‘She could go to Cairns.’

‘An hour and a half’s drive?’ Eileen shook her head. ‘No way. It’s crazy if, as you say, the knee is just dislocated. Between us we’ll get it back in. What happens here if there’s an emergency while she’s away? Abbey will refuse point blank to go. Bluntly, Ryan, Abbey hasn’t time to waste on herself. She has a baby, there’s cows to milk, her mother-in-law needs her-’

‘Stop!’ Ryan put up a hand, as though fending off something he couldn’t cope with. ‘You’re saying Abbey’s responsible for all those things?’

‘That’s right.’ Eileen paused and the hospital matron let her smile slip as a thought struck home.

Abbey shrugged her responsibilities off lightly but there was no reason Eileen should do the same for her.

‘It’s not easy for Abbey, though,’ she admitted, looking hopefully up at Ryan. Hey, Ryan was a doctor, after all, and he was planning on being in town for a while. Eileen thought some more, came to sudden urgent conclusions and then she made her voice deliberately doleful. ‘And if her leg’s as bad as you say it is I have a feeling it’ll be impossible.’

‘So what will you do while she’s laid up?’

‘Find her a darned good set of crutches, I guess.’ Eileen put her hands on her hips and fixed Ryan Henry with a look. ‘Ryan, this place runs because of Abbey Wittner. I don’t know if you remember the medical facilities here when you were a kid…’

‘I don’t remember there being anything here at all,’ Ryan confessed, remembering a dreadful car ride to Cairns late at night when his appendix had burst.

‘There wasn’t anything,’ Eileen said bluntly. ‘Since Abbey got her medical degree she’s organised everything. Galvanised the locals into building this hospital. Restructured the home-nursing service. The medical services in this town are wonderful now-but without Abbey they’ll fall apart.’

‘But, whether you need her or not, she’s just dislocated her knee,’ Ryan said faintly. ‘Even when we get it back in place she’ll have to spend the next week with it up. It’ll be so bruised and swollen she won’t be able to use it. She’ll have to take some time off.’

‘She never has before,’ Eileen said darkly. ‘Not when she had her baby. Not when… Well, not ever. I don’t see why she should now. As long as the leg’s not broken then I’ll help her get it back into place, we’ll shove on a Robert Jones bandage to protect it and we’ll go on from there.’

‘Well, I knocked her off her damned bicycle,’ Ryan growled. ‘I’ll at least have to fix the leg.’ Then he met Eileen’s suddenly hopeful look and he could read her thoughts as clear as day. ‘I am an orthopaedic surgeon, after all,’ he said bluntly, ‘but that’s all I’m doing.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Eileen said meekly, but she gave him a very long look before she headed back to her work.

An orthopaedic surgeon. Well, well…


Abbey arrived at the hospital half an hour later to find Ryan, pacing. When Rod finally drove Ryan’s hire car into the casualty entrance, Ryan grabbed a trolley and almost flung it at the back seat.

‘Where the hell have you been?’

There was a note of raw anxiety in his voice but Abbey didn’t hear it. All she heard was anger.

‘Busy,’ she said crisply, hiding the pain in her own voice. She wasn’t letting this man know she’d been silly. She’d thought she could do the house call. But the morphine had worn off and in the end it had been all she could do not to pass out from the pain. ‘How’s the boy? Eileen says you have him stabilised and the antivenom’s working.’

‘Yes. Abbey, did you do that damned house call? Are you crazy?’ Rod, the head of the lifesavers, had climbed out of the driver’s seat and was watching Ryan and Abbey with interest, but Ryan only had eyes for Abbey.

‘Mrs Miller wanted to see me,’ Abbey said defensively.

‘Abbey, she wanted you to dress her ulcer. For heaven’s sake…’

‘No, she didn’t,’ Abbey said flatly. ‘At least, that wasn’t the main reason she wanted to see me. She wanted to tell me something.’

‘What?’

‘I still don’t know,’ Abbey confessed. ‘Rod was there-well, he had to be-and she clammed up.’

‘So you’ve been wandering round the country-Abbey, you were knocked cold when you came off that bike-and you’ve been sitting, drinking tea-’

‘How did you know I’ve been drinking tea?’

‘Haven’t you?’

‘Well, yes, but-’

‘I guessed,’ Ryan said, goaded beyond belief. ‘I remember Margaret Miller. Abbey, you are ill and Marg Miller isn’t.’

‘No, but there’s something wrong.’

‘But you don’t know what?’

‘No. But I’ll find out.’

‘She made me carry her into the kitchen so she could have a cup of tea with the old lady,’ Rod said blankly, helping Ryan lift Abbey onto the trolley. ‘Doc Wittner propped her leg up on a kitchen chair and went at it like there was nothing wrong. The old lady had the whole thing set up-best china, scones and jam and cream-’

‘And I suppose you ate them?’ Ryan barked.

