Australian Affairs: Claimed. Margaret Way
straightened and tossed the sponge in the bucket like a basketball player landing a game-winning shot. ‘It hasn’t been a priority,’ he said. ‘Australia’s plenty big enough and exciting enough for me.’
‘That’s rather parochial of you, don’t you think?’ she said.
He shrugged. ‘I figure there’ll be plenty of time for me to travel the world when I get other stuff out of the way.’
‘What other stuff?’ she asked. ‘Career stuff? Surely it’s in your interests career-wise to have lived and worked overseas as so many of your colleagues do?’
Jake emptied the bucket and rinsed out the sponge at the tap. ‘Is that why you’re here?’ he asked, glancing at her over his shoulder. ‘To further your career?’
Her eyes moved out of range of his. ‘Of course it is.’
He picked up the bucket of rinsing water. ‘Three months isn’t very long,’ he said as he set to work on the car again.
‘It’s long enough.’
‘To further your career or mend a broken heart?’
The air stiffened in silence.
‘I haven’t got a broken heart,’ she said.
Jake looked at her over the top of the car. ‘Looks like it to me.’
She straightened her slumped shoulders and sent him one of her Jane Austen looks. ‘And I suppose you know all the signs because you’ve broken so many female hearts yourself,’ she said.
‘I haven’t broken any just lately,’ he said. ‘Anyway, it’s not something I set out to do deliberately.’
She gave a little laugh that was not even a distant cousin to humour. ‘I’m sure you don’t,’ she said, kicking at one of the tyres with her foot. ‘My ex claimed he didn’t do it on purpose, either.’
‘How long were you together?’ Jake asked.
She let out a long sigh before she faced him. ‘For ever.’
He came back around to her side and leaned against the car. ‘Want to talk about it?’
Her eyes skittered away from his. ‘Not particularly.’
‘I take it he found someone else?’ Jake said.
Her gaze was glazed with bitterness, like a coating of shellac. ‘My best friend.’
‘Ouch,’ he said, wincing in empathy. ‘That would’ve hurt.’
‘It did.’ She bit her lip until the blood drained away. ‘It does…’
Jake hardly realised he had moved away from the car and put a hand on the top of her slim shoulder until he felt the lightning strike shock of the contact run up his arm from the cup of his palm.
Her eyes met his and locked.
Electricity zapped and fired.
Desire roared through his veins like a runaway freight train. He could see the answering flare in her grey gaze. He felt the gentle shudder of her flesh beneath his hand. He stood mesmerised as the tip of her tongue snaked out and brushed over her soft lips in a single heartbeat of time that seemed immeasurable.
He lowered his head fraction by fraction, frame by frame, like a film being played in slow motion. The stop signals and flashing red lights in the rational side of his brain were overruled by the need to taste the sweet pillow of her mouth, to press against those soft contours and forget about everything but the sensual energy that flowed in a spine-tingling current between them.
He cupped his other palm against the soft satiny curve of her cheek, watching as her serious smoky grey eyes registered the contact with a dilation of her pupils.
Her lips parted slightly, her vanilla-scented breath tantalising him as he came even closer.
The dark fan of her eyelashes lowered over her eyes, but just as he was about to make contact her eyes suddenly sprang open and she stumbled backwards out of his light hold.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, blushing furiously. ‘I can’t do this.’
Jake gave a casual whatever shrug and put his hands out of temptation’s way in the pockets of his shorts. ‘No problem,’ he said.
She pressed her lips together tightly for a moment, actively avoiding his gaze. ‘I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about me…’
‘My bad,’ Jake said. ‘I overstepped the line. Blame my sister Rosie.’
She cautiously met his gaze. ‘Your…sister?’
‘I’m trying to win a bet,’ he said. ‘No sex this summer. I’ve just about made it too. Only twenty-two days to go.’
Her cheeks turned rosy red. ‘How morally upright of you,’ she said. ‘So come the first of March anyone is pretty much fair game?’
He gave her a glinting look. ‘I do have some standards.’
‘Oh, yes,’ she said with her customary hauteur. ‘A strong working pulse. I almost forgot.’
Jake smiled wryly as he picked up his bucket. ‘Do you want me to run a chamois over your car to dry it off?’ he asked.
‘No, thank you,’ she said, with schoolmarmish primness.
He tapped the bonnet with his hand. ‘Give me a shout if you need a jump start in the morning,’ he said. ‘I have the necessary equipment.’
‘I’m quite sure I won’t be needing any of your equipment,’ she said, that dainty chin going up another notch.
‘Well,’ Jake said, giving her a deliberately smouldering look, ‘you know where it is if and when you do.’
KITTY was putting her things in the locker in the staff changing room the next morning when one of the nurses on duty came in.
‘Hi, Dr Cargill,’ the nurse said. ‘I’m Cathy Oxley. I haven’t been rostered on with you yet. How are you settling in?’
‘Fine,’ Kitty said. ‘It’s a bit of a steep learning curve. I’m still finding my feet.’
Cathy’s brown eyes twinkled meaningfully. ‘I’m sure our gorgeous boss is helping you with that after hours.’
Kitty felt her cheeks heat up. ‘I’m not sure what you mean by that,’ she said, closing her locker door with a little rattle. ‘I’m not seeing Dr Chandler after hours.’
‘Oh, sorry,’ Cathy said. ‘I must have got my wires crossed. I could’ve sworn someone said you two were dating. Mind you, it would be a first for him if you were.’
‘A first?’ Kitty frowned. ‘In what way?’
‘I don’t think he’s ever dated anyone on his immediate staff before,’ Cathy said as she stored her bag in a locker two doors away from Kitty’s. She closed and locked the locker and turned back to face Kitty. ‘One of the nurses last year actually asked for a transfer to another department so he would take her out. Not that it lasted all that long. But that’s Jake-break-your-heart-Chandler for you. It’ll be a very special woman indeed who manages to lure him to an altar any time soon.’
Kitty turned and worked on smoothing over her tightly restrained hair in front of the mirror. ‘Not all men are cut out for the responsibility of commitment and marriage,’ she said. ‘It’s all a matter of maturity.’
‘I don’t think Jake would like to hear you describe him as immature,’ Cathy said with a little chuckle.
‘Men