LITMIR.BIZ

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rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_4612d645-b235-55f2-bc0e-d299c76e18b7">CHAPTER ONE

      CHRISTMAS IN THE middle of nowhere. Wombat Valley. Hooray!

      Dr Pollyanna Hargreaves—Polly to everyone but her mother—beefed up the radio as she turned off the main road. Bing Crosby’s ‘White Christmas’ wasn’t exactly appropriate for Christmas deep in the Australian bush, but it didn’t stop her singing along. She might be a long way from snow, but she was happy.

      The country around her was wild and mountainous. The twisting road meant this last section of the journey could take a while, but the further she went, the further she got from the whole over-the-top celebration that was her parents’ idea of Christmas.

      ‘You can’t be serious!’ She could still hear her mother’s appalled words when she’d broken the news that she wouldn’t be spending Christmas with them. ‘We’ve planned one of the most wonderful Christmases ever. We’ve hired the most prestigious restaurant on Sydney Harbour. All our closest friends are coming, and the head chef himself has promised to oversee a diabetic menu. Pollyanna, everyone expects you.’

      Expectation was the whole problem, Polly thought, as she turned through the next curve with care. This road was little more than a logging route, and recent rain had gouged gutters along the unsealed verge. The whole of New South Wales had been inundated with weeks of subtropical downpours, and it looked as if Wombat Valley had borne the brunt of them. She was down to a snail’s pace.

      But she wasn’t worried. She wasn’t in Sydney. Or in Monaco, where she’d been last Christmas. Or in Aspen, where she’d been the Christmas before that.

      Cute little Pollyanna had finally cut and run.

      ‘And I’m not going back,’ she told the road ahead. Enough. She felt as if she’d been her parents’ plaything since birth, saddled with a preposterous name, with nannies to take care of every whim and loaded with the expectation that she be the perfect daughter.

      For Polly was the only child of Olivia and Charles Hargreaves. Heiress to the Hargreaves millions. She was courted and fussed over, wrapped in cotton wool and expected to be …

      ‘Perfect.’ She abandoned Bing and said the word aloud, thinking of the tears, the recriminations, the gentle but incessant blackmail.

      ‘Polly, you’ll break your mother’s heart.’ That was what her father had said when Polly had decided, aged seven, that she liked chocolate ice cream, eating a family tub behind her nanny’s back and putting her blood sugars through the roof. And ever since … ‘You know we worry. Don’t you care?’

      And then, when she’d decided she wanted to be a doctor …

      ‘Pollyanna, how can you stress your body with a demanding career like medicine? Plus you have your inheritance to consider. If you need to work—which you don’t—then at least take a position in the family company. You could be our PR assistant; that’s safe. Medicine! Polly, you’ll break our hearts.’

      And now this. Breaking up with the boy they wanted her to marry, followed by Not Coming Home For Christmas. Not being there to be fussed over, prettied, shown off to their friends. This was heartbreak upon heartbreak upon heartbreak.

      ‘But I’m over it,’ she said out loud. ‘I’m over families—over, over, over. I’m an independent career woman so it’s time I started acting like one. This is a good start. I’m five hours’ drive from Sydney, in the middle of nowhere. I’m contracted to act as locum for two weeks. I can’t get further away than this.’

      And it was exciting. She’d trained and worked in city hospitals. She didn’t have a clue about bush medicine, but the doctor she was relieving—Dr Hugo Denver—had told her things would be straightforward.

      ‘We’re usually busy,’ he’d said in their phone interview. ‘The valley could use two doctors or more, but over Christmas half the population seems to depart for Sydney or the coast. We run a ten-bed hospital but anything major gets helicoptered out. Mostly we deal with minor stuff where it’s not worth the expense of sending for the Air Ambulance, or long-termers, or locals who choose to die in the Valley rather than in acute city hospitals.’

      ‘You provide palliative care?’ she’d asked, astonished.

      ‘Via home visits, mostly,’ he’d told her. ‘Most of our oldies only go to the city under duress, and it’s an honour to look after them at home. I also deal with trauma, but the logging industry closes down for three weeks over Christmas and the place is quiet. I doubt if you’ll have much excitement.’

      ‘But I wouldn’t mind a bit of excitement,’ she said aloud as she manoeuvred her little sports car around the next bend. ‘Just enough to keep me occupied.’

      And then, as if in answer to her prayers, she rounded the next bend—and got more excitement than she’d bargained for.

      Dr Hugo Denver was well over excitement. Hugo was cramped inside a truck balanced almost vertically over the side of a cliff. He was trying to stop Horace Fry from bleeding out. He was also trying not to think that Ruby was totally dependent on him, and his life seemed to be balanced on one very unstable, very young tree.

      The call had come in twenty minutes ago. Margaret Fry, wife of the said Horace, had managed to crawl out of the crashed truck and ring him.

      ‘Doc, you gotta come fast.’ She’d sobbed into the phone. ‘Horace’s bleeding like a stuck pig and there’s no one here but me.’

      ‘He’s still in the truck?’

      ‘Steering wheel jabbed him. Blood’s making him feel faint.’

      ‘Bleeding from where?’

      ‘Shoulder, I think.’

      ‘Can you put pressure on it?’

      ‘Doc, I can’t.’ It was a wail. ‘You know blood makes me throw up and I’m not getting back in that truck. Doc, come, fast!’

      What choice did he have? What choice did he ever have? If there was trauma in Wombat Valley, Hugo was it.

      ‘Ring the police,’ he snapped. ‘I’m on my way.’

      Lois, his housekeeper, had been preparing lunch. She’d been humming Christmas carols, almost vibrating with excitement. As was Ruby. As soon as the locum arrived they were off, Lois to her son’s place in Melbourne, Hugo and Ruby to their long-awaited two-week holiday.

      Christmas at the beach … This was what his sister had promised Ruby last year, but last year’s Christmas had become a blur of shock and sorrow. A car crash the week before. A single car accident. Suicide?

      Hugo’s life had changed immeasurably in that moment, as had Ruby’s.

      Twelve months on, they were doing their best. He was doing his best. He’d moved back to Wombat Valley so Ruby could stay in her home, and he fully intended to give her the longed-for beach Christmas.

      But commitment meant committing not only to Ruby but to the community he lived in. The locals cared for Ruby. He cared for the locals. That was the deal.

      Lois had been putting cold meat and salad on the table. She’d looked at him as he disconnected, and sighed and put his lunch in the fridge.

      ‘Ring Donald,’ he’d told her. Donald was a retired farmer who also owned a tow truck. It was a very small tow truck but the logging company with all its equipment was officially on holidays since yesterday. Donald’s truck would be all the valley had. ‘Tell him Horace Fry’s truck’s crashed at Blinder’s Bend. Ring Joe at the hospital and tell him to expect casualties. Tell him I’ll ring him as soon as I know details, and ask him to check that the police know. I need to go.’

      ‘Aren’t you expecting the new doctor?’ Lois had practically glowered. She wanted to get away, too.

      ‘If she arrives before I get back, you can give her my lunch,’ he’d said dryly. ‘I’ll

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