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.’
Georgia smiled and held out her hand, but the woman hugged her instead.
‘I’m Karissa, and I’ve been trying to secure at least a week’s break for a couple of months now, but staffing
