‘I’m fine,’ Lizzie repeated, shaking her head. ‘No need to worry about me.’
‘You’ve got a lot on your plate, Lizzie—and, yes, you do it brilliantly, but even Wonder Woman would have days when she struggled with your workload,’ Dragan said softly. ‘Running a business—and not just any old business either, because you do the rescue work with the dogs as well as the boarding kennels—plus bringing up Tina on your own and being a full-time carer to your mum…It’s an awful lot to ask of someone.’
‘I manage.’
‘I know. You more than manage. But I also want you to know that you don’t have to do it all on your own. The help’s there whenever you need it. I’m not going to push you into something you don’t want, but I also don’t want to see you struggle when you don’t have to.’ He squeezed her shoulder. ‘Don’t be too proud.’
‘Are you bringing Bramble in? Mum’d like to see her.’
He noticed the change of subject, but he realised that now wasn’t the right time to push Lizzie. He’d deliberately parked in the shade—as he always did when he took Bramble on house calls—but some of his patients liked to see the dog, including Stella Chamberlain. And there was evidence that petting an animal helped to lower blood pressure and increase the general well-being of patients. His ready agreement to Lizzie’s suggestion had nothing to do with the fact that he loved having a dog again and hated being parted from Bramble.
Much.
‘Come on, girl.’ He opened the boot of his estate car, and lifted the dog out so she wouldn’t bang her injured leg. He knew he was being overprotective, but the leg had been slow to heal and he didn’t want to take any risks.
Stella was delighted to see Bramble and made a huge fuss of her. Though Dragan could see that she was having one of her ‘off’ days—she was definitely struggling to get out of the chair, despite the fact the legs had been raised, and by the end of every sentence her voice was so soft that he could barely hear her. She listened intently to what he had to say about the consultant’s report and the changes in her medication to help with the stiffness in her gait and her memory lapses, but Stella, like Lizzie, completely rejected the idea of day care.
‘I’m not spending my days stuck in a home with a load of daft old bats. This is where I live, and this is where I’m staying,’ Stella said, lifting her chin.
‘You won’t be stuck anywhere. It’s a…’ He struggled to think of something that might entice Stella. ‘A bit like a coffee morning where you sit and chat, or you have someone to give a demonstration of something and you all have a go afterwards.’
‘I don’t want to sit and chat with people I don’t know,’ Stella insisted.
Time to back off. ‘It’s just a suggestion. Nobody’s going to force you to do anything you don’t want to do,’ Dragan reassured her.
‘Good. Because I’m not going.’
Maybe he’d talk to Melinda, Dragan thought. Not about Stella’s condition—he would never break patient confidentiality—but she was good with people. She’d got Tina to open up to her, confide her dreams of becoming a vet, and had then talked to George about giving the teenager some work experience at the practice. Perhaps Melinda would have some ideas about how to persuade Stella and Lizzie that a weekly session of day care could help them both. Because, the way things were going here, he could see Lizzie ending up having a breakdown.
‘Remember, call me any time you need to,’ he said to Lizzie as he lifted Bramble back into the car. ‘That’s what I’m here for.’
‘I will.’
Though he knew she wouldn’t. She’d straighten her backbone and just carry on.
He took his leave, then headed out to see his next patient.
CHAPTER TWO
DRAGAN had been home half an hour when the doorbell rang. Bramble barked—just in case he’d missed the fact someone was on the doorstep—and pattered behind him as he opened the door.
‘Dinner will be approximately thirty minutes,’ Melinda announced, holding up two brown paper bags.
Not take-away food either, Dragan knew as he followed her into his kitchen. Melinda liked to cook from scratch.
‘First of all, this needs to go into the freezer.’ She retrieved a tub of ice cream from one of the bags and put it in the coldest part of the freezer. ‘And next, for you, because you’re beautiful.’ She bent down and made a fuss of the dog, then took a handful of treats from her pocket and fed them to Bramble one by one.
