‘Understandable. Charles has been pressing your buttons for a while now.’
‘He’s incompetent as a father,’ Zach said. ‘He’s got no idea how to be a role model for that kid. No wonder the boy is running amok. He’s crying out for someone to take notice of him. To show they care about him.’
‘The boy hasn’t been the same since his mother remarried.’
Zach grunted. ‘Yeah, I know.’
The crickets chirruped in the garden below the veranda.
‘What time are you thinking of heading out of town?’ Doug asked.
‘Sixish.’
A stone curlew let out its mournful cry and Popeye lifted his little black head off the faded cushion on the seat beside Zach’s father’s chair, but seeing Zach’s stay signal quickly settled back down again with a little doggy sigh and closed his eyes.
‘How’d the new doctor handle things?’ Doug asked.
‘Better than I thought she would, but it’s still early days.’
His father slanted him a glance. ‘Watch your step, son.’
‘I’m good.’
‘Yeah, that’s we all say. Next thing you know she’ll have your heart in a vice.’
‘Not going to happen.’ Zach opened and closed his fingers where the tingling of Izzy’s touch had lingered far too long. It had taken a truckload of self-control to decline her offer of coffee. Even if she had just been being polite in asking him in, he hadn’t wanted to risk stepping over the boundaries.
His body had other ideas, of course. But he was going to have to tame its urges if he was to get through this next month without giving in to temptation. A fling with her would certainly break the dogged routine he’d slipped into but how would he feel when she packed her bags and drove out of town?
He had to concentrate on his father’s health right now.
That was the priority.
Distractions—even ones as delightfully refreshing and dazzling as Izzy Courtney—would have to wait.
CHAPTER FIVE
IZZY REALISED ON her fourth patient the following morning that a rumour had been circulated about her and Zach Fletcher. Ida Jensen, a seventy-five-year-old farmer’s wife, had come in to have her blood pressure medication renewed, but before Izzy could put the cuff on her arm to check her current reading, the older woman launched into a tirade.
‘In my day a girl wouldn’t dream of sleeping with a man before she was married, especially with a man she’s only just met.’ She pursed her lips in a disapproving manner. ‘I don’t know what the world’s coming to, really I don’t. Everyone having casual flings as if love and commitment mean nothing. It’s shameful, that’s what it is.’
‘I guess not everyone shares the same values these days,’ Izzy said, hoping to prevent an extended moral lecture.
‘I blame the Pill. Girls don’t have to worry about falling pregnant so they just do what they want with whoever they want. That boy needs a wife, not a mistress.’
‘That...er, boy?’
‘Zach Fletcher,’ Ida said. ‘Don’t bother trying to deny it. Everyone knows you’ve got your eye on him, and him not even over the last one. Mind you, they do say you should get back on the horse, don’t they? Never did like that saying. It’s a bit coarse, if you ask me. But I think he needs more time. What if his ex changes her mind and comes out here to see you’re involved with him?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
Ida shifted in her chair like a broody hen settling on a clutch of eggs. ‘Not that anyone could really blame you, of course. No one’s saying he isn’t good looking. Got a nice gentle nature too, when you get to know him.’
Izzy frowned. ‘I’m sorry but I’m not sure where you got the idea that I’m involved with Sergeant Fletcher.’
‘Don’t bother denying it,’ Ida said. ‘I heard it from a very reliable source. Everyone’s talking about it.’
‘Then they can stop talking about it because it’s not true!’ Izzy was fast becoming agitated. ‘Have you asked Sergeant Fletcher about this? I suggest you do so you can hear it from him as well that nothing is going on. This is nothing more than scurrilous gossip.’ And I have a feeling I know who started it.
‘Are you sure it’s not true?’ Ida looked a little uncomfortable.
‘I think I would know who I was or wasn’t sleeping with, don’t you?’ Izzy picked up the blood-pressure cuff. ‘Now, let’s change the subject, otherwise my blood pressure is going to need medication.’
‘What? Don’t you fancy him?’ Ida asked after a moment.
