The Bush Doctor's Challenge Page 4

  ‘We’ll have to go over soon,’ Kell added. ‘The locals will never forgive me if we don’t go and fill them in.’

  ‘What’s with the we?’ Abby questioned, nervous at the prospect of facing everyone, far happier to keep a professional distance. ‘It won’t take both of us to deliver the news.’

  ‘It took both of us to deliver the baby,’ Kell pointed out. ‘Don’t miss your pats on the back, Abby, it’s one of the perks of the job.’

  ‘So, are you always so laid back?’ Abby asked, resuming the conversation that had taken place in the warm euphoric glow of the baby’s birth.

  ‘Yep,’ Kell said simply, before elaborating. ‘The only trouble is that it doesn’t last. Me, I worry after the event. Give me a drama and I cope. Honestly, Abby, I don’t know why, but you can throw anything at me and I’m like a textbook, I just see what needs to be done and do my best to get on with it, I don’t even break a sweat. But afterwards…’ Kell let out a breath. ‘I’ll lie awake tonight imagining every possible thing that could have gone wrong. What if I’d still been waiting for your plane to come in? What if the head hadn’t delivered easily? What if—’

  ‘I get the picture,’ Abby moaned. ‘Unfortunately it hits me there and then. I’m constantly picturing the worst-case scenario.’

  ‘It’s just the way you work.’ Kell shrugged. ‘And it probably makes you a great emergency doctor. Hell, if I’m in trouble I want a doctor worried on my behalf.’

  ‘And I want a nurse who’s calm and efficient.’

  ‘Hey, maybe we’ll make the perfect team.’ Those dark eyes were smiling and that brittle exterior Abby normally so effortlessly portrayed seemed to be crashing down around her as she smiled back at the man beside her.

  ‘Maybe we will,’ she said softly. ‘Maybe we will.’

  Everything about him screamed contradiction.

  Everything about him had Abby entranced.

  ‘You don’t look like a nurse,’ Abby ventured, plunging her knife back into the cheese, flustered by her own rather personal observation.

  ‘You mean I don’t look gay?’ Kell laughed at her rather shocked features, but Abby quickly recovered.

  ‘Actually, add a handlebar moustache to those boots and skimpy shorts and you’d be a wow at the Sydney Mardi Gras!’

  ‘I was decorating!’ Kell laughed. ‘Anyway, in case you were wondering, no, I’m not gay.’

  It had never even entered Abby’s head that he might be. Not for the briefest second. Some men might throw up that question every now and then, and a male midwife, oozing compassion and in tune with a laboring woman, might bring about one of those occasions, but somehow Kell wore it all well. ‘I wasn’t,’ Abby said quickly. ‘You just look more like a—’

  ‘Labourer,’ Kell suggested, totally unabashed. ‘Hell, you’re a snob, Abby.’

  ‘No, I’m not,’ Abby replied hotly, and then gave him a worried look. ‘At least I hope I’m not.’

  ‘Well, I’ll choose to reserve judgement on that. And for your information I am a labourer and a drover, too, and a few other things in between.’

  ‘A real Jack of all trades?’ Abby said lightly, but her forehead creased slightly. ‘What’s a drover, by the way?’

  ‘A cowboy to you.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Well, almost a cowboy. And while we’re making personal observations about each other, you don’t exactly look like an outback doctor.’

  ‘I know,’ Abby groaned, then checked herself. It wouldn’t do to voice her misgivings to a local, so instead she assumed what she hoped was a more positive tone. ‘But I’m really excited to be here.’

  It didn’t fool him for a second! ‘That’s not what I heard.’ Kell grinned, topping up her glass of iced water then his own. ‘I was under the impression you were only here under sufferance.’

  ‘You know?’ Abby gulped. ‘But if you know, that means…’

  ‘It’s OK,’ Kell moved quickly to reassure her. ‘Ross only mentioned the fact you didn’t really want to come to me, no one else knows. Reece Davies is a friend of Ross’s and apparently he was singing your praises when he volunteered you for the job. Ross just told me to treat you a bit gently and make sure that people didn’t give you too much of a hard time until you’d found your feet a bit.’

