And Jonas was talking as if the whole thing was a business proposition.

‘Tom’s going to want to know who’s intending to look after Robby,’ Lori snapped. ‘You’re not offering to be Robby’s daddy?’

‘No.’ But Jonas’s voice was suddenly uncertain. ‘Except…sometimes.’

‘This is crazy.’ Em interrupted them both from where she sat. ‘Just crazy! Lori, go home. The man’s talking nonsense.’

‘I’m not talking nonsense.’ Jonas’s voice firmed. ‘It could work.’

‘How could it work?’ Em’s voice was a desperate whisper, and Jonas gave a wry smile.

‘Hey, Em, there’s no need to get your knickers in a twist. I’m not offering human sacrifice here. I’m offering a business proposition.’

‘Which is?’

‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said, and for the first time a trace of uncertainty entered his voice. Like he was a little unsure himself why he was doing what he was doing. But he had been thinking things through. It did make sense. Sort of. ‘You know I was offered a teaching job overseas before I came here?’

‘Yes.’

Em cast an uncertain glance at Lori, but Lori was riveted. She was listening to a proposal of marriage. Lori should get herself out of here and leave them to it, but she didn’t look like she intended moving for quids!

And Jonas kept right on speaking. ‘I really want at least a part-time teaching job,’ he told Em, and he was ignoring Lori now, speaking directly to her. To his intended…wife? ‘I enjoy teaching,’ he told her. ‘I’ve been doing some in Sydney but there’s not enough for a full-time position. For the rest of the time I’ve been doing increasingly technical surgery, which I haven’t been enjoying much at all.’

‘I don’t-’

But he wasn’t brooking interruptions, and he was still focusing on Em. Trying to make her see.

‘Em, increasingly, my area of expertise is patient-surgeon interaction. In fact, I’ve written papers and presented theories on healing times improving with better communication.’ He gave a self-conscious grin. ‘And they do. I’ve been working through guidelines for surgeons to discuss with their patients before and after surgery, including such things as fear of outcome, fear of pain-even such things as family problems. Things many surgeons don’t think they have time for. That’s my soapbox, really, and it’s what’s important to me. The surgery itself, although important, is no longer my chief priority.’

‘I don’t see what this has to do with me.’ This was hard. Em could hardly find the strength to speak. What had he said? Marriage! She was rocking Robby back and forth, clutching him like a lifeline, and Lori was looking from Jonas to Em and back again with the alertness of a particularly interested sparrow.

‘Simply this.’ Jonas sighed. ‘I’ve been at a crossroads. I don’t want to work myself into the ground to become the world’s greatest vascular or any other specialist surgeon. But I’m being pushed that way in Sydney, and it’s taking all my time to keep up with the current technologies. That was why I accepted the teaching job overseas but, to be honest, I was still unsure about that. I thought, even though I didn’t want to be a specialist surgeon, I’d miss surgery-medicine-itself. Hands-on patient work. So I’d sort of like…’ He cast a quick glance at Em before he kept on speaking. ‘I’d sort of like to return to general surgery in the real sense. With maybe a bit of general practice on the side.’

‘You mean you do want to practise in Bay Beach,’ Lori breathed, and Em sent her a helpless glance. Good grief! She had an almost irresistible urge to drum her heels on the door and yell.

But she couldn’t. Jonas was still speaking.

‘I talked to Chris Maitland, the doctor who works south of here,’ he told her. ‘Did you know he’s a specialist anaesthetist?’

Em did. ‘Yes, but-’

‘He did the same as me,’ Jonas told her. ‘He became fed up with the lack of human contact in big city medicine, so he went back to general practice. But if I came here I wouldn’t have to give up surgery entirely, and Chris could resurrect his anaesthetics. I could do all the surgery for the district-we’d hardly have to use Blairglen-plus I could do a bit of general practice on the side. I could keep up my research and one or two days a week I could travel to Sydney and do my teaching.’

He frowned and he was looking inward, still thinking it through. Seeing possibilities…

‘And if I’m teaching through the training hospitals, I reckon I could get teaching status for this district. If we had interns on rotation, how much easier would that make life for everyone?’

How much easier?

It made Em’s mind go blank just to try to take it in. Jonas here, and first-year doctors rotating to do part of their training here as well…

Bliss!

But that wasn’t what they were talking about. They were talking about marriage.

