‘If you’re a stranger to these roads you need to take extra care,’ he said, ‘especially during a sudden storm like this.’
‘Did you even hear what I said?’ Fran asked, still glaring at him.
He strode over to his bike and, throwing one leg over, kicked down the stand, before starting the engine with a throaty roar. ‘Sorry I can’t hang about and discuss the weather with you but I need to be somewhere. See you around.’
Fran narrowed her eyes as she tried to memorise his registration number through the pouring rain, still fuming as he drove off towards town without so much as a wave. She stomped or rather limped back to her car, dripping wet and steaming with anger. She sat behind the wheel for a minute or two as she waited for the downpour to ease. She thought about calling Caro on her mobile but decided against it. There was no point worrying her sister when it would only take a few extra minutes to drive back to town and file a dangerous driving complaint. In any case Caro thought she was going to stop for a coffee, which would have taken much the same amount of time.
The police station was just down from the general store and like many country stations it had previously been a weather-board cottage built by one of the early pioneers. The front entrance led to a small reception area currently attended by a young constable who looked to Fran as if he should have still been at school. She suddenly felt every one of her twenty-nine years as she approached the desk.
‘Can I help you?’ the young ginger-haired and freckled constable asked with a helpful smile.
Fran tucked a wet tendril of hair behind her right ear. ‘I would like to make a complaint about a dangerous driver,’ she said. ‘He almost caused a serious accident just out of town.’
The constable reached for an official-looking form. ‘Right,’ he said, unclicking his pen. ‘Can you describe the vehicle?’
‘Yes, it was a motorbike,’ she answered.
‘Would you happen to know the make?’
Fran rolled her lips together. ‘Um…no, but it was black and silver…I mean…er…chrome.’
The young man stopped scribbling to look up at her. ‘What about the registration number? Did you happen to see that?’
Fran frowned as she tried to remember. ‘I should have written it down. I’ll remember it in a moment…Let me see…there was a V in it, I think, or it might have been a W. It was raining so hard I couldn’t really see the numbers but there was a six in there somewhere…’ Her frown deepened. ‘Actually, it could have been a nine.’
‘What about the driver?’ the constable asked with a deadpan face. ‘Did he stop?’
‘Yes, he did,’ she said with a huffy look as she crossed her arms over her chest. ‘He made a paltry apology and got back on his bike and drove off towards town.’
‘So you weren’t hurt or your car damaged or anything?’ he asked with the same deadpan expression.
‘No, but that’s not the point,’ Fran said. ‘This town is currently without a doctor. Can you imagine what would have happened if there had been a collision?’
The constable nodded grimly and resumed his scribbling. ‘I’ll file a report to see if we can find this guy and issue him with a warning,’ he said, and then, looking up again, asked, ‘Would you be able to recognise him if you saw him again?’
Fran chewed at her lip. ‘We-ll…he was sort of covered…you know…in black leather, all over, boots and all. He didn’t take his helmet off, he just lifted the visor, but I would definitely recognise his eyes again.’
The constable lifted his gingery brows. ‘What colour were they?’
Fran unfolded her arms. ‘Blue,’ she said with authority in her tone. ‘An icy shade of blue. Sort of like the underside of a glacier. But they had a darker blue around the edges.’
There was a strange little silence.
‘Is there something wrong?’ she asked.
The young constable’s eyes contained a hint of amusement. ‘Maybe I should get my superior, Sergeant Hawke, to deal with this,’ he said, clearly trying his best not to crack a smile.
Fran pursed her lips. ‘I would definitely like to speak to him if he can do something about this irresponsible motorcyclist who is putting innocent people’s lives at risk with his inconsiderate behaviour. Is he here now?’
The constable cleared his throat in a manner that suggested he was trying to disguise a chuckle. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘He came in a few minutes ago.’ He reached for an intercom button on the reception desk and leaned forward to speak into it. ‘Sarg? There’s a young lady here to see you.’ After a moment he looked up at Fran and asked, ‘Er…your name, miss?’
