Outback Doctors/Outback Engagement/Outback Marriage/Outback Encounter Read online

  ‘Because of the wedding?’

  Was there a hint of sympathy in his words? A gleam of fellow-feeling in his eyes?

  ‘Because of the wedding.’ She sighed. ‘But don’t think you’ve diverted me from the original conversation. I didn’t have a long line of cattlemen behind me—or, in fact, a long line of anything much—so becoming a doctor seemed as good a choice as any other. But for you—are you the younger son? Did you miss the direct line of inheritance by sheer bad luck so were sent off into the world to fend for yourself?’

  He didn’t answer immediately, and she couldn’t tell if he was waiting until the waiter had set their first course in front of them and moved on, or was thinking up some story to tell her.

  Cal looked at the plate of food and wondered what it was. He was also wondering how to answer Blythe’s question. Or whether to answer it at all, considering she was only asking out of politeness and they’d never see each other again after today.

  A momentary flash of something resembling regret took him by surprise, until he realised it must have been caused by the fact that his body found her attractive—and possibly the lack of action the same body had been getting lately!

  ‘I think it’s a terrine of some description,’ she said, apparently picking up on his first problem. ‘Mine’s seafood—no doubt as a nod to non-meat-eaters. Would you like to swap?’

  ‘Why is yours different to mine?’ he demanded, studying what looked like a very appetising concoction set in front of his partner.

  ‘It’s the thing at weddings these days,’ she explained in the kindly voice of a kindergarten teacher. ‘Alternate meals so if I don’t fancy pork, I can swap it for your chicken.’

  Cal was about to point out they had neither pork nor chicken when the MC rose and announced the bishop would now say grace.

  ‘Just as well we were discussing the food rather than eating it,’ Blythe whispered, putting his own relief into words. ‘Do you want the seafood? I’m always a bit wary about anything aquatic when I’m this far from the sea.’

  Was his face giving so much away that under cover of the grace she switched the plates?

  The bishop resumed his seat, conversation restarted, and Blythe picked up a fork and attacked the food.

  ‘I like terrines, though it’s best not to think about what might have gone into them,’ she said chattily. ‘A variety of offal quite “offen”.’

  He chuckled at the weak joke, she grinned at him, and the twinge of regret he’d felt earlier turned to something stronger.

  It’s only because you know you won’t be seeing her again that you’re interested, he told himself. Has to be that, he assured himself, because you’ve never liked smart-mouthed women.

  He ate his seafood arrangement, but his eyes kept straying to the expanse of bare skin across the smart-mouthed woman’s—he decided on chest and shoulders, so pale in contrast to the vivid green of the makeshift dress.

  ‘Is it slipping? Please, tell me it’s not?’

  The urgency of the whispered pleas brought his wayward gaze back under control but he felt his cheeks heat and hoped he hadn’t reverted to the blushing problems he’d suffered in adolescence.

  ‘No, no!’ he said, pretending nonchalance, ‘I was simply considering how overpriced most women’s clothes must be if you can achieve such an effect with a few pins and a curtain.’

  ‘But it was probably a very expensive curtain,’ she reminded him, then, to add to his confusion, she smiled again. ‘And the pins were gold-plated!’

  Pins—pinning the material…

  He scanned his scattered wits for a conversational topic that didn’t keep reminding him of how soft her breasts had felt, or how white her skin was.

  ‘I am the older son, as it happens,’ he said, remembering her earlier assumption and grasping it with the desperation of a drowning man. ‘Though the family holdings are in a company and we all have a share so there’s no such thing as anyone missing out through an accident of birth order. Family members who work here are paid the same wages as non-family workers.’

  ‘But you don’t work here, you’re a doctor,’ she reminded him, leaning back in her chair so the waiter could take her empty plate.

  And look down the front of the curtain dress, Cal thought with unaccustomed surliness.

  He shifted in the hope it would spoil the view, but the young man had moved on.

