‘Like let it stop?’
‘Abbey…’
Abbey took a deep breath. She glanced uncertainly up at Ryan and then turned her attention solely to Ryan’s father. And took a chance…
‘Sam, would it help if Ryan told you he’ll look after your farm while you have the operation, and that he‘ll stay until you’re on the mend again?’
Silence.
Ryan said nothing.
That didn’t mean Ryan’s mind wasn’t working, though. Good grief. What was Abbey saying? Abbey was just committing him here. Committing him to stay here for a month or more.
‘But… Abbey, I can’t…’ he said blankly.
‘Of course you can’t.’ Sam’s voice was tired, and bleak, and absolutely final. ‘That’s stupid, Abbey. Ryan has his career back in the USA. He just can’t dump it to look after me. And he has this lady-Felicity isn’t it, son? Felicity won’t want to stick around here with a sick old man.’
Felicity wouldn’t. Of course she wouldn’t. Felicity was an oncologist-a cancer specialist-as expert in her field as Ryan was in his. She’d had trouble slotting a honeymoon into her busy schedule anyway. To extend the honeymoon for a few weeks…
Impossible. Impossible for both of them. Felicity was needed back at work as much as Ryan.
But Sam was fading back into the pillows and his grip on Ryan’s hand had eased. It was as if, for a brief moment, Sam had allowed himself to show his need for his son, and now he was schooling himself to let go.
And Abbey’s face was absolutely expressionless.
Ryan’s gut tightened. Hell, there was only so much of this a man could take. It was an impossible thing to ask. It was impossible to stay. But… With Sam’s hand in his and Abbey looking at him like that… It was impossible for him to go.
‘I meant I can’t see why not,’ Ryan said strongly-roughly-and his hand tightened on his father’s, re-establishing the link. Re-establishing the need. ‘I can keep up with my research work over here. There’s articles I need to write up and I have my lap-top computer with me. I have everything I need.’
Of course he had his lap-top with him. To go on a honeymoon without work was unthinkable.
To stay away from work for more than two weeks was unthinkable. The reorganisation that would have to be done was unbelievable. And there was Richard Crogin to worry about. Richard was after Ryan’s job, and if Ryan was away…
But suddenly all that mattered was the link between his father’s hand and his-and the luminous glow that was beaming straight up at him from Abbey.
‘You mean it?’ Abbey asked breathlessly. ‘Oh, Ryan… ’
Ryan’s resolution firmed.
‘Of course I mean it.’ He looked down at his father. ‘If you agree to the surgery then I’ll stay for at least a month.’
Sam blinked. He looked up at his son in bewilderment, and Abbey felt her delight fade. Maybe it wasn’t enough. Abbey’s own heart sank. For Ryan to promise a month… There was nothing promised for the end of that month. There was no commitment to a future for the old man in that. One month, a couple of weeks of which Sam would spend in hospital in Cairns…
Maybe Sam still wouldn’t agree.
But Sam was looking from Ryan to Abbey with eyes that were lightening by the minute. There was a spark of interest glowing in their depths that Abbey hadn’t seen for years.
‘What about your Felicity?’ Sam asked his son.
‘I’ll talk to Felicity,’ Ryan said heavily. ‘We might have to reorganise things.’
‘Put the wedding off?’
‘I don’t know.’ Was Ryan imagining it or was there a tiny hopeful note behind Sam’s words? ‘I’ll have to talk to her. Maybe she’ll come out, we’ll get married and she’ll go back before me.’ That might be the best plan. Then, again, Felicity might decide she wanted a real honeymoon and put everything off until they could take more time away together. Which would be a year or more from now.
It didn’t matter.
The thought of a delay to their wedding-and its seeming irrelevance-made Ryan frown. It didn’t matter if their wedding was put off? Why?
Never mind. He could think of Felicity later. For now there was his father’s agreement to gain. His father’s health. That was the important thing. That was why he didn’t have room to worry about Felicity.
There couldn’t be any other reason.
‘You need to agree, Dad,’ he said, and met his father’s eyes directly. ‘I want you to have this surgery. The way your heart is now-well, you could have a full-blown heart attack at any minute and you could die. And I badly don’t want that to happen.’
‘You meant that?’
‘Of course I mean it.’ And he did. For twenty years Ryan had been carrying the look of his father as he and his mother had boarded the plane away from here. His father’s look had been blank, expressionless, and-Ryan had thought-uncaring.
Abbey had told him that he was wrong to believe his father uncaring. And suddenly he believed Abbey.
His father loved him and it was a damned good feeling. He didn’t want to lose that. He didn’t want to lose Sam now, when he had just discovered that he had a father after all. A real father. Not a pen at the end of a series of duty letters.
And Sam was looking from Abbey to Ryan and back again.
And smiling.
‘Well, I guess I’d better have that surgery after all,’ he whispered. ‘You say you’ll stay a month?’
‘A month.’
‘Well, anything can happen in a month,’ Sam said ambiguously. ‘It’s worth taking a risk on.’
Abbey didn’t see Ryan again for another few hours. He settled her back into bed-once more refusing her request for clothes-and gave instructions for the nursing staff not to let her out of bed. Then he took himself off to do her clinic. Ryan came back into the hospital at eleven when the ambulance arrived to transport his father to Cairns, but by then Abbey was dead to the world.
It was as if Abbey’s exhaustion of the last few months-or maybe the last few years-had finally caught up with her. That, and the shock of the accident the day before, let her sleep the sleep of the dead. Janet and Jack and her cows and farm were in safe hands. Her clinic was in Ryan’s hands. Sam was having his by-pass.
For once all was right with her world. She slept.
She woke briefly at lunch to find Eileen hovering over her with orders to see she ate every mouthful, and then she slept again. When she woke once more Ryan was standing over her bed, smiling down at her with satisfaction.
‘If you don’t wake up soon you’ll miss bedtime,’ he warned, and Abbey managed a sleepy smile.
‘It can’t be bedtime. No one’s bullied me into dinner yet’
Ryan looked at his watch. ‘You’re right. It’s five-thirty. Dinner at six and bedtime at seven.’
Abbey nodded. The idea had immediate appeal. ‘I don’t know why I’m doing this,’ she murmured. ‘It’s not like I was really hurt yesterday.’
‘No? You’re telling me you’re not aching in every bone in your body? Truly, Abbey?’
Abbey stirred and checked herself out. Every bone? Well, maybe. Every bone certainly complained.
‘Yeah, well, it’s only bruising.’
‘I know.’ Ryan touched her lightly on the cheek-a touch that sent Abbey’s senses screaming. ‘Plus the fact that you’re exhausted.’ He hauled a chair over and sat down. ‘Abbey, you can’t keep going like this,’ he said gently. ‘I’ve seen your medical workload now. This community needs two doctors-or at least one and a half. And, with Jack to care for and the farm to run, you should be the half.’
‘No.’ Abbey shook her head with decision. ‘No way.’
‘Because someone else would take over some of the limelight? Because you like being the town’s only doctor?’
‘That’s unfair,’ Abbey said firmly. ‘Ryan, I’d let go if I could, but finding another doctor to move to a rural area… ’
‘Even an area as beautiful as Sapphire Cove?’