The Doctor's Rebel Knight

‘I’m all right,’ she said, but it was clear she wasn’t. She looked shaken and pale and her bottom lip was trembling slightly, as if she was fighting tears. It had been tough at the Pelleris’, he was the first to admit that, but she was a qualified medic, for pity’s sake. If she was going to last any time in the bush she would have to toughen up, and fast.

Jacob put an arm around her shoulders and helped her to the front door, his body springing to awareness of her petite feminine frame tucked into the strength of his. Her long blonde hair tickled the bare skin on his arm, and he could smell its alluring summer fragrance of frangipani and coconut.

After his break-up with Melissa he had been determined not to do the rebound thing, but weeks and then months had gone by and he had started to forget how nice it felt to hold someone close. However, Dr Frances Nin was just the sort of woman he usually avoided. Touchy, argumentative and prickly, not exactly the qualities he was looking for in a life partner. But he had to admit she packed quite a visual punch.

Rufus barked as they came in but Jacob issued him with a stern command to sit in case he bumped against Fran. ‘Which way to the first-aid kit?’ he asked.

‘Look, Sergeant Hawke,’ she began, ‘this is totally unnecessary. It’s just a scratch.’

‘Jacob.’

She blinked at him. ‘Sorry?’

‘You can call me Jacob,’ he said with a crooked tilt of his lips. ‘Pelican Bay isn’t big on formality, or hasn’t anyone told you that?’

‘Jacob…’ She slipped out of his hold, her cheeks the colour of a soft pink rose. ‘Thanks for the lift but really I would much rather be alone right now.’

Jacob made an L with his fingers and rested it against his chin and mouth as he looked down at her musingly.

‘He really did a good job on you, didn’t he?’

Her chin came up and a storm brewed in her grey-blue eyes. ‘I have already told you I am not interested in discussing my private life,’ she said.

‘What was his name?’

Her hands fisted by her sides, flashes of anger in her gaze as it clashed with his. ‘I realise it is a part of your job to ask questions but to put it bluntly, Sergeant Hawke, I have no intention of answering them.’

‘Where’s the first-aid kit?’ he asked again.

She crossed her arms and angled her head towards the door. ‘I have two words for you, Sergeant. Leave. Now.’

Jacob moved past her to where he supposed the nearest bathroom was, a part of him enjoying the verbal tussle with her. He liked the way her eyes lost their soulless look when she battled head to head with him. He suspected behind that fragile the-world-is-against-me demeanour was a spirited young woman who just needed some time to sort herself out.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she asked as she limped after him into the downstairs bathroom.

He opened a couple of drawers below the basin before he found what he was looking for. ‘Sit on the toilet seat while I clean those scratches,’ he said.

She stood mulishly, still glaring at him with those thundercloud eyes. ‘I am quite capable of seeing to my own scratches, Sergeant Hawke. I am a doctor, remember?’

He dabbed a cotton-wool ball with antiseptic. ‘I’m glad to hear you say that,’ he said. ‘When word gets around about your heroic success in saving Ella Pelleri, just about every resident in Pelican Bay is going to be knocking on your door for a consultation.’

‘We both know it wasn’t me that saved her,’ she said.

His eyes locked on hers before he returned to assembling the first-aid items on the bench. ‘I figure it’s like loosening the lid on a jar for someone.’

‘What?’

He looked sideways to see her frowning at him in confusion. ‘When I was a little kid…’ He paused for a second before continuing, ‘My mother had trouble unscrewing jars, or so she said. I would try my hardest to unscrew it but in the end I would hand it back to her, but each and every time she would say I had loosened it for her. The way I see it, you had the situation more or less in control, apart from momentary panic, which could have happened to anyone given the circumstances. I just loosened the lid on it for you.’

Her mouth pulled even tighter but he saw a flicker of consternation pass through her eyes. ‘Even so, I’m not obliged to see anyone while I am here in town,’ she said. ‘I haven’t even got a prescription pad with me.’

He placed a hand on her shoulder and with gentle pressure forced her to sit on the closed toilet seat. ‘I am sure there are prescription pads at the clinic as well as anything else needed to run a small one-doctor practice.’

