The Desert Midwife

by Fiona McArthur

  Ava felt the woolliness of fatigue. They’d certainly had an influx of first-time mums. The mums who’d been sitting from thirty-eight weeks in the lay-in accommodation, eager to test them. She’d bet they were just waiting for Ava and the ‘A’ team to come on duty before they brought out their strange and wonderful complications to run the staff through their emergency drills – at least it felt that way.

  She checked her watch. The morning staff would be here in thirty minutes and she needed to get her own computer work up to scratch, check up on the baby in the Special Care Nursery and get Kareena and her mum to the ward so they could sleep. Then the night staff could all head home to bed.

  On their own.

  Sigh.

  At least she would be going on holidays soon. Once she’d done three more shifts at the Yulara Medical Centre. A change of scenery back at the family cattle station would take her mind off not seeing Zac. At work or play.

  Chapter Four

  Stella

  Four hundred kilometres away Stella May lifted the dusty top of the miniature homestead mailbox that her mother’s love of fusing metals had left mounted at the gate to Setabilly Station. The apex of the replica tin roof lifted on a side hinge, and since gaining an exotic Italian penfriend, Stella liked to collect the mail from inside the little fabricated house herself. Her stomach dipped as she found two bills, which she tucked into her pocket, and then fluttered upwards in delight as she uncovered the textured envelope, postmarked Italy, from Lorenzo, which she clutched to her chest in a crackling hug.

  She glanced up the deserted orange dirt road and back towards the homestead. Nope, there was nobody in sight. She hadn’t told her mum, Mim, or daughter, Ava, that she and Lorenzo had been corresponding. She’d never thought anything would come of their chance meeting at the races in Alice last year. Not with a man who lived in Italy, even if his backpacking son did jackaroo around outback Australia.

  Looking at the letter in her hand, she could feel the excitement again. The thrill of meeting the tall Italian, his obvious admiration for her that no bushman would put out there so candidly, the sensation of fluttering femininity and desirability that he created in her, were all emotions she’d almost forgotten in more than twenty years of widowhood. But lately, Lorenzo’s letters had taken a more insistent note. He wanted to come to her. His son was looking for a station somewhere in the Red Centre, so he would be coming and going between Australia and Italy. Perhaps he could see her? If she wanted him to?

  His request last year to write to her every four weeks when he returned to Italy had increased to fortnightly, then weekly, and she still hadn’t told her family, though they had been corresponding for almost a year.

  It had seemed such an old-fashioned idea to write letters to a strange man, and embarrassing to tell the others, especially her mother, who would tease her unmercifully, but she’d relished penning every one, and loved receiving them even more.

  She’d taken to describing her month, then her week, enjoying the idea of conversation with her male friend, and their distant rapport had supported her in times when she’d felt she needed it. But he hadn’t written last week and she’d missed his endearments, his descriptions of life on his olive farm and his office in town, and his thoughts on her own news and challenges.

  Her fingers shook as she carefully unstuck the envelope, pushing it into her pocket and unfolding the crackling paper so she could read. The sun shone so brightly it was hard to decipher the words, so she backed over to the shade of the mulga tree at the gate.

  My dear Stella,

  I desire this finds you well and happy. Though not too happy without me, I hope. Thank you for your letter. I am glad to hear your daughter-in-law is well with her pregnancy, and that your lovely Ava will be home with you soon for her break.

  I have been busy, but that is no excuse to have you wait for my letter, so I write you a short one to say you are in my thoughts as always and all is well with me. Though I miss you and wish, always, that you would consider coming to visit me in my home.

  She looked unseeingly into the distance. She couldn’t fathom the idea of spending money to gallivant around the world and leaving her family here to struggle. They’d be lucky to keep the station from bankruptcy as it was, without the burden of her blowing a bundle on chasing a distant Italian. She’d been tempted but embarrassed when he’d offered to book and pay for her flights, meet her in Milan, and generally spoil her. It was a nice dream, though.

  She looked back at the letter.

