Fiona Lowe - Australian Bachelors - Outback Heroes - Top-Notch Doc, Outback Bride / A Wedding in Warragurra / The Outback Doctor's Surprise Bride

‘Did you and Madeleine plan to have children?’

Matt turned from the bed to look at her. ‘It was something we discussed once or twice.’ He looked away again, not comfortable adding how often he had shied away from the topic. Madeleine had been a few more steps ahead of him, now that he thought about it. It had been her idea to get engaged, her idea to bring the wedding forward and very definitely her idea to begin a family straight afterwards. It wasn’t that Madeleine wouldn’t have made a great mother, it was just he had never really seen himself settling down into suburbia in quite the way she had planned. It was a disturbing realisation that two people who had claimed to be in love had not really been in tune with each other’s wants and desires. Was that why he was still punishing himself? he wondered. It wasn’t that he had loved Madeleine too much—it was more that he hadn’t loved her enough …

Kellie lay back on her pillow with her hands propped behind her head. ‘My mother would have loved to be a grandmother,’ she said on the end of little sigh. ‘She told me that being a mother was great but it was so exhausting she couldn’t wait to be a granny so she could hand back the little ones at the end of the day. I feel sad she won’t be around for my babies, to love and indulge them as a doting granny should. My dad will do his best but it won’t be the same, will it?’

Matt sat on the edge of his bed. ‘I’m sure he will do what he can to be a good grandfather,’ he said, rather unhelpfully.

She turned her head to look at him, a soft smile curving her mouth. ‘I’m hoping my time away in the bush will bring about a romance.’

He automatically tensed. ‘So I was right about Tim and Claire?’ he said, clenching his jaw. ‘I knew it. I just knew they wouldn’t be able to help themselves.’

She gave him a blank look. ‘What have Tim and Claire got to do with my father and my aunt?’

It was Matt’s turn to deliver the blank stare. ‘Your father and your aunt?’

‘Yes,’ Kellie said. ‘My aunt has been in love with my father for the last five years, ever since she watched him nurse my mother through her illness. Aunty Kate’s husband left her for another woman years ago, and for as long as I can remember she has always been there for all of us, working tirelessly in the background, dropping in meals or doing loads of washing and ironing without being asked. My father has more or less been oblivious to it because I’ve been there to pick up where she left off. I thought it would be best if I moved out so she could show Dad how much she does for us and for him. He’s a bit on the slow side, if you know what I mean.’

‘He’s probably not quite ready to move on,’ he said pragmatically. ‘You can’t force him.’

‘I know, but Aunty Kate loves him,’ she said. ‘She’s loved him for years. I’ve known it, my brothers have known it even though they are about as emotionally deficient as boys can be, but my father seems completely ignorant of it.’

‘Then perhaps it was a good move of yours to come out to the bush,’ he said. ‘You sound to me like the glue that holds your family together.’

‘I’d never thought of it quite like that. That’s great way to put it.’ Her smile faded a little as she asked, ‘But what if they fall apart while I’m gone?’

‘I’m sure they won’t,’ Matt said. ‘They’ve probably got into a pattern of learned helplessness. They’ll soon snap out of it.’

‘Yes, well, that’s the plan,’ she said with another little smile.

Matt could see that Kellie was a warm-hearted person who had a mission in life to spread love and goodwill to others. He also knew from what she had briefly intimated that her love life was lacking something, but it didn’t mean he was the person to step up to the plate to take the next ball, certainly not with the whole of Culwulla Creek on the sidelines, cheering him on.

Anyway, life was so damned capricious.

Doctors knew that more than most. They diagnosed terminal illnesses on a weekly, sometimes even daily basis. He had done it himself. So many faces drifted past him, shocked faces, devastated faces, faces that communicated their frustration in their but-I’ve-not-done-all-I’ve-set-out-to-do expressions of despair.

They were all the same, just like him: cheated of what life had promised but had failed to deliver.

Was it his fault?

No, and the rational part of him knew Madeleine’s death wasn’t really his fault. It was the driver running the red light, it was the rush hour, it was a hundred other things that had been going on in the universe at that particular moment, but yet still he felt somehow responsible. What if she had been thinking about him at that moment and not seen the car on her right? What if she had been thinking about the seemingly endless list of jobs to do before their wedding? Or, like him, having last-minute doubts? It had been a stressful time, especially as Madeleine hadn’t wanted to take any time off school and therefore everything had had to be packed into those last couple of days before the term finished. What if he had done more of those little jobs for her so she hadn’t been so rushed off her feet?

The what-ifs had been what had kept him awake most nights in those early days and tortured far too many of his days as well. Work out here in the bush was his only panacea and so far it had done a reasonable job … well, it had until Kellie had come to town with her big smile and adorable dimples.

‘We’d better get some sleep,’ he said, feigning a yawn. ‘The first flight is at eight. I organised it when I went out earlier. We were lucky as there were only two seats left.’

‘I hope I get the window one,’ she said, turning on her side and propping herself on her elbow.

Matt decided it would be wise to turn out the lamp as soon as he could so he didn’t have to keep staring into those beautiful brown eyes. The soft light in the room made her gaze melting and soft, so soft he could feel himself drowning in it every time she looked at him. He muttered something about using the bathroom and came out a few minutes later dressed in the other bathrobe provided by the hotel. She was still lying facing him, her eyes widening slightly when he got between the covers without taking off the bathrobe.

‘You’re going to cook, wearing that to bed,’ she informed him knowledgably. ‘I had to toss mine off hours ago.’

I wish you hadn’t reminded me of that, Matt thought as he turned off the lamp and flopped down on the pillow. The thought of her satin skin covered only by the thin threads of a cotton sheet was almost too much for his mind to cope with.

There was barely a beat of silence before her voice split the silence.

‘Matt?’

He affected a bored, I’m-almost-asleep tone. ‘Hmm?’

‘Do you think you could leave the lamp on?’ she asked in a beseeching whisper.

Even though his eyes were closed Matt still rolled them behind his eyelids. ‘What on earth for? Do you want to read or something? It’s close to three in the morning.’

‘No but it’s so dark in here …’

He thumped the pillow to reshape it. ‘It’s supposed to be dark,’ he said dryly. ‘It’s the middle of the night.’

‘Yes, but I like to be able to see my way to the bathroom,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to break a leg or something, stumbling in the dark.’

‘Do you need the bathroom?’

‘Not right now, but I might later.’

Matt removed his bathrobe under the cloak of darkness and placed it over the nearest chair before switching on the bedside lamp, turning the dimmer switch as low as it could go. ‘There, it’s on now so close your eyes and go to sleep.’