Swept Away by the Seductive Stranger

by Amy Andrews

  Callum seemed as puzzled by the gesture as Mr Dunnich. ‘Oh...thanks,’ he said, taking them awkwardly and putting them on his desk before ploughing on. ‘Now, let’s have a look at those bunions, shall we?’

  Mr Dunnich shot her a perplexed look. In fact, she knew him well enough to see a fleeting flash of offence. Mr Dunnich’s prize roses were a thing of beauty, and the perfume floated to Felicity from across the other side of the room within seconds. There wasn’t a person alive—including clueless men—who didn’t comment on how spectacular they were.

  Felicity wasn’t usually a person who harboured murderous intent but she had to suppress the urge to hit Callum across the head with the nearest heavy object, which just happened to be a tendon hammer.

  It probably wouldn’t kill him should she be unable to suppress the urge to use it.

  Mr Dunnich took off his shoes and socks in silence. Normally he was always up for a chat. He could talk about his roses all day and what the man didn’t know about growing grapes for wine wasn’t worth knowing. But he did what all old men from the country did when feeling socially awkward—he clammed up.

  Callum examined both big toes. The silence stretched, which was obviously making Mr Dunnich uncomfortable enough to try and initiate some conversation. ‘The pain’s getting worse, Doc, but I really don’t want to have to go under the knife. I don’t want to leave Lizzy alone.’

  ‘I see,’ Callum said, poking and prodding as he asked a few questions. ‘Okay,’ he said briskly a moment or two later. ‘You can put your shoes back on.’

  Mr Dunnich did as he was told. ‘I’m going to try you on this new medication,’ Callum said, turning to his computer and using the electronic prescription system to generate a script to give to the chemist. The printer spat it out and he handed it over. ‘It’s had good results for arthritic pain. One twice a day for a week then come back and see us at the clinic next week and we’ll reassess.’

  ‘Rightio,’ Mr Dunnich said, taking the printout and glancing at her, obviously not sure if the consult was over. He hadn’t been in and out in five minutes ever.

  Felicity smiled at him encouragingly, her heart going out to him. ‘I’ll see you out, Mr Dunnich.’

  Again, Callum hadn’t been rude but he hadn’t been welcoming either. He’d been brisk and efficient and oblivious to his patient’s awkwardness.

  ‘I need to find a vase for these anyway,’ she said, ignoring Callum as she swooped up the roses. She buried her face in them as she caught up to the patient and linked her arm through his. ‘They’re gorgeous, aren’t they? What are these ones called?’

  The old man’s wrinkled hand landed on hers as he gave her a couple of pats. ‘I struck this one myself.’

  Felicity was back with the roses in a vase in under a minute. She put them on his desk, desperately hoping he was allergic to them, but he didn’t shift his attention from the computer, squinting at it instead as he clicked around different views to assess the X-ray on the screen.

  ‘This radius looks good,’ he declared, finally looking at her over the tops of his glasses, and it hit her again how they loaned him that extra dollop of sexy.

  It wasn’t a thought she welcomed. How could she have the hots for someone who didn’t have a clue about connecting with his patients? Who she wasn’t even sure she liked any more.

  Because you’ve seen the other side...

  Felicity hated it when the voice in her head was right. She had seen a very different side to Callum. One who had been competent and compassionate as well as chatty and flirty.

  She’d liked that guy. A lot.

  And compassion was always going to trump competence and looking great in glasses.

  ‘It’s healed very nicely.’ His gaze returned to the screen. ‘Can you take the plaster off then send her in to me?’

  Aye, aye, sir. ‘Certainly, Dr Hollingsworth.’

  He looked up abruptly, a frown between his brows. ‘You don’t have to call me that,’ he said. ‘Callum is fine.’

  Felicity figured ‘jerk’ was even better but she wisely held her tongue.

  ‘Looks like we’re going to both get an early mark,’ he said, glancing at his watch, clearly pleased with himself.

