A Baby to Care for (Mills & Boon Medical) (5 page)

D
EX
was astounded, not only at the complete emotional switch around but at the anguish and pain in her words.

He’d only been employing a bit of basic psychology but it appeared he’d literally hit the nail on the head. Iris was breathing rather fast, her eyes wide with confusion as she looked up at him. The trembling was getting worse and Dex tried to ease her back into the chair but it appeared she couldn’t move.

Dex wasn’t sure exactly what was happening or what he’d actually said to bring on this reaction from her, but what he knew right then was that she needed him—and it felt so good to be needed. His birth mother hadn’t wanted him, Catherine hadn’t needed him and his parents had lied to him. Yes. It felt good that he could do something to help someone else. Dex gathered Iris into his arms, showing her that he did indeed care about her.

‘I’ve got you. Shh. It’s OK. Lean on me.’

Iris closed her eyes, her mind whirring out of control with so many different emotions. How on earth had Dex figured out about her scars? One minute she was cross with him because he was so good-looking, so dynamic and was affecting her way too much and the next she was in his arms, trembling and unable to control the feelings coursing through her.

He’d said he hadn’t talked to Melissa or Joss about her past. He’d read her résumé and discovered she was a widow. How
had he put two and two together and come up with four? Were her scars obvious? Could he feel them beneath her clothes?

‘I’m always so careful. I always make sure I’m covered. People stare and then they…they…’ She hiccuped as though trying to control tears that were threatening to escape.

‘They what?’ he encouraged softly. So that was it. Iris had scars—physical scars on her body. It was why she dressed the way she did, to cover the scars. When he’d mentioned scars before, he’d been speaking metaphorically, not literally. His heart swelled with compassion for this woman who had obviously been through something extremely traumatic if she actually had physical scars.

He only hoped she’d let him help her. He knew she wouldn’t think he was the first choice when it came to finding a reliable friend to confide in but he wanted to help because this woman, this unique and remarkable woman, was affecting him in a way no other woman had. Not even Catherine.

‘People become sympathetic. Poor Iris. Look at her scars.’ Bitterness tinged her words and Dex wanted to wipe it all away, to let her know that it didn’t matter, but he really had no idea what to say. He didn’t want to sound patronising, he didn’t want to preach about something he knew nothing about, so he simply stood there, holding her, letting her lean on him.

‘Or they want to know how it happened. They want to talk about it, to help me, when all I want to do is forget about it and I can’t. I can’t.’ She broke on the last two words and the tears started to flow. Deep tears filled with complete anguish. She buried her face into Dex’s chest and sobbed. He held her tight, rubbing his hands lightly up and down her back in a soothing manner.

He could feel the slight roughness of her skin through the shirt. She had scars on her back. She said she had them on her arms and he wondered just how much of her body had been injured. His medical mind worked quickly to come up
with possible scenarios for such extensive scarring and he finally settled on burns. Scars like this could only have been caused by fire. He’d been an A and E specialist for so long, he’d seen and treated everything.

He would patch people up, get them breathing again, get them sorted out. He would resuscitate and intubate, he would debride and bandage. He would do his job and then send them on their way to the ward or to a specialist or to Theatre. It was the type of medicine he’d always liked—fix ’em up and move ’em out. It had suited his personality of being in the thick of things but still holding himself apart. It was another after-effect of the lessons he’d learned with Catherine. Don’t give too much of yourself, keep your heart well and truly locked away and you won’t get hurt.

So that was what he’d done at the hospital. He’d been nice and polite to everyone. He’d joined in with jokes, he’d gone on dates but at no time had he ever made a serious commitment to anyone. He’d been like a leaf on the wind.

That had been until he’d come to Didja. The people of this community didn’t allow doctors to treat them as numbers, or as just another patient. They were people in their own right and they demanded their doctors acknowledge that and get involved not only in the community but in other people’s lives. Some of his closest friends were also his patients, which made the level of treatment at the Didja Clinic that of first-class quality.

Dex had changed a lot in the past two years. Even he could see it. Didja had been good for him and he’d come to realise that offering compassion, offering a listening ear, showing people he really cared could also go a long way in restoring them to full health.

