He tried a glower to match Ally’s. ‘I can whinge if I want.’

‘Misery.’ She laughed and he was forced to smile as well. But he had to move on. ‘Come and have some champagne,’ she said, and he shook his head.

‘I have patients booked.’

‘They cancelled,’ she told him. ‘Everyone wanted to be at the party.’

‘Great. That’ll make my afternoon frantic.’

‘Do you have to be a grouch?’

‘I guess not.’ He was still watching Ally moving among the townspeople as if they were her family. She looked…happy, he thought, and suddenly he didn’t begrudge her a moment of it. Why should he?

This was nothing to do with him, he told himself. Five days ago he had been the sole doctor in this town, and nothing had changed. He had no right to try and impose a medical career on someone who didn’t want it. Sure, Ally’s path might be incomprehensible, but it was her path and she had the right to follow it.

It was none of his business.

It didn’t make him feel any better, though. He stood and watched her and suddenly he was washed with a surge of loneliness-of longing-a feeling so strong that it matched those he’d experienced in the first awful months after Rachel died. Six long years ago.

What the hell was he thinking of? He shook himself, pushing away sensations he didn’t understand.

‘I’ll do the house calls I couldn’t fit in last night,’ he told Betty, and she cast him a strange look.

‘OK, but be back by eleven.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I’ve booked you from eleven,’ she told him with exaggerated patience. ‘We don’t want to keep A-anyone waiting.’


Darcy did four house calls in two hours-all to patients who weren’t far from the hospital. He couldn’t go far because of Marilyn’s needs.

So he saw one influenza-well, head cold really, but if Rosie Lenmon wanted to insist it was influenza, he wouldn’t argue. He saw two elderly patients for routine checks and Bert Prine with quinsy. He admitted Bert to hospital, gave him intravenous antibiotics, analgesia and a lecture on not getting his affected throat seen to earlier-and then did a quick check on all his patients while he was there.

Everything was great. Marilyn was soundly asleep, which was what she desperately needed. The medical notes were written up for her transfer to Melbourne. She’d received such a fright that when she’d woken first thing this morning, she’d agreed without a single argument to whatever Darcy had suggested. Soon her daughter would arrive to accompany her on the Med-Flight-Transfer-and see she didn’t change her mind.

Kevin also was asleep. He was heavily sedated. He needed psychiatric help, Darcy thought, looking down at the little man in concern. As soon as his throat settled he’d talk him through the options.

Not yet. For now, sleep was the only answer. Sleep and food and kindness.

Maybe that was the only cure.

His last concern was Jody, and Jody was asleep as well. Margaret was sitting by her daughter’s bedside, eating a lamington that had been provided by the street-party revellers. When Darcy glanced around the door she looked as if she was in heaven. Darcy didn’t disturb her. It’d be a cruel thing, to interrupt a woman’s first association with a lamington in years.

The helicopter arrived then, landing behind the hospital, and Marilyn’s daughter arrived as well. The next half-hour was busy with organising the transfer. Finally as the doctors on board took over Marilyn’s care, he stood back to bid Sue the best of luck.

‘I wish I had time to thank Ally,’ Sue told him. ‘I came as fast as I could. But I need to go with Mum. You will thank her for me?’

‘Of course I will.’ He hesitated. It wasn’t the time or the place but… ‘You knew Ally when you were kids?’

‘We were best friends. She used to love coming to our place. Mum and Dad wanted to care for her when her grandpa died but then that creep of a father came to get her. Both her parents were living with that Jerry creature.’ She hesitated. ‘I can’t believe he’s turned up here after all these years. Mum rang me about him last night and I’ve been wondering whether the fuss pushed her into heart failure. She was so upset when Ally was put into foster care.’

‘Did you keep in touch with Ally?’

She shrugged, watching the paramedics lifting her mother’s stretcher into position. ‘We tried,’ she told him. ‘The first time Jerry was arrested, Ally was put into a foster home. Mum and Dad tried to see if we could have her but Social Services insisted on keeping all the kids from the commune together.’

‘Sue?’

The doctor on board was calling. Her mother was ready and Ally’s problems had to be put aside. She gave Darcy a rueful smile and then hugged him. ‘Thank you for giving me Mum back,’ she said simply.

‘Thank Ally.’

‘Hug Ally for me, too,’ she told him. ‘She needs all the hugs she can get.’


