Not while he was here, she wouldn’t, he vowed. He could at least give her a few months’ respite. The only thing was-he had to keep his level of detachment on track.

Which was really, really hard. Like now…

‘Stand back for a bit, Em,’ he told her, and his voice sounded gruffer than usual, even to him. She needed breathing space to get herself together. Maybe she even needed to do what he suspected she might wish to-as Lori was doing-which was burst into tears.

As an emotional outlet it had a lot going for it, he decided. Strangely, he could use a few tears here himself!

‘Go out and radio the air ambulance,’ he told Em. ‘Tell them to upgrade because the need is urgent.’ What they needed here was a cardiologist, and intensive-care facilities. ‘Will you go on the plane with him?’

‘I can’t.’ It was an instinctive reaction, but then Em caught herself, thinking it through. Why not? Jonas was here now. She had another doctor to take over! ‘I guess I can,’ she said slowly. ‘If you’ll cover me.’ She looked ruefully down at her pale blue ensemble, and gave a wry smile. ‘Just lucky I go to bed decent. Will you feed Bernard? I’ll come back on the train in the morning.’

‘Go and pack, Lori,’ Jonas said, taking command as if he’d been born to it. ‘The hospital will provide gear for Raymond, and more things can be sent on later, but you’ll need a change of clothes and toothbrush for yourself. And, yes, Em, of course I’ll feed Bernard. It’ll be a pleasure to see if he’s actually alive.’

But Lori was looking wildly from Raymond to Jonas and then back to Raymond. At that moment, Ray’s eyes fluttered open. He saw her, his hand moved feebly and Lori’s hand caught his. And the thing was settled.

‘You need to go,’ Jonas said.

‘But there’s still Robby,’ Lori whispered, her eyes not leaving Ray’s. ‘The baby…’

Jonas sighed. A dog. A baby. What next? ‘I can cope,’ he told them both, and he made his voice firm.

Which was more than he felt. He could cope with a dog, he thought, but a baby?

What on earth was he letting himself in for?


Em arrived back at Bay Beach at midday on the following day.

Exhausted from the events of the previous night, she’d slept the entire journey. She woke as the train pulled into Bay Beach station, and when she emerged to daylight she was still feeling fuzzy and confused.

She was even more fuzzy and confused when she saw what was waiting for her on the platform.

Jonas was there, holding baby Robby. And with him were Sam and Matt and Ruby, and behind them, standing up like he hadn’t stood up in years, was one woolly Bernard.

Here, then, were Anna’s kids, and Em’s tiny burns patient. And her dog!

Jonas was standing in their midst like a modern-day Pied Piper. Robby was cradled in the crook of his left arm, looking around him with wide-eyed interest. Four-year-old Ruby was clutching her uncle’s spare hand as if her life depended on it, and Matt and Sam, six and eight respectively, looked just plain bewildered. But they were clutching Em’s dog in the same way Ruby was clutching her uncle.

Bernard was being useful?

‘Hi,’ Jonas said as if there was nothing abnormal in this reception in the least. ‘Nice train trip?’ He smiled at what she was wearing-the plain blue jogging suit he’d sent her off in last night. ‘Still wearing your pyjamas, I see.’

Em flushed. ‘I don’t own pyjamas. They only get me into trouble. And, yes, thank you, I had a very peaceful train trip, which was just what I needed.’

She looked down at the children and then back at him, but he’d stopped smiling and his face was inscrutable. In truth, he was having trouble with his emotions here. She looked so darned pretty-flushed from sleep and slightly dishevelled-and that damned jogging suit did look like pyjamas.

Concentrate on medicine, he told himself. Concentrate on the things which were really important. Which didn’t include his emotions!

‘Ray?’ It was a whole medical interrogation in the one word.

‘He’s still in Intensive Care.’ Em’s face clouded as she thought of her patient. ‘We got him safely to Sydney, but it was just as well I flew with him. He arrested again on the flight. There’s been some damage.’

‘Neurological problems?’ Had they reached him soon enough? Jonas wondered. He’d stopped breathing for about five minutes-long enough for there to be a lack of oxygen to the brain. Long enough for there to be real damage.

But Em was shaking her head. ‘There’s some heart scarring obvious, but no brain damage that we can see.’ Her face lightened with the thought. ‘That’s the one bright thing in this mess. He’s able to talk to Lori, and he knows what’s happened. But I suspect he’s in for a bypass at the very least.’

She sighed. ‘And I did warn him. For as long as I’ve been practising medicine here, I’ve been warning him. His cholesterol levels were way too high. He kept coming in for check-ups as if the check-ups themselves might help.’

