The Australian's Desire: Their Lost-and-Found Family / Long-Lost Son: Brand-New Family / A Proposal Worth Waiting For

So that had been that. Alistair had left the day after, flying back to his very important career as paediatric neurosurgeon in a prestigious US hospital. Georgie had been delighted to see the end of him. But now …

‘He’s giving you away,’ she moaned to Gina. ‘We’ll have to be in the same church as each other.’

‘It’s not like he’s best man. You won’t have to partner him.’

‘He thinks I’m a slut.’

‘Hey, he was taking you to bed. His behaviour wasn’t exactly above reproach.’

‘He was taking me to bed because he thought I was a slut.’

‘Exactly.’

‘So two sets of appalling behaviour cancel each other out?’ She flopped onto the bed and groaned theatrically. ‘Agh, agh, agh.’

‘You could always turn over a new leaf,’ Gina said cautiously. ‘Greet him in twin set and pearls.’

Georgie choked. ‘Yeah. I could.’

‘That’s what his fiancée wears.’

Georgie lifted her head from the pillows and gazed at Gina in astonishment. ‘He has a fiancée?’

‘Eloise. He’s been engaged for years.’

‘So he was engaged when he carted me off the dance floor?’

‘See what I mean? Two sets of bad behaviour, and yours is the lesser.’

‘Twinset, eh?’ Georgie said, and looked thoughtfully at her reflection in the mirror. Her soft black top had crept up a little. She tugged it down to make it more revealing. Which was very revealing.

‘Don’t you dare,’ Gina said nervously. ‘Behave.’

‘I don’t have to wear twinset and pearls as bridesmaid?’

‘I was thinking you might like to wear purple tulle.’ And then, as Georgie stared at her in horror, Gina giggled and threw a pillow at her friend. ‘Gotcha.’

‘Cow. Purple tulle?’

‘Wear what you want,’ Gina said. ‘You’re my only bridesmaid so the choice is yours. Leathers if you want.’

‘Sleek black,’ Georgie said, and grinned. ‘Not trashy.’

‘Trashy if you want.’

‘I only do that—’

‘I know. When you’re angry. But, Georgie …’ She hesitated. ‘Do you know where Max is now?’

Georgie’s smile faded. She picked up the pillow Gina had just tossed at her and hugged it, like it was a baby.

‘I have no idea. I had a phone call five months ago, saying he was in Western Australia, but they were moving on that day. My stepfather’s always one step in front of the law.’

‘Oh, Georg …’

‘I wish he’d get caught,’ Georgie said fiercely. ‘I know he’s involved up to his neck in drugs. I want him to go to prison.’

‘Because then you’d get Max back?’

‘I’m all he’s got.’

‘Your stepfather must love him to keep him with him.’

‘Don’t you believe it,’ Georgie said fiercely. ‘He’s just using him. Last time he was here—last time Ron spent time inside—Max told me he does the running. He acts as lookout. Max shops for them when Ron doesn’t want to get recognised. Ron even used him for drops. When he was six years old!’

‘Oh, Georg …’

‘Ron’s rotten,’ Georgie muttered. ‘My whole family’s rotten. That’s why I’m here in Crocodile Creek—I’m as far as I can get from any of them. Except Max. My one true thing. Max—and I can’t do a thing about him.’

There was a long silence. Gina stared at her friend in real concern. Georgie, who’d hauled herself up the hard way, who’d fought her way through medical school, who’d come from the school of hard knocks and was tough on the exterior, but underneath …

‘If you really don’t want to be my bridesmaid …’ she said tentatively, and Georgie’s eyes flew up to meet hers.

‘Who said I didn’t want to be your bridesmaid?’

‘But Alistair …’

‘I can cope with Alistair Carmichael,’ she said grimly. ‘He’s the least of my worries. Engaged, huh? I can cope with Alistair Carmichael with my hands behind my back.’

‘Georgie …’

‘Nothing outrageous,’ she said, and threw up her hands as if in surrender. ‘I agree.’

And then she added, under her breath, ‘Or nothing outrageous that you’re going to know about.’

It had been some flight. Alistair emerged into the brilliant sunshine of Crocodile Creek feeling almost shell-shocked. He’d been coping with sleepless nights before he’d left. They were setting up a new streamlined process to move patients from Theatre to Intensive Care—not such a difficult process when you said it like that, but in reality, with paediatric problems the transfer was too often a time of drama. He’d orchestrated a whole new method of processing transfers, and he’d hoped to have it securely in place before he’d left, but there’d been last-minute glitches. He’d spent the days before he’d left going through the procedures over and over, supervising mock transfers, timing, making sure the team knew exactly who was doing what.

In the end he’d been satisfied but Eloise had driven him to the airport and even she had been concerned.

‘You’re pushing yourself too far.’

‘Says the youngest ever professor of entomology.’

‘I know my limits, Alistair.’

‘I know mine, too. I can sleep on the plane.’

But as it had turned out, he hadn’t. There’d been turbulence and the plane had been diverted to New Zealand. There he’d endured eight hours in an airport lounge and finally clearance to fly on. More turbulence—this time so severe that some passengers had been injured. Apparently there was a cyclone east of Northern Australia.