by Lucy Clark
‘Hate what?’ Melissa felt as if she was at a ping-pong match, looking from one to the other.
‘No.’ Joss beckoned for Melissa to leave. ‘We have patients to see, so we’d best get back to work,’ Joss continued as he urged Melissa from the room. ‘Don’t want to keep them waiting any longer.’
‘What was all that about?’ Melissa asked as they walked towards their consulting rooms. He leaned a little closer, lest Dex should hear him, his breath fanning her neck and causing goosebumps to race down her spine. Did the man have any idea the effect he was having on her?
‘Dex hates house-calls.’
‘He does?’ Her eyes widened at this news, and in the next moment she flicked her gaze down to look at Joss’s mouth. Big mistake. She shouldn’t be looking at his mouth when they were this close to each other. Dangerous. Very dangerous.
‘Yes, and he’ll do anything to get out of going—so don’t let him talk you around. Stand firm. Be strong.’
‘You don’t think I can resist him, do you?’ The question was rhetorical, because she wasn’t quite sure she would have been able to resist Dex if he’d asked her to swap with him, even though she wouldn’t have had a clue what house-calls entailed out here in the Outback.
‘At this stage? No. You’re still in the excited stage at being so close to your brother.’
Melissa tried not to laugh at that, because she was in a bigger state of excitement simply because she was so close to Joss. The man obviously had no clue how his nearness was affecting her.
‘You need to trust me on this. I know him a lot better than you, and you do not want to swap house-call shifts with him—because it doesn’t end up being a swap; it ends up being you doing all of them.’
‘Why doesn’t Dex like house-calls? I thought he liked mixing with people.’
‘He does. He’s more than happy to see patients here, and he’ll chat with people in the pub, but going to their houses?’ Joss shook his head. ‘He’ll do it, but only under duress.’
‘So you put him under duress?’
‘I have to. It’s part of his job description. We take turns. It keeps it fair and stops us from burning out.’
‘Fair enough.’ Melissa decided it was best not to argue with the boss, although she was curious as to why her brother didn’t like that one aspect of the job.
‘In fact,’ Joss continued as an idea dawned on him, ‘it might be a good opportunity for you to go with him tomorrow. That way you’ll get to learn the ropes of what’s expected of us as far as Outback house-calls go. You’ll also get to spend some time alone with Dex.’
Melissa considered the idea for a moment, liking what Joss was suggesting. It would also give her some time away from him, and hopefully she’d be able to get herself better under control. Some distance was definitely what she needed, and she nodded enthusiastically. ‘Sounds great. Oh, but what about my clinic?’
He waved her words away. ‘We can reschedule that. Patients have been waiting for quite some time to see you; waiting a few extra days won’t hurt. Besides, I can see anyone who’s urgent.’
Areva would not like him for suggesting such a plan, but if it meant he had the opportunity to put a bit of distance between himself and his new colleague then it would definitely be worth it. Melissa Clarkson was already taking up too much room in his private thoughts.
Thoughts of her had plagued him ever since he’d first laid eyes on her. Thoughts of her came into his mind, invading his otherwise organised mental patterns, at the most unusual times. Such as at three o’clock this morning. He’d been awoken by soft music and the sound of pacing. He’d listened, wondering if there was anything wrong. Was she sick? Did she require help? He’d sat up in bed, listening carefully to try and figure out what she was doing. He’d heard water go on and off in the bathroom. More pacing, more soft music, and then…soft sweet singing.
She was all right, and she had the singing voice of an angel.
He’d lain back in bed, hands behind his head, eyes closed, and just listened. Her voice had been smooth and lovely, and soon he’d found himself drifting off into a deep and relaxing slumber. He hadn’t slept like that in years.
Oh, yes. He’d been thinking about Melissa Clarkson far too much, and he wasn’t at all sure what to do about it. He had no idea what she’d just said, and couldn’t help it when his gaze flicked from her gorgeous brown eyes to her lips—only for a second, yet it felt like for ever. Those luscious lips of hers were plump and looked delicious. The urge, the desire to lean forward and press his mouth to hers, was only intensifying with every extra moment he spent alone with her, breathing in her sweet scent.
