by Amy Andrews
Callum opened his mouth to tell her it was okay. He got it. He felt exactly the same way about what had happened between them. About spontaneity. About getting out of his head and just not being himself for a night. But she held up her hand to ward it off.
‘No. Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know any of it either. I’d kind of like to keep this whole thing as a big, delicious secret. This...crazy thing I did once that’ll make me smile whenever I think about it. Maybe...’ she smiled ‘...scandalise my grandkids about it one day.’
Grandkids. Of course there’d be grandkids. And kids. With honey-blonde hair and grey eyes. She was young and, despite what she said about the guys in her town, he had no doubt someone would snap her up.
Whereas he couldn’t even look that far ahead.
‘So,’ Callum said, forcing himself to lighten the mood, ‘you just want to use me for my body and callously walk away? Pretend it never happened?’
She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth as she nodded and said, ‘Yes.’ She toyed with her spoon again. ‘Does that make me a terrible person?’
Callum chuckled at the little frown knitting her brow. He’d never met a woman who was such a compelling mix of confidence and uncertainty. ‘No,’ he teased. ‘Relax. It was one night. We barely know one another. I promise you haven’t broken my heart and I’m not about to drop down on one knee and ask you to marry me. You are not a terrible person and we should absolutely go our own ways after this with a smile on our faces and very fond memories of our night.’
‘Is that how you’re going to remember it?’ she asked, placing her elbow on the table and propping her chin on her fist. ‘Fondly?’
She was teasing now and he liked it. ‘Very fondly.’
She grinned. ‘Me too.’
‘Good. Now...’ he thrust the breakfast menu at her ‘...order your breakfast. You must be hungry.’
Her gaze dropped to the menu but he could still see the smile playing on her mouth as she muttered, ‘Starving.’
* * *
Felicity ate like the train was about to run out of food. She was absolutely famished from her vigorous night between the sheets. Callum laughed at how much she put away and the happy little bubble around her grew.
It continued when they moved to the lounge. Jock’s heart attack was a hot topic with their fellow travellers and everyone was agog at how they’d saved Jock’s life. They were so impressed they didn’t seem to mind the fact that both she and Callum had lied to them about what they did.
Or at least they didn’t call them on it anyway.
The day flew and before Felicity knew it the train was rolling through the outer suburbs of Adelaide, bringing her closer and closer to home. She was treating herself to a few days in the city first, though. The last week in October was a perfect time to do her Christmas shopping and also hit the beach before the full tilt of summer. There were no beaches in the Clare Valley. Vineyards and antique shops, amazing restaurants with gourmet offerings and dinky little tearooms for sure, but no beach.
It was back to work on Monday and the magical time she’d spent in Sydney with her best friend Luci and the train trip and last night would all soon be pushed to the side as she morphed back into Flick and her life revolved around work and small-town life.
So she was going to savour this for as long as she could.
Half an hour later the train had pulled up at the platform and she was saying goodbye to her fellow travellers and Donald as she disembarked. A part of her wanted to stay on for ever, stay in this bubble for ever with Callum. But it was neither real nor possible so she channelled Flick and let it go, stepping onto the platform.
‘Well, I guess this is goodbye.’
Felicity took a calming breath as Callum’s familiar sexy rumble washed over her. She turned to face him, struck again by how sexy he was as her gaze roamed over his face, trying to remember every detail.
She was curiously reluctant to say goodbye. What did she say to a man who’d given her a moment in time she was never going to forget? Who had made her body sing? Who had made her feel sexy and desired?
Thank you just didn’t seem enough.
‘Do you have someone picking you up or...?’
Maybe they could catch a lift together? Maybe if he was also in the city for a few days they could...?
‘We could share a taxi if you like. Where are you heading?’
‘Oh, no, it’s fine,’ he said. ‘I have someone picking me up.’
Of course. It was better this way really. A clean break.
‘In fact...’ he looked past her shoulder ‘...I think that may be her.’
Her. A sick moment of dread punched Felicity in the gut. She hadn’t even asked him if he was involved with someone. She’d just assumed...
‘Dr Hollingsworth?’
Felicity blinked at another very familiar voice as Callum waved and said, ‘Over here.’ She turned to find Mrs Baker, the wife of Vickers Hill’s police chief, heading in their direction.
What the...?
‘Mrs B.?’
‘Oh, Flick, darling.’ She smiled and pulled her into a big bear hug. ‘What a surprise! Oh, wait...did I get my wires crossed? Julia was supposed to come but one of the receptionists had to go home sick, which left them short-staffed so she was ringing around to find someone else. I left a message on her phone that I’d do it but maybe she didn’t check it and had already arranged for you to do the pick-up?’
Felicity had absolutely no idea what the other woman was talking about. ‘The pick-up?’
‘Yes.’ Mrs Baker nodded. ‘For Dr Hollingsworth here.’
Dr Hollingsworth? Felicity glanced at Callum. He was Dr Hollingsworth? The new locum? The one who’d done the house swap with Luci?
‘You’re Dr Hollingsworth?’
