She was like no woman he’d ever kissed

She was sodden with sea spray. She wore no trace of makeup and her hair was blown every which way. There were trickles of rainwater running down her nose, merging with the rain on his face where their lips met. She looked as far from his ideal woman as he could possibly imagine any woman being.

So how could she be meeting this need—this desperate desire that until now he’d never known he’d had?

Dear Reader,

We have our summer holidays at a remote little fisherman’s cottage where only a tiny strip of land connects us to the mainland. While snoozing on the beach (my major holiday occupation), I thought, wouldn’t it be fun to wipe out the road and lock two completely disparate people together? Before I knew it, I wasn’t on holiday anymore—I was plotting like crazy. Joss and Amy are the result.

I hope you enjoy the outcome of my snoozing!

I’d love your feedback. Contact me through my Web site at www.marionlennox.com.

Happy reading!

Marion Lennox

Stormbound Surgeon
Marion Lennox

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

PROLOGUE

THE lawyer cleared his throat and looked miserable. This was nothing short of blackmail, and the girl before him deserved so much better.

But the old man finally had her where he wanted her. Robert Fleming had manipulated people all his life. The only person who’d broken free had been his stepdaughter, and now he was controlling her from the grave.

The will was watertight. Fleming would succeed and there wasn’t a thing the lawyer could do about it.

‘Just read it,’ Amy said, stony-faced. The lawyer collected himself. And read.

‘To my stepdaughter, Amy Freye, I leave my home, White-Breakers. I also leave her the land on Shipwreck Bluff and sufficient funds to build a forty-bed nursing home. The home is to be built in the style of a resort, to ensure resale is possible, and I set aside the following to be invested for maintenance…

The above bequest is conditional on Amy living permanently in Iluka for at least ten years from the time of my death. If she doesn’t fulfill this condition, White-Breakers and the nursing home are to be sold and my entire estate is to be divided evenly between my nephews. The nursing home is to be sold as a resort for holiday-makers who’ll appreciate Iluka. As Amy never has.’

CHAPTER ONE

‘IF IT doesn’t stop raining soon I’ll brain someone.’ Amy put her nose against the window and groaned. Outside it was raining so hard she could barely see waves breaking on the shoreline fifty yards away.

‘Great idea. Brain Mrs Craddock first.’ Kitty, Amy’s receptionist, was entirely sympathetic. ‘If I hear “Silver Threads” one more time I’ll do the deed myself.’

It was too late. From the sitting room came the sound of the piano, badly played, and Mrs Craddock’s warbling old voice drowned out the television.

‘Darling, we are getting old,

Silver threads among the gold…’

Murder was looking distinctly appealing, Amy decided. ‘Can you taste arsenic in cocoa?’ she muttered. ‘And just what are the grounds for justifiable homicide?’

‘Whatever they are, it can’t be more justifiable than this. A week of rain and this lot…’

It was the limit. Nothing ever happened in Iluka, and this week even less than nothing was happening. The locals jokingly called Iluka God’s Waiting Room and at times like this Amy could only agree.

It did have some things going for it. Iluka was a beautiful seaside promontory with a climate that was second to none—apart from this week, of course, when the heavens were threatening another Great Flood. It had two golf courses, three bowling greens, magnificent beaches and wonderful walking trails.

On the cliff out of town was Millionaire’s Row—a strip of outlandishly expensive real estate. At the height of summer the town buzzed with ostentatious wealth.

But the rest of the time it didn’t buzz at all. Iluka was a retiree’s dream. The average age of Iluka’s residents seemed about ninety, and when the rain set in there was nothing to do at all.

Nothing, nothing and nothing.

Card games. Scrabble. Hobbies.

Lionel Waveny had made five kites this month and he hadn’t flown any of them. The sitting room was crowded at the best of times, and if he made one more kite they’d have to sit on them.

From the sitting room came excited twittering. ‘Amy… Bert’s won.’

Great. Excitement plus! Summoning a smile Amy headed into the sitting room to congratulate Bert on his latest triumph in mah-jong. She stepped over Lionel’s kites and sighed. She really should stop him making them but she didn’t have the heart. They were making him happy. Someone should be happy. So…

‘Great kite,’ she told Lionel, and added, ‘Hooray,’ to the mah-jong winner. ‘Bert, if you win any more matchsticks you can start a bushfire.’

Despite her smile, her bleak mood stayed.

Oh, for heaven’s sake, what was wrong with her? she wondered. What was a little rain? This was a decent sort of life—wasn’t it? The nursing home she’d set up was second to none. Her geriatric residents were more than content with the care she provided. She could start a cottage industry in knitwear and kites, she had a fantastic home—and she had Malcolm.

What more could a girl want?

Shops, she thought suddenly, and a decent salary so she could enjoy them. She stared down in distaste at the dress she’d had for years. What else? Restaurants. A cinema or two, and maybe a florist where she could buy herself a huge bunch of flowers to cheer herself up.

Yeah, right. As if she’d ever have any money to buy such things.

She looked out the window at the driving rain and thought…

What?

Anything. Please…

Amy wasn’t the only one to be criticizing Iluka. Five miles out of town Joss Braden was headed for the highway and he couldn’t escape the town fast enough.

‘It’s the most fantastic place,’ his father had told him over the phone. ‘There’s three separate bowling greens. Can you believe that?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Now, I know bowling doesn’t interest you, boy, but the beaches are wonderful. You’ll be able to swim, catch lobster right off the beach and sail that new windsurfer of yours. Go on, Joss—give us a few days. Get to know your new stepmother and have a break from your damned high-powered medicine into the bargain.’

He’d needed a break, Joss thought, but five days of rain had been enough to drive him back to Sydney so fast you couldn’t see him for mud. For the whole week his windsurfer had stayed roped to the car roof. The seas had been huge—it would have been suicidal to try windsurfing. His father and Daisy had wanted him to spend every waking minute with them; they’d been blissfully and nauseatingly in love, and medicine was starting to look very, very good in comparison.

So this morning, when the newsreaders were warning of floods and road blockage, his decision to leave had bordered on panic. Now he steered his little sports car carefully through the rain and crossed his fingers that the flooding wasn’t as severe as predicted.

‘Ten minutes and we’re on the highway and out of here,’ he told his dog. His ancient red setter, Bertram the Magnificent, was belted into the passenger seat beside him, staring through the windscreen with an expression that was almost as worried as his master’s. If they were stuck here…

‘We’ll be right.’

They weren’t.

‘Amy, love, we need a fourth at bridge.’

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Cooper, but I’m busy.’

‘Nonsense, child. We know you always go for a walk on the beach mid-morning. You can’t walk anywhere now, so come and join us.’

‘But I can’t play.’

‘We’ll give you hints as we go along. You’ll be an expert in no time.’

Aargh…

Once they reached the highway it’d be easier.

The road into Iluka from the highway twisted around cliffs along the river. It was a breathtakingly scenic route but it was dangerous at the best of times, and now was the worst possible time to be driving.

Joss’s hands gripped white on the steering-wheel. He leaned forward, trying to see through the driving rain, and his dog leaned forward with him. Bertram’s breath fogged the windscreen and Joss hauled him back.

‘There’s no need for both of us to see.’

It’d be better once they were on the highway, he told himself. Just around this bend and across the bridge and…

His foot slammed hard on the brake.

Luckily he was travelling at a snail’s pace and the car’s brakes responded magnificently. He came to a halt with inches to spare. But inches to what? Joss stared ahead in disbelief. He had to be seeing things.

