by Lucy Clark
‘Not really.’
‘Did you know you were adopted?’
‘I did. My parents never hid it from me.’
‘That would have made things easy for you. Well…easier, at any rate. Did they know you wanted to find your birth mother?’
‘I didn’t start searching for her until after both my adoptive parents had passed away. Although they wouldn’t have stopped me if I’d tried any earlier.’
‘Dex, as you may have guessed, hasn’t taken the news of a new sister all that well. Josiah’s been the one holding him together.’
‘They’re close?’
‘Like brothers.’ Bub grinned as she spoke. ‘Closer than brothers. They’ve been through a lot together, and it was Josiah who convinced Dex to meet you.’
‘It was?’
‘Yep. Said that despite the past it wasn’t your fault he’d been adopted, and that getting to know you would be a good thing.’
Melissa blew her fringe off her forehead. ‘Well, Dex’s done a great job of that so far. He’s said hello and allowed me to treat him for a bump to the head. Real heart-warming stuff.’
‘He needs lots of time.’
‘And I’ve got twelve months of it to give.’
‘Go to the pub at night. Dex’s usually there after work. Chatting and the like. If you don’t feel completely comfortable just walking into the pub like that, ask Josiah to go with you.’
‘Joss usually goes to the pub at night, too?’
Bub shrugged. ‘Five nights out of seven—give or take a day or two.’
‘Does he have family in town or in the area?’
‘Josiah? No, darl. His people are all in Perth or scattered around in the major cities.’
‘I wonder why he came here in the first place?’ Melissa pondered, and hadn’t even realised she’d spoken the words out loud until Bub answered her.
‘Why don’t you ask him?’
‘Huh?’ Melissa’s eyes widened with mortification. ‘Oh. Well. It’s really none of my business.’
‘We’re a small community, darl. All living in each other’s pockets. Secrets don’t usually stay secret for long. I will tell you, though, that when he moved to town he was a right little recluse. Didn’t do him any good. One night, as we couldn’t get him to the pub, we brought the pub to him.’
‘What? Really? How did you do that?’ She smiled, intrigued by the story.
‘Everyone grabbed a beer and walked over to where Josiah was living at the time, which wasn’t far away from the old clinic near the train station. We all went down there with our beers, and Wazza hooked up a keg, and then we sat on the ground and made him come out to chat with us.’
‘And did he?’
‘Too darn right he did. Ya see, he was only getting to know us as patients, not as people, and in a community like this it’s important to get to know the people first. This isn’t some big hospital where everyone is a number. We respond better when we know that our docs are really interested in us—when we can get to know them, too. To see that they’re just people and we don’t need to be afraid of them.’
Melissa was surprised and a little confused. ‘Is someone afraid of me?’
Bub shook her head. ‘Ya missing the point, darl. The pub is like our community hall. Even though we actually do have a community hall,’ Bub added as an aside, ‘and we do use it—but that’s not what I meant. At the pub we all gather and mix, and it’s where we can all be ourselves. All equals. All needing to quench our thirst. Everyone’s the same. From the lowest-paid to the highest. In the pub there’s no hierarchy. There are just mates.’
Mates. Melissa had sighed over the word. It would be nice to have some more…mates.
Melissa had written up the new medication for her patients and then left Bub to care for them. She was an exceptional nurse, and also appeared to have her finger on the pulse of what was happening in the community. Taking her advice would be the right thing to do—and besides, it meant she could get to know her colleagues much better.
Her thoughts turned from Bub to Joss and the kiss they’d shared. A simple, ordinary New Year’s kiss which had completely rocked her world. That had never happened to her before, and she had found it extremely difficult to stop thinking about it. The man made her tingle whenever she saw him—and now he was waiting for her in the kitchenette.
Tingles or not, he was her colleague, and hopefully her friend, and that was all there was ever going to be between them. She’d had one broken heart and she wasn’t in the market for another.
