Career Girl

in the Country

Fiona Lowe

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Praise for Fiona Lowe:

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Copyright

Praise for Fiona Lowe:

‘MIRACLE: TWIN BABIES is a wonderful story, full

of heart, pathos and humour, that will make you laugh

and cry. Fiona Lowe never fails to write enchanting,

heartwarming and realistic Medical™ Romances, with

wonderful three-dimensional characters you’d love to

know (and, in the case of her heroes, love to love!).

A spellbinding and emotional tale. Talented Australian

author Fiona Lowe has penned another enjoyable

romantic tale that will make your heart sing!’

—Cataromance.com

Dear Reader

Poppy Stanfield is a successful surgeon who’s on the cusp of being made Chief of Surgery: her ultimate goal and everything she’s spent years working towards. So when she’s suddenly sent to Bundallagong not only does she think she has landed on Mars, she thinks life as she knows it has ended too. All she can see is plains and red dust, and not even the sparkling Indian Ocean is enough to win her over. From the first moment she steps onto Bundallagong soil she is making plans to leave.

But sometimes what we think is the worst thing possible turns out to be the best thing that ever happened to us. Poppy has no clue that this is going to be her story, and she’s not quick to realise it either as she rails against everything Bundallagong throws at her.

Dr Matt Albright had the perfect life until it was stolen from him, and now he doesn’t care where he lives or who lives with him—which is why he’s totally ignoring the goanna that has moved into his roof! He goes to work each day and goes through the motions of living, hating that the town he loves now walks on eggshells around him. When he first meets Poppy all he can see is a starchy, uptight woman who is going to drive him absolutely spare.

The isolation of the Outback, with its fiery heat, will either send you mad or heal you; I’ll let you read on to find out what is in store for Poppy and Matt!?

I hope you enjoy their story! For photos of the area that inspired the story, head to my website at www.fionalowe.com I love to chat to my readers, and you can also find me at Facebook (Fiona Lowe author), Twitter, and at eharlequin’s Medical Romance Authors’ blog or via my website. I’d love to hear from you!

Happy reading!

Love

Fiona x

About the Author

Always an avid reader, FIONA LOWE decided to combine her love of romance with her interest in all things medical, so writing Medical™ Romance was an obvious choice! She lives in a seaside town in southern Australia, where she juggles writing, reading, working and raising two gorgeous sons with the support of her own real-life hero!

Dedication

To Sandra, with many thanks for keeping us neat and tidy!

CHAPTER ONE

FEMALE SURGEON TAKES BAMPTON AWARD

Ms Stanfield’s meteoric rise in the male-dominated field of surgery was recognised last week. Journal’s ‘on the ground’ photographer snapped Ms Stanfield wearing last season’s black suit (right), and we’re left wondering if rather than taking the ‘Old Boys’ Club’ by storm she’s actually joined it. Rumour has it she’s in negotiations with two prestigious hospitals for Chief of Surgery.

POPPY STANFIELD’S 6:00 a.m. sip of Saturday coffee turned bitter in her mouth as she read the five-line article on the back page of the Perth newspaper. She didn’t give a damn about the bitchy comment on her cinch-waisted black suit but how the hell had the gossip columnist found out about the job interviews? One job interview especially—the one she’d very carefully and deliberately kept quiet because it was hard enough being female in this business, let alone having the temerity to want a top job. A top job she was determined to get one way or another, which was why she’d applied for the post of Chief of Surgery at Southgate as well as Perth City, the hospital she currently worked for.

And now ‘one way’ was her only remaining option.

Her disappointed gaze caught sight of the envelope with the Southgate crest that had arrived yesterday containing a letter with the words ‘unsuccessful candidate’. She hadn’t read past them because there’d been no point. Poppy Stanfield didn’t lose, she just regrouped and planned a new strategy. It would have been a huge coup to land the Southgate job ahead of the Perth City one, but the interview panel had been hostile from the moment she’d walked in.

The Bampton win had ruffled more than a few feathers in surgical ranks, and the media attention had been unexpected. The memory of the ditzy and pen-less journalist, with hair flying, who’d arrived late to interview her, sent a sliver of irritation down her spine. Poppy reread the article and the bald, incriminating words. Hell, why hadn’t she spent more time with the journalist instead of rushing through the interview?

The faint echo of mocking laughter sounded deep down inside her. You spend all your time at work and when have you ever really spent time with anyone?

Steven.

Her phone chirped loudly, making her jump. Given it was 6:00 a.m., the call was most likely the hospital needing her for an urgent consult and absolutely nothing to do with this tiny article buried in the centre of the paper. Yes, an emergency consult would be the best scenario. The worst scenario would be—Stop right there. She refused to contemplate the worst scenario, but still she checked the screen before answering it.

She groaned into her hand. The name of the hospital’s executive medical officer and her current boss blinked at her in inky and unforgiving black. Damage control. Tilting her head back and bringing her chin up, she answered the call with a firm, crisp greeting. ‘Hello, William.’

‘Poppy.’ The professor spoke her name as if it pained his tongue to roll over the combination of letters. ‘I’ve just seen the paper.’

Show no weakness. ‘You must be pleased.’ She ignored the vividly clear picture of him in her mind—tight face and stern mouth—the way he always looked when he believed a staff member had let him down. She infused her voice with enthusiasm. ‘It was an excellent article about your groundbreaking in utero surgery.’

‘It was, and surprisingly accurate, but that’s not the article I’m referring to.’

No way was she admitting to anything so she let the deliberate silence ride, biting her lip not to say a word.

William continued. ‘In your thank-you speech at the Bampton awards you said you were committed to Perth City.’

She pushed the Southgate envelope under the paper and out of sight. ‘Absolutely. City’s given me every opportunity.’ The words of her speech flowed out smoothly, in stark contrast to the reality, which had involved her fighting to get into the surgery programme, working harder and longer hours than her male counterparts and ignoring the advice that surgery took beautiful young women and turned them into ugly old ones. She’d stopped thinking of herself as a woman long ago and with it had gone the dream of marriage and a family of her own. ‘Should the board see fit, it would be an honour to serve as the Chief of Surgery.’

‘An honour?’

His tone bristled with sarcasm, which Poppy ignored. ‘Yes, indeed, and as I outlined in my interview with the board, I can start immediately and provide a seamless transition period before Gareth leaves for Brisbane.’

‘The board’s still deliberating on the best person for the position.’ His voice dripped with disapproval. ‘But I’m reassured by your commitment to the hospital, and by knowing how much of an honour you consider it to be working for the WA Healthcare Network.’

She let go of a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding. ‘Excellent.’

‘So it stands to reason that you were the first person we thought of when Bundallagong Hospital requested a visiting surgeon.’

‘Excuse me?’ Of all the possible things she might have anticipated him saying, that wasn’t one of them.

