Waking Up With Dr Off-Limits

Amy Andrews

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Praise

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

Epilogue

Copyright

Praise for Amy Andrews:

‘A poignant tale of a man determined to make a new start

for himself and his son, and a woman who sees herself in

the child whose reserved manner reminds her of his father,

ALESSANDRO AND THE CHEERY NANNY

by Amy Andrews drew me into this enchanting story

of rediscovering love for them both.’

—www.cataromance.com on ALESSANDRO AND THE CHEERY NANNY

‘An enthralling tale of one man knowing when he’s met the woman of his dreams

and yet she’s afraid of commitment,

VALENTINO’S PREGNANCY BOMBSHELL

by Amy Andrews left this reader thoroughly enjoying

the experience of the relationship between Valentino

and Paige while also reaching for the tissues …

This is definitely a book any reader

of the romance genre needs to read.’

—www.cataromance.com on VALENTINO’S PREGNANCY BOMBSHELL

About the Author

AMY ANDREWS has always loved writing, and still can’t quite believe that she gets to do it for a living. Creating wonderful heroines and gorgeous heroes and telling their stories is an amazing way to pass the day. Sometimes they don’t always act as she’d like them to—but then neither do her kids, so she’s kind of used to it. Amy lives in the very beautiful Samford Valley, with her husband and aforementioned children, along with six brown chooks and two black dogs. She loves to hear from her readers. Drop her a line at www.amyandrews.com.au

Dedications

To three fabulous writers—Fiona, Carol and Emily—it’s been amazing working with you on this project.

And to über-cool surfie chick Jaiden Allan,

who answered every dumb surfing question I had

without rolling her eyes once—thank you.

CHAPTER ONE

THE last thing Jessica Donaldson expected to find in her bed on a stinking hot morning was a naked man. And certainly not this particular man—the source of every one of her feverish fantasies for the last three and a bit years.

Dr Adam Carmichael—occasional housemate, surgeon extraordinaire, playboy incarnate.

For a moment she wondered if her sleep-deprived brain had conjured him up. Was she that tired after her midnight call-in and subsequent eight hours of surgery she’d actually imagine a man in her bed?

And not just any man but Adam?

Wasn’t he operating in some Third World country or schmoozing bigwigs at The Hague? She shut her eyes, shook her head to clear the fog of fatigue and opened them again. Nope. Still there. And still most definitely Adam.

Jess stood in the doorway, wrapped in nothing but a towel, droplets of water clinging to her undried skin. Suddenly she was very awake. A frigid blast of air from the wall-mounted cooling unit enveloped her, soothing a fiery blush.

The sheer perfection of his body momentarily distracted her from the fact that he was in her bed.

Asleep.

Naked. She’d never had a man in her bed, naked or otherwise, and her breath quickened that the first time it had happened fate had delivered her the man of her dreams.

Would it be wrong to look her fill?

Jess prided herself on having a strong moral code. There’d never been a cause to question it before.

But.

The morning sunlight poked insistent fingers into the darkened room from around the edges of the blackout blind, illuminating his deep golden tan to perfection.

And he was in her bed.

So … she looked her fill.

Adam lay on his stomach, his sandy blond head turned away from the window. Both arms were spread out, easily reaching the sides. His back was a tantalising palate of planes and angles, broad across the shoulders, tapering down to the dip of his back and the rise of his bottom.

The floral sheet had been pulled up to his hips. One leg was firmly entangled but the other had freed itself, causing the sheet to slip slightly and partially reveal a glimpse of naked buttock in all its tanned glory. It was firm, well defined, despite his slumber, and, she noted, the same nut brown as the rest of his body.

He obviously sunbaked naked as well.

Her gaze continued down his exposed leg. It was firmly muscled and deeply tanned. A covering of blond hairs added to its masculinity and Jess followed its length right down to the toes that stuck out over the end of the bed.

She drew in a ragged breath. How was it possible to look so masculine amidst floral sheets?

She knew for a fact he had navy satin sheets on his bed. She’d seen them hanging on the line once. Her dreams had featured an awful lot of satin ever since.

Adam chose that moment to move and Jess froze like a deer caught in headlights. What if he woke and caught her ogling him? But she just didn’t seem able to stop. She watched in fascination as the previously dormant muscles in his back and arms tensed and rippled, assisting the move onto his back.

Jess held her breath.

Luckily, his subconscious chose to roll the way it did as his entangled leg dragged the sheet across his hips and legs, concealing his modesty from her gaze. But that still left a whole lot of male flesh on view.

One arm, bent at the elbow, was flung above his head, emphasising a taut bicep. His strong jaw sported a sprinkling of dark blond three-day growth as her gaze traced the fascinating contours of his full mouth.

A thatch of soft-looking underarm hair barely registered as the firmness of his beautifully tanned, smooth chest drew her gaze lower. It tapered down to a set of abs that would have been perfectly at home on a Rodin statue.

A trail of darker brown hair bisected his six pack. Jess’s throat felt as dry as two-minute soup mix.

She didn’t dare look any lower.

Not that she was any stranger to naked men. As a nurse, it was an occupational hazard. And as a country girl, nature, in all its forms, had infused her life.

But he wasn’t one of her beloved patients. Or a prize-winning bull.

He was an entirely different proposition.

And this was voyeurism. Jess mentally shook herself. What the hell was she doing? The man was twelve years older than her and a total sex god. He was completely out of her league.

Not to mention Ruby’s brother.

Oh, and her landlord!

But what the hell was she supposed to do now? He was in her bed.

Her bed. A bed that she would very much like to be in herself, getting some much-needed sleep.

A bed she’d been daydreaming about all the way home as each footstep down the hill from the hospital had brought her closer to home.

A bed she could almost feel beneath her as she’d pushed open the front door and headed straight for the shower, dunking herself quickly under the cool spray to remove all traces of hospital. Why the hell was he in her bed?

He had a perfectly good one of his own. She’d never seen it, never even peeked inside his bedroom, but it was there, opposite the kitchen door, always taunting her.

When he was away, which was often, the door was always shut. When he was home it opened and shut with monotonous regularity as a procession of women came and went.

He really should just install a revolving one and be done with it.

So, why was he camped out in hers?

She should wake him, demand to know what he was doing.

But … how? Call his name? Shake his shoulder?

Touch him?

Her breath caught in her throat as the thought shocked and tantalised in equal measure. Her pulse had doubled just scrutinising the man in her bed—what the hell would happen to her if she should actually touch him?

Touch a naked shoulder?

She recoiled from the very idea, her fingers curling into her palms. It was too much to even contemplate.

She sighed. There was nothing she could do. Ruby and Tilly had both finished night duty this morning and would be snoring their heads off in their beds. And Ellie was on afternoon shift and wouldn’t be up yet.

It wasn’t fair to disturb any of them.

She was going to have to go and sleep on the couch. In the non-air-conditioned lounge room. On a day that was tipped to reach forty degrees. And already felt like double that.

While Adam Carmichael slept in temperature-controlled comfort.

In her bed.

If she didn’t have a massive crush on him and wasn’t such a goody two shoes she’d have tossed him out on his ear. But he looked so peaceful. Not to mention sexy as hell. And at least she’d have actual fodder for her fantasies now instead of just a series of creative imaginings.

The image of him tangled in her sheets was going to stay with her for ever.

But she needed her clothes and they were in her room. Jess sighed. There was only one thing for it …

She dropped her bag quietly just inside the door and checked that her towel was firmly tucked. The last thing she wanted was to have a wardrobe malfunction—one naked person in this room was enough!

Jess tiptoed into the room, unable to drag her eyes from the steady rise and fall of Adam’s chest.

That was her first mistake.

She promptly tripped over one of the numerous embroidered throw cushions that usually sat on her bed and which Adam had obviously tossed on the floor. She clutched at her cleavage where the towel end was firmly tucked as she stumbled perilously close to the edge of the bed before righting herself.

