Amy Andrews - The Outback Doctor's Surprise Bride

‘I am now.’ He struggled to sit up.

‘No, don’t move,’ Helen said, pushing him back against the ground. ‘Are you James Remington?’ she asked as she ran her hands methodically over his body, searching for injuries. Her hands moved dispassionately through his thick wavy hair, feeling for any irregularities or head injuries. Down his neck. Along his collar bones to his shoulders.

He wasn’t surprised that she knew who he was. Maybe he should have been but the pain was all-encompassing. As her hands moved lower to feel his chest, push around his rib cage and palpate his abdomen he absently realised he would normally have cracked a joke by now. The pain was obviously altering his persona.

He was pretty suave with the ladies but he’d never had one become so intimately acquainted with his body so quickly. She had a nice face and a distracting prim ponytail that swished from side to side as she assessed his injuries.

‘Yes, I am,’ he said as her hands gripped his hip bones and she applied pressure down through them, glancing at him with a cocked eyebrow in a silent query. He shook his head.

‘We’ve been worried about you,’ she said. ‘What happened?’ Helen felt methodically down his left leg from groin to toes.

As her fingers brushed his inner thigh James felt his body react despite the pain in his other leg. ‘Came off my bike. Cows on the road.’ He grimaced.

‘Ah. Elsie’s,’ she said absently as she concentrated on his other leg, starting again in his right groin. ‘You been out here all night?’

‘Yup. Look, I’m fine,’ James said, batting her hand away. ‘It’s just my right leg. The tibia’s broken.’

Helen sat back on her haunches and surveyed the crude but effective splint. She didn’t want to disturb it if she didn’t have to. ‘Is it closed or open?’

‘Closed,’ he confirmed. He’d cut open his jeans to investigate the damage by torchlight last night.

‘Were you knocked out?’

‘No. Conscious the whole time.’

She nodded, grateful to discover that he didn’t appear to be too injured at all and trying not to dwell on the fact that their desperately needed locum was now totally useless to them. Helen made a mental note to get onto the agency as soon as she could to organise a replacement.

‘Well, we’d better get you to Skye. Do you think between us we can manage to get you into my car? It’ll be quicker than calling the ambulance.’

James ran assessing eyes over her. He doubted she’d be much help at all, there wasn’t much to her. But he was strong and at the moment he’d go with any option that got him to medical attention as fast as possible. ‘Sure.’

Helen nodded and left him to bring her car closer. She performed another U-turn and pulled it up as close to James as possible. She opened the back door.

‘You might as well lie along the back seat.’

Helen hoped she’d sounded more confident than she felt. Looking down at him, she wondered how they were going to manage it. There was a lot of him. He was a tall, beefy guy, his build evident despite his recumbent posture.

She remembered the things she had resolutely ignored during her assessment of him. The bulk of his chest, the span of his biceps and the thickness of his quads beneath her hands. He was all man. Still, his musculature had hinted that he took good care of himself. She hoped so. She hoped he was strong enough to lift his bulk because at a petite five two he dwarfed her.

James looked behind him and shuffled his bottom until he was lined up with the open door. ‘I can lift myself in if you can support my leg.’

Helen nodded. She knelt to position her hands beneath his splint. She felt him tense and glanced up at him. She noticed the blueness of his eyes for the first time. They were breathtaking. A magnificent turquoise fringed by long sooty lashes. Was it fair for a man to have such beautiful eyes?

She blinked. ‘Does it hurt?’

He nodded.

Even through his overnight growth of stubble she noticed the tautness around his mouth and realised what it was costing him to sit stoically.

‘It’s going to hurt more,’ she said softly, knowing there was no way they could accomplish the next manoeuvres without causing more pain.

He nodded again. ‘I know.’

‘We could wait for Tom. He carries morphine in the ambulance.’

He shook his head and she watched as his thick wavy hair with its occasional grey streaks bounced with the movement and fell across his forehead.

‘No. Let’s just get it over with.’

She nodded. ‘Ready?’

James placed his hands on the car behind him, bent his left leg again and pushed down through his triceps, lifting his bottom off the ground. A pain tore through his fracture site and he grunted and screwed up his face as he placed his rear in the footwell. He shut his eyes and bit his tongue to stop from groaning out loud at the agony seizing his leg.

‘You OK?’ Helen asked, supporting his leg gently as she noted the sweat beading his brow and his laboured breathing.

James nodded. He felt nausea wash through his system as the pain gnawed away unabated. He had to keep going. If he stopped now he’d never get himself in the car and the pain would kill him. He placed one hand up on the seat and repeated the movement again, lifting his buttocks onto the padded material.

James muttered an expletive and then looked at Helen with apologetic eyes. ‘Sorry,’ he panted.

Helen grinned. ‘Quite all right. I think a swear word is entirely appropriate, given the circumstances.’

‘Hardly appropriate in front of a lady.’ He grimaced.

Helen looked around her and threw a glance over her shoulder before turning back to face him. ‘No ladies here.’

He gave a hearty chuckle and then broke off as pain lanced through his leg and he clutched at the splint. ‘Don’t make me laugh,’ he groaned.

‘Whatever the doctor orders.’ She grinned.

She held his leg while he shuffled back in the seat and helped him manoeuvre into a position of comfort. Well, of less pain anyway. He dwarfed the back seat. It was impossible for him to recline. Instead, he sat in a semi-supported position, the door propping him up.

‘I have some cushions in the boot. Hang tight.’

James closed his eyes wearily feeling grittiness rub like sandpaper against his lids. Where the hell was he going to go?

Helen arranged two cushions around his fractured leg to try and support it better. She shut the door and moved around to the driver’s side, opening her door and flipping her seat out of the way.

‘Here, put this behind your shoulders. Might make the ride a little more comfortable.’

She levered him forwards and stuffed the cushion behind his back, fussing a little to get it just right. James caught a whiff of her perfume and opened his eyes. They were level with her chest and he could see the pink lace of her bra and the curve of her breast as she leaned over him to adjust the cushion.

He shut his eyes again in case she thought he was staring at her breasts, and her ponytail brushed lightly against his face. Her hair was nut brown and smelled like roses. It swished back and forth a few times, caressing his face, and after a night in the cold, dark bush it was strangely comforting. He wanted to wrap it around his fist and pull her closer.

‘All set?’ she asked.

James slowly opened his eyes. He nodded and smiled. She turned to go and he put a stilling hand on her shoulder. ‘Thank you. I don’t even know your name.’

‘It’s Helen. Helen Franklin.’

‘Ah. The nurse. That explains your tender touch.’

Helen stilled, suddenly mesmerised by his blue eyes. He was without a doubt the best-looking man she’d ever met. She’d not risked such thinking until now, but it was the inescapable truth.