Children's Doctor, Meant-to-be Wife

‘Angus.’

She breathed his name against his lips and felt hers whispered back. Just as they had always made love—silently, nothing but their names confirming their identities, as if in kissing, touching, loving, they might lose themselves and need to know again just who they were.

His arms engulfed her, wrapping her in the security of his body, holding her close so all her doubts and fears and uncertainties were kept at bay. This, too, had always been the way. Safe in Angus’s arms she’d lost the insecurities that had plagued her all her life, living for the moment, living eventually for him, and then for Bobby—

His lips were tracing kisses down her neck, then up again, resting where her pulse beat—wildly and erratically, she was sure. They found her mouth again and claimed it, in a kiss so deep it drew all air from her lungs and left her gasping, clinging, wanting more than kisses.

Meredith Webber says of herself, ‘Some ten years ago, I read an article which suggested that Mills and Boon were looking for new medical authors. I had one of those “I can do that” moments, and gave it a try. What began as a challenge has become an obsession—though I do temper the “butt on seat” career of writing with dirty but healthy outdoor pursuits, fossicking through the Australian Outback in search of gold or opals. Having had some success in all of these endeavours, I now consider I’ve found the perfect lifestyle.’

Recent titles by the same author:

THE SHEIKH SURGEON’S BABY**

DESERT DOCTOR, SECRET SHEIKH**

A PREGNANT NURSE’S CHRISTMAS WISH

THE NURSE HE’S BEEN WAITING FOR*

**Desert Doctors

*Crocodile Creek

CROCODILE CREEK

A cutting-edge medical centre. Fully equipped for saving lives and loves!

Crocodile Creek’s state-of-the-art Medical Centre and Rescue Response Unit is home to a team of expertly trained medical professionals. These dedicated men and women face the challenges of life, love and medicine every day!

In September, gorgeous surgeon Nick Devlin was reunited with Miranda Carlisle A PROPOSAL WORTH WAITING FOR by Lilian Darcy

Then dedicated neurosurgeon Nick Vavunis swept beautiful physiotherapist Susie off her feet MARRYING THE MILLIONAIRE DOCTOR by Alison Roberts

Now sexy Angus Stuart comes face to face with the wife he thought he’d lost CHILDREN’S DOCTOR, MEANT-TO-BE WIFE by Meredith Webber

And December sees Crocodile Creek Medical Director Charles Wetherby’s final bid to make nurse Jill his longed-for bride A BRIDE AND CHILD WORTH WAITING FOR by Marion Lennox

BY

MEREDITH WEBBER

CHAPTER ONE

IT WAS, Beth decided as she helped other camp volunteers assemble the children for the night spotlighting tour in the rainforest, the best of all possible jobs. True, she was missing out on the gala evening that followed the official opening of the newly rebuilt and extended Wallaby Island Medical Centre, but to share the joy of a night drive in the rainforest with these kids meant so much more to her than dressing up and dancing.

With the extension of the Wallaby Island Medical Centre and the appointment of a permanent doctor—her very own self—to staff it, Crocodile Creek Kids’ Camp had also been expanded, so now they could take up to twenty children at a time, providing a fun holiday with tons of different experiences for children who couldn’t normally enjoy camp life. This week, the camp was playing host to children with respiratory problems and to a group of children in remission from cancer.

‘No, Sam, I’ll drive today with Ally in the front. You take care of Danny in the back. Remember he’s not feeling very well so don’t tease him.’

She settled the three children she was responsible for this evening into one of the little electric carts that were the only mode of transport on the island, and guided the cart into line behind the slightly larger one that Pat, the ranger, would be driving. He had seven children on board with another volunteer, and he also had the spotlight.

Pat checked his passengers then wandered back to Beth’s cart.

‘You’re a glutton for punishment, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘Someone was telling me you’d just come off duty and you’re volunteering for this job. Should be at the party, shouldn’t you?’

He was just making conversation, Beth knew, but he was a nice guy and deserved an honest answer.

