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‘How old?’
‘Sixty.’
This was better. ‘He’ll look after you?’
‘He’ll enjoy the challenge of getting the calves up to the house. Bonnie’s his dog. Any minute now he’ll be here to demand what I’ve done with her. So thank you, Dr Ashton. I’ll be right from here.’
He was dismissed.
For the last forty-eight hours all he’d wanted to do was get out of Yandilagong. He still did.
But he needed to see how competent this Angus person was, and how forceful. For all Maggie was struggling to pull herself from the car, she was looking paler and paler.
Placental bleeding? The two words had been playing in his head for half an hour now and they weren’t going away.
He might not have done anything closely related to obstetrics for six years, but the training was there and he knew what a strain a car crash could put on a placenta.
Archibald had kicked him. That was a good sign but he needed more. He wanted to listen to the baby’s heartbeat and then he wanted Maggie in hospital under observation.
And that bleak look on her face was etched into his mind. He couldn’t leave her. And even if he could…Still there was that tug he didn’t understand.
‘You’re not walking,’ he growled, and before she could resist he’d lifted her up into his arms again. He strode up through a garden that smelled of old-fashioned roses, where honeysuckle and jasmine fought for smell space as well, where tiny honeyeaters flitted from bush to bush and where noisy rosella parrots swooped in random raids to the banksias around the edge.
The garden looked neglected and overgrown but beautiful. The farmhouse itself was looking a bit down at the heel, in want of a good coat of paint and a few nails, but big and welcoming and homely.
Once again there was that wrench of something inside him. Like coming home. Which was clearly ridiculous. This was like no home he’d ever known.
He’d reached the top of the veranda steps and as he paused she wriggled out of his hold and was on her feet before he realised what she was about.
‘Thank you,’ she said, breathlessly, sounding…scared? ‘I can take it from here.’
Scared? Was she feeling what he was feeling?
He didn’t know what he was feeling.
‘Not unless there’s someone through that door to give you a strong cup of tea, then carry you out to a nice, safe non-tractor-type car and get you to hospital,’ he said, making his voice stern. ‘Can you tell me that?’ Even though she was standing, he was blocking her way through the door.
‘I can’t,’ she admitted. ‘But I don’t have a choice. Please, I can’t leave Gran.’
‘Then I can’t leave you.’ Neither, he realised bluntly, did he want to.
‘Maggie, is that you?’ The high, querulous voice came from inside, and without waiting for permission Max pushed it open.
The first thing he saw as he opened the door was a vast open fireplace filled with glowing embers, a burgundy, blue and gold carpet, faded but magnificent, great squashy settees and a mantel with two ornate vases loaded with roses from the garden. And jasmine and honeysuckle. The room was an extension of the garden, and the perfume was fabulous. Then, as his eyes became accustomed to the different light, he saw Gran. She was a tiny wizened woman, bundled in blankets on the settee, looking toward the door with obvious anxiety.
‘I’m okay, Gran,’ Maggie said urgently from behind him, and made to push past, but she stumbled on her bad leg. He caught her and held her against him, and she didn’t fight.
But suddenly Gran was lurching to the hearth to grab the poker. She turned toward him, but then fell back on her pillows, waving the poker, fright and feistiness fighting for supremacy.
‘Let her go.’ Her voice came out as a terrified rasp and he felt Maggie flinch and struggle again to get free.
The two settees in the living room were opposite each other, forming a corridor to the fire. He ignored the poker—there wasn’t a lot of threat when Gran didn’t seem to be able to stand—and moved to set Maggie down. Gran’s head and the poker were at the fire end. He set Maggie the opposite way, so the poker was away from his head.
‘He’s helping, Gran. Put the poker down,’ Maggie muttered, and he felt her tension ease a little. She was back in familiar territory now, even if it was did seem crazy territory. A tractor museum, roses, roses and more roses, and a poker-waving Gran.
‘What’s he doing here?’
‘He’s Dr Ashton,’ Maggie said, flinching as she moved her leg. ‘A doctor. Imagine that. Right when we need him.’
There was a lot to ignore in that statement, too. He released her onto the cushions, aware once again of that weird stab of a sensation he didn’t understand. Something that had nothing to do with a doctor/patient relationship.
Something that had to be ignored at all costs.
‘You do need a doctor, but not me,’ he growled, moving instinctively to load more logs from the wood-box to the fire. Thankfully Gran kept her poker hand to herself. ‘Maggie, you need hospital.’
‘I don’t.’
‘Your baby needs to be checked.’
‘I can’t leave Gran. I’ll put my stethoscope on my tummy and lie here and listen to him,’ she said. ‘That’s all I can do.
‘You have a stethoscope?’ he demanded, while the old lady rubbed her poker longingly, like she might still need it.
‘Yes.’
‘You’re a nurse?’
‘I’m a doctor.’
‘A doctor?’
‘They don’t all come in white coats,’ she said bitterly. ‘Or Aston Martins and gorgeous leather jackets.’
‘Maggie, tell me what’s going on.’ Gran was trying again to heave herself to a sitting position, gasping as if breathing hurt, and the fear was still in her voice.
‘Dr Ashton crashed into our truck.’
‘The calves,’ Gran said in horror, but Max was playing triage in his head, and calves were somewhere near the bottom.
Maggie was a doctor. A doctor!
The personal side of him wanted to take that aside and think it through, for all sorts of reasons he didn’t fully understand, but the professional side of him had work to do and wasn’t giving him time to consider. ‘So you’re a doctor,’ he managed. And you have a stethoscope?’
‘The calves are okay, Gran,’ Maggie said, seeming to ignore him. ‘Bonnie’s looking after them.’ Then she turned back to him. ‘Yes, there’s a whole medical kit in the back of the wagon. Enough to cope with anything from typhoid to snakebite.’ She winced again and lay back on the cushions, her hands instinctively returning to her belly. ‘And, yes, I’d appreciate it if you could get my stethoscope.’