‘Of course I did.’ Abbey glared. ‘Marg would have been hurt if I hadn’t.’

‘And what if I have to give you a general anaesthetic?’

‘No one’s giving me a general anaesthetic.’

‘Says who?’

‘Says me.’ Abbey glared again. ‘Ryan Henry, are you going to take me into the hospital or do I sit here, looking stupid, on this trolley for the rest of the afternoon? I have things to do, even if you don’t.’

Ryan ran his hand through his hair.

‘Let’s push her inside,’ Rod said helpfully, ‘otherwise she’s just as likely to hop off and push the trolley herself. She knows what she wants, our Doc Wittner.’

He gave Ryan a sympathetic man-bossed-by-women grin, and helped the near-speechless Ryan take Abbey into X-Ray.


The bones were intact.

Thanks be, Ryan thought, and Abbey echoed his thought aloud as she stared at the X-ray.

‘That’s great. I’ll have Eileen dose me up with morphine and we’ll get it back into position. It’ll hardly slow me down at all.’

It was hurting like crazy now but she wasn’t admitting to that.

‘No way.’ Ryan shook his head. ‘I’m putting it back into position. Abbey, I’m an orthopaedic surgeon so lie back, shut up and let me get on with it’

‘An orthopaedic surgeon…’ Abbey’s face cleared. Despite her bravado, the thought of trying to tell Eileen how to manipulate her leg back into place had had her feeling faint. And she just had to look at Ryan to see he was competent.

She closed her eyes. ‘Thank you, Ryan. That’d be great. If you could patch me up before milking…’

Ryan stared. ‘Milking…? Abbey, I’ll patch you up before bed. That’s where you’re going and nowhere else.’

‘I’m not going to bed.’

‘Yes, you are. For a week!’

‘That’s ridiculous.’

‘What’s the alternative here, Abbey?’ Ryan demanded. ‘You produce another bicycle and pedal off into the sunset? You won’t even be able to drive.’

‘I will.’

‘Not while the Robert Jones dressing is on. For a start, the bulk of the thing will hinder you and, bluntly, Abbey, the leg will just be too painful. When we get it back into position you’ll be left with residual swelling that’ll take a week to go down.’

‘I guess.’ For a moment Abbey looked worried and then her face cleared. ‘Well, I’ll just have to cut down on house calls. The ambulance boys can take me out if they need me.’

‘Abbey…’

‘I’ll be fine, Ryan,’ she said firmly. ‘I have to be.’

‘Now that,’ Ryan said, in a voice that was just as firm, ‘is something I don’t understand.’ He turned to the matron, who’d just entered the room behind them. ‘Eileen, can you prepare me a Robert Jones dressing?’ The Robert Jones dressing was a bulky, padded dressing, used to protect the knee and hold it firmly in position.

‘Yes, Doctor,’ Eileen said primly, casting Abbey a sideways glance, and left Abbey, still arguing.

‘Ryan, I am perfectly capable-’

‘You’re not.’ Ryan sat on the edge of the examination couch and caught Abbey’s hands. They felt rough. He looked down at her fingers and frowned.

Abbey’s hands were work-worn hands. Farmer’s hands.

Felicity’s hands were silk-smooth, made even more so by expensive moisturisers. Abbey’s hands felt like they’d never seen moisturiser in their lives.

Odd how good Abbey’s hands felt. How right…

He’d always looked after Abbey.

‘I’m fixing this damned leg and cleaning up your face,’ Ryan told her gently. ‘And then I’m driving you home. And home is where you’ll stay. Twenty-four hours’ absolute bedrest, Abbey, followed by a week off work with your leg up. Doctor’s orders.’

Abbey stared. She looked down at her hands, resting in Ryan’s, and something suspiciously like a lump rose in her throat.

Which was stupid. She didn’t cry. Not for something as trivial as this.

It must just be the shock of the accident, followed by the drama of the afternoon, she told herself. It certainly wasn’t weakness. It certainly wasn’t the fact that Ryan might be right.

She closed her eyes and hauled her hands away. When she opened her eyes again she had her facts right.

‘I can’t,’ she said flatly. ‘I’m not ill and I don’t have a choice here, Ryan. I work.’

‘Get a locum,’ he said brutally. ‘And don’t tell me you can’t.’

Abbey sighed and shook her head. ‘That’s just it-I can’t. It’s November. There’ll be no graduating medical students wanting fill-in jobs yet-not until next month when they finish their finals. There are only the professional locum services and they cost an arm and a leg.’ She managed a rueful smile. ‘And I don’t have a leg, Ryan.’

‘Well, maybe you can find one who just charges an arm…’ Ryan smiled back but shook his head. ‘Abbey, that’s silly. With this hospital… well, you must be making enough to pay a locum.’

‘No.’ Abbey’s smile faded and her face set. ‘And it’s none of your business how much I earn. I can’t pay a locum and that’s that.’