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‘Is there room in your life for anyone else to love you?’
Ryan knew he was moving too fast but he had to know. If she said no without hesitation then he might as well give up. Tara could be stubborn, and if she made up her mind about something it was extremely difficult to change it.
But she hadn’t answered.
Her cheeks were pink and she was looking at a point somewhere on the opposite wall. He moved a little closer to her and grasped her hand.
She refocused and mesmerised him with her deep grey-blue eyes. Was it desire he saw in their depths?
‘You mean you?’ she finally said.
‘Yes.’
Tara leaned across, rested her head on Ryan’s shoulder and sighed.
‘Oh, Ryan. Why did you have to come back? I had my future mapped out. I thought I was as happy as I could be. And I honestly can’t think of love. Not now. It’s too hard.’
Ryan gently stroked her silky hair and resisted the temptation to put words into her mouth. She had to say it.
He waited …
Dear Reader
I was born and bred in the city, but have spent nearly two decades living and working in the country. During that time I’ve come to know many true heroes and heroines who have done the best they can to make a go of it on the land. In this story I have tried to impart a sense of the struggle many country people have to deal with as a backdrop to the romance between Ryan, a city orthopaedic surgeon, and Tara, a country GP.
Their journey takes them from a life-changing event in the past, and having to deal with the fall-out of that event, finally to a future full of love, hope and impossible dreams come true.
I hope you enjoy this story.
Leonie K
PS I love to hear from my readers and you can contact me via my website: www.leonieknight.com
About the Author
Originally a city girl, LEONIE KNIGHT grew up in Perth, Western Australia. Several years ago, with her husband, two young sons and their Golden Retriever, she moved south to a small rural acreage located midway between dazzling white beaches and the magnificent jarrah forest of the Darling Scarp. Now her boys have grown and left home, and the demands of her day job have lessened, she finds she has more time to devote to the things she loves—gardening, walking, cycling, reading and, of course, writing. She has spent most of her adult life working in first a suburban and then a rural general medical practice. That combined with the inspiration she gets from her real-life hero makes it only natural that the stories she writes are Medical Romances.
Recent titles by the same author:
HOW TO SAVE A MARRIAGE IN A MILLION
SUDDENLY SINGLE SOPHIE
These books are also available in eBook format from www.millsandboon.co.uk
The Doctor,
His Daughter
and Me
Leonie Knight
MILLS & BOON
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Many thanks to Heather and Ian, retired dairy farmers
and a wonderfully generous couple,
who helped me with the details of life on a farm.
Also for Shellee and Margaret.
You are truly inspirational.
PROLOGUE
DR TARA DENNISON closed her eyes, took several deep breaths and tried to relax as the physio’s thumbs dug deep into both sides of her neck. She was close to tears but it had nothing to do with the massage. She’d decided she couldn’t put it off any longer. She would tell Ryan tonight. And then they would both be free … free of the guilt, anguish and pain that held them together in a fragile relationship that had mercilessly sapped the strength from both of them over the past three months.
‘Ouch,’ she said as the pressure on her spine amplified and teetered on the edge of pain.
‘You’re tenser today than you usually are. Is there anything wrong? Soreness anywhere?’
Tara opened her eyes. She definitely wasn’t about to reveal that everything was wrong. That she loved her husband so much there was no way she could deny him the future he deserved—the loving perfect wife, sexual fulfilment, the children he’d always wanted …
‘No, I’m fine. I think I may have overdone it in the gym yesterday. Perhaps we could call it quits now?’
‘Good idea. I’ll catch up with you in the pool tomorrow afternoon.’
‘Yes, the pool …’
But before she had time to finish her sentence the physio had left, and a few minutes later she heard familiar footsteps heading towards her room. Her heart did a somersault and landed squarely in the pit of her stomach.
Now.
She’d made up her mind. She would definitely tell him now.
Ryan felt good. The time was right. He clutched an enormous bouquet of delicately scented yellow roses in one hand and the list he’d laboured over for the past week in the other. With the information he had, and Tara’s all-time favourite flowers, how could she possibly refuse?
