Lilian Darcy - A Mother For His Child

‘Aren’t you going to call your service?’ he drawled. ‘Don’t you have to deal with that? Couldn’t it be important?’

She recognised how exactly his questions parroted her own self-important phrasing to him earlier and saw the smile on his face. A wicked, tempting smile now. Teasing her again? It softened those dark eyes still further. It invited much more than a mere smile in reply. It was seductive, damn it, even when he wasn’t trying! She burned yet again.

It would have been so refreshing if time had taught her how to act rationally with this man!

‘OK. I’ll deal with it,’ she said. ‘And then I want some straight talking from you, Will.’

‘You’ll get it,’ he promised. A habitual confidence rang in his tone. It was clear that, whatever he wanted from her, he hadn’t come crawling.

Once more, she sought the quiet alcove beside the still-life painting to make her call, but this time the outcome wasn’t as simple. It was another case of fever in a child, a fourteen-year-old.

‘I’m worried about him, Dr Lawless,’ Kathy Sullivan said. ‘He’s vomited twice, and he feels so hot. He says his joints hurt, and so does his neck.’

‘Does he have a rash?’

‘I haven’t noticed one. But I’ve kept him in the dark because the light is bothering him, so maybe there is something.’

‘Could you check for me, Kathy?’

‘Surely, if you’ll wait.’

‘I’ll be here.’

Maggie heard the clatter of the phone and Kathy’s slow, heavy footsteps. She came back a minute or two later. ‘There is a little bit of something on his chest,’ she said. ‘Looks like poison ivy. He was clearing the yard for me yesterday.’

‘I’m going to come over and take a look at him. Has he been away on camp or anything?’

‘No, not yet. That’s right at the end of summer this year. What is it you’re thinking, Dr Lawless?’

Meningitis. She didn’t want to say it. Neither did she want to wait. The symptoms were ambiguous, and the disease was most common in children under the age of five, but it was frequently fatal if treatment was delayed.

‘Let’s wait until I take a look at him, OK?’ she told Kathy, then put down the phone and hurried back to the table. ‘I need to leave,’ she told Will. ‘I shouldn’t be long, but it can’t wait.’

‘Let me come along,’ he suggested at once, already on his feet. ‘I’ll tell the waiter we’ll be back for coffee and dessert. They know I’m staying at the hotel.’

‘There’s no need—’

‘There is. I want to.’

He strode off and found their waiter. She didn’t linger, but he caught up to her quickly. It was a warm summer evening, and neither of them needed jackets. In fact, Will had taken off the jacket of his suit and it hung from one finger.

‘What’s the problem? What kinds of things do you usually get called out for?’ he asked.

She sighed. Why did he want this detail? OK, she’d give it to him.

‘It varies,’ she answered. ‘Depends on the patient’s circumstances. In a case like this, I’d normally tell the child’s parents to drive him straight to the hospital emergency room, then I’d call the ER to let them know he was coming, but this is a single mother. She’s not well, she doesn’t have much money, she has very basic health insurance cover—no ambulance—and she doesn’t drive. Her brother comes up from Albany every weekend to help her with shopping and stuff. I like her, and—’

‘Do you have many patients in that sort of situation in your practice?’

‘Some. This little family is one of the best. My heart goes out to the mother and her son every time I see them. They only live a few minutes’ drive from here. Tonight I want to save them an ambulance trip to Wayans Falls if it’s not necessary, and I want to start giving Matthew treatment while we wait for the ambulance to get here if it is.’

‘What are you thinking?’

‘Some form of meningitis, but it could just be flu and poison ivy. Why are you asking all these questions, Will?’

She risked a glance at him, and wished she hadn’t. He was frowning, and his mouth was straight and closed. She could have touched him if she’d reached out her hand, asked him with soft concern to tell her what was on his mind…

‘Because I’m interested in joining your practice, if you’ll have me,’ he answered calmly.

It almost knocked the ground out from under her feet.

‘BUT you’re an orthopaedic surgeon,’ Maggie told Will blankly. He matched her pace easily as she hurried towards the car. It was parked in the guest parking lot, a minute’s walk from the main entrance.

‘Not quite,’ he answered. ‘I changed direction several years ago, before I finished my residency. Switched to family practice instead.’

‘Alison never wrote me that. I’d have remembered because…’ She stopped. Because it seemed so unlikely. Family practice wasn’t a prestige medical speciality. He and Alison had both been concerned with prestige.

She glanced across at him, but it was quite dark now. The long fingers of blue and gold light dancing on the black lake water didn’t make much difference to the thickness of the night here in the shadow of the sprawling hotel, and she couldn’t see his face.

‘Alison wasn’t thrilled,’ Will answered carefully. ‘She tended not to advertise the switch.’

His tone was neutral, but Maggie was left wondering if their divorce had been as amicable as Alison’s smoothly worded card last Christmas had suggested.

‘Why?’ she asked.

‘I told you, she wasn’t happy about it.’

‘No, why did you switch, I mean? It’s…um…not a very common path.’

He laughed. Oh, she wished she could see his face! What were those wicked dark eyes doing? Glimmering or sparking?

‘You mean it’s a very definite drop in status?’ he said.

‘That, yes.’ Why deny it? He wouldn’t expect her to. ‘You always cared about status.’

‘I thought I did. Shall I say something saccharine? Say that I came to realise I cared much more about people instead? Something like that?’

‘Spare me!’ she drawled.

‘OK.’

‘No, say it,’ she revised. ‘Was that the reason?’

‘No, it was the hours that did it. I wanted a life. None of the orthos I knew actually had one.’

‘I’m sure many orthopaedic surgeons do,’ she offered primly. ‘It’s a matter of choosing your priorities. And for some, in any case, it’s a question of vocation and they just couldn’t be happy doing anything else.’

‘Maybe.’ Will shrugged.

They had reached her car, which was dark and new and American-made. She had bought it last year. The alarm and automatic lock whooped electronically as she pressed a button on her key-ring. Will knew she was in a hurry, didn’t open the door for her, just slid himself into the passenger seat in tandem with her own movement. Maggie buckled her seat belt, started the engine and threw the vehicle into reverse.

Feeling alarmed and confused, she told him, ‘You can’t be serious about joining my practice.’

‘Can’t I? It’s what I want. What I need,’ he corrected, as if the distinction was important.

She filed the word away, as something else to question him on later if he didn’t explain its use himself. For now, she just wanted him to keep talking, and he did.

‘The location is ideal. You didn’t look for a new partner after Mark died, did you?’

‘No.’

‘But that’s not because you were short of patients. Your books are overflowing, and you’re turning new patients away. You need someone. I can understand your hesitation. You and Mark must have worked well together. But it’s time, isn’t it?’