Damn it. She was going to have trouble forgetting where that mouth had been.
‘Good.’ She leaned forward to give him a businesslike kiss. She only lingered a little. Just for a few seconds. Inhaling him. Savouring him for one last moment.
She pulled back a little dazed, liking the way his mouth was moist from her lips, a small smile making it utterly irresistible.
Callie pushed herself off the bed before she kicked off her shoes and pulled back that damn sheet. ‘I’ll see you next week,’ she said briskly, picking up her bag and striding out the door.
Sebastian blinked as she disappeared. He ran his tongue around his lips, tasting her one last time. He smiled.
Callie Duncan was one helluva woman!
It was a pity really they were going to be colleagues.
Because in every other way she was perfect.
She didn’t push, she didn’t want to marry him or have his babies, and she didn’t want to stay the night.
She was his ideal woman.
CHAPTER FOUR
CALLIE had spent all the intervening days and about every spare second of her time over the weekend trying not to think about Sebastian’s imminent arrival at Jambalyn. But as she pulled her car into her parking space Monday morning right next to Sebastian’s, it could no longer be ignored.
She was going to see him again. Today. And every other day for the next year!
A nervous tremor ran through her stomach and she placed her hand against it. Why, why, why had she opened up to him like that? Opening her body to him had been far less intimate in comparison to letting him inside her head.
She felt as if Sebastian?Sebastian Walker, for Pete’s sake—had crossed some sort of line. One she’d never let a man over before. And now he knew. And frankly that scared the hell out of her. How had she confessed something so personal to someone she barely knew?
She may as well have stayed the night too!
She pulled down her sun visor, annoyed at herself and at her train of thought. Her reflection stared back at her as she gave herself a quick once-over. She fiddled with her hair, inspected her teeth for stray food and pouted at her reflection. She reached for some lip gloss she knew was stashed somewhere in her voluminous handbag and grabbed it triumphantly when she found it almost immediately.
She looked back up to the mirror, watching herself as her hand hovered just above her lips.
And then sanity returned.
For crying out loud!
What was she doing? Was she trying to look nice for him? No. She would not do that. They were not in a relationship and neither were they going to be. She would start as she meant to go on—treating him as a colleague and pretending what had happened hadn’t happened at all.
She was thirty-eight years old, for Pete’s sake! And he was just a man. They were there to work and work only. It was imperative that she acted like a professional and forgot all about that night and the pillow talk that was making her feel unaccountably anxious.
Hopefully he’d get the message that their one-night stand was off-limits. And if he didn’t, she’d just have to make it crystal clear.
Callie pushed the door open, got out and slammed it shut for good measure, before marching into the building.
Sebastian looked across the room as Callie—fierce, proud, warrior-woman Callie?strode into his new place of work with her head held high. She was wearing the same sort of clothes she’d worn on the bridge that fateful day. Loose-fitting jeans and roomy T-shirt in a rusty-brown that set off the honey highlights in her hair.
While there were no uniforms in community mental health, an ID tag hung from a lanyard around her neck and bounced against her breasts. Sensible flat shoes and a large black bag completed the picture.
She looked every inch the professional. Poised and confident, ready for another day at the coal face. A far cry from the sexy clothes she’d worn to the restaurant and which had ended up scattered all over his floor.
As she approached, her bag swung hypnotically against her hip, drawing his gaze lower and distracting him from Geraldine’s fascinating explanation of the appointment system.
He had kissed that hip. Those thighs. Those long legs had locked around his waist. His gaze travelled up again, her necklace peeking out from the V of her neckline. Moonlight had glinted off that pendant as he had pounded into her.
Callie halted before Sebastian and Geraldine, her face warm, feeling stripped bare. And she didn’t like it.
Hadn’t she already bared enough?
‘Good morning, Sebastian,’ she said briskly, folding her arms across her chest, pleased to hear her voice was firm and strong.
