‘I wouldn’t ask it of these people every day,’ Amy told him, unaware of the route his thoughts were taking. ‘Marie’s had three heart pills this morning to hold her angina at bay. Very few of my people are up to independent living but in an emergency they shine through. And even though Marie’s heart is thumping away like a sledgehammer, there’s no way she’s going for a quiet lie-down now. She’s needed, and if she dies being needed, she won’t begrudge it at all.’
It was great. The whole set-up was great, but something was still worrying him. ‘Where are the rest of your trained staff?’
That set her back. ‘What trained staff?’
‘This is a nursing home. I assume you have more skilled nurses than yourself.’
‘I have two other women with nursing qualifications. Mary and Sue-Ellen. They do a shift apiece. Eight hours each. The three of us are the entire nursing population of Iluka.’
He frowned, thinking it through and finding it unsatisfactory. ‘You need more…’
‘No. Only eight of our beds are deemed nursing-home beds. The rest are hostel, so as long as we have one trained nurse on duty we’re OK.’
‘And in emergencies?’
‘I can’t call the others in. It means I don’t have anyone for tonight.’
‘What about holidays?’
‘I do sixteen hours if either of the others are on holidays,’ she said, with what was an attempt at lightness. ‘It keeps me off the streets.’
She was kidding! ‘That’s crazy. The whole set-up’s impossible.’
‘You try attracting medical staff to Iluka.’ She gave a weary smile. ‘You try attracting anyone under the age of sixty to Iluka. Both my nurses are in their fifties and are here because their husbands have retired. Kitty, my receptionist, moved here to be with her failing mother, my cleaning and kitchen staff are well past retirement age, and there’s no one else.’
‘The town is a nursing home all by itself.’
‘As you say.’ She shrugged, and there was a pain behind her eyes that he didn’t understand. ‘But we manage. Look at today. Weren’t my oldies wonderful?’
‘Wonderful.’ But his mind was on her worries, not on what had just happened.
‘So the two looking after the baby…’
‘Marie and Thelma, and they’re in their element. Both are trained nurses with years of experience. Thelma has early Alzheimer’s but she was matron of a Sydney hospital until she retired and there are some things that are almost instinctive. Marie’s with her, and her experience is in a bush nursing hospital. She’s physically frail but mentally alert so together they’ll care for the mother and baby as no one else could. And I’m here if they need me.’
Joss looked across at her calm grey eyes. ‘I’m here if they need me.’ It was said as a matter of course.
How often was she needed?
What was her story?
‘Don’t look so worried.’ Her smile was meant to be reassuring. ‘If I didn’t think they’d manage—and love every moment of it—I’d be in there, helping. I’m only a buzz away.’ Her smile faded as his look of concern deepened. ‘What’s worrying you? Charlotte’s showing no sign of brain damage. The baby looks great. All we need to do is find out who she is.’
‘Now, that’s something else I don’t understand.’ His frown deepened. ‘Jeff says she’s not a Iluka resident and no one here recognises her.’
‘No.’ It had surprised Amy that she hadn’t recognised the girl. She knew everyone in Iluka.
When she’d thought about it she’d even figured out where Joss fitted in. David and Daisy Braden had been speaking of nothing but their wonderful surgeon-son’s visit for weeks. The whole town had known his exact arrival time, what Daisy was going to cook for him every night, where David intended to take him fishing and…
‘What?’ Joss asked, and Amy’s lovely smile caused a dimple to appear right on the corner of her mouth.
It made him need to struggle hard to concentrate on what she was saying.
‘Sorry. I was just thinking we should set the town onto finding out about our mystery mother. They told me all about you.’
‘Did they?’ He was disconcerted. He was trying really hard not to look at the dimple.
The observations that were happening were mutual. He looked nice when he was disconcerted, Amy decided.
Nice.
There was that word again but it described him absolutely. The more she saw of him the more she liked what she saw. Joss was taller than she was by a couple of inches. He had deep brown hair, curly, a bit sun-bleached and casually styled. His skin was bronzed and he had smiling green eyes.
And his clothes… He’d hauled off his sweater before they’d gone into Theatre but she’d been too rushed to notice, and then he’d put on a theatre gown. Now she was seeing his clothes for the first time.
They were…unexpected, to say the least. He was wearing faded, hip-hugging jeans and a bright white T-shirt with a black motif. The motif said:
‘You’ve been a bad, bad girl. Go straight to my room.’
She blinked and blinked again. Then she grinned. This wasn’t her standard image of a successful young surgeon. It was a rude, crude T-shirt. It shouldn’t make her lips twitch.
‘What?’ he demanded, and her smile widened.
‘I was thinking I shouldn’t be in the same room as you—with that on.’ She motioned to his T-shirt.
Damn. He’d forgotten he was wearing it. His father had given it to him for his birthday… Good old Dad, still trying to get his son moving in the wife department…
Fat chance.
But Amy had moved on. ‘I need to talk to Jeff,’ she said, and crossed to the door.
Joss frowned. ‘I need to find him, too. He’s looking after my dog. Or did one of your residents take him?’
‘Lionel has him.’ Her eyes creased into the smile he was starting to recognise. ‘I saw him. Actually, I’ve heard about him, too. I thought he was much larger than he really is.’
‘Have you been talking to my stepmother?’
Amy assumed an air of innocence. ‘I might have been.’
He sighed. ‘According to Daisy, he’s the size of an elephant. That’s because Bertram takes exception to anyone else sitting on my knee—and her dratted Peke decided it would grace me with its favours.’
‘Lucky you.’
‘As you say.’
