A Forever Family for the Army Doc Page 5

‘And tell me the long story over dinner!’ he said firmly. ‘Stories are good over dinner, and it’s just dinner!’

  She sighed again, shrugged, and finally said, ‘We’ll see, but I still can’t be late home.’

  And if he thought she hadn’t noticed the satisfied expression on his face as she finally agreed, he’d be wrong.

  Used to getting his own way, was he?

  A sure sign this was a man to be wary of.

  * * *

  The hospital tour turned out to be fun. Mac insisted on meeting all the patients, and had sat and talked to the men and women in the nursing-home section. It didn’t take long for one of the men to winkle out the information that Dr Macpherson—‘Please call me Mac’—was an ex-military man and as two of the residents had seen service in Vietnam, topics of conversation weren’t hard to find.

  The women were equally impressed by the fact that Mac’s grandmother had belonged to the Country Women’s Association, and the conversation shifted to scones.

  ‘Izzy here makes beautiful lemonade scones,’ someone said, and Mac’s eyebrows rose.

  ‘Really? Well, those I’ll have to try,’ he said. ‘But right now I’ve persuaded her to have dinner with me so she can tell me all about Wetherby, and the hospital, and probably you lot!’

  One of the men chuckled.

  ‘Is a good gossip all you want?’ one of the men teased, and the rest laughed, although as she and Mac departed, her cheeks pink with embarrassment, another of the residents called out, ‘Now you take care of her, mind. She’s a special girl, our Izzy.’

  Izzy expected Mac to laugh it off, but instead he walked slowly away, turning his head from time to time, as if to study her.

  Searching for her specialness?

  As if!

  * * *

  Interesting, Mac decided.

  Were all the patients as protective of this one nurse as the nursing-home residents obviously were?

  And what had someone said at that chaotic introduction to the Halliday family?

  Something about someone trying to shoot her?

  ‘As you left me to choose where to go for dinner, I decided the Surf Club. They have the best dining room in town as far as position goes, right by the beach, looking out over the ocean.’

  Practical—she was practical, he decided, half listening while still following his train of thought.

  ‘It only does basic stuff, like steak and fish and usually a roast, but it’s quality food and well cooked.’

  She didn’t turn towards him as she spoke and he sensed she was still a bit put out about the man’s remark.

  He walked beside her, through quiet streets towards the beach, avoiding the centre of town, such as it was.

  ‘Are there many restaurants in town?’

  Her pace slowed and now she turned to look at him.

  ‘You’ve really been thrust in at the deep end,’ she said. ‘You’ve barely had time to settle into the house, let alone see the town.’

  ‘My own fault,’ he told her, hoping his voice was steadier than he was feeling, because a ray of light from the streetlamp was lighting up the side of her face, and the curls he now realised would always escape her attempts to tame them, glowed red-gold against the paler gold skin of her cheeks.

  Or was it the line of her profile that had started attraction stirring again? A clean line, smooth forehead, straight nose and soft pink lips above a chin that, while not too obvious, suggested determination.

  What would it take to break her determination not to date?

  He swung back towards the sea.

  What on earth was he thinking?

  His head was still a mess, and anger over Lauren’s behaviour still simmered somewhere deep inside.

  He knew the anger was more to do with humiliation than infidelity, an army base being such a hotbed of gossip, but that didn’t make it easier.

  And marriage definitely wasn’t on the cards—not again. But dating—provided they both knew that was all it was—was different. Dating, and a dalliance, on a short-term basis, could be fun.

  Except he didn’t dally with colleagues.

  Or with women who had children...

  Izzy was talking about the town—had been for some minutes, he suspected—while his mind bounced between the present and the past.

  ‘So recently we’ve had all kinds of new places spring up—offering Paleo and vegan food, as well as more exotic fare from the Middle East and North Africa. It’s a result of people making what they call a “hill change” and coming to live in the country outside the town, growing weird and wonderful new fruit and vegetables, and refugees from other countries settling here.’

  Fortunately, they’d reached the beach and there, on the right, was the Surf Club. But out in front was the ocean, and above it a nearly full moon, marking a path of silver out to the horizon.

  ‘Magical, isn’t it?’ Izzy breathed, stopping to admire the view.

  ‘Magical indeed,’ Mac agreed, but he was including the moonlit woman beside him in his reply.

  Maybe he was bewitched!

  Didn’t witches have red hair?

  Or maybe black—

  ‘Come on, we can see it from the restaurant,’ the witch was saying, and he turned and followed her, dragging his thoughts from the mystical to the practical.

  All the business of his discharge from the army, getting a job, the three-week walk—it had been a while since he’d been with a woman, that’s all it was...

  She should have chosen the Moroccan restaurant in the back street of the town, Izzy decided as the young waiter showed them to a table on the front veranda. The view out over the ocean, the white curl of the waves crawling up the curving beach, the surf crashing on the rocky headlands made it far too romantic a backdrop for what was ‘just dinner’.

  Studying the menu, deciding what to eat, these were helpful, practical things to get romance out of her head.

  She didn’t date!

