Sarah's Baby (14 page)

“As he's part of Harriet's string quartet, I'm sure I will. But don't change the subject.”

“I wasn't, actually. I was simply talking about Evan. He's a wonderful musician—cello—but that wasn't his previous life. He's like a man who's…who's been in a lot of dangerous places.” Kyall shrugged. “What about the old Fielding place? It's been vacant since Miss Fielding had to go into a nursing home. It's cool and spacious and it's close to Harriet's.”

“I'm set on the Sinclair house.”

“That doesn't make sense, Sarah, unless the house has some significance to you. But what? You've become far too enigmatic.” He shook his head. “I, on the other hand, know exactly what I want for the future. I want you. I want
us to get married as soon as possible. It's our destiny. You said you loved me.”

There was a fatalistic note in her voice. “Why wouldn't I love you?”

“Why can't you prove it, then?” His eyes glittered with sudden fierce emotion. “Or make that sound a little happier?”

“I can't at the moment.” She grew quiet.

“Which makes me very curious. Why so cryptic? What are you hiding?” He threw a quick glance at her profile, hoping to find
something.
Some clue as to what was going on in her head.

“My path through life hasn't been as easy as yours, Kyall.”

That wrenched him. “How could you call mine easy?” His retort was almost curt. “God, Sarah, you know better than anyone what a dysfunctional family I've got. My grandmother has a genius for alienating people. She riles everyone in sight. Most people who meet her for the first time think they've bumped smack into Lucretia Borgia at her worst. She's the same with her own daughter and her son-in-law—my father—who I'm sure is secretly waiting for her to die. As far as Gran's concerned, there are only two people in the world worth a damn. Her and me, and she's starting to have second thoughts about me. You call that an easy, civilized existence? I've had a hard ride since I was a kid.”

“Poor little rich kid.” Sarah's tone changed to teasing and her expression of quiet solemnity broke up.

Her smile was a radiance that lit up her face, he thought, heartened by it. He sent her a droll look. “Which just goes to prove that life isn't any easier for the rich.”

“Well, I suppose that's true in some ways,” Sarah said.
“The worst of it is, you want to marry me and make me part of all that.”

“Not only want to, I'm going to.” Kyall reached out to cover one of her hands with his own.

Instantly she sobered again. What happened when he discovered her tragic secret? He might find that impossible to live with. For all her success in school and later as a doctor, losing their child was the central, defining event of her life. Even now, it dominated both past and future.

“Why the poignant expression?” Kyall was dismayed by the abrupt change in her. “You're acting like marrying me might be some sort of tragedy. Why? Surely you know I'll protect you with my life.”

She hesitated, uncertain what to say. Finally she spoke. “We got way ahead of ourselves, Kyall. That first time we made love.”

“Oh, Lord, Sarah, will you ever let me forget? It was wonderful for me.”

“And me.” She touched his arm, linked her fingers like a bracelet. “But it separated us for years and years.”

“I've got to ask why. Why did you act like you hated me when you didn't hate me at all?”

“For the reasons I told you. Your family didn't want me in your life, Kyall.”

“Ah, the hell with that!” The roughness of his tone reflected his frustration and anger. “I'd have married you, no matter what. It's not that unusual, you know. Plenty of people marry without family approval. It happens every day.”

“I know that, only, for years your family—your grandmother—was simply too much for me.”

“Surely she isn't now, Sarah? You're your own woman, with your own well-respected identity. People love you. You're beautiful, but there's nothing threatening about you.
Only an aura of goodness and integrity, which must serve you well in your profession.”

“I'm nowhere near as good as you think.”

“Yes, you are. You've just been lonely and filled with grief. There's a tremendous kinship between us, Sarah. I haven't found it with any other woman, and I'll admit there have been a few. I did try to forget you, but it didn't work.”

“Not for me, either,” she admitted without any trace of embarrassment.

“So we're kindred souls?”

“We seem to be.” She smiled.