Fran felt her breathing go out of whack as he hunkered down in front of her. He was wearing his gunbelt complete with handcuffs and mobile phone and radio, adding to his dangerous, don’t-mess-with-me air. Her shoulder was still tingling from the pressure of his large warm hand, the nerves beneath her skin tap-dancing in delight. She couldn’t help staring at his hands. His fingers were twice the thickness of hers, long and tanned with neatly clipped square nails. The knuckles of his right hand were grazed, and she wondered if he had got that in the line of duty or doing some sort of handyman job.

‘Ouch!’ She jerked back as he dabbed her scraped knees with the cotton wool.

‘Sorry, but, believe me, this is hurting me more than it’s hurting you.’

Fran peered at him through narrowed eyes. ‘Are you laughing at me, Sergeant Hawke?’ she asked.

He gave her a glinting half-smile that did strange things to her stomach, making it tip upside down like a quickly flipped pancake. ‘Now, why would I do that, Dr Nin?’ he asked.

She scowled as he continued to dab at her knees. ‘I wish you would stop calling me that.’

He met her gaze in between dabs. ‘Too formal for you?’

She blew out a sigh. ‘I don’t feel like a doctor any more…at least I don’t want to.’

He placed two pieces of sticky plaster on each knee before he straightened. ‘So you’re going to throw away all those years of study to do what? Go on endless holidays?’ he asked, a disapproving frown narrowing the distance between his eyes as he looked down at her.

Fran stood up gingerly, conscious of how close he was standing to her. She could smell his male smell, warmth, a hint of citrus and a hint of perspiration full of sexy male pheromones, which was dangerously attractive. ‘I don’t know,’ she said in a deliberately airy tone. ‘I’m still thinking about it.’

He scrunched up the wrappers and tossed them in the pedal bin near his feet. ‘Well, while you’re thinking about it, why not think about this?’ he said, locking his gaze with hers. ‘There are people living here who need a doctor, not next week, not next month, but today. You don’t have to put in a ninety-hour week—no one is asking you to. But why not just a couple of hours, once or twice a week until a replacement is found?’

Fran would have pushed past him but it would have meant touching him and that she wanted to avoid. She’d had enough trouble keeping her head while he’d been tending to her knees. Feeling his gentle touch had switched on sensations she could still feel charging through her body. She lowered her gaze and ran her tongue over her lips, feeling cornered and confused. ‘I’m not interested, Sergeant Hawke,’ she said with as much firmness as she could muster, which wasn’t much.

Something about him made her feel deeply disturbed. It wasn’t just his male presence—it was also his commanding air of authority. He was a man used to getting his own way. She could see it in the carved-from-stone contours of his jaw, not to mention the ice-hard focus of his gaze when it locked on hers.

The phone on his belt began to ring and Fran let out a sigh of relief as he moved past her to answer it. Her reprieve was brief, however, for in less than thirty seconds Jacob was back, his car keys already tinkling in his hand.

‘There’s been an accident out on Valley Road,’ he said. ‘A teenager has fallen off her horse—sounds like at the very least a broken leg. The ambulance is away, taking Ella Pelleri to Wollongong Hospital, so the clinic receptionist has called in Careflight. We’ll drop by the ambulance station and pick up their trauma bag. You can stabilise the victim until the chopper arrives.’

‘But I—’ Fran quickly bit back her protest. What would be the point in saying she couldn’t handle it, that two emergencies in one day was asking way too much of her? She could see from the look in Jacob’s eyes there was no way he was going to take no for an answer.

Chapter Three

WITH the police siren screeching, Jacob hit speeds Fran had only seen at her Formula One medical training days in Melbourne a couple of years ago. Thankfully the breakneck pace took her mind off everything but surviving the journey in one piece. Even though he had supposedly only been in town only a few months, he seemed to know his way around the back roads, she thought as they arrived at a large property with white post-and-rail fences in less than ten minutes, notwithstanding their detour to the ambulance station for the trauma kit.