  And now Cal had forgotten what they’d been discussing before the waiter had arrived. He glanced at his companion and found the brown eyes looking so directly at him he realised she was expecting an answer to some question he’d lost for ever.

  ‘What did you ask?’

  ‘Are you sure you didn’t have one too many last night?’ She shook her head and added, ‘I didn’t ask a question—well, not recently—but you were explaining why you became a doctor.’

  I was? Cal frowned. It wasn’t something he usually talked about because—

  The MC was on his feet again, this time to propose a loyal toast.

  ‘I thought this kind of thing went out with Noah,’ his partner grumbled, clutching her champagne glass and rising gingerly to her feet.

  But she dutifully raised her glass, giving Cal the opportunity to check the pins were holding fast.

  They sat again, and the waiters began circulating with larger plates.

  ‘Considering where we are, I suppose it’s a choice of beef or beef,’ Blythe said, smiling with unnecessary warmth at their waiter.

  ‘That looks more like chicken on your plate, but if you want beef I’d be happy to swap,’ Cal said, pointing to her plate to divert her attention from the good-looking young man.

  She glanced towards him and he could almost see the smart retort trembling on her lips, but something must have caught her attention for the brown eyes took on a puzzled look and she frowned at him as if trying to remember who he was.

  ‘A bit of prawn caught between my teeth?’ he asked, using his napkin to swipe hurriedly across his lips.

  She shook her head, moving the mass of sexy hair, but the frown remained.

  ‘Twice over! The old man’s her grandfather-in-law twice over. And you’re the older brother, not the oldest, so there are only two of you. Do you mean to tell me your wife married your brother?’

  Blythe realised her disbelief must have been stridently expressed for Mark turned towards her and beyond Callum Mark’s parents were also looking puzzled.

  ‘Tell the entire gathering, why don’t you!’ Cal muttered, then he added, ‘Not that most of them don’t already know! You talk about me being slow. Don’t your family talk to each other, that it’s taken you this long to put it together? I’d have thought it was the kind of gossip Lileth would have been only too happy to pass on.’

  Blythe flinched at the bite in his voice. No doubt the man had every reason to be bitter about such a situation, but that didn’t give him the right to be sarcastic about her family.

  ‘We usually have better things to discuss than gossip about other people’s marriages.’

  She gave him a fierce look, which would have worked better if he hadn’t been so handsome and she didn’t find him so attractive.

  Rallying her defence mechanisms, she tried again. ‘Besides, you’ve admitted you hardly know Lileth, so how can you possibly judge her like that?’

  To her surprise he capitulated without argument, raising his hands to show he’d surrendered.

  ‘Gross generalisation, I admit!’ he said. ‘I was put out because she breezed into town on her ‘‘meet the family’’ trip, and had barely said hello to me—the family she’d come to meet—when Mark swept her off her feet and they were planning a wedding. And though Mark hasn’t said anything, I can’t help feeling she’d be happier if he was working in the city so I fear I’m going to be left in the position he was in before I arrived—the only doctor in a town that really needs at least two.’

  He sounded so depressed by this possibility Blythe would have liked to comfort
him, but as she, too, had doubts about Lileth’s ability to adapt to country life, in spite of her genetic heritage, she could hardly assure him it wasn’t likely to happen.

  The other topic she’d like to pursue was his wife’s marriage to his brother but, having denied any interest in gossip, there was no way she could bring it up again—especially not under these circumstances.

  Fortunately his attention had been diverted by Mark’s mother, seated on his other side. It gave Blythe the opportunity to study him more closely.

  And compare him to his brother, who was sitting at one of the lower tables, but well within viewing range. She could detect no visible reason for the errant wife preferring the younger son. In fact, the Whitworth next to her looked far more—not so much solid, but—manly?

  Blythe eyed him again, searching for the right word, then realised Mark had said something to her and turned to answer him.

  When Mark’s attention was captured by Lileth, Blythe decided she’d be better off concentrating on her meal, not her companion. She pushed the chicken to one side and ate a small lettuce leaf.