Melissa took a deep breath and slowly let it out, effectively calming herself down before she rounded the corner into the kitchenette. The instant she saw him the tingles returned anew.
‘Milk? Sugar?’ he asked as he finished pouring her a cup of tea.
‘Just milk, thanks.’ She watched as he stirred the liquid in her cup before handing it to her. ‘Ahh, thank you. I need this.’ She walked over to the table and sat down, sipping gratefully at the tea.
‘Busy?’ Joss watched as she sat. She was dressed in a pair of three-quarter-length trousers which outlined her hips and slim legs. The top she wore was pale blue and highlighted her beautiful blonde hair, which was pulled back into a sensible ponytail. The scent she wore wound around him. It wasn’t too strong, yet its subtle bouquet reminded him of the flower garden his mother had used to grow when he was a boy. Nostalgia combined with sex appeal. Oh, this woman was having too much of an effect on him.
He’d seen her in the corridor outside her clinic room and she’d looked tired. When she’d seen him standing there he hadn’t wanted her to think he’d been watching her—even though he had. Internally panicking, he’d mimed drinking, and the grateful look which had crossed her face had made him feel a heel. So he’d made her a cup of tea—the one she was sipping right now, her pink lips blowing delicately on the hot liquid—and now that they were in the confines of the kitchenette together he was trying to figure out how to keep his distance from her.
‘Yes. Very busy,’ she answered.
Joss nodded and leaned against the bench, forcing his mind to stop concentrating on watching her. ‘Happens.’
Melissa smiled, feeling a little odd with his monosyllabic conversation. ‘It’s just as well I’m used to a big workload.’
‘Good.’ For a moment Joss wondered what her life had been like back in Hobart. Had she dated anyone? Was she still involved with someone? He knew next to nothing about this woman who had been on his mind constantly since she’d arrived in Didja.
A silence fell between them. Joss sipped at his drink. Melissa did the same, trying desperately not to look at him. She glanced at the table, but there weren’t even any magazines there that she could flick through.
‘Is it usually this busy? Not that I’m complaining, you understand,’ she added quickly.
He shrugged. ‘Generally.’
Again silence. Melissa tried not to sigh with exasperation. He was the one who’d invited her in here to join him for a cuppa. What was the point if he wasn’t going to talk to her? She could have made herself a drink and had it in the confines of her consulting room.
‘Well, back in Hobart I worked at a few different places. I spent two days a week at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital, two days in Hobart at a private practice and two days a week at a King Island private practice.’ She paused, realising she was only reiterating what he would have read on her résumé. ‘King Island is one of the small islands between Tasmania and the mainland of Australia. Where they make the cheese.’
Melissa couldn’t believe how badly she was babbling. Of course he knew where the cheese came from—and even if he didn’t, why on earth would he care? Then again, he didn’t seem to care about making any attempt at polite conversation. If this was the way it was going to be, it would turn out to be an exceedingly long year.
Joss nodded, which at least indicated he was listening to her rambling. Melissa looked away from him and took another sip of her dri
nk, not caring that the liquid was scalding her throat. The sooner she finished this cuppa, the sooner she could get out of there and back to her job.
She decided to just sit there and ignore him. She’d done her bit. She’d tried to make conversation. If he wanted to stay here in silence, then that was just fine with her.
Joss watched as she sipped her tea, those lips of hers almost hypnotising him the way they were placed on the edge of the cup. His own drink was getting cold, but he didn’t care. He placed it on the bench beside him and shifted his weight, wanting to talk to her, to find out more about her. It was dangerous territory, though, and he’d been stopping himself time and time again from going there. She was a colleague. That was all.
He cleared his throat. ‘Do you have…? I mean—’ He stopped and raked a hand through his hair. This was definitely unchartered territory, but he didn’t seem to be able to stop himself from voicing the questions which had been running around in his mind for the past few days. ‘Back in Tasmania, do you have…someone?’
