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‘Yeah,’ he drawled. ‘I went as the Big Bad Wolf. I huffed and I puffed and brought the whole house down.’
She gave him a haughty look down the length of her nose that was right out the pages of a Jane Austen novel. ‘At least you wouldn’t have had to go to the trouble and expense of hiring a costume,’ she said. ‘You would have gone just as you are.’
Jake held her feisty little eye-lock. He felt a stirring in his groin that had nothing to do with her skimpy outfit. There was something about her imperious air and her toffee-nosed accent that made his flesh tingle from head to foot.
Was it his self-imposed dating drought that had stirred his senses so intensely? He’d made a bet with his sister at Christmas that he could give up sex for the rest of the summer. Rosie had criticised his playboy lifestyle, even going as far as saying it was setting a bad example for her young son, Nathan. If he lost the bet he would have to pay Rosie a thousand dollars towards Nathan’s education fund. He had no problem with donating the money for Nathan. He would give that and more, bet or no bet. But he did have a problem with his kid sister thinking he had no self-control and discipline. So he’d set a new record for himself—a new personal best. He didn’t like admitting it, but abstinence had been good for him. His sex life had become a bit boring and predictable over the last year. But he didn’t want anything long-term. He was happy with his fancy-free approach to relationships. It had just been a bad year, that was all.
Besides, he liked his flings short and uncomplicated.
No strings.
No rings.
No promises.
Once his period of celibacy was up, Kitty Cargill, with her I’m-just-pretending-to-be-a-wild-child routine, could be just the one to kick things off for the rest of this year.
‘You can take your cousin home as soon as she’s had her X-ray,’ Jake said. ‘And I hope when I next see you in this unit you’re wearing something a little more appropriate. We’re supposed to be saving patients’ lives here, not giving them myocardial infarcts. Understood?’
She gave him a glittering glare. ‘Perfectly, Dr Chandler.’
‘Grrrgghhh!’ Kitty was still fuming as she unpacked her things at her new town house three days later. She cringed in embarrassment when she thought of turning up for work the following Monday. How on earth was she going to face him?
Julie, damn her, was still laughing about it, in spite of hobbling about on crutches and having to take time off from her job as a beautician. Her cousin thought the sprained ankle was worth it to have seen someone as prim and proper as Kitty floundering so far out of her depth.
‘God, he was so gorgeous,’ Julie had said only that morning when Kitty had rung to check on her. ‘Did you see how dark his blue eyes were? And so tall! He must have been six foot three or four, don’t you think?’
‘I’m trying not to think about him,’ Kitty said. ‘That was singularly the most excruciatingly embarrassing evening of my entire life.’ Well, apart from finding my best friend, Sophie, in bed with my long-term boyfriend the very weekend I thought he was going to propose to me. ‘I wonder if it’s too late to ask for a transfer to another hospital …’ She bit down on her lip, daunted at the thought of finding a new placement at such short notice.
‘He had great hands,’ Julie rabbited on. ‘So strong and capable and masculine. I wonder if he’s married. I don’t think he was wearing a ring. But he was wearing gloves, so who knows? Maybe a little fling with your new boss will be just the trick to get that two-timing jerk Charles Wetherby out of your system once and for all.’
‘Will you stop it, for pity’s sake?’ Kitty said. ‘I don’t want to talk about Dr Chandler.’ Or Charles, she added silently, with a tight cramping pain over her heart.
But even so her mind kept rerunning the whole debacle like a DVD-player jammed on replay. Jake Chandler had accused her of being drunk and yet she was more or less a teetotaller. He’d thought she was a prostitute, and yet she was twenty-six years old and had only had one lover—her childhood sweetheart, who had turned out not to be such a sweetheart after all.
This three-month trip Down Under was part of her coping strategy.
Kitty had always considered herself a gracious and forgiving type, but staying in London while Charles got married to Sophie Hamilton was stretching the bounds of her grace and forgiveness a little too far.
Kitty had grown up with Charles. He had lived in the same village, on the same street, in a house only four doors down from hers. She had gone through infants, primary school, high school and medical school with him. They had done their residency and internship at the same hospitals. They had practically been joined at the hip. Everyone had described them as the perfect couple. They’d never argued. They’d been best friends. They’d enjoyed the same things. They’d had the same friends. They had wanted the same things—or so Kitty had thought.
