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‘No one knows a whisper about his private life,’ Jacqui said. ‘He keeps work and play very separate.’
‘Probably a good idea,’ Molly said.
Jacqui grunted as she led the way to the staff change room. ‘There’s plenty of women around here who would give their eye teeth for a night out with him,’ she said. ‘It should be a crime to be so good looking, don’t you think?’
‘Um …’
‘He’s got kind, intelligent eyes,’ Jacqui said. ‘The patients love him—and so do the relatives. He takes his time with them. He treats them like he would his own family. That’s rare these days, let me tell you. Everyone is so busy climbing up the career ladder. Lucas Banning was born to be a doctor. You can just tell.’
‘Actually, I think he always planned on being a wheat and sheep farmer, like his father and grandfather before him,’ Molly said.
Jacqui looked at her quizzically. ‘Are we talking about the same person?’ she asked.
‘As I said, I don’t know him all that well,’ Molly quickly backtracked.
Jacqui indicated the female change room door on her right. ‘Bathroom is through there and lockers here,’ she said. ‘The staff tea room is further down on the left.’ She led the way back to the office. ‘You’re staying three months with us, aren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ Molly said. ‘I haven’t been overseas before. The job came up and I took it before I could talk myself out of it.’
‘Well, you’re certainly at the right time of life to do it, aren’t you?’ Jacqui said. ‘Get the travel bug out of the way before you settle down. God knows, you’ll never be able to afford it once the kids come along. Take it from me. They bleed you dry.’
‘How many children do you have?’
‘Four boys,’ Jacqui said, and with a little roll of her eyes added, ‘Five if you count my husband.’ She led the way back to the sterilising bay outside ICU. ‘One of the registrars will go through the patients with you. I’d better get back to the desk.’
‘Thanks for showing me around.’
Molly spent an hour with the registrars, going through each patient’s history. Lucas joined them as they came to the last patient. Claire Mitchell was a young woman of twenty-two with a spinal-cord injury as well as a serious head injury after falling off a horse at an equestrian competition. She had been in an induced coma for the past month. Each time they tried to wean her off the sedatives her brain pressure skyrocketed. The scans showed a resolving intracerebral haematoma and persistent cerebral oedema.
Molly watched as Lucas went through the latest scans with the parents. He explained the images and answered their questions in a calm reassuring manner.
‘I keep thinking she’s going to die,’ the mother said in a choked voice.
‘She’s come this far,’ Lucas said. ‘These new scans show positive signs of improvement. It’s a bit of a waiting game, I’m afraid. Just keep talking to her.’
‘We don’t know how to thank you,’ the father said. ‘When I think of how bad she was just a week ago …’
‘She’s definitely turned a corner in the last few days,’ Lucas said. ‘Just try and stay positive. We’ll call you as soon as there’s any change.’
Molly met his gaze once the parents had returned to their daughter’s bedside. ‘Can I have a quick word, Dr Banning?’ she asked. ‘In private?’
His brows came together as if he found the notion of meeting with her in private an interruption he could well do without. ‘My office is last on the left down the corridor. I’ll meet you there in ten minutes. I just have to write up some meds for David Hyland in bed four.’
Molly stood outside the office marked with Lucas’s name. The door was ajar and she peered around it to see if he was there, but the office was empty so she gently pushed the door open and went inside.
It was furnished like any other underfunded hospital office: a tired-looking desk dominated the small space with a battered chair that had an L-shaped rip in the vinyl on the back. A dented and scratched metal filing cabinet was tucked between the window and a waist-high bookcase that was jammed with publications and textbooks. A humming computer was in the middle of the desk and papers and medical journals were strewn either side. Organised chaos was the term that came to Molly’s mind. There was a digital photo frame on the filing cabinet near the tiny window that overlooked the bleak grey world outside. She pressed the button that set the images rolling. The splashes of the vivid outback colour of Bannington homestead took her breath away. The tall, scraggy gum trees, the cerulean blue skies, the endless paddocks, the prolific wildflowers after last season’s rain, the colourful bird life on the dams and the waters of Carboola Creek, which ran through the property, took her home in a heartbeat. She could almost hear the arck arck sound of the crows and the warbling of the magpies.
