The Bush Doctor's Challenge

“Hi, Abby, I’m Kell.”

A very deep, very masculine voice greeted her, and with her sun-dazed eyes making focusing impossible for a moment or two Abby’s imagination involuntarily sprang into action, images of a cool-suited sophisticate springing to mind. Perhaps there was another young doctor Ross Bodey had forgotten to tell her about!

“It’s good to have you join us.”

As the voice’s hand gripped hers, Abby couldn’t fail to be impressed by the strength of its grip, and a smile played on the edge of her lips as his image came into focus. Maybe the Outback might have some advantages after all!

Dear Reader,

With most of my books, I work out the story first with just a vague blueprint of the characters in my mind’s eye. But, with The Bush Doctor’s Challenge it was completely the other way around: Kell popped into my head one Sunday night and demanded I write a story around him. Not only that, he point-blank refused to allow me to tone him down or squeeze him into the mold of what I would normally define as a hero. Kell, with his take-it-or-leave-it attitude, assured me he was sexy enough to carry it all off, assured me that Abby would promptly fall head over heels in love with him and there was absolutely no need to change a single thing about him; he wouldn’t even let me cut his hair!

Kell, it would seem was right to stand firm because, as soon as I hit the keyboard, I promptly fell in love, and now I wouldn’t change a single thing about him.

I hope you fall in love a little, too.

Happy reading,

Carol Marinelli

The Bush Doctor’s Challenge

Carol Marinelli

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Cover

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

‘WHERE’S the airport?’ Shouting her question over noise from the plane’s engine, Abby was slightly taken back by the pilot’s reaction when he started to chuckle. It hadn’t been her intention to crack a joke!

‘Show me a flat piece of land and I’ll land this little lady!’ Turning, Bruce grinned widely, showing rather too many gaps in his smile, and Abby forced a rather brittle one back, wishing he would turn his attention to the windscreen or whatever it was called on a plane and get on with flying the thing.

Her apparent aloofness for once had nothing to do with Abby’s rather formal nature, for now it was borne of pure fear! The tiny plane that had met her on the tarmac of Adelaide airport seemed woefully inadequate for this long journey, and as they zipped through the late afternoon sky, as Abby struggled to concentrate on the mountain of paperwork in front of her, for the first time in ages there were only two questions buzzing through Abby’s overactive mind. How the hell did this thing stay in the sky? And, perhaps more pointedly, how would anyone ever find them if it didn’t?

‘There’s a flight strip near the clinic, we should be there in another fifteen minutes or so, give or take a few.’

‘Thanks.’

Bruce’s time frame was hardly rigid but, as Abby was fast learning, she might just as well have tossed her watch into the quarantine buckets when she’d left Sydney. The same laid-back nature had been present in the ground staff who had greeted her when she’d landed tense and rushed at Adelaide, sure she was late for her connection. And when she’d finally located Bruce, standing by his plane, sipping on a cup of tea, he had assured Abby she had ‘no worries’. Bruce, it would seem, would have been happy to wait all day for her if he had had to.

What have I taken on?

A third question was making itself heard as Abby gave up on the paperwork she was attempting to read and leant back in her seat, gazing at the red landscape beneath her. Mile upon endless mile stared back at her, like the coloured sands in the bottle in her small city kitchen back home. The rings of time indelibly etched on the landscape gaped beneath her, leaving Abby feeling as insignificant and as meaningless as the speck in the sky she surely was.

Mind you, it wasn’t as if she’d had a choice but to take it on, Abby mused. Reece Davies, Director of Emergency, long-time colleague and supposed friend, had made his feelings on the subject pretty clear.

‘There was nothing you could have done, Abby.’

How many times had he told her that? How many times had he pulled her into his office when Abby had ordered a multitude of tests on a patient for the most simple of complaints?

‘Try telling that to the rest of the staff.’

‘There’s no need to tell them,’ Reece had insisted. ‘No one in this department thinks what happened that night was your fault.’

If only she could believe him, if only she could believe that the silence that descended every time Abby approached a clique of nurses had more to do with her seniority and less to do with David’s death.

David.

