Dating The Millionaire Doctor(5)

They were fire victims, too, Jake had discovered. Both were elderly  women, living in temporary accommodation, organising to rebuild. They'd  come here for time out, because the process was leaving them exhausted,  and all they wanted to do was sleep.

It left Rob dissatisfied, though. He loved being the entertainer, but by  eight he was left to entertain himself and his boss. They sat on the  back porch and watched the stars and drank beer-and Jake pushed.

'Tori,' he prodded again. 'Tell me about her.'

'I don't even know her.'

'But Barb's told you.'

'Nope. There're tragedies everywhere and if you're not told you don't  ask. Some people need to talk about it, some people can't. All I know is  that she was put in charge of the wildlife rescue effort and she was  vet up on the ridge before the fires. I didn't know she was staying  on-site but I did say they could use it for whatever they wanted. I told  you that when I phoned.'

He had. There'd been a couple of days when the news coming through from  Australia was dreadful. He'd been ready to promise anything.

He still was.

'I don't want to kick Tori out,' he said now, uneasily. 'If she still wants to live there … '

'She doesn't. Barb says as soon as the last animal goes, so will she. It's fine to put it on the market.'

'Does she have somewhere to go?'

'I have no idea,' Rob said, giving him a curious glance. 'I've never met  the lady until last night, and five minutes with her didn't give me  much time for in-depth questions. Yours was worse-how many questions did  you manage in your minute and a half?'

'Don't rub it in,' Jake growled. 'I don't make a great speed dater.'

'I don't think you make an anything dater,' Rob said, pouring another  beer. 'But you've met the lady properly today. What's she like?'

'Smart. Tired. Worried.' And very cute, he thought, but he didn't say it. Really sexy, despite those appalling clothes.

'Tired and worried equals everyone up here in the hills,' Rob said, not  hearing his afterthoughts. 'So we're back to smart. How smart?'

'She's a vet.'

'And?'

'And she had the gumption to walk away from me when I was being an-'

'I know exactly what you were being,' Rob said, and had the temerity to grin. 'Good for Tori.'

'She practically told me to leave today, too.'

'You're kidding. It's your property.'

'Which she's legally entitled to be on. Oh, she wasn't rude. She evicted  me in the most businesslike way. Maybe she's a man hater.'

'Not if she agreed to dating. So you're interested?'

'I'm not interested. I'm just concerned. Where has everyone else gone whose houses burned?'

'Relatives, friends, or there's a whole town of mobile  homes-relocatables-set up further down the valley for anyone who needs  them. You'll have passed them on your way from the airport.'

'She'll go there?'

'Why don't you ask her?'

'It's none of my business.'

'So why do you want to know?'

He didn't have an answer. He sat on, staring into the night, and finally Rob left him to his silence.

Leaving Jake alone with half a bottle of beer, a starlit sky and a silence so immense it was enough to take his breath away.

A faint rustle came from beside him. A wallaby was watching from the edge of the garden, moonlight glinting on its silvery fur.         

     



 

'Hi,' Jake said, but the wallaby took fright and disappeared into the shadows. Leaving Jake alone again.

He should go inside. He had journals to study. He didn't do … nothing.

But the stars were immense, and somewhere under them, alone up on the mountain, was Tori.

A woman with shadows?

She was nothing to do with him. So why did a faint, insistent murmur in his head tell him that she was?





CHAPTER THREE




H E ARRIVED at the farmhouse at nine the next morning and nobody answered the door.

He knocked three times. The same van he'd seen yesterday was in the  driveway but there were no sounds coming from the house. There was no  dog on the settee.

He tried the door and it opened, unlocked and undefended. 'Hi, Tori,' he called. 'It's Jake.'

Still no answer.

She'd been expecting him.

Should he come back later? He hesitated and then thought maybe she was  in the surgery again, doing something that couldn't be interrupted. He  went through cautiously-and stopped at the open door.

Even from here he could tell the koala was dead. The little animal was  facing him, curled on her side, still. The cage door was open.

