Doctor on Loan Read online

  But where was he? She was working so hard on getting her face in order that it was almost a relief when Hugo wasn’t in the cottage.

  ‘I don’t know, but he’s not here,’ Stan told her. On Mondays he and an elderly companion played chess over steak and red wine down at the pub, and he was getting himself ready to go.

  ‘What have you done with him?’ Christie asked, bemused.

  ‘You sound like you suspect me of locking him up.’ Stan chortled. ‘Maybe that’s not such a bad idea. Put him in chains and throw away the key. If we could get a decent young fella like Hugo to practise with you on the island…’

  ‘In our dreams.’ Christie gave a half-hearted smile. The whole island was hallucinating here. ‘This practice hardly pays for one doctor, never mind two. And he’s used to a great lifestyle. The man makes serious money.’ Briefly she outlined what Hugo intended doing for Mandy, and Stan stared.

  ‘Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle,’ he said at last. ‘I knew specialist salaries were big, but not that big.’

  ‘He must do something apart from hospital anaesthetising,’ Christie agreed. ‘Maybe he runs one of those pain clinics where the wealthy come for regular brief consultations and he makes a mint, doing nothing.’

  There were clinics—and doctors—who pulled in the money by doing just that, and both Stan and Christie knew it. They looked at each other and Christie could see that her grandfather didn’t want that to be the source of Hugo’s wealth any more than she did.

  But why should she care?

  It was none of her business how Hugo made his money, she thought savagely. He’d said so, and he was right.

  But…Where was he?

  Doug Connor arrived to collect Stan. Bemused, she made her way back to the hospital. She checked each ward, half expecting Hugo to be gossiping to one of the patients, and then she checked on Scrubbit again. The little dog was sleeping peacefully, but he was alone. With Hugo’s grand plan before her and university beckoning, Mandy would have headed straight for her textbooks.

  Maybe Hugo had gone with Mandy to talk to her parents—but how? With his gammy knee he could hardly walk, and Grandpa’s car wasn’t missing. Mandy could well have walked the mile and a half home, but Hugo couldn’t.

  ‘Where is he, Scrubbit?’ she asked, but the dog hardly stirred. She had him heavily sedated. He’d pull out an intravenous line without sedation and he must have fluids and an antibiotic overnight. Tomorrow, however, she suspected there’d be no stopping him. Scrubbit was one wiry pooch.

  ‘I’ll bet you’ll go to Brisbane with her,’ she whispered. ‘Even if she stows you away in her luggage…’

  Where was Hugo?

  She turned, and as she did so she caught sight of a pile of paper on her desk. It had been days since she’d used the desk, but it was covered now with a wad of paper she didn’t recognise.

  Curious, she lifted the top page. The paper was covered with handwritten notes—a detailed outline of that afternoon’s operation.

  What on earth…?

  She read on, fascinated. Detailed was an understatement. The notes omitted nothing. Hugo had put down full medication, step-by-step procedures, the minor hitches that had occurred, the sound of the saw, the look on Mandy’s face…

  This was bizarre!

  The door opened behind her.

  ‘Whoops,’ Hugo said into the silence—and she jumped a foot. ‘Caught.’

  ‘H-hi,’ she managed weakly, shoving the notes back on the desk. Then she pulled herself together. Oh, for heaven’s sake, this was her desk. It was her writing paper, her operation, her patient.

  So what was he doing, writing about it?

  ‘Are you some sort of spy?’ she demanded, gesturing to the notes, and he grinned.

  ‘Oh, no!’ He gave a dramatic groan and there was a deepening of the lurking laughter behind those gorgeous eyes. ‘You’ve guessed. I’m on a mission from Interpol to discover why the dogs on this island are taking over the world. And now I’ve discovered your dire secret. You replace bone with Kryptonite. And, lo! Superdogs!’

  This man was seriously crazy. Christie took a step back and shook her head in disbelief as she found herself laughing with him. She’d never met a man like this. He kept her in a ripple of laughter—just to look at him made her feel warm all over.

  So play along with him. Somehow…‘Oh, right. Any minute now Scrubbit’s going to leap into his telephone box and emerge in his Superman…I mean Superdog costume,’ she agreed. Laughter and warmth aside, she was still puzzled. ‘Hugo, why—?’

