‘Finally, we stop adjacent to them with a little jerk.’

‘Are we the last off?’

‘We are. We’re the last off, and the heat hits us like that oven door has just opened and the blast of it almost singes our eyebrows. You don’t notice the humidity for a while. Just the heat of it.’

‘Worse than here?’

‘I haven’t felt it like that here.’

‘Don’t let me stop you. Go on.’

‘Through the fence the kids are screaming with enthusiasm and families gather and hug and laugh, but we don’t know anyone, so we follow the tide through the shed and out the other side to the lawn behind it to wait for the luggage. It takes a good fifteen minutes. There’s one big frangipani tree that offers the only shade and we all move like cows in the heat to find a position under the branches.’

‘You might have moved like a cow, but I moved like a dancer.’

He laughed. He loved that answer, he reassured himself. But suddenly he was unsure, jolted out of the game. He would be leaving, there was no doubt about that, so why was he was flirting with this woman?

‘Your turn,’ he told her. Please. What was it about her that drew him? Had drawn him in the time he couldn’t remember. ‘Where is your favourite place to work?’

‘Yulara.’ She glanced at him very briefly. ‘Except when dust storms hit and accident victims with head injuries remain unconscious and threaten to die on me.’ The answer came promptly, ironically, and he had to smile.

‘Yes. I imagine that would have been stressful. Just keeping you on your toes.’

‘I’ll say.’ She shook her head. ‘Attention seeker. I’ll sleep for a week when I get home.’

Leaning his head back against the seat, he continued watching her expressions. He needed to stop beating himself up about the lack of future between them because she must understand. And she intrigued him. ‘What is it about Yulara that you love?’

‘The proximity to Uluru,’ she said in another prompt reply. There was no hesitation, only a warm, rich feeling in her voice. ‘It’s a magical place. Something people don’t believe until they’ve been there.’ There was no holding back with her. No artifice. ‘The Anangu people are great. I have wonderful friends there. My best friend is an artist and traditional healer, and her husband is a dancer and teaches didgeridoo.’ She laughed. ‘He was born in Melbourne – Uluru is not didgeridoo country.