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‘Not exactly. I’m attempting to repair the air-con, but I’m not a repairman—not even close as you can tell by how hot it still is in here. I’m a podiatric surgeon from Sydney.’
Phoebe was more confused than ever. Why did Ken Rollins have his podiatric surgeon son trying to fix the air-conditioning unit? And why wasn’t Ken there to meet her?
‘Is your father in with patients already?’ she asked as she looked around her surroundings, hoping that the older surgeon would suddenly appear and clear up the confusion. And bring his son a shirt so he could cover up.
‘No, he’s not …’
‘Is he running late?’
‘No he’s not,’ he replied without any hint of emotion in his reply. ‘I’m actually standing in for him for the next four weeks.’
Phoebe quickly realised as she shook his hand that the man standing before her was potentially her new boss. She took a few steps back from the very warm handshake and looked warily at him. She had signed on to work with Ken Rollins. This Dr Rollins was definitely not in his sixties. Disastrous, was the first thought that came to her mind. The second thought, as she looked at his lightly tanned physique, was not in any way ladylike and nothing she wanted to be considering with this man. Or any man, now that she had sworn off the species. It was not what she needed. In fact this was close to a catastrophe.
She had envisaged an older, established and experienced mentor to work closely with for five days a week over the next six months. This was supposed to be a professional development opportunity. And the man standing before her stripped to the waist was anything but professional development. He was not what she wanted and nor did she have the capacity to deal with him either. With the combination of Heath Rollins’s half-naked physique and the heat in the room Phoebe knew she had stepped into the fire—literally.
‘Where exactly is your father?’ she asked. ‘And why are you stepping in for him?’
As she spoke she was doing her best not to be distracted by his very toned body or his equally gorgeous eyes. But it was a struggle, and she faced the prospect that the cruel hand of the universe had just replaced her playboy fiancé with someone even more handsome, if a comparison was to be made. And she had to work with him until almost the middle of the following year. Six long months.
She settled her eyes on the stubble-covered cleft in his chin, then moved them to his soft full lips, framed by dimples and slightly smiling, and then finally she looked up and discovered his brilliant blue eyes.
She had to admit that he was a very different type from Giles. This man had more cowboy good-looks, while Giles was the Wall Street slick type. But she didn’t want any type of good-looking and she was far from happy with the arrangement. Good-looking men were all the same, and a long-haul trip to the other side of the world only to find that fate had ordered her another one was not what she had wanted.
Suddenly she felt a little dizzy. The heat was closing in by the minute. She mopped her forehead with a tissue as she reached for a seat and promptly sat down with a sigh. Her plans had gone terribly awry and the added lack of air-conditioning made it unbearable. This was nothing close to the first day she had planned in her mind.
‘I sent you an email outlining the changes,’ he said, his lean fingers rubbing his chin. ‘You shouldn’t be surprised.’
‘What email?’ she managed as she looked around for something to use as a fan and grabbed a magazine, which she moved frantically through the air in front of her face in the hope that it would cool her down.
‘The one that clearly explained my father was in an accident two days ago, fractured his patella and had to undergo surgery, so you’ll be working alongside me until he returns.’
‘So he’s coming back?’ she asked, with a little relief colouring her voice. ‘When, exactly?’
‘In about a month, if his rehabilitation goes as planned. It wasn’t a complete reconstruction, so he should be back on deck a lot sooner than after a full recon.’
Phoebe nodded and bit the inside of her cheek as she considered his response. At least it was four weeks, not six months. She felt a little better about the time frame but the confirmation that Heath was going to be her boss, for however short or long a time, was still not news she needed to hear.
She kept her improvised fan moving through the thick air, trying to bring some relief to the situation. Against the oppressive heat it was little use; against news of the working arrangements it was no use at all. For the next four weeks she would be working with a man too handsome for his own good and definitely for the good of all the women who fell victim to his charm. But, thinking of what she had just escaped, she knew she would never fall for a man like Heath. Not that she was on the market for anyone anyway.
She loosened the belt cinched at her waist to allow her to breathe a little more easily in the mugginess that was wrapping around her.
‘You’re looking extremely pale,’ he said, with something she thought sounded like a level of concern. ‘I’ll get a glass of water for you.’
Phoebe swayed to and fro in her seat, watching as Heath crossed back to her with a plastic cup he had filled from the water cooler. She took a few sips, then shakily handed him back the cup. Just as the polished wooden floor became a checked pattern that surged towards her in waves. As she fought the swirling focus that made her feel more disorientated by the minute, she wondered why any of this had happened to her.
Was there any way she could escape the heat? Why did Ken have to wreck his knee now? Why did she have to work with this man for the next few weeks?
Suddenly there were no more questions. The stifling heat finally claimed her. And Dr Phoebe Johnson fainted into Heath’s strong arms.