  Not at the moment anyway...

  Not until...

  Fortunately Mac seemed similarly intent on the offerings and choices so conversation was avoided until the waiter departed, leaving them a bottle of iced water and taking their orders with him.

  ‘So,’ Mac said, as the waiter disappeared, ‘why don’t you date?’

  She frowned at him.

  ‘Is that really any of your business?’

  ‘Nope!’ A cheeky smile accompanied the word and undid the little scrap of common sense she’d managed to regain with the decisions about eating.

  ‘But you did say you’d tell me over dinner,’ he reminded her.

  She wasn’t sure she had said any such thing, but she’d already realised this was a very persistent man, so she might as well get it over with.

  ‘Nikki isn’t mine,’ she began, then realised that hadn’t come out the way she’d meant it to. ‘Well, she is but she wasn’t.’

  This was getting worse and heat was rising in her traitorous cheeks.

  ‘I mean, I’m not her birth mother. Her birth mother was one of our sisters. She came to live with us when she was seven and not even the love Hallie and Pop gave so freely could make up for the horrific abuse she’d suffered as a young child. It was as if there was something broken inside her, too broken to ever be fixed...’

  She’d been playing with her fork as she spoke but now glanced up at Mac, worried she’d begun this story in the wrong place and was boring him.

  But his expression held interest, and also understanding, so, encouraged by a slight nod of his head, she ploughed on.

  ‘Nikki was drug addicted when she was born. Her mother died soon after, asking me to care for her baby. As if she needed to ask—the baby was family. But drug-addicted babies are sick and fractious
and Nikki demanded so much attention that any relationship was out of the question. In fact, I gave up my pre-med course and spent two years just looking after Nikki. Hallie and Pop were wonderful, of course, but she needed...’

  The words dried up, and a lump the size of Ayers Rock had formed in her throat as she remembered that time.

  ‘A mother,’ Mac said quietly. ‘I can understand that.’

  Izzy nodded.

  ‘Anyway, she got better, and life settled down. I decided I’d do nursing—I had credits from the pre-med course—and Hallie and Pop were happy to babysit.’

  ‘So then you were too busy studying to date?’

  Izzy returned the smile that accompanied his words, although exchanging smiles was dangerous when even a smile could knot her stomach.

  ‘Go on,’ he encouraged, and she shrugged.

  ‘There’s not much more to it,’ she said.

  ‘Nikki’s nearly thirteen years old,’ he pointed out.

  This time it was a sigh, not a shrug—a huge sigh!

  ‘You know, I’d never thought about it before I had Nikki, but it’s darned hard for a single mother to have normal relationships. Not only because you have to cancel if the child throws a fever, or starts coughing, or falls over and needs stitches, but because you start to worry about introducing strange men into her life.’

  ‘Strange men?’

  Another smile and this time a tweak along Izzy’s nerves!

  ‘I mean different men—not family. And what happens if she gets to know and like one of them, then the relationship falls apart and he’s gone? There was no way I was going to bring a string of men into Nikki’s life—not that I’ve ever had a string of men—but somehow it seemed easier not to bother.’

  ‘So you never dated?’

  Blue eyes dared her not to answer.

  ‘Are you always this persistent?’ she demanded, ‘But if you must know, yes, I did—well, occasionally. Then—’

  ‘Then? And, yes, I am always this persistent.’

  Izzy had to smile, although memories of her last disastrous almost-relationship made her shiver.

  ‘Someone with a gun?’

  She looked up into the blue eyes.

  ‘How did you—? Oh, dinner last night—bloody Marty opening his big mouth. Yes, another doctor, a couple of years ago—since him we’ve had agency doctors. Nikki was ten, and somehow I had decided I needed a man in my life—well, in both our lives. She’d been asking questions about her father but I had no answers, then I began to worry what might happen if she did have a father.’

  She put down the fork, straightened it carefully, fiddled with the knife, then continued, ‘Well, of course she’d have a father, everyone does, but what if he suddenly appeared from nowhere? What if he took her?’

  Mac heard what sounded very like panic in her voice and reached out to cover her restless fingers with his hand.

  ‘I thought if she already had a father—a stepfather, but someone she might come to consider a father—then—’

  ‘She’d be safer?’

  Mac was rewarded with a blinding smile, although he suspected the shine in her eyes was from unshed tears.

  ‘Exactly,’ she said, her voice stronger now. ‘I mean, Nikki’s always had male role models in her life with Pop and all the brothers, but I kept thinking maybe if we were a family—a mother, father and daughter—she’d be safer.’

  Mac could see a kind of weird logic in this, but he was caught up in the story and wanted to know more.

  ‘So?’ he prompted.

  The gold-brown eyes met his, clear now but dubious, then she shrugged and continued.

  ‘The man—the new doctor—came. Hallie matchmaking, I suspect. Anyway, he asked me out, and we...we got on well. We’d dated exactly four times when his ex-girlfriend turned up. She threatened Nikki as well as me.’

  Now her eyes held memories of the horror and he tightened his hold on her hand, while anger at a man he’d never met gripped his gut.