“In the old days, I knew everything about you,” he mused. “I could read you like a book, as you read me. But you've returned a mystery. Or is it just that you're a woman?” His mouth twisted wryly.

She thought a moment. “I guess you could say I've come to realize that unsolvable problems exist.”

“Well, if they do, Sarah, you don't have to face them alone. I have this idea that your very sick patients, especially little children—I know how much you love them—drain you emotionally. You need me, Sarah. You need my love.”

That was the absolute truth. Sarah couldn't get away from it. She turned her head, staring out the window at the scenery flying by. Kyall wasn't following the line of billabongs, she realized, but heading toward what they all quaintly called “the Hill Country.” In the flattest continent on earth, the Hill Country was a series of low, eroded mesas colored a magnificent orange-red, relics of an ancient past. The narrow gorges and canyons were a world apart from the surrounding arid spinifex plains. Here there were permanent pools, even when the creeks had dried out, and species of oasislike tropical palms and plants that managed to survive in the enclosed damp environment. Here, too,
located beside the permanent water holes, were fascinating Aboriginal rock paintings, executed on the multicolored horizontal bands of the cliff walls and the interiors of small caves. The Hill country's raw-earth ochres were turning to pinks and rose and violets as the sun went down.

For Kyall and Sarah, wild as it was, with its brooding aura of great antiquity, this was the most beautiful environment on earth. It was a shared love that had suffused their relationship and strengthened the unbreakable bond between them. It also illustrated the fact that the great pioneering families and the white settlers of the outback had, over time, absorbed something of the Aboriginal Dreaming with its belief that this ancient land was sacred, created by the Great Spirit Beings.

Eventually they stopped and climbed out of the Range Rover. “You won't be able to walk far in those shoes,” Kyall observed, looking down at her stylish black dress shoes. “You might ruin them. I should've thought of that before.”

“I'm not worried about it.” Sarah tugged with irritation at the few pins that held her hair in a neat upturned roll. Free of restraint, her golden mane tumbled around her face and floated over her shoulders in the way Kyall loved best. She moved on, walking carefully across the sea of smoothly rounded rocks and pebbles while streams of birds rose in formation on the desert wind. In the distance, a whirlwind was dancing across the sweeping plain. A mirage of shimmering blue lakes that simply didn't exist taunted the eye. This was the fascination of the desert country, the savage beauty and the frightening specter of death. At least at the water hole, they could drink deeply of the pure, surprisingly cold, life-giving water.

Kyall caught up with her easily, taking her hand for the sheer pleasure of holding it, not just to lend support.
Clumps of the ubiquitous spinifex speckled the slope, splashes of gold against the orange-red sand. They avoided coming into contact with their spikes, continuing fairly cautiously because of Sarah's shoes, until they came to the first level of caves.

“I'll go in first,” Kyall told her briefly. “Make sure there's nothing around. You stay off to one side.”

Sarah did what she was told. Little rock wallabies often took shelter in the caves to avoid the heat. The desert's fearsome-looking but harmless lizards sought the shade of the rocks, although the reptiles had perfected the technique of basking out under the powerful sun.

“All clear.” Kyall came back out, his tall body almost doubled over to clear the height of the entrance. “You'll have to take off your shoes here or your heels will sink. It's quite extraordinary. Some of the rock paintings are as vivid as if they were painted in our lifetime, instead of thousands of years ago.”

They entered the cave and stood hand in hand, the old familiarity returning to them. This was one of the favorite haunts of their childhood. They stared upward, thrilled by what they saw.

The ceiling of the cave soared to some twenty feet, a veritable treasure trove of drawings. There were many circles and spirals incised on the ceiling and walls that they took to signify rock pools and water holes. There were meandering designs that could mean trails of various kinds, billabongs, creeks, even the travels of ancestral beings. Many of the drawings, executed in ochres, were immediately identifiable. They represented hunters with spears about to throw them, with totemic beings and creatures around them, looking on. There were innumerable drawings of animals, trees, plants, what appeared to be showers of rain and most incredible of all, the unmistakable outline of
a giant crocodile. It was so accurate in every detail that when they were children they used to jump with excitement every time they saw it.

