The Doctor Claims His Bride (17 page)

He wanted so much to believe Bridgette but most of him kept asking,
Why didn’t she wait for me?
He redialled the hotel and asked Reception to go and check if Mia was in the room. He paced back and forth, waiting on hold until he was told the room was vacant. He rang off. ‘She’s not there.’

‘Oh.’ The small word was spoken slowly and was loaded with meaning.

Ignoring her, he grabbed a pen and scrawled his mobile number on a piece of paper, agitation making the numbers blur. He shoved it at Bridgette. ‘If she contacts the ward, ring me on my mobile straight away. I’m going to go the police.’

‘Flynn, she’s not missing.’

‘Yes, she is!’

The unit manager jumped at his yell but held her ground. ‘I know you’re upset but…’ She reached out and put her hand gently onto his forearm. ‘Can you think of any reason why she didn’t want to go to The Gardens with you?’

Didn’t want to go with you
.

His blood instantly drained to his feet as the roar of organ music swelled in his head. Music that had played for over an hour while he’d waited for a bride that had never shown. Music that had played in a shopping centre while he’d waited for his mother who had never appeared.

Mia wasn’t missing. With no note and with no warning, Mia had gone.

He threw off Bridgette’s hand, spun on his heel and almost ran from the ward. His feet took him into the lift, out across the entrance with its decorated floor, and into the steaming humidity. He passed the taxi rank without stopping, barely noticing the tropical palms and attractive gardens. He kept walking, not caring where he was going as long as he was moving.

He saw a juice container in the gutter and with a bellow he swung his leg back and then brought it forward, kicking the bottle hard, relishing the release it gave him. A woman walking along the footpath quickly grabbed her pre-schooler’s hand and crossed the road.

He turned into a park and took a long drink from a water fountain then slumped onto a bench, sweat pouring down his neck. He rested his head in his hands, catching his breath.

How had he been so stupid? Why had he let down his guard?

He knew better. Hell, for two years he’d avoided relationships for good reason. Women left him. It was what they did. First his mother, then Brooke. And now Mia had abandoned him.

He knew better than to trust a woman. They took his
love and then they walked away, trampling his heart with their receding footsteps. Every single time.

How had he let a pair of amazing blue eyes, long blonde hair and the tantalising scent of Mia derail him?

Because there is so much more to Mia than that
.

The thought burned into him, stilling his tumultuous and churning mind. He sat up, his hand gripping the edge of the bench, the sharp corner pressing into his palm. Mia couldn’t be compared to women like his mother and Brooke. She stood apart by a million miles.

She didn’t have a selfish bone in her body. She put others ahead of herself all the time. She’d nursed her mother, she’d risked her life to save the little girl from the crocodile and had rushed to defend a woman in danger. She’d even taken on Joe despite it being another job on a never-ending list.

He shook his head. If Mia had a fault it was that she cared too much. Care drove her every action, which was why she did crazy things like risking her life.

Why had she gone? Why had she left him? He stood up and leaned over the water fountain, splashing his face with water, using the coolness to try and clear his head.

Mia’s mud-streaked face wafted through his mind.
I don’t expect you to marry me, I don’t expect or want anything from you
.

At the time lust had made him interpret those words as a gift. A woman who didn’t want commitment but had wanted him had seemed too good to be true. He’d taken the gift with open arms. But why didn’t a beautiful woman want the love of a man? She’d told him that
her broken relationship had been for the best and she hadn’t seemed distraught over it.

Think
. He racked his brain, trying to remember conversations and her exact words. She’d been so stressed and uptight when she’d arrived on Kirra but that was reasonable considering she’d just come out of a year of death, losing her mother and brother within months of each other. She was certainly no stranger to grief, having coped with her father dying when she was younger.

I’m going to die. I know I’m going to die
.

Her frantic words from two days ago tore at him. He’d heard her and dismissed the words as the frenzied ramblings of someone having a panic attack. Did she really believe she was going to die? He tried to shrug away the irrational thought but it kept hammering at him. Was that why she risked her life without thought for her own safety?