  ‘I just like remembering,’ he said, folding the notes and tucking them firmly into his shirt pocket. ‘In case…’

  ‘In case any stray dogs with fractured pelvises wander into your Brisbane clinic and you need to deal with them?’

  ‘That’s the ticket,’ he said cheerfully, and suddenly the subject was closed. There was something about the set look to his mouth—the fading laughter—that told her any further enquiries weren’t welcome.

  She gave an inward shrug. If he wanted to take notes she had nothing to hide, she thought. Except the odd discrepancy in who exactly took her medications. She glowered.

  ‘You’re sure you’re not a government official here to check me out?’

  His brows lifted in mock interrogation. ‘Would that worry you? What on earth would I have to report you about?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She shrugged. ‘I guess…heaps of things. It’s a constant nightmare that some officious person will come here and check the running of this practice. If you were to report on dog X-rays, for instance, or discover that I gave Bert Soren two lots of antibiotics last week…’

  He gave her a sideways, thoughtful look, but the twinkle returned.

  ‘OK, Dr Flemming. Out with it. Overdosing on antibiotics, aided and abetted by your family doctor, is a dire crime. Tell all. Why did you supply Bert’s habit?’

  ‘His cow’s habit.’ She tried to keep a straight face but failed miserably. Hugo’s laughter was too infectious to resist. ‘Bert had an infected ingrown toenail, but before he could take his prescribed antibiotics his cow gashed herself on some barbed wire. Therefore Bert gave his pills to the cow and expected me to give him more. So, with the consequence of a spreading infection from a really nasty toenail, I did just that.’ She peeped a glance at him, throwing herself on the mercy of the court. ‘There you have it. I’ve confessed all.’

  He grinned. ‘Nice confession, Dr Flemming.’ He reached out and tilted her chin so she was forced to look at him directly, and his touch sent a tingle right down to her toes. But he was still laughing. ‘It’s a pity I can’t use it. If I’m a government official, where are my suit and tie and clipboard?’

  ‘There is that,’ she said thoughtfully, trying to tell her toes they weren’t tingling at all! ‘A proper government official would never have left his yacht without his clipboard. Drowning or not drowning.’

  ‘So it looks like Bert’s cow will get away with her ill-gotten gains. Didn’t the antibiotic give her a bellyache?’

  ‘You know, I didn’t ask. I told Bert to take yoghurt with his pills—I always advise yoghurt to counter penicillin side effects—but I guess the cow can make her own. Yoghurt, I mean.’

  But what did she mean?

  Oh, for heaven’s sake, what was she talking about? Yoghurt? She wasn’t thinking about yoghurt, she realised dazedly. Hugo was forcing her eyes to meet his and there was a link between them that was growing by the minute. Crazy…

  ‘I guess she can at that.’ Then his lazy smile gentled, he took her hands in his and he continued to meet her look head on. And her toes tingled all over again.

  ‘Dr Flemming, can you cease getting your knickers in a twist here?’ he said softly. ‘I’m not threatening you—or Scrubbit—or even Bert Soren’s cow—in any way at all. I’m simply taking notes. Now, does that caviar await?’

  She still didn’t understand why he’d taken the notes, but the warmth of his hands h
olding hers, the feel of him, the way he smiled at her…Well, it would have taken a stronger woman than Christie to keep probing.

  In truth, she couldn’t think of anything to ask at all. His notes had become an unimportant blur. All she could think of was his touch. It wasn’t just her toes that were tingling now. She was tingling all over, right to the tips of her ears.

  Food! Tea! Prawns…That was why she’d been looking for him, she told herself desperately. Get back to the matter in hand…

  ‘I—I sort of had a better idea,’ she said diffidently, managing to pull her hands away. He released her, but there was a sense of reluctance—as if he felt the pull as strongly as she did.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We can hardly make a meal of just caviar,’ she told him, somehow hauling herself back together enough to make her voice work. ‘I wondered…I wondered if you might like to go prawning?’

  ‘Prawning?’ It was so unexpected it caught him off balance.

  ‘The prawns are running,’ she told him. Maybe it was a silly idea, but she hadn’t been prawning for years, and if he’d never done it…He’d only be here for another couple of days, she told herself. She could enjoy his maleness—his laughter and his presence—while she could. Savour every last minute of his visit. ‘It’s such a dark and moonless night, it’s perfect for prawning.’

