LITMIR.BIZ

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      ‘The clinic is just over there in that small cottage,’ Matt said, pointing to the left-hand side of the road just before the pub. ‘I’ll get Trish to show you around in the next day or so once you’ve settled in at the Montgomerys’ house.’

      As they drove past the pub, people were spilling out on the street, stubbies of beer in hand, squinting against the late afternoon sunlight.

      ‘G’day, Dr McNaught,’ one man wearing an acubra hat and a cast on his right arm called out. ‘How was your weekend in the big smoke?’

      ‘Shut up, Bluey,’ another man said, elbowing his mate in the ribs.

      Matt slowed the car down and leaned forward slightly to look past Kellie in the passenger seat. ‘It was fine. How’s your arm?’

      The man with the hat lifted his can of beer with his other arm and grinned. ‘I can still hold my beer so I must be all right.’

      Kellie witnessed the first genuine smile crack Matt’s face and her heart did a funny little jerk behind her chest wall. His dark blue eyes crinkled up at the corners, his lean jaw relaxed and his usually furrowed brow smoothed out, making his already attractive features heart-stoppingly gorgeous.

      ‘Take it easy, Bluey,’ he said, still smiling. ‘It was a bad break and you’ll need the full six weeks to rest it.’

      ‘I’m resting it,’ Bluey assured him, and peered through the passenger window. ‘So who’s the little lady?’

      ‘This is Dr Thorne,’ Matt said, his smile instantly disappearing. ‘She’s the new locum.’

      Kellie lifted her hand in a fingertip wave. ‘Hi, there.’

      Bluey’s light blue eyes twinkled. ‘G’day, Dr Thorne. How about joining us for a drink to get to know the locals?’

      ‘I have to get her settled into Tim and Claire’s house,’ Matt said before Kellie could respond. ‘She has a lot of baggage.’

      Kellie glowered at him before turning back to smile at Bluey. ‘I would love to join you all,’ she said. ‘What time does the pub close?’

      Bluey grinned from ear to ear. ‘We’ll keep it open just for you, Dr Thorne.’

      Matt drove on past the tiny church and cemetery before turning right into a pepper corn-tree-lined street. ‘Tim and Claire’s house is the cream one,’ he said. ‘The car will be in the garage.’

      Kellie looked at the cottage with interest and trepidation. It was a three-bedroom weatherboard with a corrugated-tin roof, a large rainwater tank on one side and a shady verandah wrapped around the outside of the house. There was no garden to speak of, but not for want of trying, she observed as she noted the spindly skeletons of what looked to be some yellowed sweet peas clinging listlessly to the mid-height picket fence. There were several pots on the verandah that had suffered much the same fate, and the patchy and parched lawn looked as if it could do with a long soak and a decent trim. There were other similar cottages further along the street, although both of the houses either side of the Montgomerys’ appeared to be vacant.

      Fixing an I-can-get-through-this-for-six-months expression on her face, Kellie rummaged for the keys she had been sent in the post as Matt began to unload the luggage. She walked up to the front door and searched through the array of keys to find the right one, but with little success. She was down to the last three when she felt Matt come up behind her.

      ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Let me.’

      Kellie felt the brush of his arm against her waist as he took the keys and her heart did another little uncoordinated skip in her chest. She watched as his long, tanned fingers selected the right key and inserted it into the lock, turning it effortlessly before pushing the door open for her.

      ‘You go in and have a look around while I bring in your bags,’ he said as he opened the meter box near the door and turned a switch. ‘The hot water will take a couple of hours to heat but everything else should be OK. There’s an air-conditioning control panel in the lounge, which serves the main living area of the house.’

      Kellie looked guiltily towards his car where her bags were lined up behind the open hatchback. ‘I don’t expect you to be my slave,’ she said. ‘I can carry my own bags inside.’

      ‘Then you must be a whole lot stronger than you look because I nearly bulged a disc loading them in there in the first place.’

      She put her hands on her hips as if she was admonishing one of her younger brothers. ‘I am here for half a year, you know,’ she said. ‘I need lots of stuff, especially out here.’

      ‘I hate to be the one to tell you this but the sort of stuff you need to survive out here can’t be packed into four hot pink suitcases, Dr Thorne,’ Matt said, stepping back down off the verandah to his car.

      ‘What is it with you?’ she asked, following him to his car in quick angry strides. ‘You seem determined to turn me off this appointment before I’ve even started.’

      Matt carried two of her cases to the verandah as she yapped at his heels like a small terrier. She was exactly what this town didn’t need, he thought. No, strike that—she was exactly what he didn’t need right now. He wasn’t ready. He wondered if he ever would be ready and yet…

      ‘Give me that bag,’ she demanded. ‘Now.’

      Matt mentally rolled his eyes. She looked so fierce standing there with her hands on her slim-as-a-boy’s hips, her toffee-brown eyes flashing. For a tiny moment she reminded him of…

      He gave himself a hard mental slap and handed her one of the bags. ‘I’ll bring in the rest,’ he said. ‘And watch out for snakes as you go in.’

      She stopped in mid-stride, her hand falling away from the handle of her bag. ‘Snakes?’ she asked. ‘You mean…’ She visibly gulped. ‘Inside?’

      CHAPTER FOUR

      ‘SNAKES are attracted to water,’ he said as he picked up another one of her bags. ‘This has been one of the longest droughts in history. They can slink in under doors in search of a dripping tap. One of the locals had one come in under the door a few blocks from here. They lost their Jack Russell terrier as a result. I just thought I’d warn you. It’s better to be safe than sorry.’

      Kellie eyed the open front door with wide, uncertain eyes. Snakes were fine in their place, which for her had up until this point been behind a thick sheet of glass at a zoological park. She had never met one in the wild, and had certainly never envisaged meeting one in her living space. She was OK with rats and mice; she was even fine with spiders—but snakes?

      She suppressed a little shudder and straightened her shoulders as she faced him coming up the verandah steps with a bag in each hand. ‘I suppose the next thing you’ll be telling me is the house is haunted.’

      Something shifted at the back of his eyes. ‘No, it’s not haunted,’ he said, and moved past her to take the bags he was carrying to one of the bedrooms off the passage.

      Kellie followed him gingerly down the hallway, her eyes darting sideways for any sign of a black or brown coil lying in wait to strike, but to her immense relief nothing seemed to be amiss. It looked and felt like any other house that had been unoccupied for a while—the air a little hot and stale and the blinds down over the windows, which added to the general sense of abandonment.

      The sudden wave of homesickness that assailed her was almost overwhelming. A house was meant to be a home but it couldn’t be that without people in it and she—for the next few months—was going to be the only person inside this house.

      It was a daunting thought, Kellie realised as she wandered into the kitchen. The layout was modern but very basic, as if Tim and Claire Montgomery had not wanted to waste money on top-notch appliances and joinery.

      The rest of the house was similar, tasteful but modestly decorated, the furniture

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