He nodded, ignoring the way the action emphasised her breasts. ‘Callie.’
‘I see our new grandmother’s giving you the tour?’ Tahlia had given birth to a baby boy three hours after Gerri had left the restaurant.
‘Not any more she’s not.’ Gerri grinned, tapping her watch. ‘I have a breakfast meeting with the government community mental health advisor.’ She walked the two paces to her desk to gather some files. ‘Can you show Seb around? Take him out with you later today too. The sooner he gets to know the local area the better.’
And then she was gone.
Callie wanted to say no. She damn well couldn’t show him around. He kept looking at her like he wanted to undress her and that was not how she wanted this to pan out.
Plus he was in trousers and a long business shirt again, like the first day she’d met him—all buttoned up?which only seemed to emphasise what she knew lay hidden beneath.
Twelve months stretched ahead of her endlessly and her anxiety level kicked up another notch.
Instead she said, ‘Seb, huh?’
He shrugged. ‘Most people call me Seb.’
Not her. She’d cried his name so many times the other night he’d always be Sebastian to her.
She blinked at the rather possessive thought and felt a surge of irritation. She frowned at the buttons on his crisp white shirt. ‘You might want to think about going a bit more informal,’ she stiffly. ‘I’m sure a man with your reputation must have a debonair image to maintain, and in your private practice your clients probably expect spiffy. But, trust me, in the community there are no expectations and most of our clients find it easier to relate to casual dress.’
Sebastian looked her up and down again, lingering on her thighs and breasts, unfazed by her prickliness?it was just part of the puzzling patchwork woman in front of him. ‘Casual. Check.’
Callie swallowed. Okay. This couldn’t go on. ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ she said crankily, lowering her voice even though they were the only ones around.
Sebastian gave a half smile. ‘Like what?’
Callie glared at him. ‘You damn well know like what.’
He chuckled. ‘Sorry. I’d forgotten how…great you look.’
Callie sucked in a breath at the slight emphasis on great. He didn’t look sorry at all. She took a deep breath, flicking her eyes around the room, checking they were still alone. ‘Don’t, okay? Just don’t. Don’t look at me like that and don’t think about the other night. You and I are going to pretend it never happened. Okay?’
Sebastian shouldn’t have been surprised by her hushed outburst but he was. It was after all classic Callie hiding behind her mask. She was obviously running scared and this professional-boundaries front was her attempt to claw back control.
Sebastian regarded her quietly for a moment. ‘You do know that what happened, the things we did and said, are private between us. Right? I would never break your confidence.’
Yes, but you know, she wanted to say. You know.
‘But if you think I’m going to forget about that night—the things we did, the things we talked about—you’re wrong. I know how hard that was for you, Callie, and I understand that at work you need to be able to put that side of you away and be the bolshie professional. And I also understand that it’s not going to happen again. But I’m not
into denial and I will not pretend it didn’t happen.’
His tone held an unmistakable air of command and he was looking at her with calm authority—like he had when she’d mistaken him for a cop, all brooding and serious in his flak jacket. Like he did in his author photo on the back of his book, which she’d looked at obsessively the last few days.
His quiet words hit her in the chest with an impact that belied their volume. She should have known after their altercation on the bridge that Sebastian wouldn’t be pushed around easily.
Damn the man!
‘Fine,’ she huffed. ‘I’ll pretend for both of us.’ She brushed her hands together briskly. ‘Let’s just get on with our jobs, shall we?’
Sebastian nodded. At least they both knew where they stood now.
‘And this is Donna’s office. Your office,’ Callie said, opening the door and striding over to his desk. She bent forward and tapped at the keyboard, bringing up his diary.
‘When Rodney gets in he’ll fix you up with a computer password and familiarise you with the system, but for now,’ she said, hyper-aware of him standing behind her, peering over her shoulder, ‘you have a couple of clients this morning.’
She paused, her gaze scanning the desk and locating the charts. She handed them to him. ‘After lunch you have a group therapy session. I go out on my home visits at two.’
