The Bush Doctor's Challenge. Carol Marinelli

have recommended you if he didn’t think you were up to it, and Ross wouldn’t have taken you on just to have another name on the staff roster. The outback’s precarious enough without carrying people. You’re here because you’re wanted, Abby. The only person who’s not happy with the decision is you.’

      ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Abby mumbled. ‘I’ve been practising medicine for nearly eight years now and this afternoon is going down on my list of top ten moments. If there’s a few more of them around then it’s been the right choice. I can see what Reece was saying more clearly now. It’s easy to get caught in all the high-tech stuff, but if this is the buzz grass roots medicine gives, then maybe these next three months won’t be so bad after all.’

      ‘Maybe not.’

      They shared a smile, a tiny smile but it was loaded with hidden meaning. Confused, Abby stood up, and for something to do she grabbed the water jug and headed off to explore her new kitchen, her mind buzzing, every nerve in her body suddenly screaming. A couple of hours in Kell’s company and she was acting like a hormone-ravaged teenager, not a sensible thirty-something doctor.

      ‘What’s this?’ Abby asked, pulling open the fridge.

      ‘I would have thought a lady like you would know champagne when she sees it.’

      ‘I meant, what’s it doing in the fridge?’ Abby asked, refusing to jump.

      ‘Shelly would have left it there to welcome you. We could always wet the baby’s head?’

      It could almost have passed as an innocent question, but there was a look in Kell’s eyes and such a heavy throb in the air that Abby knew her reserve would pop with as much oomph as the champagne cork, and that was one path she definitely wasn’t going to take.

      ‘We’d better get over to the pub. At this rate we won’t even make last orders.’

      ‘You’re joking, aren’t you? The news of the baby will have the pub pumping to the wee hours. It could be a long night.’

      ‘Not for me.’ Abby shook her head. ‘I’ll have a quick orange juice and say hi, and then I’m out of there. I need to be on the ball, and something tells me Ross isn’t going to be around very much over the next few days to ease me in.’

      ‘Then it’s just as well you’ve got me.’

      Another simple statement, but again Abby felt the throb of sexual tension, the path of a conversation littered with possible innuendo, and she almost took a tentative step, almost responded with a loaded answer herself. But she pulled back in an instant, Kell’s easy smile making her wonder if her mind was playing tricks.

      ‘I’ll just go and get changed. You do whatever women do before they go out.’

      ‘But where are you going?’ Abby asked as he headed for the front door.

      ‘I rent the house next door.’ He either ignored or didn’t notice the shocked look on her face, carrying on chatting in his usual easy style. ‘I only use it for when I’m on call and if I’m on a late then early shift, but I guess it kind of makes us neighbours.’

      She didn’t answer, Abby truly couldn’t, just stood there dumbfounded as he turned and left; the five minutes it took Kell to wash and change nowhere near enough time to get her head together.

      Not only was she going to be working alongside him, he would be living next door to her as well.

      Three months.

      The words didn’t console Abby this time.

      After only three hours in Kell’s company already Abby’s nerves were on fire…