He brought his mind back to work.
‘So, what do you know of it? Do you keep information? Is there a specialist clinic in Port Macquarie or would she have to go to Sydney?’
The eyes she fixed on him were serious now, intent, and a little frown was tugging at her eyebrows.
‘I’ve read something recently about some IVF clinics restricting treatment to women over, I think, forty-three. It can’t be a totally random age choice but apparently the odds of conception in women older than that are so low they only allow one try.’
‘Is that fair?’ Cam asked. ‘Given the range of ages at which women can reach menopause depending on genetic and other issues, might not a fit fifty-two-year-old woman be as good a recipient of treatment as a younger woman with less healthy reproductive organs?’
Jo smiled at him.
‘You’d be wasted surfing along the coast and not working,’ she said. ‘You’re obviously an empathetic doctor and, yes, you’re right, it seems strange to pick an age, but funding—it always comes back to money. Check out what you can on the net, ask one of the nurses to dig out the information we have—they won’t talk—and we’ll take it from there.’
He liked the ‘we’ part, again, which was foolish given it was his first day at work and the job was temporary. And he’d have liked to talk some more—not necessarily about IVF—but his boss was on her feet, small, neat feet clad in sandals, her toenails painted the palest pink with what looked like little faces or maybe flowers stuck on them.
And since when had he noticed feet? Could he blame the army and its predilection for shiny boots?
Or could he put that down to the view and early morning surf as well?
‘Patients await,’ she added as she bustled through the door, although it seemed to him she was escaping something rather than hurrying towards something.
Escaping him?
Was it the small compliment he’d paid her—calling her caring was hardly world-shattering, Jo wondered as she fled the lunchroom. Or was it the attraction that was getting harder to ignore whenever she was near him?
He was just a man.
Okay, he was a tall and handsome man with a chest a gorilla would have been proud of, but physical attributes had never been that important to her in a man. Men she’d loved, well, nearly loved, or thought she’d loved at one time or another hadn’t been exactly weedy, but given that she was hardly red-carpet material herself, she’d never expected too much in the way of looks in a man. She’d found attraction in common interests, shared jokes and a sense of being at ease with the person.
And, for some unknown reason, she had been at ease almost from the start with Fraser Cameron, even when she’d thought he might be coming to rob the surgery.
She had to get her head straight.
Think about Helene! She was healthy—kept herself fit running and swimming—in fact, Jo often ran with her on the beach in the early mornings.
And she wanted a baby?
A totally unfamiliar sensation coiled in Jo’s belly.
No! No way was she going to get clucky now! She never got clucky. She handled babies every day of the week and heard not even the faintest tick of the fabled clock.
Because she’d never fancied anyone enough to get involved, enough to consider having children with him?
Even Harry?
That was a scary thought because it prompted the question why now, and she didn’t want to consider the answer in case it had something to do with blue eyes and a quirky smile and soft brown hair with gold highlights …
It took some effort, but she turned her mind back to work matters.
She collected the pile of files for her afternoon appointments and headed into her room, promising herself she’d do some research into IVF for older women on the internet later. It would keep her busy after dinner which was good because the previous night, imagining Cam in the flat next door, had been so uncomfortable she’d ended up going back to the beach and running until she was exhausted enough to go home and sleep.
Maybe a bit of IVF research would be good …
And the squirmy feeling in her stomach was probably indigestion.
Fate dictated that her first three patients of the afternoon were babies. Two were in for injections, which one of the nurses would give, and six-month-old Kaylin, a gurgling bundle of delight had decided she didn’t need to sleep.
Ever!
‘She’s okay now because she’s been in the car and she always sleeps in the car,’ Kaylin’s mother, Amy Bennett, explained. ‘But we can’t drive around all night so she gets some sleep because it means we don’t get any. We’re getting desperate, Jo, and Todd gets so cranky when he doesn’t get his sleep and I know I’ll lose my milk if things don’t settle down. With the dairy we can’t avoid the milking every morning and with a hundred milkers Todd needs my help. In the beginning Kaylin was good, she’d just sleep in the capsule down at the dairy while we worked, but that only lasted about a month. Remember I came in to talk to you before … ‘
Amy’s voice trailed away.
Jo thought about it as she dug through files in the cabinet behind her for information on the sleep programme offered from time to time at the local hospital in conjunction with various government departments.
Any number of babies had problems developing regular sleep patterns, but Kaylin had so far defied all the tried and trusted methods of training babies to sleep and not only was Amy looking stressed and worn out, but the baby, too, was suffering.
Think laterally! Jo reminded herself of her father’s words. Running a successful practice in a small coastal town meant understanding the dynamics of her patients’ lives. A pregnant woman with complications might refuse to go to the more specialised hospital in the nearest regional city unless someone—usually the family doctor—organised someone to look after her older children.
She’d learnt this from her father even before she studied medicine, hearing him discuss options for patients’ welfare that went beyond straight doctoring.
So as far as sorting things out for Amy went, Kaylin’s sleeping pattern was only part of the problem.
‘I can arrange for you to stay at the hospital while the expert works with you and Kaylin,’ Jo explained as Amy leafed through the information, ‘but it means Todd will have to get someone in to give him a hand with the milking. You’ve still got that old house on the property, haven’t you? The one you’ve rented out from time to time?’
Amy nodded.
‘Then maybe you could offer it rent free to someone in exchange for help with the milking. That will give you more time to spend with Kaylin. Now she’s getting too big for the capsule, you’d have to find an alternative way to keep her safe while you’re helping Todd, in any case.’
Amy looked doubtful.
‘You know we did it once before,’ she murmured. ‘I think it was your dad, just before he left, that arranged for the Scott family to have the house.’
‘Oh, dear, not so good a suggestion, then,’ Jo replied, remembering the complicated plan she and Lauren had cooked up to get Mrs Scott and the two little Scotts out of the house and into the recently opened refuge when the man Todd Bennett had employed had turned out to be an abusive husband.
Jo shuddered at the memory, thinking of the volunteer who’d driven the wife and children to safety and who had later been targeted by Bob