The drug regime was tricky.
Fern had treated little TB in the past. It took time to sort through the texts and pharmaceutical lists and find just what she wanted.
Quinn deferred to her.
‘If I have a road crash to deal with then I’ll expect you to take orders from me, Dr Rycroft,’ he said brusquely, pointedly formal after Fern’s snapping rebuff. ‘This is internal medicine, though-and I know when to stand aside.’
With his medicine he knew when to stand aside, Fern thought grimly. With little else.
She reacted by ignoring him, preparing her list in grim silence.
Finally she finished and rose from the desk. He was still watching her-as a hungry cat watches a mouse-and Fern didn’t like it one bit.
‘I’ll drive you home,’ he said firmly.
‘And if Bill has a relapse?’
‘I’ll check him on the way but if his breathing’s settled he’s hardly going to wake and choke in the time it takes to get you home. The nurse will stay with him and I have the phone on my belt. I can get back fast.’
‘What about…What about the night sister taking me home-and leaving you here?’
‘What about the night sister?’ Quinn’s brows arched and for a moment Fern saw a trace of the old humour. ‘Sister Haynes doesn’t drive anything more powerful than a bicycle-and Jessie’s asleep. So it’s my offer or nothing.’
‘I’ll walk.’
‘You want to come peacefully or forcibly?’ Quinn asked politely, and through the exhaustion the laughter was back with a vengeance.
‘Is that a threat?’
‘How can you doubt me, Dr Rycroft?’ Quinn demanded, wounded that she had so little faith. ‘Of course it is.’
It was a charmed night.
If the island didn’t get rain soon the farmers would be in serious trouble, Fern knew, but it was hard to think about that on a night as perfect as tonight.
If Quinn wasn’t married it would be magic indeed.
Quinn was married, though. Fern sat as far away from him as possible, hunched over against the door as if she was afraid.
She was.
She was afraid of her own feelings. She’d never felt like this about a man before and to feel this way about someone who was living with his wife…
Quinn stayed silent, his face set and grim. From time to time he glanced across at the girl by his side but he said nothing until he pulled to a halt outside her uncle’s house and Fern put her hand on the doorhandle.
The doorhandle wouldn’t budge. The central locking had been activated.
‘Do you mind?’ Fern said icily. ‘Let me out.’
‘Not until you’ve talked things through with me for a little.’ Quinn glanced at his watch. ‘Fern, hear me out. I can’t be away from the hospital for long. You know that. I’m not about to make love to you-though God knows I want to. If I did you could scream loud enough from here to make your uncle hear. I just want to talk.’
Fern took a deep breath. Her fingers clenched into her palms.
‘So talk.’
‘That’s what I like about you, Dr Rycroft,’ Quinn said evenly, the laughter surfacing. ‘You’re always so amenable to suggestion.’
‘Just get on with it.’
He didn’t.
Instead, Quinn put his hands on the steering wheel and stared out into the night.
The laughter faded.
It was as if Quinn Gallagher was fighting some unpleasant internal battle and Fern just had to wait for the outcome.
She watched him and her anger slowly disappeared as she did. Fern’s fingers unclenched. She didn’t know what was going on-but she couldn’t maintain rage against this man. No matter how important it was that she did…
‘Fern, I want you to reconsider staying on the island,’ Quinn said at last. ‘It makes sense to everyone that you stay. Most of all, it makes sense to me.’
‘Not to me it doesn’t.’
‘Would it make a difference if I told you I’d fallen in love with you?’
Quinn didn’t turn to her. His eyes were still staring out through the windscreen at the black of the night road. ‘I fell for a bride in white satin,’ he went on softly, and it was as if he was talking to the night-not to Fern. ‘The most frightened bride I’ve ever seen, and the most beautiful. I was hit by bridal fever, you might say. It hit hard and since then I’ve been trying to find a cure. There isn’t one.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ Fern whispered. ‘You don’t fall in love like that.’
‘Oh, yes, you do,’ Quinn said grimly. ‘I didn’t ask for it to happen. I went to your wedding out of social obligation to your aunt and uncle-nothing else-and then I saw you…’
He turned to her then but still he didn’t touch her. Quinn Gallagher was holding himself back with an iron will.
‘Are you saying you don’t feel this, too?’ Quinn asked gently, and the gentleness in Quinn’s voice was close to Fern’s undoing. ‘Because I don’t believe you. You looked at me in that church and whatever hit, it hit both of us-with just as much force as those damned oysters. Only the effects are much more long-lasting-aren’t they, Fern?’
‘The effects just mean I have to get back to Sydney-fast,’ Fern whispered. ‘Surely you can see that?’
‘You mean you can feel it, too?’ There was a trace of relief in Quinn’s voice as though he’d been sure-but not too sure.
‘Oh, I can feel animal attraction,’ Fern said bitterly. ‘But that’s all this is. We’d go to bed and it’d be over in a week.’
‘Want to try and see?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Fern’s face whitened and her fingers clenched again. ‘Quinn Gallagher, are you or are you not married to Jessie?’
There was a long, long silence. Quinn Gallagher was facing some sort of internal war and when it was over the defeat was back in his voice.
‘Jessie’s and my marriage is in name only.’
‘But she’s here, she’s still your wife and she has no intention of leaving the island. Where does that leave me in your plans, Dr Gallagher? A bit on the side-or are you planning on installing me as second bride?’
‘Jessie understands. She knows how I feel. Believe me, Fern…Or if you won’t believe me, ask Jess.’
‘Oh, sure.’ Fern thought back to Jessie’s white, shadowed face and mentally cringed. ‘Sure. Go and talk to Jessie. Ask her if she’d mind if I took over her husband…You’ve got rocks in your head. She’s a lovely, gentle person, Quinn Gallagher. She doesn’t deserve you.’
‘The marriage is finished.’
Fern shrugged. ‘There’s a law in Australia,’ she said conversationally. ‘It’s that married couples have to separate for at least twelve months before they can divorce. Separate, Dr Gallagher. Live in different houses. Have you any intention of doing that?’
‘We can’t,’ Quinn said heavily. ‘You must be able to see that.’
‘I don’t think I can see very much at all,’ Fern whispered, her voice breaking. ‘I don’t understand. I don’t understand what you’re saying we should do. I don’t understand what I’m feeling. I only know…I only know that I have to get away fast. I can’t cope…’ She struggled with the doorhandle. ‘Quinn, unlock the door. Let me go-please…’
‘Let you go?’ he said dully. He shook his head. ‘I told you, Fern. What I’ve caught is incurable. I’ll let you get out of the car-even go back to Sydney-but I can never let you go.’
He lifted his hand and touched her hair, as if he were touching a dear and fragrant memory. His eyes held the same bleakness and loss as a man looking at a lost love.
‘You’d better go, Fern,’ he said bleakly. ‘But not, please God, not for ever…’
CHAPTER NINE