But when he reached her room, drew back the curtain and saw the expression on her face, he began to have doubts.
‘Hi, beautiful.’ He placed the flowers on the bedside table, leaned forward and kissed his wife on the mouth, holding the simple but intimate connection for as long as he could. Her mouth was immobile, her lips cool, and when he finally drew away her sombre expression flattened his mood like a burst balloon.
‘What’s the matter?’
She was looking at the roses as if he’d given her a bunch of stinging nettles.
‘I have something I want to tell you.’
‘That’s great.’ His gentle smile did nothing to thaw the icy expression on Tara’s face. ‘I have something to tell you too.’
Some of his previous joy at finally tying up all the loose ends of his plan that would give them the chance of a rosy future returned. His love for Tara had never waned. They had survived a horrific accident and were both miraculously alive; he’d been there every step of the way through the lengthy and arduous rehabilitation programme; he’d supported her through bouts of debilitating depression and he’d found a way for them to live out the happily-ever-after of their dreams. If she’d just let him explain …
‘I’ll go first.’ The list he had made seemed redundant now, but he knew once she’d realised they weren’t stuck in an inescapable rut …
‘No, Ryan. Let me.’
Her eyes, which were usually wide open windows to her feelings, were shuttered.
‘Okay,’ he said slowly as he reached for her hand, but she snatched it away.
‘I want a divorce.’
Ryan shook his head in disbelief. Just when there was a possibility they could get their lives back on track? Had he heard wrong?
‘No!’ The word came out more forcefully than he’d planned. ‘Sorry,’ he added, and this time Tara let him hold her hand. She was shaking.
‘Why?’
She took a deep breath and looked him straight in the eye.
‘Because I’m disabled, Ryan. I’m a different person to the perfect woman you married. I think and feel differently and I could never be a mother to your children—’
‘But …’ He squeezed Tara’s hand tight. ‘But none of that matters … if we love each other.’
Tara looked away and shifted restlessly in her hospital bed.
‘Tara? Love … it’s what has sustained us through the bad times as well as the good.’
Tara’s gaze swung back to Ryan. She sighed.
‘That’s the problem, Ryan. I don’t love you any more. And I can’t live in a loveless marriage.’ She cleared her throat. ‘I want a divorce and I’m not going to change my mind.’
CHAPTER ONE
Eight years later.
RYAN DENNISON wasn’t trying to avoid the inevitable confrontation, just delaying it. He circled the car park looking for an inconspicuous space from where he’d still have full view of the entrance to the clinic.
How long had it been since he’d seen Tara? He did a quick mental calculation. It was nearly eight years. Back then, he’d told her he was prepared to be there for her all the way, no matter the sacrifices. He’d had a workable plan for their future. But she’d insisted she wanted a divorce. He thought he’d found a way to overcome all their problems but he’d had no answer to her simple statement: I don’t love you any more. And she’d been right; they couldn’t stay together in a marriage without mutual love.
After several weeks of agonising self-doubt, guilt and pleading with Tara, she’d held her ground and become more distant as time went on. He knew her grief had been as gut-wrenching as his, but she hadn’t seemed to understand the anguish he’d suffered at being pushed away, at having to endure years of remorse.
Yes, he’d agreed to end their marriage, but his heart still bore the scars of being rejected by the woman he’d loved with his whole being. His attempts to contact her by e-mails and phone calls in the first few years had been ignored, as if she’d been frightened of having any communication with him. His phone calls to her home phone had always been coldly blocked by her parents, who’d told him their daughter didn’t want to talk to him, and she must have recognised his mobile number as his texts and calls went unanswered. In the end he’d stopped trying.
No one was to blame.
Well, that was what he’d kept telling himself—until the words almost lost their meaning.
But Tara’s parents didn’t believe it and he suspected Tara nursed doubts as well.
He parked the car and then glanced at his watch—four twenty-five. He’d done his homework. She finished at four-thirty but he’d come prepared for a wait. She would be busy, popular and almost certainly run overtime. Scanning the cars in the disabled section, he came to the conclusion hers would be the people-mover—the only vehicle big enough to take an electric wheelchair and be fitted with the gadgetry for a paraplegic driver.
