‘Yeah...’ Should he warn her that word had got out that Don Donaldson’s daughter had turned up to visit him only to storm off again, slamming the door behind her like a spoilt child, and that the community of Cutler’s Creek wasn’t exactly impressed? That he was thinking it wasn’t such a good idea for her to stay at the pub must have shown in his face because Olivia shook her head and her breath came out in a tiny snort.
‘I was wondering about that. They’re not going to welcome the prodigal daughter, right? Guess I’ll hit the road and find a motel in Dunedin, then.’
‘It’s getting dark. I wouldn’t advise driving through that gorge when you’re not familiar with the road. Especially with this wind picking up.’
‘Oh...’
She was looking slightly anxious now and, along with that uncontrolled hair and the way that no makeup made her look years younger, it gave the impression of a vulnerability that tugged at something deep within Zac. And then something else blindsided him completely. She might look like this first thing in the morning, he thought, when she was waking up all rumpled from sleep in a strange bed after the first night of passionate sex with a new lover. Out of her comfort zone and wondering about the best way to handle things? Oh... Zac actually felt slightly weak at the knees. Imagine being that man. That lucky, lucky man...
Was it his imagination or did Olivia’s pupils suddenly dilate to make her eyes look an even darker shade of blue? The way the tip of her tongue came out to moisten her lips was certainly not a figment of his imagination and it had an instant effect on his body that had nothing to do with his knees. So did that husky note in her voice. Was it possible that Olivia was just as aware of the sudden sexual tension in the atmosphere as he was?
‘What would you advise, then?’
For a crazy few seconds, ludicrous things that Zac would very much have liked to suggest bounced around inside his skull. Not in words so much as an urge to simply pull this woman into his arms and cover her lips with his own to see if it was possible that she tasted as good as she looked. He wanted to kiss her senseless. To pick her up and carry her off to his bedroom, like some sort of caveman. Of course, he wasn’t going to do any of those things. That would be a huge mistake.
It wasn’t that he’d lived like a monk since he’d lost Mia. Far from it. But this felt different. For one thing, Olivia Donaldson was the daughter of his boss—a man he respected a great deal. For another, sex for Zac for years now had been a connection that was nothing more than something physical. And transient. This woman was making him feel things that were too intense to be comfortable and that made her...dangerous?
No. Zac had this under control. He even managed to keep his tone perfectly casual as he deliberately turned away to peer out of the kitchen window.
‘I’m sure we can think of something by the time your clothes are dry. If the worst comes to the worst, there’s a spare bed here.’
* * *
Dear Lord...the way he had looked at her even though it had only been for a matter of a second. Two, tops. But nobody had ever looked at her like that. As if nothing else in the world existed. As if he wanted to drag her off by her hair and have his wicked way with her.
Oh, my...
Olivia could feel colour flooding into her cheeks. Thank goodness she was looking at Zac’s back now as he looked out of the window. Her heart rate had picked up so much it felt like he would have been able to see it making her chest jump despite the generous covering of the oversized sweatshirt and surely nobody could have missed that blush.
She couldn’t possibly stay in the same house as this man because she knew what could very well happen. And that couldn’t be allowed to happen because random sexual encounters with complete strangers had never, ever been acceptable to Olivia and she wasn’t about to start breaking her own moral code now. She hadn’t even slept with Patrick until he’d made it very clear that he was serious about a significant relationship with her.
But...there was a tiny voice in the back of her head telling her that Patrick had never looked at her like that. That no man had. That maybe she would never find anyone else who would. And she couldn’t deny that there was a strong sense of curiosity, as well. If a man could do that to you, just with his eyes, what could he be capable of doing with his hands? Or his tongue...or...or...
‘You might be right about the drive...’ Olivia had to clear her throat. How embarrassing was that—to sound so husky? ‘But... I can’t stay here.’
Of course she could, that little voice insisted. It would only be one night of her life and nobody else ever needed to know about it. Besides...maybe nothing would happen. Maybe she had imagined that look.
‘Up to you.’ Zac turned away from the window. ‘You’ve got a bit of time to think about it while your clothes are drying, anyway. I’ll be outside for a bit. I need to go and see Chloe.’
‘Chloe?’ Olivia blinked. Was there another woman around here somewhere? A neighbour perhaps...or a girlfriend? And how ridiculous was it that the thought was so disappointing?
‘You haven’t noticed the biggest horse in the world in the back garden?’ Zac opened the fridge and took out a handful of carrots. As he closed the door, there was a gentle clinking sound from wine bottles stored in a rack on top of the fridge. ‘Feel free to open one of those, if you like,’ he added. ‘You’ll find the corkscrew in the drawer by the sink.’
A combination of the emotional upheaval of that encounter with her father and then the adrenaline rush of helping with the emergency response at the accident scene on top of the fatigue of a very early start for all that travelling made the prospect of a glass of wine irresistible. Not that Olivia was about to admit it, even to herself, but there was also the bonus that if she had a glass of wine or two, the decision of whether or not she needed to stay off the road for the night would be made for her.
