Kitabı oku: «Australian Affairs: Claimed», sayfa 6

CHAPTER EIGHT

KITTY felt a shockwave ripple through her body when his lips made that first contact with hers. His lips moved against hers in a slow, sensual manner, tasting, teasing and tempting her into a heated response that made the base of her spine melt like butter and every hair on her head tremble with delight. His kiss was soft and experimental, a tantalising assault on her senses that made her skin tauten all over in fiery response.

He threaded his hands through her hair, his fingers splaying over her tingling scalp as he scorched the seam of her mouth with the bold stroke of his tongue.

She opened to him and the world exploded in a burst of colour and leaping flares of searing heat. His tongue tangled with hers in a sexy dance that made her heart race and her belly flip and then flop.

This was no tame boy-next-door kiss. This was a man’s kiss—the kiss of a full-blooded man who wanted sex and wanted it now.

Kitty felt the ridge of hard male desire against her quivering belly. She felt the instinctual, primal tug of her flesh towards it. She shifted her body against his, her heart skipping a beat when she heard the deep sound of male approval come from his throat.

Her breasts were jammed up against the hard plane of his chest. She had never been so aware of them before. They swelled and strained behind the lace cage of her bra, hungry for more intimate contact.

She shivered when his hands went to her hips, holding her closer to the cradle of his pelvis. Every delicious male inch of him was imprinted on her flesh. She felt the pounding roar of his blood through his clothes. It echoed the rampant need that was surging inside her.

His mouth continued its fiery exchange with hers, his tongue calling hers into a brazen tango that mimicked the need charging through his body as well as her own.

He shifted one of his hands from her hips to the small of her back, the subtle pressure sending her senses into a crazy spin. Desire licked along her flesh like a trail of racing flames, her need as insistent as a tribal drumbeat deep inside her body.

His hand on her hip moved upwards in a slow-moving caress that stopped just below her right breast. She felt her nerves tighten in awareness. The tingling and twitching of her flesh was almost unbearable. She pressed herself against him in a silent signal of female want, a desperate plea for him to satisfy the deepest yearnings of her body.

Kitty kissed him back with brazen hunger. Her lips nibbled and nipped at his. Her tongue swirled and circled and swept against his in a sensual combat that made her spine turn to liquid. He fought back with another deep groan of approval and pulled her even closer to the rampant need of his body.

She fisted a hand in his shirt and he plunged deeper into her mouth, his strongly muscled thighs moving against hers to nudge her back against the wall. The body-to-body contact fuelled her desire to an unmanageable level. She pushed herself up on tiptoe so she could feel more of his hard heat against her feminine need. Her insides melted and pulsed with longing. Desire was like a runaway train. It was flashing past every station, siding or level crossing of caution and common sense she had erected in her brain.

Jake lifted his mouth off hers and looked down at her, his expression darkly satirical. ‘Well, I guess that clears up that little detail,’ he said.

Kitty blinked herself out of her sensual daze and stepped out of his hold. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, feeling gauche and flustered. ‘I’m not sure what you mean,’ she said.

His mouth kicked up in a wry smile. ‘You’re not the shy, uptight type after all, are you?’

Kitty pressed her lips together for a moment. ‘I’m sure I don’t need to tell you you’re a very good kisser.’

‘You pack a pretty awesome punch yourself, Dr Cargill,’ he said.

She tried to act casual about it, affecting a pose of indifference that belied the turmoil she felt inside. ‘Do you still want coffee?’

He reached out and passed one of his bent knuckles over the curve of her cheek in a light caress, his eyes so dark she couldn’t tell where his pupils began and ended. ‘You don’t really think I came in here for coffee, do you?’ he asked.

Kitty swept the tip of her tongue over her kiss-swollen lips, her heart skipping all over the place. ‘I guess not…’

He held her gaze captive for a long heart-stopping moment. ‘I want you.’

The blunt statement shocked and yet thrilled her. Charles had waited years before asking her to sleep with him. ‘But for how long?’ she asked.

‘That’s not a question anyone can answer specifically,’ he said. ‘Relationships run their course. Some last days, others weeks, others years.’

She toyed with a button on his shirt rather than meet his gaze. ‘Yours don’t last years, though, do they?’ she said.

