The Doctor’s Proposal

CHAPTER SEVEN

WHILE Jake purchased fish and chips, Kirsty walked across the park separating the town from the beach. The park was a gorgeous little triangle-beach on one side, river with harbour on another and the town on the third side. It was a great little town, Kirsty thought, falling deeper in love with this strange mix of bushland and harbour and sleepy village.

There was a pair of kookaburras in the gums above her head. Their mocking chortles made her feel weird. She shouldn’t be here. Why was she here?

They both knew this was dangerous territory.

Oh, for heaven’s sake, this was fish and chips on the beachfront. It wasn’t one of Jake’s scary dates. It was…nothing.

Safe or not, Kirsty found a table close to the shops-just because-but then Jake strolled up bearing a fat parcel of fish and chips and a couple of bottles of lemonade. He smiled as he put his load on the table and she didn’t feel safe at all.

‘We should take these home,’ she managed, but Jake’s smile became rueful.

‘Barbara’s right. The scavengers would have it in minutes and I’m starving.’

So was she. When he ripped the paper to reveal slivers of flathead, tiny, succulent scallops, fresh oysters and enough chips to feed a small army, she decided that no way was she taking this home.

‘This is my half,’ she said, putting a hand through the halfway mark, hauling her fish, chips, scallops and oysters to her side of the paper and thus delineating shares.

‘Hey,’ he said, startled. ‘I thought women were supposed to pretend they didn’t eat.’

‘Not this woman. I’ve been watching Susie peck at her food for months now. She gags at the sight of anything fried so we’ve been having healthy little morsels of not very much at all. To have a nice carbohydrate-loaded meal in front of me-where I have to fight for every mouthful-is the stuff of dreams.’

‘I’m happy to oblige,’ he said, but he still looked disbelieving and Kirsty was aware that she was being watched all the time she ate.

‘What?’ she said at last as the final scallop found a thoroughly satisfactory home. ‘You look like you’ve never seen anyone eat a chip before. You must have.’

‘I’ve never seen anyone like you.’

‘Watch Susie, then. She’s identical.’

‘She’s not identical.’

‘Because she’s pregnant and battered? She’ll recover. But she’ll be a stronger person than I’ll ever be,’ Kirsty agreed.

‘You mean because life’s tossed her around?’ he asked curiously. ‘You don’t think you might be just as strong?’

‘I’m not strong.’

‘When I rang to check on your credentials for registration, I got a glowing report,’ he said. ‘Smart, caring, ambitious and poised to become one of the youngest-ever medical directors of the hospice you’ve been working in. Strong was one of the biggest words they used. You have the reputation for fighting with everything you have to see your patients get what they need to make them comfortable to the end. It’s a hugely prestigious establishment, and to have the credentials to take over at your age seems amazing.’ He paused. ‘But then you walked away,’ he said softly. ‘You haven’t been near the place for the last three months and the appointment’s been given to someone else.’

‘There’s lots of jobs,’ she said a trifle self-consciously. ‘It’s no big deal.’

‘The woman I talked to said it was a big deal. A really big deal. In the cutthroat medical establishment, for you to walk away because you cared so much for your sister is tantamount to professional suicide.’

‘That’s nonsense,’ she said, suddenly angry. He was intruding on her personal space here-her personal doubts? ‘Oh, maybe it’s the truth in a sense-to get where I was headed you need to be blinkered to everything else in the world. Maybe I was for a while but maybe being blinkered is dumb. Family comes first.’

‘My ex-wife’s still dumb,’ he said inconsequentially, and for some reason that made her angrier.

‘Good for her, then. Each to his own and every other platitude I can think of.’ She rose and stalked over to the nearest rubbish bin, depositing her empty wrappings with force.

‘Um…platitudes?’ he said cautiously, and she shook her head without turning back to him.

‘Don’t ask. I’m going for a walk on the beach. You go on home.’

‘You’re dismissing me?’

‘I am,’ she told him. ‘If we’re seen walking on the beach together in this town, I don’t think we need a wedding certificate. It’ll be seen as a done deal.’

He grinned at that. ‘You’re starting to see what I’m up against.’

‘Maybe,’ she conceded. ‘But you weren’t polite.’

‘I’ve forgotten how to be polite.’

‘Sure.’ She’d reached the sand and was hauling off her sandals, then rolling up her jeans. When she straightened she found he was beside her, doing the same.

‘You’re supposed to be going home.’

‘The kids ate my sausage rolls. They all ate our sausage rolls. There’s no bedtime story for sausage-roll eaters.’

‘What you mean is that they won’t even notice that you’re not there,’ she said, softening. ‘There are people queued for bedtime reading rights. You’ve made so many people happy by lending us your family.’

