His Summer Bride: Becoming Dr Bellini's Bride / Summer Seaside Wedding / Wedding in Darling Downs. Abigail Gordon
grew on the craggy slopes in the distance. He pulled out a chair for her by a wrought-iron table, and she sat down and began to relax.
Out here, there were tubs of yellow and orange California poppies, their silky petals moving gently in the faint breeze, and against the far wall, standing tall alongside a trellis, were spiky blue delphiniums. Hanging baskets provided even more colour, with exuberant displays of petunias.
‘Help yourself to food,’ he said, sliding a plate across the table towards her. ‘I wasn’t sure whether you would have eaten or not before you came.’
‘Thanks.’ She glanced at the food on display. There was pâté with crackers, honey-glazed chicken and a spicy tomato dip with tortilla chips. ‘It looks delicious.’
He smiled. ‘Not my doing, I’m afraid. I have food sent over from the hotel quite often. I don’t always have time to cook.’
‘I’m not surprised. You must spend the bulk of your time at the hospital, and even if you don’t work on a day-to-day basis at the vineyard or the hotel, there must be a fair amount of organisational work to deal with. I expect you’re the one who has to make the most important decisions, aren’t you?’
He nodded. ‘That’s true. Things tend to crop up from time to time that need my attention—like this unfortunate episode with Mrs Wyatt.’ He frowned. ‘I went to see her, and I’m really pleased that she’s looking a lot better than she was a few days ago.’
Katie smiled. ‘Yes. I couldn’t help noticing that you arranged for her to have a private room—the basket of fruit and the flowers you sent were a lovely touch. I know she appreciated them.’
‘It was the least I could do.’ He spread pâté onto a cracker and bit into it. ‘People come to the hotel expecting to have a good time and live for a while in the lap of luxury. They don’t want to find themselves being taken out of there by ambulance.’
‘But you weren’t obliged to pay anything towards her hospital care, were you?’
He shrugged. ‘No, that’s true. Her insurance company will pay for that… but I wanted to be certain she had the upgrade to make sure that she’s comfortable, and, anyway, I count it as good customer relations.’
‘Hmm. I can see that you take your role as hotelier seriously.’ She dipped a tortilla chip into the fiery salsa sauce. ‘You must be anxious to know what caused Mrs Wyatt to fall and break her shoulder. Would you like to hear the results of the tests?’
‘Yes, definitely… I’m glad she said it would be all right for you to discuss them with me. Is it what we thought—a TIA?’
She nodded. ‘It looks that way. The doctors monitored her heart and discovered that she has atrial fibrillation—as you know, that kind of abnormal heart rhythm can sometimes cause clots to form in the blood vessels. They did a CT scan, along with blood tests, and found a narrowing of the arteries. The general feeling is that she probably developed a blood clot that temporarily disturbed the flow of blood to the brain. This most likely dissolved of its own accord, but it’s possible that more will form as time progresses if she doesn’t have treatment.’
‘So presumably they have her on anti-thrombotic therapy? And they’ll give her medication to counteract the abnormal heart rhythm?’
‘That’s right.’ She took a sip of iced tea. ‘It looks as though you’re in the clear—or, should I say, the hotel’s in the clear?’ She smiled at him. ‘That must be a huge relief to you.’
‘Yes, it is. I can’t tell you how badly I needed to hear that. It’s great news. Lucky, too, for Mrs Wyatt, because now she gets to have the treatment she needs to put her back on the road to health.’ He rested back in his seat, taking a swallow of iced tea and looking the picture of contentment. ‘Thanks for telling me that, Katie. I’m really obliged to you for finding out all this information.’
He set down his glass and looked her over, leaning towards her. ‘In fact, if I didn’t think you’d take it amiss, I could kiss you for it.’ He came closer, as though, having hit on the idea, he was ready to carry it through into immediate action, regardless of the consequences.
Katie flattened herself against the back of her chair, deftly foiling his attempt. ‘I think you’d better give that one a miss,’ she said, her green gaze meshing with his. ‘It wouldn’t do if every male doctor tried to kiss me whenever I presented them with good results, would it?’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Have any tried?’
‘Oh, yes. From time to time.’
‘And succeeded?’ He was frowning now, his blue eyes darkening.
‘Maybe. Once or twice.’ His expression crystallised into one of seething frustration, and she laughed softly. ‘Sorry about that. I couldn’t resist. You looked so put out.’
He gazed at her, totally nonplussed. ‘You certainly got me going there,’ he said, his mouth twisting. ‘My fault. I should have known any number of men would want to try their luck with you. That goes for me, too. Somehow, ever since we first met, I’ve been hung up on getting to know you better… much better.’
She pulled a face. ‘Well, I’m not sure that’s such a good idea—not in the way you mean, at least.’
He studied her thoughtfully for a moment or two, his expression serious. ‘He hurt you badly, didn’t he—this man from back home? You must have been very much in love with him.’
‘I thought I was,’ she said awkwardly. ‘I thought I knew him, but perhaps I was blind to his faults. He had a lot of charisma, and I believed he was saving it all for me. It turned out I was wrong.’
And wasn’t Nick so very much like James? He had that scintillating charm that could sweep a woman off her feet, and Katie was no exception. She had to be on her guard. No matter how hard he tried, she wasn’t going to succumb to Nick’s winning ways. Hadn’t her father warned her about him?
‘But let’s not dwell on any of that,’ she murmured. ‘I’m here with you now, and we do have two things in common… our work and my father. Maybe it would be safer all round if we simply kept things between us on that level.’
‘Hmm…maybe.’ He sounded doubtful. His eyes were still dark, and there was a brooding quality to his expression.
Katie decided to plough on with her new diversionary tactic. She helped herself to some food and said quietly, ‘Perhaps we should talk about what happened this morning—about your efforts to persuade my father to sell his land, and the effect it’s having on him. Maybe we need to clear the air on that score. You know I’d sooner you put an end to any attempt at making a deal. Anyway, I have the feeling he’s not at all sure about going ahead with it.’
Nick frowned. ‘He hasn’t said as much to me. and while there’s a chance he’ll concede to us, we’re bound to keep trying. It would mean a lot to my father to bring the vineyard back into our keeping. My great-great-grandfather bought the land at the turn of the century, but a parcel of it was sold off some years back when the family fell on hard times. It’s a matter of pride to my father to restore the vineyards into family ownership once more. He sees it as our inheritance. It’s very important to him.’
‘That may be so, but I can’t say it any clearer—I think you should hold off on those negotiations.’
Nick’s steady gaze met hers. ‘Jack doesn’t need you to hold his hand where business is concerned.’
A glint of steel came into Katie’s eyes. ‘I have to disagree with you on that one,’ she said. ‘And this is definitely not the right time to be pursuing it with him.’
Nick frowned. ‘That’s another matter, of course. We both saw how ill he was today.’ He poured more iced tea into her glass. ‘You think your father needs to be cosseted but he takes it on himself to take care of business matters, and then it becomes a matter of pride for him to see things through.’