It seemed a long time before he answered. ‘I’m not promising anything long-term, Kitty. You’re only here until the end of April. It wouldn’t be fair to pretend this could turn into an affair of a lifetime.’

Kitty raised her eyes to his. ‘Because you don’t want to fall in love.’

‘You don’t have to be in love with someone to have great sex,’ he said. ‘Aren’t your parents proof of that?’

Her shoulders went down on a little sigh as she moved away. ‘I’m not like my parents,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t bear to live the way they do. I don’t want to play musical beds with faceless strangers. I want security. I want love. I want marriage and babies and happy ever after.’

He gave a cynical crack of laughter. ‘You want a fairytale that doesn’t exist in the real world. Fifty percent of marriages end up in divorce. The other fifty live snappily ever after.’

She threw him an exasperated look. ‘There’s no point arguing with you. I can see you’ve collated enough evidence to support your cynical take on things. But there are plenty of relationships that last the distance. I see them all the time in A&E. Old couples who’ve spent a whole lifetime loving each other. I want that. I want to be with someone for my whole life—not a month here or there or a measly week or two.’

‘Then I’m not your man,’ he said, his expression stony, his voice even harder. ‘I’m happy to have a bit of fun, but don’t expect anything else from me.’

Kitty held that steely blue gaze. ‘I feel sorry for men like you, Jake. You have plenty of fun now, but what about later? What about when you’re old and sick and no one wants you any more?’

A muscle flexed in his jaw. ‘I’ll take my chances.’

‘You’ll end up lonely and alone,’ she said. ‘You’ll have no shared memories of the phases of life you’ve journeyed through. No children to share your genes. No grandchild—’

‘Look,’ he said, cutting her short. ‘I get what you’re saying. Do you think I haven’t thought through all of that? Of course I have. I just can’t make promises I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep.’

Kitty nailed him with a flinty look. ‘You don’t want to make promises.’

He held her gaze for a second or two before he blew out a breath on a long exhale. He tipped up her chin using two fingers, while his thumb moved back and forth over the cushion of her bottom lip. ‘It wouldn’t work, you know,’ he said. ‘You. Me. Us. You’re too innocent for someone as hard-boiled as me. I’d end up walking all over you.’

‘I know how to take care of myself.’

‘Do you, Kitty?’ he asked looking at her intently. ‘Do you really?’

Her heart tripped as his gaze centred on her mouth. Heat pooled in her belly and her legs felt that betraying tremble again. ‘Of course I do,’ she said. ‘I’m a big girl now.’

He brushed an imaginary hair away from her face. ‘Even big girls can get their hearts broken.’

‘So can big boys.’

He gave her a twisted smile as he reached for the door. ‘Not this big boy.’

‘You’re not truly alive if you don’t allow yourself to be open to happiness and to hurt,’ she said. ‘It’s what makes life so rich and rewarding—the highs and the lows and all the bits in between.’

‘Goodnight, Dr Cargill,’ he said. ‘Sweet dreams.’

Kitty blew out a breath when the door clicked shut behind him. ‘Watch it, my girl,’ she said in an undertone. ‘Just watch it, OK?’

* * *

‘Where’s Kitty?’ Gwen asked, looking past Jake’s shoulders when he arrived at the new staff welcome drinks on Friday night. ‘I thought she might be coming with you.’

Jake took one of the light beers off a tray that was being handed around by one of the interns. ‘Then you thought wrong,’ he said.

Gwen angled her head at him. ‘What’s going on with you two?’

‘Nothing.’ He took a sip of froth off the top of his beer.

‘You had dinner with her,’ Gwen said. ‘Brad told me when I had lunch with my daughter at the grill yesterday.’

He shrugged. ‘So?’

‘Don’t break her heart, Jake.’

‘I have no intention of doing any such thing.’

‘She’s not your type.’

Jake frowned as he put his beer on the chest-high drinks stand beside him. ‘That’s surely up to her to decide, isn’t it?’

Gwen lifted her brows. ‘I’m just saying.’

‘Then don’t,’ he said, shooting her a look.

‘How is Robbie?’

He shifted his gaze, his left hand tightening to a fist inside his trouser pocket. ‘I’d rather not talk about my brother right now.’

‘You never want to talk about him, Jake,’ Gwen said. ‘You used to chat about him all the time. How well he was doing. How nice it was to have him drop by with his friends. What’s going on? Is he in some sort of trouble?’

