That drew a reluctant smile. ‘You’re saying you could give me something like that.’

‘Ooh, the very nicest of drugs,’ she told him. ‘Guaranteed to make you smile and wave till the cows come home.’

‘Till the cows come home,’ he said, dazed. ‘I thought you were from New York?’

‘I’m learning the local lingo,’ she said, with a certain amount of pride. ‘Australian country talk. I can talk about mates and blokes and anything to do with a heap of dung you care to mention. I think I have an ear for languages. Now I’m staying with Angus, it’s Australian with a Scottish accent. So will you let me give you my hallucinogenic substance?’

He seemed even more dazed. Terror had receded in the face of her ridiculousness. ‘It’ll make me go to sleep?’ he managed, but he didn’t sound as if it was a dreadful idea.

‘No,’ she told him. ‘Not my dream stuff. It’ll simply make you relax. Then, if it’s OK with you-and only if it’s OK with you-we can take the next step and give you something so you have a swift sleep while Dr Jake fixes your bump. If you don’t feel relaxed then you can back out. But you do want your hernia fixed, right?’

‘Right,’ he whispered.

‘You really do?’

‘Y-yes.’

‘Well done,’ she told him, releasing his wrist and touching the back of his weathered hand lightly with her own. ‘There’s courage and there’s courage. My moths and your anaesthetic. You want to start now?’

‘Y- Maybe.’

‘Then let’s do step one,’ she told him. ‘You close your eyes while Babs holds your hand, you’ll feel one tiny prick, then we’ll see if my fairy dust works. We can take it from there.’

She administered the propofol, then stood and chatted some more, watching as his eyes became confused-but not terrified at all. She was even making him smile.

‘Next step?’ she asked, and got a sleepy, fuzzy nod for her pains.

Hooray. She needed to let Jake know they were due to start.

She heard a faint movement in the doorway and turned, expecting to see an orderly.

But it was Jake.

He was looking at her with blatant admiration.

How long had he been here? She felt a blush starting at her toes and working its way up. This man had the power to seriously unsettle her. He was almost as unsettling as moths,

‘You’re good,’ he told her, and she struggled for composure-struggled to give him her very smuggest smile.

‘I know,’ she told him. ‘Francis and I are developing a very nice relationship. Aren’t you sorry you’re not into relationships yourself?’

She shouldn’t have said it.

The operation was done in almost total silence. The atmosphere was so tense it was almost unbearable. Not only did he not want to take their relationship any further, she’d killed any friendship they might have been starting to build.

Which was a shame.

She very much wanted to keep working with him, she decided as she watched his fingers perform the delicate piece of surgery to relieve Francis of his hernia. It wasn’t a particularly difficult operation, but his fingers were swift and sure. He was meticulous in everything he did. Francis would be left with minimal scarring and a super-fast recovery because of it.

He was a seriously good surgeon, she thought. He was wasted in Dolphin Bay.

And then she thought, no, he wasn’t wasted in Dolphin Bay. A place like this was lucky to have him. Susie would be blessed to have him if she got into trouble at delivery. If every country town could have a doctor as good as Jake…

‘Blood pressure?’ Jake snapped, and she told him, aware that she’d been watching him for a moment and this was a ruse to make her look at her dials instead of looking at him. She flushed. There was no need to remind her to do her job. He might be a good surgeon, but she knew enough about anaesthesia for her attention never to stray away for more than a second or two at a time. Francis’s anaesthetic was the lightest she could give. She had him intubated but his vital signs were steady, his colour was great and every indication was that this surgery would cause him minimal discomfort.

‘Reverse,’ Jake snapped.

She raised an eyebrow. ‘Say please,’ she said mildly, and Babs choked.

Jake glared. ‘What?’

‘Say please…sir.’

‘Kirsty…’

‘Politeness is everything. We may as well start the way we mean to go on.’

‘Please,’ he said, goaded, and she smiled.

‘That’s better,’ she approved. She turned to Babs. ‘He’s very autocratic for a surgeon, isn’t he? I thought you had to be at least an orthodontist before you let go of the please.’

‘Can we concentrate on what’s important?’ Jake snapped, and she very nearly said Say please again.

Then she glanced at his face and saw the lines of strain around his eyes and thought better of it.

Whatever was eating him, she wasn’t going to break through with laughter.

She probably wasn’t going to break through at all.