For months she had been expecting a romantic proposal. She had even secretly chosen a ring to match the promise ring Charles had given her on her sixteenth birthday. She had walked into bridal shops and dreamily tried on gorgeous gowns and voluminous veils. She had bought dozens of bridal magazines, making copious notes as she flicked through them. She had even—she cringed in embarrassment even now—gone to several wedding venues to check on prices and availability.
Now Charles was gone and she was on her own.
No perfect white wedding.
No honeymoon in a luxurious and exotic location.
No happy ever after.
Kitty worked on flattening cardboard boxes for the recycling bin in the town house complex car park. She was hot and sweaty. She wondered if she would ever get used to this oppressively humid heat. Just as well she was only staying twelve weeks. London could get hot in summer, but Sydney in early February was like living in a pizza oven. She had been to the beach, but the sun—in spite of layers of sunscreen—had scorched her pale skin and given her even more freckles on her nose. Tendrils of her thick chestnut hair were sticking to her neck, even though she had piled it as high as she could in a ponytail-cum-knot on the top of her head.
She brushed her forearm across her perspiring brow and reached for the last box. The last box, however, was reluctant to be reduced to a flat layer. She stomped on it, but it flapped back up to snap at her ankles. ‘Down, down, down, damn you to sodding hell and back,’ she cursed, and she gave it one last almighty stomp by jumping on it with both feet.
‘Need some help?’ A deep male voice drawled from behind her.
Kitty swung around so fast she almost lost her footing. Her eyes went wide and her heart gave a flap like a sail in a fifty-knot wind. ‘You!’ she gasped.
He gave a sweeping obsequious bow. ‘At your service, ma’am.’
Kitty felt her skin pebble all over with irritation and embarrassment. ‘I was just—’ She waved her hand at the recycling bin. ‘Um … recycling …’
His eyes were smiling, no—laughing at her. ‘Looks like you need a man to do that for you,’ he said.
‘I do not need a man.’ She felt the slow burn of Jake Chandler’s gaze as it took in her baggy track pants and tank top, pausing for a heartstopping moment on her breasts. Her stomach felt as if it was being stirred by a long-handled spoon and her heart kept leaping and jumping as if it was being prodded by the wire of a high-voltage electric current.
She couldn’t remember Charles ever looking at her like that—as if he could see right through her clothes to the flesh beneath. She couldn’t remember feeling so taken aback by a man’s looks before, either. She had to admit Jake Chandler had looked pretty hot in theatre scrubs on Saturday night, but dressed in dark blue jeans and a white T-shirt he looked staggeringly gorgeous. The white of the T-shirt highlighted his naturally olive-toned skin, and his perfectly formed pectoral muscles and flat, toned stomach indicated he was a man who worked hard and played harder. He was certainly every bit as tall as Julie had suggested, and because Kitty wasn’t wearing four-inch heels she had to crane her neck to meet his dark sapphire-blue eyes.
‘Are you the new tenant?’ he asked.
‘Yes, I’m renting number three,’ she said, with the sort of cool composure that would have earned her an Oscar if she were an actor. But she certainly didn’t feel cool around Jake Chandler. She felt blisteringly hot, and it didn’t have a thing to do with the searing temperature of the summer day. There was something about his dark blue gaze that made her feel as if each time he looked at her he wasn’t seeing her as she was dressed now but as she had been dressed the other night. ‘Don’t let me keep you,’ she said, bending down to scoop up the recalcitrant cardboard.
‘Here,’ he said, reaching for the bundle that was almost as tall as her. ‘Let me help you with that.’
Kitty felt one of his hands brush against her right breast in the exchange. It was like a strike of lightning against her flesh. It zapped right through her body, sizzling it with erotic heat and making every hair on her head rise up from her scalp. She stepped back as if she had been burnt, her face flaming, her heart going at a pace that would have made any decent cardiologist call for an immediate ECG.
But Jake Chandler seemed totally unaffected. He stuffed the cardboard into the bin and shoved it down as if it were a marshmallow with a powerful press of his muscled and deeply tanned arm. ‘Do you need anything else done?’ he asked. ‘Furniture shifted? Boxes carried up the stairs?’ His dark blue eyes glinted again. ‘Costumes unpacked—that sort of thing?’
‘I’m fine … Thank you,’ she said, wishing she could stop blushing like a silly little schoolgirl. What was it about this man that made her feel so gauche? Was it his laughing blue eyes or his in-your-face masculinity or both? ‘You’ve done quite enough.’
