by Amy Andrews
‘Well, we’d better get you to Skye. Do you think between us we can manage to get you into my car? It’ll be quicker than calling the ambulance.’
James ran assessing eyes over her. He doubted she’d be much help at all, there wasn’t much to her. But he was strong and at the moment he’d go with any option that got him to medical attention as fast as possible. ‘Sure.’
Helen nodded and left him to bring her car closer. She performed another U-turn and pulled it up as close to James as possible. She opened the back door.
‘You might as well lie along the back seat.’
Helen hoped she’d sounded more confident than she felt. Looking down at him, she wondered how they were going to manage it. There was a lot of him. He was a tall, beefy guy, his build evident despite his recumbent posture.
She remembered the things she had resolutely ignored during her assessment of him. The bulk of his chest, the span of his biceps and the thickness of his quads beneath her hands. He was all man. Still, his musculature had hinted that he took good care of himself. She hoped so. She hoped he was strong enough to lift his bulk because at a petite five two he dwarfed her.
James looked behind him and shuffled his bottom until he was lined up with the open door. ‘I can lift myself in if you can support my leg.’
Helen nodded. She knelt to position her hands beneath his splint. She felt him tense and glanced up at him. She noticed the blueness of his eyes for the first time. They were breathtaking. A magnificent turquoise fringed by long sooty lashes. Was it fair for a man to have such beautiful eyes?
She blinked. ‘Does it hurt?’
He nodded.
Even through his overnight growth of stubble she noticed the tautness around his mouth and realised what it was costing him to sit stoically.
‘It’s going to hurt more,’ she said softly, knowing there was no way they could accomplish the next manoeuvres without causing more pain.
He nodded again. ‘I know.’
‘We could wait for Tom. He carries morphine in the ambulance.’
He shook his head and she watched as his thick wavy hair with its occasional grey streaks bounced with the movement and fell across his forehead.
‘No. Let’s just get it over with.’
She nodded. ‘Ready?’
James placed his hands on the car behind him, bent his left leg again and pushed down through his triceps, lifting his bottom off the ground. A pain tore through his fracture site and he grunted and screwed up his face as he placed his rear in the footwell. He shut his eyes and bit his tongue to stop from groaning out loud at the agony seizing his leg.
‘You OK?’ Helen asked, supporting his leg gently as she noted the sweat beading his brow and his laboured breathing.
James nodded. He felt nausea wash through his system as the pain gnawed away unabated. He had to keep going. If he stopped now he’d never get himself in the car and the pain would kill him. He placed one hand up on the seat and repeated the movement again, lifting his buttocks onto the padded material.
James muttered an expletive and then looked at Helen with apologetic eyes. ‘Sorry,’ he panted.
Helen grinned. ‘Quite all right. I think a swear word is entirely appropriate, given the circumstances.’
‘Hardly appropriate in front of a lady.’ He grimaced.
Helen looked around her and threw a glance over her shoulder before turning back to face him. ‘No ladies here.’
He gave a hearty chuckle and then broke off as pain lanced through his leg and he clutched at the splint. ‘Don’t make me laugh,’ he groaned.
‘Whatever the doctor orders.’ She grinned.
She held his leg while he shuffled back in the seat and helped him manoeuvre into a position of comfort. Well, of less pain anyway. He dwarfed the back seat. It was impossible for him to recline. Instead, he sat in a semi-supported position, the door propping him up.
‘I have some cushions in the boot. Hang tight.’
James closed his eyes wearily feeling grittiness rub like sandpaper against his lids. Where the hell was he going to go?
Helen arranged two cushions around his fractured leg to try and support it better. She shut the door and moved around to the driver’s side, opening her door and flipping her seat out of the way.
‘Here, put this behind your shoulders. Might make the ride a little more comfortable.’
She levered him forwards and stuffed the cushion behind his back, fussing a little to get it just right. James caught a whiff of her perfume and opened his eyes. They were level with her chest and he could see the pink lace of her bra and the curve of her breast as she leaned over him to adjust the cushion.