  ‘A dark and moonless night…’ He grinned, and went straight into dramatic mode. ‘Upstairs, the maid screamed,’ he intoned dirgefully. ‘The butler roamed, the hounds bayed and blood dripped from the ceiling. Meanwhile, back at the hospital…Are you sure you want to go prawning with me, Dr Flemming?’

  Was he never serious? But, yes, she was sure. She was surer and surer by the minute.

  ‘Meanwhile, back at the estuary, the prawns are running,’ she said severely. ‘And I really like prawns. To eat, I mean. They go perfectly with caviar.’

  ‘I expect they do,’ he said faintly. ‘But isn’t the weather a bit rough?’ The wind was howling around the little hospital, and the seas were still pounding.

  ‘The estuary is sheltered,’ she told him ‘That’s why the kids were there and saw you trying to drown yourself. The cliffs form a shelter where the creek runs into the harbour entrance. If we go there tonight we could get ourselves a really good catch.’

  ‘Why?’ His brows furrowed together. ‘Why tonight?’

  Why, indeed? Christie floundered a little, but she might as well explain. After all, he’d be gone in a couple of days and she didn’t have to see him again. She could afford to lose a little dignity with this man.

  ‘I used to go prawning as a kid,’ she told him. ‘But since I came back as a doctor, I don’t get asked. Grandpa and I have the gear—we used to sneak off and prawn ourselves—but…’

  ‘You can’t since Stan’s stroke.’

  ‘No. And whenever I suggest to one of the islanders that I’d like to going prawning I end up with a bucket of prawns left on my doorstep. They’re happy to give me prawns, but they don’t see prawning as my role.’

  ‘That’s crazy.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ she told him. ‘I’m supposed to be here at the hospital, you see. That’s where they like me. If someone goes prawning and cuts themselves, then they’re happier if I’m here waiting to sew them up, rather than risking my neck prawning with them. And…’

  ‘And?’ He was trying to see.

  ‘And if I do insist on going,’ she said hesitantly, ‘because I’m the doctor I’m given the best net and the best spot near the light. If I don’t catch more than anyone else then they worry and give me some of theirs, and it’s just…’

  ‘Not the same as when you were a kid?’

  ‘Nothing ever is,’ she said, grateful that at least he was trying to see. ‘But with you…’

  ‘I won’t patronise you. I’m another doctor so I won’t hold you in the least respect, and you could beat me hands down at prawning because I have a gammy leg.’

  She chuckled. ‘Of course. I hadn’t thought of the winning angle. But with your leg…I was thinking. It’s no problem. Grandpa and I have a boat. We can row out into the estuary—it’s shallow enough to push if we must. Then we’ll anchor and drop the light overboard. You can sit in the boat and net prawns for all you’re worth. Who knows? You might even beat me.’

  He thought it through. It sounded intriguing, and if there was one thing Hugo Tallent was into it was intriguing experiences. Especially with a woman like this! ‘But can we do that?’ he asked. ‘I mean, aren’t you on call?’

  ‘I’m always on call,’ she said wearily. ‘But for tonight…’ She motioned to the satellite phone she had buckled at her waist. ‘Let’s take a chance and see if it stays quiet.’

  ‘Let’s do that,’ Hugo said softly, and there was a strange look on his face, replacing the laughter she was growing accustomed to. ‘Let’s take a chance. OK, Dr Flemming. Lead the way.’

  They had three magic hours, and Hugo had never before experienced anything like those hours.

  Once beneath the shadows of the cliffs, the wind dropped like magic. It became a balmy summer night, with the sky black and almost moonless. A faint sliver of a crescent moon hung low to the east, but it wasn’t enough to attract the prawns away from their light.

  Christie was in charge. Hugo was content to row the boat where directed, and then sit and watch while Christie organised.

  To attract the prawns, she used an underwater lantern. The old boat, pushed out of the boatshed and rowed out into the centre of the estuary, was a platform from where they could sink the floodlight. The light faced upwards so that the prawns were attracted to it and they could be seen as they swam across the beam.

