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  ‘Now, on to last night.’

  Mortified, Abby resumed her scrutiny of her nail but Kell was having none of it, capturing her chin with one very large but very gentle hand and turning her to face him. ‘Hazarding a guess, I’d say last night was completely out of character. I’d be so bold as to suggest that jumping into bed with a male midwife was pretty uncharted territory for you.’

  His hint of humour made the whole scorching conversation almost palatable.

  ‘Jumping into bed with anyone is pretty much uncharted territory,’ Abby admitted, scarcely able to believe she was prolonging the agony.

  ‘Flowers, meals, chocolates…’ Kell suggested as Abby nodded. ‘Movies…’

  ‘I hate going to the movies,’ Abby said.

  ‘Of course you do.’ Kell grinned. ‘The theatre, then?’

  Again she nodded. ‘But I’ll settle for a video.’

  ‘And a few kisses, working up to the main event, which would take place somewhere a few months down the track?’

  ‘That just about sums it up,’ Abby admitted, flicking her worried brown eyes to his. ‘Look, what happened last night simply mustn’t happen again.’

  ‘Which relegates it to the one-night stand thing you so obviously abhor,’ Kell said with annoying logic.

  ‘P-perhaps, but I’m just not in the m-market for a relationship,’ Abby stammered. ‘There’s just too much going on in my life right now to deal with one, that’s why last night should never have happened.’

  ‘Don’t say that,’ he insisted. ‘OK, it was probably too soon, and no doubt if we had our time over we’d have taken things a tad more slowly…’ His brow furrowed and he shot her a look that made Abby start as he shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Abby, I’ve gone over and over it and even with the benefit of hindsight I still wouldn’t change a thing. Last night was amazing and wondrous and special so, please, please, don’t regret it.’

  His words stunned her.

  Stunned her.

  To hear this six-foot-something would-be cowboy speaking so romantically, for him to somehow have turned her scorching embarrassment around and made everything, if not all right, at least bearable, had Abby dumbstruck.

  ‘I don’t regret it.’ He watched her blink in surprise at her own admission. ‘I know I should, and I guess in some ways I do, but…’

  ‘We were good, weren’t we?’

  That sexy grin was doing terrible things to Abby now; the butterflies were dancing again, but more in sexual excitement than nervousness.

  ‘Let’s start again, huh? Only this time I’m not going to lay a finger on you. Sex is completely off the agenda until we’re way past the courting stage. I’ll see what I can do on the flowers and chocolate front but the theatre might be a bit of an ask. Still, if there’s any local plays on in town I’ll be sure to book two of the best seats.’

  ‘You don’t have to date me,’ Abby said. ‘Like I said, a relationship…’

  He put his hand up to halt her. ‘I’m not going to date you Abby,’ Kell corrected her. ‘I’m going to woo you, and I’m going to it so damned well that by the time I’m finished with you, a relationship will be exactly what you want!’

  She was grateful when Kell ended the conversation and as he flicked the engine back to full life and pulled off the handbrake, Abby realised with a flood of relief that the shame of last night, the utter mortification, had thankfully all been left somewhere on the dusty outskirts of Tennengarrah.

  OK, Abby reasoned, last night hadn’t been the most sensible thing she had done in her life, but it certainly hadn’t been the worst.

  In fact, in the scheme of things, Abby mused as the Jeep jolted along the endless red earth, finally accepting the massive Akubra hat Kell offered when the sun was too hot on her dark hair, when she was old and grey and pulling memoires out of a crocheted hat, last night would be right up there, along with her getting her medical degree, her first delivery, her first kiss even.

  Stealing a surreptitious look at Kell from under the rim of her hat, a tiny sigh escaped from her lips.

  Who was she kidding?

  Last night took centre stage.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  HAD Abby been in any hospital in Australia, in the world come to that, keeping her mind on the job after such a romantic declaration would have been an impossible feat.

  But they weren’t in a hospital.

  Far from it.

  In fact, even Abby’s earlier vision of a clinic seemed high-tech as Kell swung down from the Jeep and opened the back door.

  ‘We’re a bit early, but we’d best get things ready.’

  ‘Where’s the clinic?’ Abby asked, looking hopefully at the relatively few buildings dotted around the dusty settlement.

