CHAPTER ONE

      ‘I HEAR Max is leaving us.’

      ‘Apparently so.’ With her usual smile still in place, Tessa paid for her meal and waited while Narelle, the canteen lady, swapped over the coffee-jugs.

      ‘The place won’t be the same without him—doctors like Max don’t come by every day. He saved my Bruce, you know.’

      Tessa did know!

      Not only had she been on duty the day Narelle’s husband had been wheeled into the department in full cardiac arrest, she was made to relive the moment in glorious Technicolor every morning when Narelle fussed over her like a broody hen, forcing food on her as some sort of bizarre reward and doing unmentionable things to Tessa’s calorie count. ‘Dead as a dodo he was, and just look at him now, and it’s all thanks to Max, and you, of course. I’d best go and put his eggs on. You go and sit down, love, and I’ll bring your meal over. So who’s going to be your brunch buddy now?’

      Who indeed?

      Sitting at her usual table by the window, Tessa stared at the glistening bay, curling her heavy chocolate curls idly around her fingers as she drank in the view she never tired of. The water so still and calm, it looked as smooth as glass, reflecting the sun high in the late morning sky. But as idyllic as it all looked, the postcard scene was marred by the sight of a red helicopter whirring in the distance, buzzing on the horizon like an angry bee. The water might look calm, but looks were deceptive and Tessa knew that only too well.

      The dangers of the ocean were rammed home with alarming regularity at Peninsula Hospital. A bush hospital they might be, but what they ‘missed’ in stabbings and drug-related problems, they made up for tenfold with a never-ending stream of multi-traumas, courtesy of Mother Nature. Frowning slightly, Tessa screwed up her eyes, trying to pick up any obvious problems, anything that might indicate what the rescue helicopter was doing out at this time. Tessa knew their schedule almost as well as she knew the emergency department’s, and a training run at eleven-thirty wasn’t their usual practice. Hopefully, she’d asked for her eggs runny. If the emergency chopper was out on rescue, no doubt she’d be being summoned in the not-too-distant future!

      Oh, well, she’d find out what it was all about soon enough, Tessa thought with a shrug, adding half a sachet of sweetener to her black coffee before gingerly taking a sip.

      It tasted awful but, Tessa thought with a sigh as she forced herself to drink it, maybe she was being a bit harsh, blaming the coffee. After all, nothing was going to taste particularly sweet this morning with the bitter taste Tessa had in her mouth.

       Max is leaving.

      It was all she had heard all morning. A cruel game of Chinese whispers whizzing through the emergency department. Each version just a little bit different, a touch more exaggerated perhaps, but it all boiled down to the same thing.

      Max really was going and he hadn’t even thought to tell her.

      OK, they weren’t best friends, they didn’t ring each other every evening to gossip about the department and, apart from work dos and the endless breaks they whiled away together in the hospital canteen, their friendship didn’t equate to the outside world. They’d never shared a dinner or even so much as a coffee that hadn’t been made by Narelle.

      But Tessa had always thought they were more than just colleagues. Nine times out of ten Max joined her for brunch and a gossip, invariably he would tap her on the shoulder if he needed help with a patient and they often whiled away the lulls in Emergency over a coffee and a chat. He knew every last one of her dating disasters, and in turn Tessa knew all about his fiancée Emily and her eternal quest to ‘fix a date.’ They were more than just colleagues and the fact Max had sat on the biggest piece of news since the turn of the century hurt.

      Really hurt.