Rescued by Dr. Rafe

by Annie Claydon

  ‘What next? Since you seem to have a plan.’ Whatever it was, she had really wanted to hear it.

  ‘Call it a fantasy.’ He’d nuzzled against her neck, running his hands across her body. ‘You up for that?’

  ‘Fantasy night...? Yes, I’m up for it.’

  He’d had to help her unbutton his shirt because her hands had been shaking with anticipation. When he was naked, his clothes flung in an untidy heap on the floor, he’d broken away from her kisses, moved the chair a few inches and sat down again, his legs stretched out in front of him.

  ‘Come here, honey...’

  He’d settled her on to his lap, astride his legs. She had been completely exposed to him, her back reflected in the mirror.

  ‘You like what you see?’

  ‘You know I do, Mimi. More than I can say.’ Rafe had spread his hands possessively across her back. ‘I want to see everything. Touch every part of you.’

  She’d clung to him as his gentle hands did just that and she’d been blind to anything other than Rafe. When he’d lifted her, she’d reached to guide him inside, sighing with him as he’d lowered her back down.

  ‘You like what you feel?’ He’d whispered the words, his breath caressing her neck.

  ‘I love what I feel.’

  The heat had started to build. Locked in each other’s gaze, breathing together, hearts beating together more and more urgently. His hands had found her hips, suddenly clamping firm, moving her in the urgent rhythm that her body craved.

  ‘Rafe...I can’t wait...’

  ‘Then don’t.’

  He’d seemed intent on making her come as fast and as hard as he could, and she’d known that if he kept this up he would get exactly what he wanted.

  ‘Just let go, honey...’

  The fantasy vanished abruptly as Rafe jammed his foot on the brake and the car jolted to a halt. Four other cars were all trying to negotiate the forecourt of the hotel and the man standing outside, trying to direct the traffic, wasn’t helping very much. Rafe wound down the window, exchanging good-natured hand signals, and the car that had shot out in front of them backed up.

  She could still almost taste his kisses. The last time they’d been here together, she’d been thinking about them for days, but then she’d been basking in a rosy glow of satisfaction and now the memories just left her hanging.

  ‘Sorry...’ Rafe was looking at her, and Mimi realised she’d let out a gasp when the car had stopped and she’d been thrown forward against her seat belt.

  ‘Okay. His fault; he was lucky you managed to miss him.’ She tried to swallow down the languorous warmth that she heard in her voice.

  ‘Getting a bit crowded around here...’ He waved another car past and pulled on to the main driveway, which led back on to the road.

  ‘Yeah.’ Too many memories. Mimi wondered if Rafe could feel them, hovering in the air. It was impossible to tell; his face was impassive, his gaze trained on the route ahead.

  He had been a wonderful lover. Tender, thoughtful, with enough raw passion that they’d lost themselves in each other. But now they’d both found their way again. It was just a pity they’d only been able to do that when they were apart.

  The car turned back on to the main road, clear of the water that had blocked their path. ‘What’s the next call again?’ It was better to keep her mind on the job. Better to stop re-examining old wounds and concentrate on moving forward.

  ‘It’s a Mrs Potter. The controllers couldn’t get much sense out of her; all she would say was that her son might be unwell.’

  ‘Might be?’

  ‘We’ll see.’

  It turned out that Mrs Potter was panicking because she couldn’t get in touch with her son on the phone. Rafe had swallowed the frustration that Mimi knew he must feel and spent a few minutes checking the number that she was calling. The addition of a zero at the beginning worked wonders and her son answered immediately, clearly in the best of health. They left her in the sitting room, talking animatedly on the phone, and let themselves out.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THREE MORE CALLS and Rafe had successfully managed to scrub the Manor Hotel from his mind. He was about to congratulate himself on that, and then realised that remembering to congratulate yourself on forgetting something was a contradiction in terms.

  He could do with stretching his legs, and there were no more calls for them to respond to. ‘Time to take a break?’

  Mimi nodded. ‘The park’s only five minutes away.’

  That was exactly what he had in mind. The nature park’s picnic area was likely to be deserted and the trestle tables would be too wet to use, but there was a nice view. Maybe Mimi needed to stretch her legs too.