Jake glared at her. ‘Leave it, Gwen, OK? I don’t want everyone talking about what a crap job I’ve done of watching out for my brother. He’s an adult. I can’t control him any more.’

‘No one could possibly criticise you for what you’ve done for your family, Jake,’ she said gently.

He let out a weary breath. ‘Sorry, Gwen,’ he said. ‘I know you mean well. It’s just that things are pretty tough right now. Robbie’s being so irresponsible. I don’t know how to handle him any more. It’s like I’m dealing with someone else entirely.’

‘Jim and I had a rough trot with one of our boys a few years back,’ Gwen said. ‘Matt gave us a couple of years of hell but he eventually grew out of it. Maybe Robbie’s just going through a similar thing.’

Jake looked at her. ‘When he first started acting up I thought he was sick or something,’ he said. ‘It was so out of character for him to be partying hard and neglecting his studies.’

‘Did he see a doctor?’

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I sent him to his GP for a battery of tests.’

‘All clear?’

‘Apparently,’ he said. ‘He didn’t show me the scans. He said the GP told him there was nothing wrong. It was a long shot in any case. I’ve met stacks of parents of wayward kids who’ve insisted there must be something clinically wrong. It’s the first thing you think of. No one wants to think their kid or brother or sister wilfully chooses to go and stuff up their life.’

‘It’s a stage a lot of young people seem to go through these days,’ Gwen said. ‘They like to kick up their heels before they settle down. Robbie’s a good lad. You’ve always done the right thing by him. Hopefully he’ll sort himself out before too much longer.’

‘Yeah,’ Jake said on another sigh. ‘That what I’m hoping.’

* * *

‘Aren’t you supposed to be at the drinks thing tonight?’ Cathy Oxley asked in A&E.

Kitty leafed through the blood results she had been waiting for. ‘Yes, but I got held up with a patient.’

‘All work and no play,’ Cathy said in a singsong voice.

Kitty’s gaze narrowed in concentration as she looked at the white cell count in front of her.

‘Is something wrong?’ Cathy asked.

Kitty lowered the sheaf of papers. ‘Lara Fletcher,’ she said. ‘The twenty-four-year-old in Bay Four with breathlessness and swollen ankles. She’s been back and forth to her GP for months with a host of vague symptoms. Not once has he or anyone else ordered a blood test. She’s been fobbed off by two other medical clinics. One of them even gave her antidepressants, telling her she was depressed.’

‘You found something?’ Cathy asked, looking over her shoulder.

‘Aplastic anaemia,’ Kitty said heavily. ‘How could that have been missed for all this time?’

‘Not everyone is as meticulous as you.’

‘All it took was a blood test.’

‘Tell that to Jake Chandler next time he bawls you out for over-testing the patients,’ Cathy said with a little wink.

‘I will,’ Kitty said.

* * *

‘I didn’t realise you were working this weekend,’ said Trish Wellington, one of the more senior A&E specialists, when Jake came on duty on Saturday evening.

‘I’m just doing a fill-in shift for David Godfrey,’ Jake said. ‘He’s going to his sister’s wedding.’

‘Well, how about that?’ Trish said with a speculative smile. ‘Kitty Cargill’s doing a double tonight. Mike called in sick at the last minute.’

Jake slung his stethoscope around his neck. ‘I hope she’s not overdoing it,’ he said.

Trish leaned against the wall as she toyed with her hospital lanyard. ‘She’s a sharp little tack, isn’t she?’

Jake soaped up his hands at the basin. ‘She’s competent enough.’

‘Pretty little thing,’ Trish said. ‘Gorgeous grey eyes.’

‘Haven’t noticed.’

Trish laughed as she pushed herself away from the wall. ‘So glad I’ve worked here long enough to see it.’

He frowned at her darkly. ‘Long enough to see what?’ he asked.

She pointed at his chest. ‘To see your heart get a run for its money,’ she said.

Jake rolled his eyes. ‘Oh, for pity’s sake.’

‘Dr Chandler?’

Jake felt the hairs on his arms lift up when that posh little voice sounded behind him. He turned and looked at Kitty’s heart-shaped face looking up at him. She had smudges under her grey eyes and her skin was paler than usual, making the light sprinkling of freckles on her nose stand out.