‘I don’t-’

‘Hey, I’m leaving.’ Em had almost forgotten Lori’s presence, but now her friend leaned down and gave her a swift hug, including Robby in her embrace. ‘This is getting far too complicated for me. All I know is that you don’t want to give Robby up tonight.’ And she smiled warmly down into her friend’s eyes, sending her a silent message. ‘And you might not want to give him up-ever.’

‘Lori-’

‘Don’t be too hasty,’ Lori told her. ‘Listen to what the man has to say. And think about what you could get out of this.’

‘I wouldn’t-’

‘You might,’ Lori told her firmly. ‘I’m going. You just listen!’


Silence.

The silence went on and on and on. The echo of the door slamming after Lori seemed to reverberate for minutes, while Em sat and hugged Robby and tried to come to terms with what Jonas had just offered.

It still didn’t make any sense.

‘You want to stay here,’ she said at last. ‘Is that what it is?’

‘I want a base,’ he told her. ‘I’ve decided that. I like your kind of medicine. I’ve fallen for Anna’s kids in a big way. I see that her need of family will be ongoing, and this way-’

‘You could just work here,’ she said desperately. ‘Heavens, we need you enough. There’s no need for this ridiculous talk of marriage.’

‘No.’ His eyes turned thoughtful. ‘I didn’t think so either. But then there’s Robby. If I marry you, Robby will have a family.’

‘You don’t want to be Robby’s father. You just said so.’

‘I did,’ he admitted. ‘I don’t want to be anyone’s father.’ And then his voice changed.

He was watching Robby. Robby was very close to sleep. He’d been lying contentedly in Em’s arms, looking out at this bright wondrous world around him. Now he was snuggling close, his tiny lashes were fluttering closed and his little fist closed around Em’s fingers.

He was so damaged! The elastic bandages on his arm looked stark and white, real evidence of what was before him.

‘I don’t want him to stay in an orphanage,’ he said, and his voice was still changed-husky with emotion, and strained-as if he couldn’t believe what he was feeling, and he was fighting it every inch of the way.

‘You’ve fallen for him, too,’ Em said, watching his face, and he gave a reluctant nod.

‘Yes. I guess I have. He’s a brave little kid. So if by marrying you I could get him a home…’

‘That’s some sacrifice!’

He smiled at that, a wry, half-mocking smile. ‘Hey, you’re not that bad.’

But I’m not that good, Em thought desperately, and waited.

‘Would we live together?’ she asked curiously.

He raked his hair and thought about that for a bit. ‘I guess we’d need to if we were to formally adopt Robby, but I can’t see it as a problem. I’d be in Sydney a bit, and this house is plenty big enough for all of us. And if we had a trainee doctor living here as well, it wouldn’t get too personal.’

Not too personal!

Personal! A fate worse than death, obviously!

‘But this would be a long-term thing,’ Em said wildly. ‘You’d have to tell Tom you’d be prepared to be Robby’s father. If we…we, Jonas. Not me. If we were to adopt him then you’d need to be involved.’

‘I don’t see that. Not if he has you.’

She took a deep breath, fighting back the emotions surging around her so fast she felt her head was about to spin off her shoulders. ‘Jonas, I want Robby so badly it hurts,’ she told him. ‘But Robby needs a family.’

She closed her eyes, trying desperately to stay calm. To think clearly. Because what Jonas was offering was almost unbelievably tempting.

But she knew she couldn’t take it.

She had one small problem. And she had to tell him. The only way forward here was honestly, no matter how much pride was at stake.

‘Jonas, I think you should know that I’ve fallen in love with you,’ she said bluntly, and her eyes didn’t leave his face. ‘I think you should factor that into any equation you make. You see, I don’t think I could live in the same house as you-as your wife-and stay…impersonal.’

His face froze. He stared at her like she’d just uttered an obscenity.

‘You what?’

But the time for prevarication was over. There was only room for the truth.

‘I’ve fallen for you in a big way, Jonas Lunn,’ she told him, tilting her chin and meeting his look head on. With dignity and with courage. ‘So if you’re asking me to marry you-for keeps-then I’d say thank you very much, I’d love to, because I’d like nothing better than to be your wife. But I would be your wife, Jonas. In every sense of the word.’

‘Em!’ He was clearly flabbergasted.

‘Stupid, isn’t it?’ she said cordially. ‘Unprofessional. Self-destructive even. For me and for Robby. Because if I didn’t…love you…maybe I could accept what you’re offering.’

‘What I’m offering makes sense,’ he said explosively. ‘Whereas what you’re saying…’

‘Doesn’t make sense at all,’ she agreed.