So he’d leave this afternoon and never come back. She’d get on with her own life and he’d get on with his. But strangely, unaccountably it made his immediate need even greater. Knowing that this might be the only time-this would be the only time-that he could hold her in his arms and let desire hold sway.

She was so lovely-achingly lovely. She was simply dressed in pregnancy jeans and windcheater, she was battered and tired and very pregnant-yet lovely had been one of the first things he’d thought when he’d seen her, and he thought it again now.

Her body was all soft curves. Her pregnant belly moulded against him and he found himself curving to accommodate it. A man taking his woman unto him.

He was deepening the kiss-deepening, deepening, deepening, until all he felt was her and all he knew was her, and the rest of the world could float away for all he cared.

Only, of course, it didn’t. It couldn’t. The woman on the veranda was clearly not amused at being kept waiting. She’d walked down to meet them. She’d stopped four feet away from them and coughed, a cough that said this wasn’t appropriate, she could understand sympathy this morning but she couldn’t understand passion.

Dammit. He felt Maggie shift in his arms, withdraw, become conscious again of her surroundings, and he wanted to shout ‘No’ and tug her closer, but the woman coughed again and he wanted to strangle her.

Reluctantly, achingly, he let Maggie pull away, then stood, holding her at arm’s length, gazing down at her bewildered eyes. Her mouth was lush and full, her lips just kissed…

But behind them the woman was looking confused.

‘Dr Croft?’ she said.

‘That’s me,’ Maggie said, and there was a definite shake to her voice. ‘I’m sorry I’ve kept you waiting. ‘Dr Ashton was just kissing me goodbye.’

Goodbye.

The word stung-but that’s what this was. For one long moment he teetered, a part of him wanting to say, no, it’s not goodbye, this is just the beginning. But then Archibald-or was it Ernestine?-kicked, and Maggie glanced ruefully at her abdomen and so did Max. And there was her baby between them.

Reality slammed back, and remembered pain. No. He wasn’t ready for this. He’d never be ready. Exposing himself to the pain he’d felt six years ago… No and no and no.

Where to go from here?

Nowhere.

To leave seemed impossible. To leave seemed like leaving part of himself behind.

‘Fiona’s waiting,’ Maggie said. ‘I’m sorry about the kiss. You don’t have to tell her.’

‘Fiona’s not-’

‘Max, just go,’ she said, and her voice was really trembling. ‘Please. I can cope myself. I will be fine. I’ll be better if you go.’

‘I don’t want to leave you.’

‘You must,’ she said gently. ‘You have your world and I have mine.’ Her chin jutted a little and she forced herself to smile. ‘You go and get back to your life. But thank you for being wonderful. My hero.’

She hesitated for a moment, then lightly stood on tiptoe and kissed him again. Only this time it was different. It was a fleeting, final kiss of farewell.

And then, very deliberately, she turned her back on him. She nodded decisively to the woman waiting. ‘Let’s go inside. I’ve kept you waiting long enough.’

She made her way slowly on her crutches up to the veranda and he watched her go and she didn’t turn back once.

Max was free to go.


She didn’t look back. If she had she would have wept. As it was, the woman from the undertaker kept giving her odd glances.

This was a small community. It’d be all over town by nightfall that she’d kissed a stranger-that Dr Maggie had a love life.

She didn’t have a love life. She’d kissed him and it was entirely inappropriate. He had a girlfriend. What was she thinking?

She was grief stricken, she decided as she let the two undertakers into the house. Of course she was. That was it. Anything could be excused on the basis of shock and loss.

She wasn’t herself. Tomorrow she’d wake up and be back to nice sensible Maggie, who knew her place and was properly horrified by today’s behaviour.

Was he gone?

It was so hard not to look back.

He drove back to town to collect Fiona and the further he drove the worse he felt. He’d left Maggie alone with the undertakers. How would she cope?

She’d cope magnificently. She was one magnificent woman.

She was bereft, alone and hurt.

She’d kissed him.

There were so many conflicting emotions he didn’t know where to start sorting them into any sensible order. For, of course, there was no sensible order, and when he collected Fiona and she started talking serious clinical medicine, serious hospital politics and the difficulties of progressing up the hospital’s hierarchy, he was grateful.

