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.’
‘In the summer they bring a sense of coolness. Conversely, they’re great for catching the morning rays in the winter months. The walking wounded love them.’
She shot him a brief smile. ‘So the architects of earlier times knew what they were about, then?’
He grunted. ‘More than they do now in lots of cases. This is where the CareFlight chopper lands when we have an emergency transfer.’ Jake led her across to where a windsock hung listlessly at the far end of large unfenced paddock.
Maxi’s gaze stretched across to the distant hills, muted into diffused greys and blues as the evening light softened their stark outlines. ‘It’s so quiet…’
‘Mmm. It kinds of enfolds you. You stop noticing it after a while.’
‘I guess you would, yes. Oh, look!’ Surprise edged Maxi’s voice and she pointed skywards, watching as a flock of large birds thrummed by on urgent wings, calling harshly to one another as they passed overhead. ‘What are they—wild geese?’
‘Wild duck. There’s not much water in the lagoons for them these days. They’re leaving in numbers now to fly towards the coast.’
‘Will they come back?’
‘When the waterholes and lagoons are full again. Come on, Doctor.’ He touched a hand to the small of her back. ‘Enough of the local commentary. Let’s do this hospital round.’ He shot her a questioning look as they went through the front entrance. ‘I’m assuming you still want to accompany me?’
‘Yes, please.’
Loretta Campion, the charge for the shift, was just coming out of her office as they approached the nurses’ station. ‘Evening, Jake.’ She tilted her fair head enquiringly. ‘We expected you much earlier. Was there a problem?’
He gave a short laugh. Only the female one beside him. ‘Got held up a bit. Loretta, this is, Dr Maxi Somers. She’s—’
‘The new locum,’ the charge guessed, smiling as she extended her hand to Maxi across the counter. ‘We expected you on today’s plane.’
‘Ahh…’ Maxi took a moment to think on her feet, her green eyes sparkling with mischief. ‘I’m afraid I rather surprised Dr Haslem. I drove here.’
Jake
