with her hat as they reached the clinic and stepped into the shade.
Respect for her insight swirled through him. ‘That’s right. Condoms for family planning and to help stop the spread of HIV. It’s a problem all over the country but up here with the opium trade and the illegal trade of women back and forth across the border, it’s worse.’
‘So whenever you’re in the area you make sure the health workers are well supplied.’
He nodded as he turned his back to her, putting the box down next to a large poster about HIV. He ripped off the duct tape.
‘You’re a good man, Tom Bracken.’
He shouldn’t have heard the softly whispered words over the noise of tape coming off the cardboard. Words tinged with wonder. The unexpected, almost secret compliment stroked him like a soft caress. Warming him.
Completely puzzling him.
He’d never met a woman like her. She was kind, caring and generous with her time, her skills and money. Professionally, she was always in control and yet out of the work environment she lurched from open and fun to completely closed up, verging on timid and fearful.
She was a bundle of contradictions. What had made her like this?
His need to know intensified. He had to find out, and he would. He just had to choose his moment. He stood up and turned around to face her.
She met his gaze with her hands on her hips, eyebrows arched and a slight sardonic twinge to her mouth.
Now wasn’t the time.
‘So, you promised me a market tour.’ The in-control, assertive Bec was back.
‘You’re right, I did. Let’s go shopping.’
* * *
Bec gently fingered the brightly coloured motif. For the last hour she’d lost herself in the buzz and hum of the market, letting the crowd jostle around her, listening to the calls of ‘You buy’ and ‘Come my stall.’ Letting all of it push the mess of thoughts out of her head.
All thoughts of Tom.
She needed to think of him in terms of a doctor and a humanitarian aid worker. Not a man. She gave herself an internal shake. What was wrong with her? Usually, she could resist men. For eight years she’d had no problem resisting men. No problem at all.
But when Tom’s heat had radiated into her body on the motorbike all her hard-fought resolve had taken a pounding.
She ran her finger over a piece of intricate embroidery, the vivid colours of red, green and blue woven closely together.
‘It’s amazing, isn’t it?’ Tom appeared by her side, having wandered behind her as if he knew she wanted to be alone for a while. ‘The Dzao women are incredibly skilled at this needlework.’ He turned to the hovering woman who owned the rickety stall and asked her a question in Vietnamese.
The woman answered, her words rapid. She put her hand on Bec’s arm. ‘You, come.’
Bec glanced at Tom for confirmation, wondering what he had asked her.
He nodded for her to follow the woman. ‘She’s going to show us how they make the thread and stitch the designs.’
‘Fantastic.’ She followed the woman a short distance where pots of boiling water contained fabric and women stirred the contents with big wooden sticks.
‘They buy the raw silk at the markets and boil it to make it smooth. Then they dye it using natural dye from plants like tea and turmeric.’ He picked up the distinctive yellow turmeric. ‘The colours represent their ancestors who they worship.’
‘The designs are so interesting. What’s that?’ She pointed to a motif.
Tom peered at it. ‘Gibbon hands. They use all sorts of things to inspire their designs, even food.’ His long fingers pointed out cabbages.
The woman shoved a large square into Bec’s hands, covered in intricate stitches. Then she turned and patted her own bottom. ‘Luy khia.’
Bec looked beseechingly at Tom. ‘What’s this for?’
He grinned. ‘It’s the lower flap of a jacket. I think she wants to dress you like the Dzao. The trousers are actually strips of fabric wrapped around the legs and decorated with stripes of colour.’ His deep voice rumbled around her, solid, reliable and informative.
‘How do you know so much?’ Most men didn’t know anything about women’s clothing.
He shrugged his shoulders in an almost overly casual way. ‘I guess I was interested and as my language improved I asked questions.’
‘Did you learn Vietnamese on the dairy farm?’ She threw the question out, her tone informal, trying to hide how much she craved to learn more about him.
A momentary shadow crossed his face, immediately replaced by a lightness that softened his expression. The two conflicting emotions puzzled her.
‘Not much call for Vietnamese in Gippsland.’ His laugh, normally deep and warm, sounded shallow. ‘That flap of embroidery you’re holding goes at the base of the jacket. Then there’s a belt to hold the flap up out of the rice when you’re working in the fields.’
‘Sounds complicated.’ She glanced at him. Damn it, if he hadn’t done it again and changed the subject.
His open expression denied any sign he was actively avoiding answering her question. ‘That’s only part of it. Their headdress is a triangular-shaped turban decorated with silver coins.’ He moved closer to her, showing her the silver decorations stitched to the fabric.
‘The wealth of a woman is measured by the weight of the coins carried in her costume.’ He gave her a sly look. ‘Your headdress would be heavy indeed.’
She ignored his comment, not wanting to think about her father or his money. ‘Perhaps I could buy one of those?’ She picked up a tasselled shoulder bag.
‘Good idea. You could use it to hold all those other knick-knacks you bought. There’s no pannier on the bike.’
The motorbike. How could she have forgotten that?
With much serious head-nodding and hand-wringing Bec went through the bargaining process. She’d have been happy to hand over the first price asked but then everyone would lose face.
Thrilled with her purchase, she slung the bag over her shoulder and turned to Tom. ‘How does it look?’
His eyes gazed appreciatively at her. ‘Totally gorgeous.’
Heat flared inside her, whipping through her and racing across her cheeks like a grass fire. She wasn’t used to this. Men didn’t look at her like that.
Nick had.
Reality doused her, a chill creeping through her. The stars in her eyes had blinded her to signs of the cold, calculating man he was.
‘Bec?’
She heard Tom’s voice and realised she was gripping the handle of the bag so tightly her knuckles were white. ‘Sorry, what did you say?’
‘It’s time to head back.’ Tom tilted his head back up the road.
Five minutes later she climbed onto the bike, her bottom as far back on the seat as possible, her hands gripping the metal bar of the package rack behind her.
The bike roared into life and Tom cautiously wove through the crowd as they made their way out of town. He headed off the main road onto a track which climbed steeply.
The bike shuddered as it hit a deep pothole.
A silent scream exploded in Bec’s chest. She flung her arms around his waist and threw her body against his back as visions of being splattered against an unforgiving baked clay road came into her head. She buried her face