He wasn’t. Ahead lay the bridge. The water was up over the timbers in a foaming, litter-filled torrent, and the middle pylon was swaying as if it had no base.

And as Joss stared, there was a screech of tortured metal, a splintering of timber and the entire bridge crumbled and buckled into the torrent beneath.

‘I can’t play bridge. I’ve promised to help Cook make scones.’

‘Oh, Amy…’

Beam me up, someone. Please beam me up…

Joss opened the car door with caution. He was safe enough where he was but seeing a bridge disappear like that made a man unsure of his own footing. Thankfully the ground underneath felt good and solid, even if a relentless stream of water began to pour down his neck the minute he opened the door.

Before him was a mess. The entire bridge was gone. In the passenger seat Bertram whimpered the unease of a dog in unfamiliar territory, and Joss leaned in to click the seat belt free.

They weren’t going anywhere fast, Joss thought grimly. Bertram was a water dog at heart, and if Joss was going to drown out here at least he’d have happy company.

‘Stupid dog. You can’t possibly like weather like this.’

He was wrong. Joss even managed a grin as Bertram put his nose skywards, opened his mouth and drank.

But his humour was short-lived. How was he to get back to Sydney now?

First things first, he told himself. Before he started to panic about escape routes, he needed to do something about oncoming traffic. He didn’t want anyone plunging unaware into that torrent.

He bent into the car again and flicked his lights to high beam. The river wasn’t so wide that oncoming cars wouldn’t see his warning. Then he flicked on his hazard lights.

But his warning was too late. A truck came hurtling around the bend behind him and it was travelling far too fast. Above the roar of the river Joss hardly heard it coming, and when he did he barely had time to jump clear.

The smash of tearing metal sounded above the roar of the water. There was a crashing of broken glass, a ripping, tearing metallic hell, and then the sounds of hissing steam.

Joss backed away fast and Bertram came with him.

What the…?

His car had been totalled. Just like that.

He swallowed a few times and laid a hand on his dog’s shaggy head, saying a swift thank you to the powers who looked after stupid doctors who ventured out in sports cars that were far too small. In a world where there were trucks that were far too big. In weather that was far too bad.

Then he took in the damage.

The other vehicle looked like an ancient farm truck—a dilapidated one-tonner. If Joss’s sports car had been bigger it would have fared better, but now… His rear wheels were almost underneath his steering-wheel. The passenger compartment where Joss and his dog had sat not a minute before was a mangled mess.

Hell!

‘Stay,’ he told Bertram, and thanked the heavens that his dog was well trained. He didn’t want him any closer to the wreck than he already was. The smell of petrol was starting to be overpowering…

He had to reach the driver.

Damage aside, it was just as well his car had been where it was, Joss thought grimly. Coming with the speed it had, if Joss’s car hadn’t been blocking the way the truck would now be at the bottom of the river.

If anyone else came…

There was another car now on the other side of the river, and it also had its lights on high beam. Joss’s lights were still working—somehow. The lights merged eerily through the rain and there was someone on the opposite bank, waving wildly.

They’d all been lucky, Joss thought grimly. Except—maybe the driver of the truck.

The smell of petrol was building by the minute and the driver of the truck wasn’t moving. Hell, the truck’s engine was still turning over. It only needed a spark…

The truck door wouldn’t budge.

He hesitated for only a second, then lifted a rock and smashed it down on the driver’s window. Reaching in, he switched off the ignition. The engine died. That’d fix the sparks, he thought. It should prevent a fire. Please…

Were there injuries to cope with? The driver was absolutely still. Joss grabbed the handle of the crumpled door from the inside and tried to wrench it open. As he worked, he lifted his phone and hit the code for emergency.

‘The Iluka bridge is down,’ he said curtly as someone answered, still hauling at the door as he spoke. ‘There’s been a crash on the Iluka side. I need help—warning signs and flashing lights, powerful ones. We need police, tow trucks and an ambulance. I’m trying to get to the driver now. Stand by.’

‘If you won’t play bridge how about carpet bowls?’

‘That’s a good idea.’ At least it was active. Amy was climbing walls. ‘Let’s set it up.’

‘But you’ll play bridge with us tomorrow, won’t you, dear? If it doesn’t stop raining…’

Please, let it stop raining.

‘You’re wanted on the phone, Amy.’ It was Kitty calling from the office. ‘It’s Chris and she says it’s urgent.’

Hooray! Anything to get away from the carpet bowls—but the local telephonist was waiting and at the sound of her voice, Amy’s relief disappeared in an instant. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘I don’t know.’ Chris was breathless with worry. ‘All I got was that the bridge is down. There’s been a crash and they want an ambulance. But, Amy, the ambulance has to come from Bowra on the other side of the river. If the bridge is down… If there’s a medical emergency here…’

Amy’s heart sank. Oh, no…

Iluka wasn’t equipped for acute medical needs. The nearest acute-care hospital was at Bowra. The nearest doctor was at Bowra! Bowra was only twenty miles down the road but if the bridge was down it might just as well be twenty thousand.

‘I don’t know any more,’ Chris told her. ‘There was just the one brief message and the caller disconnected. I’ve alerted Sergeant Packer but I thought…well, there’s nowhere else to take casualties. You might want to stand by.’

It was a woman and she was in trouble.

Joss managed to wrench the door open to find the driver slumped forward on the steering-wheel. Her hair was a mass of tangled curls, completely blocking his view. She was youngish, he thought, but he couldn’t see more, and when he placed a hand on her shoulder there was no response.

‘Can you hear me?’

Nothing. She seemed deeply unconscious.

Why?

He needed to check breathing—to establish she had an airway. He stooped, wanting to see but afraid to pull her head back. He needed a neck brace. If there was a fracture with compression and he moved her…

He didn’t have a neck brace and he had no choice. Carefully he lifted the curls away and placed his hands on the sides of her head. Then, with painstaking care, he lifted her face an inch from the wheel.

With one hand holding her head, cupping her chin with his splayed fingers, he used the other to brush away the hair from her mouth. Apart from a ragged slash above her ear he could feel no bleeding. Swiftly his fingers checked nose and throat. There was no blood at all, and he could feel her breath on his hand.

What was wrong?

The door must have caught her as it crumpled, he thought as he checked the cut above her ear. Maybe that had been enough to knock her out.

Had it been enough to kill her? Who knew? If there was internal bleeding from a skull compression then maybe…

She was twisted away from him in the truck, so all he could see was her back. He was examining blind. His hands travelled further, examining gently, feeling for trauma. Her neck seemed OK—her pulse was rapid but strong. Her hands were intact. Her body…

His hands moved to her abdomen—and stiffened in shock. He paused in disbelief but he hadn’t been mistaken. The woman’s body was vast, swollen to full-term pregnancy, and what he’d felt was unmistakable.

A contraction was running right through her, and her body was rigid in spasm.

The woman was in labour. She was having a baby!

‘Amy?’

‘Jeff.’ Jeff Packer was the town’s police sergeant—the town’s only policeman, if it came to that. He was solid and dependable but he was well into his sixties. In any other town he’d have been pensioned off but in Iluka he seemed almost young.

‘There’s a casualty.’ He said the word ‘casualty’ like he might have said ‘disaster’ and Jeff didn’t shake easily. Unconsciously Amy braced herself for the worst.

‘Yes?’

‘It’s a young woman. We’re bringing her in to you now.’

‘You’re bringing her here?’

