Leah Martyn – Outback Doctor, English Bride (страница 2)

And so it had begun. A love affair that had lasted three glorious months and ended in a mixed-up, emotional mess the day he’d flown back to Australia.

Now Maxi swallowed deeply, running a quick, critical gaze over him in case it told her something. He looked older, harder, but his tanned leanness was still there. She blinked a bit. There was no mistaking the fatigue in his eyes. He was obviously worked to death. Perhaps that accounted for the new look of hardness about him.

A lump came to her throat. Would he be receptive if she moved closer and gave him a hug for old times’ sake? Probably not, if his body language and that narrowed steely blue gaze were anything to go by.

At last Jake found his voice. ‘How did you find me?’

She moistened her lips. ‘It wasn’t too difficult. At first I thought I’d have to start calling every Haslem in the Sydney phone book. And then I remembered you’d said your mother was an MP. After that…’ She flexed her hands. ‘Easy as.’

Jake lowered his gaze. Why now suddenly had she come here? Thousands of miles from everything that was familiar to her and for what?

Nostalgia for the past…? Hope for a possible future…? After the soul-destroying way they’d parted? Unlikely.

With a flick of his hand he motioned for her to take the chair at the side of his desk and then threw himself back into his own chair. ‘So, Dr Somers.’ His mouth twisted slightly over the formal use of her name. ‘It’s been two years. I don’t imagine you’ve come for the scenery?’

Her heart gave an extra thud. How did she answer that? Honestly, if they were to have a chance of a reconciliation. ‘I wanted to travel, see some of the world. I haven’t come to apportion blame, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

In a second she saw a flash of his old arrogance. ‘It hardly matters now, does it? As I recall, you dumped me at the airport barely an hour before my flight home.’

Maxi felt faintly sick. She hadn’t expected them to get into it so immediately or so intensely. But then what had she expected? It was never going to be easy. ‘You’d sprung a marriage proposal on me the day before,’ she reminded him. ‘You expected me to just up and follow you to the other side of the world.’

‘I didn’t have time to hang about while you made up your mind, Maxi,’ he dismissed with a sharp thrust of his hand. ‘My work visa had run out. I had to leave.’

‘That’s your excuse, Jacob,’ she threw at him. ‘You could have extended your visa. The hospital admin would have sorted that.’

He looked disconcerted. ‘I had a job waiting for me in Sydney—a job I wanted. In the best clinic with the best facilities. Did you expect me to turn that down?’

She shook her head. ‘But you expected to add me to your list of must-haves—just like that!’ She clicked her fingers for effect and he gave a hard laugh.

‘I practically begged you to come to me when you were ready. And you had a thousand excuses why it couldn’t work.’

Maxi sighed. ‘You’re exaggerating, Jacob. I asked for time to sort out my feelings, my life. You were asking me to leave my family, everything I knew and…loved.’

Jake’s gut clenched with huge uncertainty all over again. ‘More than you loved me, obviously.’

‘Well, if that’s the way you want to see it, so be it.’ Maxi looked down at her clenched hands. She could only imagine that for a man like Jake it must have been a shock and a bitter frustration to discover he couldn’t make life happen the way he wanted it to, that even his money couldn’t get him what he clearly wanted—for her to up and follow. Because he’d simply asked her to.

Jake was shaken to his boots. Losing Maxi Somers had been the hardest lesson he’d ever had to learn. He’d been so angry she hadn’t seen it his way. And seeing her again here, it seemed the anger hadn’t died. It had catapulted back at him and now it had nowhere to fit. He dragged his thoughts together. Maybe they still had something to say to each other, maybe they didn’t. He wasn’t sure he wanted to find out. But she was here and somehow he’d have to deal with it. He dragged his brain into gear and asked the first mundane question that came into his mind. ‘So, how are your travels going, then?’

‘Good.’ Maxi drummed up the briefest smile. ‘I’ve been to New Zealand already.’

‘And how was that?’ he asked levelly.

‘Green, beautiful, folksy.’

He lifted an eyebrow.

‘I loved it.’

Jake leaned back in his chair and studied his fingertips. ‘So, then what? You decided to flip over the Tasman to Oz?’

