‘So you’re the new matron,’ the blonde drawled, and Eliza’s step slowed to a stop.
‘Hello.’
‘Staying here will get a little noisy on a Friday night.’
‘I’ll be fine.’ Eliza smiled and crossed the room to hold out her hand. ‘I’m Eliza May.’
‘Carla.’ There was something elusively appealing about this too-thin girl-woman and then there was the ice that frosted the outside of her glass in the cloying heat.
Eliza licked dry lips and put her handbag down on the stool beside the girl. ‘It’s hot this evening.’
‘Always is this time of the year.’ Carla stood up, walked behind the bar and filled a glass with ice. Then she opened an under-bar fridge and removed a beaded bottle of lemon squash and unscrewed the lid. ‘I should ask you first.’ She grinned. ‘But you’d like a squash, wouldn’t you.’
Eliza grinned back at her. ‘Dying for one! Thank you. Do you work here?’
‘No. Rob’s gone to the loo. I’m just minding the bar for a minute.’
Carla glanced out the door and back. ‘I’m off for a swim in the river when I finish my drink. If you want, I’ll show you a spot you can swim in when the days are like this.’
‘Local knowledge.’ Eliza smiled as she put two dollars down on the bar for her drink. She remembered local knowledge as a child, it had usually got her into trouble.
‘Something like that.’ There was a hint of fun which dared Eliza to take her up on the offer. After the unease she’d felt round Jack Dancer, it would be nice to loosen up and get cool.
Eliza downed her squash. ‘I’ll slip up and grab a towel.’
The swimming hole was through two fences at the back of the pub but worth the climb down a steep bank to get to. It was under a cliff face and two large weeping willows shaded the pool. There was an aging PRIVATE PROPERTY sign, adorned with a few grass necklaces from previous floods, prominently displayed near the edge.
Carla ignored it. The water looked too good to forgo.
Eliza yanked down the sides of her bathers—they seemed to like crawling too high on her leg and up her bottom. She stood hesitantly at the edge. She hated wearing swimming costumes because they made her feel so self-conscious. Carla was already in and the water looked wonderful.
The first step wasn’t too bad and the temperature of the water grew colder the further out through the reeds Eliza walked.
‘It’s freezing,’ Eliza gasped. The shock on her face when she finally forced her whole body under the water made Carla laugh when Eliza surfaced beside her.
‘Yep.’ Carla swam languidly across the pool and Eliza watched her for a moment before she turned on her back and floated with her arms out. The icy water was gorgeous against her heated skin. This had been an excellent idea.
‘Get out of there!’
Eliza recognised that voice and the enjoyment drained out of the moment as if he’d pulled the plug.
‘You know better, Carla.’ Jack Dancer was cross, there was no doubt about that, Eliza thought, and her heart pumped as if she were a ten-year-old again caught crossing a forbidden field.
‘You’re such a sourpuss, Dr Jack,’ Carla said as she drifted languidly to the shallow water.
‘It would serve you right if you got bitten by a bullrout. Smithy was stung here yesterday and you wouldn’t be so relaxed if you’d seen his face as I filled him up with morphine. But you shouldn’t have put Eliza at risk—she’d from the city and probably doesn’t know what a bullrout is.’
‘I know what a bullrout is,’ Eliza said quietly. The camouflaged fresh-water fish could look like a rock and wore three venom pouches on its spines. Its sting was excruciating. She glanced warily at the reeds as she followed Carla out of the water. The spot was lovely but not worth those kinds of stings. Eliza wrapped her arms around her blatant nipples. Well, the water had been cold, for crikey’s sake. Now she had to get out of here, wet, bathers glued to her too-generous curves, and all under the gaze of that man. The day just kept getting better and better. Eliza compressed her lips.
Finally both women stood at the edge of the innocent-looking water wrapped in towels. They both glared across at the man on the opposite bank.
Carla tossed her hair and turned her back on Jack. ‘You can go home happy, now, you grump. You’ve spoiled our swim so you can relax.’
Jack didn’t say anything or seem perturbed by Carla’s rudeness, and Eliza stood indecisively. She resisted her own impulse to emulate Carla but had the maturity to realise it was a response to being caught in the wrong. Even worse, she hated being caught in her bathers. It was too late to worry now. She half waved to a still waiting Jack and followed Carla up the bank.
When they got to the top, Eliza was almost as hot as when she’d started and not all of it from the sun. She should have gone with her instincts and avoided the local knowledge.
‘Sorry about that.’ Carla held up her hands in an I-didn’t-mean-for-that-to-happen gesture. ‘No one’s been stung there for two years. I didn’t know about Smithy. It’s such a top spot if Dr Jack doesn’t catch you.’
‘So Jack polices the waterholes as well as does the doctoring?’ Eliza could see the amusing part of being caught by Jack—just.
‘He owns the land on both sides of the river,’ Carla said as she headed back to the pub. She glanced over her shoulder to Eliza. ‘But nobody owns the river.’
The next day every person Eliza met in the hospital mentioned her being caught by Jack down at the rout waterhole. She knew there was a reason she’d avoided returning to the country.
Apparently Carla’s friend Rob from the pub thought it a hilarious story and had mentioned it to everyone who’d come into the hotel. They’d passed it on to anyone they’d seen in the next twelve hours and by the time Eliza came to work the story had been embellished to include her and Carla topless with a few men from the pub watching.
‘Spare me.’ Eliza closed her eyes and shook her head. Janice tried to stifle her giggle so as not to wake her baby but she was having a hard time of it.
‘The topless bit was from old Pat, and nobody really believes him, but it seems you’ve made a name for yourself as a good sport already.’
‘Well, I hope nobody believes “Old Pat”. If I meet that delightful old gentleman for a tetanus shot, he’s in for a larger-than-normal-gauge needle.’
Janice dissolved into giggles again and Eliza had to smile at her, but the smile disappeared when Jack Dancer walked into the room.
The memory of him watching her as she’d left the water yesterday warmed her cheeks and she fought the sudden urge to fold her arms again. She was too darned aware of this guy and survival meant he wasn’t to know.
‘All well in here, ladies?’ Jack’s face was expressionless but Eliza suspected a twinkle behind those pseudo black eyes of his. The swine.
‘Eliza was just saying how hot it was yesterday,’ Janice said cheekily, but Jack wasn’t playing.
‘Yes, it was. How’s Newman this morning, Janice?’
Eliza tried to let her relieved breath out unobtrusively as Jack concentrated on his patient.
Janice went on. ‘Fine. We’re both fine. My mum arrives from Melbourne today so he’s going to meet his nana when she comes in to visit.’
‘Say hello to your mum for me if I don’t see her.’ He stepped back from the cot. ‘I’ve a lot on this morning so I’ll leave you in Matron’s capable hands.’
Eliza followed him out of the room. She hoped he didn’t