  Felicity’s blood pressure shot up a notch or two. She didn’t want a damn early mark. She wanted her patients to feel like they were more than a body part or some medical problem to cure or treat.

  ‘I’ll just see to Pauline.’

  Felicity hit the waiting area with a full head of steam and a bunch of uncharitable thoughts. ‘Hey, Pauline, you can come through now,’ she said, forcing herself to smile so she wouldn’t scare any of the waiting patients.

  Pauline had slipped on the wet tiles around her pool and put her arm out to break her fall, snapping her radius instead. She was a few years older than Felicity but with three little kids she was a regular at the practice.

  Felicity led her into the treatment room and Pauline sat on the central table over which hung a large, adjustable operating theatre light. It could be moved higher and lower and angled any which way required when suturing or other minor procedures were performed.

  ‘You ready for this?’ Felicity asked as she applied her face mask, grateful for her glasses being a little more glamorous eye protection than the ugly, clunky plastic goggles that the practice supplied. Cutting through plaster kicked up a lot of dust and fibres.

  ‘I am so ready for this, Flick. Those kids of mine have sensed I’m weak and have been running riot these last six weeks. I can’t wait to show them Mummy’s back.’

  Felicity laughed. ‘All righty, then. It looks scary and it’s going to be loud, okay?’

  She turned it on to demonstrate. The oscillating saw with its round blade whined as loudly as any handyman’s saw. She turned it off. ‘The blade vibrates, it doesn’t cut. If it comes into contact with your skin it can’t hurt you. But it won’t, I promise. Once I get down to the last layer I’ll switch to plaster spreaders and some kick-arse scissors.’

  ‘Yep. Cool.’ Pauline nodded vigorously. ‘Let’s do it.’

  It took fifteen minutes to remove the cast. Using the loud saw was actually quite therapeutic. By the time she’d sent Pauline on her way to Callum, Felicity wasn’t feeling anywhere near as annoyed as she had been.

  She did, however, get some dust or fibre in her right eye, which became more and more irritating as she cleaned up the treatment room. She ambled over to the mirror hanging behind the door to see if there was anything obvious. Her eye was red from her rubbing it but there was nothing apparent in it.

  Damn. She’d get a lecture from Bill for sure about wearing the correct safety equipment and she’d only have herself to blame. She’d always considered her own glasses as good eye protection—for plaster removal anyway—and now she was going to have to revise that opinion.

  The irritation grew worse and out of desperation she grabbed a handful of plastic saline ampoules, twisted off their tops and moved to the sink. She leaned her head over and turned it on the side, her right eye down and bent her knees to bring her closer to the porcelain so she wouldn’t make a mess.

  It was an awkward position but at least the saline ran straight into the sink as she gently trickled ampoule after ampoule into her eye.

  ‘What on earth are you doing?’

  Felicity’s pulse leapt both at the unexpected interruption and who it belonged to. Not exactly the most elegant position to be found in, especially as she already felt like an idiot for being in this situation. Her earlier crankiness returned. ‘What does it look like?’

  ‘You got something in your eye?’ His voice grew nearer and she could see him approach in her peripheral vision, coming to a halt, his hands on his hips as he watched her, her eyes about level with his fly.

  She tried valiantly not to go back to that nig
ht again but failed.

  ‘Give the man a cigar.’

  ‘Is this from removing the plaster?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He held out his hand for the remaining ampoules. ‘Let me help.’

  ‘I’m fine. You’ve got your early mark, go home.’

  She may have liquid in one eye and a side view from the other but she didn’t need to see his glare—she felt it all the way down to her toes.

  ‘Are you angry at me for some reason? Do you have something against efficiency? Or is this some self-loathing guilt trip of yours because of what happened on the train, which is suddenly now wrong and somehow my fault? Because if we’ve got a problem then I really wish you’d just come out and say it.’

  Felicity glared right back, which was difficult considering what she was doing. Yes, she was angry but it had absolutely nothing to do with the train or any kind of guilt trip. Hindsight was always twenty-twenty but she could never hate herself over that night.