‘Is it over?’ Francis surfaced terrified, his eyes wild and frantic. Jake was hauling his gloves off and Kirsty leaned over, took Francis’s hands in hers and held. Hard.

‘It’s done. You’ve conquered your fear. You’re awake. Jake’s fixed your hernia, your wife is waiting to see you and all you have to show is a three-inch square dressing on your tummy. Six stitches. When you wake up a bit more, you can have a look.’

‘It’s done?’

‘It is. The operation is completely finished. All that’s left is my fairy dust, making you a bit sleepy. If I were you, I’d settle back for a nice long nap.’

He searched her eyes, hope warring with fear, dreading that she might not be telling the truth.

But then Jake was behind her, gripping her shoulder, presenting them as a team.

‘She’s right, mate. You’re a new man. Thanks to our Dr Kirsty.’

‘She’s a ripper,’ Francis whispered. ‘A real ripper.’

‘Not a particularly respectful ripper,’ Jake said steadily. ‘But a ripper for all that.’

Francis closed his eyes. Jake stepped back, releasing Kirsty. The orderly moved in to wheel the trolley back out into the corridor. Jake moved into the washroom, but Kirsty stood still for a while longer.

Until the sensation of fingers pressing against her shoulder was completely gone.


He had a list.

The hernia had been a test, she realised. By the time she’d got rid of her hospital gown Jake was waiting for her, and he handed her a slip of paper.

Dorothy Miller: Veins

Mark Glaston: Basal cell carcinoma

Scotty Anderson: Osteochondroma

‘What’s this?’ she asked cautiously. She was in the corridor outside Theatre. Maybe they could have gone somewhere else to talk. Jake must have an office, she thought, but maybe showing her into an office might get her alone. That might constitute a relationship.

‘Look, I’m sorry,’ he said, sounding exasperated, and she knew she didn’t have to say it out loud for him to know what she was thinking. ‘I overreacted yesterday.’

‘You did.’

‘So don’t rub it in.’

‘Tell me about the list,’ she said coolly, and there was a moment’s hesitation while he considered whether to take her antagonism further. But he obviously-and wisely-decided against it.

‘Dorothy Miller has the most appalling varicose veins,’ he told her. ‘One burst last month and it came close to killing her. She’s eighty and she won’t go to the city to get them fixed. She says if she dies she dies, but I’d prefer her not to. Mark has a basal cell carcinoma on his face that’s been incompletely excised. He needs a full-thickness excision and a skin graft. It’s a simple job, but Mark’s wife is blind, they have two small children and for him to leave for a night is a major drama. I told him he’d have to find a way and he agreed, but now you’re here I’ll do it myself.’

‘Now that I’ve proved myself competent,’ she said dryly, and he had the grace to smile.

‘As you say.’

‘And the osteochondroma?’

Bony growths where they shouldn’t be were a common childhood problem so it was no surprise when he said, ‘Scotty is four years old. The osteochondroma is on his leg. I biopsied it and it’s fine but it’s growing. Scotty’s mother is a single mum with three other littlies dependent on her. It’d be a heck of a lot easier if we did it here.’

‘So you really do need me,’ she said, cheering up, and he looked a bit shamefaced.

‘Um…yes.’ There was another momentary hesitation. ‘What you did with Mavis… I’ve been out there this morning and she tells me you’ve already phoned and adjusted the dose. But already the change is miraculous. And here…all these things can wait, but as you’re here and not busy…’

‘You may as well use me,’ she agreed. She paused, and then decided to push it. ‘You know, you really do need to learn to chat to me, though,’ she told him. ‘I’m not accustomed to silence. Maybe we can get piped music in Theatre. Or piped gossip. That’s what I’m used to back home.’

His face stayed expressionless. ‘Silence makes for concentration.’

‘Sure, and you need to concentrate really hard on a hernia op. It’s nail-biting life-and-death drama.’

‘You’re being silly.’

‘You don’t think it’s you who’s being silly?’

‘Am I?’ he demanded. ‘Kirsty, leave it.’

But the look on his face was making her angry all over again. It was like he was afraid of her. As if he was wary that she’d push him into something he didn’t want.

‘I don’t want this,’ he added, and she glowered.

‘Don’t.’

‘Don’t what?’

‘Don’t you push this any further,’ she warned. ‘If you’re about to say something about me feeling what you’re feeling and it’s not wise, or that you’re instinctively realising that I want your body but you don’t want me, or really you’d love to make mad, passionate love to me but you’re a closet gay…’