Reunited With Her Parisian Surgeon

She swung her eyes low and to the left. Yup. Still gorgeous.

As opposed to her.

She was a poorly coordinated, fashion-challenged dork in contrast to Raphael’s effortlessly elegant appearance. Not that he’d said anything of the sort when he’d first caught sight of her at their prearranged rendezvous point. Rendezvous? Get her! Far from it. He’d even complimented her on her butterfly print vintage skirt and the “land girl” knotted top she’d dragged out of the back of her closet. Not because it was the prettiest outfit she owned, but because it was the only thing that was ironed apart from her row of fastidiously maintained uniforms.

Appearances weren’t everything. She was proof of that. Freckle-faced redheads were every bit as competent as the next person. Well...maybe not literally, seeing as the person sitting next to her was a surgeon and she was “just” a paramedic. Anyway, her hair was more fiery auburn than carrot-orange. On a good day.

When they’d first met, in the corridors of the Parisian Lycée, she’d shaken off her small-town-girl persona and found the butterfly she’d always thought had been living in her heart. Well...a nerdy butterfly. Raphael had been every bit as nerdy as she back then. Or so she’d thought. But he’d called it...academically minded. He had been the best friend of her host’s brother and she’d fallen head over heels in love with him.

Her mother had been right when she’d cheekily told her daughter to keep her eye on the “Nerd Talent.” Now, at thirty years old, Raphael was little short of movie-star-gorgeous. His tall, reedy body had filled out so that he was six-foot-something of toned man magnificence. His chestnut hair looked rakishly windswept and interesting. He looked like a costume drama hero who’d just jumped off his horse after a long ride along the clifftops in search of his heroine.

Whether his cheekbones were über-pronounced because of the weight he claimed to have lost on his travels or because his genes were plain old superior was unclear. Either way, he was completely out-of-this-world beautiful.

Even the five o’clock shadow that she thought looked ridiculous on most other blokes added a rugged edge to a man who clearly felt at ease in the most sophisticated cities in Europe. Although she would bet her last dollar he’d do just fine in the Outback too. His body confidence spoke of a man who could change a car tire with one hand and chop wood with the other.

Not that she’d been imagining either scenario. Much.

Those blue eyes of his still had those crazy long black lashes...but shadows crossed his clear azure irises more often than not...

As if feeling the heat in her gaze, Raphael looked away from the flickering screen, giving her a quick glance and a gentle smile as she accidentally swooshed her out-of-control hair against his arm. The most outlandish hair in Oz, she called it. If she wanted it curly it went straight. Straight? It went into coils. Why she didn’t just chop it all off, as her brothers regularly suggested, was beyond her.

Again she stared at the half-moons her nails had pressed into her hands. After her mum passed it had seemed as if her hair was the one thing she had left in her life that was genuinely feminine. So she’d vowed to keep it—no matter how thick and wild it became.

“So!” Raphael turned to her, with that soft, barely there smile of his that never quite made it to a full-blown grin playing upon his lips. “Did you have anything else in mind?”

Maggie threw a panicked look over her shoulder.

Like holding hands underneath the starlit sky?

Gazing adoringly into one another’s eyes in between soul-quenching kisses?

She glanced at the screen and to her horror realized the credits were running. Sitting beside him and not making a complete fool of herself had been hard enough, but—Oh, crikey. She hoped he didn’t expect her to conduct an actual conversation in French. It had been hard enough when she was in her teens, but now that she hadn’t spoken a word in over thirteen years...

All of her tingly, flirty feelings began to dissolve in an ever-growing pool of insecurity.

“Sheesh. Sorry, mate... Raphael. Sorry, sorry...”

She stumbled over a few more apologies. Years of being “one of the guys” at work and growing up as the tomboy kid sister in a house full of blokey blokes had rendered her more delicate turns of phrase—if she had ever had them—utterly obsolete.

She puffed up her cheeks and blew out a big breath, trying to figure out what would be best. A meat pie and a pint?

She took in a few more blinks’ worth of Raphael, patiently waiting for her to get a grip, and dismissed the idea. French people didn’t go out for meat pies and pints! Why had her brain chosen this exact moment to block out everything she could remember about France?

