Top-Notch Doc, Outback Bride

Kellie frowned at him. ‘The wrong reasons? What on earth do you mean? I’m a GP with all the right qualifications and I’ve worked in a busy practice in Newcastle for four years.’

He was still looking at the road ahead but she noticed his knuckles were now almost white where he was gripping the steering-wheel. ‘This is a rough-and-tough area,’ he said. ‘You’re probably used to the sort of facilities that are just not available out here. Sometimes we lose patients not because of their injuries or illnesses but because we can’t get them to help in time. We do what we can with what we’ve got, but it can do in even the most level-headed person at times.’

Kellie totally understood where he was coming from. She had met plenty of paramedics and trauma surgeons during her various terms to know that working at the coal face of tragedy was no picnic. But she had toughened up over the years of her training and with the help of her friends and family had come to a point in her life where she felt compelled to do her bit in spite of the sleepless nights that resulted. She had wanted to be a doctor all her life. She loved taking care of people and what better way to do that than out in the bush where patients were not just patients but friends as well?

‘Contrary to what you think, I believe I’ll manage just fine,’ she said. ‘But if you think it’s so rough and tough out here, why have you stayed here so long?’

‘I would hardly describe six years as a long time,’ he said, without glancing her way.

‘Are you planning to stay here indefinitely?’ she asked.

‘It depends.’

‘On what?’

He threw her an irritated look. ‘Has anyone ever told you you ask too many questions?’

Kellie bristled with anger. ‘Well, sor-ry for trying to be friendly. Sheesh! You take the quiet, silent type to a whole new level.’

He let out a sigh and sent her a quick, unreadable glance. ‘Look, it’s been a long, tiring weekend. All I can think about right now is getting home and going to bed.’

‘Do you live alone?’ she asked.

His eyes flickered upwards, his hands still tight on the steering-wheel. ‘Yes.’

Kellie looked out at the dusty, arid landscape; even the red river gums lining the road looked gnarled with thirst. ‘I guess this isn’t such a great place to meet potential partners,’ she mused. Swivelling her head to look at him again, she added, ‘I read this article in a women’s magazine about men in the bush and how hard it is for them to find a wife. It’s not like in the city where there are clubs and pubs and gyms and so on. Out here it’s just miles and miles of bush between neighbours and towns.’

‘I’m not interested in finding a wife,’ he said with an implacable edge to his tone.

‘It seems a pretty bleak existence,’ she remarked as the tiny township came into view. ‘Don’t you want more for your life?’

His dark blue eyes collided with hers. ‘If you don’t like it here, there’s another plane out at five p.m. on Saturday.’

She sent him a determined look. ‘I am here for six months, Dr McNaught, so you’d better get used to it. I’m not a quitter and even though you are the most unfriendly colleague I’ve ever met, I’m not going to be run out of town just because you have a chip on your shoulder about women.’

His brows snapped together irritably. ‘I do not have a chip on my shoulder about women.’

Kellie tossed her head and looked out at the small strip of shops that lined both sides of the impossibly wide street. It was certainly nothing like she was used to, even though Newcastle was nowhere near the size of Sydney or Melbourne, or even for that matter Brisbane.

Culwulla Creek had little more than a general store, which was now closed, a small hardware centre, a hamburger café, a service station, a tiny school and a rundown-looking pub that was currently booming with business.

‘The clinic is just over there in that small cottage,’ Matt said, pointing to the left-hand side of the road just before the pub. ‘I’ll get Trish to show you around in the next day or so once you’ve settled in at the Montgomerys’ house.’

As they drove past the pub, people were spilling out on the street, stubbies of beer in hand, squinting against the late afternoon sunlight.

‘G’day, Dr McNaught,’ one man wearing an acubra hat and a cast on his right arm called out. ‘How was your weekend in the big smoke?’

‘Shut up, Bluey,’ another man said, elbowing his mate in the ribs.

Matt slowed the car down and leaned forward slightly to look past Kellie in the passenger seat. ‘It was fine. How’s your arm?’