Callie straightened, her back brushing against his front for a cataclysmic second before she shimmied away from the desk.
‘I’ll…I’ll leave you to it, then. I’ll send Rodney in when he arrives.’
‘Callie,’ he chided, rolling his shirt sleeves up casually as he spoke, ‘there’s no need to be so jumpy. I do know how to be professional too.’
She watched the motion, mesmerised by his long fingers and strong forearms, remembering how they had looked against her body, how they had held and stroked her. A slow burn warmed her belly.
Sebastian’s hands stilled as her body language communicated her internal struggle. Her mouth was saying professional but her eyes, her body were saying, Shut the door and take me against it.
He swallowed.
‘Callie, if you want me to stop thinking about you and forget everything that we did and said and act like nothing happened between us, you really have to stop looking at me like that.’
Callie dragged her gaze back to his face and for a moment there was a flare of heat between them that was the sexual equivalent of a mushroom cloud.
‘You can’t have it both ways, Callie.’
His voice was soft but held an unmistakable edge. His face was grim and serious, the planes and angles uncompromising. He was giving her no quarter. Letting her know that he would hold her to the same standards she was holding him to.
Sebastian Walker was not going to be a pushover.
She gave an awkward nod. ‘Rodney should be in soon,’ she said, backing out of the room.
‘So you go out most days, into people’s homes?’ Sebastian asked.
Anything to distract him from her alluring profile. He’d been yearning for a distraction since leaving the Gulf—something very different to do to fill his days and take his mind off the work he’d been doing there, the things that he’d seen. But Jambalyn was supposed to be the distraction. Not a woman.
He’d been sitting in the car with her on and off for the last two hours and her perfume was driving him nuts. It was the same one that permeated his sheets.
‘Most days, yes.’
‘By yourself?’
‘No.’ Callie shook her head. ‘Always with another nurse.’
Sebastian nodded. Good. Working in the prison system and in several war-torn hotspots had made him especially attuned to safety issues. ‘How big is your area?’
‘Jambalyn staff cover mainly just the inner-city areas,’ she said, grateful for something to take her mind off the bulk of his thigh in her peripheral vision. Since his gentle reprimand that morning she’d been exceedingly conscious of her every action around him.
But being this close was unnerving.
The department provided two cars for home visits. They weren’t exactly spacious and Sebastian’s size seemed to dominate the close confines of the vehicle.
‘The health district we’re in takes in all of northern Brisbane but there are several centres dotted around to break up the workload. Jambalyn is just one.’
Callie pulled up at a traffic light. She riffled through a pile of charts wedged in the centre console, grabbed one and handed it to Sebastian.
‘The next client is twenty-four-year-old Ginny Carpenter,’ she said. Sebastian’s thigh flexed as he moved and she hastily averted her gaze.
The light turned green and Callie slammed the car into gear a little more firmly than required. ‘Ginny has suffered from agoraphobia and severe depression since she was in her teens. She’s been well controlled on medication and cognitive-behaviour therapy the last few years. She has a part-time job and got married almost a year ago now.’
Sebastian nodded. ‘So this is a routine house call?’
‘Yep,’ she confirmed. ‘Just a hi-how’s-it-going kind of thing.’
Having accomplished the remainder of the journey in silence as Sebastian flicked through the chart, Callie pulled up at Ginny’s house five minutes later and practically leapt out of the car. She really needed to get a grip here—she had another twelve months of this.
How the hell was she ever going to concentrate on her job if she was constantly distracted by his overwhelming physicality?
And then Ginny opened the door, her face tear-streaked, and Callie’s professionalism trumped her hormones. ‘Ginny? What on earth’s the matter?’ She stepped into the house, popping an arm around her client’s shoulders.