‘I’m far happier out playing with the kids than partying,’ she told him. ‘And remember, this is an adventure for me, too. I haven’t been in the rainforest at night.’

‘Got your light?’

Beth held up the big torch he’d given her earlier.

‘Now, your job is to shine it on the animal, so the kids see all of it. My light will hold the eyes and keep it still.’

‘I think I can manage that,’ Beth told him, although Sam was already asking if he could hold the torch and she knew they’d have a battle of wills about torch-holding before the evening finished. Sam might be slight for his eight years, but he had the fighting qualities of a wild tiger.

Pat returned to his cart and they drove off into the rainforest, taking the track that led to the resort on the other end of the island for about five minutes, before turning off towards the rugged mountain that stood sentinel over the rainforest.

The little carts rolled quietly along, the whirr of their wheels the only sounds, then Pat stopped and doused his headlights, Beth pulling up behind him.

‘Now, remember we have to be very quiet or the animals will run away,’ Beth whispered to her charges as Pat turned on the big light and began to play it among the palms and ferns that crowded the side of the track.

‘There,’ he said quietly, and the children ‘oohed’ as the light picked up wide-open, yellow-green eyes. Beth shone her torch to the side of the eyes and nearly dropped the light. They were looking at a snake. A beautiful snake admittedly but still a snake.

Diamond patterns marked its skin, and though it was coiled around a tree branch, Beth guessed it had to be at least eight feet long.

She wasn’t very good with snakes, so the torch shook in her hands while her feet lifted involuntarily off the floor of the cart. Ally, perhaps feeling the same atavistic fear, slid onto her knee.

Fortunately Pat’s light moved on, finding now, fortunately on the other side of the track, a tiny sugar glider, its huge eyes wide in the light, its furry body still.

There followed a chorus of ‘Ahh!’ and ‘Look!’

How could children keep quiet at the wonder of it, especially when the little animal suddenly moved its legs so the wing-like membrane between them spread and it glided like a bird from one branch to another?

Next the light was low, catching an earthbound animal, sitting up on its haunches as it chewed a nut.

‘A white-tailed marsupial rat,’ Pat said quietly, while Beth’s torch picked out the animal’s body and then the white tail.

The children’s hushed voices startled the little animal, sending him scuttling into the undergrowth, so Pat changed lights, holding up another torch and shining ultraviolet light around until it picked up a huge, saucer-shaped fungus, the light making it glow with a ghostly phosphorescence so the children ‘oohed’ and ‘ahhed’ again in the wonder of it.

They moved on, Sam listing on his fingers how many animals he’d seen, soon needing Danny’s fingers as well.

‘You’ll be onto toes before long,’ Beth said to him, when Pat showed them the emerald-green eyes of a spider in his web.

‘This is so exciting,’ Sam whispered back. ‘Isn’t it, Danny?’

But Danny, Beth realised, was tiring quickly and, with a couple of children already in the hospital with some mystery illness, she decided she’d take him back to camp. Ally, too, had probably had enough.

‘What if you go into Pat’s cart and I take Ally and Danny back to camp?’ she suggested to Sam.

‘No, I’m Danny’s friend so I’ll stay with him.’

‘I’ll go with Pat,’ Ally said, surprising Beth, although she knew she shouldn’t be surprised by anything children did.

She shifted Ally into the bigger cart, found somewhere to turn her cart, then headed back, stopping when she heard any rustling in the bushes, letting Sam sit in the front so he could shine the torch around and spotlight the animal.

‘Over there! I can hear a noise over there. Shine the torch, Sam,’ Danny whispered, when they were close to the junction of the main track.

Beth eased her foot off the accelerator and Sam turned on the torch, finding not an animal or reptile but a human being.

A very tall human being.

A very familiar human being!

‘A-A-Angus?’

His name came out as a stuttered question, and she stared at where he’d been but the torchlight had gone. Sam had taken one look at the figure, given a loud scream, flung the torch down into the well of the cart and darted away, heading along the track as fast as his little legs would carry him.