Fran flicked her long wet hair back behind her shoulders. ‘It’s not Miss, it’s Doctor, actually,’ she said, only because it was true in theory and on paper, if not currently in practice. ‘Dr Frances Nin.’
The constable relayed the information to his superior and then got to his feet to direct Fran to the door down the narrow hall, still with that hint of a smile lurking about his too-young-to-be-taken-seriously-as-a-cop mouth. ‘Sergeant Jacob Hawke will see you now.’
As Fran made her way to the door marked with the officer’s name she suddenly realised how soaked through her clothes and hair were. Just before she raised her hand to knock on the door she glanced down at herself and realised her sodden sundress was practically see-through. She could clearly see the outline of her yellow and pink bikini, which was fine when one was on a remote beach with one’s sister, but hardly appropriate attire when one was reporting an incident of the gravity of this to a senior officer of the N.S.W. police force. She considered turning around and hot-footing it out of the building without formally lodging the complaint, but then she remembered one of the trauma cases she had assessed in A and E a few months before she had quit. A young female driver of only twenty-two had been run off the road by a speeding motorcyclist and as a result had ended up a paraplegic. Her career as a ballet dancer had ended in a matter of four or five seconds, not only destroying her dreams but taking the life of her equally young and hope-filled passenger.
Fran had dealt with the relatives and friends of the two young victims with the training that had been drummed into her, but the human, deeply feeling part of her had lain awake many a night ever since, thinking of how unjust life was, how the ones at fault so often got off with barely a rap over the knuckles. A fine, a licence suspension or even a short prison sentence was never going to bring an innocent victim back to life, and it was never going to console the grieving relatives.
Never
Fran took a deep breath and raised her hand to knock on the door and then listened as strong, even strides approached the door before it opened.
Then she felt her jaw drop. She had never really felt that before. Jaws didn’t really drop, at least not in medical terms. Mouths opened in shock and surprise, eyes flared or bulged, jaws didn’t actually drop.
But hers did this time.
Fran stared at him, her mouth hanging open, her eyes taking in his features in one goggle-eyed look. Without the cover of his shiny black helmet she could see he was in the category of heart-breakingly gorgeous, with olive skin, a sharply chiselled jaw that was still liberally peppered with stubble and a sensually sculpted mouth that she suspected had wreaked havoc on many a female mouth in its time, which according to her rough calculations was about thirty-two or thirty-three years.
His blue eyes—those glacier-blue eyes—were centred on hers, making her heart skip in her chest.
‘You!’ she gasped, barely able to pull in a breath to give the word the force she had intended to deliver.
‘Dr Nin,’ he said with a movement of his lips that indicated mockery. ‘And here I was thinking we had no doctor in our midst. Welcome to Pelican Bay.’
‘I am not practising at the moment,’ she said with chilly emphasis. ‘I’m on leave.’
She watched as his raised brow made a perfect arc over one of his eyes. ‘Have you been warned you are likely to be on a busman’s holida
y while you are in town, Dr Nin?’ he asked.
Fran set her mouth. ‘When I say I am on holiday, I mean it, Sergeant…er…Wolf.’
He gave her another movement of his lips that didn’t even come within a whisker of a smile. ‘Hawke,’ he corrected her. ‘Jacob Hawke.’
Fran was annoyed with herself for blushing. She couldn’t remember the last time she had blushed. She had dealt with naked men’s bodies ever since she had started med school but for some reason the fully clothed, black leather coated body of Sergeant Jacob Hawke made her flush inside and out. In fact, she could feel every hair on her blonde head lifting as if each one was trying to get away from the blast of warmth his presence induced. And it was a blood-heating presence without a doubt. She felt the rush of hot blood in her veins, the electric charge of tension just sharing the same air he breathed.
‘Would you like to come into my office?’ he asked, holding the door open for her, although she thought the invitation lacked enthusiasm.
