‘A backwards pouch?’ Cam sounded totally incredulous. ‘In all the reading I’ve done I’ve never picked up on it being a backward-facing pouch.’
He shook his head, smiling at the thought, and she rushed into practical speech to avoid thinking about his smile.
‘It makes sense—but what had happened to the mother of your new arrival?’ Lauren asked, knowing that very small hairless wombats should still be tucked into their mother’s pouch.
‘Hit by a car,’ Cam told her. ‘But thankfully the driver had enough sense to check the pouch.’
Lauren smiled. ‘Enough sense and enough knowledge,’ she said. ‘For many years Henry had a ten-minute slot at the end of the local news once a week, and besides showing some of the animals the sanctuary cares for, he educated people on the animals themselves.’
Cam laughed. ‘Judging from the number of animals we have in the sanctuary at the moment, he did a very good job of it. And who’d have thought there was a special formula product developed just for baby wombats?’
‘You don’t know the half of it. Wait till you have to feed a snake.’
He looked at her in horror. ‘No—no way! I draw the line at snakes. In fact, I didn’t know people would bring them in.’
Lauren smiled at him. ‘They don’t. I was teasing. Although there is a family on the other side of the lake that handles snakes. If you ever have one in the house, there should be a phone number for the snake-catcher on that board by the phone.’
Cam was shaking his head. ‘Snakes in the house? I’m going back to England! That damn ultralight nearly killed me, Henry’s motorbike would never pass a safety test, and now you’re telling me snakes might come into the house?’
‘Not often,’ Lauren said, trying not to smile as she teased him. ‘And not if you keep the fly screens on your doors closed—which you really have to do, mainly because of the mosquitos.’
Cam groaned and held his head in his hands.
‘Take me home, Ma!’ he pleaded.
And now Lauren did laugh. Madge called him a wimp and joined in.
‘I must be going,’ Lauren said when they’d all settled down again, although Cam was still muttering about the dangers of life in Australia. This was a different Cam—light-hearted and fun to be with. And dangerous, given her reaction to this new version of him.
‘You didn’t even mention the spiders that can kill a person with one bite,’ he grumbled, still complaining. ‘I hope I’m not expected to look after them as well!’
‘Oh, no,’ Lauren told him cheerfully. ‘The snake man does them too. He’s an accredited breeder and handler, and he milks them for the development of anti-toxins.’
* * *
Cam shuddered, but as Lauren had got to her feet, and was helping Madge clear the table, thanking her for a wonderful meal, it was obvious she was about to leave.
‘I’ll walk you home,’ he said.
She turned to him. ‘It’s a couple of hundred metres on a path I’ve known all my life,’ she said. ‘Besides which, you should still be taking it easy on that ankle.’
‘Oh, let him walk you home,’ Madge said. ‘His ankle’s fine and it will keep him out from under my feet in the kitchen. He’s got no idea how to stack a dishwasher.’
Madge wasn’t lying. Normally he’d go into his office and write up the day’s work—such as it had been—while she tidied. The locals were still understandably nervous about bringing their pets to a new vet, even if he was related to Henry, so continued to see the locum.
But Ma pushing him to walk Lauren home?
By a silvery lake that shimmered in the moonlight?
What could possibly go wrong? a sarcastic voice whispered in his head.
‘You really don’t have to come with me,’ Lauren said quietly as they left the house together.
‘You want me to sneak back into the house and hide from my mother?’ he grumbled.
She smiled, and all the small snapshots of Lauren he’d taken in his head over the last few days were highlighted by that smile. With her well-proportioned features and that fall of golden hair—he’d been fooled that first day by her dark eyes and brows—she really was quite beautiful.
And he was—
What?
Smitten?
Good grief!
That was far too strong a word.
Maybe it was just fascination—she was so unlike any woman he’d ever known.
And beautiful.
Maybe it was just lust. Although he didn’t think lust would have him waiting, almost breathless, for her smile. Or wanting to hear her voice, speaking quietly, just to him, no matter the topic. And surely it had to be more than lust when the teasing glint in her eyes could leave him mute.
He knew for sure that this, whatever this was, had never happened to him before. Not with girlfriends, or Maddie’s mother—anyone, in fact. Yet here he was, walking one step behind her, wanting to reach out and clasp her hips. Or walk alongside her so he could sling an arm casually around her waist and then, as their pace slowed, turn her to him and kiss her in the night-scented bush.
His heart was hammering in his chest, while his mind was lost in lustful imaginings.
Control—he needed control.
He stepped into her before he realised she’d stopped, and she turned around, a little frown on her face.
‘I was just saying the path’s wide enough for us to walk together, rather than you trudging behind,’ she said. ‘Is your ankle bothering you? Should you turn back?’
Given the strength of his imaginings, it was all he could manage just to shake his head and move up beside her. To find his voice.
‘Why aren’t you married?’
It was unfortunate, finding his voice right then! Of all the things to have come blurting out. She’d think him mad!
