by Kelly Hunter
‘Nice set-up, Ben.’
‘Furnished from scratch,’ Ben said. ‘Everything was new a couple of years ago, when I moved to town.’
Lucky for him, Jace thought. It made it easy for someone who’d been working as a paediatrician, with all his equipment mostly child sized. ‘Suits me not to have to order anything. We’re only here six months.’
‘We’re not trumpeting that to the populace. You never know. You might decide to stay longer.’ Ben waggled his brows and changed the subject. ‘This will be your room, I’ll keep my office, in case you get snowed under, and there’s a mini-surgery treatment room, and an immunisation room. When I go on leave, the new midwife will use my office for antenatal appointments, unless I come in to help.’
‘When does she arrive?’
‘Tomorrow. Lacey, the previous midwife, has her second baby due a week before ours.’
Jace gestured at the window. ‘Do you need a midwife in a small practice like this?’ He had reservations about midwives.
Ben laughed. ‘Don’t let Lacey hear you say that. In truth, best thing I ever did was hire her. And this new midwife is a friend of hers from Perth. Holly interviewed her via video conference and we met her in person last week. We’re very impressed. Lacey and her friend are both women’s health nurses, and I know Lacey’s incredible with the mums and bubs in town. Between her and Holly we have nearly every family in town on our books.’
He pretended to grimace. ‘In my usual working day, I get the senior citizens who are lovely, haemorrhoids—not so lovely—and all the crusty men. They’ll be your clientele.’
Jace laughed. ‘Sounds a different demographic to my kids in the city.’
‘Oh, I think you’ll enjoy small-town medicine.’
Jace rubbed the back of his neck. He hoped so. ‘Not something I would have thought five years ago.’
Ben’s face creased into a teasing grin. ‘You always were going to be the hot-shot paed. Will you miss that?’
Jace shrugged. He couldn’t deal with dying kids. Not after he lost his wife and unborn baby. He knew what it was to have a gaping hole in the family. When tragedy struck for one of their small clients, they’d had the support of each other. Without Jenny … ‘Be a nice change to deal with kids who aren’t battling the effects of being born prematurity or worse.’
‘Please God.’ His friend shuddered. ‘You’ll be able to use your extra paediatric skills here, don’t you worry.’ He looked innocent. ‘How are you with fractures from tree falls?’
Jace felt the uplift of his spirits. Ben always had known the right thing to say. ‘Reckon I can handle that.’
‘Welcome to Wirralong.’
*
Maeve
Maeve McGill woke to the sound of birdsong and the munch of … maybe a goat? … eating grass outside her window? She hoped it was grass and not the one flowering bush she was sweating on to flower. Lacey had exaggerated the flowers.
Though, it could be a brush-tailed rock-wallaby. Nobody could stop the wallabies from going through the fence or bouncing over it. She’d thought she’d shut the gate into the paddock yesterday afternoon, hence the goat query, but she was still learning to be a farmer.
She dragged her head from the most comfortable pillow in the world and peered blearily through the curtain-free window. Who needed curtains when you had no neighbours? No two-legged ones anyway. Except for the birds. And wallabies.
‘Yep.’ A wallaby. She plopped back and sighed happily. She’d smiled so much since she’d come here—away from Perth—that she knew she’d done the right thing. ‘Good morning, Skippy,’ she said to the ceiling, though she was talking to the grass-chomper outside.
On her farm. Her own farm. Maeve’s Farm. Albeit a dry, dusty, boulder-strewn red-earth-and-rock kind of farm—it had some grass—and one hundred acres of her land!
And the house was cute too. An A-frame with a loft for visitors, a wide verandah that went all the way around from front to back and one-stepped down into the dusty yard.
She had Lacey to connect with, and had met Holly and Ben at afternoon tea. She liked the pregnant doctor and her husband even more since she’d met them in the flesh.
Ben was going to find her a nice quiet horse to learn to ride on. She’d keep it in the tiny barn at night and put it out in the paddock each day.
Then she’d get a dog.
Having already met Ben would make it easier for her first day at work today, and there was a new doctor coming. It was a shame Ben was going on paternity leave soon, but not surprising with four children already.
It would be awesome to be the antenatal midwife for Lacey, and pregnant Holly, even if they were both going to the base hospital to birth.
The new guy was a friend of Ben’s and a paediatric consultant. A big come down to county GP, but great news because she knew how fast sick kids could go down and apparently this small town was filling up with little kids.
The alarm on her phone began its morning serenade, which she’d changed to an Aussie kid’s nursery song, ‘Home Among the Gum Trees.’ It made her smile.
*
Two hours later Maeve drove down the small town’s main road, admiring the row of one- and two-storey, elderly store fronts on each side of the wide street. She turned the corner and drove back along the rear of the buildings, until she came to the behind-surgery car park and pulled in.
Two minutes later she pushed the handle to the Wirralong Family Doctors Surgery and the door swung silently onto a hallway, which ran past three small rooms, and led to the waiting area with pale green chairs and a blue water cooler.