‘There’s nowhere else to take her, Amy. The bridge is down. We’d never get a helicopter landed in these conditions and Doc here says her need is urgent.’

‘Doc?’

‘The bloke she ran into says he’s a doctor.’

A doctor… Well, thank heaven for small mercies. Amy let her breath out in something close to a sob of relief.

‘How badly is she hurt?’

‘Dunno. She’s unconscious and her head’s bleeding. We’re putting her into the back of my van now.’

‘Should you move her?’

‘Doc says we don’t have a choice. There’s a baby on the way.’

A baby.

Amy replaced the receiver and stood stunned. This was a nursing home! They didn’t have the staff to deliver babies. They didn’t have the skills or the facilities or…

She was wasting time. Get a grip, she told herself. An unconscious patient with a baby on the way was arriving any minute. What would she need?

She’d need staff. Skilled staff. And in Iluka…. What was the chance of finding anyone? There were two other trained nurses in town but she knew Mary was out at her mother’s and she didn’t have the phone on, and Sue-Ellen had been on duty all night. She’d only just be asleep.

She took three deep breaths, forcing herself to think as she walked back out to the sitting room.

Thinking, thinking, thinking.

The vast sitting room was built to look out to sea. Mid-morning, with no one able to go outside, it held almost all the home’s inhabitants. And they were all looking at her. They’d heard Kitty say the call was urgent and in Iluka urgent meant excitement.

Excitement was something that was sadly lacking in this town. These old people didn’t play carpet bowls from choice.

Hmm. As Amy looked at them, her idea solidified. This was the only plan possible.

‘I think,’ she said slowly, the solution to this mess turning over and over in her mind, ‘that I need to interrupt your carpet bowls. I think I need all hands on deck. Now.’

Fifteen minutes later, when the police van turned into the nursing home entrance, they were ready.

Jeff had his hand on his horn. Any of the home’s inhabitants who hadn’t known this was an emergency would know it now, but they were already well aware of it. They were waiting, so when the back of the van was flung wide, Joss was met by something that approached the reception he might have met at the emergency ward of the hospital he worked in.

There was a stretcher trolley rolled out, waiting, made up with mattress and crisp white linen. There were three men—one at each side of the trolley and one at the end. There was a woman with blankets, and another pushing something that looked blessedly—amazingly—like a crash cart. There was another woman behind…

Each and every one of them wore a crisp white coat and they looked exceedingly professional.

Except they also all looked over eighty.

‘What the…?’

He had barely time to register before things were taken out of his hands.

‘Charles, slide the trolley off the wheels—that’s right, it lifts off. Ian, that’s great. Push it right into the van. Push it alongside her so she can be lifted… Ted, hold the wheels steady….’

Joss glanced up from his patient. The efficient tones he was hearing weren’t coming from a geriatric. They came from the only one in the group who didn’t qualify.

She was a young woman, nearing thirty, he thought, but compared to her companions she was almost a baby. And she was stunning! She was tall and willow slim. Her finely boned face was tanned, with wide grey eyes that spoke of intelligence, and laughter lines crinkled around the edges that spoke of humour. Her glossy black hair was braided smoothly into a long line down her back. Dressed in a soft print dress with a white coat covering it, she oozed efficiency and starch and competence. And…

Something? It wasn’t just beauty, he thought. It was more…

‘I’m Amy Freye,’ she said briefly. ‘I’m in charge here. Can we move her?’

‘I… Yes.’ Somehow he turned his attention back to his patient. They’d thrown a rug onto the van floor for her to lie on. It wasn’t enough but it was the best they could do as there’d been no time to wait for better transport. The thought of delivering a distressed baby in the driving rain was impossible.

‘Wait for me.’ Amy leaped lightly into the van beside Joss. Her calm grey eyes saw and assessed, and she moved into action. She went to the woman’s hips and slid her hands underneath in a gesture that told Joss she’d done this many times before. Then she glanced at Joss, and her glance said she was expecting matching professionalism. ‘Lift with me. One, two, three…’

They moved as one and the woman slid limply onto the stretcher.

‘OK, fit the wheels to the base,’ the girl ordered of the two old men standing at the van door. ‘Lock it into place and then slide it forward.’

In one swift movement it was done. The stretcher was on its wheels and the girl was out of the van.

‘Take care of the dog, Lionel,’ she told an old man standing nearby, and Joss blinked in astonishment. The top triage nurses in city casualty departments couldn’t have handled things any better—and to even notice the dog… He opened his mouth to tell Bertram things were OK, but someone was handing towels to the man called Lionel, the old man was clicking his fingers and someone else was bringing a biscuit.

Bertram was in doggy heaven. Joss could concentrate on the woman.

‘This way,’ Amy was saying, and the stretcher started moving. Doors opened magically before her. The old men beside the stretcher pushed it with a nimbleness which would have been admirable in men half their age, and Joss was left to follow.

Where was he? As soon as the door opened, the impression of a bustling hospital ended. Here was a vast living room, fabulously sited with three-sixty-degree views of the sea. Clusters of leather settees were dotted with squashy cushions, shelves were crammed with books, someone was building a kite that was the size of a small room, there were rich Persian carpets…

There were old people.

‘Do we know who she is?’ Amy asked, and Joss hauled his attention back where it was needed.

‘No. There was nothing on her—or nothing that we could find. Sergeant Packer’s called in the plates—he should be able to get identification from the licence plates of the truck she was driving—but he hasn’t heard back yet.’

She nodded. She was stopping for nothing, pushing doors wide, ushering the stretcher down a wide corridor to open a final door…

‘This is our procedures room,’ she told Joss as she stood aside to let them past. ‘It’s the best we can do.’

Joss stopped in amazement.

When the police sergeant had told him the only place available was the nursing home he’d felt ill. To treat this woman without facilities seemed impossible.

But here… The room was set up as a small theatre. Scrupulously clean, it was gleaming with stainless-steel fittings and overhead lights. It was perfect for minor surgery, he realised, and his breath came out in a rush of relief. What lay before him started looking just faintly possible.

‘What—?’

But she was ahead of him. ‘Are you really a doctor?’ she asked, and he nodded, still stunned.

‘Yes. I’m a surgeon at Sydney Central.’ But he was focussed solely on the pregnant woman, checking her pupils and frowning. There didn’t seem a reason for her to be so deeply unconscious.

He wanted X-rays.

He needed to check the baby first, he thought. He had two patients—not one.

‘You can scrub through here.’ Amy’s face had mirrored his concern and she’d followed his gaze as he’d watched the last contraction ripple though her swollen abdomen. ‘Or…do you want an X-ray first?’

‘I have to check the baby.’ She was right. He needed to scrub before he did an internal examination.

‘I’ll check the heartbeat. The sink’s through here. Marie will help.’

A bright little lady about four feet high and about a hundred years old appeared at his elbow.

‘This way, Doctor.’

He was led to the sink by his elderly helper—who wasn’t acting elderly at all.

There was no time for questions. Joss was holding his scrubbed hands for Marie to slip on his gloves when Amy called him back.

‘We’re in trouble,’ she said briefly, and her face was puckered in concern. She’d cut away the woman’s smock. ‘Hold the stethoscope here, Marie.’ Then, with Marie holding the stethoscope in position over the swollen belly, she held the earpieces for Joss to listen.

His face set in grim lines as he heard what she’d heard. ‘Hell.’ The baby’s heartbeat was faltering. He did a fast examination. The baby’s head was engaged but she’d hardly dilated at all. A forceps delivery was still impossible. Which meant…

A Caesarean.

