Harlequin Medical Romance December 2015, Box Set 1 of 2 (22 page)

‘My tree...'

‘The boys brought your car to my house. Ruby insisted we unpack it. I'm sorry but it's in the living room and Ruby's already started decorating it.'

‘You don't have a tree of your own?'

‘We were going away for Christmas.'

‘You still should have had a tree,' she murmured, but her voice was getting so weak he could hardly hear. She was slurring her words and finally the hold on his hand was weakening. The drugs were taking over.

He should tuck her hand under the covers, he thought, and finally he did, but as he released her fingers he felt an indefinable sense of loss.

And, as he did, she smiled up at him, and weirdly she shifted her hand back out of the covers. She reached up and touched his face. Just lightly. It was a feather-touch, tracing the bones of his cheek.

‘I'm glad I saved you,' she whispered and it was all he could do to hear.

‘I'm glad you saved me too.' And for the life of him he couldn't stop a shake entering his voice.

‘And you didn't have a Christmas tree...'

‘N...no.'

‘And now I'm going to stay with you until Christmas?'

What could he say? ‘If you like.'

‘Then it sounds like I need to be helpful,' she whispered, and it was as if she was summoning all the strength she had to say something. ‘Sometimes I can be my mother's daughter. December the twentieth and you don't even have a tree. And you have a little girl who likes tadpoles and dungarees. And I just know you're a very nice man. What were you doing in that truck in the first place? The snake could just as easily have bitten you. You know what, Dr Denver? As well as saving your skin, I'm going to save your Christmas. How's that for a plan?'

But she got no further. Her hand fell away. Her lids closed, and she was asleep.

* * *

He walked home feeling...disorientated. Or more. Discombobulated? There was no other word big enough to describe it.

He could still feel the touch of Polly's fingers on his face where she'd touched him.

He might just as well have been kissed...

There was a crazy idea. He hadn't been kissed. She'd been doped to the eyeballs with painkillers and relaxants. She'd had an appalling shock and she was injured. People did and said weird things...

Still the trace of her fingers remained.

She was beautiful.

She was brave, funny, smart.

She was scared and she was alone.

But what had she said? He replayed her words in his head.

‘
You let my family know what's happened and you'll have helicopters landing on the roof ten minutes later. And the press...'

Who was she? He needed to do some research. He'd rung her medical referees when she'd applied to do the locum. He'd been given glowing reports on her medical skills but there'd been a certain reticence...

He'd avoided the reticence. He'd been so relieved to find a doctor with the skills to look after the Valley, he wouldn't have minded if she'd had two heads. If she had the medical qualifications, nothing else could matter.

Only of course it mattered and now he was stuck in the same house as a woman who was brave, funny and smart.

And beautiful.

And alone.

He didn't need this, he told himself. The last thing he needed in his life was complications caused by a beautiful woman. A love life was something he'd left very firmly in Sydney. No complications until he had his little niece settled...

Right. Regardless, he reached the veranda, sat on the steps and typed her name into his phone's Internet app.

It took time for anything to show. His phone connection was slow. He should go inside and use his computer, but inside the door were Polly's suitcases, and in the living room was Polly's tree. For some reason he felt as if he needed to know what he was letting himself in for before he stepped over the threshold.

And here it was. Pollyanna Hargreaves.

She had a whole Wikipedia entry of her own.

Good grief.

Only child of Charles and Olivia Hargreaves. Expected to inherit the giant small goods manufacturing business built up by her family over generations. Currently practising medicine. Aged twenty-nine. One broken relationship, recent...

He snapped his phone shut. He didn't want to read any more.

What was she doing here? What was she running from?

The broken relationship?

What was she doing being a doctor?

Why didn't she want to go back to Sydney?

He should insist she go back. She could no longer do the job he was paying her for. She deserved compensation—of course she did—but his medical insurance would cover it. He could discharge her from hospital tomorrow or the next day, organise a driver and send her home.

She didn't want to spend Christmas in Sydney.

He sat on the step and stared into the night. The decision should be easy, he thought. She couldn't do the job she'd come for. He and Ruby were still living in the house. She couldn't stay here, so he could send her home.

Her Christmas tree was already up in the living room. This was a big house. They had room.

What was he afraid of?

Of the way she made him feel?

