A Baby to Care for (Mills & Boon Medical) (4 page)

‘Oh, right.’ Melissa stood.

‘It’s been such a hectic week, we’ve hardly had two moments alone together,’ Joss said by way of parting.

Before Iris could open her mouth and ask them both to stay, so she didn’t end up out here alone with Dex, both Melissa and Joss had disappeared through the rear sliding door into Melissa’s apartment.

Almost instantly, the atmosphere between the two who were left outside started to become uncomfortable. Iris had made sure that she hadn’t been alone with Dex since they’d walked around at the fair last weekend. Spending time with him, one on one, only brought more awareness of just how good-looking the man really was. She didn’t want to like him. She didn’t want to be attracted to him and one way to avoid such a thing was never to be alone with him.

Now here they were, sitting outside beneath a cloudless starry sky. Both, she presumed, slightly touched by the effects of alcohol and yet both completely alert to the other person. It was an odd sensation but even without looking at him Iris could feel him breathing, could sense the rise and fall of his chest, could feel his presence surrounding her.

‘So…’ Dex was first to break the silence. ‘Good week?’

‘Yes. Thank you. How about yours?’

Dex leaned back in the chair and considered it for a
moment. ‘Let’s see, I’ve done a busy clinic every day, had three emergencies come in for A and E care, managed to talk Melissa into doing my house calls for me, annoyed Joss, teased Bub and proposed to a beautiful woman. All in all…a pretty average week.’

He stretched his arms up above his head, the cotton T-shirt he wore rising up slightly, the waistband of his shorts dipping slightly, leaving Iris with a glimpse of firm, muscled torso. A smattering of dark hair swirled around his navel and she found it difficult to avert her gaze. The last man she’d had such an overwhelming attraction to had ended up being her husband, so the only thing she could do was to ignore whatever it was she felt for her new colleague and never allow it to overwhelm her!

She forced herself to look away, turning her head and lifting her eyes to look out at where the land met the horizon, the tops of trees in silhouette. It was very relaxing. The wine had also been relaxing. What was annoying her now was the man beside her, who was still twisting from side to side, his arms still above his head, his body still on display for her to see.

‘So an average week for you includes proposing to someone?’

Dex’s answer was to chuckle and the sound washed over her, soothing some of those jagged nerves. He was trying to be nice, she knew that, and he couldn’t know of the unwanted feelings he was stirring up within her.

He moaned as he stretched and then lowered his arms. ‘Man, my shoulders are tight. How are yours?’

Iris was surprised by the question and accidentally broke her resolve to not look at him. ‘Fine.’

‘Pity. I was hoping if yours were tight, too, we could help each other out.’ He looked at her and grinned. ‘You know…sort of an I’ll massage your shoulders if you massage mine kind of deal. Purely platonic. Purely professional. I just have knots in my trapezius I can’t reach.’

Iris bristled. The last thing she wanted was to be touched—by
anyone. ‘Well, my muscles are fine, thank you very much, and I’m sure you’ll have no difficulty of finding someone to relieve your muscular aches and pains. Just ask one of those lovely ladies who were impatiently standing in line to kiss you last weekend.’

Dex watched as Iris shifted in her seat and couldn’t believe he’d made her uncomfortable. It certainly hadn’t been his intention to offend so what had he done now? He hadn’t kissed her. He hadn’t proposed to her. All he’d done was hint at getting her to massage his shoulders because they were sore…and because usually his charm worked on almost everyone he met. Almost. His new colleague, however, appeared very stand-offish and it made him wonder what had happened in her past to make her that way.

When he’d tried to link arms with her at the fair last weekend, she’d been as stiff as a board yet trying very hard to be polite and keep him at a distance. When he’d attempted to kiss her…well, even though she’d shocked him by slapping him across the cheek, it had brought a smile to his face every time he’d thought of it. She had spirit and she intrigued him yet Dex was picking up a strong sensation that she wanted to keep a firm distance away, not only from him but from everyone else in the town as well.

She hadn’t mentioned her marriage or anything to do with her husband during the past week, not that he’d had the chance to have any conversations with her. Every time he’d walked into the kitchenette in the clinic, if he’d found Iris in there on her own, she’d quickly excused herself and disappeared into her consulting room. Unable to ask her directly, Dex had been so interested he’d checked her résumé and discovered she was a widow.

