Her Brooding Italian Surgeon. Fiona Lowe

      ‘Ah.’ Justin nodded but his expression remained disappointed. ‘Pity. Bandarra could do with a visiting surgeon. The SMO’s caught up in ED. This way.’ He inclined his head and started walking down the corridor.

      Leo fell into step with Justin and followed him through double perspex doors into a compact emergency department. Screens were drawn around cubicles and a pretty nurse walked towards them.

      ‘Where’s the boss, Lisa?’ Justin asked.

      ‘Not far away.’

      ‘Leo, you stay here and I’ll bring the boss to you. Back in a mo.’

      Justin disappeared, leaving Leo with the nurse, who gave him a none too subtle look of curiosity which finished with smouldering interest. ‘Hello. New to Bandarra?’

      ‘I grew up here.’The words came out stark and brusque and he immediately forced himself to return her friendly look with a flash of his trademark smile. A smile he used many times a day without even thinking because it was never wise to burn bridges. His smile had gained him all sorts of things and had got him out of a few nasty situations. Except for yesterday.

      Yesterday had been an aberration. His cool had slipped slightly with Abbie McFarlane and he’d chalked it up to his shock about Nonna and being back in a town he tried very hard to avoid. But everyone made mistakes and thankfully no real harm had been done.

      ‘Were you a blockie?’ Lisa used the local term to describe people who grew fruit on land with irrigation rights.

      ‘My grandfather was.’

      ‘Oh, are you related to the Italians out by Wadjera billabong?’

      The name plunged into Leo like a knife to the heart and he stiffened. Thankfully, Justin’s return ended the conversation.

      ‘Leo, I’d like to introduce you to our SMO.’

      Leo turned with a welcoming smile on his face. A pair of questioning moss-green eyes hit him with a clear and uncompromising gaze. Eyes that slanted seductively at the corners. A burst of unexpected heat fired low in his belly, disconcerting him for a second before reality crashed in, wiping out all other feeling. Our SMO. Damn it, how could she possibly be the senior doctor?

      You’ve forgotten Bandarra isn’t Melbourne. His father’s voice rang loud in his head and the full ramifications of what he’d done last night hit him like a king punch. He’d let the Bandarra demons get to him and had made an ill-judged call.

      He pulled himself together and, with aching cheeks, smiled. ‘Abbie.’

      Her mouth flattened. ‘Leo.’

      A startled expression crossed Justin’s face. ‘So you two have met before?’

      ‘We met last night.’ Abbie tugged at the edges of a clean starched white coat which covered a plain round-neck T-shirt and a straight no-frills navy skirt. The hiking boots had been replaced by flat utilitarian sandals of nondescript brown.

      Not a trace of make-up touched her face but, despite that, her lips had a luminous sheen that pulled Leo’s gaze and held it fast. What the hell was wrong with him? But he didn’t have time to second-guess his reaction—the moment had come for damage control. He forced a self-deprecating quirk to his lips and gave a European shrug of his shoulders. ‘I didn’t realise Abbie was the SMO. A major error on my part.’

      Justin laughed, giving his boss a cheeky grin. ‘Poor Abs, if you were a bloke you could grow a beard to look older.’ He winked at Leo. ‘She might forgive you in time.’

      Going by the implacable set of her face and the tight pull of skin over her cheekbones, Leo wasn’t so sure. Still, that didn’t matter because he’d pull in a favour and ask the doctor from Naroopna to take over. ‘May we speak in private?’

      She matched his shrug and rolled her hands palm up. ‘Is there anything left to say? You made your position quite clear last night.’ Turning on her heel, she headed towards the perspex doors and thumped them open.

      Ignoring the intrigued looks of the other staff, he walked with her. ‘I do have something to say.’

      ‘You surprise me.’ Her sarcasm radiated from her like heat haze. She unexpectedly turned left into an empty ward and then spun back, crossing her arms hard against her chest, pushing her breasts upward. ‘Look, Leo, I don’t have time for this; I have patients waiting. Are you flying in a private doctor or transferring Maria to Mildura or Melbourne?’

      He found it hard to resist sneaking a look at her surprising cleavage. ‘Neither one of those options is my choice.’ No matter how persuasive he knew he could be, there was no way he’d be able to convince Nonna to leave Bandarra. She’d lived here since arriving as a bride from Italy back in the fifties. Perhaps there’d been times in the past when she might have toyed with the idea of leaving but, since the accident, she’d refused even visits to Melbourne. She wouldn’t leave Dominico. Leo alone had been the one to run.

      He rubbed his chin and hauled his thoughts back to the here and now. ‘You can hand over her care to David Martin.’

      A deep V formed at the bridge of her nose. ‘So you’re transferring her to Adelaide?’

      What? ‘No, she’s staying here.’ He tilted his head slightly and met her gaze. ‘Abbie.’ He paused for the briefest moment, the beat lending credence to his upcoming words. ‘Thank you for your care. This isn’t personal; it’s just that David’s experience is what Nonna needs.’

      For the first time since he’d met her, a smile pulled her generous mouth upwards. It danced along her cheeks and into her eyes, making them sparkle like the rainforest after rain. And then she laughed. A laugh tinged with incredulity and yet grounded with a known truth, as if she’d heard a similar story before. As if she saw straight through him.

      A flicker of unease stirred his normally unshakeable confidence.

      ‘It’s been a while since you last visited Bandarra, hasn’t it?’

      And, just like that, he felt the power shift. ‘What makes you say that?’

      ‘David Martin moved to Adelaide ten months ago and the practice at Naroopna is vacant. As is the one at Budjerree. Right now, Bandarra is the only township within two hundred kilometres with medical staff. Come Wednesday, when Justin leaves, it’s just me and the nursing staff.’

      His breakfast turned to stone in his gut. All he’d wanted was the best for Nonna. Instead, he’d let fatigue and fear of the past interfere with his usual clear-thinking and now he’d backed himself into a corner.

      The urgent bleep of her pager suddenly blared between them and she checked the liquid display. Without a word, she sprinted past him and out of the room, leaving behind only a lingering and delectable scent of strawberries and liquorice.

      He hated that he instinctively took in a deeper breath.

      

      Abbie raced into a chaotic ED, shedding all of her disconcerting and unsuitable thoughts about the infuriating and ridiculously gorgeous Leo Costa. There should be a law against men being that handsome, and a statute that stopped her even noticing. The piercing siren of an ambulance screamed in the distance, instantly focusing her with its howling volume that increased with every moment. An intense sound that never brought good news.

      People were everywhere. Two teenagers sat pale and silent holding each other’s hands, an elderly man supported a woman to a chair and a young woman clutching a baby called out, ‘Help me,’ and still people poured through the doors, many bloodied and hurt.

      Lisa and Jason were murmuring platitudes mixed in with firm instructions as they tried to examine a hysterical woman with blood streaming down her face. Her shrieks of anguish bounced off the walls, telling a story of terror and pain.

      The area looked like a war zone. ‘What’s happened and why haven’t emergency services notified us?’