For heaven's sake...
He was a mature thirty-six-year-old doctor. He'd had girlfriends in Sydney, one of them long-term. He and Louise had even talked marriage, but she'd been appalled at the idea of Wombat Valley and Ruby. He couldn't blame her.

If he wanted to move on...

On to Polly?

He shook his head in disbelief. This was crazy. He'd known her for less than a day. She was an heiress and she was his patient.

She was funny and smart and brave.

And beautiful.

And he was nuts. He rose and gave himself a fast mental shake. He'd been thrown about too today, he reminded himself. He had the bruises to prove it. There'd been a moment when he'd thought there was a fair chance he could have left Ruby without any family and that moment was still with him.

He must have been hit on the head, he decided, or be suffering from delayed shock. Something was messing with his head.

Polly was a patient tonight, and tomorrow or the next day she'd be staying here as a guest and then hopefully she'd be a colleague. The jury was still out on whether she'd be well enough to take over so he and Ruby could spend a few days at the beach, but if he sent her back to Sydney he'd never know.

He could still feel the touch of her hand...

‘So get over it,' he told himself. He needed Hamster. Ruby's big Labrador, given to her as a puppy in desperation on that last appalling Christmas, had turned into his confidante, someone to talk to in the small hours when life got bleak.

He'd fetch Hamster back tomorrow.

And Polly. Polly and Hamster and Christmas.

If she was still here... If he couldn't leave... He'd have to find a turkey.

He didn't know how to cook a turkey.

Turkey. Bonbons. Christmas pudding. Ruby was old enough to know what Christmas dinner should be. She'd been happy with her beach fish and chips substitute, but now...

‘Maybe Dr Hargreaves will know how to cook a turkey,' he said morosely but then he glanced again at the information on his phone.

Heiress to a fortune...

‘Maybe she has the funds to fly one in ready cooked from Sydney,' he told the absent Hamster.

Maybe pigs could fly.

* * *

Polly woke, some time in the small hours.

She hurt.

What was it with snake bite? she wondered. Why did it make everything ache?

Maybe she should write this up for her favourite medical journal—disseminated pain after accidental infusion of snake venom.

That sounded impressive. Her father would show that to his golf cronies.

Her mother, though...she could just hear her. ‘Who are you trying to impress? You'll never get a husband if you keep trying to be clever.'

She winced. Her hand hurt.

Okay, maybe this wasn't disseminated pain from infusion of snake venom. Maybe this was disseminated pain from abseiling down a cliff with nylon cord and bare feet.

Her mother might like that better. It didn't sound clever at all.

Why did she feel like crying?

She should ring the bell. She would in a moment, she told herself. The nice night nurse would arrive and top up her medication and send her back into a nice dozy sleep. But for now...

For now she wanted to wallow.

She was missing...missing...

The doctor with the strong, sure hands. Hugo Denver, who'd sat with her until she'd slept. Whose voice was nice and deep and caring. Who looked a million dollars—tall, dark, strong.

Who made her feel safe.

And there was a nonsense. She was always safe. If she let them, her parents would have her cocooned in protective luxury, buffered from the world, safe in their gorgeous lifestyle for ever.

Marrying Marcus.

She winced and shifted in bed and hurt some more, but still she didn't call Barb. She felt as if she had things to sort, and now was as good a time as any to sort them.

She was staying here—for Christmas, at least. Hugo Denver owed her that. But afterwards... What then?

Overseas...

Maybe some volunteer organisation. Doctors were needed everywhere and heaven knew she didn't need money.

Her parents would have kittens.

Her parents were currently having kittens because she wasn't in Sydney. If they knew she was in trouble...

They'd come and she didn't want them to come. She did not want family.

Whereas if Hugo Denver walked in the door...

What was she thinking? She was falling for her boss? Or her doctor? Each was equally unethical.

So why did she want him to come back? When she'd woken, why had her gaze gone directly to the place where he'd been sitting?

Why could she still feel his hand?

Weakness, she told herself and had to fight back a sudden urge to burst into tears. Weakness and loneliness.

She had no reason to be lonely. She had her parents' world ready to enfold her, a world she'd had to fight to escape from.

It'd be so easy to give in. Her parents loved her. One phone call and they'd be here. She'd be whisked back to the family mansion in Sydney. She'd be surrounded by private nurses and her mother would be popping in every twenty minutes with so much love she couldn't handle it.