A vague attempt at a smile inched across her lips as she tried to imagine David’s take on all this. What David would say if he could see his Abby, the eternal city girl, on her way to three months in the middle of nowhere. But the start of a smile vanished as, once again, cruel realisation hit.

David was dead.

‘So we’re ordering abdominal ultrasounds on each and every abdominal pain now?’ Reece’s biting sarcasm as he’d audited her patient cards had hurt, but Abby had stood her ground, arguing it was surely far safer to err on the side of caution. To be sure, beyond any doubt, that her diagnosis was spot on.

But Reece had begged to differ.

‘You need to get your confidence back, Abby,’ he’d insisted. ‘You need to regain some perspective. No one would have guessed Dave had a drug problem, no one.’

‘Perhaps not, but if he hadn’t been a friend, hadn’t been a colleague, if David had just been a stranger wheeled through the doors, I’d have treated him differently.’

Reece had shaken his head, even offered his sympathies again for the terrible circumstances of that fateful night, but his stance had remained unchanged—if Abby wanted the upcoming consultant position in Emergency, then some grass roots medicine was the order of the day and Reece knew just the guy to teach her. And while she was at it, hell, why not go the whole hog and try making a couple of friends along the way?

‘Back to grass roots—but, what grass?’ Abby muttered to herself.

‘Sorry, love? I didn’t catch what you said.’ Bruce turned again, his open face ready to join in the first conversation Abby had initiated, and Abby’s blue eyes widened in angst, wishing Bruce would at least look as if he was controlling the plane!

‘Nothing,’ Abby shouted over the noise of the engine, embarrassed at being caught talking to herself. ‘I was just saying that the land looks very dry.’

‘Does it?’ Bruce peered out of the side window for what seemed an inordinate length of time as Abby forcibly resisted the urge to take over the controls of the plane herself. ‘No more than normal, love.’

Picking up her papers, Abby gave herself a mental shake. OK, so she was effectively out of action for three months, but you didn’t have to be on the front line to fight a war. If her plans for the department were going to take shape then there was a pile of research to get through, people to be contacted, plans to be made. Her time in Tennengarrah wasn’t going to be a total write-off.

She could still keep her promise to David…

As the very occasional buildings started to multiply, Bruce finally started to look at least a little like he was concentrating and Abby braced herself for a rather bumpy descent.

It never came. The only shudder she felt was when the plane touched down and a relieved escape of air came out of Abby’s tense lips as they hurtled along the small landing strip.

‘How was that, Doc?’

‘Excellent!’ Abby stood up, her first genuine smile of the day parting her full lips. Stretching her long legs, she plucked at some imaginary fluff on her very crisp, very white cotton shorts then ran a slightly anxious hand through her shock of long dark hair, wishing Bruce would stop grinning at her so she could touch up her lipstick.

‘Here’s Kell to meet you.’

‘Kell?’ Abby frowned as she hovered by the door. ‘I thought Ross Bodey was supposed to be here.’

‘Oh, sorry, I should have told you. Ross is on a call-out. I’ll head off and pick him up soon, once I’ve had a cuppa.’ Bruce didn’t look sorry, not even remotely, and, picking up a large stainless-steel Thermos flask, he opened the exit door and jumped out easily before gallantly offering his hand as Abby made a rather more tentative descent to the dry soil beneath her. The low glare of the sun hitting her face on forced Abby’s hand straight up to shield her eyes.

‘Hi, Abby, I’m Kell.’ A very deep, very masculine voice greeted her and with her sun-dazed eyes making focussing impossible for a moment or two, Abby’s imagination involuntarily sprang into action, images of a cool, suited sophisticate springing to mind. Perhaps there was another young doctor Ross Bodey had forgotten to tell her about! ‘It’s good to have you joining us.’ As the voice’s hand gripped hers Abby couldn’t fail to be impressed by the strength of its grip and a smile played on the edge of her lips as his image came into focus. Maybe the outback might have some advantages after all!

Wrong.

Never had a fantasy been so quickly dashed. Standing before her, smiling easily, was Mother Nature’s original version of the Neanderthal man. A hulking brute of a male, well over six feet, was grinning down at her, dark shaggy black hair that needed a good cut hanging too far down his long thick neck, and dark eyes thickly rimmed with even darker lashes were smiling quizzically at her.