Her heart hammered wildly in her chest and she didn’t move for a full minute in case just disturbing the air currents around the bed might cause him to waken. Finally, convinced he was sleeping soundly, she forced herself to watch her step instead of Adam as she continued towards her goal.

There were no built-in wardrobes in her room, just an old-fashioned art deco one that stood against the wall next to the bedside table. It belonged to her grandmother who’d insisted she bring it with her to the big smoke to remind her of home. It was beautifully crafted from dark wood with curved top edges and a full sized bevelled mirror between the two polished doors. Jess reached it without further incident and held her breath as she turned the key in the lock. The quiet scratch of metal on metal seemed amplified tenfold and when the door opened it creaked like a coffin lid in a horror movie.

Jess froze behind the door, waiting for Adam to stir, but a quick peek confirmed the noises hadn’t disturbed him.

That was her second mistake.

As he slumbered blissfully on, his lips snagged her attention. They were full, parted slightly and looked, oh, so soft. The stubble that framed them looked deliciously scratchy and she wondered how the soft/rough combination would feel against her own mouth? Jess swallowed.

How would it feel to be the one allowed to kiss that mouth?

Adam shifted slightly and she ducked behind the wardrobe door again like a nervous Victorian maiden. But not before she noticed her pyjamas peaking out from the pillow beneath his head.

Great.

Cowering behind the door, her heart fluttered ten to the dozen as she actually considered, for one crazy second, trying to retrieve them.

But that would be a third mistake.

And there were plenty of things she could wear right here in her wardrobe. Her hand shook as she slowly pulled open a drawer and extracted a pair of white cotton knickers and a white cotton, knee-length nightie. Her mother had embroidered tiny yellow daises around the modest neckline.

From habit she sank her face into it. It smelled of sunshine and home and a fierce shaft of nostalgia pierced her right through the heart. For a moment she wished she was back there. Where things were simple.

Where Adam couldn’t possibly be in her bed.

No matter how many times she’d fantasised about waking up with him, in her childhood bedroom, unchanged since she’d been seven years old, and her desires had been as innocent as Black Beauty wallpaper.

There was nothing innocent about her desires now.

She sighed inwardly as she shut the drawer carefully and then reached for her deodorant. Her still trembling fingers fumbled it and it thunked against the shelf. She made a grab for it as it rolled off the edge but it was already falling. It landed on the polished hardwood floor at her feet with a crash loud enough to wake the dead.

Or the devil anyway …

Adam sat bolt upright in bed, the sheet ruching around his waist. ‘What the hell …?’

Jess opened her eyes and poked her head around the edge of the door. ‘Sorry,’ she apologised. ‘I didn’t mean to wake you.’

Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear.

He was utterly magnificent.

His sandy blond hair, beyond messy, somehow cornered the market on sexy. His chest and six pack were beautifully delineated. He looked like he’d just come from riding waves in Hawaii instead of another humanitarian mission.

Jess hastily averted her eyes, chiding her lack of decorum. He was a brilliant surgeon doing vital work. Not a male centrefold.

Adam frowned, his brain heavily mired in the sticky web of jet lag. He really was getting too old for continually mixing up his time zones. Too old for running away.

‘Jess?’

He blinked in case he was imagining her because this was not the Jess he remembered. Sweet Jess with the cute ponytail. Jess of the bare feet, jeans and T.

He’d never seen her with her hair all loose around her shoulders like this.

Or in nothing but a towel for that matter.

What the hell was she doing in his room? ‘What are you doing here?’

Jess swallowed as he pinned her with his lapis lazuli gaze. It was too dark to see them but she knew from detailed memory that the blue was flecked with golden highlights. He rubbed at the tantalising stubble at his jaw-line. The delicious rasping noise sent Jess’s stomach into freefall as the image of him scraping it against her belly took hold.

‘Er …’ Jess felt unaccountably nervous and hopelessly gauche in the face of his potent male virility. Which was utterly ridiculous. Adam was hardly leering at her. In fact, he was frowning at her like she was an annoying little insect that had dared to wake him up.

Instead of an almost naked, fully grown, nearly twenty-four-year-old woman.

She’d seen the way he looked at women. He was not looking at her like that. He’d never looked at her like that.

She doubted her chastity was under threat. Jess cleared her throat. ‘Ah … this is my room.’

Adam’s frown deepened as her response registered. He looked around. Too-small bed, scatter cushions all over the floor, floral sheets. Romance novel on the bedside table.

Then it all came flooding back to him. The air-con in his room deciding to choose this sweltering day to break down. One on a list of many ailments suffered by his poor, neglected house.

The repairman not being able to get here until ten. His overwhelming weariness.

Adam ran a hand through his hair as the cogs slowly started to turn. ‘I thought you were on an early today. That’s what the fridge calendar says.’

Early on in their cohabitation the girls had devised a colour-coded system to keep track of each other. With four people coming and going on shift work, it made things much easier. Her roster was in yellow.

Jess frowned, wishing his logic was as easy to follow as the flex of his biceps, the path of his fingers. ‘So you decided to … try out my bed?’

Her heart beat double-time at the illicitness of her suggestion.

Adam pressed the pads of his fingers into his eye sockets. ‘So the calendar’s wrong?’

‘No. It’s right. I was called in last night, though … I only clocked off half an hour ago.’

‘Oh …’ Adam felt his interest pique despite the heavy cloak of fatigue. ‘Anything interesting?’

Jess couldn’t believe she was having this conversation.

In her room. In a towel.

With Adam. In a sheet.

‘Liver transplant.’

‘Ah …’

Jess waited for something more forthcoming but Adam collapsed back against the mattress, his abs unfurling like flower petals, his eyes closed.

Oh, brother! He really did look centrefold material now, reclining in her bed as if he owned it.

‘Adam!’ she said, still not game enough to touch him.

Adam, already falling back into the blissful folds of sleep, prised his eye open. He raised himself slightly on bent elbows. ‘What?’ he demanded crankily.

It hadn’t been her plan to wake him up but now he was he could damn well vacate her bed. ‘Why are you in my bed?’

He watched her mouth move but it took a moment for the words to compute.

He hadn’t noticed how pink Jess’s mouth was before. Like fairy floss. Was it lipstick or natural? It was a little too dark to tell. ‘Hmm?’

Jess noticed his heavy-lidded gaze on her mouth and almost lost her train of thought. She scrambled hard to get it back again. ‘You’re. In. My. Bed.’

He hadn’t noticed how her hair flicked up at the ends like that when it was freed from its ponytail or even that it was so long. It brushed her shoulders and fell forward over well-defined collar bones.

Had it always been so blonde?

‘Ah, but, Goldilocks,’ he teased lightly, a smile spread across his full lips, ‘your bed was just right.’

Jess felt her knees go weak as the smile warmed his face, taking it from sexy-but-tired to steal-your-breath sublime. She reached for the nearby wardrobe door and held on tight.

‘Adam …’

He sighed. ‘Sorry.’

His exhausted body protested as he curled into a sitting position again.

‘The air-con in my room is on the blink. A fix-it guy is coming at ten.’ He shrugged. ‘Your room was empty. And air-conditioned. I checked the calendar. Sorry … I’m just exhausted, I guess.’

He rubbed his right eye with his hand. It felt gritty and unfocused. ‘I think I’ve been in four different time zones in the last week.’

Jess felt everything solid inside her melt to liquid. He looked completely done in. She wanted to go to him, pull him down beside her, cradle his head against her breast, stroke his hair till he slept, hush him, tell him she was there for him.

Oh, God. She still had it bad.

‘I thought you were in the wilds of Asia for three months? You’ve still got another few weeks left, haven’t you?’

She couldn’t help it. She always knew where he was. Would count down the days. His comings and goings were also marked on the calendar in black and she absorbed it like the big fat Adam sponge that she was.

Maybe groupie was closer to the mark.