It made him wonder what type of care Iris had received. Had her treating doctors viewed her as a person or just a number? Emotional wounds took far longer to heal than
physical wounds, something he was well aware of himself. Had Iris been nurtured through her healing process? With the way she was sobbing now, he had his doubts.

Dex stopped rubbing her back, not wanting her to think he was being insensitive. He still held her close, though the tears were now starting to subside. He fished in his pocket for a handkerchief and pulled one out, getting it ready to offer.

‘I want to forget about what happened,’ she said softly, her words a little more controlled then before. ‘I don’t want to forget Tim but I want to forget what happened. I want the memory—the vivid, Technicolor memory—of that awful day to be wiped away.’ Iris eased back, sniffing as she raised red-rimmed eyes to look at Dex.

‘Tim was your husband?’

‘Yes.’

‘How long were you married?’ His questions were soft and caring.

‘Two years.’ Iris swallowed and accepted the handkerchief he offered. She gave him an embarrassed smile. ‘I must look a sight.’

Dex shrugged. ‘Even if you do—and I’m not saying I agree with that statement—who’s going to know?’

‘You.’ Iris eased from his arms and sat in the closest chair. ‘I can’t believe I had such an outburst.’

‘I wouldn’t call it an outburst as such.’ Dex sat next to her, bringing his chair a little nearer.

‘I would.’

Dex shook his head. ‘Well, it was a fairly tame one.’ He leaned back in the chair and looked up at the starry sky. ‘When I found out I was adopted, after my parents confirmed the contents of Melissa’s letter to be the truth, I had an outburst and it was nowhere near as sedate as yours.’

Iris was intrigued. ‘What did you do?’

‘I decided to wrap my very expensive Ferrari around a tree.’

‘On purpose?’

Dex exhaled slowly. ‘At the time, I wasn’t sure. I was just so angry, so out of control that I wanted to get away from everyone and everything and so I drove. I just drove and drove, going faster around the corners, heading away from civilisation and everything it stood for. The power of the machine, the noise from the engine. I wanted it all to wipe out my thoughts, my feelings—and then I woke up in hospital.’

‘You don’t remember the accident?’

‘No, but from the pictures Joss showed me of my car, which was literally wrapped around a tree, it’s a complete miracle I survived.’

‘You’re lucky.’

‘Lucky I survived or lucky I don’t remember what happened?’

‘Both.’ Iris couldn’t believe how nice, how understanding, how
human
Dex was being. Melissa had told her that there were more layers to him than just the surface ones and she couldn’t believe he was letting her see them. Perhaps he felt compelled to share given that she’d all but soaked his T-shirt with her tears. ‘But more that you don’t remember.’

‘Do you still have nightmares about the fire?’ Again his tone was soft, caring and she even thought she detected a small hint of worry. Dex? Worried about someone other than himself?

Hang on. He’d said
fire.
He might have glimpsed her scars but he couldn’t know everything. Iris frowned. ‘How did you know—’

‘About the fire?’ He shrugged a nonchalant shoulder and smiled that gorgeous hundred-watt smile of his. ‘I’m a man of hidden talents.’

‘Lis and Jos—’

‘Haven’t said a word,’ he quickly interrupted. ‘They’d never betray a confidence.’

Iris’s mind worked quickly. She remembered the way Dex had held her, the way he’d soothed, the way he’d gently stroked her back. Her eyes widened imperceptibly. Dex must have felt the scars. Through the thin cotton shirt, he would have been able to feel her skin and the angry distortions left there from the burns. He’d touched her scars and then…then after that, she remembered him just holding her.

He’d felt how bad her scars were and been repulsed by them. Right now, he wasn’t making any effort to touch her so that was obviously all there was to it. Whatever attraction she might have felt towards Dexter could now be forgotten because there was no way in the world this handsome, gorgeous man was going to want someone as physically scarred as she was, especially when he had no end of smooth-skinned women throughout the community throwing themselves at him.

‘Of course they wouldn’t,’ she agreed. She’d momentarily forgotten that Dex was an A and E specialist and had no doubt come across his fair share of burns victims in the past.

‘And neither will I. You have my professional word on that.’

‘Thank you, Dex.’ Iris stayed where she was, still unsure whether her legs would support her. ‘So…you, uh, crashed your very expensive car and woke up in hospital. Then what?’

