Bride at Bay Hospital

by Meredith Webber

  ‘Meg, you’re killing me!’

  She smiled in triumph, although he’d cried surrender only seconds before she gave in to need herself.

  Turning, she lay back on the sand, drawing Sam on top of her, drawing him into her, needing him to fill all the aching, lonely places she’d carried inside her for so long.

  But Sam still held his nerve, teasing her beyond endurance, bringing her to a shuddering climax, before he finally gave in and joined her with a whoop of conquest that must have rung through the ancient forest like an echo from primeval times.

  ‘Oh, dear!’

  Meg wasn’t sure she’d said the words aloud until Sam shifted, swinging her in his arms so she lay on top of him, and his eyes, the reflected blue of the sky, asked for an explanation.

  ‘Oh, dear?’ he repeated, when she didn’t answer.

  She smiled at him then hid her face on his shoulder.

  ‘Oh, dear, how did that happen? Oh, dear, I didn’t know it could be that good? Oh, dear, it’s a long time since I’ve had sex? Oh, dear, what have we done?’

  She offered all possibilities, the words muffled against his skin, but didn’t voice the real concern—oh, dear, what happens now?

  One hand grasped her chin and tilted her face so he could look at her when he spoke.

  Or had it been so she could see his smile? The kind of satisfied smile her cat gave her when he’d eaten the steak she’d put out for dinner, although as he looked at her she saw the smile change and remembered.

  ‘It happened because you needed to be held—and maybe I did, too,’ he said carefully. ‘Because sometimes pain can only be washed away by the expression of love, Meg—by giving and receiving pleasure in the way we’ve just done.’

  He drew her close again and she rested with her head against the crook of his neck, her lips pressing grateful kisses on his skin. Then, a little later, he eased away and cupped his hands around her face.

  ‘As to the rest of your questions, my sweet, I’m pleased about the second one—naturally,’ he said, the smile growing even more delighted. ‘And I’m sorry I wasn’t around to help you with the third.’

  His arm tightened around her and he drew her close.

  ‘As to the “what have we done?”—we’ve made love, Megan, just as we intended doing thirteen years ago. And do you know what?’

  His eyebrows arched with the question but he didn’t give her time to answer it.

  ‘It was every bit as good as I thought it would be—no, that’s wrong. In my callow youth there was no way I could have imagined sex could be that great.’

  ‘Made love’— ‘sex could be that great!’ The two phrases didn’t quite jell.

  But he was holding her close again. She was in Sam’s arms—and for a little while at least she wasn’t going to think about anything else.

  Until he said, ‘The medical bills? They left you with debts? Is that why Libby’s underwear is a saving?’

  She straightened up and shifted so she could look at his face.

  Which told her nothing.

  ‘Why are you asking?’

  ‘I could pay them off.’

  It was so absolutely out of left field she couldn’t speak. Couldn’t think! But she did know there was something very wrong.

  She escaped his arm, sat up on the beach and looked down at him.

  ‘You can what?’

  He frowned at her, but as his gaze drifted from her face she realised she was naked and he was looking at her breasts, pink from his attentions and the heat of love-making—or sex, or whatever! She stood up, grabbed his discarded shirt and wrapped it around her body.

  ‘Pay them off. I’ve plenty of money.’ His voice seemed to come from a long way off, and she knew he was thinking more of sex than his answer, but that didn’t make his offer—or the timing of it—any better.

  ‘I don’t need payment!’ she told him, and she stalked away, grabbing at her uniform, still damp but wearable, and hurrying towards the trees.

  Stupid, she knew, that she should be embarrassed by Sam seeing her body—particularly after what had just occurred, but her thoughts were flapping around like the wings of an injured bird, while her treacherous body had actually responded to Sam’s hungry glance.

  She pulled her uniform over her head and marched back down the beach to find her underwear, though she doubted whether the flimsy garments had survived their fevered treatment.