A Caesarean here?

‘We don’t have identification,’ Amy was saying. ‘Will you…?’

That was the least of their worries, he thought. Operating without consent was a legal minefield, but in an emergency like this he had no choice.

‘Of course I will. But—’

‘We have drugs and equipment for general anaesthetic,’ she finished, moving right on, efficient and entirely professional in her apology. ‘The Bowra doctor does minor surgery here, but I’m afraid epidural is out of the question. I…I don’t have the skills.’

After that one last revealing falter her eyes met his and held firm. They were cool, calm, and once again he thought that she was one in a million in a crisis.

‘What’s your training?’ he started, hesitating at the thought of how impossible it would be to act as anaesthetist and surgeon at the same time—but she was before him there, too.

‘Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m not a doctor,’ she said flatly. ‘I’m a nurse. But I’m qualified in intensive care and I spent years as a theatre nurse. With only one doctor in the district, I’ve performed an emergency general anaesthetic before. That’s why we have the drugs. For emergencies. So if you guide me, I’m prepared to try.’

He stared at her, dumbfounded by her acceptance of such a demand. She was a nurse, offering to do what was a specialist job. This was a specialist job for a qualified doctor!

But she’d said that she could do it. Should he trust her? Or not?

He hardly had a choice. He’d done a brief visual examination on the way here. The baby was still some way away—the head wasn’t near to crowning—and now the baby’s heartbeat was telling its own grim story. If they waited, the baby risked death.

He couldn’t do a Caesarean without an anaesthetic. The woman was unconscious but the shock of an incision would probably wake her.

He needed a doctor to do the anaesthetic, but for him to perform the Caesarean and give the anaesthetic at the same time was impossible.

Amy wasn’t a doctor. And she was offering to do what needed years of medical training.

But… ‘I can do this,’ she said, and her grey eyes were fearless.

He met her gaze and held it.

‘You’re sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘You realise insurance…’

‘Insurance—or the lack of it—is a nightmare for both of us.’ She nodded, a decisive little movement of her head as though she was convincing herself. ‘But I don’t see that we can let that worry us. If we don’t try, the baby dies.’

It went against everything he’d ever been taught. To let a nurse give an anaesthetic…

But she was right. There was no decision to be made.

‘OK. Let’s move.’

It was the strangest operation he’d ever performed. He had a full theatre staff, but the only two under eighty years old were Amy and himself.

Marie stayed on. The old lady had scrubbed and gowned and was handing him implements as needed. Her background wasn’t explained but it was assumed she knew what she was doing, and she handled the surgical tray with the precision of an expert.

And she had back-up. Another woman was sorting implements, moving things in and out of a steriliser. A man stood beside her, ready with a warmed blanket. Every couple of minutes the door opened a fraction and the blanket was replaced with another, so if—when—the baby arrived there’d be warmth. There was a team outside working in tandem, ferrying blankets, hot water, information that there was no chance of helicopter evacuation…

Joss took everything in. He checked the tray of instruments, the steriliser, the anaesthetic. He measured what was needed, then sized Amy up.

‘Ready?’

‘As ready as I’ll ever be.’ Still that rigid control.

He looked at her more closely and saw she was holding herself in a grip of iron. There was fear…

It would help nothing to delay or probe more deeply into her fear, he decided. She’d made a decision that she could do it and she had no choice. There was no choice!

‘Let’s go, then.’

Amy nodded. Silently she held her prepared syringe up so he could check the dose. He nodded in turn and then watched as she inserted it into the IV line.

He watched and waited—saw her eyes move to the monitor, saw her skilfully intubating and inflating the cuff of the endrotracheal tube, saw her eyes lose their fear and become intent on what they were doing.

He felt the patient’s muscles relax under his hand.

She was good, he thought exultantly. Nurse or not, she knew what she was doing, which left him to get on with what he had to do.

He prepped the woman’s swollen abdomen, lifted the scalpel and proceeded to deliver one baby.

CHAPTER TWO

IT WENT like clockwork.

This team might be unusual but their competence was never in question. As he cut through the abdominal layers the old woman called Marie handed over instruments unasked. When Joss did need to ask, her responses were instantaneous.

And Amy’s anaesthetic was first class.

All this was—had to be—ancillary to what he was doing. He was forced to depend on them: his attention was on the job. The anaesthetic was looking fine. All he knew was that he had what he needed and the woman’s heart rate was great.

If only the baby’s heartbeat held…

This was the moment of truth. He looked up to ask, but once again his needs were anticipated. The second of the older women stepped forward to push down on the uterus, giving him leverage as he slid one gloved hand into the incision.

Please…

‘Here it comes.’ He lifted the baby’s head, turning it to the side to prevent it sucking in fluid. ‘Yes!’

It was a perfect little girl.

Joss had only seconds to see that she was fine—the seconds while he scooped the baby free. As soon as she was free of her mother—before he’d even tied off the cord—hands were reaching for her, the sucker was in her mouth and they were removing mucus and freeing her to breathe. These people knew what they were doing! The old man behind Marie ducked in to scoop the infant into the waiting blanket as the elderly nurse cleared her airway.

‘We’ll be fine with her.’ Amy motioned him back to the wound. ‘She’s looking good.’

He had no time to spare for the baby. He turned back to deliver the placenta, to swab and clamp and sew, hoping his geriatric helpers were able to clear the baby’s airway in time.

Amy would supervise. He knew by now that she was a brilliant theatre nurse. She was acting as a competent anaesthetist. Apart from a couple of minor queries about dosage, he’d rarely had to intervene.

And as he began the lengthy repair process to the uterus there came the sound he’d been hoping for. The thin, indignant wail of a healthy baby.

The flattening of its heartbeat must have been stress-induced, he thought thankfully. A long labour and then the impact of the crash could have caused it.

How long had the girl been in labour?

A while, he thought, glancing to where Amy still monitored the intubator. The new mother was as white as death and the wound on her forehead still bled sluggishly. He’d suture it before she woke.

If she woke.

Why was she unconscious?

Hell, he needed technology. He needed to know if there was intracranial bleeding.

‘We can do an ordinary X-ray here,’ Amy said, and his eyes flew to hers. Once again she was thinking in front of him. ‘We have the facilities. It won’t show pressure if there’s a build-up, but it’ll show if there’s a fracture.’

‘Is there no way we can we get outside help?’ He wanted a CT scan. He wanted his big city hospital—badly.

‘Not until this rain eases.’ Outside the window, the rain was still pelting down. ‘Given decent conditions, a helicopter can land on the golf course, but not now. There’s too many hills. The country’s so rough that with visibility like this they’d be in real trouble.’

So they were still on their own.

‘We’ll be OK,’ she said softly as he worked on. Their eyes locked and something passed between them. A bonding. They were in this together…

Joss felt a frown start behind his eyes. He didn’t make contact like this with theatre staff. He didn’t make contact with anyone. But this woman… It was as if she was somehow familiar…

She wasn’t familiar at all. ‘We’re not finished yet. Let’s get this abdominal cavity cleaned and stitched,’ he said, more roughly than he’d intended, and bent back over his work.

Finally the job was done. Under Joss’s guidance, Amy reversed the anaesthetic, concentrating fiercely every step of the way. At last, still rigid with anxiety, she removed the endotracheal tube and the woman took her first ragged breaths.

Amy had done it, and until now she hadn’t known she could. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again Joss was beside her, his hands on her shoulders and his face concerned.

