‘How’s Maggie?’ he demanded before he could help himself.

‘We’re all fine,’ John said jovially. ‘It’s working out brilliantly. There’s so much work here, and it’s a great little community. But, hell, Max, the place is the epicentre of a medical desert. I’m run off my legs already, and the moment Margaret put up her plate she had so many teeth coming through her door she was tempted to take it down again.’

‘Yeah, but Maggie…’

‘She’s fine, too. Except… That’s why I’m ringing.’

‘Except what?’ He was right back there again, feeling the terror he’d felt when Alice had shown the first signs of pre-eclampsia. Leaning against the wall for support. Knowing this was illogical and emotional, but there was nothing he could do about it.

‘Margaret’s worrying.’

‘Why?’

‘Because she’s alone,’ he said, and Max’s world righted itself again. Alone. That wasn’t terrifying.

It wasn’t great, though. Alone? Why the hell was she alone?

‘She can’t have the baby here,’ John said. ‘The only doctor’s me, and I’m not prepared to give obstetric support without back-up. All the women from around here need to go to the city to have their babies. Mind, if we had a really good obstetrician…’

‘Get on with it,’ Max growled. Damn, he’d sussed John was good, but he didn’t appreciate him being this good-not only helping Maggie but starting to put pressure on others to help. Namely him.

‘Okay,’ John said, chuckling, and Max thought briefly through jumbled emotion that Zimbabwe’s loss was Maggie’s gain. ‘It’s just Maggie’s organised herself an apartment at Coogee for the next couple of weeks until she has the baby. She chose Coogee because it’s a beach location where she can walk and swim, and it’s close to the hospital she’s booked into. Which also happens to be our hospital. I mean, your hospital.’

Coogee. A suburb of Sydney not ten minutes’ drive from where he was taking this call. Max drew in his breath, suddenly feeling trapped-pulled towards the abyss. ‘She’s coming here?’

‘She’s already there. She left on Sunday. So I thought I’d give you a heads up so you could look out for her.’

The implied responsibility rattled him further. ‘She’s not a friend, John,’ he said, before he could think about it, and there was a moment’s stunned silence from the end of the phone. He could almost see John’s brows snap down in surprise-and disapproval.

Fair enough. Maybe he even disapproved of himself.

Maybe what he’d said had been stupid. And cruel?

But would Maggie think of him as her friend? Maybe not, he conceded. She’d been so angry the last time he’d seen her…

‘She’s my friend,’ John said at last, gently chiding, and Max caught himself.

‘Sorry. I mean…I was just thinking… Why did she book herself in here for the birth? There are many hospitals in Sydney.’

‘I believe she booked herself into Sydney South before she even came to Australia,’ John said, growing more disapproving by the moment. ‘I don’t believe she did it to annoy you. But if you don’t think of yourself as her friend…’

‘I do.’ He raked his fingers through his hair. ‘Sorry, of course, I mean I guess I do. It’s just that I hardly know her.’

‘You came to her grandmother’s funeral. The locals said you held her up all afternoon. Physically.’

‘She needed holding up.’

‘Well, maybe she needs holding up again now,’ John said brusquely. ‘She’s left here and gone to stay in a hotel apartment until the baby’s born. She doesn’t know anyone in Sydney and we’re worried. So worried, in fact, that Margaret says if you won’t promise to keep an eye on her then she’ll leave me here with the kids and go and keep her company herself. So I’m asking you to check on her.’

‘She’ll want solitude,’ he said, clutching at straws.

‘You’re kidding me, right?’ John demanded. ‘She’s not like Angus. She’s a sociable, chirpy, intelligent colleague. The girls and I are already half in love with her. We can’t bear to think of her being alone. But if, as you say, you don’t see yourself as her friend…’

‘All right,’ he said, goaded, and then heard himself, heard his anger, and felt small. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ve had one hell of a morning. I’m run off my feet.’

‘Yeah, I’m hearing that, too,’ John said. ‘So why are you running yourself into the ground?’

‘There’s work…’

‘And there’s delegation,’ John said. ‘You ever heard of it? Yeah, I know, it’s none of my business, only Margaret and I worked in that place ourselves and gossip travels fast. We still hear things. So you met Maggie, you hugged her all through the funeral but you haven’t phoned her since, you’re working yourself into the ground and now you react like a scared wimp when I suggest you keep tabs on her.’