CHAPTER THREE (#uac37a972-452e-56b1-a828-7026e8ac2f2f)
‘GOOD, YOU’RE BACK with us.’
Phoebe heard the deep timbre of a male voice very close, and when she opened her eyes she realised just how close. She was facing some well-defined and very naked male abdominal muscles, only inches away from her. Her brow formed a frown as she realised she recognised the distinctly Australian accent. It was her temporary boss—and in her direct line of vision was his bare tanned stomach.
Still lying down, she attempted to let her eyes roam her surroundings—until she was finally forced to look up and see Heath looking down at her. She couldn’t read his expression. He wasn’t frowning, but nor was he smiling. His look was serious. Concerned. And the concern appeared genuine. She discovered her resting place was an examination table. And soon realised there was a cool towel on her forehead and that a portable fan was stirring the heavy air and moving the fine wisps of hair that had escaped from her ponytail.
‘She’s lucky you were there to catch her. Sorry—I stepped out to get a cool drink and missed her.’
Phoebe heard a second voice. It belonged to a female but she couldn’t see anyone from her vantage point. It made sense to her, even in her disorientated state, that for him to have set so much in place so quickly, such as the cool towel and the fan, he had to have had some assistance.
‘I must apologise, Phoebe. I’d hoped to have the air-con up and running before you arrived,’ Heath said, in a serious, professional tone that belied his appearance. He looked more like a private dancer than a stoic doctor. ‘I’m not surprised you passed out. Aussie summers can be tough if you’re not used to them.’
Phoebe was so embarrassed when she realised what had happened. She stirred from her horizontal position, but still felt light-headed so didn’t attempt to sit completely upright immediately. But while she slowly moved she remembered a little of the conversation they had shared—including the news he had imparted to her. ‘You’ll be working alongside me.’ Silently she begged the universe to tell her it wasn’t true.
The last thing she needed was a man like Heath. She needed to be thinking about her career as a podiatric surgeon and she wanted to be taught by an experienced older practitioner. This new arrangement was not a dynamic she had even considered as a possibility when she’d agreed to work in Adelaide. She’d thought it would be six months of respite. An emotionally healing time packaged as a working sabbatical.
‘Here’s some water,’ the young woman said as she stepped into view, and she handed Heath a glass with a plastic concertina straw. ‘It’s not too cold.’
Phoebe squinted as she tried to focus. The woman looked to be in her mid-twenties. Blonde, quite tall, very pretty, with a lovely smile. Phoebe suddenly felt Heath’s strong arm lift her upright, yet there was no warmth in the way he held her. It was as if she was an inanimate object.
‘Hold on to your cold compress and sip this,’ he said as he curved the straw to meet her lips.
He held the drink steady with one hand while the other still supported her. His bedside manner she would have described as ‘reserved’ at best.
Phoebe held the cold towel in place as she slowly sucked the water through the straw and felt immediately better for it. But the sight of her skirt no longer demurely skimming her knees did not make her feel good at all. Most of her legs were bare, for the world and Dr Heath Rollins to see, and she was horrified.
‘I’ve had enough, thank you,’ she said as she moved her mouth away from the drink and then, struggling to keep the towel on her head, she tried to lift her bottom slightly and release the hem of the skirt.
There was little covered at all. Fainting and baring parts of her anatomy that should be saved for the beach, or more intimate encounters, was definitely not a great start to this already less than desirable working relationship. She had secured the job purely on her references, and now she could only guess what he was thinking as she reached down to gain some dignity.
‘Here—let me help you.’
His hands lifted her gently and with ease. Her heartbeat suddenly increased with the unexpected touch of his hands on her bare skin. Suddenly she did not feel like an inanimate object. And this time her giddiness wasn’t from the heat of the room. His closeness while he held her up made the job of adjusting her clothing difficult. She finally wriggled the skirt into place and swung her legs around, subtly encouraging Heath to release her and step back.
Clearing her throat, and raising her chin a little defensively, Phoebe looked at Heath as if he were almost the perpetrator of the incident. ‘How exactly—?’ she began and then paused for a moment. ‘How did I get here? I don’t remember leaving the reception area. I do remember feeling very hot, then light-headed, but where was I when I fainted?’
‘You passed out on a chair in the waiting room, and I carried you in here and put you on your side. You were out for less than a minute. As soon as your head was level with your body you came to.’
The way he spoke was quite clinical and detached, but she still managed to feel uneasy at the mental picture of him scooping her up in his arms and carrying her to the examination bed with little or no effort.
Her eyes briefly scanned his firefighter physique before she blinked and turned away. Ken Rollins would be back before she knew it, she told herself. Then all would be right in her world again. This was just a hiccup in her plans. And if Heath’s attitude was anything to go by she had nothing to worry about. His body might have been created for sin but his manner certainly hadn’t.