‘Bundallagong Hospital.’ William repeated the name slowly, a hint of humour skating along the cool steel of his voice, as if he was party to a private joke.

Her brain stalled, trying to think why the name of the town was vaguely familiar, and with a start she frantically flicked the pages of the paper open until she found the weather map. Her gasp of surprise was too quick for her mouth to stifle. ‘But that’s fifteen hundred kilometres away!’

‘Or nine hundred and thirty-two miles, which is why they need a visiting surgeon for three months.’

Years of well-honed control started to unravel. ‘William, this is ridiculous. Sending me out into the boonies is only going to make the day-to-day running at City even tighter than it is.’ ‘We’ve allowed for that.’

Her stomach clenched at his terse tone. ‘We’ve been chasing staff for over a year and what? Now you’ve just pulled a surgeon out of a hat?’

‘One of the east coast applicants will fill your position while you’re away.’

The staccato delivery of his words shot down the line like gunfire and she rocked back as if she’d been hit. The board was deliberately sending her away so they could observe her opposition in action without her being around to counteract any fallout. Incandescent fury flowed through her. ‘And let me guess, that surgeon would be male.’

A sharp intake of breath sounded down the line. ‘Poppy, you know I can’t disclose information like that. Besides, as you’ve always pointed out, gender is irrelevant and it’s all about expertise.’

He’d used her words against her to suit his own ends.

‘Let’s just be totally honest, shall we, William? You’re seriously ticked off that I applied to Southgate and now you’re punishing me for doing what any other surgeon in my position would have done.’

‘Now you’re being irrational, which isn’t like you at all. Go to Bundallagong, Poppy, do your job and let the board do theirs. My secretary will be in touch about flight details but start packing because you’re leaving tomorrow.’

The phone line suddenly buzzed and she realised he’d hung up on her. Blind anger tore through her and she shredded the newspaper, venting unprintable expletives at the journalist, William, the hospital and the system in general. Who the hell was this interloper from the east coast? She had contacts and she’d find out because learning about the enemy was a vital part of the strategy of winning.

But as the final strips of paper floated to the floor, her anger faded almost as fast as it had come and uncharacteristic tears of frustration and devastation pricked her eyes. Suddenly she was whipped back in time to when she had been a gangly ten-year-old girl valiantly trying to hold back tears after a drubbing in the first set of a tennis final, one of the few matches her father had actually turned up to watch.

He’d crossed his arms and stared down at her, his expression filled with derision. ‘Don’t be such a girl. Do you think boys cry? They don’t. They just go out there and win.’

Shaking her head as if that would get rid of the memory, she stomped into her bedroom and hauled a suitcase out of the wardrobe. If Bundallagong Hospital needed a surgeon then, by God, they were getting one, and the staff there wouldn’t know what had hit them. She’d clear the waiting list, reorganise the department, overhaul the budget, meet every target and make William and the board sit up and take notice. Nobody put Poppy Stanfield in a corner.

Dr Matt Albright was on an island beach. The balmy tropical breeze skimmed over his sun-warmed skin and a book lay face-down on his naked chest, resting in the same position it had been for the last half-hour. ‘Daddy, watch me!’

He waved to his daughter as she played in the shallow and virtually waveless water, then he rolled onto his side towards his wife, who lay next to him, reading. At that precise moment he knew his life was perfect in every way.

She glanced up and smiled in her quiet and unassuming way.

He grinned. ‘You do realise I’ve loved you from the moment you hit me with play dough at kinder.’

Her tinkling laughter circled him and he leaned in to kiss her, knowing her mouth as intimately as his own. He reached out to curve his hand around her shoulder, trying to pull her closer, but his fingers closed in on themselves, digging into his palm. He tried again, this time cupping her cheeks, but they vanished the moment he tried to touch them.

‘Daddy!’

He turned towards his daughter’s voice and saw her evaporating, along with the water that tore all the sand from the beach. Panic bubbled hot and hard in his veins and he sat up fast, hearing the sound of his voice screaming ‘No!’

His eyes flew open into darkness, his heart thundering against his ribs and sweat pouring down his face. His hands gripped something so hard they ached and he realised his fingers were digging deep into the edge of the mattress. He wasn’t on a beach.

He was in a bed.

Slowly his eyes focused and he recognised the silhouette of his wardrobe, and he heard the thumping and scratching of the goanna that had at some point in the last few months, without any protest from him, moved into the roof.

Bundallagong. He was in Bundallagong.

He fell back onto the pillow and stared blindly up at the ceiling. His heart rate slowed and the tightness in his chest eased and for one brief and blessed moment he felt nothing at all. Then the ever-present emptiness, which the dream had momentarily absorbed, rushed back in. It expanded wide and long, filling every crevice, every cell and tainting every single breath.

Sleep was over. He swung his legs out of bed, walked into the lounge room, stared out into the night, and waited for the dawn.

‘And how long have you had this pain, Sam?’ Poppy pulled the modesty sheet back over the young man’s abdomen.

He shrugged. ‘Dunno. I think I saw Dr Albright about a month ago but then it just went away.’ ‘And is today’s pain worse than a month ago?’

‘A lot.’

‘The nurse tells me you’ve been vomiting?’ ‘Yeah, sorry about that.’

Poppy tried not to smile. Dressed in tough mining workwear, and looking like not even a bullet could take him down, Sam’s politeness and air of bewilderment reminded her of a young boy rather than a strapping and fit man of twenty.

‘I’ll be back in a bit, Sam.’ Poppy pulled the screen curtains shut behind her as she stepped out into the compact emergency department, running the symptoms through her head—fever, high white blood cell count, rebound tenderness and an ultrasound that showed nothing unusual, although that in itself wasn’t unusual. The process of diagnosis soothed her like the action of a soothing balm and she relaxed into the feeling.

The shock of landing two hours ago on the Marsscape that was Bundallagong still had her reeling. The green of the river-hugging suburbs of Perth had not prepared her for the barrenness of the Pilbara. When she’d exited the plane, her feet had stuck mutinously to the roll-away airport stairs as her gaze had taken in the flat, red dust plains that stretched to the horizon in three directions. Then the ferocious dripping heat had hit her like an impenetrable wall and it had been like walking into a raging furnace with an aftershock of wet, cloying steam. The irony wasn’t lost on her—William had sent her to hell.

The only way to reduce her ‘sentence’ was to start work so she’d asked the taxi driver to take her directly to the hospital. The fact it was a Sunday afternoon mattered little because the sooner she started her rotation, the sooner she could finish. She’d planned to spend a couple of hours studying medical histories and drawing up her first week’s surgical list but as she’d arrived, so had Sam. The nurse on duty had happily accepted her offer of help with a smile, saying, ‘Thanks heaps. It’ll give the on-call doctor a break.’

Now Poppy walked briskly to the nurses’ station and dropped the history in front of Jen Smithers, whose badge read ‘Nursing Administrator’. ‘Sam’s got appendicitis so if you can arrange everything, I’ll meet him in Theatre in an hour.’

