Outback Doctors/Outback Engagement/Outback Marriage/Outback Encounter Page 32

  ‘So the poor kid will be forced to stay in an environment she hates,’ Blythe said. ‘And you’ve got to be the bunny to tell her that?’

  ‘Don’t you start,’ Cal snapped at her. ‘You don’t understand the first thing about it.’

  At least that killed off any chance of smoochy-coochy!

  ‘No, I don’t!’ Blythe snapped right back at him. ‘If I did I might be able to see why Jenny can’t live with you during term time and go to school here.’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, it would be impossible,’ Cal told her, scowling ferociously now. ‘I’m on call at least every second day, and if Mark decides to leave, I could be called out at any time and she’d be left on her own.’

  ‘Mrs Robertson is here during the day and Mark might decide not to leave,’ Blythe told him, and was rewarded with another scowl.

  ‘So who made you the expert on childcare?’

  ‘You don’t need to be an expert to know that forcing Jenny to stay on where she’s unhappy will only lead to trouble. So, rather than go down to see her with only one thought in mind—to tell her she has no options—why don’t you start thinking laterally? Consider what alternatives there might be. Think about why she’s unhappy—why she doesn’t want to stay. For heaven’s sake, Cal, she’s what, twelve? How much trouble could she be if you brought her home with you—at least until the holidays? I’ve agreed to stay until Mark gets back. I’ll do the calls, and you can spend some time with your daughter.’

  The tension on Cal’s face lightened slightly, then a strange look came into his eyes. A look that told her he, too, was thinking of the previous night.

  ‘But—’

  He reached out, as if to touch her, and Blythe backed hurriedly away.

  ‘But nothing!’ she said firmly. ‘You and I are going nowhere, we both know that, and your daughter’s future is far more important than the pair of us satisfying a bit of lustful attraction.’

  ‘So that’s all it was,’ he said, his voice tight and strained.

  ‘It’s really all it can be, isn’t it?’ Blythe replied, while sadness gripped her heart and squeezed until it felt every drop of blood had been drained out of it.

  The grey eyes which so mesmerised her scanned her face, asking questions—seeking answers…

  ‘I’ve brought the car to the bottom of the back steps so you can put your case in the back,’ Mrs R. announced as she came through the back door, efficiency personified. ‘I’ll drive you out to the airport because Blythe will have to get back to work,’ she added.

  ‘Thanks,’ Cal said, bending to lift his small bag. He straightened up then turned back towards Blythe. ‘Well, I have to go.’

  ‘I know,’ Blythe said, then the hormones she’d been restraining broke loose, demanding at least a little smooch. She crossed the room and touched him lightly on the shoulder, while her hand ached to grip and hold him, to shake him and tell him she loved him…

  Which would be a nice burden to land on his shoulders when he was totally preoccupied with a rebellious daughter.

  ‘Take care,’ she said instead, and she kissed him swiftly on the cheek.

  Cal hesitated, looking down at her, his eyes once again searching for something, then he shook his head, and she knew it was all over.

  CHAPTER TEN

  CAL loaded his case into Chris’s plane, wishing he could deposit the load of confusion he was carrying as easily.

  ‘Have you any idea what’s behind this business with Jenny?’ he asked as he climbed in beside Chris. ‘I wish I’d had more time to talk to her at the wedding.’

  ‘I doubt she’d have said anything. It seems we’re all against her—you, me, Grace. Especially Grace as far as I can make out, though she’s done everything for those kids.’

  The roughness in his brother’s voice told Cal Chris was as worried as he was. Chris had always loved the kids and Cal knew he’d been a good influence on them, fathering them on a day-to-day basis without ever usurping Cal’s position in their lives.

  ‘We’ll sort it out,’ he said, touching his brother lightly on the shoulder.

  Chris turned and smiled at him.

  ‘United against the world?’ he said, reminding Cal of the slogan they’d used when they’d first gone away to boarding school.

  Later, when they’d lost their parents, it had become even more important to them.