Danny began to cry, Beth yelled at Sam to stop, to wait, but it was Angus who responded first, taking off after the startled child, calling to him that it was all right.

Beth took Danny on her knee, assuring him everything was okay, driving awkwardly with the child between her and the wheel, hoping Sam would stay on the path, not head into the bushes.

‘He got a fright,’ she said to Danny, ‘that’s all. We’ll find him soon.’

Fortunately, because Danny was becoming increasingly distressed, they did find him soon, sitting atop Angus’s shoulders, shining Angus’s torch.

‘He’s not a Yowie after all,’ Sam announced, as the little cart stopped in front of the pair. ‘I thought he was a Yowie for sure, didn’t you, Danny?’

Danny agreed that he, too, had thought Angus was the mythical Australian bush creature, although Beth was willing to bet this was the first time Danny had heard the word.

As far as Beth was concerned, she’d been more afraid Angus was a ghost—some figment of her imagination conjured up in the darkness of the rainforest.

Yowies, she was sure, were ugly creatures, not tall, strong and undeniably handsome…

A ghost for sure, except that ghosts didn’t chase and catch small boys.

Which reminded her…

‘You shouldn’t have run like that, Sam,’ she chided gently as Angus lifted the child from his shoulders and settled him in the cart where he snuggled up against Beth and Danny. ‘You could have been lost in the forest.’

‘Nuh-uh,’ Sam said, shaking his head vigorously. ‘I stayed on the path—I wasn’t going in the bushes. There are snakes in there.’

‘And Yowies,’ Danny offered, but he sounded so tired Beth knew she had to get him back to camp.

And she’d have to say something to Angus.

But what?

Not knowing—feeling jittery, her composure totally shaken—she let anger take control.

‘I’ve no idea what you were doing, looming up out of the bushes like that,’ she said crossly. ‘You scared us all half to death.’

‘Beth? Is that really you, Beth?’

He was bent over, peering past Sam towards her, and he sounded as flabbergasted as she felt.

‘Who is that man?’ Sam demanded, before she could assure Angus that it was her. ‘And what was he doing in the bushes?’

Exactly what I’d like to know myself, Beth thought, but her lips weren’t working too well, or she couldn’t get enough air through her larynx to speak, or something.

Fortunately Angus wasn’t having any problems forming his speech.

‘I’m Angus and I’m staying at the resort. Right now, I’m doing the same thing you’re doing, looking at the animals at night. That’s why I have my torch.’

He lifted it up, showing it again to Sam who took it and immediately turned it on and shone the light on Danny and Beth.

‘Turn it off,’ Beth said, finding her voice, mainly because the light had shown how pale Danny was. ‘We’ve got to get back to camp.’

She wasn’t sure who she’d said it to, the kids or Angus, but she knew she had to get away, not only because of her own fractured mental state but because Danny needed his bed.

She nodded at Angus—it seemed the least you could do with an ex-husband you found wandering in the rainforest at night—and put her foot on the accelerator.

They shot backwards along the track, Sam laughing uproariously, even Danny giggling.

‘Little devil,’ Beth muttered at Sam, turning the key he’d touched while they’d stopped to forward instead of reverse.

She accelerated again and this time moved decorously forward, passing Angus who was still standing by the track.

If the shock he was feeling was anything like the shock in her body, he might still be there in the morning.

Back at the camp, she left the two children with their carers, explained that Ally had stayed with the larger group, then made her way to the medical centre.

Was she going there to avoid thinking about Angus?

She tried to consider it rationally, wanting to answer her silent question honestly.

Decided, in the end, she honestly wasn’t. Little Robbie Henderson had been asleep when she’d come off duty and although Grace Blake was an excellent nurse and would page Beth if there was any change, she wanted to see for herself that he was resting peacefully.

And check on the other patients, of course.

And it would help her not think about Angus!

She parked the cart outside the medical centre, frowning at a dark shadow on the ground just off the edge of the parking area. A shearwater going into its burrow? She watched for a minute but the bird didn’t move.

Hadn’t Lily picked up a dead bird the other day?