Paraplegic … Oh, God, if only things had been different. Despite his outward calm he still had nightmares, replaying the horrors of that terrible evening. In the past week he’d woken nearly every night in a lather of torment, grief and with a vivid image of twisted metal. It was a painful reminder of how he was feeling about seeing his ex-wife again.
He took a sip of bottled water to cool the burning dryness in his throat.
He couldn’t change the past. Now he was going to be working in the same building with her he hoped she’d at least talk to him. But unless she’d had a turnaround in her personality she’d be stubborn and cling fiercely to her independence. The fact she’d finished her training and found a job was testament to her determination. She didn’t need—or want—him any more. She’d made that clear when they parted.
The guilt stabbed painfully again.
He closed his eyes for a moment and when he opened them he saw her, just as beautiful as she’d been the day he’d met her. The years had been kind to her. Her strawberry-blonde hair, streaked with gold, was cut shorter, so it fell in tapered wisps to her shoulders. He could see her arms were muscular and her shoulders a little broader than he remembered, but it didn’t detract from her femininity. Grimacing with concentration, she skilfully manoeuvred to the driver’s side of the vehicle, opened the door and positioned the wheelchair so she could haul herself into the driver’s seat. Then she smiled and said something to the young woman accompanying her, who opened the rear door and put the chair on a hoist which lifted it into the luggage space. The woman waved as she returned to the building and Tara reversed and drove slowly away.
What now?
He’d seen her. That had been pleasure, not pain. But he still had to speak to her. Tell her he was soon starting sessional work in the specialist rooms attached to her practice. What a strange turn of fate that the position of visiting orthopaedic surgeon had come up in Keysdale, of all places. As the most junior partner in his practice, without any country attachments, he’d been offered the job and been expected to take it. Initially he’d had doubts, as it would mean bringing up traumas of the past he’d thought he’d laid to rest, but after thinking long and hard he’d realised it might be a way of achieving closure to confirm Tara had no feelings for him.
And now he was back, and he didn’t want to present her with any nasty surprises like approaching her in the car park. It would have to be at her home—her parents’ home. He cringed at the thought of a reunion with the two people he’d believed had liked him and approved of his marriage to their only daughter. But after the accident they’d not bothered to hide their abhorrence of him. They’d blamed him and then callously ignored him. Or at least her father had.
If there was any other way …
He decided to have a coffee in one of the cafés in the main street, go through in his mind what he would say, and then drive the ten kilometres out of town to the Fielding farm. He couldn’t put it off any longer.
‘Is Dad still working?’ Tara asked as her mother helped her into her wheelchair.
‘Yep, but he should be here any minute. He’s been fixing fences down near the creek and said he’d finish the job after milking.’ Jane Fielding closed the back of the car and followed her daughter towards the homestead.
‘How was your day, love?’ her mother asked, as she did every afternoon when Tara came home from work. Tara loved her mother dearly, but sometimes felt smothered by her protectiveness and yearned for a home of her own.
But Tara was realistic; leaving the family home wasn’t practical. She’d need a purpose-built unit and help from an able-bodied person for things that most people took for granted—like transferring to her chair, shopping in a supermarket, hanging out washing or gaining access to immediate help in an emergency. Of course there were ways around these difficulties, but even the most basic tasks took longer when you were confined to a wheelchair. She’d have to rethink her schedule to incorporate cooking, housework, washing and ironing—all the things her mother did without complaint. Her life wasn’t perfect, but it was a better option than moving out on her own. She was used to the routine. And her parents had made sacrifices, including nearly losing the farm, to cater for her needs and extra expenses in the early years. She would probably never be able to repay them.
‘Oh, you know—the same as usual; nothing out of the ordinary.’ She parked next to the kitchen bench where her mother began preparing a late afternoon tea.
A moment later she heard the sound of her father’s boots being flung into the corner of the veranda near the back door.
‘I’m home,’ he shouted unnecessarily. You’d have to be deaf as a farm gate not to notice his comings and goings. Her mother always said it was a man thing—slamming doors, throwing things like a ball to a hoop and stomping around like an army major.
