The Australian's Desire (Mills & Boon By Request)

by Marion Lennox, Lilian Darcy, Lilian Darcy

  ‘Let’s not think that way. Let me take a look at him,’ she suggested.

  ‘He knows you almost better than he knows me, I guess.’ The words, barely more than a mutter, cut Miranda to the heart.

  She came fully into the parents’ room and dropped to Josh-level. He was sitting in the room’s one chair. ‘Can you talk, Josh?’

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘You said the second dose helped?’ She could feel Nick behind her, a ball of strong and very male tension and distress. He really didn’t want to cancel this trip.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So we’ll just sit here, shall we, and then we’ll give a third dose and that’ll do the trick.’ She spoke as if there was no other possibility, and Josh smiled at last.

  While Nick let out a sigh that she didn’t dare to think came from relief.

  Not yet, Nick, please.

  Josh wasn’t out of the woods yet.

  Ten minutes later, they both helped him with the third dose, then Nick put his asthma equipment back in the colouful backpack and they listened to the wonderful sound of Josh breathing better and talking again. ‘Did we miss the plane?’

  ‘No, sweetheart. We have time.’

  Not much of it, though.

  Nick took her aside again, holding her arm, bending his head towards hers so that the dark hair spilling across his forehead almost brushed her face. ‘Can we really do this? What if he crashes again during the flight?’ His touch felt impossibly familiar, even after so long. She couldn’t believe how quickly they’d reconnected in such a personal way.

  Maybe because she’d been expecting something like this— half dreading and half wanting it—for two years? It was harder than if he’d simply shown up in her life again, out of the blue.

  ‘They have oxygen on board,’ Miranda answered, ‘and the fact that he’s responded to these first few doses is a good sign. In the past, when he’s crashed badly, it’s been downhill all the way.’

  ‘True,’ Nick said. ‘Ambulance ride to the hospital. The full works.’

  ‘He’s been very excited about this trip.’

  ‘Don’t I know it!’

  ‘I so-o-o don’t want to pull the plug on it for him now.’

  ‘Neither do I,’ Nick said.

  ‘Is it the excitement, do you think?’ Miranda asked him quietly.

  ‘That and…’ He stopped, took a breath and readied himself to choose his words carefully. ‘Anna can’t…uh…always hide when she’s stressed. He picks up on it far too much. As far as she’s concerned, the timing of her mother’s accident couldn’t have been worse, and maybe she’s right…’

  Anna’s emotions sometimes made Josh sicker. Nick and Miranda were in agreement on that. But then he added, ‘And maybe she’s right to think it’ll be disastrous to have me with him on the trip. He and I haven’t spent as much time together as I’d like.’

  He hated saying those outwardly bland words, Miranda could tell. Hated saying them because they were true? Or because they weren’t? Had he genuinely wanted a better relationship with his son all along? Or was Anna right in saying, as she frequently did, that Nick was the one to withdraw?

  His smile was forced. ‘We looked at pictures of a Very Greedy Frog.’

  ‘As much time as you’d like with him?’ she echoed, before she could stop herself. It had sounded a little too much like a challenge— Yeah, really? That’s not what Anna says. Why had she felt the need to plumb the level of his honesty now, when they were in such a rush?

  He looked at her and she could almost see him mentally prioritising his battles. Most important, get himself and Josh onto the flight. Way down the list, argue with his son’s respiratory physician about which divorced parent most deserved the prize for honesty and clear thinking and sacrifice.

  ‘Look, is there still time?’ he asked. ‘That’s what’s important now.’

  ‘You’re right. I’m sorry. Benita has been waiting with your luggage. Everyone else will have gone through by now. We have to get to that check-in desk now, if you’re going to make the flight.’

  He nodded for the third time. Wasn’t going to waste words when he didn’t have that luxury. Once again, he scooped Josh into his arms and slung the backpack over one shoulder. ‘Let’s do it. Josh, can you breathe?’

  No answer.

  ‘Josh, can you? You have to talk to me!’

  ‘Yes. I’m breathing.’

  ‘I’ll put you down later, so you can walk onto the plane on your own, OK? For now I’m carrying you, because we need to hurry.’

  ‘So are we still going?’ came a thin little voice.

  ‘Well, do you want to?’ Wooden tone.

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘With me?’

  ‘Y-yes.’ A lot less emphatic.

  ‘Good,’ Nick said, and suddenly hugged him fiercely. ‘Because I think we’re going to have a great time.’ His voice was thick with sudden emotion that almost brought tears to Miranda’s eyes.

  He cared. Whatever else she might doubt about him now, she couldn’t doubt that.

  They almost ran through the terminal.

  A sympathetic desk clerk, who’d been told about the situation, waved them through to the first-class check-in desk and despatched their luggage along the conveyor with practised speed. Waiting in a queue to go through Security, they heard the announcement for final boarding for the flight, but Nick said stoically, ‘They’ve let our baggage through, and the desk clerk knows we’re on our way. They should hold the flight a few minutes for us, now. I hope,’ he added.

