She went on quietly. ‘Then, unexpectedly, the next night we met again at work. On the flight you’d asked not to discuss work or family, and yes, it was a small shock when we ended up on the same ward. I followed your lead and pretended we were strangers, but you approached me the next morning and asked me back to your place again.’

That sounded so ballsy and not like him. ‘I was that crass?’

‘Can’t have been too crass.’ She shrugged and spread her hands. ‘I said yes.’

Indeed. ‘I must have been persuasive.’ He wouldn’t have thought he’d have had it in him after Roslyn.

She didn’t comment on that. ‘We had four days, every hour until the next shift started, until my move on to Yulara before holidays. You said you’d come down to the rock for the weekend.’

The waiter arrived with her black tea and his coffee. Another arrived with her cereal and toast and his eggs. When they left he asked what he’d been dying to ask. ‘Did I talk about when I’d go back to Sydney? Did we think we had a future?’

She took her time pouring her tea. ‘I was off to Yulara on Sunday and then holidays and wouldn’t be back in Alice for a month. You were meant to be back in Sydney after that.’ She raised her gaze to his. ‘I tried not to have expectations before Yulara.’

‘I’m sorry.’ He must have thought it was going nowhere, then. But when did the ring come into it? ‘That seems a pretty big ask. And you’re still talking to me?’

‘Funny that.’ She laughed, but it sounded too hollow to be amused. ‘You never promised anything, so my expectations were low.’

So he hadn’t asked her to marry him. Was the ring planning or in case? It was pretty impulsive after four days and so hard to believe of himself. But then Ava was a very special woman – he’d certainly learned that at Setabilly.

She was going on. ‘I half expected we would end when I left after our last night shift together.’ She shrugged. ‘Except you came to Yulara.’

He couldn’t help leaning forward in anticipation of discovering what happened next.

She smiled at him and the memory must have been pleasant. ‘You arrived as Jessamine had her twins.’

‘The forgotten twin birth.’

‘Yes. The birth went smoothly, thank goodness. It was good to have you there.’ She looked away before she went on. ‘Then we drove out to Uluru and the accident happened.’ She’d left something out. He didn’t know how he could be sure of that, but he was. She obviously had her reasons.

‘And then the accident happened,’ he repeated.