Love...

Why was she thinking of Hugo Denver?

‘Because you're a weak wuss and he has a smile to die for,' she told herself. ‘And you've been battered and cut and bitten and you're not yourself. Tomorrow you'll be back to your chirpy self, defences up, self-reliant, needing no one.'

But if Hugo came back...

‘Dr Denver to you,' she said out loud. ‘A bit of professionalism, if you please, Dr Hargreaves.' She wiggled again and things hurt even more and she got sensible.

She rang the bell for a top-up of morphine. She didn't need Hugo Denver. Morphine would have to do instead.

CHAPTER SIX

H
UGO
ARRIVED
IN
her room at eleven in the morning, with Joe beside him. It was a professional visit: doctor doing his rounds with nurse in attendance. That was what Hugo looked—professional.

When she'd first seen him he'd been wearing casual clothes—dressed to go on holiday. Jeans and open-necked shirt. He'd been bloodied and filthy.

He'd come in last night but she couldn't remember much about last night. She'd been woozy and in pain. If she had to swear, she'd say he'd been wearing strength and a smile that said she was safe.

This morning he was in tailored pants and a crisp white shirt. The shirt was open-necked and short-sleeved. He looked professional but underneath the professional there was still the impression of strength.

Mary had helped her wash and Joe had brought one of her cases in. She was therefore wearing a cute kimono over silk pyjamas. She was ready to greet the world.

Sort of. This man had her unsettled.

The whole situation had her unsettled. She'd been employed to replace this man. What were the terms of her employment now?

‘Hey,' he said, pausing at the door—giving her time to catch her breath? ‘Joe tells me you're feeling better. True?'

She was. Or she had been. Now she was just feeling...disconcerted. Hormonal?

Interested.

Why? He wasn't her type, she thought. He looked...a bit worn around the edges. He was tall, lean and tanned, all good, all interesting, but his black hair held a hint of silver and there were creases around his eyes. Life lines. Worry? Laughter? Who could tell?

He was smiling now, though, and the creases fitted, so maybe it was laughter.

He was caring for his niece single-handedly. He was also the face of medicine for the entire valley.

Her research told her the hospital had a huge feeder population. This was a popular area to retire and run a few head of cattle or grow a few vines. Retirees meant ageing. Ageing meant demand for doctor's services.

Hence the hint of silver?

Or had it been caused by tragedy? Responsibility?

Responsibility.
Family.

He wasn't her type at all.

Meanwhile he seemed to be waiting for an answer. Joe had handed him her chart. He'd read it and was now looking at her expectantly. What had he asked? For some reason she had to fight to remember what the question had been.

Was she feeling better? She'd just answered herself. Now she had to answer him.

‘I'm good,' she said, and then added a bit more truthfully, ‘I guess I'm still a bit wobbly.'

‘Pain?'

‘Down to fell-over-in-the-playground levels.'

‘You do a lot of falling over in the playground?'

‘I ski,' she said and he winced.

‘Ouch.'

‘You don't?'

‘There's not a lot of skiing in Wombat Valley.'

‘But before?'

‘I don't go back to before,' he said briskly. ‘Moving on... Polly, what happens next is up to you. We have a guest room made up at home. Ruby's aching to play nurse, but if you're more settled here then we'll wait.'

Uh oh
. She hadn't thought this through. She'd demanded she stay in Wombat Valley. She'd refused to be evacuated to Sydney, but now...

‘I'm an imposition,' she said ruefully, and his grin flashed out again. Honestly, that grin was enough to make a girl's toes curl.

He wasn't her type.
He was not.

‘You're not an imposition,' he said gently. ‘Without you I'd be down the bottom of the Gap, and Christmas would be well and truly over. As it is, my niece is currently making paper chains to hang on your truly amazing Christmas tree. I advertised for a locum. What seems to have arrived is a life-saver and a Santa. Ruby would love you to come home. We'll both understand if you put it off until tomorrow but the venom seems to have cleared. Joe tells me your temperature, pulse, all vital signs, are pretty much back to normal. You'll still ache but if you come home you get to spend the rest of the day in bed as well. We have a view over the valley to die for, and Ruby's waiting.'