‘Are you OK?’

‘I… Yes.’ She tried to draw back but his eyes were holding her in place as firmly as his hands were holding her shoulders.

‘Exactly how many anaesthetics have you given in your professional career?’ he demanded, and she gave a rueful smile.

‘Um…one,’ she confessed. ‘A tourist who had penile strangulation. The doctor from Bowra was here seeing someone else when he came in, screaming. I had no choice there either. If I hadn’t given him the anaesthetic he’d have been impotent for life.’

‘But…that’s a really minor anaesthetic.’

‘I know.’ She took a deep breath. ‘And, of course, as you reminded me, the insurance is a nightmare and if anything went wrong I could get sued for millions. So I shouldn’t have done it, nor should I have done this one. But I’ve seen it done and, the way I figured, I didn’t have a choice. Bleating to you about my lack of training wasn’t going to help anything.’

She was amazing, he thought, stunned. Amazing!

‘You were fantastic,’ the woman called Marie said stoutly. ‘To give an anaesthetic like that… She was wonderful, wasn’t she, Doctor?’

Joss looked around at them all. He had four helpers in the room. Three geriatrics and Amy. And he had one live and healthy baby and one young woman whose colour was starting slowly to return to normal.

Because of these people, this baby would live and the unknown woman had been given a fighting chance. Because Amy had been prepared to take a chance, prepared to say to hell with the insurance risk, to hell with the legalities; because these old people had been prepared to shake off their retirement and do whatever they could, then this baby stood a chance of living. Living with a healthy mother.

‘I think you’re all wonderful,’ he told them. He smiled at each of them in turn, but then his gaze returned to Amy’s. And there was that jolt of…something. Something that he didn’t recognise.

Whatever it was, it would have to wait. Now was not the time for questioning. ‘I think you all deserve a medal,’ he said softly. ‘And I think we all deserve a happy ending. Which I think we’ll get.’

He lifted the baby from Marie’s arms and stood looking down at her. The tiny baby girl had wailed once, just to show she could, but she was now snuggled into the warmth of her prepared blanket and her creased eyes were blinking and gazing with wonder at this huge new world.

‘You need your mum,’ Joss said, and as if on cue there was a ragged gasp from the table. And another. Amy’s eyes flew from the baby back to her patient.

‘She’s coming round,’ she said softly. ‘It needs only this to make it perfect.’

The woman was so confused she was almost incoherent, but she was definitely waking.

Joss took her hands, waiting with all the patience in the world for her to recover. When this woman had lost consciousness she’d been in a truck heading out of town. Now she was in hospital—kind of—and she was a mother. It would take some coming to terms with.

‘You’re fine,’ he told her softly, his voice strong and sure, and Amy blinked to hear him. Joss looked decisive and tough but there was nothing tough about the way he spoke. He was gentleness itself. ‘My name is Joss Braden. I’m a doctor and you’re in hospital.’ Of a sort. There was no need to go into details. ‘Your truck crashed. You were in labour—remember?’ And then at her weak nod, he smiled. ‘You’re not in labour any more. You’ve had a baby. The most gorgeous daughter.’

He held the child for her to see.

There was a long, long silence while she took that on board. Finally she seemed to manage it. She stared mutely at the softly wrapped bundle of perfect baby and then tears started trickling down her cheeks.

‘Hey.’ Joss was gentleness itself. One of his elderly nurses saw his need and handed him a tissue to dry her tears. ‘There’s not a lot to cry about. We’re here to take care of you. We had to perform a Caesarean section but everything’s fine.’

Her tears still flowed. Amy watched in silence, as did her three geriatric nurses.

There were more outside. The door was open—just a crack. How many ears were listening out there? Amy wondered and managed a smile. Well, why shouldn’t they listen in to this happy ending? They’d worked as hard as she had, and they deserved it.

‘Can you tell me your name?’ Joss was saying.

‘Charlotte…’ It was a thready whisper.

‘Charlotte who?’

Silence.

Her name could wait, Amy thought happily. Everything could wait now.

But Joss kept talking, assessing, concerned for the extent of damage to the young mother now that the baby had been delivered safely.

‘Charlotte, you’ve had a head injury. I need to ask you a couple of questions, just so I’m sure you’re not confused.’

She understood. Her eyes were still taking in her baby, soaking in the perfection of her tiny daughter, but she was listening to Joss.

‘Do you know what the date is today?’

‘Um…’ She thought about it. ‘Friday. Is it the twenty-fifth?’

‘It sure is. Do you know who won the football grand final last week?’

That was easy. A trace of a smile appeared, and the girl shed years with it.

‘The Bombers,’ she said, and there was an attempt at flippancy. ‘Hooray.’

‘Hooray?’ She was a brave girl. Amy grinned but Joss gave a theatrical groan.

‘Oh, great. It’s just my luck to bring another Bombers fan into the world.’ Then he smiled and Amy, watching from the sidelines, thought, Wow! What a smile.

‘And your surname?’

But that had been enough. The woman gave a tiny shake of her head and let her eyes close.

Joss nodded. He was satisfied. ‘OK, Charlotte.’ He laid a fleeting hand on the woman’s cheek. ‘We’ll take some X-rays just to make sure there’s no damage, then we’ll let you and your daughter sleep.’

‘So is anyone going to tell me what the set-up is here?’

With the young mother tucked up in a private room, her baby by her side and no fewer than two self-declared intensive-care nurses on watch by her side, there was time for Amy and Joss to catch their breath.

‘What would you like to know?’ Amy was bone weary. She felt like she’d run a marathon. She hauled her white coat from her shoulders, tossed it aside and turned to unfasten the strings of Joss’s theatre gear. They’d only had the one theatre gown, so the rest of their makeshift team had had to make do with white coats.

But making do with white coats was the last thing on Joss’s mind. ‘Tell me how I got a theatre staff,’ he said. ‘It was a miracle.’

‘No more than us finding a doctor. That was the miracle. Of all the people to run into…’

‘Yeah, it was her lucky day.’ He gave a rueful grin and Amy smiled back. He had his back to her while she undid his ties and she was catching his smile in the mirror. He had the loveliest smile, she thought. Wide and white and sort of…chuckly. Nice.

In fact the whole package looked nice.

And as for Joss…

He stooped and hauled off the cloth slippers from over his shoes and then rose, watching while Amy did the same. Underneath her medical uniform Amy Freye was some parcel.

She was tall, maybe five-ten or so. Her tanned skin was flawless. Her grey eyes were calm and serene, set in a lovely face. Her hair was braided in a lovely long rope and he suddenly had an almost irresistable urge to…

Hey. What was going on here?

Get things back to a professional footing.

‘What’s someone with your skills doing in a place like this?’ he asked lightly, and then watched in surprise as her face shuttered closed. Hell, he hadn’t meant to pry. He only wanted to know. ‘I mean… I assumed with your skills…’

‘I’d be better off in a city hospital? Just lucky I wasn’t,’ she retorted.

‘We were lucky,’ he said seriously. ‘We definitely were. If you hadn’t been here we would have lost the baby.’

‘You don’t think Marie could have given the anaesthetic?’

‘Now, that is something I don’t understand.’

‘Marie?’

‘And her friends. Yes.’

She smiled then, and there were lights behind her grey eyes that were almost magnetic in their appeal. Her smile made a man sort of want to smile back. ‘You like my team?’

‘It’s…different.’

