‘I don’t remember there being anything here at all,’ Ryan confessed, remembering a dreadful car ride to Cairns late at night when his appendix had burst.

‘There wasn’t anything,’ Eileen said bluntly. ‘Since Abbey got her medical degree she’s organised everything. Galvanised the locals into building this hospital. Restructured the home-nursing service. The medical services in this town are wonderful now-but without Abbey they’ll fall apart.’

‘But, whether you need her or not, she’s just dislocated her knee,’ Ryan said faintly. ‘Even when we get it back in place she’ll have to spend the next week with it up. It’ll be so bruised and swollen she won’t be able to use it. She’ll have to take some time off.’

‘She never has before,’ Eileen said darkly. ‘Not when she had her baby. Not when… Well, not ever. I don’t see why she should now. As long as the leg’s not broken then I’ll help her get it back into place, we’ll shove on a Robert Jones bandage to protect it and we’ll go on from there.’

‘Well, I knocked her off her damned bicycle,’ Ryan growled. ‘I’ll at least have to fix the leg.’ Then he met Eileen’s suddenly hopeful look and he could read her thoughts as clear as day. ‘I am an orthopaedic surgeon, after all,’ he said bluntly, ‘but that’s all I’m doing.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Eileen said meekly, but she gave him a very long look before she headed back to her work.

An orthopaedic surgeon. Well, well…

Abbey arrived at the hospital half an hour later to find Ryan, pacing. When Rod finally drove Ryan’s hire car into the casualty entrance, Ryan grabbed a trolley and almost flung it at the back seat.

‘Where the hell have you been?’

There was a note of raw anxiety in his voice but Abbey didn’t hear it. All she heard was anger.