He frowned, obviously confused now too. ‘Yes.’
Oh, hell... What had they done?
‘So you’re not here to pick him up?’ Mrs Baker asked, looking as perplexed as Felicity but oblivious to her inner turmoil.
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘We’ve been on the train together. I just didn’t...’ she glanced at Callum ‘...know it.’
‘Oh, how delightful.’ Mrs Baker beamed. ‘What a coincidence.’
Hmm. Delightful wasn’t the way Felicity would describe it. She’d slept with the locum? A man she was going to have to face every day for two months?
How could they pretend it had never happened now?
‘So...you know one another?’ Callum asked, frowning at both of them, obviously trying to put the pieces together.
‘Oh, yes.’ Mrs Baker nodded vigorously. ‘Flick’s one of the practice nurses at Dr Dawson’s surgery, aren’t you, dear?’
Felicity watched as realisation slowly dawned on Callum’s face. ‘Oh. Right.’
‘Isn’t that an amazing coincidence?’ Mrs Baker repeated.
‘Yes...amazing,’ he murmured through lips that were so tight Felicity worried they might spontaneously split open.
Fabulous.
The man looked like he wanted to disappear. Or, at the very least, hightail it out of town. Felicity didn’t know whether to be sad, mad, insulted or to push him back on the damn train herself.
‘Right, well...’ Mrs Baker said, still oblivious to the thick air of what-the-hell between them. ‘Did you want a lift back home too, dear? Only we really do have to hit the road. It’s a good two-hour drive, more with the peak-hour traffic.’
‘Oh, no, thank you,’ Felicity said, dragging her gaze off the incredulity in Callum’s green eyes. ‘I’m staying on for a few days.’ Thank God! ‘I’m not back till Sunday.’
‘Oh, that’s nice. Doing some Christmas shopping or seeing some bloke you’re not telling any of us about?’ Mrs Baker nudged her arm
playfully.
Hardly. Given the last bloke she’d seen was now a certified disaster. She returned the older woman’s good-natured teasing with a wan smile, changing the subject. ‘Well, you’re right, you’d better be off. Say hi to everyone and I’ll see them all on Monday.’
She forced herself to look at Callum like he was just some guy she’d met on the train and not someone she’d torn up the sheets with in what had been, without a doubt, the most memorable—and now the most disastrous—time of her life.
‘It was nice meeting you, Dr Hollingsworth,’ she said, willing a smile to her lips. She wasn’t entirely sure she’d managed it but she ploughed on. ‘I look forward to working with you over the next couple of months.’
About as much as shoving a rusty fork in her eye.
He nodded, his mouth set in the grim line she’d first seen back at Central Station in Sydney. God—had it only been yesterday?
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Can’t wait.’
He looked like he could do with a rusty fork too.
And then, because there was actually someone watching her, Mrs Baker was ushering him along and out of the station and she was staring at his back. His chinos encasing those long athletic legs, his T-shirt stretching over those big shoulders, his hair brushing his nape.
A back she’d seen naked. A back she was damn sure she’d scratched up a little at one stage. Felicity shut her eyes and allowed herself an internal groan. How was she going to work with him every day and not think about their night together?
Not remember the bunch of his muscles under her hands as he’d loomed over her, the smell of his cologne on his neck, the deep groan when he’d orgasmed—three times.
Not relive every moment in glorious Technicolor?
Not want a repeat performance?
CHAPTER FIVE
FELICITY ALWAYS ARRIVED at work at seven in the morning. The practice didn’t open until eight but she liked to grab a cup of tea and set things up at a leisurely pace. She liked to go through each of the doctors’ appointment books as well as her own to mentally prepare herself for the day.
This morning she was here at seven because she hadn’t been able to sleep. She’d driven into town deliberately after dark yesterday so no one could just drop in for a chat. She’d spent three days in Adelaide, trying to figure out a strategy to deal with Callum, and she still wasn’t any closer.
She wasn’t worried that anyone would find out. She didn’t think Callum would be indiscreet. He didn’t look like the kiss and tell type.
But she knew. Her body knew.
She’d been okay with acting so wildly outside her usual character when it had been a one-off. And she’d been fine to walk away from it and get back to the life she knew, loved and understood. The place, the people, the work that defined her. But with him constantly reminding her of something sizzling and exciting?
Constantly derailing her contented life?
She didn’t need that kind of disquiet. She’d been lucky. She’d already had her big love. She didn’t need some crazy, hot thing with a guy who was here for two months making her question all she held dear.
And even if she’d been actively looking for a man—which she wasn’t—Callum did not fit the bill. She was only interested in long-term prospects and she was perfectly happy to wait. For it to happen when it happened. If it happened.
There wasn’t any rush despite what every woman of a certain age in Vickers Hill thought.
The kettle boiled and Felicity shook herself out of her reverie. She was getting way ahead of herself. Catastrophising as usual. Also being a little egotistical. Like she was so freaking irresistible. Just because the man had ravished her in bed all night didn’t mean he wanted anything more from her or that he wanted to carry on while he was here.