  This was purely about today. Unfortunately it wasn’t her place to chastise the new doctor about the way he practised. Or any doctor for that matter. There were protocols and formal procedures in place for those kinds of things.

  Not that she’d ever had any cause.

  If Dr Dawson asked her how Callum was going she’d say he was diligent and efficient. But if there were complaints from the patients, he was on his own.

  ‘No problem,’ she muttered. She could bite her tongue over this. She would. If it killed her. Because she’d be damned if she did a single thing to make him think she was playing some petulant game because she was embarrassed about what had happened between them.

  ‘Good. Now let me look at your damn eye and see if there’s anything obvious.’

  ‘I already looked. Couldn’t see anything.’

  He folded his arms. ‘So let me check now you’ve treated it.’

  Felicity realised her recalcitrance wasn’t doing her any favours. She could act like a two-year-old or take advantage of the professional help being offered like an adult. ‘Fine,’ she muttered, reaching for the paper towel dispenser nearby. He beat her to it, pulling off two sheets and passing them over as she righted herself.

  ‘Thank you.’ She injected a more conciliatory note into her voice as she dabbed at her wet face. He was offering to help. It wasn’t his fault she was in this situation.

  ‘Over here,’ he said, moving to the centre of the room near the examination bed. He glanced at the overhead light. ‘Where’s the switch for this thing?’

  Felicity tossed the paper towel on the bed and went up on tippy toes to reach one of the vertical handles. She pulled it down and located the switch. Light pooled around them. He squinted and moved so the back of his head blocked the light. The halo affect was disconcerting considering she’d been thinking of him as the devil incarnate most of the day.

  ‘Okay,’ he said, sliding his hands either side of her face. ‘Let me look.’

  The sizzle from his contact was also disconcerting. They were standing close. Too close. Her brain rejected the nearness while her body flowered beneath it. He wore the same aftershave as he had on the train and if she shut her eyes she could almost imagine them being gently rocked.

  Felicity tried to pull away but he held on tight. ‘It’s better, much less gritty.’

  He set his thumbs beneath her jaw and used them to angle her head. ‘That’s good,’ he murmured, obviously ignoring her as he peered into her eyes. Or her eye anyway. Her pulse hammered madly at every pulse point, surely he could feel it beneath the pads of his thumbs?

  He instructed her to look up then down then to both sides, which she did eagerly. Frankly she was pleased to look anywhere but right at his big handsome face in those beyond-sexy glasses. Being up this close and personal to Callum was a seriously crazy temptation.

  It was madness and she reached for something to evoke a bit of sanity.

  Think about Mr Dunnich.

  But all she could think about was how good Callum smelled and she understood a little better why some women stayed with men who weren’t good for them.

  ‘Well...I can’t see anything,’ he announced.

  The statement made her forget she was trying not to look at him as she did exactly that. ‘Quelle surprise,’ she murmured, their gazes locking, his green one intense as his thumbs stroked along her jaw.

  It was so damn good she swayed a little.

  The sensible person inside her scrambled for a reason to pull away, for something, anything to break the spell he was weaving with the seductive stroke of those clever thumbs.

  It was then that she noticed it.

  ‘Your left pupil is misshapen.’ There was an area where the black of the pupil appeared to have bled into the green of his iris. ‘It’s larger than the other one too.’

  That did it. His hands slid off her face and he took a step back. Felicity reached for the table to steady herself as her body mourned his abrupt withdrawal.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is that genetic or from an injury?’

  The brooding line had returned to his mouth and for a moment she thought he wasn’t going to answer her. ‘An injury.’

  She quirked an eyebrow. A rusty fork maybe? ‘Are you going to make me guess?’

  It wasn’t any of her business but it didn’t stop her being curious as hell. It was obvious from his reaction that it had been serious.

  ‘A cricket ball.’

