thrown herself into dangerous pursuits as if nothing had been between them. Desert skiing, ballooning, four-wheel-drive safaris—she’d been in the thick of it everywhere he’d looked until he’d stopped watching in those last few weeks. Working with her in the unit had been so icily professional the other staff had avoided the pair of them when they’d had to be together.
He took her slender fingers in his and although the tension was slight, he was aware how she stiffened beneath his touch. Unintentionally, his grip tightened.
Her fingers were warm under his and he remembered when he’d finally accepted he’d been drawn to her as a woman. Her red hair flying straight out behind her head as she’d revelled in the danger of the race. She loved danger all right, he thought cynically. Life of the party, and always on the lookout for some mad new adventure or life experience, Kirsten had been the sun that less exuberant staff had gravitated around yet she had never seemed to favour one person—until him.
Initially, Hunter had blocked that attraction because he’d thought, mistakenly, he’d sensed a core of innocence beneath her bravado that he’d had no right to taint with his cynical distrust of women. But the joy she seemed to find in the everyday had worn his resistance down and he’d finally allowed himself to accept the idea that he’d found the woman he could plan his future with.
Until that morning!
He’d thought the tearoom was empty when he rounded the corner but then he saw them. Cosgrove twisted to protect the woman from his eyes and at first he only realised it wasn’t Jack’s wife cradled so passionately in the man’s arms. And then Kirsten stepped out of the man’s embrace to face him. He knew his face mirrored his devastation.
‘It’s not what you think,’ Kirsten whispered. The same words Portia, his wife, had said when he’d confronted her with her lover five years before. It felt as if a stiletto was still lodged under his ribs after all this time and Kirsten was twisting it deeper.
Foolishly, in the last few months at MIRA, he began to believe he was over his shock at Kirsten’s behaviour. What a fool he was.
Aware at first hand of the devastation that could be caused by infidelity, both as a child and as a husband, Hunter did the right thing when he ruthlessly severed their relationship. Afterwards, the gap left by Kirsten’s friendship in his life warned him how close he’d come to repeating the mistake of his first marriage.
Here she was, threatening his peace of mind again. Typical. Jim’s promise of the perfect candidate for the job had been too good to be true. He lifted his own chin, staring down at the top of her colourful red head and not into her magical if devious eyes.
‘Kirsten, how nice to see you. Settled back into Australia?’ He could feel the tug of her arm as she tried unobtrusively to free her hand. He chose to let her go and she snatched her hand back so fast he smiled.
Interesting. He looked down to see her eyes narrow as she probed behind his smile, and Hunter realised he could make this woman’s life hell. That wasn’t his style but he couldn’t help a little satisfaction that he wasn’t the only one feeling discomfort.
Hunter had left for Sydney and stepped straight into this job. He’d never really understood the dramatics Cosgrove or his doctor wife had displayed. He understood less why Kirsten had felt the need to come between a married couple.
Jack had even seen Hunter and tried to explain away his involvement with Kirsten, but Hunter had wanted no bar of it. He’d heard that Jack and his wife had moved on to Canada for a holiday before heading back to Australia so the man must have seen sense. He wondered if Kirsten had been asked to leave Dubai and if she was sad she’d lost her conquest back to his wife. Maybe Jack had been just another diversion—like he’d been, Hunter thought with gritted teeth.
‘We must catch up later on how your last few days in Dubai panned out. Do you see much of Jack Cosgrove or Eva?’
‘Sure,’ Kirsten answered easily enough, but she felt the innuendo in the question. A few months ago, with Hunter, she’d known she’d found the man she wanted to spend her life with and it had certainly seemed as if he’d felt the same way.
Then it had all stopped with his ridiculous accusations. Hunter’s lack of faith had shattered her. Obviously his suspicions remained. Kirsten had always prided herself on her honesty and came from a family that had high moral standards. To see that the man she’d loved had no capacity for trust, had shown her a serious flaw in what she’d thought a perfect relationship. Kirsten had forced herself to accept it had been better to find out then, but it hadn’t helped her hide her hurt and disillusionment from Hunter. There’d always been an extra tension or double meaning in any communication they’d shared since Jack.
But she was over the brief Technicolor space he’d occupied in her life. Kirsten turned away to ask a question of the senior flight sister. He had the problem, not her, and she’d just have to learn not to let it rankle.
Ellen Gardner wasn’t much warmer than Hunter, but she was safer. The two women moved across the room to discuss a map on the wall and Kirsten was glad to increase the distance between her and that man.
The area serviced by MIRA was bounded by the New South Wales border, though sometimes patients were transferred to Canberra in the Australian Capital Territory if beds were scarce. MIRA serviced around one hundred and forty hospitals of varying levels of care by road or air. They transported the critical patients to the closest paediatric or neonatal intensive care facility that had the resources to cope, often using fixed-wing aircraft or helicopters, depending on the ground facilities, weather and condition of the patient. The whole structure worked closely with the NSW Ambulance Service.
‘Are the same number of personnel still flying in the aircraft?’ Kirsten imagined it would be running in a similar vein from when she’d been here over eighteen months ago. Jim, as supervisor, hadn’t changed, but she needed to convey to the other sister that she herself wasn’t a threat to Ellen’s authority.
‘The minimum team consists of one transport doctor, one transport nurse and, of course, the pilot. Your first few flights will be supervised by me—’ Ellen smiled without humour ‘—to ensure you don’t require any further orientation on the use of the latest equipment or updates on aviation medicine. I’ll also make sure you still have the skills needed for clinical call conferencing. Of course, space is always at a premium, but if there’s room, we try to accommodate a parent as well. I’m not sure how many were here in your time…’
Kirsten suppressed a grin at the inference she’d worked at MIRA back with the dinosaurs.
‘But now we have ten doctors,’ Ellen continued, ‘most on a part-time roster, and twenty-five nurses as well as support staff. Plus our very experienced pilots.’
‘The pilots were good even back then,’ Kirsten murmured, tongue-in-cheek.
‘I gather you’re not afraid of flying.’ Ellen raised pencilled eyebrows.
As if. ‘I’m not afraid of much,’ Kirsten said quietly as the men came across to join them. Hunter obviously caught the end of the conversation.
‘So what are you afraid of, Sister Wilson?’ Hunter looked down at her with a wicked smile and Kirsten’s concentration slipped for a moment. She’d forgotten, or had maybe blocked out the memory, of what it felt like to be on the receiving end of one of his smiles.
When he was amused, Hunter’s eyes became flecked with molten silver and he had the ability to thaw her reserve with sudden heat. A heat
