Six Sexy Doctors Part 1 (Mills & Boon e-Book Collections): A Doctor, A Nurse: A Little Miracle / The Children's Doctor and the Single Mum / A Wife for ... / The Playboy Doctor's Surprise Proposal

by Carol Marinelli

  Farther out, the farms and vineyards started. She turned ‘LEFT’ at the big tree, didn’t make the dreaded mistake of going as far as Laidlaw Mountain Road, and found Laird’s place, a modern log-cabin style house with wide verandas and huge, north-facing windows, set among a series of rolling slopes striped with rows of young vines, at the end of a long driveway. Behind the slopes rose the backdrop of the forested Dandenong Ranges.

  Laird heard the van—well, its engine was pretty loud, due to the fact that it hadn’t been running all that smoothly of late and she hadn’t had the time or money to take it to the garage—and came out to meet them. ‘No boys? That’s right, you said. When do you need to pick them up?’

  ‘They’re staying the night with my friend Mel.’

  ‘So you don’t have a curfew.’ He looked pleased.

  Tammy wished he wouldn’t do that.

  The looking-pleased thing.

  It drew her in, weakened her defences, gave her one of those giddy heart jumps that felt so scary and nice. She didn’t know what he had planned for them today, and that was scary and nice, too—the thought of doing very little in the company of a man who made her blood sing and who took care of her and smiled at her and transparently planned to kiss her later on.

  She saw his gaze settle on her mouth and stay there for too long, while he smiled. If he was already thinking about a kiss in delicious detail, so help her, so was she.

  He was casually dressed in jeans and a cream and blue polo shirt, with those same clunky work boots he’d worn to the garden centre already crusted with dried mud. He must have washed his hair this morning, though, because it shone in the sun and she could smell the clean, fresh scent of soap and shampoo and sun-dried clothes.

  Her own jeans and stretchy apricot cotton top actually felt a little less tight than they had the last time she’d worn them. She’d had a butterfly appetite this week and the scales said she’d lost two kilograms in the past month, which she couldn’t quite believe.

  Totally Laird’s fault. When she thought about him, her appetite faded.

  ‘You look good,’ he said, and rested a hand against her shoulder blades for a lingering moment as he ushered her ahead of him towards the house. She hoped Sarah wasn’t looking, and instinctively turned her head to check. She didn’t want perceptive eight-year-old-girl questions…

  No, it was fine. The girls had seen something in a nearby paddock—one that wasn’t planted with vines and was at a diagonal to the house and just behind it. Three somethings, Tammy discovered as she looked more closely. A donkey and two ponies.

  ‘Laird, you didn’t tell me you had animals!’

  ‘The kids aren’t allergic, are they, or scared? They weren’t at the zoo…’

  ‘No, the opposite. They’ll be in heaven.’

  ‘The ponies are Amira and Banana, and the donkey is Solly. He’s purely for decoration. I’m getting completely out of control with this hobby-farm thing, as you can tell.’

  ‘Oh, I can! First a house, then vineyards and orchards and ponies. What’s next, Laird?’

  ‘I have a horrible feeling it’ll be ducks and hand-reared lambs, and that I’ll be pressing grapes into wine with my own bare feet.’

  ‘You’ll have to retire from medicine to take care of it all.’

  ‘My neighbour agists several of her horses on my land for free, and takes care of these three in return.’

  ‘Better get her permission on the hand-reared lambs, then.’

  They grinned at each other.

  ‘We can saddle the ponies and give the girls a ride, if they’d like,’ Laird offered. ‘My neighbour’s kids ride them, and I’m told they’re very good-tempered and safe. As well as nice and close to the ground.’

  All three girls shrieked with excitement when they heard what was happening, and almost the whole morning was taken up with grooming and saddling, a sedate ride each for Laura and Lucy and a longer ride for Sarah in which Laird taught her some basic skills and positioning with stirrups and reins. She was in a transition phase at the moment, coming out of a little girl’s dolls and fairies and into… Tammy didn’t know quite what, and Sarah didn’t seem to either. Ballet, maybe? Tennis?

  Now the issue was settled.

  After an hour in a paddock, Sarah was totally, utterly and permanently in love with ponies.