‘There was some unrest in the last province when we first arrived,’ he said. ‘The department of foreign affairs ordered us out. So I’ve spent the last week talking with international funding bodies, trying to organise for the patients to come to us.’

Jess felt ill at his casual reference to unrest. She certainly forgot all about the fact that they were both essentially naked and this was probably the longest conversation they’d ever had.

She knew he went to some remote places in his crusade to bring equality of healthcare to all but there’d never been any trouble before.

The mere thought of it had her heart palpitating wildly.

It was no secret she had the utmost respect for what he did. In fact, her housemates often teased her about her hero-worship. But, hey, the man could be making squillions of dollars as a plastic surgeon doing boob jobs and lipo like his esteemed father. Instead he’d chosen to help horrendously disfigured people that no one in the world cared about, have a shot at a normal life.

He could easily have been a playboy.

But he wasn’t.

Frankly, it got her hot just thinking about it.

‘Unrest?’ she squeaked.

Adam waved his arm dismissing the threat. ‘Local warlord stuff. We were fine. Just the government being cautious.’

Local warlord?

Dear God, was his work dangerous? What if … what if he went away one time and didn’t come back? What if she never got the chance to …?

Adam studied Jess intently for an age. She was chewing on that pink, pink mouth and he found himself suddenly wondering what it might be like to run his tongue along those lips and soothe them from her savaging.

The insidious thought that she was naked beneath her towel hit him from out of the blue. He’d never thought about Jess like that before. Not about her mouth. Or what was under that towel. She was a friend of his little sister.

She was twenty-three, for crying out loud.

He was thirty-five.

And she read romance novels.

Time to leave. Way past time to leave.

Jess watched as he shifted, the muscles of his naked arms and chest rippling as he began to pull the sheet aside. ‘Stop,’ she squeaked. ‘What are you doing?’

Adam frowned. ‘It’s okay,’ he assured her, consulting his watch, ‘I’ve had a couple of hours. I’ll be fine now till the air-con guy gets here.’ Even though he felt like his eyeballs had been rolled in shell grit.

‘Adam …’ She shook her head. ‘You haven’t got a stitch on under that sheet.’

It was on the tip of Adam’s tongue to tell her she didn’t have a stitch on under her towel either but then another thought struck him.

‘Well, now,’ he drawled as he leaned back on his splayed palms. ‘And you would know that how, Jessica Donaldson?’

Realising her gaffe, Jess blushed furiously. A more sophisticated woman may have been able to come up with some witty reply but Jess was mortified.

‘You were peeking at me,’ Adam stated and seeing her cheeks grow an even more fetching shade of pink—as pink as her mouth—he laughed.

The rich, deep sound filled the room and Jess felt her skin break out in goose-bumps.

She really must turn the air-con down.

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ she blustered. Her heated denial only seemed to deepen his mirth and she glared at him impatiently, waiting for his laughter to subside.

‘You were covered by the sheet,’ she blurted out. Mostly.

Adam laughed again, enjoying the way she blushed and looked like she wanted aliens to swoop in and abduct her.

‘Well, as I walked naked from my room to your room I don’t have anything to cover me.’

Of course he had.

Any normal person would have taken the time to throw on some undies or sling a towel around themselves but Mr Centrefold had preferred his birthday suit.

‘Tell you what, why don’t you throw me that towel you’re wearing? That ought to do it.’

Jess felt her cheeks grow even hotter. Her heart drummed a heavy beat in her ears. She swallowed hard. Her nipples tightened and she was pleased for the thickness of the towelling as she imagined standing before him with nothing on.

Naked in front of a man.

In front of Adam.

‘Would you like a hand?’ he teased as Jess’s fingers clutched ever tighter at the fastening of the towel. Jess frowned as a heavy fog of confusion muddled her brain. He was smiling, his voice was light and teasing. She risked a brief glance at his face—there was a glint in his eyes.

Was he flirting with her?

But why?

He never flirted with her. Hell, he barely contained himself from ruffling her hair and patting her on the head on those rare occasions he was home and graced the rest of the house with his presence. Instead of being holed up behind closed doors, going for gold in the sexual Olympics.

He must be jet-lagged. And she was obviously delirious!

It would be foolish to read too much into any of these crazy last minutes.

Although dropping the towel just to wipe the smug smile off his face was exceedingly tempting.

She dropped her gaze instead. To the floor. Desperate to gain some composure.

Who knew she’d actually find her salvation?

She smiled and then squatted down, picking up two of her throw cushions and lobbing them at him. ‘These should do the trick.’

Adam caught them automatically as they hit him square in the chest. They’d been an irritation a couple of hours ago when he’d been trying to off load them so he could get horizontal as quickly as possible. Like an insurmountable mountain.

‘Look at that,’ he murmured, his gaze locking with hers. ‘They do serve a purpose.’

And then, his eyes never leaving her face, he rose in one fluid moment, one cushion clutched to his front, the other to his back.

Jess took a step back as his superior height overwhelmed her. At five-six in her bare feet she wasn’t exactly short—but she felt positively diminutive in the presence of his all-encompassing maleness.

‘Sweet dreams.’ He winked and turned on his heel, sauntering out.

Jess followed his retreat, amazed that somehow he still managed to look one hundred per cent male even with a purple cushion covering what she knew to be one hell of a swagger.

Not even her door shutting quietly, blocking her view, was going to be enough to erase that image from her brain. Groaning, her heart tripping, her hands trembling, Jess collapsed on her back on the bed.

She picked up her pillow and plonked it over her head. Adam’s edgy masculine scent filled her nostrils and she sucked in big, deep lungfuls of him. She threw it aside in disgust, rolling onto her stomach.

The same tantalising aroma wafted up from the sheet wrapping her in Adam.

She couldn’t decide if it was heaven or if it was hell.

She did know she was never going to wash these sheets. Ever again.

CHAPTER TWO

THE next morning Adam sat on his board out to sea with a line of other eager early morning surfers, waiting for the next wave to come in.

It was probably going to be a while.

The surf was non-existent. The ocean was flat and glassy, with just an occasional gentle swell bobbing him in the water.

But for Adam, surfing was about more than the waves. Sure, he liked the exhilaration of riding a monster wave as much as the next guy, but what he enjoyed most was this. The sense of stillness, of the world waking up, of being connected to the planet, in tune with its pulse.

The sun was rising rapidly in the sky behind him, spreading golden fingers over a still sleepy Coogee. It was already warm on his shoulders, shaping up to be another scorcher no doubt.

The light murmur of his fellow surfers melded perfectly with the distant sounds of the sea lapping against the beach.

Everything was as it should be.

Except for that damn image of Jess in nothing but a towel, with water droplets clinging to her skin, that had lodged itself stubbornly into his grey matter.

Prior to yesterday Adam had probably never given Jessica Donaldson a second thought. Sure, she was a nice enough kid but he doubted they’d ever said more than a handful of things to each other in the last three years.

Jess was just a friend of his sister’s who, along with Ellie and Tilly, had helped Ruby with the rent in his Hill St house.

Why had he never noticed her incredible bone structure before? Or how hot that little pink mouth was?

Because.

Adam gave himself a shake.

Because she was barely out of her teens, that’s why! Twenty-three, for crying out loud.

The only other time he’d dated a woman in her early twenties, Francine, it had been an unmitigated disaster—one that he had no intention of repeating.

Once bitten, twice smart.

Younger women were complicated. They had romantic stars in their eyes. They wanted things. Like declarations of love.

They were needy. He didn’t do needy.

He did sophisticated. Worldly. Independent.

Women. Not girls.

And he wasn’t about to start just because he’d dreamed about Jess and that mouth all through his marathon eighteen-hour sleep.

He felt things begin to stir beneath his boardies as they had earlier, prodding him from his slumber, and he looked up at the headlands either side of Coogee bay, determined to distract himself. To focus on something—anything—other than Jess.