Izzy undid the cuff from the older woman’s arm and wrote the figure in her notes. ‘I see here you’re taking anti-inflammatories for your arthritis. Any trouble with your stomach on that dosage?’
‘Not if I take them with food.’
‘Is there anything else I can help you with?’
The older woman folded her lips together. ‘I hope I haven’t upset you.’
‘Not at all,’ Izzy lied.
‘It’s just we all love Zach so much. We want him to be happy.’
‘I’m sure he appreciates your concern but he’s a big boy and can surely take care of himself.’
‘That’s half the trouble...’ Ida let out a heartfelt sigh. ‘He’s been taking care of himself for too long.’
Izzy stood up to signal the end of the consultation. ‘Make another appointment to see me in a week. I’d like to keep an eye on your blood pressure. It was slightly elevated.’
Just like mine.
* * *
‘Nice work, Fletch,’ Jim Collis said, when Zach came in the next morning for the paper.
Zach didn’t care for the ear-to-ear grin the storekeeper was wearing. ‘What?’
Jim had hooked his thumbs in his belt and tilted backwards on his heels behind the counter. ‘Getting it on with the new doctor. Talk about a fast mover. You want me to stock up on condoms?’
Zach kept his expression closed as he picked up a stock magazine his father enjoyed, as well as the paper. He put them both on the counter and took out his wallet. ‘You should check your sources before you start spreading rumours like that.’
‘You telling me it’s not true?’
‘Even if it was true, I wouldn’t be standing here discussing it.’
‘Charles Redbank seemed pretty convinced you two were getting it on,’ Jim said. ‘Not that anyone would blame you for making a move on her. Be a good way to get that Naomi chick out of your system once and for all.’
Zach ground his molars together. It got under his skin that the whole town saw him as some sort of broken-hearted dude let down by his fiancée. He was over Naomi. It had been a convenient relationship that had worked well for both of them until he’d made the decision to come back to Jerringa Ridge to help his father. Yes, he was a little pissed off she hadn’t wanted to come with him but that was her loss. In time he would find someone to fill her place, but he needed to get his father sorted out first.
‘Anyway, way I see it,’ Jim went on, ‘if you don’t hit on Izzy Courtney then you can bet your bottom dollar some other fella soon will.’ He cleared his throat as the screen door opened. ‘Hi, Dr Courtney, I got that honey and cinnamon yogurt you wanted.’
Zach hitched his hip as he put his wallet in his back pocket before turning to look at her. ‘G’day.’
‘Hello...’ The blush on her cheeks was like the petals of a pink rose. She looked young and fresh, like a model from a fashion magazine. Her simple flowered cotton dress was cinched in at her tiny waist, her legs were bare and her feet in ballet flats. She had a string of pearls around her neck that were a perfect foil for her milk-pure skin. And even with all the other competing smells of the general store he could still pick up her light gardenia scent. It occurred to him to wonder why anyone would wear pearls in the Outback but it was something his mother had done and he knew from experience there was no explaining it.
‘So, I’ll get those condoms in for you, will I, Fletch?’ Jim said with a cheeky grin. �
��Extra-large, wasn’t it?’
The blush on Izzy Courtney’s cheeks intensified. Her eyes slipped out of reach of his and her teeth snagged at her full lower lip. ‘Maybe I’ll come back later...’ She turned and went back out the screen door so quickly it banged loudly on its hinges.
Zach scooped up the paper and the magazine, giving Jim a look that would have cut through steel. ‘You’re a freaking jerk, you know that?’
* * *
Izzy turned at the sound of firm footsteps to find Zach coming towards her. That fluttery sensation she always got when she saw him tickled the floor of her stomach like an ostrich feather held by someone with a tremor. His mouth was tightly set, his expression formidable this time rather than masked. Her earlier blush still hadn’t completely died down but as soon as his eyes met hers she felt it heat up another few degrees.
‘We need to talk.’ He spoke through lips so tight they barely moved.
‘We do?’ She saw his dark frown and continued, ‘Yes, of course we do. Look, it’s fine. It’s just a rumour. It’ll go away when they realise there’s no truth in it.’
