Alan would have kittens…

‘I can go above her if you like,’ Nate suggested. She looked a real waif, he thought, sitting up in bed, hugging her knees, her deep black curls wisping over her eyes-the crazy red ribbon had given up the ghost and her curls were any which way. ‘I have friends who are higher in the medical establishment than your Margot.’

‘Yeah, right. So they’d get me my job back but I’d still have to work under Margot. Who’s impossible.’

‘That makes me feel better.’

‘Sorry? Feel better about what?’

‘About what I’ve done. You know, maybe it’s not such a satisfactory job.’

‘I know,’ she said bitterly. ‘But where else can I get on-site child care?’

‘Here.’

Here.

The one syllable took her breath away. She stared in open-mouthed astonishment. But Nate didn’t appear to notice.

‘It’s time to confess all,’ he told her, with an expression that said he didn’t feel guilty in the slightest about what he’d done. ‘You didn’t get the sack,’ he told her. ‘I saw which way the wind was blowing so you quit.’

He had her pole-axed. ‘I quit?’

‘It seemed the best thing to do. I could have told your dreadful boss that Terama was a five-hour drive from Sydney and that you had a snowball’s chance in a bushfire of getting there by ten. But then she would have just said you were sacked. So I thought it was better that you leave on the high ground. I told her you felt her attitude made your continued employment untenable and that your resignation would be faxed through by lunchtime.’

‘My resignation…’ Gemma was almost speechless.

‘Your resignation.’ Nate smiled. ‘You were quite up-pity,’ he told her. ‘Talk about holding the moral high ground…’

‘I was quite uppity?’ Oh, great.

His smile faded. ‘Gemma, there wasn’t any choice. You know there wasn’t.’ He hesitated as he watched her face. He was assessing her gathering anger. But he forged on, regardless. ‘I also rang a friend of mine who’s a Sydney barrister. I explained the situation. And I played him the tape…’

By now she was thoroughly confused. Angry but confused. ‘What tape?’

‘I taped the conversation.’

‘With Margot?’

‘That’s the one. I thought I’d better tape the conversation and I was right.’ His cheerfulness reasserted itself-the man was incorrigible. ‘And it’s great. When I told her Cady had collapsed with ketoacidosis Margot said that had nothing to do with her-or your employment. Women who didn’t keep their lives organised weren’t welcome on her staff. In fact, doctors with young children were a damned nuisance and if she had her way she’d sack the lot of them. Given her attitude, your resignation was inevitable and the discrimination board will love it.’

‘The discrimination board…’ She was so confused she could hardly believe her ears.

But Nate wasn’t confused in the least. He’d acted with ruthless purpose. ‘That’s right. Women with children have rights, too, you know. Mike-my lawyer mate-reckons the hospital will pay compensation so fast you won’t be able to blink. The tape itself isn’t admissible evidence but Mike knows-and the hospital administration knows-that it would severely embarrass them. He’s onto it now. He says you’ll have a cheque by the end of the month and if it’s not equal to a year’s salary or more, he’ll eat his wig.’

‘You’re kidding,’ she said faintly, and his smile blazed out in force.

‘Nope. I don’t kid about important things like this. So, can we move on?’

Move on? He’d just removed her pressing financial commitments. A year’s salary…

She could stay home and care for Cady.

‘You know, I don’t actually see how being a stay-at-home parent will solve your problems,’ he told her, and she blinked.

‘How do you know what I’m thinking?’

‘You have a very transparent face.’

Oh, great. The man really could read minds and the thought was frightening.

‘Well, you’re wrong,’ she snapped crossly. ‘It would solve my problems and I’d make a very good stay-at-home mum. Cady needs me so much.’

‘And… Let me see. It’s my guess you have a tiny hospital apartment?’

‘Yes, but-’

‘Now you’re no longer a hospital employee you’ll have to move. And without a crèche… Can you find playmates for Cady? Do you have many friends outside work?’

She caught her breath. ‘No. But I can find some.’

‘After you’ve found somewhere else to live.’

She started to snap back-and then she paused. He was right. She’d have to leave the hospital, and city apartments were expensive. Maybe if she looked in the outer suburbs she could find something. The thought was daunting.

‘Um… I don’t think I can afford much…’

‘What about this place?’

Here we go again. He was moving so fast he was taking her breath away. She stared at him across the room, then hauled her bedding up to her chin, hugged her knees and glared.

‘You’d better explain.’