Imagine crocodiles living in the large inland sea of prehistory! The sea that was now the Dead Heart. Vertical yellow lines flanked the crocodile's body like the sandy banks of a tidal creek. Scarcely an inch wasn't decorated, some drawings faint, others in vivid tones of yellow, red, white and black. There were no drawings of women. These caves, apparently, had only been available to men. Other symbols appeared, ones impossible to understand as any ancient hieroglyphics.

“The fascination doesn't go away, does it?” Sarah whispered, brushing at the curling tendrils that clung to her temples and cheeks.

“No…it doesn't.”

She turned, her heart doing cartwheels at the tone of his voice. There was something tumultuous between them now. A flash flood of desire, building to torrents. It expressed itself in the tautness of his expression, the glitter in his eyes.

Sarah heard the whoosh of her own blood in her ears. She couldn't have moved, even if she'd wanted to. He had such power about him. Marvelous male strength, strong bones, rippling muscle. Sexuality. As always, she was reacting to his nearness, the tingle in her breasts, the knife-edged pain, near-ecstasy…

“I want you, Sarah.” The backs of his fingers stroked her cheeks, heating her skin. His hand sank lower, weaving through the neckline of her dress, over the supple skin of her shoulder, down to the curve of her breast, its rose tip already flared into life.

Then he found her mouth, his tongue slipping into the slick interior. She opened her mouth fully to him, allowing him to explore at will. It was all so voluptuous, so sensu
ous, the cause of bodily weakness and a measure of pain. Whatever he wanted, she couldn't resist him.

His hands continued to smooth and caress, down over her back and her buttocks, her muscles contracting at his touch.

They stood together, he taking her mouth, his hand teasing the hemline of her skirt, then lifting it on a muffled exclamation, as though her dress presented an intolerable barrier. The panties she wore were soon off, a silken slide to her feet, until she moved to step out of them, swaying. It was a tyranny of the senses, the wild sweet fever that burned through her veins.

His fingers entered her and she found herself spreading her legs, eyes tightly shut against the ecstasy that was sucking the breath from her lungs. She thought in an erotic frenzy she might come. Or was he commanding her to come?

“Kyall!”

“You want me. Tell me.” His voice, little more than a rasp, was as forceful as she'd ever heard it. A demand, not a question.

“Yes. Oh, yes.” She bowed her head, struggling against fainting.

“Is that the truth?”

“God, Kyall, I can't bear it. Yes!” She could scarcely cope with her own explosive desires.

While she stood, he fell to his knees, his strong arms twined around her, locking her to him in a kind of exultation. Her body opened to him. To his hands, to his fingers, to his mouth, to his tongue.

“My beautiful Sarah! My most beautiful Sarah!”

She heard her own convulsive intake of breath, then her hands clutched his glossy dark head, cradling it to her body as he began to kiss her.

It was exquisite. Yet it made her writhe as though surely she were in pain. Her heart seemed to have slipped from her breast down the smooth shallow slope of her stomach to her inner core.

She couldn't think. She could only feel, welcoming and trusting in the glorious bonfire of the senses that only he could ignite. Her whole body was flushed with heat, spirals and spirals of descending, licking flames.

She could no longer stand, rendered helpless and in danger of losing all sense of herself. It was then that he lifted her, laying her on the soft sand, watching her face as he removed what garments were left to her.

The brilliant sunlight outside the cave sent a golden play of light across her naked body. He savored it, loverlike. How long had he wanted this woman?

It might have been forever.