‘Something like that.’ She hesitated. ‘And when I called your mother, she told me where you were working. I thought it was probably my only chance to see something of the outback and catch up with you…’

So there it was. Jake felt his gut clench even harder. She’d put it straight on the line. But letting her stay would mean his life would be turned on its head. He didn’t want it and he certainly didn’t need it. He opened his mouth to speak, but then just shook his head. ‘You shouldn’t have come, Maxi.’

She gave an uneasy half-laugh. ‘Well, thanks for the unwelcome. Why shouldn’t I have come? Your mother said your workload was horrendous. I actually thought perhaps among other things, I could help out…’

He snorted. ‘Don’t be ridiculous! You’d last a week and then you’d be screaming for the air-conditioned comfort of a city hotel.’

‘I’m tougher than I look,’ she protested, and he actually gave the semblance of a dry smile. ‘And you know we work well together.’

‘Maxi, listen,’ he said, serious now. ‘Living out here is light years from what you’re used to. And just now it’s hell on wheels. The drawbacks for you would be onerous.’

Her face had disbelief written all over it. ‘Like what?’

His heart revved. He couldn’t have her here. Not after all the hurt. Hell, did she think he was made of stone? He dragged his brain into gear. ‘Your complexion, just for starters. You’d be a sitting duck for melanoma.’ He warmed to his hastily invented excuses. ‘Believe me, I wouldn’t like to be responsible for anything as ugly as skin cancer happening to you.’

‘That’s a totally spurious argument,’ she countered in her smooth, well-modulated voice that had always played hell with his senses. ‘The actual cause of melanoma is unknown. And unlike you, Doctor, I didn’t run around with my skin exposed to harsh sunlight as a child when it’s assumed the damage is done.’

‘We lived five minutes from the beach. Everyone ran around in the sun. And I did wear sunscreen.’

She arched an expressive brow. ‘How do you explain those two lesions on your back, then? They could have turned nasty.’

‘Just as well you excised them for me,’ he dismissed with a shrug.

She felt a gentle tide of warmth wash over her skin at the memory. He’d been barely a week in her department. For a man she had been doing her level best to avoid, the intimacy of seeing him half naked while she’d operated had almost undone her.

‘And they turned out to be benign,’ he reminded her now.

‘You were lucky.’ And this was an absolutely crazy conversation. ‘Look.’ She held out her arms in front of her. ‘My skin hasn’t suffered so far. And I’ll cover up while I’m here.’

He shook his head. ‘You’re not staying. How did you get here, anyway? You weren’t on the plane.’

‘I hired a car in Sydney and drove here.’

He felt a glitch in his heartbeat. She’d driven over a thousand kilometres on some of the most isolated roads in the country just to see him again? ‘I can’t believe you did that.’

‘Oh, I took it in easy stages,’ she countered lightly. ‘It was…fun.’

He looked at her broodingly. ‘It was downright dangerous. What if you’d been targeted by a low-life?’

‘I wasn’t.’

‘Or had a flat tyre in the middle of nowhere?’

She gusted a small impatient sigh. ‘I have a mobile phone.’

‘And there was I, imagining you needed a jack to change a wheel,’ he said with a deadpan expression.

She poked a small pink tongue at him. ‘I stopped for petrol here and there. I asked the garage guys to check things. They were great.’

‘I’ll bet,’ he observed, studying the rosy mouth into which her tongue had retreated. A mouth with its tiny freckle on her bottom lip. A mouth that was made for kissing. And in a second some instinct, entirely male and protective, swamped him and locked itself around his heart.

He had no choice here. No choice at all. He couldn’t risk her turning temperamental on him and taking off into the sunset. ‘All right. You can stay for a week until the next flight out.’

‘That’s pathetic. I can’t do anything useful in a week!’

He got to his feet. ‘Well, it’s all I’m prepared to let you have.’ And, please, heaven, by then he’d have acquired the gumption to be able to handle this situation with Maxi with cool detachment.

‘Fine, then.’ Maxi shrugged and spun off her chair. But she was by no means giving up on this. ‘The pub looks pleasant enough. I’ll stay there.’

‘You’ll stay with me,’ he countered, the glint in his narrowed gaze as it skimmed over her, confirming her impression that he wasn’t about to let her out of his sight.

She bit back a smile. Well, that might work to her advantage. They still had something wildly unfinished between them whether Jake admitted it or not. She tilted her head and said innocently, ‘I appreciate you letting me stay with you. But won’t people talk?’