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

  ‘Not that it’s any of your business, but wound-licking is the last thing I’m doing,’ he told the nosy—if attractive—female. ‘But if you really want to know, after ten years of being the only male in a houseful of women—even the blasted animals were female—being alone is bliss.’

  Anna looked up from tidying envelopes into stacks and smiled.

  ‘You want me to mess these up again? Do you need the disorder to convince yourself you really rule your male domain?’ She waved a languid hand towards the bags on the floor, but managed to take in the unwashed dishes in the sink and the dust he knew was gathering on the refrigerator.

  He had to laugh, and though the ‘red alert’ voice reminded him it was dangerous to be laughing with this beautiful woman, one glance at the serious rock on the ring finger of her left hand reminded him he was safe from her.

  Safe enough to find out more.

  ‘So, another South African doctor finds her way to Merriwee,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t have thought it would be the kind of place listed in your medical magazines as “highly recommended”.’

  She chuckled. ‘We slot in under a thing called an ‘‘area of need’’ scheme. Our qualifications are checked, of course, and we’re only allowed to practise for up to five years in particular areas, but we are accepted without having to do any exams before beginning practice. I’ve always wanted to see the outback, and on a map Merriwee was about the most outback place on offer. You know, there’s a real problem in Australia, getting enough doctors interested in practising outside metropolitan areas, so even towns a couple of hundred kilometres from a big city might be classed as an area of need.’

  Tom nodded gravely, as if this was news to him, although he’d grown up in the country not far from here and had been in Merriwee for a year, so knew the problem at first hand.

  ‘And now you’re here, is it ‘‘outback’’ enough for you?’ he asked, wanting to keep her talking as the accent he’d found irritating and hard to follow at first had now taken on quite musical cadences.

  She smiled at him.

  More red alerts sounded in his brain!

  ‘I really don’t know yet, but the cat’s decided. Could we see the cat now, do you think? Would you have a look at her?’

  He’d been so busy listening to her voice, and the warnings in his head, and watching those slender fingers sort his mail into piles, he’d forgotten the cat.

  ‘I guess so, but my surgery’s still open. I don’t suppose the cat will get much worse in the next hour.’

  ‘Your surgery is not open,’ the beautiful blonde argued. ‘I went there first. It is locked, although the sign says you’re open from four to six.’

  ‘But I’m on the premises, aren’t I? My receptionist’s on maternity leave and her replacement doesn’t start until Monday. Normally, someone would be there, but I don’t always get patients brought in—at least not without an appointment. Most of my work is with cattle on the surrounding properties—so I can’t just sit in the surgery building in case someone comes, neither can I leave it unlocked, because of drugs and instruments. Everyone knows if the place is shut to walk around the back, and if I’m not there to come up to the house.’

  ‘This is very strange,’ Anna said. ‘Is such a casual approach an outback way or an Australian way?’ She sighed, and smoothed some loose tendrils of hair back from her face. ‘I have so much to learn and I told Philip I would only be away six months.’

  ‘Philip?’ Tom echoed, though he guessed who the man must be before his unusual visitor waggled her left hand at him.

  Then, as if attracted by the flashing brilliance of the stone, she turned the back of her hand towards herself and stared at it, before smiling across at him.

  ‘But that’s your answer,’ she said, radiant with joy at whatever good idea she’d come up with. ‘You must write and tell these women you have found someone who’s just right for you. Tell them you are engaged. It will be quite easy as all you need to do is multiple copies of a single letter. Typing in the addresses of all these women will be a big job, but maybe you could pay a secretarial person to do it for you. Or your replacement receptionist might be able to do it. Then all she would need to do is a mail merge on the computer and it will print out envelopes and do the rest.’

  Tom stared at her. She was right, but it was such a simple solution, why hadn’t he thought of it?

  He knew he should say thank you, perhaps even praise the brilliance of it, but the words stuck in his throat, while his mind searched for objections.

  And found one.

  ‘But what of the women who come personally? Won’t they want to see my fiancée? Meet the woman I’ve chosen?’