  Felicity’s wince was spontaneous and heartfelt. She almost grabbed her own eye in sympathy. ‘Ouch.’

  ‘Yeah...’ His fingers fiddled with the sheet on the examination table. ‘It was a bit of a mess.’

  ‘Define mess.’

  She expected him to dismiss her query and leave, and if she wasn’t very much mistaken he looked tempted to do just that. But then he shrugged. ‘Fractured zygoma. Blown globe. Hyphema. Partial retinal detachment.’

  Her wince increased. ‘Holy cow! Who was bowling to you? Mitchell Johnson?’

  His lips twitched into the grimmest semblance of a smile she’d ever seen. ‘One of my mates used to bowl for the under-nineteen Australian side. He’s still got it.’

  Maybe this was what Callum had been referring to this morning when he’d been going on about being a Cal once upon a time. He was just as tense and shuttered. ‘Do you have a sight deficit?’

  If anything, the line of his mouth grew grimmer. ‘I only have seventy percent vision in my left eye, hence these.’ He pointed at his glasses.

  Seventy percent. This morning she’d been sure something had happened to Callum to change him—something big—and now she was absolutely convinced. Was the ‘life’ and ‘stuff’ he’d talked about the injury to his eye?

  Had it turned Cal into a Callum?

  Great. A wounded guy. Appealing to her soft underbelly. She was hopeless with them. This was the guy from the train, not the one she’d seen today, and she was finding it hard to reconcile the two.

  ‘Is the mydriasis permanent?’

  He grimaced. ‘It’s a work in progress. It’s constricted quite a bit since the injury but the specialist thinks after all this time it’s about as good as it’ll get, and unfortunately I concur.’

  ‘How long ago did it happen?’

  ‘Two and a half years.’

  Felicity did a quick calculation in her head. So the accident had happened six months before he’d commenced his GP training. It had probably taken that long for his eye to recover sufficiently to be useful.

  Which begged the question, had it always been his plan to train to become a GP? Or had his injury caused him to change career path?

  She had a feeling that was very much the case.

  ‘So I take it being a GP hadn’t been your grand plan?’

  His
lips twisted and his self-deprecating laugh was harsh, grating in the silence of the room. ‘No.’

  Felicity marvelled that such a little word could hold so much misery. This accident had obviously gutted him.

  ‘What was your specialty before you did your GP training?’

  He dropped his gaze to the sheet again. ‘I was a surgeon.’

  Ah. Well, now. His concentration on body parts and medical problems rather than the patient as an individual suddenly made sense. Felicity had spent some time in the operating theatres when she’d been training in Adelaide. She’d quickly come to realise she would never make a scrub nurse. Impersonalising patients and the lack of any real contact with them had driven her nutty.

  She hadn’t wanted to work in a place where patients were known by their operative site. The leg in Theatre Two, the appendix in Theatre Five or the transplant in Theatre Nine.

  Patients had names and she liked to use them.

  ‘What kind of surgeon?’

  ‘Vascular.’

  Felicity suppressed the urge to whistle. Impressive. She could see him all scrubbed up, making precise, efficient movements, working his way through his list, conscious of his next patient waiting. ‘Did your sight issues interfere with that?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ His tone was harsh with a bitter end note. ‘My depth of field and visual acuity in the left eye were shot. A lot of the work I did was microsurgery and...’ he glanced up, his gaze locking with hers ‘...I didn’t trust myself.’

  The emotions brimming in his eyes belied the hard set of his face and punched Felicity in the gut. ‘But surely with time—’

  His short, sharp laugh cut her off. ‘They’ll only give me a conditional driver’s licence, they’re not going to let me be in charge of a scalpel.’ He shoved a hand through his hair, looked away, looked back again. ‘It has improved, but not enough. Not to be a surgeon. I’m not prepared to take that kind of risk with somebody’s life.’

  And there was the compassion. Callum had obviously had the rug pulled right out from under him but he was a doctor first and foremost and doing no harm was the code they lived by.