  Sam was swimming—far out in the lake—naked, apparently, for his jocks were lying on the sand.

  Her bra was in one piece, but the lacy thong had snapped one ribbon so she shoved the lot into her pocket and glared out at the swimmer, wondering why his offer had upset her so much.

  Because it was Sam taking control again? You’ve got a problem, I’ll fix it?

  Had he always been the same?

  She couldn’t remember him controlling her life, but he’d certainly exerted rigid control over his—determined to prove himself at whatever he took on, determined to be the best.

  But now? They were mature adults, with all the baggage that entailed. She with a broken marriage and a dead baby behind her—her debts now paid off but the dream still to be funded.

  He with—heaven only knew.

  He’d turned and was swimming back towards her, cutting the water with long, clean strokes, the Sam of her past morphing into the man who’d made her body tingle, throb, burn and exult—all in the space of minutes.

  He stood up and marched out of the water—totally unembarrassed, not hiding his nakedness as she had done. Her eyes feasted on him, taking in the muscle beneath the tanned skin, taking in the paler skin above his thighs—taking in Sam in all his naked glory.

  And her body tingled, throbbed and burned all over again so it was only the beat of the returning helicopter’s rotors that stopped her casting herself into his arms, apologising incoherently for making things go wrong again between them and begging him to put them right.

  With sex!

  Was that all it would be?

  He was pulling on his jocks, as silent as the lake itself, then he straightened and acknowledged her presence with a nod.

  ‘Put my shirt on over your uniform,’ he said carefully. ‘The material’s still too wet to hide much!’

  Meg bent and picked up the wet, dirty shirt and with trembling fingers wrapped it around her body, then he was there behind her, taking the shirt, holding it so she could slide her arms into it.

  Holding her…

  She had to say something, but words wouldn’t come, and now the helicopter was so close they had to move into the trees, she towards the closest grove, he back to where they’d taken off their clothes earlier.

  The noise had made speech impossible, even if Sam had been able to think of something to say. Heaven had been in his arms and while his common sense might scoff at such a smarmy thought, that’s how he had felt, lying on the beach, holding Meg.

  Then out of his mouth had come words that he’d meant as—not payment definitely. Just something to help her out. Some kind of…

  Reward?

  Wasn’t that as bad as payment?

  Hell, he had no idea what he’d meant except to help her—to do anything he could for her because…

  Because he loved her?

  What did he know about love? He who had guarded himself against all emotion, knowing it weakened resolve and led to vulnerability?

  No, love was nonsense.

  He pulled on his trousers, gathered up his shoes and both sets of overalls, watching the sand churn up as the helicopter landed, watching Meg run from the trees as the rotors slowed and Simon opened the door.

  She didn’t put on a helmet so he couldn’t ask her on the flight, and once back at the hospital she disappeared inside so quickly he didn’t know where to look for her. Not in her office, because he had to pass it to get to his and hers was definitely empty.

  ‘Oh, dear, you’ve lost your shirt.’

  Sally’s response to his naked ch
est made him smile, but it also reminded him he hadn’t brought any spare clothes to the hospital.

  ‘Can you find a scrub suit for me—just a top will do—and is there somewhere I can shower? I had a swim while we were waiting for the helicopter to come back and although it was fresh water, my feet are sandy.’

  She led the way to the medical staff locker rooms—part of the hospital he’d missed in the guided tour—then returned seconds later with one of the flimsy blue tops staff wore in the operating theatre or when doing messy jobs. She opened a cabinet to show him where clean towels were kept, then left.

  Was Meg showering in the nurses’ locker room? he wondered as he stood under the streaming warm water, seeing not his own body but her pale curves and long shapely legs. His body stirred again and he knew he had to make things right between them. Right enough for what had happened on the beach to be the start of something, not the end.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘I’M TAKING you out to dinner tonight. We need to talk.’

