Heartbeat (Medical Romance) (18 page)
‘Really? You don’t want to go back home?’
‘This is home! … It's going to take some getting used to, losing you and Ross. He's the sort of man who when he's not around you kind of keep looking out for him, know what I mean?' Jenni nodded vaguely, giving nothing away, conscious that the other woman was watching her closely. 'When you think of it, finding two gorgeous men in one small mission in the African bush is pretty extraordinary luck, Jen.'
Jenni looked Sylvia straight in the eye, unsmiling, saying nothing. One wasn't eligible. Surely Sylvia hadn't forgotten that?
Damn it, Ross,
thought an exasperated Sylvia.
I've done my best and got nowhere. Nothing
encouraging to report.
One last try.
'When you go back,' she asked boldly, 'will you keep in touch with Ross?'
‘I don't suppose so. What would be the point? He won't be wanting to see me again.'
‘I wouldn't be so sure,’ came the cryptic reply.
* * *
With the tip of her finger Jenni pushed a little heap of spilled salt around the tablecloth.
‘I am sorry to tell you,' announced Paul, 'that our farewell-cum-engagement party planned for Saturday night will now have to be engagement only.'
‘Why? why?’ chorused the rows of stunned faces.
'Because our much-loved doctor has been spirited from our midst.'
'Oooh!' chorused the long table.
'The good news is that the new doctor arrives midday tomorrow. And our sad news is that we can't say a proper farewell to Ross and show our appreciation by giving him the bumps on Saturday night. Maybe he'll come back and visit us some day, who knows.'
'But why did he go?' demanded Jenni, her voice shrill with dismay. 'His contract doesn’t run out until Friday.'
'Ross has been called home most urgently, to operate on a surgeon who's been injured in a car accident. This poor man asked for Ross McDonnell and Ross McDonnell alone. No one else would do. It's a case of saving the sight of another gifted man, and I'm sure you will all agree that Ross is on a top-priority mission, and our gratitude and our blessings go with him.'
Jenni spent her last night back at the Mission Headquarters in Dar-es-Salaam, in readiness for the late-morning flight. She slept in the very same room as on that first night in Dar, reliving in sleepless longing the first time she ever set eyes on Ross McDonnell. Looking like a cross between a demon and a tramp, she remembered with a delicious shiver.
‘Taxi's here, wee Jenni,' called Miss Margaret. 'Have you got everything? Tch, what have you got in this case of yours, it’s heavy as lead.'
'It's the souvenirs,' explained Jenni, 'for my parents and for Helen and Hannah and their families.'
'Aye, well. These two cases, please, driver. God bless you, child, and give you a safe journey home. You have done such splendid work at the Good Shepherd. We don't want to lose you but we know you must go, as the old song says. No, of course you won't know it, dear, much before your time. Now are you quite sure you won't let anyone come to see you off?'
'I'll be fine,' promised Jenni, knowing that once she was in the anonymity of the airport she could wipe the stiff smile off her face and let her shoulders sag beneath the weight of unrequited love. At least in going home she would be on the same piece of terra firma as her beloved Ross.
She joined the queue to check in her baggage for the Heathrow flight and began the monotonous shuffle towards the uniformed woman at the desk. She had just arrived at the head of the queue and was about to hoist her first case on to the conveyor belt when a man's suntanned hand closed over hers and a voice said, 'Oh no, you don't!'
For a horrified moment Jenni thought she was being arrested for some unwitting Customs offence. But the navy sleeve reaching past her bore no official braid and there was something about the voice that was impossibly familiar.
'Miss Westcott will not be taking this flight,' she heard a man say. Her cases were swept off the ground and Jenni's stunned head tilted to take in the astonishing sight of Dr Ross McDonnell, immaculate and formal in a most elegant dark suit, with a crisp white shirt open at the neck revealing the strong brown column of his throat.
He was striding away with her luggage and there wasn't much Jenni could do other than chase after him.
Over by a pillar he set the cases down and turned to find Jenni shaking with the hysterical tearful giggles she was trying to conceal behind her hands. 'Oh, Ross, you are do look quite frighteningly handsome!' And indeed he did, her rough-diamond demon doctor transformed into his
alter ego
of distinguished consultant.
'
And
you've shaved,' she spluttered helplessly. 'Oh, Ross, what are you doing, what about my plane? Tell me what's going on!' Tears started to roll down her cheeks and there was nothing she could do to stop them. Ross whipped a spanking clean handkerchief from his breast pocket and mopped her face and told her to blow her nose. Next minute his arms came round her, gathering her to him and sweeping her off her feet, kissing her over and over again, right in front of everyone.
'Jennifer Westcott, I've spent the past twenty-four hours chasing round Africa after you!'
* * *
The lake teemed with freshwater life, dragonflies skimming its surface, the shorelines patrolled by fishing birds, a small tent almost hidden among the frondy stems of papyrus. The air was full of bird sound and rippling water and the whirring of wings. English swallows were preening themselves under an African sun and a man and a woman were sharing a picnic right by the water's edge, yards from where gaudy gillimews with purple-red beaks were busily snatching small fish from the water.