‘Good old Kenneth,’ he said softly. ‘He doesn’t know what he’s started.’

‘I suppose it was Kenneth that pulled everyone together,’ she said. ‘You’ll have to forget him soon though, and let everyone go home.’

‘Who wants to go home?’ he said enigmatically. ‘I’m for walking on the beach. How about you?’

‘Different sides of the beach?’ she said cautiously.

‘Of course. You want me to go get Boris to chaperon?’

‘We should.’

‘If I went and got him then everyone would come back and join us.’

‘Which would make this a really big deal,’ she said softly. ‘And we don’t want that, do we, Dr Cameron?’

In the end it was a really long walk. She’d been strained to the limit, Kirsty thought as they walked. Maybe ever since Rory had died. Caring for Susie, trying to juggle her work commitments, trying to figure out the best for everyone had taken all her mental energy. Even the time of enforced idleness in Sydney while Susie had been threatened with early birth had been frighteningly tense-watching Susie’s depression increase, knowing how helpless she was.

But this last week had been a gift for her, too, she decided as she walked. She wasn’t the least sure what sort of emotional jumble her head was in, but for the rest…she’d relaxed about Susie. There was now only three weeks to go. The baby could be born now and be safe.

As well as that, she’d practised medicine again. It was an odd sort of general practice-anaesthetics, pain management and the odds and sods that Jake didn’t want. But it had been fun giving assorted schoolkids their shots, watching them screw up their faces in terror and offer their bare arms like lambs to the slaughter-only to be astounded when she’d managed to give the shot with hardly a pinprick of pain.

She’d also had fun at the castle. Kenneth’s threats had become a catalyst to make everyone seem a family and…

And for the first time in a very long time she’d seemed part of a family. Most of that was because of the man beside her.

It was no wonder that her hormones were playing tricks on her, she thought dimly, and then she thought it didn’t help that he was so drop-dead gorgeous and he was so drop-dead caring and he was so drop-dead…everything.

‘Penny for your thoughts,’ Jake said, and she jerked out of her reverie, surprised to see they’d walked almost half a mile. They’d been walking in the shallows, separated by a few feet so the splashes she was making didn’t hit him and vice versa.

‘I’m just thinking this has been fun,’ she told him.

‘Fun?’

‘Giving kids shots. Watching Angus and Susie have races. Bouncing around the castle with Boris and Penelope and Alice.’

‘They’ve had fun, too.’ They paused. The sun was a vast, golden ball dropping low over the distant mountains, slipping every moment until, pop, it suddenly disappeared altogether, leaving only the glorious hues of sunset. ‘We’d better go back.’

They turned but he seemed as reluctant as she was.

Silence again. Why didn’t he talk? she wondered. He acted as if he was afraid of her.

‘So you’re never going to have a relationship again?’ she asked softly, and the silence intensified.

‘Sorry?’ she said at last. ‘I didn’t hear your answer.’

‘I was trying not to hear your question.’

‘I’m allowed to ask,’ she said, a trifle indignantly. ‘After all, remember hubby and the six kidlets back home.’

‘I’d forgotten them,’ he said, starting to smile. ‘Maybe because you don’t wear photos of them in a locket round your neck.’

‘Too many,’ she said sagely. ‘I’d get a sore neck.’

‘But if you did, it’d stop the locals talking about us,’ Jake told her.

‘That really gets to you.’

‘It does,’ he agreed. ‘Every single woman in this place seems at some time or other to be bracketed with me. It gets tiring.’

‘I’d imagine it would,’ she said faintly. ‘All those women.’

‘It’s just…’ He kicked spray up before him with a sudden savage swipe that had his pants and shirt covered with spray. No problem, Kirsty thought. The unseasonable cold snap as they’d arrived had lasted a whole three minutes and it was now back to late-summer gorgeous. He’d dry before they reached the end of the beach. ‘Look, the small-town thing is dumb. It’s why I came here-because everyone cares for everyone-and this is just its downside so I shouldn’t complain.’

‘Why do you care what they say?’ she asked cautiously. ‘Is it so important? If someone sees you kissing someone else and sets it about that you’re having a hot affair-is that such a tragedy?’

‘My kids.’

‘It’s hardly going to affect your kids,’ she said, with more asperity than she’d intended. ‘They’re four years old. They’re hardly likely to be corrupted.’

‘But if the woman gets the wrong idea…’

‘You’re scared that touching a woman leads to immediate presumption of marriage. You know, that does seem a trifle…presumptuous.’

‘It does,’ he said, giving her a rueful smile. ‘It sounds conceited.’

‘It definitely does.’

‘So if I kissed you, you wouldn’t think it’d lead anywhere.’