It had helped him to fill in a few gaps and explained why sometimes, when he’d been watching her, he’d sensed a deep loneliness about her. Yet at other times, like this evening
when she’d been around Melissa, he’d seen her laughing brightly, her eyes sparkling as though she didn’t have a care in the world.

However, despite the different sides of Iris he’d managed to glimpse so far, the one he liked best was when she’d been watching him stretch. He hadn’t intentionally stretched his muscles to show off his body—he stretched his muscles because they were tense. He’d been out helping a mate put up a back fence yesterday afternoon and his muscles were sore. He’d stretched—and Iris had looked.

What Dex hadn’t expected was that he’d liked her visual caress more than he’d care to admit. The woman had plagued his thoughts quite a bit during this past week and he wasn’t used to that at all. He didn’t mind the fact that he was interested in her but he was wary that he’d had a difficult time wiping her from his mind, especially at night-time.

When he’d discovered she was indeed available, he’d been secretly pleased but then he’d started asking himself why. Why should he be pleased? Iris was just another colleague. Just another woman and a woman who appeared to have quite a few things she needed to work out in her personal life. He knew Didja would help her—it was the magic of the outback—but as far as he was concerned, he needed to keep his distance from the gorgeous woman sitting beside him. But for some strange reason thoughts of Iris persisted.

He wanted to ask her questions, to listen to her talk, to hear her laugh, to watch a smile play about her lips. It had been made abundantly clear to him that he was definitely attracted to her but he knew the attraction would never last. It never did. People changed. They moved on. And he had locked his heart away, determined it would never get hurt again.

Iris shifted in her chair again, putting her hand onto her wineglass as though getting ready to make her escape. Dex didn’t want her to leave, not yet. He tried to think of the last
thing she’d said. That’s right, she’d made some comment about women standing in line for him.

‘You do know that the women in that line weren’t serious.’

‘Pardon?’ Iris raised an eyebrow at him. He’d sat there for a good minute or two not saying a thing and then just when she was about to leave, he threw out a comment like that!

‘The women. The kissing. It didn’t mean anything. It was just for a good cause.’

‘To raise funds for an ambulance, and it was good that we succeeded in that cause. Joss has said the ambulance should be here in two months’ time. However, I also remember a lot of those women getting quite impatient whilst waiting for you to kiss them, as well as a lot of them leaving the line when Bluey took his turn. Admit it, Dex. You’re more than happy to have the women of this community salivating for you.’

He chuckled at her words. ‘Charming image,’ he murmured, which only seemed to make her angry.

Iris stood, wineglass forgotten in her haste to leave, and nearly jumped out of her skin when Dex stood too. She felt he was crowding her when in reality there was actually quite a bit of physical distance between them. ‘You take nothing seriously,’ she huffed. ‘It’s pointless trying to have a proper conversation with you.’

Dex stared at her, his words soft and clear. ‘It’s difficult trying to have
any
conversation with you.’

Iris glared at him. ‘What does that mean?’

‘It just means that during this past week, any time I walk into a room, you walk out of it. You’re elusive, you’re closed off and that’s fine—to a point—but we’re colleagues, Iris. This is a very small community. We’re going to need to have some conversation at some point.’

‘We’re talking now.’

‘And that’s good, but during the week would be helpful, too.’

‘I didn’t walk out of the room when we had our business
meeting.’ Iris wasn’t at all sure what to say, mainly because Dex was right. What she hadn’t realised was that he’d not only noticed her keeping her distance from him but that he cared enough to comment on it. It appeared out here in the outback, there was no beating about the bush. Honesty reigned.

‘That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it. You’re here for six months and that’s great. Sure, we’d all love it if you stayed longer, mainly because the children of this community will benefit from having a specialist here, but that’s beside the point.’

‘Which is?’

‘I don’t go around proposing to women at the drop of a hat.’ Dex looked down at the ground for a moment and Iris was surprised at the sincerity of his words. ‘I wanted to apologise if I made you feel uncomfortable. It was a joke and now I realise a rather bad one.’ He met her eyes, even though it was now rather dark and difficult to read her expression. ‘At that time, I had no idea you were a widow.’

