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Unable to wait a moment longer, Mia launched herself to her feet and arrived at the low fence just as the propellers of the plane slowly wound down and stopped.
The door on the opposite side of the plane opened. Mia caught sight of a pair of long, sun-kissed, muscular legs, which jumped down and landed on large feet. Intrigued, she watched as the legs strode around the plane, eating up the distance with commanding ease. Then the owner came into full view, and an uncontrollable shock of electric delight raced through her, completely disarming her.
Mia’s mouth dried. The intensity of his look made her feel stripped bare, and to her horror she dropped her gaze.
‘I wasn’t expecting a welcoming party. I’m Flynn Harrington. Pilot and doctor.’ He grinned with the cheekiness of someone who had inside information. ‘You must be Mia.’
‘You’re the island doctor?’ She couldn’t hide the shock and disbelief from her voice.
He didn’t look like any doctor she’d ever met—and she’d met more than her fair share, personally and professionally.
And no doctor had ever made her tingle like that.
Dear Reader
In June 2007 my family left our home on the south coast of Australia and we set off on a six-hour flight to the far north of the country. It was 6C in Melbourne and 33C in Darwin—hard to believe we were still in the same country, but it wasn’t just the weather that was different. As we toured around the World Heritage Area of Kakadu National Park and swam in the waterholes of Litchfield Park we absorbed the vivid reds, yellows and browns of the outback. We learned all sorts of things about the land, the plants and animals, and what they all mean to the Aboriginal people.
A very special part of our holiday was a two-day trip to an island in the Timor Sea. Here we went hunting for turtle eggs, watched dugong at play and crocodiles surfing in the ocean! As I sat around the campfire I started to get an idea for a story. We had met a lot of people on our holiday and many had come from the south. I found myself asking, “Why would someone from the south be drawn to the isolation of this island?”
And that is how Mia and Flynn’s story evolved. Set against the background of the Aborigines’ love for their land and their own unique health issues, Mia and Flynn are on the island running from their individual demons. Both are determined to live a solo life but they discover that no matter where you are or how far you go, you can’t outrun your past until you face it.
I hope you enjoy their story as much as I enjoyed writing it and that one day you too can take a trip to the far north of central Australia. It’s an amazing place!
Love
Fiona x
The Doctor Claims His Bride
Fiona Lowe
CONTENTS
Always an avid reader, Fiona Lowe decided to combine her love of romance with her interest in all things medical, so writing Medical™ Romance was an obvious choice! She lives in a seaside town in southern Australia, where she juggles writing, reading, working and raising two gorgeous sons, with the support of her own real-life hero! You can visit Fiona’s website at www.fionalowe.com
To Gaye, with heartfelt thanks for the friendship, the walks along the river and the conversations that roam from laundry liquid to solving the world’s problems!
Special thanks to Nellie, for generously sharing her experiences as a Remote Area Nurse.
CHAPTER ONE
‘YOU still on city time, Sis.’ Susie, one of the Kirri health workers, grinned widely, her teeth white against her chocolate-brown face.
Mia Latham sighed and twirled her hair up, welcoming the light breeze against her very hot and sweaty neck. Jamming her straw hat down hard, she scanned the outback-blue skies for the elusive light plane.
Nothing.
Not a faint dot in the distance, not even a bird. Just heat haze shimmering upwards against wisps of grey smoke from the dry-season fires. She forced her shoulders to relax while muttering, ‘He said eleven o’clock and now it’s almost one.’
‘He on island time.’ Susie leaned back contentedly against the shady eucalypt.
Mia turned and gazed at the sensible indigenous health worker. ‘But I have an immunisation clinic all organised, and we’re keeping people waiting.’
Susie gave her a bemused look. ‘You got no clinic till plane brings vaccines.’ She shrugged. ‘So sit. You can’t do nothing until the plane comes.’
Every cell in Mia’s body rebelled at the practical words. Her ‘to do’ list magnified in her head, the print bold and black, bearing down on her, urging her to do something, anything, to make a dent in it. She’d wanted to be as up to date as possible for when she met the visiting doctor. But at this rate she’d be way behind and she hated having no control over the situation.
She stifled a huge scream of frustration and plonked down awkwardly in the shade next to Susie, her cargo shorts instantly filling with fine, brown dirt. Just great. She might still be on Australian soil but nothing about life up in the far far north of the country, nothing about life on this tiny island resembled anything she’d ever known.
She’d wanted a change. She’d badly needed change but today, her fifth day on the job as a remote area nurse on Kirra Island, left her wondering if what she’d come to was harder than what she’d left.
Impossible.
She wanted remoteness, wanted to work on her own and be as far away as possible from her old life. She just wanted to forget.
She fanned her face and took a long slug of water from the bottle that was a permanent part of her in this heat. And this was the dry season—winter. She didn’t want to think about the dripping humidity just before the big wet.
‘Hear that?’ Susie inclined her head to the right.
Mia couldn’t hear anything. It was so hot that even nature had gone quiet. ‘No.’
‘Listen with all of you,’ Susie chided gently.