Midwife in the Family Way (4 page)

Cool down. He's just a guy. And you're a professional woman with an eight-year-old daughter.

‘So tell me.' His voice made her jump and her gaze flew to his. ‘Do you ever leave this town?'

‘Every week.' She looked away from him, actually thankful he'd picked a topic that grounded her like no other. ‘I visit my mother in Brisbane.' And attend the monthly Huntington's disease meetings and any speaking engagements they'd booked for her to help the cause raise money for research. But she didn't want to go into her personal nightmare.

‘So your Grace is used to car travel?'

Where was this leading? ‘Grace? Sometimes. Tomorrow she will. She stays with her paternal grandmother every second weekend. They're very close.'

He frowned and she guessed it was confusing. ‘And are you close to your daughter's father?'

What had Tommy got to do with it? He was quite happy playing in a band in Holland. ‘I'd prefer not to talk about my daughter or her father.'

He didn't answer and she watched his impassive face for a clue. When he spoke it was on a different subject, which was good. He wasn't slow at picking up taboos. ‘It has been an interesting visit to your town. The funeral
less tragic than I expected. It is a shame I did not plan to stay longer.'

Emma was thinking it was lucky. ‘So tell me more about your work,' Emma said.

‘I'd prefer not to talk about my work,' he said, and smiled at his mimicry of her. ‘But I will tell you that I have been given leave after my last assignment.' He raised his eyebrows at taboo subjects. ‘Perhaps it is different for you. Do you wish to talk about your job?'

‘I'm always happy to talk about midwifery.' And she did, with flashing eyes, warm reminiscent smiles and anecdotes, the passion and the wonder she saw in a woman giving birth in her voice.

Gianni watched her like a hawk. He'd thought it would be pleasant to bring this woman to dine with him.

Pleasant hadn't happened. Nothing so mediocre.

Her company intrigued him, fascinated him and irritated him with all he didn't understand, and the desire to reach across and bring her wrist to his mouth made his hands clench on the table cloth.

But this wasn't the time or the place for slaking hungers that had suddenly caught up with him. He'd be well to eat quickly and return this woman to her home before it became dangerous for them both. Unfortunately, her enthusiasm had passed from discussing her work, which he regretted, because with the passion she displayed she became even more captivating.

‘What of you?' she said. ‘Who's at home for you?'

Nobody. ‘I have not thought of home for a long time.'
He shrugged. ‘Haven't for many years. But that may change when I see Leon and settle what is between us. My life will have more direction again perhaps.'

‘Nieces and nephews?'

‘I have one nephew. He must be eight. My late sister-in-law said I was pompous with children. I've met him once.'

Well, that stopped the conversation. Or did it? She had the feeling he used shock to silence questions. There would be no more chances after tonight to discover what made this man different. What drew her to him? How did she find such a thing out? Questions? She had nothing to lose. ‘How long ago did your wife die, Gianni?'

‘Ten years.' Bluntly.

She'd been expecting a much more recent loss. There had to be other reasons as well that he hadn't looked for a stable relationship. ‘And you've loved her that whole time.'

He raised his eyebrows. The tiger's glint was back and the impact of that flash purred along her arms and she had to stop her hands rubbing the flicker.

‘Do you really want to know that?' His voice was deep and low and the awareness of the game she was playing grew with his words. Did she dare to go on?

She did feel reckless. Emboldened by the fact that tonight she could risk learning things other women seemed to know about being a woman. Things she'd never had time for. Or the opportunity. He would leave tomorrow. She'd take him on. ‘I'd like to know why I
can feel your pain as more recent. Especially if you'd only met your wife just prior to your wedding.'

He inclined his head at her perception. ‘You do not hold back, Emma.'

Not tonight. ‘Should I?'

He shrugged. ‘You are different from the women I've known. They are my own demons. My wife may have died years ago, and it is true we barely knew each other in the month that we had, but it was enough.'

Her voice softened and there was no chance of the question carrying to other tables. ‘How did she die, Gianni?'