‘We’re in the kitchen. Tara’s just come home and I’m making tea.’
‘Rightio.’
Tara laughed. The word was so old-fashioned but suited her father perfectly.
Jane put fresh-brewed tea and a plate of orange cake on the bench as Graham Fielding entered the room.
‘Have you washed your hands?’ Tara’s mother was quick to ask—as she always did when Graham came in from working on the farm.
‘Yes, I’ve washed my hands,’ he said as he held them up for inspection, before kissing Tara on her forehead. ‘How’s my best girl?’
Tara frowned. She hated the way her father often treated her as if she was still his little girl.
‘Fine, Dad.’ She reached for her cup of tea as her mother passed the cake. ‘How did you go with the fences?’
‘All done, but I won’t move the cows until after milking tomorrow morning.’
‘Want a hand?’
Though she was quite able to handle a quad bike to get around the farm, and knew the routine of milking back to front, she guessed her father would say no. As he always did. She was sure she could manage most of the work from her wheelchair with a simple modification to raise her height. She’d developed strength in her arms and shoulders to rival any man’s.
But her father had refused to let her near the dairy after the accident. He didn’t seem to understand that her help would give him more time for the heavier work that neither Tara nor her mother could manage. For him, there was a non-negotiable line between men’s and women’s work that she’d almost given up trying to cross. His one concession was letting her mother help out now they could no longer afford to hire a dairyman.
‘No, love. It won’t take long, and you deserve your free time on the weekends.’
He had good intentions but was seriously lacking in subtlety. Another one of those man things, as her mother would say. He had no idea, though. She hardly needed to keep a social diary. Her life had settled into a comfortable equilibrium of work, home and the occasional outing to the shops or the pool at the physio’s in Bayfield, fifty kilometres away. And at the end of her working days she hardly had any energy left to party.
Their conversation was interrupted by a car pulling up at the front of the house.
‘Are you expecting visitors?’ Graham glanced at his wife.
‘Might be Audrey. She said she’d come round some time this week to return those preserving jars. But she usually drives around the back.’
A car door slammed and a few moments later there was a crisp knock on the front door. ‘I’ll go and see who it is,’ she added.
Graham stood up, an imposing thick-set man of six foot three. ‘No, I’ll go. You get another cup of tea poured.’
Tara heard her father talking, but not what he was saying. She could tell he was angry by the sharp rise and fall of his voice. The visitor was male, that was all she could tell, and clearly unwelcome.
‘Doesn’t sound like Audrey,’ her mother said with eyebrows raised.
They stilled at the sound of the front door slamming and her father clomping, barefoot, down the passage.
‘Who’s that?’ Jane asked. She’d already poured a cup of tea for the visitor and looked disappointed.
‘You don’t want to know.’ He scowled and shifted his gaze to Tara. ‘It’s Ryan.’
It took Tara a few moments to process the information.
‘Ryan?’ The word escaped as a husky whisper and didn’t require an answer. She’d tried to put her feelings for her ex-husband on hold since their dramatic parting, but rarely a day went by without her thinking of him, dreaming of what life could have been if she’d not rejected him so coldly. She’d made the right decision, though. She’d heard Ryan had married again and started a family. She was happy for him.
But she’d never stopped loving him.
So she’d have to make sure she remained cool and detached and not let her true feelings show.
But why was he here? And why now? She felt her heart pumping as a film of sweat broke out on her forehead. She felt winded.
After all these years!
She took a deep breath and attempted a steady voice. Both her parents were looking at her, waiting for her reaction. She tried to restore her usual calm.
‘Ryan Dennison?’
The angry fire in her father’s eyes answered her question.
‘He’s waiting outside, insisting he talks to you, says he won’t go until he’s seen you.’ He paused as if gauging her reaction. ‘I’ll send him away—even if it means running him off the property with the shotgun—’
‘No, Dad, I’ll see him.’ Though the last person she wanted to see was her ex, she knew her father wasn’t joking about the gun. ‘I’ll go outside. There’s no need for him to come in.’
He seemed to accept her suggestion as a sign of her disapproval of her ex-husband and conceded.
