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‘You were lucky.’ And this was an absolutely crazy conversation. ‘Look.’ She held out her arms in front of her. ‘My skin hasn’t suffered so far. And I’ll cover up while I’m here.’
He shook his head. ‘You’re not staying. How did you get here, anyway? You weren’t on the plane.’
‘I hired a car in Sydney and drove here.’
He felt a glitch in his heartbeat. She’d driven over a thousand kilometres on some of the most isolated roads in the country just to see him again? ‘I can’t believe you did that.’
‘Oh, I took it in easy stages,’ she countered lightly. ‘It was…fun.’
He looked at her broodingly. ‘It was downright dangerous. What if you’d been targeted by a low-life?’
‘I wasn’t.’
‘Or had a flat tyre in the middle of nowhere?’
She gusted a small impatient sigh. ‘I have a mobile phone.’
‘And there was I, imagining you needed a jack to change a wheel,’ he said with a deadpan expression.
She poked a small pink tongue at him. ‘I stopped for petrol here and there. I asked the garage guys to check things. They were great.’
‘I’ll bet,’ he observed, studying the rosy mouth into which her tongue had retreated. A mouth with its tiny freckle on her bottom lip. A mouth that was made for kissing. And in a second some instinct, entirely male and protective, swamped him and locked itself around his heart.
He had no choice here. No choice at all. He couldn’t risk her turning temperamental on him and taking off into the sunset. ‘All right. You can stay for a week until the next flight out.’
‘That’s pathetic. I can’t do anything useful in a week!’
He got to his feet. ‘Well, it’s all I’m prepared to let you have.’ And, please, heaven, by then he’d have acquired the gumption to be able to handle this situation with Maxi with cool detachment.
‘Fine, then.’ Maxi shrugged and spun off her chair. But she was by no means giving up on this. ‘The pub looks pleasant enough. I’ll stay there.’
‘You’ll stay with me,’ he countered, the glint in his narrowed gaze as it skimmed over her, confirming her impression that he wasn’t about to let her out of his sight.
She bit back a smile. Well, that might work to her advantage. They still had something wildly unfinished between them whether Jake admitted it or not. She tilted her head and said innocently, ‘I appreciate you letting me stay with you. But won’t people talk?’
‘Talk, schmork,’ he dismissed. ‘Tangaratta is in the middle of a drought. Folk are too busy just trying to survive and keep food on the table to be concerned about their doctor’s living arrangements.’
‘I did notice the country looked rather parched,’ she said seriously. ‘How bad is it—really?’
‘It’s bad.’ He rolled back his shoulders as if to slough off an aching weariness. ‘Depression, exhaustion and stress everywhere. We’re already trucking water in for general use in the town.’
She nodded, moving closer to him, as if in some way to share his load. ‘So, I guess folk are pretty desperate.’
He nodded. ‘Farmers especially. Outlaying money they don’t have to plant crops that die before they’re barely out of the ground. In some cases selling up and getting nothing for their livestock. Families having to split up to go after jobs elsewhere. There certainly aren’t enough to go round locally.’
‘Suicides?’ she asked with some perception.
‘Couple.’ Jake dipped his head, the muscle in his jaw pulled tight. ‘One only recently.’ He stopped, unwilling to burden her with the harsh reality of it all. And especially he didn’t want to tell her about how it had affected him personally and made him question his worth as a rural doctor.
But Maxi, being Maxi and knowing him far better than he gave her credit for, soon sensed his need to unload his self-doubt. ‘So, tell me about it,’ she encouraged gently. ‘Was it someone you knew personally? A patient?’
He gave a hard-edged laugh. ‘Still the counsellor, I see.’
A flood of colour washed over her face. He’d made it sound almost an insult. ‘Call it debriefing, if that will assuage your medical ethics.’
Jake rode out the implication of her words with a small lift of his shoulders. He couldn’t deny it would help to talk and only another doctor, one with the special qualities that Maxi Somers possessed, would understand where he was coming from, when you agonised that perhaps you could have listened more closely, done more…
‘It was a friend, a local grazier.’ Jake scrubbed his hand across his cheekbones and went on, ‘When he was in town we’d usually make time for a beer and a chat. I knew he was concerned about the future. The bank was squeezing him and his property had generated little income with the prolonged dry.’
‘So, awfully difficult times,’ Maxi commented thoughtfully.
‘Yes.’ His moody gaze raked her face. ‘And it didn’t help that he was the fourth generation to inherit the property and felt an enormous burden to try to keep it in the family. But I guess things finally folded in on him. One morning he just upped and wrapped himself and his motorbike around a tree.’
‘Oh, lord…’ Maxi’s hand flew to her throat.