She laughed, a lovely low chuckle. ‘Different is right. An hour ago I was staring into space thinking, How on earth am I going to cope? I needed an emergency team, and I had no one. I thought, This place has no one but retirees. But retirees are people, too, and the health profession’s huge. So I said hands up those with medical skills and suddenly I had an ambulance driver, two orderlies and three trained nurses. I’ve even got a doctor in residence, but he’s ninety-eight and thinks he’s Charles the First so we were holding him in reserve.’

She was fantastic. He grinned at her in delight.

This felt great, he thought suddenly. He’d forgotten medicine could feel like this. Back in Sydney he was part of a huge, impersonal team. His skills made him a troubleshooter, which meant that he was called in when other doctors needed help. He saw little of patients before they were on the operating table.

His staff were hand-picked, cool and clinically professional. But here…

They’d saved a life—what a team!

‘I wouldn’t ask it of these people every day,’ Amy told him, unaware of the route his thoughts were taking. ‘Marie’s had three heart pills this morning to hold her angina at bay. Very few of my people are up to independent living but in an emergency they shine through. And even though Marie’s heart is thumping away like a sledgehammer, there’s no way she’s going for a quiet lie-down now. She’s needed, and if she dies being needed, she won’t begrudge it at all.’

It was great. The whole set-up was great, but something was still worrying him. ‘Where are the rest of your trained staff?’

That set her back. ‘What trained staff?’

‘This is a nursing home. I assume you have more skilled nurses than yourself.’

‘I have two other women with nursing qualifications. Mary and Sue-Ellen. They do a shift apiece. Eight hours each. The three of us are the entire nursing population of Iluka.’

He frowned, thinking it through and finding it unsatisfactory. ‘You need more…’

‘No. Only eight of our beds are deemed nursing-home beds. The rest are hostel, so as long as we have one trained nurse on duty we’re OK.’

‘And in emergencies?’

‘I can’t call the others in. It means I don’t have anyone for tonight.’

‘What about holidays?’

‘I do sixteen hours if either of the others are on holidays,’ she said, with what was an attempt at lightness. ‘It keeps me off the streets.’

She was kidding! ‘That’s crazy. The whole set-up’s impossible.’

‘You try attracting medical staff to Iluka.’ She gave a weary smile. ‘You try attracting anyone under the age of sixty to Iluka. Both my nurses are in their fifties and are here because their husbands have retired. Kitty, my receptionist, moved here to be with her failing mother, my cleaning and kitchen staff are well past retirement age, and there’s no one else.’

‘The town is a nursing home all by itself.’

‘As you say.’ She shrugged, and there was a pain behind her eyes that he didn’t understand. ‘But we manage. Look at today. Weren’t my oldies wonderful?’

‘Wonderful.’ But his mind was on her worries, not on what had just happened.

‘So the two looking after the baby…’

‘Marie and Thelma, and they’re in their element. Both are trained nurses with years of experience. Thelma has early Alzheimer’s but she was matron of a Sydney hospital until she retired and there are some things that are almost instinctive. Marie’s with her, and her experience is in a bush nursing hospital. She’s physically frail but mentally alert so together they’ll care for the mother and baby as no one else could. And I’m here if they need me.’

Joss looked across at her calm grey eyes. ‘I’m here if they need me.’ It was said as a matter of course.

How often was she needed?

What was her story?

‘Don’t look so worried.’ Her smile was meant to be reassuring. ‘If I didn’t think they’d manage—and love every moment of it—I’d be in there, helping. I’m only a buzz away.’ Her smile faded as his look of concern deepened. ‘What’s worrying you? Charlotte’s showing no sign of brain damage. The baby looks great. All we need to do is find out who she is.’

‘Now, that’s something else I don’t understand.’ His frown deepened. ‘Jeff says she’s not a Iluka resident and no one here recognises her.’

‘No.’ It had surprised Amy that she hadn’t recognised the girl. She knew everyone in Iluka.

When she’d thought about it she’d even figured out where Joss fitted in. David and Daisy Braden had been speaking of nothing but their wonderful surgeon-son’s visit for weeks. The whole town had known his exact arrival time, what Daisy was going to cook for him every night, where David intended to take him fishing and…

‘What?’ Joss asked, and Amy’s lovely smile caused a dimple to appear right on the corner of her mouth.

It made him need to struggle hard to concentrate on what she was saying.

‘Sorry. I was just thinking we should set the town onto finding out about our mystery mother. They told me all about you.’

‘Did they?’ He was disconcerted. He was trying really hard not to look at the dimple.

The observations that were happening were mutual. He looked nice when he was disconcerted, Amy decided.

Nice.

There was that word again but it described him absolutely. The more she saw of him the more she liked what she saw. Joss was taller than she was by a couple of inches. He had deep brown hair, curly, a bit sun-bleached and casually styled. His skin was bronzed and he had smiling green eyes.

And his clothes… He’d hauled off his sweater before they’d gone into Theatre but she’d been too rushed to notice, and then he’d put on a theatre gown. Now she was seeing his clothes for the first time.

They were…unexpected, to say the least. He was wearing faded, hip-hugging jeans and a bright white T-shirt with a black motif. The motif said:

‘You’ve been a bad, bad girl. Go straight to my room.’

She blinked and blinked again. Then she grinned. This wasn’t her standard image of a successful young surgeon. It was a rude, crude T-shirt. It shouldn’t make her lips twitch.

‘What?’ he demanded, and her smile widened.

‘I was thinking I shouldn’t be in the same room as you—with that on.’ She motioned to his T-shirt.

Damn. He’d forgotten he was wearing it. His father had given it to him for his birthday… Good old Dad, still trying to get his son moving in the wife department…

Fat chance.

But Amy had moved on. ‘I need to talk to Jeff,’ she said, and crossed to the door.

Joss frowned. ‘I need to find him, too. He’s looking after my dog. Or did one of your residents take him?’

‘Lionel has him.’ Her eyes creased into the smile he was starting to recognise. ‘I saw him. Actually, I’ve heard about him, too. I thought he was much larger than he really is.’

‘Have you been talking to my stepmother?’

Amy assumed an air of innocence. ‘I might have been.’

He sighed. ‘According to Daisy, he’s the size of an elephant. That’s because Bertram takes exception to anyone else sitting on my knee—and her dratted Peke decided it would grace me with its favours.’

‘Lucky you.’

‘As you say.’ He shook off the light-headedness he was feeling. Was it the crash? Or…was it just the way she made him feel? Like he ought to get the conversation back to medicine—fast.

‘Sergeant Packer and I could find no sign of identification at all in the mother’s truck. But he is able to run a plate check. We’re hoping we can find out who she is that way.’

She nodded. ‘And I guess we need to fully examine the baby.’

‘I’ll do that now.’

‘Thank you.’

Joss nodded, aware that he was retreating. He’d come out of his shell a little—a very little—but he didn’t want to stay out.

He had to leave.

‘I’m going to have to figure out how I can get away from this place,’ he said.

Her brows rose at that. ‘You’re leaving?’

‘I was. Until my car was totalled.’

‘Your father said you were here for two weeks.’

‘Yeah, well…’

‘The honeymoon couple were a bit much for you, were they?’ Her eyes danced in sympathy, demanding that he smile in return.

‘You know my father and Daisy?’

‘I certainly do.’ She grinned. ‘Until she met your father, Daisy had her name down here as a potential resident.’

‘Oh, yeah.’ Right.

‘They’re very happy,’ she said—and waited.

And out it came. ‘They’re always happy.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘My father’s been married four times.’ It was impossible to keep the bitterness from his voice.