  Hugo was spellbound. His damaged knee meant he had to stay in the boat—he didn’t want to risk wrenching it again—but he held his net and scooped up prawn after prawn.

  And he watched Christie. Mostly he watched Christie.

  It was as if she’d shed an outer skin as she’d launched the boat, he thought as he watched her. She was wearing ancient shorts, battered leather sandals and a tattered wind-cheater. She’d slipped over the side of the boat as soon as they’d anchored and was now standing waist deep in water, scooping up her prawns with a determination built of hunger. Or so she told him.

  ‘Come on, keep netting,’ she told him. ‘You eat what you catch, so you’ll be very, very hungry if you don’t rattle your dags…’

  “‘Rattle your dags”?’ he said faintly. ‘Do I know what that means?’

  She chuckled. ‘It means hurry—but if you want a literal explanation, head to a shearing shed. Back to work, Dr Tallent.’

  So he netted—but still he was focussed on her. He knew what the expression ‘rattle your dags’ meant. He’d just never heard a woman use it. The women who surrounded him would die rather.

  He gave a rueful grin, remembering some of the women he’d been escorting lately. Every artifice in the book had been thrown at him since fame and fortune had hit. Who would have thought that a chit of a girl, standing waist deep in water and throwing shearer’s cant at him, could do what no other woman came close to?

  ‘Aren’t you cold?’ he asked from the comfort of the boat. Not a single woman he knew would do this, he decided—stomp around in waist-deep water looking like Orphan Annie, all for the sake of a few prawns.

  ‘No. Aren’t you hot?’ she retorted. She reached down for a scoop of water and her eyes glimmered at him. ‘Want to cool off?’

  ‘No, thank you, ma’am.’ Or maybe he did. The water looked incredibly inviting, and so did the girl. But—

  But suddenly there was trouble.

  Christie gave an ear-splitting yell, and suddenly the water around the boat turned to foam as she kicked out in horror. White water sprayed everywhere! ‘Yow!’ Her scream could probably be heard in the middle of next week!

  ‘Christie, what…?’

  ‘Get it off me!’ She was falling backwards into the water and thrashing wildly upwards. ‘No! No!�
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  Hugo stood up in the boat and it lurched precariously as he tried to see. He couldn’t. All he could see was foam and thrashing limbs—but a man had to do what a man had to do.

  In one swift movement Hugo leapt overboard, stood up and steadied himself. He seized the thrashing girl and lifted her high in his arms, and then, by the light of the underwater lantern, he could see clearly what the problem was, though it was waving so wildly it was only an impression.

  An octupus was hanging from her ankle.

  ‘Ow! Ow, ow, ow!’

  Christie was waving her leg like a wild woman, and yelling as if the hounds of hell were after her, but the creature clung on. She scarcely noticed she’d been lifted. Writhing in Hugo’s arms, her leg was out before her and tentacles were flying everywhere.

  ‘No!’ She was yelling and laughing and spluttering with sea water all at the same time. ‘Hugo, help! No! You revolting thing, get off!’ And with a final, fierce yell—and kick—the octupus went flying upwards, landing in the water about four feet from them.

  It had been more terrified than Christie. By the light of the lantern they saw it bunch its tentacles in slimy horror and scuttle seaward as if its life depended in it. And that was the last they saw of it.

  ‘Oh, thank heaven!’ Christie was still writhing in Hugo’s arms as if she couldn’t believe it had gone. ‘Of all the disgusting things…’

  ‘Do they sting?’ Hugo still held her close, trying frantically to think back to his medical-school days. What were the venomous sea creatures? Portugese men-of-war…stone fish…blue ringed octopus…

  ‘Keep still, Christie,’ he ordered in his best doctor’s voice. ‘Let me see.’

  And then, as she finally stilled…

  ‘You’re hurt!’ He could see a trickle of blood on her bare ankle. Hell! ‘Christie…’

  ‘I kicked myself,’ she said indignantly, laughing up into his worried face. ‘I tried to kick it but I kicked myself instead. Just lucky for the stupid octopus.’ She took a deep, indignant breath. ‘I bet it’s not even bruised. Oh, for heaven’s sake, if I wasn’t such a baby I could have caught it and we could have had calamari for dinner as well. It was a little one so it would have been really tender. Prawns and caviar and squid…’