F
AR FROM TREATING
snake bites, spider bites and the odd tourist with sunstroke as her former boss at Waverley Medical Centre had suggested, Sarah found herself pitched headlong into medical dramas. In Brisbane she'd often diagnosed chest pains, earaches, sore throats, nosebleeds if they hadn't stopped within thirty minutes—on one occasion it was the sinister messenger of leukemia—fractures, simple and compound. But during her very first week in Koomera Crossing, a young woman was rushed into the hospital in agony from what Sarah quickly diagnosed and confirmed as a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy. Surgery was the only means of rescue, in this case leaving the young woman without one of her fallopian tubes. In the afternoon, just as the hospital had settled into routine procedures, she dealt with a bad dingo bite, which necessitated a tetanus booster and a course of antibiotics. There was a boy who'd fallen from a tree, tearing his leg open. Then a man working on an outlying cattle property presented with a long steel pole rammed through his leg, thigh and buttock. When the junior nurse, Cathy Moran, saw the patient with the pole still in him, she let out a piercing scream. Sarah had just admitted a small Aboriginal child who'd been suffering from diarrhea for more than week and badly needed salt and fluid administered intravenously. She had to speak to Cathy quite sharply to restore the young woman to her senses.

But it did look pretty horrifying.

“What on earth happened?” Sarah asked, turning to the emergency worker who'd brought in the impaled man.

“Poor bugger drove straight through a gate,” the worker explained, himself in a state of shock. “The pole ripped through the front of the truck and went straight into his leg and his bum. He's been damned brave, I can tell you, Doctor. He's a bit out of it now, but he was conscious and quite calm while we cut him free.”

Sarah bent to the patient. “We'll x-ray this, then go straight into surgery.” She straightened from her hurried examination, pleased to find an attentive theater sister by her side. “It's a miracle, but the pole appears to have missed all his bones and major arteries. A little more of an angle and it would've pierced his groin.”

“Bet he won't drive through a locked gate again,” the worker said. “The sight will haunt me until my dying day.”

“Thank God he'll live to tell the tale. Thank you for all your efforts.” She looked at the worker closely. “You're a bit pale. Why don't you go to the canteen and have a cup of tea?”

“Don't mind if I do, Doctor.” The worker fixed her with a grateful smile.

“This man, you know him?” Sarah asked.

“Sure. Bob Duffy.”

“He's married?”

“Wife and four kids. Someone let her know. She should be coming to the hospital fairly soon. Bit of a drive.”

“Fine.”

As it turned out, Mrs. Duffy didn't bother driving all the way in to the hospital. Her husband regularly had accidents. You name it, he'd fallen over it. It seemed terribly uncaring at the time, but as Sarah was to find out, Mrs. Duffy had been under the impression that “the pipe” was about as
thick as a little finger and maybe a foot long, not a terrifying two-inch-thick nine-footer. When she did finally arrive the next morning, it was to find her husband sitting cheerfully in bed, holding the souvenir pole like a great didgeridoo.

Mrs. Duffy fainted.

The following day brought a sadder case. A young father, a bush worker, drove his three-month-old son to the hospital only for Sarah to declare the baby dead on arrival. Baby, hitherto healthy, had been found facedown in his crib. The mother had known her child was dead, but the young father had refused to accept it, jumping into his truck and driving to the hospital. Even when Sarah explained to him as gently as possible that, for reasons still not understood, one in a hundred babies stops breathing in the first few months of life, the father appeared to have difficulty taking the tragedy in. Very gradually Sarah was able to calm him, in the end sedating him against his grief. Eventually the young mother, too, was brought in having temporarily lost the power of speech.

And it didn't slow down. On one of the stations a calf kicked a seven-months-pregnant woman, who went into labor. A helicopter was dispatched from Wunnamurra Station to bring the young woman in. She gave birth in the hospital, the first child Sarah delivered there. A pallid, sickly little creature Sarah privately despaired of, but with an extended period spent in hospital and a good deal of expert care, he was destined to turn into a bright, chubby little boy.

