LITMIR.BIZ

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as he got to his feet, the dark bubbles of liquid soaking through his moleskins like a pool of blood.

      ‘Oops…’ Kellie said a little lamely.

      ‘I’ll get some paper towels for you, Dr McNaught,’ the flight attendant said, and rushed away.

      Kellie sat in gob-smacked silence as the name filtered through her brain.

       Dr McNaught?

      She swallowed to get her heart to return to its rightful place in her chest. It couldn’t be…could it?

       Dr Matthew McNaught?

      She blinked and looked up at him, wincing slightly as she encountered his diamond-hard dark blue glare. ‘You’re Dr Matthew McNaught?’ she asked, ‘from the two-GP practice in Culwulla Creek?’

      ‘Yes,’ he said, his lips pulled tight. ‘Let me guess,’ he added with a distinct curl of his top lip. ‘You’re the new locum, right?’

      Kellie felt herself sink even further into the limited space available. ‘Y-yes,’ she squeaked. ‘How did you guess?’

      CHAPTER TWO

      THE flight attendant came bustling back just then with a thick wad of paper towels and Kellie watched helplessly as Dr McNaught mopped up what he could of the damage.

      ‘I hope it doesn’t stain,’ Kellie said, trying not to stare too long at his groin. ‘I’ll pay for dry-cleaning costs of course.’

      ‘That won’t be necessary,’ he said. ‘Besides, there’s no dry cleaner in Culwulla Creek. There’s not even a laundromat.’

      ‘Oh…’ Kellie said, wondering not for the first time what she had flung herself into by agreeing to this post. ‘I’m not usually so clumsy. I have a very steady hand normally.’

      He gave her a sweeping glance before he resumed his seat. ‘You’re going to need it out here,’ he said. ‘The practice serves an area covering several hundred square kilometres. The nearest hospital is in Roma but all the emergency or acute cases have to be flown to Brisbane. It’s not going to be a walk in the park, I can tell you.’

      ‘I never for a moment thought it would be,’ Kellie said, a little miffed that he obviously thought her a city girl with no practical skills. ‘I’m used to hard work.’

      ‘Have you worked in a remote outback area before?’ he asked.

      Kellie hesitated over her answer. She was thinking her six-week stint in Tamworth in northern New South Wales probably wouldn’t qualify. It was a regional area, not exactly the outback. ‘Um…not really,’ she said. ‘But I’m keen to learn the ropes.’

      His eyes studied her for a moment. ‘What made you decide to take this post?’ he asked.

      ‘I liked the sound of working in the bush,’ she answered. And I desperately needed to get away from my family and my absolutely disastrous love life, she mentally tacked on. ‘And six months will just fly by, I imagine.’

      ‘It’s not everyone’s cup of tea,’ he said. ‘The hours are long and the cases sometimes difficult to manage, with the issues of distance and limited resources.’

      ‘So who is holding the fort right now?’ she asked.

      ‘There’s a semi-retired GP, David Cutler, who fills in occasionally,’ he said. ‘He runs a clinic once a month to keep up his skills but his health isn’t good. His wife, Trish, is the practice receptionist and we have one nurse, Rosie Duncan. We could do with more but that’s the way it is out here.’

      Kellie let a little silence slip past before she asked. ‘How long have you been at Culwulla Creek?’

      His gaze remained focused on the book in the seat pocket in front of him. ‘Six years,’ he answered.

      ‘Wow, you must really love it out here,’ she said.

      He hesitated for a mere sliver of a second before he answered, ‘Yes.’

      Kellie watched as his expression closed off like a pair of curtains being pulled across a window. She had seen that look before, far too many times, in fact, on the faces of her father and brothers whenever she happened to nudge in under their emotional radar. It was a male thing. They liked to keep some things private and somehow she suspected Dr Matthew McNaught, too, had quite a few no-go areas.

      ‘By the way, I’m Kellie Thorne,’ she said offering him her hand.

      His hand was cool and firm as it briefly took hers. ‘Matthew McNaught, but Matt’s fine.’

      ‘Matt, then,’ she said, smiling.

      He didn’t return her smile.

      ‘So…’ She rolled her lips together and began again. ‘Do you have a family out here with you? A wife and kids perhaps?’

      ‘No.’

      Kellie was starting to see why he hadn’t been successful thus far in landing himself a life partner. In spite of his good looks he had no personality to speak of. She felt like a tennis-ball throwing machine—she kept sending conversation starters his way but he didn’t make any effort to return them.

      Not only that, he hadn’t once looked at her with anything remotely resembling male interest. Kellie knew she was being stupidly insecure thanks to her disastrous relationship—if you could call it that—with Harley Edwards, but surely Matt McNaught could have at least done a double-take, like the young pilot had on the tarmac before they had boarded the plane.

      Kellie had looked in enough mirrors in her time to know none of them were in any danger of breaking any time soon. She had her mother’s slim but still femininely curvy figure and her chestnut brown hair was mid-length, with just a hint of a wave running through it. Her toffee-brown eyes had thick sooty lashes, which saved her a fortune in mascara. Her teeth were white and straight thanks to two and a half years of torture wearing braces when she’d been in her teens, and her skin was clear and naturally sun-kissed from spending so much time with her brothers at the beach.

      Maybe he was gay, she pondered as she watched him read another chapter of his book. That would account for the zero interest. Anyway, she wasn’t out here on the hunt for a love life, far from it. So what if her one and only lover had bludgeoned her self-esteem? She didn’t need to find a replacement just to prove he was a two-timing sleazeball jerk with…

      OK. That’s enough, Kellie chided herself as she wriggled again to get comfortable. Get over it. Harley probably hasn’t given you another thought since that morning you arrived to find him in bed with his secretary. Kellie winced at the memory and looked out of the window again, letting out the tiniest of sighs.

      This locum position couldn’t have come at a better time and the short time was perfect. Living in the outback for a lengthy time was definitely not her thing. She would see the six months out but no longer. She had been a beach chick from birth. She had more bikinis than most women had shoes. Not only that, she was a fully qualified lifesaver, the sound of the ocean like a pulse in her blood. This would be the longest period she had been away from the coast but it would be worth it if it achieved what she hoped it would achieve.

      The seat-belt light suddenly came on and the captain announced that there might be some stronger than normal turbulence ahead.

      Kellie turned to Matthew with wide eyes. ‘Do you think we’ll be all right?’ she asked.

      He looked at her as if she had grown a third eye. ‘You have flown before, haven’t you?’ he asked.

      ‘Yes, but not usually in something this small,’ she confessed.

      He let out a sound, something between derision and incredulity. ‘You do realise you will be flying in a Beechcraft twin engine plane at least once if not three or four times a month, don’t you? It’s called the Royal Flying Doctor Service and out here lives depend on it.’

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