A Bride and Child Worth Waiting For. Marion Lennox
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wasted time. Charles Wetherby didn’t know what it was to stand still.
Jill stood beside Cal and handed over instruments as Cal carefully repaired Muriel Mooronwa’s inguinal hernia. It should have been repaired months ago. It had been seriously interfering with her life for over a year, but that Muriel agreed to have the operation at all was a huge achievement.
It was down to Charles, Jill thought. Ten years ago women like Muriel would have become more and more incapacitated, and probably ended up dying needlessly as the hernia strangulated. Muriel, like so many of the population round Crocodile Creek, was an indigenous Australian who’d been raised in a tribal community. She distrusted cities and all they represented. She distrusted white doctors. But Charles had brought these people a medical service second to none.
From the time Charles had been shot, his wealthy farming family had deemed him useless. Their loss had been the greater gain of this entire region. Charles had gone to medical school with a mission, to return here and set up a service other remote communities could only dream of. He’d had the vision to set up a doctors’ residence which attracted medics from all over the world. He talked doctors such as Cal, a top-flight surgeon, and Gina, an American cardiologist, into staying long term. His enthusiasm was infectious. Wherever you went, people were caught up in Charles’s projects.
Like Wallaby Island’s kids’ camp. As soon as his remote air sea rescue service was established Charles had got bored, looking for something else to do. The camp for disabled kids, bringing kids from all over Australia for the holiday of a lifetime, was brilliant in its intent. It brought kids to the tropics to have fun and it provided first-class rehabilitation facilities while that happened.
He acted on impulse, Jill thought as she worked beside him. What sort of impulse had had him asking her to marry him?
‘You’re daydreaming,’ Charles said softly. The main part of the procedure was over now. Cal was stitching, making sure the job was perfect. There was time for his helpers to stand back. Or, in Charles’s case, to wheel back. He had a special stool he used in theatre. He’d devised it himself so he could be on a level with what was going on and swivel and move at need. As director of the entire base it was reasonable to assume he didn’t need to act in a hands-on capacity, but the day Charles stopped working…
It’d kill him, Jill thought. The man was driven.
‘You’re dreaming diamonds?’ Charles said, teasing, and Jill gasped.
‘What…? No!’
‘Diamonds,’ Cal said, eyes widening. ‘Diamonds!’
‘Maybe just one diamond,’ Charles said. ‘Jill, seeing Gina and Cal are our babysitters-in-chief, I figure maybe Cal should be the first to know.’
‘You guys are getting married?’ Cal said incredulously.
‘Only because of Lily,’ Jill said in a rush, and the pleasure in Cal’s eyes faded a little.
‘Why?’
‘If we don’t get married Lily gets adopted by someone else,’ Charles said. ‘We’re sort of used to her being around.’
‘You mean you love her,’ Cal said gently, and the smile returned. ‘You want to tell me how it happened?’
‘Her uncle wants her adopted,’ Charles explained. ‘He’s her legal guardian. He wants a married couple.’ He turned to the tray of surgical instruments and focused on what needed attention.
Nothing needed attention.
‘We can’t let her go,’ Jill said warmly, life returning to her voice. ‘We all love her.’
‘Ofcoursewedo,’ Cal said. Lily was playing with Gina and Cal’s small son, CJ, right now. CJ and Lily were best friends. They were in and out of each other’s houses, they slept over at each other’s places; in fact, sometimes Charles thought Lily regarded Gina and Cal as just as much her parents as he and Jill.
It was a problem, he thought. Oh, it made life easy that Lily transferred her affections to whoever she was with, but Wendy worried that the child’s superficial attachments were the result of trauma.
It didn’t matter, Charles thought. It’d settle.
‘So when’s the date?’ Cal asked, and Charles looked questioningly at Jill.
‘I… We need to do it within a month.’
‘Hey, it’s a magnificent excuse for a party. It’ll be headline news…’
‘Private ceremony,’ Charles said before he thought about it. ‘No fuss.’
‘No fuss,’ Jill agreed, and Charles looked sharply up at her. Kicking himself. He’d done it again. He’d made the decision without consulting her.
‘And no photographs,’ she said. Her voice was flat, inflexionless. No joy there.
Of course not. She’d had the marriage from hell the first time round. Marriage could never be something she approached with joy.
He knew few details of her past, and those he hadn’t gained from Jill. His friend Harry, the Crocodile Creek policeman, had passed on information to Charles when he’d become involved with Jill that he’d thought might be important.
Married absurdly young and with no family support, Harry reported that Jill’s marriage had been a nightmare of abuse. She’d tried to run, but she’d been hauled back, time and time again. Her final attempt to defy her husband had nearly cost her life. Only the fact that there’d been a couple of tourists on the jetty as Jill had staggered from her husband’s fishing boat had saved her life.
But despite her appalling marriage, Jill Shaw was a woman of intelligence and courage. She’d still been young enough to start a new life. Cautiously, and with the encouragement from women she met at the refuge she’d ended up in after she’d been discharged from hospital, she’d applied for a nursing course as far away from the scene of her marriage as she’d been able to. She still feared Kelvin and had changed her name to keep hidden, but she’d moved on. She’d lived on the smell of an oily rag to get what she wanted.
She’d graduated with honours, she’d embraced her profession and when she’d applied to Crocodile Creek—it had to be one of the most remote nursing jobs in Australia—Charles hadn’t believed his luck.
But she wasn’t happy. Normally bossy and acerbic, with a wry sense of humour, the events of the afternoon seemed to have winded her. Was she afraid? Of more than her ex-husband finding her? Hell, she had to know he’d never hurt her. And she’d agreed. She did love Lily, he thought. She wanted this.
He was going to Wallaby Island tomorrow without her. He had to have her smile about this—he had to have her feeling sure before he went.
‘Cal, we’re finished now,’ he said, maybe more roughly than he intended. ‘Do you think you and Gina can hang on to Lily for a few more hours?’
‘Of course,’ Cal said easily. ‘We’re packing to go to Wallaby Island tomorrow. Having Lily will get CJ out of our hair while we organise ourselves.’
‘Fine,’ Charles said. He had his own packing to do but it’d have to wait. ‘Don’t mention what’s happening to Lily—we want to tell her ourselves tonight. But Jill and I are going out to dinner and we need to leave now.’
‘It’s only four now,’ Jill said, startled. ‘What’s the rush?’
‘We need to get changed,’ Charles said. ‘And we need to get into town before the jeweller shuts. I’ve never been engaged before and if we’re going to do this…Jill, let’s do this in style.’
He wouldn’t listen to her objections. She didn’t need a ring. She didn’t need…marriage.
What was she doing?
Jill stood in her bare little bedroom and gazed into her wardrobe with a sense of helplessness. She was going out