  I see I lacked decision. But more on that soon. Know I have not forgotten my Aussie rose, but I am holding you dear to my heart. Do not forget me.

  With much affection, Lorenzo.

  She folded the letter carefully and slipped it back into its envelope and away in her jeans pocket. As if she could forget him.

  She strode back to check the solar pump that carried water to the cattle troughs in the front paddock. The red rocky ground lay bare, with only the occasional chewed tuft of saltbush. The only happy sight was the shiny surface of the solar panels soaking in the afternoon sun as they should.

  New technology. It was so different from her parents’ days of clunky windmills, she thought as she dusted the panels, their strange flat faces now clean. They remained undamaged in the red desert. The sun beat down upon her hat and shoulders. Her son, Jock, had pestered for the panels and she admitted he’d been right, despite the cost. There was always more sun than breeze. She’d decided the panels were even oddly, bizarrely, beautiful, like strange square birds on the evocative landscape.

  She turned to look behind her, and even in its barren state the land held beauty. It calmed her. The MacDonnell Ranges in the distance made the perfect backdrop to the open space. Stella savoured the perspective the purple-blue crags gave the expanse of desert.

  Perspective.

  It wasn’t just something she admired in her favourite Albert Namatjira painting. She and her daughter needed to appreciate there were other things in life than financially supporting the family’s dying station.

  Stella squinted at the puffy clouds, which only very occasionally brought rain, and acknowledged the last few days had been unusual. But that was home for you. The family liked to do something unexpected, just like the weather. There’d been no rain since last January and none this month, so the soil had started to lift with the breeze. There might be a dust storm instead.

  Teasing stratocumulus clouds had appeared on the western horizon and moved east quickly to cover the sky. It was more the feel you got in March than April, Stella thought, as she strode back to the truck. The wind lifted her hair and the temperature felt cooler against her skin, so maybe there was a chance they’d be blessed with a spot of moisture.

  Jock normally did the bore run, but he and Hana had gone into Alice Springs for a few days for an ultrasound. The next generation for Setabilly Station. Jock had married Hana in a rush, and Stella still struggled with their youth, though Mim had whooped and danced when she heard because young blood was the future out here.

  I need to be less abrasive, Stella thought with a sigh, though Mim thinks I’ve started to grow a few clucky feathers with the prospect of a grandchild. She felt the shiver of anticipation and unconsciously crossed her fingers that all would go well. Unlike Ava’s loss. Ava was twenty-five now. She should find someone decent before her life was gone, like Stella’s. But someone from here, not the city.

  Stella disliked this business of looking fifty and feeling twenty inside. What had her mother said? ‘You’re drying up like a cow pat.’ She’d looked in the hall mirror after that and there had been those crow’s-feet at the corners of her eyes and fine lines around her mouth. Cow pat indeed.

  ‘Thanks, Mim,’ she said out loud as she slapped the corner fence post, and a puff of red dust rose and blew away as she walked back to her car. She’d been hearing that in her head all day today since her mother had spoken the words. And apparently, acting just a little irrational and emotio
nal to go with it. That was Lorenzo’s fault. She couldn’t help wondering why he hadn’t written until now, and if her refusal to visit had finally worn thin. He’s just a penfriend, she reminded herself.

  The sound of an approaching vehicle from the usually deserted road drew her gaze, and a bottle-green Lexus turned in to their gate and slowed to a stop beside her. Unlike her own heart, which, after pausing in shock, did the opposite and began to increase until it pounded erratically.

  Stella stared with disbelief at the tall, dark-haired man who climbed out and her breath came in a gasp as she blinked rapidly. It was the man himself – Lorenzo! Not one of those shimmering mirages that lived on the horizon during the summer. Her gaze roved his bulk from head to toe and focused on the blood-soaked bandage that was wrapped around his wrist.

  She fixated on the injury almost with relief. Dealing with that was much easier than dealing with the shock wave of the man who held her thoughts arriving at her door. ‘What have you done? Show me.’