Looking back over a month of battling injuries not common in the city but frequent in the bush, Sarah felt secretly thrilled that she'd acquitted herself well. She'd worked long and hard, sometimes to the point of exhaustion. There was no question that the town had accepted her. She need not have worried they wouldn't. She appeared to have every
one's support and approval, and it meant a great deal to her. Added to that, she got on well with the staff, who showed genuine concern for her well-being. Once she'd been part of this town's life. Now she was back. She loved the country-hospital atmosphere, immensely grateful that bush nursing sisters, double-certificated or not, had become accustomed to doing practically everything, including domestic duties when the paid domestics had a break. Life at the hospital was all about pitching in.

Six weeks later, Sarah had moved into the Sinclair house, despite Kyall's objections. Nothing and no one bothered her. Soon afterward, her assistant arrived. Dr. Morris Hughes, a fine-looking man in his late sixties, exuded energy, kindness and humor—and showed an understanding of life that Sarah responded to from the moment they met. She and Dr. Hughes would get on. A blessing because “getting on” was extremely important. Dr. Hughes—“Please call me Morris”—had retired from private practice in Adelaide, but after eighteen months of missing his working life with its high level of responsibility and commitment, he decided there were still a few years of doctoring left in him.

Kyall had gone out of his way to fly to Adelaide to conduct the brief face-to-face interview, other negotiations having gone well. The next day, he flew Dr. Hughes into Koomera Crossing and settled him in Joe Randall's comfortable bungalow. The following morning, Kyall arrived by station helicopter to take the doctor to the hospital to meet Sarah.

“Let me tell you a few things about myself, Sarah,” Morris Hughes said when they were all seated in her office, waiting for morning tea. “I'm a widower. I lost my wife, Anne, to breast cancer when she was only fifty-six. It was a dreadful blow. I felt that as a doctor, I should've been
able to save her, but in the end I couldn't. I haven't been able to form a relationship since. I loved Anne so much. I have two sons, both doctors. One's a cardiologist, the other a pediatrician.”

“Dr. Patrick Hughes?” Sarah raised a brow. She knew a doctor of that name by his outstanding reputation.

Morris leaned back in his chair and smiled. “My boy Pat!”

“One of the finest pediatricians working today,” Sarah said warmly. “I've read all his articles with the closest attention. And you're his dad! Your sons must have inherited their love of medicine from you.”

Morris inclined his gray head. “We both know it's a difficult, daunting and heartbreaking profession. But there are undoubtedly rewards when you can help along the way.”

“Morris himself has an excellent reputation,” Kyall said, standing up in response to the soft tap on Sarah's office door. “Many thanks.” He took the tea tray from the junior nurse, whose expression of adoration made Sarah smile.

“Here, Kyall.” Sarah indicated the cleared space at the side of her desk before turning back to Dr. Hughes. “I'm sure you have, Morris,” she said, knowing Kyall had thoroughly checked out the doctor's credentials. “I'm so pleased you're here. You'll take a lot of the pressure off me. It's a long way from the City of the Churches.” Adelaide, capital of South Australia, was famous for the large number of its beautiful churches. Sarah smiled and began serving the tea.

“That's fine by me,” Morris replied, his sherry-colored eyes quietly relaxed. “My boys live and work in Sydney. They're both so busy I don't get to see much of them or the grandchildren. I'm in excellent health, touch wood, and I find myself wanting to work again. The outback isn't quite
a new experience for me. I've done a good deal of travel out here in my time. Uluru, the Olgas, the Alice, Kakadu and the Kimberley.”

“Then welcome aboard, Morris.” Sarah gestured with one hand. “Oddly enough, I've found myself with far more doctoring to do here than in my former practice in Brisbane. Your wanting to join me has come as a great relief. I'm very grateful to Kyall and the McQueen family for everything they've done for this hospital.”

Kyall's eyes lit on Sarah with a faintly mocking look. There had been no warming of relations between Sarah and his grandmother. His mother, though, had shown a lot of courage in defying Ruth, calling in on Sarah every time she came to town. “What we need to do is have a party to introduce you to Koomera Crossing,” Kyall decided, giving the older man a smile. “Maybe a week from now. On Wunnamurra. There are some pretty interesting people in this town, even if it is off the beaten track.”