He shut his eyes again in case she thought he was staring at her breasts, and her ponytail brushed lightly against his face. Her hair was nut brown and smelled like roses. It swished back and forth a few times, caressing his face, and after a night in the cold, dark bush it was strangely comforting. He wanted to wrap it around his fist and pull her closer.
‘All set?’ she asked.
James slowly opened his eyes. He nodded and smiled. She turned to go and he put a stilling hand on her shoulder. ‘Thank you. I don’t even know your name.’
‘It’s Helen. Helen Franklin.’
‘Ah. The nurse. That explains your tender touch.’
Helen stilled, suddenly mesmerised by his blue eyes. He was without a doubt the best-looking man she’d ever met. She’d not risked such thinking until now, but it was the inescapable truth.
‘Yeah, well, don’t count your chickens,’ she quipped, pulling away from his touch and resetting her seat. ‘We’ve got a few kilometres of potholed highway to travel first. I’m sure by the end of that you’ll have changed your mind.’
Helen buckled up and started the car.
‘Be gentle with me, Helen.’
Her eyes flew to the rear-view mirror and found his blue flirty gaze staring back at her. He was teasing her. Great. Not only sexy but flirty, too. Fortunately, she knew the type well. Her own father was a classic example. It was typical that not even a broken leg could stymie the natural urge men like James felt to flirt.
But there was a shadow in his eyes that she recognised, too. Something that haunted him. Maybe it was just the pain. But maybe, like her father, it was something deeper, older. Something that he’d carried around for many years. Something that made him wary. Something that made him guarded.
Something that made him…intriguing.
Something that was a big flashing neon sign to her and all women to stay the hell away. Charming and charismatic had their good points but there was always a down side. She’d seen enough to know that men like James Remington, like her father, wouldn’t be held back or held still.
She rolled her eyes at him. ‘Hang tight.’
She let the tyres spin a few times as she skidded away.
They made it to the hospital ten minutes later and within half an hour James had been X-rayed and given a shot of morphine.
Helen checked her watch. If she didn’t go now she was going to be late for work. They were already one doctor down, necessitating the need for Genevieve to take a patient load when she was supposed to only be working two half-days to show James the ropes before commencing her maternity leave.
Helen worried about Skye’s only general practice and what they were going to do without a replacement for Genevieve as she gently drew back the curtain that had been pulled around his cubicle. James lay on the gurney, his eyes shut, his size taking up its entire length, his feet hanging over the end.
He was shirtless and her mouth dried as her gaze skimmed over the planes and angles of his smooth, tanned chest and abdomen. A silver chain hung around his neck, a dainty medallion hanging from it. It looked surprisingly manly and strangely erotic sitting against his broad bare flesh and her fingers itched to touch it.
A light smattering of hair around his flat nipples was tantalising and she followed a trail of hair that arrowed down fro
m his belly button until the sheet cut the rest from her view.
He shifted a little and she looked away from his abdomen, feeling a jolt of guilt at such voyeurism. He smiled to himself and Helen watched as a dimple in his chin transformed his stubbled features from Greek God-like to pure wicked. He looked relaxed for the first time since she’d met him, no tense lines around his mouth or frown marring the gap between his eyebrows.
James was drifting through space, floating. It felt good and he almost sighed as pink lace and roses flitted through the fog in his head. He felt the swish of her hair against his face again, across his lips, and it was as if she’d stroked her hand down his stomach. He could feel himself reaching for her, hear himself murmur her name.
He jolted awake and grabbed the side rails of the gurney as the sensation of falling played tricks with his equilibrium. His foggy mind took a moment to focus and when it did he found himself staring across into green eyes.
‘Morphine dreaming?’ She smiled.
James had never had anything stronger than paracetamol in his life before so he supposed that was exactly what he’d been doing. ‘Strong stuff.’ He grimaced.
