THE next morning Jess sat on the second bottom stair of the main public steps that led down to Coogee beach, absently staring out to sea. She wiggled her bare feet in the sand, the dry, cool grains sifting easily through her toes.
She adored this time of morning and she filled her lungs, trying to inhale the loveliness of it all.
The salt air, the sun winking over the horizon, gilding marshmallow clouds, the occasional cry of a seagull circling lazily overhead, the swish and suck of the waves as they lapped against the beach to a rhythm as old as time.
It was about as different from the outback as it was possible to be. She missed home dreadfully and, as far as she was concerned, there was nothing like a country sunrise, but the scene before her was pretty good too.
She dropped her chin onto her bent knees, feeling a pang. She’d miss this when she finally moved back to Edwinburra. Which had been a revelation. She hadn’t expected to miss anything about the city.
She’d been prepared to endure her time away from home only. Suffer quietly through it with her eye firmly on the ball.
But to her complete surprise she loved it here and she would miss it when she finally went back home. And it wouldn’t just be the panorama before her she’d miss. There were a lot of other things.
Her friends.
Eastern Beaches Hospital, which somehow felt like home.
The house on Hill St.
The Stat Bar.
And Adam.
She’d lain awake most of the night, reliving their kiss, and unfortunately it had lost none of its impact in the cold light of day. It was still setting her heart aflutter.
Finally. After dreaming about it for the last few years it had actually happened.
And it had not disappointed.
She hugged her knees and rocked. Not even the hardness of the gritty concrete beneath her butt or Tilly’s well-intentioned warning could stop the swell of possibility blooming in her chest.
Yes. It was foolish. But what Tilly hadn’t seen had been the way Adam had looked at her. Like he saw her, really saw her, for the first time. Saw her as a woman. Not as a girl. Or even as someone out of bounds.
She’d seen desire flash as brightly as those irresistible golden flecks in his lapis lazuli gaze. Heard the suck of his breath and the deep groan that had seemed torn from his chest. Felt the tremble of his hand as it had burrowed into her hair.
Adam Carmichael had been…shaken.
And shaken she could work with.
Maybe it was time to seize the moment?
Adam paused at the top of the stairs and looked down at the lone figure sitting hunched at the bottom. Her blonde ponytail brushed her shoulder blades as she rocked slightly and memories of their hot birthday kiss taunted him again as they had through the endless night.
The softness of her lips, the husky timbre of her whisper, the heady satisfaction of that little whimper.
Not even Ruby’s stern disapproval had been able to obliterate the whimper. But his sister was right.
It was an attraction he couldn’t explore. For numerous reasons.
They had to talk. About the kiss. About the crush. About their total unsuitability for each other.
He hadn’t planned to do it now but it seemed fate had intervened.
A light ocean breeze ruffled his hair as he adjusted his board under his arm and descended the stairs.
‘Hi,’ he said as he passed by, stepping onto the soft sand and turning to face her as he dropped his board at his feet.
Jess started as Adam and his mouth appeared before her. His mouth, however, promptly lost its fascination as she realised he was practically naked before her. A brief pair of swimming trunks was the only thing that stood between him and total nudity.
She’d never known a man to wear so little so consistently! She swallowed, refusing to look any further south than his chest.
‘Hi.’
He looked at her for a moment, his gaze drawn to her pink mouth. ‘I didn’t realise you were a walker,’ he said, indicating her gym clothes.
Jess shrugged. ‘I’m not. Not really. Just…couldn’t sleep.’
He nodded. Now, that he could relate to. He’d never been more relieved to see strips of daylight illuminating the sky through the blinds of his bedroom window.
‘We need to talk.’
Her heart thumped like a rotor in her chest. ‘Okay.’
Adam cleared his throat. ‘About the kiss.’
Jess held her breath. ‘Yes?’
‘I shouldn’t have…let things get out of hand like that. It was…wrong of me.’
Jess didn’t want to hear wrong. It had been a good kiss—a great kiss—and they were both adult and single. There had been nothing wrong about it.
And maybe he wanted this too? Deep down. Maybe he just needed a push?
‘Did you enjoy it?’ she asked, cutting to what was, in her opinion, the crux of the matter.
Hell, yeah was his most immediate thought. But he was smart enough to know he was damned, no matter how he answered. ‘Of course I enjoyed it, Jess.’
Jess felt a little kick of triumph deep in her belly. ‘Well, isn’t that all that matters?’
Adam sighed. If only it was that simple. ‘No, it isn’t. You’re quite a bit younger than me and you’re Ruby’s friend and you live in my house. We shouldn’t be kissing…at all…and especially not like that.’