Her parents had run the neighbouring property Drummond Downs up until their bitter divorce seven years ago. It had been in her family for six generations, gearing up for a seventh, but Matthew’s death had changed everything.
Her father had not handled his grief at losing his only son. Her mother had not handled her husband’s anger and emotional distancing. The homestead had gradually run into the red and then, after a couple of bad seasons, more and more parcels of land had had to be sold off to keep the bank happy. With less land to recycle and regenerate crops and stock, the property had been pushed to the limit. Crippling debts had brought her parents to the point of bankruptcy.
Offers of help from neighbours, including Lucas’s parents, Bill and Jane Banning, had been rejected. Molly’s father had been too proud to accept help, especially from the parents of the boy who had been responsible for the death of their only son. Drummond Downs had been sold to a foreign investor, and her parents had divorced within a year of leaving the homestead.
Molly sighed as she pressed the stop button, her hand falling back to her side. The sound of a footfall behind her made her turn around, and her heart gave a jerky little movement behind her ribcage as she met Lucas’s hazel gaze. ‘I was just …’ she lifted a hand and then dropped it ‘… looking at your photos …’
He closed the door with a soft click but he didn’t move towards the desk. It was hard to read his expression, but it seemed to Molly as if he was controlling every nuance of his features behind that blank, impersonal mask. ‘Neil emails me photos from time to time,’ he said.
‘They’re very good,’ Molly said. ‘Very professional.’
Something moved like a fleeting shadow through his eyes. ‘He toyed with the idea of being a professional photographer,’ he said. ‘But as you know … things didn’t work out.’
Molly chewed at the inside of her mouth as she thought about Neil working back at Bannington Homestead when he might have travelled the world, doing what he loved best. So many people had been damaged by the death of her brother. The stone of grief thrown into the pond of life had cast wide circles in the community of Carboola Creek. When Lucas had left Bannington to study medicine, his younger brother Neil had taken over his role on the property alongside their father. Any hopes or aspirations of a different life Neil might have envisaged for himself had had to be put aside. The oldest son and heir had not stepped up to the plate as expected. Various factions of the small-minded community had made it impossible for Lucas to stay and work the land as his father and grandfather had done before him.
‘It wasn’t your fault,’ Molly said, not even realising how firmly she believed it until she had spoken it out loud. She had never blamed him but she had grown up surrounded by people who did. But her training as a doctor had made her realise that sometimes accidents just happened. No one was to blame. If Matt had been driving, as he had only minutes before they’d hit that kangaroo that had jumped out in front of them on the road, it would have been him that had been exiled.
Lucas hooked a brow upwards as he pushed away from the door. ‘Wasn’t it?’
Molly turned as he strode past her to go behind his desk. She caught a faint whiff of his aftershave, an intricately layered mix of citrus and spice and something else she couldn’t name—perhaps his own male scent. His broad shoulders were so tense she could see the bunching of his muscles beneath his shirt. ‘It was an accident, Lucas,’ she said. ‘You know it was. That’s what the coroner’s verdict was. Anyway, Matt could easily have been driving instead of you. Would you have wanted him to be blamed for the rest of his life?’
His eyes met hers, his formal back-to-business look locking her out of the world of his pain. ‘What did you want to speak to me about?’ he asked.
Molly’s shoulders went down on an exhaled breath. ‘I sort of let slip to Jacqui Hunter that we knew each other from … back home …’
A muscle in his cheek moved in and out. ‘I see.’
‘I didn’t say anything about the accident,’ she said. ‘I just said we grew up in the same country town.’
His expression was hard as stone, his eyes even harder. ‘Why did you come here?’ he asked. ‘Why this hospital?’
Molly wasn’t sure she could really answer that, even to herself. Why had she felt drawn to where he had worked for all these years? Why had she ignored the other longer-term job offers to come to St Patrick’s and work alongside him for just three months? It had just seemed the right thing to do. Even her mother had agreed when Molly had told her. Her mother had said it was time they all moved on and put the past—and Matthew—finally to rest. ‘I wanted to work overseas but most of the other posts were for a year or longer,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t sure if I wanted to stay away from home quite that long. St Patrick’s seemed like a good place to start. It’s got a great reputation.’
