HUGO ARRIVED IN her room at eleven in the morning, with Joe beside him. It was a professional visit: doctor doing his rounds with nurse in attendance. That was what Hugo looked—professional.
When she’d first seen him he’d been wearing casual clothes—dressed to go on holiday. Jeans and open-necked shirt. He’d been bloodied and filthy.
He’d come in last night but she couldn’t remember much about last night. She’d been woozy and in pain. If she had to swear, she’d say he’d been wearing strength and a smile that said she was safe.
This morning he was in tailored pants and a crisp white shirt. The shirt was open-necked and short-sleeved. He looked professional but underneath the professional there was still the impression of strength.
Mary had helped her wash and Joe had brought one of her cases in. She was therefore wearing a cute kimono over silk pyjamas. She was ready to greet the world.
Sort of. This man had her unsettled.
The whole situation had her unsettled. She’d been employed to replace this man. What were the terms of her employment now?
‘Hey,’ he said, pausing at the door—giving her time to catch her breath? ‘Joe tells me you’re feeling better. True?’
She was. Or she had been. Now she was just feeling … disconcerted. Hormonal?
Interested.
Why? He wasn’t her type, she thought. He looked … a bit worn around the edges. He was tall, lean and tanned, all good, all interesting, but his black hair held a hint of silver and there were creases around his eyes. Life lines. Worry? Laughter? Who could tell?
He was smiling now, though, and the creases fitted, so maybe it was laughter.
He was caring for his niece single-handedly. He was also the face of medicine for the entire valley.
Her research told her the hospital had a huge feeder population. This was a popular area to retire and run a few head of cattle or grow a few vines. Retirees meant ageing. Ageing meant demand for doctor’s services.
Hence the hint of silver?
Or had it been caused by tragedy? Responsibility?
Responsibility. Family.
He wasn’t her type at all.
Meanwhile he seemed to be waiting for an answer. Joe had handed him her chart. He’d read it and was now looking at her expectantly. What had he asked? For some reason she had to fight to remember what the question had been.
Was she feeling better? She’d just answered herself. Now she had to answer him.
‘I’m good,’ she said, and then added a bit more truthfully, ‘I guess I’m still a bit wobbly.’
‘Pain?’
‘Down to fell-over-in-the-playground levels.’
‘You do a lot of falling over in the playground?’
‘I ski,’ she said and he winced.
‘Ouch.’
‘You don’t?’
‘There’s not a lot of skiing in Wombat Valley.’
‘But before?’
‘I don’t go back to before,’ he said briskly. ‘Moving on … Polly, what happens next is up to you. We have a guest room made up at home. Ruby’s aching to play nurse, but if you’re more settled here then we’ll wait.’
Uh oh. She hadn’t thought this through. She’d demanded she stay in Wombat Valley. She’d refused to be evacuated to Sydney, but now …
‘I’m an imposition,’ she said ruefully, and his grin flashed out again. Honestly, that grin was enough to make a girl’s toes curl.
He wasn’t her type. He was not.
‘You’re not an imposition,’ he said gently. ‘Without you I’d be down the bottom of the Gap, and Christmas would be well and truly over. As it is, my niece is currently making paper chains to hang on your truly amazing Christmas tree. I advertised for a locum. What seems to have arrived is a life-saver and a Santa. Ruby would love you to come home. We’ll both understand if you put it off until tomorrow but the venom seems to have cleared. Joe tells me your temperature, pulse, all vital signs, are pretty much back to normal. You’ll still ache but if you come home you get to spend the rest of the day in bed as well. We have a view over the valley to die for, and Ruby’s waiting.’
His voice gentled as he said the last two words and she met his gaze and knew, suddenly, why his voice had changed. There was a look …
He loved his niece.
Unreservedly. Unconditionally.
Why did that make her eyes well up?
It was the drugs, she thought desperately, and swiped her face with the back of her hand, but Hugo reached over and snagged a couple of tissues and tugged her hand down and dried her face for her.
‘You’re too weak,’ he said ruefully. ‘This was a bad idea. Snuggle back to sleep for the day.’
But she didn’t want to.
Doctors made the worst patients. That was true in more ways than one, she thought. Just like it’d kill a professional footballer to sit on the sidelines and watch, so it was for doctors. Plus she’d had a childhood of being an inpatient. Once her diabetes had been diagnosed, every time she sneezed her parents had insisted on admission. So now … all she wanted to do was grab her chart, fill it in herself, like the professional she was, and run.