  Their departure gate seemed miles away, at the far end of the concourse. Nick loped ahead, seeming untroubled by Josh’s light weight. Miranda struggled to keep up. Last night’s sleepless mental list-checking of today’s travel details was taking its toll. Finally she saw the gate lounge and the open door leading to the access tunnel. The area was bare of passengers and a member of the ground crew was speaking into a telephone.

  ‘Boarding pass?’ Nick barked at Miranda.

  ‘Right here. You’ve got yours and Josh’s?’

  ‘Yes.’ To the ground crew he said, ‘Nick Devlin, Josh Devlin, Miranda Carlisle.’

  ‘Good. You’re the three we’ve been waiting for.’

  Breathless, Miranda followed Nick down the tunnel, the blood beating in her ears and her limbs weak with relief. They’d made it. Just. Josh was smiling. Everything was going to be OK.

  Just inside the plane, they caught up with the final members of the Crocodile Creek group. Benita mimed fanning herself with relief and said, ‘I’d almost given up on you.’

  ‘So had I. But I couldn’t let them miss the flight.’ Miranda lowered her voice. ‘Not these two. Not little Josh.’

  ‘Be careful of that,’ Benita warned. She meant the favouritism.

  ‘I know.’

  Miranda saw the Allandales blocking the aisle further down as they sorted through their cabin luggage. Stella Vavunis stood just ahead, handing over her crutches to an attendant, to be stowed in one of their special hidey-holes for the duration of the flight because they were too long for the overhead carrier bins.

  The teenager’s head hung with embarrassment, and her body was stiff and hunched, as if she just wanted to disappear. She felt humiliated and angry at the whole world about being singled out this way, and having to hop and hobble to her seat. Miranda thought she heard some very rude words muttered under Stella’s breath.

  ‘She isn’t handling th
at prosthesis very well yet, is she?’ Miranda murmured to Benita. ‘It says in her notes it was fitted a week ago.’

  ‘She won’t even try, according to her physio,’ the nurse answered. ‘She hates it, still insists on using the crutches because then she can get away with looking as if she has a broken leg.’

  ‘There’s a physiotherapist visiting the camp every day. I’ve had a couple of phone conversations with her. Susie Jackson. She sounds nice.’

  ‘We’re all nice, Miranda!’ Benita said.

  ‘True. You’re saying nice isn’t enough, in a case like this.’

  Nice. The word dovetailed with some of Miranda’s questions about Nick, too, and about why she hadn’t yet been able to give her heart to a man who truly wanted it. Was being nice the problem? Too nice. Nothing but nice. Nice wasn’t enough, and sometimes it was boring…

  ‘Stella has to be motivated,’ Benita was saying. ‘She has to believe what we tell her, she has to find someone she’ll really listen to and trust. The prosthesis is too much reality for her right now. The crutches are what she knows, and she’s sticking to them.’

  ‘Tough for a thirteen-year-old, when body-image issues are so huge at that age already.’

  ‘I know, but she’s so darned prickly and negative and ungrateful I want to shake her, sometimes.’ Benita gave a rueful shrug. ‘We rub each other up the wrong way, I’m afraid, she and I. I’m not as patient as I should be.’

  ‘That’s a pity.’

  ‘I shouldn’t admit to it, should I, but you know how it is,’ Benita said. ‘Some you love, some you don’t, often without even knowing why.’

  ‘True,’ Miranda replied, watching Nick and Josh.

  Benita was right. Again. When it came to love, you often didn’t know why.

  ‘I have to fight to hide it, to be honest,’ she was saying. ‘Her dad’s supposed to be coming later in the week.’

  ‘Yes, that’s in our notes. He’s a major donor to the rebuilt camp and medical centre.’

  ‘And very driven. As well as very rich! I won’t be surprised if something gets in the way of him making it. I don’t think Stella will be surprised either, and I really, really wish I could step in and fill the breach, but we just don’t get on, she and I. I get more glares from her than words. Hope she finds a friend or two this week. Someone she can talk to.’

  ‘Someone better than just the usual nice, you mean?’

  Benita smiled ruefully. ‘That’s right.’

  The passengers blocking the aisles took their seats one by one, and Miranda found her own group of patients towards the back of the plane. There were three empty seats left, all in a row. Just ahead of her, Josh was walking on his own, as his dad had promised, with Nick directly behind him.

  ‘There’s your seat, mate,’ he said to his son, the ‘mate’ part sounding a little forced and unnatural. ‘Right by the window.’ Josh climbed eagerly towards it, sneakers treading squarely in the middle of the two seats adjacent. ‘Oh, hell, Josh, don’t tread on the seat with those shoes!’

  Too late. The deed was done.

  Josh looked scared when he understood the reason for his dad’s disapproval, even though Nick was telegraphing only a second or two of mild anger. The little boy’s sneaker soles looked clean…sort of…but they had that deeply grooved tread that harboured every piece of grit and every grass clipping until just the wrong moment.

  ‘Hope your neighbour isn’t wearing a white silk dress,’ Miranda said to him, smiling. She wanted to diffuse the difficult moment between father and son. Nick could see the expression on his son’s face and didn’t like it, she could tell.