  ‘You’re sitting in it,’ Kell replied cheerfully, opening boxes as Abby tentatively climbed down.

  ‘We work from the back of a Jeep?’

  The note of horror in her voice stopped Kell from whatever it was he was doing and he gave her an almost apologetic smile. ‘Once every three months the flying doctors come and we get the luxury of working inside their plane, but that happened a couple of weeks ago, so you’ll have to wait a while.’

  ‘Considering my contract’s only for twelve weeks, I might not even get to meet them,’ Abby said, running her eyes along the boxes Kell was opening.

  ‘You’re kidding, aren’t you? By the time your stint here is up, you’ll be on first-name terms with all of them. We do clinics in various parts most days of the week. There might even be someone here that we need to evacuate today. It doesn’t always have to be a high-drama situation to call them out. Nine times out of ten it’s an infected wound or unstable asthma, or a complicated pregnancy.’

  ‘What about deliveries?’ Abby asked, the drama of yesterday still fresh in her mind. ‘Do women in labour come to the clinic?’

  ‘Sort of. I run what could be loosely called an antenatal clinic, and if we anticipate anything other than a straighforward delivery, we’ll generally arrange the transfer of the woman to a higher level centre prior to her confinement date. The rest we try to persuade to deliver at the clinic, which can be hard because pregnancy’s not really acknowledged in this culture.’ Kell grinned at Abby’s open-mouthed expression as he carried on explaining. ‘But that’s becoming less so now. On the whole, the younger people are a lot more open and used to us. You just have to be very wary. What would seem like an obvious remark to make can cause a lot of offence.’

  ‘Such as?’ Abby asked. ‘I mean, what would you term as an “obvious remark”?’

  ‘When are you due?’ Kell responded with a shrug as Abby’s mouth dropped another couple of inches. ‘Just tread very gently. You’ll soon know if you’ve caused offence because they’ll either go all quiet or laugh in embarrassment.’

  ‘So how on earth do you run an antenatal clinic if you can’t even acknowledge the fact a woman’s pregnant?’

  ‘I’ve confused you, haven’t I?’ Kell gave her an apologetic smile. ‘Just watch for a while, Abby, you’ll soon get the hang of things. As to your question about deliveries, no doubt one afternoon you’ll be on your own at the clinic working away and someone will come in in early labour. Now the “normal” thing to do would be to send them away, tell them to come back when they’re more advanced, but not so with the local indigenous people. They generally move away from camp when they’re labouring and until relatively recently a bush midwife would deal with them.’

  ‘A bush midwife?’

  ‘Unqualified to you, but, believe me, those women have got a lot of experience. Anyway, now we’re getting a lot of women come to the clinic, which is great, but again tread warily. If a woman appears in early labour, don’t send her home with a cheerful smile and tell her she’s got hours to go yet, because if you do you probably won’t see her again. Just make her comfortable and probably for the first few times give one of the regulars a buzz.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll do that all right!’ Abby muttered
, shaking her head and feeling more than a touch overwhelmed.

  ‘You’ll soon get the hang of it,’ Kell said, with far more confidence than Abby felt. ‘And here’s our very first patient. This will give you a clearer idea, Abby.’

  A very thin woman was walking towards them, dressed in a vibrant hot pink dress, carrying a small bundle in her arms.

  ‘Vella,’ Kell called as she came closer, his face beaming as he looked at the tiny infant she was carrying. Vella’s wary brown eyes looked over at Abby who Kell quickly introduced.

  ‘This is Abby, she’s a doctor from Sydney,’ he explained, as Vella laid the baby down on the rug in the back of the Jeep.

  ‘When did this happen?’ Kell beamed as he gently unwrapped the infant.

  ‘She came too quickly for me to get to you,’ Vella said, not answering the question and watching Kell like a hawk as he looked the little girl over.

  ‘She’s your fourth, isn’t she?’ Kell asked. ‘Did everything go all right?’

  Vella gave a small, embarrassed nod.

  ‘And are you feeling OK?’

  Again a small nod. ‘Just check the baby.’