He could see a couple at the monument to the Bali bombing victims and further back towards the front a lone jogger pounded the footpath, the majestic Norfolk pines forming a dramatic backdrop. His gaze lifted higher, to the hilly suburban sprawl behind and the Eastern Beaches Hospital perched atop, dominating it all. He could even see his house from here, his eyes easily locating the double-storey monstrosity badly in need of some TLC.

His gaze fell on Jess’s window and he found himself wondering if she was still asleep.

Did she sleep nude, like he did?

Had it been her plan yesterday to shimmy the towel off her body and just drop straight into bed?

He closed his eyes as a vision of him brushing his mouth across a bare shoulder blade assailed him. Her skin would be cool from the kiss of the air-con and he could almost feel the tiny hairs feathering her skin brush his mouth as they stood to attention beneath his lips.

His groin stirred again and he almost groaned out loud. This was madness!

What he really needed was a date. Obviously it had been too long if he was lusting after a woman—a young woman—twelve years his junior.

And it’d been a long time since he’d had any female company.

His time away with Saving Face was always frantic and there was never time for socialising. Long days of operating, often well into the night, followed by travelling on to the next place and repeating it all over again wasn’t conducive to sexual liaisons.

Frankly, even if he didn’t have a strict no-sleeping-with-colleagues rule, he was too exhausted for anything other than snatching vital hours of sleep whenever he could.

But when he came home between missions, that was a different story. That was his down time. Time to surf, top up his tan, spend time with Ruby, see his mother, tolerate his father and date pretty women.

Time for liaisons.

‘Wave!’

Adam looked over his shoulder as the excited cry worked its way down the line. He felt his adrenaline kick in as the mediocre wave emerged from the ocean behind him and he flattened his belly against the board in anticipation.

He welcomed it. Riding a wave was an all-consuming pastime and he welcomed the break from his internal dialogue. No time for thoughts of Jess and her cute pink mouth.

Just him and the ocean.

He felt the drag, could feel the kick in his chest as his pulse picked up a notch. His board started to lift at the back and he paddled frantically to position himself perfectly for when the wave crested.

He leapt to his feet at just the right moment, bending his legs, cutting across the face as if he’d been born with fins. The wind ruffled his hair and he could taste salt on his tongue.

It was just him and the wave.

He whooped out of sheer exhilaration as he conquered the wall of water. He was unstoppable.

Until the second he wondered if Jess could surf.

And then he promptly lost his balance and tumbled off his board head first into the ocean.

‘Good morning,’ Jess chirped as she flipped over some frying bacon.

‘How on earth can you be so damn happy at this ungodly hour of the morning?’ Ruby bitched as she shuffled into the kitchen and headed straight for the coffee pot she knew Jess would have brewing.

Jess laughed. She didn’t have to tell her friend that back home she would have been up two hours ago. ‘This is the best part of the day.’

Ruby shook her head. ‘You country chicks are mad.’ But she smiled as she took her first fortifying sip.

Jess loaded up her plate with the bacon and waited for the eggs to cook. ‘What are you doing up this early anyway?’

‘Cort got called in at four. I haven’t been able to get back to sleep since.’

Jess frowned. ‘Everything okay?’

‘‘Course,’ Ruby dismissed. ‘Just can’t sleep without him.’

‘Oh,’ Jess murmured. ‘That’s so sweet.’

She envied Ruby. And Tilly and Ellie. They’d all found love this past year. Oh, she was thrilled for them too but it was a little hard to be the single one in a house full of couples.

And she wanted what they had. What her parents had. What her grandparents had.

The fairy-tale.

Was that so wrong?

No.

But who she wanted it with was just plain, never-going-to-happen crazy.

Jess turned back to the pan. ‘Do you want some bacon?’ she asked as she lifted her eggs onto the plate. ‘I’ve cooked too much.’

Ruby shook her head. ‘I don’t know how you have a greasy cooked breakfast every morning and manage to stay so skinny.’

Jess grinned. ‘Good metabolism.’

The door that led from the side of the house into the kitchen was pushed open and Jess swung around in time to see all her happily-ever-after fantasies in all his six-foot-two glory entering the house.

His wet boardies, riding low on his belly, barely hung onto his hips as they clung to meaty quads. Great slabs of muscular flesh—shoulders, pectorals, abs—were exposed to her view as they had been yesterday.

A tantalising trail of hair drew her eyes down from his belly button.

Down, down, down.

‘That smells amazing,’ Adam said. ‘Don’t suppose there’s any extra?’

Jess dragged her gaze up, up up and nodded dumbly. ‘Bacon.’

‘Great.’ Adam smiled. ‘I’ll have a quick shower and throw on some eggs.’ He ruffled Ruby’s hair as he went past and earned a grumpy glare.

Jess stood in the middle of the kitchen, staring after his straight tanned back as it disappeared from view.

Tilly passed Adam and entered the kitchen dressed in a strappy little beach-dress thrown over her bikini, ready for her regular morning dip in the bay. She shook her head. ‘It should be illegal for your brother to go shirtless, Ruby.’

Jess couldn’t have agreed more.

She plonked her plate on the bench and went to the fridge for eggs.

‘What are you doing?’ Ruby frowned.

‘I might as well do his eggs,’ Jess said. ‘It won’t take a jiffy.’

Ruby rolled her eyes. ‘He’s a thirty-five-year-old man whose skill with a scalpel has given countless people all around the world a better life. I’m pretty sure he can handle an egg flip. Sit and eat before your breakfast gets cold.’

‘But—’

‘No buts,’ Ruby said crankily, thinking how their mother had waited on their father hand and foot all their married life and how he’d let her.

She and Adam hated him for it. And they hated how their mother had allowed herself to be completely absorbed by him, totally losing herself in the process.

He doubted Adam would thank Jess for her ministrations.

‘Sit,’ Ruby said when it looked like Jess was about to object again.

Jess raised an eyebrow at Tilly, who turned to Ruby. ‘More coffee,’ she suggested, sweeping Ruby’s cup up as Jess placed her meal on the table and sat. A few minutes later they were chatting about their rare day off together when Adam swaggered back into the kitchen. He was wearing dry boardies and a snug T-shirt and Jess’s throat suddenly felt as dry as the toast she was eating.

‘These are yours, I believe,’ he said, handing Jess her two cushions as he passed her by.

Jess, aware of the speculative gaze of her friends, blushed furiously. The thought of just where those cushions had been deepened the colour to scarlet as she dropped her gaze to her plate.

‘Thank you,’ she murmured.

‘So,’ Ruby, said looking from Adam to Jess then back to Adam again, ‘what’re you up to today?’

Adam smiled to himself as he opened the fridge door and reached for the eggs. Jess’s blush was so damn cute it made him want to tease her more.

A lot more.

‘I have an appointment with Gordon Meriwether later today about organising some visiting surgeon rights.’

All three of them sat up a little straighter. Jess almost inhaled a piece of bacon. Was he coming to work at Eastern Beaches? In the operating theatres?

Her operating theatres?

‘Dr Meriwether from up the hill?’ she clarified.

Adam nodded as he sauntered to the fry pan and turned up the heat. ‘As I was saying yesterday, we had to abort this last mission due to some unrest. There were quite a few cases that we’d reviewed a few months ago that were scheduled to be done. Some bad burns contractures from a horrific fire that wiped out a couple of villages and one really major reconstruction case. We had to leave them.’ He shrugged. ‘That’s not ideal.’ Jess ignored more speculative glances between Tilly and Ruby at Adam’s referral to yesterday. The plight of the people that Adam spoke about turned her already soft heart to complete mush. ‘Oh, how awful,’ she murmured.

‘So … you’re going to do them at Eastern Beaches?’ Ruby asked.

Adam nodded as he cracked his eggs into the pan. ‘That’s the plan. We’ve negotiated with some international charities to bring the patients to Australia, I just need to tee it up with Gordon to use his theatres.’

‘Can’t see that will be a problem,’ Tilly said with a wry smile. ‘Gordon does like publicity.’

