The Doctor's Surprise Bride

She looked across at Mary perched on the adjacent chair, a little forlorn-looking. ‘Can’t your husband come home earlier?’

‘He could but then he’d have to travel sooner after our baby is born and we want as much time as a family in the early months as we can.’

‘That makes sense. I think. So what are you going to do with your bundle of joy when you go back to work?’

Mary smiled. ‘That’s what’s so special about Bellbrook. I’ll take my baby with me. The hospital isn’t really much more than a large family home and there’re always plenty of hands ready to help if I need.’ They both laughed and Eliza began to enjoy herself.

‘Come for a walk in the garden,’ Mary said, ‘before the sun goes down. It’s a lovely time of the evening.’

Eliza followed Mary out onto the patio and the scent of bush roses drifted up from the path. She’d often enjoyed long walks with her father around the farm.

Three black cockatoos took off from a gum tree and their raucous cries almost drowned Mary out as they flew away.

Eliza said ‘Three days’ rain’ at the same time as Mary, and then laughed. ‘So you’re superstitious, too?’

‘Aren’t we all?’ Mary sidestepped a ladder against the wall and they both had the giggles again.

‘I always thought country people seem more prone to superstitions than city folk,’ Eliza mused.

Mary looked up with interest. ‘So are you really a country girl at heart?’

‘My dad loved the country. I didn’t mind it.’

‘And your mother?’

Eliza shrugged. ‘She left because of it. And the gossip, my dad said.’

Mary nodded. ‘This place thrives on gossip.’

‘Then I supposed you heard about Carla and I being hunted out of the river by Jack?’

Mary’s eyes twinkled. ‘I was hoping you’d mention that!’

Eliza held up both hands and shook her head. ‘I’m innocent, I swear.’ And then she started to laugh at the memory of herself cowering in the river. ‘People even said I was naked and Jack threw me a towel.’

‘You mean that didn’t happen?’ Mary looked crestfallen but couldn’t hold the expression long enough for Eliza to believe she was serious. They both laughed again.

‘Gossip comes because a lot of people are related in small towns—even if only by marriage.’

Eliza remembered the speed of the informants. ‘So how many people are related to Jack Dancer?’

The question seemed to come from nowhere but it was too late for Eliza to call it back. She hoped Mary wouldn’t assume she was becoming interested in Jack because she had the feeling matchmaking was a latent facet of Mary’s personality.

Mary shrugged. ‘Most of us are related in some way.’

Eliza nodded and rolled her eyes. ‘So I’ve noticed. Does that mean you’re a part of Jack’s enormous family circle?’

Mary sighed. ‘I’m not really. Originally, I was from Sydney.’ There was sadness in Mary’s voice and Eliza refrained from asking the obvious question.

‘Jack’s great-grandparents started it all when they had ten kids and most of them settled here. Jack has more cousins than a dog has fleas.’

Eliza had a sudden vision of a giant Jack with cousins crawling all over him, and she smiled. ‘So why isn’t Jack married with ten kids?’

‘That’s the crux of his problem. He was. Jack married my sister. She died three years ago.’ Mary trailed off for a moment then shook her head to jolt herself out of the melancholy.

‘Lydia didn’t like the life in Bellbrook and went back to Sydney. She and their unborn baby boy were killed in a car crash a month later.’

Eliza felt the breath catch in her throat. Poor Jack. ‘That’s sad for everyone. It must have been hard for both you and Jack.’

Mary gazed in the direction of the distant hills. ‘Jack looked after me. My husband, Mick, hadn’t really liked Lydia, and when she left Jack, Mick washed his hands of her. Jack always has had that caring quality that forgives and shoulders responsibility, and I guess that was some of what my sister saw when she married him.’

Mary went on slowly. ‘Lydia was different from me. Beautiful, spoiled by my parents, a talented arts major. And she hated Bellbrook. Then she hated being pregnant. In the end, she hated Jack.’

Mary looked down at her bulging belly and smiled.

‘I love pregnancy and I love Bellbrook and…’ Mary smiled softly, ‘…like a brother, I love Jack.’

Mary’s face softened even further with a whimsical smile. ‘Thanks to Jack, I met my husband, Mick. He was best man at Jack and Lydia’s wedding. We fell in love and married in about three days. I’ve felt at home here ever since. Life is funny with what it deals out.’

So there were good love stories out there, Eliza sighed. Mary looked so content with her life and her love. Lucky Mary. Eliza herself definitely wasn’t interested in taking any more chances with love.

But she was curious about the dashing Dr Dancer’s wife. How could any woman hate Jack? ‘What did your sister do here?’

‘Nothing. We tried to get her involved in community activities, tennis, I suggested she run an art class for the town but she wasn’t interested. She was bored silly and became very bitter at wasting her life, as she called it. Before Lydia died, I’d even decided it hadn’t been a bad thing she’d left, because she had made Jack so unhappy. I think Jack was leaning that way too, until the crash.’

Mary shook her head sadly. ‘I went to pieces. Jack and I both felt so guilty because maybe we should have supported Lydia more. Jack was devastated about the loss of his son as well. He blamed himself and Lydia’s pregnancy for making her temperamental, as if if he’d paid more attention to her she wouldn’t have left and his son would be alive today.’ Mary sighed.

‘Jack studied up on maternal trauma and resuscitation of pregnant women for months afterwards, wondering if the hospital she had been taken to should have done anything different when Lydia was brought in barely alive.’ She looked at Eliza.

‘I think it’s still all locked away inside him behind his carefree smile. I guess that’s why he’s not in a hurry to marry again.’

Mary patted her stomach. ‘He said he’d leave all the hassle of kids to me and be a doting uncle. I think it’s a shame—and watch out. Everyone in town agrees.’

Eliza felt a flicker of panic at Mary’s hint. ‘Don’t look at me. I’m off men.’

Mary looked across at Eliza. ‘That doesn’t matter. You’d better be prepared for some matchmaking uncles and aunts because they’d all like nothing better than to see Jack settled with a family here.’

As they turned towards the back door the sound of a car pulling up outside coincided with the ringing of the telephone. Mary looked torn and Eliza shrugged. ‘I’ll get the door, you take the phone.’

Eliza wished she’d taken the phone because she was still affected by the conversation with Mary and the visitor was Jack.

‘What are you doing here?’ They both spoke and Eliza shook her head. Her whole life was a cliché.

‘Snap!’ She shrugged and stood back so he could enter. ‘Mary’s on the phone. She shouldn’t be long.’

Jack’s mouth twitched wryly. ‘Unless it’s her husband, in which case the record is three hours and ten minutes.’

Eliza whistled. She did not need three hours and ten minutes of Jack. Just looking at him jangled her nerves, and with all the new insight from Mary she didn’t know how to cope with him. ‘Tell Mary I’ll come back another day. I’m tired anyway.’