She thought about that. Looking at his face, she saw the layers of pain behind the bald fact.

‘Divorce?’

‘Death. Every time.’

That made it so much worse. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Yeah.’ He gave a laugh that came out harsher than he’d intended. ‘You’d think he’d learn.’

‘That people die?’

‘Yes.’

‘You can be unlucky,’ Amy said softly. ‘Or you can be lucky. I guess your dad has had rotten luck.’

‘He keeps trying to replace…’

‘Your mother?’

He caught himself. What was he saying? He was talking as if she was really interested. As if he wanted to share…

She was a nurse. A medical colleague. He didn’t get close to medical colleagues.

He didn’t get close to anyone.

But she’d seen the expression on his face. She knew he needed to move on.

‘But you do have two weeks’ holiday, right?’ she probed. ‘Being stuck here isn’t a disaster.’

‘I’ll get out.’

‘How?’

That stymied him. ‘I guess…when it stops raining…’

‘If it stops raining.’

‘There’s no need to sound like a prophet of doom,’ he snapped. ‘It’ll rain for forty days and forty nights so collect your cats and dogs and unicorns and build a boat…’

She chuckled. ‘OK. When it stops raining. But it’ll take some time to get the bridge repaired. Maybe we can get a ferry working.’

‘I could get out by helicopter.’ But he sounded dubious and for good reason.

‘Even when it stops raining I doubt you’ll persuade one to land here unless it’s an emergency. Being weary of watching your father and his new wife cuddle each other might not fit into the category of emergency.’

‘The sea…’

‘Have you seen the harbour? There’s no way a boat’s putting to sea until this weather dies.’ She shrugged. ‘Sure, there are boats which will bring supplies when the weather backs off but until then… I’m afraid you’re stuck with us, Joss.’

He liked the way she said his name, he decided. It was sort of lilting. Different.

But he had more important things to think of than lilting voices. His own voice took on a hint of desperation. ‘I can’t go back to stay with Dad and Daisy. I’m going around the twist!’

‘That bad?’

‘They hold hands. Over the breakfast table!’

Amy choked on laughter. ‘So you’re not a romantic, Dr Braden. Well, I never. And you with that T-shirt.’

He had the grace to grin. ‘OK. Despite the T-shirt, I’m not a romantic. Is there a hotel in town?’

‘Nope.’

Sigh. ‘I don’t suppose there’s a room available here.’

‘You don’t suppose your father would be mortally offended if you stayed in a nursing home rather than with him?’

He would. Damn.

But she was thinking for him. ‘What excuse did you give—when you left so suddenly?’

‘That I had to prepare a talk for a conference. It was worrying me so I thought I’d get back early to Sydney to do some preparation.’ Then, at her look, Joss gave an exasperated sigh. ‘It’s the truth. I do.’

‘I believe you.’ Another chuckle. ‘Though thousands wouldn’t. But you’ve solved your own problem.’

‘I have?’

She hesitated, and then said slowly, as if she wasn’t sure she was doing the right thing but wanted to anyway, ‘If you need privacy then maybe you can stay at my place. It’s a great isolated spot for writing conference material.’

‘Don’t you live here?’

‘Are you kidding?’ She smiled, and he thought suddenly she shed years when she smiled. She really was extraordinarily lovely. ‘Give me a break. I’m twenty-eight years old. I’m not quite ready to live in a retirement home full time.’

Twenty-eight… What was a twenty-eight-year-old incredibly skilled theatre nurse doing in a place like Iluka?

Caring for a husband? For parents? Unconsciously he found his eyes drifting to the third finger of her left hand. Which was tucked in the folds of her dress. Damn.

‘Um…so where do you live?’

‘Millionaire’s Row.’

‘Pardon?’

‘Didn’t your father show you round the town?’

‘Yes…’ He thought back and then his eyes widened. ‘Don’t tell me you live in one of those.’

There could be no mistaking his meaning. Amy chuckled again and shrugged. ‘Of course. I live in the biggest and the most ostentatious mansion of them all, and I do so all on my lonesome. I have nine spare bedrooms and three whole spas you can choose from. You can have one and your dog another. You can tell your father that you need to be alone to write—and you can be. You can sit and write conference notes to your heart’s content and we need never see each other. If that’s what you want.’

Of course it was what he wanted. Wasn’t it? But…that smile…

Damn, there was so much here that he didn’t understand.

‘Tell you what,’ she said. ‘I have heaps to do and you have a baby and a dog to check, and maybe you need to see Sergeant Packer about your car—or what’s left of it. Lunch is at twelve and you’re very welcome to eat with us. I’m off at two. If you can keep yourself amused until then, I’ll take you home.’

‘You make me sound like a stray puppy,’ he complained, and her smile widened.

‘That’s how you sound.’

‘Hey…’

Her grey eyes twinkled. ‘I know. Nurse subordination to doctors has never been my strong point. Dreadful, isn’t it? Are you sure you don’t want to reconsider?’

But Joss was sure. He definitely didn’t want to spend any more time with his father and Daisy.

And the more he saw of Amy Freye, the more he thought a few days in the same house wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

Was he mad? What on earth was he thinking?

‘Um…no, I won’t reconsider,’ he told her, and she laughed. It was as if she knew what he was thinking, and the feeling was distinctly disconcerting.

‘Until two o’clock,’ she told him—and left him to make of her what he would.

CHAPTER THREE

THE house was stunning.

Amy drove Joss and Bertram out to Millionaire’s Row and turned her car off the road into a driveway leading to a mansion. As she had said, it was the most ostentatious house on Millionaire’s Row. Which left him more confused than ever. Amy’s car looked as if her next date was with the wrecker. Her dress was faded and shabby. She looked as if she hadn’t a penny to bless herself with, yet the house she lived in was extraordinary.

Or maybe extraordinary was an understatement.

It was set back from the beach but it had maybe a quarter of a mile of beachfront all of its own. The house was two storeys high and huge. It was built of something like white marble and the entire edifice glistened in the rain like some sort of miniature palace.

Or maybe not so miniature…

‘Wow,’ he said, stunned, and Amy looked across at him and smiled.

‘Welcome to my humble abode.’ Her smile was mocking.

‘It’s…’

‘Ostentatious? Over the top? Don’t I know it.’ She pulled into one bay of what appeared to be an eight-or ten-car garage and switched off the engine. The car spluttered to a halt, and a puff of black smoke spat out from under the bonnet.

‘Um…about your priorities…’

‘Yes?’

‘You don’t think you might do with one bedroom less and get yourself a new car?’

She appeared offended. ‘What’s wrong with my car?’

‘Er…nothing.’ He hesitated and then decided on honesty. ‘Well, actually—everything.’

‘Bertram likes it.’ She swung herself out of the car and opened the rear door for Bertram. She ran a hand under the silky velvet of his ears as he nosed his way out of his comfortable back seat, and the big dog shivered with pleasure. Amy grinned. ‘If your dog likes it, who are you to quibble? He’s a gentleman of taste if ever I saw one.’

Joss smiled in return. Her grin was infectious. Gorgeous! ‘Bertram likes smells and there’d be enough smells in your car to last a dog a lifetime. I reckon there are four or five generations of smells in that back seat.’

But she wasn’t listening to criticisms of her ancient car. She was intent on Bertram’s wonderful ears. ‘He’s lovely.’

‘You don’t have ten dogs of your own?’

‘No.’ Her voice clipped off short at that, as if collecting herself, and Joss gave her a strange look. There were so many things here that he didn’t understand.