  ‘Stop!’

  Rafe heard Mimi rap out the word at the same time as he saw two small creatures ahead of them, standing in the middle of the road, and braked sharply. As he skidded to a halt, the pair didn’t move.

  ‘What the blazes...?’ The tiny animals clearly weren’t wild or they’d be long gone by now instead of regarding them solemnly. Wet and bedraggled, they seemed to be all eyes and shivering limbs and very little else.

  ‘It’s Tommy and Tallulah.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Tommy and Tallulah. They must have escaped from the petting zoo.’ She reached for the passenger door, opening it slowly so as not to spook the animals.

  ‘Where’s the petting zoo?’ Rafe didn’t recollect a petting zoo in the area and he supposed it must be a new addition.

  ‘Not far. Jack and I took Ellie there and she had a whale of a time.’ Mimi started to walk slowly towards the animals and Rafe got out of the car.

  ‘Ellie...?’ Clearly a lot had been happening in the last five years and he needed to catch up.

  ‘Oh, sorry. I didn’t tell you, did I. Ellie is Jack’s little girl. She’ll be five at Christmas. She loves the petting zoo.’

  Rafe tried to get his head around an arithmetical problem that seemed simple but obviously wasn’t. ‘Did I miss something? Jack wasn’t even married...’

  ‘No, he wasn’t... Isn’t... It’s complicated. He didn’t know about Ellie...’ Mimi’s attention was on the tiny creatures ahead of them. ‘Come on, sweetie... Tallulah...’ She advanced towards the closer of the pair, which regarded her steadily.

  ‘What exactly are they?’ They looked like tiny bundles of wet fur with little hooves and big eyes. Given the rather more pressing possibility that Mimi might be about to get bitten, Rafe decided to leave the question of Jack’s love life until later.

  ‘Miniature goats. Get with it, Rafe...’

  ‘Okay. You take the white one and I’ll get the one with the brown splodges.’ Rafe eyed up his goat warily, wondering how fast a miniature goat could run.

  Clearly Mimi was a better goat whisperer than he was. She walked right up to hers and bent down, picking it up carefully in her arms. ‘There you go, Tallulah. What are you doing here, sweetie...?’

  Tommy took one look at Rafe and turned, trotting along the road away from them. Rafe followed, and Tommy picked up the pace a little.

  ‘Get him, Rafe.’ Mimi chose that moment to shout an encouragement and Tommy took fright, trotting into the long grass at the side of the road.

  How fast could a miniature goat run, anyway? Rafe walked up to the animal and made a lunge for it and it darted to one side, cantering towards a clump of trees. It was certainly agile enough.

  He heard Mimi let out a cry of dismay behind him and ignored her. If he was going to be outwitted by a goat, he’d actually prefer that it didn’t have to happen with an audience. ‘All right, then, mate. It’s just you and me...’

  Apparently this was some kind of game. Tommy stood stock-still, waiting for Rafe to approach and then dashed for cover. Rafe might be a lot
bigger, but Tommy had four legs and was quick on them. A final desperate lunge and Rafe tripped on a tree root, crashing down on to the wet leaves.

  ‘All right. You win.’ Rafe rolled over on to his back and Tommy approached. They regarded each other steadily and Rafe reached out towards him. Tommy nuzzled at his hand and then tried to climb up on to his chest.

  Carefully, Rafe wrapped his arms around him. Tommy trained his innocent eyes on to him, and Rafe unzipped his jacket, allowing the small, shivering animal to nestle against his chest.

  Gingerly he got to his feet. Tommy seemed quite happy where he was now and was trying to eat his sweater. Rafe climbed the bank, back up to the road, and saw Mimi, sitting in the front seat of the car, her head bent over Tallulah, who was lying in her lap, wrapped in Mimi’s ambulance service jacket.

  ‘Poor little thing; look...’ Mimi was wearing a pair of surgical gloves and had his surgical scissors in her hand. She looked up at him and frowned. ‘You’ve got wet leaves all over you.’

  ‘Yes, I know. Spare me the details. What are you doing?’

