His Runaway Nurse Read online

  ‘I’ll carry her out to the car,’ he said, and although Majella made to argue, he stalled her with a ‘don’t you dare’ look as good as one of Belle’s.

  They drove away, Helen at the wheel, Sophie waving, Majella fussing over Grace, although he was sure she turned to look at him, and he imagined he could see the pale blur of her face still watching through the back window until the car disappeared from view.

  He had to see her. For a start, there was the unprotected sex business—what if she was pregnant.

  He ignored the tingle of excitement that thought caused.

  Then there was the little chest, it and the letter, both things he had undertaken to hand over to her.

  And on top of that, in all honesty, he had to see her because he missed her so badly he couldn’t sleep, while his body ached for her in a way he’d never experienced before.

  Certain they were the symptoms of flu coming on, he’d ignored the aching for a while, but the flu hadn’t come and he’d been forced to think it might be something else.

  Definitely not love-sickness—he was a doctor and knew that didn’t exist.

  But love itself, that was real. Unfortunately, there were so many kinds of love…

  A quick search through the top of his dresser, where he emptied his pockets each evening, produced the Nature’s Wonders card, with Helen Sherwood’s address and phone number. He considered phoning, then dismissed that idea, knowing it would be far too easy for Majella not to take the call.

  The address was an hour’s drive away, so he waited until the following weekend, then asked the doctor in the next town to take any emergency calls and, with the little chest safe on the passenger seat of his car, he set out.

  He knew the road well, so it took little of his attention, which was a shame because it left him free to think.

  To think about Majella.

  To think about his feelings.

  To think about a small girl-child who called him ‘Man’ and already held at least part of his heart in her tiny hand.

  Could he be a father to another man’s child?

  Was that the issue?

  Not really.

  The issue was Majella.

  How he felt about her…

  Worse—how she felt about him…

  Helen’s house, he discovered, after driving—distracted?—past the turn-off four times, was set back in the trees on the edge of state forest, accessed by a dirt road which wound through the bush so it wasn’t until you actually came upon the house that you realised someone was living there.

  Too isolated for three women, was his first thought, while his second, on taking in the high wire fences and divided runs, was that at least he’d come to the right place.

  He made his way along the fence, seeking a way in, then saw a double carport off to one side of the house, a door which would lead inside set into the side wall. In the run nearest him, a young dingo paced restlessly, back and forth, longing to be free, but no doubt held captive because of injury, for his left front paw was heavily bandaged, an old sock, thick with dust and grime, covering the bandage.

  Beyond the dingo was a wider run with a couple of young wallabies hopping about, strewn straw at one end providing softness for their bedding.

  Fascinated by this menagerie, he came closer to the dingo’s fence, so he could peer further in. It seemed one of the wallabies had also been injured, bandages he hadn’t noticed earlier because they were grey with dust around its chest.

  Majella had been right in thinking the kennels and dog runs at Parragulla House would be ideal for this type of work.

  He walked on to the door, his anxiety about seeing Majella again all but forgotten in the intrigue he felt about the animals.

  ‘Hi, Sophie. I wanted to check on Grace, and I have something to give Majella. Is she here?’ he said, when Sophie, clutching a tiny, furless baby koala to her chest, answered the door, Grace peering out from behind her legs.

  ‘Man!’ Grace said, with obvious delight, holding up her arms and confident of his reaction.

  He swung her up, nuzzling kisses into her neck, delighting in the gurgling laughter of her response. He was happy to feel a little more flesh on her bones than had been there when she’d left hospital.

  He could love her, that’s for sure…

  ‘She’s hopeless,’ Sophie said, slipping the tiny koala into a pouch made out of a padded kitchen glove. ‘Man mad. You should see the fuss she makes of Phil.’

  Flynn ignored the stab of jealousy this statement caused, and cuddled Grace closer, blowing her soft curls while she chortled with delight.

  ‘Majella’s operating,’ Sophie said. ‘Come and see.’