‘I’m sorry but this is what happens in small country towns.’
‘I realise that,’ Izzy said. ‘I’ve already had a couple of stern lectures from some of the more conservative elders in the community. It seems that out here it’s still a sin for a woman to have sex before marriage. Funny, but they didn’t mention it being a sin for men. That really annoys me. Why should you men have all the fun?’
His gaze briefly touched her mouth before glancing away to look at something in the distance, his eyes squinting against the brutal sunlight. ‘Not all of us are having as much fun as you think.’
Izzy moistened her suddenly dry lips. ‘How is your father? Did he go with you to Bourke?’
‘Yes.’
‘And how was Damien?’
‘Feeling a bit sorry for himself.’
‘Did his father end up going to see him?’ Izzy brushed a wisp of hair away from her face.
He made a sound that sounded somewhere between a grunt and a laugh. ‘No.’
‘I guess he was too busy spreading rumours back here.’
His brooding frown was a deep V between his brows. ‘I should’ve punched him when I had the chance.’
She studied Zach for a moment. Even without his uniform he still maintained that aura of command and control. She wondered what it would take to get under his skin enough to make him break out of that thick veneer of reserve. There was a quiet intensity about him, as if inside he was bottling up emotions he didn’t want anyone to see. ‘You don’t seem the type of guy to throw the first punch.’
‘Yeah, well, I don’t get paid to pick fights.’ He drew in a breath and released it in a measured way as if he was rebalancing himself. ‘I’d better let you get to work. Have a good one.’
Izzy watched as he strode back to where his car was parked outside the general store. She too let out a long breath, but any hope of rebalancing herself was as likely as a person on crutches trying to ice-skate.
Not going to happen.
* * *
Almost a week went past before Izzy saw Zach again other than from a distance. Although they worked within a half a block of each other, he was on different shifts and she spent most days inside the clinic, other than a couple of house calls she had made out of town. But each time she stepped outside the clinic or her cottage or drove out along any of the roads she mentally prepared herself for running into him.
She had seen him coming out of the general store one evening as she’d been leaving work, but he’d been on the phone and had seemed preoccupied, and hadn’t noticed her at all. For some reason that rankled. It didn’t seem fair that she was suffering heart skips and stomach flips at the mere mention of his name and yet he didn’t even sense her looking at him. Neither did he even glance at the clinic just in case she was coming out.
Izzy still had to field the occasional comment from a patient but she decided that was the price of being part of a small community. You couldn’t sneeze in a town the size of Jerringa Ridge without everyone saying you had flu.
But on Saturday night, just as she was thinking about going to bed, she got a call from Jim Collis, who was down at the pub. ‘Been a bit of trouble down here, Doc,’ he said. ‘Thought you might want to look in on Zach if you’ve got a minute. I reckon he might need a couple of stitches.’
‘What happened?’
‘Couple of the young fellas had too much to drink and got a bit lively. Zach’s down at the station, waiting for the parents to show up. I told him to call you but he said it’s just a bruise. Don’t look like a bruise to me. He’s lucky he didn’t lose an eye, if you ask me.’
‘I’ll head down straight away.’
* * *
Izzy turned up the station just as a middle-aged couple came out with their son. The smell of alcohol was sour in the air as they walked past to bundle him into the car. The mother looked like she had been crying and the father looked angry enough to throw something. The son looked subdued but it was hard to tell if that was the excess alcohol taking effect or whether he’d faced charges.
When she went inside the building Zach was sitting behind the desk with a folded handkerchief held up to his left eye as he wrote some notes down on a sheet of paper. He glanced up and frowned at her. ‘Who called you?’
‘Jim Collis.’
He let out a muffled expletive. ‘He had no right to do that.’ He pushed back from the desk and stood up. ‘It’s nothing. Just a scratch.’
‘Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?’ She held up her doctor’s bag. ‘I’ve come prepared.’
He let out a long breath as if he couldn’t be bothered arguing and led the way out to the small kitchen area out the back. ‘Make it snappy. I need to get home.’
Izzy pushed one of the two chairs towards him. ‘Sit.’
