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Max broke into the silence. ‘Elsa seems to be settling with her colic.’
Georgia winced. She’d felt so guilty about that. ‘It must have been very distracting for you, and I am sorry.’
Max smiled that particularly sweet smile that always brought a lump to Georgia’s throat. ‘It has been very distracting to have a gorgeous ghost wandering around my house in the early hours of the morning. I’d grown used to her, though, and actually quite miss bumping into her in the wee small hours.’
Georgia began to relax. ‘I’d think myself more of a gargoyle than gorgeous, but I did feel like a ghost in those early days. You were pretty wonderful with Elsa.’
‘Nonsense,’ Max said. ‘She liked me.’
Georgia pretended to glare at him. ‘Excuse me. She liked me, too, but she would not stop crying sometimes.’
He tilted his head. ‘Ah, no. There is a difference. She adores you and knows you feel her pain.’ He smiled again. ‘I’m just the shallow bloke she can go to sleep with when she’s too tired to cry. But I think she’s grown out of me now.’
Georgia couldn’t imagine anyone growing out of Max. He was such a sweetie.
She’d been going to edge slowly towards discussing her plans but it seemed too complicated. Suddenly she just needed to get it all out into the open.
‘I want to go back to work, Max. One or two days a week. Or even half-days, if I could. That way, I can come home to Elsa for feeds.’
Max nodded but he felt like shaking his head. Violently. He looked at her and thought Georgia had grown even more stunning over the last two months. He was having a hard time keeping her out of his thoughts at work, and the idea of her on the hospital ward would complicate things enormously.
‘Are you sure it’s not too soon?’ he said quietly, and he passed her the lemon squash with ice she always seemed to ask for on the rare occasions they shared a drink in the evenings.
It was hot up here, he’d noticed that, and now they wanted him to do three months past Murwillumbah near the Queensland border. They’d actually asked if his wife would be interested in a little part-time work. That would be an even smaller hospital to run into her in.
‘I’m bored, Max. I’m sick of living off you. I want to regain my independence. Elsa doesn’t need me twenty-four hours a day now. Mrs White would love to have her to herself for a couple of hours in the daytime.’
Georgia paused and then said, ‘Thanks to you, I feel safe, Max. And ready to do more.’
Max nodded. ‘You’re the one who has to decide. If you think you’re ready then I’m sure you are. I’ll ask around tomorrow.’
He poured himself a glass of beer. ‘I’ve had an offer for three months up past Murwillumbah where the one obstetric GP has retired. The idea would be to take over his practice for a few weeks but really they’d want me to see if it is still viable as a maternity unit. It’s pretty much a midwifery-run unit and almost in Queensland. If I go, would you want to come or stay here with Mrs White?’
‘Is she staying here?’ Georgia looked startled and he wondered why.
‘She will do if you do!’ Georgia had more need of Mrs White with Elsa than he did.
‘I’m a big girl. You have to stop looking after me, Max.’
‘You’re my wife,’ he said. In truth, he did very little and would love to do more, but she valued her independence and the other thing, the one he tried not to think about but kept him awake at night, needed time.
‘In name only,’ she said.
Bingo. That was the crux, Max thought, and the devil answered. ‘We could change that.’
She laughed. ‘I’m two years older than you. That would be taking advantage of you.’
‘Yes, please, madam.’They both smiled but Max didn’t feel amused. She really didn’t get it. Probably never would, But now wasn’t the time to push it, even though it would be so easy to lean over and kiss those laughing lips of hers.
Down, boy, he warned himself. ‘Seriously, Georgia. You may be older by year or two, but not in the ways of the world.’ That was what he said. What he thought was, Can’t you see I want all of you and I’m trying to stay away?
‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘my aunt left me an old house overlooking Byron Bay, which she bought when she went through her arty phase. I thought I’d stay there and commute to Meeandah.
‘The house is run down but if you’re bored you might be interested in organising to have some work done on it. A gardener comes once a fortnight and the house itself gets springcleaned every couple of months so it will be perfectly habitable.’
She frowned. ‘I appreciate your confidence in my interior decorating skills but I don’t need amusement, Max, I need to rebuild my life so I can regain my independence.’
He knew she expected them to part after the twelve months, she’d told him so several times, and he’d deliberately put no pressure at all on her about his own growing feelings.
Perhaps if he spent more time with her she’d decide he was the catch of the season. What a joke. She’d confirm what he had always known that he didn’t have much to offer her.
He couldn’t have children and she was a great mother and should have lots of children.
He wasn’t used to such negative thoughts and lack of self-confidence and if this was what falling in love did, he wasn’t impressed.