Admittedly, she hadn’t felt like that last night—with a load of snake venom on board, hospital had seemed a really safe option—but she did this morning.
‘If you’re happy to take me home, I’d be very grateful,’ she murmured and he smiled as if he was truly pleased that he was getting a locum for Christmas, even if that locum had a bandaged hand and a bandaged foot and was useless for work for the foreseeable future.
‘Excellent. Now?’
‘I … yes.’
‘Hugo, the wheelchairs are out of action for a couple of hours,’ Joe volunteered, taking back the chart and hanging it on the bed. Looking from Hugo to Polly and back again with a certain amount of speculative interest. ‘It’s so quiet this week that Ted’s taken them for a grease and oil change. They’ll be back this afternoon but meanwhile Polly can’t walk on that foot.’
‘I can hop,’ Polly volunteered and both men grinned.
‘A pyjama-clad, kimono-wearing hoppity locum,’ Joe said, chuckling. ‘Wow, Hugo, you pick ’em.’
‘I do, don’t I?’ Hugo agreed, chuckling as well and then smiling down at Polly. ‘But no hoppiting. We don’t need to wait. Polly, you’re no longer a patient, or a locum. From now on, if you agree, you’re our honoured guest, a colleague and a friend. And friends wearing battle scars won on our behalf get special treatment. Can I carry you?’
Could he … what?
Carry her. That was what the doctor had said.
She needed a wheelchair. She could wait.
That’d be surly.
Besides, she didn’t want one. There was no way she wanted to sit in a wheelchair and be pushed out feeling like a … patient.
She was a friend. Hugo had just said so.
But … but …
Those dark, smiling eyes had her mesmerised.
‘I’ll hurt your back,’ she managed. ‘I’m not looking after you in traction over Christmas.’
‘I’m game if you are,’ he said and his dark eyes gleamed. Daring her?
And all of a sudden she was in. Dare or not, he held her with his gaze, and suddenly, for this moment, Pollyanna Hargreaves wasn’t a doctor. She wasn’t a patient. She wasn’t a daughter and actually … she wasn’t a friend.
She was a woman, she thought, and she took a deep breath and smiled up into Hugo’s gorgeous eyes.
He wanted to carry her?
‘Yes, please.’
It was possibly not the wisest course to carry his new locum. His medical insurance company would have kittens if they could see him, he thought. He could drop her. He could fall. He could be sued for squillions. Joe, following bemusedly behind with Polly’s suitcase, would act as witness to totally unethical behaviour.
But Polly was still shaky. He could hear it in her voice. Courageous as she’d been, yesterday had terrified her and the terror still lingered. She needed human contact. Warmth. Reassurance.
And Hugo … Well, if Hugo was honest, he wouldn’t mind a bit of the same.
So he carried her and if the feel of her body cradled against him, warmth against warmth, if the sensation of her arms looped around his neck to make herself more secure, if both those things settled his own terrors from the day before then that was good. Wasn’t it?
That was what this was all about, he told himself. Reassurance.
Except, as he strode out through the hospital entrance with his precious cargo, he felt …
As if he was carrying his bride over the threshold?
There was a crazy thought. Totally romantic. Nonsense.
‘Where’s your car?’ she asked.
Polly’s voice was still a bit shaky. He paused on the top of the ramp into Emergency and smiled down at her. The sun was on her face. Her flaming curls had been washed but they were tousled from a morning on her pillow. She had freckles. Cute freckles. Her face was a bit too pale and her green eyes a bit too large.
He’d really like to kiss her.
And that really was the way to get struck off any medical register he could care to name. Hire a locum, nearly kill her, carry her instead of using a wheelchair, then kiss her when she was stuck so tight in his arms she can’t escape.
He needed a cold shower—fast.
‘No car needed,’ he said, and motioned towards a driveway along the side of the hospital.
At the end of the driveway there was a house, a big old weatherboard, looking slightly incongruous beside the newer brick hospital. It had an old-fashioned veranda with a kid’s bike propped up by the door. A grapevine was growing under the roof, and a couple of Australia’s gorgeous rosella parrots were searching through the leaves, looking for early grapes.
‘This is home while you’re in Wombat Valley,’ he told her. ‘But it won’t be what you’re used to. Speak now if you want to change your mind about staying. We can still organise transport out of here.’
‘How do you know what I’m used to?’ she asked and he grimaced and said nothing and she sighed. ‘So I’m not incognito?’
‘I don’t think you could ever be incognito.’
She grimaced even more, and shifted in his arms. ‘Hugo …’
‘It’s time to put me down. I can walk.’