‘Can’t you do it standing up?’
‘I’m not used to doing it standing up...’ A hot blush stormed into her cheeks when she saw the one-eyed glinting look he gave her. ‘I mean...you’re way too tall for me to reach you.’ God,that sounded almost worse!
He sat in the chair with his long legs almost cutting the room in half. She had nowhere to stand other than between them to get close enough to inspect his eye. She was acutely aware of the erotic undertones as his muscled legs bracketed her body. They weren’t touching her at all but she felt the warmth of his thighs like the bars of a radiator. Her mind went crazy with images of him holding her between those powerful thighs, his body pumping into hers, those muscled arms pinning her against the bed, a wall, or some other surface. Scorching heat flowed through her veins even as she slammed the brakes on her wickedly wanton thoughts.
Doctor face. Doctor face. Mentally chanting it was the only way she could get herself back on track. She gently took the wadded handkerchief off his eye to find it bruised and swollen with a split in the skin above his eyebrow that was still oozing blood. ‘You won’t need stitches but you’ll have a nice shiner by morning.’
He grunted. ‘Told you it was nothing.’
Izzy’s leg bumped against his as she reached for some antiseptic in her bag. It was like being touched with a laser—the tingles went right to her core. She schooled her features as she turned back to tend to his cut. Cool and clinical. Cool and clinical. She could do that. She always did that...well; she did when it was anyone other than Zach Fletcher.
She could hear his breathing; it was slow and even, unlike hers, which was shallow and picking up pace as every second passed.
His scent teased her nostrils, making her think of sun-warmed lemons. He had a decent crop of prickly stubble on his jaw. She felt it catch on the sensitive skin on the underside of her wrist as she dabbed at his wound. ‘I’m sorry if this hurts. I’m just cleaning the area before I put on a Steri-strip to hold the edges of the wound together.’
‘Can’t feel a thing.’
She carefully positione
d the Steri-strip over the wound. ‘There. Now, all we need is some ice for that eye. Do you have any in the fridge?’
‘I’ll put some on at home.’
He got to his feet at the same time as she reached to dab at a smear of blood on his cheek. He put his hands on her each of her forearms, presumably to stop her fussing over him, but somehow his fingers slid down to her wrists, wrapping around them like a pair of handcuffs.
Izzy felt her breath screech to a halt as his hooded gaze went to her mouth. The tip of her tongue came out and moistened the sudden dryness of her lips. He was so close she could feel the fronts of his muscle-packed thighs against hers.
He looked at her mouth and her belly did a little somersault as she saw the way his eyes zeroed in on it, as if he was memorising its contours. ‘This is a really dumb idea.’
‘It is? I mean, yes, of course it is,’ Izzy said a little breathlessly. ‘An absolutely crazy thing to do. What were we thinking? Hey, is that a smile? I didn’t think you knew how to.’
‘I’m a little out of practice.’ He brought her even closer, his warm vanilla-and milk-scented breath skating over the surface of her lips. ‘Isn’t there some rule about doctors getting involved with their patients?’
‘I’m not really your doctor. Not officially. I mean I treated you, but I came to see you. You didn’t come to see me. It’s not the same as if you’d made an appointment and paid me to see you. I just saw you as a one-off. A favour, if you like. It’s not even going on the record. All I did was put a Steri-strip on your head. You could have done it yourself.’ She took a much-needed breath. ‘Um...you’re not really going to kiss me, are you?’
His grey-blue eyes smouldered. ‘What do you think?’
Izzy couldn’t think, or at least not once his mouth came down and covered hers. His mouth was firm and warm and tasted of salt and something unexpectedly sinful. His tongue flickered against the seam of her mouth, a teasing come-play-with-me-if-you-dare gesture that made her insides turn to liquid. She opened her mouth and he entered it with a sexy glide of his tongue that made the hairs on her scalp stand up on tiptoe, one by one. He found her tongue with devastating expertise, toying with it, cajoling it into a dance as old as time.
Flirting with the Socialite Doc (Mills & Boon Medical) Page 5
