The Doctor's Society Sweetheart (4 page)

If, for example, he were to lean over and kiss her luscious mouth, how would she respond? The thought wasn’t at all unappealing to him. She was, after all, an exquisitely beautiful woman, of that there was no doubt.

It was ridiculous to even allow his thoughts to wander in such a direction given that she most definitely wasn’t his type at all, but as he looked at her, the colours of the night surrounding her, she looked softer yet still princess-like and perfect. A part of him wanted to see what she would look like when her calm veneer snapped.

If he were to kiss her without permission, to catch her off guard, to surprise her…Would her blue eyes flash with deep desire or utter anger? Would her mouth respond to his or would she slap his face? If she kissed him back, would she be like a wildcat, wanting more, or melt into his embrace? His mind instantly shifted into temporary overdrive as pictures of them together flashed before him, pictures of the two of them, his mouth on hers, her arms around him, their bodies close together, the heat, the need, the passion…

A loud crack from the fire snapped through his thoughts and after blinking a few times Dart swallowed and immediately
looked away from her, dropping his head to check J’tagnan, who was still asleep in his arms. He was appalled that his mind had taken such a journey, that he’d allowed himself to even think of being attracted to another woman. Even though it had been six long years since his world had erupted like a volcano, the lava spewing forth to destroy the lovely life he’d had planned, he’d never been this drawn in by another woman.

The memory of Marta, of the pure love they’d shared, had been enough to get him through…most of the time. Yet there were days and moments, such as now, when loneliness consumed him, but his mind had never consciously thought about hauling another woman close and kissing the living daylights out of her…not in the way he’d imagined holding Emerson-Rose close.

She was a woman sent here to do a job, to raise awareness of the plight of these good people, and she was offering her medical services as part of the bargain. She was a high-profile figure and combined with her medical knowledge and her engaging presence in front of the camera he had no doubt she would do a good piece, especially after the way she’d shown she really did care for these good people. Apart from that, apart from the fact that they would be spending time together over this next week, she meant nothing to him and the best thing he could do was to forget his thoughts of the past few minutes and focus on his job.

‘Er…good.’

‘Good?’

Dart cleared his throat, still looking at the baby, at the fire, at the people surrounding them. Looking anywhere but at her. ‘It’s good that you feel that way about Tarparnii. Your passion for these people…it sounds honest.’

Emmy frowned, completely confused. It had nothing to do with what Dart was presently saying but more from what
had just happened. Even through the dim light around them, the glow from the fire, the atmosphere between them had thickened as Dart had looked at her as though he’d wanted to lean over and plunder her mouth. It was the oddest sensation and one that had rocked the foundations of her world.

She’d had men interested in her before and while all of them had been nice men, none had been her type. Apart from that, she’d learned never to take any man seriously given that usually they were after her wealth rather than her. Yet this man beside her obviously didn’t like her and while she had no real idea why, in a strange way it was almost refreshing.

But for a moment that had changed. Perhaps the vehemence burning deep within her, the need for justice and compassion, had triggered something in the stranger sitting beside her because after she’d finished speaking, the dark look in his eyes had cleared and when his gaze had dropped—albeit momentarily—to take in the curve of her mouth, the vibe coming from him changing from one of annoyance to one of curious delight, Emmy had found herself becoming quite breathless in anticipation.

It was ridiculous. They were strangers. They knew nothing about each other and since they’d met but a few short hours ago, he’d treated her with nothing but contempt. Now, after such an intimate moment, he wasn’t even looking at her. Maybe she’d imagined it. Maybe that intense look he’d given her had been just the shadows playing tricks on her mind, and as that was most definitely a more likely scenario, she should forget the way Dart had made her feel all tingly and girly inside and focus on her job.

‘Why…?’ She stopped and cleared her throat, surprised to find it a little husky. ‘Why would I lie?’

‘You’d be surprised.’ Dart’s words were brisk. ‘This isn’t the first time a TV crew has come into these people’s lives. It isn’t the first time their hospitality has been taken advantage
of. It also isn’t the first time they’ve been duped and hurt yet they feel they need to let the crews come in the hope it will help the situation.’

‘What happened?’

He shook his head. ‘It was a long time ago. Over a decade. The laws governing overseas TV crews coming into this country have been changed because of the incident. It’ll never happen again.’

Emmy reached out and touched his arm, only for a split second but it was enough to heighten the awareness buzzing between them. ‘Tell me, please.’ She clasped her hands in her lap but her tone was imploring.

Dart exhaled sharply and spoke quickly, now almost desperate to get out of her presence, to put some space between himself and the woman who was slowly starting to drive him to distraction with her close proximity.