Like the rest of the town, the medical centre looked freshly painted and shiny, and she remembered Lacey had said Wirralong was still crowing about winning the Tidy Town of the Year award last year.
She’d never lived in a lauded ‘tidy town’ before, but felt the tug of new resident pride.
An older, white-haired receptionist glanced up with a smile, which widened when she noted Maeve’s blue trousers and pale lilac shirt. ‘You must be the new midwife.’
‘Maeve McGill.’
‘Imelda Miles, dear. Welcome.’
‘Thank you, Imelda.’ Imelda hadn’t been there last week when Lacey had shown her around. The woman stood up, and halleluiah, she wasn’t much taller than Maeve. Which was almost a win. In Maeve’s experience almost everyone who had reached adulthood felt taller than she was. Not that she had an issue with it. Nooooo.
‘Follow me. There’s a cupboard under the sink in the kitchen where we put our bags. Then I’ll let Ben know you’re here.’
She clucked. ‘Actually, Holly’s unwell this morning, and Ben won’t be in. He said to give Jace a call when you arrived.’
Maeve frowned and hoped Holly was okay. Being sick when pregnant and with little kids would be yuck. Still, it was good Ben could be there for her.
She followed the receptionist, still mulling over her change of expectations. She hadn’t met Jace, but hopefully he’d be as easy to get along with as the husband and wife team.
The kitchen ran narrow and white with a jug, sink and fridge, to a poster-covered wall at the end. Wash your hands. Cover your mouth. Immunisation chart. Toxic spills. All the usual wall decorations you’d see in a hospital or in a doctor’s surgery.
What she didn’t usually see was a list of names with birthdays next to them and lots of smiley faces. That made her warm to the place more.
She might actually have found people to remember her birthday. The man she’d bought presents for in Perth had never remembered. But she wasn’t going there in her bright new fresh start.
Her widowed mother sat lotus in an Australian version of an ashram, somewhere in a rainforest in Queensland, breathing in serenity that had nothing to do with material possessions for her, or her daughter. So, no gifts or cards from Mum.
But they noticed birthdays here. Nice touch. She’d add her name sometime.
As if Imelda heard her thoughts she said,
‘When is your birthday, dear?’
‘First of August. The horses’ birthday.’
Imelda pulled a pen from her pocket and wrote Maeve’s name and date down. ‘I’ll retype that later. Means I won’t forget. Though, one of my grandchildren has a birthday on the first of August. Are you horse mad, too?’
‘I want to be. Ben says he’ll look for a quiet horse for me to learn on.’
‘Ben’s an excellent horseman.’ Imelda turned sedately. ‘Next door is the immunisation room, and next to that the treatment room where the minor surgery is carried out. Lacey said to tell you to rearrange as you wish.’
Lacey had told her that, too. But she liked that her friend had shared it with the receptionist. Nobody wanted to offend others by moving the furniture without warning.
‘And I believe you’ll use Ben’s room for antenatal consults when he’s not here.’
Imelda handed her a piece of paper with Maeve’s logon name and a temporary password for the computer. ‘Ben did this yesterday. So open Medical Director and have a look around in the program. Have you used it before?’
‘Yes. Some things may be different to Western Australia, but not too much in private practice I don’t think.’
The phone rang at the reception desk and Imelda waved and moved off, saying over her shoulder, ‘I’ll give Jace a call.’
‘Thank you.’ Maeve was studying the secondary room. It didn’t look like a great place to talk to antenatal women. Or do women’s health checks. Fine for excisions and stitching a wound.
The bed sat in the centre of the room, with the head of it resting on the back wall, so that as soon as you came in the room you saw feet—and everything else.
On each side of the bed were long laminate benches against the walls. One side held the computer workstation and stationery, beside the door, and the other side held equipment cupboards topped with a steriliser and a sink set in the bench. There was really only room for one small visitor chair almost behind the door, and the staff stool, under the computer desk.
Everything sparkled though, as a sign of good maintenance. There was a skylight in the corner of the ceiling, not directly over the bed, which added natural light to the fluorescent overhead.
A round eye examination light sat tucked in the corner beside the X-ray viewer and the clock.
She regarded the clock. Just coming up to eight am now, and the patients wouldn’t be here for half an hour.
Maeve pulled the wheeled stool across to the computer and sat down to logon. Seemed a good time to check the diary for the nurse/midwife today. Gawd. She always felt more of a midwife than a GP practice nurse.
No.
She had this.
Find out what happens next…
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More books by Kelly Hunter
Maggie’s Run
The Outback Brides series
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The Outback Brides of Wirralong series
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Book 2: The Heart of Caleb Jackson
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Book 3: The Downfall of Cutter Jackson
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About the Author
Accidently educated in the sciences, Kelly Hunter didn’t think to start writing romances until she was surrounded by the jungles of Malaysia for a year and didn’t have anything to read. Kelly now lives in Australia, surrounded by lush farmland and family. Kelly is a USA Today bestselling author, a three-time RITA finalist and loves writing to the short contemporary romance form.
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