  ‘Can I go faster?’ she asked, just as Tammy was about to tell her she’d done enough for today. ‘Can I trot?’

  ‘Would you let her trot?’ Laird asked. They looked at each other.

  ‘I’m making a commitment here, aren’t I?’ Tammy realised out loud. ‘If I let her go any further with this now, then one day I’m going to have to try and scrape up enough money for riding lessons. I’m going to have to watch her galloping over big wooden jumps with my heart in my mouth.’

  ‘Those are the implications,’ he agreed. ‘Brave enough for it?’

  Sarah was waiting for her answer. She’d brought the pony to a halt quite competently and was sitting on it with her face and shoulders screwed up tight, as if her whole destiny hinged on this moment. Despite the application of sunscreen, a scattering of freckles was already darkening on her face in the spring sunshine. She was a skinny, good-natured, energetic tomboy, and she’d been in heaven on the shaggy pony.

  ‘Horses are risky,’ Tammy murmured.

  ‘Should I talk you out of it? Life is risky. Babies get born early for no reason. Space rocks fall out of the sky.’

  ‘And people choke on apples, even though they’re good for you. I know. That’s what I’ve always believed. Embrace life, despite the risks.’

  They were still looking at each other with wry smiles and complete understanding and that zing getting louder in the air. Was Laird only asking her about the risk of ponies? What other risks was he daring her to take?

  For the moment, she only had an answer on this one.

  Tammy raised her voice. ‘You can trot, sweetheart, but listen to Laird when he tells you what to do.’

  Laird strode across the grass and gave Sarah some instructions on telling a pony to go faster, corrected her heel position in the stirrups, showed her how to squeeze back the reins. ‘He has a soft mouth, this lad, he doesn’t need you to pull hard and hurt him.’

  Sarah listened and nodded, then pulled on one rein and turned the pony towards the centre of the paddock. She kicked. Banana felt he’d had enough of carrying little girls today and didn’t move.

  ‘Harder, Sarah, you won’t hurt him. He’s being a bit lazy, wants to test out who’s boss. You have to show him it’s you.’

  Sarah nodded and kicked again. Banana ambled off at a lazy walk.

  ‘Even harder, sweetheart.’

  This time, she took the word ‘harder’ a little too much to heart. Without warning, Banana broke into a bouncy, spirited canter and raced off through the grass. Sarah screamed…and so did her mother. Was that a sound of terror or pleasure, fading in the air as Banana carried Sarah wildly away?

  ‘Oh, hell…’ Laird muttered. ‘This wasn’t supposed to happen.’

  He broke into a sprint and Tammy followed.

  Seconds later, Sarah lost her seat, lost her stirrups and fell, while Banana cantered away and then slowed and wheeled around with a sheepish sort of air, as if he was a bit embarrassed at having gone off like that. He dropped his head and started munching on the grass.

  ‘Is she…? Is she…?’ Tammy gasped as she ran.

  Was Sarah moving? She was. Her shoulders were shaking. She was sobbing. Or…

  She sat up, laughing out loud. ‘That was so-o-o fun!’

  ‘Are you hurt, Sarah?’ Tammy dropped to the grass beside her.

  Sarah matter-of-factly examined a long grass stain on her forearm that would probably turn into a bruise, and rubbed at a couple of other places on her body. ‘I’m a bit bumped,’ she said.

  ‘Were you scared, sweetheart?’

  ‘Only right when I fell off. I loved going fast.’

 
‘Let me take a little look at you, Sarah,’ Laird said.

  He did a quick neuro check then got her to turn her head, lift her arms, walk in a straight line. Tammy watched the interaction between them. Laird’s straightforward calm, Sarah’s quick obedience.

  They were good together…and Sarah really was unhurt.

  ‘Can I get back on?’ she asked eagerly.

  ‘Just to ride him over to the fence so we don’t have so far to carry the tack,’ Laird said.

  He helped her back on. Banana gave Laird’s stomach a nuzzle, as if in apology. Sarah got her feet back in the stirrups and the reins in the correct position in her hands, squared her shoulders and nudged the pony into a walk as if the fall had never happened.