  ‘Honestly,’ Abby checked, ‘you’re not put out that I only came because I had to?’

  ‘That’s the reason most doctors come.’ Kell shrugged. ‘Let’s face it—it’s a pretty weird place to be. Ross had a passion for it, but he’s the exception rather than the rule. The outback’s screaming for doctors…’

  ‘So you have to take what you can get?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Kell refuted. ‘Reece wouldn’t have recommended you if he didn’t think you were up to it, and Ross wouldn’t have taken you on just to have another name on the staff roster. The outback’s precarious enough without carrying people. You’re here because you’re wanted, Abby. The only person who’s not happy with the decision is you.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Abby mumbled. ‘I’ve been practising medicine for nearly eight years now and this afternoon is going down on my list of top ten moments. If there’s a few more of them around then it’s been the right choice. I can see what Reece was saying more clearly now. It’s easy to get caught in all the high-tech stuff, but if this is the buzz grass roots medicine gives, then maybe these next three months won’t be so bad after all.’

  ‘Maybe not.’

  They shared a smile, a tiny smile but it was loaded with hidden meaning. Confused, Abby stood up, and for something to do she grabbed the water jug and headed off to explore her new kitchen, her mind buzzing, every nerve in her body suddenly screaming. A couple of hours in Kell’s company and she was acting like a hormone-ravaged teenager, not a sensible thirty-something doctor.

  ‘What’s this?’ Abby asked, pulling open the fridge.

  ‘I would have thought a lady like you would know champagne when she sees it.’

  ‘I meant, what’s it doing in the fridge?’ Abby asked, refusing to jump.

  ‘Shelly would have left it there to welcome you. We could always wet the baby’s head?’

  It could almost have passed as an innocent question, but there was a look in Kell’s eyes and such a heavy throb in the air that Abby knew her reserve would pop with as much oomph as the champagne cork, and that was one path she definitely wasn’t going to take.

  ‘We’d better get over to the pub. At this rate we won’t even make last orders.’

  ‘You’re joking, aren’t you? The news of the baby will have the pub pumping to the wee hours. It could be a long night.’

  ‘Not for me.’ Abby shook her head. ‘I’ll have a quick orange juice and say hi, and then I’m out of there. I need to be on the ball, and something tells me Ross isn’t going to be around very much over the next few days to ease me in.’

  ‘Then it’s just as well you’ve got me.’

  Another simple statement, but again Abby felt the throb of sexual tension, the path of a conversation littered with possible innuendo, and she almost took a tentative step, almost responded with a loaded answer herself. But she pulled back in an instant, Kell’s easy smile making her wonder if her mind was playing tricks.

  ‘I’ll just go and get changed. You do whatever women do before they go out.’

  ‘But where are you going?’ Abby asked as he headed for the front door.

  ‘I rent the house next door.’ He either ignored or didn’t notice the shocked look on her face, carrying on chatting in his usual easy style. ‘I only use it for when I’m on call and if I’m on a late then early shift, but I guess it kind of makes us neighbours.’

  She didn’t answer, Abby truly couldn’t, just stood there dumbfounded as he turned and left; the five minutes it took Kell to wash and change nowhere near enough time to get her head together.

  Not only was she going to be working alongside him, he would be living next door to her as well.
r />   Three months.

  The words didn’t console Abby this time.

  After only three hours in Kell’s company already Abby’s nerves were on fire…

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘PUMPING’, was a slight exaggeration on Kell’s part, Abby decided, but the pub was certainly lively.

  Walking in, Abby braced herself for a few curious stares, but the cheer that went up as they both entered almost floored her.

  ‘What’s all this for?’ Abby gasped as her back was slapped so vigorously that, had she been choking, her airway would undoubtedly have been cleared in two seconds flat. Jugs of beer were being held up in all directions as Kell guided her through to the bar.

  ‘You just delivered Tennengarrah’s newest resident, remember?’

  Oh, Abby remembered. After all, how could she forget? But never in her wildest dreams had she expected this kind of reception. The births she had witnessed at the hospital had been accompanied with a certain amount of euphoria, a jubilant husband, a few relatives, but the long lonely walk back to the doctors’ mess had meant any emotions had been left in the delivery room.

