Return of Dr Maguire (Mills & Boon Medical) (12 page)

Only a day or two ago he’d vowed that Christa was the last person he should become involved with—not just because of their families’ entwined histories but because he wasn’t going to be ruled by his mother’s wishes and ever ask Christa to marry him. And he still believed that, didn’t he? Then he thought of the photos he’d found in his mother’s desk and their poignant words on the back:
My darling son
.

An ache for something once cherished and lost for ever overcame him. Perhaps after all his mother had only wanted the best for him—and yet he still shied away from that complete commitment to another person, was still sceptical of the ‘Till death do us part’ bit. He’d seen how breaking vows could lead to broken lives.

Christa stirred in his arms and opened her eyes, looking into his, and smiled sleepily.

‘Hello,’ she murmured. ‘That was...wonderful, wasn’t it?’

He held her close to him and kissed her tousled hair. ‘Yes,’ he whispered. ‘Quite wonderful.’

* * *

It was late, very late, when Lachlan left. Christa walked slowly through the living room into her bedroom, her heart dancing with a happy excitement she hadn’t felt for a very long time. She saw the photo of Colin on his wedding day, and picked it up, looking at it scornfully.

‘I don’t need the memory of you any more, Colin Maitland,’ she said calmly. ‘I’ve my own life to lead now, without your shadow hanging over me.’

She dropped it in the waste-paper basket and went to bed. Christa enjoyed the best sleep she’d had for many weeks.

* * *

Alfie Jackson sat bellowing loudly on his grandmother’s knee in front of Christa. His eyes were round and frightened behind wire-rimmed spectacles and his mouth a large wide ‘O’. He was three years old and dressed in a policeman’s uniform, the helmet sitting crookedly on his head. He looked utterly adorable, and completely inconsolable, holding one hand tightly in the other.

‘So what happened, Mrs Pye?’ asked Christa loudly above the noise.

Mrs Pye, plump and flustered, said helplessly, ‘I feel so guilty. I’m supposed to be looking after the little lad today—my daughter’s got this interview for a part-time job this afternoon. I was getting Alfie ready for a party and he opened a cupboard to get something out and then slammed it on his finger! It looks so sore and I don’t know what I can do...’

Alfie turned and buried his face in his grandmother’s ample bosom, sobs shaking his little body. In between the sobs could be heard the words ‘Not my fault...the door hurt me!’

‘Of course it’s not your fault, Alfie!’ soothed Christa. She came round the desk and bent down beside him. ‘Won’t you just let me have a little peep at this poorly finger, sweetheart?’

Predictably, more screams and Christa sighed inwardly. It had been quite a gruelling day, including a quick dash over to see the old shepherd, Fred Logan, who’d developed a urinary infection and had been taken to hospital. He’d needed a lot of persuasion to do that! Dealing with a frightened child in great pain was going to be even more difficult. She pulled open a desk drawer and pulled out a small toy car, wound it up and placed it on the floor, where it proceeded to flicker and whirr, with lights flashing on and off as it whizzed round the room.

‘Look at that, Alfie—look!’ cried Christa, above the child’s sobs.

A very quick peep from his grandmother’s bosom, and then a more prolonged stare as the toy banged into the wall, somersaulted and started off again. In those few seconds Christa managed to prise Alfie’s hands apart and saw for herself the little boy’s blackened nail and swollen finger, incongruous on that small, chubby hand.

She winced. ‘That is one sore little finger,’ she said to Mrs Pye.

‘I suppose it’ll have to be drilled, won’t it, Doctor? Oh, dear, I don’t think I could bear to watch...’

‘I can do something much more quickly and more accurately than that,’ Christa assured her. She lifted the internal phone and pressed the button for Lachlan’s room. ‘Have you got a minute? And a match or a lighter?’

In the few seconds it took for Lachlan to appear Christa had taken a needle out of a packet and a pair of tweezers from a box in her drawer. Mrs Pye looked nervously at her.

‘Wouldn’t it be better to take Alfie to hospital and give him an anaesthetic?’

‘If we can release the pressure now, before the blood begins to clot, it will be instant relief. By the time you get to hospital it would be too late to do much,’ explained Christa.

Lachlan came into the room, his imposing figure somehow reassuring, his eyes taking in the scene at a glance then coming to rest on Christa. Their gazes locked for a heart-stopping moment, but even in that moment she could read the messages of desire and need in his eyes, the memory of Lachlan’s body moulded to hers, his hands caressing her, bringing her to fever pitch coming back to her in graphic detail... What a difference a night had made! A rush of adrenalin flickered through her, made her pulse start to race.

