘I’ve lost a bit,’ she admitted, looking fearfully up at him. ‘I’m so tired. I can’t be bothered cooking.’

  ‘So you’ve lost weight and you’re constantly tired?’

  ‘I am seventy-three, dear.’

  ‘You’re a spring chicken compared to those in the nursing home.’ He tilted her chin and ran his hand down her throat, gently feeling. ‘Mrs Waveny, do you have any family history of thyroid trouble?’

  ‘I…’ She thought about that and finally nodded, not sure what he was getting at. ‘Maybe I do. My mother had to take iodine for something. Would that be it?’

  ‘Maybe it would.’ Amy handed Joss a stethoscope, and he held it to Marigold’s chest and listened. There was silence. Bertram wuffled and snuffed beside the fire, a dog at peace, but there was no peace on Marigold’s face.

  ‘It’s bad, isn’t it?’ she whispered as Joss finished listening.

  Joss hesitated, thinking it through. He wasn’t a physician. He was a surgeon, for heaven’s sake-but he was practically sure he was right.

  ‘Marigold, you have what we call atrial fibrillation,’ he told her. ‘It’s a fast, irregular heartbeat.’

  She gasped. ‘Is that bad?’

  ‘It’s not good. But I don’t think you’re dying. I suspect…’ Once more he ran his hands down her throat, feeling the swelling. ‘I suspect you have an overactive thyroid. I can’t be sure until we run a blood test-which I’d imagine we can’t do here-but for the moment I’m going to
assume that’s the case.’

  ‘I… The thyroid is causing heart failure?’

  ‘You don’t have heart failure. Your heart isn’t failing-it’s just running on overdrive. Now, I’m not certain, but you have all the signs. You’re tired, your neck seems a little swollen. You’re short of breath, you’re agitated, you have pains in the chest and you have a fast, irregular heartbeat. If I’m right-if this is just an overactive thyroid-then it can be controlled with tablets.’

  She stared, torn between disbelief and hope. ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘I’m not kidding.’

  There was a silence while she took that on board, her face lighting up by the moment.

  ‘I’m not mad?’

  ‘You’re not mad.’

  ‘Then what do I do about it?’ She gazed from Joss to Amy and then back again. ‘I guess…forget about it until I can see the doctor from Bowra?’

  ‘No.’ Joss shook his head. ‘Marigold, we can’t completely rule out heart disease, and until we do then we assume the worst. If you had someone living with you, maybe you’d be OK, but as it is you need to stay at the nursing home until we have some answers.’

  ‘But…’ Her distress level was rising again. ‘I will be able to go home again?’

  ‘Of course.’ He rose and took her hand, pulling her up after him. ‘If you like, I’ll drive you home now. We’ll pick up a nightie and a toothbrush and I’ll take you in to hospital. I’d imagine Amy has Lanoxin in the drug cupboard? Am I right, Amy?’

  ‘Sure.’ She was almost as dumbfounded as Marigold.

  ‘Great. Lanoxin slows your heart rate, Marigold. It’ll make you feel a whole heap better-and we’ll give you some sleeping pills, too, so you can get a decent sleep tonight. The combination will make you feel fantastic. Is it OK with you if you leave your car here? There’s a bed available, isn’t there, Amy?’

  ‘I…yes.’ Amy felt as stunned as Marigold looked at the speed with which things were being organised.

  ‘There’s no need-’ Marigold started, but Joss shook his head.