‘All right, but you be careful.’
Tara wasn’t sure what her father meant.
At the time of their separation her thoughts had been clouded by the devastation of losing so much—the use of her legs, her career, the baby they’d so desperately wanted to make their family complete.
Ryan had had his whole life to live. She hadn’t wanted to take that away from him. He’d just started his specialist training in orthopaedics—his dream career. If he’d become her full-time carer, as he’d said he would, the future they’d planned before the accident would have been shattered. She’d felt she had little choice, especially in the early days when the pain had been so acute, and in retrospect she’d probably been depressed, not capable of making rational decisions. Back then there’d been no way she could have deprived Ryan of his dreams of a career, a happy marriage to a healthy wife and the children he had wanted so much.
The best thing had been to divorce. It had been easier that way. She hadn’t wanted to find out if Ryan was capable of coping with living with a woman who was disabled. He’d always described her as perfect in every way.
But she wasn’t perfect any more, not since the crash, and her scars were more than just physical. Yes, the sadness and pain, both physical and emotional, had lessened as the years passed, but memories still lingered of the man she’d loved with every part of her heart and soul.
Why was he here? The thought tumbled into her mind again.
She felt light-headed as she opened the door and the familiar clawing of panic descended like thick smog. Her heart began to pound and she gagged on the taste of bile at the back of her throat. A shard of irrepressible fear mixed with long-suppressed hurt stabbed at her heart and threatened to take control of her mind.
She stopped in the doorway and began taking slow, deep breaths.
‘What’s the matter, Tara? Are you all right? You look pale.’
For a long moment she’d been so preoccupied with losing control in front of Ryan she’d forgotten where she was. By now it was too late. A man she hardly recognised crouched in front of her. This was a successful man in his mid-thirties, with thick brown hair clipped short, clean-shaven and dressed in a conservative charcoal-grey suit, white shirt and silver tie. He looked nothing like the relaxed young man she remembered.
She was beginning to feel normal again, but couldn’t bring herself to smile. Her emotions were too raw. She felt the slowing of her heartbeat and the fuzziness clearing from her head.
He still had the same deep blue eyes, though, and right now they were full of concern.
‘I’m fine,’ Tara replied. She hated the fact she’d let down her guard and revealed how vulnerable she could be before they’d even said hello. ‘I just get a bit light-headed sometimes. It never lasts for more than a few minutes.’ The tension in Ryan’s face relaxed. ‘Dad said you wanted to talk to me.’
Ryan stood up with an expression that was almost but not quite a smile.
Damn his charisma and amazing good looks. She was determined not to expose her emotions, though. He mustn’t know she still had feelings for him, but already she knew the spark was still there.
At least he wasn’t focused on her humiliating physical response to him. But that was the thing with panic attacks. She’d thought she had them beat but they could be triggered by the most unexpected and sometimes insignificant things.
‘There’s something I thought you needed to know.’
Her confidence was coming back.
‘I’d better sit down.’ Tara had become used to making jokes about her condition, to break the ice for people who weren’t comfortable with her disability, but this time it didn’t work. The frown on Ryan’s face was set in stone.
‘You’d better sit down, then.’ She pointed towards an old swing seat suspended from the rafters. She now felt calm and in charge of the emotions which had threatened to be her undoing a few moments ago.
‘Do you need any help?’
‘No.’
She set the chair in motion and forced him to move out of the way. Finally he sat down on the swing opposite her chair.
‘So, what is it you want to talk to me about that’s so important you were prepared to brave Dad and his threat to run you off the property?’
Ryan smiled.
But it didn’t last long.
‘He said that?’
‘Mmm, he did.’ She paused a moment, wondering how much of the past she could raise without ramping up the tension that already buzzed in the air between them. On reflection, she realised she had nothing to lose. It wasn’t as if she was trying to impress Ryan, and he was well aware of her parents’ dislike for him.
Ryan gazed into her eyes and she jolted at the unexpected connection. The feeling was from the past—something that had been exclusive to them alone—an understanding that she and Ryan had used to consider a sign of their closeness.
But it served no purpose now. She wasn’t going to reveal how she really felt.