The floating sensation had been pleasant and the relief from the constant feeling that his leg was in a vice was most welcome, but the sense of not being fully in control of his body was disconcerting and he wasn’t entirely sure he liked it. He was always in control. He’d spent too many childhood years feeling helpless to be remotely comfortable with this drug-induced vulnerability.
‘I hear you copped a lucky break.’
James grinned at her joke despite the odd feeling of being outside his body. ‘Yes, simple fracture of the tibia, not displaced. Long leg cast for six weeks.’
‘You got off very easy.’
‘Indeed.’ James remembered the worst-case scenarios that had careened through his mind as he had been hurled into the bush and knew that he could just as easily be dead or very seriously injured. ‘How’s my bike?’
She rolled her eyes. Of course, he would be worrying about the machine. ‘Alf’s recovering it now.’
‘You don’t approve?’
She shrugged. She was a nurse. Orthopaedic wards were full of motorbike victims. ‘Mighty thin doors. No seat belts.’
He regarded her seriously, her no-nonsense ponytail swishing slightly as she spoke. Not a single hair had managed to escape. He grinned. ‘You need to live a little. Nothing like the wind on your face, whipping through your hair.’
Helen sucked in a quick breath as his smile made his impossibly handsome face even more so. It made him look every inch the freedom-loving highway gypsy he so obviously was. She understood the pull of the wind in your face—she’d often ridden on the back of her father’s bike over the years. But a life of chronic instability had left her with feet firmly planted on the ground.
‘I have to get to work. I’ll check back in on my lunch-break. Can I bring you anything?’
James shut his eyes as the room started to spin again. ‘Food. I’m starving.’
She laughed. ‘They do feed you here, you know.’
‘Hospital food,’ he groaned. ‘I want proper stuff.’
‘Like?’
James thought hard as the foggy feeling started to take control again. He allowed it to dictate his stomach’s needs. He rubbed his hand absently over his hungry belly. ‘Pie. Chips with gravy. And a beer.’
Helen laughed again and tried not to be distracted by the slipping of the sheet as his hand absently stroked his stomach. Pies were her favourite bakery item. ‘A pie and chips I can do. Don’t think morphine and beer are a good mix, though.’
James opened one eye. ‘Sister Helen Franklin, you are a spoilsport.’
‘Yeah, well, I also sign your cheques so be nice.’
He chuckled and, despite his efforts to fight it, a wave of fog drifted him back into the floating abyss. Being nice to Helen conjured up some very delectable images and with his last skerrick of good sense he hoped it was just the morphine. The feel of her hair in his face and her pink lace was already too interesting fodder for his narcotic-induced fantasies.
If he wasn’t careful she might become way more fascinating than was good for him. Helen Franklin looked like she was the kind of woman men stayed with. And James didn’t stay. He didn’t know how.
CHAPTER TWO
AT SIX o’clock Helen walked into the hospital to find James entertaining three nurses. It had been a shocker of a day. From Elsie and her cows, to finding James, to the news that another locum would be difficult to find. She wasn’t feeling particularly jovial.
‘Feeling better, I see,’ she said dryly.
Her colleagues greeted her warmly and then fluttered their hands at James, promising to catch him later. She frowned at the very married nurses and felt strangely irritated.
‘Thank God you’re here. Break me out, will you?’
He was sitting propped up in his bed, a black T-shirt thankfully covering his chest, his leg supported on a pillow. She shook her head. Did he think he could just snap his fingers and she’d jump to attention? ‘The med super wants to keep you overnight.’
James snorted. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I broke my leg, that’s all.’
‘Jonathon’s just being cautious.’
‘I’m going stir crazy in here and this bed is frankly the worst thing I’ve ever lain on. The ground in the bush last night was softer than this.’
Helen laughed despite her irritation because it was true. The mattresses left a lot to be desired. ‘How’s the cast?’ she asked, moving to the end of the bed. ‘Wriggle your toes.’
James sighed and wriggled his toes for the hundredth time since he’d had the damn thing put on that morning.
Helen touched them lightly to assess their colour and warmth. ‘Do they—?’
