Dating the Millionaire Doctor (16 page)

A massive gum had fallen right in front of it. The team of men who'd cleared the place had taken away the smaller litter but they'd chopped the log into three, obviously thinking she might want to use it. For landscaping or something.

She couldn't think of using anything here.

But Jake had brought along a rug. He spread it across the log so any soot was covered and he propelled her gently downwards.

‘Sit,' he said, and she sat because she was beyond arguing.

Then, ‘I've done all I can without your input,' he told her. ‘It's time I brought you onboard.'

‘Onboard?'

‘Onto my sea of plans,' he said. ‘I have three directions I can go, and I don't know which one to take.'

‘I don't understand.'

‘Okay,'he said gently and he sat down beside her. He took her hand in his and held it, like it was truly precious. ‘First things first. I've come home.'

How was a girl to respond to that? She couldn't.

‘I was born here,' he said, taking no obvious offence at her silence, but ploughing on regardless. ‘I suspect I was conceived in the house over there. As you were conceived here. They say there's a strong chance you end up marrying the girl next door. How about that?'

Whoa! She should say something, she thought. But what? What?

‘But I'm getting ahead of myself,' he said, smiling. It was a teasing smile. It was the smile she loved with all her heart.

‘I've quit my job,' he told her. ‘For the past two months I've been undertaking intensive post-graduate training in pain management. There's more to learn, but instead of being an anaesthetist who's good at managing pain, what I've decided to do is to become a pain management specialist. I need more training still, but I can learn it on the job, and I can learn it here. I can be useful now. I can be useful here.'

And then, as surprise did give her something to say, he pressured her hand, telling her there was more to come, that for now he simply needed her to listen.

‘Tori, I was brought up believing my father didn't care,' he told her. ‘My mother didn't care either—not emotionally—and that left me with nothing. Or maybe I had emotions, but I learned to lock them away. And then I found you, breaking your heart over a dead koala. And I found the community of Combadeen. I found people who'd loved my father and who he'd loved in turn. I discovered that I'd been raised on a lie.'

He tugged her hand then, just a little so she turned and was facing him.

‘None of that matters,' he said, ‘except in explaining why I was so long in seeing what was before my eyes. When you left I kept going to work, telling myself I was dumb, only you'd left me colour, all through my apartment.'

‘I knew you'd like it,' she interrupted, absurdly pleased.

‘I love it,' he said simply. ‘I've had it all shipped here. And I love Ferdy and Freddy. They're already in quarantine. I'm hoping Itsy, Bitsy and Rusty take kindly to them. They're very bossy cats.'

She was almost beyond hearing. She was so confused she felt dizzy. He was shipping his life…here?

‘You're coming here?'

‘I'm here.'

‘You can't.'

‘Why can't I?'

‘Your life's in Manhattan.'

‘My life's with you.'

There was a heart stopper if ever she heard one. Her heart definitely stopped, and it took time before she got it going again. And when she did…

Caution, she thought. Don't get your hopes up. This can't be what it seems.

‘Jake, we can organise access some other way,' she managed. ‘I mean…I know you want a say in how our baby's raised.'

‘I want more than that,'he said, strongly and surely. ‘I want to see him wake up in the morning and I want to read him bedtime stories. I want to make sure he's taught baseball and not indoctrinated into that very curious game you call football. I want—'

‘To change diapers?'

‘That, too,' he said, and he didn't even smile. It seemed he was deadly serious. ‘I want to share in getting up in the middle of the night. I want to cope with dramas. I want to go to school plays. Did you know my mother never went to a single one of my school plays? Not a one. I'm going to the lot.'

‘Does this mean I don't have to?' she asked, trying to joke, but it didn't work. There was too much at stake here for laughter.

‘I suspect it's a team effort,' he said softly, seriously. ‘The mother and father need to sit together.'

