Tom’s eyes were shadowed by a slight frown before he lifted his head and met her gaze. Abruptly the frown vanished and he stood to his feet.
‘Sara, I thought you were in San Antonio. What are you doing here?’ Suddenly Tom’s eyes dropped to the injury on her leg. ‘Are you hurt? What on earth happened?’ Concern etched his voice as he crossed the room with long purposeful strides. He drew her into his arms and pulled her close to his firm body as Johnson released his support.
Sara resisted Tom’s hold. She tried to pull away but his strong arms held her still.
‘I crashed into her, Dr Fielding. I didn’t see her. I’m sorry. She was waiting outside but I was in a hurry and boof—I hit her.’ The young man re-enacted the collision with his hands.
‘Grab that chair,’ Tom said, motioning towards the large armchair that sat by the window. ‘Bring it here quickly.’
The young man dragged the chair across the room and Tom gently lowered Sara onto the cushioned leather.
‘There’s a first-aid kit in the cupboard to the right of the bookcase.’
Sara heard the instructions Tom gave to Johnson but her eyes were transfixed on Tom as he crossed the room to retrieve a small footstool by the bookcase.
He looked every bit as gorgeous in the daylight as he had that night just a month ago. His lean, angular face was slightly tanned and his grey eyes were luminous beneath his sandy brows.
He smiled at her as he carried the footstool back, his wide sensual mouth slowly curving upwards. But she would not reciprocate.
Tom had no place in her life any more. In fact, he should never have been there. They were two very different people with completely different priorities in life.
Sara swallowed hard. ‘It’s just a little scratch, honestly. It’s nothing...’ Her words were cut short when she felt the warmth of his hands on her bare skin. He looked into her eyes as he knelt on the floor beside her, gently lifting her leg and placing it on the stool. He moved the hem of her skirt slightly to assess the damage to her knee. She swallowed hard. She hated that the feel of his fingers lightly touching her skin sent shivers down her spine. Again she wished she had worn heavy woollen tights, but this time it wasn’t because of the cold.
Johnson handed him an antiseptic wipe and some gauze.
‘It’s just a superficial wound. I’ll clean it up but I think a plaster will suffice.’
‘I’m so glad and I’m so sorry, I mean it. I can’t believe what a day I’ve had and now this—’
‘We’ll be fine here, Johnson,’ Tom interrupted. ‘Go and collect your patient but this time just take it a little slower.’
‘Are you sure? You don’t need anything?’
‘Positive,’ Tom replied, not taking his eyes off Sara.
Sara watched from the corner of her eye as the young man put the first-aid kit back on Tom’s desk, picked up her briefcase and overcoat from the doorway, put them by her chair and left the room.
And left them alone.
Tom’s hands were still cradling her leg. The plaster was securely attached to the clean wound but he didn’t want to release her. He had forgotten how good it felt to have Sara this close. He had no idea why she was in his office but for the briefest moment he didn’t care. She was with him again. Near him again. And he could touch her soft, warm skin. Her perfume was invading his senses. It was the same fragrance she had always worn. So little had changed and yet so much had changed for ever.
Finally he came to his senses and reluctantly released his hold, standing up and moving back to his desk. He looked at the woman before him. She was as beautiful as the day they’d met, the day they’d married and the day she’d left him. But she had left him.
‘What brings you back to Melbourne and my office?’ he asked, as he rested back against the wooden frame and folded his arms across his chest. ‘I thought you’d be in Texas by now.’ He suddenly felt the need to protect himself. Then the realisation of why she had come to the hospital hit him. She must have grown tired of waiting for the divorce papers to make the return trip to her, so she had made the visit to collect them herself.
‘The documents are with my lawyer. No doubt they’ll be with yours tomorrow.’
Sara suddenly realised that Tom had no idea either. He was obviously equally clueless that they would be working at the same hospital.
‘I’m not here for the papers, Tom. Although I’m glad to hear that’s progressing,’ she announced. ‘No, actually, I’m here to work for a month, filling in for Stu.’
‘You’re filling in for Stu?’ Tom was gobsmacked.
‘You never said anything that night when we...’ He hesitated for a minute. He didn’t want to allude to what he knew they were both thinking. He cleared his throat. ‘When we bumped into each other. I’m surprised you didn’t say anything.’
Sara just stared at him for a moment, trying desperately to push the vivid snapshots of the evening from her mind.
‘I didn’t know back then, when we...’ She paused. It was becoming more awkward and uncomfortable by the minute. ‘That night, well, I hadn’t spoken with Stu and I had no idea you consulted here. But even if I had known, if you remember, we didn’t talk work at all.’
Tom nodded in silence.
Sara knew she would never have accepted Stu’s proposal to fill in for him if she had known Tom worked at the hospital where she would be operating. She had assumed he was safely ensconced at the other side of town. But she had to deal with the situation. There was no other choice. Stu would never find another oral surgeon on short notice and she would never leave him high and dry like that. She just had to deal with Tom.
‘So, what are you doing at this hospital?’
