The image of him as a protective father figure was at odds with her impression of him as a fun-loving, laid-back playboy. But then she thought of the day she’d seen him at the beach with his young nephew. No one could ask for a more devoted uncle and mentor. Strict but fair, strong but nurturing—all the things young kids and in particular boys needed to grow. Jake had apparently had no such mentor himself. Instead he had been the man of the house for most of his thirty-four years.
Kitty turned and saw Gwen looking at her speculatively. ‘What were you two talking about just then, anyway?’ Gwen asked. ‘You looked rather cosy.’
Kitty felt a flush pass over her cheeks. ‘It was just … nothing.’
Gwen gave her a motherly smile of caution. ‘Tread carefully, my dear,’ she said. ‘He’s a gorgeous man in looks and in temperament, but he doesn’t play for keeps.’
‘I don’t know how many times I have to tell everyone I’m not interested in Jake Chandler,’ Kitty said with an irritated frown.
Gwen’s look was long and measuring. ‘Not that you wouldn’t make a lovely couple or anything,’ she said. ‘I can see the sparks that fly between you.’
‘I’m sure you’re imagining it,’ Kitty said, still frowning. ‘Personally, I think he can’t wait until I hop on that plane back to Britain. He thinks I’m not up to the task.’
‘You’re handling things just fine,’ Gwen said. ‘Jake’s not one to stroke egos unnecessarily. If he was unhappy with your work he’d soon let you know.’
Kitty gave her a grim look. ‘That’s exactly what I’m afraid of,’ she said, and turned back to the unit.
CHAPTER SEVEN
KITTY didn’t see Jake face-to-face for the rest of her shift. He had come back to the unit after a few minutes, but she had been tied up with a patient with chronic asthma whose condition hadn’t been properly managed by either the patient or his doctor. By the time she’d sorted the middle-aged man out Jake had been busy with other patients.
But when she was walking along the Bondi shopping and café strip later that evening, in search of somewhere to grab some dinner, she saw him coming towards her.
He looked preoccupied. There was a frown between his brows and his jaw looked as if it had been carved from stone. He didn’t even see her until she was practically under his nose.
‘Dr Chandler?’
Her softly spoken greeting didn’t even register, so she reached out and touched him on the bare tanned skin of his forearm with her fingertips.
‘Jake?’
He jumped as if she had probed him with an electrode. ‘Oh,’ he said, absently rubbing at his arm. ‘It’s you.’
‘Yes …’ Kitty shifted her weight from foot to foot. ‘Are you OK?’
His marble mask stayed in place. ‘Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘I just thought you might like to … talk.’
Something moved across his gaze, leaving in its wake a layer of ice. ‘About what?’
‘Gwen told me you were having some trouble with your brother and I thought—’
‘You thought what, Dr Cargill?’ he asked with a mocking look. ‘That you’d offer your sweet little shoulder for me to cry on?’
Kitty held his glacial gaze for a beat or two before giving up. ‘I’ve obviously caught you at a bad time,’ she said, stepping away from him. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interfere.’
She had walked past three shopfronts before he caught up with her. He didn’t touch her. He walked alongside her, shoulder to shoulder—well, not exactly shoulder to shoulder, given he was so much taller. Kitty was wearing ballet flats, which put the top of her head in line with the top of his shoulder. She felt the warmth of his body. She had to fight to keep walking in a straight line in case her body betrayed her with its traitorous, shameless desires.
‘Don’t let me keep you,’ she said, sending him a sideways glance that made her loose hair momentarily brush against his arm. She grabbed at the wayward strands and fixed them firmly behind her ear.
‘Sorry,’ he said in a gruff tone. ‘That was uncalled-for.’
‘It’s OK,’ she said, only marginally mollified.
They walked a few more paces in silence. Kitty wasn’t sure what to say, so said nothing. She figured if he wanted to talk to her he would. Every time she sneaked a glance at him he was frowning broodingly. His shoulders looked tight and were hunched forward slightly, as if he was carrying an invisible weight that was incredibly burdensome.