She was brought back down to earth as Lachlan turned to Mrs Pye and Alfie, and said briskly, ‘‘I thought I could hear a young man in pain over the intercom. What’s happened?’

Christa pulled herself together, almost ashamed that she’d allowed thoughts of their lovemaking to intrude on her professional life.

‘Alfie’s got a subungual haematoma on his finger,’ explained Christa succinctly.

Lachlan winced. ‘Ooh, poor little chap, that’s very nasty. But, as Dr Lennox has no doubt told you, we’ll soon have him right as rain again. Here’s the matches. I pinched them from the kitchen.’

‘Now, Mrs Pye, I want you to hold Alfie very firmly,’ instructed Christa. ‘I’ll hold his hand and if we keep it steady, it’ll take literally a few moments.’

Mrs Pye gave a faint squawk of horror. ‘I hope I don’t faint,’ she quavered, her eyes on stalks as she watched Christa strike a match and Lachlan hold the pin with the tweezers in the flame until the tip of the pin glowed red.

Alfie redoubled his screams, but Christa held his hand in a vice-like grip while Lachlan pressed the red-hot pin firmly onto the blackened fingernail. There was a slight hiss and a faint trace of smoke as the pin burnt through the nail and a tiny globule of blood appeared through the hole.

Christa bound the small finger with a gauze strip. ‘I can guarantee that it’s hardly hurting at all now. Am I right, young man?’

A few residual sobs from Alfie, and then he looked down at his covered finger. ‘Is it better now?’ he asked.

‘It will heal very quickly. You can even go to your party now if you want to!’

‘Well, I’m blessed!’ murmured Mrs Pye in awestruck tones. ‘Can you credit it, just a pin and a match!’

Christa smiled. ‘We aim to please—but don’t try it at home.’

Mrs Pye shuddered. ‘Certainly not!’

The little boy slid off his grandmother’s knee, his policeman’s helmet at a rakish angle over his brow, and Lachlan crouched down beside him.

‘You’ve been a very brave policeman,’ he said. ‘It so happens we give medals for brave policemen, don’t we, Dr Lennox? You’re a hero, Alfie!’

He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a metal badge with ‘Bravery Award’ imprinted on the front and stuck it on Alfie’s little jacket. Alfie looked down at it and then a beam split his round face.

‘Am I?’ he said, looking at Lachlan round-eyed, and then turned to his grandmother. ‘I’m a hero, Grandma!’

Lachlan ruffled the little boy’s hair and smiled. ‘Enjoy your party.’

Mrs Pye smiled tremulously at the two doctors. ‘Oh, thank you so much, I’m really grateful. Come on, Alfie, love.’

She took the little boy’s hand and they walked out, an incongruous couple—the large elderly lady and a very small policeman, now chattering happily to his grandmother.

‘A very different child from the one who came in,’ observed Christa. ‘You’ve made a friend of that young man!’

Lachlan smiled. ‘It was a job well done,’ he commented. ‘They call it “trephining”, don’t they? A neat little trick!’

‘Did it on a short course called “Surgery on a Shoestring”.’ She grinned.

‘Very droll...’ He caught her arm as she went past him to the desk and swung her towards him. ‘Christa...about last night...’

She gazed at him innocently, but a smile quivered at the corners of her mouth. ‘What about last night?’

He grinned and ran his finger down her cheek. ‘Don’t be a minx...and why do you look so unutterably gorgeous? You should look exhausted after what we did last night...’

‘I slept rather well,’ Christa said demurely.

‘Well, among other exciting things, last night you said you’d help me with ideas for the house—don’t forget about it! Perhaps you could come over one Saturday or Sunday and we could have a walk and eat a pub lunch after you’ve had a look at things?’

It sounded idyllic—so unlike the weekends over the past months, which, although there had been many fun times with friends, playing tennis or riding in the hills, had been without that thrilling excitement of being with someone who was the sexiest thing on two legs!

‘I might be able to manage that,’ Christa said gravely. ‘I’ll pop round with some sample pots of colour from the decorator’s shop in the village.’

Lachlan’s hand went behind her neck and he drew her to him, kissing her full on the lips. ‘I look forward to it very much indeed...’ He held her away from him, and his eyes twinkled at her. ‘Don’t let it be too long!’ Then he left the room.