And Ben, one of the rangers who was sick, had also been collecting dead birds.

‘I was just going to page you.’ Grace greeted Beth with this information as she walked into the hospital section of the medical centre. ‘He slept quite well for an hour, then woke up agitated. Actually, I’m not sure he’s even fully awake. Luke’s here, but he’s with Mr Woods, the man you admitted this afternoon with a suspect MI.’

Luke Bresciano was a doctor with the Crocodile Creek hospital and rescue service and, like all the Crocodile Creek staff, he did rostered duty at the medical centre. Officially he was the doctor on duty tonight, but Beth had admitted Robbie, talking to him about his family back home as she’d examined him, and the little boy had relaxed in her presence. If he was distressed, he might react better to her than to the other staff.

She went into the room where he tossed and turned feverishly on the bed, a small figure, his left leg and arm distorted by the cerebral palsy that had also affected his lungs, so even a mild infection could result in respiratory problems.

‘Hey, Robbie!’ she said quietly, sitting by the bed and taking his hand in hers, smoothing back his floppy dark hair from his forehead, talking quietly to him.

He opened his eyes and looked at her but she knew he wasn’t seeing her, lost as he was in some strange world his illness had conjured up.

‘Go to sleep,’ she told him, gently smoothing his eyes shut with the palm of his hand. ‘I’ll stay with you, little man. I’ll look after you.’

And holding his hand, she began to sing, very softly, a funny little song she remembered someone singing when she’d been very young, about an echo.

Had the song sprung from her subconscious as a result of seeing Angus—as a result of that echo from the past?

Surely not, but seeing Angus had unsettled her so she sang to calm herself as well as Robbie, changing to other songs, silly songs, singing quietly until the panicky feeling in her chest subsided and the peace she’d found on this island haven returned.

So what if Angus was here? She was over Angus. Well, if not over him, at least she’d managed to tuck him away into some far corner of her mind—like mementos tucked away in an attic. Could memories gather enough cobwebs to become invisible?

To be forgotten?

Not when they still caused pain in her heart.

‘Bother Angus!’ she muttered, then hurriedly checked that her words hadn’t disturbed Robbie.

They hadn’t, but what made her really angry was that the peace she’d found in this place—even in so short a time—could be so fragile that seeing Angus had disturbed it.

Here, working in a medical centre with a kids’ camp attached, she’d thought she’d found the perfect job. Caring for the children, playing with them, sharing their experiences, she was finally getting over the loss of her own child—her and Angus’s child. In the three years since Bobby had died and she and Angus had parted, this was the closest she’d come to finding happiness again. Ongoing happiness, not just moments or days of it.

At first she’d wondered how she’d cope with the kids, especially with the fact that many of the children at the camp had cerebral palsy, the condition Bobby had suffered from. But from the day of their arrival she’d known that didn’t matter. Just as Bobby, young though he’d been, only three when he’d died, had fought against the limitations of his condition—severe paralysis—so these kids, whether asthmatics, diabetics, in remission from cancer or with CP, got on with their lives with cheerful determination, relishing every fun-filled moment of camp life, and drawing staff and volunteers into the joy with them.

Yes, it was the perfect job, in a perfect place—a tropical island paradise. What more could a woman want?

The L-word sneaked into her mind.

Pathetic, that’s what she was!

Had it been seeing Angus that had prompted such a thought?

Of course it must be. Seeing Angus had raised all kinds of spectres, weird spectres considering Angus had never loved her—she’d known that from the start—although back then she had allowed herself to dream…

Not any more!

She pushed her thoughts back into the cobwebby attic. So what if he was on the island? He was at the resort at the other end, nowhere near the camp or medical centre, so there was no reason for them to meet again.

None!

Except that the island was no longer a haven, she admitted to herself in the early hours of the morning when Robbie slept but her own fears came to the fore, tiredness magnifying them.

She’d tried to tell herself she was unsettled because of the Angus incident—because of his escape from the attic of her mind—but, in fact, it was a combination of things that had her so uptight.

