Marion Lennox - The Australian's Bride - Marrying the Millionaire Doctor / Children's Doctor, Meant-to-be Wife / A Bride and Child Worth Waiting For

Beautiful. Talented. Something to be cherished.

Experience had shown her that a man’s talents on the dance floor could be correlated rather closely to his talents in the bedroom. By the end of the evening, hesitating for more than a moment when Alex offered to escort her upstairs required enormous self-control.

She did try a little harder when they reached the door of the penthouse suite.

‘Is someone with Stella? Are they expecting you back?’

‘No.’ Alex was standing very close as Susie fumbled with the room card. ‘She’s staying in the dormitory tonight. They were having an evening of ghost stories and she said she didn’t want to sleep in a room on her own after that. Here, let me do that for you.’

The door swung open but Susie didn’t move. She looked up at Alex.

She didn’t want to sleep in a room on her own, either.

In fact, sleeping wasn’t on any desirable agenda.

For the longest moment, their gazes were locked. Slowly—with infinite care—Alex reached up and brushed a strand of hair from Susie’s cheek. Having completed their task, his fingers hovered for a heartbeat. And then another. And then those fingers went into the hair at the back of Susie’s head. Cradling her skull as he bent and touched his lips to hers.

A brief, gentle kiss. Just enough to make every nerve ending catch fire with a heat that was white hot. His eyes closed for only a second. Susie knew that because her own flew open in response to the intensity of the heat being generated and she found herself looking into black pools like the ones she had seen last night.

Pools she knew it would be easy to fall into.

She wanted to fall. No. She already had.

This was it. A wordless question, and she had no words with which to answer it.

None were needed. Alex saw exactly what she wanted him to see. He took her hand and led her inside the suite, pushing the door softly closed behind them.

C ONCENTRATE !

This had to be important. An urgent staff meeting for every available medic on Wallaby Island would not be called for something that wasn’t of major significance.

Susie tried to catch the anxiety she could see on the faces around her as she walked into the lecture theatre that was part of the convention centre at the resort. It wasn’t easy. She felt as if she was floating above the scene. The way she had already floated through the first part of today—on autopilot, as she’d helped Jack and other children through their airway clearance sessions.

The way she had floated, early this morning, from the bed she had shared with Alex last night.

Part of it would be due to fatigue, she realised, climbing the steps to slip into one of the tiered seats. You couldn’t indulge in mind-blowingly incredible sex for an entire night without being left a little on the tired side.

Another part was due to Susie being in a mental space she’d never discovered before. A space that felt alarmingly perfect. As exciting as the most thrilling roller-coaster ride imaginable but, at the same time, as secure as a trusted shoulder to cry on. A wild ride that was, paradoxically, soft and comforting.

Was this what being on cloud nine was all about?

The area at the base of the seating featured a lecturn and people were positioning themselves. Charles was there. So was Beth Stuart, talking to a tall man Susie didn’t recognise. Beth took a seat and the buzz of speculative conversation in the room died down. Late arrivals found spare seats.

Miranda sat beside Susie, who noticed that Nick— the father of one of Miranda’s young asthma patients— was accompanying her. The look and smile the couple exchanged as they settled hurriedly into their seats made it very clear they were together in more than a professional sense. Goodness, when had that happened? It was enough to prompt Susie to scan the rest of the room more carefully.

Where was Alex?

He’d gone back to the cabin to shower and change and had been planning to have breakfast with Stella. Had he not got the message about the meeting?

Yes!

Susie missed the first words Charles spoke because the side door opened again to admit Alex, and a wave of sensation rippled through her body with unexpected ferocity.

Just the glimpse of his hand as he pushed the door shut behind him was enough to make her skin tingle with the memory of his touch. As he turned, her glance went to his face and she could see he had shaved recently but that dark shadow outlining his jaw would always be there. Would always remind her of the deliciously rough sensation that stubble had given her last night. On her breasts. On her thighs…

A small sound must have escaped her because Susie earned a quick, surprised glance from Miranda.

‘Are you OK?’ she whispered.

‘I’m fine,’ Susie whispered back.

‘Fine’. Such an innocuous word. It could be a cover for not feeling good at all. Or, in this case, a cop-out from an inappropriate attempt to search for a word that could encompass feeling this good.

Was Alex feeling good?

Susie hadn’t expected to find the surgeon staring in her direction. For a moment, across all the heads turned in Charles’s direction, her gaze locked with Alex’s and the connection was enough to make her toes curl and that ripple of sensation kick back in.

‘Angus Stuart,’ Charles was saying in the background. ‘An epidemiologist who’s here for a conference. Angus has a particular interest in pandemics and has been involved in government think-tanks set up in the wake of the bird-flu scare we all heard so much about a couple of years ago.’

Stuart? The name finally sank in and Susie dragged her gaze away from Alex. She wasn’t the only person to search out Beth, who was now sitting in the front row of seats. Were they related? She took another look at the man beside Charles. He was quite proper looking. Distinguished even. Very serious and unsmiling at the moment, which made him seem an unlikely relative for the friendly and outgoing Beth but, then, how much did she really know about Beth?

‘As you will all be aware,’ Charles continued, ‘we’re having an outbreak of an influenza-type illness here on the island. Currently we have two adults from the resort and three children from the camp as inpatients in our medical centre. None of them are critically ill but we’re monitoring them carefully. Influenza is never something to be taken lightly and we have the additional concern of having a large group of children here, some of whom are already compromised healthwise.’

Susie stole another glance at Alex but he was totally focused on Charles and he was frowning. As though he had assimilated something that hadn’t yet been verbalised and he either did not like or disagreed with the information.

‘Dr Stuart’s opinion was sought because an unusual number of dead birds have been discovered on the island over the last few days.’

Everybody was focused now. Silent and still.

‘One of our inpatients is known to have been in direct contact with one of those birds last Tuesday. She started showing the first symptoms of her illness on Friday.’

‘Lily…’ Susie murmured. ‘Oh, my God!’ This was possibly worse than a suspected diagnosis of meningitis. ‘ Bird flu? ’

‘Shh,’ Miranda cautioned.

‘One of our rangers who collected birds from the shoreline on Friday afternoon is also showing the first signs of a viral infection, with a raised temperature, headache, photophobia and arthralgia.’

The audience was not so silent now. Whispered conversations were breaking out. Alex stood silently, still frowning at Charles, his arms now folded. Someone else raised their hand.