  ‘United against the world,’ Cal agreed, feeling more at ease with his brother than he had since Chris and Grace had fallen in love.

  ‘So how is your world?’ Chris asked, and Cal looked out at the endless blue sky through which they flew.

  ‘Kind of muddled at the moment,’ he admitted. ‘To be honest, I can’t think past the next few days and sorting out what’s wrong with Jenny.’

  ‘But generally—medicine and all?’ Chris persisted. ‘Are you happy with that part of things? You know there’s more than enough work for the two of us at Mount Spec if you ever change your mind and wanted to come back. Or Grace and I could move to one of the other properties. I’ve always fancied living in the Kimberleys, so now we’ve bought Warrendock over there, I’d be happy to go.’

  Cal shook his head.

  ‘I’ve been out of it too long now, Chris, so even if I did want to return, which I don’t, you’d have to stay in charge. Though, I went out to see a patient on Buralong recently. Now, there’s a great property, not far from Creamunna, and it’s been on the market for a while. It’s only twenty thousand hectares but the river runs through it so it’s well watered even in times of drought. It’d make a top-class fattening property. You could truck young steers down from Mount Spec…’

  They talked cattle for the rest of the journey, though Cal kept thinking about the low-set, gracious house on Buralong and the manager’s house for someone who’d do the day-to-day running of the place while he continued practising. From the moment he’d seen the place, he’d known it was what he wanted, to combine the two loves of his life—medicine and cattle.

  Two loves? his head queried, while images of a tall, blonde-haired woman moving through the airy rooms at Buralong danced in his head.

  He should phone Blythe when they reached Brisbane.

  And say what?

  Sorry to love you and leave you?

  Thanks for a memorable night?

  Are you sure you don’t want to marry me?

  He hauled back his wandering thoughts. At least he could phone and apologise for the way he’d spoken to her. He’d had no right to take out his own confusion on Blythe, but seeing her there in the kitchen and remembering…

  He rested his head back against the seat and closed his eyes, but vivid images of the night before flashed across the back of his eyelids, so he had to open them again.

  Marriage? Why on earth did he keep thinking of marriage? He’d tried that once and it had proved disastrous, yet his thoughts kept tripping over the damn word. He’d even blurted it out to Blythe at one stage.

  Suggested she marry him as a solution to the medical problems in Creamunna.

  Which it would be—so marriage as a contract, like a work contract—

  ‘Jenny home, which isn’t really an option. We haven’t told anyone yet, but Grace is pregnant and she’s not very well.’

  Chris’s voice brought Cal out of his speculation with a jolt.

  He looked at his brother, saw a pale wash of embarrassment, mixed with a huge amount of absurd pride, on his face.

  ‘But, Chris, that’s wonderful! I’d wondered—thought maybe you and Grace didn’t want children of your own. You’re happy?’

  Chris beamed at him.

  ‘Don’t I look it? Grace says I’m like a cat with two tails.’

  Then the glow faded.

  ‘Though she’s really been quite sick. I’ve been very worried about her.’

  ‘She was always sick right through her pregnancies,’ Cal told him. ‘Some women are.’

  But now the news was sinking in, he wondered if perhaps Jenny sus
pected. If that was why she was unhappy. Another child in a family changed all the dynamics. Jenny had been the ‘baby’ for a long time…

  Perhaps he could bring her back to Creamunna. Just till Christmas—spend some time with her…

  Jenny would be his prime concern—and sorting out her problems should keep his mind off Blythe!

  Blythe went back to work and was just about to leave when Carly phoned. Sensing any delay might put the girl off talking, Blythe arranged to pick her up.

  ‘Is there somewhere, perhaps a little way out of town, where we can talk?’ she asked, as Carly climbed into the car.

  ‘Out by the river would be nice,’ she replied, directing Blythe to a small park where fat grey gums leaned towards the murky, green-brown waters of the local river. They sat on the bank, throwing stones in the water, watching them disappear. The only things marking their passing were the ripples moving back towards the shore.

