Susie nodded. ‘That’s right. Him coming now.’
Mia moved forward, preparing to stand.
Susie’s workworn brown hand rested against her forearm, detaining her. ‘Still five minutes, no hurry.’
She forced herself to sit back but most of her wanted to rush out onto the runway and start unpacking boxes the moment the plane had come to a complete halt. She’d never been very good at sitting back and waiting. Even when she’d known in her heart there was nothing she could do to help her mother, she’d hated the waiting. Waiting and watching her die.
The Cessna lined up with the runway and slowly descended, coming in over the thick mangroves and the eucalypts, its small black wheels bouncing on the asphalt, sticky with heat. The pilot immediately opened the window and gave a wave.
Unable to wait a moment longer, Mia launched herself to her feet, leaving Susie under the tree, and she arrived at the low cyclone fence just as the propellers of the plane slowly wound down and stopped. The door on the opposite side of the plane opened. Mia caught sight of a pair of long, tanned, muscular legs, which jumped down and landed on large feet. Feet clad in sturdy work boots with khaki socks that casually gathered down around solid ankles.
It wasn’t the usual uniform of a pilot—they wore long navy trousers. No, these legs looked like they belonged to a bounty hunter, buffalo or crocodile hunter—a man who spent a lot of time outdoors.
Intrigued, she watched as the legs strode around the plane, eating up the distance with commanding ease. Then the owner came into full view and an uncontrollable shock of electric delight raced through her, completely disarming her.
At well over six feet, her crocodile hunter had the natural grace of a man at one with his surroundings, and it radiated from the top of his jet-black hair to the tips of his olive-skinned fingers, which gripped a large cooler in one hand and held a backpack in the other. Three-day stubble hovered around his smiling mouth, fanning out along a firm jaw. Dark brows framed intelligent hazel eyes, whose mesmerising gaze quickly took in his surroundings, acknowledged Susie with a wave and then centred in on her.
Mia’s mouth dried. The intensity of his look made her feel stripped bare and to her horror she dropped her gaze. She took in his broad shoulders, which were covered by a shirt made from locally designed fabric. The emerald green and sea blue of the design accurately depicted the colours of the island’s land and sea, and together they brought out a hint of green in his hazel eyes.
Desperately wanting to look further to what she suspected would be a washboard-flat stomach, her professionalism hauled her gaze upwards and with a quick, steadying breath she stepped forward, hoping she looked more dignified than she felt.
‘I wasn’t expecting a welcoming party.’
A rich, deep voice with the smoothness of velvet cloaked her, making her heart hiccough. She looked up into teasing eyes, the flecks of green and brown almost moving like crystals in a kaleidoscope.
Confusion overrode her body’s unwanted tingling reaction to him, making her dizzy with bewilderment. ‘Aren’t you the pilot bringing in the vaccines? I got a message…’
‘I’m Flynn Harrington. Pilot, deliverer of vaccines and doctor.’ He grinned with the cheekiness of someone who had inside information. ‘You must be Mia.’
Doctor? She wasn’t expecting to meet the island’s visiting doctor for another three days. Her calendar, left to her by her predecessor, had ‘Doctor clinic’ inked in red for Monday.
‘You’re the island doctor?’ She couldn’t hide the shock and disbelief from her voice. He didn’t look like any doctor she’d ever met and she’d met more than her fair share personally and professionally. And no doctor has ever made you tingle like that.
‘Yep, I’m the doctor for Kirra, Mugur and Barra.’ He extended his long arm out behind him, lazily indicating the approximate direction of the other islands. ‘I divide my time between all three.’
A swoosh of righteous indignation surged through her, quickly dousing the unsettling sensations that had shimmered along her veins. She’d just lost half her morning hanging around for him. ‘But you’re three days early and you’re also two hours late!’ The heat and waiting caught up with her. ‘And what do you mean you don’t usually have a welcoming committee? I was here two hours ago, as your message instructed, to collect the vaccines. The least you could have done was to send a message to say you were going to be late.’
His casual stance stiffened for a moment and then his shoulders relaxed. ‘I’m sorry. I forgot that you’d still be city-wired. Usually the truck comes and picks me up the moment they hear the plane coming over. That way no one’s left waiting around.’ He started walking toward the truck.
The city-wired tag pricked her like barbed-wire and she folded her arms against the sensation in her chest as she jogged to keep up with his long-legged stride. ‘Well, it would have been nice if someone had told me.’ She threw her hands out in front of her. ‘You for instance, or Susie. Why didn’t Susie tell me the routine?’
He tilted his head, his brows slightly raised. ‘Did you ask her?’
His quiet and reasonable tone sent a ripple of contrition through her, dampening her indignation. ‘Ah, no. I think I said something like, “We have to be at the airport at eleven.”’
He pulled a battered bushman’s hat out of his backpack before tossing the pack into the tray of the truck. Then he carefully wedged the cooler under a hessian sack. ‘That’s why she didn’t say anything. Kirri people don’t say no to a request. Susie was happy to help you so she came. If a local doesn’t want to do as you ask, well, they just avoid the issue by failing to turn up.’
He glanced down at her, his expression a mixture of understanding and humour. ‘Beware the “I’ll come back and do it” sentence—that actually means no.’
Mia wiped the back of her hand against her perspiration-soaked forehead and sighed. ‘I’ve got so much to learn.’
Flynn smiled and dimples carved through the black stubble, giving him a renegade look. Perhaps her initial impression of a crocodile hunter hadn’t been far off. Somehow she couldn’t imagine him in a white coat, stuck inside the antiseptic corridors of a hospital down south.
‘If you want to learn then we’re happy to teach you.’ His voice rumbled around her like distant thunder.
A slight tremble of unease rippled through her before her indignation surged back. ‘What do you mean, if I want to learn? Of course I want to learn.’
He shrugged. ‘Not everyone does. We get a lot of people up here. They arrive city-wired, city-savvy, ready to save the world as long as it can be saved their way.’ He grinned at Susie, who’d wandered over from the shade of the tree now that it looked like they were ready to return to the clinic. ‘And then they leave us, don’t they, Susie?’
Susie nodded. ‘Yep. Mia third nurse this year.’
Mia’s chest tightened. ‘I plan to be the one that stays.’
‘Yeah, they all say that.’ Flynn opened the driver’s door of the truck, his expression resigned.
‘No, really, I’m staying.’ I have nothing to go back to. Nothing at all. Her mother’s blank and expressionless face wafted across her mind and a sliver of the terror she usually managed to keep concealed deep inside her coiled upward, threatening to choke her.
She needed to move, she needed to do something to keep the panic at bay. The clinic. Walking briskly, she ducked under Flynn’s outstretched arm and sat down hard in the driver’s seat.
A startled expression momentarily creased his forehead before he gently closed the door.
A dash of guilt bubbled up at her abrupt brush past him but it was quickly