Adam smiled back. ‘That’s what I figured. Plenty of photo ops make Gordon a happy boy.’

Jess head was spinning. So … the man she’d fallen head over heels for ever since Ruby had introduced her brother three years ago, the man who had been naked in her bed just yesterday, was going to be walking the same sterile corridors as her?

Maybe the universe was trying to tell her something? Seize the day? Maybe it was her turn to find happiness?

‘So you’ll be working at the hospital soon?’ Jess was pretty sure she managed to keep the squeak out of her voice.

Adam flipped his eggs. He knew Jess had been in the operating theatres for the last few months. He tried to picture her in blue theatre scrubs and failed.

All he could see was that damn towel.

‘If all goes ahead it’ll be a PR exercise so there’ll be a couple of weeks of settling in and fanfare with the obligatory interviews in women’s magazines and for current-affairs television. And the usual press conferences for both the charities and the hospital.’

‘That’s fair,’ Ruby said.

Adam, used to schmoozing and pandering to whatever interests could fund Operation New Faces, simply nodded. He knew full well how this game was played and was prepared to do whatever was required to see that the organisation he’d dedicated the last six years of his life to thrived.

He slipped his cooked eggs onto the plate and joined the women at the table. Jess was studiously mopping up every last scrap of yolk with a piece of toast.

He had a sudden urge to know her. To know Jess, the nurse. Not Jess, his sister’s friend, or Jess, the farm girl, or Jess, the blushing housemate.

Jess, the competent professional.

He didn’t understand why.

Had someone put a gun to his head he wouldn’t have been able to explain it. But suddenly he seemed to want to know everything about her.

Not least of all what was beneath that towel.

And how the hell she cleared her bed so quickly of all those damn cushions when the occasion arose. As she must most assuredly on a reasonably regular basis.

Unless all male staff at Eastern Beaches were completely blind. Or stupid.

‘It’ll be a few days’ worth of surgery—there’s nine major operations all up. I’ll need a team. Are you interested?’

Jess looked up sharply from her plate. Interested? She’d give up her claim to the family farm to work with him. Just to be in the same operating theatre as him as he unleashed his magic would be a supreme honour.

‘I’ve only been in Theatre for a few months. I doubt I’m experienced enough for you.’

As soon as the prophetic words were out, Jess wished she could take them back. On so many levels, she just wasn’t up to his skill set.

Adam stilled. He could see pink tinging her high cheekbones again and he suddenly wasn’t thinking about the job. Suddenly he was thinking about all the things he could teach her.

Her teeth sank into the lushness of her bottom lip and his brain temporarily short circuited.

After a moment he blinked and forced himself to shrug casually. ‘Eastern Beaches is a teaching hospital. It doesn’t have any facio-maxillary specialists so it’s not something you’ll probably ever see if you choose to stay at the hospital. It’ll be good experience. Are you up for it?’

Jess forgot all about her plan, which did not involve staying at Eastern Beaches at all. The outback was her first love—red dust ran in her veins—and once she’d completed a year each in the OR, Emergency and ICU she was going home to the chronically understaffed bush.

All she heard was his Are you up for it?

She was up for anything he was offering. Three years of barely even recognising her and suddenly he was offering her a place on his surgical team?

It wasn’t anything romantic, she knew that. But after existing on crumbs for the last few years this was her chance to prove herself worthy. To finally be noticed.

Maybe even as a woman too?

‘I’m up for it.’

Adam had to remind himself as Jess looked at him like he’d created the moon and the stars that she was young and impressionable and very, very off-limits.

Remember Francine.

Remember Ruby.

He inclined his head. ‘I’ll see if I can swing it.’ Jess smiled at him and for a moment he forgot what he’d agreed to do as he smiled back.

Ruby and Tilly exchanged looks. ‘Hot date tonight?’ Ruby asked.

Adam glanced at his sister. Normally a hot date was the only thing on his mind after he’d caught up on some sleep. And sometimes even before that. There’d been more than one occasion he’d pulled up in a taxi outside his Coogee residence not so fresh from the international airport, dragging a woman through the perennially squeaky front gate.

But with Jess smiling at him across the table in her sweet, innocent way, suddenly the names in his little black book didn’t seem as appealing.

And that was stupid with a capital S.

‘You know me.’ He shrugged, thankful for Ruby reminding him of who he was. ‘Work hard. Play harder.’

Jess felt his words slam into her heart as if they’d been delivered by a sledgehammer.

Adam Carmichael was a player.

Not the handsome prince!

The following week Jess hurried along to the staffroom. She was late. The orthopaedic list she’d been scrubbing for had run a little over time. James Leonardi, Ellie’s orthopaedic surgeon fiancé, usually ran a tight ship but sometimes these things happened.

The soft, well-washed cotton of her baggy blue scrubs shifted against her body as she moved, the clip-clop of her clogs reverberated down the corridor.

All the occupants of the room looked up as she entered but she only had eyes for one. ‘Sorry,’ she apologised to Adam, smoothing her theatre cap self-consciously.

‘No worries.’ Adam smiled. ‘We haven’t started yet.’

Jess smiled shyly back at him and Adam felt a strange kick in the centre of his chest. Her theatre cap obscured her hair and exposed her face in a way he’d not seen before. Her eyes, the exact shade of her scrubs, practically glowed beneath the fringe of mocha lashes, and her flawless skin flowed over high cheekbones and dipped into interesting hollows near her mouth.

And that mouth. Man, that mouth! All wide and pink with full soft lips that pulled at him like a homing beacon. She didn’t wear any make-up and her gaze was open and honest with absolutely no artifice.

She was just plain … lovely.

Lovely?

‘Shall we begin?’ prompted Martha Cosgrove, the NUM of the operating theatres.

It took a moment for Adam’s brain to realise the room had fallen silent and people were looking at him expectantly. ‘Of course,’ he said.

He turned and headed for the whiteboard attached to the far wall, castigating himself as he went.

Since when did he do lovely?

Hot, sexy, bodacious. These were things he did. Lovely? Definitely not. He turned to face the room, his gaze somehow automatically finding Jess. She was now sitting on one of the low chairs that lined the walls. Her legs were crossed and she was looking at him with interest. And suddenly, sitting amidst her nursing colleagues, dressed in her scrubs and cap, she didn’t look so young any more. Gone were the jeans and Ts and the ever-present ponytail that made her look like she was still stuck in her teens.

She looked like a professional. Capable. Confident.

She looked all grown up.

‘I’d like to thank you for joining me today,’ he said dragging his gaze from her and getting back on task. ‘Congratulations, you’re all part of a team that’s going to make a huge difference to the lives of nine human beings who would otherwise be outcasts amongst their own people.’

A feeling that she was doing something worthwhile consumed Jess and she started to clap. Others followed and she took the opportunity to look around her at Adam’s team. An anaesthetist, five nurses—three senior, two junior—a surgical registrar and a surgical resident.

She flicked her gaze back to Adam. It was the first time she’d ever seen him in his theatre garb and his magnificence was breathtaking. She’d thought nothing could top the floral sheets but the scrubs definitely made the man.

He looked like every charismatic screen doctor she’d ever watched on television rolled into one. He oozed sexiness and virility and that special brand of confidence that highly skilled surgeons exuded so effortlessly.

In some doctors it would be described as arrogance.

In Adam it was pure self-belief.

‘We’re hoping to begin the three days of surgery in a fortnight,’ Adam continued. ‘There’s a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes—dotting all the Is and crossing all the Ts with the different charities involved and from a humanitarian visa point of view and certainly for Lai Ling, our most complicated case, there needs to be further imaging and bio-modelling to be done before it can go ahead.’

As he spoke Jess was distracted by wisps of his sandy blond hair that had escaped the theatre cap. She was reminded of how it had looked lying against her pillow. All shaggy and badly in need of a cut and crying out to be ruffled.