  ‘My mother had a book about social graces—advice on the right thing to do in any circumstance, the correct way to start or restart a conversation.’

  The statement was so surprising Blythe turned to the companion she’d been determined to ignore, her raised fork arrested halfway to her lips.

  ‘Are you implying I lack social graces?’ she demanded.

  Cal grinned as if amused by her pique.

  ‘No, regretting I didn’t read it.’

  She found herself smiling back. ‘Actually, I’ve read it—or listened to my mother’s lectures, probably taken from the same source. Ask about your companion’s occupation—well, I’ve kind of done that and you didn’t seem too happy discussing it, given the uncertainty about Mark. Interests seem to be another innocuous topic. Shall I ask you about your interests?’

  But before he could answer, another thought struck her.

  ‘Your mother! You’ve a grandfather in common with Lileth and Mary-Lynne and I know he’s running this particular show, but do your parents live here as well? Are they involved with the property?’

  The look he gave her was more suspicious than anything else.

  ‘I realise a high-minded family like yours doesn’t gossip, but surely you must have had some interest in your stepsisters’ history. In how the girls came to be motherless.’

  Blythe closed her eyes and prayed to be sucked into a vortex or at the very least reduced to a blob of ectoplasm. Since neither outcome occurred, she opened them again and looked at Cal, seeking dark shadows of pain in his eyes but seeing only an implacable coldness.

  ‘I’m sorry! The last few days have been so fraught I simply didn’t think—let alone put two and two together. I did know the girls’ mother had been killed while flying home from a brief visit to the property—along with her brother and his wife. Those were your parents? Were you and your brother brought up by the phalanx of maids and governesses you mentioned earlier?’

  ‘We were much older and already in boarding school,’ he said, then he turned his attention back to his meal, shifting his body in such a way Blythe felt he was shielding himself from further onslaughts of insensitivity.

  She ate a little of her meal, but her appetite had deserted her. Turned to talk to Mark, but he was whispering to his bride. Finally, when the silence grew so taut she knew she had to break it or scream, she nudged Callum’s arm, and murmured, ‘My mother didn’t tell me the bit in the book about how to cover gross faux pas, but if you’d just accept an apology and pretend to talk to me, people would stop looking at us and wondering what’s going on.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought a little attention would bother you,’ he said with the kind of smile designed to rile the receiver.

  And rile it did, bringing to Blythe’s mind all the frustrations and annoyances of the past twenty-four hours and fanning smouldering embers into a fierce conflagration.

  ‘Well, it just so happens it doesn’t,’ she snapped. ‘But why stop at furtive looks and murmurs when I can really attract attention? Here, hold this end of the curtain. I’ll stand up on the table and unwind!’

  He grasped her arm, looking so shocked by her threat she had to hide a smile.

  ‘Y-you w-wouldn’t!’ he stuttered.

  ‘Want to dare me?’

  Cal studied her face, taking in the cocked eyebrow, the challenge in her eyes and a little flicker of a smile she’d allowed to flirt around her lips. And far from daring her, or even warning her of consequences should she do anything so rash, he found himself wanting to kiss her.

  The idea of kissing someone as volatile as this shapely, caustic and erratic blonde was so shocking he wondered if he should take some time off when Mark returned from his honeymoon and go to the city for some rest and relaxation—or perhaps sin and sex would be a better way to put it.

  If, of course, Mark did return from his honeymoon.

  Gentle fingers rested lightly his hand.

  ‘I wouldn’t really do it, you know.’

  The voice was equally gentle, but the ‘wanting to kiss her’ scenario was enough of a warning, so he wasn’t going to be taken in by gentle voices.

  ‘No?’ Cal cocked an eyebrow of his own. ‘From the little I’ve seen during our mercifully brief acquaintance, I find that hard to believe.’

  The flicker of reaction he caught in her eyes told him his words had struck home, but he doubted he’d have hurt her. She probably practised that hurt look for use when the occasion warranted it.