Iris stared at him, uncertain what to say, but he continued.

‘I’ve been trying to apologise all week. I’m glad I finally got the opportunity.’

‘How did you find out? Did you ask Melissa? Joss? Did you discuss me with them?’

She was still mad. Dex wasn’t quite sure why. He’d made a mistake. He’d apologised. Those tactics had helped him through countless situations in the past and he wondered if he’d used up his ‘charisma’ quota for the day.

‘No. Neither of them said a word.’ He glanced away for a moment before meeting her gaze. ‘I read your résumé. Your marital status was on there.’

‘You did what? You don’t think that’s Joss’s business? He does own the clinic after all. Isn’t it his business who he hires and why?’

Dex frowned for a moment. Perhaps Iris didn’t realise he
was as much a financial partner in the clinic as Joss was. It was true that Joss had more of a flair for the day-to-day running and management side of things but where staffing was concerned, he had just as much right to read a résumé as Joss. Right now, as he watched Iris he realised there was more going on than he’d initially realised.

‘What your résumé didn’t say was how your husband died or how much pain you might have felt during the past four years or how deeply the whole situation had affected you.’

‘No, it doesn’t, so stop digging around, Dex. Stop trying to get to know me. I know your type. You’re a love ’em and leave ’em type of guy. You hold yourself aloof, not only from relationships with women but from relationships with everyone. You forget that I know Melissa. I was the friend she leaned on when her parents died. I was the friend who supported her when she went looking for her birth mother. I was the friend she confided in when she discovered she had a brother, and I was the friend who passed her the tissues when you initially refused to see her.

‘Now, I know you’re trying to make good by getting to know her and I hope you do because she is one amazing woman who was there for me when I needed her most.’ Iris’s voice cracked on the last words. She hated Dex for making her feel so vulnerable.

Dex instinctively put out a hand to offer comfort but she shrugged it away.

‘Don’t touch me. I don’t like being touched.’

‘Why? People should be touched. It’s part of the healing process…and it’s something I’m learning myself.’

‘You? You who are surrounded by women all the time?’

Dex made a point of looking around him. ‘I only see one woman.’ For some reason he had a burning need to get through to her, to let her see he wasn’t the Casanova she thought he was. ‘Look, I know I’m not perfect and I don’t profess to be,
but I have issues, too. Melissa’s probably told you I haven’t spoken to my parents in over two years. I had no idea I was adopted until I received Melissa’s first letter. My parents never told me, so for thirty-one years I firmly believed I was their son. I believed my younger brother and sister were my siblings. I was lied to and I know all about cutting yourself off and not wanting anyone to touch you—whether it be physical or emotional. You can be surrounded by people and still be quite alone simply because you don’t let any of them touch you. Not the real you. Not the person you’ve hidden away inside.’

‘Why are you telling me this?’

Dex took a step away from her and raked a hand through his hair. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps it’s because I don’t like it that you don’t like me.’ He shrugged and smiled. ‘I guess I’m used to being liked but I also know I’m not perfect. I’ve been hurt in love before. I’ve been betrayed by the ones I love. I also had an accident a few weeks ago—almost a month ago now. I lost a lot of blood but thankfully Melissa was there to help me out. Still, at times like that, at those really dark, dark times, it makes a person think. It made me realise that I couldn’t keep running from my problems.’

‘You think I’m running?’

Dex spread his arms wide, indicating the surroundings. ‘You’re in Didja. Nine times out of ten, people come here to escape from something.’

‘And tell me, Dr Freud. What am I escaping from?’

Dex shrugged, not caring that she was still mad at him. If being mad helped him to get to know her better, then for the moment, so be it. ‘My first guess would be whatever happened to your husband. It must have been a traumatic death to leave you with such deep scars.’

Iris’s mouth went dry and she started to tremble at his words. Her vision had blurred a little due to the tears she was
trying to control. She felt her knees begin to buckle and she clutched wildly for the support of one of the chairs but couldn’t find one. Dex immediately put out his hand to support her and she grabbed it. ‘How?’ Her words were barely above a whisper, her body trembling with disbelief. ‘How did you know about my scars?’