Because it was going to lead to more. Hell, he already wanted more.
How could that be?
How could he want to yank her into his arms and kiss her again? Kiss her better. Wetter, deeper, harder.
It was insane.
Jess regarded him seriously. She knew she probably wasn’t going to get another opportunity to make her case so, despite her heart thudding so loudly she could barely hear herself, she pushed a little more. ‘Even though we enjoyed it?’
Adam nodded. ‘Especially because we enjoyed it.’
Jess watched as the light ocean breeze ruffled his shaggy hair. The sun rising higher over the horizon behind him highlighted the tips and it seemed to glow like a golden halo.
‘Look…Ruby told me…about your…about the crush.’
Jess stilled as a bloom of colour whooshed over her from the roots of her hair to the tips on her sand-buried toes. She dropped her gaze.
Ruby? How could she?
She wanted to die. She wanted to dig a big hole in the sand and bury herself in it. She wanted to cough and splutter and deny it and pretend that Ruby had lost her mind.
She wanted to stamp her foot. Giggle. Cry.
Anything to get through this excruciating moment.
Running away was another option.
But, staring at her toes buried in the sand, she knew she couldn’t. This was the ultimate test of her adulthood. A child, a girl would run away and hide. Adults didn’t. They talked about their issues. No matter how difficult or embarrassing. They faced things head on.
Just like Adam.
Adam couldn’t bear it as the silence stretched, broken only by the cry of a seagull. He’d embarrassed her—that much was obvious—but surely she didn’t think this conversation was any easier for him.
‘Jess?’
Jess took a steadying breath and looked up. Time to prove to him, in a less overt way than last night, how mature she could be.
‘I’m twenty-four years old, Adam. Crushes are for teenagers.’
She took a breath to gather herself to lay it all out. To speak up for a change instead of keeping it all to herself.
‘I think you’re sexy. Hot. Delicious.’ She could feel her face getting warmer but she plunged on. She couldn’t back out now.
‘But more than that, you’re amazing. You’re smart and kind and what you do for a living is sexy. And it makes me proud to know you. Proud to be part of the human race. You’re noble and that’s sexy. So sexy it makes me hot all over. And even if you were ugly, which…’ she couldn’t help herself, she looked him up and down and sighed ‘…God help me, you’re not, you’d still make me hot all over.’
There, she’d said it.
Every part of her wanted to drop her gaze from his stunned face, to hide the embarrassed flush, to sink into the ground. But if she did, if she blinked, all the things she’d said would lose their impact.
So she kept her chin firmly up.
He needed to know that this was more than just some silly girly crush. He needed to know that what she felt for him was very, very adult. And that it was about more than the external package.
Adam was speechless. Stunned. Too stunned to even move. Well, most of him anyway. One part of him was having no problems in that quarter. Her so sexy it makes me hot all over was having an alarming effect and he wasn’t exactly dressed to conceal involuntary reactions.
‘Can I have a moment to process that?’ he asked as he hastily lowered himself to the same step that Jess was sitting on but as close to the opposite end as was possible without falling off.
Jess, pleased to break the intense eye contact, nodded. ‘Sure. It’s a lot to take in,’ she said, returning her gaze to the ocean, feeling as light as the gull still riding the air currents above.
Finally, she’d got it off her chest.
Adam stared out at it too, feeling decidedly burdened as his brain grappled with Jess’s words. Quite a few women had called him sexy. And hot. Usually they were between sheets at the time but the point was, he was used to being flattered by women. Compliments about his body weren’t exactly a new thing.
Surfing kept him in good shape and he certainly worked it to his advantage. He enjoyed the way women looked at him. He liked their candid appreciation. That look in their eyes that told him they’d already undressed him.
But Jess’s impassioned little speech wasn’t like that. There wasn’t that frank look in her eyes when she called him sexy. No sexual overtones when she’d told him she was hot for him. Her eyes didn’t do that flirty thing that let him know she’d put him next on her bucket list.
There was just honesty. And appreciation. Of him as a human being. Not just as a man with a good body.
And something else. Adoration. For what he did. For his skills. His brain. His humanity.
Somehow it was sexier than any amount of being mentally undressed.
Frankly it was…well…hot.
Finally he understood why his old man, the chief, got such a kick out of it. Why hundreds of fawning patients and colleagues and myriad accolades despite his terrible arrogance and unprofessional conduct puffed out his chest. Why his mother’s total adoration, unwavering even after forty years and several affairs, was such a huge ego trip.
The thought of his parents’ screwed-up relationship put the brakes on his own burgeoning ego. He wasn’t his father and he didn’t want that kind of relationship with anyone, especially not a woman.