He wasn’t wearing a loincloth exactly but the faded denim shorts he wore were a pretty good attempt, considering that was all he was wearing!

Even though Abby was wearing only white linen shorts and a crisp white blouse, coupled with some beige loafers, suddenly she felt terribly overdressed. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ Abby murmured, her eyes involuntarily travelling the long length of his impossibly tanned body, taking in the dark-haired legs and the chest hair, then blushing as she realised she’d been caught staring.

‘Shelly wanted to come and meet you, but I told her to stay put, she’s not feeling the best.’

‘Is that right?’ Pouring out a cup of tea from his well-loved Thermos then lighting up a cigarette, Bruce leant against the plane, obviously settling in for a chat. ‘What’s the problem?’

Abby fidgeted uncomfortably, anxious to get to the homestead, desperate to have a long cool shower as opposed to standing in forty degrees of heat for a cosy little chat.

‘She’s acting a bit strange.’ Kell shrugged. ‘So maybe you should hurry up your smoko and go and get Ross.’

Abby glanced over to Bruce, doubting anything short of a nuclear missile would hurry him up, but as Kell carried on chatting in his laid-back voice she did a double-take.

‘If the baby is coming, Ross will want to be there.’

‘She’s in labour?’ Abby gasped, but Kell just gave a vague shrug as Bruce noisily supped at his tea.

‘Well, Shelly insists she isn’t, but if you ask me she isn’t far off. She’s been cleaning like a woman possessed this morning, and now she’s pacing up and down like a tractor turning the soil.’

‘And from that you assume she’s in labour?’ There was a slightly sarcastic edge to Abby’s voice, which she quickly fought to correct. After all, it wasn’t Kell’s fault he didn’t know what he was talking about!

‘I’m just saying I’d be happier if Ross was here, and that as much as Shelly refuses to admit it, I think she’d be happier, too,’ Kell added, with all the authority of a man who’d no doubt single-handedly delivered a zillion calves! ‘She’s supposed to be flown to Adelaide in the morning.’

‘When’s she due?’ Bruce asked, slurping his drink in such a disgusting fashion Abby felt like putting her hands up to her ears.

‘Three weeks tomorrow, but they’ll take her to Adelaide in case the baby comes early.’

‘Do all pregnant women go to Adelaide?’ Abby asked, curiosity getting the better of her. Though she only half listened to the answer, sure these two bush buddies wouldn’t have a clue about maternity arrangements.

‘Just the complicated ones.’ Kell gave a knowing nod and Bruce scratched his head.

‘It’s upside down, isn’t it?’

‘Breech,’ Abby said, trying to keep the note of superiority out of her voice. ‘She probably won’t need a Caesarean section, but it’s better to be on the safe side. Breech deliveries can be complicated.’

‘Is that right? Rightio, then.’ Taking his cue, Bruce threw the dregs of his drink onto the ground and took another moment or two to replace his lid and cup. ‘I’d better step on it. Will you be all right? I mean, if Shelly really is about to have the little tacker, do you want me to give anyone a call?’

‘Good idea,’ Abby said approvingly, then snapped her mouth closed as Kell overrode her.

‘Oh, we’ll be right.’ Kell shrugged again. ‘But more to the point, Shelly will kill me if I go summoning the troops. I’ll catch you later, then, Bruce.’ As Kell turned to go Abby stood there bemused for a moment before calling him. ‘What about my luggage?’

‘Bruce will bring it in later when he drops Ross back. I’ve only got the bike.’ Gesturing to a massive brute of a motorcycle parked in the middle of nowhere, he didn’t seem to notice or, more pointedly, chose to ignore Abby’s gasp of horror.

‘But my computer…’ Her voice trailed off as Kell gave her a curious look.

‘It will be fine. Bruce will only be gone an hour or so. No one’s going to take it.’

Maybe not, but if Bruce went and fell asleep at the controls, which Abby reasoned wouldn’t exactly be far off from where he was now, not only would all her drug rehab research go up the shoot, she’d be stuck in this God-forsaken place without the internet, and heaven forbid, the chance to email every last one of her family to tell them about the worst career move in history.