‘Have you got any siblings?’ he finally asked.
‘No, there’s just me,’ Kitty said.
‘Happy childhood?’
‘Mostly.’
‘Are your parents still married to each other?’ he asked.
Kitty gave him another sideways glance, trying to ignore the way her heart kicked in her chest when she encountered the unfathomable darkness of his sapphire-blue gaze. ‘My parents didn’t get married in the first place,’ she said. ‘They met at a free love commune. They’re still together, more or less. They occasionally have other partners. They have what they call an “open” relationship.’
His eyebrows lifted. ‘I wouldn’t have picked you as a hippy couple’s kid,’ he said. ‘Did the stork get the wrong address or something?’
Kitty couldn’t hold back a little rueful smile. ‘My parents have spent a great deal of the last twenty-six years looking at each other in a kind of dumbfounded way,’ she said. ‘They were hoping for a free-spirited indie child much like themselves. I constantly embarrass them.’
His mouth kicked up at the corners. ‘I just bet you do.’
Kitty caught a whiff of his cologne as he raised a hand to brush his hair back off his forehead. The faint hint of hard-working male was like a potent elixir to her nostrils. She even felt herself leaning closer to catch more of his alluring scent.
He met her gaze again, holding it with the dark intensity of his. ‘I lost my mother when I was sixteen,’ he said. ‘And my father …’ He paused, a frown cutting his forehead in two, and the lines and planes of his face clouding. ‘My father left us before my brother was born. My two sisters can barely remember him. None of us have seen or heard of him since he left. Not even when Mum died.’
‘I’m very sorry,’ Kitty said. ‘Life can be pretty brutal at times. You must have had a hard time of it.’
‘Yeah, you could say that,’ he said, stepping aside for a group of teenagers carrying body-boards to pass between them.
‘What about your sisters?’ Kitty asked when he didn’t offer anything else once they had resumed walking side by side. ‘What do they do?’
‘Jen’s a hairdresser,’ he said. ‘She’s saving up to buy her own salon. Rosie works part-time as a teacher’s aide. She’s studying to be a teacher.’
A small silence passed.
‘And your brother?’ Kitty asked.
His gaze cut to hers. ‘Didn’t Gwen tell you during your little heart-to-heart session? I’m sure she along with everyone else at the hospital has a theory or two on why Robbie’s running amok.’
‘I didn’t probe her for information,’ she said. ‘She didn’t know much in any case. She simply told me she sensed that your brother seemed to have some … issues.’
‘Issues.’ He gave a harsh laugh. ‘That’s how everyone makes excuses for any sort of bad behaviour today. They’ve got issues. Do you know what bugs me about that? It’s always someone else’s fault. It’s a get out of jail free card. No one has to take responsibility for their own actions any more. There’s always someone else to blame. Bad childhood or bad parenting. Or in my case practically no parenting. I hate that victim mentality that everyone adopts these days. It achieves nothing. You just have to get on with life. There’s no point wishing things were different. You get what you get and you damn well have to deal with it.’
Kitty walked with him for a few more paces. ‘I guess different people cope with things in different ways,’ she said after a moment. ‘What makes one person stronger mak
es another one crumble.’
‘Yeah, well, I just wish my brother would snap out of this phase of his,’ he said. ‘I’m sick and tired of cleaning up his mess.’
‘You sound just like a concerned parent,’ she said. ‘At least you’ll have had plenty of practice when it comes to having your own kids.’
His expression became even more dark and brooding. ‘No way,’ he said. ‘I’m not making that mistake.’
‘You don’t want kids?’
‘Why would I want kids when I’ve already brought up three?’ he asked.
‘Helping to rear your siblings is not the same as having your own children,’ Kitty said.
He gave a grunt. ‘It is for me,’ he said. ‘I’ve made enough packed lunches to last me a lifetime.’
‘Having children is much more than just packed lunches,’ she said.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘And don’t I know it. The cute chubby cheeks stage is over before you know it. Then it’s suddenly all about spending hours awake at night wondering where they are and who they’re with and what they’re doing. I’m not putting myself through that again. No way.’