He’d just have to put up with the agony in the slim chance that she’d realise they would deal very well together in the long term.
‘Why don’t we go for a drive on Sunday in the Hummer?’ he said to change the subject. ‘My poor baby hasn’t had a rough-up for a few months now and Mrs White has offered to mind Elsa for a few hours.’
She glanced at him quickly and then away. ‘Fine,’ she replied, though she sounded surprised.
It wasn’t roaring enthusiasm. She’d said fine, so he’d work on it from there.
He hadn’t been out for a while and it would be interesting to see whether Georgia was a bushbashing girl or not. Tayla certainly hadn’t been.
‘What are you smiling at?’
He looked up at her. ‘I was thinking about the one time I took Tayla out in the Hummer and she had hysterics as soon as I turned off the main highway. She liked sitting up above all the other cars with people watching on the main road.’
‘That would be the part I’d hate most.’
‘Wait until you see what she can do.’
‘Should I regret agreeing?’
He raised his eyebrows suggestively. ‘We’ll see.’
Max loved having Georgia beside him in the Hummer. They took a short drive into the hills that first day and the rough fire trail he’d chosen carried them deeper into the forest in a slow incline towards the trig point at the top of the hill.
The overhanging branches slapped the side of the vehicle and Georgia laughed with delight as they bumped and crashed their way through the bush.
‘I’m impressed, Max,’ she said, laughing at him as another huge frond of prickly lantana swished down the side of the paintwork. ‘You really do take your baby offroad and rough her up. You’re not just a show pony.’
‘I’ll give you show pony,’ he threatened, and turned down another trail that seemed even more overgrown than the last but then cleared and opened out to a rocky outcrop overlooking the valley floor.
When Max turned off the engine, bellbirds pinged their songs in the scrub and the rustle of lizards could be heard, scuttling away from the now invaded open ground.
‘You were lucky this wasn’t a dead end.’ Georgia gazed around in delight.
‘Technically it is. But call me lucky,’ he said, and then pulled the map from the door. ‘Actually, I cheated.’
‘Pretty cool navigating anyway,’ she said and, undid her seat belt. ‘Can I get out?’
‘Absolutely. Do you want a hand to climb down?’
‘No.’ She pretended to frown at him. ‘Thank you. I’m a big girl.’ Max watched her jump from the cab and he climbed out himself with a grin.
This was another side he hadn’t seen of Georgia. She glowed with vitality and enthusiasm as she crunched her way across short grass and small boulders to lean, a little recklessly, he thought, over the edge.
On the other side of the canyon a waterfall fell hundreds of metres to the valley floor and the twisting sliver of a silver river at the bottom.
Max came up next to her, ostensibly to share the view but really to grab her if she overbalanced, and when she looked across at him her eyes sparkled as she took in the magnificent views.
Max smiled back indulgently at her. He was falling deeper and deeper in love with this woman every minute and he was beginning to think she wasn’t as immune to him as he’d thought.
‘There’s nobody within miles and miles of us, is there, Max?’
‘Nope,’ he said. ‘All this within an hour from home.’
‘Elsa would love it.’
‘We’ll bring her next time.’ Max looked forward to more days like this. His family—if only it were really so. ‘No doubt she has her mother’s adventurous heart.’
‘I love it. I love the Hummer. I love the bush.’ She looked around eagerly. ‘Thank you for bringing me today, Max. I needed a total change and this is wonderful.’ She spread her arms and in doing so shifted a collection of rocks from under her foot that threw her off balance for a moment.
Max pulled her back against him before she could really grasp that she had been in danger and then she didn’t know whether the thumping in her heart was from the near fall or…from being in Max’s arms against his delicious chest.
Thankfully he made light of it as he righted her and shifted her to a safer position. ‘Falling for me, are you, Georgia?’ he said.
She could do that—despite all the reasons she shouldn’t. Why wouldn’t she? She felt so connected to him at this moment. Two consenting adults in the wild with no one to see what they did. Deep inside a little voice cried plaintively. Why hadn’t he kissed her?
‘You’re a safer place to fall than over the edge,’ she said lightly, hoping he’d put the breathlessness in her voice down to her near miss when, in fact, it had come from her own unexpected erotic thoughts that wouldn’t go away.
‘Glad you think of me as safe,’ Max said dryly, but Georgia was busy with her own thoughts.
Fairly explicit, unexpected thoughts. Nymphs and satires. Naked in the bush. Max’s chest.
Ants and rocks in your back… Her sensible side brought her back to earth, and Georgia turned away to hide her flaming cheeks.
What on earth had those fantasies come from? She pushed the graphic pictures from the front of her mind and searched for diversion in other appetites. ‘Let’s picnic here.’
