It was too much. For now, he was here and she could somehow assuage the barrenness of the past. And he could do the same for her.
Nikki nestled her head against Luke’s bare chest. He stirred slightly in his sleep and pulled her closer.
She slept.
Luke woke at dawn. Gently he disengaged himself from Nikki’s arms, but the slight movement woke her. For a moment-just a moment-she wondered where she was, and then the tender memories flooded back. Her hands reached out to hold him to her. He couldn’t leave. Not yet.
‘It’s nearly morning.’ Luke smiled tenderly, leaning over to kiss the smooth skin behind her ear. He entwined a golden curl in his finger and then replaced it reluctantly where it had been lying on the pillow. ‘Do you want your daughter to burst in on her not so respectable mama, Dr Russell?’
Nikki chuckled and her hands tightened. Luke’s chest was broad and muscled and warm. A tremor went through her as the flame started to spread without volition through her naked body. ‘Amy’s a heavy sleeper,’ she whispered. ‘And she’s under strict instructions not to wake Mummy until seven.’
Luke shifted slightly so that he could bring his arm up from under Nikki’s supine form. ‘Give me back my watch, woman,’ he growled. Finally he held it up. ‘Six-fifteen,’ he announced. ‘That gives us forty-five minutes.’
‘Forty-five minutes for what?’ Nikki asked breathlessly. She knew, but to ask was heaven.
‘If you don’t know, then I’m not the man to tell you,’ Luke told her sternly. He moved to pull his body up and over her. The flame in Nikki’s thighs was building to an inferno.
‘You…you won’t tell me?’ she managed.
‘Lady, what use is talking?’ he muttered. He leaned down to take first one nipple and then the other between his strong teeth. It was all Nikki could do to stop herself crying aloud. ‘What use is telling, when I can show you?’
CHAPTER EIGHT
LUKE left her with five minutes to spare.
Luckily Amy chose this morning to sleep late, so Nikki was able to shower and pull her disordered mind back into some sort of control before her daughter and their visitor burst in.
‘Luke’s in the swimming-pool,’ Amy informed her. ‘Beattie says we can swim too, but will you come as well?’ Then she frowned at her mother. ‘You look different.’
‘I wore this dress a couple of days ago,’ Nikki said self-consciously. It was one that Charlotte had sent. ‘Don’t you like it?’
‘I remember. It’s a pretty dress,’ Amy agreed. She eyed her mother up and down. ‘It’s not that that’s different. It’s…’ She stopped. ‘I don’t know what it is.’
‘Your mum’s smiley,’ Karen announced suddenly. ‘She’s not usually smiley.’
‘Well, I hope your mum’s smiley today too,’ Nikki said softly, stooping to give Karen a swift hug. The hug did more than show affection to the little girl. It also enabled Nikki to hide her mounting colour. ‘She’s coming to see you today, and maybe she’ll take you for a walk to show you your new house.’
‘Will I go back home today?’
‘We’ll get you moved into your new house first,’ Nikki promised. ‘Karen, it might be a week or two before your mum’s got things under control. Do you think you can put up with us for that long?’
Karen nodded solemnly. ‘I like it here,’ she said seriously. ‘And if you think Mum needs a rest…’
‘I think you both need a rest,’ Nikki told her. ‘When your arm’s a bit better and you can go back to being your mum’s best helper then we’ll send you home so fast we won’t see you for dust. Faster than a speeding bullet…’
‘Faster even than Superman…’ Amy giggled. ‘I like having Karen here. Mummy, are you coming swimming with Luke?’
Nikki shook her head. ‘No.’ She dared not. The thought of Luke in the swimming-pool…The thought of Luke anywhere at all was enough to turn her knees to water. She needed strong black coffee and some distance between them. ‘You girls go,’ she ordered.
‘But Luke’s waiting!’
‘Let him wait!’
Once again they breakfasted by the side of the pool. Whispering Palms was transformed, Nikki thought fleetingly as the children’s laughter sounded across the water. Beattie was beaming and affable. She kept looking from Luke to Nikki and back again, and Nikki knew exactly what was in her mind.
