Sue MacKay - Return of the Maverick

He was handing money to Savita for a newspaper, but watching her. ‘Do you usually go for long rides before work?’

Tugging her spine straight and her shoulders back, Erin looked directly up at his face. Sunglasses covered his eyes. But goose-bumps still lifted on her arms. His sun-bleached blond hair touched his shoulders. A scar ran from his bottom lip to his chin. His strong jaw line jutted challengingly. She could almost feel that mouth on her feverish skin.

She stammered an answer, ‘I—I’m training for a b-bike challenge that goes over a mountain pass down into Hanmer Springs.’

‘Sounds like hard work to me.’ He grinned at her, sending her stomach into a riot of spasms.

‘I enjoy it.’ She would not grab the counter for support. He’d notice and she didn’t want him to see how easily he’d rattled her. It was a senseless overreaction. He was a stranger and likely to stay that way. She’d never seen him anywhere around Blenheim, a small town where he’d have been noticed the moment he stepped outside his front door. And not just by her. He was a man that every female alive would notice. And would want. But for her he was out of bounds. Even a brief fling would mean giving up some of that control she valued so much. Damn it, she could already feel it slipping away and she’d been in his presence less than five minutes.

She headed outside and reached for her bike. He followed, the newspaper tucked under his arm. When she swung her leg over the seat his eyes tracked the movement, raising her heart beat to a ridiculously high rate for an extremely fit thirty-year-old. Keep this up and she’d fall off before she’d even got to the road. ‘I might see you around,’ she muttered, but didn’t pull out onto the bitumen.

Why was she making conversation with him? She didn’t know his name. And she didn’t need these strong and alien feelings of desire he’d switched on in her. A man like this would wake up the dead with his sexual allure, and she was only emotionally paralysed. She certainly didn’t want to grapple with the overwhelming guilt and pain of the past again.

But she couldn’t deny the bone-melting desire he’d turned on as easily as flicking a light switch. Her blood already hummed through her veins, sending tendrils of heat down to her toes, out to her fingers.

‘We could meet for a drink.’ His eyes lanced her, the warm colour of creamy fudge.

From somewhere deep inside Erin dredged up a reply. ‘Thanks, but I don’t think so.’ Not what her hormones were telling her, but what the sane and sensible side of her brain deemed was in her best interests.

‘Really?’ he drawled. He stood next to her, dwarfing her, which at five-eight wasn’t something she was used to.

Had he seen through her precarious self-control? ‘I really need to get going. I’ll be more than just a few minutes late for work now.’ She didn’t wait for his reply, instead pushed hard on the pedals and cycled down the footpath until a gap in the traffic allowed her onto the road.

But while she might be outwardly casually dismissing this guy, she wasn’t fooling herself. He was hot. And her body reacted to him like kittens to a saucer of milk. She wanted him.

She wasn’t having him.

Besides, right now she should be at home preparing for work and her first meeting with the man she’d once told in no uncertain terms over the phone that he was letting down someone very dear to her. The man who had started work at the medical centre last week while she’d been on holiday and whom she had to get on with if she was to keep the job that gave her so much satisfaction.

But who was that guy back at the shop?

Brad Perano knew he should’ve turned away the moment he saw her slide off the bike and straighten up. As she strode into the store her long legs had immediately snagged his attention. The attraction had been instant. He’d followed her without thinking about what he was doing. Who knew which paper he’d bought? He’d just grabbed blindly.

Next she’d be having him up on charges for stalking her if he wasn’t careful. Really? his brain taunted him as he watched her pedal away. She’d been interested in him too. He’d seen it in her widening eyes, in the way her teeth had bitten into her lip, in the dazed expression she’d worn as she’d tried to buckle that strap.

But she’d had more sense than him. She’d said no to his reckless suggestion of a drink together. He owed her for that. But he was flummoxed that he’d even asked the woman out when he’d vowed never to get close to any female again. Hadn’t he learned the lessons dearest Penelope had taught him so well? The one and only time he’d allowed himself to be vulnerable, his wife had gobbled him up like a hungry dog and spewed out the resulting mess years later.

The bright red helmet the woman wore was easy to follow as she weaved her way through the busy morning traffic. Then she turned a corner and he lost sight of her. Which was just as well. He’d intended getting to the clinic early to familiarise himself with the day’s patients. He didn’t like treating people without knowing their medical history thoroughly. He’d known some of these people when he’d lived here in New Zealand’s beautiful Marlborough district as a child; gone to school with them, partied, played rugby. Real friends he’d dumped on and left in the lurch.

To patients in a small community their doctor was a part of their lives. Now he had to get to know them all over again and hope they were willing to give him a second chance. Then there was the added humiliation of Penelope’s perfidy after she’d flaunted her extravagant lifestyle in their faces years ago. Would they treat him kindly? Or was he always going to be paying for his misspent youth and his crazy marriage?

Car tyres squealed. The sound came from the direction the woman had ridden. More screeches rent the air as other drivers slammed on brakes. A scream chilled Brad’s blood. Had she been hit? Car versus cyclist did not bode well. He’d seen that kind of accident all too often in Adelaide where he’d been living and working for the last three years. The cyclists always came off worst.

He ran.

As he turned the corner he saw a mangled bike lying in the middle of the road. Three people gathered around a body lying twisted in the wreckage. A bright red helmet caught his focus. And the breath he’d been holding eased out over his lips. The woman was kneeling beside a young child, her fingers on his wrist.

She was all right. The relief was immense and surprising. Even as he made his way to her side and knelt down he was questioning why he felt so charged around her.

She looked up, and her eyes widened as they had at the store. ‘I’ve called the ambulance but I don’t suppose by any chance you might be a doctor?’

‘It’s your lucky day. I am.’ He felt good to be able to say that, giving her what she wanted right at this moment.

‘Lucky day for the boy, not me. I didn’t really think I had a chance of my wish being granted.’ She turned to the child and concentrated on finding a pulse.

Oh, well, okay. She was thinking about the patient, which was exactly what he should be doing. Once again she’d distracted him. ‘How’s that pulse?’

‘It’s racing.’ She ran her free hand over the boy’s torso. ‘Hey, little man, can you hear me? I’m a nurse and I’m checking you over, okay?’ She got no answer.

A racing pulse indicated shock. Not surprising considering that the boy seemed to have been knocked off his bike by a small van. Brad studied the scene, noting the bike’s back wheel wrapped around the child’s leg, an arm lying at an odd angle indicating a fracture, and blood streaming from his forehead. He appeared unconscious. Brad delicately felt the young boy’s head for trauma injuries.