‘No, Doctor,’ she said, still submissive, still smiling, though there was no way she could completely disguise the look of pain and fear behind her eyes. ‘But you need to let me help.’
‘In your dreams,’ he growled, disarmed by her smile and struggling to keep a hold on the situation. Worst-case scenario—she could go into labour.
Or she could lose the baby.
Another death…
He needed a medical kit. Usually he carried basic first-aid equipment but his friends’ luggage had filled the trunk and the back seat. Fiona and Brenda. No medicine this weekend, they’d said, and they’d meant it.
Women. And here was another, causing trouble.
But, actually, Maggie wasn’t causing trouble, he conceded, or no more than she could help. She looked like there was no way she’d complain, but he could see the strain in her eyes.
Okay, he told himself. Move. This woman needs help and there’s only me to give it.
‘I meant what I said about keeping still,’ he told her. ‘I have work to do and you’ll just get in the way. So stay!’
‘Yes, sir,’ she said meekly, but he didn’t believe the meekness for a minute.
There wasn’t a lot of choice. In truth, Maggie’s leg hurt so much she was feeling dizzy. She lay back on the grass and tried not to think about the consequences of what had just happened and how it might have affected her baby. That was truly terrifying. She tried not to think how Gran would be needing pain relief, and how she’d been away from home for far too long. She thought about how her leg felt like it might drop off, and that she wouldn’t mind if it did.
If this guy really was a doctor he might have something in the back of his fancy car that’d help.
He really was a doctor. He had about him an air of authority and intelligence that she knew instinctively was genuine. He was youngish—mid-thirties, she guessed—but if she had to guess further she’d say he was in a position of power in his profession. He’d be past the hands-on stage with patients—to a point in his profession where seniority meant he could move back from the personal.
She wasn’t a bad judge of character. This guy seemed competent—and he was also seriously attractive. Yeah, even in pain she’d noticed that, for what woman wouldn’t? He was tall, dark and drop-dead gorgeous. But also he seemed instinctively aloof? Why?
But this was hardly the time for personal assessments of good-looking doctors. The pain in her leg stabbed upward and she switched to thinking what the good-looking doctor might have in the back of his car that might help.
What could she take this far along in pregnancy? Her hands automatically clasped her belly and she flinched. No.
‘We need to get through this without drugs,’ she whispered to her bump. ‘Just hang in there.’
There was an answering flutter from inside, and her tension eased slightly. The seat belt had pulled tight across her stomach in the crash. There’d been an initial flutter, but she wanted more. This flutter was stronger, and as she took a deep breath the flutter became a kick.
Great! Maybe her baby hadn’t noticed the crash or, if he had, he was kicking in indignation.
‘We’ll be okay,’ she whispered for what must be the thousandth time in her pregnancy. ‘Me and you and the world.’
And she had a doctor at hand. A gorgeous one.
But gorgeous or not, doctor or not, the guy had no time for medicine right now, and her training had her agreeing with him. Triage told her that unless her breathing was impaired or she was bleeding to death, the road had to be cleared. Someone could speed around the corner at any minute and a minor accident could become appalling.
But how could he move the crate? It was blocking the road in such a way it stopped both the car and the truck from being moved. He couldn’t lift it.
He didn’t. As she watched, he put his shoulder against it, shoving harder than she’d thought possible.
The crate was about eight feet long by six feet wide, iron webbing built around a floor of heavy iron. It had been on the back of the truck for the last twenty years. She’d had no idea it could come loose.
Gran hadn’t told her that. There were lots of things Gran hadn’t told her, she thought grimly, a long litany of deception. In fact, Maggie’s decision to have this baby had been based partly on Gran’s deceit.
But there was no way she could yell at Gran now. In truth, she was so worried about the old lady she felt sick.
What else? She wanted to cry because her leg was throbbing. She desperately needed to check on her baby’s heartbeat.
But instead she was lying still as ordered, her leg stuck up in front of her, watching this bossy surgeon shift her crate.
If she had to have an arrogant surgeon bossing her while he organised her life, at least she’d been sent one whose body was almost enough to distract her from the pain she was feeling.
When she’d first seen him he’d looked smoothly handsome, expensive. Now his perfectly groomed, jet-black hair was wet with sweat, dark curls clinging to his forehead. A trace of five-o’clock shadow accentuated his strongly boned face, and his dark eyes were keen with the intent of strain.
He also looked gorgeous. It was an entirely inappropriate thought, she decided, but it was there, whether she willed it or not. This man was definite eye-candy.
He had all his weight against the crate now. He was grunting with effort, sweat glistening. One of his arms was bare—courtesy of the pad she was holding above her eye—and his arm was a mass of sinews. As was his chest. The more he sweated, the more his shirt became a damp and transparent nothing, exposing serious muscles.
And the more he sweated the more she was distracted from everything she should be focussed on. This was crazy. She was seven months pregnant. She was injured. She had so many worries her head was about to explode, yet here she was transfixed by the sight of a colleague attempting to move a weight far too big for one man.
Only it wasn’t. The crate was moving, an inch at a time and then faster, and then he found rhythm. He was right behind it and he kept on pushing, right up to the verge.
The verge was too narrow to hold it.
She should have been thinking forward to what he intended, but she was caught. Watching him. Fascinated.
‘Move!’ He gave one last gigantic heave—and it slid onto the verge and further. Before she realised what was happening, the crate was toppling over the side of the cliff, crashing its way down to the beach below. Leaving her stunned.
‘So how do you suggest I get the calves home now?’ she muttered, awed, but he wasn’t listening. He was in her truck already, shoving it into gear, reversing it from the cliff face. It sounded like something disastrous was happening inside the engine, but at least it moved. He drove it further along the road, parked it on a widened section of verge, then jogged back for his car.
She was a passive audience, stunned by his body and by his energy. And by…his car! She’d never seen an Aston Martin up close before. Not bad, she conceded, growing more distracted by the moment. Surgeon in open-topped roadster. Cool.
Or…hot.
Or maybe the blow to her head was making her thinking fuzzy. She should be too caught up with the pain in her knee to react like…well, like she was reacting.
But then, as he turned his fabulous car away from her, suddenly her fuzziness disappeared. It was replaced with a stab of panic so great it took her breath away. He’d backed away from the cliff, turning the car to head north.
North. Toward Sydney.
She was staggering to her feet, her hands out, rushing straight forward