‘You need to find yourself a nice new man,’ Beattie had told Nikki over and over again, and now, seemingly, one had found her cherished Dr Nikki. And such a nice young man! Beattie handed out extra pancakes and her smile broadened.
‘Are you staying home to study all day?’ Beattie asked Nikki, refilling her coffee-cup, and Nikki nodded.
‘Though I’ll have to go in to the hospital first,’ she told the housekeeper. She was carefully avoiding Luke’s eyes. ‘I need to check Mrs McDonald.’
‘I can do that,’ Luke told her lazily.
‘No.’ Nikki flushed and stared intently at her cup of coffee. ‘Lara’s my midwifery patient and I should see her.’
‘Suits me.’ To her surprise Luke didn’t argue. He pushed back his chair. ‘Thanks for breakfast, Beattie.’ He lifted his brows at Nikki. ‘Coming, then?’
He could as well have kissed her. His eyes smiled at Nikki as he moved to help her rise and she felt herself flush to the core of her being. She felt beautiful and desirable and…and loved. Oh, if only she were…
There was a minor hiccup. Luke had been using Nikki’s car and Beattie needed the house car to take the girls to school and kindergarten. ‘It’s no problem,’ Luke told her as Nikki voiced doubts. ‘I’ll drop you back after the hospital rounds. You’ll still be home in time for enough study to suit your rigid requirements.’ Nikki looked up at him suspiciously but he wasn’t laughing. He wouldn’t laugh at her, she thought suddenly. He’d laugh with her maybe, but not at her.
They found Lara McDonald perched up in bed eyeing her breakfast dubiously. ‘Do you think I should?’ she asked as Nikki and Luke entered.
Luke grinned. ‘I don’t see why not, do you, Dr Russell?’
‘Not too much,’ Nikki advised. She crossed to the bed. ‘Feeling better, then?’
‘A hundred per cent.’ Mrs McDonald took a deep breath. ‘You know, maybe some of the pain was just fear. I thought the baby was coming and it got worse.’
‘It happens.’ Nikki lifted the chart and smiled at what she saw. ‘Everything’s fine, then. I see no reason why your husband can’t take you home this afternoon. Stay until after lunch, though. We’ll see. how your tummy responds to breakfast first.’
‘He won’t want me home.’ The woman smiled shyly. ‘He cossets me that much! If he had his way I’d stay in hospital for the next two months.’ She sighed. ‘I can’t blame him. This baby means so much to both of us.’
‘I know,’ Nikki said gently.
‘Well, maybe you don’t,’ the woman said. ‘You had your baby young, if I remember right. My husband and I, though-well, we’ve been trying for ten years. Ten years is a lot of time to be without a baby when you really want one.’ She bit her lip. ‘I don’t know how people cope when they can’t have children. I think…I think I might have gone mad.’
‘Or maybe you would have found the strength to cope,’ Nikki said gently, trying hard not to look up at Luke. ‘There’s more to life than having children.’
‘You say that, but then you have your daughter,’ Lara said firmly. ‘And maybe I’ll say that when I’ve got my brood safely round me. But not until then.’
A slight sound made Nikki turn. Luke had quietly left while the woman talked, closing the door behind him.
‘Oh,’ the woman in the bed said. ‘He’s gone. I guess he’s in a hurry and I was wasting your time with my small talk.’ She looked up at Nikki. ‘Such a nice man,’ she smiled.
‘Yes,’ said Nikki dully. ‘Such a nice man.’
There was little else for Nikki to do. All the other patients in the hospital had been handed
over to Luke. She spent ten minutes in the office going through correspondence and then made her way back out to the car. Luke appeared fifteen minutes later.
‘There should be a taxi service in this town,’ Nikki said lightly as he lowered himself into the car beside her. For once, Luke’s face was set and grim. Nikki turned away, not wanting to see the etching of pain in the lines around his eyes.
’It’s no problem to drive you back.’
’No. But it’ll make you late for surgery.’
’Will you dock my pay if I’m late?’ Luke demanded, and Nikki swung back towards him, surprised by the intensity of his tone.
’Don’t be daft.’
He laughed without humour. ‘It’s happened before. Being a locum is the pits.’
‘So why do you do it?’
Luke’s mouth tightened even further. He swung the little car out of the car park and was silent for the rest of the drive home.