  Her voice was gruff as she strode towards him, and she took his arm almost roughly as she tried to disguise the shaking that seemed to have overtaken her whole body. Ridiculously, her eyes stung with suppressed tears – How had he come? Why had he come? Now she’d have more of those foolish dreams – and she kept her head down so he wouldn’t see. But his big, warm hand on her shoulder stilled her.

  ‘Stella.’ The rolling a at the end as he said her name made her close her eyes. ‘Have you no welcome for me?’ She heard the touch of humour in his voice, but nothing was funny to Stella about this hallucination that might disappear in a moment.

  She glanced up and his dark eyes were smiling down at her with such warmth that she lost herself in the intensity of his gaze on her. His strong Roman nose, that square chin, with a touch of dark regrowth along his firm jaw. That sexy mouth curved as he watched her. ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked.

  ‘It is good to see you, too, dear Stella. But I think I have shocked you? You know my son wishes to settle here.’ The smile stayed in his voice. Then he gestured dramatically with his good hand, a very Italian trait that she loved about him. ‘My son is in love with this place. You knew that.’ He shrugged. ‘So, I have bought Dreamtime. Your next door, though it is kilometres away. Because the woman I want lives near there. And I have come to lay siege.’ He gestured to his bloodied arm. ‘But first, she must suture this wound caused by a piece of metal I cut badly, or so my housekeeper says.’

  Stella raised the bandage and the immediate swell of blood over the jagged wound made her wince. Thank goodness Mim was out on the other boundary, so she’d have a chance to think. ‘Lay siege. What rubbish. Come back to the house and I’ll fix that for you.’

  ‘Stella.’ His voice held a hint of seriousness that made her look up. ‘Is it good I am here?’

  She couldn’t lie – wouldn’t. There had been enough lies in her life. ‘Yes.’ But oh, what a mess. She wasn’t sure what was messier – the situation or the arm. Then he stepped forward, and despite his bloodied arm he gathered her in and kissed her. He was making no bones that he was hungry for her. And she could not deny he tasted wonderful.

  Their first kiss. He really was here.

  He reluctantly eased her away from him to look at her and she clung a little. His eyes darkened and she couldn’t miss the satisfied quirk to his brows. ‘The rest we will sort, then,’ he said, and gestured to her dust-covered vehicle. ‘Drive and I will follow in my car and then I will explain.’

  Stella could do nothing else; her brain had turned to mush. She climbed into the truck and checked behind her as if to be sure it wasn’t all a trick of the heat. But there he was. A crazy Italian millionaire behind her in his car. Stella’s fingers shook on the wheel. She who had the steadiest hand around.

  Her romantic mother would be in seventh heaven when she heard that Stella had a beau. But this? This confrontation of a man who had made it clear that he found her attractive and was looking for a future. She didn’t know what to think, or whether this was exactly what she’d dreamed about, hoping he would come here. As if she’d been waiting for him.

  Chapter Five

  Zac

  Zac found himself waiting outside the door to maternity, despite his intention not to. It was funny how he was aware he’d rediscovered the emotion of anticipation, which he’d lost for the last year. He shouldn’t be doing this, but Ava the midwife warred with his common sense, even though Alice Springs was nestled 2700 kilometres away from Sydney.

  The connection with Ava he’d felt on the flight, and definitely after that, had been incredible, but he knew he should be letting her go. He needed to find the peace he’d come here to find and go home unencumbered. This was not a good place to find his heart open and expect his blonde sprite to follow him home. But last night had made him rethink that strategy.

  So here he was, leaning against the wall outside the ward with his inner voice demanding, You’d better get your backside into gear and see what today brings, because you might just have to work out the rest as you go along.

  He thought about Roslyn, and how when she’d hung suspended in a coma for those last twelve months, his fidelity and focus on her had remained rock solid. These short two months since she’d passed had been the same.

  Until the flight.

  It was just too soon for a blue-eyed ‘desert midwife’ to have smiled her way to his core. In one day and one night together, not counting work last night, which had strengthened the bond. A one-night stand with a woman he’d bonded with more closely than the best friend he’d been married to for five years.