‘Thank you. I’m sorry I created such a fuss.’ Her tone quickly mimicked his coolness.
‘These things happen, but you seem fine now,’ he said as he stepped back further and turned to face the other woman.
‘Tilly, you can finish up. I think we’re fine here. Thanks for cancelling the next two days’ patients. The air-con should be repaired by Thursday. You can pick up the twins from childcare early and stay home for a couple of days.’
‘Are you sure, Heath? I can come in and do some accounts and general office catch-up work tomorrow.’
‘No,’ he replied firmly, wiping his brow with the back of his hand. ‘It’s like a sauna today and it will be worse tomorrow. It’s a health and safety issue to be working in these conditions.’
‘All right—have it your way,’ Tilly said as she reached over and kissed him on the cheek. ‘See you at home tonight, then. Oh, and Dr Johnson? I hope you feel better soon.’
‘Thank you, but please call me Phoebe.’
Phoebe looked down at the young woman’s hand as she left the room and saw a wedding band and stunning solitaire diamond. They were married. And they had twins. Of course they did. They were perfect for each other. Two stunning blonde Aussies, sun-kissed and fabulous. She could only guess how gorgeous their children would be.
Phoebe wondered if she had read Heath incorrectly. Perhaps he wasn’t a Giles clone. Perhaps he was an austere but loving husband who just happened to be very good-looking and in Phoebe’s still emotionally raw state that had incorrectly translated to him being a potential cad. All good-looking men had been tarnished by Giles. And she had clearly been scarred.
She suddenly felt very self-conscious, and a little sad at her own ability to jump to conclusions. Perhaps all men were not the same … Just the one she had chosen. And Susy’s recent choice too.
Moving awkwardly on the examination table, she tried to inch her skirt down further to cover her knees.
He shook his head. ‘You don’t have to rush to cover up. I’m not looking at your legs, if that’s what you’re worried about.’
Phoebe felt instantly embarrassed. She began fidgeting nervously and smoothing the rest of her clothes into place, and then tidying her hair in an attempt to gain composure without saying a word. There was nothing that came to mind that wouldn’t make her appear even sillier and more self-conscious, so she stayed silent.
Heath watched the way she was fussing. He found her behaviour so far from the image he had created in his mind of a podiatric surgeon from Washington with impeccable references, who was triple board certified in surgery, orthopaedics, and primary podiatric medicine. She was also a Fellow of the American College of Foot and Ankle Surgeons, the American Academy of Podiatric Sports Medicine and the American College of Foot & Ankle Orthopaedics & Medicine. All of those qualifications had had him picturing someone very different. He’d thought she would be brimming with confidence, more than a little aloof. And definitely nowhere near as pretty.
Dr Phoebe Johnson had taken Heath by surprise …
Phoebe’s blood pressure had slowly returned to normal and she felt more steady physically.
‘So, what would you like me to do? I guess if you’ve cancelled the patients there’s probably no point me being here. I can take some patient notes back to my house and read over them.’
She looked around and ascertained where she was in relation to the front door and the reception area, where she assumed her bag would be, and headed in that direction. His wife, she assumed, had already left.
‘There’s definitely no point you staying here, and to be honest your first two days’ patients are post-op and quite straightforward,’ he told her as he followed her out to where her bag was resting by a chair. ‘Here is probably the worst place to be. We don’t want a repeat performance.’
The waiting room and reception area was even hotter as it faced the glare of the morning sun on the huge glass panes.
‘If you’re sure I can’t do anything here, then I’ll see you on Thursday.’
She reached for the front door and he stepped closer to her to hold the door open. Her face looked angelic, and he was intrigued by her. He momentarily wondered why, with all her experience and qualifications, she wanted to work in Adelaide, of all places? Suddenly he felt curious. She was just nothing like he had imagined. He could work out most people, and he prided himself on being able to know what made them tick. But not her. Not yet.
When he’d glanced over her résumé in search of her contact details he had worried that she would not find the practice enough of a challenge, with her interests and her extensive experience in sports podiatry, but then had conceded that she had made her professional choice and it was none of his concern. And if she did grow bored and move on before the six months were up—again, it was not his concern. He wouldn’t be there long enough for it to have any impact on him. His father could find a replacement if she did.
‘Okay, I’ll see you on Thursday.’
‘Yes. I’ll see you then,’ Phoebe responded as she walked past him into a wall of warm, dry air.
She wasn’t sure if it was warmer outside than in, but it felt less humid—although she quickly realised neither was particularly pleasant. It was still early, but the pavement held the heat from the day before and she could tell it would be blisteringly hot in a few hours.
‘I hope you find a way to stay cool.’