That was the end of Darcy’s medical imperatives. He walked back to his consulting rooms feeling as if he ought to be pleased, but he was vaguely uneasy. Why? The revellers had gone. He could get back to normal.

From now on he could ignore Ally, he told himself, medical qualifications or not.

She needs all the hugs she can get.

His dogs were trotting by his side. ‘Maybe I’ll lend her you guys,’ he told them.

They wagged their tails, as if in total agreement, and he felt a stupid, irrational surge of something that surely couldn’t be jealousy? Could it?

Jealous that she’d hug his dogs? He was going out of his mind.

Betty was waiting for him. She was sitting at reception and she had her arms folded, like she was guarding the entrance against unwanted intruders. She patted the dogs and pointed to their baskets, waiting until they’d obeyed the woman who was clearly more their boss than their designated master, and then she turned her attention back to Darcy.

‘You’re not wanted here,’ she told him.

‘As far as I know, this is where I’m expected to be,’ he said dryly, tossing his bag into the corner and reaching for his normal pile of patient notes. They weren’t there. ‘It’s eleven o’clock. I have appointments.’

‘You have an appointment,’ she corrected him. ‘One appointment. Singular.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Next door.’ She smiled at his look of bemusement. ‘It’s the town’s surprise. We talked about who was going to have first go. Gloria sneaked in while no one was looking, but we decided that Ally’s first real patient should be someone special. And after last night there was no question. So the town’s people have clubbed together and we’ve paid for Ally’s first massage. We’ve given it to you.’

He gazed at her as if he couldn’t see her. ‘To me,’ he said stupidly.

‘Now, don’t you dare tell us you won’t accept it,’ she said, making her voice severe. Which didn’t quite match her mischievous twinkle. ‘Even people who could barely afford it put twenty cents toward this. It’s the town’s gift to both of you. An hour and a half’s massage. No one’s booked here until two. Off you go next door, and don’t come back until you’re so relaxed you’re horizontal.’

‘You have to be kidding.’

‘I’m not kidding. Ally’s waiting.’

‘I’m not going to have a massage with Ally.’

‘Then half the town will have their feelings hurt and Ally won’t have a first client. Do you want that to happen?’

‘No, but-’

‘You’re afraid.’

‘Of course I’m not.’

‘Then what are you waiting for?’ she demanded. ‘Do you want to be known as a stubborn, cantankerous old stick-in-the-mud who’s refusing to admit that there might be some advantage in holistic remedies? Or are you going to accept this gift?’

‘You don’t think there might be some middle ground?’ he asked cautiously, and she shook her head.

‘Nope.’ She grinned. ‘There’s not. A dozen people have decided their medical problems aren’t so urgent that they can’t wait until after your massage, Dr Rochester. Now, if you intend to sit here and sulk…’

‘I’m not sulking.’

‘No,’ she told him, and rose from her desk and started to push him out the door. ‘You’re going next door. Ally’s waiting. Off you go. Right now!’

CHAPTER SEVEN

THEY hadn’t told Ally.

Stunned, Darcy was propelled by the insistent Betty up Ally’s front steps and through her front door.

‘Here’s your first client,’ Betty called up the stairs. She grinned at Darcy, then disappeared, slamming the door after her.

Ally appeared at the head of the stairs-and stopped.

‘You.’

He couldn’t think of a thing to say. Nothing.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘It seems,’ he managed, almost apologetically, ‘that I’m your first client.’ But he was having trouble saying anything.

Until now he’d only seen Ally in jeans. She was still casually dressed, but she’d changed. She was wearing baggy, three-quarter-length trousers, an oversized sweatshirt with the sleeves rolled up, and bare feet. Her hair was twisted into a casual knot. Her freckles were subdued with a tiny application of make-up, and her lips were painted the same soft pink as her sweatshirt.

She looked gorgeous.

He was staring.

‘What?’ she said crossly, as she hauled herself together and came on down. ‘Have I got a blob on my nose?’

He shook himself, trying to shed this overwhelming feeling of unreality. ‘Sorry. I was staring.’

‘I know you were,’ she said cautiously, as if she might be humouring a lunatic. ‘That’s why I was asking. So if I haven’t got a blob on my nose…’ She sighed and gave up. ‘OK. Let’s not go there. But for a moment I thought you said you were my first client.’

‘I am.’

She thought about it and finally she nodded. With caution. The lunatic approach obviously still had appeal.

‘You’re supposed to be working,’ she told him.