‘He should have come to see me,’ Jake emphasised tightly. ‘Maybe we could have talked things through. I’d encouraged him often enough…’
‘But he never came?’
‘No.’ In the brittleness of the silence that followed, Jake said hollowly, ‘This is no place for you to be, Max.’
She brought her chin up. ‘On the contrary. I’m a doctor. At a rough guess I’d say you could do with an extra pair of trained hands. And so could the people of Tangaratta, by all accounts. And I’m accredited to work here. I arranged all that before I left the UK. Put me on the staff and let me help.’
‘No.’
She hesitated infinitesimally. Jake was not a man you could bulldoze. She knew that. But there were other ways. More subtle ways… Closing the small gap between them, she went on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. ‘OK, then,’ she murmured. ‘If that’s what you truly want.’
Jake took a shaken breath as her hair fluttered a lacy pattern against his skin and he found himself surrounded by the delicate floral scent of her. God, it was magic to be this close to her again.
And in a rush all the old disconcerting feelings of his feet not seeming to quite touch the ground when she was this close were back, engulfing him.
He stepped away, breaking the mood quickly, before it turned into something wild and bitter-sweet. Sweeping down to collect his medical case from the floor beside his desk, he said briskly, ‘Let’s get you settled in, then, shall we?’
They arrived outside Jake’s place which Maxi observed was a big old sprawling timber home with verandahs all round.
‘Here, let me help you with that,’ he said gruffly when she opened the boot of her hire car and dragged out an overstuffed backpack. ‘Is this all you’ve got?’
She wrinkled her nose at him. ‘You expected seven suitcases, didn’t you?’
‘Probably.’ His mouth twisted wryly. ‘I thought you might have even brought your feather-down quilt as well.’
Maxi chuckled. He’d always taken the mick. She’d finally got immune to it after being tetchy at first. ‘I’ve brought everything I’ll need and this thing has a thousand pockets.’
‘Hmm. Is that it, then?’
‘That’s it,’ she confirmed. ‘I have all my really important stuff in here.’ She tapped the large leather satchel she’d swung over her shoulder. ‘Oh—who’s this, then?’ she laughed as a black Staffordshire terrier tore from the region of the back yard to wait inside the gate, thumping his tail on the cement path.
Jake opened the gate. ‘Get down, boy.’ He shooed the dog away with a nudge of his knee. ‘This is Chalky. He came with the practice so I’m stuck with him.’
Maxi bent and fondled the Staffy’s blunt head. ‘Chalky? Oh, I see.’ She gusted a laugh. ‘Upside-down logic—Chalky because he’s black.’
‘I didn’t name him so don’t blame me.’ With the dog glued hopefully to his side, Jake led her up onto the verandah and produced a key to the front door.
‘Do you take him for walks?’ she asked, as Chalky followed them inside, his claws clipping across the polished floor.
Jake snorted. ‘Of course I don’t take him for walks. ‘He’s got a huge back yard to run in. And when would I get the time?’
‘I suppose… It’s a nice house,’ Maxi changed tack, her gaze flying over the simple furnishings.
‘It comes with the job. You’d better have this room,’ he said abruptly. ‘It has its own en suite bathroom.’
‘Oh, lovely.’ She lifted a hand to tug off her cap and shake out her tangle of hair. ‘I’d kill for a bath.’
‘No baths.’ Jake went into the bedroom and dumped her backpack on the end table. ‘Three-minute showers are all that’s allowed.’
‘Oh, of course.’ She frowned a bit. ‘I imagine it’s imperative to use the least amount of water as possible.’
‘You’re going to hate it,’ He said flatly.
‘Don’t go making assumptions on my behalf, Jacob,’ she responded sharply. ‘Now, do you have spare linen? I’ll need to make up the bed.’
Jake’s eyes glazed over and he took a deep, very deep breath. This was never going to work. ‘Sheets and towels in the built-in cupboard in the hallway. Help yourself. Marie Olsen is employed by the hospital to come in once a week and keep the place clean and aired so you should find everything else is OK.’
‘Fine, thanks. Um, you mentioned a hospital.’ Maxi’s curiosity was piqued. ‘What’s the bed capacity?’
‘These days, ten,’ he replied, a slight edge to his voice almost as though he thought it was none of her business. ‘Four are designated nursing-home beds. We’re funded differently for those.’
‘The same the world over, then. Doctors being slaves to management number-crunchers wherever they work.’
Jake gave a noncommittal grunt and glanced at his watch. ‘Speaking of the hospital, I have to make a quick round. Couple of patients to check.’
Maxi’s eyes brightened. ‘I need to stretch my legs,’ she said. ‘Give me a minute to freshen up and I’ll come with you.’
Jake sensed he was never going to win here so he’d better just go with the flow. Or go nuts. ‘Whatever makes you happy.’ Shaking his head, he turned and left her to it.