'This would be the perfect spot for a honeymoon,' said Ross, 'but I'm afraid we’re going to have to settle for Liverpool instead.'
'Can't we come back here?' she murmured, nuzzling his neck and covering the side of his chin with pleading butterfly kisses.
He kissed the tip of her sun-speckled nose and silenced her mouth with another plump fresh date. 'Rainy season starts soon. There's already a tension in the air. Can't you feel it?'
'I feel nothing but your heartbeat,' she sighed, leaning back against her husband-to-be. 'But OK, Boss, Liverpool with you sounds pretty good to me.' She sat up, momentarily distracted by goings-on among the lake's carpeting of waterlilies. 'Quick, pass the bird book. There's something nimbling about on the waterlily pads.'
'Nimbling,' chuckled Ross, stroking the line of her back through the flimsy cotton sundress. 'Dear Jenni, what sort of word is that? You're an original, you truly are. Those are sandpipers, my darling, searching for insects and other food, using the leaves for rafts. And those other greedy little chaps "flailing the lily flowers to shreds as they dabble and deep-dive" are coots, according to page thirty-four. Coots is what they are, and what you've been, my lovely Jenni, resisting me for so long.'
'Don't you call me a coot, Dr McDonnell! I behaved with impeccable discretion.'
Ross groaned dramatically. 'Impeccable discretion! Is that what you call it? I'd describe it as the hard cold shoulder. Do you realise you could have lost me for good if it hadn't been for Sylvia telling me those fibs about you pining away with misery?'
'Hmm,' said Jenni, 'Nurse Anstey has hidden depths. I don't know how she could have dared. Besides, I'm a bad girl underneath and I'd have come looking for you in the end. You wouldn't have escaped me for long.' She lay back on the rug they had spread over the heat-baked grasses, flinging a protective arm across her sun-dazzled eyes, wondering how Dr Stefanie McDonnell could have left so tender and loving a man.
Reluctantly Ross had shown Jenni a photograph of Stef taken at some university do. It showed a tall fine-boned blonde, in her early thirties and extremely smartly dressed. It was impossible to gauge anything of this woman's character other than that she was self-confident and sophisticated. She certainly didn't look wicked or wanton. In fact, thought Jenni uncomfortably, Stef was not unlike her own sister Helen…
When Ross had snatched Jenni from the airport he had taken her back to his hotel room where he asked her to listen to him very carefully. He had seen Stef. She could have the divorce she'd long been asking for. Jenni was never likely to have to meet her because Stefanie had dropped the bombshell that she and Trevor were abandoning the world of academia and planning to buy a vineyard and live permanently near Bordeaux.
Ross had shaken his head over this: a couple of totally impractical academics! Though he never wanted to see either of them again, he wished them well.
Stef had been very curious about Jenni, but Ross had refused to say anything more than that he was in love with a nurse he'd met in Africa. 'Good God,' Stef had exclaimed, 'you mean a black woman?'
Ross had sighed and said he wouldn't discuss the matter further.
Jenni was shocked. 'You told her you were going to marry again, when even I wasn't in on your plans!'
'Sylvia emailed me from Dar and said you were breaking your heart missing me.'
'What a fib! How would she know?’
'She invented it, she told me so last night, but she was working on a hunch. Her female intuition.’
‘Huh. Cheeky woman.’
An antelope sped by and Jenni and Ross turned to watch its graceful flight. Their heads swung from side to side in unison, there was so much to take in.
'See how each bird type fishes with its own idiosyncratic style,' pointed out Ross, drawing her gaze to the flamingoes with their crimson plumage and long stick-like legs; the black herons, their wings spread like Victorian parasols as they patrolled the shallows; a school of pelicans dipping their heads into the water like a formation team of swimmers.
'Ross,' sighed Jenni, 'what are we going to do?'
He hugged her close. 'Don't worry, sweetheart, I have it all worked out. With your approval, this is what I suggest. You'll be up for a Sister's post when you get back. Yes? Well, you're going to have to choose between me and a navy-blue uniform because I'm nearly thirty-eight and I want my wife to start producing my netball team—'
Jenni punched him playfully in the ribs. 'Don't you mean a cricket team?'
'Netball team,' insisted Ross. 'I want little daughters with Titian plaits and green hair ribbons.'
'And freckles?'
'Freckles. Goes without saying.'
'You know how many's in a netball team? You sure you can afford it?'
'Well, Sister Westcott, you'll be wanting to get back to work as soon as the youngest starts school, so we'll manage somehow. If you care to come to the tent I'll show you just what I have in mind.'
'Good thinking, Doctor! I was wondering when you'd get round to that...'
THE END
Thank you for buying this book. I loved writing it and hope it has been an enjoyable read. Would you like to leave a review on amazon for me? I’d be really grateful.
You may also be interested in another of my medical romances originally written for Mills&Boon/Harlequin:
Heart Surgeon in Portugal by Anna Ramsay.
More Anna Ramsay titles coming soon under the Parma Romance imprint. The Parma Violet is a form of the ordinary violet but with larger flowers and an exotic romantic history.
