To her surprise, Zac had looked a hundred per cent better than when she’d seen him yesterday, despite the continued amnesia, which made the nurse in her think it was more psychological than physical, and he’d held his own at the table with a quiet, incisive humour. Stella sighed. There was no doubt that Ava was on the way to quietly loving him. It wouldn’t do. Talk about a foolish, headlong rush.
Instead of going back to the kitchen, Stella continued on to her own room. She needed a moment, and couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t say the wrong thing to Ava if she went back just yet. She seized on the basket of unfolded clothes as if they were old friends waiting for her. She’d brought them in from the long wire line this morning and put the basket in here to tidy when they’d run out of time as Ava and Zac arrived.
As the familiar task of sorting and folding soothed her agitated hands, her mind cast back, trying to remember if she’d even thought about the future when she’d first seen Noah. Probably not. She’d been too busy kissing him.
Oh my.
It had been a nurse’s party, Svelte Stephanie’s birthday, and the cowboy Stella had gone with hadn’t been the fun she’d thought he’d be and they’d drifted apart. She’d looked around for new faces. There’d been a police conference on in town and she remembered how Stephanie had always known how to gather fresh men to her parties.
Stella remembered that rush of attraction when she’d caught sight of Noah, taller than the others, his head above the crowd, his smiling eyes meeting hers across the room. She’d asked Stephanie, catching her arm as she’d gone past, ‘Is he single?’ The next thing she knew, he’d been beside her with his gray eyes smiling at her, and at her zip-up full-length denim jumpsuit, though even then it had been ten years out of date. Her mouth curved at the memory. He’d made her feel incredibly beautiful with that one long look and they’d shifted closer to each other. There was something wonderful about a really tall man and your nose in his chest.
Stella sighed again as the memories poured in now that she was allowing herself to think.
They’d moved out of the noise of the crowded room, the lounge room of a ground-floor flat not that far from the one she had now, a little on the edge of town and near the often dry Todd River, and they’d leaned against the courtyard fence and stared at the myriad stars. And talked. And finally, he’d put those big arms around her and pulled her closer and kissed her, and she could still remember her incredulous delight.
Nobody had ever kissed her like that, as if she’d been waiting for just the right man. Noah’s mouth and lips had had the perfect pressure, his tongue the perfect erotic feather. It was her first enjoyable kiss after a small net of fish-mouthed fumblers that had left her unimpressed and unawakened. And in that moment, she’d thought she’d found her home with Noah.
She threw down an orphan sock in disgust and one lone tear plopped into the centre of the empty plastic base of the washing basket. Poor Noah. And no, she hadn’t thought about the future, where he lived, where she’d live. She had just fallen helplessly, heedlessly in love and agreed to follow him. And hadn’t that been a disaster.
Jock is like his father rang through her mind and she wiped her eyes. Funny, she hadn’t thought about that for a long time. Noah was a strong man with a soft heart, like Jock. And she herself was doing it again. There were aspects of Lorenzo that reminded her of the qualities she’d admired in Noah. The sudden, definite attraction, the outspoken honesty of feelings, the protectiveness that big men couldn’t help projecting, the sexy eyes and mouth. Her lips quirked. And Lorenzo could kiss too. And he wanted to take her away and nurture her. Which would be a change from her previous marriage. But again, he was unsuitable, because she wasn’t moving to Italy. She would see how long he lasted out here on his son’s property.
Ava’s Zac was another big man, with admiring eyes for her daughter, though she could see his puzzlement as he tried to remember. Was there anything she could do to stop it happening all over again? Probably not.
Except share her own truth with her daughter. Finally. Not that it would make a difference.
It was intriguing to see Zac acting protective when Ava mentioned her interest in some far-flung outpost because he’d raved about it. Her daughter could do what she wanted. She’d managed to look after herself for the last five years without Zac helping her to avoid risks. The girl was always off in her four-wheel drive, travelling to some remote outpost, often the only white woman, connecting with her smiles and her respect for others. It seemed perfectly normal to Stella that Ava would want to work at a remote outpost with dedicated clinicians because that’s what she did. So for Zac to have reacted, she wondered just how intense their relationship had been that it could seep through a wall of amnesia. Had there already been long-term thoughts of Ava moving to Sydney?
Stella would dig, do a few internet searches on this Zac, and check him out.
When she returned to the kitchen Ava still sat at the table, though her shoulders were drooped and her head was resting in one cupped hand. Stella’s heart ached for the stubbornness her daughter had probably inherited from both her mother and grandmother. Ava had been determined to do the drive herself – to have the time with Zac – she understood that. But the girl was pale and needed a rest. She wasn’t glad her daughter had met Zac, but there was no doubt that Ava’s pain was real. And she deserved none of it. Unlike Stella herself, who still hadn’t told her children she’d left Noah and that their father had taken rash and reckless risks until it had killed him the week she’d left.
She’d lied to her children. Lied to everyone, though her mother had always known. Would Lorenzo still think she was an angel when she told him? Would she tell him or continue the lie forever?