Putting the corkscrew back into the drawer after dealing with a cork, Olivia glanced out the window to see Zac with the carrots in one hand and a biscuit of hay under his other arm, walking towards a wooden gate beneath an archway of hedge that made a perfect frame for the horse that was standing there. With the background of snow-peaked mountains, the image looked like a postcard and there was something about the beauty of it that actually brought a lump to her throat. Gusts of wind were stealing wisps of the hay and she could hear the welcoming sounds the horse was making as it saw food and company arriving. That sound was enough to make Olivia have to blink away a sudden prickle behind her eyes.
It was another memory that had been long locked away. That soft nicker of equine pleasure and the joy that was contagious. She could almost feel the warmth of her beloved pony Koko and smell the distinctive scent that had always been there as she’d wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face against his skin. It was a memory that tugged at her heartstrings enough to be painful.
Rather like the memories she’d already fielded earlier today that were connected to the father she’d remembered. A man who didn’t seem to exist any more. Maybe her memories weren’t actually real. Had she, in fact, created memories of the kind of man any child would have wanted her father to have been?
Olivia took a huge gulp of the glass of wine she had just poured as she continued staring out the window. Zac had opened the gate and the horse was rubbing its huge head on his arm. It was a huge horse. Zac had to be at least a few inches over six feet tall but his head didn’t reach Chloe’s shoulder. Daylight was fading fast but that only made the horse’s fluffy white feet and the blaze on her nose more obvious.
‘Is Chloe a Clydesdale?’ she asked when Zac came back into the kitchen.
‘Not purebred, I was told, but close enough.’
‘Do you ride her?’
Zac laughed. ‘Are you kidding? I’d need a ladder to get on board. And it would be a long way to fall off. Besides...she might be pregnant. Apparently.’
‘Apparently?’
‘Um...’ This was decision time. A second glass would mean she wasn’t going to be driving anywhere. She opened her mouth to say something but the words that emerged were unplanned. ‘Not if I’m drinking alone...’
And there it was again...that look...
‘Just the one, then,’ Zac murmured. ‘It’s not my night on call but...you never know what might happen, do you?’
Olivia didn’t say anything. She couldn’t. That lilt in his voice seemed to be a lot more noticeable when he spoke softly and it tickled her ears deliciously. The innuendo in his words had also been more than enough to silence her. He wasn’t really talking about potential medical emergencies, was he?
The atmosphere in this room suddenly felt different—as if all her senses were strangely heightened. Olivia watched the rich red of the wine tumbling into the clear glass. She could hear the gurgle of the liquid but she could also hear the sound of Zac’s breath. She caught the faint waft of Chloe coming from his clothing but, beneath that, she could catch the scent of the man himself and she could swear she was aware of the actual heat of his skin. It might very well be a mistake to stay here but there was probably nothing on earth that could have persuaded her to leave.
* * *
Oh, man. What did he think he was doing, playing with fire like this?
Was he just trying to prove to himself how in control he was? Yeah...maybe that was it. Olivia followed his lead and sat down at the old wooden kitchen table but she seemed to be avoiding looking at him for a minute by letting her gaze drift around the room, taking in copper pots hanging beneath a high shelf and the wooden rack with her clothes draped over it above the pot belly stove inside a brick chimney.
‘This is nice,’ she said. ‘Rustic.’
‘I like it,’ Zac agreed. ‘Reminds me a bit of the farmhouse I grew up in. In County Cork in Ireland.’
‘I thought it was an Irish accent.’
The expression in those blue eyes suggested that Olivia could quite happily sit here and just listen to him talking. And that maybe his accent wasn’t the only thing she liked about him. He liked it that he had her attention like this, he realised. He liked it rather a lot.
‘So what brought you all the way down under to one of New Zealand’s smallest towns?’
‘I guess it was one of the few countries I hadn’t been to. And I needed a change from big cities.’
‘So you’ve travelled a lot?’
‘Aye... I think I was born an adrenaline junkie. Always been on the hunt for adventure and excitement, me. It’s no wonder my poor mother went grey so early.’
‘What made you choose medicine for a career, then? Instead of being, oh, I don’t know...a helicopter pilot?’
‘You’d be surprised how often doctors get to go in helicopters. Especially if they put their hand up to work in war zones. Or as part of a trauma team in a major hospital like Chicago or Boston.’
Her eyes had widened. ‘War zones? Really?’
‘It was where I headed as soon as I was qualified enough. It’s not something you can do forever, though. It’s...tough...’
‘I can’t begin to imagine what it’s like,’ Olivia said quietly. She was holding his gaze and this time Zac could see respect in her eyes. And something more. Concern? Empathy, even? ‘But that explains why you reacted so fast when that plane exploded. And why you looked so...’
‘So...what?’ Zac swallowed a mouthful of his wine but he didn’t break the eye contact with Olivia. What had she seen? And why did she care?
‘So... I don’t know. Kind of haunted. As if something terrible was happening. Or had happened.’
‘It’s a long time ago now,’ Zac said slowly. ‘And I thought it was well behind me but I guess explosions don’t happen that often and they’re certainly a trigger for things I’d rather forget. It took me a while to get past the flashbacks.’