  Meg, showered and clad in clean jeans and a T-shirt which were the only spare clothes in her locker, looked up at the belligerent man who stood just inside her doorway. The blue scrub shirt, like the sky had earlier, made his eyes seem bluer, a distracting thought she really didn’t need right now.

  Especially as her body warmed with remembered love-making—remembered delights she didn’t want to think about.

  But she supposed they did have to talk if they were to continue working together in anything other than a state of tense truce. They could hardly ignore what had happened between them that afternoon. Though that didn’t mean she had to take orders from him.

  ‘You could ask nicely,’ she suggested, and saw anger spark in his eyes before he realised just how his demand had sounded.

  Then he smiled.

  ‘OK,’ he agreed. ‘Please, Meg, will you have dinner with me tonight? Where’s a good place to eat? What about Lumiere? Is it still operating down by the beach?’

  She hid her own smile as she said, ‘That would have worked better if you’d waited for my answer before asking about venues but, yes, Lumiere is still operating and still serving the best food in town.’

  ‘Get taken there a lot, do you?’ he said, and although he smiled to pretend he was just teasing, Meg wasn’t sure.

  She wasn’t sure about anything right now.

  He couldn’t possibly be jealous—so why say it?

  She couldn’t ask because he’d disappeared again, so she contented herself with a low growl of dissatisfaction at the whole situation.

  Back to work! She lifted the phone and rang the regional hospital to enquire about the patients from the island. The third man, Ian Thomson, was being prepared for an airlift to Brisbane, the local surgeons doubting they could save his arm, but Joe was currently in Theatre and the big man, Harold Harvey, transported there by ambulance at his own insistence after being examined at the Bay, was resting, though not, the nurse told Meg, quietly.

  ‘Glad he’s yours, not mine,’ Meg said to her, and the man on the other end of the phone chuckled.

  She tried to concentrate on the letters and files that had piled up in her absence. Wednesday was the one day of the week she always spent on office work, and even on Wednesdays when she hadn’t been called for rescue duty, she rarely finished all she had to do on time. So it was close to seven when Sam gave a perfunctory knock and came in.

  ‘We’re going out to dinner,’ he reminded her.

  She was nearly finished the next fortnight’s rosters so she nodded without looking up.

  ‘Your car’s not in the car park.’

  ‘My car wouldn’t start so I walked to work.’

  ‘You could have asked me for a lift.’

  Meg lifted her head and looked at him. The physical pleasure they’d shared should have brought them closer—or at least eased the quivering sexual tension that had been simmering between them. But that part, as far as Meg was concerned, had grown stronger. She wanted to fling herself into his arms and stay there for ever.

  As for being closer—as friends or colleagues—somehow they’d mucked that up again!

  ‘I often walk, Sam. It’s no big deal.’

  She spoke gently, not wanting to make things worse, but couldn’t tell from his closed expression what he was feeling.

  ‘I’ll drive you home.’ Hardly a gracious offer, but one she was about to accept when he added, ‘You do want to go home, don’t you?’

  There was a growl hidden in the words but before she could ask what on earth was wrong he added, ‘Maybe put on some underwear.’

  She glanced down to see the two bumps of her nipples showing through the T-shirt, but refused to let her embarrassment show.

  Refused also to get into another argument with him.

  ‘Go away, Sam, and let me finish this. I’ll be ready in fifteen minutes. And I’ll put on more than underwear,’ she muttered to herself. So far he’d seen her in her unflattering uniform, her daggy old shorts, covered in blood—

  She’d show him!

  Lumiere was nestled at the base of the steep slope that rose up from the beach to form the next bluff along from the Point where Sam and Meg lived. He had walked past it often enough to know the outside tables were nestled beneath pandanus palms on thick grass that spread right to the edge of the sand. With the moon still pretty full, and a clear cloudless sky, he’d asked for one of these tables, thinking at least the setting would be romantic, even if his proposal wasn’t.

  Not that Meg would expect romance. She was as practical as he was. But practical or not, the idea was generating a modicum of excitement in his belly as he walked next door to collect his ‘date’.

