A Wedding for the Single Dad Read online

  Want to go through the highs and lows of...what?

  Falling in love?

  That was what teenagers did!

  Surely she was too old for such a thing.

  Although, would it be such a bad thing?

  Falling in love?

  She sighed; it was a default setting with her now, the sighing.

  If she was honest, it was cowardice holding her back—she was afraid. Not of love itself, but of the power it gave someone else over her, and anyway the whole idea was ridiculous.

  ‘As if!’ she muttered to herself.

  She made herself a sandwich and a cup of tea, concentrating on thinking about the patients she’d seen to avoid any further thoughts of the vet.

  Although... Patients!

  All of them had heard about her rescue of Cam and, while most of them wanted to find out all they could about the new arrivals in their small community, a few of them had been focussed on their own problems.

  She had given those patients her full attention, aware that it was often in what was left unsaid that she could pick up on what was truly bothering them.

  Beth was getting painful Braxton-Hicks contractions, and worrying that they might mean she’d have a premature baby.

  Lauren had assured her that they could start any time from the third month, and told her that, yes, they could be painful. But she wasn’t certain she’d allayed Beth’s fears. She’d examined her carefully, assured her that the pregnancy was proceeding exactly as it should, and reminded her that she—Lauren—was only ever a phone call away should Beth have any concerns.

  And Muriel Carter, a spry eighty-year-old, was getting more frequent occurrences of atrial fibrillation. They didn’t worry her unduly, although the disturbance made her feel tired, but her daughter, who was a doctor, had wondered if she should have a surgical ablation—a procedure in which tissue in the atria was scarred by extreme heat or cold to stop the electrical impulses that caused the fibrillation.

  Lauren had gently pointed out that the operation, involving a wire entering the heart through a blood vessel in the groin, didn’t guarantee success. In fact, only about sixty-five per cent were successful. But she’d written a referral for Muriel to take to a heart specialist in Riverview, the nearest big city, and suggested she discuss it with him.

  Finishing her sandwich, Lauren rinsed her cup and plate and left them to dry on the sink.

  She considered changing out of her ‘professional’ outfit of trousers and a neat shirt, then told herself not to be stupid and headed for the sanctuary, which was—blessedly—Cam-free.

  Helen, who ran the place, greeted her with the news that their latest ‘baby’ was doing well, and that Cam had been in to replace the dressings on the little koala’s paws.

  ‘He seems a really nice man,’ Helen said, before taking Lauren around all the animals currently in their care, pausing at one of the young swamp wallabies. ‘I think this one might be ready to be released,’ she said, ‘but you remember how young he was when he came in? He’d never been out of his mother’s pouch. And although we’ve all been taking him outside onto grass in different places, he’s really just a big sook, and he always comes back to whoever’s taken him out.’

  ‘And you’re wondering if he’ll manage on his own?’ Lauren asked.

  ‘Will you know if he doesn’t?’ a deep voice asked, and they both turned to see Cam standing behind them.

  ‘Not really,’ Helen admitted, and the dejection in her voice told Lauren that she really didn’t want to let the little fellow go.

  ‘What about Amanda, who often does the night feeds for us? Lauren suggested. ‘She lives up at the swampy end of the lake, where these fellows belong. She might take him to her place for a few days, then leave her back gate open for a while so he can come and go until he gets used to it.’

  ‘Brilliant!’ Helen smiled with delight. ‘I don’t know why I didn’t think of it. I’ll phone and see if she’s home, and if she is I’ll take him up right now.’

  Helen bustled into the office, leaving Cam and Lauren alone and, as far as Lauren was concerned, acutely embarrassed.

  Because they’d shared a kiss?

  Or because she’d responded to his kiss?

  It was definitely her response making her feel embarrassed right now—it had been as if his lips on hers had released some spark of passion she hadn’t known was there! And now the memory of the damn kiss was stuck in the forefront of her mind, the heat it had generated gathering again in her body.

  For heaven’s sake, she was a mature woman—she needed to get over it!

  ‘Do you fret this much about all the animals you care for?’ Cam asked.

  Delighted to have a normal conversation, Lauren said, ‘The wallabies more than the others. Koalas aren’t particularly sociable, and we just release them into a patch of forest that has the type of eucalyptus leaves they eat, and a small colony of koalas within it, and they seem to find their own way back into normal life. And kangaroos don’t seem to notice an extra one joining their mob. But these little fellows...’

  She slid her hand under the small animal’s chin and tilted up his head.

  ‘Look at that face! These are also called Pretty Face Wallabies, and they tend to worm their way into your heart.’ She paused, then admitted, ‘Well, Helen’s heart! I’m more a wombat-lover myself. There’s something so self-sufficient about them.’

  He cocked an eyebrow, as if to say just like you, but she ignored it and began to check the whiteboard, which showed what would need to be done on her shift. It appeared to be mainly cleaning and checking stock.

  ‘Did you want something?’ she said, turning back to Cam, who was still standing just inside the door.

  ‘Well, yes,’ he said. ‘But just information, really.’

  He paused, and Lauren wondered what kind of information she could give him.