  Guilt draped thick, disapproving tendrils over him until he almost lifted his hand to wave them away. To make it worse, he’d already been unfair to Ava – asking her to lie to everyone here, to pretend they hadn’t spent the previous night together. He had thrown her generosity back in her face. Even as they’d worked together, he’d told himself the previous night had just been a fling.

  Yet here he was. Making it a two-day fling. And he suspected he’d want tomorrow as well, because his gut had sunk when he’d heard she’d be gone in a couple of days.

  Maybe it wasn’t a fling? Maybe it was a tumbling, stumbling, impossibly crazy love-at-first-sight situation with a woman from another world? After the night they’d shared, the rapport he’d found again, the attraction he felt for her despite his guilt, the thought of not having her body next to his when he went back to his hotel this morning had driven him to stand here. Waiting. In full view of everyone.

  Where was the voice whispering hints that he was overreacting?

  Where was the voice saying stop?

  Nowhere.

  The door from maternity opened and Ava’s chin lifted at the sight of him. A beam of mischievous promise swirled in those blue eyes as a tingle of recognition and reciprocation zinged along his not-so-tired-now limbs and down into his gut. With a look?

  As she came closer, he held up his hand with a hint of apology. ‘Can we meet for breakfast? My hotel? Maybe talk?’

  Her brows twitched. ‘Talk? As in, tell me we’re both going to work in the same ward and pretend we don’t know each other?’ He heard the scepticism, but he didn’t miss that her beautiful mouth lifted at the corner. He had to give her that one. It had been a shock. And there was the distinct possibility that talk might not happen at all if they spent time together.

  But she hadn’t finished. ‘And promising me food again?’ She smiled.

  He warmed under the promise of her curved lips and couldn’t help smiling back at her. ‘I guarantee I’ll supply breakfast this time. We both need the sustenance.’ And he needed to talk to her. Get to know her. Hell, he hadn’t asked any real questions about her family, her life. He promised himself they would eat before he took her back to his bed. If she’d come.

  She’d crinkled her eyes at him in disbelief when he said ‘breakfast’. But she did say, ‘Sure. Your shout.’

  His gut kicked with a different kind of
hunger as she slid into place beside him, her hips swinging next to his as they walked a little too quickly towards his hire car. His heart pounded like a young jock’s, not like one belonging to a widower of thirty. Desperately, daringly, his fingers itched to take her hand. But he didn’t.

  Ava was the opposite to Roslyn: sun-blonde hair, not black; thick, sensible ponytail holding the masses of unruly hair away from her face instead of sculptured helmet style; and blue eyes that soothed the world, which he could lose or find himself in.

  So self-sufficient. Self-reliant. Self-everything. He’d never seen anybody so quietly, unobtrusively confident and competent regardless of the disasters being enacted around her. Even those disasters he set in place.

  Like now? his inner voice asked. What did he expect? That in a month’s time he would forget her? Or that she would come back with him to his brash world of corporate hospitals and city life and just be with him? Or that he would stay here?

  He shouldn’t be doing this, but darn it felt good to watch her walking beside him. He could feel the smile tug at his lips, easing the emotional exhaustion he’d been dragging around like a two-tonne rock since the accident.

  If he was sensible, instead of savouring the joy of the moment like a kid with a lollypop, he’d be thinking how to explain about Roslyn. How to explain that he felt bad about having slept with someone else so soon after his wife’s death, and that, because of where they each lived, they had no long-term future.

  Some of the joy seeped away and he glanced down at Ava. She looked up at him and smiled, and he forgot all that and tasted sweetness again.

  Chapter Six

  Ava

  Excitement effervesced along Ava’s veins like a dropped can of cola shooting fizzy streams outwards to her fingers and toes. Maybe she had a chance to get to know this man properly. Find out why he hadn’t wanted to talk about his life before now. Learn about his loss, hear about his work and family. Most especially, find out why he’d waited outside maternity for her this morning when he had reduced a connection she’d thought special to something gossip-worthy.