The Man with the Locked Away Heart

A thin curl of dust rose from the road in the distance but Gemma couldn’t make out if it was a neighbour or a tourist. Jingilly Creek hadn’t exactly been a tourist destination since a bypass to the town had been built in the eighties, but very occasionally a visitor would find their way to the isolated community if they headed inland off the main highway. Gladys would always give them a warm country welcome, fill them with a good hearty meal and offer them a bed for a night or two. Gemma had enjoyed watching her landlady entertain ‘city folk’, as Gladys had called them. Gemma had reminded her that she too was a city girl, but Gladys had always insisted there just had to be country blood in Gemma’s veins because she fitted in so well in the community. Gemma suspected Gladys had known how much she longed to fit in anywhere after so many years of feeling adrift. The Jingilly Creek community had become like an extended family to her. She felt loved and appreciated and valued and yet just lately it wasn’t quite enough.

Within minutes another curl of dust appeared but this time, instead of continuing down the road, the car creating the plume turned into Huntingdon Lodge. Gemma got off the wrought-iron seat—she couldn’t quite bring herself to sit in Gladys’s chair—and held onto the veranda post as the gunmetal-grey car rumbled over the cattle grid. It continued on up the serpentine drive until it finally came to a halt in front of the grand old house with a spray of gravel as the brakes were applied.

She felt her chest give a little flutter when the tall figure unfolded himself from the car, and her hand around the post tightened. He had undone a couple more of the buttons on his shirt, revealing just enough of his tanned chest to make her breath hitch in her throat. She suddenly was aware of her femininity in a way she hadn’t been in years. She couldn’t think of a time when she had met a more attractive-looking man. She used to think her ex-fiancé had cornered the market in good looks but Marc Di Angelo took it to a whole new level. ‘Good evening, Sergeant,’ she said as he crunched across the gravel towards the veranda. ‘Taking in the sights, are we?’

His dark gaze ran over her pink T-shirt with ‘Princess lives here’ written across her braless breasts before slowly coming back to her eyes.

Too slowly.

Deliberately slowly, Gemma thought. She felt something in the air between them, something heavy and pulsing. She didn’t want to think about just what it was.

‘This part of the Outback is certainly worth a second look,’ he said with a ghost of a smile playing about his sensually contoured mouth.

Gemma wondered how many female mouths had enjoyed being kissed by those sinfully sculpted lips. Her eyes surreptitiously went to his left hand and saw it was ringless. She wasn’t sure why her belly did a little flip turn. Maybe she had spent too much time in the bush alone. ‘What can I do for you, Sergeant Di Angelo?’ she asked in a deliberately cool tone.

By this time his right foot was on the bottom step of the veranda and his right hand was holding the railing. Flossie lumbered over, with her tail going from side to side, and he bent down and gave her a gentle ruffle of her ears, and the dog—shame on her—sighed as if in ecstasy. Gemma could see the muscles and sinews of his tanned arms liberally dusted with dark masculine hair that went all the way to the backs of his long fingers. His olive skin, along with his name, hinted at his Italian heritage, so too did the way he accented certain words, which suggested he spoke Italian fluently, although from his perfect colloquial English he was most certainly Australian born.

‘Apparently there’s no room at the inn, so to speak,’ he said.

She frowned. ‘That’s ridiculous. Ron always has rooms free. He’s always complaining how he hasn’t had full occupancy for years.’

‘Not this time,’ he said. ‘He told me I should ask you for a bed as you now own a guest house.’

Gemma’s heart flipped like a pancake. ‘Um … I’m not quite set up for guests.’ She faltered. She waved a hand vaguely towards the house behind her. ‘I’m still stripping the paintwork and refurbishing the place. As you can see, it’s very rundown.’

His gaze moved past hers to take in the house. ‘It looks fine to me.’ His eyes met hers again. ‘I’m prepared to pay my way. I can even help you with some jobs about the place in my spare time. I’m good with my hands.’

I just bet you are, Gemma thought with another furtive glance at his broad spanned hands. ‘Um … well, then, I guess you can stay.’ Not that I have much choice, she thought. She decided she was going to give Ron Curtis a piece of her mind next time she called in at the pub, and a very big piece at that.

She let the post go and brushed her damp palms down the sides of her faded trackpants. ‘It’s probably not what you’re used to. I mean, it’s a basic bed and breakfast and I can do an evening meal when I’m not out on a call or out on the plane with the Flying Doctor service.’

‘You sound like you work long hours, Dr Kendall,’ he said.

‘I do, but, then, that’s the Outback for you,’ she said. ‘I’m the only doctor this side of Minnigarra and the one there is semi-retired. The nearest hospital is Roma. All the serious stuff gets sent to Brisbane.’

‘Do you have anyone else staying with you at present?’ he asked.

‘Er—no,’ she said, suddenly wishing she had a house full of guests to dilute his disturbingly masculine presence.

He stepped back down from the veranda. ‘I’ll get my things from the car,’ he said.

Gemma pushed her hand through her still-damp hair. Good grief, why hadn’t she blown it dry and done her eyebrows while she’d had the chance? Had she even put on deodorant? And when was the last time she had shaved her legs, for pity’s sake? That was the trouble with being single for so long. You stopped making the effort because there was no one worth making the effort for.