The nurse, who Poppy guessed was of a similar age to her, looked up, a startled expression on her face. ‘So it’s an emergency case?’

‘Not strictly, but he’ll be better off without his appendix and there’s no time like the present.’

‘Ah.’ Jen spun a pen through her fingers, as if considering her thoughts.

Poppy rarely took no for an answer and the ‘Ah’ sounded ominous. She made a snap decision: she needed the nursing staff on her side but she also needed to show she was the one in charge of the team. ‘Jen, I call a spade a spade and I don’t play games. I’ll be straight with you and you need to be straight with me. I want to operate on Sam this afternoon and I expect you to do your job so I can do mine.’

Jen nodded, her demeanour friendly yet professional. ‘Fair enough. I can get nursing staff in to staff Theatre and Recovery, but that isn’t going to be enough. It’s the anaesthetic registrar’s weekend off and he’s not due back from Bali until this evening’s flight.’

Gobsmacked, Poppy stared at her, not knowing whether to be more stunned that a person could fly direct to Bali from the middle of nowhere or the fact that it left the town without an anaesthetist. ‘Surely there’s someone else?’

‘Well, yes, technically there is, but …’

A tight band of tension burned behind Poppy’s eyes. Hell, she really had come to Mars. She didn’t have time for staff politics, especially if they got in the way of her doing her job and proving to William that she deserved the chief of surgery position back in Perth. ‘Just ring the doctor and get him or her here, and leave the rest to me.’

Jen gave a wry smile. ‘If you’re sure, I can do that.’

‘Of course, I’m sure.’ Poppy headed back to her patient, shaking her head. It seemed a very odd thing to say but, then again, she was a long way from Perth. She busied herself inserting an IV into Sam’s arm, administered Maxolon for his nausea and pethidine for the pain.

‘This will have you feeling better soon.’ ‘Thanks, Doc.’ ‘No problem.’

She clicked her pen and started scrawling a drug order onto the chart when she heard voices coming from the direction of the nurses’ station. She couldn’t make out Jen’s words but could hear her soft and conciliatory tone, followed quickly by a very terse, deep voice asking, ‘Why didn’t you call me first?’

‘Because Ms Stanfield was here and I thought I could save you—’

As Poppy hung the chart on the end of the trolley, Jen’s voice was cut off by the male voice. The anger was unmistakable and his words hit painfully hard. ‘Save me? I don’t need you or anyone else in this town making decisions for me, do you understand? I’m the on-call doctor today and that means I get called.’

Sam’s head swung towards the raised voices, his expression full of interest.

Staff politics. She’d asked Jen to call in this guy so she needed to be the one to deal with him. ‘Back in a minute, Sam.’ Poppy grabbed the cubicle curtains and deliberately pulled them open with a jerk, making the hangers swish against the metal with a rushing ping to remind Jen and the unknown doctor that there was a patient in the department. She marched briskly to the desk.

‘Oh, Ms Stanfield.’ Jen glanced around the man standing with his back to Poppy. Her organised demeanour had slipped slightly but instead of looking angry or crushed at being spoken to as if she was a child, her expression was one of resignation tinged with sadness and regret. ‘Poppy Stanfield, meet Dr. Matt Albright, Head of ED.’

The tall, broad-shouldered man turned slowly, his sun-streaked chestnut hair moving with him. It was longer than the average male doctor’s and the style was either deliberately messy-chic or overdue for a cut. A few strands fell forward, masking his left cheek, but his right side was fully exposed, and olive skin hollowed slightly under a fine but high cheekbone before stretching over a perfectly chiselled nose. A dark five-o’clock shadow circled tightly compressed lips, leaving Poppy in no doubt of his masculinity.

With a jolting shock she realised he wasn’t handsome—he was disconcertingly beautiful in a way that put everyone else into shadow. In ancient times he would have been sculpted in marble and raised onto a pedestal as the epitome of beauty. Poppy found herself staring as if she was in a gallery admiring a painting where the artist had created impossibly stunning good looks that didn’t belong on battle-scarred earth.

He was heart-stoppingly gorgeous and she’d bet anything women fell at his feet. Once she would have too but thankfully, due to years of practice, she was now immune and not even a quiver of attraction moved inside her.

Nothing ever does any more.

Shut up. Work excites me. She extended her hand towards him. ‘Matt.’

His hand gripped hers with a firm, brisk shake, and a faint tingling rush started, intensifying as it shot along her arm. Immune, are you?

Compressed nerve from a too-firm grip, that’s all.

‘Poppy.’ He raised his espresso-brown eyes to meet her gaze. She expected to see at least a flicker of interest in a new colleague, almost certainly a calculating professional sizing-up, and, at worst, a derisive flare at the fact she was a surgeon and a woman. None of it worried her because she knew exactly how to handle the men she worked with—she’d had years of experience.

But what she saw was so unexpected that it sucked the air from her lungs, almost pulling her with it. A short, sharp flame flickered in his eyes for a split second, illuminating hunger, but as it faded almost as fast as it had flared, she caught deep and dark swirling shadows before clouds rolled in briskly, masking all emotion.

She swayed on her heels as his hunger called up a blast of her own heat but as she glimpsed the misery in his eyes, she shivered and a jet of arctic cold scudded through her. Fire and ice collided; lust and pain coiling together before spiralling down to touch a place that had been firmly closed off and abandoned since—

She abruptly pulled her hand out of his, breaking his touch and moving her gaze to his left shoulder. There you go, simple solution: no eye contact. She didn’t want to care about what hid behind that flawless face and now that his heat wasn’t flowing through her, she marshalled her wayward thoughts and valiantly recomposed herself. This was no time to be discomfited. She needed to be in control and in charge, her future depended on it.

‘As Jen will have explained, I need you to anaesthetise Sam Dennison.’

Long, lean fingers on his right hand crossed his wide and casually clad chest, flicking at the sleeve band of his white T-shirt. ‘This is my department and I need to examine my patient before any decisions are made.’ He turned and walked towards the cubicle.

Poppy matched his stride. ‘And as Bundallagong’s resident surgeon for the next ninety days or less, it’s my considered opinion that—’

‘You’ve had time to examine Sam and now you need to extend that courtesy to me.’

He didn’t alter his pace and before she could reply, Matt Albright stepped through the curtains and closed them in her face.

CHAPTER TWO

MATT could hear the new surgeon pacing, her black heels clicking an impatient rhythm against the linoleum floor. Well, she could just wait. He wasn’t a stickler for protocol but Jen had overstepped the mark by not calling him in to examine Sam first. God, he was sick of the town walking on eggshells around him and trying to protect him when all he wanted was normality. Yeah, and what exactly is that these days?

‘You OK, Doc?’ The young miner lay propped up against a bank of pillows, his eyes slightly glazed from the opiate pain relief.