Blind adoration may be flattering but he’d rather be involved with someone who had her own agenda, was her own woman. That’s what he’d loved so much about Caroline—as a kindy teacher and having not grown up in a medical family, she hadn’t given a toss about his medical pedigree or whose son he was.
She hadn’t even cared that his father disapproved of her—not malleable enough, son—in the beginning, anyway.
She’d just taken each day as it came and asked nothing of him other than letting her be her own woman. She’d been the complete opposite of his mother. And he’d adored her for it.
He hadn’t wanted to fall into the same pattern his parents’ marriage had taken. His mother eclipsed and happy to be so. Ready and willing to drop everything to do her husband’s bidding.
And he’d desperately wanted to stick it to his father. Show the chief what a real relationship was about. One that involved mutual respect.
But in the end, having escaped an overbearing father when her mother had divorced him in her teens, Caroline hadn’t wanted anything to do with the great Gregory Carmichael—including his son.
She hadn’t been convinced that Adam wouldn’t turn into his father one day.
That had been gutting.
And he’d spent every day since proving her wrong.
He dragged his gaze from the ocean and found Jess looking at him with that open, honest gaze. ‘Jess…I’m flattered. Really, I am.’
Jess could hear the but coming from a mile off.
‘But you and I just aren’t going to happen.’
She felt the inevitability of the rejection but refused to be dissuaded. If he thought she was going to take it meekly then he was wrong.
She was a country girl and they spoke their minds.
And she’d already laid herself bare. What did she have to lose?
‘Because your twelve years older than me?’
Adam groaned inwardly as she said the age difference out loud. It sounded obscene and instead of young and virile he felt old and dirty.
‘No. Not just because of that, although, God knows, that’s bad enough.’
He rubbed his hand through his hair as he searched for the right words to let her down gently.
‘It’s just… Jess, we want two different things from relationships. I’m not the settling-down type and, as Ruby so rightly pointed out last night, you are. I can’t in all honesty kiss you and know that while I’m thinking about how quickly I can get you into bed, you’re thinking about what colour to paint the nursery. That wouldn’t be right, Jess.’
‘See,’ she joked lightly, her heart expanding even more at his innate sense of fairness. ‘I told you you were noble.’
‘Jess…’
She sighed at the warning in his voice. ‘How do you know you’re not the settling-down type when you’ve never even tried, Adam? I know you came close once but that was a long time ago.’
So Jess knew about Caroline. Ruby must have told her. But did she have any idea how devastated he’d been?
‘Jess, I’m only here for a handful of weeks before I go off on my next mission. And I can’t get into something with you that could have repercussions for your relationship with Ruby and with the important surgeries we’ve got coming up. If you were ten years older, ten years wiser, if you didn’t live in my house and I wasn’t about to become your boss, I’d totally be up for a fling. But that’s all I could offer you. I don’t do anything serious.’
Jess contemplated the temptation for a moment. A fling with a man she’d lusted after for three years. The same man who sat not two metres from her with practically every muscle, every inch of skin he had exposed to her gaze.
It was so very tempting. ‘Maybe I’m totally up for a fling too?’
Adam narrowed his gaze at the bravado he heard trembling in her voice. ‘Really?’ He cocked an eyebrow, his heart pounding in rhythm with the surf. ‘You wouldn’t want more?’
Of course she would. Even before their kiss she’d wanted more. And her grandmother always told her to be true to herself and others.
She looked back towards the horizon. ‘I’d want everything.’
Even though her words were barely more than a whisper Adam heard them loud and clear. They slipped under his skin as he also turned his gaze to the rising sun. ‘I only give everything to my job.’
Jess nodded. In her heart of hearts she knew that. It was, after all, one of the things she admired about him. But he suddenly sounded utterly miserable and she realised she’d done that. She’d brought the man down when all he’d no doubt been hoping for when he’d come to the beach this morning had been to catch a wave or two.
To be exhilarated, not aggravated.
It’s not like he’d ever given her crush any encouragement. Until last night, and the naked-in-her-bed thing, he’d been absolutely above board with her.
It wasn’t his fault she was besotted with him.
And she didn’t want him to feel awkward or like this was somehow his fault. She looked back at him. ‘Guess we’re just going to have to stay friends, then, huh?’
Adam looked at her sharply. ‘You think we can do that? Ignore this whole…awkward conversation and go on like before?’
No. She didn’t want it to go back to what it had been. But Jess felt a responsibility to fix what she’d broken with her seize-the-moment attitude.
