Just One Kiss (Hearts of the Outback Book 1)

by Susanne Bellamy

  “What was that?”

  Amy didn’t need the distraction of his rambling thoughts. “Shakespeare. Can I do anything?”

  “No. I just need to get us out of here like thirty minutes ago.” Amy radioed to base that they were taking off, having already lodged her altered flight plan. As she taxied to the end of the strip and turned for takeoff, she glanced across. “The storm has grown more quickly than I expected. This will be a rough trip.”

  Amy took off smoothly, considering the raw state of the remote runway. The Beechcraft climbed steadily to cruising altitude and she adjusted her course to the new flight plan. Through the side window, she kept an eye on the massive storm cell while monitoring the gauges and radio. Concentrating on her controls and the rapidly deteriorating weather updates left no time for chatting with Dan, who sat quietly, hands resting on his knees.

  Miles from its usual route, off their starboard wing, a 747 was giving the storm a wide berth. The radio crackled as the commercial flight captain made contact. “RFD, Qantas 321, just advising poor weather ahead. It’s closing fast. Suggest diverting to nearest secure landing. Repeat, storm closing fast behind us. You’re heading into a ring of storms. Over.”

  “Qantas 321, RFD. Thanks for warning. We are turning back now. Over and out.” Banking the plane in a slow, easy turn, Amy reset her co-ordinates before she contacted base and alerted them to the change of plan.

  “Sorry, Dan, we’re not going to get home tonight.” Turbulence juddered the plane and they dropped suddenly in a pocket of air. Amy scanned the ground for emergency landing sites and hoped against hope it wouldn’t come to that. Her hand slipped on the joystick and she wiped her fingers down her trouser-clad thigh. Would they make it back to the settlement before the wild storm caught up with their little plane?

  “You’ll get us home safely, Captain Just Amy. We’re in good hands with you at the controls.” Dan’s voice was steady and his eyes and smile reflected his confidence in her.

  She drew a steadying breath and eased her grip on the controls. “Yep. Gotta look after my passengers. So, best song titles for our situation, Doctor Dan?”

  He thought of his study session the previous evening and grinned. “’Don’t Bring Me Down’.”

  “ELO! How old is that one?” Amy snorted. “Are you sure you don’t want me to land this bird? Or we could—you know—keep going ‘On the Wings of an Eagle’.”

  “Old it may be, and yet, you know it.”

  The heavy beat of the song played in her mind against the background bass of distant thunder. “My parents used to listen to ELO. Got anything more recent than before I was born?”

  “It was a top ten song in 1979 and, coincidentally, before I was born too. Still your turn.”

  “’Riders on the Storm’, and it’s your fault I’m back in the 70s.”

  “Top twenty in the US in 1971. How old did you say you were?”

  “How do you know all those dates? Are you a secret trivia fanatic?”

  “I used to play old 70s music when I was studying. It made the nights pass more quickly and I linked information with certain songs. A sort of mnemonic that got me through med. school.” Dan hummed a couple of bars from The Doors’ chorus then segued into the Bee Gees’ ‘Stayin’ Alive’.

  Dan’s memory for music trivia was kind of endearing and geeky all rolled into one. Amy thanked her lucky stars he’d taken over from Dr Fraser who had never been a great passenger. The middle-aged doctor would have been clutching a spew bag by now.

  “I Will Survive.” Amy thought of her mum belting out that song at karaoke nights when they came into town. Pretending embarrassment, secretly she’d been proud of her mum’s singing and confidence. Something she’d never have. Not in this lifetime.

  “How about ’Stairway to Heaven’.” Dan’s offering coincided with several seconds of buffeting as the storm roared up behind them.

  Descending further, Amy peered ahead into the dim western sky for a glimpse of the settlement. “That one’s plain creepy at this moment. ‘Summer Breeze’, that’s a nicer thought. Keep your eyes peeled, Doc. And see if you can raise Bill to turn on as many lights as they can for us.”

  “Will do.” Calmly, Dan worked the radio but it was several tense minutes before Bill’s voice responded to their call.