‘A crew came in, treated the villagers like their own personal slaves, getting them to do their washing, cook for them, anything and everything. They refused to walk anywhere, refused to help, and after three days of complaining about the conditions they physically wrecked five of the huts, caused injury to several of the villagers, packed up their stuff and left. Nothing was ever aired. No money came in for supplies.’ He ground his teeth together. ‘Worst of all, after they left, Meeree and Jalak discovered that two of the young women had been raped.’

Emmy gasped at that news. ‘That’s…’ She couldn’t talk due to the taste of utter disgust and revulsion in her mouth. She shook her head slowly. ‘No wonder you’re fiercely protective of these good people.’ She took a swallow from the drink in her hand, wanting to wash out the foul taste. ‘No one—I don’t care what their circumstances are in life—
no one
should be treated that way.’

Again, the vehemence of her words surprised and pleased
Dart. ‘I’m glad to hear you feel that way.’ Hearing her agree with him also helped ease his concern about the work Emerson-Rose and her crew were here to do.

‘I’d like to assure you, Dr Freeman, that my crew and I will conduct ourselves with utter respectability. We will help out where needed and make sure Meeree and Jalak understand that we appreciate not only them but the hospitality they’re providing.’

‘That’s good to know.’ Dart was pleased by her words. It only added to the strange awareness he felt towards her and with that he knew it was time for him to move away, to put some distance between them. Kind, reassuring, enigmatic women were people he tended to avoid because they created too much havoc within him.

His fiancée Marta had been such a woman. Giving, encouraging, selfless, loving. She had been the type of woman who had always supported the underdog, who had always given far more than she’d ever received and who would fight to the nth degree for a good cause.

He found it unnerving when he came across other women of such high integrity and where he’d thought Emerson-Rose to be a pampered little princess, playing at a game of public relations, he was starting to discover that there were a few more layers to her than he’d previously thought.

He was definitely intrigued…and that spelled danger!

E
MMY
watched as Dart stood and without another word walked away, back to where the baby’s mother was busy still cutting up fruit, the young village children crowding around her and waiting for a piece of fresh…Emmy wasn’t sure what type of fruit it actually was, tasting between a pear and banana. Either way it was delicious as well as refreshing, which was why the children all wanted more.

The mother was getting tired, standing up, doing the manual work, especially if her body was still recovering from a traumatic birth. Dart manoeuvred his way through the gaggle of children and with a gentle hand urged the mother away, sitting her down before handing her sleeping baby over. The woman smiled at him with gratitude, which he accepted with a simple nod of his head before turning to finish cutting up the fruit and giving it out to the children.

‘He is a man who always gives.’ Meeree had sat down quietly beside Emmy, startling her.

‘Huh? Sorry?’ She quickly tore her gaze away from the man who seemed able to captivate her thoughts.

‘Dartagnan.’ Meeree gestured in Dart’s direction.

Emmy was confused for a split second longer then her eyes widened in surprise. ‘That’s his name? Dartagnan? I didn’t realise.’ She paused then said his name again. ‘Dartagnan.’ She allowed the sound of his name to roll around in her mouth,
teasing her tongue. She liked it. It was a strong, brave name and it suited him perfectly. Another thought popped into her mind. ‘Wait. The baby is called J’tagnan.’

Meeree nodded, her kind wise face highlighted in the glow from the fire. ‘He delivered the babe. Rescued the babe. Made it breathe again. The mother was filled with gratitude. She mixed the name of my
par machkai
, Jalak, with that of her rescuer and protector of her first child, Dartagnan. Jalak means protector and Dartagnan means leader. J’tagnan will grow to be a strong man for his village.’

‘Leader.’ Emmy spoke the word softly and couldn’t help the smile that touched her lips as she turned to once more look at Dart. He had finished his job of handing out fruit and was now crouched down beside J’tagnan’s mother, making sure she was feeling all right. ‘He’s quite a man, isn’t he, Meeree?’

‘Yes, he is. Our village is more rich when he is here. He gives to all. It doesn’t matter if people are high up in their village or not. He gives to all but, Emmy…’ There was a hint of sadness in Meeree’s tone. ‘Dartagnan has no one to give to
him.
’

‘You care about him more than the other PMA staff, yes?’

Meeree’s smile was calm and natural. ‘People come for many reasons. Some to help, some to seek, some for solace. It is the ones who come for solace who need the most love.’

‘Dart needs solace?’ Emmy was surprised at that.

Meeree stretched out a hand and lightly touched Emmy’s cheek. ‘He is not the only one. You have much in common.’

Emmy held the woman’s gaze, unsure for a brief moment what she meant. She didn’t have long to wait as Meeree continued.

‘I see you look at him across the fire. You feel him. You do not know why. He is like someone you once knew from a dream but on waking, you have forgotten.’