Hell, if a spaced-out patient noticed he was shaking with frustration then things were really spinning out.

Matt, how can you always be so calm? Lisa’s slightly accusing voice sounded faintly in his head. But that conversation had taken place in another lifetime, before everything he’d held dear had been brutally stolen from him. He hadn’t known calm in over a year.

‘I’m fine.’ Pull the other one. ‘But you’re not. That appendix rumbling again?’

‘Yeah, although whatever that other doctor gave me is good stuff.’ Sam grinned happily.

Matt smiled as he examined him. ‘Have you got any family up here?’

Sam shook his head. ‘Nah, came for the job and the money.’

‘I’ll arrange for a phone so you can talk to your mum because there’s a very high chance you’ll be parting with your appendix. We’ll fast you from midnight and observe you overnight.’

‘OK.’

‘Any questions?’

‘Nah, you explained it all last time and then it got better.’ Sam’s eyes fluttered closed as the drugs really kicked in, tempering any concern over the surgery that he might have.

Matt decided he’d explain it all again to him later. He pulled the curtains open and the new surgeon immediately ceased pacing, but she held her wide shoulders square and tight. It struck him that there was nothing soft about this woman except for her name.

And her mouth.

Guilt kicked him hard. His initial top-to-toe glance of her had stalled unexpectedly on her mouth and a flash of lust-filled heat had sparked momentarily, shocking him deeply. There’d only ever been one woman for him, and until ten minutes ago no one else had ever registered on his radar, let alone elicited such a response. But there’d been something about Poppy Stanfield’s plump mouth that had held him mesmerised. Lips that peaked in an inviting bow were the colour of crushed strawberries and hinted at tasting like an explosion of seductive sweetness. He’d almost licked his own in response.

It was a totally ridiculous and over-the-top reaction given the contrast between the softness of the lips and the precise and no-nonsense words they formed. Everything else about Poppy Stanfield was sharp angles and harsh lines. Her long black hair was pulled straight back exposing a high and intelligent forehead. Black hair, black brows, black suit, black shoes; the monotone was only broken by her lush mouth and the most unexpectedly vivid blue eyes.

Eyes that were fixed on him, full of questions and backlit with steely determination.

He deliberately sat on the desk and put a foot up on a chair, the position screaming casual in stark contrast to her starchy demeanour. For some crazy reason he had to concentrate really hard to get her name correct because, apart from being the colour of her lips, Poppy didn’t suit her at all.

Her fingers tugged sharply at the bottom of her suit jacket, which was ludicrously formal attire for Bundallagong, and she seemed to rise slightly on her toes so she wasn’t much shorter than him. ‘Dr Albright.’

‘You’re in the bush now, Poppy.’

Her gaze drifted to the red dust on his boots before moving up to his face. ‘Oh, I’m very well aware of that.’

Her tone oozed urban superiority and for the first time in months something other than anger and despair penetrated his permanent sadness—the buzz of impending verbal sparring. No one had faced up to him or even questioned him since Lisa. Hell, half the time his friends and colleagues had trouble meeting his gaze and, like Jen, their well-meaning attempts to help only stifled him. But he had a citified stranger in front of him who knew nothing about him and he realised with unexpected relish that he was looking forward to this upcoming tussle.

He met Poppy’s baby-blue eyes with a deadpan ex-pression. ‘Excellent. Oh, and by the way, we use first names here even when we’re ticked off.’

Her eyes flashed but her mouth pursed as if she was working hard not to smile. It was the first sign that a sense of humour might lurk under all the superficial blackness.

‘Thank you for that tip, Matt. So you agree with my diagnosis that Sam has appendicitis?’

‘I do.’ He tilted his head ever so slightly in acquiescence. He didn’t have any problem with her diagnosis, just her modus operandi. ‘The pain he was presented with last month has intensified.’

Poppy schooled her face not to show the sweet victory that spun inside her. ‘So we’re in agreement. He’s been fasting due to his nausea so Jen can prep him for Theatre and—’

‘I said I agreed with your diagnosis.’ He raised one brow. ‘That doesn’t translate into agreeing with your treatment plan.’

The coolness of his tone didn’t come close to soothing the hot and prickly frustration that bristled inside her, and she silently cursed William for sending her to the middle of nowhere where men ruled and women had no choice but to follow. ‘So you’re going to sit on it until his appendix bursts and we’re faced with dealing with peritonitis?’

Emotionless molasses-coloured eyes bored into her. ‘Not at all. He requires surgery and he’ll have it—tomorrow.’

So this is a power play: my turf versus your turf. ‘But he could deteriorate overnight and we’d have to come in anyway. Tomorrow is an unknown quantity, whereas right now it’s quiet, we’re both here, so why wait?’

‘Technically you don’t even start work until 8:00 a.m. tomorrow.’ ‘That’s semantics.’

He lowered his gaze and stared at her bright red suitcase stowed by the desk and then he moved the stare to her. ‘Is it? It’s Sunday and I would have thought seeing as you’ve only just arrived, you’d want to get settled in the house, hit the supermarket and fill your fridge.’

Something about his unflinching gaze made her feel like he saw not just the persona she showed the world but way beyond it and down deep into the depths she hadn’t allowed anyone to enter since Steven.

But he really didn’t want to—

I am so not doing this now!

She shut the voice up, hating that her hand had crept to the pendant that sat just below her throat. She forced her arm back by her side and her voice came out stiff and authoritative. ‘You don’t have to concern yourself with my domestic arrangements.’

‘Very true.’ He radiated a controlled aura that was an odd mix of dark and light, although the dark dominated. ‘But I do concern myself with my staff’s. They have lives outside work, Poppy.’ His expression intimated that he thought perhaps she didn’t. ‘This is not an emergency and therefore we are not interrupting their family time, their fishing and sailing time, and, for some, their afternoon naps.’

‘Afternoon naps?’ Her voice rose in disbelief as her brain tried unsuccessfully to wrap itself around such a foreign concept. ‘You’re joking.’

Matt gave a snort that sounded like a rusty laugh as his face creased stiffly into lines that bracketed his mouth and for a moment his lips broke their tight line. A streak of something close to warmth followed, giving life and character to his face, which up until this point had been almost a caricature of unmarred features.

Her gut lurched as a flicker of delicious shimmers moved through her and she wished he’d stop. Perfection she could resist. Deep life lines around those dark and empty eyes, not so much.

His expression neutralised as the shadows returned. ‘Life is slower here and, as you’ll discover, the humidity at this time of year really saps your energy.’

She thought of the chief of surgery job back in Perth and went back into battle. She knew this game and she didn’t plan to give an inch. ‘Nothing saps my energy. I’m here to work, not to relax.’ She reached for her briefcase and pulled out a folder. ‘In regard to staff, I have a surgical budget and my own staffing ratios, and it’s my call when to operate, not yours.’