No, she decided right then and there. When all this settled down, she would tell them all. Clear her conscience at least of subterfuge. Then she would see what Lorenzo said.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Ava
When Stella walked back into the kitchen, she pulled Ava into her arms, one hand reaching up to pull Ava’s head down onto her shoulder.
It felt so good. Ava let herself relax, could smell the soap her mum used, always jasmine, and the slight aroma of cooking that hung around her. She breathed in the scent of the calm her mother was known for but had struggled to find lately. When her mum spoke, the words brushed over Ava’s skin like a caress. ‘I imagine it was very tense. You must have been under enormous pressure. And then there was Amelia’s birthday. You need to walk along the riverbed and heal a bit. Recharge. No work for you today, either.’
Ava let her mum’s arms hold her for a moment longer and let the strain go. She felt the tension draining like water into sand. Stella had her own medicine. It was called love, and on the rare occasions when she brought it out, they were all blinded by the strength of it. ‘Thanks, Mum.’
Stella stepped back but held onto Ava’s upper arms. She gave her a little shake as she searched her face. ‘You need to look after you as well. You’re too precious to burn out doing too much.’
Ava nodded. ‘I will.’
‘That Zac might help her,’ Mim said slyly.
Stella glared at her mother. ‘Don’t go putting ideas in his head. Or hers.’
‘Ha! I’m thinking the ideas are already there in her head. And he sounded protective to me.’ She hummed the wedding march as she left the room, much to Stella’s disgust.
‘That woman drives me mad,’ Stella huffed.
Ava laughed. ‘You’d be lost without her.’
They looked at each other and the smiles died. ‘Yes, I would. So much so that I don’t want to talk about it.’ She tried a joke. ‘Or about weddings.’ They both knew that comment fell flat.
Ava stepped back to try to explain. ‘We connected last week, Mum. Big time. I know there’s a chance Zac won’t ever remember and I’ll have lost something very special. So thank you for having him here.’ She drew in the air to calm herself. ‘He makes me feel so incredible, so … d
ifferent.’ Her belly kicked as she thought of them tangled together and she glanced away as the heat rose in her cheeks. He made her feel sexy as hell. Like a desirable woman. Resolutely she went on. ‘I know that it’s probable, especially now, that he’ll go back to his high life, which I could never fit into. Even last week in Sydney at the course, the busyness of the place drove me mad.’
‘I think so, too.’ Stella nodded, and Ava couldn’t miss the relief that flashed across her mother’s face. And something that looked strangely like guilt. Why would her mother feel guilty about that?
‘Don’t celebrate too soon, because I have to believe Zac will remember me and then it will be our business. Then all you have to do is bless us. But at least my trust bone has healed after Jai. And maybe if there has to be a time “after Zac”, I will be more open to the idea of trusting someone else. Get married, have children.’ Her thoughts spiralled to a little white coffin. ‘Though that would be scary.’ The idea of losing another child made the sweat break out on her body. She couldn’t go through that again.
Stella nodded again. ‘I understand. It’s your life. I just don’t want you to set yourself up for disappointment like I did.’
‘What disappointment? You always said you loved Dad?’
‘I loved Noah, all right. Very much. But –’ her mother stepped back and lifted her chin – ‘I haven’t done everything right in my life.’
Ava didn’t understand where this was coming from. ‘You didn’t have much choice with Dad dying while you were in Sydney.’
Stella sighed. ‘Except I wasn’t in Sydney when your father died.’ Her eyes met Ava’s and there was a plea for understanding in them. ‘I’d already left him. The week before.’
Ava’s breath hitched. ‘Mum?’
Her mother went on, staring at nothing over Ava’s shoulder. ‘I’d run home to my mother, with you, from the homesickness. Missing my family.’ She shook her head. ‘It was his long, long hours at work, with my time in a horrible brick house and no friends. Not many people talk to their neighbours in the city, and when I tried they’d just look at me as if I was trying to steal their washing.’
‘You were lonely,’ Ava said very quietly.
‘Very. He was devastated, of course. I found out, a fair while after the funeral, that he went a little crazy and took stupid risks and continued to until that got him killed. I blame myself. I’ve always blamed myself for Noah’s death.’
Ava’s head was spinning. ‘But we were always told you came home after he died.’
‘I lied.’ The statement clattered in the kitchen like a dropped knife and her mother’s eyes filled. Ava’s throat closed in sympathy. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her mother cry, and she slipped her hand into Stella’s and squeezed.
Her mum didn’t seem to notice as she hung suspended in another world and time. ‘I left him and he died. And the lie I told you has eaten me for all this time.’
Ava didn’t know if the tears were for her father or for the fact that her mother had carried the burden for such a long time.
‘Oh, Mum.’ Ava stepped up closer and returned the love her mother had given her. ‘You were young, alone, maybe even postnatally depressed, without your mother nearby. And pregnant again. What did Mim say when you came home?’
She half laughed and it was not a happy sound. ‘She said go back. Talk to him. That there was a place between the two worlds where we could find a solution and we needed to work on it together.’
That sounded like Mim.
Stella sighed. ‘But before I could go back, it was too late.’
‘Oh, Mum,’ she said again. ‘You poor thing. And you’ve carried that and worried about what we’d think all these years? That’s why you were worried I’d end up like you if I went with Zac? Why you looked worried when he arrived, with our obvious rapport?’