Gesturing intermittently, his arms also drew her gaze. The blue scrubs were a stark contrast to the deep brown tan that only seemed to accentuate the flex of muscles in his forearms, the dusting of blond hairs unmistakeably masculine.

How was it possible to look so poised and comfortable talking about cutting-edge surgery and yet look like he’d just come in from the beach?

Adam spoke for half an hour, covering all the logistics, and he had his team’s full attention. There were occasional interruptions for questions when pertinent, but otherwise they listened intently. Jess listened too. And not just for the information he conveyed. But the way he conveyed it. The deep sexy timbre of his voice, the effortless way he used wit and humour, the unconscious movement of his body as he gestured with his hands and leaned in towards his team as if gathering them closer.

He wasn’t just a sight to behold. He was exceedingly easy on the ear as well.

The briefing broke up when a journalist and photographer from a weekly women’s magazine arrived at the door. Jess watched Adam stride across the room and greet them, his movie-star smile radiating confidence and charisma.

‘This is Brad Hennegan from Week About,’ he said, introducing each of his team to the reporter, who was looking a little out of place and very overawed in his scrubs, cap and the blue paper booties he wore over his shoes.

‘Brad’s here to do some publicity shots and will be in and out during the next few weeks as his magazine is doing some feature articles on the project.’

Brad nodded to the assembled staff. ‘I’m looking forward to following the story.’

Adam gestured for Brad and the photographer to precede him out into the corridor. ‘I’ve teed up Theatre Eight with Martha Cosgrove, our nurse manager,’ he said.

Brad nodded. ‘Can I have one of the nursing staff too, perhaps?’ he asked. ‘We want the readers to see it’s a team effort. Get a real feel for how dynamic the operating theatre really is.’

‘Ah, sure,’ Adam said, turning back to the staffroom door just as Jess stepped out.

‘She’ll do,’ Brad said.

Great … ‘Jess?’

Jess felt her pulse kick up a notch as she approached Adam. He had this amazing magnetic pull that was hard to resist. She probably would have gravitated towards him even if she hadn’t been called.

‘What’s up?’ she asked as she drew to a standstill.

‘I was wondering if you’d mind being in a couple of photos with Dr Carmichael?’ Brad asked. ‘Our readers want to know about the nurses involved as well.’

‘Sure.’ She nodded. Her parents, her grandmother and all the folks back home would be tickled pink to see her in the glossy pages of a national magazine.

And if it meant she got to spend more time with Adam then that suited her fine as well. Between her shifts and his social calendar she’d barely seen him since he’d been home.

They all trooped down to theatre eight and Brad chatted with them about the project while the photographer scoped the room out. When Adam divulged that he and Jess were actually housemates as well, Brad became very excited, talking about how it would make another great angle for the photos.

Half an hour later, Jess was thoroughly sick of smiling. They’d had their pictures taken in every place and pose imaginable. Near the operating table, in the anaesthetic room, with trays of instruments and in front of imaging equipment, with their masks on and their masks hanging half off, scrubbing up at the sinks and drying off.

‘Just a couple more,’ Brad said, consulting with the photographer over their cache. ‘How about more casual shots this time? More like two friends, two colleagues having a laugh together after a hard day’s work in the OR?’

Jess thought that Brad watched too much television but if it meant that her facial muscles could soon cop a break then she was game.

‘How’s this?’ Adam asked, slinging an arm casually around Jess’s shoulders.

‘Good, good,’ Brad enthused as the photographer clicked away.

Jess wasn’t so sure about that as her whole body went on alert. Her nipples tightened in her bra and she thanked goodness for the bagginess of her scrubs. All she had to do was a lean a little and her whole side would be pressed against his.

She could smell his clean male aroma, warm and vital in the cool, sterile surroundings, and the urge to turn her face and burrow it into his neck was surprisingly urgent.

‘Now look up at each other,’ Brad instructed to the clicking of the lens. ‘Like it’s been a good day and you’re going home to veg out in front of the tele with a nice cold beer.’

Adam laughed. ‘I usually hit the surf when I get home.’

‘Okay, that’s good.’ Brad nodded. ‘What about you, Jess? What do you like to do when you get home?’

Wait for Adam to come home from the surf in his wet boardies.

Jess swallowed. ‘This time of the day I usually head to the Stat Bar, meet the girls for a drink.’

Adam laughed. ‘You mean perv at the guys that jog by with no shirts on.’

Jess gasped and looked up at Adam. ‘We do not.’ Well, she didn’t anyway. And the other three didn’t any more either.

‘Ruby reckons that’s exactly what you all do.’ He grinned.

The teasing light in his eyes twinkled at her and his smile was so sincere she found herself smiling back. ‘Well, maybe occasionally,’ she admitted.

He laughed and she laughed back, his hand light on her shoulder.

‘Perfect.’ Brad beamed as the photographer nodded at him. ‘Perfect.’

Fifteen minutes later Jess was stepping out of the front door of the hospital in the jeans and T-shirt she’d worn to work, her hair in its regulation ponytail. She sucked in a deep, satisfying breath.

Working in a windowless environment after growing up in the wide open spaces of the outback was something she just couldn’t get used to and she never took that first breath of fresh air for granted.

‘Hey, Jess, wait up.’

Jess didn’t have to look around to know it was Adam calling her. But she did anyway, powerless to resist his lure. He was also in jeans but wore a business shirt to dress them up—untucked, of course. It seemed to strike the perfect balance between casual and professional.

‘You heading home? I’ll walk with you.’

Jess nodded and they fell into step. Home was an easy ten-minute walk down the hill.

‘You heading to the Stat Bar now?’

‘Yep,’ she confirmed. ‘You going for a surf?’

Adam smiled. ‘How’d you guess?’ They walked in silence for a few moments. ‘Did I notice on the calendar that it’s your birthday in a couple of days?’

Jess nodded. ‘Sure is.’

‘Are you having a shindig?’

Jess shook her head. ‘Nah. I’m going home for the weekend so no doubt Mum and Gran will throw a little party for me.’

‘Oh, come on,’ Adam cajoled. ‘I didn’t think you girls needed an excuse to throw a party. It’s your birthday. You can’t just do nothing. Besides, I feel like a party.’

Jess looked at him. ‘Really?’ She wondered if she’d be so bold as to ask him for a birthday kiss? ‘Well, I guess …’

‘Good. That does it then.’ He grinned. ‘Get the girls to spread the word.’

Jess rolled her eyes. ‘Yes, sir.’

Adam chuckled. ‘So how old are you going to be?’

Jess took an internal breath. ‘Twenty-four,’ she murmured.

He slapped his forehead theatrically to cover the internal groan as she gave voice to the paltry number. ‘Still a baby,’ he teased.

Jess opened her mouth to object at the unfairness of his statement. To say, no, not a baby. A woman. A fully fledged woman with a woman’s desires. But a car beeped as they waited for the lights to change at an intersection and people crowded all around them, also waiting for the green flashing man.

It was hardly the kind of thing you said to someone surrounded by a bunch of strangers.

She wished she didn’t look so young. That she could add ten years. Hell, she wished she could add one or two. She didn’t want to be twelve years younger than him. She didn’t want him to think of her as some young girl with a silly crush.

As a baby.

Maybe it was time she showed him she was all grown up?

CHAPTER THREE

JESS eyed Adam’s bedroom door from the kitchen as she mixed a dash of melted chocolate into the already decadent icing mix. He hadn’t come home last night. Not that she’d seen anyway and she’d stayed up very late, feigning interest in some rubbish movie.

He’d gone on a date with some ward nurse from the hospital so she figured he was still playing hard.

The radio, which she’d tuned to the country music station, serenaded her as she took her frustrations out on the icing, beating it into lumpless submission.

The oven timer rang, interrupting her activity, for which her arm muscles were exceedingly grateful.

