Marion Lennox - Prescription-One Husband

‘No?’ Fern sighed. ‘Aunt Maud was so sick and so upset that she’s had a massive heart attack. We only just managed to resuscitate her and I don’t know what permanent damage might have been done. Frank Reid went home alone with his diabetes and his upset stomach. When I found him his blood sugar was climbing sky-high. I hope there’s no long-term damage there but I can’t guarantee it.

‘I have to go now, Lizzy. Quinn Gallagher and I have our work cut out to try and reverse the damage you’ve caused. I just hope there’s no one we’ve missed.’

Lizzy stared up at Fern, her face a mask of horror. ‘Dear God, Fern…’ she whispered. ‘I didn’t mean…You must know I didn’t mean…’

‘I know you didn’t mean any long-term damage,’ Fern said wearily. ‘But maybe you didn’t think things through as much as you should have. You were angry at Sam and me-but you’ve hardly hurt us. It’s Aunt Maud you’ve hurt most of all-and she’s always been your friend.’

She left soon after.

Fern drove to Quinn Gallagher’s hospital with a heavy heart, the sun setting over the island in a huge ball of crimson fire as she did so. Someone should stay with Lizzy, she thought drearily, but she knew that Lizzy would have no one-and Fern herself was too angry to spend more time with her. Besides, Fern was needed elsewhere.

She collected Frank Reid on the way.

Frank settled comfortably in the back seat of the wedding limousine, looking out of place among the ribbons and bridal netting with which Aunt Maud had so proudly decorated the car. The old man was plainly exhausted and Fern kept an anxious eye on him in the rear-view mirror as she drove.

Bother Lizzy.

She glanced down at her watch.

Seven p.m.

The wedding reception should be drawing to a close right now and she and Sam should be boarding a plane to head back to the city. Back to their life away from this island.

She wasn’t going through this again, she thought grimly. Not even for her aunt and uncle. She and Sam would have a quiet registry office wedding back in Sydney.

Quinn Gallagher had purchased the biggest house on the island. The place had been built by a movie star as a romantic escape from the eyes of the media. The movie star’s escape from the limelight had been all too effective, however, and his bankruptcy had left the vast house on the headland at the north of the island uninhabited and useless.

‘The house is a white elephant,’ the locals had jeered, boggling at the corridors of guest rooms, ballroom, swimming pool and acres of manicured gardens.

White elephant or not, it was the perfect place for a clinic, Fern thought, as she steered her white limousine in through the gates five minutes after collecting Frank. Quinn Gallagher must have money behind him to be able to afford this place.

‘Barega Medical Clinic’, the sign on the gate said, lit from underneath by concealed fluorescent lighting, and for an instant Fern felt a fleeting jab of envy. It would be wonderful to be a doctor here…

Not here…Don’t be stupid, Fern…

The lights were blazing from the verandah and as the car pulled to a halt Quinn strode from the main entrance to meet them. His dinner suit had been discarded in favour of casual trousers with a clinical white coat thrown on over an open-necked shirt.

The change had done nothing to remove the impression of arrant masculinity about the man.

Oblivious of Fern’s reaction, Quinn strode swiftly over and pulled open the back door.

‘Did you find the woman?’ he flung at Fern as he bent over Frank.

‘Lizzy? Y-yes.’ What was it about the man that had Fern flustered every time she laid eyes on him?

‘And?’

‘The oysters must have been left in the sun too long,’ Fern said a trifle unsteadily, aware that if she told the truth Lizzy could be up on a criminal charge.

‘I see.’ Quinn flashed her a fast, assessing glance and Fern knew that he really did see. ‘Then I can assume we should have no major problems.’

‘I expect not.’

Quinn nodded but his attention was already shifting fully back to Frank.

‘How are you, mate?’ he said gently, noting Frank’s tight, pinched face. Quinn reached out to feel Frank’s pulse. ‘I reckon we’ll get a stretcher to bring you in to bed, eh?’

‘I can walk,’ Frank mumbled, but Quinn shook his head.

‘Why walk when you can ride?’ Quinn grinned at the ribbons on the car. ‘Though we might forgo a bit of the bridal splendour from here on.’ He motioned to the verandah and Fern saw a waiting trolley at the head of the stairs.

How would they get that up to the entrance…?

Then, to her amazement, Fern saw a wide, sloping ramp had been installed beside the granite steps. Chrome handrails bordered both steps and ramp.

No expense had been spared here.

Fern’s impressions of expensive renovation deepened the further she went into the clinic. Fern had been in this house once for a lavish party thrown on the movie star’s arrival to the island. Then the house had screamed glitz and glamour. Now it spoke of welcoming comfort, backed by clinical cleanliness and state-of-the-act technology.

How could Barega support such a place?

As she and Quinn wheeled Frank’s trolley along the main corridor Fern inwardly boggled. This place was worth a fortune and the medical renovations were worth almost as much again.

The room that Quinn steered Frank’s trolley into was set up as a two-bed ward, though it was large enough to take six beds if the need arose. It was vast, with huge French windows looking out over the verandah beyond.

It was a great place to be ill in, Fern thought, knowing that once the sun rose in the morning the patients could see the garden and the distant ocean beyond those windows. This was a far cry from the wards at Fern’s teaching hospital in Sydney.

The other bed was already taken.

‘Fern!’

Fern’s eyes flew to the bed’s occupant with shock.

Sam…

‘Sam, are you OK?’ she asked swiftly, concerned. There must be something worse than a gastric upset happening to Sam if Quinn had admitted him.

‘Fern, where the hell have you been?’ her fiancé croaked from his mound of pillows. ‘I’ve been ringing your uncle’s house…everywhere…Finally I had to get Mum and Dad to drive me here!’

Fern gazed down at her intended husband. His normally florid countenance had recovered some of its colour and his bright purple pyjamas increased the impression that he wasn’t dangerously ill. Then Fern’s gaze moved to Quinn.

Why on earth had Sam been admitted?

‘Mr Hubert has vomited three times,’ Quinn Gallagher said solemnly, guessing her question. His expressive lips twitched only slightly as he spoke. Laughter, it seemed, was being firmly suppressed. ‘Mr Hubert feels there’s a very real danger he’ll become dehydrated and, after being so ill, the only safe place for him is in hospital.’

‘But you’re no sicker than anyone else who ate the oysters, Sam,’ Fern stammered, and then wished she hadn’t as Sam’s face tightened in anger.

‘How on earth would you know that, Fern?’ he snapped. ‘You didn’t even check. You just went dashing off and you left me…You left me…’ The big man’s voice rose on an incredulous note of disbelief. It seemed that such treachery could hardly be believed.

Fern winced. She knew that Sam was one who called a cold the flu and the flu pneumonia but as he was normally an exceedingly robust individual she hadn’t been called on for too much sympathy in the past.

Maybe, seeing that he was unused to illness, Sam was justified in being frightened.

She crossed swiftly to his bed and bent to kiss him on the brow. ‘I’m sorry, love,’ she said gently. ‘But Maud was ill.’