‘Why would I be scared?’

‘You tell us and we’ll both know,’ John said cheerfully. ‘Okay. Margaret wouldn’t let her go without giving us her address. You want it, or do we have to figure some other way of taking care of her?’

Max raked his hair again. Did he want her address?

Short answer, no.

Long answer? Long and very complicated answer?

Of course he did. Yes.


The beach was glorious and she had it almost to herself.

It was early September. There were lifesavers watching her with lazy care, and she liked that. She also liked it that she was almost the only one in the water apart from a couple of German tourists whooping it up in the shallows.

It was Wednesday. A working day. Even those not at work thought it was too cool to swim. Too bad for them, she thought, backstroking lazily along the backs of the waves. She’d swum this morning and now, in the late afternoon, she was swimming again. After the rush of the past few months this was bliss. She had nothing to do but swim and float and watch the expanding bump that was her daughter.

She was so-o-o pregnant. Her belly button had turned inside out. She felt the size of a small whale. A whale’s natural environment was water, she thought, rolling happily over and over in the surf. This was where she was meant to be. Wallowing.

Ooh, it was lovely to be off her feet. Ooh, it was lovely to be here, even if she was alone.

She wouldn’t be alone for long, she told herself. She had a week to go, give or take a few days. Very soon now she’d have her daughter.

It wouldn’t stop her being lonely.

Now, that was crazy talk. She gave herself a mental scolding, as she’d been doing a lot since she’d left the farm. She wasn’t alone in the least.

John and his family had moved into the farmhouse. They were lovely and they were giving her all the support she needed. Angus was happy, with his tractors and his calves and his dog. So she had John, Margaret, Sophie, Paula and Angus, plus the community of Yandilagong. After Betty’s funeral she’d learned just what belonging to a small community really meant. She had enough tuna casseroles and jelly cakes and cream sponges in her freezer to last her a lifetime.

Her future looked far less isolated and a lot more calorie laden than she’d ever dreamed possible.

So why was she lonely?

It’s because I’m alone right now, she told herself, in the manner of one talking to someone being deliberately dull-witted. Lonely means alone.

You’ve been alone since William died.

I haven’t felt alone. Not for a while now. Or not achingly alone.

Not until I met Max.

And there it was, the crux of the matter. One drop-dead gorgeous doctor and her whole world had been thrown out of kilter.

So put him out of your head, she told herself for about the thousandth time since Max had left. Just swim and don’t think of him.

She did a couple more laps of the patrolled part of the beach, then watched the German couple decide it was time to call it quits. Maybe it was time for her to do the same. Reluctantly she turned toward the shore-and saw a man striding down the sand toward her. A man who looked vaguely familiar.

Really familiar.

She stared in disbelief, thinking she was dreaming.

She wasn’t dreaming.

Max.

For a moment she thought wildly about swimming out to sea. The last time she’d seen him she’d been so angry. So humiliated. She tried to dredge up that anger now-and failed.

She floated and watched him greet the lifeguards, haul his shoes and socks off, roll up his chinos and stroll down to the shallows. He was shading his eyes with his hand so he could see better.

She was doing the same. Treading water, shading her eyes, trying to watch him.

Max.

A wave, bigger than usual, rose behind her. Acting on impulse, she caught it and let it carry her all the way to the beach. Or almost all the way. Her bump grounded her about twenty feet before the rest of her would have.

She surfaced, wiped the water from her eyes, pushed her curls back and he was about six feet away.

‘What are you doing here?’ she managed, and he looked down at her for a long moment without replying. As well he might, she thought.

She’d decided buying a pregnancy swimsuit was a waste of time-who was there to appreciate it except her? Her modus operandi was to wear a sarong to the beach, tug it off at the last minute and get into the water fast. She was wearing a faded pink bikini. The top was respectable-well, almost, though her bust had grown considerably bustier in her pregnancy. She couldn’t see her bikini bottom. It was somewhere under her bump.

Max, on the other hand, looked cool, collected and casually fabulous. Business shirt without a tie and the top buttons unfastened. Rolled-up sleeves. He was carrying shiny black shoes, socks tucked inside.

Very neat, she conceded. Whereas she…

She didn’t want to think about what she was.

‘John said I should check on you,’ he told her, and she winced. Of course. It wasn’t like he was here because he wanted to be.