His voice gentled as he said the last two words and she met his gaze and knew, suddenly, why his voice had changed. There was a look...

He loved his niece.

Unreservedly. Unconditionally.

Why did that make her eyes well up?

It was the drugs, she thought desperately, and swiped her face with the back of her hand, but Hugo reached over and snagged a couple of tissues and tugged her hand down and dried her face for her.

‘You're too weak,' he said ruefully. ‘This was a bad idea. Snuggle back to sleep for the day.'

But she didn't want to.

Doctors made the worst patients. That was true in more ways than one, she thought. Just like it'd kill a professional footballer to sit on the sidelines and watch, so it was for doctors. Plus she'd had a childhood of being an inpatient. Once her diabetes had been diagnosed, every time she sneezed her parents had insisted on admission. So now...all she wanted to do was grab her chart, fill it in herself, like the professional she was, and run.

Admittedly, she hadn't felt like that last night—with a load of snake venom on board, hospital had seemed a really safe option—but she did this morning.

‘If you're happy to take me home, I'd be very grateful,' she murmured and he smiled as if he was truly pleased that he was getting a locum for Christmas, even if that locum had a bandaged hand and a bandaged foot and was useless for work for the foreseeable future.

‘Excellent. Now?'

‘I...yes.'

‘Hugo, the wheelchairs are out of action for a couple of hours,' Joe volunteered, taking back the chart and hanging it on the bed. Looking from Hugo to Polly and back again with a certain amount of speculative interest. ‘It's so quiet this week that Ted's taken them for a grease and oil change. They'll be back this afternoon but meanwhile Polly can't walk on that foot.'

‘I can hop,' Polly volunteered and both men grinned.

‘A pyjama-clad, kimono-wearing hoppity locum,' Joe said, chuckling. ‘Wow, Hugo, you pick 'em.'

‘I do, don't I?' Hugo agreed, chuckling as well and then smiling down at Polly. ‘But no hoppiting. We don't need to wait. Polly, you're no longer a patient, or a locum. From now on, if you agree, you're our honoured guest, a colleague and a friend. And friends wearing battle scars won on our behalf get special treatment. Can I carry you?'

Could he...what?

Carry her. That was what the doctor had said.

She needed a wheelchair. She could wait.

That'd be surly.

Besides, she didn't want one. There was no way she wanted to sit in a wheelchair and be pushed out feeling like a...patient.

She was a friend. Hugo had just said so.

But...but...

Those dark, smiling eyes had her mesmerised.

‘I'll hurt your back,' she managed. ‘I'm not looking after you in traction over Christmas.'

‘I'm game if you are,' he said and his dark eyes gleamed. Daring her?

And all of a sudden she was in. Dare or not, he held her with his gaze, and suddenly, for this moment, Pollyanna Hargreaves wasn't a doctor. She wasn't a patient. She wasn't a daughter and actually...she wasn't a friend.

She was a woman, she thought, and she took a deep breath and smiled up into Hugo's gorgeous eyes.

He wanted to carry her?

‘Yes, please.'

* * *

It was possibly
not the wisest course to carry his new locum. His medical insurance company would have kittens if they could see him, he thought. He could drop her. He could fall. He could be sued for squillions. Joe, following bemusedly behind with Polly's suitcase, would act as witness to totally unethical behaviour.

But Polly was still shaky. He could hear it in her voice. Courageous as she'd been, yesterday had terrified her and the terror still lingered. She needed human contact. Warmth. Reassurance.

And Hugo... Well, if Hugo was honest, he wouldn't mind a bit of the same.

So he carried her and if the feel of her body cradled against him, warmth against warmth, if the sensation of her arms looped around his neck to make herself more secure, if both those things settled his own terrors from the day before then that was good. Wasn't it?

That was what this was all about, he told himself. Reassurance.

Except, as he strode out through the hospital entrance with his precious cargo, he felt...

As if he was carrying his bride over the threshold?

There was a crazy thought. Totally romantic. Nonsense.

‘Where's your car?' she asked.

Polly's voice was still a bit shaky. He paused on the top of the ramp into Emergency and smiled down at her. The sun was on her face. Her flaming curls had been washed but they were tousled from a morning on her pillow. She had freckles. Cute freckles. Her face was a bit too pale and her green eyes a bit too large.