‘Jake…'

‘I know it's too fast,' he said, quickly now, as if he was afraid she'd stop him before she'd heard him out. ‘I know we've barely had more than our five-minute date. But I want to put a proposition before you.'

He rose, and tugged her to her feet, then led her through the cleared area where once her home had stood. To a spot at the northern end.

‘This was the kitchen, right?' he said, and she nodded.

‘So this view…it'll have been where you stood and looked out as a family, as you cooked, as you washed dishes, as you lived.'

‘Yes.'

‘Then there's a choice to be made,' he said softly. ‘As I said at the beginning, there're three options.'

‘Three.'

‘Number one,' he said, moving right on. ‘That you fall into my arms right this minute, and we go next door and we move into what was my father's home and we live happily ever after. It's only my preferred option because it's the quickest,' he said hurriedly. ‘But no pressure. I came up before and opened the windows and made it smell great, and I think it looks great, but if you don't want—'

‘Jake…'

‘You need to listen to all three before you decide,' he told her, trying to sound severe. ‘And you need to listen to the plans in full. If we did that—if lived next door—then I think we should build the world's best wildlife shelter here, plus a clinic for the work you used to do. Caring for the horses that used to live up here and will live up here again. Families are returning, Tori. Life's starting here again.'

‘But—'

‘And we could call it after the dogs you lost,' he said gently. ‘Mutsy and Pogo and Bandit's Animal Care. Big letters out the front. Every care in the world inside.'

‘Oh, Jake…'

‘Or two,' he said hurriedly, and maybe he thought she was about to burst into tears. She might, she thought mistily. She just might. But for now it was more important to listen.

‘Okay, moving right onto option two,' he said, and his grip on her hands became more urgent. ‘Option two's if you decide you still want to live here. But even if you did want to live here, you'd agree that I could live here, too. I've thought that one through. If you did that, then we could turn next door, my place, into Mutsy and Pogo and Bandit's Animal Care. It'd take a bit more work, as we have a house there and a blank canvas here, and it'd be a bit of a waste of new curtains, but it could be done. If you want this to stay as your kitchen view, my love, then that's your option.'

‘Your love?' It was a squeak. It was definitely a squeak.

‘Definitely my love,' he said, and he tugged her tight against him. ‘And then there lies option three. Because much as I love you, much as I admit that my five-minute date was the best thing that could ever have happened to me, much as I want you to be beside me for the rest of my life, if you don't want that, or you're not ready, or you think you could do better, then I'll help you rebuild here, and I'll live next door so I can still teach Hildebrand to play baseball…'

‘Hildebrand?'

‘We have some discussion to do,' he said lovingly. ‘Lots of discussion.'

‘Jake…'

‘Yes?'

She was trying to get her head around this. Her head wasn't big enough to take it in.

‘You'd live up here? And work…in Melbourne?'

‘In the valley. As Susie says, there's work and to spare. She's already set up discussions with health-care providers. I can start work tomorrow if I want. I'll need to go back and forth to the city for further training but that's feasible. You could come with me. And I need to take a few weeks off before I start. I have a half-grown dog to train.'

‘Jake, stop.'

‘It's too fast,' he said, suddenly rueful. ‘I promised myself I wouldn't pressure you. Those three options—you can take your time, my love. You can have our baby and we can decide then. I won't coerce you into falling into my arms because I want to be a father. Because I want to be your husband first. That's what I want most. Everything else can wait.'

And then, because she didn't speak, because she couldn't, he smiled and suddenly lifted her up into his arms and he carried her across the scraped-up earth that was all that was left of her past life, and he took her to where the fireplace still stood, a blackened sentinel in the centre of what once had been her home.

The chimney stood, charred and blackened, the massive mantel that had straddled it still there, burned and twisted but still recognisably a mantel.

And on the blackened timber, a crimson box.