She thought about that. ‘I guess it couldn’t,’ she agreed cautiously. ‘On account of hubby and rug-rats back home.’

He motioned up to the headland. There was a car park overlooking the harbour, a place Kirsty had discovered was a favourite with the locals. They drove up there at odd times in the day just to check to the state of surf, the tides, whether the fishing fleet was in sight. At any time of the day there were never less than half a dozen cars parked there, and now Kirsty could count at least ten.

‘You know,’ Kirsty said cautiously, ‘if you were to kiss me now, you could use it as armour for years.’

‘How so?’ They’d slowed, and now they stopped, ankle deep in the surf.

‘It’d be all over town by morning. Doctor has passionate affair with other doctor. Then nothing. Doctor goes back to New York, leaving bereft country doctor behind. You could hide behind your broken heart for ages.’

‘Gee, thanks.’

‘Just a thought,’ she said, and grinned. ‘Just offering myself in the greater good. If you need armour, what better than a broken heart? Or…’ She paused. ‘I could tell everyone you knew about hubby and the six kids. That’d work. Maybe it’d even work better.’

‘How would it work better?’ He was staring at her as if she’d grown antennae.

‘Mothers would warn their daughters about you. Don’t go near him, dear, he’s a home-wrecker.’

‘You’ve got it all worked out.’

‘Just trying to be helpful.’

‘Why?’

‘You’re miserable,’ she told him. ‘I’m a pain specialist. Fixing pain is what I do.’

‘What makes you think I’m in pain?’

‘I think you’re lonely as hell,’ she said bluntly. ‘I think your wife walking out on you has left you bewildered and hurt and scared. You want to keep you and your two little girls safe from being hurt again, and you’re using local gossip as an excuse not to let anyone close.’

‘That’s nonsense.’

‘Is it?’ She turned to face him then, head on. ‘Is it really, Jake? It’s partly what you told me. We’d hardly met before you were telling me to back off, and you know there’s a solid mutual attraction. Fictional kidlets aside, is there really a sensible reason why you’re not kissing me now? When you know we both want to?’

‘I…’

She raised her brows in mock enquiry and turned away, taking a few more steps in the shallows. Was she mad? Solitude and fear over the last month had driven her to the edge, she thought, and any minute she’d be declared as crazed as Kenneth.

And then she heard Jake splash behind her.

She paused, not knowing whether she should be hopeful or not. But she was hopeful.

‘Kirsty?’

‘Yes?’

‘It’s either kiss you or throttle you,’ he told her, sounding much more exasperated than passionate. ‘So turn around and be kissed.’

He kissed her.

He was crazy. This was dumb. She’d goaded him into it and it made all the sense in the world to walk away, but she was too…

Too Kirsty.

It stunned him. She’d walked into his life and something had lit that hadn’t been lit for years-if it ever had been lit, and somehow he doubted it. He’d thought he’d been in love when he’d married, but he hadn’t felt like this.

Like he was balancing on a knife-edge.

She’d accused him of being scared, he thought, and she was right. Ever since he’d been left with two babies to make a future for, every decision had been carefully controlled. But Kirsty was uncontrolled. Uncontrollable.

Kirsty.

This was madness. This was not a sensible move at all, but she was right before him, her eyes wide with gentle, mocking enquiry. A man could drown in those eyes. A man could lose control completely. No, it wasn’t the least bit sensible but she was waiting to be kissed. The watchers on the clifftop were waiting for a man to kiss a woman. Kirsty had defied him to put on a show for their audience, and suddenly he couldn’t help himself.

And when he took her hands in his, when he drew her to him and kissed her, softly, wonderingly on the mouth, it was like the coming together of two halves of a whole.

She was so…right!

He’d thought he’d known how a woman felt-of course he did-but this was different. Each curve; the soft warmth of her; every part of her moulding against him, fitting with a completeness that was as shocking as it was wonderful.

He knew this woman, he thought numbly. He’d always known her, but he hadn’t found her until now. And then he stopped thinking anything at all as his mind shuttered down and all he felt was the kiss.

And Kirsty…

Kirsty had goaded him into this kiss, half laughing, but half of her desperately wanting. It was as if she’d been defying herself to find that it couldn’t be as wonderful as her subconscious was screaming that it could be. But her subconscious had been overwhelmingly, deliciously right.

Her hands came up to cup his face, deepening the kiss, and she felt the rough beginning of stubble on his tough male skin. It was so erotic she felt her toes start to curl.

She’d kissed men. Of course she’d kissed men.

Nobody had caused her toes to curl as this man was doing right now.