  But here! The whole town seemed to be out, cheering and applauding.

  ‘Abby, this is Jack Brown,’ Kell introduced. ‘Tennengarrah’s one and only policeman.’

  Another smiling face appeared before her. ‘Glad to have you on board, Abby,’ Jack grinned, ‘playing midwife’s not my favourite pastime, you did a great job.’

  Another pat on the back, another vote of confidence to make her feel as if she had done something really special. In fact, by the time the obligatory toasts had been made, and her hand shaken by every last person at the bar, Abby found herself starting to agree with them.

  It really had been special.

  ‘They’ll settle now.’ Kell grinned, guiding her to a table. ‘A birth’s big news here, but when the cricket’s starting…’

  Abby’s eyes followed his to the massive screen in the corner, every head in the place seemed to be turned to it.

  ‘It’s all a bit much to take in, I guess.’

  Abby took a sip of her juice and gave a small shrug.

  ‘Or perhaps there’s not enough to take in?’ Kell asked perceptively. ‘It must seem a bit of a small world here to you.’

  ‘It’s just not what I’m used to,’ Abby admitted. ‘I’m not saying my way’s better than yours or anything, it’s just different, that’s all.’ Taking a breath, Abby decided to deal with a niggle that had been bothering her. ‘I’m sorry if I came over as snobby or superior when we first met. It was just nerves, I guess.’

  ‘I was just teasing when I said you were a snob.’ Kell was smiling at her. Even though Abby still couldn’t look, she could almost feel the warmth of it, almost see the wide dark lips breaking apart in an easy smile.

  ‘I know, and no doubt I’m going to have to get used to it. I’m quite sure there’ll be more than a few embarrassing moments. To date I’ve always lived in the city, always worked in big teaching hospitals, where I just blended in.’

  ‘I doubt that.’ The beer glass in his large hand seemed tiny, and Abby found herself staring at it as Kell carried on talking. ‘I can’t imagine a woman like you ever blending in.’

  She chose to ignore that little gem, casting her mind around frantically for something to say. ‘Do you ever get fed up?’

  Kell shook his head. ‘I don’t get the time to get fed up.’

  ‘And you’ve never thought of working in a city?’

  Again Kell shook his head. ‘I did some of my course units there, but it wasn’t where I wanted to be, I was always more than happy to come home.’

  ‘So you’ve never thought about…’ Taking a nervous sip of her drink, even Abby herself could barely believe the personal nature of her question. ‘About moving away?’

  ‘Why would I?’ Kell shrugged. ‘I’ve got everything I need here. A great job, my family nearby. They run a large cattle station out of town,’ he explained, ‘so there’s never a chance of being bored, and though there are relatively few people here, at least I know most of them. I could never leave this place, Abby. Tennengarrah isn’t just a town in the middle of nowhere to me, it’s home.’

  ‘So what made you choose to do nursing?’ Abby couldn’t stop herself. Undoubtedly he was a great nurse, she’d witnessed it for herself today after all, but it just seemed such a strange career choice for a man so in tune with the land, for an almost cowboy!

  He didn’t answer straight away. From the cheers and ‘Howzats’ flying around the pub, Australia had obviously taken a wicket and Kell stood up to watch the replay as Abby sat there, feigning interest.

  ‘Golden duck,’ Kell said, sitting back down with a grin.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You’ve no idea what I’m talking about, have you?’ He grinned as Abby shook her head, then leant forward a touch. ‘Mum had cancer.’ His voice was still light, but Abby saw the pain behind the frown that flittered across his face. ‘Every few weeks we headed off to Adelaide for her chemo. I used to go with her and I guess that’s how it started. I’d never even given nursing a thought before, still didn’t then really, but later…’ Abby watched as his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat, and Kell took a drink before he carried on talking. ‘When it became terminal Mum wanted to be at home, and why shouldn’t she be? The whole town loved her, wanted to help look after her, be with her…’

  ‘But there wasn’t anyone?’ Abby ventured.