  ‘She’s got a piece of plastic wrapped around her leg. Look, it’s bleeding.’ Two pairs of wide brown eyes were trained on him and Rafe frowned. This was an unfair advantage.

  ‘You’re not a vet, Mimi.’

  ‘I know that. We’re Good Samaritans.’ She snipped the tight plastic away from Tallulah’s leg, exposing a red raw wound. ‘There. That’s better, isn’t it, sweetie.’ She bent down, allowing Tallulah to lick her cheek.

  There was no point in telling her that it wasn’t a good idea to allow random animals to lick your face, or to mention that the scissors would have to be sterilised now. He had another pair somewhere. ‘All right, so where is this petting zoo, then?’

  ‘Half a mile along that track.’ Mimi pointed to a new road that branched off ahead of them, leading into the trees.

  ‘Right. We’ll get them back there as quickly as we can.’ Rafe wasn’t about to admit that the large eyes and little shivering bodies of the goats had made him wonder whether taking them back to his house was an option. He got into the car, depositing Tommy at Mimi’s feet, where he nuzzled against her legs.

  ‘Drive slowly. We don’t want them flying around...’

  No. Flying goats were the last thing he wanted. ‘If we get a call...’ If they got a call, he wasn’t entirely sure what he was going to do. People before animals always, but Rafe was not sure that he could bring himself to dump Tommy and Tallulah.

  ‘We won’t.’ Mimi hugged Tallulah close on her lap. ‘It won’t take us long.’

  * * *

  He drove slowly into a large paved area, surrounded by low buildings. A woman appeared from one of them, jogging out towards the car. When she saw Tallulah in Mimi’s lap she smiled broadly.

  ‘Thank you so much...you’ve brought her back.’ She opened the car door and Tommy jumped out, nuzzling at her legs. ‘And Tommy, too.’

  Rafe couldn’t help grinning at the little creatures’ obvious joy at being back home. He’d meant to just drive away and leave them, but instead he got out of the car, opening the passenger door so that Mimi could carry Tallulah.

  ‘Do you have to go yet?’ The woman looked at the ambulance markings on Mimi’s jacket, and Mimi looked up at him imploringly.

  ‘Not for a minute. We’re on a meal break.’

  ‘Well, come inside and eat. I’ll make some tea.’ The woman smiled up at him. ‘I’m so grateful you brought them back. The rain washed away some of the fences last night, and some of the animals escaped. We’ve tracked down all the others, but we couldn’t find Tommy and Tallulah.’

  ‘They didn’t get too far.’ Mimi followed the woman inside the building. ‘But Tallulah has a wound on her leg, where she got caught in an old plastic bag.’

  The woman gave a tut of disapproval. ‘I wish that people would think before they leave those things lying around in the countryside. You wouldn’t believe the number of animals that are injured by them one way or another.’

  She led the way through to a room that was kitted out with examination benches, not so different from a hospital surgery, only generally speaking the hospital didn’t have cages for its patients. A young man appeared, white coat and all, and set about examining the wound on Tallulah’s leg.

  Mimi showed no signs of wanting to leave just yet and Rafe picked up her jacket, brushing the inside down. There were a few wet patches but they would dry in the car. Something nuzzled at his legs and a plaintive bleat reached his ears.

  Tommy had been towelled dry and looked even more appealing now. Big eyes and a fluffy brown and white coat. Rafe bent down to pet him.

  ‘Oh, look. He likes you.’ The woman set two cups of tea down on the counter and Mimi took one, thanking her.

  ‘I think he likes my sweater, actually.’ Tommy was busy trying to nibble at his sleeve.

  ‘Yeah. Goats. They’ll eat anything.’ The woman bent down, nudging Tommy away from Rafe’s arm, and he started to lick his hand.

  ‘It’s not much of a hole. You could darn that.’ Mimi was sipping her tea, looking at him speculatively.

  ‘Darn it?’ He raised an eyebrow. The Mimi he knew couldn’t sew on a button and, unless she’d fundamentally changed in the last five years, darning was way out of her skill set.