‘I’m… I’m…’ Ginny led them into the house, her shoulders heaving, fresh tears streaming down her face. She led them into her bedroom and picked something up off the bed. ‘I’m pregnant,’ she wailed, holding up a home test kit with a little pink plus sign in the test window.
‘Hey, hey,’ Callie crooned as Ginny dissolved into more tears. She sat her down on the bed and took a seat next to her. She had to admit to a certain amount of relief. For an awful moment she’d thought Ginny might have been having a relapse of her symptoms.
‘It’s going to be okay, really, it is.’ She put her arm around her client’s shoulders again and rocked her slightly.
‘Why don’t I make us all a cup of tea?’ Sebastian asked.
‘A cup of tea would be fabulous,’ Callie agreed, and watched as Sebastian left the room.
After a couple of minutes Ginny’s weeping seemed to have settled to a few spasmodic, hiccoughy breaths. ‘Let’s go and have that cuppa, huh?’ Callie suggested.
Ginny nodded. She rose from the bed and headed to the kitchen, followed by Callie. Sebastian had his back to them as he opened cupboards, looking for mugs. Callie was amazed at how he commanded attention, whether on a bridge, in a bulletproof vest, on the back of a book, or in a kitchen, making tea.
He dominated the small area.
Sebastian turned and smiled at them as they entered, and Callie made the introductions while Ginny took over, fussing around, putting a tablecloth on the table and pulling out a packet of biscuits.
There was silence as they all sat and sipped at their tea.
Callie flicked a glance at Sebastian before stirring another spoonful of sugar into the enormous mug. ‘So, you…don’t want a baby?’ she asked tentatively.
Ginny immediately recoiled from the question, her hand sliding to her belly. ‘Of course I want a baby, but…’
Sebastian looked from one woman to the other. ‘But?’ he prompted.
Ginny’s upper lip wobbled. ‘I’m not fit to be a mother.’
‘Oh, no, Ginny. No, no, no,’ Callie hastened to assure her, plonking her cup of tea down.
‘It’s true,’ Ginny insisted. ‘I’ve already been taking drugs that have probably harmed it. I’ve been on the internet all af
ternoon. The meds for my condition have been known to cause birth defects and low birth weights, even prematurity.’
Ginny started to cry again, her hand tightening on her abdomen. ‘And I can’t go off them, Callie, I just can’t. I can’t go back to the way I was. It’ll kill me. I won’t be any kind of mother if I can’t even take my little girl for a walk in the park or down to the shops for an ice cream. And what kind of mother does that make me, huh?’ she demanded, getting more and more wound up.
‘The best kind, I’d say,’ Sebastian interrupted.
Ginny stopped abruptly at his deep calm voice. ‘What…what do you mean?’ She hiccoughed.
‘You’re already thinking like a mum. Worrying about your baby. Putting its needs first. That’s what the best mums do.’
Ginny rallied a little at his words for a moment or two. Callie just listened in awe—it had been the absolutely perfect thing to say.
‘How far along are you, do you think?’ he asked gently.
Ginny sniffled and shook her head. ‘My periods are always so erratic. I just don’t know.’
Callie watched the doubts return. Ginny turned beseeching eyes on her. ‘If I go off my meds they might even…take my baby away from me.’
Callie squeezed her hand. ‘That’s not going to happen, Ginny. It’s not going to happen.’ She flicked a glance at Sebastian as she prioritised what needed to be done for her client. Ginny needed some facts, she needed to be checked out medically but, first and foremost, she needed her main support person.
‘Where’s Brad? Does he know?’
‘At work. He didn’t know I was taking the test.’
‘Right.’ Callie stood. ‘Firstly I’m making an appointment right now for you to get an ultrasound.’ She flipped open her phone. No reception. ‘I need to go outside. While I’m doing that, Sebastian’s going to talk to you about pregnancy and managing your condition.’
She looked straight at him all businesslike and he nodded imperceptibly before she strode out of the house.
Rescued by the Dreamy Doc / Navy Officer to Family Man Page 5