Marion Lennox - A Bride and Child Worth Waiting For

‘It’s just as well it doesn’t sizzle near us, then.’

‘Not even a bit?’

‘Of course not. I mean, look at us. We’ve discussed this sensibly. We’ve bought an engagement ring. We haven’t even kissed.’

‘I kissed your hand.’

‘You did,’ she said. ‘Um…yeah. Very nice it was, too.’

‘You want to be kissed?’

‘No!’

‘We ought to,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I mean…we do intend to make a marriage out of it. We could just try.’

‘Charles, don’t.’

‘Because you’re plain and old and bossy?’

‘No, because…’

‘Because I’m in a wheelchair?’

‘No!’

‘Then why?’ he demanded, and there was suddenly frustration in his voice. ‘Why the hell not?’

‘Because we don’t…’

‘Deserve it?’ He glanced over at her. She was staring straight into the night, trying to figure out what to say. What to do. She was fingering her engagement ring like it was burning.

‘Jill, don’t look like that.’

‘Like what?’

‘Hell,’ he said again, and before she knew what he intended he’d steered the car onto the verge. They were at the foot of the bridge beside Crocodile Creek. There was a sloping sandbank running down to the water.

In other circumstances a romantic couple might get out and wander down to the water’s edge to admire the moonbeams glimmering over the water’s dark surface.

Yeah, in other circumstances a couple might get taken by a crocodile. Getting out here was for fools.

Stopping here was for fools.

‘Jill, I’m not marrying any woman who’s afraid of me,’ Charles said steadily into the darkness.

‘I’m not…’

‘Look at me and say it.’

She turned and looked at him. He gazed steadily back, serious, questioning.

She knew this man. She’d worked with him for years. He was the best doctor in Crocodile Creek.

He loved Lily. He was doing this to give her a daughter.

‘I’m not afraid of you,’ she said, and it was true. She trusted him. She knew it at every logical level. It was only the thought of marriage that had her terrified.

But this was Charles. Charles!

‘It’ll be OK,’ Charles said softly, and he caught her hands and tugged her toward him. ‘Jill, I don’t think you’re plain or bossy or old.’ Then he smiled, that crinkly, crooked smile that transformed his face. The smile she loved. ‘OK, maybe bossy,’ he conceded. ‘But bossy’s good for a director of nursing. Maybe bossy’s even good for a mum, and that’s what you’re going to be. It’ll be fine. It might even be fantastic. Let’s give it our best shot, eh?’

And he tugged her close—and he kissed her.

She hadn’t been kissed for how long?

Years and years and years. Her kissing skills had lain dormant, forgotten. Buried.

But not dead.

She’d last kissed with passion when she’d been a teenager. She’d forgotten…or she’d never known…

Strong, warm hands holding her face, centring her so he could find her mouth. Lips meeting lips. Warmth meeting warmth.

Not warmth. Fire.

That was what it felt like. A rush of heat so intense that it sent shock waves jolting through her body. She felt her lips open, she felt his mouth merge with hers…

It was like moving into another dimension.

Her hands lifted involuntarily, her fingers raking his hair, firming their link. Not that there was a need for such firming. She couldn’t back away from this.

This magic.

It was a feeling so intense it seemed she was almost out of her body. Transformed into something she’d never been, or if she had she’d long forgotten. A girl, a woman who could melt with pure desire.

For just a moment she let herself fall. She let herself be swept away, feeling how she could feel if she were a girl again and life was before her and she didn’t know what happened to women who surrendered control.

Kelvin had called her an ugly cow—over and over until she’d believed it totally. But maybe…just maybe he was wrong.

This was delicious, delectable, dangerous… Seductive in its sweetness. Overwhelming in its demands. For he wasn’t just kissing her; he was asking questions she had no hope of answering; he was taking her places she had never been and had no intention of going.

But she was going there.

No. She was Jill Shaw, solidly grounded nursing director of Crocodile Creek hospital. She recalled it with a tiny gasp of shock. Her hands shoved between Charles’s chest and her breasts and she pushed back.

He released her immediately, leaning back so he could see her in the moonlight. He looked as surprised as she did, she thought shakily. As out of his element. The great Charles Wetherby, shocked.

‘I don’t think…’ She tried and then had to try again for her voice came out a squeak. ‘I don’t think this is a good idea.’

‘Kissing?’

‘Anything,’ she managed. She was still squeaking. Oh, for heaven’s sake… She was a mature woman. It had just been a kiss.

Yes, but what a kiss. If a kiss could wipe a woman’s logic away as this one had… If a kiss could make her feel beautiful…

She wasn’t beautiful. She had to get her bearings. She had to be sensible.

‘We don’t want anything to happen?’ Charles queried, and she bit her lip.

‘Certainly not.’

‘Any particular reason?’

‘We’re too old.’

‘Hey! Speak for yourself.’

‘I didn’t mean…’ She swallowed. ‘Charles, maybe I need to say… I just don’t want…’ Another swallow. Another attempt. ‘I’m not going to be what you might call a jealous wife. I don’t know what you do now…’

‘For sex, you mean?’ he asked, and affront had given way to bemusement.

‘I don’t need to know,’ she said hurriedly. ‘I mean… I don’t even know…’

‘If I can?’ he said, still bemused. ‘I can.’ Damn him, he was enjoying her discomfiture.

‘That’s…that’s good. I guess. So if you want to…’

‘If I want to then you’ll permit it? But not with you?’

‘Just because you kissed me doesn’t mean I’m expecting…’

‘What if I want to?’

‘You don’t want to,’ she said flatly. ‘Or, at least, I don’t. Look, it was a very romantic evening, for which I thank you. I love my ring.’ She glanced down at it, a moonbeam caught it at just the right angle and she saw fire. ‘I really love my ring. But what we’re doing is practical.’

‘You don’t find me—’

‘Don’t ask,’ she snapped. ‘It’s ludicrous.’

‘Of course it’s ludicrous,’ he said, and the trace of laughter died from his voice as if it had never been.

What…? Oh, God. ‘I didn’t mean that,’ she whispered, mortified.

‘Of course you didn’t.’ He turned back to the wheel and flicked the engine into life. ‘Don’t worry. I won’t touch you again. It’s time we were home.’

‘Charles…’

‘It’s OK,’ he said wearily. ‘As you say, we’re too old. Let’s go and pick up Lily and tell her she has two very respectable prospective parents.’

Jill shrank back into the passenger seat and felt about six inches tall. She’d never meant to infer she found Charles’s disability offensive. Or even a bar to…well, to anything.

It was just that she didn’t want anything. She didn’t want contact at all.

She surely didn’t want to risk those sensations coursing through her that threatened to undermine the control she’d fought like a wildcat to regain after her marriage. She never wanted to be exposed again.

She should apologise to Charles. His face was set and grim, and she could lighten it. She could make him smile.

But…but…

Did she want him to smile? Not when they were alone, she thought frantically. Not when she was dressed like this, when she was wearing his ring. Not when his smile made her feel vulnerable and exposed and terrified.