She watched as Marc Di Angelo popped the boot of his car, his biceps bulging as he lifted out a gym bag, a smaller suitcase and a laptop. He hooked one of his fingers through the neck loop on a leather jacket and draped it over his shoulder as he came back to the steps leading to the house.

She stepped aside to make room for him as he came up the stairs of the veranda. ‘Welcome to Huntingdon Lodge, Sergeant Di Angelo,’ she said, hoping Gladys wasn’t turning in her grave at the insincerity in her tone.

Marc Di Angelo’s dark brown eyes glinted with something indefinable. ‘Thank you, Dr Kendall. I am looking forward to seeing what fringe benefits the bush has to offer.’

CHAPTER TWO

GEMMA showed him into one of the guest rooms, the one that was the most presentable and coincidentally the one furthest away from her room. His little comment about fringe benefits had made her awareness of him heighten. She felt the magnetic pull of his presence, the allure of his aloof, unknowable personality—a heady mix for a girl who hadn’t had a date in close to four years.

She pointed out the main bathroom further along the hall on the second storey. ‘Although we had fairly decent rain a few months ago, it’s best to keep showers short,’ she said. ‘You never know out here when the next rain is going to fall. The meteorologists don’t always get it right.’

‘I am well used to water restrictions,’ he said. ‘Although I’ve lived in Brisbane for the last couple of years, I originally came from Melbourne.’

‘Oh, really?’ she said. ‘What part did you come from?’

‘I grew up in the outer suburbs,’ he said. ‘My parents ran a restaurant in Dandenong.’

‘Were you stationed in the suburbs?’ she asked.

‘No, I was based in the city,’ he said. ‘Homicide.’

There was something about the way he said that word that made Gemma’s skin prickle. ‘So, what brought you up to Brisbane?’ she asked.

‘I wanted a change of scene. A new challenge. A new climate.’

‘Yes, well, Brisbane and Queensland in general will certainly give you that, compared to Melbourne,’ she said.

‘Do you miss your family, living so far away?’ he asked.

Gemma thought of her father with his new wife and young family. He had remarried within four months of her mother’s death in an accident. She still hadn’t quite forgiven him for it. Her comfortable childhood home had been completely renovated and extended into an unrecognisable showpiece that had been featured in several home magazines. It was as if her stepmother had wanted every trace of Gemma’s mother eradicated. Gemma’s childhood bedroom had been knocked down to make room for a third bathroom no one ever used. ‘No, not really,’ she said. ‘We pretty much live our own lives. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll make a start on dinner while you settle in. There are fresh towels in the bathroom if you’d like to freshen up before we eat.’

Gemma darted back to her bedroom and changed into jeans and a cotton shirt, this time with a push-up bra underneath. She ran a brush through her hair before pulling it back into a ponytail rather than leaving it hanging limply around her shoulders. She put on some deodorant and some perfume. She plucked out a few strays from her eyebrows and then gave her lips a quick swipe with some lip gloss. She could hear the shower going in the guest bathroom and tried not to imagine Marc Di Angelo standing naked under the spray of water.

She gave herself a vigorous mental shake. He might be gorgeous-looking but he was a cop. Most cops had control and power issues as far as she was concerned. Sure, they did a good job and there was certainly honour in protecting others at the risk of your own life, but she was not going to even think about getting involved in any way with a guy from the force. Besides, he was there as a professional and so was she. How would she appear to the locals if she launched into a red-hot affair with the first man who came striding into town? Desperate and dateless, that’s how. She was already tired of the broad hints about her approaching thirtieth birthday and her single status. It seemed every patient thought it their mission to get her hitched before she hit the big three-oh. So far the candidates presented to her had done nothing for her. But Sergeant Marc Di Angelo was something else again, even if he was too attractive, too arrogant and too controlling for her liking.

She was in the kitchen, watching over the chicken pilaf she was cooking, when Marc Di Angelo came in. He had changed out of his shirt and was now wearing his blue denim jeans with a black T-shirt that clung to his perfectly formed biceps and pectoral muscles like a second skin. His abdomen was so flat she instantly sucked in hers. ‘Dinner’s not quite ready,’ she said. ‘Would you like a drink? I have wine, beer or soft drink and fruit juice.’

‘What are you having?’ he asked.

She gave the pilaf a good grind of black pepper. ‘I had a mineral water just before you arrived,’ she said. ‘I was thinking about having a glass of wine.’

‘Are you on call?’

Gemma met his gaze as she put the pepper grinder down on the bench. ‘I am always on call. That’s the way it is out here. I am the only doctor in a radius of about two hundred kilometres.’

‘Must be tough, not being able to let your hair down occasionally,’ he said.

She shifted her gaze from the piercing intensity of his. ‘I’m not much of a party girl in any case,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen the damage binge drinking does to young people. Lives can be changed in an instant and they can’t always be changed back.’

‘We see a lot of that in the city,’ he said. ‘I’m not a big drinker but I will join in you a single glass of wine.’

She chanced another glance at him. ‘So you’re not currently on duty, Sergeant?’

He gave her a quick movement of his lips that again was not quite a smile. ‘Not at the moment. I came a week early just to get a feel for the place.’