Oysters? Caviar? More champagne?

Crêpes! French people loved them. Sydneysiders did, too.

There was a mobile crêpe caravan she’d visited a couple of times when she was in between patients. She grabbed her backpack and began pawing around for her mobile to try and find out where it might be parked up tonight.

What was it called? Suzettes? Flo’s Flaming Pancakes?

“Actually...” Raphael put his hand on Maggie’s forearm to stop her frantic excavation. “As I am starting work tomorrow morning, perhaps we’ll take a rain check?”

Maggie nodded along as he continued speaking. Something about heartfelt thanks for her help in getting him the job. The stacks of paperwork she’d breezed through on his behalf.

In truth, it was far easier to stand and smile while she let herself be swept away with the rhythm and musical cadence of each word coming out of Raphael’s mouth than to actually pay attention to what he was saying. Each word presented itself as a beautiful little stand-alone poem—distinctly unlike the slang-heavy lingo she’d brought with her from her small-town upbringing.

That year in Paris had been her mother’s last gift to her. A glimpse of what the rest of the world had to offer.

She’d found out, all right. In spades.

A glimpse of Raphael’s world, more like. And she wasn’t just talking about trips to a museum.

For her there was only one Raphael and he was standing right here, speaking perfectly fluent English, his mouth caressing each vowel and cherishing each consonant so that when his throat collaborated with his tongue and the words hit the ether each word was like an individually wrapped sweet.

A bon mot.

She smiled to herself. Of course the French had a phrase for it. In a country that old they had a beautiful phrase for everything. Including the exquisite pain of unrequited love.

La douleur exquise. And, wow, was she feeling that right about now. Why had she been so useful when he’d written to her a couple of months ago from...? Where was it? Vietnam? Or was it Mozambique? Both?

Regardless, his email hadn’t suggested he was intent on coming to Australia. Just “considering a change.”

Typical Maggie. She’d just picked up the reins and run with it. Filling out forms. Offering to get the right information to the right people on the right date at the right time.

“Best little helper this side of the equator,” as her mother had always said.

And now that he was here...

Total. Stage. Fright.

She’d been an idiot to think—

Nothing. You’re friends. Just like Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart.

“Yeah, you’re right. Early to bed sounds good. In fact...” she glanced at her watch “...time’s a-tickin’. Best get cracking!”

An image of Raphael tangled up in her sheets flashed across her mind’s eye as the rest of her barely functioning brain played a quick game of catch-up.

“Wait a minute. Did you say you were coming to work tomorrow?”

“Oui. Didn’t I tell you?” His brows cinched together in concern.

Again the nervous laughter burbled up, scratching and becoming distorted as it passed through her tight throat. “Well, yeah, I knew you were coming. My boss told us about it the other day. But I didn’t—” She stopped herself.

She’d thought she’d have more time to prepare. To become more immune to the emotional ramifications of working with the one man she’d imagined having a future with. In Paris. On a surgical ward. In a marital bed. Together.

“Maggie, if you do not want me working at your station...”

Raphael pulled out the vowels in her name, making it sound as if she were some sort of exotic bird or a beautiful length of stretchy caramel.

Quit staring at the gorgeous man and respond, Mags.

“No. That’s not it at all. I’m totally on board with it. You’ll be amazing. Everyone will love you. I must’ve gotten muddled. It’ll be nice for you. To hit the ground running, I mean.”

“Absolutement.” Raphael nodded. “I am completely ready to be a true Australian.”

Maggie couldn’t help herself. She sniggered. Then laughed. Then outright guffawed. “Raphael, I don’t think you could be a ‘true Australian’ even if you paddled backwards on a surfboard, dropped snags down your throat and chased them up with a slab of stubbies, all with a school of sharks circling round you. You’re just too...” She held her hands open in front of him, as if it was completely obvious.

“Oui?” Raphael looked straight down that Gallic nose of his, giving her a supercilious look.

Had she taken the mick a bit too hard and fast?

“What is it that I am too much of, Maggie?”

“Um...well... French.” She gave an apologetic shrug. “You know... You’re just too French to be Australian.”