  ‘I was wondering,’ he said, eventually, ‘where one could take someone out for dinner in this area. Are there any good restaurants anywhere close?’

  Maybe he means Madge, Lauren told herself, even as a niggle of something she didn’t want to think about unsettled her equilibrium.

  ‘Well, it depends,’ she began. ‘You know the village...?’

  ‘The cluster of shops and houses at the near end of the pier?’ he asked.

  She nodded and smiled, and said, ‘We call it the jetty. I don’t think it’s grand enough to be a pier.’

  He returned her smile, and what little equilibrium she’d managed to find all but fled.

  Deep breath!

  ‘Yes, that’s the village, and towards the end of it—’

  ‘I thought we must be the end of it—there are no houses that I’ve seen beyond mine.’

  ‘We’re the western end,’ she said, desperate to keep the conversation on something safe, like eating places, so she didn’t have to think about last night. ‘But on the other side of the jetty, right on the lake, there’s a café-type restaurant. It hasn’t been open long, but it seems to be gaining a faithful following and a reputation for good food.’

  ‘Eastern end of the village...right,’ he said, as if he was mentally writing it down.

  ‘And if you want something a bit more posh then there’s the dining room at the golf club. Do you know where that is?’

  ‘It’s behind the school. I saw it when I took Maddie up there the other day. Apparently, she’s old enough to start there in the kindergarten class, but she doesn’t think she should be relegated to that when back home she’s going to a real school.’

  Lauren had to smile. She could just see Maddie making her point about such a demotion to what she might consider ‘little kids’ school’.

  ‘Is she still going to start there?’ she asked, and Cam nodded.

  ‘Of course,’ he said, with great dignity. ‘I do still have s
ome control over a four-and-a-half-year-old.’ Lauren was still smiling when he added, ‘Though for how much longer, I don’t know. I swear she’s four going on forty!’

  ‘She’s a great kid,’ she said. ‘And now I really must do some work. I have patients again from four till six, and if I don’t finish my chores here Helen will get cross.’

  ‘Rubbish!’ Helen said, emerging from the office. ‘You and the other older volunteers are the only ones I trust to do their jobs right. I swear some of the young ones come just so their boyfriends or girlfriends can meet up with them here—probably without their parents knowing.’

  Smarting slightly over the ‘older volunteer’ status she’d been given—heaven knew, some of the other volunteers were in their sixties and seventies—Lauren nevertheless began her cleaning, picking up the straw that had been strewn on the ground in the early morning and bundling it into bags.

  Cam’s voice startled her. She’d thought he’d left but, no, he was right there beside her, bundling straw into a bag.

  ‘So, if you work till six, would seven be all right? I’ve discovered the four-wheel drive car the locum has been driving is actually Uncle Henry’s—so mine, in fact. I’ll call for you at seven?’

  Lauren straightened up, clutching none-too-clean straw in one hand, a bin bag in the other.

  ‘Call for me? Whatever for?’ she said, glad Helen had already left to deliver the wallaby to his new home.

  ‘To take you out to dinner,’ he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

  ‘Out to dinner? Me?’

  He shrugged awkwardly, given the sling still holding his shoulder in place. ‘On a date?’ he offered, managing in spite of his height and solid build to look sheepish.

  ‘On a date?’ Lauren echoed, but weakly, because even as she said it she knew there was nothing she’d like more than to go out to dinner with Cam.

  As a friend, of course.

  But a date...

  The very idea caused a sizzle up her backbone—which, surely, should be a warning not to go? Not to get too involved.

  He’s married, she reminded herself.

  ‘I’d love to have dinner with you,’ she said, ‘but a date...?’

  She studied his face for a moment, saw the teasing gleam in his blue eyes, and knew she had to make her point and make it quickly, before she got herself lost in some kind of relationship that couldn’t go anywhere.

  ‘I’m probably ten years older than you—you do realise that?’ she said. ‘So I don’t think our dating is at all appropriate.’

  He smiled at her—which she wished he wouldn’t do.

  ‘Is there someone else in your life? Or do you worry over what people might think?’

  ‘No and no!’ she said. ‘I just don’t think it’s a good idea. And, while there’s no one else in my life, aren’t you forgetting you’re still married? You definitely shouldn’t be dating!’

  ‘Okay, then,’ he said, with a smile and another half-shrug. ‘No date, but just dinner together. Do you recommend the café you mentioned?’

  It was her turn to shrug. ‘Like I said, it’s not been open long, and I’ve been meaning to go, but I haven’t got around to it. I do hear good things about it.’

  He beamed at her, causing so much consternation in her usually reliable body that she scowled at him and said, ‘And you can stop smiling like the cat that got the canary, because it is not a date!’

  ‘Whatever you say, ma’am,’ he said, snapping a half-salute, and leaving the room.

  * * *

  Feeling enormously pleased with himself, Cam retreated to his part of the building, arriving there to find a message from the locum, reminding him that today would be his final day.

  Good, he thought, I’m ready to make this place my own.

  He’d talk to Lauren tonight about tradespeople. The surgery was looking tired, and he wanted to paint the waiting room, bring in some new furniture, and do a complete overhaul of the operating theatre and treatment room.