  “We’ll set flares out. Electricity supply is down and the generator’s playing up.” The elder’s comment sank like a stone in Amy’s stomach. Could anything else go wrong tonight?

  Fully occupied with controlling the rocking plane, Amy wished her co-pilot hadn’t picked today of all days to call in sick. Another pair of hands on the controls would have been welcome.

  “Anything I can do, Amy?” At least Dan didn’t sound like a passenger in panic mode. Calm seemed to surround him. Okay, maybe she was happy he occupied the co-pilot’s seat.

  “Can you see— there’s the flares. Hang tight. This will be a bumpy landing.” Amy lowered the flaps and eased back on her speed. With a thud and a bounce and a judder, she applied the brakes as the light flares rushed past in her peripheral vision. Finally, the plane stopped and she exhaled loudly.

  “Always wanted to know what a joey felt in its mother’s pouch as they bounced along.” Dan touched her forearm.

  She turned and met his gaze. “And now you do.”

  “Well done, Captain Just Amy.”

  A ridiculous prickling threatened her vision and she blinked several times. “All in a day’s work, Doctor Dan. Come on, let’s get this baby tied down.”

  ##

  Soaked to the skin, Dan raced back to join Amy as she struggled with the last tie-down strap. Wind and fat plops of rain had quickly become a torrential downpour, buffeting the plane and making their task more difficult. She tightened the rope and stood, staggering against his chest under the onslaught lashing them. Lightning split the darkness and he grabbed her hand, wrapping the other arm around her waist. Together they weaved a path towards the clinic, all but falling into reception as gusting wind ripped the door from Dan’s wet hand.

  He leaned his weight against the door and shut out the forces of nature. At the sudden cessation of rain lashing him from all angles, he exhaled and rested his forehead on the wood before turning to Amy. Above the roar of wind and thundering rain on the tin roof, he heard and saw nothing until white light stabbed a path through the impenetrable darkness and her hand reached past her phone flashlight. Cold fingers clasped his and she tugged him into the inner surgery.

  Slamming the door, she slid down the wall and drew him down to sit beside her.

  Shirt and trousers were plastered to his skin and water dripped down his face from his too-long hair but at least now they were sheltered. Rubbing a hand across his face, he leaned close so she could hear him. Sweet apple shampoo scented her hair and tickled his senses. “Are you okay?”

  “I know I’m alive.” And then she laughed. Not that he could hear her above the storm, but her phone torch revealed a Cheshire cat grin and her arm brushed across his.

  A simple brush of skin on skin shouldn’t have made him so—aware of her. But the chill of the storm vanished as his senses became ultra-tuned to her touch, and her scent, and the way her white shirt clung to her breasts.

  Muscles tense, he eased away and created space between them. Maybe he should head back outside. At least the distraction of pelting rain might take his mind off the woman shivering next to him. Shivering?

  Amy dropped her phone in her lap and rubbed her arms. Were her teeth chattering?

  “Are you cold?”

  “How c . . . c . . . could you tell?”

  “Come closer—if you want to.” He waited for her to choose, wanting and not wanting her to move nearer. All week she’d maintained her distance and several times, he’d caught Johnno watching him as he moved through the hangar. But he wouldn’t push her. Amy needed space and time to put Sharyn’s nastiness behind her.

  His heart pounded as that night in Gosford tore through his mem
ory. Carissa coming onto him in the pharmacy, pressing up against him. ‘I so love working with you, Dan. Maybe we could—you know—get to know one another much better.’ Wrapping her arms around his neck, rubbing against him. ‘Dan, you want me, you know you’—her gaze flicking to the door and suddenly she was pushing him away—‘let me go.’ He’d been trying to free himself when her uncle walked in on them and all hell broke loose.

  Struggling for breath as familiar tightness banded around his chest, his hands clenched. Not once but twice he’d been put in an invidious position.