A tiny silence crept past as he continued to hold her flustered gaze with his unwavering one.
‘I’m having a few people over for a barbecue this evening,’ he said. ‘Nothing fancy. No cucumber sandwiches or anything. Just a few steaks and snags slapped on the grill and some beers. Feel free to pop over and join us.’
Kitty thought of the frozen, calorie-controlled, most probably hideously tasteless dinner she had bought. She thought of eating it alone, just like all the other frozen meals she had mechanically consumed with tears on the side since the break-up. She hadn’t seen the point in cooking for one person so she had stopped.
But then she thought of spending the evening with Jake Chandler and his coterie of like-minded beer-swilling friends. What if some of them were other staff members from St Benedict’s? He was probably only inviting her so he could make fun of her in front of them. She had met his type before: the confident, smooth-talking charmer who was the life of every party.
She would be roasted alive.
‘Thank you for the invitation, but I think I’ll pass,’ she said.
‘I hope we don’t keep you awake,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t expecting anyone to move in for another week or two. The people between your house and mine are overseas. Feel free to pop over if you change your mind or find yourself at a loose end.’
‘Thank you, but no,’ she said, even more crisply this time.
His dark eyes twinkled again. ‘Social diary that full already, is it?’ he asked.
She sent him a flinty look. ‘Packed,’ she said, and turned and left.
At just before midnight Kitty stuck her head under the pillow for the tenth time but it didn’t make a single bit of difference. The doof-doof of Jake Chandler’s sound system reverberated through her building. He was on the opposite side of the complex but it felt as if he was in the next room. She was surprised no one else had complained, but then she remembered the other occupants were away on a trip overseas.
She threw the pillow aside and stomped over to the window overlooking the small courtyard that separated their town houses. She could see people drinking and dancing in Jake’s living room. All the lights were blaring and the appetising smell of steak and sausages and onions was still lingering in the air. The sight of all that fun going on was a cruel reminder of her aching loneliness. She hated feeling so bitter, but how could she help it? Everywhere she looked people were acting as if they had not a care in the world.
Didn’t Jake Chandler have to show up for work in the morning? What was he thinking, partying on as if there was no tomorrow? So much for his sanctimonious lecture on binge drinking. What a hypocrite!
Kitty decided there was only one way to attack and that was on the front line. She ditched her nightwear and dressed in her track pants and a shapeless cotton shirt and slipped her feet into a pair of flip-flops. It wasn’t sophisticated or glamorous, but at this ungodly hour she didn’t give a damn.
‘Wasn’t that the doorbell?’ asked Rosie, Jake’s younger sister, her eyes brightening with hope. ‘Maybe Robbie decided to come after all.’
Jake gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. ‘Don’t get your hopes up, kiddo,’ he said. ‘You know what he’s like. He probably won’t even remember it’s your birthday.’
‘Yeah, what was I thinking?’ Rosie’s shoulders dropped resignedly and she made her way back to her friends.
Jake let out a quick sigh before he turned to open the door to find his cute posh little neighbour standing there. ‘Hey,’ he said flashing her a smile. ‘You changed your mind. Do you want a beer?’
‘Your music is keeping me awake,’ she said, sending him an arctic look. ‘I would very much appreciate it if you would turn it down.’
Jake ran his gaze over her pretty girl-next-door face with its cloud of chestnut hair that was currently looking more bird’s nest than brushed. Her cheeks had two spots of bright red on them and her plump pink mouth was pushed forward in a pout. ‘My kind of music not your thing, huh?’ he said. He leant indolently against the doorjamb, one ankle crossed over the other, as he rubbed at the regrowth on his jaw. ‘Let me guess … Classical, right?’
Her gunmetal-grey eyes flashed at him. ‘I hardly see how my taste in music has anything to do with you,’ she said.
‘It will if you play the violin at all hours of the day and night.’ He narrowed his eyes at her enquiringly. ‘You don’t, do you? Play the violin, I mean.’
She gave a little shuffle from foot to foot, as if the ground beneath her feet had suddenly become too hot to stand on. ‘What do you have against the violin?’ she asked, looking at him with an equally narrow-eyed look.
‘I knew it!’ he said, thumping the doorjamb with the flat of his palm in victory. ‘It was either that or the viola or the cello. You don’t strike me as a woodwind or brass girl. Strings are your thing.’
‘And I suppose no strings is yours?’ she returned, with an arch of one of her brows.