He stared at her and she stared back. Defiance and fear mixed.
‘I’ll take you both to hospital,’ he said.
‘Over my dead body,’ the old lady said from the other settee.
‘Mrs Croft?’
‘I’m Betty,’ she snapped.
‘Betty, then,’ he said, and softened his tone. ‘I’m not sure what’s wrong with you…’
‘I’m dying.’
‘So are we all,’ he said without changing his tone. If she wanted histrionics she wasn’t going to get them from him. ‘Some faster than others. I gather you’re ill and I’m sorry. I also know that your granddaughter—’
‘Maggie’s my granddaughter-in-law.’
‘Your granddaughter-in-law, then,’ he said evenly, glancing back at Maggie and knowing he was right. ‘Maggie’s been in an accident and her baby needs to be checked. If the placenta’s damaged, there could be internal bleeding. The only way she can be checked is to have an ultrasound. If she doesn’t have that ultrasound the baby could die, and she could be in trouble herself. Betty, I’m sorry that you’re ill, but it’s true I’m a doctor and I have to sort priorities. Is it right that we risk Maggie’s baby’s life because you won’t go to hospital?’
‘We’re not risking…’ Maggie said, and he turned back to face her. He had to ignore emotion here and speak the truth.
‘If you really are a doctor, you know that you really are putting your baby at risk.’
She was torn. He could see it—he saw fear behind her eyes and he knew that she was desperately trying to hide it. Why?
‘We don’t have time to mess around,’ he said. ‘I should have insisted at the start.’
‘I can do an ultrasound,’ she said.
‘What, here?’
‘Not on myself.’ Her voice was suddenly pleading. ‘But there’s everything we need in my car. I know, it’s asking a lot, but if you could help…Gran doesn’t want to go to hospital and neither do I. If I must for my baby’s safety then of course I will, but there’s Angus as well and he’ll be so afraid. So, please, Max, can you do an ultrasound on me here and reassure me that things are okay?’
‘Why will Angus be afraid?’
‘Angus is my son and he’s disabled,’ Gran whispered, as Maggie fell silent. ‘He has Asperger’s syndrome. He’s not…he’s not able to cope with people. It’d kill Angus to leave the farm. He’s the reason I made Maggie come here. She’s promised me she’ll stay and she won’t break that promise. She’s a good girl, our Maggie.’
‘My baby comes first,’ Maggie muttered, looking trapped, and once again he caught that look of utter desolation.
‘Yes, but he’ll be okay and you’ll both look after Angus and the farm,’ Gran said. ‘I know you won’t leave. You’ll keep your word. I know you’ll stay here for ever.’
CHAPTER THREE
THIS was crazy. Worse than crazy, it was dangerous. No, she wouldn’t leave Gran and the unknown Angus, but maybe his responsibility was to pick both women up and take them to hospital regardless.
But he’d have to chain Gran into the car, he thought ruefully. Plus he didn’t know what facilities Gosland hospital had, and the long drive to Sydney was the last thing either of them needed.
But caring for an injured, pregnant woman at home…
And for him personally to have to check her baby…
Max was out on the back veranda, supposedly on his way to fetch Maggie’s gear from the back of her wagon. He’d taken a moment to phone Anton, his anaesthetist, to tell him that their more-than-competent registrar would be needed for the woman coming in with the hysterectomy complications. Now he was staring down at the river winding down to the sea, taking a second to catch his breath. And his thoughts.
Maggie would agree to hospital if there was a real threat to her baby. He knew it. The moment he’d laid it on the line—that they were risking the baby’s death—he could tell that both women would finally agree to go. Only there was such despair in the old lady’s eyes, and such a sense of defeat and fear on Maggie’s face, that he’d agreed to help them stay.
So all he had to do now was to find Maggie’s ultrasound equipment and turn into an obstetrician again.
No. Checking one baby didn’t make an obstetrician.
He wasn’t even delivering a baby. He was simply checking it was healthy, before heading back to the city to his very successful gynaecological practice—the surgery he was good at and that he could do without the emotional investment every pregnant woman seemed to demand of him.
The need to care.
Not that he didn’t care about his patients. He did. He gave excellent service, making the lives of the women who came to him much more comfortable. He was even saving lives.
He just didn’t do babies anymore.
Except this one.
This was insane. He should refuse to have anything to do with it.
Yet…the way she looked at him…
It was the craziest of reasons and yet he couldn’t let it go. She looked as trapped as he felt. More.
He didn’t know what was at stake here. He shouldn’t want to know, he reminded himself. Do not get personally involved.
Stay professional, he told himself harshly. Find the ultrasound equipment, make sure things are okay and then leave. An ultrasound was no big deal. It wasn’t like she was expecting him to deliver the baby.
That was really when he’d run a mile.
‘Is he really a doctor?’
‘He says he is and he knows all the right words.’
The open fire was wonderful, the room was warm, but Maggie was still shivering. Reaction, she thought. Nothing more. It couldn’t be anything like internal shock—caused by a bleed, say, from a torn placenta.
She had to fight the fear. But what was keeping him?
She had a sudden vision of Max in his beautiful car, heading back to Sydney, and she felt ill. But she wasn’t running after him this time. She trusted him.
She had no choice.
‘Where are my calves?’ Gran said fretfully.
‘The crate slid off the back of the truck. The calves ended up on the beach. Bonnie’s watching over them.’
‘Are you sure they’re okay?’
‘They’re fine.’ Hopefully they were.
‘How do you know? Of all the irresponsible…You only had to bring four calves less than ten miles.’ The old lady’s voice was querulous and Maggie looked at her sharply.