Olivia didn’t say anything but her gaze told him that she was listening. Really listening. Maybe that was why he gave in to the impulse to tell her something he’d never told anybody. Or maybe he was just pushing some personal boundaries because he’d been rattled today but he’d coped perfectly well. Could he risk poking an old wound to see if it might actually be completely healed?
‘I had an army medic friend,’ he told her. ‘Mia. A very good friend. More than a friend, in fact—we were planning to get married after that tour of duty. She was walking ahead of me one day and she stepped on a landmine.’ He could do this, Zac realised. He could say the words and still keep enough distance. It felt like he was describing something he’d seen in a movie, perhaps. ‘It took both her legs off and she died within a couple of minutes.’
About as long as it had taken for him to get to her and hold her in his arms, but even letting that thought surface seemed to be okay. There was no sense that some kind of mental dam was about to burst and drown him in emotion. He didn’t dare take the final step, though, and admit that it had been his fault. That Mia wouldn’t have even been there if he hadn’t persuaded her to stay on until he was due to leave.
Olivia had her hand pressed against her mouth. She looked so shocked, Zac thought. How much more shocked would she be, though, if he told her that losing Mia like that had taught him to build barriers and protect himself by not caring too much? That it was even worse to get so good at keeping his distance that it was possible to witness a death—even that of a child—and feel absolutely nothing? That that had been the point at which he’d thought he might have to walk away from medicine forever.
No. He wasn’t going to say anything more. He shouldn’t have said anything in the first place but this was turning out to be a very strange day. He hadn’t expected Olivia Donaldson to crash into his life. Or a plane to crash, for that matter. They were both in the category of once-in-a-lifetime events.
‘Anyway...that was probably a lot more information than you wanted but it’s part of the reason I ended up here. I needed some time out, I guess.’ He wanted to change the subject now. ‘I’d rather talk about you, Olivia Donaldson. I’m curious about why it only took a phone call for you to turn up in Cutler’s Creek. And I’m wondering why your father never made a call like that years ago.’
Olivia shrugged. ‘I guess you’ll have to ask him that.’
‘Don’t you want to know?’
‘I’m not sure I do. Like you, there are things I think I’d rather forget.’
‘Fair enough.’ Zac was still pushing away what he hadn’t told Olivia about. Would he ever be able to forget holding that small, dying child and not feeling as if his heart was breaking? Not being able to feel anything at all? Needing something physical to do to distract himself, he eyed the receding level of wine in Olivia’s glass. ‘Top-up?’
‘It is very nice wine.’
It was probably an unconscious action for Olivia to run her tongue slowly over her lower lip but Zac couldn’t look away. If she looked up and caught his gaze right now and there was any hint of what he’d thought he’d seen in her eyes before, there would be no turning back. Hurriedly, he pushed back his chair and stood up, heading for the wine bottle on the kitchen bench.
It was completely dark outside now. The wind was picking up enough to rattle the glass in its pane and there was no question of Olivia driving anywhere after a second glass of wine. Knowing that they were going to be under the same roof for the night was...well... Zac looked over his shoulder, as if looking at her might give him whatever word he was searching for. But Olivia wasn’t sitting at the table now. She’d brought her glass over and was standing right behind him.
F
or a long, long moment they simply stared at each other and it was a silent acknowledgement of an overwhelming sexual attraction. One that carried no strings whatsoever because it was highly unlikely that they would ever see each other again after tonight but one that meant something because they’d been through some things today that had given them an insight into each other that he suspected was probably hidden to anyone else in their lives. He had been able to see that Olivia was still affected by what she perceived as abandonment by her father. And Zac had just shared something incredibly personal because he knew that Olivia had so easily seen past the laid-back image that was his protective shield.
It was that feeling of connection that made Zac relinquish the tight hold he had on his self-control. If this was a mistake, he’d deal with any repercussions tomorrow because the temptation to lose himself for a brief moment in time was irresistible and he was quite sure that Olivia Donaldson wanted this as much as he did. Slowly, deliberately, he reached to take the wine glass out of her hand, put it down on the bench and turned back to her.
* * *
The ground was shifting beneath Olivia’s feet.
She was falling. Tilting forward, anyway. Could just a couple of glasses of wine on an empty stomach have been enough to have an effect like that? No...this wasn’t something you could find in a bottle. This was something that most people never found in a lifetime—an attraction to someone that was intense enough to be completely overwhelming. When it was coming from both sides, the collision was inevitable and there must have been an explosion of some kind because all oxygen in this room seemed to have vanished. Not that Olivia felt any need to breathe in this instant. All she could possibly need was...this...
The touch of Zac’s lips on her own. The glide of his tongue dancing with hers. The searing warmth of his hands as they slid beneath that baggy sweatshirt. The silk of his skin as she let her own hands roam.
There was a moment when they could have both stopped. When they had to pause for breath and she saw Zac glance at the door and then back to her—a silent invitation to take this somewhere more comfortable. Like his bed...
Melting the Trauma Doc's Heart Page 6