Trouble. If Phoebe wasn’t eating, there were major problems.

‘Hi, Emily,’ she said, hardly looking up. ‘Do you know anything about having puppies?’

But Emily wasn’t looking at Lizzie. After one scorching glance at the pyjama-clad girl on the floor, she turned to her fiancé-who was looking particularly fetching himself in boxer shorts and white cast and nothing else.

‘Are you living with Dr Darling?’ Emily demanded, and Harry scratched his bare chest and appeared to think about it. It was maybe a bit hard to deny, seeing Harry was in his boxers and Lizzie was in her pyjamas. It was seven-thirty in the morning.

‘What time did you arrive?’ he asked, as Emily sat down. In front of Lizzie’s toast. Lizzie thought about minding, but then decided she didn’t. Or not very much.

How could you tell if a dog as fat as Phoebe was in labour? She put her hand on her belly, but there weren’t any obvious contractions.

‘I drove home late last night,’ Emily was saying. ‘My uncle rang me in Melbourne and said you’d be desperate for nurses. He said May’s been hurt in a car accident.’

‘She’ll be OK.’

‘So she was hurt?’

‘A couple of fractures. Lacerations. She’ll live.’

There wasn’t a lot of warmth here, Lizzie thought. Ninety per cent of her attention was on her dog but she had enough left to lend an ear.

‘You’ll need me,’ Emily said, and Harry nodded.

‘We do.’ And then, belatedly, like he’d just realised he hadn’t said it, he added, ‘We missed you.’

But Emily had moved on. There hadn’t been a kiss, Lizzie thought. If she was Emily she’d have kissed Harry by now. Boy, would she have kissed him!

‘Have you set the date for our wedding yet?’ Emily was asking, and Lizzie turned her attention back to Phoebe. Maybe Emily was waiting until she wasn’t here to get personal, she decided, and maybe she’d stay right where she was. She didn’t want to think about Emily kissing Harry.

But they had their rights. They were engaged.

‘I might just go and ring the vet,’ Lizzie said. ‘If you’ll excuse me…’

Emily swivelled at that and stared down at her like she was some strange and foreign form of insect life. ‘Why aren’t you dressed?’ she demanded.

‘I’m in my pyjamas,’ Lizzie said carefully. ‘It’s seven-thirty in the morning.’

‘But Harry’s not dressed either.’

Lizzie sighed. ‘I haven’t been in bed with your fiancé, if that’s what you’re implying,’ she said tiredly. ‘I’ve been in bed with a basset until her squirming drove me demented. Now, if you don’t mind, I think we have a little obstetric emergency to cope with.’

‘Do you reckon the puppies are coming?’ Harry asked. He looked more interested in Phoebe than he was in Emily.

‘I’m not sure.’

‘I’ll take a look.’

‘Harry, we need to talk,’ Emily snapped, and Harry nodded. Reluctantly.

‘I guess we do.’

‘Outside.’

‘Fine.’

‘I’ll go and ring the vet,’ Lizzie told them. She cast Phoebe another worried look but the big dog had her head down on her paws and looked more miserable than distressed. Early stages, Lizzie decided.

‘Practise your breathing like we talked about,’ she told Phoebe. ‘I’ll go and find us some help.’


The vet was succinct and reassuring. ‘Don’t fret. Unless she’s clearly distressed, the best thing is to let her be. Tell you what. I’m going out to see a cow in labour now. That’ll take me half an hour or so. What if I pop in and do a house call on Phoebe after that?’

‘Would you? I don’t like to think of bringing her down to your surgery.’

‘Sure, of course I would.’ She could hear Kim’s grin down the phone. Kim was a young woman vet who Lizzie had decided early on could be a friend, and she knew the whole town was hanging out, waiting for these puppies. ‘I understand your problem. If I had the choice of loading a cow into the back seat of your car and bringing her into surgery or loading Phoebe-maybe I’d choose the cow.’

That was all she could do for the moment for Phoebe. Phoebe seemed inclined to sleep, so Lizzie showered and dressed, trying rather self-consciously not to look any different from any other day. She decided finally to go really casual-just to show Emily she really didn’t give a damn. Old jeans. Casual sweatshirt, with white coat thrown on over the top. No make-up. Then she checked on Phoebe who still seemed to want to sleep-maybe she wasn’t in labour after all-and made her way over to the hospital. She may as well make herself useful while she waited for Kim’s house call.

The hospital was quiet. May was deeply asleep. The bruising had coloured drastically in the night, leaving her face almost Technicolored. Tom was seated beside her, holding her hand.

‘Have you been here all night?’ she demanded, and he shook his head.