He crossed to the cage and stooped, putting his hand on her fur to make  sure. But yes, she was gone. Simply, he thought. There was no sign of  distress. The IV lines Tori had attached yesterday had been removed but  were lying neatly to the side, as if they'd been removed after death.

She looked as if she'd hardly moved since yesterday.

She'd simply died.

He'd had patients who'd done this-just died. The operation had been a  success, yet the assault on their bodies had been too great, their  hearts had simply stopped.

Mostly it happened in the aged, where maybe there'd been a question of  whether the operation should have been done at all, only how could you  convince a patient that you couldn't remove cancer because there was a  risk of heart failure? Maybe you tried, but the patient could elect to  have the operation anyway.

He hated cases like those. He hated this.

He knelt and saw, closer now and more dreadfully, the full extent of  scar tissue. He thought about what this little animal must have gone  through in the past six months and he knew that yesterday's decision to  operate must have been a hard one for Tori to make.

Where was she?

He glanced around, out through the window, and then he saw her. She was  out at the edge of the clearing, and he knew what she was doing.



Hadn't she cried enough?

She didn't get attached to her patients. She couldn't. Getting attached was the way of madness.

She was crying so hard she could barely see the ground she was trying to dig.

This was the first of the animals she'd tried to bury. Up until now  there'd been volunteers taking away bodies of the animals she'd failed.

This was the end. Her last failure. If she'd known it would turn out like this she'd have euthanised her six months ago.

She'd had to make a decision. She'd got it wrong, and there were no volunteers left to bury her.

So much loss. So much appalling waste. Dad, Micki, one tiny baby with no life at all …

One little koala who somehow represented them all.

'I can't do this any more,' she whispered and hit the ground with the  spade. The spade shuddered back. Was she hitting tree roots?

She swore and hit the ground again. Three spade lengths away, Rusty flinched, as if the little dog felt every shudder.

'You and me both,' she told Rusty and shoved the spade uselessly down  again. This was dumb, dumb, dumb, but she did not want to take the  little koala's body down the mountain to the veterinary crematorium. She  did not.

All she could see was the Combadeen cemetery, two graves with brass  headstones. Dad. Micki. Micki's with a tiny extra plaque, white on  silver.

No.

She shoved the spade down hard again, uselessly. She gulped back tears-and suddenly the spade was taken out of her hands.

Where he came from she didn't know. She knew nothing, only that the  spade was tossed aside, two strong arms enfolded her and held her close.  And let her sob.



He'd never held a woman like this. He'd never felt emotion like this.

Jake was chief anaesthetist in a specialist teaching hospital in  Manhattan. Once upon a time he'd spent time with patients, but that  seemed long since. Now he handled only critical cases. Patient  interviews and examinations were done by his juniors. His personal  contact with patients was confined to reassurance as they slipped under  anaesthetic, and occasional further reassurance as they regained  consciousness.

If there were problems during an operation, it was mostly the surgeon  who talked to the family. As anaesthetist Jake took no risks. He did his  job and he did it well. There were seldom times he needed to talk. Now,  as he faced Tori's real and dreadful grief, he realised he actively  kept away from this type of anguish.         

     



 

His mother had cried at him all of his life. He'd done with tears.

And this was just a koala.

Just a koala. Even as he thought it, he recalled the limp little body  lying alone down at the house, the scar tissue, the evidence of a  six-month battle now lost. He looked around him and saw the blackened  skeletons of a ravaged forest. His mother had cried for crying's sake.  He knew instinctively that Tori's tears were very different.

So much death …

Tori was trying desperately to pull herself together, sniffing against  his shirt, tugging back. 'I'm sorry,' she managed. 'This is stupid. It  was a risk, operating on her. I should have put her down. I should  have … '

'You weren't to know what you should or shouldn't have done,' he said gently. 'You did your best. That's all anyone can ask.'

'No, but she was wild. She's been through so much.'

'You didn't add to that. Tori, you had to give her every chance.'

'But was I operating for me?' she demanded, sounding desperate. She'd  managed to pull back now and was wiping her hand furiously across her  cheeks. 'I named her! How stupid was that?'

'You told me you didn't.'