Without much emotion in his voice, but clearly being polite, he said, ‘I think I’ll take my son to the pool later on today. Maybe you should hit the beach or a pool—there’s quite a few around. There are some indoor ones too. Oscar’s looking forward to finding some other children to play with.’ Before he turned to walk inside he added, ‘I hope you find a way to stay cool too.’
Phoebe stopped in her tracks. ‘I thought you and your wife had twins?’ she called back to him from the bottom step, with a curious frown dressing her brow.
‘No, my sister Tilly has twin girls, but they’re only two and a half years old. Oscar’s five,’ he told her, with a little more animation. ‘Tilly’s like a mother to Oscar while we’re in town, and it’s been good for him since it’s just the two of us the rest of the time. I’m sure as they grow up the cousins will all be great friends, but right now Oscar really doesn’t find them much fun at all.’
He looked back at Phoebe with an expression she couldn’t quite make out as he paused in the doorway, as if he was thinking something through before he spoke.
Phoebe turned to leave.
‘It’s ridiculously hot out there,’ he remarked, catching her attention. ‘If you have time perhaps we could pop round to the corner café and grab a cool drink. I wouldn’t want you fainting on the way home. I can answer any questions you have about the practice.’
Phoebe could see he was a very serious man—nothing like Giles, with his smooth flirtatious manner. But there was something about Heath that made her curious. She reminded herself that she would never be interested in him in any way romantically, but with his demeanour she didn’t flag him as a threat to her reborn virginal status. And she did want to know about the running of the practice so she decided to accept his invitation. He was her boss after all.
‘I have time.’
Phoebe had decided on the quick walk to the café that she did not want to discuss her personal life and that she would not enquire about his. She knew enough. He was Ken Rollins’s son. He was filling in for a month, and he was the single father of a five-year-old boy. That was more than enough. Whether he was divorced or had never been married was none of her business and immaterial.
She wasn’t going to be spending enough time with Heath for his personal life to matter. Four weeks would pass quickly and then he and his son would be gone. She wasn’t sure if she would ever even meet the boy. It wasn’t as if a medical practice dealing with feet would be the most interesting place for a child to visit, she mused, so their paths might never cross.
‘Thank you,’ she said as she stepped inside the wonderfully cool and thankfully not too densely populated coffee shop.
‘They make a nice iced coffee,’ Heath told her as they made their way to a corner table and he placed his laptop containing patient notes beside him. ‘It’s barista coffee, and they add ice-cold milk and whipped cream. They do it well.’
‘Sounds perfect—but perhaps hold the cream.’
‘Looking after your heart?’ he enquired as he pulled out the chair for her.
In more ways than one, she thought.
It was a surprise to Phoebe how easy she found it to talk with Heath. While he was still reserved, and borderline frosty, he was attentive and engaged in their discussion. He asked about her work at the hospital in Washington and their conversation was far from stilted, due to their mutual love of their specialty. With Giles, she had not spoken much about her work as he hadn’t seemed to understand it and nor had he wanted to. It had been plain that he wasn’t interested and he’d never pretended to care. It had been all about his career aspirations and how they could achieve them together.
‘I’ve seen your résumé—it’s impressive, but definitely geared towards sports podiatry. My father’s practice is predominately general patient load along with the occasional sportsman or woman—not the focus I assume you’re accustomed to. How do you think you will adjust to that?’
‘Sports podiatry is a passion of mine. I’ve been working in a fantastic unit within a large teaching hospital, where we offer a full spectrum of services for the athlete—including physical therapy and surgery, with an emphasis on biomechanics. My focus outside of essential surgical intervention was primarily on orthotic treatment directed to correct structural deficiency and muscular imbalance. But in general my goal is to return any patient, regardless of their profession, to their maximum level of function and allow them to re-engage in an active life.’
Heath agreed with all she was saying, but added, ‘I understand—I just hope you don’t begin to feel that this practice is not what you signed up for.’
‘No, I love what I do—and feet are feet, no matter what the owners of them do.’
Heath found her answer amusing, but he didn’t smile. He rarely did, and those moments were saved for his son. And there was still that unanswered question …
‘So tell me, Phoebe, if you love the hospital back in your hometown, you enjoy your work and your colleagues, why did you want to leave?’
Phoebe nervously took a sip of the icy drink. It was rich and flavoursome, just as good as he had promised … and she was stalling. ‘I needed a break from Washington,’ she finally responded.
‘A Caribbean cruise or skiing in Aspen would have been easier than relocating to the other side of the world. And if you were looking for alternative employers I’m sure there must be loads of options for someone of your calibre in the US. It’s a big country.’
‘I wanted more than a quick vacation or a new employer. It was time for a sea change.’
‘Like I said, there are a lot of places that would fit that bill on your own continent—and I’m sure with a lot less red tape than it must have taken for you to work Down Under.’