‘And now he’s nearly lost everything.’

He had. The thought still made Em’s heart twist, and the urge to share it with Jonas was impossible to resist. She, who normally kept things to herself, found Jonas was a man to confide in. A friend?

Or something more.

‘Ray…Ray asked Lori to marry him,’ she told him, still taking in the sight of the children and dog around him, and with only half her mind on Lori and Ray back in Sydney. Jonas with children was enough to give any woman pause.

And so was the way he made her feel.

Concentrate on Ray and Lori…

‘He proposed half an hour before he collapsed,’ she said, and her voice was suddenly shaken with unexpected emotion. ‘But Lori knocked him back. She told him her kids came first. He’d brought her an engagement ring. It was in his pocket when he collapsed, and now she’s sitting beside him in Coronary Care wearing the damned thing like her life depends on it.’

‘Sometimes you have to nearly lose something to realise how much you value it,’ Jonas said gravely, and she looked sharply up at him. There was something in his voice that wasn’t right. He was under strain, too. Of course.

‘Anna?’

‘Anna’s being operated on as we speak.’

‘Oh, Jonas, you should be there with her.’

‘I can’t be in two places at once,’ he told her. He looked down at the kids and managed a smile. ‘Can I, kids?’ Then, as he got shaky smiles in return, he kept on speaking. ‘When Lori left, Anna decided to put off the operation. It was only by giving her my absolute assurance that we’d look after the children that she agreed to go ahead.’

He paused to let this sink in.

‘We?’ Em said carefully-and waited.

Another pause. And then those dangerous eyes twinkled.

‘We have a big house.’ He said it sort of hopefully-like an overgrown Labrador puppy might have spoken if it could speak-and Em couldn’t help but smile.

‘A big house?’ she repeated as if she didn’t understand what he was getting at. Although she understood only too well, and her heart was sinking. What had he let them in for?

But Jonas was assuming an air of innocence-and of virtue. ‘It’s a really big house,’ he said firmly. ‘Far too big for just you and me and Bernard.’

‘How did you get Bernard to his feet?’ Em asked, fascinated, and Jonas grinned.

‘The kids did that. They simply refused to take no for an answer. He’s been sighing like you wouldn’t believe, but every time he sits down the kids simply hoist him up again.’ His smile widened. ‘So you see-Bernard needs company.’ His smile faded then, assuming an air of uncertainty. ‘And I knew you’d want to look after Robby, anyway, Dr Mainwaring. So how could I not offer to look after everyone?’

Everyone. Bernard and Sam and Matt and Ruby.

And Robby.

There was the rub. Em looked at the little boy in Jonas’s arms and her heart twisted with pain for him. She was tired and confused. So much had happened. She needed space to think this through.

But Jonas was holding Robby out to her, and he was so little. He’d been so dreadfully injured, and he was so…

So much a part of her!

Help!

She didn’t mind offering to take on Anna’s children, she thought desperately, and she didn’t seem to have much choice about having Jonas in the house, but Robby was a different matter.

Robby was…well, Robby was just Robby.

Which was why she’d discharged him from hospital! Because this little one was bonding to her-and she was bonding right back. And here was Jonas stating calmly that they’d taken responsibility for him.

And for his sister’s children as well!

‘Have you contacted the head of the orphanage?’ she asked cautiously. ‘I’d assume their administration will have definite ideas on how Robby’s cared for.’

‘The other homes are full,’ Jonas told her. ‘Tom, the homes director, contacted me this morning. He says the only answer is to transfer Robby-and Anna’s kids if they need accommodation-to a home in Sydney.’

‘No!’

‘And I knew you didn’t want that,’ Jonas said blandly. ‘Neither does Robby’s aunt. She says cram him into another of the homes, but Tom refused to do that. So I thought if I offered to help you with Robby and Bernard…’

She had him worked out. ‘Then I might offer to help you with Sam and Matt and Ruby?’

‘That’s the one.’ He beamed. ‘Two days ago there was only one doctor in Bay Beach. Now there’s two doctors, but with four kids and a dog between them. Surely we can manage.’

‘And your childminding skills would be…?’

‘I can build sandcastles,’ he said virtuously, and she had to grin.

‘How about changing nappies?’

He sniffed at that. And then he sniffed again. ‘Uh-oh…’

‘Nappies aren’t your forte, then, Dr Lunn?’

‘That’s why we’re waiting on the station for you,’ he told her generously. ‘So you can share.’