‘No. I don’t want it to be like it was before. We were just acquaintances, passing each other like ships in the night. You barely spoke to me, for crying out loud, which is crazy because your sister is one of my closest friends and we’re going to be working together. Our paths are kind of intertwined—whether you like it or not. I’d like to think we could be friends.’
Adam couldn’t think of a single woman friend he’d had whose pants he hadn’t wanted to get into. And usually did.
But this wasn’t any woman. It was Jess. Ruby’s friend. And it was a very sensible suggestion.
He smiled. ‘Now, that sounds like something I could live with.’
Jess responded to his smile despite herself. He was incredible in this early morning light as the soft morning sun stroked gentle fingers over all his golden glory. He looked fit and healthy and very, very male.
‘Go surf,’ she ordered. Before I push you down right here in the sand.
Adam grinned. ‘Yes, ma’am.’
All the serious talk had put paid to his erection so he leapt to his feet, bending to pick up his board. He was grateful for the familiar weight against his body and for the invisible pull of the waves.
But a sudden pang of conscience tugged at him and he looked over his shoulder. ‘If you want off the team, you know I’d understand.’
Jess recoiled from the suggestion as an immediate rebuff hovered on her lips. ‘Do you want me off?’ she asked, holding her breath.
‘No.’ He shook his head emphatically. ‘Absolutely not. Just…you know… Thought it might be easier…’
Nothing was easy where her feelings for him were concerned. So what difference did it make? ‘Wild horses couldn’t drag me from the team.’
Adam smiled again, buoyed by her emphatic reply. He’d been looking forward to working with her. ‘Good.’
Jess sat and watched the swagger of his butt until it disappeared into the ocean.
A week later Jess somehow found herself sitting in the middle of a press conference, the Eastern Beaches Hospital logo behind her and flashes strobing in front of her. She was a most reluctant participant but as the other nurses in Adam’s team were all in surgery, she hadn’t been given a choice.
‘Just fake it,’ her boss had advised. ‘They’re not interested in you anyway. You’re just a prop.’
‘Gee, thanks,’ Jess had murmured.
Martha laughed. ‘Sorry. What I mean is…this is all just a publicity exercise for the hospital and the charities involved so we put on our scrubs and we play along.’
‘Scrubs? But nobody wears their scrubs outside the operating theatres.’
‘Yes, you know that and I know that but the general public, who’ve had a steady diet of medical shows for the last thirty years, don’t. Gordon Meriwether wants us in scrubs. We wear scrubs. He’s the boss.’
So here she sat in her scrubs, hair tucked into her theatre cap, in what felt like the middle of a circus as her fellow performers were introduced by Gordon.
Adam, of course, followed by Rajiv, the anaesthetist, Paula, the surgical registrar, and the two charity CEOs.
And next to her sat Lai Ling, the star case.
Beside her, an interpreter.
At nineteen and obviously embarrassed by her condition, Lai Ling seemed very overawed by all the noise and attention. She barely lifted her gaze and when she did she looked shyly through her fringe.
All the patients had arrived on a flight yesterday morning and the surgical team had met them in the afternoon. And in three days’ time, on Monday morning, the first case would be operated on. Lai Ling was scheduled for Wednesday.
‘Dr Carmichael,’ someone yelled from the back of the room once the floor had been thrown open to questions. ‘Can you tell us about Lai Ling’s condition?’
Adam, also resplendent in scrubs, smiled and Jess’s heart did a silly flutter in her chest. She’d not seen a lot of him this last week but had been pleased that any awkwardness had passed quickly and they could chat and laugh like they’d never kissed at all.
‘Lai Ling has a congenital facial deformity known as a Tessier cleft. They are very rare and caused by the failure of the face to fuse properly in utero. They involve both soft tissue and the bony elements of the face.’
Jess felt Lai Ling move closer to her as all eyes swivelled her way. She grabbed for the young woman’s hand under the table and gave it a squeeze. She knew that Lai Ling had lived a solitary life, unable to make friends or be included in village life, because of her condition.
Looking at the defect, Jess felt incredibly protective of her. The young woman’s face was ‘separated’ in the middle where the bones beneath hadn’t fused properly. This had the unfortunate result of displacing both of her eyes laterally and the formation of a bifid nose—two complete half-noses separated by a smooth expanse of skin.
It was a complex condition that required complex surgery.
Despite this, though, she had smiled shyly at Jess as she’d taken the seat next to her. More questions followed that required no input from her. Rajiv answered questions about the difficulty of anaesthetising cranio-facial patients and the charity heads spoke about Operation New Faces and praised Eastern Beaches and Dr Meriwether for their generosity.