  ‘I wouldn’t think so,’ his visitor said bluntly. ‘Particularly not if you tell them quite rudely that you’re fixed up. You certainly didn’t have any difficulty being rude to me, so you shouldn’t find it hard.’

  Tom was still staring, but this time because he was startled, not by her conversation but by the placid delivery of it—as if his rudeness was of no account to her.

  Which it probably wasn’t, but he felt put out that she could judge him so offhandedly!

  He was still searching for a rebuttal when she added, ‘Anyway, if anyone did want to meet the winner of the ‘‘Marry Tom Fleming’’ jackpot, you could always introduce them to me.’

  She waggled her hand at him again.

  ‘I even have my own prop to add authenticity to the claim. A diamond as big as a cattle tick.’

  He gave up on the search for a reply, smart or otherwise. Anna’s suggestion—and the brilliant smile she’d flashed his way as she’d offered it—had left him speechless.

  While her presence in his house—in his kitchen, where he spent most of his time—was making him…

  Uneasy?

  CHAPTER TWO

  TOM had just decided he’d leave a ‘back in thirty minutes’ sign on the surgery door and go look at Anna’s stupid cat, if only to get rid of her, when he heard the rumble of a heavy vehicle coming down the drive.

  ‘A patient?’ Anna queried, leaving the mail alone and walking to the back door to look out—for all the world as if this was her house and her business, not his.

  But he followed her to look himself at the new arrival, not at the way his visitor’s body moved, though he couldn’t help noticing that as well.

  A battered old truck had pulled in near the surgery, but it was the huge horse-float behind the truck that caught Tom’s attention. From the noise within it, there was one agitated animal inside.

  He slipped past his uninvited guest and strode across the dusty yard, thinking, as he and all the locals did a thousand times a day, that they must surely have rain soon.

  ‘Trouble, mate?’ he called to the elderly man climbing down from the truck.

  ‘You the vet?’ the man asked, by way of reply.

  Tom nodded, thrusting out his hand and introducing himself.

  Anna followed a discreet distance behind, thinking how different this greeting was to the suspicious way the vet had reacted to her arrival.

  ‘I’m on my way to Mainyard, you know the place,’ the older man, Jim Blair, was explaining. ‘They’ve a great stallion there, and I’ve booked Felicity to be serviced by her, so needed to get her there before she dropped the foal she’s carrying, but the darned fool mare decided she’d do it on the way—well, that’s how it seems to me. Could you take a look?’

  Anna knew enough about horses to know mares came into season soon after foaling, and at home, broodmares booked to expensive stallions usually foaled at the home of the stallion. This saved moving both mare and foal, especially when the foal might suffer injury on the journey.

  But surely this dry, barren country wasn’t the breeding ground of champion thoroughbreds.

  The two men were now at the back of the horse-float, letting down the ramp. This caused a thunder of hooves on the floor of the trailer while a distressed whinny split the air.

  ‘Oh,
my!’

  The words were simple enough but Tom Fleming’s rich voice said it all. Whatever he was looking at was no ordinary animal.

  Anna moved closer, in time to see the older man sidle into the horse-float, obviously putting himself at risk by entering an enclosed space with an agitated animal. But his presence, or perhaps his voice—Anna could hear him murmuring—soothed the horse.

  ‘Can you secure her off hind leg in some way to stop her lashing out?’ Tom asked, as Anna moved close enough to see the patient—a huge draught horse. ‘I’ll whip over to the surgery and clean up then we’ll see if we can find out what’s happening.’

  He turned to Anna.

  ‘Hang about—I’ll need your help.’

  It was an abrupt but unmistakable order, but she was too intrigued by what was happening to take exception to it. And now she was almost at the base of the ramp she could see the mare’s contractions and the sheen of sweat darkening the hair on the animal’s flanks. The poor thing was working hard, but nothing seemed to be happening.

  Tom came back, trundling a wheelbarrow laden with bales of hay which he split and spread over the ramp. He disappeared again, this time returning with the same barrow but full of vaguely familiar instruments and sterilising liquids—although all the equipment appeared to be extra large in size. There were also a couple of ropes which made Anna wonder about the difference between large-animal and human deliveries.