That was the last time they talked for the day. Back at Whispering Palms, Nikki left the car without a word. For the life of her she couldn’t think of a thing to say. Tackle what’s really wrong, her medical training told her. Probe the hurt. And yet…And yet this was the man she loved and she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t hurt him further.
She spent the rest of the day desultorily studying, but to her surprise she achieved a lot. ‘I’m in danger of passing this blasted exam,’ she told her reflection as she dressed for dinner. ‘Which makes Luke Marriott’s arrival well worth while.’
The thought held no comfort at all. Nikki stared bleakly at her reflection and then turned away. What on earth was happening to her nice ordered life? She had no idea.
Luke wasn’t in his customary position in the kitchen when she appeared. Beattie shook her head disapprovingly at Nikki’s questioning look. ‘He won’t be in,’ she said tightly. ‘Rang and said he had a case out the other side of town. It’s only Verity Birchip. I told him if he spent his life running all the way out to Birchips for every one of Verity’s imaginary ills he’d have his work cut out for him, but he wouldn’t listen. Said he’d grab something to eat in town and be home late.’
‘Maybe there really is something wrong with Verity,’ Nikki said mildly.
‘That’ll be the day,’ Beattie snorted. ‘You mark my words-Verity Birchip’ll go to her grave swearing she has something the medical textbooks haven’t even heard of and demanding to know why the heck the doctors are worrying about her dying of old age when she’s got something far more interesting.’
Nikki managed a chuckle and Beattie looked at her closely.
‘What’s the matter, then, lass?’
‘Nothing.’ Nikki crossed to the cutlery drawer to avoid Beattie’s penetrating gaze.
‘Something is. And it wouldn’t be why Dr Luke had suddenly decided to spend tonight out, would it?’
‘Beattie Gilchrist, you’re out of line!’
‘You’d say that to your own mother.’ Beattie crossed her arms and fixed Nikki with a look. ‘And it’s your substitute mother talking now. Nikki Russell, if you play your cards right-’
‘Beattie, be quiet.’ Nikki clapped her hands on her ears and glared at her housekeeper. If only Beattie knew that Nikki was playing every card she had-and it wasn’t going to be enough.
There was a long silence, and then, thankfully, the door burst open and two small girls tore in.
‘We’re starving,’ Amy said breathlessly. ‘Mummy, where’s Dr Luke?’
‘He’s out on a call,’ Nikki told her abruptly, stooping to kiss her small daughter. She smiled down at Karen. ‘How was your day, Karen?’
‘Good,’ the little girl said seriously. She appeared to consider the question. ‘Mummy picked me up after school and took me around to see the house she’s been offered. We think…’ Despite her solemn tone the child’s face suddenly twisted into a smile. ‘We think it will be satisfactory. It has one bedroom for Mummy, one for the girls, one for the boys and…and one left over. And it’s nice! It’s even got an inside toilet!’
‘That’s great.’ Nikki swooped to give Karen a hard hug. ‘And when does Mummy think she might be able to move?’
‘The lady at the hospital has offered to look after the littlies.’ Karen was back to being solemn-an eight-year-old matron. ‘Mummy says it will take her a week to have everything sorted out. She said if I was able to help she’d be much faster, and she really misses me.’ Karen looked up anxiously. ‘She said she’s really sorry she hurt me. She said she was so worried she went a bit crazy, but you and Dr Luke are fixing it up so she’ll never get like that again. She cried, and she hugged me and…I…I don’t think she’ll do it again.’ ‘I don’t think she will either,’ Nikki told her, with a small rush of relief. Sandra was talking to her child. The lines of communication were open and, by the sound of it, Karen still considered them friends. Sandra was still only twenty-two and her relationship with her daughter might always be more one of friendship than mother-daughter-but then, that was OK too.
’Can I go home when she’s moved in?’
’Of course you can, sweetheart,’ Nikki assured her, and made herself a promise to contact Sandra the next day. By the look of things the situation was improving rapidly, but it needed to.
It was a long night. Nikki read the girls to sleep, and then went back to her study. Every time a car came up the road she let her book fall as she listened, but it was close to midnight when Luke finally came home. Nikki listened to the brisk tread of steps along the hall and then his bedroom door closing firmly behind him.
