The Bush Doctor's Challenge. Carol Marinelli

open the door, Kell carried on walking as Abby poked her head in briefly. ‘Laundry.’ Opening a cupboard, he gave a wicked smile. ‘Washing powder. And if I’m not mistaken, there’s even an iron. All mod cons here.’

      ‘Very funny,’ Abby retorted, following a very broad back along a very narrow corridor.

      ‘Bedroom.’

      Suddenly, Kell’s voice sounded thick as if he had a cold or had suddenly developed hay fever, but with a notable absence of flowers and not a sneeze in sight Abby could only assume that the sight of the vast queen-size bed was having a similar effect on Kell as it was on her.

      A flimsy mosquito net dusted over the bed, the whirring fan billowing the voile gently against the crisp white sheets, emitting a low throbbing hum in the semi-darkened room, and for an inexplicable moment, never had a bed looked more tempting.

      ‘I think we’ve earned a drink,’ Kell said gruffly. ‘And if I know Shelly, there’ll be a few in the fridge.’

      Eternally grateful he wasn’t suggesting the pub, Abby’s answer was for once positive. ‘Help yourself. I’m going to make my acquaintance with the shower.’

      ‘Better?’

      Rubbing her hair with a large towel, Abby stepped into what was supposed to be her lounge and amazingly didn’t feel like a total stranger. She hadn’t known what to wear, but a pair of too new jeans seemed about right and a black sleeveless T-shirt was surely casual enough.

      ‘Much.’

      ‘I made some supper.’ The table had been haphazardly laid, and a slab of cheese surrounded by crackers beckoned her. ‘But we could head down to the pub now if you’re starving, or there are a couple of steaks in the fridge.’

      ‘This will be fine.’

      Better than fine actually. Loading her knife with soft Camembert, Abby scraped it along a cracker before biting in. Never had cheese and crackers tasted so good, and as Kell poured iced water into two glasses Abby rallied at the prospect of more time with him.

      ‘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