‘It is, and come tomorrow, your first official day, when David, the anaesthetic registrar, is back on duty, you can order him about to your heart’s content. Today, as the ED doctor and the back-up anaesthetist, it’s my call. We’re not operating on Sam just so you can rush in, set a precedent and get some runs on the board.’

‘This has nothing to do with me and everything to do with patient care.’ She protested too quickly as his words hit far too close to home. Sam’s case technically wasn’t an emergency but it wasn’t strictly elective surgery either. She hated that he’d guessed at her need to operate so she could stake her claim as the incumbent surgeon, competent and in charge.

He slid to his feet, the movement as graceful as a gazelle’s but with the calculation of a panther. Everything about him screamed, I don’t believe you.

‘Should Sam’s condition change, I’ll call you straight away. Meanwhile, go stock your fridge and turn on the air-conditioning so you can sleep tonight.’

Her body vibrated with rage. ‘Don’t patronise me.’

Genuine surprise raced across his face and he gave a sigh filled with fatigue. ‘I’m not. I’m actually trying to help. Your life here will be a lot easier if you don’t get the staff off-side before you’ve officially started.’

She wanted to stay furious with him, she wanted to cast him in the role of obstructive male, but his gaze wasn’t combative and amid the darkness that hovered around him, she detected a sliver of goodwill. It totally confused her.

‘I see. Well, we may not agree about Sam but I take on board what you’re saying.’ She made herself say, ‘Thank you.’

‘No problem.’ His fingers pushed through his straight hair, the strands sliding over them like water on rocks.

With a shock she caught the glint of gold on his ring finger. How had she missed that? But it didn’t matter how or why—what was important was now she knew. Married men didn’t interest her.

It’s been a long time since an unmarried one interested you.

Get off my case!

She had a gut feeling that she and Matt Albright would probably spend the next ninety days disagreeing but now it would be without fear of those strange and unwanted shimmers. Working with Matt would be uncomplicated and all about the job, and that was what she did best.

She pulled out a business card and held it towards him.

‘This is my mobile number should Sam deteriorate, and meanwhile I’ll let you get back to your Sunday afternoon and your family.’

The goodwill vanished from his eyes as his lean body ceased all movement, and an eerie stillness hovered around him.

So much for her attempt at being polite. She couldn’t work him out.

The card hung between them for a moment and then he slowly raised his arm and plucked it from her fingers. ‘Right. See you around.’

‘I guess you will.’ What else was there to say?

‘Wait!’ Jen hurried over as two bloodied men supported and half dragged another man into the de partment.

‘What happened?’ Matt hauled his way back from the black despair Poppy’s innocent comment had plunged him into, hating that it had, and was glad to be able to focus on the patient.

‘Patient involved in a brawl, suspected head injury and possible fractures.’

He grabbed a gown and stifled a groan. In years gone by, drunken brawls had been exclusively Saturday night’s domain but the mining boom had brought more people into the town and some of them had more money than sense. This patient could have anything from a broken toe to a subdural haematoma, with a million possibilities in between.

He threw Poppy a gown. ‘I think you just got a reprieve from filling your fridge but just so we’re clear, this is my emergency and you’re assisting.’

‘Oh, absolutely.’ But deep sapphire blue shards scudded across her enormous baby-blue eyes, making a mockery of her supposed compliance. ‘It’s your emergency right up to the point when you realise he needs surgery and you’re totally out of your depth.’

No one had been that blunt with him in a long time. A noise rumbled up from deep down inside him and for a moment he didn’t recognise the sound. With a shock of surprise he realised that for the first time in months he’d just laughed.

Matt moved into action, work being one of the few things in his life he didn’t question. He called out to the two men, ‘Help me get him onto this trolley.’

They half hauled and half dropped the injured man onto the mattress and as soon as the sides had been pulled up, Matt asked, ‘Do either of you have any injuries or is that your mate’s blood?’

‘We’re OK.’

Matt wasn’t convinced. ‘Sit over there and wait. As soon as we’ve checked out your mate, someone will examine you both. No one is to leave until you’ve been examined, do you understand?’

Both men looked sheepish. ‘Yeah, Doc.’

He pushed the trolley into the resus room. ‘What’s his pulse ox?’

Poppy slid the peg-like device onto the end of the patient’s finger. ‘Eight-five.’ She unravelled green plastic tubing and turned on the oxygen. ‘Mr …?’

‘Daryl Jameson.’ Jen supplied the information.

‘Mr Jameson. I’m Poppy Stanfield, this is Jen Smithers, and on your left is Dr Matt Albright. You’re in good hands. We’re just going to give you some oxygen and help you to sit up.’

Matt tried not to show his surprise that Poppy had failed to mention her qualifications and that unlike many surgeons she was actually quite personable with an awake patient. ‘Daryl, how’s the breathing, mate?’

‘Hurts.’

‘Where does it hurt?’ Poppy adjusted the elastic to hold the nasal prongs in place.

‘It’s me chest and arm that’s killing me.’

‘Do you know what day it is?’ Matt flicked on his penlight.

‘Sunday. I remember everything up to the moment the idiot hit me.’

Matt flashed the light into his patient’s eyes. ‘Pupils equal and reacting.’

Jen tried to ease Daryl’s shirt off but resorted to scissors when Daryl couldn’t move his arm without flinching. The soft material separated, revealing purple bruising all over the thin man’s chest. The nurse gasped.

Matt looked up from the IV he was inserting, hating that he knew exactly what would have caused such trauma. ‘Steel-capped boots. Welcome to the seedier side of Bundallagong, Poppy.’

She attached electrodes to Daryl’s chest, and at the same time Matt knew she was examining the rise and fall of his chest given the complaint about pain on breathing. ‘Sinus tachycardia. Jen, organise for a chest and arm X-ray.’

‘On it.’ The nurse started to manoeuvre the portable X-ray machine into position.

While Poppy wrapped a blood-pressure cuff around their patient’s uninjured arm to enable automatic readings, Matt swung his stethoscope into his ears and listened to Daryl’s breathing. He could hear creps and he palpated a paradoxical movement of the chest wall. ‘Flail chest. I’ll insert prophylactic chest tubes.’

A frown furrowed her smooth, white brow. ‘Good idea but it’s the damage under the fractured ribs that worries me.’

Matt nodded. ‘We’re in agreement, then.’

‘There’s a first time for everything.’

The words sounded precise and clipped, but her plump, berry-red lips twitched. Like the siren’s call, he felt his gaze tugged towards them again and wondered what they’d feel like to kiss.

The blood-pressure machine beeped loudly, ripping into his traitorous thoughts and grounding him instantly. He pulled his shame-ridden gaze away, reminding himself that he loved Lisa and he had a patient who needed his total concentration. ‘Pressure’s dropping.’

‘He’s bleeding somewhere.’ Poppy’s hands went direct to Daryl’s abdomen, her alabaster fingers, with their neatly trimmed nails devoid of polish, palpating expertly. ‘Any pain here?’