Fran knew she would look a fool if she turned on her one good heel and left. She also knew she could end up looking an even bigger fool by staying and saying her piece. But the scare she’d had made her fight response win over her flight one, and, taking a breath that barely inflated her lungs, she stepped past him into his office.
‘Take a seat,’ he said, and moved around to the other side of his desk.
Fran sat on the hard plastic chair, her eyes scanning his desk for any clues to his personality. She decided in the end he wasn’t super-neat but neither was he untidy and disorganised—he was busy.
There was a photo frame next to his computer but she couldn’t see the subject of the photo it contained as it faced him, not her. There was a glass paperweight pinning down some papers, containing a dandelion puff inside. She found herself staring at it, marvelling at the way it had been captured there, its fragility permanently protected by its spherical armour.
Fran became aware of the fact he was still standing, again giving her the impression he was not intending this interview to last very long. She met his eyes and felt another wave of colour wash over her face.
‘So, you’re Carolyn Atkins’s sister,’ he said, folding his arms across his chest as he leaned back against the filing cabinet. ‘You don’t look much like her.’
Fran felt her back come up against the hard spine of the plastic chair. ‘Is that a crime?’ she asked. She had spent most of her life being compared to her beautiful sister and consistently falling short. The events of the last few months hadn’t helped her confidence one little bit, which made his comment all the more stinging.
His mouth lifted at one corner but she couldn’t tell if it was a smile or a smirk, but she suspected it was something in between. ‘Constable Jeffrey informs me you would like to lodge a dangerous driving complaint,’ he said. ‘I take it that would be against me.’
She raised her chin. ‘I realise you’re a cop but that doesn’t mean you can drive like a maniac,’ she said. ‘Besides, you weren’t in police uniform or on a police bike or official vehicle, neither, as far as I could see, were you travelling to an emergency.’
Even though he didn’t move a muscle, his eyes turned from ice to stone. ‘Dr Nin,’ he said, deliberately pausing before he continued, ‘I accept that you were frightened by a near collision but the conditions were hazardous and it is my belief you were travelling a little too fast for them.’
Fran could feel her anger stiffening every bone in her body. She got to her feet indignantly, wincing slightly as her leg protested. ‘So it’s my fault, is it?’ she asked, glaring at him. ‘What about you? Weren’t you driving a little too fast for them too, or don’t the same rules apply to you that apply to everyone else?’
He continued to hold her look for several seconds before he unfolded his arms and pushed himself away from the filing cabinet. ‘For your information, Dr Nin, I was responding to an emergency,’ he said. ‘Now, if you will excuse me, I need to tidy up some things here before I leave for Sydney. I have some urgent business to see to there.’
Fran wondered if he was telling the truth or fobbing her off. After all, there had been no witnesses to their ‘near collision’, as he called it. It was his word against hers, and she knew enough about cops to know how they stuck together, covering each other’s backs if the need arose.
She slung her handbag over her shoulder and, fixing him with an I-am-not-going-to-take-this-lying-down look, turned and left his office, closing the door behind her with a sharp click.
Jacob dragged a hand through his hair once she had gone, his eyes going to the photo frame on his desk. His chest still felt as if someone had bludgeoned him with the blunt end of a pylon.
He was the only one left now.
It was weird to think of himself as an orphan.
He picked up his helmet and keys. It wouldn’t matter if he drove like a Motor GP driver now, it was too late to say goodbye.
Just like the last time.
Chapter Two
‘WHAT on earth took you so long?’ Caro asked as soon as Fran came in. The rain was still pelting down outside. ‘I was worried about you. Did you get caught up in the storm? Apparently there are powerlines down everywhere. I just heard it on the radio. Rufus is hiding under my bed.’
‘Yes, it’s certainly a bit wild out there,’ Fran said as she slipped off her soaked sandals.
Caro tilted her head. ‘Are you OK? You look a little flushed.’