The man with the hat lifted his can of beer with his other arm and grinned. ‘I can still hold my beer so I must be all right.’

Kellie witnessed the first genuine smile crack Matt’s face and her heart did a funny little jerk behind her chest wall. His dark blue eyes crinkled up at the corners, his lean jaw relaxed and his usually furrowed brow smoothed out, making his already attractive features heart-stoppingly gorgeous.

‘Take it easy, Bluey,’ he said, still smiling. ‘It was a bad break and you’ll need the full six weeks to rest it.’

‘I’m resting it,’ Bluey assured him, and peered through the passenger window. ‘So who’s the little lady?’

‘This is Dr Thorne,’ Matt said, his smile instantly disappearing. ‘She’s the new locum.’

Kellie lifted her hand in a fingertip wave. ‘Hi, there.’

Bluey’s light blue eyes twinkled. ‘G’day, Dr Thorne. How about joining us for a drink to get to know the locals?’

‘I have to get her settled into Tim and Claire’s house,’ Matt said before Kellie could respond. ‘She has a lot of baggage.’

Kellie glowered at him before turning back to smile at Bluey. ‘I would love to join you all,’ she said. ‘What time does the pub close?’

Bluey grinned from ear to ear. ‘We’ll keep it open just for you, Dr Thorne.’

Matt drove on past the tiny church and cemetery before turning right into a pepper corn-tree-lined street. ‘Tim and Claire’s house is the cream one,’ he said. ‘The car will be in the garage.’

Kellie looked at the cottage with interest and trepidation. It was a three-bedroom weatherboard with a corrugated-tin roof, a large rainwater tank on one side and a shady verandah wrapped around the outside of the house. There was no garden to speak of, but not for want of trying, she observed as she noted the spindly skeletons of what looked to be some yellowed sweet peas clinging listlessly to the mid-height picket fence. There were several pots on the verandah that had suffered much the same fate, and the patchy and parched lawn looked as if it could do with a long soak and a decent trim. There were other similar cottages further along the street, although both of the houses either side of the Montgomerys’ appeared to be vacant.

Fixing an I-can-get-through-this-for-six-months expression on her face, Kellie rummaged for the keys she had been sent in the post as Matt began to unload the luggage. She walked up to the front door and searched through the array of keys to find the right one, but with little success. She was down to the last three when she felt Matt come up behind her.

‘Here,’ he said. ‘Let me.’

Kellie felt the brush of his arm against her waist as he took the keys and her heart did another little uncoordinated skip in her chest. She watched as his long, tanned fingers selected the right key and inserted it into the lock, turning it effortlessly before pushing the door open for her.

‘You go in and have a look around while I bring in your bags,’ he said as he opened the meter box near the door and turned a switch. ‘The hot water will take a couple of hours to heat but everything else should be OK. There’s an air-conditioning control panel in the lounge, which serves the main living area of the house.’

Kellie looked guiltily towards his car where her bags were lined up behind the open hatchback. ‘I don’t expect you to be my slave,’ she said. ‘I can carry my own bags inside.’

‘Then you must be a whole lot stronger than you look because I nearly bulged a disc loading them in there in the first place.’

She put her hands on her hips as if she was admonishing one of her younger brothers. ‘I am here for half a year, you know,’ she said. ‘I need lots of stuff, especially out here.’

‘I hate to be the one to tell you this but the sort of stuff you need to survive out here can’t be packed into four hot pink suitcases, Dr Thorne,’ Matt said, stepping back down off the verandah to his car.

‘What is it with you?’ she asked, following him to his car in quick angry strides. ‘You seem determined to turn me off this appointment before I’ve even started.’

Matt carried two of her cases to the verandah as she yapped at his heels like a small terrier. She was exactly what this town didn’t need, he thought. No, strike that—she was exactly what he didn’t need right now. He wasn’t ready. He wondered if he ever would be ready and yet…

‘Give me that bag,’ she demanded. ‘Now.’

Matt mentally rolled his eyes. She looked so fierce standing there with her hands on her slim-as-a-boy’s hips, her toffee-brown eyes flashing. For a tiny moment she reminded him of…