  She led Flynn through the house, past bags hung on chairs, with lumpy marsupials pouched inside, and a galah with a broken wing, screeching from a cage.

  ‘Operating?’ he repeated, but right then Sophie opened a door, took a protesting Grace from his arms and waved him inside.

  It had been a bathroom originally, he guessed. One of those big, old-fashioned bathrooms. The bath and toilet suite had been removed, but taps remained, big sinks fitted under them and stainless-steel benches, shelving and cupboards built around the walls

  And Majella was indeed operating. Her patient appeared to be a wombat—a large hump of unconscious animal on a stainless-steel trolley. Majella stood on one side, scalpel in hand, while Helen, clad like Majella in a gown, mask and cap, appeared to be the theatre nurse, passing instruments and swabs.

  ‘Appendicitis?’ Flynn suggested, as Majella’s pale eyes, seeming larger when they were all that was visible between the coverings, met his.

  ‘Barbed wire,’ she responded calmly, though he thought he saw a trace of panic in her eyes. ‘Must have been an old fence, the wire trailing on the ground. He got caught up then made things worse trying to untangle himself. His mouth’s a mess as well, as if he’s tried to bite it off.’

  She offered this explanation as if it was perfectly normal for her—or anyone—to be removing barbed wire from the nether regions of a wombat, but for all its practicality it didn’t help Flynn one little bit.

  Helen, who’d turned to see who had entered, must have sensed his confusion.

  ‘Majella did tell you we take in injured wildlife?’

  Flynn nodded, remembering the poster and various conversations, but still bemused to see the pair of them at work.

  ‘There are people doing this all over Victoria,’ Helen added. ‘All over Australia actually. We have some vets on side who let us stand in on operations they do and provide some basic training. We need to do more training in a sanctuary to get permission to have drugs in the house, and, of course, we need to keep the drugs secure. We can’t save every animal that comes our way, but we can help a lot of them.’

  She turned back as Majella asked for a swab, and that was it as far as the explanations went.

  Majella’s attention remained fully on the wombat as she stitched up the wound she’d made when removing the treacherous wire. Stitched it up with what looked like fishing line.

  ‘It is,’ Helen said, when he queried it. ‘We need something really tough because you know how itchy healing wounds can get and you can’t tell a wombat not to scratch.’

  She handed Majella a jar of salve, and as he watched her smear it over the wound and add a little more around the wombat’s face, Helen smiled at him.

  ‘Not Hakea Teritifolia,’ she teased, ‘but a salve mixed with the essence of the wild dog rose. It’s not only good for healing native animals, but it helps them overcome their fear of humans while they’re being nursed.’

  His disbelief must have been written all over his face, for he saw the smile in Majella’s eyes—enough of a smile for him to wonder if perhaps things might be all right between them.

  Eventually…

  While Helen cleaned up, he helped Majella lift the wombat off the table onto a small, low trolley, then waited while she wheeled it away, presumably to somewhere it could s
leep off the anaesthetic.

  Helen stripped off her theatre gear, washed her hands, then led the way back to the kitchen, where Sophie was now feeding a larger animal, while Grace held a feeding bottle to the leather lips of her toy koala.

  ‘Coffee?’ Helen asked, and when Flynn said yes, Sophie reminded her mother they had an appointment in town.

  ‘I was remembering. Majella will get the coffee when she comes back,’ Helen said, studying Flynn as if she might somehow read the reason for his sudden appearance in his face.

  Helen left, saying something about showering and getting ready, passing Majella in the doorway.

  ‘Are you allowed to do this? Keep wild animals?’ Flynn asked, half his mind on the strange new world in which he found himself, the other half on Majella, who was wearing unremarkable jeans and a T-shirt yet looked so good to him he could feel his body stirring with a desire so strong he wondered if she could feel it.

  ‘Only with innumerable permits and regulatory agreements, and we can only keep them until they’re cured. We have a vet who works with all the local wildlife refuges, operating on koalas with Chlamydia psitacci—have you heard of it? It’s causing blindness in koalas right across Australia but an operation can cure it. We have a special permit for keeping them, post-op, as well.’