‘I’m fine,’ Fran said, grimacing as she pulled her wet dress away from her chest. ‘I just had a little run-in with one of the locals.’
Caro’s finely arched brows disappeared under her fringe. ‘Which one?’ she asked.
‘One of the cops,’ Fran said, scowling as her sister handed her a towel. ‘What happened to that nice grandfatherly sergeant that used to be here before?’
‘Jim Robbins?’ Caro said. ‘He retired a few months back and moved to Lakes Entrance with his wife so they could be closer to their grandkids. There are a couple of new cops now, including a rather gorgeous replacement for Jim… Uh-oh…’ Caro grimaced at her sister’s expression. ‘So what happened? Did he book you for speeding or something?’
Fran rolled her eyes. ‘Now, that’s irony for you,’ she said. ‘He was the one speeding and he failed to give way but tried to make it look like my fault. He’s so arrogant.’ Fran gave a toss of her head. ‘Sergeant Jacob Hawke has superior attitude written all over him.’
‘Sergeant Jacob Hawke has got hot, single, currently available male written all over him,’ Caro said with a sparkle in her eyes. ‘Maybe you should kiss and make up, considering the man-drought and all.’
Fran gave her a withering look. ‘I may be single and staring down the barrel of thirty, but I am not desperate.’
‘You didn’t find him attractive?’
‘I found him annoying.’
‘But still attractive, right?’
Fran pursed her lips for a beat or two. ‘He’s got unusually blue eyes, I’ll give him that.’
‘What about his body?’ Caro asked. ‘He works out big time. I’ve heard he’s got his own gym set up at his house.’
‘I didn’t really notice his body,’ Fran lied. ‘In any case, he was dressed from head to foot in black leather.’
Caro grasped at her chest in a theatrical manner. ‘Be still, my heart.’
Fran couldn’t help laughing. ‘Don’t be such a goose. I’m going to have a shower. Is Nick back yet?’
‘No, he’s got a parents’ and friends’ meeting so he said he’d stay at school and do some marking until then. We can have a girls’ night. Be a honey and paint my toenails for me? I can’t reach them any more.’
Fran handed her sister the damp towel. ‘It’s a date.’
Fran was taking Rufus for a walk along the beach ten days later when she saw a male figure jogging in the distance. Her first response was to freeze. She felt the knocking of her heart that reminded her she was alone on a beach with an uni
dentified man coming towards her. Rufus, as if sensing her alarm, looked up at her with a doggy grin and barked before loping off, his plumy tail wagging enthusiastically as he raced towards the jogger.
‘Rufus!’ she called, trying to keep up. ‘Here, boy! Rufus!’
The dog loped on regardless and Fran watched as the runner stopped to bend down to give the dog a ruffle of his ears. The man was dressed in running shorts and trainers but his tanned chest was bare, looking as magnificently male as it was possible to look outside a photo shoot, Fran thought.
She breathed out a sigh of relief as she saw the man’s response to the dog. Some people were not ‘dog people’ and didn’t take too kindly to an out-of-control mutt like Rufus bombarding them with sloppy kisses and wet tail slaps. Clearly this man adored canine company and obviously knew Rufus personally, which made her feel better about being alone. She watched as he picked up a bit of driftwood and threw it into the sea. Rufus charged off after it and the man continued jogging up the beach.
As he came closer Fran felt her face colour up and it had absolutely nothing to do with the warmth of the sun.
‘Dr Nin,’ Sergeant Hawke said as he changed gait to a long easy stride, with Rufus at his side, his doggy tongue lolling out in exhaustion.
When he came to a stop in front of her Fran felt his gaze run over her assessingly, taking in her sarong-clad figure. She wished she had put on something a little less revealing but she hadn’t seen a soul on the beach for the past week. In fact, over the last few days she had she had just started to feel she could relax her guard a little bit, not having to worry about people and how they viewed her. She hated people staring at the scar on her leg. Her sarong was fairly sheer but thankfully not that sheer.
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