  It was a half-day at the surgery, with the afternoon kept free for farm visits, so with the receptionist and locum both gone he answered the phone when it rang.

  An agitated female voice garbled at him, so he caught only a few words, like ‘fever’, or maybe ‘stevia’, and something that sounded like ‘backpackers’.

  She couldn’t possibly be calling about feverish backpackers, and his mind spun as he tried to find a possible animal.

  ‘Did you say “alpacas”?’ he asked finally.

  The woman said, ‘Of course alpacas—what else would I mean? Stevie’s down! Can you come now?’

  Stevie? Not fever?

  He shook his head, but assured her he could, and she gave him directions to her place further around the lake.

  He grabbed the four-wheel drive’s keys off the board, and was about to head out when he thought of something.

  He dashed through into the sanctuary, where he found Lauren in a store cupboard.

  ‘I don’t suppose you know anything about alpacas?’ he asked.

  She frowned at him, then shook her head. ‘Related to camels, aren’t they?’

  ‘I do know that much!’ he said.

  ‘Rye grass,’ she said, remembering a long-ago trip to a farm with Henry. ‘They can get something called rye grass toxicity.’

  ‘And...?’

  ‘I think they fall over—but whoever owns them will know all that. Just ask the owners. They love to tell vets things. It’s like patients and doctors, when the patient has looked up all his symptoms online and discovered he has multi-organism, acute blue spyridium disease.’

  Cam laughed. ‘Does such a thing exist?’ he asked.

  Lauren shook her head. ‘Not that I know of—but they do find the weirdest things on the Internet, so maybe it does.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll ask the owner,’ he said. ‘See you at seven.’

  ‘You’ll be lucky to make it,’ she said. ‘If the owner is who I think she is, she knows more about alpacas than anyone in the district—if not the world—and loves to educate.’

  Cam walked away with a smile on his face. This was the beginning of a new life for him—and in more ways than one. Alpacas, for a start, were not something he’d run across as a London vet.

  And Lauren...

  He knew his grin had grown wider—but what the hell? Just knowing he’d be seeing her again in a few hours made him...

  Made him what?

  Want to bounce around a little with excitement?

  But that was downright juvenile, so he contented himself with feeling happy.

  Very happy.

  Extraordinarily happy.

  But somewhere below all this delight questions were niggling. It wasn’t as if this was his first date since Kate had left him—he’d been quite serious about one young woman he’d taken out—but he hadn’t felt like this before.

  It was as if Lauren had lit something inside him—brought a dying ember back to life—so the attraction he felt towards her was different in some way. A whole-body kind of experience...which was simply ridiculous even to think about!

  He’d be content with happiness...

  But then the sane voice inside his brain warned against getting too far ahead of himself, and he picked up the alpacas’ address and set out to meet them.

  * * *

  When Lauren had finished her chores, the stock cupboard looked neater than it had in months. Concentrating on the task had helped her to stop herself thinking of the evening ahead.

  Thinking too much about it, at least.

  Pathetic.

  She walked swiftly home, aware she needed to shower and change before beginning her afternoon session. Having to hurry helped her not to think about Cam.

  Almost not think about Cam...

  Although thinking ab
out what decent ‘going out’ clothes she had in her wardrobe wasn’t exactly not thinking about Cam.

  She smiled to herself—of course it was thinking about Cam. It was about wanting to look good for him...wanting him to think she looked good.

  She shook her head—better than sighing—and reminded herself that she had patients to see...patients who required one hundred per cent of her concentration.

  She’d think about Cam later...

  * * *

  Edward Forrest was her first patient—a friend of Henry and her father’s, although he’d been a bit younger than them. ‘The three old codgers’ they’d called themselves, and since Henry had died Edward had become increasingly isolated.

  From the moment he rolled into the surgery on his electric buggy and didn’t smile at her, she was aware that his gout must be playing up.

  She moved forward to greet him and took both his hands in hers. ‘Not so good?’ she said gently, and he shook his head. ‘I’d better have a look,’ she said, and knelt to unwrap his heavily bandaged left foot. ‘Are you trying to drink more water?’ she asked, as she finally revealed his angrily swollen big toe.

  Edward huffed and puffed a bit, and finally admitted that he’d tried to keep drinking water, adding, ‘Not that anyone can actually drink two litres of the stuff a day, like that diet sheet you gave me said. There’s not enough time in a day, and even with just a few glasses I’m spending half my time peeing.’

  Lauren smiled up at him. ‘Just keep up with drinking what you can. Forget two litres and try to get into a habit of a glass when you get up, one with your morning cuppa, one at lunch, one in the afternoon and one at dinner time.’

  She’d checked his file before he’d come in, and found a note that he’d been growing tomatoes the last time he’d had a flare-up. Growing them and eating them off the bush whenever he was in the garden...

  ‘What have you been eating lately—surely the tomatoes are finished?’ she said.

  ‘Prawns,’ he announced, in such a tragic voice Lauren had to smile. ‘Young Josh came in with a great catch and brought some around, so...well, I had to eat them, didn’t I?’