Gold Coast Angels: A Doctor's Redemption

‘What do you do when you’re faced with a laundry basket full of dirty shirts and you need a clean shirt straight away?’ he asked.

‘I…’ Uh-oh. What she suddenly suspected was dumb—wasn’t it? Surely.

‘You buy a new one,’ he told her, confirming her lunatic thought in five words. ‘Or, in your case, a good second-hand one because I thought a brand-new one might be a bit over the top.’ And he stopped and motioned to a small white sedan parked right next to where they were standing. It was the same model as hers, only about twenty years younger. It was about a hundred years less battered.

‘It’s two years old,’ he told her, ‘but it’s a take-a-little-old-lady-to-church-on-Sunday vehicle. The local dealer had a son born with a mitral valve disorder. I’m still running routine checks on Dan’s son after successful surgery, but he’s doing brilliantly, and Dan’s assured me this vehicle is almost as good as his kid’s heart.’

‘You bought me a car?’

‘I need to thank you,’ he said gently. ‘You saved my dog’s life. Doug and I could barely get your car started last night and we thought it’d cost more to clean than you’d get for it if you sold it. I’m a surgeon and a well-qualified one at that. I’m not married. I have no kids. All I have is my dog. Thanks to your actions last night I still have her. I can easily afford to do this, and I hope you’ll accept with pleasure.’

She stared at the car. It was little and white and clean. It looked a very nice car. It looked very dependable.

It looked sensible.

She thought back to the bucket of bolts she’d driven from Adelaide. She thought of all the times she’d had to stop.

She’d bought a mechanic’s manual in Adelaide before she’d left and she’d studied it with one of her sisters’ boyfriends. She’d spent half the time she’d taken to get here sitting on the roadside studying that book or ringing her sister’s boyfriend and having him talk her through what she needed to do.

She looked again at the little white car.

I hope you’ll accept with pleasure.

Why not? She had no doubt this guy could afford to buy her a car. It’d be years before she could afford one this good—and she had saved his dog.

‘But it’s not my car,’ she heard herself say, before the sensible side of her could do any more sensible thinking.