The warm evening air grew thick. Whether it was an impending rainstorm or the tightening of the invisible tension that had snapped taut between them, she wasn’t sure. Her body ached to step in closer. To put her hands on his chest.

“I suppose I will have to rely on you to help me,” he said.

Whether he meant it or not was hard to tell.

“No wuckers, Raph,” she joked, giving him a jesty poke in the ribs with her elbow, trying to defuse the tension. “I’ll give you training lessons on Aussie slang and you can help me with my...um...”

Her vocabulary deserted her as her eyes met and locked with Raphael’s.

“Francais?”

It would be so easy to kiss you right now.

“Maggie?”

Oh, God. She was staring. Those eyes of his...

But, again, the bright blue was shadowed with something dark.

What’s happened to you since we last met?

Something about the slight tension in his shoulders told her not to push. He had his reasons for giving up his surgical career and zig-zagging around the world, only to land here in Oz. The last thing she was going to do was dig. Everyone had their “cupboard of woes,” her mother had often said. And no one had the right to open them up and air them.

Just chill, Mags.

He’d spill his guts when he felt good and ready. Listening to people’s “gut-spills” was one of her specialties. But when it came to spilling her own guts...there was no way she was going to unleash that pack of writhing serpents on anyone.

When they reached the aisle and began walking side by side the backs of their hands lightly brushed. Another rush of goose pimples shimmied up her arms, ultimately swirling and falling like a warm glitter mist in her tummy.

She was really going to have to train her body to calm the heck down if she was going to be his shoulder to cry on. Not that he looked even close to crying. Far from it.

Had she stuck her foot in it with the whole “you’re too French” thing?

“For what it’s worth,” she said, “I really enjoy working on the ambos, and the fact you have extra language skills is great. Work is different every day. And it was an amazing way for me to get my bearings when I moved to Sydney.”

“I’m not sure I’ll be at the wheel. I haven’t qualified for driving yet. All I know is I’m going to be working on an MIC Ambulance.”

Luckily Raphael missed her wide-eyed No! That’s what I do! response as he scanned the area, then turned towards the main bus stop outside the Botanical Gardens as if he’d been doing it every day of his life. He’d been born and bred in one of the world’s most sophisticated cities—acclimatizing to another must be a piece of cake.

“I was actually surprised by how easy it was to get my working papers. Something about a shortage of Mobile Intensive Care paramedics?”

“Yeah, that’s right.” Maggie nodded, her brain more at ease in work mode. “They’ve really been struggling over in Victoria. Well, everywhere, I think. The most skilled mobile intensive care paramedics seem to be running off to the Middle East, where the pay is better. Well, not all of them. And it’s not because working here is horrible or anything... I mean it’s actually pretty great, when you consider the range of services we provide to the community—and of course to the whole of New South Wales when they need it. Like when there are forest fires. Or big crashes out in the back of beyond.”

She was rambling now. And in serious danger of sending Raphael packing.

He was one of the only people in her life who had known her before her mum had passed. There was something about that link that felt precious. Like a tiny priceless jewel she’d do everything in her power to protect.

Maggie looked up, her eyes widening as Raphael’s expression softened into an inquisitive smile. The trees behind him were laced with fairy lights and the buzz and whoosh of the city faded into a gentle murmur as her eyes met with his.

A flash of pure, undiluted longing flooded her chest so powerfully that she had to pull in a deep breath to stave off the dizzying effect of being the sole object of those beautiful blue eyes of his. The ache twisting in her lungs tightened into a yearning for something deeper. How mad would the world have to become for him to feel the same way?

Slowly he reached out his hands and placed them on her shoulders. The heat from his fingers seared straight through her light top, sending out a spray of response along her collarbone that gathered in sensual tingles along the soft curves of her breasts. He tipped his chin to one side as he parted his lips.

Was Raphael Bouchon, man of her dreams, going to kiss her?

“I think this is where I catch my bus.” Raphael pointed up to the sign above them. “I am afraid I will need my jacket back if we are going to part ways here. Will you be all right?”