  Amy covered his hand with her cold one and squeezed. “That’s a generous offer, Dan, all things considered. I wouldn’t take you up on it if I didn’t think I was going to shake every tooth loose.” She shuffled across the wooden floor and leaned against his chest.

  Backed into the corner but longing to hold her, he dropped an arm over her shoulders. Goosebumps disappeared as he rubbed a hand up and down her cool flesh. “Better?”

  She nodded and sighed, the sound transmitted through her lips against his neck.

  Touch, scent, the sound of voice as she joked about their situation, and the sight of her smiling mouth . . . Four senses sparked and fizzed. Suddenly, desperately, insanely, he longed for the fifth. One proper taste of her lips . . . And where would that leave them? Him? Desperate not to muck this up, he grabbed the last thing he remembered.

  “What did you mean, ‘all things considered’?”

  “I know how hard this must be for you. I understand, truly.”

  “Because of Gosford?”

  Beneath his fingers, her skin warmed with his rubbing while dread chill raced through him. She knew about Gosford. That wretched false allegation had been thrown out eventually and Carissa had been disciplined and transferred to a different hospital, but the stain on his integrity burned like a fresh, raw brand. Wherever he worked, the fact the falsehood had existed would make people wonder about him. Even Amy . . .

  “You can’t know how bad it can be. When everybody knows—”

  “I’m sure no one knows. But if they did, they wouldn’t care. At least, not now they’re getting to know you. Do you really want to continue our pretence?” She lifted her head.

  From her tone of voice, he expected to see pity in her gaze. Or Amy with her ‘I’m trying to help’ hat firmly in place. Either would be unbearable.

  In the spill of light from her phone, she tipped her head back until their gazes connected. Hazel eyes darkened and a hint of the mints she sucked while she was flying teased his nose. There were no recriminations and pity was missing, thank God. But for some reason, she looked disappointed.

  “Do you really believe they don’t care? Mud sticks.” He knew all about the surreptitious glances from mere acquaintances.

  “Mud? I don’t understand.”

  “Most people aren’t so accepting.”

  “Honestly, Dan, that’s Stone Age thinking. Nobody gives a damn if you prefer your own sex.” Her eyelashes lowered, hiding her expression, and she pulled away.

  In place of her lush body pressed against his, cold clarity washed through him. “What are you talking about? I meant—”

  She thought he was gay? Like pieces of a jigsaw falling into place, her sometimes-odd behaviour around him made sense. Amy had been protecting him.

  Dan didn’t know whether to laugh or not at the absurdity of her deduction. He had mates and colleagues who proudly proclaimed gay pride and with whom he had marched and drank and shared a flat. And he’d brought his girlfriend du jour to their parties. He appreciated women, loved working with them. But Amy was different, special, and keeping her at a distance had been a new form of torment. And now this? Wanting her as he did, it was the ultimate irony.

  “Amy, I’m not gay.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Amy shook her head, but her assumption about Dan couldn’t be wrong.

  Could it? Because if it was, that meant he didn’t like her. Not like that. Period. Nothing more to say. She was the loser in the Relationships Stakes, just like her poor nag running last at the Cloncurry races. Why should that surprise her? Just one of the boys, she was. Good old Amy. Great to have around when your car broke down, or when you wanted a lasagne baked. But as real girlfriend material?

  She sat back on her heels and eyed him like a bug on her windshield. “If you’re not gay, why did you ask me to pretend to be your girlfriend? Why not ask someone more believable, like Lizzy?” Anger born of mixed emotions reared its head and she poked him in the chest. “What’s wrong with me then?”

  The air in the tiny surgery supercharged with more electricity than raged outside. Dan’s nostrils flared and he took hold of her hand and held it against his chest. “Clearly we were talking about different things. My version of ‘all things considered’ isn’t about you thinking I’m gay. It’s about what happened before—”

  Savagely he bit off the rest of his sentence and pushed to his feet. She swung around, aware her mouth hung open at his outburst. He took two strides and she saw no more as her phone toppled onto the floor and plunged the room into darkness.

  “Amy, are you okay?”