Jess turned and opened the oven door. A wave of heat rolled over her as the aroma of perfectly cooked Anzac biscuits permeated the entire room. Jess inhaled deeply as she took them out and upended them onto a cooling rack.

The kitchen smelled like baking day back home and she felt suddenly homesick. Her forthcoming trip home couldn’t get here fast enough.

Jess pushed the biscuits aside and dragged the chocolate cake she’d cooked that morning closer. She’d just spooned a dollop of icing onto the cake when Adam sauntered into the kitchen.

‘Mmm. Something smells amazing,’ he said.

Jess looked up. He was lounging in the archway, one shoulder shoved against the jamb, a suit jacket hooked via his index finger over the other. His tie had been pulled askew. A hand buried deep in a trouser pocket pulled the fabric interestingly against a firm bulky quadriceps.

‘I’m baking,’ she said unnecessarily as her heart lifted a little. He hadn’t gone out last night in a suit so maybe he had come home after all?

She marvelled at the many faces of Adam—boardies, scrubs, birthday suit and now a business suit. They were all so tantalising she couldn’t decide which one she preferred.

‘So I see,’ he remarked, pushing off the jamb and prowling into the kitchen. His stomach rumbled and he realised his meeting had run over and he hadn’t eaten any lunch. He slung his jacket around the back of a chair and reached for a cooling biscuit.

‘Be careful,’ Jess said, blowing out of her eye a piece of fringe that had loosened from her ponytail. ‘They’re hot.’

Adam’s mouth watered. They weren’t the only things that were hot. Jess bouncing around the kitchen in a ponytail and an apron was pretty damn hot too.

He gave himself a mental shake as he picked up the closest biscuit. Since when had he ever thought domesticated women were hot? Where had it ever got his mother?

He bit into the biscuit gingerly to hide his confusion.

‘Wow!’ he said as golden syrup and melted brown sugar infused his taste buds with glorious sensation. ‘This is a damn good biscuit.’

Jess felt her heart fill with joy at his enthusiastic compliment. His look of bliss as he’d savoured that first bite would be duly categorised in her memory banks as one of her best Adam moments. ‘You wait till you taste the birthday cake.’

‘You’re making your own birthday cake?’

Jess laughed. ‘Of course. You can’t have a birthday party without cake.’

‘We could have bought you a cake. You shouldn’t have had to make your own.’

Jess waved her hand at him, dismissing his suggestion outright. ‘Why buy one when I can make something much better?’

Adam eyed the cake. ‘It’s that good, huh?’

Jess pulled the spoon out of the icing and they both watched as its glossy texture slid off the back like treacle. For good measure she licked the back of the spoon and sighed. ‘Hell, yeah.’

Adam, who had followed every single second of Jess’s pink tongue gliding across the metal surface, temporarily lost his train of thought as a bolt of desire ignited his loins. In any other woman he would have said it was a deliberate come-on but Jess just looked at him with the same openness she always did.

No hint of coyness or agenda.

‘I didn’t know you baked,’ he said, changing the subject.

Jess nodded. ‘Always. I love to bake. Which is just as well seeing as how I have a terrible sweet tooth.’

With the image of Jess licking the spoon fresh in his mind, Adam had to admit there was something about a woman who loved to eat. Too many of the women he dated barely ate a thing. It was a revelation to see one embrace the whole process with such enthusiasm.

‘Well, these biscuits are winners.’

‘They most definitely are,’ Jess said with pride. ‘They’re my grandmother’s recipe. She’s known throughout the district for them. They’ve won her the blue ribbon at the Edwinburra Show for the last thirty-eight years.’

Adam chuckled. He took in the whole scene. A country song played in the background. The kitchen smelled like an old-fashioned bakehouse. Jess was dressed in a gingham apron with ‘Bless This House’ embroidered across the yoke.

He eyed her speculatively. ‘You really are a country girl, aren’t you?’

Jess wasn’t sure if admitting it was a good thing or a bad thing. But she refused to pretend to be something she wasn’t. Even for Adam. ‘Through and through.’

A look of contentment infused her features into a mask of pure serenity and kicked him hard in the chest. Had he ever felt the way she looked?

The urge to know more surprised him.

‘Tell me about home,’ he said, pulling up a kitchen chair.

Jess looked at him uncertainly. ‘The farm?’

‘Is that where you grew up?’ She nodded. ‘Tell me about the farm.’

Jess paused for a moment as a hundred images crowded her mind. She shrugged. ‘It’s … beautiful out there. The sky is so … blue … not like it is here. Like this giant glass dome that seems to stretch on for ever, and the smells … they’re so different to the city. Dirt and eucalypt, campfires and horses. And at nighttime the stars … they take your breath away.’

Adam stilled as the far-away look in her eyes seemed to reach deep inside him and squeeze. ‘The sunsets are stunning—ochres and reds and then … scarlet skies full of cockatoos. The billabongs are surrounded by gum trees and in the late afternoon hundreds of pink galahs feed on the banks …’

Jess felt her earlier sense of homesickness return with a vengeance and she became aware of Adam watching her intently. She blushed as she realised she’d been prattling on and on.

She looked down into the depths of warm, sludgy icing. ‘Sorry,’ she murmured as she absently stirred it again. ‘I get a little carried away.’

Adam dismissed her apology with a wave of his hand. He’d liked hearing her voice soften and watch her eyes follow invisible flocks of cockatoos as she’d painted her outback picture for him.

‘It must have been hard to leave.’

Jess nodded, feeling the wrench of leaving all over again. ‘It felt like I’d lost my best friend.’ She’d cried for the entire seven-hour bus trip. ‘But …’ Jess shrugged and looked at him ‘ … it’s a means to an end.’

‘Oh?’

‘Once I’ve got city experience under my belt I can go back home to where I’m really needed. There’s a chronic nursing shortage in the bush—too many people have to go to the city, leave all that’s dear to them, to get medical care. It’s not right.’

Adam felt relief flood his system, knowing Jess was planning on heading back out west. That alone should be enough to kill any ridiculous notions that had filled his head since she’d cluelessly licked that spoon and put his body on high alert.

‘Is that why you became a nurse?’

She nodded. ‘My grandfather died when I was twelve in a Sydney hospital. He’d wanted to come home to Edwinburra but there were no beds at the hospital because there were no nurses to staff them. So he died far away from the house he’d helped his father build and the land he’d worked his entire life.’

Jess felt the old feelings of injustice resurface and well in her chest. It was amazing how raw it still felt from time to time and she dropped her gaze back to the bowl of icing.

‘I grew up in that house, the only kid in a houseful of adults. I saw him every day of my life until he got sick and I didn’t get to say goodbye.’

Adam felt the ache in her voice right down to his bones. ‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured after a moment.

Jess sucked in a breath and blinked hard. ‘Thanks.’ She gave him a small smile. ‘Anyway,’ she said briskly, suddenly feeling foolish for confiding in him, ‘this isn’t getting the cake iced.’ She touched the biscuits, satisfied that they’d cooled enough, and stacked them in a nearby container.

Adam guessed that the abrupt changing of topic and sudden flurry of activity was his signal to drop it. And if he wasn’t mistaken, her cheeks looked pink. He hadn’t wanted to embarrass her. So he stood and followed her lead.

‘Are these for tonight?’ he asked, reaching his hand into the container to snag another biscuit.

‘No, and just as well,’ Jess said pointedly as she removed them from his reach, pleased to be back on solid ground. ‘Anzacs are not party food. But the oven was on and they’re Cort’s favourites.’

‘So what are we eating tonight?’ Adam asked as he took a step towards her, angling to get closer to the biscuits.

Jess nearly rolled her eyes. Typical man—suggested the party then left it up to everyone else to organise. She shifted the biscuits again as he closed in on them.

‘We’re getting in some of those Lebanese-style pizzas,’ she said.

Coogee had some truly magnificent ethnic eateries and Jess adored the Lebanese take-away. The closest thing to ethnic in Edwinburra was imported olives at the local deli.