  Blythe listened to the young girl who felt her asthma made her different—who’d stopped eating, hiding food in her pockets at mealtimes and later throwing it away—thinking being thin would make her popular enough for boys to forget she suffered from asthma.

  Knowing the problem wasn’t going to go away immediately, Blythe let her talk, then later, as she drove Carly home, she suggested they meet again before too long. But as she headed back to the doctor’s house, she realised that Mark would be back in a few weeks, and her job in Creamunna would be finished.

  Would she have time to do anything effective to help Carly, and even if she did, would the girl slide back into bad habits without Blythe’s support?

  Depression settled on her shoulders like a pair of large black crows, cawing misery and regret in her ears, mocking her…

  Depression?

  Black crows?

  What had happened to the new woman?

  She poured herself a glass of cold lemonade and took it onto the veranda where she considered the crows—seeking to identify them.

  One was easy—how she felt about Cal and the fact that the relationship between them, such as it was, was doomed. Maybe the crow was laughing!

  Crow Two was more surprising but, no matter how she tried to skirt around the issue, it came back to the fact that her time in Creamunna would be over when Mark returned and, believe it or not, she did not want to go.

  Admittedly, her feelings for Cal were mixed in with that reluctance, but beyond that, she was enjoying her work—enjoying practising medicine in the outback. London and Africa had lost their appeal. The red soil plains, with their clumps of spinifex and grey-green saltbush scrub, were now more beautiful to her than city streets, the banks of the murky river where she and Carly had talked more attractive than a sandy beach.

  But beyond the physical impact of her new surroundings, the local people had captured her heart. The laconic, dry-humoured cattlemen who treated their ailments and injuries as nothing more than minor inconveniences—the cheerful, busy women of the town who delivered meals-on-wheels, worked at the charity shop, volunteered on several committees, cared for their menfolk and kids, yet still found time to do exquisite embroidery, or paint, or work with clay or silver.

  Country towns had a lot going for them.

  The phone summoned her out of this introspection, and she walked back into the empty, echoing house.

  ‘I just wanted to tell you I’ve taken your advice. Jenny’s coming home with me. We’ll be back tomorrow afternoon. Could you ask Mrs R. to make up a bed for her?’

  Heart aflutter at just hearing Cal’s voice, Blythe told herself to settle down and make some appropriate response.

  ‘Yes.’

  Dreadful, but the best she could manage right now.

  ‘Yes? That’s all? No I told you so?’

  The warmth in the words told her he was teasing, but its effect on her nerves made her snappy.

  ‘I didn’t tell you anything,’ she reminded him. ‘Whatever I might have said would only have been a suggestion. After all, what do I know about child-rearing?’

  ‘Did I say that to you? I’m sorry. I was worried.’

  He paused, but Blythe was so taken aback by the apology she couldn’t fill the silence.

  ‘Confused as well,’ Cal added. ‘It wasn’t the best timing in the world, was it?’

  The new woman tried valiantly to pull herself together.

  ‘Things happen,’ she said, hoping she sounded more offhand than she felt. ‘Anyway, I’ll tell Mrs R. about Jenny coming. Any other messages?’

  ‘No, I guess not.’ The warmth had gone and his deep voice sounded curiously flat—though it would, considering it was coming to her across a thousand kilometres of countryside. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, then.’

  Blythe replaced the receiver and stood looking at the phone. Tomorrow. Cal would be back tomorrow.

  With his daughter…

  Jenny seemed to accept Blythe’s presence in the house in the same way she accepted Mrs Robertson but, having known the older woman from previous visits, she was far friendlier to her than to Blythe.

  Cal, on the other hand, was increasingly edgy and irritable. Not with Jenny, but with everyone else, so eventually both Helen and Cheryl commented on it. When Blythe’s friend, Sue, meeting her for a coffee after work, also mentioned how short-tempered he was, Blythe decided she’d better do something about it.

  ‘I want to talk to you some time today,’ she told him when he’d been back five days and, though he’d reverted to avoiding her as much as possible, he’d happened to walk through the kitchen while she’d been eating breakfast. ‘Not now, because I’ve a pile of path tests I want to check before the first patient, and not here, because there’s always someone else around, but perhaps at lunchtime. At the surgery. Will you be around?’

