I have an internist friend who’s looking for work,’ Max said. ‘John’s a forty-year-old doctor from Zimbabwe. His wife, Margaret, is a dentist. John’s a highly trained doctor and he’s just finished his supervised assessment for accreditation in Australia. He had a job lined up in northern Victoria but it fell through last week. I rang him this morning and sounded him out about taking on the position of locum here for a while.’
‘You rang him?’
‘Just to check he’s still available,’ he said, still sounding clinically detached. As if he was handing out a prescription. ‘But to say he’s eager is an understatement. He has two young daughters who think the beach sounds great, and he’s free right now. If they can stay here while they size the place up, they can be here tomorrow. John can act as locum and if you’re interested in a long-term arrangement-even a partnership-that might work, too.’
‘Tomorrow,’ she said, and flabbergasted wasn’t too strong a word for it.
‘I have a surgical list first thing tomorrow morning so I need to leave tonight,’ he said apologetically. ‘But I rang the first-aid people at the festival. Until John arrives they’re happy for you to divert your phone through to them. They’ll cope with minor stuff and call for help on the big stuff. So today and tonight are covered. And then…John’s great. I’m sure he and his family will be sensitive to Angus and to your independence. Maggie, it’d mean someone would be here when you went into labour.’
And the professional detachment was gone. He was suddenly sounding hesitant-coaxing-as if he was trying to persuade her to do something against her will.
Against her will? Was he out of his mind?
She’d advertised for a locum but there’d been no applicants, yet here was Max, pulling doctors out of hats. To have another doctor here…
‘You’re kidding me, right?’
‘I’m not kidding,’ he said, seriously. ‘And I’ve done nothing you can’t undo.’
‘Why would I want to undo it?’ she demanded, feeling breathless. ‘I mean, I haven’t met John but if you say he’s good…’
‘He’s good.’
‘They
‘You need someone to be here when you go into labour.’
‘Whoa. You sound like my mother.’ Then she heard what she’d said and corrected herself in her head.
Or not. There was nothing maternal about Max Ashton.
There was nothing maternal about the way she was feeling about Max Ashton. Or the way the concern in his eyes made her feel.
‘I’m very maternal,’ he said, and grinned, and, wham, there it was again, that smile.
She couldn’t afford to get sucked into that smile.
What was she thinking? Betty was dead, she reminded herself frantically. That ought to be enough to deflect her. She should be grief stricken. But after last night…
No. Grief had very little place here. She and Betty had grieved together during the final stages of the illness. Now there was an aching sense of loss, but with it a huge relief that Betty had gone as she’d wanted, in her own bed, with her son by her side, knowing all was safe with her world.
And that was because of this one overbearing, domineering doctor with a heart-stopping smile. Whose plans she had to focus on because she was feeling as if she was about to be swept up in a tidal wave. Any minute now he’d offer to paint her baby-crib pink.
Or not. She looked again at his face and saw strain behind his smile, and thought this was hard for him- planning for her when he wanted nothing to do with pregnancy.
‘You don’t need to worry about me in labour,’ she said, fighting to get her face in order. ‘I’m having my baby in Sydney.’
‘You are?’
‘That was about my only sensible stipulation before I came here,’ she said. ‘I’ve organised an apartment in Sydney before and after the birth. I told Betty I was doing that before I even came to the farm.’ She gave him a shame-faced smile, thinking she sounded a wimp. ‘I thought there’d be a family doctor here, but I wanted back-up. And, yes, I realised going to Sydney will leave Yandilagong without a doctor, but there’s nothing I can do about that. I can’t be on call when I’m in labour.’
‘You don’t think?’ he demanded, and suddenly the tension was easing. ‘What’s wrong with you? What a wuss.’
‘I am,’ she said, and discovered she was smiling back at him. And more-the lump of grief around her heart since she’d learned that Betty was dead was lifting away.
Was she fickle as well as cowardly?
‘Hey,’ he said softly, and he cupped her chin with his middle and index fingers, lifting her face so her eyes met his. ‘It’s not wrong to smile now,’ he said softly. ‘Betty knew it was her time. She planned everything and it happened exactly as she wanted.’ He smiled gently into her eyes, forcing her to smile in return. ‘Yes, she might be somewhere now where she has inside knowledge that her carefully orchestrated grandson is, in fact, a girl, but she can hardly come back and demand a rerun. So let’s send her up a little message that girls can run farms, too, accept that she died happy and move on.’
‘I will,’ she said, and suddenly, inexplicably, she sniffed. It was the way he was looking at her. Like he cared…
What was it about this man? He was turning her into a sodden heap.
‘Good girl,’ he said softly. ‘Will you accept John and his family to help you?’
‘I…Yes.’ What else was a girl to say?
‘Great. Are you sure you don’t want help with that shower?’
‘No, thank you,’ she told him, but it was a lie. She’d have loved help with her shower. Only she was a big girl and big girls didn’t lean on big boys. Doctors didn’t lean on their colleagues.
Maggie didn’t lean on Max?
Without Max it would have been a ghastly morning. As it was…showered and fresh, she said her goodbyes to Betty while Max hovered in the background, filling in technicalities, smoothing the way for Betty’s departure.
It was he who contacted the priest from Betty’s church, and who let him in as Maggie finished a needfully long shower. It was Max who hiked his brows as Maggie produced a list of instructions as long as her arm to give to the priest. It seemed Betty had planned her funeral right down to the Wellingtons and moleskins she wanted to be buried in, but it was Max who went through the list with the priest, ensuring Betty could have exactly what she wanted.
It was Max who stood beside her as she rang William’s parents-as she heard their irritation that Betty’s death had come at such an inconvenient time and really they couldn’t come right now.
‘Told you so,’ she mouthed at Max as they talked, and he smiled and gave her a thumps-up, you-were-right sign, and what would have been an appalling call was made lighter.
Then he made calls to more distant relatives for her-yes, sadly Betty was dead, no, sorry, Maggie couldn’t come to the phone right now, she was understandably upset, the funeral arrangements would be in the local paper tomorrow if they wanted to come. While Maggie nursed her third mug of tea for the morning and watched and thought this was hero material and all Max needed was a Superman outfit and he’d be right up there, leaping tall buildings, with her tucked neatly under his arm.
No one could deny Superman.
So calls made, he accepted no more arguments, but put her in the car and headed for Yandilagong. It took half an hour to navigate the main street as the festival was still going full swing but finally they reached the clinic. This had been set up by the old doctor, and Maggie now used it as her surgery. She went to clamber out of the car with her crutches but there were crowds of people on the pavement and someone jostled her, and Max swore and was at her side in an instant, picking her up yet again and carrying her through, regardless of her protests. Superman still.
But then he paused.
‘Max!’ It was a shout from across the street. Max turned with his burden still in his arms.
A woman was running lightly across the road. Beautiful. Sleek, cream jacket, casual jeans, lovely silver ballet