But the question was out, hanging in the air between them like words in a balloon in a comic.
Idiot!
She studied him for a moment, then smiled. ‘Did you actually mean to ask that?’ she said.
Hoping he didn’t look as embarrassed as he felt, he shook his head, then rushed into more speech. ‘No, and I’m sorry. That was very rude and none of my business. I don’t know what I was thinking. Can we just forget I asked?’
She smiled again, and tucked her hand into his arm to get him started on their journey once again.
‘That’s okay,’ she said. ‘I get asked often enough that it doesn’t offend me. I just haven’t had time.’
He waited. There’d be more, he was sure. But she—they—walked on as if everything had been explained.
‘You haven’t had time?’ he said finally.
‘That’s right,’ she said, totally at ease—or seemingly so—while he was floundering like a fish cast ashore by a rogue wave.
‘So, you’ve nothing against it as such—marriage?’
He’d obviously lost his mind, gabbling on like this, especially as they’d come out of the scrubby bush now, and could see the shimmering lake spread out in front of them.
How had marriage got into the conversation?
It was none of his business why this beautiful woman was or wasn’t married.
But the question hadn’t had her storming off, removing herself from close contact with a madman. She’d slowed down, and was looking out at the lake in all its glory as she answered.
‘Not really,’ she said. ‘Things just got in the way at the time when marriage was happening to everyone around me. And once all your friends are married, you realise that the pool of available men has greatly decreased—especially when you live in a community as widespread but small as the Lakes.’
Her voice was so even, so placid, she might have been discussing a business venture or even a shopping list, yet underneath the words he heard an echo of...sadness?
So when she changed the subject, saying, ‘It’s really beautiful, the lake, in all its moods, but I love it in the moonlight—it’s so serene...’ how could he not slip his arm around her waist and draw her closer to him.
Close enough to kiss.
Had she felt it too? That sudden surge of physical attraction that had him turning her towards him, easing her closer to his body, feeling her softness matching his harder planes?
He kissed her neck, nuzzled it for a moment, and felt her shiver from the touch. So when they did kiss, the power was there—the attraction, or the lust, or whatever it was between them—and it stole his breath, leaving him speechless.
When she eased away he let her go, resuming his place by her side, putting his arm around her waist—walking her home in the moonlight.
They wandered more slowly now, his arm still around her waist, and he felt like a schoolboy walking his first girlfriend home.
* * *
Lauren was relieved when the roof of her house loomed above the bushes.
Nearly home!
She could feel the tension in the man who walked so close beside her and knew her own matched it. She really needed to get inside—to put some space between them and work out just what was going on.
First his question about marriage.
And then that kiss!
It had not only left her breathless, but also lost, somehow.
What did it mean?
And, more puzzling, why on earth had she responded? She had kissed him back—felt his need and her own hunger...
‘As if!’
‘As if...?’ he echoed, and she realised that her final thought had actually come out of her mouth.
‘I really don’t know,’ she said, reaching her front gate and turning towards him. ‘Just random thoughts chasing through my head and then—’
‘As if?’
He repeated it with a smile and she looked at him, standing there in the moonlight, tall and solid—a good-looking man who’d turned up in her life a bit like a genie out of a bottle and ruffled the waters of her usually calm existence.
And she’d kissed him!
Well, he’d kissed her, but she’d definitely kissed him back, reawakening desires she’d thought forgotten, if not long dead. Making her think impossible things, dream impossible dreams...
She barely knew him, and he had a ton of baggage in his life, yet already he’d not only got under her skin, he’d somehow sneaked deeper, into parts of her that had been locked away for a very long time.
‘Thank you for walking me home,’ she said, and slipped away before she did something foolish—like give him another quick kiss goodnight!
Inside the house, she turned on the lights, determined not to peek through the window and see if he was still there.
Instead, she leant her back against the door, her legs still trembling slightly, and then slid down to sit on the floor, hugging her knees with her arms and wondering about age and levels of maturity...
CHAPTER FOUR
‘THIS IS MADNESS,’ Lauren muttered to her receptionist as she showed out the fifth patient of the morning and realised the waiting room was still full.
‘They mainly want to gossip about the new vet,’ Janet whispered. ‘Seems they all know you had dinner there last night!’
Shaking her head at the speed of the Lakes’ bush telegraph, Lauren sighed. ‘Yes, but their excuse is that they need new prescriptions, which I then have to write out—after actually checking to see they’re okay.’
She bit back another sigh. It was her own conscience making her a little tetchy. She’d slept badly, thoughts of the man next door crowding in her head, and now she found herself overbooked with patients who really only wanted to gossip. Not that she could blame them; any newcomer was newsworthy around the Lakes.
‘I think I’m next—when you finish chatting,’ a loud male voice declared.
‘And I’ll be right with you, Mr Richards,’ Lauren answered. ‘Just go through to the nurse’s room and she’ll take your blood pressure.’