  ‘Do you use those to pull the foal out?’ she asked, pointing to them as Tom pulled on a plastic glove that reached up past his shoulder.

  He glanced at the ropes.

  ‘If necessary,’ he said calmly, and Anna shuddered.

  ‘What about anaesthetic?’ Tom was now smoothing lubricating oil over the glove without, in Anna’s mind, a thought for his patient’s comfort.

  ‘I’ll explain later,’ he promised, as the mare’s owner lashed her mighty hoof to the side of the trailer.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be easier getting her out of the trailer first?’ Anna asked him, still thinking of the horse’s comfort.

  ‘And put her where? I’d have trouble examining her if she’s moving around a stall, and I haven’t a crush big enough to hold her. And there’s also the possibility that the foal is stuck in the birth canal. If that’s the case, moving the mare any distance could injure one or both of them.’ Tom explained this politely enough, but his next words were definitely commands.

  ‘Now, come around behind me, and stay there, but be ready to push my shoulder when I ask.’

  The label ‘mad’ floated again through Anna’s mind, but Tom’s brusquely repeated ‘Now!’ had her obeying. She moved cautiously up the ramp and stood behind him, watching as he lifted the mare’s tail and thrust his hand and arm into the animal’s vagina.

  Did mares have vaginas or were they called by another name in horses?

  She was wondering about this when she saw Tom wince, and picked up the movement of skin and muscle that told her the mare was having another contraction. She could only imagine what pressure the strong squeezing motion must be putting on Tom’s arm.

  ‘Push now,’ he grunted, as the rippling movements stopped, and for an instant Anna imagined he was talking to the mare.

  But when he repeated it—‘Now, woman! Push now!’—she realised the mare probably wouldn’t have understood his order anyway, and she put her hand on Tom’s shoulder and pushed.

  ‘Harder,’ he said, his voice husky with effort. ‘Put your whole body into it—lean hard on me. I’ve got to work out how the foal is lying and I’m flat out reaching one foot.’

  The words were distorted by the fact that his face was pressed against the mare’s rump but clear enough for Anna to understand what he needed. She put her whole body weight into the push and held hard, even when the animal rewarded them with a great burst of foul air and a shower of liquid.

  ‘OK, I’ve got one foot, but the second one is stuck behind the head. I’m going to try to release it without ropes. Rest a minute, Anna, then we’ll have another go.’

  Anna pictured the scene inside the mare’s womb. She’d seen enough foals born to know they usually came into the world forefeet first, with their heads tucked between their legs, not unlike a person diving into water.

  ‘OK!’ Tom said, and Anna put her effort into helping him reach as far into the huge animal as possible. ‘Stay there, nearly got it.’

  Anna was soaking wet, gagging on the smell of urine, perspiring freely and panting with exertion, but she’d been caught up in the spirit of the job and was determined to do whatever she could to help the stricken animal.

  ‘Ease up!’

  She straightened, wriggling her shoulders to unkink them, then stepped back to give Tom room to withdraw his arm.

  ‘Now, let’s see how she goes on her own,’ he said, addressing the mare’s owner, not Anna. ‘If she’s not too tired she should be able to finish her labour naturally.’

  ‘And if she is too tired?’ Anna asked.

  ‘We’ll do a Caesar,’ Tom said casually, as if performing the operation on an animal this size was all in a day’s work. ‘That’s one of the reasons I didn’t want to anaesthetise her earlier. Too much anaesthetic altogether. We use epidurals on large animals just as you do on humans, but if I’d given her an epidural, she’d have lost the feeling in her legs and would have had to deliver lying down. Which would have meant me lying behind her on the ground and doing the same thing in a far more awkward position.’

  Anna imagined the situation and was pleased she, too, hadn’t had to lie on the ground.

  But before she could agree with his assessment, he smiled and added, ‘Gee, you look a mess!’