“Good Lord, yes.” Morris Hughes surprised Sarah and Kyall by responding so enthusiastically. “Like that quite wonderful woman I met this morning. Miss Crompton, headmistress of the school?”

“Harriet.” Sarah smiled. It was plain that Morris Hughes had liked what he'd seen. “Kyall and I adore her. She taught us both until we went away to boarding school. She's touched many people's lives in this town. We couldn't do without our Harriet. She's a woman of culture.”

“And she's a musician? Viola?” Morris Hughes's eyes rested on Sarah with open interest.

“You did get to talking, didn't you.” Kyall laughed, thinking there was a start of a friendship there.

“Such a tremendously
alive
woman,” Morris said happily. “She was passing the house by chance this morning.
I was on the porch waiting for Kyall, and Miss Crompton stopped to introduce herself. She reminded me a bit of my Anne. Clever, funny, sensitive. I'll be delighted to meet Miss Crompton again.”

And we'll do our best to encourage it,
thought Sarah, wondering if Harriet's ears were burning.

Afterward Sarah excused herself for a few moments to see Kyall off. “Does it need to be at Wunnamurra?” she asked as they walked down the short flight of stone steps to the pavement.

Kyall held her by the arm. “I think so, yes.”

“Sweet Lord! This is a setup, isn't it. You want to bring your grandmother and me together.” Sarah wasn't sure she could handle it.

He met her gaze, fully aware of her insecurities. “Don't worry about it, Sarah,” he said briskly. “Remember that McQueen money built this hospital. And we've got a magnificent homestead that no one seems to visit anymore. That's got to change. But yes, you're right. I do want to try to bring you and Gran together.”

She sent him an ironic look. “It's hopeless, Kyall. If your grandmother could have me annihilated, she would. Some things one just can't change. It's the same in medicine. You do everything possible to change the outcomes for your patients, but sometimes they never get better.”

For a moment he didn't speak, wanting nothing more than to gather her into his arms. Today her long, golden hair was drawn back into a thick single rope he longed to untwine. “At least relations between you and my mother have improved.”

“They have,” Sarah answered. “Your mother extended her hand. I was happy to meet her halfway. She must get an unpleasant reaction from your grandmother whenever
she visits—if your grandmother even knows about the visits.”

“She knows,” Kyall confirmed. “My mother, if she ever frees herself of Gran's domination, could be a woman of substance.”

“Odd,” Sarah mused. “Your grandmother's whole purpose in life seems to be having all her demands met. I expect she's being unpleasant to you, too.”

“Not really.” He flashed her a smile, half amused, half wry. “She lets out the occasional nasty remark, but it's like water off a duck's back. Gran's never been able to dominate me. She's aware of that. She can't cut me out of my inheritance, either. It's all tied up, and Gran is merely the custodian. Wunnamurra will pass to me. If I want to give a party for Morris, who seems a good, generous man, I will. That goes for marrying you, as well. I can take only so much of this situation, Sarah.” His expression tightened. “We can't just coast along. I want you with me. Hell, the wanting is making me frantic. Sometimes I wish…”

“That you didn't love me?”

He pulled on her thick plait. “I've loved you from childhood. But I have no talent for this waiting. When you told me all those years ago that you wanted no part of me anymore, I used the only defense I had. I tried to forget you with other women, but the memory of you never let me alone. Now that terrible period of our lives is over—and you can't close the door on me again. I want to get married and have our child,” he said with finality.

Sarah's face paled. “You promised you'd give me six months.”

“Why can't we get engaged in the meantime?” he demanded.

“How your grandmother would detest that!”

“Are you afraid of her, Sarah?”

“I'm afraid of what she could do.”

“Like what? Come on. We've had this conversation before. We go around and around, but there's a mystery here. What could she do to you?”

“The word
attack
comes to mind.”

He gave her a searching glance. “God, Sarah, you can't mean a
physical
attack? She's never done anything like that in her life! She's seventy-five years old.”