‘Come through.’ She flicked a switch and the garage doors slid shut behind them, and then she walked up the wide steps into the house. ‘Welcome to my world.’

It grew more astonishing by the minute.

The house was vast but it contained barely a scrap of furniture. Joss walked through a wide passage leading to room after room, and each door led to a barren space. ‘What the…?’

‘I only live in the back section of the house,’ she told him over her shoulder as she walked. ‘Don’t worry. There’s a spare bed.’

He was staring around him and he was stunned. ‘You own this whole house?’

‘Sort of.’ She was leading the way into a vast kitchen-living area. Here was a simple table and two chairs, two armchairs which had seen better days and a television set. Black and white. Nothing else.

It grew curiouser and curiouser. He grew curiouser and curiouser.

‘You’ll have to explain.’

‘Why?’

Why? Of course she didn’t need to explain anything. He was her guest. She was doing him a favour by putting him up. But…

‘I’m intrigued,’ he admitted, and she grinned.

‘Good. I like my men intrigued.’

He was more intrigued by the minute, he thought faintly. She was a total enigma. And when she smiled… Whew!

‘Will you tell me?’

‘It’s a long story.’

‘By the look of the weather I have forty days and forty nights to listen.’

‘I need to go back to work.’

‘I thought you were off duty.’

‘I have paperwork to do, and I don’t want to leave our new mother for too long. Mary’s there now but I don’t like to leave her on her own. I’ll stay for an hour but…’

‘Then we have an hour. Tell me.’

Amy made a cup of tea first. Hell, she really did have nothing, he thought as he watched her spoon tea leaves into a battered teapot and pour the tea into two chipped mugs. Nothing.

Poor little rich girl…

‘This house was my stepfather’s,’ she told him.

Joss took his mug of tea and sat, and Bertram flopped down beside him. It seemed almost ridiculous to sit in this vast room. Somewhere there should be a closet where this furniture should fit.

It wouldn’t need to be a very big closet.

‘Was?’

She sank into the opposite chair and by the look on her face he knew she was very glad to sit. Once more there was the impression of exhaustion. She looked like someone who had driven herself hard, for a very long time.

‘Was?’ he said again, and she nodded.

‘Yes.’

‘And now?’

‘It’s mine—on the condition that I live in it for ten years.’

He stared around in distaste. ‘He didn’t leave you any furniture?’

‘No.’

‘Then…’ He hesitated. ‘You haven’t thought of maybe selling the place and buying something smaller?’

‘Didn’t you listen? I said I had to live in it for ten years.’

He thought that over. ‘So you’re broke.’

‘Yes. Absolutely. It costs a fortune to keep this place.’

‘Maybe you could take in lodgers.’

‘Lodgers don’t come to live in Iluka.’ She hesitated and then sighed. She sat leaning forward, cradling her mug as if she was gaining warmth from its contents. As indeed she was. The house was damp and chill. It needed heating…

‘Don’t even think about it,’ Amy told him, seeing where he was looking. The central-heating panels almost mocked them. ‘Have you any idea of what it costs to heat this place?’

‘Why don’t lodgers come to live in Iluka?’

‘The same reason no one comes to live in Iluka. Except for retirees.’

‘You’ll have to explain.’

‘The town has nothing.’

‘Now, that’s something else I don’t understand,’ he complained. ‘My father’s married Daisy and seems delighted with the idea of coming to live here. There’s a solid residential population…’

‘On half-acre blocks which are zoned residential. We have a general store, a post office and nothing else. No one else has ever been allowed to build here.’

‘Why?’

‘My stepfather owned the whole bluff and he put caveats on everything.’

‘So?’

‘So there’s no land under half an acre available for sale. Ever. That means this strip along the beach has been bought by millionaires and it’s used at peak holiday times. The rest has been bought by retirees living their rural dream. But for many it’s turned into a nightmare.’

‘How so?’

‘There’s nothing here.’ She spread her hands. ‘People come here and see the dream—golf courses, bowling clubs, miles and miles of golden beaches—so they buy and they build. But then they discover they need other services. Medical services. Entertainment. Shops. And there’s nothing. There’s no school so there’s no young population. No land’s ever been allocated for commercial premises. There’s just nothing. So couples retire here for the dream and when one of them gets sick…’ She hesitated. ‘Well, until I built the nursing home it was a disaster. It meant they had to move on.’

‘That’s something else I don’t understand,’ he complained. ‘You built the nursing home? How did you do that when you can’t even afford a decent teacup?’

Amy rose and crossed to a kitchen drawer, found what she was looking for and handed it over.

He read in silence. ‘To my stepdaughter, Amy Freye, I leave my home, White-Breakers.

‘I also leave her the land on Shipwreck Bluff and sufficient funds to build a forty-bed nursing home…’

He read to the end, confusion mounting. Then he laid it aside and looked up to find her watching him.

‘Now do you see?’

‘I do—sort of.’

‘This place was desperate for a nursing home. There’s been huge numbers of couples for whom it’s been a tragedy in the past, couples where one has ended up in a nursing home in Bowra because they were too frail to cope at home but the other was stuck here until the end. And each time, as isolation and helplessness set in, my stepfather would offer to buy them out of their property for far less than they’d paid. He did it over and over. He found it a real little gold mine.’

He was struggling to understand. ‘Surely they didn’t have to sell their properties back to him. Surely they could have sold on the open market?’

‘With the restrictions on the place? No. It’s better now, but then… Then it was impossible.’

‘So where do you fit in?’

‘I don’t.’

That made Joss raise his eyebrows. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘My stepfather and I…didn’t get on.’

‘Why doesn’t that surprise me?’

Amy gave a mirthless laugh, then stooped to give Bertram a hug. Like she needed to hug someone. Something.

She hadn’t had enough hugs in her life, Joss thought with sudden insight and he put a hand out as if to touch her…

It was an instinctive reaction and it didn’t make sense. She looked at his hand, surprised, and he finally drew it away. It was as if he’d surprised himself. Which he had.

‘So tell me why he’s left you this—and tell me why you’re in trouble.’

She blinked and blinked again. The concern in his voice was enough to shake her foundations.

No one was concerned for her. No one. Not even Malcolm.

‘I…I need to get back.’

‘No.’ He stood and lifted the mug from her hands, placed it on the sink and then put his hands on her shoulders. Gently he pressed her into the opposite chair, then sat down himself. His eyes didn’t leave hers. They were probing and caring and kind—and she felt tears catch behind her eyes. Damn, she never cried. It must be the pressure and the emotions of the morning, she thought. Or…something.

But Joss was still watching her. Waiting.

‘I… It’s just… I’m fine. The terms of the will…’

‘Are draconian.’

‘I guess.’ She shook her head. ‘You have no idea.’

‘So tell me.’

She shrugged and then settled in for the long haul. ‘My mother married my stepfather when I was nine years old. We came here. But we soon learned that my stepfather was a control freak. He was…appalling. My mother’s health was precarious at the best of times. He bullied her, he manipulated her—and he hated me.’

‘Because you were feisty?’

‘Feisty?’ Amy looked startled and then gave a reluctant chuckle. ‘Well, maybe I was. I only know that my own father had taught me that the world was my oyster, and here was my stepfather drilling into me that I was only a girl, and I wasn’t even to be educated because that was such a waste. There wasn’t a school here so I had to do my lessons by correspondence but he took delight in interrupting. In controlling, controlling, controlling.’

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