The Doctor's Proposal. Marion Lennox

They had to be identical twins, he decided as he worked. One twin battered and pregnant. One twin immobilised by terror.

      But Susie’s spine was fine, he decided. Or as fine as it could be at this stage of recovery. As far as he could see, there was no additional damage.

      There was still a complication. ‘How pregnant are you?’

      ‘Eight months,’ she told him. ‘Four weeks to go.’

      ‘There’s already been a false labour,’ Kirsty muttered.

      ‘So you decide to go travelling,’ he said dryly. ‘Very wise.’

      ‘Mind your own business,’ Kirsty snapped.

      ‘Be nice,’ Susie told her twin, and Kirsty looked surprised, as if she wasn’t accustomed to her sister speaking for herself.

      ‘You’ve flown from the US to Australia at eight months pregnant?’ he asked Susie, but Susie didn’t answer.

      Kirsty waited for a moment to see if her twin would answer, but when she didn’t, she spoke again. ‘We came a month ago. We thought it might help Susie if she could find Rory’s Uncle Angus and talk to him about Rory. But Susie went into prem. labour and it’s taken a month before we’ve been game enough to leave Sydney. Enough of the inquisition. Could we get Susie warm, do you think?’

      Kirsty’s anger and distress were palpable. She’d have liked to direct them straight at him, Jake thought, but he could see the warring emotions on her face and knew that the anger and the distress were self-directed. She was blaming herself.

      But he had to concentrate on Susie. Triage decreed that psychological distress came a poor second to possible spine damage. He was helping Susie into a sitting position, and now he smiled at her, encouraging.

      ‘Slow. I don’t want any sudden movements.’

      ‘This doctor’s almost as bossy as you are,’ Susie told her sister. ‘Nice.’ She turned back to Jake. ‘But be bossy with Kirsty,’ she told him. ‘She needs bossiness more than me.’

      ‘I’ll deal with your sister after you,’ Jake told her, and glanced between the two of them. There was more going on here than a healing back and pregnancy. Why was Kirsty so terrified?

      Susie was so thin.

      ‘Is anything else hurting?’

      ‘My pride,’ Susie told him, and some of her bravado was fading. ‘I have mud everywhere.’

      ‘Can we take her inside?’ Kirsty demanded in a voice full of strain, and Jake glanced at her again. OK. Enough of the mud.

      He stooped and lifted Susie up into his arms. Despite her pregnancy, she was so light she alarmed him even more.

      Kirsty gave a sigh of relief and started tugging the wheelchair forward, but instead of placing Susie into it he turned toward the gate.

      ‘Hey,’ Kirsty said. ‘Put her in here.’

      ‘The chair’s wet,’ he said reasonably. ‘And we still have to get past the truck.’

      ‘You can’t carry her.’

      ‘Why not?’

      ‘You should say Unhand my sister, sir,’ Susie told her sister, and Kirsty’s eyes widened. She seemed totally unaccustomed to her sister even speaking, much less making a joke.

      ‘My stupidity with the car blocked your path,’ he told Kirsty, sending her a silent message of reassurance with his eyes. Relax, he was telling her. We need to get your sister warm. The least I can do is provide alternative transport.

      And it seemed that finally she agreed with him.

      ‘Well, if you think you can bear the weight…’

      She was trying to smile, but he could still see the fear.

      ‘We Aussie doctors are very strong,’ he told her, striving to match her lightness, and at last she managed to smile. He liked it when she smiled, he decided. She had a great smile.

      A killer smile.

      ‘Australian doctors are trained in weightlifting?’

      ‘Part of the training—just after learning where lungs are. But if you want to see strong… I have it on good authority that the man you’re about to meet was an all-time champion cabertosser in his youth. Small but tough is our Lord Angus.’

      ‘What’s a caber?’ Susie asked, bemused, and he grinned.

      ‘Who knows? That’s a Scottish secret. I’m not privy to such things. But just between you and me, I suspect it’s some sort of medieval instrument. Probably made out of boar’s testicles, meant for stirring porridge.’

      And to the sound of Susie’s chuckling—and Kirsty’s gasp of amazement—he led one woman and carried another up the steps of Loganaich Castle.

      He’d made her sister smile.

      Kirsty helped Susie wash and undress, tucked her between sheets in the most sumptuous bed she’d ever seen and then stood back while Jake examined her. He examined her thoroughly, as if he had all the time in the world. The man who’d been in such a hurry a few minutes ago was acting now as if time was not important.

      He made Susie laugh.

      But as he did, he checked everything about her. Her heart rate, the baby’s heart rate, the baby’s position, her back. He examined the scarring. He checked sensation all over. He even found a set of bathroom scales and made Susie weigh herself. Normally an examination like this would have Susie climbing walls, but Susie tolerated it with equanimity and she even laughed some more.

      She never laughed these days.

      He told the best jokes, Kirsty thought as she stood well out of the way and watched the skilled way he drew Susie out. He made gentle cracks that you weren’t sure were jokes—or not until you looked into his eyes and saw the lurking twinkle. He was just what Susie needed.

      No, he was just what she needed, she thought gratefully as she watched him take over. For the first time in months the heavy responsibility for her sister’s health had been shifted to someone else.

      Maybe they could stay here for a while.

      She hadn’t even met Uncle Angus yet, she reminded herself. Their host. The earl.

      ‘When did you last eat?’ Jake was asking Susie, and Kirsty had to haul herself together to listen to what he was saying. He had Susie tucked back into bed after the weighing. She was smiling up at him, and the sight of her smiling sister made Kirsty smile.

      ‘When did you last eat?’ Jake asked again, as she failed to answer, and Kirsty blinked and responded for her.

      ‘Um… Lunchtime. Four or five hours ago.’

      ‘What did you eat then, Susie?’ he asked her sister, and Kirsty blinked again. He’d gone straight to the heart of the matter. He was some doctor!

      ‘I had a sandwich,’ Susie said, and Kirsty opened her mouth to say something but Jake glanced at her again. This man could speak with his eyes.

      She shut up—as silently ordered.

      ‘How much of the sandwich did you eat, Susie?’

      ‘I…’

      ‘I want the truth.’ He was smiling but there was something about the way he said it that told Kirsty he already knew the truth.

      ‘Half a sandwich,’ Susie whispered, and then as Jake’s eyes held hers—and held some more—she faltered. ‘A quarter, maybe.’

      ‘Is there a reason you’re not eating?’

      ‘Eating makes me feel sick.’

      Kirsty was holding her breath. The world was holding its breath.

      ‘Has