Melissa’s mind had gone completely blank with that last stare from Joss. The air between them seemed to crackle with repressed tension—and she’d do well to keep it repressed. Her heart-rate increased, her lips parted, and she couldn’t have stopped looking at him if the world had come crumbling down around them.
A noise from the waiting room made them both jerk backwards.
‘House-calls with Dex tomorrow sounds great,’ Melissa reiterated, shifting towards her consulting room door.
‘Right. I’ll let him know and make arrangements for the rescheduling of your clinic.’
‘Great.’
‘Good.’
She couldn’t believe how uncomfortable she felt, how aware she was of him, how she’d wanted him to kiss her again, right there in the middle of the corridor with a waiting room full of patients just around the corner.
Melissa pointed to her consulting room door. ‘Best get back to it.’
‘Yes.’ Feeling ridiculous, and becoming cross with himself for yet again being unable to resist her allure, Joss turned on his heel and headed into his own consulting room, closing the door with a firm finality. ‘And that is that,’ he murmured.
Stalking to his desk, he sat down to go over the extra things he needed to tackle to get Melissa safely away with Dex tomorrow on the house-calls. First on the list was talking Dex into it, and he was sure his friend wasn’t going to like the idea at all.
There was a knock at his door and in a moment Dex strolled in, sitting in the chair opposite his friend and putting his feet up on the desk.
‘Something I can help you with now that you’ve made yourself comfortable?’ Joss asked, glaring pointedly at Dex’s shoes.
Dex didn’t remove them. ‘I think you should do my house-calls this week.’
‘The direct approach? Interesting.’ Joss sat up straighter in his chair. ‘No, Dex.’
‘Aww, come on. What are friends for?’
‘No, Dex.’
‘It was initially your turn to do them anyway.’
‘That’s right, but I did yours three weeks running, which means it’s now your turn, Dex.’
‘But I promise to do your house-calls next week.’
‘No, you won’t.’
‘You’re right. I won’t. Oh, well, how about I fill in for your clinic next week on my day off? That way you’ll have time to show Melissa a bit more of Didja.’
‘Still no.’
‘In fact,’ he pressed on, as though he hadn’t heard his friend, ‘you doing my house-calls this week would be a great way for you to show Melissa what it’s all about.’
Joss nearly choked at the suggestion. Spending all that time alone, in such close quarters with Melissa? He hadn’t been able to control himself in a small kitchenette. He hadn’t been able to resist touching her. How was he supposed to cope in the smaller confines of the ute as they drove around the countryside? To Dex, however, he tried to remain completely unnerved. ‘Actually, I was wanting to talk to you about that.’
‘About you doing the house-calls with Melissa? Great idea. I accept.’
‘That’s not what I meant. I was talking about you doing the house-calls tomorrow with your sister. Get to know her better.’
‘I can’t take her. No. No siree.’ He shook his head.
‘She’s your sister, Dex. You’r
e going to need to open up to her sooner or later.’
‘I choose later.’
‘Dex, I under—’
‘No. You don’t understand, Joss. You have parents who are definitely your parents. You weren’t lied to for almost thirty years by the people you love. You didn’t find out—completely out of the blue—that you have an older sister, that you were adopted!’ Dex thumped the desk.
Joss watched his friend. He hadn’t seen him this riled-up for a long time.
Dex took a breath and calmed himself down. ‘Look, I think it’s great that she’s here helping out at the clinic. Scoring ourselves an OB/GYN for a year was a great stroke of genius on your part and one of the major reasons I agreed to her coming. You are also right that it would be good for me to get to know her—just in case one day I need to ask for some bone marrow or a kidney or something. But right now it’s just too soon for me to even be contemplating spending a whole day with her.’
Joss felt the walls start to close in on him, and wondered if he could try another tack at convincing Dex that spending time with Melissa was a good thing. There was no way he could do it. Such close quarters…That wouldn’t be a way for him to get his libido back under control again.
