The Temptation Test

by Meredith Webber

  Noah, who’d been wondering the same thing himself, hesitated.

  ‘Let’s see if we can stabilise her first. After all, it would be very awkward delivering on the helicopter, and if you consider fifty per cent of preterm labour resolves itself, it seems a pity to send her even further away from home. Fluid resuscitation will often stave it off as well.’

  He paused, but sensed Marion still had doubts.

  ‘We’ve a Humidicrib if she did deliver. Should that happen, then both mother and child can be whisked away to the city.’

  Where an overworked and overtired young intern would probably be the first person to see them! Noah was confident he could do better himself, but didn’t like to say so.

  Treatment with magnesium sulphate had a good degree of safety, though at its higher levels it could cause headaches and possible respiratory depression.

  The ultrasound showed a small foetus, but no lack or excess of fluid. No other abnormalities were obvious and Noah was convinced they could safely keep Minnie in Kareela a little longer.

  ‘I’m going to start you on magnesium sulphate, which works to stop whatever is telling your body it’s ready to deliver,’ he told Minnie. In fairness to her, he added, ‘This is probably the first line of treatment you’d get anywhere. We’ll keep the foetal heart monitor on you so we can monitor the baby’s heart, and I’ll have a nurse with you at all times in case the labour increases.’

  The anxiety in her eyes seemed to lessen, but he had to add the option.

  ‘Or, if you’d prefer, we could transfer you by helicopter to Brisbane where you’d have specialist obstetricians and paediatricians available should you need them.’

  ‘I don’t want to go to Brisbane,’ she murmured, confirming Noah’s guess. ‘Not unless I really have to.’

  Marion nodded at Noah as if to say, You’re right, and he went ahead, working out dosages while Marion and a young aide took Minnie through to one of the rooms used as maternity suites.

  As the gurney was wheeled away, Jena fell in behind the staff, while he took the swabs and urine through to the lab. Kits enabled most country doctors to do basic tests and he prepared slides for cultures and checked on the obvious. Other samples would still go to the pathology laboratory in the city to confirm what he’d found—or not found—and in case their more sophisticated tests revealed abnormalities.

  All he wanted was confirmation that it was safe to start drug treatment.

  He knew it was Jena who’d entered the room, although, bent over the microscope, he hadn’t seen her enter.

  ‘Marion felt I should be watching whatever you’d doing now,’ she said, her faintly scented presence dominating the room.

  ‘Running a few tests—not terribly photogenic or exciting stuff.’

  He inched along the bench, taking out the colour codes to check against the treated specimen—and hoping to get further away from her. But she followed, peering through the eyepiece of the microscope he’d just abandoned.

  ‘In fact, none of it’s exciting, as I told the first person who came. You want action, you need a city hospital.’

  She lifted her head to look at him while he continued to satisfy himself there wasn’t any reason he couldn’t give Minnie magnesium sulphate.

  ‘It isn’t action they want but reality,’ Jena explained. ‘The whole point of the series is to show the contrast between the television series and the real thing. This is only one segment—they’re doing fire stations, emergency rescue services, a city hospital emergency room, the water police and a metropolitan police station, because all of these have had fictional TV series made about them. Whatever the crew film here will be edited and segments of the real thing will be contrasted against a similar segment from a fictional show.’

  ‘Sounds to me a comparison of milk and champagne—boring versus special. And they think this will sell?’ Noah asked, reading off the results of the final test and preparing to leave the lab.

  ‘Market research says it will,’ Jena told him, then she chuckled. ‘Though I’ve no idea who they get to answer questions for research. Probably the same people who answer the ratings questions.’

  Noah found himself smiling.

  ‘Showing contempt for the industry that pays your wages, Jena?’ he asked, as she followed him out of the room.

  ‘Merely dealing with reality!’ she retorted, and this time he was the one who chuckled.

  ‘What’s going to happen to Minnie now?’ she asked, and the conversational shift took him by surprise. For a moment there he’d almost forgotten his patient.