  Weird, this, when he’d always walked the other way before…

  The side door was open and he called out her name then wandered in, seeing familiar Anstey furniture in what had been his home.

  Finding it didn’t look out of place.

  ‘I’ll be a minute,’ Meg said, slipping from the bathroom to the front bedroom that had always been his mother’s. But it wasn’t his mother he was thinking of, it was Meg, and the body he knew lay beneath the red robe she had wrapped around it.

  Sex before dinner?

  It needn’t take long.

  He was considering following her into the bedroom when she reappeared, wearing what he supposed could be called a dress, though it showed far more of Meg than it covered.

  ‘Zip me up, would you, Sam?’ she said, turning her back to him so he could get to a minuscule zip that pulled the dress together across her buttocks but left most of the rest of her back bare.

  And pearly white against the dull sheen of the fabric.

  Translucent white.

  No bra.

  His breathing had hitched somewhere deep in his lungs, and he grabbed a gulp of air before leaning forward to press a kiss against that bare, pearly whiteness.

  ‘And another catch here,’ she was saying, her hands holding her hair away from her neck and at the same time poking two pieces of fabric towards him.

  He forgot the kiss and forced his glazed eyes to find the tiny hooks and eyes that would hold this creation together at the top. But no sooner had he achieved this miracle than she waltzed away, returning a minute later with her feet thrust into strappy black sandals with heels high enough to make a diving board.

  ‘OK?’ she said, not asking for a comment on how she looked but rather suggesting they should go.

  He didn’t answer, simply staring at her, unable to believe that this was Meg.

  His Meg.

  By heaven, she’d better be his, because, there was no way he could cope if she was anyone else’s.

  ‘You look beautiful,’ he said when her fine eyebrows had gathered in a puzzled frown at his lack of movement.

  ‘Surprised, Sam?’ she teased, though he could see a glow of colour in her cheeks. ‘Didn’t you ever read the story about the ugly duckling turning into a swan?’

  ‘You wer
e never an ugly duckling,’ he argued, still drinking in the slim but shapely figure in the scrap of black fabric, the swell and shadow of cleavage in the deep V of the neckline—her breasts apparently held up by magical sky-hooks. Tiny waist then the legs that stretched from a skirt apparently made up of black handkerchiefs, caught here and there by a corner, so the hemline was a series of points and the white legs flashed between them whenever she moved.

  ‘Shall we go?’

  Had he stood staring for too long that she felt she had to ask? He gathered his wits as best he could, looked at her shoes and said, ‘I’d thought we’d walk but maybe I’ll get the car.’

  ‘No way. I can walk in these. They’re just sandals with a bit of height.’

  She leaned over the armchair and picked up a tiny handbag and a long length of fabric that seemed to have been sewn with precious stones. She threw it carelessly around her shoulders and he saw it was a fine shawl with a peacock pattern on it, the peacock feathers picked out in the flashing stones.

  ‘You’re beautiful,’ he said again, aware it was getting a bit repetitive but unable to hold back the words.

  This time she accepted the compliment with a gracious smile and led the way out the door, but as Sam followed he began to worry, began to be less confident that getting Meg’s agreement to the idea he’d had—there on the beach beside the lake—just might not be the cakewalk he’d assumed it would be.

  The satisfaction that she’d stunned Sam with her ‘dressed-up’ look kept Meg quietly amused for the first part of their walk along the Esplanade. He’d seen her at her very worst earlier today, wringing wet and wearing his dirty shirt, so pride had insisted she go all out tonight. The dress was one she’d picked up in a ‘second time around’ shop to wear to a formal function years ago, and she knew she always looked good in it.

  But as they made their way down the road that led to the beach and the restaurant, she began to wonder if it had been such a good idea. Sam responded to her polite attempts at conversation, but it was obvious his mind was elsewhere, though not, she thought, on the sexual tension that still sizzled in the air between them.