‘What about marriage?’ she asked. ‘Are you against that too?’
‘I’m not against it in principle,’ he said. ‘I have plenty of friends who are married and it seems to work for them. I just don’t think I’m cut out for it. I think I’d get bored with the same person.’
‘Maybe you haven’t met the right person yet.’
He shrugged indifferently. ‘Maybe.’
They’d walked halfway along the next block when Jake suddenly stopped and turned to look at her. ‘Have you had dinner?’ he asked.
‘No, I was just about to get some when I saw you.’
‘Have dinner with me.’
She arched a brow at him. ‘Are you asking or telling me?’
‘Are you refusing or accepting?’
‘I’m thinking about it.’
‘What’s to think about?’ he asked. ‘You’re hungry and you need food.’
‘It’s not that simple …’
‘Are you worried about the boyfriend back home in Britain?’
Kitty avoided his penetrating gaze. ‘It has nothing to do with Charles,’ she said. ‘I don’t want people to talk.’
‘They’re already talking,’ he said. ‘Besides, what’s one casual dinner going to do?’ He stopped outside a bar and grill restaurant. ‘Is this OK? A friend of mine owns it. He’ll squeeze us in without a booking.’
Kitty met his impossibly blue gaze with her guarded one. ‘So it’s not a date or anything?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he said, giving her a glinting smile. ‘I’d have to pay my sister a thousand bucks if so.’
Kitty tried not to blush but with little success. ‘So an official date with you usually leads to sex, does it?’
He held the door of the restaurant open for her. ‘It depends.’
‘On what?’
‘Chemistry. Animal attraction. Lust.’
Kitty pursed her lips disapprovingly even though her skin tingled and prickled as his gaze held hers. ‘What about getting to know someone as a person first?’ she asked. ‘Finding common ground, similar values and interests, mutual admiration and respect?’
His gaze moved from her eyes to her mouth. Something shifted in the pit of her belly as his eyes meshed with hers once more. Their dark glittering intensity triggered a primal response she had no control over. Fluttery fairy-soft footsteps of excitement danced along the floor of her stomach at the thought of him pressing that sinfully sensual mouth against hers, having his arms go around her and crush her to his hard tall frame, feeling his arousal potent and persistent against the yielding softness of her body. She drew in a little shuddering breath, wondering if he could sense how deeply affected she was by him.
But of course, she thought.
He was a practised flirt. A charmer—a playboy who loved nothing better than indulging the flesh without the restraints of a formal relationship—a born seducer who loved and left his partners without a second thought.
Falling in love with him would be the biggest mistake of her life. She knew it and yet there was something about him that drew her inexorably to him. She felt the magnetic force of him even now. The way his gaze tethered her to him, those ocean-blue depths communicating without words the desire that crackled like an electrical current between them.
‘I find out just about all I need to know about the other person with the first kiss,’ he said.
‘Oh, really?’
‘You’d be surprised how much information that reveals.’
Kitty gave him an arch look. ‘You mean other than the flavour of their toothpaste?’
He smiled that glinting smile. ‘Having dinner with them is another revelation,’ he said. ‘Picky eaters tend to have body issues. A healthy appetite is a good sign, but someone who is keen to try different cuisines or exotic flavours gets my attention every time.’
Kitty felt heat rise up from the soles of her feet to her face. What would he think of her cardboard meals of late? ‘You seem to have it down to a science,’ she said.
‘Hey, Jake!’ A stocky blond-haired man came over with a twinkling smile on his face. ‘A cosy, romantic table for two?’
Kitty gave Jake a look. ‘How many times have you been here?’
‘Lost count,’ Jake said, and grinned at his mate. ‘How’re you doing, Brad? Hot in the kitchen?’
‘That’s why I’m out here,’ Brad said, and smiling at Kitty added, ‘So this is …?’
‘Dr Kitty Cargill,’ Jake said.
Brad’s eyebrows lifted. ‘Bringing work home with you, Jake?’