  ‘I’ll start drug treatment and keep fluids running into her, watch her closely and hope for the best.’

  ‘That last bit doesn’t sound very professional,’ Jena told him.

  He grinned at her again.

  ‘No, but we all do it!’

  She nodded, then walked away, out into the hall and on up the stairs. Disappointment jarred like a wrong note in a music recital.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  WITH Minnie settled as comfortably as possible, Noah remembered his boast about getting a shower connected up at Matt’s place and phoned the plumber who was working on his aunt’s house.

  ‘I’m done here,’ the man told him. ‘In fact, I think Fred has the council inspector coming this afternoon, and as soon as he’s given the OK, the kids can move in.’

  And I can come back to town, thus avoiding the maddening yet enticing distraction of living with Jena Carpenter.

  He wasn’t sure whether to feel glad or sad about that, so told the plumber what he wanted and received an assurance that a small tank could be delivered, filled from a water tanker and a hand-held shower installed, all by six at the latest.

  ‘Today?’ Noah asked, incredulous at the speed with which the man was willing to organise things. ‘In the city I’d have to wait at least a week for someone to look at it, then another couple of weeks for the job to be done.’

  ‘For you, Doc,’ the man said, ‘I’d put off other jobs—not that I happen to have one this afternoon. The town’s real pleased you came. Town this size needs a hospital where folk can go local rather than travelling to the city every time.’

  Noah thanked him and hung up, pleased to have his own feelings about the survival of fully functional country hospitals confirmed. Then he smiled in anticipation of Jena’s reaction to a fully functional, if cold, shower installed before they reached home.

  Home?

  The word threw up connotations he didn’t want to consider, so he dwelt instead, for a few indulgent minutes, on the smile of delight with which Jena would undoubtedly reward him.

  ‘It’s a what?’ she shrieked when, in reply to a question about the sudden appearance of a green tank on Matt’s back verandah, he mentioned the shower.

  ‘Actually, the green thing’s a tank—the shower’s inside, in the little bathroom.’ After waiting in vain for the smile, he added, ‘I thought you’d like it.’

  Still no smile.

  ‘I did tell you I’d fix it up.’

  ‘But I don’t want a shower!’ she wailed. ‘What’s Matt going to think? His immediate reaction will be, “I told you so!” He’ll decide I couldn’t hack roughing it and there will go my big opportunity.’

  She turned to Noah. Definitely no smile. In fact, ferocious might better describe her appearance.

  ‘You’ll have to get rid of it!’ she stormed. ‘Now! Today! What if he came up. It’s not likely, but he could. What will happen then? What about my job?’

  Noah stared at her, trying desperately to make sense of the conversation. Sure he’d missed some integral part of the plot, he asked, ‘How can installing a shower lose you a job?’

  She stopped staring with loathing at the tank and spun to face him, the movement releasing more tendrils of hair, which, he’d noticed the previous day, had a tendency to escape her topknot.

  ‘I’m supposed to be proving something, stupid!’ she yelled at him. ‘Proving I can live rough, tha
t I can manage under adverse conditions. Then first of all you shift in with me, which immediately gets rid of the isolation aspect of living out here, and now you’re putting in hot and cold running water. Do you think I’ll get that in the desert?’

  They were obviously on different wavelengths, Noah decided. Quite possibly on different planets. He seized on the one bit he could handle.

  ‘It’s only cold water, not hot. Will that help?’

  The scathing look he received suggested it wouldn’t so he tried again.

  ‘What desert?’

  Another contemptuous glance.

  ‘Any desert!’ she snapped, then she threw up her arms in disgust and heaved herself out of the Jeep, stalking across to the offending tank and circling it like an animal might have circled an intruder into its territory.

  He followed more slowly, mentally reviewing the limited information he had acquired but getting no closer to finding a valid reason for her fury.

  Or what job would involve not showering in the desert.

  Had she mentioned what the show was about? Perhaps it was more ‘real-life’ television like the recent spate of mock-survival shows! Or perhaps a female version of the challenges Matt Ryan set himself.