Christa hoped her flushed cheeks had faded and that Alice didn’t notice anything untoward in her appearance when she came in a few minutes later with the post.

And then the phone rang, and it was the community nurse, Lorna, to say that Bessie Logan, alone in the cottage, had fallen after Fred had been taken to hospital, and although she was uninjured was finding it difficult to stand unsupported.

‘Bessie managed to ring her son, Ian, in Inverness, and he got hold of the rapid response team from the hospital, who came and got her up,’ explained Lorna. ‘She’s adamant she won’t go to hospital because she thinks Fred will be back soon and she must be there for him.’

‘I’ll come immediately,’ promised Christa. ‘Surgery’s nearly over and Lachlan can cover for me.’

On her way through the hills, back to the Logans’ for the second time that day, Christa started singing, filled with a joy of life that she hadn’t had for so long. She’d always loved her job—the variety of it, helping people through the highs and lows of their lives—but the sadness of Colin’s betrayal of her had tarnished that pleasure. How strange that a man she’d been determined to dislike should have changed her whole perception of life in a few hours!

She considered the Logans and the support they were going to need. Christa didn’t doubt that Bessie would not be at all eager to go into a retirement home, and immediate plans for her future would have to be discussed very tactfully when she arrived at Bessie’s.

Bessie was sitting up in bed, sipping a cup of tea and chatting with Lorna and three members of the rapid response team. Ian, her son, had also arrived, looking big and brawny in the small room, his face creased with worry.

‘Good to see you, Doctor,’ he said. ‘Mum and Dad have given us a bit of a fright today, what with Mum’s fall and Dad being taken in to hospital.’

Bessie looked frail and frightened. ‘I’m sure they’re going to send me to a home, but I don’t want to go, really I don’t,’ she said in a faint voice, her faded blue eyes looking pleadingly at Christa. ‘I’ll be all right. I just took a tumble, but I’ll be fine.’

She looked anxiously from Christa to the team and Christa went up and took her thin little hand, lying on the counterpane.

‘Don’t worry,’ Christa said reassuringly. ‘We’ll sort something out, Bessie. Nobody’s going to send you anywhere—only if you need nursing for a little while. How is your walking?’

‘I’m not too bad with a frame.’ Bessie sounded rather defiant, as if to tell them all that she could manage very well.

‘We think maybe she’s not been eating, with worry about Fred, and that could be why she’s a little weak,’ explained Lorna.

‘I think we’ll take some blood for anaemia and thyroid function,’ said Christa.

Ian stood by, twisting his cap in his hands and looking frustrated. ‘I’m concerned,’ he said in a low voice to Christa. ‘Mum being all alone in the hills here—it’s not satisfactory. I’d really like her to come home with me.’ He directed his words to his mother. ‘It would just be for a few days, Mum.’

‘But I need to be here for your father. He could come home any day.’

‘I don’t think he’ll be back for a week at least,’ said Lorna. ‘It’s going to take a bit of time to get on top of the infection he’s got. Would you not go back with Ian for a little while?’

Bessie tried again. ‘What about one of those disc things that you wear round your neck and can call someone if you fall?’

‘You’re still a long way away in the middle of the night, Mum. Please, you know I’ll worry so much if you’re by yourself.’ He turned to the others in the room. ‘I’d come and stay here but I’m in the middle of a new job—I don’t think it would go down well if I took time off.’

Bessie sighed. ‘Well, perhaps for just a few days, then. Just to get my strength back.’ She looked dolefully at Christa. ‘That Shona of his—she’s a bully, though!’

They all laughed, and Ian threw his eyes to the ceiling. ‘You need looking after, Mum. You’ve been working so hard here, and a bit of care and feeding up is what you need, and Shona’s looking forward to doing that!’

‘Well, when you come back we’ll put forward a plan for your needs,’ said Christa. ‘Hopefully Fred will be back then.’

Ian came out with Christa to the car. ‘It’s been difficult, Doctor,’ he said wearily. ‘I know she’s a wonderful old lady, but she can be as stubborn as an ox! I really think my parents would be much safer in a retirement home.’

‘No one wants to leave their own home, Ian—we can’t force her. We’ll assess their needs for long-term care when she’s come back here. Who knows, in the end she may see for herself that life is going to be very difficult looking after Fred and herself out here. Why don’t you and Shona start looking around homes to see what they’re like? Just groundwork really.’