Daryl barely managed a negative movement of his head.

‘No guarding. It’s not his abdomen.’ Poppy’s frown deepened, making a sharp V between her expressive black brows. ‘His O2 sats aren’t improving. What about a haemothorax?’

‘If he does have that, it’s not massive because there’s no mediastinal shift or tracheal deviation.’

But the blood-pressure machine kept beeping out its worrying sound as Daryl’s heart rate soared and his conscious state started to fade. Matt stared at the green lines racing across the screen. PQRST waves scrawled the heartbeat but he thought he saw something unusual. He hit the printout button and studied the paper strips, detecting a change in the ST segment. Combining it with Poppy’s musings, he had a sudden idea. ‘Check his jugular vein.’

Matt shoved his stethoscope back in his ears and listened carefully to Daryl’s heart beat. Instead of a loud and clear lub-dub, the sound was muffled.

‘Cardiac tamponade.’

They spoke in unison, their thoughts and words meshing together for the very first time. ‘He’s bleeding into the pericardial sac.’

Poppy ran the ultrasound doppler over his chest, locating the heart. ‘There you go.’ She pointed to the dark shadow around the heart that squeezed the vital muscle.

Matt snapped on gloves and primed a syringe, knowing exactly what he had to do. Under ultrasound guidance, he withdrew the fluid from around the heart. ‘Hopefully that will stabilise him until you work your magic.’

Her teeth scraped quickly over her bottom lip; the slightest of hesitations. ‘A pericardial sac repair without the back-up of bypass isn’t quite what I’d expected.’

He understood her concerns and he had some of his own. ‘The anaesthetic will stretch me too.’

‘It’s going to be touch and go.’

‘I know.’ He met her direct and steady gaze, one devoid of any grandstanding or combative qualities, and wondered not for the first time about the many facets of Ms Poppy Stanfield.

CHAPTER THREE

IT HAD been a hell of a piece of theatre. Matt couldn’t help but be impressed by Poppy’s expertise. Except for requests for unanticipated instruments, she’d been virtually silent throughout, but it hadn’t been an icy silence that had put the staff on tenterhooks; the case had done that on its own. Given the complexity of the surgery, she’d done the repair in a remarkably short space of time, giving Daryl the best chance of survival. It had been a lesson to Matt that she knew her stuff and did it well. Although many visiting surgeons had her air of authority, not all of them had the skills to match.

It had been one of the most challenging anaesthetics he’d ever given due to the patient being haemodynamically unstable, and maintaining his pressure had been a constant battle. Thankfully, Daryl had survived the emergency surgery and was now ventilated and on his way to Perth.

Once the flying doctor’s plane had taken off and the night shift had arrived, Matt no longer had a reason to stay at the hospital. As he took the long way home it occurred to him that even Poppy had left the hospital before him, finally taking with her those bright red cases that matched her lips.

Again, shame washed through him. He hated it that he kept thinking about her bee-stung lips. He didn’t want to because they belonged to a woman who was so different in every way from his wife that it didn’t warrant thinking about. When he thought of Lisa the words ‘fair, soft and gentle’ came to mind. Poppy Stanfield wouldn’t understand the description.

He pulled into his carport and as he reluctantly walked towards the dark and empty house, memories of past homecomings assailed him.

‘Tough case, honey?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well, you’re home now.’ Lisa leaned in to kiss him. ‘Annie’s already in bed and our room is deliciously cool.’

His key hit the lock and the door swung open, releasing trapped and cloying heat, which carried silence with it in stark contrast to the past. God, he hated coming back to this house now.

Yeah, well, you hated not living in it.

He dropped his keys in a dish he’d brought home from the Pacific and which now sat permanently on the hall table, and thought about the months he’d stayed away from Bundallagong. Being back hurt as much as being away.

He turned the air-conditioner onto high, poured himself iced water and briefly contemplated going to bed. Picking up the remote, he turned on the television, rationalising that if he was going to stare at the ceiling he’d be better off staring at a screen. He flicked through the channels, unable to settle on watching anything that involved a story and eventually stared mindlessly at motor racing, the noise of the vehicles slowly lulling him into a soporific stupor.

He was back on the beach again, with dry heat warming his skin and coconut palms swaying in the breeze, a peaceful idyll that promised so much. Set back from the sand line was a grass hut, its roof thatched with dried sugarcane leaves, and he strode towards it quickly, anticipation humming through his veins. His family was waiting for him. He stepped up onto the lanai but instead of cane chairs there was a stretcher. Bewildered, he stepped over it and walked into the fale, expecting to see the daybed, but instead he was in an operating theatre that looked like a set from MASH, with patients lined up row upon row, some with sheets pulled over their heads. Voices shouted but he didn’t recognise the words, and he turned back, wanting to run, but the lanai had vanished, leaving splintered timber as the only evidence of its existence.

Deafening noise roared and his arms came up to protect his head and then his eyes were suddenly open and the television was blaring out so loudly the walls vibrated. He must have rolled on the remote, taking the volume to full blast, and he quickly pumped it back to a bearable level, but the ringing in his ears took a moment to fade. He shook his head, trying to get rid of the buzzing, and thought perhaps bed was a better option than the couch—not that he wanted to sleep because the dreams would terrorise him.

As he swung his feet to the floor, a woman’s scream curdled his blood. He quickly shoved his feet into his shoes, grabbed a torch and ran outside.

He heard a wire door slam and he moved his torch round to the house on his left, the house owned by the hospital. With a start he saw a tall, barefoot woman dressed in a long T-shirt standing on the steps, her arms wrapped tightly around her.

He jogged over as the outside lamp cast her in a pool of yellow light. ‘Poppy? What the hell happened? Are you all right?’

She shuddered, her height seeming slightly diminished. She swallowed and it was if she had to force her throat to work. ‘Mice.’

He knew his expression would be incredulous. The woman who’d stormed into his department with an approach similar to a man marking his territory had been reduced to a trembling mess by a mouse. For months he hadn’t been able to laugh and now he had to try hard not to. ‘You’re scared of a mouse or two?’

Her head flew up and a flash of the ‘take no prisoners’ woman he’d met nine hours ago surfaced. ‘Not generally, no. But I opened the wardrobe to hang up my clothes and mice streamed out, scurrying over my feet, into my case and …’ She took a steadying breath. ‘I defy anyone, male or female, not to let out a yell of surprise when confronted by fifty of them.’

His mouth curved upwards, surprising muscles stiff from lack of use. ‘That has to be an exaggeration of about forty-eight. Are they in the kitchen too?’

‘I don’t know!’ Her voice snapped. ‘I didn’t stop to enquire if they’d taken over in there as well.’

Don’t get involved. But he couldn’t resist a dig. ‘I did suggest you settle in to the house earlier in the day.’