‘You’re not walking.’
‘Because I’m Pollyanna Hargreaves?’
‘Because you have a snake-bitten ankle.’
‘And you always carry snake-bite victims?’
‘Oi!’ It was Joe, standing patiently behind them, still holding the suitcase. ‘In the time you’ve spent discussing it you could have taken her home, dumped her on the couch and got back here. I’ve work for you, Dr Denver.’
‘What work?’ Polly asked.
‘Earache arriving in ten minutes,’ Joe said darkly and glanced at his watch. ‘No, make that in five.’
‘Then dump me and run,’ Polly said and he had no choice.
Like it or not, he had to dump her and run.
Ruby was waiting. Sort of.
He carried Polly over the threshold and Ruby was sitting on the couch in the front room, in her shorts and shirt, bare legs, tousled hair—she’d refused to let him braid it this morning—her face set in an expression he knew all too well. Misery.
He could hear Donna in the kitchen. Donna was a Wombat Valley mum. Donna’s daughter, Talia, was Ruby’s age, and Donna’s family was just one of the emergency backstops Wombat Valley had put in place to make sure Hugo could stay here. He stood in the living room doorway, Polly in his arms, and looked helplessly down at his niece. When she looked like this he never knew what to say.
‘We have a guest,’ he said. ‘Ruby, this is Dr Hargreaves.’
‘Polly,’ said Polly.
‘Why are you carrying her?’
‘She was bitten by a snake. I told you.’
‘She’s supposed to be working,’ Ruby said in a small voice. ‘And we’re supposed to be at the beach.’
‘Ruby …’
‘It’s the pits,’ Polly interrupted. She was still cradled against him but she sounded ready to chat. ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry,’ she told the little girl. ‘But we should blame the snake.’
‘You should have been wearing shoes,’ Ruby muttered, still in that little voice that spoke of the desolation of betrayal. Another broken promise.
‘Yes,’ Polly agreed. ‘I should.’
‘Why weren’t you?’
‘I didn’t know I was planning to meet a snake, and it didn’t warn me it was coming. They should wear bells, like cats.’
Ruby thought about that and found it wanting. ‘Snakes don’t have necks.’
‘No.’ Polly appeared thoughtful. ‘We should do something about that. What if we made a rule that Australian snakes have to coil? If we had a law that every snake has to loop once so they have a circle where their neck should be, we could give them all bells. How are you at drawing? Maybe you could draw what we mean and we’ll send a letter to Parliament this very day.’
Ruby stared at her as if she was a sandwich short of a picnic. ‘A circle where their neck should be?’ she said cautiously.
‘If you have a skipping rope I’ll show you. But we’d need to make it law, which means writing to Parliament. How about you do the drawing and I’ll write the letter?’
Ruby stared at her in amazement. In stupefaction. The desolate expression on her face faded.
‘“Dear Parliamentarians …”,’ Polly started. She was still ensconced in Hugo’s arms, but she didn’t appear to notice her unusual platform, or the fact that her secretary wasn’t writing. ‘It has come to our attention that snakes are slithering around the countryside bell-less. This situation is unsatisfactory, not only to people who wander about shoeless, but also to snakes who, we’re sure, would be much happier with jewels. Imagine how much more Christmassy Australia would be if every snake wore a Christmas bell?’
She giggled.
It was the best sound in the world, Hugo thought. For twelve long months he’d longed to hear his niece giggle, and this woman had achieved it the moment she’d come through the door.
But the giggle was short-lived. Of course. He could see Ruby fight it, ordering her expression back to sad.
‘You’re still spoiling our Christmas,’ she muttered.
‘Not me personally,’ Polly said blithely, refusing to sound offended. ‘That was the snake. Put me down, Dr Denver. Ruby, can I share your couch? And thank you for putting up my Christmas tree. Do you like it?’
‘Yes,’ Ruby said reluctantly.
‘Me too. Silver’s my favourite.’
‘I like real trees,’ Hugo offered as he lowered Polly onto the couch beside his niece. ‘Ones made out of pine needles.’
‘Then why didn’t you put one up?’ Polly raised her brows in mock disapproval. She put her feet on the floor and he saw her wince. He pushed a padded ottoman forward; she put her foot on it and she smiled.
It was some smile.
‘I know,’ she said, carrying right on as if that smile meant nothing. ‘You meant to be away for Christmas. That’s no excuse, though. Trees are supposed to be decorated ages before Christmas. And you put all the presents for everyone from your teacher to the postman underneath, wrapped up mysteriously, and you get up every morning and poke and prod the presents and wonder if Santa’s come early. It’s half the fun.’
