Elizabeth Duke - The Husband Dilemma

Or she might get into trouble for going swimming at a beach that was unsafe and unpatrolled. She remembered the warning sign above the beach. ‘SWIMMING HERE IS DANGEROUS’. Not ‘forbidden’, thankfully, but ’dangerous’ was bad enough.

‘You need some ice on it, quick smart.’ He was inspecting it so closely that she felt prickly and breathless. ‘Won’t you let me take you home?’ He touched her arm.

‘No...thanks.’ It was a husky croak. His touch, which had made her feel so safe and protected earlier, now seemed positively lethal. She looked up at him appealingly. ‘I—I can’t go back yet...’

He smiled. A faintly teasing, achingly attractive smile. ‘Afraid of getting into trouble with your parents, are you, for going swimming on your own and getting into difficulties? ’

‘I’m not with my parents!’ What did he think she was? A rebellious teenager, going swimming behind their backs? She jutted her chin. She might be nineteen—strictly speaking still a teenager—but she was nearly twenty, and she’d been living with other uni students for close on two years!

‘I’m staying here with a friend,’ she told him, her tone crisp. ‘She had to call the police because her beach-house has been burgled and she—she wanted me out of the way.’ She flushed. ‘Look, I know it was stupid, going swimming on my own. I won’t do it again,’ she promised, in case he thought she might.

‘Good.’ A satisfied nod. ‘So...you don’t want to go home just yet?’ He quirked a dark eyebrow, the dazzling blue eyes turning her bones to putty.

She shook her head. Not with a great bruised lump under her eye that would be hard to explain away. ‘I—I’ll wait awhile and hope the swelling goes down.’ She swallowed. Hard. Would he decide to stay with her?

‘It’s more likely to get worse if you don’t put some ice on it. I could provide a cold compress for you if you’d like to pop across to my beach-house. It’s just across the sand dunes, overlooking the beach. You can see it from here...through those trees.’ He raised a hand and pointed.

Her head snapped back. Go to his beach-house? ‘Oh, no...I couldn’t do that...’ Even as she protested, a part of her was urging her to accept...to follow wherever he wanted to take her. But wisely, perhaps, another part of her was more cautious. Oh, I’ll just bet you’d like to take me back to your beach-house...a virile hunk like you. You think I want to risk getting into more trouble?

Feeling flustered, and oddly frustrated at the same time, she grabbed her beach-bag and fumbled inside. ‘I...I’d better go. Maybe if I put sunglasses on I can hide my black eye.’ At least until she could get to Diana’s bathroom and dab some cover-up on it.

She found them and slipped them on—only to yelp. ‘Ouch!’ and tug them off again as the frames dug into the tender swelling under her eye. So much for that idea!

He made the decision for her. ‘Come on, we’re going to my place.’ He rose to his feet, brushing the sand off with his hands. She gulped as she felt a strong urge to do it for him. ‘You won’t have to come inside the house. I’ll bring the ice-pack out to you. I’ve a sports pack in the freezer. I never go anywhere without it.’

‘You’re a sportsman? An athlete?’ Her gaze flickered over the deeply tanned muscles, the powerful legs. It was a delaying tactic. Should she go with him or not? She snatched in a badly needed breath.

He looked down at her, a faint smile on his lips. ‘Just an amateur jogger...to keep myself fit. I used to play rugby at university, and now I try to jog or play tennis when I get the chance, so the muscle won’t turn to fat.

She couldn’t imagine muscles like his ever turning to fat. Not in a million years. ‘When you get the chance?’ she echoed. Obviously a busy man. ‘You’re on holiday at the moment?’

Where had he come from? she wondered, hoping he’d tell her that he’d come up from Sydney. Please, not Brisbane, or Melbourne, or, heaven forbid, the far west coast. She crossed her fingers for luck, a habit she’d had since her schooldays. Please say Sydney. Was it too much to hope for?

He paused a moment before answering, as if considering whether to reveal any more about himself. ‘Not exactly. It was my brother’s wedding last weekend...in Brisbane,’ he told her. ‘I’m taking a few days’ break here at Shelly Beach—staying at my brother’s beach-house—before I fly back to America.’

America! Her heart plunged. It wasn’t fair... She let her breath out in a sigh. To find a man like this...and then to lose him again so quickly! ‘You live in America? She held her breath. He sounded Australian, not American. What was he doing in America? How long was he planning to stay there?

‘For the time being I do. I’m doing some specialist training in New York. I plan to come back to Australia eventually. Hopefully to work in Sydney...where I lived before.’

Her eyes lit up, her pulse quickening. ‘Really? That’s where I live!’ She felt herself flushing. How gauche and over-eager he must think her! A man with his looks and experience of the world—he’d be in his late twenties, she hazarded—must be used to older, cooler, more sophisticated women. Women with far more experience and panache than a lowly university student like Kate Warren-Smith.

Not that she looked only nineteen. She rallied at the thought. She’d been told often enough that she looked years older. And her unusually low, husky voice often fooled people too. Maybe he hadn’t guessed...

‘Uh...what line of work are you in?’ she asked in a cooler, more off-hand tone. What she really wanted to know was: How long is your training in America going to take?

He seemed to hesitate again, and she bit down on her lip. Was she asking too many questions?

‘I’m a doctor.’

A doctor? So he had a brain as well as a magnificent body and heroic tendencies! ‘That’s what I’m going to be!’ she burst out, forgetting about being cool and sophisticated. Amazingly, they had something in common! She could feel her heart beating wildly under her loose shirt. And he was planning to come back to Australia to practise. To Sydney...her home town!

‘I’m doing medicine myself,’ she gushed, careful not to mention that she was only in her second year at med school. Near the end of her second year, she would tell him, if he asked.

‘Are you now?’

The way he said it caused her eyes to waver under his. Was he laughing at her? Mocking her? The narrowed blue eyes were difficult to read. There was no noticeable twinkling or obvious derision that she could tell. If anything, they looked more guarded than amused.

And then she recalled what he’d said a moment ago. Specialist training. Her heart dipped. He was a medical high-flier. One of the high-and-mighty élite. A specialist doctor. A member of the so-called boys’ club.

And she was a mere medical student!

She sighed, her spirits plunging further. Medical specialists—especially surgeons—were notoriously arrogant and ego-driven. They were remote, God-like figures who lived in their own exalted little world, seldom coming down to human level, seldom caring about anything but their own narrow, if vital, field of work.

Look at her father.

Not that all specialist doctors were as emotionally remote as her father. She glanced hopefully up at her husky rescuer. She’d met one or two who had lives and interests outside their own absorbing, highly-specialised field. A few even had a sense of fun, a sense of humour. A heart.

But perhaps she was being unfair to her father. He’d shown two years ago, after the death of his favourite daughter—his bright shining hope—that he did have a heart, that he could feel. And suffer, just like other mortals.