Medicine blocked out the white noise. He’d learned that when Alice died and he retreated back to it now.

Only…when he arrived back to the hospital the white noise followed him, ready to descend at any sliver of opportunity. He worked until midnight, he did a session in the gym and confusion followed him to bed.

Maggie, Maggie, Maggie.

He’d organised her a locum. John seemed delighted at the chance to help, and he was having a tough time not shoving him aside to take the job himself. He was jealous?

How stupid was that? Really stupid.

But still he lay and stared at the ceiling until dawn.

Maggie. Babies. Family.

The whole heart thing.

He could still feel Daniel in his arms. He could remember every wrinkle, every precious feature of his tiny son. He could remember the joy of being married to a woman he loved, but superimposed on that joy was aching, tearing loss.

To open himself again to that sort of pain…

No.

So stay away.

But the funeral…

He could bear everything else, but the thought of Maggie at Betty’s funeral was too much. The thought of her standing at a graveside as once she’d stood at William’s grave, as he’d stood at Alice’s and Daniel’s…

No.

So… This last thing he’d do for her. He’d arrange work so he could go to the funeral. He’d stay well back-if possible she wouldn’t even see him. If she was surrounded by family and friends then he didn’t have to go near. If she saw him he was simply paying his respects, visiting John to see if things were working out, taking his car for a run.

No harm there.

The decision released a twist of pain in his gut and he closed his eyes in relief.

But still he didn’t sleep.

Maggie.

CHAPTER SIX

AS FUNERALS went it was a biggie. Betty had lived and worked in Yandilagong all her life, so even though it rained-sleet, in fact-half the population of the district turned out for the service.

But as Betty’s only close family member, Maggie was left alone, regarded with deference and respect. When William had died, her friends and colleagues had surrounded her. No one in this community knew her well enough yet to think they had that right. So the undertaker’s assistant held an umbrella over her while she tossed roses down onto the coffin in the little graveyard overlooking the sea, and she felt more alone than she’d ever felt in her life.

Angus hadn’t come. Of course not. He’d said his goodbyes the night his mother had died and that was that.

He was okay, though, Maggie thought, for now he had two little girls intruding on his solitude. John, the locum Max had miraculously found, had been at the farm for three days now. It had taken John’s children-Sophie, six, and Paula five-about three minutes to find the calves and Bonnie. Angus was attached to them, so they attached themselves to Angus. Angus watched them with the same kind of wariness he used for anything he didn’t understand, but after only a day he decided they were just like the calves, not posing any threat to his personal space.

Neither did their parents. John and Margaret seemed wary about sharing a house with Maggie, cautious of her privacy and carefully respectful. They were lovely people but they let her alone.

But right now she didn’t want respectful isolation. She wanted to be hugged.

It wasn’t going to happen.

The ceremony was over. She turned away from the grave and the undertaker’s assistant left to bring the car close. People moved respectfully back from her. She looked bleakly out toward the road-and Max was coming towards her.

He was dressed for a funeral, in a dark suit and tie, a magnificent, deep grey overcoat-cashmere?-and a vast, black umbrella. He looked absurdly handsome. He was moving toward her as others moved back.

She was still on crutches. He waited until she reached him and then he smiled, that crinkly, tender smile that made her heart do back flips.

‘Why are you here?’ she asked, suddenly breathless.

‘I thought you might like me to be.’ He glanced around at the crowd, backed to a respectful distance. ‘I’m so sorry I’m late. I had an emergency at dawn that took a lot longer to sort than I expected, and I couldn’t leave halfway through. But now I’m here, can I help? Do you want a ride to the wake, or do you need to ride in the hearse?’

‘I don’t…I don’t…’

‘I’ve put my hood up,’ he said enticingly, and he sounded so eager she almost smiled.

She did smile. It was so good to see him.

And then he had his arm around her waist, tugging her against him so she was under the shelter of his umbrella with him. She was wearing a raincoat with a hood. It hadn’t been working. Now she was held hard against him, protected from every quarter.

It was so good to feel him.

‘I came via the farm,’ he told her as he ushered her into his lovely car. ‘John and Margaret told me where to find you.’