“Of course!” she answered, too loudly, tugging off his jacket and checking her volume as she continued. “I’m the one who should be asking you that, anyway. Where was it you got a place again?”

It was the one thing she hadn’t helped with. Finding him a place. He’d told her it was already sorted, but that didn’t stop a case of The Guilts from settling in.

She should’ve offered him a bed...well, a sofa...while he sorted something out. Played tour guide. Called estate agents. Cleared the ever-accruing mess off of her countertops and made him dinner.

Not invited him to a movie and then scarpered.

But that level of support would have been slipping straight into the mode she was still trying to release herself from with her family.

The girl who did all the chores no one else wanted to do.

Besides, her home was her castle and there wasn’t a chance on God’s green earth that she would be inviting him round—or anyone, for that matter. She’d had almost seven years of looking after her brothers and father—enough housekeeping, laundry and “When’s the tucker gunna hit the table, Daggie?” to last a lifetime.

“It’s a place I found on the internet, near Bondi Beach. I thought it sounded...” he paused for effect “...Australian.”

Maggie laughed good-naturedly and leant forward to punch him on the arm. At the same time he leant down to kiss her on the cheek. Their lips collided and skidded off of each other’s—but not before Maggie caught the most perfect essence of what it would be like to actually kiss him.

Pure magic.

Raphael caught the sides of her arms with his hands, as if to steady them both, and this time when their eyes met there was something new shining straight at her. That glint. The shiny spark in Raphael’s almond-shaped eyes that erased every single thought from her harried brain except for one: I could spend the rest of my life with you.

The fear that followed in its wake chilled her to the bone.

* * *

An hour later Maggie held a staring contest with herself in her poorly lit bathroom mirror. Red-haired, freckle-faced, and every bit as unsure whether she was a country mouse or a city mouse as she had been thirteen years ago.

Closing her eyes, she traced her fingers along her lips, trying to relive the brush of Raphael’s mouth against hers. It came easily. Too easily. Especially when she had been in love with him for almost half her life.

Her eyes flickered open and there in the mirror was the same ol’ Maggie. The one who would never live in Paris. The one barely making a go of it in the big smoke. The girl born and raised and most likely to return to a town so far from Sydney it had its own time zone. In other words, she could dream all she wanted, but a future with Raphael Bouchon was never going to be a reality.

CHAPTER THREE

RAPHAEL TUGGED HIS fingers through hair that probably could have done with a bit of a trim. He chided himself for not putting in a bit more effort. For not trying to look as if he cared as much as he genuinely did.

Seeing Maggie yesterday had done what he’d hoped. It had re-awoken a part of him he’d feared had died alongside Amalie that day in the operating theatre.

When their lips had accidentally brushed last night there’d been a spark.

He was sure of it.

Enough so that he sorely regretted not kissing her all those years ago. But Jean-Luc’s mother’s warning had been a stark one. “Hands off!” she’d said, and so he had obeyed.

If he hadn’t been relying so heavily on Jean-Luc’s family for that vital sense of stability his parents had been unable to provide he would’ve gladly risked his pride and seen if Maggie had felt the same way.

For an instant last night he’d been certain of it.

This morning... Not so much.

Not that Maggie was taking a blind bit of notice of his does-she-doesn’t-she? conundrum.

Listening to her now, reeling off the contents of the ambulance they’d be working on, was like being in the middle of an auctioneer’s rapid-fire pitch.

From the moment she’d arrived at the station she’d barely been able to look him in the eye. More proof, if he needed it, that he hadn’t meant to her what she’d meant to him. After all, who took someone to a movie when they hadn’t seen each other in over thirteen years?

Someone with a life. Someone who’d moved on.

“Raphael?” She clapped a hand on the back door of the ambulance to gain his attention. “Are you getting this?”

He nodded, not having the heart to tell her he’d actually spent the long flight over memorizing the equipment breakdowns and layouts he’d been sent along with the confirmation of his posting.

“And over here we’ve got your pneumocath, advanced drugs, syringe pumps and cold intravenous fluids. It’s not so much a problem this time of year. The hypothermia. What with it being summer. But...” She screwed up her face and asked, “Is hypothermia a problem in Paris?”

