by Amy Andrews
A sudden image of her riding on the back of his Harley dressed as she was right now, her breasts pushed against his back, stormed his mind and he was rendered temporarily mute. That medication he’d been given was powerful stuff!
‘Oh, no!’
James roused himself at her plaintive cry and tracked her progress with eyes that seemed to be seeing in slow motion only. Her body moved interestingly beneath her silk shirt.
She was kneeling beside the coffee-table, gathering some broken glass from a photo frame, before he registered what had happened.
‘Oh, hell. Sorry. I didn’t realise I’d broken anything. I’ll replace it.’
Helen looked down at the broken glass that had framed a picture of her at fifteen and her father on his Harley. ‘It’s OK,’ she said dismissively, tracing his devil-may-care smile. ‘It’s just glass. I can replace it. I should remove my pictures anyway. I’ve been here by myself for so long I kind of took over.’
‘No, please, don’t.’ He placed a hand on hers. ‘I’m only here temporarily, it would be silly to put them away.’
Helen looked down at his big hand covering hers. Only temporary. Just like the guy in the photo.
James removed his hand and watched the way she touched the picture with a strange kind of loving reverence. ‘Your dad?’
Helen nodded, still staring down at the photo.
‘Is he…?’
She glanced up at him as he trailed off. His hair was sleep-tousled, his wavy fringe flopping across his forehead, and she was pleased that the coffee-table was between them. ‘No. He’s very much alive and roaming some highway somewhere.’
He saw the love in her eyes as she gazed at the picture but heard the bitter note in her voice. Obviously her father aroused intense emotions. It also explained how she knew about Harleys. And maybe it even explained her desire to stay grounded.
‘Anyway,’ she said, becoming aware of his intense gaze and the building silence and belatedly the fact that she was in her pajamas, ‘are you going to be OK?’
He nodded. ‘I’m just going to watch some telly until the painkillers start to take effect.’
Helen rose and backed away, still clutching the frame. She was suddenly acutely aware of her state of undress. How bare her thighs were. How braless she was. How her shirt barely covered her rear. How…interested he seemed.
‘See you in the morning.’ She took a deep breath and turned at the last moment, praying that he wasn’t watching her.
But he was. James caught a brief glimpse of firm cheek as the shirt flared when she whipped around. And leg. A lot of leg. Suddenly his time in Skye had become very interesting indeed.
He was living with someone who was as sexy as hell underneath her ponytailed primness and knew about Harleys.
Suddenly she seemed more and more his type.
CHAPTER THREE
HELEN didn’t dare come out into the main part of the house until she was dressed the next morning. She’d lain awake for an hour, thinking about James’s heated gaze and how liquid heat had pooled low in her belly. She knew that even after a day in his company she was treading on dangerous ground.
She was attracted to him. Not such a bad thing to admit to, she supposed, except for the fact that he was way out of her league. The regular attentions of Skye’s bachelors paled into comparison with one hot look from James. She’d do well to remember he was only there for four months and she’d never had a casual relationship in her life.
When she was dressed she made her way out to the lounge room to find James fast asleep where she’d left him. She stopped in mid-stride and almost tripped. The man was utterly gorgeous. A dark shadow adorned his jaw and his broad chest rose and fell in hypnotic splendour. His jet-black hair lay thick and luscious across his forehead.
His leg was raised on some cushions. His other leg positively exuded testosterone, its well-defined quadriceps and calf muscles complemented by a perfect covering of dark hair. His large bare foot seemed oddly out of place with his sexy he-man image, made him seem vulnerable somehow, and the nurturer in her wanted to go get a blanket and cover him up.
She gave herself a mental shake and ordered herself to stop gawking like a teenager. She turned away and headed for the kitchen. Damn him for lying around her house, looking sexy and vulnerable all at once. She got two slices of bread and jammed them into the toaster. She pushed the lever down harder than required and hoped he had almighty backache this morning. If she had to trip over his barely covered body every morning, it was going to be a long four months!