  This was a very new baby, Abby soon realised. The cord was dry but still in place, and she watched quietly as Kell weighed the infant in the old-fashioned hand sling, practically singing encouragement as he swiftly performed a detailed examination of the tiny girl. Checking her spine, her hips for any signs of congenital dislocation, holding her up and then letting her fall into his hand, checking for the startle reflex.

  ‘Wonderful,’ Kell said as he measured the infant’s head, his fingers probing her fontanelle. Then, like a magician, he pulled out a lolly stick to check inside the tiny mouth.

  ‘She’s perfect,’ he said, handing the little girl back before broaching the subject of immunisation, to which Vella seemed hesitant. But Kell for the first time pushed a touch.

  ‘Keep Mulla away,’ he said. ‘In four weeks’ time we can give her the first needle, and bring the other children—they should have them, too.’

  Vella didn’t look too convinced, but at least she wasn’t shaking her head now as Kell got out a yellow folder and started to fill it in. Its familiarity touched Abby. The same yellow folder which was given to newborns born in high-tech delivery rooms was used here as well, and she watched as Kell diligently wrote up his findings before handing it to Vella, who with a shy smile stood up then wandered off back into the bush.

  ‘As casual as that visit looked,’ Kell said thoughtfully, ‘it’s been decades in the making.’

  He looked at Abby’s non-comprehending expression and gave a small smile. ‘A case of east meets west, or west meets south.’ Still Abby stared at him quizzically. ‘The Aboriginal community has its own way of doing things. They have their own system, their own schooling, law enforcement and their own medical beliefs. It’s taken a lot of time and patience from both parties for them to accept our ways, or at least some of them.’

  He took a swig of water from a bottle then offered it to Abby who without a second’s hesitation took it gratefully.

  ‘We can be a bit pompous.’

  ‘So you’ve told me.’

  ‘I meant the medical profession in general. Sometimes we seem to forget that penicillin’s only been around for a relatively short time yet these people have been living, surviving, thriving in the most hostile of conditions since the beginning of time. The Aboriginal people are arguably the oldest surviving race and it hasn’t been by chance. As bizarre as it may seem, their ways really do work.’

  Abby looked at him thoughtfully. ‘Not that well, Kell,’ she pointed out. ‘The infant mortality rate is appalling. Take what happened with Shelly yesterday—stuck out here, it wouldn’t have taken much for it to have been an entirely different scenario.’ She wasn’t arguing, just pointing out facts, and it felt good.

  So surprisingly good to be sitting with their legs dangling out of the back of a dusty Jeep in the seriously middle of nowhere, sharing a bottle of iced water.

  ‘Which is why it’s so good that the two cultures are meeting. Sometimes it’s hard to hold your tongue, to not insist that things are done your way. You’ll see for yourself what I mean soon enough, but for every time you do, you’ll be rewarded tenfold. The fact Vella bought her baby to us, that she’s probably going to let her have her immunisations and be monitored, is a huge step forward. OK, I didn’t get to do a postnatal check on Vella but she’s starting to trust me.’

  ‘She is,’ Abby agreed thoughtfully. ‘Actually, I can remember reading something about—’ She didn’t get to finish her sentence as Kell dismissed her words with a swish of his hands.

  ‘Don’t do that!’ he warned with a grin. ‘It’s OK with me and Ross, but nothing puts the locals more offside than quoting books at them. And I can see their point. Centuries of culture can’t really be summed up in a couple of books, so if you’re not sure about something, just ask them. They’re only too happy to share if you go about it the right way.’

  ‘Is that a gentle warning?’ Abby asked, but Kell didn’t answer. ‘Are you worried that my acid tongue might wither years of diplomatic relations?’

  A smile twitched on the edge of his lips and Abby held her hand out for the drink bottle. ‘Well, don’t be,’ she whispered needlessly, standing up as a few people approached the Jeep, looking at her with wary brown eyes, nudging and giggling each other as Abby forced a nervous smile. ‘I’m only mean to my colleagues.

  ‘And, by the way what’s Mulla?’

  ‘Evil spirit,’ Kell whispered. ‘And your best line of defence. Believe me, after three months in this place you’ll be glad of that word!’

  She should have felt supernumerary, should have felt supremely nervous, watching an efficient Kell effortlessly chat with all the patients, giving needles, pulling off dressings, checking ears and eyes and handing out little tubes and bottles.