  ‘Where else would I be?’ he growled, indicating his right arm which was still in a sling. ‘You know the X-ray showed the break’s not healed so even though I’ve got the bandage off I still have the damn sling. I should be seeing patients one-handed. I can’t take this doing nothing.’

  ‘You haven’t exactly been doing nothing,’ Blythe reminded him. ‘You’ve been getting to know your daughter again, and seeing the patients at the hospital. You’ve been doing the outpatient sessions over there with a nurse to help you. That’s more than most people with a broken collarbone would do.’

  ‘Getting to know my daughter? Jenny’s bug-eyed in front of the television all day and hushes me if I try to talk to her. As for doing a ward round—there’ve been eight to ten patients max this week and all I’ve done in Outpatients is tend the occasional cut or scrape. Meanwhile you’re working yourself ragged trying to do two doctors’ work, and don’t say you’re not, because I can see how peaky you’ve become.’

  ‘Peaky? Me peaky? As if!’

  Blythe held out her arms and spun around so he could see all of her still ample body.

  But Cal was obviously not impressed.

  ‘It’s your face. It looks thinner.’

  You’re looking at my face? Noticing how I look? Blythe knew the spurt of joy she felt was totally inappropriate, especially for a liberated woman, but before the joy could even take hold, another thought squelched it. She finished her cereal and rinsed her bowl under the tap. If Cal could look at her closely enough to think her face had grown thinner, then he couldn’t be experiencing the rampant longings that filled Blythe’s body every time she so much as glanced his way.

  She was getting through the days by seeing as little as possible of Cal. Even when they were together for the evening meal, she’d perfected the art of looking only at the tip of his right ear, and then for the shortest possible period of time because ears inevitably reminded her of that night.

  Realising she hadn’t responded to his remark—well, not verbally—she turned back, but before she had time to focus on the ear tip, Jenny called to him and he walked away.

  ‘So, why the summons? Do you want to leave? Had enough of the country life?’

  Bly
the looked at him—right at him this time—and shook her head. He’d stalked—which was impressive, given he was still hobbling slightly—into the office, pulled out the patient chair, and slumped into it, arms folded belligerently across his chest.

  ‘That’s why I wanted to talk to you,’ she told him, coming around the desk and propping herself against it so she could point at his arms and glare down at him. ‘That attitude you’re carting about with you like a bad odour. It’s wearing thin, buddy boy. Cheryl’s sick of it, Helen’s sick of it, and even the nurses at the hospital are complaining. OK, so everyone’s prepared to cut you some slack because you’re injured, but you can’t be in much pain now. Yet since you returned from Brisbane you’ve been like the proverbial bear with the sore head. What’s got into you, Cal? Why are you so grouchy?’

  He stared at her for a moment, then sighed. He even had the hide to smile!

  ‘It’s not a laughing matter,’ Blythe warned him—damn, she shouldn’t have been looking right at him when he’d smiled!

  ‘Oh, I’m not laughing,’ he assured her, standing up so he was suddenly very, very close. ‘But tell me, are you not the slightest bit perturbed by this situation? Not in the least aggravated? Frustrated? Infuriated because we can’t go back to where we were before? Can’t explore more options—possibilities?’

  He was so close now she could see the tiny patches where his left-handed shaving had missed a bit of beard hair—so close she could smell the musky maleness of him.

  Too close! She slid away, pretending she needed to pace to absorb what he’d just said.

  ‘You’re talking about sex?’ she demanded, while her heart jittered and her thighs burned with memories. ‘You’re cranky as all get-out because we can’t keep having sex? It’s not your injury frustrations you’re taking out on the staff but your sexual frustrations? That’s teenage stuff, Cal Whitworth.’

  He’d taken up her position now, propped against the desk, arms folded again, but protectively this time.

  ‘That’s how I feel,’ he admitted. ‘Like some half-witted teenager, filled with lust and longings.’