He started pacing again, needing the movement to think. Why did she think she was going to die? None of it made any sense. She was a healthy young woman with so much to offer. Sure, she had her own crazy little quirks, like writing down every little thing, but everyone has idiosyncrasies.

Her voice spoke softly in his head.
My mother died of dementia
.

He’d assumed her mother had been elderly but given that Mia was only twenty-six there was every possibility she’d been under the age of fifty.

Steven didn’t want to marry into my family
.

My brother’s death is listed as a car accident
.

The words started to pound in his head as the memory
of her eyes, totally blank and devoid of emotion after the crocodile attack, sucked the wind from his lungs.

With devastating clarity all the ducks lined up. Mia thought she had memory loss and the start of dementia. Her brother had taken his own life from fear of it. It had to be the explanation.

There are women out there who can make you happy. You need to get out there and meet them
.

His heart thumped hard against his ribs and a glimmer of hope slowly unfolded deep inside him. Mia hadn’t left him to hurt him. She’d left him to protect him.

Well, he wouldn’t let her.

Decision spurred him on. He ran out of the park and back to the main road, looking for a taxi. Empty blacktop greeted him. He pulled out his phone and dialled a cab. He had to find her.

His brain had jerked from chaos to order as he ran through a plan. Just about every flight out of Darwin left after midnight and he had a really strong feeling she’d be heading south tonight. But she wasn’t going anywhere if he had anything to do with it. He had twelve hours to find her. And if he failed in that time he’d lie in front of the plane if need be.

A cab came around the corner and pulled up beside him.

The driver leaned over and opened the door. ‘Where to, mate?’

‘The airport hotel.’

M
IA
lay on the bed, waiting for the air-conditioner to have an impact on the steaming air and cool the sauna that was her room. Now that the first part of her journey had been completed, her legs had turned to jelly.

The hotel staff had been very solicitous and made sure the phone, TV remote and water were within reach. They’d promised to bring her an early lunch so she could get a good rest this afternoon before her flight. Not that she had much of an appetite.

The clock showed twelve-thirty on the liquid display. Two hours since she’d left the hospital. Ninety minutes since Flynn would have arrived to collect her. She bit her lip and blinked rapidly, hating what she’d done but knowing she’d had scant choice.

If she’d waited and told him her plan, he wouldn’t have let her leave. He didn’t deserve the pain and hurt she’d just inflicted on him by disappearing, but more importantly he didn’t deserve to lose a chunk of his life caring for her in a vegetative state.

Short-term pain for long-term gain, wasn’t that what ‘they’ said? She prayed he would be OK. That he would
find the love of a good woman, that…. Tears spilled down her cheeks. Why did life have to be this hard? She reached for a tissue and blew her nose.

She would
not
feel sorry for herself. She had a plan and working on that would keep her busy. She’d fly to Perth, find a menial job where she wasn’t a danger to anyone and then investigate nursing homes. She’d find the best one for when she could no longer care for herself.

A knock sounded on her door. Lunch. She wearily swung her legs off the bed, holding her slinged arm close to her chest to avoid any jerking. ‘Coming.’

She slid the chain back across its chase, turned the handle and opened the door. Silver spots shimmered in front of her eyes and she gripped the architrave for support.

‘Hello, Mia.’

Flynn stood in the corridor, his face drawn, his clothing crumpled and his black hair spiked from being trammelled by fingers. His eyes flashed with a combination of fear and relief but when he spoke his voice only contained steely determination. ‘I’ve come to talk to you. Don’t even think of suggesting that I don’t need to.’

His dishevelled look told her of the hell she’d put him through and her heart spasmed as her knees sagged beneath her. ‘You weren’t supposed to find me.’

‘Well, I did.’ His strong arms reached around her waist, supporting her. ‘Come on, you need to be lying down.’ The gruff words belied his tender touch as he guided her back to the bed.

Mia wanted to lean into him, wanted him to cradle her against his chest, but that would just make things worse. Make things harder than they already were.

The moment her bottom hit the mattress, Flynn stepped back and sat down in a chair a good metre away from her. ‘Do you want to tell me why you’re here?’