‘I’m the associate professor of oral surgery.’
Sara was taken aback. Tom hadn’t said a word that night. With a title like that, and the extraordinary workload and dedication to achieve such a position, he had certainly earned some bragging rights. But he had said nothing about it. She wanted to say how proud she was of him, but of course pride carried ownership or at the very least attachment, and she couldn’t afford either.
‘Congratulations, Tom,’ she finally decided, keeping it simple. ‘That must have been a lot of work. You must be the youngest associate professor on staff.’
‘So they say. But I’d completed my PhD, and had a year post-doctoral experience so I met the selection criteria. The board approved my appointment for three years and I’m only six months into it,’ he responded. The PhD had kept his mind from missing Sara after she left. It had provided him with a focus and purpose in getting up each day.
‘I still operate on private patients but I’m more involved with the teaching and rotation programme in the undergraduate, graduate and professional curricula and the development of post-qualifying modules. But enough about me. I’m still in shock that you are Stu’s mysterious replacement.’
‘What do you mean, mysterious?’ Sara replied, giving him a puzzled look.
‘I mean he hadn’t told me who was filling in at the practice. Stu told me that he had it covered but not that you were his replacement.’
Sara was even more confused. Stu’s private practice was not his concern. ‘Why do you discuss his practice? Don’t you still have your own?’
Tom gave her a wry look. ‘Because we’re partners, Stu’s a partner now in my old practice—he bought in a few months ago. I only consult there one day a week now. The hospital consumes most of my time, but I still wanted to maintain some patient contact.’
Sara was completely flustered for a moment. Not only was Tom consulting at the hospital where she would be operating but he was also a partner at the practice where she would be consulting for the next month. She would be working at Tom’s old practice. This was quickly spiralling into a disaster.
‘Oh, well, a
t least this will be uncomfortable for both of us,’ she said honestly.
Tom stood watching her carefully, looking for clues as to what she was thinking and, more importantly, feeling. He wanted some signs that would let him into her head. There was nothing. She really had shut him out. That night had been nothing but a moment of passion between two lonely people in a big city. Nothing more.
He knew then and there what he had to do. He had to keep his ex-wife away from his heart. Or he’d go mad. It was crazy and he knew it but he still loved the woman sitting there, so close but emotionally so distant. The woman who had captured his heart all those years ago still held it quite firmly in her hands. He had to push her away. Or, more to the point, he had to push her out of his reach.
He didn’t need a reminder of why she’d left. Or why she’d had to leave. They had shared that discussion too many times to recall.
Any feelings she’d once had for him were clearly gone. He had to accept it. And so he adopted the same detached demeanour. A demeanour very far from his true feelings.
‘There really shouldn’t be any problems. That night...’ He paused. ‘Let’s just say old habits, reminiscing, we crossed the line, both of us. It won’t happen again. But, hey, we got it out of our systems. Like an itch that needed a good scratch, and now it’s done we can both move on.’
Sara was thrown by his response. It was cold. He really was over them. An itch? That sounded so unlike the Tom she had known. Still, three years had passed and he had obviously changed. Or, just like her, was he putting on a façade to make the arrangement they found themselves in a little less awkward? It didn’t matter. They both knew and understood the rules.
Without answering, Tom crossed back to her and reached for her leg. Sara jumped as his hand gently lifted her leg down from the stool and placed her foot back on the floor.
‘We’re good, Sara...we’re good.’
* * *
Sara wasn’t so sure. She was going to be operating at the hospital for a month. That meant bumping into each other, on ward rounds, near the OR. There were too many opportunities where they would see each other.
The way her body had reacted to Tom made her realise only too quickly that the chemistry she shared with him wasn’t just a memory. She suddenly worried if her love for him would ever truly be over. But they had no future. She would not give up on the idea of bringing children into the world. Being a mother was a dream she wanted to hold onto but Tom never wanted to be a father. That was written in stone.
She had spent too long getting him out of her head and her heart.
Sara looked at him, and even through her tired eyes she could see the man who won her love was still as handsome and charismatic as ever. It’s four short weeks. It can’t be that difficult.
‘I’m a little tired—can we discuss the work schedule later? We can sort out the personal arrangements too over the next few days. I’m happy with the financial separation the way it is. It won’t change after we divorce. You won’t need to support me, so it should be done very quickly.’
There was an uncomfortable silence between them. She had no idea what was going on in Tom’s mind but he clearly wasn’t about to share anything. She had said her piece and cleared the air.
‘Quick and painless, like an extraction of an upper molar,’ he said matter-of-factly.
Sara knew when Tom became uncomfortable he always used dark humour. It was how he masked his emotions.
‘Not quite,’ she replied, then chose to change the subject. ‘After the four weeks here, I’m off. I don’t know a lot about Texas but the position sounded exciting and I jumped at it,’ she told him as she crossed to one of the floor-to-ceiling bookcases that lined the room. Part of her didn’t want to go to the US. Part of her still wanted Tom. But she also wanted more.