‘Dr Cargill,’ he said formally. ‘Thanks for doing overtime.’

‘That’s OK,’ she said.

A beat of silence ticked past.

‘Was there something else?’ he asked.

‘I’m sorry I didn’t make it to the drinks thing,’ she said. ‘I hope you didn’t think I snubbed…everyone?’

‘I was only there for a couple of minutes myself.’

‘Oh…’ Her expression faltered for a moment. ‘Well, I got held up with a patient.’

‘Taking down their family tree, were we?’ he asked.

Her eyes blinked and then hardened like frost. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I diagnosed a blood disorder that had gone undetected for several months. I lost count of how many GPs the patient had seen. Not one of them performed a blood screen on her.’

‘It happens.’

She frowned at him. ‘How can it happen? How can someone slip through the cracks like that?’

‘GPs are pushed for time just like everyone else in the medical profession,’ Jake said. ‘The larger medical clinics are problematic because the patient doesn’t always see the same doctor each visit. There’s not much continuity.’

‘Then all the more reason to check and doublecheck,’ she said.

‘Testing every patient for every disease is expensive and time-wasting,’ he said. ‘Diagnostic skills vary between doctors, but mostly they get it right.’

‘Not in this case,’ she said. ‘That young woman’s outcome could be severely compromised.’

‘We can’t save everyone, Dr Cargill,’ he said. ‘There will always be people who slip through the system.’

‘I don’t want to miss anyone,’ she said. ‘It’s our job to diagnose and treat patients, not fob them off with a couple of painkillers.’

‘You can’t CT scan every patient who comes through the door,’ Jake argued. ‘Not on this campus, in any case.’

Her grey eyes challenged his. ‘Are you forbidding me from conducting the tests I deem appropriate?’ she asked.

‘I would hope your diagnostic skills are of a standard such that you don’t require exposing a patient to high levels of radiation in order to confirm your diagnosis.’

‘I’d rather not leave patients’ lives up to gut feeling,’ she said with an insolent look.

‘What do you mean by that?’ he asked.

Her grey eyes flashed at him. ‘You can’t possibly get it right all of the time,’ she said. ‘It’s not a matter of guesswork or intuition. We have to rely on cold, hard science.’

‘The human body isn’t an exact science,’ he said. ‘Patients don’t always give a complete history. Tests can be inconclusive. We need to be able to understand anatomy and physiology in order make a correct diagnosis.’

‘Will that be all, Dr Chandler?’ she asked stiffly.

Jake looked at her mouth and felt a tidal wave of raw, primal need course through him. He couldn’t stop thinking about that kiss. He thought of how soft her mouth was, how sweet it had tasted, how yielding it had been, how tentative and shy her tongue had been and then how brazen and uncontrollable it had become when she had let herself go. He thought of how her slim little body had pressed against his as if she had been tailored exactly to his specifications. He thought of how much he wanted to kiss her again, to move his hands over her creamy skin without the barrier of clothes. He wanted to run his hands through the chestnut silk of her hair, to breathe in its flowery fragrance.

He wanted her.

Had he ever wanted someone more? It was this wretched bet, that was what it was. It had to be. He’d been celibate too long. He wasn’t cut out for the life of a monk. It wasn’t that he was developing an attachment to Kitty. She wasn’t staying in Australia long enough to consider anything more than a casual fling. She would probably go back when her term was over and pick up again with someone from her side of the tracks—not someone with dependent siblings, not to mention the debt and drama that came along for the ride.

If she hooked up with him it would be a package deal. How long before she would get sick of sharing him with his siblings and nephew? His career was demanding enough. Having to spread himself so thinly didn’t make for ideal relationship-building conditions. He wasn’t emotionally available. He didn’t want to be.

He didn’t want to need someone so much he couldn’t function without them. He had seen it first-hand. His mother had been absolutely devastated by the desertion of his father. Jake had lain awake at night listening to her sob her heart out in the bedroom next door. It had taken her years to recover, and even then there had been a part of her that had never fully returned. She had gone from a vibrant and fully engaged mother to a person who trudged through life with resolution rather than joy.

Jake brought his gaze to Kitty’s defiant one. ‘That will be all, Dr Cargill,’ he said. ‘For now.’