  Noah peered cautiously around.

  Were secret cameras filming his every move?

  No, that couldn’t be right. Jena would have refused to have him stay and wouldn’t have insisted on secrecy.

  ‘Could you explain a little more? I gather living out here in Matt’s shack is some kind of test he’s set you. Why?’

  She turned towards him.

  ‘To prove I could live rough—and not be worried about little things like not having a shower or being alone.’

  ‘And how will anyone know you can do it? Are there cameras? People monitoring you?’

  He glanced around again but Jena’s huff of disbelief told him he wasn’t under surveillance.

  ‘I didn’t have to be watched or monitored. It was for my own sake Matt suggested it. So I’d be sure myself…’

  She bit her lip, then cautiously admitted, ‘I think he wanted to be sure as well. He knew—well, he thought he knew—I’d do the right thing about it and not cheat. It was a matter of honour—that’s what makes you being here so bad!’

  He realised she was genuinely perturbed by what she saw as her deception, but Noah couldn’t think of anything to console her. He tried for a conversational change instead.

  ‘Is it another challenge, this television show?’

  ‘I can’t really tell you but, yes, there’s a challenge in the concept.’

  ‘And you’ll be expected to live alone? In a desert?’

  She shrugged but looked uncomfortable.

  ‘A desert, rainforest, deserted island—wherever!’

  ‘To prove what?’ Noah persisted.

  She looked at him then, and the frown, previously the slightest of puckerings, deepened.

  ‘It’s entertainment!’ she muttered, but he guessed the question had unsettled her.

  ‘And that’s what you want to do? Entertain people by living in crummy isolated places? You must have wanted it badly to put up with Matt’s stupid test.’

  ‘It’s not a stupid test!’ she retorted. ‘He had to know I could manage on my own.’

  ‘And can you?’ Noah demanded, annoyed with her for letting herself be pressured in this way.

  ‘I don’t think that’s the question,’ she snapped, and turned away before he could ask her what was.

  Noah followed more slowly, and found himself watching her elegantly swaying walk and the movements of her supple body. He should have stayed in town. Spent the night at a motel.

  He’d have been closer to Minnie, although she’d stabilised and the contractions had stopped by the time he’d left the hospital.

  She’d stay in for a few days, maybe a week, then he would consider sending her home, though he’d have to ensure supervision of some kind.

  He was still thinking about Minnie when Jena reappeared in her swimsuit and the filmy shirt which seemed to emphasise rather than hide the delectable contours of her body.

  If his aunt’s house had passed the council inspection today, he could shift the young folk into it tomorrow and be back home himself the following day.

  Definitely the wisest move, though he still had a moral obligation to keep an eye on Greg and Rose and, no doubt, he’d be concerned about Jena out here on her own.

  Or would Matt be here? Despite her protestations, was she still expecting him? And was the urge to ‘prove herself’ to him to do with a job or becoming his wife?

  The thought of Jena married to Matt Ryan made him feel physically ill, so he set it aside and hurried into the shack. He’d have a swim, but no kissing.

  Definitely no kissing.

  But not kissing her was harder than kissing her, he decided, because he couldn’t stop himself remembering the ones they’d had, replaying them in his mind when he swam near her—near enough to see water beaded on her lower lip, water he wanted to lick away.

  ‘I’ll cook dinner,’ he suggested, perhaps prompted by thoughts of lips and licking. ‘I’ve some bits and pieces for a pasta sauce. Do you eat pasta?’

  She licked the drops of water away herself, a tiny peak of pink tongue flicking out and disappearing so quickly he might have imagined it had the droplets not disappeared.

  ‘Cooking dinner won’t make up for installing a tank without my permission,’ she told him coldly, ‘but, yes, I do eat pasta.’

  The torture continued when he returned to the shack—a long time after he’d seen her leave the water—and found her sitting on the verandah, her long legs propped against the rickety railing. She was wearing shorts and a shirt knotted at the front, and her fair hair was trailing wetly down her back.

