He grinned at that. ‘Anyone in their senses would run a mile from a good dose of chickenpox.’

She chuckled. This felt good, she thought. More. It felt great. She could work with this man. She could even enjoy herself. For the next month…

‘Would you be prepared to give an anaesthetic for minor surgery?’ he asked, almost as if he was echoing her thoughts about them working together.

She nodded. ‘Sure. Um…what needs doing?’

‘I have a middle-aged farmer with a hernia who’s desperate for an operation,’ he told her. ‘Francis is almost totally incapacitated by a hernia in his groin, but he’s scared silly of city hospitals. He has it in his head that if he leaves here he won’t come back. So he puts up with a hernia that makes him an invalid. For nothing. With a competent anaesthetist I could fix it in my sleep. If you’re here…’

‘You may as well make use of me, huh?’

‘That’s what I intend.’

Silence. Contented silence. Jake flicked the radio on, and something soft and happy drifted over the airways. On Kirsty’s left was the sea, glistening sapphire, broken only by a battered blue fishing boat chugging ponderously back to harbour.

‘This is heaven,’ she whispered, and Jake glanced at her with a strange look.

‘As you say.’

‘It really would be a fantastic place to bring up kids.’

‘That’s why I’m here.’

She hesitated. They were nearing the castle now, and the car was slowing. ‘What do you intend doing now?’

‘This afternoon?’

‘Yes.’

‘Dropping you at the castle, collecting the Boyces, the twins and Boris and taking them all home,’ he said promptly.

‘But you have more work to do.’

‘Yes, but you’ll be back at the castle to take care of Angus and Susie, so there’ll be no need for Margie to stay. Margie will take care of everyone back at the hospital residence.’

‘You live in the hospital residence?’

‘Yes.’

‘Would you like to leave everyone at the castle for the rest of the afternoon?’ she said impulsively, thinking of the pile of food she’d seen in Angus’s freezer. ‘Come back when you’ve finished work for the day and I’ll cook you all dinner.’

His face stilled.

‘No,’ he said brusquely. ‘Thank you.’

She stared. His tone had changed so dramatically that she was reminded of their first conversation, when he’d thought she and Susie were here after money.

‘What have I said wrong?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Wouldn’t you like to have dinner with m-with us?’

There was a moment’s hesitation. ‘Kirsty, I may as well say this straight out,’ he said bluntly. ‘It might sound dumb to state this so early, but I don’t want you getting the wrong idea. I don’t have relationships with women. My twins need all my attention and I can’t mess them around.’

Silence.

More silence.

Her jaw seemed to hit her ankles. Lower. As a statement it was as effective as a wash of cold water, seemingly just as shocking.

‘You don’t have relationships with women?’ Kirsty said at last, carefully, as if not trusting her voice. She didn’t trust her voice.

‘The twins and I manage very well by ourselves,’ he told her. ‘I’ve made a resolution not to mess with their lives by getting involved. I’m a dad first and foremost. Then I’m doctor to this district. My sex life comes a sad last.’

Her jaw dropped a bit more. Count to ten, she told herself fiercely. One, two…

She didn’t make it.

‘You don’t have relationships with women,’ she repeated, and he’d be a dope if he hadn’t heard the anger surging in her voice. They’d arrived at the castle gates. He’d drawn to a halt and hit the remote that had the gates swing open. But he had to stop while they opened. ‘What exactly do you mean by relationships?’ she asked.

‘You know.’

‘I don’t know,’ she snarled. ‘I’ve been working with you for the last hour. Does that define a relationship?’

‘No, I-’

‘I’ve been talking to you. I’ve been daring to impose on your personal space by making you talk back. You even smiled a couple of times. Does that constitute a relationship?’

‘You know very well what I mean.’ He looked flustered.

She thought, Good!

‘So you’re scared of coming to dinner with me and my sister and Angus and the twins and the Boyces and Boris. You’re scared because that’ll cause what you call a relationship. You’re terrified that halfway through pudding I’ll jump over the dining table and rip your clothes off.’

‘Don’t be-’

‘Melodramatic?’ she flung at him. ‘Of course I won’t be melodramatic. Don’t you think it’s you who’s being just the faintest bit melodramatic, deciding that a casual invitation to you means I’m after your body? And don’t you think that you’re being just the tiniest bit insulting? You know nothing about me, Dr Cameron. For all you know, I may have a husband and six kids back home in Manhattan, and here you are suggesting that not only am I propositioning you but I’m betraying my…my darling husband’s trust. Not to mention all the little rug-rats that my husband is caring for while I cart my sister halfway around the world.’