‘I’d like my computer, please.’ Standing her ground, Abby watched as Kell gave her another quizzical look, combined with another brief shrug.

‘Whatever you say. Hey, Bruce!’

Ambling his way over, Abby watched as the two men exchanged a few words, no doubt moaning about the little princess who needed all her gadgets. Well, let them moan, Abby thought fiercely, she needed her computer, it wasn’t exactly a big thing to ask!

‘Here you go.’ Handing her the black bag, Abby mumbled her thanks, her eyes travelling behind him to the large white building.

‘The clinic’s bigger than I thought.’

That was the understatement of the millennium. For weeks now Abby had been having visions of a tiny tin shack, with a rickety sign bearing a red cross on the outside. Maybe it was the word ‘clinic’ that had caused her misconception, conjuring up images of a halfway house, a holding bay until real help arrived, but the very white, very large building she was looking at now looked suspiciously like a hospital.

Kell nodded as Abby carried on staring. ‘It’s getting there. Half of it is still under construction, but it’s coming along. I’d take you round for a quick tour, but Ross asked me to keep an eye on Shelly. I can take you in, though. Clara’s on duty, she’ll be only too happy to show you around.’

‘That’s fine,’ Abby said quickly, suddenly overcome with nerves at the prospect of meeting everyone. ‘I’ll wait for the doctor.’ Her words came out horribly wrong, superior and condescending, but thankfully Kell didn’t respond, just climbed on the bike. It wasn’t as if he’d be up on the intricacies of hospital hierarchy to be offended by her words, Abby consoled herself, making a mental note to be a bit more diplomatic.

‘Do you want me to hold your computer for you?’ Kell volunteered as Abby eyed the bike suspiciously and lifted one very wary leg. ‘Would that make things easier?’

‘Thanks.’ He slipped the carry strap over his shoulder and waited patiently, a slight grin on his lips as Abby struggled to mount, her cheeks still burning from the mess she had made of his polite offer to introduce her. But it wasn’t only embarrassment and the thought of climbing on the brute of a thing that was giving Abby palpitations, it was the realisation that she had no hope of getting on, straddling the thing and riding the couple of kilometres or so to the homestead without touching Kell. Or more pointedly, without touching the vast expanse of naked skin that she simply couldn’t seem to tear her eyes away from.

She wanted to ask him for a helmet, to point out the dangers of riding a bike without one. How dammed irresponsible they were being and how awful it would look in her obituary if an emergency doctor was killed riding a bike without one.

But what would be the point?

All that would achieve would be to make her look even more neurotic. Still, if this was how they got about here, she was going to make damned sure she bought one for herself, order one from the internet if she had to.

At least she had her computer.

‘Whoops.’ Midway through starting the engine, he stopped. Climbing off, Kell opened the back box Abby was leaning on and took out two of the offending objects. ‘Better to be safe. Ross would never forgive me if I killed the new doctor on her first day here.’

The annoying thing was, now that she’d got what she’d only seconds ago wanted, Abby had no idea what to do with the blessed thing. Oh, she could get it on, and hopefully it was the right way around, but the straps on Kell’s helmet had clipped together easily, whereas hers…

‘Here.’ He was standing next to her, clipping together the connection and tightening the straps under her chin. As unwashed and unkempt as he looked, this close up Abby realised it just wasn’t the case as she caught the faint scent of his soap mingling with a strong masculine deodorant that most definitely did the job. As he lifted his arms and fitted her helmet, pulling the straps so taut under her chin Abby was sure she might choke, the worst part of it all was that while she suffered this brief indignation there was no place else to look than at his very flat, very brown stomach.

OK, he was sexy, Abby admitted reluctantly, in a sort of overgrown, salt-of-the-earth way.

Very sexy, she conceded, eyes level with his epicentre. Even his belly button was sexy, which up to this point Abby had been sure was an impossible feat. Belly buttons were just that—belly buttons. But Kell’s, well, the hair around it circled gently, and Abby found herself momentarily mesmerised by the strange beauty of such a normally nondescript object.