Maxi spritzed water on her face and then ran a brush through her hair. It needed cutting and shaping again, she thought ruefully, disentangling a couple of strands until her brush ran smoothly.
She looked in the mirror, feeling an expectant throb in her veins as she twisted her hair up into a presentable knot. She’d found him again. Now, somehow, some way she had to make him want to reclaim all they’d had.
Impossible as it appeared on the surface, she had to get Jake to tap into his feelings again. Realise that what they’d shared together in England they could have again here on the other side of the world—his world in the Australian outback. She had her fingers firmly crossed as she left her bedroom and went to find him.
His efforts at hospitality left a bit to be desired, Jake thought thinly as he poured fruit juice into two tall glasses. She was probably dying from thirst after being on the road for most of the day and he hadn’t even offered her a drink of water. His mouth clamped.
He still found it unbelievable she was here. Under his roof. The time they’d spent in England suddenly seemed pitched into sharp focus. And he knew now that meeting her had changed the whole course of his life. And it hadn’t just been the intimate moments they’d shared, although they had been magic. No, it had been the way she’d made him feel, the way she’d made him laugh. In fact, it had been the whole damn package that was Maxi. His Maxi?
Well, she had been. For a while.
Suddenly, he felt as though his heart had been squeezed with terrible force and hung out to dry.
CHAPTER TWO
RETURNING the jug to the fridge, he swung back just as Maxi popped her head in and then joined him at the breakfast bar.
‘Cheers.’ She lifted her glass, tilting her head in that alert, bird-like way he remembered. ‘Who do you need to see?’
‘One of our seniors who was admitted with heatstroke earlier today and a third-time mum. Delivered twenty-four hours ago.’
Maxi looked surprised. ‘I’ve been doing a bit of homework about Australian rural medicine. From what I’ve been reading, most bush doctors decline to take midwifery cases. Because of the litigation tangle if things go wrong,’ she elaborated. ‘I mean, you’re so far from specialised help.’
‘We operate on a slightly different premise here.’ Jake lifted his glass and downed half his drink. ‘One of our nurses, Sonia Townsend, is a midwife. If the pregnancy looks straightforward, we like to deliver women here. Otherwise it’s a huge disruption for the family if the mum has to travel ahead of time and hang about for the birth at Croyden. That’s our closest regional hospital and it’s over two hundred Ks away.’
Maxi thought that through. ‘So, what else do you do?’
Jake sent her a wary look. ‘Medically?’
‘Of course.’
‘Let’s just say a broad-based training has helped me out more times than I care to recall. But there’s also an internet hook-up for rural doctors where we can consult with a specialist if we get desperate.’
Maxi slowly drained her glass and then placed it carefully back on the countertop. ‘It’s a different world out here, isn’t it?’
He gave a hard laugh. ‘You noticed?’ Without giving her time to answer, he swept the glasses off the bench and into the sink. ‘Let’s go and do this round,’ he said briskly. ‘And then I might buy you tea at the pub.’
‘Tea?’ Maxi took off after him as he strode to the front door. ‘As in cucumber sandwiches?’
‘More likely steak and chips.’
She sent him a speculative look, wondering if she was being sent up. ‘So, you actually mean you’ll buy me dinner?’
His smile was gently wry. ‘Something like that.’ Ushering her through the front gate, he began striding off along the concrete footpath.
‘Hey!’ Maxi trotted to keep up. ‘Aren’t we driving?’
‘Hospital’s just next door.’ Jake indicated the low-set weathered brick building some hundred metres up the road. ‘Years ago, the town council bought up acreage to build the hospital and then the doctors’ residence came after. Apparently in those days, when Tangaratta was a thriving rural community, there was a permanent medical superintendent on staff and several GPs in the town.’
‘So, what happened?’ Maxi asked, increasing her strides to match his.
‘Technology, probably. The needs and skills of the work-force change. And then a kind of domino effect sets in. Folk have to relocate to go after jobs and towns as small as this go into a kind of recession. But apparently, a couple of years ago, people were beginning to trickle back to start new ventures in the district. Gem fossicking, tourism and the like.’
‘And then the drought hit,’ Maxi surmised quietly.
He nodded, tight-lipped.
As they neared the hospital, Maxi began to look about her. There was a strip of lawn, faded and burned from the harshness of the sun, but along the path to the front entrance a border of purple and crimson shrubs was vividly in flower. ‘They look like hardy plants,’ she commented.
‘Bougainvillea.’ Jake huffed a laugh. ‘Can’t kill them with an axe. They thrive under these kinds of hot, dry conditions.’
‘The hospital itself looks quite a spacious building, at least from the outside.’ Maxi cast an interested glance around. ‘And I love those verandahs.’
