Her romantic mother would be in seventh heaven when she heard that Stella had a beau. But this? This confrontation of a man who had made it clear that he found her attractive and was looking for a future. She didn’t know what to think, or whether this was exactly what she’d dreamed about, hoping he would come here. As if she’d been waiting for him.

Chapter Five

Zac

Zac found himself waiting outside the door to maternity, despite his intention not to. It was funny how he was aware he’d rediscovered the emotion of anticipation, which he’d lost for the last year. He shouldn’t be doing this, but Ava the midwife warred with his common sense, even though Alice Springs was nestled 2700 kilometres away from Sydney.

The connection with Ava he’d felt on the flight, and definitely after that, had been incredible, but he knew he should be letting her go. He needed to find the peace he’d come here to find and go home unencumbered. This was not a good place to find his heart open and expect his blonde sprite to follow him home. But last night had made him rethink that strategy.

So here he was, leaning against the wall outside the ward with his inner voice demanding, You’d better get your backside into gear and see what today brings, because you might just have to work out the rest as you go along.

He thought about Roslyn, and how when she’d hung suspended in a coma for those last twelve months, his fidelity and focus on her had remained rock solid. These short two months since she’d passed had been the same.

Until the flight.

It was just too soon for a blue-eyed ‘desert midwife’ to have smiled her way to his core. In one day and one night together, not counting work last night, which had strengthened the bond. A one-night stand with a woman he’d bonded with more closely than the best friend he’d been married to for five years.

Guilt draped thick, disapproving tendrils over him until he almost lifted his hand to wave them away. To make it worse, he’d already been unfair to Ava – asking her to lie to everyone here, to pretend they hadn’t spent the previous night together. He had thrown her generosity back in her face. Even as they’d worked together, he’d told himself the previous night had just been a fling.

Yet here he was. Making it a two-day fling. And he suspected he’d want tomorrow as well, because his gut had sunk when he’d heard she’d be gone in a couple of days.