He barricaded himself behind his desk, his hands on his lean hips in a keep-back-from-me posture. ‘I’ve spent the last decade trying to put what happened behind me,’ he said. ‘This is my life now. I don’t want to destroy what little peace I’ve been able to scratch together.’
‘I’m not here to ruin your peace or your life or career or whatever,’ Molly said. ‘I just wanted some space from my family. Things have been difficult between my parents, especially since Crystal got pregnant. I’m tired of being the meat in the sandwich. I wanted some time out.’
‘So you came right to the lion’s den,’ he said with an embittered look. ‘Aren’t your parents worried I might destroy your life too?’
Molly pressed her lips together for a moment. Her father had said those very words in each and every one of their heated exchanges when she’d broached the subject of coming to London. ‘Do you want me to resign?’ she asked.
His forehead wrinkled in a heavy frown and one of his hands reached up and scored a rough pathway through his hair before dropping back down by his side. ‘No,’ he said, sighing heavily. ‘We’re already short-staffed. It might take weeks to find a replacement.’
‘I can work different shifts from you if—’
He gave her a dark look. ‘That won’t be necessary,’ he said. ‘People will start to ask questions if we make an issue out of it.’
‘I’m not here to make trouble for you, Lucas.’
He held her gaze for an infinitesimal moment, but the screen had come back up on his face. ‘I’ll see you on the ward,’ he said, and pulled out his chair and sat down. ‘I have to call a patient’s family.’
Molly walked to the door, but as she pulled it closed on her exit she saw that he was frowning heavily as he reached for the phone …
CHAPTER TWO
LUCAS WAS GOING through some blood results with Kate Harrison, one of the nurses, when Molly came into the ICU office the following day. Her perfume drifted towards him, wrapping around his senses, reminding him of summer, sweet peas and innocence. How she managed to look so gorgeous this early in the morning in ballet flats and plain black leggings and a long grey cardigan over a white top amazed him. She wasn’t wearing any make-up to speak of and her shoulder-length hair was pulled back in a ponytail, giving her a fresh-faced, youthful look that was totally captivating.
‘Good morning,’ she said, her tentative smile encompassing Kate as well as him.
‘Morning,’ he said, turning back to the blood results. ‘Kate, I want you to keep an eye on Mr Taylor’s white-cell count and CRP. Let me know if there’s any change.’
‘I’ll ring you with the results when they come in,’ Kate said. She turned to Molly. ‘Hi, I’m Kate Harrison. I heard on the grapevine you’re from Dr Banning’s neck of the woods.’
Molly’s gaze flicked uncertainly to Lucas’s. ‘Um … yes …’
‘I looked it up on an internet map,’ Kate said. ‘It’s a pretty small country town. Were you neighbours or something?’
‘Sort of,’ Molly said. ‘Lucas’s family ran the property next door but it was ten kilometres away.’
‘I wish my neighbours were ten kilometres away,’ Kate said with a grin, ‘especially when they play their loud music and party all night. Nice to have you with us, Dr Drummond.’
‘Please call me Molly.’
‘We have a social club you might be interested in joining,’ Kate said. ‘A group of us hang out after hours. It’s a good way to meet people from other departments. Nobody admits it out loud but it’s sort of turned into a hospital dating service. We’ve had two marriages, one engagement and one and a half babies so far.’
‘Dr Drummond already has a boyfriend,’ Lucas said as he opened the file drawer.
‘Actually, I would be interested,’ Molly said, sending him a hard little look. ‘Apart from Simon, I don’t have any friends over here.’
‘Great,’ Kate said. ‘I’ll send you an invite by email. We’re meeting for a movie next week.’
Lucas waited until Kate had left before he spoke. ‘I’d be careful hanging out with Kate’s social group. Not all the men who go have the right motives.’
She gave him a haughty look. ‘I can take care of myself.’
