before her indignation surged back. ‘What do you mean, if I want to learn? Of course I want to learn.’
He shrugged. ‘Not everyone does. We get a lot of people up here. They arrive city-wired, city-savvy, ready to save the world as long as it can be saved their way.’ He grinned at Susie, who’d wandered over from the shade of the tree now that it looked like they were ready to return to the clinic. ‘And then they leave us, don’t they, Susie?’
Susie nodded. ‘Yep. Mia third nurse this year.’
Mia’s chest tightened. ‘I plan to be the one that stays.’
‘Yeah, they all say that.’ Flynn opened the driver’s door of the truck, his expression resigned.
‘No, really, I’m staying.’ I have nothing to go back to. Nothing at all. Her mother’s blank and expressionless face wafted across her mind and a sliver of the terror she usually managed to keep concealed deep inside her coiled upward, threatening to choke her.
She needed to move, she needed to do something to keep the panic at bay. The clinic. Walking briskly, she ducked under Flynn’s outstretched arm and sat down hard in the driver’s seat.
A startled expression momentarily creased his forehead before he gently closed the door.
A dash of guilt bubbled up at her abrupt brush past him but it was quickly doused by fear and anger at his blasé attitude toward her. She gripped the steering-wheel hard and breathed in deeply. How dared this man make assumptions about her when he didn’t even know her? She wasn’t ‘everyone’. She was so far removed from being ‘everyone’, so far removed from being the ‘norm’, that it didn’t bear thinking about.
She turned the key in the ignition and gunned the engine, clawing back some control. It was time get back to work.
She turned her head and met his clear and intense gaze. A shiver shot through her, making her both cold and hot at the same time. A shiver that created shimmers deep inside her. No, no, no. Remember Steven.
Don’t remember Steven. She’d been working really hard on forgetting Steven and she didn’t want to revisit that pain either.
She involuntarily swallowed before clearing her throat. ‘I need to run this immunisation clinic so if you’re ready, we’ll leave now.’
Flynn wordlessly pushed back from the door where his arms had been resting. ‘Let’s head back, Susie.’ He walked slowly around the twin-cab truck, opening the back door for the health worker, and clambered in next to Mia, tilting his hat forward as if he was going to take a nap.
Everything about him, every action and word powerfully stated that this man was in command of his world—completely and utterly. It was in stark contrast to Mia, who had the feeling she was only just hanging on by her fingernails. Coming to Kirra was supposed to give her some control, and at the very least control over her job. She didn’t think that was too much to ask, given what she faced in the future.
Mia thrust the truck into gear, forcing away the thoughts that threatened to undo her. She refused to let ‘Dr Cool and Laid-Back’ make her feel incompetent.
You’re doing a good enough job of that yourself.
With a jerk, she swung the truck into a wide U-turn and pulled onto the main road, a plume of dust rising behind her. One hundred metres later she slowed and peered out the windscreen, checking for incoming planes as the runway crossed the road.
‘You’re right, no planes.’ The words sounded muffled from under the hat.
Exasperation whipped her. ‘Really, and you can see clearly out from under that hat, can you?’
Susie giggled behind her.
He tilted the hat back and his eyes twinkled at her. ‘Well, there are few holes in this old workhorse, but I can also hear. Combination of the senses, Mia.’
Susie’s earlier words, ‘Listen with all of you’ played across her mind. She’d been happy to hear them from Susie. But not from Flynn. Everything about this doctor had her on edge.
Thank goodness she only had to put up with him until tomorrow and then he’d fly out of her life for another week.
As she turned the truck onto the coast road and headed toward the clinic, she had to slow the vehicle to a crawl. There were people in cars, trucks, on bikes and on foot, blocking the road in a mass of colour—their bright clothing vivid against their dark skin. ‘I wonder what’s happening?’
‘Barge is in.’ Susie spoke matter-of-factly as she hopped out of the truck.
‘Friday’s barge day.’ Flynn wound down his window and high-fived some of the kids walking along the road.
Mia could see a big blue ship almost sitting on the shoreline, a large gangplank coming from the centre of its twin hull and resting on the red beach. She stared straight ahead at the party atmosphere in front of her as an ute, loaded with boxes, drove off the barge.
‘And that means…’ Flynn’s mouth twitched at the corners but his eyes expressed commiseration.
Realisation thudded through her. ‘It means no one is going to bring their baby, toddler or pre-schooler to the clinic this afternoon to be immunised.’ She gently banged her forehead against the steering-wheel, defeat tugging at her every pore.
‘See, you’re catching on already.’ His words were gentle with no trace of jubilation at her frustration.
With her head still against the wheel, she turned slightly as he stretched his long arms above his head, his shirt straining against muscular biceps. She bit her lip against the surge of unwanted heat that coiled through her. ‘You didn’t mention barge day when we left the airport.’ Her voice wavered.
He shrugged, his face impassive. ‘You were pretty strung out at that point. I thought it best to go with your flow.’
She breathed in hard, realising she’d made a fool of herself in front of her new colleague. What did they say about first impressions not being able to be undone? She welcomed the uncomfortable edge of the steering-wheel against her forehead, overriding the pain of humiliation. ‘What a waste of a day.’
‘Nothing is ever a waste, Mia.’ His soft words washed over her, not soothing but not gloating either. ‘I tell you what, I’ll fill you in as much as I can during the next week. At least you’ll know that the footy and barge afternoons are times you do paperwork because no one will be at clinic.’
She abruptly sat up and stared at him, her heart hammering so hard against her ribs she was sure he could see it. Surely she’d misunderstood. Surely her humiliation wasn’t going to be extended over one hundred and sixty eight hours. ‘The next week?’ Her voice squeaked out the words. ‘I thought you were only here for tomorrow’s clinic?’
He tilted his head to the side, his eyes crinkling in a smile. ‘That had been the plan but things change. Kirra has the largest population so I’m here more often than not. I’ve been away for five days so now I need to play catch-up and I’m here for seven days straight.’
Somehow she managed to force the muscles of her face into a smile, while her gut seemed to fold inward. ‘I guess it’s my lucky
