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 suspected. 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?’
Blythe 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.’
He shrugged broad shoulders.
‘Stupid, isn’t it? Here I am, supposed to be solving Jenny’s teenage problems and I’ve reverted back to someone little older than she is.’
Huge sigh, then he unfolded his arms and rubbed his free hand across his face.
‘Not that I’ll ever solve Jenny’s problems. She won’t talk to me. All she says is she hates boarding school, full stop.’
‘Have you stopped to think that might be all it is?’
Cal frowned at her.
‘But everyone thinks they hate school—especially boarding school—at some stage of their life. It doesn’t mean the child should just give up. That isn’t how things work.’
Blythe looked at him and smiled, though there seemed to be more sadness than joy in the expression.
‘No, it’s not, is it?’
She studied him for a moment, or maybe she was studying something on the wall beyond his right ear. He turned to see what was there—a muscle chart!
‘But Jenny’s not the problem as far as your attitude is concerned. You are. Are you going to tone things down? Revert to being Dr Nice Guy?’
‘I suppose I’ll have to,’ Cal conceded. Actually, until Blythe had brought it up, he hadn’t realised he’d been letting his feelings show. At least, not that badly.
‘Thanks for pulling me up on it.’
She’d stopped pacing, halting beside the glass-fronted cabinet where Mark kept his reference books.
‘No worries,’ she said, but her voice was so tight and strained he stared at her, seeing more tension in her shoulders and in the arms crossed tightly across her chest.
‘This is bloody stupid!’ he growled, closing the distance between them with one long stride. ‘Look at you—you’re as tightly wound as I am.’
He touched her shoulder.
‘Tell me you don’t feel fire run along your nerves whenever we’re together. Tell me your blood doesn’t pulse faster, your heart rate rise, when we accidentally touch. Tell me that doesn’t happen, and I won’t ravish you with kisses right here and now, Blythe Jones.’
He didn’t give her time to tell him anything, swinging her around and drawing her close against his body, then denying any hope of words with a kiss that carried all his longings and frustration.
But it was her response that really sent him over the edge—the fervour of her kiss, the demands of her tongue, the tremble in her body as she pressed against him.
‘Blythe.’
Her name was no more than a suggestion on his lips, then they were moving towards the examination table, fumbling with clothes, finding contact with each other’s skin and giving in to the demands of their bodies.
‘I can’t believe we just did that,’ Blythe whispered, not much later. She was sitting on the edge of the table but her head was slumped against Cal’s chest. ‘What if Helen or Cheryl had come in? Worse, what if Mrs R. had sent Jenny over to find out why we weren’t at lunch?’
She moved away, her hands scrabbling to rearrange her clothes. Helpful as ever, she then reached out to help his one-handed effort with his trousers.
Cal felt he should stop her—or move away—or say or do something! But his mind had seized up. He’d never been a man who’d let his libido rule his brain—in fact, the very opposite, missing out on any amount of offered sex because his brain was firmly in control.
Until a tall, shapely blonde had made him wrap her in a curtain, and his sex drive had been going haywire ever since.
‘This can’t keep happening,’ the blonde now announced. She’d moved to a position of safety behind the desk and Cal had the oddest notion that if she could have moved further away, perhaps crouched behind Mark’s skeleton, she would have.
‘No.’
Good, she looked startled. Did she think he was going to suggest it became a daily ritual?
‘It’s a most uncomfortable way to conduct an affair and, as you said, Jenny could have walked in.’
The thought made him feel icily cold.
‘I didn’t mean this can’t keep happening, as in a quickie in the office, but the whole thing can’t,’ Blythe said. ‘We’re not having an affair. I’m not into affairs, especially not with colleagues.’
Cal wondered about arguing that he wasn’t much of a colleague at the moment, then realised that wasn’t the crux of the matter.
‘But I thought that’s what you were into. Casual sex.’
He watched colour climb into her cheeks.
‘Yes, well, maybe that’s what I thought I might get into, but what we just did, that’s casual sex, isn’t it? And now I’ve tried it, I don’t think I’m going to take to it. But an affair is more than that—it’s more than casual—and I don’t want that either.’
‘What do you want, Blythe?’
Cal couldn’t believe he’d asked that question. He knew damn well what a woman like Blythe would want. No matter how hard she might deny it to herself, she was made to be a wife and mother. He could picture blonde-haired moppets clustered around her feet, pudgy hands clinging to her skirt.
Then he thought of Grace, pregnant again, and the ice returned to his veins.
If Jenny’s trouble stemmed from a sense of injustice that her mother was having another baby, how much worse would the poor girl feel if her father started breeding again?
His mind had wandered so far that when a whispered ‘I don’t know, Cal’ hit his ears, he had no idea what Blythe meant.
He wanted to leave—to get away so he could attempt to sort through his thoughts—but he couldn’t just walk away.
Not without saying something!
But what to say?
‘Come on, we’re late for lunch.’
The look she shot him out of heavy-lidded brown eyes told him he could have done better, but he knew that himself. He opened the door and walked out, assuming she’d follow.
Blythe stared at where he’d been. Now he was gone, she realised she was hungry, but there was no way she was going up to the house and putting herself in Cal’s proximity again so soon. Her skin still tingled from their quick but, oh, so satisfying love-making, and her mind had taken leave of absence so blankness filled her skull.
She walked out through the deserted reception room and raided the biscuit tin in the tearoom, munching on something very bland while she tried to get her brain working again.
‘Blythe? Are you still here?’
Jenny’s voice, calling from outside. With a burst of gratitude Blythe realised Helen and Cheryl had, as they always did, locked the outer doors when they’d left for lunch. Cal would have used his key to come in, but Jenny had been safe from witnessing their uninhibited behaviour.
‘I’m coming,’ she called, and walked back out to let Jenny in through the main entrance. ‘Hi. You want an appointment? Professional visit? Or is it social?’
Jenny had been polite to her, but had never sought her out, so Blythe was intrigued enough to be able to put aside what she and the youngster’s father had just been up to.
‘Sort of social and sort of professional,’ Jenny told her with a shy smile that made her look more like her father.
Cal shy?
Blythe shook her head to get him away.
‘You know you were telling Dad about the girl called Carly, and talking to her out by the river. I wondered…’
She hesitated, and Blythe stayed very still, knowing Jen could tip either way right now.
‘Wondered if you’d take me out there. To see the river. Maybe talk.’
Grey eyes with dark rims looked helplessly at her.
‘Of course. When? This afternoon? I finish at three because there’s evening surgery. Would that suit you?’
Jenny nodded then, to Blythe’s surprise, she spread her arms and gave Blythe a quick hug.
‘Thanks!’ she said, and turned away, then looked back to say, ‘You won’t tell Dad?’
Blythe smiled at her.
‘No way! It’s a girl thing. I only told your dad a bit about Carly because I’ll be leaving here soon and I wanted him to keep an eye on her. Maybe find someone else for her to talk to.’
Jenny gave a satisfied nod and trotted off, long, gazelle-like legs taking her in swift strides back to the house.