  ‘Oh, no, we had the clinic. It was tiny then, one doctor and one nurse, Clara. You’ll meet her tomorrow, she’s great. She made all the difference in the world. Sure, Mum had more friends and neighbours than you could count, all willing to help, but it was Clara who came at two in the morning to up her morphine infusion, Clara who turned her, worked out the meds with the doctor, Clara who made all the difference. I went out on a couple of her clinics, saw the work she was doing and I knew then I’d found what I wanted to do with my life.’

  ‘Did you think of studying medicine?’ Even as she asked her question Abby winced, wishing she could take it back.

  ‘No,’ Kell said, grinning widely at her embarrassment. ‘Because, believe it or not, I’m not a frustrated doctor. I harbour no secret desires to step into your shoes.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Abby said again. ‘That came out wrong. It’s just that, as you pointed out, the outback’s desperate for doctors…’

  ‘It’s desperate for nurses, too, and as much as I love this place, ultimately it’s my life. I’m not going to be a martyr and do something I don’t want to.’ Leaning forward further, he beckoned Abby closer. ‘Just to clear things up once and for all, I got the grades to do medicine and I chose not to. You’re looking at one happy nurse.’

  ‘Glad to hear it.’ Her eyes, which had for so long been avoiding his, eventually gave in and met his, and finally she held his gaze, the depth of his stare mirroring the depth of his personality. The multi-layered package she was gleefully peeling back, like a child’s game of pass the parcel, frantically ripping off the paper, each layer producing its own small gift, a tiny reward for her efforts.

  ‘Another drink, guys?’ Mal, the bartender, broke the moment, flicking a cloth across the table, picking up their glasses.

  ‘Not for me, thanks.’ Abby stood up quickly, glad of the intrusion, the chance to catch her breath, to break the heaviness of the aura that surrounded them.

  ‘Nor me.’ Kell drained his glass in one gulp. ‘I’m on an early shift in the morning.’

  Strange the lift that snippet of information gave her.

  In contrast to their entrance, their departure went almost unnoticed. A few goodnights, a few cheery waves and they were back to the cricket, leaving Kell and Abby suddenly shy in the warm night air, the ten-minute walk back uncomfortable, and it was a notable relief to finally be at her door.

  ‘Thanks for everything today.’ Abby hated the formality of her words, the stilted sound of her voice, but it was the bes
t she could do.

  ‘Hopefully you’ll have a gentler start tomorrow.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  There was no dead lock to fumble with, no security doors or bolts to pull back, just one push and the door slid open, just one step away from ending the evening. She fumbled for a second in the darkness, trying to locate the light switch.

  ‘Here.’ The light that flooded the hallway was a pale comparison to his touch, their fingers meeting on the switch, the embarrassed pull back as a touch that shouldn’t matter suddenly did, and the tension that had surrounded them, the distant throb of desire shot into gear, lurching forward a notch as the silence grew louder, the mental music stopping, and Abby knew that the parcel was in her hands now.

  The game had ended and peeling back the final layer would reveal the biggest prize of all.

  ‘I’ve got champagne in the fridge.’ Her eyes never left his, testing his reaction, unable to believe her own abandonment.

  ‘I thought you’d never ask.’

  The pop of the cork was so loud Abby was sure the whole town must surely have heard it. Giggling in a way she hadn’t for so long, she located two mugs, catching the cascade of frothy white bubbles spilling out of the bottle, running rivers along Kell’s strong hands.

  Passing him a mug, they raised their hands, the pretty china clinking as the mugs met in a toast. ‘To…’ Abby gave a small laugh ‘…whatever her name may be, welcome to the world, little lady.’

  ‘And to Dr Abby…’

  ‘Hampton,’ Abby filled in.

  ‘To Dr Abby Hampton. That’s a nice name actually,’ Kell said, as if it really somehow mattered. ‘Welcome to Tennengarrah.’

  Catching his eyes, a sudden sense of panic engulfed her, an urge to throw back the parcel, to stop this game before it got way, way out of hand, but it was too late for that now. Everything about him was so damned sexy, so mentally, emotionally stimulating, reason barely got a look-in. All Abby knew at this moment was that she wanted him, wanted Kell more than she had ever wanted a man in her life.