He'd really like to kiss her.

And that really was the way to get struck off any medical register he could care to name. Hire a locum, nearly kill her, carry her instead of using a wheelchair, then kiss her when she was stuck so tight in his arms she can't escape.

He needed a cold shower—fast.

‘No car needed,' he said, and motioned towards a driveway along the side of the hospital.

At the end of the driveway there was a house, a big old weatherboard, looking slightly incongruous beside the newer brick hospital. It had an old-fashioned veranda with a kid's bike propped up by the door. A grapevine was growing under the roof, and a couple of Australia's gorgeous rosella parrots were searching through the leaves, looking for early grapes.

‘This is home while you're in Wombat Valley,' he told her. ‘But it won't be what you're used to. Speak now if you want to change your mind about staying. We can still organise transport out of here.'

‘How do you know what I'm used to?' she asked and he grimaced and said nothing and she sighed. ‘So I'm not incognito?'

‘I don't think you could ever be incognito.'

She grimaced even more, and shifted in his arms. ‘Hugo...'

‘Mmm?'

‘It's time to put me down. I can walk.'

‘You're not walking.'

‘Because I'm Pollyanna Hargreaves?'

‘Because you have a snake-bitten ankle.'

‘And you always carry snake-bite victims?'

‘Oi!' It was Joe, standing patiently behind them, still holding the suitcase. ‘In the time you've spent discussing it you could have taken her home, dumped her on the couch and got back here. I've work for you, Dr Denver.'

‘What work?' Polly asked.

‘Earache arriving in ten minutes,' Joe said darkly and glanced at his watch. ‘No, make that in five.'

‘Then dump me and run,' Polly said and he had no choice.

Like it or not, he had to dump her and run.

* * *

Ruby was waiting. Sort of.

He carried Polly over the threshold and Ruby was sitting on the couch in the front room, in her shorts and shirt, bare legs, tousled hair—she'd refused to let him braid it this morning—her face set in an expression he knew all too well. Misery.

He could hear Donna in the kitchen. Donna was a Wombat Valley mum. Donna's daughter, Talia, was Ruby's age, and Donna's family was just one of the emergency backstops Wombat Valley had put in place to make sure Hugo could stay here. He stood in the living room doorway, Polly in his arms, and looked helplessly down at his niece. When she looked like this he never knew what to say.

‘We have a guest,' he said. ‘Ruby, this is Dr Hargreaves.'

‘Polly,' said Polly.

‘Why are you carrying her?'

‘She was bitten by a snake. I told you.'

‘She's supposed to be working,' Ruby said in a small voice. ‘And we're supposed to be at the beach.'

‘Ruby...'

‘It's the pits,' Polly interrupted. She was still cradled against him but she sounded ready to chat. ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry,' she told the little girl. ‘But we should blame the snake.'

‘You should have been wearing shoes,' Ruby muttered, still in that little voice that spoke of the desolation of betrayal. Another broken promise.

‘Yes,' Polly agreed. ‘I should.'

‘Why weren't you?'

‘I didn't know I was planning to meet a snake, and it didn't warn me it was coming. They should wear bells, like cats.'

Ruby thought about that and found it wanting. ‘Snakes don't have necks.'

‘No.' Polly appeared thoughtful. ‘We should do something about that. What if we made a rule that Australian snakes have to coil? If we had a law that every snake has to loop once so they have a circle where their neck should be, we could give them all bells. How are you at drawing? Maybe you could draw what we mean and we'll send a letter to Parliament this very day.'

Ruby stared at her as if she was a sandwich short of a picnic. ‘A circle where their neck should be?' she said cautiously.

‘If you have a skipping rope I'll show you. But we'd need to make it law, which means writing to Parliament. How about you do the drawing and I'll write the letter?'

Ruby stared at her in amazement. In stupefaction. The desolate expression on her face faded.

‘“Dear Parliamentarians...”,' Polly started. She was still ensconced in Hugo's arms, but she didn't appear to notice her unusual platform, or the fact that her secretary wasn't writing. ‘It has come to our attention that snakes are slithering around the countryside bell-less. This situation is unsatisfactory, not only to people who wander about shoeless, but also to snakes who, we're sure, would be much happier with jewels. Imagine how much more Christmassy Australia would be if every snake wore a Christmas bell?'