OUTBACK ENGAGEMENT by Meredith Webber

Author:Meredith Webber
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2013-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

AVOIDING Tom might have become essential now, but right when the excuse of learning her new job would have proved useful, work slackened off. Suddenly, no one was getting ill, or perhaps it was simply that Anna had become familiar with the routine and better at handling the interruptions in her daily schedule.

As if in celebration of this lull, the news from Brisbane was good. Microsurgeons had pieced together Kevin’s hand and though he was still hospitalised down there and would stay for intensive physiotherapy once the surgical scars healed, the surgeons were optimistic he would regain ninety per cent function.

Anna had even had time to go out and visit Mavis, wanting to explain in person what was going on and how Kevin was responding to the surgery.

But even with this and other home visits to patients, Anna now had time on her hands, so when Beryl Martin, the head of the local shire council, asked her to open the Merriwee Art Show the following Saturday night, she agreed.

‘The opening is at seven-thirty,’ Beryl explained, capturing Anna in the corridor outside the hospital kitchen. ‘But I’ve asked a few people to an early buffet dinner at my place first, so come along there at six. You remember how to get there?’

Anna nodded. She’d met Beryl several times, and had been to her house to discuss the arrangement by which the hospital kitchen supplied the meals for the volunteer meals-on-wheels service—one of many services in the town headed by the seemingly tireless and indomitable Beryl.

‘So, although opening the local art show might not rate right up there with playing polo against royalty,’ Anna said to Philip when he phoned on Saturday afternoon, ‘at least tonight I’ll meet some of the locals socially, rather than professionally.’

‘You’ve not met any of them yet?’ Even over thousands of kilometres of radio waves Philip could sound incredulous. ‘What on earth have you been doing in your spare time?’

‘What spare time?’ Anna retorted, but Philip was already telling her about the friends he’d caught up with at the opera in Milan when he’d flown in for business and been fortunate enough to get tickets.

He’s always fortunate enough to get tickets, Anna thought to herself, then realised that even thinking such a thing was bitchy, so she made up for it with noises of appreciation and amazement as Philip talked on.

And on!

It meant she had to rush through her shower, with no time to wash her hair, and she was left with little time after showering to decide what one wore to open an art show in Merriwee.

She hadn’t realised just what a problem clothes could be until she’d arrived in Merriwee. Warnings of the heat had prompted her to pack miniskirts and skimpy tops, but she’d soon learnt they weren’t the kind of clothes the locals expected their doctor to wear. At work, her white coats were long enough to cover up the fact her skirts were too short, and, in spite of over 40-degree heat, she usually wore jeans when she went uptown.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.