‘Dr Carmichael, I’m curious as to why you chose this line of work when you could have gone into plastic surgery like your father, the great Gregory Carmichael, and made more of a name for yourself.’
Jess watched Adam tense and she flicked her gaze towards the assembled press pack, identifying the journo who had asked the question. Where had he said he was from? Some gossip rag or other.
Adam forced his shoulders and jaw to relax lest he say something like Because I didn’t want to turn into a rude arrogant bully who cares more about prestige than patients. ‘I didn’t become a surgeon to make a name for myself,’ he said tersely.
Jess watched as the journalist’s gaze narrowed, sensing a story behind Adam’s clipped reply. ‘And you think your father did?’ the journalist persisted.
Gordon, who granted Gregory Carmichael operating rights from time to time and earned quite a bit of money for the hospital in the process, leapt into the conversation.
‘Dr Gregory Carmichael is a consummate professional. As is his son. Next,’ he announced.
But the journo was not easily put off. ‘Is your father proud of the work you’re doing?’ he persisted.
Adam knew for damn sure he wasn’t. His mother was inordinately proud but his father had always thought what Adam did was a waste of time and that his son would go to his grave poor and unrecognised.
Gregory Carmichael just didn’t realise neither of those things mattered to Adam.
‘Well, I guess you’d have to ask him that.’ Adam fobbed the question off.
He was damned if he was going to make the chief look good by lying.
‘Next!’ Gordon called again, more insistently.
‘Lai Ling, how are you feeling?’ a female journo called.
Jess dragged her gaze away from Adam’s stony face as she felt the young woman tense. She squeezed her hand again as the interpreter, a greying man, murmured quietly to her.
‘She says she’s feeling good. Nervous but good.’
‘What are you hoping to look like after the surgery, Lai Ling,’ another voice called out.
Everyone waited while there was more conferring with the interpreter. ‘Lai Ling wants to look beautiful. Just like Jess.’
The interpreter indicated Jess and Lai Ling smiled shyly at her as general laughter followed. Jess blushed and smiled back as she squeezed the young woman’s hand again.
‘What do you say to that, Jess?’ a deep voice called from the back.
Jess looked at Lai Ling as she spoke, ignoring the media pack. ‘I say that I can already see through Lai Ling’s gorgeous eyes the beauty that lies beneath.’ She paused for the interpreter. ‘And that’s the only beauty that matters.’
Lai Ling shot her another shy smile as the interpreter conveyed Jess’s reply. The cameras snapped wildly.
Another couple of questions followed for Jess about the nursing role and working in a multi-disciplinary team. And then the journalist from earlier piped up again.
‘I notice from the article in Week About that you live with Dr Carmichael.’
Jess could feel Adam’s concerned gaze on her and the animosity flowing off him in thick, angry waves. ‘I live in a house owned by him with his sister who is a friend of mine and two other friends.’
‘So there’s no intimate relationship between the two of you?’
Adam thumped the table. ‘I hardly see that that’s relevant,’ he snapped.
‘Our readership likes to know the intimate details of celebrities’ lives.’
‘We’re doctors and nurses, doing our jobs,’ Adam said icily. ‘Not celebrities.’
‘But your father is,’ the man persisted.
‘My father’s not here,’ Adam said stonily.
‘Okay,’ Gordon intervened. ‘I think we’ve got a bit off track… Last questions? Somebody other than our friend from Behind Closed Doors.’
A few more questions were thrown to the charity directors then someone asked if everyone wouldn’t mind saying what they’d take away from the experience. ‘You first, Jess,’ the journo prompted.
Jess took the opportunity to refocus the press conference on the reason they were all there. After the comparisons to his father and speculation about their relationship outside work, Jess felt that Adam and what he was trying to achieve had been belittled.
‘The opportunity to work on this project with all these incredible professionals is truly amazing. It’s easy to forget with all this hoopla that nine lives will be changed as a result of what we’re doing.’
Jess turned and smiled at Lai Ling before seeking Adam’s lapis lazuli gaze and locking tight.
‘This is all down to the vision and drive of Dr Carmichael. The work he does is truly inspirational. The opportunity to work with him, to be part of his team, is beyond what I’ve ever hoped for. He may not be a fancy celebrity plastic surgeon but the world has enough of them. What the world doesn’t have enough of are dedicated surgeons who strive to make the world a better place.’
There was a moment of utter stillness as, for the first time in half an hour, every person in the room fell silent.
Then someone clapped and soon the room rang with applause. Jess flushed bright pink and dropped her gaze.
Adam breathed out slowly.
He’d never been more turned on in his life.