She drew in a long, deep breath. ‘I’m on a late flight.’

‘I gathered that. Can you tell me why?’

She closed her eyes for a moment, avoiding his penetrating gaze which threatened to undo her resolve. ‘Remember when I told you I live day to day? Well, today I decided that while Kirra has been fun, it’s time to go south.’

He crossed his arms across his broad chest and his cheeks sucked in as tension shot across his face. ‘I don’t believe you.’

Her heart started to hammer hard against her ribs. ‘That’s your prerogative.’

He leaned forward, his expression incisive. ‘The Mia I’ve come to love wouldn’t abandon her patients or Kirra on a whim.’

Her chest tightened. She’d been right. He really did love her. But she wouldn’t let him. She needed to make him want to walk away from her. The fire of pain burned in her chest, vaporising her breath, and she gasped for air. ‘Perhaps you don’t know me as well as you think you do.’

His expression softened, love and affection radiating from him. ‘I know you better than any woman I have ever loved. I know you better than you know yourself.’

‘You don’t.’ The words rushed out in a feeble defence.

‘I do.’ His hands fell to his knees palms facing up. ‘And I know you love me.’

The truth pummelled her like breakers over a reef but
she had to make him leave. ‘You’ve got tickets on yourself. We were having a no-strings-attached affair, which you agreed to. Now it’s over.’

‘Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t love me.’

His deep voice vibrated around her and she tried not to lose herself in warm hazel eyes. She dredged up the words to form the biggest lie of her life, but the denial wouldn’t come. ‘I’m going somewhere a lot cooler.’

‘To die alone?’

Her heart stalled. He knew. How did he know? Panic surged in ever-increasing waves as words failed her completely.

‘I know, Mia. Or at least I think I’ve worked it out. You believe you have an inherited disease like Huntington’s.’

His words fell on her like an ice storm, jagged and sharp, giving her nowhere to hide. She swallowed and then looked straight at his empathetic face, and could no longer deny him the truth. ‘Frontotemporal dementia.’

‘Pick’s disease.’ He kept his gaze hooked with hers. ‘How do you know you have it?’

‘Because it killed my mother and my grandfather.’ The words jetted out like water from a fire hose, released by his question. ‘She started getting sick at forty. At first we thought she was bipolar with her impulsive shopping trips. But then she started doing things that are not associated with that disorder. She’d swear in social situations, using language I didn’t even know she knew. She had always been Miss Manners but she began telling people exactly what she thought, no matter how hurtful. But the night she danced topless at the church Christmas party we knew something terrible was happening.’

‘Did she have an MRI?’ Flynn spoke quietly, his voice gently prompting.

She nodded slowly, remembering the day of the scan. ‘Yes, and it showed atrophy of the brain that was consistent with her other symptoms.’ Her breath shuddered out of her lungs. ‘At that point a diagnosis of bipolar would have been a blessing.’

She hadn’t told anyone about her mother but now she needed to. She needed Flynn to understand the true horror of the disease. ‘Mum would listen to the same music over and over, hoard every newspaper that came into the house and have food jags. For weeks she would only eat carrots. She’d always been fastidious about her clothes and make-up but slowly she lost interest in herself and her personal hygiene slipped. That was when Michael and I decided she needed full-time care.’

‘And you gave up your job to care for her?’

The anguish on his face reinforced her decision to head south. No one deserved to watch someone they love die a living death as they gradually lost everything that made them who they were. She plucked at the sheet beneath her, her fingers making little triangular shapes.

‘Michael and I shared the care for a while but he…’ She took a steadying breath. ‘He couldn’t handle it and left for Melbourne.’ She dashed an errant tear off her face. ‘Now do you understand? I’ve lived through this disease, every step of the way, with my mother and I won’t let it destroy your life as well as mine.’

His eyes sparked with strength of purpose. ‘It won’t destroy my life. It would be an honour and privilege to care for you.’ He ran his hand through his hair. ‘Hasn’t
your time on Kirra taught you that a community cares for each other no matter what? Hell, the Kirri people are no strangers to hardship and if you do get sick then together we’ll take care of you.’