She was being shut out. Whatever intimacy had existed between them last night had ceased to exist now.
She prepared herself for bed and climbed between cool sheets in her lonely bed. Last night Luke had been here. Last night…The memory of him was all around her and he was so close…
The night was hot. Above her head the wooden ceiling fan lazily stirred the air but it wasn’t enough. Nikki tossed and turned as she struggled for sleep, but it wasn’t forthcoming.
Finally she could bear it no longer. She slipped out of bed and padded along the bare wooden boards of the hall. Her naked feet made no sound.
There was a light shining underneath Luke’s door. Nikki hesitated for a moment and then, taking a deep breath, softly knocked.
Silence. Had he gone to sleep with the light on? Then, as she turned reluctantly away, afraid to go further, the door opened inwards.
Luke was still fully clothed. He had been working. The desk behind him was strewn with papers, and a pen had been tossed hastily aside. All this Nikki saw before Luke moved to block her view.
‘What is it?’ he asked abruptly, and Nikki flinched.
‘I…I couldn’t sleep.’
He looked down at her for a long moment, his eyes inscrutable as he took in her slim form scantily clad in her wispy cotton nightdress. ‘I dare say you have sleeping-tablets in your bag,’ he said roughly at last.
Nikki drew in her breath. ‘I don’t need a sleepingtablet,’ she managed angrily. ‘I need to talk.’
‘What about?’
‘Luke Marriott, what the hell is going on?’ Despite her struggle for dignity and control, Nikki’s voice rose. Her words echoed down the darkened corridor and instinctively she looked towards the door behind which the children slept. ‘Luke, can I come in?’
‘No.’
‘Why the hell not?’ Suddenly Nikki’s fragile hold on her temper snapped. ‘What are you playing at? Last night you treated me as the most desirable woman you knew and tonight…tonight you don’t even want to talk to me. What have I done to deserve being treated like a one-night stand?’
Her voice was a whisper, intense, angry and wavering. To her fury she felt hot tears slip down her cheeks, and she brushed them away angrily with her hand.
Behind them she heard the sound of a child stir in her sleep and cough. Nikki winced. Luke stood before her, implacable and immovable. Remote.
‘Damn you, Luke Marriott,’
she whispered brokenly, and turned away.
He moved then. In two swift strides he caught her, seized her shoulders and swung her round to face him.
Away from the light of the open door Nikki couldn’t make out his expression. Not that she looked. She was aware that her body was trembling as she tried to stay rigid in his grasp.
‘Hell,’ he muttered savagely.
‘It is,’ Nikki whispered. ‘Maybe you’d better let me go, Luke.’
‘Nikki…’
The child coughed again and Luke swore. Seizing Nikki’s hand, he pulled her forward into his bedroom and closed the door behind him.
Silence stretched out between them. Within the small room, Luke released her. Nikki stood numbly against the closed door, her hand idly rubbing her arm. There would be bruising there where he had pulled her.
‘God, Nikki, I’m sorry.’
The words were wrung from him. Nikki looked up at him, her eyes dull and heavy. ‘For making love to me?’ she asked flatly.
‘I never meant to.’
‘No.’ She kept rubbing her arm as if by doing so she could assuage some of the hurt in her heart. ‘I don’t suppose you did. Charlotte said…’
‘Charlotte?’
‘My friend in Cairns. She said you couldn’t help yourself where…where women were concerned.’
‘God, Nikki, last night was different.’ He turned away, his voice agonised. ‘I’d say that anyway, wouldn’t I?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s the truth.’ He turned back to her and- grasped her shoulders. ‘It’s the truth but it still can’t make a difference to the final outcome. The truth is that I was mad. I forgot…I don’t want you, Nikki. I don’t want a woman. Not now. Not ever.’
‘That’s not how it felt last night.’
‘No. But last night…last night I was crazy. Just for a little…’
‘You forgot that you can’t father a child?’ Nikki took a deep breath. ‘Is that what it is, Luke?’
‘No. Yes.’ He thrust her back from him. ‘God, Nikki, you’re so lovely. You stand there and all I want to do is make love to you and…’
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