‘I know you’ve been hurt, Dex, but as I’ve pointed out before, none of this is Melissa’s fault. Imagine how she’s feeling. She comes to town to meet you, to get to know you, and you’ve hardly said two words to her.’
‘I’ve said a few more than that,’ Dex felt compelled to point out.
‘It’s like ripping a sticking plaster off. The sooner you get it over and done with, the better.’
‘Why can’t you take her? You’re the boss here.’
‘You’re an equal financial partner, Dex.’
‘But you run the show. You know I’m not good at the admin thing.’
‘I know, and as the “admin thing” guy, I’m telling you it’s your turn to do house-calls tomorrow, and Melissa will be accompanying you. End of story.’
‘Ahh, but that’s where you’re wrong. You see, I think secretly, deep down inside, you really want to do these house-calls with Melissa tagging along. I think you want to get to know her better. I think you want to see if you can find some flaws, some faults—anything to help you to stop thinking about her.’
‘What? What on earth are you talking about?’
‘You like her.’ Dex waggled his eyebrows up and down in an insinuating manner.
Joss ignored him and tried to keep his tone strictly professional. ‘Of course I like her. She’s a colleague.’
‘That’s not what I meant and you know it. You like like her. I saw you both before, in the corridor, making googly eyes at each other.’
Joss closed his eyes for a moment, unable to believe Dex had witnessed those few intense moments. But it was true, and there was no use denying it to his friend because Dex knew him far too well.
‘This is good, Joss. You haven’t been interested in any woman since Christina.’ Dex leaned forward on the desk. ‘If you like her, mate, you should do something about it.’
‘She’s your sister. She’s a colleague. She’s here to work. She has a year-long contract and I don’t want anything to go wrong.’
‘What if everything goes right? What if she’s your Ms Right? You could marry her and we could end up being real brothers! That would be cool.’
Joss shook his head, knowing his friend was only joking. ‘Funny. Very amusing,’ he remarked without humour.
‘But seriously, this is a good time for you to let go of the past and move forward into the future.’
‘Hmm.’
‘You need to let Christina go, Joss. Everything that happened to you all those years ago is gone. Finished. Done. I never believed the allegations brought against you, and neither did your family. You were cleared of any charges and you moved on with your life—geographically, but not emotionally.’
‘You’re one to talk,’ Joss commented. ‘You haven’t spoken to your family in how long?’
‘This discussion isn’t about me. It’s about you. When, since you left Perth, have you ever been this interested in a woman? I’ll tell you—never.’
‘It’s why I came to Didja in the first place. To get away from women. Besides, what if Melissa turns out to be like Christina? Ever think of that? What if she’s all nice and lovely on the surface, but dig a little deeper and I might find something I don’t want to know about?’
‘Excuses, excuses. Believe me, I’ve used them all in my time. But this isn’t about me; it’s about you. You like her. You’re attracted to her. That alone is enough of a reason to get to know her a little better. The past doesn’t matter any more, and Christina wasn’t any good for you anyway.’
‘Apparently not.’
‘You needed friends—true friends—to help build you up again, to support you.’
‘And you were there.’
‘That’s right. And now you can be there for me by agreeing to do the house-calls this week.’
‘Nice segué.’ Joss shook his head and grinned at his friend. ‘But my answer is still no.’
It had to be. He had to get his life back onto the nice even keel it had been in three days ago—before he’d ever laid eyes on Melissa Clarkson.
Dex’s mobile phone rang and he broke off their debate in order to answer it. Joss mentally cooled his heels whilst he waited, going over the arguments in his mind. It was imperative he succeed. When Dex ended the call, he grinned very slowly at his friend.
‘You look like the cat who ate the cream.’
‘Oh, I have. I don’t usually play dirty, but a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.’
Joss’s skin started to prickle with apprehension at his friend’s words. ‘Who was that on the phone?’
‘The Watkinsons.’