  Flynn shook his head, answering her question about the disease, but also in disbelief that he knew so little about the native animals of his own country. He was about to ask for more information about the disease, when Sophie said, ‘Peter, he’s the vet, is wonderful. He’s gorgeous too and totally in love with Majella although she’s always refused to go out with him, first saying it was too soon after Jeff, then using Gracie as an excuse, or being in the army and not knowing where she’d be next week so it was no use starting something when they couldn’t keep on seeing each other.’

  Short pause during which Flynn wondered if both the women in the room would realise how tense his body had grown, because the tension seemed to be spreading from him and into the air around him.

  ‘Of course,’ Sophie continued blithely—obviously she felt nothing at all— ‘now Majella’s been demobbed or whatever it’s called, she can say yes next time he calls.’

  Flynn looked at the woman whose social life Sophie was arranging, hoping to see a look of distaste on her face, or hear an objection from her lips. But she was looking at Sophie, not at him, a little frown on her face.

  Wondering if she would go out with Peter the wonder-vet next time he asked?

  Then Helen returned.

  ‘I told Flynn you’d do coffee,’ she said to Majella. ‘Sophie, I’m leaving in ten minutes if you want to change.’

  She left again, Sophie tucking the tiny joey she’d been feeding back into a pouch, before following her out of the room.

  ‘Tact?’ Flynn asked, following Majella to the sink where she filled a kettle then put it on to boil.

  ‘I’m assuming she thinks you’ve come for a reason and it isn’t to see her or Soph. Although she does have an appointment in town later today,’ Majella said, turning towards him, her hips resting against the bench, so close he could lean in a little and their lips would meet.

  Or would if he didn’t have Grace sitting on his foot, talking to her toy, telling it she’d get some gum leaves for it, because it was too old for milk.

  ‘I did need to see you,’ he said instead of kissing Majella, not certain kissing was a good idea right now. Kissing tended to make everything far more complicated, although during the kiss everything seemed so right.

  ‘We could, of course, spend the rest of our lives joined at the lips,’ he muttered. He only realised he’d spoken aloud when he heard Majella’s loud, ‘What?’

  ‘I was thinking that everything seems right between us when we’re kissing—kissing or making love—but wrong the rest of the time,’ he explained, still muttering because he was sure this was more girl talk than manly conversation!

  Which was possibly why he was so thoroughly mixed up.

  Majella had given up all pretence of making coffee and was staring at him.

  ‘Is that what you came to tell me—that we’re OK when we’re kissing or making love?’

  ‘Of course not,’ he snapped, but he couldn’t think for the life of him what he had come to talk about, his mind blocked by memories of their love-making.

  ‘Well, if you came to talk about the will again, don’t bother,’ she said. ‘There’s no way that old man is going to force me into a marriage neither of us want. I’ve got enough security for me and Grace. We’ll manage. The Parragulla House idea was probably stupid anyway. Some kind of hangover from the past—unfinished business. After all, I never felt my mother’s presence in it when I was a child, so why, just because I’m a mother now, would she be there for me?’

  He remembered her talking about her mother and the house and somehow this denial hurt him more than anything she’d said before.

  But it also reminded him of why he’d come.

  ‘It’s not about the will,’ he said. ‘There’s something else. Your grandfather left a letter and a little chest. Not long before he died, he asked me to find you and give them to you.’

  ‘A letter? From him?’

  She spoke in much the same way someone might say, ‘A bomb? A live one?’

  Flynn shrugged.

  ‘It won’t be much,’ he warned her. ‘He was paralysed. He could move his left hand just a little and managed to write a little bit with that, so I doubt it would be a ten-page apology for his behaviour towards you.’

  Majella smiled.

  ‘Or a half-page apology. He wasn’t one for apologies. Mainly, I guess, because he was always so certain he was right.’

