Lilian Darcy - The Australian's Desire - Their Lost-and-Found Family / Long-Lost Son - Brand-New Family / A Proposal Worth Waiting For

Her whole body felt aflame. Every nerve was tingling, achingly aware of him. Every sense was screaming at her to get closer, get closer, here is your mate …

Her lips opened, welcoming him, savouring him, wanting him deeper. Deeper. The kiss went on and on, as if she was drowning in pure pleasure, and she was, she was.

Alistair.

He was all wrong for her. For so many reasons he was wrong. But for now he was right and she was taking every ounce of pleasure she could get.

Alistair.

But suddenly he was drawing back. He was holding her face in his hands, forcing them apart so he could look into her eyes. The confusion she saw in his matched her own.

‘Georgie,’ he whispered, and there was confusion there, too.

‘Don’t stop,’ she begged.

‘We can’t—’

‘Just kiss me,’ she begged, and she linked her hands behind his head and tugged him down.

‘Georg—’

‘Just kiss.’

He smiled, that achingly wonderful smile that had her heart doing handsprings.

He kissed.

The sound of the trumpet crescendoed behind them.

The door of the vestry flew open.

And here was the wedding procession, diverted from the main door.

The priest came first. Then came bride and groom, as if propelled by the mass behind. Then bridesmaids and groomsmen and pageboys and flowergirls and guests after them, tumbling into their private space, funnelled into the vestry with the door to the outside still not open.

The priest stopped in shock. As did the bride and groom. There was a moment’s blank astonishment.

Then …

‘Hey, get in the queue, guys,’ Mike growled as he held his bride close. ‘Today is our day. Gina and Cal are next Saturday. You two can take the Saturday after.’

THE muddle forced them apart. Blushing furiously, Georgie disappeared into the crowd and Alistair let her go. She might be confused but he was even more so.

He fell back to the edge of the crowd and then made his escape.

He wouldn’t go to the reception. He was too … disoriented? Plus he hadn’t been invited. It was one thing to go to the wedding ceremony and sit unnoticed in the back of the church, he thought. Not that he’d been unnoticed, but this was the theoretical etiquette scenario he was talking himself through. It was quite another matter to go to the reception, where he’d be eating food prepared for other guests, mingling with people he didn’t know …

Staying near Georgie.

And that was the deciding factor. As the wedding party had forced them apart, Georgie had paled. She’d looked up at him with such horror that he’d been unable to think what the hell to do.

Maybe he should have taken her aside, tried to discover what the horror was about and see if he could defuse it.

But she’d backed away as if terrified, and he’d thought … well, did he have any reason to inflict himself on her?

‘Yes, because of the way I feel,’ he told himself, battling the fierce wind as he made his way back to the hospital. The wind was blasting so hard against him that it hurt. There was rain just starting, and raindrops so hard that they felt like pellets. But in some strange way it made him feel better. He felt like fighting—but he didn’t know what, and he didn’t know why.

‘If she makes me feel like that then maybe I need to get the hell out of here,’ he muttered, but he knew he couldn’t go back to the States. Not until after Gina’s wedding. Next Saturday.

‘As soon as this wind eases I’ll go down to Cairns and just come back for the wedding.’

That made him feel how?

In control? Maybe, but control was ceasing to seem very important. What seemed important was the way Georgie made him feel. Like there’d been an aching void which he’d suddenly figured could be filled.

He was so confused. He’d go to the hospital. Medicine was a way of burying himself, he thought. It left him in charge of his own world as he tried to fix the messes of everyone else’s world.

He pushed open the nursery door and Charles was there. Charles Wetherby, still in his tuxedo.

‘Why aren’t you at the wedding?’ he asked, and Charles looked up from Megan’s cot and grinned.

‘I’ve done my duty. I gave the bride away and I played the trumpet twice. I’ll put my nose in at the reception later but one of the very few pluses of using a wheelchair is that if you say you need to excuse yourself for a bit, no one ever asks you why.’

‘You were in the wedding procession.’

‘Not me,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I hopped it—or wheeled it—out through the priest’s changing room as soon as I finished playing. Not even Sophia saw me sneak away. Oh, Jill and Lily will come and find me soon and drag me back, but for now I’m sticking here. Using an invalid’s prerogative. What’s your excuse?’

‘I wanted to check on Megan.’ But Megan was sleeping soundly and there was no way he was waking her up.

‘Megan is great. Ilse and Herrick have been keeping bedside vigil, but there’s little need. Ilse brought Lizzie through in her wheelchair and she’s had a cuddle. Thanks to you.’ He put out his hand, took Alistair’s and shook it firmly. ‘We’re more grateful than I can say. You know, we could really use a neurologist here. I know we could never match your US salary but …’ He grinned. ‘There may be other compensations. So any time you’re free …’

‘Thanks but, no, thanks.’

‘I’m not asking for an answer yet. Give it more than a cursory thought before you refuse.’ He eyed Alistair speculatively. ‘So why aren’t you at the reception?’

‘I’m not invited.’

‘You know that makes no difference. And Georgie …’

‘Yeah,’ Alistair said heavily. ‘Georgie.’

‘So you’re figuring it out,’ Charles said, straight-faced.

‘Figuring what out?’

‘That you two are dynamite together.’

‘Hey, there’s no way. We’ve only just met.’

‘You met six months ago.’

‘For one night.’

‘And Georg went round with a face like thunder for days. She’d take that bike out on the back roads south of here and come back with her gas tank empty and her bike and herself covered in mud. We had no idea what was driving her …’

‘Her brother had gone.’

‘Yeah, but that had happened before. She’d never been like that.’

‘Charles …’

‘Yeah, I know, butt out.’ His pager sounded and he glanced at it, sighed and smiled. ‘Women. That’s Lily. My foster-daughter. It seems she’s stowed boxes of confetti in the pouch at the back of this chair and my presence is required immediately. Or my confetti.’ He wheeled back from the cot, smiling. ‘OK, I’ll head off to the reception. You know, Georgie isn’t much of a one for parties,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I might send her back to join you.’

‘Don’t.’

‘She got one hefty slug yesterday. As her treating physician, I’ve advised quiet time. Sitting in the nursery with you should be just the ticket.’

‘I’d prefer—’

‘To be alone. Yeah, wouldn’t we all? But look at me. I walked alone and now I have a partner and a child and all the accoutrements of life. They just sneaked up on me while I wasn’t looking, and aren’t I glad they did.’

‘I don’t want—’

‘You don’t know what you don’t want,’ Charles said enigmatically, and wheeled to the door. ‘Keep Megan safe. And do consider my offer.’

‘Offer?’

‘Of a job,’ he said patiently.

‘I don’t want—’

‘You don’t know what you don’t want,’ Charles said again. ‘Think about it some more.’

And he disappeared, leaving Alistair alone with his thoughts.