He finally spoke.
‘I’m going to be working down here. I start in two weeks in the new specialist rooms attached to your clinic.’
He stared, as if trying to gauge her reaction. And she produced the goods in the form of a violent blush. Her heart began to race again, but she was determined to keep her cool despite the overwhelming shock of his revelation.
‘I thought it was better for you to know in advance, rather than just bumping into me at work one day.’
She swallowed and concentrated on the calm evenness of her breathing.
‘You could’ve easily phoned.’ She wondered at his motives. She’d not heard from this man for nearly six years—
since he’d finally got the message she didn’t want to be reminded of the past by his e-mails and calls. All she knew of him was through the medical grapevine—he was a successful orthopaedic surgeon, three years after they broken up he had remarried, and the last she’d heard he was overseas.
‘I wanted to see you …’
Tara found that hard to believe.
‘Why?’ That gnawing pain in her heart that visited her every day was demanding an answer. Anger surfaced unexpectedly. ‘Were you frightened of what you might see?’
Ryan looked genuinely hurt—a totally unanticipated reaction. She hadn’t meant to be cruel, but her emotions were ruling what came out of her mouth.
‘Sorry,’ she muttered.
‘No … You’re absolutely right. I should have phoned. I didn’t realise seeing you without warning would upset you.’ His pupils dilated, which made their rim of blue the colour of bright sky reflected in black ice. ‘I’m the one who should be apologising.’
She still wasn’t quite sure why he’d gone to the trouble of driving all the way to Keysdale and then out to the farm. It wasn’t the sort of visit a person would plan on the offchance. She suddenly felt resentful that he’d upset the ordered balance of her life.
He looked down at his hands clasped in his lap and said quietly, ‘How are your parents?’
It was a question she wasn’t expecting. She thought a moment before replying.
‘You’re not part of our lives any more. I’d describe Mum’s attitude to you as ambivalent, and Dad … well … you saw what he was like when he answered the door. But I don’t think they actually hate you. It’s what happened—the accident—they both still blame you for that.’
Ryan reached for Tara’s hand but she snatched it away. Seeing him was traumatic enough. She didn’t want any physical contact because … because she wasn’t sure how she’d react. The old desire she thought she’d buried long ago was still there. It frightened her.
‘And you?’
Tara closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She was hurting. Why was Ryan trawling through what had happened so long ago? No one was to blame for the accident. He was a good driver and had done what most people would have—tried to avoid their collision with a kangaroo. With devastating consequences. Her situation was a cross she had chosen to bear without him, and up until ten minutes ago she’d been managing perfectly okay.
She opened her eyes but didn’t look at Ryan.
‘You know I’ve never held you responsible.’ She sighed. ‘It happened, it was regrettable, but I’m over it and I think you should be too.’
Ryan brushed a piece of fluff from his sleeve.
‘Of course you’re right,’ he said. ‘But it isn’t enough to stop me feeling it was my fault. Can you understand how difficult it is for me to see you like …?’ The words seemed to stick in his throat and he swallowed.
Tara looked into the distance, trying to take on board what Ryan was saying. He was hurting too.
Neither of them could ever forget the crash and its aftermath, and sometimes Tara thought Ryan had been more damaged than she. His dreams had been blown apart—his career, the life they’d planned together, the children they’d so desperately wanted. They’d talked about her completing her GP training part-time. She’d been off the pill for a couple of months and the heartbreaking irony was that her period had been a week overdue. She’d planned on doing a home pregnancy test the following week, but the day after the accident she’d bled … and bled … and bled …
Another tragic loss.
It had been as if her lifeblood had drained from her, but she’d always put on a brave face.
Of course they both knew she was still physically capable of conceiving and bearing children. She’d assumed she was no longer sexually attractive to him, though, and even if she did have a child she would need help to look after it. With the long hours Ryan worked she would be effectively a single parent. Combined with her disability, the whole scenario was unworkable.
To her alarm, she was close to tears. She needed to change the direction of the conversation.
‘So you’ll be doing sessional work, I guess?’
He also seemed grateful for the change of subject.