‘No,’ he interrupted. ‘They don’t tingle. I don’t have pins and needles,’ he said testily. ‘They have perfectly normal sensation.’
Helen quirked an eyebrow. Good, now he was irritated, too. ‘So this is the doctors-make-the-worst-patients demonstration?’
‘I’d like a decent night’s sleep in a comfortable bed before starting work in the morning if it’s all the same to you.’
Helen’s hand stilled on his toes. ‘Work?’
‘Yes, work. You know, the reason why I’m in Skye in the first place?’
Helen became aware of her heart beating. She hardly dared to hope. ‘Oh…you still want to…take up the contract, then?’
James frowned. ‘Of course? Why? Are you withdrawing the offer?’
‘No, no, of course not,’ she said, absently stroking his toes peeking out from the end of the cast. ‘I just assumed…I mean I thought…you’d want to rest up until your leg was out of the cast.’
He snorted and tried not to be distracted by the light touch of her fingers on his toes and how strangely intimate it was. ‘It’s just a broken leg. I may not be as mobile as I’d like but I’m still capable of sitting in a chair and seeing patients. You do still require a doctor, don’t you?’
Helen couldn’t believe her luck. Her dark mood lightened. She smiled. ‘We most certainly do.’
‘Excellent. I’m your guy. Now,’ James said as he swung his leg down off the bed and reached for his crutches, ‘if you know where my luggage is, perhaps you could get me some clothes and the appropriate paperwork so I can get the hell out of here. I’d like to check on my bike.’
Helen watched him fit the crutches into his armpits, her hand now lying on the empty pillow.
‘It’s fine. I went and checked. Alf has it at the garage. He’s shut now. You can go visit tomorrow.’
‘It’ll be safe there?’
She smiled. ‘Of course. This is Skye.’ Although she did understand his reticence, his classic Harley must be worth a fortune.
He nodded. ‘I’ll call in on my lunch-hour tomorrow.’
‘There’s no need to start straight away,’ she protested. They could cope for a bit.
‘You should take a few days off, James, we’ll manage. Your leg should be elevated as much as possible initially.’
‘I’ll keep it up all tonight. I promise.’
He turned on the crutches to face her and she tried not to think about the unintended double meaning behind his words. But he was dressed only in his black T-shirt and a pair of black cotton boxer shorts that came to mid-thigh and left nothing to the imagination.
He looked like he could have modelled for them. He would have been perfect in a glossy magazine somewhere with his full pouting mouth and brooding dark looks. She could almost picture him clad only in his undies, his magnificent turquoise eyes making love to the camera. Maybe even straddling a gleaming chrome Harley. James Remington had clearly missed his calling.
She blinked and then swallowed. Hard. For goodness’ sake, she was a nurse, not some swooning teenager. She’d seen plenty of completely naked men. It made no sense to be affected by someone who was practically fully clothed. Hell, she’d seen more male skin exposed on a beach.
‘Right, then, I’ll bring you some clothes. Hang tight.’ And she fled from the room.
‘Hang tight’ seemed to be a favoured expression of hers. Again, as he looked down at his attire, he wondered just where the hell she imagined he would go in his underwear.
James was surprised to find on the way home that he would be living with the very capable Helen Franklin for the duration of his time in Skye. The agency had assured him accommodation was provided so the details hadn’t mattered at the time. For someone who’d spent a good part of his life between jobs camped out in a swag on the ground, any roof over his head was welcome.
But as she helped him out of the car and the smell of roses enveloped him again he felt a tug in his groin. The memory of her light touch on his toes earlier returned to him, as did the look she’d given him when he’d stood before her. The amber flecks in her eyes had glowed with warmth, hinting at passion, but she’d also looked a bit like a rabbit caught in headlights.
He could tell she was attracted to him. But he could also tell she didn’t want to be. A fact he understood perfectly. He was most definitely attracted to her. Who could resist being plucked out of the bush by pink lace and ponytails? But, like her, he didn’t want to be either.