  But she didn’t.

  Instead, after a couple of nervous starts Abby found herself joining in. Filling the little yellow child care books in, with her gold-gel penned scrawl, weighing cute babies with the hand sling, checking breasts, prescribing antibiotics, even laughing along with the locals at her appalling attempts at their language.

  The sun was hot on her arms and on the back of her legs, her olive skin no match for the scorching heat of the early afternoon sun, and when Kell filled her hat with water then plonked it back on her head, instead of screeching in horror she sighed with relief as the icy rivers of water ran down her neck and back and for five minutes or so Abby remembered what it was like to be cool as she carried on with the work.

  ‘Can I borrow you, Abby?’

  Patting a little girl on the head, Abby smiled at her mother and made her way back to the Jeep, where Kell was staring at a nasty-looking wound on a young man’s leg.

  ‘This is Mike, the local mujee, or medicine man. He’s brought Jim to see us—reluctantly,’ Kell added under his breath. ‘Jim didn’t want to come. What do you make of this?’

  Nodding to Jim, Abby took a closer look at the leg. It was red and swollen and angry-looking, the area around the infection blistering with the tell-tale appearance of cellulitis. ‘Is it a bite?’

  Kell shook his head. ‘He thinks he knocked it on a tree, but never really gave it a thought till it swelled up.’

  Abby’s mind flicked to the city, to the plan of action she would take there. Order an X-ray, perhaps a small probe in the emergency theatre and some wound swabs, then up to the ward for elevation and IV antibiotics. Kell was obviously thinking along the same lines.

  ‘We could evacuate him.’

  ‘No.’ The young man pulled his leg back and with elaborate gestures and a lot of broken English got the message across that his wife was due to have a baby any day now and there was no way he was going in the big plane in the sky.

  ‘You could both go,’ Kell suggested gently. ‘Lara could have the baby in hospital.’

  ‘No.’ Clearly agitate
d now, he made to go, but Abby put a firm hand on Jim’s shoulder.

  ‘Steady, Jim,’ Abby said firmly but gently. ‘No one’s going to make you go anywhere, but I really do need to take a proper look at it.’

  Reluctantly he put his leg back down and Abby rummaged through the large metal boxes Kell had dragged onto the floor. ‘I thought I saw some magnifying glasses.’

  ‘Here,’ Kell pulled them out. ‘Do you want an incision pack?’

  Abby gave a small nod. It was a tiny procedure, one she did practically every day, but back in Sydney she was in a sterile theatre, and the back of a Jeep didn’t even compare, but the thought of Jim heading back into the bush with that nasty infection didn’t exactly leave her with a choice.

  For a makeshift theatre the Jeep actually sufficed quite well. Hand-washing from a water flask didn’t exactly seem sufficient, but with a good rub with alcohol and sterile gloves with about ten times the amount of Betadine she normally would use, Abby felt confident the wound was prepped enough to explore. Gently she administered some local anaesthetic, and even a very stoic Jim let out a murmur of pain despite Abby’s best attempts.

  ‘Mulla,’ he moaned, holding his thigh and glancing down every now and then.

  ‘No Mulla,’ Abby said cheerfully, as the three men present turned to her with slightly startled expressions. ‘I think the problem’s a bit more simple than that!’ Abby’s smile was one of satisfaction as her scalpel hit a hard object. The fact there was something embedded in the wound made the prospect of a satisfactory resolution all the more tangible. ‘There it is!’ she added triumphantly, working a small dark dot out with her forceps until a large jagged-looking thorn was being held up for all to see.

  ‘Steady, mate,’ Kell said as a not so stoic Jim lay back on the floor of the Jeep, beads of sweat on his brow. ‘The worst is over now.’

  ‘Not quite.’ Abby winced on Jim’s behalf. ‘I just want to get some of the pu—’

  ‘We get the idea,’ Kell interrupted with a wink as Abby took the hint and worked on quietly, taking a swab and then irrigating the wound for ages till she was quite sure the job she had done was anything other than makeshift. Quietly pleased with her work, Abby was just about to put a large sterile dressing in place when Mike tapped her on the shoulder.