‘Which will be sky-high with all this waiting,’ the man grumbled, but he did move in the direction of the small treatment room presided over by Judy, who had been Lauren’s father’s nurse before Lauren had even started.
At least Judy wouldn’t put up with his complaints!
‘His blood pressure is high,’ Judy said, just minutes later, when she showed Mr Richards into Lauren’s room.
Lauren sighed and looked at the figures Judy had entered into the computer.
‘Mr Richards,’ she said, smiling in what she hoped was a persuasive manner, ‘won’t you even consider Meals on Wheels? If only for a few weeks? You’d be amazed how much better you’ll feel.’
His florid face grew even redder, until he seemed to glow from some inner fire. ‘I eat perfectly well,’ he told her, in a voice that brooked no argument.
But she had to try!
‘You don’t really,’ Lauren argued, patiently and politely. ‘You eat a pie and chips or fish and chips at every meal. The only reason you’re not even more overweight is that you have to walk to the fish market for your fish and chips, or to the bakery for your pies.’
‘I get the pies frozen at the supermarket now. Chunky steak, frozen in packs of four, and you can get chips there too—in the freezer section.’
Lauren heard the silent so there at the end of his sentence, and only just managed to stop another sigh escaping.
‘You can also get fruit and vegetables at the supermarket while you’re there—you can even get them in the frozen section, so all you have to do is cook the veggies and unfreeze the fruit. There’s mango, and berries of all kinds, some melon... If you just add a little variety to your diet it would be a help.’
Mr Richards scowled at her. ‘I get by,’ he said.
‘With a blood pressure that’s off the charts, and forty kilos overweight, you won’t be getting by for much longer,’ she reminded him—they’d had this conversation almost weekly for so long.
‘Mightn’t want to!’ her patient retorted.
Lauren was struck dumb.
Was he saying he deliberately abused his body because he would rather be dead? Did he even take the medication she was already prescribing for him?
She thought back to when she’d first seen him as a patient, more than ten years ago. He’d only recently retired then, turning his farm over to his son and coming to the lake so his son could run it as he thought best.
Mr Richards had been fit and healthy—with slightly high blood pressure and still recovering from his wife’s death some years before. But he’d had his dog, brought with him from the farm...
‘Is it because you miss Bonnie?’ she asked quietly, and caught the look of pain in his eyes. ‘Why not get another dog?’ she asked. ‘Then you’d have plenty of exercise and training a pup would keep you busy. Your Bonnie was one of the best-mannered dogs I’ve ever met. The residents at the nursing home loved having her visit.’
Mr Richards eyed her suspiciously, but she sensed interest in her suggestion.
‘And where would I get a dog? Bonnie came with me from the farm,’ he said, still querulous, but softening.
‘I’ll ask around,’ she said gently, ‘and let you know. Now, buy some fruit and vegetables at the supermarket on your way home. You’ll have to get used to eating them, because I know Bonnie always loved a slice of apple—and you once told me she also ate vegetables.’
He looked dubiously at her, taking the prescription she’d written and studying it.
‘I mean it,’ she said. ‘I’ll find you a dog if you start to eat more healthily and get yourself a bit fitter. Get up to the bowls club on Friday afternoons and try the barefoot bowls they play there, with people of all ages. It’s fun, and you might decide to take up the game.’
‘Hmph,’ was
all he said.
But she felt she’d possibly jolted him enough to start taking care of himself. And when he actually put out his hand to shake hers before he left—just as he always had years before—she felt she might have won a small victory.
Now all she had to do was find a dog!
Ask a vet, was the immediate answer to that problem, but even thinking about Cam brought heat to her face.
She’d put up a notice at the Community Hall instead.
* * *
The patients kept coming, so the usual midday closing of the morning surgery stretched closer to one, and she was rostered on at the wildlife sanctuary from one-thirty.
Ask a vet, her head reminded her, but the more sensible part of her brain told her she could quite easily get into the sanctuary through the side gate and needn’t see Cam at all.
Memories of the kiss came flooding back, along with the heat she’d felt earlier.
She shook her head, as if that might clear it—might stop her feeling like a teenager reliving her first kiss!
How on earth had she come to respond as she had?
Attraction, she admitted to herself. It happened between men and women. It just hadn’t happened to her for a long time—lying dormant at first, to give her time to heal from the pain of David’s loss, and then deadened by her need to concentrate on her father’s well-being more than her own.
Why on earth was it affecting her now?
Be sensible. Look at it without emotion.
That was her sensible self talking.
So, yes, he was intelligent, and good company...when he wasn’t in pain and grumpy about it. And attractive. Very attractive.
Taller than she was—a huge plus for a tall woman—and about ten years younger than her. They hadn’t discussed age, but she had learned he’d married while still at university.
And, apart from that fairly significant—to her—issue, did she really want another man in her life?
A Wedding for the Single Dad Page 6