‘Fine.’ Max’s answer was short and she glanced at him. He was watching her and she could feel the blush steal up her cheeks just from looking at him so she turned away again to find Mrs White’s picnic basket.
‘I’ll get it.’ Max had the other door open. ‘You find a spot to put the rug. I don’t want ants in my pants.’
She laughed. They both had ants on the brain. Max came across with the basket and suddenly she was ravenous.
After the first Sunday trip when Max discovered Georgia enjoyed an adventure as much as he did, a whole new facet of their relationship opened up.
They began to take Elsa with them for excursions in the Hummer as well. They travelled along old fire trails and explored deserted gullies lined with lush tropical greenery and soaring gumtrees.
Elsa had her feet dangled in tiny tumbling streams and Max taught Georgia how to winch logs that had fallen during storms and the best way to chainsaw the heavier timber that often blocked the trails.
Max promised more trips when they moved north and the tenure at Murwillumbah grew closer.
The Byron Bay house overlooked the ocean across rolling green hills, and Georgia felt at peace there immediately.
The house was a white-painted Queenslander design with decorated gables and wrought-iron rails that marched out of sight. Two-storied, it had more wrought-iron fans that embraced the veranda posts, like the wedding cake they hadn’t had.
Two of the front wide bay windows faced the not-too-distant ocean and to sit and dream over the shifting sea always made Georgia sigh with pleasure. There was even a telescope trained on the horizon to idle away time.
Her temporary posting had come through for part-time work at Meeandah Hospital and last night she’d decided that no matter how beautiful it was on the swing seat here with Elsa on her lap, she’d spent almost ten years of her life gaining experience and qualifications for a job she loved—and it was a good thing she would finally use those skills.
It was time to go back to work and the day had arrived. She just needed to get her act together.
Georgia weighed the keys to Mrs White’s car in her hand and suddenly wished she didn’t have to go. She’d feel differently once she was there but it was hard to leave Elsa for the first time for eight full hours.
The last four months had been necessary to rebuild her shattered confidence and learn the art of motherhood. She knew she couldn’t stay in this bubble. The real world was out there and she needed to prepare herself for when this hiatus was gone.
When the year was up she and Max would part ways and that thought brought greyness into the bright sunshine of the morning. It had become harder to imagine no Max in her life, which in itself was dangerous.
Apart from when he worked, since that night she’d began sharing meals with Max, they’d rarely been apart.
They been to the beach at Byron Bay and the lighthouse and shopped at the cosmopolitan markets that sold everything from home-grown coffee-beans to the finest silk and jewellery. They’d picked herbs from Max’s aunt’s herb garden and lain on the lawn in the evening to see the first stars.
Yet always at the back of her mind Georgia had known it had to end.
She had to end it, because even though they’d managed to keep out of Sol’s orbit for the last few months, she knew there was more trouble to come.
She would never forgive herself if anything happened to Max. Max had no idea how obsessed her ex-husband was, and when Sol actually found out she’d married Max she had no idea what he would do.
Now that she wasn’t the gibbering mess she’d been after Elsa’s birth, it had come home to her how unfair it was to drag Max into her troubles, and she could feel the stormclouds gathering on the horizon.
With their locum move to Meeandah, she had the opportunity to sink her teeth into obstetrics again even if it was only for a couple of weeks, and that meant she would be one step closer to independence.
Max had been wonderfully supportive about her starting work and her daughter would be settled with Mrs White in the new house for the hours she’d be away.
Her first shift since she’d become a mother herself had arrived.
She slipped back into Elsa’s room one last time to check her baby was still asleep. Elsa’s tiny fist was jammed against her mouth and every few seconds she’d suck gently in her sleep. Georgia knew she had to go.
When Georgia walked into Meeandah Maternity Ward she could hear the cry of a hungry baby and it brought a tiny smile to her face. She really did love being around birthing women and their babies.
Her biggest problems in her work had not been the clients or the midwives, it had been old-school, entrenched-idea doctors. Those medical officers who interfered with the natural process of birth because of their own impatience or lack of confidence in the birthing woman. Those who called a woman’s labour a ‘failure to progress’ when often it had been a doctor’s ‘failure to wait’!
The nurse manager of the hospital had seemed impressed with Georgia’s qualifications and experience and Georgia had felt the warmth and quality of the care and facilities from the moment she’d stepped through the doors. This hospital met the needs of their clients first and she couldn’t wait to be a part of it.
For her first morning Georgia’s handover report was given by another senior midwife who greeted her with delight. ‘You came. I thought it was too good to be true.’
