over the Blue Mountains, with a small-town feel. The main street was wide, not dissimilar to main streets in most country towns across Australia, and this one was planted with oak trees and lined with beautiful old public buildings. A wide, grassy strip ran down the centre of the road. A military memorial stood at one end near the pub; a majestic building with wraparound balconies and elaborate wrought-iron railings. The two-storey red-brick post office stood in the middle of town opposite the limestone town hall. Further down the street, past the police station, the Catholic church faced off across the road from the Presbyterian one, standing sentinel at the end of town.
They had left Sydney early and arrived at the clinic by ten. They were going to spend the morning working there before visiting an aboriginal settlement in the afternoon.
‘Budgee used to have a small hospital,’ Seb explained as he turned off the main street, ‘but the services gradually dwindled as the community decreased in size and as the roads and transport improved, making it unnecessary for each country town to have its own facilities. The government “consolidated”—their word—the services, which was all well and good in most cases except for emergencies. Budgee lost its hospital but retained a community health centre, which was moved into the old hospital ironically, and the local doctor spends two days a week here and three days a week in surrounding towns.’
Seb pulled into the car park of the old hospital and Luci followed him inside. She spent what was left of the morning doing health checks, just like she would have done in Sydney, along with fielding the same personal questions interspersed with questions about the health of the local nurse and her daughter.
For lunch she and Seb grabbed a meat pie from the local bakery and ate in the car as Seb drove them to the aboriginal settlement thirty minutes out of town. Budgee was in the centre of a wine-growing region and the town was surrounded by vineyards. It reminded Luci of Vickers Hill, having the same look and feel of home. Did Vickers Hill still feel like home? She wasn’t sure. She’d changed since she’d been in Sydney. She was different now and she wasn’t sure if she would be able to settle back into her old life.
Was it living in a big city that had changed her or was it Seb?
She didn’t know the answer to that either, although she suspected the latter.
As they drove through the countryside she almost felt as though they were on a date. Seb was dressed casually in an open-necked, short-sleeved shirt that showed off his muscular forearms. His long fingers were wrapped around the steering wheel. Last night they’d been caressing her breasts and bringing her to another orgasm, and she could still feel some tenderness between her thighs after another night of lovemaking, but it was definitely not an unpleasant sensation.
Seb was tapping his index finger and humming along in time to the song that was playing on the radio. She looked at his face, at his perfect profile as the scenery flashed past. They were still driving past rows and rows of vines, dense with green foliage, and she was tempted to tell him to pull over. She wondered if they had time for a quick make-out session in the car. She hadn’t behaved like that for years but something about him made her feel like a teenager again, a reckless, rebellious teenager with only one thing on her mind.
He turned his head to look at her; he must have felt her scrutiny. He took one look at her expression and winked, and she knew he could tell what she was thinking.
She blushed and he laughed, rich and throaty, as he turned his attention back to the road.
‘Hold that thought,’ he said. ‘There’ll be time for fooling around later but we can’t turn up at the settlement looking like we’ve just tumbled out of bed. Or out of the bushes.’ He grinned and his eyes flicked briefly back to her.
A quick glance at her chest and Luci could feel the heat rising from her. The only thing stopping the windows from fogging up was the fact that it was almost as warm outside the car as inside.
If he looked at her like that once more she was going to have to pull on the handbrake and have her way with him.
‘Pity,’ she said as she reached across the console, ignoring the handbrake, and rested her hand at the very top of his thigh. She slid her hand between his thighs so her fingers rested against his groin. If he was going to make her sweat she was going to make sure he joined her. Two could play at that game. ‘We could pull over and sneak down between the rows of grapes and make love on the ground between the vines.’
‘You’ll get covered in dirt.’
‘I was planning to go on top,’ she responded.
‘Luci,’ he groaned. ‘That’s not playing fair. I need to concentrate.’
‘Are you sure we haven’t got time for a quick stop?’
‘Positive,’ he said, removing her hand from his groin and putting it back in her lap. ‘But we will have all night and I promise I’ll make the wait worth your while,’ he said as he drove past the signpost that welcomed them to the settlement of Frog Hollow.
She sighed and looked around as Seb drove down the main street. She needed to get her mind back on the job.
‘So tell me again what I’ll be doing here,’ she said, trying to focus less on Seb and more on her duties.
‘It does depend on who turns up but general health checks are the norm. BP, cholesterol tests, with referral for any high readings, plus counselling will take up most of your time. Just keep in mind there are different issues facing this population. Diabetes, eye disease, cardiovascular conditions, kidney disease and ear infections all tend to be more prevalent in the indigenous community and a lot of the problems arise because they don’t have access to health care.’
‘I remember what you told us when you gave the lecture.’
‘Well, you’re about to see it first-hand, although because the community of Frog Hollow made a decision to be a dry settlement we do see fewer issues here than elsewhere. There won’t be scheduled appointments as such, we just see whoever turns up in whatever order they turn up, but expect to be busy as these remote clinics are only run once a month.’
Seb turned off the main street onto a side road that was made of dirt. Apparently only the main road in and out of town was tarred but the buildings were modern. Luci could see plenty of free-roaming chickens and dogs, as well as a number of kids riding bikes and playing in the street. There seem to be an awful lot of children not in school.
‘There’s no school in the settlement,’ Seb explained, when Luci commented. ‘The kids need to go into Budgee on the school bus but a lot don’t make it in time. Today quite a few parents would have chosen not to send their kids to town because we were coming,’ he said as he parked the car and switched off the engine.
Luci could see several people waiting, sitting on the veranda of the hall. She helped Seb to unload the medical kits from the car and take them into the hall. A temporary clinic had been set up at one end near the kitchen. There were two stations, one for her and one for him, basic and identical save for the fact that Seb’s had an examination bed tucked against the wall, sectioned off behind a privacy screen.
They worked their way steadily through the locals who seemed quite content to sit and wait. They didn’t seem impatient. They didn’t seem to be watching the clock, like the clients in the city who always seemed to have somewhere else they needed to be. The pace suited Luci. It was nice to have time to stop and take a breath occasionally.
There were some things about home she hadn’t missed—the lack