She quickly flicked her green eyes towards him, then whisked them back to the supply bins as if looking at him for longer than three seconds would give her a rash.

“Well, you’ve got snow, so I suppose so,” she answered for him. Then, almost sheepishly, she turned back to him and said, “Neige, right?”

He nodded, parting his lips to say he was actually ready to head out if she was, but she had already turned back toward the ambulance and was reeling off yet another list of equipment specific to the MICA vehicles.

“Hey, Mags. Looks like the A-Team is being broken up.”

Maggie stopped mid-flow, her green eyes brightening as a beach-blond forty-something man came round the corner of their ambulance with a timorous woman who only just prevented herself from running into him when he abruptly stopped.

“All good things must come to an end I guess, Stevo.” Maggie heaved a sigh of genuine remorse, then shot a guilty look at Raphael with an apologetic smile following in its wake.

“Raphael, this is my partner—my former ambo partner—Steve Laughlin.”

“Crikey, Mags. It’s only been ten minutes. And no lines have been drawn in the sand yet. No offence, newbie!”

He turned to the young woman behind him and gave her a solid clap on the shoulder that nearly buckled her knees before turning back to Raphael.

“Nice to meetcha, mate.” Steve put his hand out for a solid shake. “You’ve got yourself one of Bondi Junction’s finest here, so consider yourself lucky. I’m counting on you to look after her. She can be a bit of a klutz—”

“I’m more than capable of looking after myself, thank you very much!” Maggie cut in.

“Yeah, yeah. Help me, help me!” Steve elbowed Raphael in the ribs and laughed. “You know what I’m saying, mate? All these girls really want is a big strong bloke to look after ’em. Get a load of these pecs, Casey. This is what happens when your partner doesn’t carry her fair share of the equipment bags.”

He flexed his arm into Popeye muscles and grinned as his new charge instantly flushed with mortification.

“Yes, Steve. Nothing to do with the hours you spend at the gym instead of helping your wife with the dishes,” Maggie answered drily, clearly immune to Steve’s über-macho version of charm. “And, for the record, I think I can live without a big strong Tarzan swinging in to rescue me, knowing that there’s a fully qualified surgeon sitting in your old seat. Twice as many patients in half the time, I’m betting.”

She gave Raphael a quick Am I right, or what? smile.

Raphael winced. Bragging rights over his surgical skills was something he’d rather not be a party to.

“Ah, well, then.” Steve gave Raphael a knowing look, completely missing his discomfort. “If you’re not busy curing everyone in Sydney over the next couple of hours, perhaps you’ll be able to shake a bit more fun into our girl, here. Tell her there’s a bit more to life than work, will ya? When we heard you were a Frenchie we all started laying bets on how long it’d take for you to get her out on the town after her shift. She’s got a thing about France, you know?”

He rocked back on his heels, crossed his arms over what looked like the beginnings of a beer belly and gave him a solid once-over.

“You’re a better looking bloke than I am, so maybe you’re in with a bit of a chance.”

“Hardly!” The word leapt out of Maggie’s throat, lancing the light-hearted tone of Steve’s comments in two.

“Easy, there, Mags.” Steve rolled his eyes and gave her a half-hug. “I’m just messing with you. Give the bloke a chance, all right? We’re just worried about you. All work and no play...”

“Yeah. I get it, Steve. Don’t you have some work you should be getting on with?”

Raphael stayed back from the group, preferring silence to watching the increasing flush heating up Maggie’s cheeks.

He stepped forward for a handshake when Steve did a quick introduction of his new junior partner, Casey, before heading for their own ambulance. As soon as they’d left Maggie poured her obvious irritation into filling up all the supply bins in their ambulance.

The idea of spending time with him outside of working hours obviously didn’t appeal. Had he said something last night to offend her? Perhaps taking a rain check on a post-film drink had been bad form if it wasn’t her usual mode opératoire to go out.

Raphael swallowed against rising frustration. Hitting the wrong note seemed to be his specialty of late. Making the wrong move. Insisting upon operating on a little girl he was far too close to, only to have to break the news to his best friend that his young daughter had just died on the operating table because of his mistake.