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t—at least not here. Not and spoil Lileth’s wedding. I do have some feelings for my family—though it’s hard to remember that when they’re throwing out swollen glands and forcing me into clothes two sizes too small.’

  Hmm. She sounded contrite as well, but he wasn’t going to fall for that either. Before he knew it, he’d be telling her things he hadn’t spoken of for years.

  ‘Dad!’

  Jenny’s voice saved him making a decision.

  ‘There’s a little kid at our table and he’s really, really sick.’

  The urgency in the words brought Cal immediately to his feet, and though Blythe began to rise, he rested his hand on her shoulder and eased her back down into her chair.

  ‘Less obvious so less fuss if just one of the wedding party leaves the table,’ he whispered, then crossed to the corner of the marquee where all the children had been seated at one big table.

  The child’s mother had apparently been alerted, for an anxious-looking woman knelt beside the little boy, her hands swiping ineffectually around his runny nose as the child gasped for breath. The tissues around his eyes were red and swollen, and red weals were coming up on his skin. There was no doubt the little fellow was suffering a severe, and potentially life-threatening allergic reaction to something.

  A few guests were looking in that direction, but most were still focussed on either their meal or the wedding party at the top table.

  ‘I’m a doctor,’ Cal told the woman, scooping the child into his arms and heading for the nearest exit. ‘Has this happened before? Do you know if he’s allergic to anything?’

  ‘Peanuts,’ the woman, who was following Cal said. ‘But he knows he’s not allowed to eat them.’

  ‘And he’s what? Four? Five?’

  ‘He’s four and he did eat some peanuts.’ Cal realised when Jenny replied that his daughter must be following them. ‘There were some in a saucer on the table—the ones with the sweet red sugar coating, Dad.’

  Outside the marquee, Cal moved with swift sure strides towards Mount Spec’s clinic. Although small, it had a fully stocked dispensary and he knew there’d be adrenaline there. He held the little boy close, and felt the rapid heartbeat of tachycardia shaking the slight body.

  As he approached the clinic, a middle-aged woman in a nurse’s uniform came out onto the shady veranda.

  ‘Trouble?’

  �
�Anaphylactic shock—allergic reaction to peanuts. What dosages of epinephrine do you keep?’

  The woman—she was new since he’d last visited so he didn’t know her name—disappeared again, then returned with a couple of packages of drugs, holding them out in her hands so he could see the selection.

  ‘We’ve Epi-pens as one of the stockmen is allergic to bee stings, or prepacked injections of one in ten thousand adrenaline in point one mil doses or ampoules of one in one thousand.’

  ‘We’ll take an ampoule—draw up ten micrograms, and we can repeat it when necessary.’

  Cal set the little boy down on a padded bench in the clinic’s examination room, took the injection from the nurse and, after swabbing a patch of skin, slid the needle into the muscle, injecting the drug very slowly into the tissues.

  ‘Will he be all right?’

  Jen’s question awoke Cal to the fact his daughter was still with them.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, dropping the empty syringe into a sharps container and turning to give his daughter a comforting hug. She’d responded well when she’d realised the child was sick but she was shaky now the emergency was over. ‘I’ll stay here a little longer and give him another injection if he needs it, but you can see he’s already breathing more easily.’

  The little boy still looked ill, but he was quiet, almost asleep and definitely not fighting for every breath.

  The nurse had checked his pulse, still too high, but not, Cal guessed, as bad as it had been. She was now wrapping a blood-pressure cuff around the child’s arm.

  Would he need fluid replacement?

  ‘His name’s Marty,’ Jen offered, and Marty’s mother, who was sitting beside the little boy and clutching desperately to one hand, turned and nodded.

  ‘I’m sorry, I should have told you that. I don’t know what I’m thinking of, except this was such a shock. He had a reaction to peanut butter when he was only eighteen months old and since then we don’t have it or peanuts in the house. We’ve told him and told him they make him really sick, and I honestly thought he understood.’

  ‘The peanuts didn’t look like peanuts,’ Jen reminded her. ‘He might not have known.’