‘And I have.’ Their gazes met and held. Finally, after the slowest two seconds in the world, he said, ‘That would explain my somewhat out-of-character fascination with your womanly wiles.’ Then he gave her that beautiful smile she’d fallen in love with and she thought her heart would break.

Oh, Zac.

After a brief struggle with the lump in her throat, she whispered huskily, ‘Nice to know something still rings a bell.’ She gestured vaguely. ‘The thing is, I’ll worry about you if I leave you here. I was driving that damn car, and if you came as a guest I’d be able to check on you. At least till the ten-day mark.’

Still he watched her face intently. ‘Make sure I don’t have a secondary cerebral bleed or something?’

‘Something like that. Such disastrous complications are strictly forbidden.’ She gestured to the window this time. ‘We have cottages, pre-fab corrugated-iron mini homesteads that my grandmother designed. They’re air-conditioned, self-contained and have desert views. So it’s not like you’d be living in the main house.’ Though her mother or grandmother might still veto that. Old nurses didn’t trust in nature as much as midwives did, and she’d be overruled. In this particular case, her mother and grandmother were the only people in the world she’d allow to overrule her. But that was a worry for later.

He didn’t look convinced and she could feel him slipping away. Make it happen, she told herself, or lose him. ‘As the one responsible for your loss of memory, I would prefer you to spend the next week or so this way.’ Please, she silently added. ‘And I can’t hang around here because I help at muster this time of year. I’m not back in Alice for a month. But it’s up to you.’

‘It’s good of you to offer, but please don’t feel responsible as the driver.’ His face twisted a little as if he understood the price of that, and she thought of his past trauma. Yes, he definitely understood. He probably didn’t connect that she knew about his wife, either.

Had she put too much pressure on him? Was recuperating with a strange woman the last thing he wanted to do and he didn’t know how to say no? For a moment she cringed, feeling pushy and desperate. Then she pulled herself together. She was fighting for their love. For them. For a future Zac had seen as wonderful, if what he’d said in Yulara was true. This guy was a high-flying city emergency doctor. He knew how to say no if he wanted to. He had amnesia, not a personality transplant.

Tensely, she waited for his answer, watching him warily. Trying not to let him see how awkward this was for her.

‘I’ll think about it,’ he said.