  ‘They’re in the car,’ Flynn said, then Grace diverted both of them, demanding lunch.

  Flynn lifted her into his arms and held her while Majella made a sandwich, then cut up little sticks of cheese, carrot and apple and put them on the plate beside the bread.

  ‘High chair over there,’ she said to Flynn, who carried Grace across and settled her in her chair, fitting the safety restraints around her little chest, finding a certain sense of satisfaction that he could do these things for Grace.

  ‘Hands and face,’ Majella said, and Grace, babbling happily in anticipation of her lunch, held out her hands then held her face up to be wiped by the small washcloth.

  ‘Will she eat all of that?’ Flynn asked, as Majella put the plate and a small, lidded mug of milk on the high-chair tray.

  ‘And ask for more some days,’ Majella said, smiling proudly at her daughter, so pleased her appetite had returned.

  Now she made the coffee, thinking of the chest and letter Flynn had in the car, feeling the same apprehension she felt when she treated an injured snake.

  ‘Grace will have a sleep straight after lunch,’ she told Flynn, knowing he’d understand she wanted to wait until the child was safely tucked in bed before she faced whatever emotional storm the chest and letter might blow her way.

  She took a deep breath and forced herself to think of the present, not the past or the future. The present meant settling Gracie down for her sleep. Majella lifted her car keys off a hook near the kitchen door and tossed them to Flynn.

  ‘If you’re going out to your car for this chest you have to give me, would you mind bringing in Grace’s blanket? It’s a tattered blue object with a couple of bits of satin ribbon still intact around the edges. It’s probably in her booster seat.’

  ‘Security blanket?’ Flynn asked, knowing most children had something they liked to hold as they slept.

  Majella nodded, and smiled, making him think that, as an adult, what he’d really like to hold as he slept was—

  He cut off the thought and went out to the cars, opening Majella’s first, noticing, as he fiddled through the keys for the one to open the car, that the tag—and photo—were gone.

  Weird sensations riffled through his body. Sadness for the man who’d died, yet some kind of re
lief as well—even a sneaky squib of hope…

  He set them all aside, got the blanket and the chest and letter, and returned to the kitchen.

  Grace was in bed, and the letter and chest sat unopened on the kitchen table. Majella could only stare at them, wondering what new surprises—or what new pain—might lie in store for her.

  Eventually, she lifted the little chest and felt its weight—not heavy—then looked at the clasp on it and for the first time realised there was a tiny padlock on it. A locked padlock.

  Now she picked up the letter and felt its contents. Paper rustled within it but in one corner her fingers made out the outline of a key.

  ‘There’s a key for this in the letter,’ she said to Flynn as he joined her by the table. She showed him the padlock then realised that if he’d had the chest for the months since her grandfather’s death then he would already know that.

  ‘So, letter first,’ he said gently. ‘You don’t have to read it if you’d prefer not to.’

  Majella felt her stomach turn, and a vague nausea made her press her hand to her lips, but she breathed deeply and handed the letter to Flynn.

  ‘Open it,’ she said, then saw a slight tremor in his hands as he slit the top of the envelope with a knife off the table and tipped out the letter and the tiny brass key.

  The letter appeared to be one single sheet of paper, and whatever was on it wasn’t good from the way Flynn frowned at it. In fact, the dark fury on his face made her shiver.

  ‘What?’ she whispered.

  ‘That bastard! That bloody bastard. No “I’m sorry”, no attempt to make amends. Everyone was right in their opinion of him—he was an arrogant, selfish old bully. Honestly, Majella, how you turned out so great with even a little of his blood in your veins is a miracle.’

  He flung the letter down on the table, but when she reached out to pick it up he grabbed it out of her hands.

  ‘It says nothing,’ Flynn told her. ‘Not a damn thing except that the chest was left for you by your mother.’

  He crumpled the letter in his hands, and though Majella believed that was all that was in it, she couldn’t understand why Flynn was so upset.

  ‘That can’t be all,’ she said, and he came and wrapped his arms around her.