  ‘I said you could darn it.’ For a moment the old warmth flashed between them and Rafe found himself snagged in a tingling sensation, which reached all the way to his heart.

  ‘It’s an old sweater.’ He stood up to collect his tea and Tommy followed him over to the counter.

  ‘Be careful. He’ll be wanting to go home with you.’ Mimi chuckled and he saw the smile that up till now she’d kept for her patients and for Tallulah. This time it was unmistakably his, and Rafe found himself luxuriating in it.

  ‘He’s a great little guy.’ Rafe took a swig of his tea and bent down to stroke Tommy’s head.

  The vet looked up from his patient, smiling. ‘Well, she’s okay. Just a bit of a scrape and the skin’s broken where she tried to untangle herself. All she did was manage to pull the plastic even tighter. It was acting as a tourniquet, so it’s a good thing you got it off when you did.’

  Mimi nodded. ‘I’m glad she’s all right. I bet you’ve had a lot of animals brought in here after the flooding.’

  ‘Quite a few. Not so much domestic pets—people are keeping them inside mostly—but a lot of wild animals have been washed out of their homes by the floods. We’ve had birds, foxes, voles, you name it. Even a couple of grass snakes.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah.’ The vet pointed to a large, leaf-lined aquarium in a quiet corner of the room. At first glance there was nothing in it, but then Rafe saw something green coiled around one of the tree branches, which was propped against the glass. ‘Take a look if you like. But don’t get too close; they’re very shy and you’ll spook them.’

  Rafe smiled as she approached the container warily, stopping a couple of feet away from it. ‘I can see them...’ Her voice was hushed with wonder. He wanted to walk over and fold her in his arms so they could watch the shy creatures together.

  His phone rang. Mimi turned and the moment was gone.

  Resisting the temptation to pull his phone from his pocket and stamp on it, he looked at the caller display. He shrugged and took the call, listening carefully to the instructions that the ambulance controller was reading out at the other end.

  ‘Got to go?’

  ‘Yep.’ Rafe checked the text that had just arrived, confirming the name and address of their next call. ‘Got to go.’

  * * *

  Men holding small fluffy animals with big eyes. Rafe, with his strong arms and gentle way, and a small fluffy animal with big eyes. It was a little too much to bear.

  Maybe it was em
ptiness in her stomach causing that pang. More likely, it was the thought of Rafe’s tenderness, and her own instinctive reaction. There was only one thing that could have struck any closer to her heart.

  ‘Where are we headed?’ Mimi tried to switch back into professional mode.

  ‘One of the farms, out by the A375. Three-month-old baby.’

  If Mimi had been alone, she would have screamed and buried her head in her hands. What was this? Did fate have some sort of grudge against her? If the sight of Tommy in Rafe’s arms had pushed all her buttons, then a baby was going to be even worse.

  ‘A baby?’ She tried to keep her tone level. Maybe Rafe would decide that it wasn’t medically necessary to pick the child up.

  ‘Yep. Probably just colic, but we’ll make sure.’

  ‘Yes. Good to make sure.’ He was going to pick it up, she just knew it. Maybe a baby throwing up all over him wouldn’t be so mind-bendingly difficult to watch. Mimi wasn’t at all sure that would be the case.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE TRACK WHICH led to the farmhouse was submerged and the house itself surrounded by almost a foot of muddy water. Rafe parked on the road and got out of the car.

  ‘Looks as if we’re getting our feet wet.’ Mimi surveyed the muddy, rippling water in front of them. Her wellingtons were in her car, which was still parked back at the hospital.

  Rafe opened the back of the SUV and leaned in, pushing bags and boxes to one side and pulling out a pair of heavy-duty wellington boots. At least he’d be keeping dry. Perhaps she could roll her trouser legs up far enough to avoid the water.

  ‘Want a lift?’ Rafe was grinning broadly.

  No. The idea of being carried around like a rag doll didn’t much appeal to her. The idea of being carried around by Rafe... Mimi swallowed hard.

  ‘Come on.’ He’d obviously had second thoughts about teasing her, and was now trying to keep his face straight. Somehow that was worse. ‘We’ve got more to do today, remember? There’s no time to go home and change.’