There was another fail. Add it to the list, Hugo thought morosely, but Polly had moved through accusatory and was now into fixing things.
‘There’s still time,’ she said. ‘Ruby, we can do some wrapping immediately. I’m stuck with this foot … Who’s in the kitchen?’
‘Mrs Connor,’ Ruby muttered. ‘She’s cooking a Christmas cake ‘cos she says if we’re staying here we might need it.’
‘Mrs Connor?’ Polly queried.
‘Talia’s mum.’
‘Talia’s your friend?’
‘Talia’s at her grandma’s place, making mince pies,’ Ruby told her. ‘She said I could come but I didn’t want to. I don’t have a grandma any more. My mum’s dead too.’
But, despite the bleak words, Ruby was obviously fighting not to be drawn in by Polly’s bounce. Hugo was fighting not to be drawn in, too. Polly was … magnetic. She was like a bright light and the moths were finding her irresistible.
What was he on about? He had work to do.
‘I need to get on,’ he said.
‘I know. Earache.’ Polly gave him a sympathetic smile. ‘You could introduce me to Mrs Connor. Maybe she doesn’t need to stay once her cake’s cooked. Ruby and I can cope on our own. Do you have Christmas wrapping paper?’
He did get the occasional thing right. ‘Yes.’
‘Excellent. If you could find it for us …’
‘We don’t have anything to wrap,’ Ruby said.
‘Yes, we do. Have you ever heard of origami?’
‘I … no,’ she said cautiously.
‘It’s paper folding and I’m an expert.’ Polly beamed. ‘I can make birds and frogs that jump and little balls that practically float and tiny pretend lanterns. And I can make boxes to put them in. If you like I’ll teach you and we can make presents for everyone in Wombat Valley. And then we’ll wrap them in newspaper and make them really big and wrap them again in Christmas paper so no one will ever guess what’s in them and then we’ll stack them under the tree. Then we’ll have presents for everyone who comes to the house or everyone in hospital or everyone in the main street of Wombat Valley if we make enough. Good idea or what, Ruby?’
‘I … I’ll watch,’ Ruby said reluctantly and it was all Hugo could do not to offer Polly a high five. I’ll watch … Concession indeed.
‘Then find us some wrapping paper and be off with you,’ Polly told him. ‘Ruby and I and Mrs Connor can manage without you.’ And then she hesitated. ‘Though … can you find me my jelly beans? They’re in my holdall. And is there juice in the fridge?’
She was a diabetic. Of course. What was he thinking, not worrying about sources of instant sugar. Hell, why hadn’t he left her in the hospital? And as for telling Donna to go home …
The weight of the last year settled back down hard. Two responsibilities …
But Polly was looking up at him and suddenly she was glaring. ‘Do not look like that,’ she snapped.
‘Like what?’
‘Like I’m needing help. I don’t need help. I just need things to be in place.’
‘If you have a hypo …’
‘If I have my jelly beans and juice, I won’t have a hypo.’
‘How do you know? The snake bite …’
‘Is your uncle a fusser?’ Polly demanded, turning to Ruby. ‘Does he fuss when you don’t want him to?’
‘He makes me have a bath every single day,’ Ruby confessed. ‘And I have to eat my vegetables.’
‘I knew it. A fusser! Dr Denver, I will not be fussed over. A bath and vegetables for Ruby are the limit. I will not let you fuss further.’
‘He’ll get grumpy,’ Ruby warned.
‘Let him. I can cope with a grump.’ And she tilted her chin and looked up at him, defiance oozing from every pore.
His lips twitched—and hers twitched in response.
‘Jelly beans,’ she repeated. ‘Juice. Earache. Ruby—swans, lanterns, frogs?’
‘Frogs,’ Ruby said, watching her uncle’s face.
He wasn’t grumpy. He wasn’t.
Maybe he had been a bit. Maybe this year had been enough to make anyone grumpy.
‘Earth to Dr Denver,’ Polly was saying. ‘Are you reading? Jelly beans, juice, earache. Go.’
There was nothing else for it. A part of him really wanted to stay and watch … frogs?
Earache was waiting.
He had no choice. The demands on a lone family doctor were endless, and he couldn’t knock patients back.
Back in Sydney he’d been at the cutting edge of thoracic surgery. Here, his life was so circumscribed he couldn’t even watch frogs.
And he shouldn’t even watch Polly.