‘From what I’ve heard so far about your plastics guy, he doesn’t seem your type.’
Her brows came up. ‘And you’re some sort of authority on who my type is, are you?’
He gave a loose shrug of his shoulders. ‘Just an observation.’
‘Then I suggest you keep your observations to yourself,’ she said, her eyes flashing like sheet lightning. ‘I’m perfectly capable of managing my own private life. At least I have one.’
‘Just because I keep my private life out of the hospital corridors doesn’t mean I don’t have one,’ Lucas clipped back.
Jacqui came into the office behind them. ‘Whoa, is this pistols at three paces or what?’ she said. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Nothing,’ they said in unison.
Jacqui’s brows lifted speculatively. ‘I thought you guys were old friends from back home?’
‘Excuse me,’ Molly said, and brushed past to leave.
‘What’s going on between you two?’ Jacqui asked Lucas.
‘Nothing,’ he said with a glower.
‘Could’ve fooled me,’ Jacqui said. ‘I saw the way she was glaring at you. It’s not like you to be the big bad boss. What did you say to upset her?’
‘Nothing.’
Jacqui folded her arms and gave him a look. ‘That’s two nothings from you, which in my book means there’s something. I might be speaking out of turn, but you don’t seem too happy to have her here.’
The last thing Lucas wanted was anyone digging into his past connection with Molly. It was a part of his life he wanted to keep separate. The turmoil of emotions he felt over Matt’s death was something he dealt with in the privacy of his home. He didn’t want it at work, where he needed a clear head. He didn’t like his ghosts or his guilt hanging around.
‘Dr Drummond is well qualified and will no doubt be a valuable asset to the team at St Patrick’s,’ he said. ‘All new staff members take time to settle in. It’s a big change moving from one hospital to another, let alone across the globe.’
‘She’s very beautiful in a girl-next-door sort of way, isn’t she?’
He gave a noncommittal shrug as he leafed through a patient’s notes. ‘She’s OK, I guess.’
Jacqui’s mouth tilted in a knowing smile. ‘She’s the sort of girl most mothers wish their sons would bring home, don’t you think?’
Lucas put the file back in the drawer and then pushed it shut. ‘Not my mother,’ he said, and walked out.
Lucas was walking home from the hospital a couple of days later when he saw Molly coming up the street, carrying a cardboard box with holes punched in it. He had managed to avoid her over the last day or two, other than during ward rounds where he had kept things tightly professional. But as she came closer he could see she looked flustered and upset.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked as she stopped right in front of him.
Her grey-blue eyes were shiny and moist with tears. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ she said. ‘My landlord has flatly refused to allow me to have Mittens in my flat. He’s threatening to have me evicted if I don’t get rid of him immediately.’
‘Mittens?’
She indicated the box she was carrying. ‘Mittens the cat,’ she said, ‘the one that got hit by a car on my first day? I had to take him otherwise the vet would’ve sent him to the cat shelter and he might’ve been put down if no one wanted him.’
‘Didn’t the owner come and claim him?’ Lucas asked.
‘It turns out he doesn’t have an owner, or none we can track down,’ she said. ‘He hasn’t got a collar or a microchip. He’s only about seven months old.’
He angled his head, his gaze narrowing slightly. ‘What were you planning to do with him?’
Her expression became beseeching. ‘One of the nurses mentioned you lived in a big house all by yourself. She said you had a garden that would be perfect for a cat. She said you’d—’
Lucas held up his hands like stop signs. ‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘No way. I’m not having some flea-bitten cat sharpening its claws on my rugs or furniture.’
‘It’s only for a few days,’ she said, appealing to him with those big wide eyes of hers. ‘I’ll find another flat, one that will allow me to have a cat. Please?’
Lucas could feel his resolve slipping. How was he supposed to resist her when she was so darned cute standing there like a little lost waif? ‘I hate cats,’ he said. ‘They make me sneeze.’
‘But this one is a non-allergenic cat,’ she said. ‘He was probably hideously expensive and now we have him for free. Well … not free exactly …’ She momentarily tugged at her lower lip with her teeth. ‘The vet’s bill was astronomical.’
