Page 2 of Prognosis Irreconcilable Differences

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Dr Jacqueline Callaghanwoke with a start and looked at the red illuminated figures on her bedside clock. One a.m. Her heart was pounding almost as loudly as the storm outside, and her eyes fluttered shut as she realised it was just the continuing heavy rain on the tin roof that had woken her. Shep, lying stretched out at the end of her bed, hadn’t moved a muscle.

Her eyes flew open when the noise came again a few seconds later. Shep even lifted his head.

Thatwasn’t Mother Nature knocking at her door.

She groaned as she dragged herself out of bed. Being woken in the middle of the night wasn’t unusual in her line of work, but what pet crisis could there possibly be in this God-awful weather?

She stumbled into the red cotton robe she kept by the bed for emergencies such as these, desperately trying to clear the fog from her brain. She’d been up most of last night with a sick horse from one of the nearby properties and she was dog tired, her body craving the restorative powers of good, solid sleep.

The pounding came again. ‘Yeah, yeah,’ she muttered as she descended the internal stairs as fast as her groggy brain allowed, Shep by her side. She flicked the outside light on and opened the door.

It took a moment or two for Jacqui’s brain to compute the identity of the cursing, dishevelled-looking man standing on her doorstep. He was dripping — literally —his hair plastered in dark wet strips against his forehead, droplets running down his face and clinging to his eyelashes. His suit was completely soaked.

She peered closer, something primal inside her knowing who it was despite her sensible side rejecting such a preposterous supposition. It couldn’t be.

‘Nathan?’

Had he been well, his keen wit intact, Nathan would have said something ironic, like Hi, honey, I’m home, but at the moment it was taking all his strength just to stay upright. ‘Jacqueline.’

She stared at him askance. Nathan Trent—richer-than-sin fertility specialist, maker of a thousand babies, darling of the business community — was standing on her doorstep.

‘What...what are you doing here?’

Nathan shivered as icy fingers stroked his skin. He felt like a popsicle, even though he knew somewhere deep in the recesses of his brain that he was burning up.

‘I’m sorry, Jacqui,’ he said, ignoring her question. He needed to get dry. He needed to crawl under ten blankets and sleep. ‘I feel like h...h...hell.’ His teeth chattered uncontrollably. ‘Do you th...think I could c...come in?’

Jacqui blinked, the enormity of seeing him again so completely out of the blue was too much for her sleep-deprived brain. But the croak of his voice and the alarming sway as he let go of the doorjamb at last penetrated to the doctor in her.

‘Whoa!’ she said, reaching for him, steadying him. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, ushering him in and shutting the door.

Nathan closed his eyes and luxuriated briefly in relative silence as the heavy door muffled the storm. It was dry and warm inside, and he’d never been more pleased to be anywhere than he was right now inside Jacqui’s house.

‘Nate?’

His eyes fluttered open and he frowned down into her concerned face. ‘Flu,’ he muttered, attempting to shrug out of the jacket that suddenly felt as if it weighed a ton against his aching shoulders. ‘Feel like crap.’

Jacqui helped him off with the sodden garment, putting her arm around his waist as he swayed again. His long-sleeved business shirt was soaked, but it was hot against her arm — not cool as she had expected. She reached up and felt his forehead.

His skin was flushed and practically scorched her palm. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s get you dry.’

Nathan eyed the steps and groaned. They might as well have been the Alps. He could barely keep his head up, let alone master a flight of stairs.

He was tired. So tired.

Deep down in his bones weary. ‘I can’t.’

‘Hold on to me,’ she murmured, ‘I’ll help.’

Jacqui was no dainty, fragile female. Most of her practice consisted of puppies, parrots and goldfish, but some of it was large animal work, and that required the strength and stamina which her statuesque frame coped with easily. But still, as he put his arm around her shoulders and leaned into her, she staggered under his bulk.

She’d always appreciated how his superior height and broad male shoulders had made her feel more feminine, and she was surprised to feel a familiar stirring deep down low at the solidness of muscle beneath her hands, the bound of his heart against her palm and the way her be-ringed fingers looked with his shirt splayed beneath them. She quashed it, bracing herself for the slow trip up the stairs.

At the top she guided him to the lounge room. ‘Sit,’ she instructed him.

A hundred questions vied for front-line attention in her head as she scurried off to the linen cupboard. She pushed them aside. Nate was obviously unwell. Why he’d turned up on her doorstep after a decade could be discussed when he was better.

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