Her chin shot up and she gave him a withering look. ‘I am not exaggerating, and if that is the extent of your useful advice then I suggest you shut up now and leave.’

She crossed her arms and he suddenly noticed she had breasts. Small but round and … He hauled his gaze away. ‘It’s been a few months since anyone’s lived here, although I would have thought someone would’ve checked out the house before you arrived. Who did you talk to in Administration?’

She stepped back inside, her gaze darting left and right and her long legs moving gingerly. ‘No one.’

He followed. ‘No one?’ Usually Julie was very efficient.

‘Me coming up here was—’ She stopped abruptly for a moment. ‘I rushed up here because the town was desperate. The fax telling you I was coming probably only arrived a few hours before me.’

They’d been desperate for weeks so her hasty arrival without the usual planning didn’t make a lot of sense and he was about to ask her about it when a mouse raced out from under the couch.

Poppy leapt into the air, her long T-shirt rising up to expose creamy white thighs.

Matt tried not to look and instead marched like a foot soldier on patrol, punching open the kitchen door. Every surface was covered in mouse scats.

He heard Poppy’s shocked gasp from the doorway but by the time he’d turned, her face was the usual mask of control, although she had a slight tremble about her.

‘Just fabulous. This really is the icing on the cake of a stellar few days, and yet the poets wax lyrical about the bush.’

A startling fragility hovered around her eyes despite her sarcasm and he had an unexpected moment of feeling sorry for her. He shrugged it away. ‘Living with a few creepy-crawlies is all part of the Bundallagong allure.’

‘Not from where I’m standing it isn’t. I think we have definition conflict on the word “few”.’

Again he found himself wanting to smile yet at the same time a feeling of extreme restlessness dragged at him. He flung open cupboards and found mice squeaking and scurrying everywhere amidst bags of pasta, cereal, oats and biscuits, all of which had been chewed and their contents scattered. He slammed the doors shut. ‘OK, you were right. It’s a plague and with this many mice it probably means you don’t have a python.’

Her eyes widened like the ongoing expanse of Outback sky and her hands flew to her hips. ‘No snake? And that’s supposed to make me feel better? Hell, and they give surgeons a bad rap about their bedside manner.’

This time the urge to smile won. ‘Actually, a python would have meant fewer mice. I haven’t seen an infestation like this in years. Your predecessor must have left food and I guess the cleaners figured it was non-perishable and left it for the next occupant. Thing is, time marched on and the mice moved in. Julie can get the exterminator to come in the morning.’

‘The morning.’ The words came out as a choked wail loaded with realisation. Another mouse shot past her and she stiffened for a second before hastily retreating to the lounge room.

Matt crossed the kitchen and leaned against the architrave, watching her. She had her back to him and was standing on tiptoe, reducing her contact with the floor to the bare minimum. One hand tugged at the base of the T-shirt in an attempt to make it longer, and the other pressed her mobile phone to her ear as she spoke briskly.

‘Yes, I need the number for motels in Bundallagong. I don’t have a pen so can you put me through direct?’

He thought about the suit she’d worn when they’d met and how it had been followed by surgical scrubs. Both garments had given her a unisex look, but the baggy shirt she wore now hid little. Poppy Stanfield might sound like a general but she had the seductive curves of a woman.

Heat hit him, making him hard, followed immediately by a torrent of gut-wrenching guilt. He loved Lisa. No woman could match her but for some reason his body had disconnected from his brain and was busy having a lust-fest. He hated it and every part of him wanted to get the hell out of the house and away from Poppy Stanfield and that damn T-shirt. But he couldn’t leave, not until he knew she was settled in a motel. So he moved instead, putting distance between them by crossing the room and tugging his gaze away from the sweet curve of her behind that swelled out the T so beautifully that his palm itched.

He stared at the blank walls and then at the couch with a ferocious intensity he’d never before given to decor. He noticed a significant-size hole in the material covering the couch and realised the inside was probably full of rodents too. It would take days before baits and traps took effect, making the house liveable again.

He started making plans in his head to keep his mind off those long, shapely legs. As soon as he knew which motel she’d got a room at, he’d set the GPS in the hospital vehicle for her so she wouldn’t get lost at this late hour. There’d be no point driving her because she’d need the car to get to and from the hospital.

Yeah, that, and you don’t want to be in a car alone with her.

Poppy’s voice suddenly went silent and the next moment, with a frustrated yell, she hurled her phone with a great deal of feeling onto the soft cushions of the couch. It was her first display of ‘surgical temper’.

The outburst—so very different from Lisa’s quiet approach—made him feel less guilty about getting hard, and yet it was so full of energy and life that it swirled around him, both pulling him in and pushing him away. After months of not feeling anything this maelstrom of emotions confused and scared him, and when he spoke, the words shot out harsh and loud. ‘No instruments to throw?’

She didn’t even raise a killing look. ‘I have never thrown anything in Theatre, although I did train with a master thrower and once had to dodge a chair.’ She plonked herself down hard on the couch, threw her head back and closed her eyes. ‘This is a nightmare.’

Grey shadows hovered under her eyes and she looked exhausted.

‘Actually, it’s probably not a good idea to sit on that.’ He pointed to the gnawed hole.

He’d expected her to fly off the couch but she merely shuddered and stayed put. Eventually she opened one eye and stared accusingly at him. ‘You could have told me that the Australian billfish competition is on!’

Was it? Had that many months passed? ‘Sorry, I didn’t realise it was that time of year.’ Once he’d had his finger on the pulse of his hometown and been part of the committee for one of the biggest events on the calendar, but not any more. Now days just rolled together into one long and empty period of time.

She frowned at him as if she didn’t quite believe him. ‘Every motel between here and a hundred k up and down the coast is fully booked out with anglers hoping to catch a two-hundred-and-twenty-kilo marlin. God, I hate this dust-impregnated town.’ She picked up her phone and stared at it as if willing it to ring with news of a bed.

A mouse scuttled between his feet.

She can’t stay here.

She’s not staying with me.

Why not? You don’t care about much any more so why care if she stays a few nights?

She sighed. ‘I don’t suppose you know if my office at the hospital has a couch?’

Her tone was unexpectedly flat, as if all the fight had gone out of her, and a tiny crack appeared in the blackness of his soul. His mouth started to work before his brain had fully thought it through. ‘You can stay at my place until this joint is clean and mouse-free.’

Her smooth brow creased in uncertainty. ‘That’s kind of you but don’t you think you should discuss it with your wife first?’

Your wife. He felt the darkness sucking at his heart and soul, threatening to drown him over again the way it had so many times in the last year and a half. His heart thumped faster, pumping pain with every beat, but he somehow managed to growl out, ‘No need. Come on, grab your stuff. It’s late.’

He turned and strode out of the house, not waiting for her, not offering to carry her case, and not looking back because if he did he might just change his mind. Not even Poppy deserved that.

