‘It is, you know,’ he told her. ‘The township’s growing and there are plans for a two-hundred-bed hotel on the foreshore. The local airline has applied for a licence to increase its runs and with tourists there’s a huge increase in workload. I didn’t come here to be run off my feet-so I’ll need help. Now I have an established service I’ll advertise on the mainland-but I’d prefer an islander. I’d prefer you.’
‘Why did you come here?’ Fern asked abruptly.
Quinn just smiled and shook his head. He lifted a hand to run his fingers through his already tousled hair. ‘It doesn’t make any difference why I came. The point is that I’m here; I intend to stay for quite a while; I’d like to make this the best medical practice I possibly can afford to provide; and I have on the island a qualified doctor with inside knowledge of every one of the islanders. I’d be a fool to pass you over, Dr Rycroft.’
His laughing eyes were saying more than that and Fern flushed crimson.
‘I don’t want to be your partner, Dr Gallagher,’ she snapped and her voice dripped ice.
‘Why ever not?’ That dangerous innocence flashed out again and Fern was lost.
‘I…I don’t…’ She fought for breath and dragged herself to her feet. This was getting way out of hand. ‘Look, it’s a great offer and I appreciate it. But my life-my plans-have nothing to do with you and I’ll thank you to butt out. Now…’
‘Now what?’
‘Now I’m going home to have breakfast,’ she snapped.
‘It’s already cooked.’ Quinn followed her to his feet, his long body stretching lazily. ‘Heck, morning already.’ He glanced down at his watch. ‘Seven a.m. and I can smell bacon. Come and see what Jessie is cooking.’
‘I don’t want breakfast.’
‘You mean you don’t mind offending Jessie?’ He smiled down at her. ‘She’s done the right thing by helping with your aunt; she’s cooked you breakfast and now you’re going to leave without even tasting it. I don’t know where you were raised, Dr Rycroft, but where I was brought up that would have been classed as bad manners. Almost up there with belching in public or being seen with your hair in curlers.’
‘I’m not…’ Fern fought for dignity but lost it somewhere between tears and laughter. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake…You’re blackmailing me.’
‘That’s the plan,’ he said easily. He took her hands in a grip that brooked no protest. ‘Breakfast, Dr Rycroft,’ he said firmly. ‘A woman can’t consider the best offer she’s had in years on an empty stomach.’
Jessie wasn’t in the kitchen.
She’d hardly have known if Fern had eaten her breakfast. The back door was swinging shut as they walked through from the corridor and the pan of bacon sizzled untended on the stove.
A note lay on the table.
Didn’t like to disturb what was obviously a tête-àtete. One of Chris Ming’s horses sounds like he’s broken his hock. Gotta go. Hi, Fern. Quinn, could you feed Walter? Leave me a bit of bacon. I’ll eat it cold.
There was enough bacon to feed a small army. Fern stood by the door and stared as Quinn walked over to the stove and started flipping it over.
‘You do share…’ she started cautiously. The relationship between Quinn and Jessie was unexplained If it wasn’t for Quinn’s kiss last night she would have guessed they were married.
‘We have separate kitchens,’ Quinn told her, seeing her doubt. ‘Separate everything, in fact. It’s only Jessie’s cooking that drives me in here. Finally, she’s taken pity on me and feeds me-as long as I help look after her babies.’
‘Babies?’
‘Walter,’ Quinn grinned. ‘Well, Walter for one.’ He leaned over beside the stove and lifted a small woollen pouch that had been hanging behind a chair. An electric cord looped out from the pouch and ran to a nearby socket.
‘Would you like to meet Walter, Dr Rycroft?’ he asked, and held open the pouch.
It was another wallaby-but a little one only half the size of the joey Fern had met the night before. It was still pink, its skin only slightly fuzzed with the beginnings of soft brown fur.
‘Walter’s mum was burned when one of the local farmers lost control of a burn-off,’ Quinn explained. ‘Jess had to put the mum down and the little one darn near died as well. He was suffering smoke inhalation and even without it at that age they’re hard to keep alive.’
Quinn abandoned the bacon, handed the pouch to Fern and crossed to the fridge. On the top shelf were a series of what looked like doll’s bottles-bottles Fern had only seen before being used to feed very premature babies. ‘Sit down,’ he told Fern. ‘You can feed the baby while I finish breakfast. Fair division of labour.’
‘I don’t know how…’ Fern peered dubiously into the bag. Lining the pouch was a tiny electric blanket, making a cocoon of warmth to imitate the mother’s pouch. From the depths peered two tiny eyes and they looked just as anxious as Fern’s did.
‘Nothing to it.’ Quinn grinned. ‘Jess makes me do it and if I can do it then anyone can.’ He heated the bottle in the microwave, retrieved a piece of blanket from the warming drawer of the oven and brought both to Fern.
‘Sit,’ he said sternly and, slightly stunned, Fern sat.
Quinn laid the blanket on Fern’s lap and then, with fingers that looked as though they were handling a rare and precious piece of antiquity, he delved into the pouch and retrieved the baby wallaby. In seconds he had wrapped the tiny creature like a newborn infant so that it was lying on its back, its nose pointing up at Fern.
Fern had never met a man so gentle.
Quinn dripped a droplet of milk onto the inside of his wrist, checked it again and then lowered the bottle. The joey saw it coming. The tiny mouth opened in anticipation, the extended teat went down the little throat and he started to suck.
Fern stared down in amazement.
Her arms instinctively cradled her warm little bundle and she took the bottle from Quinn. Despite herself, her lips curved into a soft smile.
‘Jess does this all the time?’
‘We do this,’ Quinn grinned. ‘Now Jess has decided I’m trustworthy I get to share two-hourly feeds. You see why I’d like you to join the medical practice of Barega?’
Fern shook her head but her attention was all on the tiny mouth and those huge, trusting eyes, watching her…
‘I’ve never seen a wallaby so tiny…’
‘He isn’t due to leave the pouch for months yet,’ Quinn told her, turning back to the bacon. ‘Toast?’
‘Oh…Yes…’
‘Mind, it’s too early to say whether he ever will.’ Quinn held a piece of bacon up with tongs. ‘Will this do or do you like it crisp?’
‘Whatever…’ Fern had more on her mind than bacon.
‘Crisp, then,’ Quinn said definitely. ‘There’s nothing worse than soggy bacon, in my book.’
‘Why may he never leave the pouch?’ Fern asked cautiously. The soft warm bundle in her arms, Fern’s lack of sleep and the smells wafting round the kitchen were causing her mind almost to be disembodied. She felt as if she was floating slightly above where her body was sitting.
‘They’re deuced hard to raise,’ Quinn told her. ‘Even now we’re not out of the woods with this one. Jess carried the joey round in a pouch against her body for the first couple of weeks after we found him. The stress of being away from the movement and smell of the mother kills them quicker than anything else does. I couldn’t believe the trouble she went to. The joey even went to bed with her. Then we tried one antibiotic after another to get rid of the infection in the lung-it’s not completely clear yet-and we had an impossible time finding a formula that’d suit.’
‘We…’
Quinn grinned. ‘Well, it’s hard to stay completely divorced from proceedings. I use Jess for anything from holding a stroppy kid down while I check an ear to giving an anaesthetic in an emergency, and she responds by dabbling in my pharmacy cupboard as well as hers. In a restricted place like this there’s no such thing as total separation of animal medicine and people medicine.’