From the blur of her wagging tail, Dragan knew that the dog loved having Melinda around as much as he did. ‘You spoil that dog,’ he remarked.
‘And you don’t?’ she teased.
‘Never,’ he deadpanned. ‘So where’s my treat, then?’
She grinned, reached up and slid her arms round his neck, then kissed him thoroughly. ‘Better?’
He smiled. ‘Much better. Want a hand making dinner?’
‘Absolutely not.’ She shook her head. ‘It’s wonderful being able to work in a proper kitchen. The one in the flat over the surgery isn’t even big enough for a hamster wheel.’
And she looked good in his kitchen, he thought. At home. So much so that she didn’t hesitate to switch on his iPod and pick out some of the tracks she liked, by an opera-pop crossover artist that she’d downloaded for him the previous week. He’d never heard of the singer before, but he liked it, especially when she was singing along to it, half humming and half singing the lyrics. She was as good with the Spanish lyrics as she was with the Italian ones, and he loved the sweetness of her voice.
It wasn’t just the music. He loved having her around, full stop.
Because she made his house feel like home. She had done ever since her second visit to the cottage, when she’d brought him the iPod, complete with a set of speakers for his kitchen, and insisted that he accepted the gift. ‘You can’t cook properly without music, Dragan. You can’t live without music.’
Melinda was always singing. And she always took over the CD player in his car. Since she’d been around, there had been a lot more music in his life.
A lot more everything.
Maybe he’d ask her tonight. Maybe he’d take her for a walk on the beach and kiss her under the stars and ask her to stay. For always.
He enjoyed just watching her as she chopped and stirred and tasted and stirred a bit more.
Then she looked over at him and the corners of her eyes crinkled. ‘You can lay the table, if you like.’
The small bistro table was set in front of the French doors that overlooked the garden; although it wasn’t like the huge rambling garden he’d grown up with, he enjoyed his little patch of green. Right now it was full of spring flowers, with a carpet of blue squill underneath the apple tree. He set the table, took a bottle of white wine from the fridge, poured two glasses, and sat down as she brought over two plates.
Bramble immediately settled on the floor between the two of them, and Melinda laughed. ‘Ah, no, you can’t have any of this, bellissima. The chilli sauce won’t be kind to your stomach.’
‘And she’s already wolfed down half a dozen prawns while you were preparing this,’ Dragan pointed out.
‘Of course. She’s my official tester.’ Melinda waited until he’d taken his first mouthful of the avocado with prawns and chilli sauce. ‘So do you like it?’
‘It’s fabulous,’ he said honestly. Trust Melinda to come up with a combination he would never have thought of.
The lemon chicken with broccoli, carrots and new potatoes was equally good. And although he didn’t have a sweet tooth, he was content to watch her eat the hazelnut meringue ice cream that was a speciality of the Trevellyans’ farm shop and which she absolutely adored.
‘So you admit now that food is not just fuel?’ Melinda demanded when they cleared the table together.
‘Yes, I admit it. You are right and I am wrong, carissima.’
She laughed. ‘And therefore you owe me a forfeit.’
He laughed back. ‘Indeed. It’s in
the cupboard next to the fridge.’ He never ate chocolate, but Melinda loved it, so he’d taken to buying some just for her. Rich, dark chocolate flavoured with spices and a hint of orange.
She found the bar of chocolate within seconds. ‘For someone who never touches the stuff, you have amazingly good taste, Dr Lovak.’
Her little ‘oh’ of pleasure as she snapped off the first square and slid it into her mouth sent desire flickering down his spine. A desire he could see matched in her beautiful blue eyes.
He made them both coffee, strong and dark, and placed the mugs on his low coffee-table before sitting on the sofa and pulling her onto his lap. He loved having her near. And he loved it even more when she kissed him spontaneously, cupping his face and nibbling at his lower lip to deepen the kiss. He loved the silky feel of her hair against his skin, her sweet floral scent, the warmth of her body against his.
