‘It’s illegal to call yourself a doctor.’

‘Phone my university,’ she snapped. ‘Check my qualifications.’

‘Doctor of what?’

‘Go jump.’ She was suddenly overpoweringly angry. Overpoweringly weary. What business was it of this man what her qualifications were? She was telling no lies. She wasn’t misrepresenting herself.

Maybe it had been a mistake to use the word ‘doctor’ in her sign. She’d agonised over it but, heck, she’d abandoned so much. If the use of one word would help her build this new career-this new life-then use it she would.

So much else had been taken from her. They couldn’t take this.

‘Look,’ she said wearily, her anger receding. Anger solved nothing. She knew that. ‘We’re getting off to a really bad start here. I’ve tossed blue paint at you and you’ve implied I’m a hooker.’

‘I didn’t.’

‘You did. If you check, you’ll find that I’m absolutely entitled to use the title “Doctor”.’

‘You don’t think a doctorate-of what, basket weaving?-might be just a bit misleading when you’re setting up in a medical precinct?’

‘Medical precinct?’ She swallowed more anger. Or tried to. Then she gazed around. There were a total of five shops in the tiny township of Tambrine Creek. Then there was a pub and a petrol station. The oak-lined main street ran straight down to the harbour, where the fishing boats moored and sold their fish from the final shop-a fishermen’s co-op that had existed for generations.

‘You know, we’re not talking Harley Street here,’ she ventured. ‘Medical precinct? I don’t think so.’

‘There’s two premises.’

‘Yeah, two medical premises. Yours and mine. Yours is a doctor’s surgery. Mine is a massage centre. It was a tearoom once, but it’s been closed for twenty years. The owner’s thrilled to get rent from me and the council has no objection to me setting up. So what’s your problem? Do I somehow downgrade your neighbourhood?’