‘Maria wished to see Africa. I thought it a good way to overcome the awkwardness of barely knowing each other.' He grimaced with distaste. ‘Since I had been told she loved another on the morning of our wedding.'

Nice well-wisher. Emma felt indignant on his and his poor wife's behalf. ‘By…?'

He smiled at her. Aware of her attempt to free him from the ghosts of his past. ‘I will humour you for so long…' He left the end of the sentence dangling, like she had. Showing her it was his choice to continue but he would also stop when he decided. She had to be content with that. In truth, he'd offered more than she thought he would. She waited patiently.

‘My brother's wife. Whom I suspect enjoyed her moment of triumph, but I must not speak ill of the dead.'

‘Why not?' Emma raised her brows and he smiled again and then sobered.

Gianni drew a breath and it was as if he could feel the heat and lush scents of the red earth in Africa all those years ago. He could feel the warm weight of Maria in his arms as he'd sunk to the ground. ‘You asked how she died?' He looked at the woman opposite him but she was barely an outline as he remembered.

‘On the last day of a safari, a snake, a black mamba, fell from a tree and attacked many times as they both panicked. I had stopped to take a photo and Maria had gone on ahead with one guide.' He remembered her whispers as she clutched at him. And the moment she'd rasped, ‘The child I carry isn't yours.' Just when he'd fallen in love.

‘It was a long time ago,' Emma's voice was gentle and recalled him to the present. He could hear in her voice the things unsaid that others had repeated over the years. It wasn't his fault. There was nothing he could do. But it had been his duty to protect her.

Just as they'd said when he had survived and his parents had died. But it didn't take away the guilt. These were his crosses to bear. And he made up for it as he could.

‘Other women just as precious die every day and so for me my wound can never heal.'

Emma thought about that and risked a guess at what he meant. ‘Those you've lost in your work?'

‘There are many I cannot save. I do not expect to love again and accept my heart is dry and barren with each new loss.'

His word choice had formalised and she realised that
his honesty had affected him more than he showed. The answer to the price he paid seemed obvious to her. ‘Don't you think you've given enough? Perhaps change your area of medicine?'

He shrugged. ‘I'm good at it. Will I sit at home and wonder who will save those in need, then?'

One day the price would prove too high. Maybe that time was here. ‘Perhaps you should leave the next generation to save the world. Move on, like Angus did.'

He smiled at her, like she was a child, and it annoyed her. Inflamed her actually that he could be so cavalier with the man inside him she wanted to help. ‘So easy,' he said.

Her anger dissipated. He was right. Who was she to imagine she understood his dilemma or his pain? But the depth of her need to help him came from a source she had no control over.

Their meal arrived but the topic had sobered them both.

She had no reason to believe she could help this man, didn't know why she wanted to so badly, but when her hand lifted to lie over his she felt his tremor of awareness, felt his heat seep into her, and then his palm turned and she in turn was captured by him.

He leaned forward and drew her fingers towards his mouth and kissed not her hand but the sensitive skin on the inside of her wrist. A salute that sent tiny erotic messages that fluttered her belly before she'd even tasted a mouthful.

‘Let us eat,' he said quietly, ‘and the night will take care of itself.'

Time and the food blurred, his eyes on her eyes, or on her mouth or on her fingertips, and instead of feeling awkward she felt caressed and savoured and sultry in ways she'd never imagined she could feel, and the conversation between them was more subliminal than spoken. Two people who should never have met, drawn by fate and tossed by emotions they recognised in each other.

Time slowed. A sip of wine became an invitation for him to watch the curve of her throat, a bite of fish meant a thought of other nips not related to food as they created an aura of sensuality around them like a bubble only they were privy to.

He ordered dessert, a blush-coloured gelato that matched her cheeks and cooled her mouth with a tang that cleaned her palate and made her lips tingle.

‘Would you mind if we had our coffee delivered to my chalet? The view over the lake will be worth the walk.'