James awoke slowly. He could hear music and noises coming from the kitchen and the mouthwatering aroma of toast teased his nostrils. He grimaced as he sat up and rubbed the crick in his neck. There was a slight ache in his leg but it was feeling much better than it had last night when his midnight wanderings had disturbed Helen.
A vision of her in her sleep shirt played in his mind again and he smiled to himself. Maybe it had been the medication, maybe it had been seeing a scantily clad Helen in the middle of the night, but something had fuelled some fairly erotic dreams and he felt his loins heat as he recalled the images.
He rose awkwardly, using his crutches for support. He needed a shower. A cold one. But given how logistically impossible that would be, he’d settle for coffee instead. He hoped Helen owned some decent stuff, not some horrible instant brand.
Even on the road he made sure he carried a supply of freshly ground coffee. Life was too short to drink the instant stuff. In fact, that was pretty much his motto for life. Life was short, grab it by the horns and ride it for all it was worth. He’d grown up seeing his parents waste their lives stuck in a situation they hadn’t wanted to be in, and he was damned if he would.
He drank good coffee. He went where he wanted. He followed his own rules. He worked wherever the road took him and kept his relationships short and sweet. And even if his heart did occasionally yearn for something more, he hadn’t been in a place yet or met a woman yet who could ground him. In fact, he seriously doubted either existed.
He swung into the kitchen and stopped in the doorway. Helen was standing at the sink, her back to him, eating toast as she bopped along to a country song playing on the radio. Her head was moving to the beat, her hips were swaying and her feet tapping.
He leant heavily on his crutches for support. She was back in her uniform again, her hair tied back in its prim ponytail, not a hair out of place. But it didn’t stop the leap of interest in his groin or a pang of something he couldn’t quite name hitting him in the chest. He knew she probably had some lacy concoction on under that prim white blouse, knew the contours of her hips from the cling of fabric last night, knew that her bottom cheeks were cute and perky as hell.
She could be the one. James clutched the handles of the crutches harder as the insidious voice invaded his head. Preposterous! Yes, he fancied her. He was a man, for crying out loud, and she was a very attractive woman. But that was it.
For God’s sake, he’d only known her for a day. OK, it had been a tumultuous day. She had, after all, rescued him and his broken leg from the bush, but there was no need to let his imagination get carried away.
The funny feeling he’d got in his chest when he’d looked at her just now was easily explained. It was lust. The tantalising stirrings of sexual attraction. The allure of possibility. And that was all. He was a thirty-five-year-old man. He was in charge of his life—not his hormones.
He cleared his throat. ‘I don’t suppose you have any decent coffee in this neck of the woods?’
Helen jumped. She hadn’t heard him approach. She turned. ‘You nearly gave me a heart attack,’ she said accusingly, talking around her last mouthful of toast.
He grinned. ‘Sorry. I was enjoying the show, though.’
Helen swallowed the remnants of her breakfast. How long had he been standing there? She straightened and gave him a don’t-mess-with-me look. ‘Show’s over.’
He shrugged. ‘I prefer rock music an
yway. Does the local radio station play any of that?’
‘Sure. Country rock.’
James chuckled. ‘About that coffee?’
Helen pointed to the percolator sitting on the bench and the expensive coffee-jar sitting beside it.
James eyes lit up at the unexpected sight of his favourite Italian blend. Helen Franklin may live in outback Queensland but she obviously had style. ‘Ah, a woman who appreciates fine coffee.’
Helen shrugged. ‘Life’s too short to drink bad coffee.’
James gaze caught and held hers as she echoed his sentiment. Living with a gorgeous woman who shared one of life’s most basic truths with him was going to be a bigger challenge to his powers of resistance than he’d first thought. ‘Couldn’t have put it better myself,’ he said softly.
Helen swallowed at the silky quality to his words. His magnetic presence made the small kitchen seem even tinier. ‘Why don’t you go and get dressed?’ For God’s sake, put something on… ‘And I’ll get a pot started.’