She raised her eyebrows at that. Was this why he’d asked her in here? To probe into her private life? To find out more about her? If that was the case, he’d been doing a superbly bad job at it. And now this! ‘Someone?’
‘Are you seeing someone?’ he finally managed to get out.
‘Oh.’ She grasped his meaning. ‘Uh…no. I was—well, I was engaged.’
‘Really?’ Was she on the rebound? Suffering a broken heart? Had she decided she might as well search for her long-lost brother and get over her heartache at the same time? ‘How long ago did it end?’
‘Early last year.’
He frowned for a second. ‘Wait. Early last year as in the year that ended three days ago, or the year before that?’
‘Last year as in three days ago.’ She sighed in exasperation. ‘Why? Concerned that if I had someone waiting in Tasmania I might not stay for the whole twelve months? I’m contracted here, Joss. I honour my contracts, and it would take something really bad to happen for me to break this one.’ She raised an eyebrow at him. ‘Satisfied?’
She was angry with him. That much was evident—even though it hadn’t been his intention to annoy her. The woman was incredible to look at, she was smart, she was sassy, and he couldn’t help but like her. That was the reason why it was imperative that he keep as much distance between them as possible and keep their relationship purely professional. ‘What about family? Where are they situated?’
‘Here.’
‘Here?’
‘In Didja.’ Melissa’s voice was clear, and this time Joss detected vulnerability in her words.
‘But only Dex’s in—’ He stopped, his mind whirring too fast. His eyes opened a bit wider. ‘Wait. Do you mean to tell me the only family you have is Dex?’
‘Yes.’
‘Only Dex?’ He wanted to be clear on this.
‘Yes.’ Melissa put her half-drunk tea onto the table and took a breath, deciding to get the explanation over and done with as quickly as possible. ‘My adoptive parents both died four years ago, and after two years of feeling all alone and miserable I decided to do something about it. So I contacted the adoption agency and tracked down my birth mother—Eva. It was then I learned about Dex. Until that time I had no clue I even had a brother, which is a shame as I was raised an only child. Anyway, Eva died about six months ago, and when Dex finally agreed to see me I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. There. Now you have it. My sorry little story.’
‘Lis.’
His voice was rich and deep, just the way she liked. She could listen to him talk all day long in those sultry smooth tones. If she’d wanted to make him feel like a heel then she’d certainly succeeded. He pushed away from the bench and took a few steps towards her. ‘Thank you for telling me.’
Her words had been matter-of-fact, as though she’d gone over the story in her head time and time again, but he was sure that deep down inside there was a lot of emotion stirring and bubbling away. He felt for her so much because he couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be all alone in the world. With the large family he’d been raised in it was also an impossibility, but still, his heart felt for the brave woman before him. She’d been all alone—but she’d done something about it. His admiration for her increased.
‘It’s fine.’ She watched as he walked slowly to stand beside her. Without a word, he reached out a hand and gently touched her face.
‘You’re really all alone?’ His words were a mere whisper.
‘Yeah.’ Her answer was barely audible.
‘There ya both are,’ Areva, the receptionist, chided. Joss instantly dropped his hand back to his side and turned, walking away from her. ‘What are you doing? Drinking the bores dry? Get back to work. There’s hardly any room for the patients to sit down, there are so many of them in the waiting room.’
‘Sorry,’ they mumbled contritely before Areva left.
Melissa wanted to stand, wanted to take her cup to the sink, to rinse it out and then do as the receptionist had suggested and get back to work. Yet at the moment she wasn’t at all sure even standing would be achievable, let alone doing anything else. The way Joss had looked at her, had touched her…Her heart was still pounding double-time. Masses of tingles had flooded through her body, creating more explosions than the fireworks had done the other night.
One look. One simple caress and her bones were a mass of jelly. At least the other night when he’d kissed her, when he’d tantalisingly brushed his mouth over hers, when his lips had met hers—hesitantly and politely at first, before realisation had dawned on both of them—at least then she’d had his arm around her for support. If she attempted to stand now she was certain she wouldn’t be able to accomplish it and would end up in a heap on the floor.
