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      Contents

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      CHAPTER TWELVE

      CHAPTER THIRTEEN

      CHAPTER FOURTEEN

      CHAPTER FIFTEEN

      CHAPTER ONE

      WHAT a glorious day, Jason thought as he stepped outside. Spring had finally come, and with it that delicious sunshine which encompassed just the right amount of warmth. The town had never looked better, nestled at the base of now lush green hills. The sky was clear and blue. Birds twittered happily in a nearby tree.

      Impossible to feel discontent on such a day, Jason decided as he walked down the front path and out onto the pavement.

      And yet…

      You can’t have everything in life, son, he heard his mother say.

      How right she was, that wise old mum of his.

      His heart turned over at the thought of her, and of her wretched life: married at eighteen to a no-good drinker and gambler, the mother of seven boys by the time she was thirty, a deserted wife by thirty-one, worn out and white-haired by fifty, dead five years ago of a stroke.

      She’d only been fifty-five.

      He was her youngest, a bright and affectionate boy who’d grown into a discontented and fiercely ambitious teenager, determined to be rich one day. He’d gone to medical school not because of a love of medicine, but because of the love of money. His mother had worried about this, he knew. She’d argued that money wasn’t the right reason to become a doctor.

      How he would like the opportunity to tell her that he’d finally become a good doctor, and that he was quite happy, despite not being rich at all.

      Not perfectly happy, of course. He no longer expected that.

      ‘Morning, Dr Steel. Nice day, isn’t it?’

      ‘It surely is, Florrie.’ Florrie was one of his patients. She was around seventy and popped into the surgery practically every week to discuss one of her wide range of ailments.

      ‘Muriel’s having a busy morning, I see,’ Florrie said, pointing to the bakery across the street. A bus was parked outside, and people were streaming out from the shop’s door, their arms full.

      Tindley’s bakery was famous for miles. It had almost single-handedly put the little country town back on the map a few years ago, when it had won first prize for the best meat pie in Australia. Travellers and tourists on their way from Sydney to Canberra had begun taking the turn-off from the main highway, just to buy a Tindley pie.

      In response to the sudden influx of visitors, the once deserted shops which fronted the narrow and winding main street had thrown open their creaking doors to sell all sorts of arts and crafts.

      The area surrounding Tindley had always been a haunt for artists because of its peaceful beauty. But before this new local market had become available they’d had to sell their wares to shopkeepers situated in the more popular tourist towns over on the coast. Suddenly, it wasn’t just pies which attracted visitors, but unique items of pottery and leather goods, wood and home crafts.

      In further response to this popularity, even more businesses had opened, offering Devonshire teas and take-away food. Tindley now also boasted a couple of quite good restaurants, and a guest house filled most weekends with Sydney escapees who liked horse-riding and bush walks as well as just sitting on a wide verandah, soaking up the valley views.

      Over a period of five years Tindley had been resurrected from being almost a ghost town into a thriving little community with a bustling economy. Enough to support two doctors. Jason had bought into old Doc Brandewilde’s general practice five months ago, and hadn’t regretted it for a moment.

      Admittedly, he’d taken a while to settle to the slower pace after working twelve-hour days in a gung-ho bulk-billing surgery in Sydney. He’d found it difficult at first to resist the automatic impulse to hurry consultations. Old habits did die hard.

      Now, he could hardly imagine spending less than fifteen minutes to treat and diagnose a patient. They were no longer nameless faces, but people he knew and liked, people like Florrie, here. Having a warm, friendly chat was a large part of being a family doctor in the country.

      The bus started up and slowly moved off, happy faces peering out of the windows.

      ‘I hope Muriel hasn’t sold my lunch,’ Jason said, and Florrie laughed.

      ‘She’d never do that, Doctor. You’re her pet customer. She was saying to me just the other day that if

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