James nodded noticing how she clutched her hands together. ‘Deal.’ He grinned and executed a perfect about-turn on his crutches.
They walked the short distance to work in a silence broken only by the crunching of their feet on the pebbles that lined the drive. The day was already hot and James turned his face towards the sun.
‘Here we are,’ Helen said, opening the back door for him and indicating for him to precede her.
James swung in on his crutches into what appeared to be a staffroom and was greeted by a very pregnant freckled redhead.
‘Ah, you must be James. Thank God you’re here,’ Genevieve said, and gave him an enthusiastic hug.
James laughed. It wasn’t often that he was greeted like Santa had dropped him under a tree. ‘You must be Genevieve.’
‘Yes, sorry,’ she said, blushing a pretty shade of pink. ‘Probably not the most appropriate way of saying hello but you are a sight for sore eyes…or feet, as the case may be.’
Helen envied the easy way Genevieve handled herself around James. She felt all tongue-tied just looking at him—there was no way she could have just casually hugged him. Although Genevieve did have a compelling motive so greeting James like he was a long lost-brother seemed entirely appropriate.
‘Well, I aim to please.’ James smiled.
Helen heard the flirty tone to his voice and wanted to roll her eyes. Did the man never switch his charm off? Genevieve was happily married and hugely pregnant.
‘Genevieve’s right,’ said a gruff voice from the doorway. ‘You are a sight for sore eyes.’
James looked up and saw a big bear of a man with a thick bushy beard standing in the doorway. ‘You’re not going to hug me are you?’ he joked.
The man roared laughing. ‘Hardly.’ He walked forward, extending his hand. ‘Frank. Frank Greer. Nice to have you in Skye, James. Are you sure your leg’s up to it?’
‘It aches a little still but work will help to keep my mind off it.’
‘I hope Helen’s been looking after you.’
The image of a silky sleep shirt flared against his retina. He looked at a glowering Helen. ‘Yes, she has. She’s been great.’
Helen glared at Frank. If her boss thought she was going to play doctors and nurses with James Remington, he could think again. ‘In case it has escaped your notice, it is not part of my job to nursemaid every locum that decides to crash his bike and break his leg. Nursemaiding you two is more than enough!’ She glared at James for good measure. Don’t get any fancy ideas.
Frank roared with laughter. ‘You’re right. What would we do without you? She’s marvelous, James, just marvellous.’
Genevieve nodded. ‘She runs this practice like clockwork.’
‘Damn right I do. Best you both remember that at lunch when I intend to ask for a pay rise.’
They laughed and James could feel the easy affection between the three of them as a palpable force.
‘Well I’d love to stand around and chat but I’ve got work to do. Guess I’ll start with the coffee as no one else has done it.’
Helen flicked a reproving glance at her two colleagues. She did love them but would it kill either of them to put the coffee on for once? This was what she got for being indispensable and babying them all these years. She stowed her bag in a cupboard and approached the sink.
‘Come on, James, I’ll show you the ropes,’ Genevieve said, rubbing her belly.
He looked at the mother-to-be and saw the dark circles under her eyes, noted the way she shifted from foot to foot and pushed at her ribs as if she just couldn’t get comfortable. She looked exhausted and it wasn’t even eight in the morning.
‘There’s no need,’ he said. ‘All I need to know is the way to my office. I’ll figure the rest out as I go along. I’ve been a locum for the last five years, I’m used to feeling my way.’ True, each practice was slightly different, but the fundamentals never changed.
‘But—’
‘Really,’ James insisted, moving towards her and pulling out a chair from the table behind her. ‘Sit, you look done in. It’s my fault you had to work a full day yesterday. I think you should just go home and put your feet up. Look after that little one and yourself.’
‘I…’ Genevieve said as she sank into the chair and looked at Frank.
‘It’s more than OK by me.’ Frank nodded.
James saw the flare of hope and longing in her eyes battle with the weight of her responsibilities. ‘Really, I’ll be fine. And Helen will be able to tell me what I need to know. Right, Helen?’