Poppy lugged her unopened and mouse-free case the short distance to what she assumed was Matt’s house—lights on, front door open—and wondered what on earth this man’s deal was. He lurched from sarcastic to ironic, friendly to downright rude and a thousand emotions in between. Why offer her a bed if he clearly wasn’t happy about her staying? She assumed he’d gone on ahead to let his wife know they had an unexpected guest. She thought of her gorgeous apartment in south Perth with a view of the river and silently cursed William and the hospital board.

She stepped into the empty foyer of a house considerably larger than her hospital residence, and unlike the minimalist furnishing of rental accommodation she could see the hand of a woman in the decor. Silence hovered and given it was close to midnight she didn’t want to call out and wake anyone. For all she knew, there could be children asleep.

A closed door on her left was probably a bedroom so she left her case by the front door and padded down the well-lit hall, which opened into a formal lounge-dining area. Despite its stylish couches and polished wood table, it had an air of ‘display only’, lacking the personal touches like ornaments or photos that created living spaces. She kept walking and passed through a doorway into another huge space, which wasn’t well-lit but she made out a kitchen and assumed beyond was a family room and bedrooms.

She spoke softly. ‘Matt?’

He appeared through a door off the kitchen, his arms full of bed linen and his face set in unforgiving lines. ‘Your room’s this way.’

She expected him to turn towards the yet unexplored part of the house but instead he headed back from where she’d come from and entered the bedroom at the front of the house. A stripped white-wood queen-size bed dominated the room, which had a feature wall wallpapered in alternating cool blue and white stripes. Matching white-wood bedside tables held reading lamps with gold stands and white shades, although Poppy noticed the plugs had been pulled from the sockets. No books or boxes of tissues adorned any surfaces but gauzy curtains hung softly in front of a white blind, which was pulled down. The room should have said, ‘restful haven for adults’ but instead it looked abandoned.

Matt threw out the bottom sheet and Poppy moved to grab her side. She was almost certain this room had been designed to be the master bedroom. ‘Are you sure this is OK?’

Matt deftly made a hospital corner with the top sheet and didn’t meet her gaze. ‘The en suite and walk-in wardrobe is through there.’ He waved towards a doorway. ‘The hot water’s solar and it’s really hot but it takes a minute or so to come through. Catch the water in the bucket unless you like to wake up to a cold shower.’ He shoved a pillow so hard into the pillowcase it bunched up and he had to thump the feathers back into place before throwing it on the bed.

He strode to the door, his hand gripping the handle and his gaze fixed firmly on the cornice where two walls met. ‘We leave at 7:30 a.m. and you’ll find something for breakfast in the kitchen. Good night.’

The door closed firmly behind him, the click loudly stating, ‘this is your space so stay here.’ Poppy fell back onto the bed, her relief at being out of the infested house short-lived, and she wondered if she’d have been safer sharing with the mice.

Perhaps it had been sheer exhaustion but, despite Poppy’s misgivings, she’d slept soundly. Now, as she dressed, she could feel the temperature climbing despite the early hour and her suit, which she donned automatically, felt hot. Still, if she had her way she’d be in scrubs soon enough. She opened her door, expecting to hear a household in full Monday morning action mode—radio or television news blaring, the drone of a kettle as it neared boiling and the ping of the toaster—but although she could hear the harsh squawk of cockatoos outside, she couldn’t hear anything much inside. She made her way to the kitchen, which was empty, but with morning light streaming in she saw that, unlike the front part of the house, which held an unlived-in air, the kitchen showed more than the occasional sign of occupation.

Newspapers were piled so high on one end of the long granite bench that they’d started to slide onto the floor. Used cups and glasses sat abandoned close to, but not in, the dishwasher. A supermarket bag filled with tins took up more space rather than being stored in the adjacent pantry and every other surface was covered in clutter from half-opened mail to nails and paperclips.

A casual eating area off to the left had a table and chairs but instead of the polished jarrah having placemats it held a laptop and was covered in screeds of paper. She glanced into the family room and saw a similar chaotic mess that jarred with the decor, which had obviously been undertaken with care and a great eye for detail. Poppy wasn’t a domestic queen by any stretch of the imagination but even she managed better than this. She was amazed the Albrights didn’t have mice!

She filled the kettle and while she waited for it to boil for her heart-starter morning cup of coffee, she emptied the dishwasher, guessing where items went, and then reloaded it with the dirty cups and glasses. She located the coffee and then opened the fridge. Milk, a loaf of bread, three apples and a tub of yoghurt hardly made a dent in the cavernous space that was big enough to store food for a family of six. ‘Morning.’

His voice startled her but at the same time it reminded her of a Cabernet Merlot from Margaret River: deep, complex and with a hint of tannin. She turned around and stifled a gasp as her body betrayed her with a shot of delicious, tingling lust.

He stood on the other side of the bench, his hair still slightly damp and rumpled from the shower, the ends brushing the collar of his open-necked shirt. His long fingers tackled the last few buttons and his tanned and toned chest fast disappeared under the placket. His wedding ring glinted in the sunshine through the window and when he raised his gaze, the Kelly green in his shirt lightened his dark eyes but the shadows remained, and fatigue hung over him like a threatening cloud.

What are you doing? Get yourself under control; he’s married, off limits, and even if he wasn’t he’s too damn moody and you’ve sworn off men for all time.

The moody man spoke. ‘Did you sleep?’

His question sounded almost accusatory. ‘I did, thank you.’ But you don’t look like you did.

He seemed to be staring at her suit and she thought she detected relief in his eyes, which made no sense whatsoever so she was probably totally wrong. She had no clue why she was letting Matt Albright unnerve her. If anyone unnerved her it was usually other women. Men she understood because she worked in a man’s world but the whole women and friendship thing she’d always found challenging and unfathomable, and that dated back to primary school.

You’re conveniently forgetting Steven, are you?

He didn’t unnerve me, he just broke my heart.

And now you avoid men.

I work with men all the time!

That’s not what I mean and you know it.

To distract herself she picked up a cloth and started to wipe down the bench. ‘No one else up yet?’

‘You don’t have to do that.’ He swooped, his fingers brushing her skin as he tugged the cloth out of her hand.

Trails of desire shot through her. This was crazy on so many levels and she had to act. ‘Look, Matt, I’m sorry I had to prevail on your family for a bed, although you were the one who offered. Obviously me being here is a problem and I’d like to apologise to your wife for the inconvenience.’

He lowered the dishcloth onto the sink, the action slow and deliberate. When he raised his head she experienced a chill.

‘My wife isn’t here.’

And you’re an incredibly gorgeous guy that women viscerally react to even when they’re sensible and know they shouldn’t. ‘And she’s not OK with me being here. I get it.’

He grimaced. ‘No, you don’t get it at all, Poppy.’ The ping of the kettle sounded bright and cheery, in sharp contrast to the strain in his voice and the emptiness in his eyes. ‘She died.’

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