does have a choice. I’ll organise it.’
‘Why?’ she asked, startled. ‘You can hardly do house calls. He lives fifteen minutes out of town.’
‘I don’t mind. Lois’s stressed herself. She has high blood pressure, and she worries about a daughter living in New Zealand. I suspect they care for her financially and that’s pushing the farm income. I don’t want Lois ill.’
‘But it’s Bob who’s your patient.’
‘I need to care for them all,’ he said simply. ‘Like I need to go do a ward round now.’
She stilled. ‘I’ve already done a round. You don’t trust that I’ve looked after them?’
‘I’m not saying that.’ He was watching her as if he was trying to understand something that was puzzling him. ‘Rachel, this is a country medical practice. We don’t treat patients in isolation. Every person comes with a story around them, farms that need tending, debts, kid worries, elderly parent concerns. If you ignore them then they come back to bite you. This is your first shot at family medicine, right?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you’re only doing it because of the scholarship?’
‘I’m hugely grateful for the scholarship,’ she said, a bit awkwardly.
‘But family medicine isn’t what you want long-term?’
‘I’m pushing for radiology.’
‘Where you don’t need to look much past the image to the patient.’
‘Is that a criticism?’
‘Of course it’s not.’ He shrugged, and once again she had the impression of deep weariness. ‘Heaven knows we need good radiologists—they helped save Kit’s hand. But here it’s purely country practice, and country practice means looking out for everyone. If we leave Bob in hospital for much longer, Lois’s blood pressure will go through the roof. We send him home.’
His tone was final. Fair enough, she conceded. Tom was, after all, the senior doctor in this set-up. But to choose to do house calls when there was an alternative… She’d had to do a couple already and they made her uneasy. It felt like stepping into an intimate space she had no right to enter.
‘I’ll do the house calls,’ he told her. ‘If they worry you.’
How had he guessed? Was her face so transparent?
‘We share the work,’ she told him brusquely. ‘My contract says full-time family practice for two years. I can do it.’
‘You’ll be a better radiologist for time spent in family medicine,’ he said, still with that odd assessing look on his face. ‘Believe it or not, I believe I’m becoming a better doctor because of it. And I can still do some surgery, which is my passion.’
‘You’re joking. How much surgery can you perform here?’
‘Not as much as I’d like,’ he admitted. ‘But I do the small stuff. Ferndale has specialists, but it’s a hard drive, all curves and kangaroos. Cath Harrison’s the anaesthetist there. She comes over to Shallow Bay once a week or so, and we do a list together. Simple stuff that would be a pain for the locals to have to go to Ferndale—or Sydney—to get done. It keeps me happy.’
‘But it’s simple surgery.’ How on earth could it make him content? ‘So how can you say you’re a better doctor because of what you’re doing here?’
‘Because I’m learning to treat the whole patient,’ he told her. ‘I hope you can get what that means. But now… I’ll head over to do a ward round and then get to clinic.’
‘I’m running the clinic and there’s no necessity to do a ward round. I told you. Everyone’s sorted.’
‘So Roscoe said.’ Once again she got that wash of weariness. This man should be in bed, but he wasn’t going there. ‘I need to see everyone…for me,’ he admitted. ‘I’m not doubting your medicine.’
‘Then why aren’t you being sensible?’ She knew she was sounding stubborn, but so was he.
He took a deep breath, regrouping. ‘Okay,’ he conceded. ‘You take clinic, as long as you ring me for any problems, but I will do a ward round.’
‘You don’t trust me.’
‘I do trust you. Your credentials are impeccable.’
‘Then what?’
‘Rachel, it’s just because I care for them as people,’ he said, sounding a bit helpless. ‘I need to see for myself how everyone’s doing, and it’s not just the medical side I’m interested in.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Which is why you’re here for two years and I’m stuck here for life,’ he said, and suddenly his voice was grim. ‘As doctors… Rachel, you and I might have belonged to the same species once upon a time, but now… Well, somehow, I’ve evolved into a different breed. Darwin might have said I’ve evolved through necessity, for survival. Your survival’s assured. You’re just marking time before you can head back to your own world. But here, Dr Tilding, I need you to pretend to evolve, just for two years. You’re useless here without caring.’
Then he shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. That’s probably too big a statement. You obviously do care. You’re responsible and you’re generous and I’m deeply grateful. Believe me, I’m grateful for what you’ve already done. Anything else has to be an extra.’
They walked back to the hospital together, but they walked in silence. He’d offended her, Tom thought. He knew what he’d said had been clumsy, but he was too tired to get the nuances right.
So now she walked beside him and he couldn’t think where to take it. And it wasn’t just tiredness that was throwing him. Would he have accused any other doctor of not caring? After she’d spent the last three days doing just that, it seemed unfair.
There was something about her that had him off balance.
She was gorgeous. Half a head smaller than he was, she was packaged just right. Bouncy brown curls—well, he’d seen them bouncy, though she had them tied up tight now. Brown eyes, nicely spaced. A wide, generous mouth and a smattering of freckles. She was dressed conservatively—too conservatively for such a warm day, in neat black trousers and a long-sleeved shirt—but her plain clothes didn’t disguise the curves underneath.
It wasn’t the fact that she was cute—well, more than cute—that had him off balance, but he didn’t know why.
Was it the bleak notes in her scholarship application? Was it the way she’d said the word stepfather, as if the name itself conjured horror? Was it the anger he’d seen when she’d thought the boys were neglected?
Or was it the traces of fear that appeared and disappeared, as if there were things, emotions, Rachel