‘This is for later,' Jake said softly, and he set her down. ‘I came up here on the way to find you, and I left this here and I made a vow. I'd help you rebuild your life, my love, and if at any stage of the rebuilding you think, Maybe I wouldn't mind a man in my life, then this little box will be here. It'll sit here waiting so that I won't have to wait for the right time. Any sliver of opportunity and I'm in.'

‘You…you just left it here?'

‘There were three wallabies here when I got here,' Jake said. ‘They promised they'd guard it. You want a look?

And what was a girl to say to that?

‘It's not as big as the one at Tiffany's,' he said, suddenly anxious. ‘And it's presumptuous.'

‘I only want a peek.' She could almost laugh at the look on his face. Almost but not quite.

So he flipped it open.

It was like the one at Tiffany's.

He'd had it copied exactly. A glistening solitaire diamond in the centre, a heart, then five tiny rubies, with the thinnest ring of diamonds forming the outer edge of the heart. It had all the beauty of the one she'd seen but none of the ostentation. It was exquisite.

Her heart seemed to still, settle, warm.…

But then, as she put her finger down to touch, he tugged it back and the lid snapped closed with a firm little click. Back it went, onto its resting place of charred timber, a crimson slash against the black.

‘It's too soon,' he said, sounding firm. ‘Far too soon. It's to sit there, Tori, until it's not too soon. It's to stay there until you know your heart, and if it stays there until we're old and grey, it's okay, I'll still be waiting.'

She started up at him, speechless, and she knew he was absolutely serious.

No pressure. She could live here again for as long as she wanted, and he'd be next door, the father to her child, doctor to this community.

The man she loved.

Was it too soon?

And she knew.

Five-minute dating? She didn't need five minutes, she thought mistily, and she put both her hands on Jake's shoulders and she pushed him sideways, so hard he staggered. She grinned, for her way was clear now. There were no barriers between herself and the blackened hearth.

‘If you don't mind,' she said softly, wondrously, even finding room for laughter. ‘You're getting in the way of my heart's desire.'

And she stepped forwards and retrieved the box, and she slid the ring on her finger before Jake could produce any more dumb arguments about too soon and wait and which path would she go.

For she knew her own path. With Jake's ring on her finger she turned to her man, and she stepped into the arms of her heart's desire.

 

A gleaming new family wagon, bright red, big enough to hold dogs, cats and kids, turned into the gate of the homestead up on the ridge—Old Doc's Place, according to the locals—and drew to a halt.

Jake climbed out, went round to the passenger side to help his wife out of the car and then together they lifted the baby capsule from the back seat.

Charlotte Elizabeth Hunter gazed up at her parents, wide-eyed and wondering. They smiled down at her, they smiled at each other and together they carried their brand-new baby into her home.

The dogs were waiting to meet them. Itsy and Bitsy and the boss of the pack, Rusty, were quivering with excitement, but the pecking order had been established months ago. Ferdy and Freddy came first, prancing down the steps in stately dignity to investigate this new little member of their family. When the cats conceded their places—after cautious approval—the dogs wriggled and bounced and shivered their pleasure until Jake ordered control.

‘Back,' Jake said and the dogs backed, just like that. They were beautifully trained. They'd been trained by Jake, under instruction from Tori. A team effort.

This whole place was a team effort, Jake thought in satisfaction. There were delicious smells coming from the kitchen. Doreen and Glenda had been here this morning, to make sure everything was perfect, then slipping away before they arrived, to give them some privacy.

There was team effort everywhere. Through the regenerating bushland, Jake could just see signs of activity next door. The new Mutsy and Pogo and Bandit's Animal Care Centre
was up and running, in the place where Tori's house had once stood.

‘I don't mind moving,' she'd said, choosing Option One with alacrity. ‘Home is where the heart is, after all.'

Home.

He knew what it was now, he thought, as he ushered his new wife inside, as he carried his new child into her new home.

Home.

It didn't go with the concept of alone.

Home was dogs, he thought, and cats, and a goldfish called Jake. Home was friends, neighbours, community.