To say Emmy was completely stunned by the other woman’s words was an understatement. It was true. Even though Dart had been a touch brash and a bit standoffish since they’d met earlier that day, Emmy hadn’t been able to shake the connection she felt with him. She couldn’t explain it, she couldn’t describe it, but it was just as Meeree had said. It was like she knew Dart but from a dream where life was all fuzzy and mixed up.

‘How can you know that?’ Emmy was quietly stunned. She was by no means disputing the words the wise woman spoke.

Meeree shrugged her shoulders with natural modesty. ‘I have insights.’

‘Like a psychic?’

‘No. I look at people and I
see
them.’ She waved her hands as though it really wasn’t relevant. ‘You have a space in your heart filled with loneliness. Everything you have been given does not fill this emptiness.’

‘It’s so true,’ Emmy breathed.

Meeree pointed to where Dart now stood, talking to Jalak and a few of the other men in the village. He was standing in profile so she couldn’t quite make out his features but the vision of the tall, handsome man shrouded in shadows from the night was just like the man who had come to her in her dreams.

Of course, she’d been dreaming of a tall, dark and handsome stranger since she’d been about twelve, a man who had good morals and ethics, a man who put others first, a man who would look into her eyes, see into her soul and love her for who she was deep down inside. That man from her dreams, her knight in shining armour, had always been a bit faceless…until now.

Over the years, as she’d grown wise to the ways of the world, as she’d tried one relationship after another only to
find that their main motive was her extensive family fortune, Emmy had started to become cynical, doubting she’d ever find her Mr Right.

‘Dart has such a space, an emptiness, like yours. A void. He is filled with loneliness. It is why he gives. Giving helps to cover up the hole in his heart, but it does not heal it.’

Emmy nodded slowly, her throat dry and constricting slightly with Meeree’s soft words. Dart was lonely. Just like her. Apparently they had something in common after all. They could fill their worlds with people, with experiences that made them feel less alone, but at the end of the day it was just them and their void, trying to sleep, telling themselves that tomorrow was another day where they could once more do good work in order to try and keep the dark hunger of sadness from consuming them.

She took a sip from her drink, swallowing over the lump in her larynx, taking in a healing breath and nodding. ‘Thank you.’ She wasn’t exactly sure what she was thanking Meeree for but it didn’t seem to matter. The world, her life back in Australia, the ebbs and flows of her parents’ constant nagging for her to take her rightful place in society, the need to do more than just throw money at the poor—everything seemed to pale in comparison to knowing there was someone else out there, feeling the same as her.

That light spark of knowledge helped Emmy to feel less alone than she’d felt in years. Even though she had no idea what had caused Dart’s loneliness, at the moment it didn’t matter.

‘I was given everything I ever wanted when I was growing up,’ she said quietly to Meeree. ‘My parents are very wealthy,’ she added as clarification. ‘Yet they were so busy giving charity to others that they seemed to forget about my brother and I.’

‘Money can bring so much happiness but only when it is used with wisdom. Your brother? He is older?’

Emmy’s smile was natural as she thought of Tristan. ‘He is. He was very wild as a teenager and about ten years ago he ended up in hospital after a bad car accident. It took him over a year to recover properly but it changed him.’

‘He is happy?’

She sighed. ‘He tells me he is but…’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I think he is. He is in charge of one of my father’s businesses. The accident helped him to find a clear direction, just as medicine helped me to find a direction.’

‘I feel, maybe, that this direction was not what you hoped it would be. It did not give you the peace you still seek.’

Emmy laughed without humour. ‘You are extremely perceptive, Meeree. When my parents realised I was serious about studying medicine, they donated a lot of money to the hospital where I was doing my training. There’s even a building named after my family—the Jofille Wing.’

‘This brought you special treatment you did not want.’

‘Exactly. I insisted my professors treat me like every other student, that they grade me accordingly.’

‘Did they?’

She shrugged and spread her hands wide. ‘I don’t know. I achieved high marks in most of my subjects, I’d been treated fairly during my intern rotations and then I had one job after the next handed to me on a silver platter.’

‘And yet you wonder if you are a good doctor?’

‘Yes. Yes, I do. All these years later and I’m still questioning myself. Did the hospitals I worked at keep me happy so my parents would continue to donate money? Did I earn my grades or was I awarded them simply because I was a Jofille?’

‘Is the answer important?’

Emmy frowned as she considered Meeree’s question. ‘Well,
I like helping people. I was taught very early in my life the benefits of public relations and when I was offered the job at the television station—which my father setup for me in an effort to get me to do more “public profile” work—I thought it might give me the opportunity to combine these areas.’

‘So you came here.’