Sara lightly ran her fingers over a row of leather-bound medical books standing next to one another on the shelf and thought back to all of the nights she had spent poring over books just like them as a postgraduate student at the university library, hoping to come close to Tom’s knowledge and skill. But it wasn’t just his ability and compassion as a doctor that had her in awe, it was his commanding presence as a man that had drawn her to him. He had been her lecturer and her mentor but more than that, she had wished he was her lover.
She had felt on some level there was chemistry that ran between them. She would watch him standing at the lectern, speaking to all the medical students, and she had hoped, as his eyes had scanned the lecture hall, that he had seen her as more than just his student. She had wanted him to see her as a woman. A woman who respected his knowledge, admired his skills but wanted to know more about him as a man.
Sara would daydream in the tram on the way home, a bag full of handwritten notes at her feet and a laptop in her backpack, about the two of them driving home together. She had pictured them talking about their days, comparing notes on cases and discussing surgical procedures. Sara remembered back to the long nights when she would lie in twisted sheets staring at the ceiling in the darkness of her university bedroom. She would picture the curves of his handsome face, the skin wrinkling softly around his grey eyes when he laughed, and the warm, masculine scent of his body.
Not being able to say how she felt during those many months of study was at times almost impossible. But she knew better than to say anything to her incredibly handsome tutor. It was more than likely that her romantic musings were one-sided. She didn’t want her imagination to steer her into attracting more of his attention. He was almost seven years older, infinitely wiser and often intimidating. And she was his student. Capable and willing to learn, passing with distinctions, but still his student.
She thought he would be more interested in dating one of his peers, yet there were moments when she felt there was something more. She would ask a question, or answer one that he had posed, and he would appear genuinely impressed.
There were times when his eyes seemed to linger on her a little longer. His mouth would curve ever so slightly and his eyes seemed to be smiling. Her heart would skip a beat, and she hoped she didn’t blush. Sometimes he would ask her to stay late with a small number of postgraduates to discuss a topic or alternate prognosis in greater depths. On more than one occasion he bumped into her in the university cafeteria and they shared a table and talked of things other than work.
She wanted more than anything for his interest to be more than just academic, and these chats led her to believe it was, but he was a complicated man. She decided that until her training was over and he made his feelings clear she would keep her own locked safely inside her heart.
Sara never regretted that decision. Soon after she graduated and found a role in a private practice based in Brighton, Tom invited her to a celebratory dinner. She was so surprised and happy. It was a dinner for two. Standing at the door of the restaurant as they waited for their table, his soft hands cupped her face and gently turned her towards him. Tenderly, he reached down and kissed her.
It took Sara’s breath away. Her intuition about his feelings had been right all along. The man of her dreams, of all her late-night fantasies, was kissing her. And not caring who saw them.
She remembered every wonderful warm feeling that rushed through her body when, with love in his eyes and a wicked grin, he whispered huskily that given the chance he would never let her out of his sight again. He told her he wanted to keep her in his arms for ever.
It was a whirlwind romance. Every second weekend they spent away at different cosy bed and breakfasts all over Victoria and then, three months after their first date, Tom surprised Sara with a trip to Paris. Winter had set in and they had planned on heading to the ski slopes of Mount Hotham. The night before they were due to leave for the snow, sitting by the heater in Sara’s apartment eating raisin toast and sipping on hot chocolate, Tom told Sara there was a slight change in plans but one he hoped s
he would like. He suggested that she should pack some summer clothes and her passport instead of thermal underwear. As Sara frantically emptied her suitcase of her sweaters, ski pants and thick socks, hurriedly replacing them with cotton dresses, shorts and T-shirts, she told him that he was crazy.
And he told her that he loved her.
Tom managed to keep the new holiday destination a secret until the cab arrived at Tullamarine airport and he carried their luggage to the Air France check-in. Sara was so excited that she felt her eyes brimming with tears as she took her boarding pass, destination Paris.
Together, they spent a blissful week at Hotel Mansart on Paris’s Right Bank. They strolled hand in hand around the Tuileries Garden and along the pathways lined with tulips. Tom was the most romantic, wonderful lover and Sara knew without doubt that she was totally and completely in love. She couldn’t help but smile with happiness as they sat together by the sparkling pools in the warmth of a perfect summer day. A perfect day with her perfect man and Sara thought life couldn’t be any more wonderful.
But it could. And a short time later it did. As they stood admiring the Maillol sculptures in the soft light of sunset, Tom fell to one knee and slipped a diamond solitaire ring on Sara’s finger. She gasped and nodded before she kissed the man of her dreams and fell into his arms. She knew with all of her heart it was where she belonged.
After years of study to qualify as an oral and maxillofacial surgeon, Sara was twenty-eight years of age and Tom was about to turn thirty-five so they decided to have a very short engagement and that night as they lay in each other’s arms they set a wedding date only three months away.
Sara was going to spend her life with a man she completely and utterly adored and she had never been so happy in her life...
‘Sara. Yoo-hoo, I asked you when exactly you’re leaving for cattle country?’
CHAPTER THREE
Back in Her Husband's Arms Page 3