So desperately worried!

Seeing Angus had brought back memories of Bobby’s death. Bobby had died of a massive chest infection they’d at first thought was simply flu.

With vulnerable children was there ever ‘simple’ flu?

And then there were the birds…

Her island paradise had become a place of sick children and dead birds!

The combination of words played again and again—like an echo—in Beth’s head as day dawned, grey and wary, outside the window. Now, tired though she was, she tried to put aside emotion and just list the facts.

The celebration of the opening the previous day had been dampened by the fact that the ten-bed hospital attached to the medical centre was half-full. Sick adults were bad enough, but the sick children?

Lily, Jack and Robbie hospitalised here in the medical centre, Danny not well last night. For these children a simple cold was a big concern—flu was even worse.

Bird flu!

Not a fact but an inescapable thought…

The feared words hadn’t yet been spoken but Beth imagined she could hear them murmuring on the soft tropical wind that blew across the island and whispering at her from the palm fronds. The worrying thing, as far as Beth could see, was that no one was doing anything to find out if this might be the flash point of a pandemic.

Charles Wetherby, head of Crocodile Creek Hospital and the prime mover in expanding the medical presence on Wallaby Island, would normally have taken charge, but he’d been distracted by the official events and the dignitaries attending them, to say nothing of the fact that his ward, Lily, was one of the sick children.

Distracted generally, it seemed to Beth, although she didn’t know him well enough to be sure distracted wasn’t part of his usual personality.

As far as the mystery illness was concerned, blood samples had been sent to the mainland for testing—that was a fact—but there were so many different strains of flu, would an ordinary pathology lab on the mainland think to consider bird flu or even have the facility to test for it?

In the pale dawn light Beth sighed, knowing she had to go through with a decision she’d made some time around midnight as she’d sat beside Robbie’s bed, looking at the child but seeing a much smaller and younger child—not Robbie, but Bobby. Later we’ll call him Bob, Angus had said, it’s more manly than Rob.

But Bobby had never grown to be a man, and Angus?

She sighed again.

Angus was a short electric cart ride away, in the luxury resort on the southern end of the island.

Angus was a pathologist who specialised in epidemiology.

Angus would know about bird flu.

She had to go there.

She had to ask him.

Before another child got sick…

Before another child died…

Beth left the small electric cart in the parking lot at the edge of the resort.

‘Stay!’ she said firmly to Garf, the camp’s goofy, golden, curly labradoodle, who considered riding in the carts the best fun in the world and had hurled himself in beside her before she’d left the clinic.

Garf smiled his goofy smile and lay down across the seat.

Not that he’d guard the cart for her—he’d be more likely to encourage someone to steal it so he could have another ride.

Smiling at remembered antics of the dog she’d grown so fond of, she walked along the path through the lush tropical greenery that screened the small cart park from the resort itself, and found herself by the pool. It looked a million miles long and she realised it had been designed to seem as if it was at one with the surrounding sea. At this end, there were chairs set around tables that sheltered under wide umbrellas, and closer to the pool low-slung loungers, where a few people were already soaking up the very early rays of the rising sun.

To her right, the resort hotel rose in terraced steps so in a way it repeated the shape of the rugged mountain beneath which it sheltered.

‘Wow!’

The word escaped her, although she’d been determined not to be impressed by the magnificence of the newly rebuilt resort.

And possibly because she was so nervous over approaching Angus that she’d been concentrating on the setting to exclude Angus-thoughts from her mind, and talking to herself helped.

Then she remembered Robbie Henderson—and Jack and Lily and the other patients—and why she was there. With steady steps and a thundering heart, she made her way towards the building.

‘You are not the wimpy twenty-five-year-old who fell for the first hazel-eyed specialist who looked your way—awed by someone in his position taking notice of a first-year resident,’ she reminded herself, muttering under her breath to emphasise her thoughts. ‘You’re a mature, experienced woman now, a qualified ER doctor and head of the Wallaby Island Medical Centre. All you’re doing is what any sensible medico would do—seeking advice from an expert.’