Adam reached across her but Jess tugged the container out of his reach. They looked at each other for a solid moment. He, demanding to be allowed another. She, daring him to try again.

But suddenly he realised how close they were and she smelled like chocolate and treacle and his appetite turned … carnal.

His body moved from high alert to defcom four.

He sighed. ‘That’s it. You leave me no choice.’ And he dipped his finger in the nearby icing bowl.

She automatically slapped his hand but it was too late. He was bringing the icing-dipped finger back to his lips and slipping it inside his mouth.

Jess watched as if it was playing in slow motion. The way his lips parted, the glide of his chocolate-lubricated finger as it slid inside his mouth, the soft clamp of his lips, the slow passage of a stray drip as it trekked down his chin, the way his cheeks hollowed as they created enough suction to strip the icing off, his finger reappearing a few moments later clean and moist from the ministrations of his tongue.

‘Mmm, mmm.’ Adam shut his eyes as layers of sweetness coated the inside of his mouth. ‘This,’ he said, opening his eyes, ‘is very, very good.’ He licked his finger again, hoping for any residual flavour.

Jess didn’t know what to say. Or do. All she could think about was the smudge of chocolate icing on his chin. So very, very near his mouth.

‘You have chocolate on your chin,’ she said, hating the suddenly breathy quality of her voice.

Adam looked down at her, at her gaze fixed just south of his mouth. The sadness that had lurked in her eyes before was well and truly gone. There was heat now—lots of heat. His body tensed even further.

‘I do?’ he asked.

Jess nodded and handed him the washcloth she had handy. ‘Here.’

Adam regarded it. Any other woman, with this much sexual tension filling the air, would have offered to lick it off. God knew, he’d lost his mind enough to let her. But that obviously wasn’t her style.

And that should have been a turn-off.

But there was something so sweet about her primness, especially with all that heat in her gaze, it only intrigued him further.

‘Thanks,’ he said, taking the proffered cloth.

He cleaned his chin and passed it back to her. There was another moment when she just looked up at him and he gave serious thought to kissing her. Her mouth was pink and parted slightly and he knew she’d taste like chocolate icing.

‘Any time,’ she murmured.

Adam stared at her lips as they moved. ‘Happy birthday, Jess.’

Jess smiled. ‘Another year older.’

Adam nodded, dragging his gaze from her mouth and stepping away.

Still the same age as Ruby.

He unhooked his jacket from the chair. ‘I have a couple of meetings to go to so I’m going to be late to the party. Start without me.’

And then he was gone.

Jess blinked. She could have sworn he was going to kiss her. And then she’d gone and spoilt it by reminding him of her age.

Stupid.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

‘I need a dress. A sexy dress. A very sexy dress.’

Tilly looked up from blindly trying to find the hole in her ear with the hook of her dangly earrings.

‘Okay … I thought you were just wearing jeans.’ She looked down at her own casual attire. ‘I thought we weren’t getting dressed up.’

‘It doesn’t have to be dressy. Just …’

‘Sexy.’

Jess nodded. ‘Very sexy.’

Tilly nodded towards her wardrobe. ‘Help yourself.’

Jess clapped her hands, entering Tilly’s purple room and scooting over to what she knew to be a veritable treasure trove of girly dresses.

‘Is there a man you’re hoping to impress tonight?’ Tilly asked hopefully.

Jess refused to even think of Adam as she flicked through the multitude of coat hangers. ‘Nope, just tired of being the jeans and T girl.’

‘Right …’

Jess looked at her friend. ‘It’s my party,’ she said defensively. ‘I want to look like the party girl.’

‘Of course.’ Tilly nodded.

Jess narrowed her eyes. ‘What?’ she demanded.

Tilly bit her lip, choosing her words carefully. ‘Well … it’s just that … you’re not really the party-girl type … are you?’

‘I am tonight.’ She held up a red dress with no back and a plunging neckline.

Tilly shook her head. ‘What about this baby-doll dress with the—?’

‘No,’ Jess interrupted, shaking her head vigorously. ‘No baby anything.’

‘Okay … let’s see.’ Tilly hunted a bit more. ‘What about this one?’

She held up the chocolate-brown short cotton sundress against Jess. It had a funky fringed hem and the colour suited Jess’s blonde hair and emphasised the amazing blue of her eyes. The V-neckline wasn’t too risqué and given that Jess was a couple of inches shorter than Tilly, it would probably fall to mid thigh.

‘It’s an amazing colour on you,’ Tilly said.

Jess inspected herself in the mirror on the inside of the wardrobe door. ‘Is Marcus around?’

Marcus was an obstetrician at Eastern Beaches. He and Tilly had met when Marcus had tried to shut down Tilly’s beloved birth centre.

He’d seen the error of his ways.

Tilly shook her head. ‘He doesn’t finish for another hour.’

‘Good.’

Jess whipped off her T-shirt and threw the dress over her head. It did suit her but the neckline gaped because Jess didn’t have enough cleavage to do it justice. She plucked glumly at the sagging material.

‘Here.’ Tilly reached into a drawer behind them and pulled out a shopping bag. ‘Use this. It’ll work a treat.’

Jess looked at the fancy push-up bra that seemed more padding than anything else. How it would ever fit Tilly she had no idea.

Tilly seemed to read her mind. ‘I bought it in a hurry on sale without trying it on. I never did get round to taking it back. Consider it a birthday gift.’

Jess held the bra against her. ‘Really?’

Tilly nodded. ‘It’s yours.’

Jess gave her friend a quick hug. ‘Thanks. You’re a lifesaver.’

The party had been in full swing for two hours when Adam finally showed. Jess was aware of him the second he entered, even though the lights had been dimmed right down and music blared out from the sound system.

She was determined to stick to her strategy, though. Look damn good and completely ignore him.

Tilly’s bra helped the first part of her plan immensely. It managed what nature and genetics had not—cleavage—and several appreciative looks from men had boosted her self-confidence significantly.

Even Cort, Marcus and James, three of the most seriously in love, monogamous men, she knew, had stared at her like she’d got full body ink done instead of thrown on a dress and a push-up bra.

‘Wow.’ Marcus had whistled. ‘Little Jess is all grown up.’

It had earned him a swift elbow to the ribs from Tilly who, after this afternoon, was particularly aware of Jess’s sensitivity about how old she looked.

Jess had laughed. She really didn’t mind it coming from Marcus. Or anyone else, for that matter.

Just not Adam.

She knew she’d been cursed with youthful looks. She was constantly carded at night clubs and bottle shops and patients sometimes looked at her like she was still a uni student ‘practising’ on them.

It was inconvenient at times, for sure. But she’d never seen it as a real issue until she’d fallen for a man twelve years older than her.

Her confidence in the new improved party-girl Jess lasted until she came back from the downstairs bathroom where she’d snagged her third beer for the night. The bathtub had been filled with ice and was being used as a makeshift esky.

The first person she saw was Adam. He hadn’t bothered to change out of his suit from earlier. Just pulled off his tie and undone the top button. He was smiling down at three women who were all gazing up at him adoringly.

She recognised them from Eastern Beaches and was dismayed to see how confidently they flirted. How they swayed their bodies, laughed, touched his arm, pushed their hair behind their ears, played with their necklaces, tipped their heads to the side as they chatted.

And to add insult to injury not one of them looked like their cleavages needed enhancement.

Suddenly she felt young and gangly again.

‘Hey, Jess.’

Jess smiled at Nicholas, one of the orderlies from Theatre, as he approached. She took a deep swig of her beer. This was her party and she would not feel sorry for herself or mope around over a man who had no idea she existed.

It was her birthday and she planned to have a damn good time. When Nicholas kissed her on the cheek and wished her happy birthday, she plastered a smile on her face and leaned in close to hear what else he had to say.

Adam worked the room for the next couple of hours, watching Jess surreptitiously as men flocked to kiss the birthday girl. Not that anyone would describe Jess as a girl

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