‘Doc McKay made me go home. My parents are staying with the boys today, though, so I thought I’d stay with her a while.’

‘You know she’ll sleep.’

‘I just want to be here,’ Tom said in a cracked voice, his eyes not leaving May’s.

Lizzie thought suddenly with a fierce ache in her heart, That’s what I want. Some man to look at me when I’m black and blue and just love me…

No. Not some man.

Harry.


‘Emily’s back.’ Lizzie was barely in Lilly’s room before the teenager burst forth with her news. Word travelled fast in Birrini.

‘Mmm.’

‘So what are you going to do?’

‘Read your chart and watch you eat a piece of toast.’

‘No, but-’

‘Eat,’ Lizzie told her, and Lillian took a mouthful and swallowed almost at once, she was so eager to continue her train of thought.

‘He can’t marry Emily.’

‘Why not?’

‘He kissed you.’

‘Yeah. Once. It hardly makes him unfaithful.’

‘No…but he kissed you as if he meant it.’

‘Eat.’

Another bite. ‘You love him, don’t you?’

‘If I do, it’s hardly your business.’

‘I think you should fight Emily for him.’

‘Oh, great. Pistols at dawn.’

There was a knock on the door and Lizzie turned away, almost in relief. A junior nurse stood there, clearly anxious.

‘Yes, Terri?’

‘There’s someone at the nurses’ station asking for you,’ the girl said. ‘I’ll stay here with Lilly if you like.’

‘Did someone say who someone was?’ Lizzie asked.

‘Just Edward. He said his name was Edward.’

CHAPTER TEN

THEY were all out there. In the nurses’ station. Lizzie walked toward the group clustered in the entrance and she felt an overriding compulsion to turn and flee.

Doctors don’t run from their problems, she told herself with something less than conviction. They face up to them.

And why would she want to flee from Edward?

Why indeed?

It really was Edward, all the way from Queensland. He was wearing one of the lovely Italian suits he’d had tailor-made in Milan last year. Edward was a very successful radiologist and he liked the world to acknowledge it. Just quietly. Indeed, if you’d accused him of smugness he’d have been horrified. Edward never boasted of his success, his privilege or his intelligence, all of which were extremely impressive. He was kind to people he perceived to be lesser beings and Lizzie had never been able to make him see that kindness itself was a form of being patronising.

So was patience, she thought. He’d been impressively patient with her and all it made her want to do was hit him.

‘Lizzie,’ he said, smiling as she made her way down the corridor toward him. He held out his hands. ‘If the mountain won’t come to Mohammed then Mohammed has decided he’d better come to the mountain.’

Oh, very oblique. She gave him a sickly smile. ‘A mountain, huh. I’m not that fat. Go see Phoebe if we’re talking about mountains.’ But she gave him her hands and he pulled her close and kissed her while Harry and Emily looked on with interest.

‘You didn’t tell us you were engaged.’ Emily was smiling her approval.

‘I told Harry.’ She collected herself and added, ‘Not that I am.’

‘I brought your ring with me,’ Edward said, and she gave an inward groan.

‘Edward-’

‘When are you coming home?’

‘The puppies haven’t been born yet. Speaking of which-’

‘We can transport them as soon as they’re born. I talked to the airline.’

‘We can’t transport them anywhere. I’ve promised a puppy to one of the local children. The puppy can’t leave its mother for eight weeks.’

‘Then we send the puppy back when it’s ready,’ Edward said with the patience he was famous for. ‘Problem solved.’

‘The puppies are due to be born any minute,’ Emily said, brightening perceptibly with this lessening of a perceived threat. ‘You could take all of them straight back to Queensland. Maybe even tomorrow.’

‘She’s my locum while we get married,’ Harry said, and Emily arched her eyebrows and smiled.

‘You haven’t set another date. I vote we get another locum.’

‘I like this one.’

‘Harry…’

‘I’ve got a broken leg.’ Harry stuck it out in front of him like show and tell. ‘I need help.’

‘So we hire someone else,’ Emily said.

‘Lizzie really needs to come home.’ Edward was back in patronising mode-already. Explaining things to someone who was a wee bit thick. ‘I thought the dog was about to deliver her pups any minute or I’d never have allowed her to stay.’

‘Hey,’ Lizzie broke in, incensed. ‘You’d never allow me-?’

‘When are you getting married?’ Emily asked, and Edward turned his full attention on Emily. Well, why not? You could see his reasoning in his face. Emily was looking exceedingly cute and Lizzie was looking a bit worse for wear. She’d never wear these clothes for Edward. He hated jeans. He hated sweatshirts.

But underneath…she was the same woman that he declared ten years ago he’d marry, and if there was one thing Edward didn’t do it was change his mind.