It wasn't the view she was thinking of when he stood behind her chair and waited. When she rose, his hand rested possessively in the small of her back, barely there yet burning like a brand as he ushered her out of the restaurant to the raised wooden path that ran along the water. Never had she felt so cherished, so feminine, so receptive to another person. Or so at risk of making a mistake.

Just this night, she whispered to herself, two people
with tragedy, he in the past and she in the future. Why should she not go with this feeling that swept her into uncharted waters with a man she barely knew but felt she knew more than anyone? For something, a secret part of her pleaded, just for her, Emma. In case she never felt how she felt now ever again. And perhaps she would be able to erase the pain from him, for a while at least, and he from her.

Beside the path they drifted hand in hand. Under a stand of ghostly gums a huge set of silver wind chimes reflected the moonlight and a sultry breeze brushed against them so they spoke to her. They were two people colliding in a world like the pipes of the chimes, his thumb caressing her palm, promising a song that could soar as high as she wished.

As they passed the chimes rattled, first in a whisper as they were puffed by a tendril of wind and then in a cathedral refrain as the increasing breeze stirred them to greater excitement—like the way her heart beat gathered speed and intensity within her chest as she walked the path with Gianni.

They came to a chalet that stood a little distance away, larger than the others, right down on the edge so that the actual supports for the building stood over the water and the steps ran up the side and around the building like a decoration on a cake.

His hand lifted from her back, still touching but with no pressure, to guide her up the stairs in case she suffered second thoughts. She missed the heat and the connection and arched back so that he leant on her again.

‘Just checking,' he whispered into her neck as he followed her up the stairs, and the warmth of his breath blushed her skin with a need she could barely contain. Where had these feelings come from and how could something so dangerous dwell inside sensible her? She had no idea but she didn't wish them away.

‘You promised coffee,' she murmured, ‘and a moonlight view I'd be impressed with.'

‘I will offer you that and any more you wish, my little temptress, and the view I too am waiting to see.'

She stepped onto the little deck and leant her hands on the rail to gaze out over the moonlit lake, with him directly behind her. His chest against her shoulders, hot and heavy, his hips pressed against her back and with an unmistakable bulge of hardness against her spine. His thighs against her buttocks.

Solid masculine heat against her, and she pushed herself back into his body because she could not stop the urge to do so. They fused from shoulder to thigh and she'd never felt anything so glorious as they both stood under the starlit sky. In the distance she could still hear the chimes as the breeze rose and fell.

He stepped away and she frowned in confusion but then saw that the coffee had arrived. Gianni pulled out her chair and she sat, externally demure, as the cups were laid and the tall silver coffee pot set on the table with a small basket of chocolates.

‘Grazie,'
Gianni said.

‘Great spot for it,' the waiter said, nodded at the water and left.

Great spot for what? Emma thought, and smiled to herself like the cat with the cream. She had no idea where her scruples had gone, departed without notice, and she didn't want them back just yet. She slipped her shoes off, and they fell with tiny clunks to the floor, and when she put her bare foot down Gianni had placed his foot under hers so that her sole rested on his ankle.

Gianni could not take his eyes of this vision in the moonlight. The fine bones of her cheeks shadowed the flawless skin beneath and the tilt of her mouth curved up at him like the moon itself, promised such delights that made him want to take her face in his hands and worship her.

Then her bare toes touched his leg and the shaft of desire speared through him like an arrow straight to his heart.

‘Well, hello,' he said. ‘It seems there is an intruder under the table.' Her foot stilled and he leaned across and took her wrist again to draw it to his mouth. ‘Do not stop, for I have just discovered a fetish with feet I did not know I had.' He smiled at her and slipped his shoe off and their feet writhed around each other in a heated duel that was ridiculously erotic.

‘I'm not a practised flirt,' she said, and would have hung her head if he hadn't slipped one finger under her chin to lift her face to the light.

‘I think you will manage. Practice is not something you need.' He shook his head. ‘Do you have any idea how beautiful you look? How I am still unable to believe I have this moonlit angel in my lair?'