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Chapter 1
Two weeks to D-day. Or M-day. Rebecca Walters glanced at the calendar on her laptop with the staff shifts colour-coded. She hadn’t put a code for Doctor Morgan Cavanaugh on yet.
Her own code as practice manager blinked at her and she couldn’t help wondering how long it would stay.
Would Morgan be willing to work with her?
Especially once he found out the truth about the past. She couldn’t afford to go back to her old job at the nursing home. Not with the mountain of debt her parents, mainly her stepfather, had left behind. Once her mother died, it had been a relief to repossess her birth father’s name, leaving Bujold in the past where it belonged.
‘Becca?’ The clinic nurse hovered at the door of her office behind reception. ‘The pharma rep is here.’
‘Thanks, Karen.’ With a sigh, Becca closed the laptop. She could finish it later. Normally she loved her job, loved the challenge, but with the date of Morgan’s arrival looming, it made her edgy.
The rep was easy to deal with. He flirted as usual. It was a game he played but he knew Becca wasn’t up for a night out. Not on a school night. Not with the responsibility of two children and a step-cousin with a brain injury to keep her busy. At least Dan would be moving to his own place in neighbouring Bialga with some friends soon. It would make it easier, especially for the twins.
Another problem she’d have to deal with. She couldn’t use Morgan’s parents for childcare once Morgan came home. Grace had made her position clear at the start when the twins were born and they’d made the deal.
Help in return for silence.
It had hurt, but not as much as believing Morgan had deliberately turned his back on his children. Lately, Grace was oddly reluctant for Becca to find alternative arrangements. After all this time, Morgan’s mother had become fond of the children and they adored Grandpa Ned. Grace’s cooking was the drawcard in the relationship. Sometimes Becca wondered if Grace regretted the deal as much as Becca did. Neither of them expected it to last all this time. Except Morgan never came home and things drifted into an uneasy peace.
The twins were used to their current routine and would miss the daily contact with Ned and Grace. Free or cheap childcare for two eleven-year-olds was hard to find when she had no vehicle to do pickups and drop-offs. She’d planned on buying a small second-hand car soon, but with her job no longer secure, she’d been too uncertain to make such a large financial commitment.
Frustrated at her unusual distraction, Becca glanced at her watch. Time for her meeting with Doctor Farrell. He was usually happy to leave the running of the clinic to her, with the assistance of the staff. This close to retirement, he was pretty much cruising until his replacement arrived. He at least was happy it was Morgan. He’d been Morgan’s mentor during high school when he’d first shown an interest in medicine, rather than following Ned Cavanaugh in farming his family’s block of land.
‘All ready for the transition?’
Becca nodded, checking the to do list on her tablet. ‘Prescription and pharmaceutical software is all up to date. Client database is stripped of any patients who’ve left and all current records were checked for accuracy. We had a few incorrect addresses but mostly it’s been running properly.’
He rested his clasped hands on his ample waist. ‘I’m looking forward to not having to worry about these things.’
In reality, he’d never worried. He left the technical side of things to Becca and focused on the medicine. Which suited her fine. ‘You’ll enjoy the warmer weather when you move down to the coast.’
‘It’ll be a change. I’ll probably get down there and miss the cool nights.’
‘Air conditioning will do the job.’ She braced herself. ‘Have you been in contact with Doctor Cavanaugh?’
‘I spoke to him late last week. He has a few medical check-ups to complete before he leaves Brisbane. I imagine he’ll want plenty of time to settle in and catch up with his parents.’
In other words, he might get here before the two weeks stated on the contract. She’d need to speak to Grace sooner rather than later about the twins. The moment he saw Gabby, he’d know the truth. She didn’t want to think about how angry he’d be. She remembered his temper, though it had been rarely displayed.
Returning to her office, she mired herself in the staff shifts, clearing her head of the fears and uncertainty. She’d talk to Grace this afternoon when she picked up the children. The rest of it would have to wait. This job was vital to her children’s future. She couldn’t risk it. Not now.
Becca was tidying up, ready to lock the front door when one of the regular patients burst through the door, a bellowing youngster clutched to her chest. At the sight of blood on the child’s clothes and bare legs, Becca grabbed a dressing pack from the storeroom behind the reception area and almost ran to meet them.
‘You should have bandaged Craig’s leg before you brought him into town, Kaylee.’ Shifting her grip on the dressing pressed over the wound, Becca contemplated the simplest way to remove the sobbing child from the hysterical young mother. The woman had frozen the moment she’d made it through the door.
She glanced towards the back of the reception area. ‘Karen?’
The clinic nurse poked her head out of the treatment room. ‘Nearly finished.’
‘Can you come as soon as you’re done? We’ll also need Bert to clean up ASAP.’
Carefully Rebecca eased the shaking woman down onto one of the chairs in the waiting room. Kaylee was a good mother, despite her youth, but she tended to panic at the sight of blood. Craig was the kind of rough and tumble boy who managed to shed a lot of it. Becca could empathise with nineteen-year-old Kaylee. She knew what it was like to feel the town’s judgement on her capacity to mother her children.
Thank goodness the clinic was almost clear of patients this late in the afternoon. She averted her eyes from the bloody mess on the linoleum floor. It was near the automatic door at the front of the medical clinic and therefore an immediate hazard. The priority was the child but preventing an accident came close. This was the part of the job she was good at. Seeing what had to be done and expediting it. Fortunately, she had a great team.
In minutes Karen joined her, helping to secure the dressing. Rebecca was able to pry the three-year-old from his mother’s arms, while Karen soothed her. Once in the treatment room, Craig settled down, his fears more due to his mother’s emotional reaction than any pain from the cut.