‘Yes. I can use my connections and PR skills as well as help out in a medical capacity. My crew and I have already done a few television pieces on doctors who work in the Australian outback, showing the incredible work they do, showing the viewers the unsung heroes, highlighting topics that have been ignored for far too long.’

Meeree patted her hand. ‘Doubt has no meaning when you know you are doing good work.’

Emmy thought back over her day, how when Hunklu had come into the village, his hand bleeding from the gash, Dart hadn’t wanted her help. It had hurt to be turned away but in the end she’d been able to give Hunklu the after-treatment care he deserved and even though she didn’t speak Tarparnese, she knew how to offer compassion.

When the clinic had started, she’d again felt doubt as to what she was meant to do, until Dart had needed her assistance. Even though she hadn’t had an official role, it had still been great to help out. She’d been trained as a GP with a fair knowledge of emergency medicine but working at a TV network didn’t give her much opportunity to practise medicine.

Doubt has no meaning when you know you are doing good work.
Meeree’s words floated around in her head and filled her heart with hope.

Perhaps Tarparnii might do more to help her than she could do to help it. If she could discover the answers to her questions, to continue to move forward to find out more about herself, then surely everything would be worth it. Her loneliness had been with her for as long as she could remember, sparking to
life when she’d been kidnap—No. She wouldn’t think about that. Not now.

‘Dart. Dart.’ Emmy looked to where some of the young children were running towards him, wide grins on their faces. ‘Puppets,’ they called, their words sounding strangely guttural as they spoke in English. ‘Puppets, please.’

Emmy turned to Meeree to ask what the children meant but found the woman had left her side as quietly as she’d arrived. She looked around and spotted Meeree coming out of a hut with a large white sheet. Jalak and the rest of the men were collecting long sticks from the ground and right before her very eyes the sheet was erected like a screen.

‘Puppets?’ she asked herself softly, and stood to go closer, to find out what was going on. Everyone else was gathering around, wide beaming smiles on their faces. Emmy was transfixed by what was happening and within a few minutes Dart took his place behind the sheet, the firelight coming from behind him making shadows on the white sheet.

In wonderment, she watched as two hands formed the shape of an eagle, coming down to settle at the lower part of the sheet. The eagle fluttered his wings and then a soft, ethereal sound came from Meeree, who was standing near. She lifted her voice in sweet song, not singing any words but a lilting melody of pure beauty as Dart continued to contort his hands into different shapes, animals, flowers, trees and sometimes humans walking along.

The children were quiet, watching intently. In fact, everyone was quiet as they sat, spellbound by the wonderful skill Dart was exhibiting. Meeree had already mentioned that they didn’t usually have big bonfires unless it was a special occasion and tonight the occasion had been a small gathering to welcome her and her crew. That meant that the shadow puppets were a rare treat and something Dart was extremely
good at. No wonder the children had begged him for this treat. Emmy was mesmerised.

Those hands. Those clever, clever hands. They worked quickly and effectively to help and heal people, they lovingly cradled a baby, they created enjoyment for everyone…And Emmy couldn’t help but wonder what it would feel like to have those clever hands holding hers, touching her arms, her body, threading those long fingers into her hair.

She’d never realised how clever a man’s hands could be before but knowing he could do so much with them, she wanted to know more. As he changed his hands to make another animal, Emmy sidled around to the rear of the sheet, ensuring she kept well away from the light he was using, and simply stood there watching him. From this angle, the way he contorted his hands just looked like gnarled knuckles and fingers intertwined in a big old mess yet the opposite side had revealed a perfect picture.

Wasn’t that how her life seemed sometimes? All gnarled knuckles on the inside but shining brightly on the outside? She wished her life was different. That she felt shiny on the inside as well as the outside. Hopefully here, in this world that seemed to be completely different from everything she’d ever experienced, she would find her inner shininess.

As Dart brought his show to a close, Meeree’s voice trailing off, the round of applause they received caused goose-bumps to spread over her body. Emmy was so overcome she was unable to clap. She just stood there, a little behind him and to the left and watched as he stood, took Meeree’s hand in his and took a bow.

He brought Meeree’s hand to his lips in a kiss of thanks before turning—and that’s when he saw her. They were surrounded by firelight, nothing between them except for the hazy smoke-filled air. It added to the effect of seeing her there, standing still, watching him intently. Her trim figure
was outlined perfectly, her hair still hanging down her back in a long plait, but the loose tendrils, the way the breeze teased at them…she looked glorious. Such beauty.

No doubt she knew full well the effect she had on the male species but he seriously didn’t want to be one of those captured in her net.

Meeree and Jalak were folding up the sheet, Meeree shoving him gently out of the way in Emerson-Rose’s direction. Dart found himself looking down at her, the fire, already dying down, not too far away from them. Was the intense heat that surrounded him from the fire or from Emmy?