The Doctors' Baby

He grinned then, a wide, lazy grin that sent Em’s insides doing crazy things again. Stupid things! She had to force herself to focus on what he was saying.

‘I’m willing to stay in Bay Beach while you need me,’ he was telling Anna. ‘In fact, I have a feeling that Dr Mainwaring could use some help, too, and with two women in need, what’s a man to do but stay?’ He flashed them another grin, even wider than the first. ‘So can we organise these tests and get on with it, please?’

Anna looked up, long and hard, at her brother—and then she turned to Em. In her face was a slackening of terror. There was still fear, but less. The hardest decision had been made.

And the smile she finally gave almost matched her brother’s. ‘Yes, please,’ she said.

‘Then let’s do it.’ Em reached for the phone and started dialling.

CHAPTER TWO

EM WOKE to afternoon sunlight.

The feeling was so novel that for a moment she thought she must be dreaming. Then the morning’s events came flooding back, and with them came emotions so complex she had trouble taking them all in.

First there was Charlie’s death. Despite his age, there was a sensation of emptiness and grief which she needed time to absorb.

Em tried hard to stay dispassionate but, as the only doctor in a small country town it was impossible. And she’d known Charlie all her life. Em’s parents had died when she was tiny. She’d been raised by her grandfather, and Grandpa and Charlie had been close mates.

With Charlie’s death had gone one of her last links to her childhood—to memories of weekends fishing in Grandpa’s old tub of a boat, or sitting on the pier baiting hooks while the two men yarned in the sun—or having them make her endless cups of tea as she’d studied her medical texts while they’d gossiped easily over her head.

She’d loved them both. Grandpa had died two years ago, and now Charlie had gone to join him.

She’d miss Charlie so much.

And now there was Jonas…

She was so muddled in her thoughts. She’d lain down for a few minutes and two hours later she was waking to confusion—the intermingling sadness of Charlie’s death, the tension of the lump in Anna’s breast…

And the thought of Jonas.

Why did he keep overriding everything else? He was just there, a lightening of the dreariness of her awful day, and the sensation was so novel that she let it dwell.

Well, she let it dwell for all of thirty seconds. Then she rose, rinsed her face, gave her mirror a good talking-to for being lax enough to allow another doctor—about whom she knew nothing—to take over her duties.

She needed to check on him, she told herself. She needed to know who this man was. She might instinctively believe him, but she was trusting him with her patients and the medical board would look pretty darkly at someone who just stood aside and let a quack take over their duties.

And one phone call was all it took, to a long-time friend who was an anaesthetist at Sydney Central.

‘You have Jonas Lunn working for you?’ Dominic’s voice from the staffroom at the Sydney hospital was an incredulous squeak. ‘Em, the man is brilliant. Brilliant! He’s been offered a plum teaching job overseas and the powers that be here are already wondering how we can fill his shoes. He’s the best—as well as being one of the most caring professionals I’ve ever worked with!’

Now, how had she known he’d say that?

‘You hang on to him,’ Dominic said seriously. ‘Em, if he’s offering to help, you take all the help you can get.’

Hmm. Maybe. He was only here for the day, she told herself.

So with a struggle she hauled her muddled thoughts into order and sallied forth to once again become Bay Beach’s sole doctor.

But she was no longer sole doctor. Jonas wasn’t giving the position up lightly.

‘Go home,’ he growled as she opened the surgery door and peeped in. ‘I’m busy.’

He was, too. Young Lucy Belcombe, nine years old and accustomed to lurching from one catastrophe to another, was now suffering from a greenstick fracture of the forearm. Jonas had the X-ray up on the screen so Em could see at a glance what was happening. Jonas was applying a last layer of plaster as Lucy’s mother watched, and Mrs Belcombe was obviously deeply impressed that such a splendid-looking male was taking care of her daughter.

These people don’t even know for sure Jonas is a doctor, Em thought in a little indignation.

He was, though. He looked up at her and he smiled, and Dominic’s words were confirmed. The impression he gave was of pure competence. ‘We’re doing really well without you, Dr Mainwaring,’ he told her. ‘Aren’t we, Lucy?’

And Lucy agreed. ‘Dr Lunn told me I was the bravest kid in Bay Beach when he gave me the needle,’ Lucy told her proudly. Then she gave a sheepish grin. ‘And he also said I was the dopiest.’

‘Hmm.’ Em looked again at the X-ray. Lucy had certainly done her arm some damage, though she’d been lucky in that it was just a greenstick fracture. ‘Tree-climbing?’ she guessed.

‘A really big one out on Illing’s Bluff,’ Lucy admitted, not without pride, and Em winced.

‘Oh, Lucy. If you climb then you’re supposed to hang on. I guess Dr Lunn’s not far wrong when he says it was stupid.’

‘Yeah, it was a bit dopey.’ Lucy gave her a rather white-faced smile and then looked sideways at her mum, as if wondering whether she should admit the next bit. ‘It won me five bucks, though, ’cos it was a bet and I got to the top.’

‘And did you get an extra payment for coming down the fast way?’ Em demanded, and Jonas chuckled.

He had the nicest chuckle, she thought. Sort of deep and resonant and infectious. It made you want to smile just to hear it.

‘The very fastest way,’ he told Em, still chuckling. ‘Lucy’s just lucky she didn’t land on her head. Will you deduct the five dollars from the clothes she’s torn, Mrs Belcombe?’

But Mary Belcombe just gave him a reluctant smile and shook her head. Lucy was the youngest of her six daredevil kids. Broken bones were part of her lifestyle.

‘I’m good at patching,’ she said simply. ‘I have to be.’

‘And so are we.’ Jonas gave the arm one last long look, tied a sling around it and popped the plastered arm inside. ‘Right. One patched arm. I want to check it again tomorrow to make sure I’ve allowed enough for swelling. Meanwhile, if it starts hurting much more than it is now, give us a ring.’

‘Give me a ring,’ Em butted in, and got a sideways grin from Jonas for her pains.

‘Scared I’m doing you out of a job, Dr Mainwaring?’

‘You can have all of my job that you like,’ she told him, and the smile died.

‘Yeah. There’s certainly a heap of it. Far too much for one person.’

‘One person is all there is,’ she told him, and ruffled Lucy’s hair. ‘Goodbye, Lucy. Take care.’

‘Care isn’t in her vocabulary,’ his mother said bitterly, ushering her daughter out the door. ‘Thank you, Dr Lunn.’ And then she turned to Em and added in a conspiratorial whisper that Jonas couldn’t help but hear, ‘Oh, my dear, he’s gorgeous. I’d hang onto him if I were you.’

And she left, with Em blushing from ear to ear.

‘I’ve left detailed notes on everyone I’ve seen, if you’d like to review them. With the Belcombes gone, Jonas gave her an efficient summary of the last two hours. Mrs Crawford’s the only one of any real concern, and that’s mainly because of her diabetes. She’s had intermittent vomiting for two days. I don’t think it’s anything major—she says she ate some fish she thinks was off—but she’s starting to look dehydrated and her blood sugar’s up. So Amy and I admitted her.’

‘You and Amy admitted her?’ Jonas’s businesslike tone was designed to bring her down to earth, but in truth it did the opposite. To have someone take over was such a novel experience it practically took her breath away. ‘You what?’