He tipped her back on the sofa and was halfway through undoing her shirt when she groaned. ‘Dragan. You should’ve been born in Sparta.’
‘What?’ He frowned. ‘I’m not with you.’
‘Your sofa. It’s like a bed of nails.’
It wasn’t the most comfortable in the world, true, but it did him. He didn’t actually spend much time on it anyway—he was either out walking with the dog or somewhere with Melinda or sitting at the little table, working on some notes on his laptop. He smiled and stroked her hair back from her face. ‘Don’t be such a princess.’
She stiffened, then pushed him away and sat up, buttoning her shirt again.
He frowned. ‘Melinda? What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing.’ Her face shuttered. ‘I ought to be going.’
What? A few seconds ago they’d been kissing. Undressing each other—she’d completely unbuttoned his own shirt. And now she’d gone all frosty on him. He couldn’t think of anything he’d done wrong. ‘What? Why? Neither of us is on call. I thought we were spending time together?’ Then the penny dropped. He’d accused her of being princessy. ‘This princess business—I was teasing, tesoro. You know the story of the princess who can still feel the tiny pea through fifty mattresses—that’s like the way you complain about my sofa.’
‘Uh-huh.’
He didn’t understand why she was reacting so badly—Melinda had a great sense of humour usually, and it was rare for her not to have a smile on her face—but he hated the idea of her being hurt and him being the cause. He slid his arm round her and hugged her. ‘You’re not like that at all—you don’t have any airs and graces, and your four-by-four isn’t like that dreadful woman’s next door.’
‘What woman?’
‘I didn’t catch her name—I wasn’t paying attention,’ he admitted. ‘Natalie or Natasha or Na…I don’t know. It’s not important.’ He flapped a dismissive hand. ‘She’s staying next door in the holiday cottage. Hopefully not for too long. Now, she’s the princessy type. Hair cut in the latest fashion, designer clothes and shoes, a four-by-four that’s probably never been within a mile of an untarmacked track in its life. Whereas yours is covered in mud outside and animal hair inside.’
Her mouth tightened. ‘So now you’re saying I look a mess.’
‘No. I’m saying you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met, you don’t need make-up to emphasise how lovely you are and you’d manage to look stylish in a…oh, in a potato sack.’ He made an impatient gesture with his hand. ‘I don’t have a clue why we’re fighting—I don’t want to argue with you, Melinda.’ He sighed. ‘Actually, I wanted to talk to you about something tonight.’
‘What?’
‘When you look as if you want to slap me?’ He shook his head. ‘No way.’ There was no point in asking her. She’d reject him straight out, and then their relationship would slowly start to fall apart.
‘I don’t want to slap you. But I don’t like what you said.’
‘Then I apologise. Without reservation.’ Clearly he’d touched a raw nerve. He had no idea why his throw-away comment had upset her so badly; or maybe he’d accidentally repeated something that an ex had once said to hurt her. ‘I really didn’t mean to hurt you, Melinda. I’d never do that. You mean too much to me.’
She remained perfectly still for a moment, then she nodded, as if reassured, slid her arm round his waist and leaned into him. ‘Apology accepted. So what did you want to talk about?’
‘The idea was to go for a walk. Up on the cliffs, or barefoot on the sand. In the moonlight or maybe watching the sun rise.’
She pulled a face. ‘You want me to get up before dawn?’
‘Yes—No.’ He raked a hand through his hair distractedly. ‘Melinda. Today, when you called me zlato—did you mean it?’
She frowned. ‘Why?’
‘I asked first.’
‘Yes. And it upset you.’
‘Only because it’s been a long, long time since anyone used that word to me. Remember, I’ve lived in England for half my life now.’
‘Didn’t you ever want to go back to Croatia?’
‘There’s nothing there for me any more.’
His face and voice were both expressionless. And Melinda knew without a doubt that this was what haunted Dragan. What caused the shadows in his eyes. And that night she’d stayed here last month and had woken up in the middle of the night to find him standing by the window, staring out at the sea with such a bleak expression that it had almost broken her heart…He’d refused to talk about it, but she had a feeling this was to do with the same thing.