  People could choke on apples, but most of the time they were delicious and crunchy and good for you.

  All three girls were adorable as they unsaddled Amira and Banana, after the alarming end to their ride, and gave the ponies and donkey some treats. They trailed after Laird, taking every one of his instructions seriously, staying away from the animals’ back legs, willing to help with whatever he asked.

  Laura and Lucy stretched up to hang the ponies’ bridles on their hooks in the little tack room at one end of an impressive shed, while Sarah insisted on lugging one of the saddles all the way from the paddock fence, even though it weighed almost as much as she did.

  By the time the ponies had been groomed and released again to roam their paddock freely, it was lunchtime. Laird had bought an assortment of pies from a local bakery earlier that morning. He put them into the oven to reheat and asked, ‘Inside or out to eat?’

  ‘Out,’ Tammy answered, so they set up a table on the veranda, and the girls chomped down their chicken and vegetable pies in about five minutes then went back to talk to Amira, Banana and Solly over the fence, while Tammy and Laird lazed over their meal and drank two cups of tea.

  They took a walk around the property, with the girls running ahead like puppies, jumping off stumps, balancing on logs, picking dandelions, chasing each other and falling into a laughing heap in the long spring grass.

  ‘It still needs a lot doing to it,’ Laird said as they headed back to the house.

  ‘Oh, yes, you’ll have to go to the garden centre nearly every week—what an unspeakable burden for you,’ Tammy answered, enthusiastic and envious on his behalf.

  He looked at her. ‘Come to the garden centre with me. Help me choose.’

  She didn’t answer, because if he hadn’t been serious, or if he changed his mind, the eager agreement that she could so easily have made would hang like a yoke around both their necks. She didn’t dare to think beyond today. ‘I’d better not. I’d make you spend too much,’ she told him lightly.

  Back at the house, the younger girls were ready for the box of dolls Tammy had put in the back of the van and Sarah still enjoyed the excuse to play at four-year-old level, while Laird wanted Tammy’s advice in the kitchen on what to feed everyone that night. ‘You’re staying, right?’

  ‘Well, we should probably—’

  ‘You’re staying.’ He leaned closer. She could feel his body warmth, smell his shampoo, and feel her own surging reaction to him.

  OK, he was right, they were staying.

  For dinner, they decided on a green salad and cheese ravioli, with a sauce they just made up out of things they found in the pantry. Canned tomatoes and chopped capers, a shake of dried herbs, a handful of crushed walnuts, parmesan cheese to go on top.

  ‘I wish we lived here,’ Sarah announced after the meal, and Tammy had to hide her head in the fridge while she put away the leftover salad, so that her face didn’t say far too clearly to Laird that she did, too.

  ‘You can’t stay the whole night, can you?’ Laird asked quietly, while the girls were packing up their dolls. ‘I shouldn’t even ask.’

  ‘Mel’s dropping the boys off at eight-thirty in the morning. Mum would be worried.’

  ‘Even if you phoned her?’

  ‘Especially if I phoned her. Laura and Lucy are tired. I really have to go. They’ve had a terrific day.’

  ‘So have I,’ said Laird quietly.

  * * *

  But the minivan wouldn’t start.

  Laird had found the chance to kiss Tammy in the kitchen at last, ten minutes earlier, and she’d had to tear herself away from the warmth of his arms. Now she had the girls all bundled in the car, yawning, and the box of dolls packed in the back. It was dark. The ponies and the donkey were quiet beneath their shelter in the paddock…

  And the wretched van just wouldn’t start.

  Which was appropriate somehow. An omen, probably.

  A perfect day, coming to a wobbly, uncomfortable, typical-for-Tammy end.

  Tammy had to phone Mum to tell her not to worry because they weren’t home yet, phone Mel to say good-night to the boys, and finally phone the road service, who took forty minutes to arrive, couldn’t get the van started either and came up with a direly expensive-sounding list of things that needed to be done to it before it could be driven again.

  They towed it away to the garage Laird recommended, by which time the girls’ yawns had turned into fretfulness and complaints. It was way past their bedtime.

  ‘I’ll drive you,’ Laird said.