  But Nick didn’t smile at her teasing comment. Once again, was she being too nice? ‘Actually, it looks to me as if my neighbour is going to be you.’

  ‘Lucky for you, then,’ she persisted. ‘I don’t even own a white silk dress.’

  Why had she bothered? Once again, he didn’t smile back. She sat down beside him and felt his tightly coiled body like a piece of humming machinery just inches away.

  Miranda was in demand for most of the flight.

  The aisle seat was either a deliberate choice on her part or a lucky bonus, because she had to hop up and down every five minutes to answer the summons of a hand waved over someone’s head and the call of her name.

  Somebody needed their in-flight snack to be delivered early. Someone else had forgotten to pack painkillers and had a headache. Did Miranda happen to have some on her?

  She dealt with it all cheerfully, and Nick was torn between regret that they didn’t get the smallest opportunity for a proper conversation and relief because he didn’t know what on earth they would find to say, with so much past and so much distance in between.

  They’d studied medicine in the same programme and graduated as doctors at the same time. He’d been incredibly focused on his studies back then, knowing that nothing less than a cream-of-the-crop performance would satisfy his father.

  And his father was right about so many things.

  You did have to work hard to get where you wanted to go in life. You did have to keep a clear head and a strong focus and not step back to let others through first. With a whole lot of life’s biggest challenges, you only got one chance. Mess things up, and that chance was gone forever. Blow off your work with drugs or alcohol, fast cars, garage rock bands or loose women, and you could so easily fail.

  Some of his father’s tenets of faith Nick was no longer so sure about, but those ones he still basically believed.

  So he’d worked and he’d focused, hadn’t married or fallen seriously in love or gone out with endless strings of girls during his university years the way some people had. He’d kept his distance from Miranda the way he’d kept his distance from almost everyone. His fellow medical students hadn’t been friends but future professional rivals. But he’d noticed her, during the classes they’d taken together—noticed her more than either of them had realised at the time—and she’d told him that the same was true for her.

  He’d admired the way she managed to win the approval of various crusty or supercilious professors without playing teacher’s pet. He’d heard the clever, perceptive, diligently researched answers she gave to knotty medical problems posed in class or during their earnest stints of hospital observation. He’d seen the way she worked and focused, just the way he did. He’d liked the way she smiled and the way she danced, the few times they’d gone out in the same group.

  She’d liked his laugh, and the way he would say something funny sometimes when nobody was expecting it. She’d liked the way his questions always pinpointed exactly the areas that other students were unsure about. She’d liked the fact that he never featured in lurid, gossipy stories of drunkenness or womanising.

  And then, one critical night ten years ago, after they’d already known each other for six years, casually, as fellow students, he’d let his guard down and they’d spent fourteen uninterrupted hours together at someone’s party and beyond —couldn’t remember the guy’s name any more—and had fallen for each other the way the moon had fallen into orbit around the earth.

  Thinking about it, he discovered that it still scared him.

  The suddenness of it. The strength. The things he’d told her. The vulnerability he’d shown. The power he’d given her over his emotions, just in one short night. It was as if a lifetime of well-schooled stoicism had broken down all at once. When a dam broke, it didn’t simply spring a leak, it flooded. Everything pent up insid
e him had broken that night, because of her, and had come flooding out.

  With her. To her. For her.

  ‘I love you, Miranda.’

  Unstoppable. Crystal clear. Terrifying.

  They’d been drinking, of course, but not that much. He hadn’t been hungover the next day. At the point when he’d really begun talking to her, he had downed maybe three beers in three hours. The words had exhilarated him as he spoke them, like jumping out of a plane with a parachute on his back—terror and freedom mixed like a potent cocktail, making him dizzy and wild. How many times had he said them that night? He couldn’t remember. Three? Five? More?

  They’d started in the kitchen. What had she said to him? Something that made him think instantly, She knows who I really am, she knows what I really feel, she’s fabulous. Why didn’t I see any of this before? Within ten minutes they lost all awareness of what was happening around them—the music, the laughter, the people coming and going in search of ice or chips or more beer.

  The emotional nakedness and physical hunger between them was wonderful and crippling at the same time. He ached for her, wanted to kiss her and take her to bed so badly, and yet he wanted to listen to her, too. He wasn’t simply possessed by a young man’s hormonal imperatives, his whole heart was melting and singing. He had no idea it was possible to feel this way. Had no idea how thoroughly they’d already come to know each other after six years as fellow students. Had no idea how he’d failed to see it coming.

  It was a warm night, summer just started, air fresh and a little salty because they were near the ocean. ‘Want to find somewhere outside?’ he asked her, and she nodded. They sat on some brick steps, knees hunched up, bodies touching. He remembered the sweet smell of flowers. Jasmine, or something. All tangled and lush around the posts and lintel of some wooden white-painted garden arch. It gave them privacy. He kissed her for minutes on end and when he finally pulled away, she smiled into his face and stroked his jaw with her hands, looking at him with a helpless frown on her face as well as the smile, as if, like him, she couldn’t understand how something could simultaneously be so strange and so right.