Dex could see she wanted to change the subject, to take the focus away from herself, and he was happy to oblige. He wanted Iris to be able to trust him, to talk to him, to let him help her through the grief she’d been repressing for far too long. She’d no doubt grieved for her husband and the loss of his life, but she hadn’t grieved for herself. Instead, after healing, she’d probably thrown herself back into work and forgotten that she had emotions that needed to be addressed as well.

He knew, because he’d been there…was
still
there in a way. He hadn’t dealt with his feelings for his family, hadn’t addressed
the entire betrayal issue, and even now he didn’t want to talk about it. He could, however, tell her about his crash, especially if it helped her to relax a little more.

‘Uh…after I crashed the car that I’d worked day and night to pay off, Joss came to Perth to visit me in hospital.’ Dex’s words held a strong touch of brotherly love. ‘He told me I was an idiot and a complete fool and that if I wanted to get out of town and away from everyone else I should move to Didja and help him out.’

‘And so you moved here, put some space between you and your problems and became the local playboy.’

Dex laughed at her words. ‘Local playboy? I don’t think I’ve ever been called that before.’

‘Probably not to your face, but isn’t that what you are?’

‘A playboy.’ He mulled the word over, folding his arms across his chest. ‘If a playboy enjoys the company of beautiful and intelligent women, perhaps I am.’

‘Do they need to be intelligent?’

Dex thought on this question for a moment. ‘I think it helps if you want to have a decent conversation with them.’

‘And do they need to be beautiful?’

‘Ah, and there’s a loaded question if ever I’ve heard one. I would have to say that there’s beauty and then there’s beauty—real beauty. The kind that radiates from deep within the soul.’

Iris was pleasantly surprised by his answer. ‘Careful, Dex. I might start to think you’re a romantic at heart.’

He uncrossed his arms and shifted in his seat, angling a little closer to her. ‘And I might start to think you actually like me.’

‘Well…’ Iris edged to the end of the chair. ‘We can’t have that, now, can we,’ she stated rhetorically as she stood, incredibly grateful that her legs were going to support her. ‘I’d best go in. I have Saturday clinic tomorrow.’ She picked up her wineglass and reached for Melissa’s, which was near Dex.

‘I’ve got it,’ he said, and picked up both the glass and the half-empty bottle. He sniffed the wine as they made their way over to Iris’s rear sliding door. ‘Smells like a good year.’

She stopped outside her apartment. ‘Would you like a glass? I could get a fresh one.’

He shook his head. ‘It’s fine. Thanks.’

‘Oh, I forgot you’d been to the pub earlier. Don’t like mixing beer and wine?’

‘Don’t like mixing medication and alcohol is more to the point. Joss has me on another lot of antibiotics from the surgery I had a while ago.’

‘That’s right. I’d forgotten about that. You were involved in an accident at the mine or something like that?’

He nodded at her vague description of what had happened out at the Didja mine. ‘The tyre of a mining truck exploded.’

‘Really? Those trucks are enormous.’

‘They are.’

‘It’s a miracle you weren’t killed.’

‘It is.’ There was a hint of seriousness to those two words as though once again Dex was facing some deep emotional decisions.

‘You had internal bleeding and gave your sister quite a scare.’ She nodded. ‘Melissa did give me more specific details but that was when I was in the middle of packing up to come here so things became a little hectic.’

‘Lis fusses too much.’

‘She’s a nurturer and she’s your sister. She loves you, Dex.’

‘I know. I’m really starting to see that.’

‘Caring for people is what Lis has done for so long.’ Iris opened the door and went inside. Dex followed, placing the glass and wine bottle on the bench. He looked around the room and noticed Iris hadn’t personalised the apartment in any way. The furniture that had been provided was all still in place but there were no books, no music, no pictures anywhere.
If he needed a reminder that she didn’t want to stay in town, this was it.

‘And now she has Joss,’ Dex added. ‘He likes taking care of
her.
’

Iris smiled and Dex was momentarily stunned at the sight of her gorgeous twinkling eyes. No one would have guessed that not too long ago she’d been wrapped in his arms, crying. There were no tear stains on her face, no blotchy skin or red nose. Instead, she looked vibrant.