She was making way too much of it. It was two months, for Pete’s sake. She could do anything for two months. They’d talk, set some rules and then she’d be cool, calm and collected. Polite. Professional. Friendly even. Vickers Hill was a great place to live in the middle of a famous wine region—she could play tour guide.
Felicity heard the back door open and glanced at her watch. She frowned. Dr Dawson was early today, he didn’t usually arrive until seven thirty sometimes. Now he was cutting back his hours a little on his countdown to retirement he left it as late as a quarter to eight.
Felicity had worked for Luci’s father for four years and would be grateful to him for ever for employing her when she’d fled back to Vickers Hill, licking her wounds post-Ned.
She turned to greet him, a smile on her face, knowing he’d come straight to the staffroom for a cuppa. But it wasn’t Dr Dawson. It was Callum standing in the doorway, all long legs and wide shoulders, looking devastating in a dark suit and patterned tie.
Her stomach dropped. Her fingers tightened around her mug. She swore muscles between her legs tightened in some kind of Pavlovian response as heat coursed to all the erogenous zones he’d taken his sweet time getting to know.
So much for being cool, calm and collected. If her body was any hotter she’d be smoking. ‘Oh. Hi.’
He nodded, his gaze guarded, reminding her of the brooding guy in the café that day. ‘Hi.’
Awkward.
But, then, she’d always known it was going to be.
‘You’re early,’ she said, to sever the stretching silence. ‘You know you don’t start till one each day, right?’
She knew he’d been in a couple of times already, orientating himself to the practice, because she’d been talking to Luci, who’d rung to tell her that Callum’s brother Seb had turned up on her doorstep in Sydney and he was now living with her, but had also mentioned Callum dropping in to see her father and introduce himself to everyone.
He shrugged. ‘Thought I’d get settled in.’ He walked into the room and set the small plastic crate he was holding on the dining table. ‘I also wanted to go over the clinic charts for this week. You know...’ he gave a half-smile but it was strained and tight ‘...be prepared.’
Felicity nodded stiffly. Oh, yeah, he was a regular Boy Scout.
In any other person, she would have been impressed by the diligence but she’d thought she’d have more time to get her game face on this morning so she wasn’t feeling terribly charitable.
‘You’ll have access to the appointment calendar on your computer in your office,’ she said. ‘I’ll send you an invite to join but I’ll just grab the printout now.’
It was her chance to temporarily escape and get herself together. He didn’t try to stop her and for the thirty seconds it took her to snatch the list of today’s appointments off the reception desk she was grateful.
She needed a breather. To hit the reset button.
She stared down at the list, not really seeing it. The Dawson general practice was one of two in Vickers Hill. There were two GPs. Bill Dawson was the original and had founded the practice almost forty years ago. About twenty years later he’d taken on a partner—Angela Runcorn—because the work had been too much for one and he’d wanted to have a woman for his female patients to have a choice. He and Angela each owned fifty percent of the practice.
Four years ago, and this was why Felicity had been employed, he’d taken on a part-time GP—Meera Setu. Meera and Felicity ran the afternoon specialty clinics together, which freed up a lot of appointment time. Monday was ortho clinic, Tuesday was diabetic, Wednesday was babies and Friday was immunisation. There was no clinic on Thursdays as it was Felicity’s day for home visits.
But, with Meera going on maternity leave last week for two months, Dr Dawson had needed a replacement and had advertised for a locum. Given that it was for such a short amount of time, Felicity hadn’t paid much heed to the process other than encouraging Luci to go to Sydney to do her course and pushing her to do the house swap with Callum wh
en the possibility had been floated.
Except she’d only heard him being referred to as Dr Hollingsworth. And she’d never bothered to find out Callum’s last name when she’d been getting naked with him between her sheets.
She made a mental note to always find out a guy’s full name before doing the wild thing. Because now she’d be working closely with Dr Wild Thing every day.
Like right-hand woman close. And it all could have been avoided had she stopped to find out the basics—like his name!
‘Here it is,’ she said, injecting a lightness into her tone as she re-entered the staffroom.
He was at the sink, spooning coffee into a mug. She placed the list on the table next to the crate because there was no way she was getting any closer to him when she didn’t have to.
‘Thanks,’ he said, picking up his mug and leaning his butt against the counter, his feet casually crossed at the ankles, which pulled the fabric of his trousers tight across his thighs.
‘I’ll forward you the email folder with all their electronic charts in a bit.’
‘Thank you.’ The silence built again. ‘I checked up on Jock. They transferred him to hospital in Sydney and put in several stents. He’s doing okay.’
Felicity nodded. ‘Yes. Thanks. I spoke with the hospital this morning.’
Thankfully a noise in the hallway outside alerted her to someone else arriving and Felicity almost kissed Dr Dawson as he sauntered into the staffroom, his usual chipper self.
‘Ah, Flick.’ He smiled as he embraced her in a warm hug that smelled of the starch Julia, Luci’s mum, always ironed his shirts with. ‘Good to have you back. We almost fell apart without you.’