‘It’s not what you think,’ Jake said.
‘Sure,’ Brad said with a grin. ‘Follow me. I have just the table for you.’
Once Brad had left them settled with drinks, Kitty met Jake’s gaze across the small intimate table that was positioned in the quietest part of the restaurant. ‘Let me guess,’ she said. ‘At about ten p.m. or so a woman will come past the table selling roses.’
He gave her a slanting smile. ‘Do you want one?’
‘Certainly not!’
He reached over to top up her water glass from the frosted bottle on the table. ‘So, tell me about Charles.’
Kitty watched as the bubbles from the mineral water rose in a series of vertical lines like tiny necklaces to the surface of her glass. ‘There’s not much to tell,’ she said. ‘We grew up together.
I can’t think of a time in my life when Charles hasn’t been a part of it. We did everything together. I thought we’d continue to do everything together.’ She released a little sigh and met Jake’s gaze. ‘I was so busy planning our future that I didn’t notice what was going on in the present.’
‘Do you still love him?’
Kitty looked at the bubbles again, her finger tracing the dew on the outside of the glass. ‘I think there’s a part of me that will always love Charles,’ she said. ‘I loved his family too. I liked that they were so … so normal. I felt at home with them. I blended in as if I had always been there.’
She looked up to find his dark blue gaze centred on hers. He had a way of looking at her that made her whole body break out in a shiver. She became aware of every cell of her skin, from the top of her tingling scalp, right to the very soles of her feet.
She gave herself a mental shake and reached for her wine glass. ‘What did your brother want when he came to the unit today?’ she asked.
A mask slipped over his features. ‘I thought we were talking about you,’ he said.
‘We were,’ she said. ‘But now it’s your turn to talk about you.’
‘What if I don’t want to talk about me?’
‘Then talk about your brother.’
He frowned as he reached for his own wine glass, but he didn’t drink from it. He just sat there twirling the stem round and round between his finger and thumb. ‘I hate talking about my brother,’ he said.
‘Talking doesn’t change anything. He’s a fully-grown adult and yet just lately he’s been acting like a kid. He used to have a part-time job to fund his way through university, but he lost that over some run-in with the boss. He’s been putting the hard word on Rosie and Jen for money and when he’s really getting desperate he comes to me.’
‘Where does he live?’
‘In some doss house in the inner city,’ he said, scraping a hand through his hair. He made a despairing sound. ‘My kid brother bunks down with every other desperado on the streets. My mother is probably spinning in her grave.’
Kitty put out a hand and touched his arm. His muscles flexed then stilled under her touch.
After a long moment his eyes met hers. ‘Do you know what gets me?’ he asked. ‘He had everything going so well. He was a straight A student. He was up for a university prize in engineering. He’s so damn bright—much brighter than me. I’ve had to work damn hard to get where I’ve got. But he’s thrown it all away. It’s such a damn waste.’
‘Is he doing drugs?’ Kitty asked.
He rubbed a hand over his face. ‘I don’t know if he’s touched the hard stuff. He says not, but how can I trust him? He probably doesn’t remember from one day to the next what he’s been doing.’
‘What about rehab?’ she asked.
His eyes hit hers. ‘You think I haven’t tried that?’ he asked. ‘I even paid up-front for a private clinic, but he didn’t show up on admission day. I couldn’t find him for a fortnight. The clinic had a waiting list a mile long so I couldn’t get him in even when I found him.’
‘Sometimes it’s hard for family members to be the ones to help,’ Kitty said. ‘You’re too close and they don’t always want to listen.’
His fingers tightened around the stem of his glass. ‘The sick irony is I’ve spent the last twenty-four years of my life being a substitute father for my sisters and brother,’ he said. ‘Don’t get me wrong—I was glad to be able to do something. My mother wanted each of us to have better opportunities than she’d had. It was up to me to see that her vision for us as a family was fulfilled.’
Medical Duo - Dr Chandler's Sleeping Beauty & Christmas with Dr Delicious Page 7