She nodded.
Ava reeled, but her mum needed this sorted. She could rearrange her own brain later. ‘Firstly, I love you. Jock loves you. Neither of us is going to judge you for something you thought was right twenty-four years ago. Dad should have seen it coming too.’ She squeezed her mum’s hand again.
‘Secondly, you couldn’t know he’d be killed. You didn’t know you’d never see him again. That’s a tragedy. Horrible. But that’s life. It’s capricious and doesn’t do what you expect, and we have to grow with it. We have to learn from it because that’s our journey.’
‘Like Amelia,’ her mum said sadly.
‘Yes, like Amelia. And like me taking risks with Zac if we want to go that far. But we’ll see what happens.’
Her mother reached up and dropped a kiss on her cheek. ‘How did you get so wise?’
Ava hugged her. ‘I picked it up from my mother and grandmother.’
‘Really?’ Her mother’s voice was uncertain and buried in the hug.
Ava gave her an extra squeeze. ‘Yes, really. Let it go, because your daughter thinks you’re amazing, and that you deserve happiness, and I hope you find it.’ They stepped back and eyed each other mistily.
Her mother looked at her for a moment and opened her mouth to say something, but Mim walked in chuckling. Ava watched her mother’s mouth shut with a snap. Now what? she wondered. Was there another secret her mother had been holding on to?
To fill the sudden gap in conversation, Ava said, ‘Just so you know, I intend to remain my own woman and I always will be.’
‘I can see that,’ her mum said.
Ava couldn’t suppress the smile. ‘And I have to acknowledge that no matter how things could pan out with Zac in the long run, having him here is wonderful. But we have a week at least, maybe two if we don’t drive him away, to see if there’s a chance we can find what we lost.’
She studied her mother, blonde and upright, a determined frown on her face as she tried not to tell her daughter what to do. She’d inherited a lot of her mother’s need to control and she understood what she was going through.
‘It’s okay, Mum. I know what I’m doing.’
Her mother smiled at that, very dryly. ‘Excellent’ was all she said.
Granny Mim, observer of these last statements, looked at them both and cackled like a madwoman. The two younger women shook their heads at her.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Zac
Zac stepped out at three o’clock and quietly closed the door of his room. He’d slept, as instructed by Stella in no uncertain terms, which he had to smile at, but he’d had enough rest today. She epitomised the bossy nurse, so unlike her daughter’s gentle, midwife-like suggestions to listen to his own body. If he stayed more than a few days, he could see a time when moving to one of the tiny chalet-style cottages overlooking the desert could be more relaxing than following Stella’s orders. Then he could invite Ava to come visit. Now that was a fantastic idea.
Before he’d drifted off to sleep, he had admitted to himself that he wanted to know more of Ava May’s background and what made her tick. Well, this was his chance. They would be living in close quarters for a week at least. Even under such intense chaperonage as at lunch, he’d felt the pull of attraction, which he guessed was what had happened when they had met initially. However, there wasn’t much chance of acting on any of it without being observed. Mim and Stella had watched them like desert hawks which he supposed was a good thing to keep things moving safely.
Zac walked down the hallway, taking in Ava’s world in a more leisurely manner than during his arrival. Once again, he admired the way the stone hallway kept the centre of the house cool. It was such a clever design by the pioneers of this family, who spent their lives in the highs and lows of the Central Australian winter and summer.
Now that he thought about it, he realised that he’d lived in an air-conditioned atmosphere almost all his life, both at home and at work. And since arriving in the outback, he found he really was enjoying the purity of the more natural atmosphere, even though at times it was terribly hot. If he was honest, he doubted he was
actually cut out for this life. The stories of drought, the people who lived here and the battles won – this was a whole new world Ava was inviting him into, and the opportunity to experience it was great. He just had to remember that this wasn’t his world, and make sure that the risk of causing Ava pain in the long run didn’t outweigh the benefits for him. He needed to remember his track record for not keeping the people he cared about safe.
If he’d been sensible, he wouldn’t have come here with Ava and risked her heartache, but he’d seen how much she wanted that to happen, to give him a chance to remember, and he hadn’t been able to say no.
All he knew, in the present moment, was that he ached with the need for exercise and to clear his head with space, and this place had more space than he’d seen before.
He stepped out onto the back verandah and spied Ava’s Granny Mim as she dragged a long metal rod from an organised stack of metal sheets and rods towards a long, low building he hadn’t noticed before. When he strode across to offer help, she flashed him one of those twinkling smiles he already recognised as a trademark of hers.
‘Now are you officially an invalid or not? Should I let you?’
‘Not an invalid. I’m a doctor, I can make that call.’
‘Then a big, handsome man like you wants to help? Absolutely. You go right ahead and drag that into my shed.’
She cracked him up. He took up the rod and tried to keep his face expressionless. It was surprisingly heavy. And yet she’d been dragging it, at her age! He decided not to lift it onto his good shoulder and began dragging it too. ‘This your shed?’ he asked, and she nodded. ‘And what mischief do you get up to over here, Mim?’
The Desert Midwife Page 17