‘Are you married?’ he asked, startled at her not-so-coherent outburst, but she was already out of the car.

‘That’s none of your business,’ she snapped. ‘Oh, it might be if I was propositioning you, but, believe it or not, incredible as it might seem, I’m not propositioning you at all. So you can take your dinner invitation and shove it, Dr Cameron. We do not have a relationship. No relationship. Nix.’

‘Kirsty…’

‘What?’ It was practically a snarl.

‘Will you still do the hernia with me tomorrow morning?’

No apology, then. Did he really think she was making a pass at him? Of all the…

Swallow your anger, she told herself frantically. She was stuck here and she really wanted to do some medicine. She’d been bored for a month in Sydney. She didn’t want to be bored here.

Swallow your pride.

‘We can do your hernia if we stand at separate ends of the table and have an interpreter in the middle,’ she muttered. ‘After all, we can’t talk if we don’t have a relationship, and you’re setting the rules. No relationship.’

‘Kirsty, I’m sorry.’ Finally an apology, she thought-but not a very good one.

‘So am I,’ she snapped. ‘Because we might just have had a very nice dinner tonight. All of us. It might just have been what everyone needed. And we might just have had a decent working relationship. But it’s not going to happen.’

She slammed the car door. Hard. She stomped into the castle forecourt. She could hear voices-laughter-coming from the kitchen gardens but she wasn’t stopping to investigate.

She disappeared fast to her bedroom, she slammed the door and she didn’t emerge until she heard Jake’s car disappear down the road.

He’d gone. Taking his encumbrances with him.

Good.


Had he been stupid?

Jake worked for the rest of the day with a sense that he’d been an idiot. A huge idiot. A dinner invitation extended to all his family and hangers-on, and he’d reacted as Kirsty had said-as if she’d launched herself at him with the intention of ripping his clothes off.

So he had overreacted just a tad. Just a little.

But in a sense he knew he hadn’t.

Evening surgery was boring. Coughs, colds, requests for repeat prescriptions, Mrs Bakerson’s ever-troublesome knee, which responded only to fifteen minutes listening to how much trouble her kids were…there was nothing there to distract him from what he was thinking about.

He was thinking of Kirsty.

She was gorgeous.

She mightn’t be thinking about relationships, he thought ruefully, but he definitely was. He just had to look at her-listen to her-watch the gentle way she interacted with Angus and with Mavis-and he wanted to take this further.

But she was married…

No, she wasn’t married. She’d just thrown that into the ring to make him feel even more stupid about his repudiation of her dinner invitation.

It hadn’t been a stupid repudiation.

She was a lovely, vibrant doctor with the world at her feet. She was building her career in Manhattan. She’d see her sister safely delivered and then the two of them would be off back to their life in the States.

Leaving him…

‘Can you look at my big toe while I’m here?’ Connie Bakerson was asking. ‘The toenail’s cutting in. You reckon I need an operation?’

He examined Connie’s big toe with all seriousness. Diagnosis was easy. That was one of the good things about being a country doctor. He got the whole picture. Despite her troublesome knee, Connie and her husband spent every spare minute indulging their passion for line dancing. He’d noticed the appalling stiletto cowboy boots she wore, and he’d expected trouble ever since.

But he was still thinking about Kirsty. If he let himself fall in love…

How could he? There was no future in loving anyone except his twins. His girls were totally dependent on him, and he had little enough time for them now. If he spent the next few weeks falling in love with Kirsty and then she left…

Maybe he was being dumb, but he saw nothing down that road except heartache.

‘You’re not very chatty,’ Connie commented, and he hauled himself to attention with an effort.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘You’ll be thinking of those young ladies out at the castle,’ Connie said with sudden perspicacity. ‘Isn’t it great that they’re here? Everyone’s talking about it. One of them pregnant with our Angus’s great-nephew, and the other a doctor. What a combination.’ She tugged her sock onto her foot and beamed. ‘Wouldn’t it be great if they stayed? Great for Angus. Great for you.’

‘Why great for me?’

‘Well, one of them being a doctor, of course,’ Connie said, astonished. ‘I hear she’s already been out on a house-call with you and the locals are saying she’s lovely.’