Daredevil, Doctor...Husband?

She couldn’t look away. Couldn’t find anything to say. All she could do was stare at those dark eyes. Feel the puff of his breath on her face. Notice the dark stubble on his jaw and how soft it made his lips look…

The board beneath her rocked a little as Flint jumped off. Maybe he’d knocked Zac slightly off balance and that was why he leaned even closer to her. It was no excuse, though, was it?

You really shouldn’t kiss somebody you’d only just met. Somebody who you were probably going to be working with on an almost daily basis.

Summer couldn’t deny that she’d been thinking about kissing him. Couldn’t deny that sudden attraction. Had it been contagious?

Who actually moved first or was it just the result of that movement on top of already sitting so close?

Not that it mattered. Nothing seemed to matter for the brief blink of time that Zac’s lips touched her own. The touch was so electric that she jerked back instinctively. She’d never felt anything like that…

Flint’s deep bark couldn’t be ignored. Jay was walking towards them. The random sound of a frog croaking from her beach bag was another alert. She had a text message on her phone.

Real life was demanding her attention but, for a crazy moment, Summer wanted it to just go away. She wanted to sit on the sand as the sun set.

She wanted to kiss Zac again.

Properly, this time…

‘So…’ Zac had noticed Flint’s enthusiastic greeting and must have guessed that it was Jay coming to collect the board. ‘How ‘bout that drink?’

Summer was also getting to her feet. She’d scooped up her bag and was checking her phone. It could be an emergency call-out.

Except it wasn’t. It was a text from Kate.

It’s driving me nuts trying to guess. You don’t mean Zac M, do you? OMG. If it is, stay AWAY.

Somehow Summer managed a friendly introduction between Jay and her new work colleague despite the chaos in the back of her mind as memories forced themselves to the surface.

Driving Kate up to Auckland late that night because Shelley had been hospitalised after an attempted suicide. Listening to the hysterical account of the man she’d been abandoned by. The father of her baby. The monster who’d tried to push her down a staircase when he’d learned that she was pregnant…

So many buttons could be pushed by memories that could never be erased.

And she’d actually wanted to kiss him again?

‘I’ll give you a hand closing up,’ she heard herself saying to Jay as he picked up her board. She barely glanced over her shoulder. ‘See you later, Zac.’

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_a51930f4-aa7e-5786-bfbc-b673606b67dd)

HE HAD NO one to blame other than himself.

How stupid had he been?

Even now, a good twenty hours after the incident, the realisation that he’d kissed Summer Pearson was enough to make him cringe inwardly. Or maybe it was an echo of the flinch his current patient had just made.

‘Sorry, mate. It’s just the local going in. It’s a deep wound.’

‘Tell me about it. As if it wasn’t bad enough getting bitten by the damn dog, I had to rip half my leg open on the barbed wire fence getting away from it. Bled like a stuck pig, I did.’

‘I’ll bet.’ Zac reached for the next syringe of local that Mandy had drawn up for him. ‘Almost there. We can start stitching you up in a minute.’

‘You won’t feel a thing,’ Mandy assured him. ‘You’ve got the best doctor in the house.’

‘At least he’s a bloke. D’you know, there were two girls on the ambulance that came to get me?’

‘Hadn’t you heard, Mr Sanders?’ Mandy’s tone was amused. ‘Girls can do anything these days. Can’t we, Zac?’

‘Absolutely. I’d say you were a lucky man, Mr Sanders. Can you pass me the saline flush, please, Mandy? I’d like to give this a good clean-out before we start putting things back together.’

He took his time flushing out the deep laceration. He’d do the deep muscle suturing here but he had every intention of handing over to Mandy to finish the task. It might do his patient good to realise that girls could be trusted to do all sorts of things these days.

Like fly around in helicopters and save people’s lives. Not that he’d seen Summer do anything that required a high level of skill yesterday but he was quite confident that she had the capability to impress him. He was looking forward to a job that would challenge them both.

At least, he had been looking forward to it.

What had he been thinking on the beach yesterday evening? That because she seemed to be thawing towards him he’d make a move and ensure that she actually had a good reason to hate working with him?

Idiot…

Except it hadn’t been like that, had it?

Zac reached for the curved needle with the length of absorbable suture material attached. He touched the base of the wound at one side.

‘Can you feel that?’

‘Nope.’

‘Okay. Let me know if you do feel anything.’

‘Sure will.’

Zac inserted the needle at the base of the wound and then brought it out halfway up the other side. Pulling it through, he inserted it in the opposite side at the same level and then pulled it through at the base again. This meant he could tie it at the bottom and bury the knots to reduce tissue traction, which would give a better cosmetic result.

His patient was happy to lie back on his pillow, his hands behind his head, smiling at Mandy, who was happy to keep him distracted while Zac focused on his task.

‘What sort of dog was it, Mr Sanders?’

‘No idea. Horrible big black thing. Bit of Rottweiler in it, I reckon, judging by the size of those teeth.’

Zac tried to tune out from the chat. Tried not to think about big black dogs. But the suturing was a skill that was automatic and it left his mind free to circle back yet again to how things had gone so bottom-up on the beach.

He’d been enjoying himself. Taking pleasure in sitting beside an attractive young woman, sharing his favourite place with someone who loved it as much as he did. Feeling as if he was making real progress in forging a new professional relationship because of the way Summer had been telling him about part of her personal life. Loving the idea of such a faithful bond between owner and dog that a bit of ocean wasn’t about to separate them.

And suddenly something had changed dramatically. He’d been shoved sideways by the dog and Summer had been looking at him and it felt as if he was seeing who she really was for the first time and he’d liked what he was seeing.

Really liked it.

But he didn’t go around kissing women just because he found them attractive. No way. He would never force himself on a woman, either. Ever. Being made to feel as if he had done that stirred feelings that were a lot less than pleasant.