‘Third time lucky.’ Kell grinned, climbing nimbly in front of her and shouting over his shoulder as the bike sprang into life between her thighs. ‘Let’s go.’

Abby had never been on a motorbike in her life. In fact, she’d barely graduated to getting the training wheels taken off her push bike before books had beckoned, or a drop of pond water placed under her father’s antiquated microscope had held more excitement than riding around the back garden in circles. And now here she was in the middle of nowhere, roaring along a dusty red road clinging on for dear life to a man she’d only just met.

It was terrifying, exhilarating and strangely…Abby’s mind clicked over, struggling against the whipping hair around her face to find the word she was looking for.

Sexy.

There it was again.

Thousands of dollars’ worth of chrome catapulting them along the rough, unsealed road, and it would be a lie by omission not to recognise the added thrill of Kell’s snaky hips beneath her hands, her fingers coiling through the loops on his shorts, and unless she wanted to fall off the palms of her hand had nowhere else to go other than resting on his warm, bronzed skin. Abby kept her body well back, though, leaning against the back box, terrified she might be catapulted forward and forced to touch more of him.

It was over too soon, and vague memories of the waltzers at the fairground surfaced as Abby took Kell’s hand and attempted to dismount with at least a shred of dignity. Her legs felt as if they didn’t quite know what to do and the ground still seemed to be moving.

‘Sorry.’ Kell grinned. ‘I didn’t realise it was your first time, you should have told me.’

‘Why?’ Abby shrugged. ‘Would you have treated me more gently?’

Ouch! The sexual connotation had never been intended, and as Kell grinned ever wider Abby followed him up the steps of a massive house, wondering where her attempt at flirting had blown in from.

Yes, he was sexy, yes, he was a fine specimen of a man and all that, but a farm labourer with a thing about bikes certainly wasn’t on Abby’s agenda.

She was here to work.

Three months of grass roots medicine and she was out of here, and if Bruce’s plane collapsed, no matter, she’d walk if she had to.

‘Abby!’ A very pregnant, very pretty, red-headed woman came out of a fly door and stood at the top of the steps, the massive laundry basket she was carrying in no way covering up the enormous swell of the baby within her. ‘I’m Shelly, we spoke briefly on the telephone. I’m so sorry Ross isn’t here to meet you.’

‘That’s no problem.’ Abby smiled in what she hoped was a friendly fashion. ‘Kell made me very welcome.’

‘Did I?’ Kell asked with a vaguely surprised grin. ‘I wasn’t even trying.’

‘I was being polite,’ Abby muttered, as Kell’s grin widened.

‘Tell you what, come to the watering hole with me tonight and meet the locals, we’ll show you a real Tennengarrah welcome. I’ll even leave the bike at home this time.’

‘I might just give it a miss, thanks.’

Even though his offer had been imparted in his usual laid-back style, Abby couldn’t help but feel a flurry of butterflies as she said no. OK, he wasn’t exactly asking her out on a date, but it was certainly the closest Abby had come in a long time.

A very long time.

‘You should go,’ Shelly pushed happily. ‘If I wasn’t the size of a baby elephant, I’d take you there myself.’ Putting the basket down, Shelly rubbed her back and gave a weary smile. ‘Come inside. We’ll have a drink and then I’ll take you over to where you’ll be staying—it’s that one.’ She pointed over to any one of about three white houses scattered on the perimeter of the property. ‘It’s all ready for you.’

Privately all Abby wanted to do was grab the keys and head off but, not wanting to be appear rude, she smiled appreciatively and followed a rather cumbersome Shelly back up the steps, hesitating slightly as she realised Kell was joining them.

‘Kell,’ Shelly said as he followed them in. ‘You don’t have to babysit me. I’ve got Abby here now, she is a doctor.’

‘I’m not babysitting,’ Kell insisted, but Shelly shook her head.

‘So why have you spent the whole afternoon painting the baby’s nursery when Ross was going to do it at the weekend?’

‘When did Ross ever get a weekend off?’ Kell said, collapsing onto the couch and placing two massive feet onto the coffee-table before him, which had Abby cringing, though Shelly didn’t seem remotely bothered. ‘Anyway, I need the cash.’