Joss closed his eyes and buried his head in his hands, his shoulders instantly slumped in defeat. ‘Oh, no.’
‘Well you may cry, “Oh, no”, my friend, because they’re coming to Didja tomorrow. They’ll be here for a whole week—and you know what that means.’
He wished Dex would keep quiet—that he’d go away. ‘Can’t you just gloat in private?’ he asked, his words still muffled behind his hands.
‘Nope. Besides, gloating is done much better in front of the person you wish to gloat about. I don’t make the rules, mate, I just follow them. What a darn shame that the Watkinsons chose this particular weekend to come to Didja. What a darn shame that I need to be here to monitor their two children who have cystic fibrosis. What a darn shame I won’t be able to do the house-calls tomorrow because I’ll be needed here, at the hospital in town.’
‘All right.’ Joss sat up straight and squared his shoulders. ‘All right. I’ll do your house-calls tomorrow. But you are definitely going out next week and that’s final. Nothing you can do will make me change my mind. Watkinsons or no Watkinsons.’
‘Yes!’ Dex punched the air.
‘Get out.’ Joss pointed to the door. ‘Go on. Go gloat elsewhere. I have a lot of work to get done.’
Joss watched his friend almost dance his way out of the consulting room. When he was gone Joss shook his head, unable to believe the unlucky turn of events. Where he’d thought he’d have time away from Melissa, to control his wayward mind and body, it was now a matter of finding strategies which would see him through tomorrow.
He rubbed his jaw and exhaled slowly. Melissa was beautiful, funny and smart. Everything he’d ever wanted. Then again, Christina had been beautiful, funny and smart, and she’d ripped his heart out and crushed it. Although he was definitely attracted to Melissa, he’d also do well to be on his guard.
Women could lie. Women could be devious. Women were the reason he’d hibernated in the Outback for the past four years, keeping his distance from any sort of personal relationship. Yes, the sooner he discovered Melissa Clarkson’s faults and flaws, the sooner he could move past this undeniable pull he felt towards her.
All
that said, he desperately wasn’t looking forward to tomorrow.
CHAPTER FOUR
BUB had told Melissa to pack an overnight bag whenever she went out on house-calls.
‘It’s just something we do out here in the Outback. You never know when the weather will turn. You could have buckets of rain coming down on you one moment and then bush fires the next. Sometimes you’ve gotta find shelter wherever you can, and other times you just go to the nearest farmhouse.’
‘And people just let you stay?’
‘Of course.’ Bub had looked at her as though she was mad. ‘We all support each other out here. You’ll see lots of great scenery, maybe even some Aussie animals—we have quite a few emus out here. You’ll meet new people, see how they all live, and be back in time to enjoy a coldie at the pub.’ Bub had frowned as she’d spoken.
‘Something wrong?’
‘No. Not really. Just that I haven’t seen Josiah down at the pub the past few nights. He’s usually there. Hope he’s not gonna start all that brooding stuff again.’
‘He broods?’
‘Oh, not for ages. But now and then, when his world is rocked from side to side, he tends to retreat back into his cave.’
‘Cave?’
‘A metaphor, darl. Never mind me. Off you go. Go pack your bag and get ready for tomorrow—and above all, enjoy yourself.’
Therefore Melissa had packed her overnight bag. In fact she’d packed and repacked it several times during the course of the evening. She’d been unable to sleep last night, so excited to be going out on house-calls with her brother. She would get to spend time with Dex, and even if he hardly spoke to her, just being with him, sitting beside him in the car, would be enough for her. It was happening. What she’d wanted for so long was finally coming true. She couldn’t believe that her luck seemed to be changing.
With a smile on her face and a spring in her step, she made her way out of her apartment, checking she had the keys which Joss had given her. She closed the door, put her hat on her head and carried her overnight bag to the waiting ute.
‘Joss!’ She was surprised to see him up this early. Clinic didn’t start for another two hours, so she’d presumed he’d still be sleeping. Instead, he was walking around checking the ute’s fitted tarpaulin cover was securely in place.