At His Service: Her Boss the Hero: One Night With Her Boss / Her Very Special Boss / The Surgeon's Marriage Proposal

THE face behind the Perspex window of the helicopter got smaller.

It was too high now to be sure of where he was looking, but the downward tilt of Tama’s head suggested that he was still watching Mikki, well after the hand he’d raised to return her wave had been lowered.

The way she was still watching him as the wash from the rotors faded and she was able to push back the wayward curls that had been teased from their restraint.

The way they had both been watching each other for the last two days. Stealing extra glances whenever there was a chance of them being undetected.

Awareness, that’s what it was.

They were on new ground now. A foundation of mutual respect. Not that Mikki had had an opportunity to prove much in the way of her clinical skills because every job in the last two days had been a potential winch situation and she’d been left behind on station.

There’d been plenty of downtime as well, however, and Mikki had used it well. Just before this mission had been dropped on the crew, she had been demonstrating the hand signals she’d learned while they’d lounged in the armchairs of the messroom. She stood between the men and the huge television where a replay of a recent rugby game was on.

‘Wind direction,’ she announced, holding both arms extended to one side. ‘I face the helicopter and point my arms towards the landing zone with the wind at my back.’

‘Excellent,’ Josh told her. Mikki acknowledged the praise with a quick smile as she moved into a new position.

‘Move forward,’ she said, using both arms in front and together with a pulling motion. ‘Or move back.’ With palms at right angles to her wrists, she pushed the air in front of her.

It was while she was demonstrating the ‘do not land’ signal of each arm straight out horizontally and then swung overhead that Mikki shifted her gaze from the approving smile still on Josh’s face to notice that Tama’s gaze was not following the movement of her hands.

He was staring at her chest!

It should have made Mikki angry. It would have if she’d been demonstrating something to anyone else and had noticed a completely inappropriate focus that could be deemed sexist. Demeaning, in fact.

What was disturbing about this was that her reaction was nothing like anger. It felt like having fuel poured over a spark she seemed incapable of extinguishing. A tickle of desire that was so pleasurable it was addictive.

And growing.

This new foundation was not simply a matter of the respect she’d earned during the HUET. It was coloured by the connection they’d discovered.

An awareness that was only a hair’s breadth from being an irresistible attraction. Made all the more irresistible by the thought that someone like Tama could find someone like her interesting. Heady stuff. A drug that was tempting Mikki to go back to it again and again. To test its effect. To see if she would become resistant.

She would have expected Tama to have dismissed it by now but, instead, it seemed to be growing. Feeding on itself. An appetite that could become an addiction because it was apparently being fed from both sides by stolen glances and an appreciation of the information they were gathering.

‘Shut down,’ Mikki ordered briskly, making a ‘cutthroat’ gesture with her right hand.

Tama’s gaze flew up and Mikki could see that she had startled him out of whatever direction his thoughts had been travelling. She could also see the faint query in his eyes and then a twinkle that blatantly said he knew he’d been busted and didn’t care.

Damn it! That sheer confidence in combination with that mischievous twinkle was just adding power to a magnetic pull. One that Mikki simply had to resist. This man was her mentor, for heaven’s sake. She was here to gather the skills she needed for the next step in a carefully planned career. A fling—however thrilling it might be—was not an option. It would either distract her from what she needed to learn or it would end in tears and possibly ruin the only chance she was going to get to have this training. Definitely ruin the opportunity she had of learning from the best in the field.

But did she even have grounds to worry? Tama James had to be the most career-focussed man she’d ever met. More passionately involved with his work than many registrars she’d worked with who were consumed by ambition to make a consultant’s position in the shortest possible time.

No way would he risk his job, and doing something as inappropriate as having a sexual relationship with his pupil would definitely land him in very hot water.

‘Clear to start engine.’ Mikki raised her right arm and drew circles in the air above her head. She extended her arms sideways. ‘Clear to lift.’ Then she raised them high with her thumbs clear of her fists. ‘Take off,’ she instructed.

And, right on cue, the pagers sounded and both men jumped up from their chairs.

Josh gave Mikki a suspicious glance. ‘That was spooky. You got a hot line to Control or something?’

‘Feminine intuition,’ she responded. ‘One of the benefits of having a chick on the crew.’

‘One of many, I’m sure,’ Tama murmured as he walked past, but Mikki didn’t dare meet his gaze.

Going any further down that conversational path would be blatant flirting. Playing the dangerous game of exploring the edges of an existing attraction was one thing. Encouraging it would be insane. The rules of this game were quite clear. If awareness and attraction were building blocks, they could do what children who weren’t friends could do. Check out the shapes and colours of the blocks. Shift them around a little and make pleasing shapes. Parallel play.

What they could not do was play together. To make anything that would undoubtedly lead to joining more than building blocks.

‘I hope this isn’t going to be another winch job,’ she said casually as she followed the men into the office where they would get details of the mission and do the initial map work.

But it was and again Mikki was left on station to keep herself busy. Not that there was any shortage of options. The stack of articles Tama had copied for her sat on a coffee-table near where he’d been sitting, and Mikki picked up one of the few she hadn’t read yet titled ‘Air Medical Transport of the Cardiovascular Patient’.

She sat down with every intention of absorbing what she needed to know concerning aspects such as the risk of patient deterioration due to a decrease in barometric pressure with rising altitude.

Was it her imagination that the soft cushions of this chair were still warm from their previous occupant? That there was a faint, musky, very masculine scent surrounding her?

Whatever. It was enough to make Mikki pull her feet up and curl deeper into the chair, oblivious to the faint smile curving her lips.

‘Cardiac reserve,’ she muttered aloud, her tone resigned. ‘The ability of the heart to increase output in response to increased demands.’

For the first time, as he watched the figure on the ground get smaller and smaller, Tama felt a pang of disappointment that Mikki had been left behind.

Had it really only been last week when he’d been wishing so fervently for a mission that would enable escape from her company?

Josh seemed to be reading his mind as Steve banked the helicopter and their forward speed increased.

‘Damn shame the mouse couldn’t come.’

‘It’s an injured tramper. We’re not likely to find a close landing space in that kind of bush.’

‘Get her winch trained, then,’ Steve suggested. ‘I’ll bet she’s keen.’

‘It’s way too early to even think about that,’ Tama growled.

His colleagues were silent for a moment. Wondering why he was in a bad mood perhaps? And who was he trying to convince, anyway? Them or himself?

‘She’s capable enough,’ Josh said. ‘Look at the way she threw herself into the HUET. Amazing!’

Tama simply grunted. They could think what they liked about his mood. He wasn’t about to admit his total agreement. Not out loud, that’s for sure. No reason not to let his mind play along those lines, though.

The princess was amazing all right and not just for the physical courage she had displayed during the underwater escape training.

She hadn’t whinged once about being left behind on mission after mission. She’d been using her time constructively to devour the pile of written material Tama had actually intended to daunt her. All those heavy articles on the conditions they could be expected to transport and considerations that came with treating complications at high altitude and in a confined space.

Josh broke into his thoughts. ‘You know, it could be useful to have a doc who’s winch trained.’

‘Why?’