  Shuffling footsteps were followed by a thud, a swear word, and the sound of the metal desk scraping over wooden floorboards.

  Groping for her phone, her fingers closed over a leather boot. As it slid along the floor she yelped. “Stand still. I’m right in front of you.”

  Dan’s hand touched her hair but his feet stayed in the same place.

  With her left hand she felt around, leaning out further and frantically patting the floor. On all fours, she touched the leather phone case just as Dan switched on his phone. The torch beam projected a monstrous shadow of her onto the wall and she swivelled around quickly to face him. He’d probably been treated to a blinder of a view of her rear end poking up in the air.

  Dan rested his backside on the edge of the desk and placed his phone beside his hip, its beam pointing to the ceiling. As far away from her as the room allowed, she noted miserably. Her anger seeped away into the darkness. Leaning against the wall, she pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs.

  “Are you okay? I didn’t step on your fingers, did I?”

  “No.” Meeting his gaze was out of the question. Embarrassment seemed to stalk their interactions out of the plane. Maybe she should just accept that was karma for chucking a wobbly at him the day they met.

  “Amy?”

  “I’m sorry I got the wrong end of the stick about you. Can we leave it at that?”

  “How did you come to that conclusion? Just so I know for next time.”

  If the floor would open up and swallow her right about now, she’d not complain. Rain drumming on the tin roof eased into a softer rhythm. “When you refused my invitation and then Mike invited you to join us and you smiled at him and scowled at me—”

  “I didn’t scowl at you. I was guilty that I’d been caught out having a pub meal after knocking back your invite but I didn’t scowl.”

  “You scowled. And then you were really standoffish with all the young women at work but chummy with the blokes and I thought— I was wrong. Get over it.” She lowered her gaze.

  “Amy, it’s not what you’re thinking.”

  “You used me to keep the man-eater at bay. I’m just one of the boys and—”

  “Stop right there. You’ve got it completely wrong.”

  “How? Look at you, way over the far side of the room.”

  Frustration spiked and he gripped the edge of the desk. “So help me, Amy, just listen for once. I’ve wanted to get to know you since I first saw you but we started off on the wrong foot. And there was Gosford, looming over me like a pall of smog.”

  “I get that it was tough, but I told you I believed you. So why did you need to pretend to like me like—that?”

  “You told me you just wanted to be friends.” And look how well that turned out. He had hoped to build on the friendship she was prepared to o
ffer and show her that he really cared. Love hadn’t been on the cards but he’d fallen for Amy. Hard.

  “I liked you but I thought you preferred men. And it shouldn’t have hurt but it did.”

  He tipped his head and hope, like a tiny white butterfly, fluttered in his brain. “You liked me?”

  “Yes, Dan, I like you. Present tense. And I accept that friendship is what you’re offering me.”

  She liked him. Dan couldn’t get past that one, wonderful, hope-inspiring statement. “Why do you think there can’t be more than that?”

  “From your kisses. You kissed me like—a friend.”

  “So did you.”

  “I thought—”

  “Don’t say it.” He held up one hand. Amy’s misapprehension was laughable, ironic when he thought of the nights he’d fallen asleep with dreams of her. “With the number of cold showers I’ve had since I met you, I can only be thankful I don’t live in Antarctica.”

  Amy shook her head. “If you wanted something more than friendship, you wouldn’t be on the other side of the room.” Shoulders hunched, she pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs.

  “If I sit beside you, I won’t be wanting to talk, Amy.”

  That brought her head up and her gaze collided with his. “You won’t?”

  “No. Do you know how often I’ve imagined kissing you? Not a peck on the cheek but properly, so you know exactly how I really feel about you.”

  “You know, Doctor Dan, they call me Tweety Bird but it seems to me you’re the one doing an awful lot of talking.”

  “We’ve played song titles and hunt the torch. Or was that a version of Blind Man’s Bluff? What else is there to do in a storm?”

  She kneeled up, her body leaning towards his. “Come over here and let’s find out.”

  Dan slid down the wall beside her, his eyes darker than before.