Emergency In Maternity. Fiona McArthur

grown up with the local boys as friends. As casual boyfriends they hadn’t seemed to mind the fact that she was better at most things than they had been, but Cate had never found any reason to become heavily involved with someone she’d known.

      Until Brett had returned from medical school to complete his residency in Emergency at Riverbank. He’d stormed her citadel with flowers and pretty words and hadn’t been intimidated by Cate being in charge—quite the opposite. Their pairing had seemed to suit all round.

      Early on he hadn’t seemed so self-centred and perhaps she’d encouraged him to expect her to look after him. Iris’s comment that Brett needed someone to lean on him to bring out his best could be very true. She’d thought that together they could have made a good life, although to be honest she’d seen herself as the stronger of the two. To achieve a love affair like her parents’ might have been stretching the fantasy, but her dream of a caring husband and a home and family had seemed within her grasp.

      And Cate had always admired Iris. Over the course of her twelve-month engagement with Brett, she’d stifled the doubts that had crept in occasionally because of that. She wasn’t proud of almost marrying a man she hadn’t loved. She should really thank her brother Ben for making it impossible for her to follow Brett to Sydney like he’d wanted. With the choice between leaving her parents to manage on their own and her loyalties to Brett, who had wanted Cate to himself, Brett had come a poor second.

      But now her future alone seemed to stretch ahead of her. It would be better once Brett was here and she could stop worrying that he might expect to take up where he’d left off—or that she might be tempted…

      Speaking of temptation, there had been that feeling of Noah Masters’s hands not so long ago, resting gentle but strong on her shoulders. Cate shrugged her shoulders and stormed to her office. Of course the phone was ringing and Cate reminded herself that there was no time for temptation when there was work to be done.

      She reached across the desk to lift the phone to her ear just as a shadow darkened her doorway. Noah Masters blew into the room like a hail-filled cloud and seemed to shrink her office to half its size.