  ‘So, the man you went out with thinking it might end up being a good thing for Nikki ended up putting you both in danger?’

  Her eyes widened with surprise and a small smile replaced the tension around her lips.

  ‘That’s exactly how I felt! Talk about an idiot! Anyway, it put me off all thoughts of relationships, at least until she’s away at university or travelling overseas.’

  Their meals arrived, barramundi for him and lamb cutlets for Izzy, and tackling the tantalising offerings brought the conversation to a halt.

  But Mac couldn’t help considering the things he’d just learned as he ate his fish—delicious fish. Izzy was busy cutting the meat from her cutlets so he could watch her as he ate.

  Not obtrusively, but glances, checking out that she was as attractive as he’d first thought, but also wondering what else was going on inside her head, because she certainly hadn’t told him all the not-dating story.

  Not that he was interested in dating either—well, not a colleague anyway. Far too incestuous somehow! Small hospital, small town—very like an army base—far too easy for stories to spread.

  And the attraction thing bothered him. He knew he was attracted to her, and suspected it was mutual, but he knew only too well how attraction could blind a man to other facets of the ‘attractee’s’ personality. Hadn’t he and Lauren met and married within eight weeks?

  And wasn’t he determined not to make the same mistake again—the getting-married mistake? Attraction was fine. Short, mutually enjoyable affairs could be fun, although he doubted that would be possible in a town this size.

  ‘The problem was...’

  He was so lost in his own thoughts it took a moment to realise Izzy was speaking to him.

  Well, who else could she be speaking to?

  He lifted his head, raising his eyebrows.

  ‘The problem was?’ he repeated.

  She sighed, looked out to the ocean for inspiration, before eventually meeting his eyes.

  ‘Losing Nikki!’

  He could hear the tears clogging her voice and reached out to touch her lightly on the arm.

  Maybe not a good idea as she flinched and drew her arm away, swallowed hard and finally looked at him again.

  ‘She’s not legally mine, you see, so for the last few years—since then—I’ve been trying to adopt her, which isn’t easy when I’m not a blood relative, I’m single, no one knows who or where her father is, and the law says both parents have to agree. I don’t even have a formal agreement from her mother—all I have is a note on a piece of grubby paper, asking me to look after her.’

  Mac felt his gut tighten in empathy for this woman’s fears for the child she so obviously loved.

  ‘I’d been vaguely looking into adoption when the other doctor came along and I knew if I was married it would be easier.’

  She frowned, but possibly more at her thoughts than at him.

  ‘I thought if it worked—with the doctor—we’d be a family. Not like our big family, though that’s essential to both of us, but a kind of regular family...’

  ‘Mother, father, children kind of family?’ Mac asked, wanting to tease with the words but sensing she was very serious about this.

  ‘Exactly!’ she said, her smile lighting up her face, obviously delighted he’d somehow understood.

  Not that he had!

  Although he was reasonably sure it was all to do with Nikki and her safety.

  Protection in case some drop-kick birth father turned up and wanted to take her away?

  ‘So I went out with him, the other doctor, had those four dates and we got on okay, but then the gun thing happened and—’

  He waited, sure there was more.

  And there was...

  ‘The woman
threatened Nikki as well—the both of us, in the flat—and the thought I might have lost her, well, I went back to pushing the adoption idea. To adopting her as a single parent.’

  ‘But surely in this day and age, adoption isn’t all that hard, even for single women.’

  Bewitching golden eyes met his.

  ‘Don’t kid yourself! Quite apart from the fact that Nikki’s father appears to be untraceable, and she has never formally been handed over to the state for adoption, there are formidable background checks on all adoptive parents, on their homes, their friends, their social life.’

  ‘Ah,’ Mac said, as the penny dropped. ‘So a string of lovers in your life could rule you out?’

  ‘Even one could, because that would show there could be a string in the future and would that be in the child’s best interests? Not to mention the invasion of privacy that the one lover might suffer.’

  She sighed, then added, ‘So...’

  ‘It’s easier not to bother,’ Mac finished for her.

  He considered this for a moment.

  ‘But isn’t that hard on you?’

  His answer was a brilliant smile.

  ‘Not really,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘You get out of the way of it, dating I mean, and I have heaps of men in my life with my brothers and their friends and friends at the hospital, so there’s always someone who’ll take me along to anything that needs a partner. In fact, I’m very happy with my life.’

  Hmm, Mac thought, but he didn’t say it, although Izzy’s story had affected him deeply.

  But not deeply enough to stop the attraction?

  As if that mattered. If she did get involved with a man, he’d need to be committed both to her and to a future with her—to marriage—and apart from the fact that the helicopter ride had proven to him he wasn’t over the effects of PTSD, he’d decided that he was probably genetically unsuited to marriage, given his parents’ and his own failures.

  And why was he considering marriage at all? It was a first date—well, not even a date...

  CHAPTER FOUR

  IZZY STARED OUT at the limitless ocean, wondering why on earth she’d told this man—this virtual stranger—things she’d never voiced to anyone, not even Lila.