‘If you want Abbey.’
‘If Abbey loves me then she’ll come with me.’
‘No.’ Sam shook his head. ‘Abbey’s not that selfish.’
‘Selfish?’
‘Abbey could go with you tomorrow-Janet tells me that-and be content. Heck, Ryan, Abbey’s been your other half since she was knee-high to a grasshopper. The two of you are meant for each other. But she won’t abandon her responsibilities, and you can’t ask her to.’
‘It’s not like Sapphire Cove owns her.’
‘No,’ Sam said sadly. ‘It’s not. But you don’t either and you never will.’
‘I don’t want to own her.’
‘Don’t you?’ Sam shook his head. ‘By taking Abbey away from Sapphire Cove, what would she have but you? She’d be totally dependent on you for her happiness. And you? Would it be the same for you? Will you be dependent on her? I don’t think so. I’ll just bet you don’t intend to drop your work commitments by one bit.’
‘I can’t. Dad-’
‘So you won’t change your lifestyle and you’ll expect Abbey to fit in around the edges of your existing life?’ Sam demanded harshly.
‘Other women marry men like me.’
‘Other women aren’t Abbey,’ Sam said roughly, and he sat heavily on the bed. ‘If you want “other women” go marry “other women”. If you want Abbey I suggest you marry her for what she is. A woman with a heart too big to ever think of leaving us.’
He looked up at his son and his eyes were full of pain.
‘I’m feeling too tired to go look for turtle eggs,’ he said sadly. ‘You go by yourself. Stare out to sea and think about whether poverty really means peanuts! Or whether you really know what love means at all.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE following few days were some of the bleakest of Abbey’s life.
She should have been cheerful. So many of her problems were solved.
Janet’s walking went from strength to strength. At the end of the following week Janet could walk, unaided, from one end of the corridor to the other, and was agitating to go home. Only the knowledge that she’d refuse to take things easy when she did go home made Abbey keep her in hospital for a few days longer.
Sam was home already. Ryan had taken him out to the farm and Abbey hardly saw either of them.
‘If there were problems we’d have heard,’ Steve Pryor told her at the end of the following Friday. ‘But, if you’re worried, why don’t you take off early and drop in and see him?’
‘No.’
Abbey and Steve had been sharing the workload for the previous week and had found they worked well together. With two doctors working together, everything was well under control. The hospital was quiet and there was no reason Abbey shouldn’t leave early. But to drop in on Sam meant dropping in on Ryan.
No and no and no.
‘Are you busy tomorrow?’ Steve asked, and Abbey hauled her thoughts back to work.
‘No. I’m not busy and my babysitter’s available if you want me to work.’
‘Could you run the morning clinic?’ Steve asked. Then he turned pink. ‘I… Caroline and I…’
Caroline. The pretty young night sister.
Abbey smiled. ‘You’d like to do something together?’
‘Just spend the day at the beach,’ Steve confessed. His blush deepened. ‘I don’t usually swim but Caroline…’
Caroline was hauling this young man from his academic pursuits with the strength of a bulldozer, Abbey thought Steve only had a week more to work in Sapphire Cove but if Caroline had her way…
Her thoughts flew off at a tangent. Maybe Steve could be persuaded to work here. Then she could leave…
No, she couldn’t. There was still Janet. There were still her debts. There was still her little son who should be brought up in the place his father loved.
‘What’s wrong, Abbey?’ Steve asked gently. ‘You look sad.’
‘Do I?’ Abbey managed a smile. ‘Nope. I was just reminiscing about young love. Far be it from me to put my oar between the pair of you. Certainly have the day off with Caroline. You can work Sunday.’
‘I hoped you’d say that.’ Steve leaned over and kissed her on the nose. As working companions they’d achieved almost instant rapport and Abbey was growing fonder of this owlish young man by the minute. ‘And I wouldn’t get too nostalgic about young love just yet, Dr Wittner. You’re not exactly grey-haired and matronly.’
‘I’m a widow, Steve.’
‘And Ryan Henry’s just lost a fiancée.’
‘Steve…’
‘I know.’ Steve held up his hands in mock surrender. ‘You’re just good friends. And I’m the monkey’s uncle.’
He laughed and left her, walking down the hospital corridor with his stethoscope swinging jauntily and a bounce in his step.
Steve was in love and he wanted the world to be in love with him. Well, Abbey was in love, but…
But there was no happy ending for her love. It didn’t put a bounce in her step.
A week from today Ryan was due to go back to New York, and life was due to go right back to where she’d left off three weeks ago.
There was no real need for her to even say goodbye, she thought bleakly. Ryan could leave next week without her seeing him again.
It didn’t happen, of course.
Later that night Ryan telephoned her and asked if he could see her.
Abbey closed her eyes in pain, told him she was busy and put the phone down on its cradle before she broke down and wept.
She stayed awake all night and stared into the darkness. Thought about the impossibility of what Ryan was asking her to do. Thought about the impossibility of not doing what he wanted. Thought about life without Ryan.
Impossible.
On Saturday morning she rose and dressed, and the shadows on her face were darker than ever. She performed morning surgery like an automaton, and by the end of the morning there wasn’t a patient she’d seen who didn’t know there was something seriously amiss with Sapphire Cove’s Dr Wittner.
And most of them figured what it was.
There were telephone calls going from one end of the community to the other. But the last telephone call of the morning was the worst. Abbey was in Sister’s station when it came though.
It was Rod at the surf club, and his voice was shaking as he tried to speak.
‘Dr Wittner, you’d better get over here fast. Some idiot’s driven a jet ski straight through the stinger net and into the swimmers. We’ve got two children and Dr Pryor injured here-and they’re all in a bad way.’
A jet ski.
Abbey stood motionless for two seconds while she took this on board and there was no comfort in her thoughts. Jet skis were like powerful motorbikes on water. They were totally banned from the swimming beach. Dear heaven… The injuries could be horrific.
‘I’m on my way,’ she snapped. ‘Pressure on bleeding wounds, Rod. You know. You can cope until I get there.’
She slammed down the phone and turned to Eileen. Eileen had been pushing a medication trolley down the corridor but had stopped dead. She’d seen Abbey’s face.
‘Eileen, take over the phone,’ Abbey told her, her mind racing. ‘Tell the ambulance to get to the surf club fast A jet ski’s hit swimmers and there are three casualties. Rod sounds horrified and he doesn’t scare easily. I’m going ahead now. Tell the boys to bring as much plasma as they can find. If you can find someone to cover for you here then you come too. Ring the air ambulance from Cairns and get a helicopter here fast. And, Eileen?’
‘Yes?’
Abbey took a deep breath. ‘Ring Dr Henry. If he’s still in Sapphire Cove we need him. I have a feeling we need everyone we can get.’
For the five minutes it took Abbey to reach the beach she prayed she was overreacting. Surely calling the air ambulance was unnecessary. Surely notifying Ryan was stupid.
She wasn’t overreacting at all.
Abbey’s car flew over the last hill and one look at the beach told her she was in dire trouble.