Helen turned to face them. Her conscience battled with her libido. She didn’t want to spend the morning in such close quarters with him and, damn it, she was busy enough without his professional needs to see to. But one look at Genevieve’s weariness and she knew she couldn’t deny him. He’d been sensitive enough to Genevieve’s obvious exhaustion and it’d be churlish of her to ignore it.
She plastered a smile on her face. ‘Sure, absolutely. James is right. Go home. We’ll manage just fine.’
‘It would be nice to…take a load off,’ Genevieve admitted.
‘Well, that’s sorted, then,’ James said, placing a brotherly hand on her arm and easing her up out of the chair. ‘Off with you now. We don’t want to see you around here until you come to show the little guy off.’
‘How do you know it’s going to be a boy?’ she asked.
Helen handed Genevieve her bag. ‘He’s a male. They’re kind of egocentric like that,’ she said dryly.
James’s swift laughter took her breath away. It was deep and sexy and one hundred per cent male. The man was impossible to insult! She watched him and Frank usher Genevieve out of the room and contemplated her day. A traitorous thrill ran through her body. If this was day one, how the hell was she ever going to get through the next four months?
He was right, Helen decided half an hour later. He was a quick study. She’d shown him his office, Frank’s office, the reception area, the treatment rooms, the phone system, the chart system and the storeroom. He’d asked a few intelligent questions and clarified several points, but otherwise had listened and not interrupted.
‘Here’s your appointment book,’ she said as she sat in her chair behind the front desk.
James scanned the bookings. ‘Doesn’t look too intense.’
‘You’re fairly light today because Genevieve’s been taking a reduced patient load. That’ll change by week’s end.’
‘Oh?’
‘Once the town finds out you’re here, we’ll have an influx of patients with all sorts of fictitious conditions, coming to check out the new doctor.’
James laughed. He’d witnessed that phenomenon before. ‘I’ll try not to disappoint them.’
Helen doubted he’d disappoint at all. The man was going to set off a swooning epidemic all over town.
‘So we break at one for lunch?’ he asked, studying the book.
Helen nodded. ‘One till two.’
‘That’ll give me time to go to Alf’s and check on the bike.’
The bike. ‘You’re not going to be able to ride it for a while,’ she pointed out as she tapped a pencil against his cast.
He grimaced. ‘I know. Not quite sure how I’ll take that.
I’ll probably go stir crazy.’
‘Trapped in a small town with no way of escape your worst nightmare?’
He shook his head. ‘Not at all. I just rarely go a day without riding it. I like the sense of freedom it gives me.’
James’s words echoed her father’s in her head. Her very lovable, very charismatic, very absent father. Freedom? It seemed to her he was as shackled as the next person. Always out there looking for something he could never quite find. ‘Are you free or just lost?’
James looked down into her earnest face, her steady green gaze. How did you explain the call of the road to a homebody? But gazing at her, the frission between them pulsing steadily, he wanted her to understand.
‘It’s hard to explain.’
They gazed at each other for a few moments, his turquoise stare meeting unwavering green. ‘Try me.’
The door opened and the first customer of the day stepped inside. Their eye contact held briefly until the patient spoke and then Helen looked away and smiled at one of Frank’s regulars. She felt James’s intense gaze for a few more moments and almost sagged against the desk when he hobbled to his office and shut the door.
James sat at his desk and mulled over the strange conversation. How could he explain something that was so innate? And why was it so damn important that she understand? He was out of Skye in four months and whether Helen Franklin got it or not was neither here nor there. She was just another pretty face in just another small town. And out of bounds at that.
His intercom buzzed and her husky voice announcing his first patient pushed past his resolve and made a mockery of his don’t-give-a-damn attitude.
‘Send them in.’
It was lunchtime before he knew it. He’d seen fifteen patients all with varying conditions who had welcomed him warmly to Skye. His leg ached slightly and he had garnered a lot of sympathy over the course of the morning. He’d even managed to find most things without having to hassle Helen too much.