  When they pulled up in her driveway after eleven o’clock, Laura, Lucy and Sarah were all asleep in his back seat, and Mum had to be asleep out the back because there were no lights on. Tammy had told her not to wait up for them. Laird carried Sarah inside, while Tammy carried Laura, then she changed the half-asleep girls into their nightwear while Laird went back to the car for Lucy.

  It was eleven-thirty by the time they were settled.

  Tammy came back downstairs and straight into Laird’s waiting arms, not because she’d planned to but because he was standing there waiting for her in the living-room and he held them out and she couldn’t…didn’t want to…do anything else. ‘Come here, you…’

  ‘Thank you for today.’

  ‘Stop. No talking.’

  He kissed her, tenderly at first, as if to soothe away the bumps in their evening, then harder and deeper because the need had built up inside him all day. Tammy could feel the release of it now all through his strong body—an eagerness and urgency and celebration of the fact that he had her alone at last.

  She couldn’t believe that he wanted her so much, couldn’t understand why, couldn’t trust it, but felt herself swept away with it anyhow, because she didn’t have enough strength to say no. There was just a chance she could fight him, but she couldn’t fight herself at the same time.

  ‘Here or upstairs?’ he said. ‘Tammy, I want this so much.’ He ran his hands over her breasts beneath their thin covering of outer cotton and inner lace, and over the tops of her thighs, and that too-curvy and generous jeans-clad rear end that was supposed to protect her from something like this.

  ‘It’s brutal, how much I want this,’ he muttered. He pulled at her cotton top and she helped him take it over her head and discard it on the floor.

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Can’t you feel it?’ He bent to make a trail of kisses down her neck, toward the valley between her breasts.

  Yes. But can I trust it?

  Could she trust him or herself or the future or anything?

  He slid the straps of her bra down her arms, pulled his own shirt over his head, wrapped his arms hard around her again so that they stood skin to skin from the waist up, just two pairs of grass-stained jeans in the way of full intimacy. ‘Stop me now, if you’re going to, because…’ He broke off and swore. ‘I just want this.’

  ‘I want it, too,’ she whispered. She couldn’t fight it any longer, couldn’t remember all the reasons for saying no.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Perfect.’

  He ran his fingers around the back of her neck and up into her hair, painting kisses onto her skin in a dozen different places. Now that they both knew it was going to
happen, there was no impatience or rush. He seemed to want to linger, to explore, to claim her whole body bit by bit, kiss by kiss.

  She touched him, too, intensely aroused by the newness of him, by everything her senses began to learn about the way he felt and tasted. She’d lost track of the passing minutes by the time he brought his hands to the waistband of her jeans and whispered, ‘Can we take these off? I want to hold you against me. I want to touch you…’

  ‘Mmm.’ Tammy unsnapped the fastening—not on her jeans but on his—and found him straining against the softer cotton of his dark-coloured briefs.

  She felt a powerful, aching surge of anticipation at the thought of his size, of the way he would fill her, and was a little shocked at the greediness of her response. No denying it, though, she wanted him big and as close as a man could ever be. They both slid down their jeans and underwear and left them on the floor, forgotten.

  ‘Oh,’ he gasped as she touched him.

  She felt him shudder as he wrapped his arms around her, and knew that they weren’t going to be slow and unhurried about this for much longer, which meant…

  ‘Do you have something?’ she gabbled on a breathless, inpatient whisper. He felt like hot satin, and she felt a terrible, aching temptation to forget that kind of caution about birth control—but she couldn’t. ‘Protection, I mean…’

  He took his hot mouth away from her neck. ‘I do. Do we need it?’

  ‘You’ve seen the size of my family, Laird. I’d have thought my fertility was well and truly proven.’

  ‘So after the triplets, you didn’t…? I mean, you could still have more children.’

  ‘Yes, so…’

  ‘Yes, OK. Wait.’ He held her shoulders and lowered her to the couch, then kissed her until they almost forgot what had given them pause. Eventually he let her go and she watched him as he went in search of his wallet, loving the strength and ease and unselfconsciousness of his body in the bluish darkness, loving the instant heat of him as soon as he came back to her. ‘You feel so good,’ he whispered.