And she could keep kissing him. It was unbelievable that he was kissing her, that she was holding him and he wasn’t pulling away, that he was deepening the kiss, seemingly wanting her as much as she wanted him.

Nothing had ever felt so right. Her breasts were against his chest, his hands were tugging her waist, drawing her into him, and she was arching against him. Aching. Loving. Welcoming her man to her, as a woman welcomed her man home after battle.

Home to her heart.

This couldn’t last. They were playing for an audience, she thought in the tiny recess of her brain still available for anything but pure, hot sensation. In a moment he’d pull away and all the reasons why he didn’t want a relationship, why she didn’t want a relationship, would surface and life would go on as before.

This was time out for both of them but she wasn’t going to stop it. To do so would be dumb, and she didn’t feel dumb. She felt light and hot and wonderful and…loved.

Loved?

Maybe she was dumb after all. Her hands moved to pull him closer, tighter, to deepen the kiss as if to block out the unwanted intrusion of sanity.

But it had happened and maybe he’d felt it, or maybe he’d had his own intrusive thoughts because suddenly he was pulling away. His hands caught hers, using them to hold her away from him. Just a little.

His eyes were quizzical, laughing-but she was starting to know this man and she could see uncertainty behind the façade of laughter.

‘Do you think that’s given them enough?’

‘No,’ she said, trying to match his laughter. But she was aware that the unsteadiness of her voice must be a give-away to the jumble of emotions within. ‘They won’t be satisfied unless you rip my clothes off and take me, right here.’

‘You want to do that?’ he asked, the smile still managing to stay-but both of them knew that what he was suggesting was entirely possible, given another time, another place…

Another life.

He released her hands and it was all she could do not to cry. Such a loss.

‘Maybe being known as Dolphin Bay’s town slut isn’t quite what I had in mind,’ she managed, still trying for lightness. ‘Though it’d do wonders for your reputation. Fornication in public? No mother in her right mind would let her daughter so much as come to you for a flu jab.’

‘Then maybe we’d better not.’

‘Maybe we’d better not.’

He caught her hand again, simply, girl to boy, swinging her around so they were side by side, facing the cliff. It was a simple gesture, but the feel of his fingers entwined in hers moved her unutterably. She glanced up at the line of cars, trying to take her mind off the feel of his hand. By the time they reached the car park their audience would have completely dispersed, she decided. The town gossip network was about to move into meltdown.

‘You think what we’ve just done will keep me safe from matchmaking?’ Jake murmured, and the lightness had suddenly gone from his voice. His fingers were gripping hers with force as well as with warmth.

‘For the next few weeks they’ll bracket us together,’ she whispered. ‘Everyone knows we’ve been sleeping in the same castle. The local gossip lines will all but self-destruct. Then when I go you can be heartbroken all over again, just as you were when your wife left. Getting over your wife has given you years of grace. The town is only starting to gear up seriously to matchmake. And now you’ve another lost love.’

‘You’re my lost love,’ he said, sounding startled.

‘I make a good one, don’t you think?’

‘Um…sure.’

‘There you go, then.’ She was working so hard on keeping it light that something inside her was threatening to break. She was so close to tears…

There was a ring from his shirt pocket and she thought, Thank heaven for cell phones. Anything to break this moment. Anything to give her space. She walked away a little, and she could almost hear the collective sigh of disappointment from the clifftop.

Could she stand living here as the local doctor and being watched every day?

Maybe not. Not unless…

Don’t go there, she told herself. She shrugged and hiked up the beach, and by the time Jake reached her she was sitting on the sand, pulling her sandals back on. Their time of make-believe was over.

‘They were lovely fish and chips,’ she told him, trying to sound polite and dismissive. ‘It was a very nice walk and a very nice kiss. Thank you very much, Doctor.’

His lips twitched. ‘Just like that? Consultation over?’

‘I’d be guessing you have places to go, people to see.’

‘Emily Cannon has croup.’

‘There you go, then. I’ll see you back at home.’ Hardly, she thought. Jake and his twins were sleeping in a guest suite on the first floor near Angus, about as far from her as it was possible to be. ‘Unless you need help with croup,’ she added, trying not to sound hopeful.

‘Croup hardly needs a specialist anaesthetist.’

‘I still remember croup training.’

‘I don’t need you.’

You couldn’t get more of a dismissal than that. Right.

‘Goodnight, then, Dr Cameron,’ she told him.

‘Goodnight, Dr McMahon.’

‘I’d shake hands but our audience seems to have disappeared,’ she said, motioning to the deserted car park. ‘It’d be a waste of human contact, don’t you think?’

But she didn’t wait to find out whether he agreed or not. She turned and stalked back to her car with all the dignity a woman could muster.

Which wasn’t very much at all.