  He grinned at her then turned back to watch his patient, and Anna, who should have been reminding him he was no oil painting himself right now, was so flustered by that cheeky flash of white teeth and the teasing humour in his voice, her mind went blank.

  You can’t be flustered by a smile, she told herself, then chuckled as she realised how right he was. She undoubtedly looked a mess. She’d lost her hat and long strands of hair had slipped free from the ponytail she’d combed it into before leaving the house, and they now clung damply to her face and neck. The odour from her clothes was intensifying in the still warm sunlight, and her damp shirt was smudged with suspicious traces of other byproducts of a horse’s intestines.

  But going home to clean up wasn’t an option. She was part of this operation now and she was going to see it through. In fact, seeing a Caesar on an animal this size would be fascinating—though she hoped for the mare’s sake it wouldn’t be necessary.

  She did, however, cross to a garden tap she’d spied earlier, over near the surgery, and splash water over her face and arms. Then, deciding she was already wet, she also splashed her clothes, hoping to at least reduce the powerful smell clinging to them.

  ‘Hey, she’s doing it!’

  Tom had released the mare’s tethered foot earlier, but had remained out of kicking distance of the lethal hooves. Now he moved closer, perhaps assuming the animal would be too intent on expelling her foal to lash out at him.

  Anna hurried back, in time to see the tiny feet—well, tiny in relation to the mother—emerge, then the head, tangled in the birth sac but just where it should be.

  Tom caught the shoulders of the foal, taking its weight so that, when fully delivered, it wouldn’t go rolling down the ramp. When the mare paused in her pushing, he called to Anna.

  ‘Can you give me a hand? Spread some of that hay at the side of the ramp. Then as soon as it’s fully out, we’ll lift it onto the hay and Jim can bring the mare down the ramp. She can expel the placenta on terra firma.’

  Once again, Anna found herself obeying instructions, spreading hay then reaching out to help Tom catch the foal as the back legs were delivered. He had already ripped the birth sac away and the newborn animal snorted in its first breath of air, then lashed out with weak but still effective hind legs, catching Anna in the abdome
n.

  ‘Instinct,’ Tom said, as Anna winced then shifted her grip so it couldn’t happen again. ‘Come on, we’ll put it on the hay—though it’s not an it, it’s a little colt.’

  ‘Not so little!’ Anna panted, following him off the ramp then squatting down to thankfully release her burden. The colt looked around, then doubled his rickety legs under his body and tried to stand—the efforts making Anna laugh with delight.

  ‘Back off now,’ Tom warned, using instruments from his barrow to tie the already cut umbilical cord. ‘Here comes Mum and she might be possessive.’

  He was preparing an injection now, turning to Anna as he lifted it to check on air bubbles.

  ‘Oxytocin—same stuff you use to help contract the uterus, only a slightly bigger dose for the horse. I’ll inject her with that, and an antibiotic when she’s expelled the placenta.’

  Anna stood to one side of the ramp and watched the way Tom’s fingers moved as he prepared the second injection, fascinated by the similarities between human and animal medicine.

  Jim backed the big mare down the ramp, talking to her all the time, rubbing his hand down her nose and telling her what a wonderful girl she was.

  ‘A colt, eh?’ he said to Tom. ‘That’s great. The mare carries bloodlines that go back to when my grandfather started breeding heavy horses, so a colt will keep the male line going.’

  He spoke gruffly but Anna sensed the practical conversation covered a deep-felt emotion, and she was sure she could see a suspicious wateriness in his eyes.

  Not that she hadn’t had to blink back a few tears herself. Birth was a miracle which never ceased to affect her.

  Then, as they watched, the wobbly legs straightened and, miraculously, the little colt stood up for the very first time.

  Anna was so delighted she spun around to give the nearest person—who happened to be Tom—an exuberant hug, then for good measure she kissed him smack on the lips.

  Shock slammed through her, so sharp she felt a gasp of what was almost pain. The vet looked no less shocked, though he recovered more quickly than she did. Or perhaps he hadn’t been affected—perhaps his shock had been at her forward behaviour!