‘It’s easy.’ Nate gestured around them at the magnificent bedroom. ‘This place is huge. We have six bedrooms. The doctor who built this was into palaces. He went bankrupt, by the way-but that was forty years ago so let’s not worry about him.’

‘Oh, right. Let’s not.’

‘But he left us this great place, and we’ve modernised it really well. The hospital’s a wonderful little set-up and the house is magnificent. We have a garden with huge trees-you can see them from here. They’re full of hiding places and are great for climbing. Graham brought his kids up here so the place is kid-proof and there are cubby houses and tree houses and swings and…’

‘Stop!’

But he wasn’t stopping. ‘Mrs McCurdle-our housekeeper-“does” for us, and she loves kids.’

‘What on earth…?’

‘And we’re desperate for another doctor.’

And there it was. Stunning in its simplicity.

We’re desperate for another doctor.

The words swam round and round Gemma’s head, like some crazy rhyme she couldn’t decipher the meaning of.

‘London Bridge is falling down…falling down…falling down…’

The nursery rhyme suddenly sounded really appropriate. Her sense of order was crumbling around her.

‘I’m an anaesthetist,’ she said at last, faintly, and he grinned.

‘Perfect.’ He beamed. ‘I’m a surgeon so it’s perfect.’

A surgeon. ‘You’re kidding.’

‘Would I kid about something as important as that? I’m actually Mr Ethan but that just confuses the locals. They want a family doctor so a family doctor they have. But I’m a fully paid-up member of the Australian College of Surgeons, so if you’ve an appendix you’d like to be rid of then call on me. I’m your man.’

Was Nate always laughing? He stood smiling down at her and it was all she could do not to throw something at him.

‘Will you be serious?’

And all of a sudden he was. ‘I’m deadly serious,’ he told her. ‘This place is screaming for another doctor. We’re desperate. Graham can’t do anaesthetics any more, so all our surgery has to go to the city. I’m run off my legs. I have no social life to speak of-’

‘Except for Donna.’ It was a stupid thing to say but she couldn’t help herself.

‘Donna fits in at the edges.’

‘Poor Donna.’ She glared at him. ‘This job offer… It wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that as of yesterday you have a daughter, would it?’

‘No, I-’

‘You think you’ll ask me to stay so that I can take care of Mia?’

‘No.’ His voice firmed on that one. And then that lurking twinkle appeared behind his eyes-as if he couldn’t help himself. ‘Though if you’re offering…’

‘No. I’m not offering. Do you intend to keep her in hospital for ever?’

‘I’ll take steps…’

‘What steps? You’ll marry Donna?’

‘I haven’t made up my mind about that,’ he said with a wounded dignity that still contained a trace of lurking laughter. ‘I’m working on it.’

‘By asking me to stay?’

‘No.’ And he was serious then. ‘No. I spent a large part of last night awake…’

‘As you would when you’ve just found out you’re a father.’

He ignored her. ‘And I thought about you.’

‘Me?’

‘You need to look after yourself.’

‘And I’ll do it by becoming a country doctor?’

‘There are worse fates. It’d give Cady the childhood he’s missing out on now.’

‘He’s not missing out…’

‘Gemma, face facts. He’s a little boy with special needs. More special now that he’s a diabetic. He’s lost his mum, as far as I know he doesn’t have a dad-all he has is you and you’re spending your life making enough money to support him. But if you moved here… Gemma, you could cut back your hours. Cady would be just through the door while you worked. Every time you stopped for a cup of coffee he’d be here. Mrs McCurdle would love him to bits-and he wouldn’t need to be separated from his baby sister.’

She glared even harder at that, latching onto his last point like a terrier to a bone. ‘I might have known we’d get back to Mia.’

‘She is Cady’s half-sister,’ he said gently. ‘You need to face it.’

‘But…’ She shook her head, trying to clear the gathering fog. ‘I don’t want to be a country doctor.’

‘Don’t you? Have you ever thought about it?’

‘No. I-’

‘You know, it’s not such a bad life. I came down for a few weeks to help Graham out-that was six years ago and I’m still here.’

‘I don’t-’

‘You don’t know.’ Nate smiled, his all-enveloping smile that had her heart doing things it had no business doing. ‘Tell you what. Why don’t you get yourself dressed, come out and join us for breakfast and then I’ll take you on a tour? We’ll go from there. One step at a time, Dr Campbell. What about it?’

And he smiled again and walked out of the room.


Join us for breakfast…

Join who?

Gemma had a long shower and tried to make her muddled mind process her overload of problems.