And she also had the feeling that this was the last tiny barrier between them.
Ha. As if she had the right to push him to talk, when she never talked about what had driven her to England. But how could she talk about it? She knew from experience that the minute people knew about her family, they started treating her differently. Either they withdrew from her because they secretly thought that she was just slumming it and didn’t really want their friendship, or they started seeing her as a passport to high society.
Except she didn’t hang out with high society. She’d never fitted in—and although her parents hadn’t actually taken the step of disowning her, they didn’t approve of her life here. On the rare occasions she went back to Contarini they never talked about her job, almost as if ignoring it meant that it wasn’t really happening. To listen to her parents, anyone would think that she was merely living abroad for a while to broaden her life experience, and spent her days shopping and sightseeing.
Most of the time Melinda managed to put it to the back of her mind and get on with her life. And she was happy: she’d never been particularly close to her parents, she loathed her brother Raffi’s playboy friends, and she had nothing in common with her sister Serena’s Sloaney mates, so it didn’t worry her that she was pretty much on her own here.
Whereas Dragan, she thought, was different. Like her, he felt there was nothing for him in his old home but, unlike her, he missed it and it hurt so much that it was like a fracture right across his heart—a fracture she wanted to heal.
She took his hand and pressed a kiss into it. ‘Why not?’
‘I’d rather not talk about it.’
‘Keeping things bottled up inside isn’t good for you,’ she said quietly. Even though she knew she was being a hypocrite. The longer she went without telling him the secret she’d been keeping ever since she’d first come to England, the harder it was to bring up the subject—and the more scared she was about his reaction. He wasn’t the social-climber type, but she really didn’t want him to reject her—to see her as Princess Melinda, second in line to the throne of Contarini, instead of the girl practically next door who’d fallen in love with him.
But this wasn’t about her. She pushed the thoughts away and squeezed his hand. ‘You need to talk.’
‘Whatever.’ The flippant, dismissive drawl did nothing to disguise his pain.
‘Dragan, I mean it. Talk to me.’
‘There isn’t much to tell.’
‘Then tell me anyway.’ She ti
ghtened her fingers round his. ‘You trust me, don’t you?’ Even as she said it, she winced inwardly. A trust she hadn’t given to him. But this was different. She could live with her secret because it didn’t hurt her; whatever he was keeping locked inside was slowly eating him away.
‘Ye-es.’
‘Then tell me,’ she insisted softly.
He was silent for such a long time that she didn’t think he was going to talk. And then finally he spoke, his voice very low.
‘We lived in a little village on the Adriatic coast. My family had a boatyard.’
She could see it in his eyes—there was more to it than that. Much more. And she guessed that the only way she’d get him to tell her was to ask questions.
‘So you weren’t always going to be a doctor?’
He shook his head. ‘I was going into the family business when I’d finished my education.’
‘Sailing boats?’
‘In my spare time. My elder brother studied marine engineering and he was good with his hands—he designed and built the boats, just like my father. And I was the one who was good at languages and figures.’
She knew about the languages and could’ve guessed about the maths. Dragan was bright—in her view, he’d be good at absolutely anything he chose to do. ‘So you would be the finance director?’
‘For a while, then the idea was that I should take over from my father as managing director. He was going to retire and spend more time with my mother while he was still young enough to go out and about and enjoy their leisure time.’
She knew all about parents wanting to retire and expecting their children to take over. And she thanked God every day that she wasn’t the one who’d have to take over from her father. Being a girl and being second-born meant that she’d been able to choose her life—to do the job she loved instead of one that would have stifled her. ‘It sounds a good plan,’ she said. Even though she had doubts about the way it would work in her own family. She’d always thought Serena, her baby sister, would make a better job of ruling than her older brother. Rafael had too much of a wild streak.
Brides of Penhally Bay - Vol 2 Page 2