‘How’d you guess?’ Jake said, grinning.
Her eyes gave a disparaging little roll. ‘I can recognise a player at three paces,’ she said.
‘We’re not talking about musical instruments, are we?’ he asked.
Her mouth tightened primly, reminding him of his kindergarten teacher when he’d brought a dead mouse in for Show and Tell.
‘I’m not interested in what you do in your private life,’ she said. ‘You can play as hard and as often as you like.’
‘Oh, I always play hard and often,’ Jake drawled, watching in amusement as her face deepened even more in a blush as she realised her unintentional double entendre.
‘I can see there is no point in continuing this discussion,’ she said in a starchy tone. ‘But let me tell you: your puerile sense of humour is not what I was expecting in an A&E director.’
Jake looked down at her uptilted heart-shaped face with its glorious crown of tousled hair. He could smell the sweet, old-fashioned but delightful white lilac scent of her shampoo. It danced around his nostrils, teasing them into an involuntary flare. He could see the tiny dusting of freckles on the aristocratic slope of her nose. He could see her currently pursed but tempting full-lipped mouth.
He felt lust hit him in his gut like a closed-fist punch coming out of nowhere.
He wanted to bend down and cover those lips and feel them soften and swell beneath his. He wanted to taste the silk of her skin, to run his hands over the gentle slope of her breasts to see if they felt as soft and gorgeous as they looked. He wanted to feel her hands on him, their softness exploring his hardness. He wanted her to come down off that high horse of hers and ride him instead.
Whoa, there. He slammed the brakes on his thoughts. He had a whole month to go before he cashed in on the bet with his sister. The shortest month, admittedly, but it could prove to be the longest—especially if Kitty Cargill kept turning up in front of him looking so hot and sexy and combative.
‘I can’t say you’re quite what I was expecting, either,’ he said.
Her brows knitted together over her eyes. ‘What do you mean by that?’
Jake allowed himself a quick study of her mouth before he met her gaze. ‘I had a read-through of your application,’ he said. ‘I was away when the acting director approved your appointment.’
Her slim throat rose and fell, the action like a small creature wriggling under a carpet. ‘And?’ she said.
‘I noted that you’d failed the practical on your ATLs,’ he said.
Her small white teeth nibbled at her bottom lip. ‘Yes … I’m thinking about doing the Australian equivalent while I’m here,’ she said.
‘I expect every member of my team to be on top of their game,’ Jake said. ‘There’s an EMST course I’m directing in a month’s time. There might be a space left if you contact the course co-ordinator, otherwise book in to do the next available one.’
‘I’ll look into it,’ she said.
‘What made you come all the way out to Australia for three months?’ he asked.
Her eyes moved slightly to the left of his. ‘It seemed like a good opportunity to get to know my aunt and uncle and three cousins who live here,’ she said. ‘I hadn’t seen them in a while. Years, actually.’
Jake nodded towards her town house. ‘You bring anyone with you?’ he asked. ‘Boyfriend? Partner?’
A flush came over her cheeks and her eyes moved away from his. ‘No.’
His eyes went to her left hand, where a pretty little ring rested. ‘Is that just for show or is there a fiancé waiting for you back in England?’
She twirled the ring on her finger with her thumb. ‘I’m not engaged,’ she said. ‘This is a—’
‘Let me guess,’ Jake said, flashing her another quick grin. ‘A costume?’
She gave him a gimlet glare. ‘It’s a promise ring,’ she said. ‘I got it when I was sixteen. I can’t get it off.’
‘You could have it cut off,’ Jake said. ‘Or would that be breaking the promise?’
She frowned at him. ‘Is this inquisition really necessary?’
He gave a negligent shrug. ‘Just making conversation,’ he said. ‘You sure you wouldn’t like a drink? I’ll get the gang to turn the music down. I might even be able to find some Vivaldi or something on the playlist on my iPod.’
‘Please don’t put yourself out on my behalf,’ she said, sending him another one of her icy looks. ‘Goodnight, Dr Chandler.’
‘Goodnight, Dr Cargill,’ Jake said, but she had already stalked back across the courtyard.
CHAPTER TWO
‘AND this is the staff tea room,’ Gwen Harold, the unit’s ward clerk, informed Kitty on Monday morning. ‘There’s a larger doctors’ room upstairs, but the lifts are so busy that by the time you get there it’s almost time to get back. Dr Chandler organised this little room for us instead. Have you met him yet?’