  She was towelling the ends of it, and the urge to take the towel from her hands and help dry the lustrous mass was so strong he didn’t dare walk past her but took himself around the back where he stood for a long time under the cold shower, reminding himself of all the reasons he didn’t want a relationship.

  And, anyway, she was adamant she didn’t want one either!

  ‘Did you find what you were looking for in the library?’ he asked, joining her on the verandah when his sauce was simmering and he was fairly certain other parts of him weren’t. He’d pulled on a shirt but had left his swimming trunks on, knowing he might need a cooling-off swim later.

  She turned and lifted one shoulder in an elegant shrug.

  ‘Yes and no,’ she said. ‘I found a great book but couldn’t borrow it because I’m not a permanent resident and don’t have a library card.’

  She didn’t ask, but he heard the question in the air.

  ‘You can have my card. I joined soon after I arrived. I’ll give it to you tomorrow.’

  ‘You’re being very helpful for someone who doesn’t believe in Christmas cheer.’

  It was too dark to see the look in her eyes but he guessed it was mostly suspicion.

  ‘I didn’t say I didn’t believe in Christmas cheer,’ he protested, then admitted, ‘Actually, I’ve a reason. I wondered if I could be part of the group you’re coaching—go in with the kids for the parade?’

  Jena couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

  ‘You want to be in the parade? You, the man who thinks the whole thing’s ridiculous and Christmas is already far too commercialised?’

  ‘I have my reasons,’ he said stiffly, and Jena laughed.

  ‘Someone suggested you be part of the hospital float and you knew there’d be fake noses and had to find an excuse!’ she guessed, and saw from a twitching movement of his shoulders that she was right. ‘Well, we’re rehearsing at six-thirty tomorrow evening if you’d like to come. No doubt you know the way to the house.’

  ‘You’re rehearsing to be statues?’ he demanded. ‘Isn’t standing still a prerequisite of being a statue? What’s to rehearse?’

  Jena chuckled.

 
‘If you want to be part of it, come along and see,’ she told him.

  ‘I will,’ he promised, but Jena heard reservation in his voice and wondered if he was already regretting the rash suggestion.

  Although painting Noah Blacklock’s finely moulded body with silver or gold body paint might be rather fun.

  Or very dangerous!

  He excused himself to serve dinner, and by the time he returned she had her imagination back under control.

  ‘How are you finding life in a small town?’ she asked, when she’d taken the edge off her hunger and praised the meal he’d produced, given the limitations of only one gas ring.

  ‘Interesting,’ he replied. ‘Although my grandparents—my mother’s parents—lived here so I visited often as a child, and we holidayed by the lake every Christmas, so I knew the town quite well.’

  He’d leaned forward as he’d answered and the lamplight caught a gleam of something she couldn’t identify in his eyes. Surely not a smile?

  Perhaps a nostalgic one.

  ‘Is it all you hoped it would be?’ she asked.

  Noah did smile now, though not with nostalgia.

  ‘We’re back to “Jena, don’t go on and on”, aren’t we?’ he teased. ‘Having left half a dozen of your questions unanswered this morning, you’re now steering me back towards them.’

  ‘What questions?’ She had to think, because she’d started asking questions this time to divert her thoughts from how he looked in the lamplight and how comfortable sitting eating with him was. ‘Oh, about the house, the young people? Yes, I want to know that as well, but let’s stay with life in Kareela. Is it what you expected?’

  He glanced across the table at her and she again saw the lamplight sparkling in his eyes. A twinkle of amusement?

  Fun?

  ‘So far I’ve lurched from one disaster to the next,’ he said. ‘First Lucy’s rejection, then fighting for the halfway house to be set up, arriving here to find a doctor was the last thing Jeff Finch wanted in “his” hospital. To be honest, I thought Linda might have been able to help me sort it out, but—’

  ‘Instead, it warned you of the dangers of drifting into what could even remotely be considered a relationship,’ Jena teased.