Why did he have to be so confusing? One second he was monosyllabic, not seeming interested in being anywhere near her, and then he was asking her personal questions and caressing her cheek. She hadn’t expected him to react the way he had when she’d told him her sad little story, and now she was more perplexed than before.
What on earth had he been thinking? Why had he touched her? He’d been doing really well, staying on the other side of the room, not engaging her in conversation. And then, for some ridiculous unknown reason, he’d gone and asked about her private life! What an idiot he was. What he should have done was excuse himself and take his drink back to his consulting room and get on with the work he loved so much. But, no. Instead he’d not only pried into her life but he had been so moved by what she’d said he’d been overwhelmed with compassion. He’d touched her. Touched that smooth, silky skin. And now he had that memory as well as the others to contend with. He shook his head, needing to get out of this room as soon as possible. Areva was right. They had work to do.
Dex strode into the kitchen, carrying his own cup to the sink, and it was as though he’d sliced through the intense atmosphere Melissa and Joss were trying to cope with. Interruptions were good. It was bad for herself and Joss to be alone like this. Part of her longed for it…to let go, to be free, to just throw caution to the wind and see where this attraction she felt for him might lead…But only part of her. The other part warned her against moving too fast, against believing she could have a fairytale ending to her lonely little life. She’d been there and she’d done that, and for that reason alone she had to remain indifferent to Joss. But how?
‘You two got in trouble,’ Dex said, with a grin on his face. ‘Areva told you off.’
‘You are such a larrikin, Dex. You sound like an eight-year-old,’ Joss commented, but he was secretly relieved to have his friend there to break the tension. He’d touched Melissa! He’d been so enthralled by her, so focused on wanting to feel that soft smooth skin of hers, on looking into those wide brown eyes to offer her compassion and comfort. Yes—Dex being here, teasing them, was just the ticket.
‘Maybe I am eight years old. Maybe I was not only adopted, but born on the twenty-ninth of Fe
bruary, and no one’s told me that, either.’
Joss felt the way Melissa winced at her brother’s words and he bristled. ‘That’s enough. None of this adoption thing is Melissa’s fault, so don’t go taking it out on her.’
‘Joss.’ Melissa stood, pleased her legs were now able to support her. ‘It’s OK.’
‘No.’ Dex shook his head, his expression contrite. ‘Joss is right.’ He looked at her, and she saw in his expression that he was truly sorry for his words. ‘That was rude. I’m sorry, Melissa.’
‘It’s OK,’ she repeated, but this time smiled at her brother. ‘It’s all a bit much to get your head around at times.’
As she spoke, she picked up her cup to carry it to the sink. Joss took four huge steps away from it, almost ending up in the doorway, to give her more than enough space to rinse her cup. Distance. He needed a lot of distance from her.
‘Well, I’m up to date with my patients,’ Dex commented, his tone and words striving to find some normality in all of this. ‘It’s you two having your little tête-à-tête that’s putting you so far behind.’
‘You just want to finish early so you can get to the pub on time,’ Melissa teased. ‘Don’t tell me you want Bluey to give you another black eye?’
Both men chuckled at her words, and the air cleared to a happier atmosphere. Dex raised a hand to tenderly touch his eye and winced.
Melissa winced too. ‘Does it still hurt? It should have started to heal by now.’ Her voice was full of concern, but Dex’s expression changed instantly to one of cheeky humour.
‘I’m fine, but I really appreciate the concern.’
‘You’re most welcome. Any time you need genuine concern, come and see me.’
‘Will do.’ He paused and looked expectantly at Joss. ‘And if I need genuine favours I’ll go and see Joss.’
Joss looked at his friend. ‘No.’
Dex spread his arms wide. ‘You don’t even know what I’m going to ask!’
‘I really do, and the answer is no.’
‘But…’
‘No.’
‘Come on, mate. You know how I hate it.’