A Miracle For The Baby Doctor

He was so close behind her that when she spun around she all but fell against him, needing to put her hand on his chest to steady herself.

Something sparked in Steve’s eyes but she was too concerned with her own reactions to be thinking of his. The long-dormant embers of desire that an earlier smile had brought back to life flared yet again.

With nothing more than an accidental touch?

He mustn’t guess!

That was her first thought.

So cover up!

That was her second.

Although it was far too late. They’d stood, her hand against his chest, for far too long, the tension she could feel in her body matched by what she felt in his—something arcing through the air between them—pulsing, electric.

She stepped back, sure she must be losing her mind that such fantasy could flash through it.

Talk work!

‘I was thinking I could probably find an organisation or service club back home that could donate a laparoscope,’ she said, backing off as far as the doorjamb would allow.

‘It would come in handy, especially as a diagnostic tool,’ he said, ice cool for all she’d seen something flicker in his eyes, and felt the tension—sure she’d felt an accelerated pulse. ‘But since I started coming here, I’ve become adept at removing eggs with the ultrasound to guide me.’

‘Imagine going back to the days when women needed an operation to remove them, sometimes in the middle of the night, because ovulation wasn’t timed as well as it is today.’

This was good, carrying on a normal conversation with him for all the sudden heat and awareness flaring inside her.

‘There are some funny stories of those days,’ he said, smiling at her, although he seemed slightly surprised that she knew the history of IVF.

But, then, he didn’t know her history.

He didn’t know anything about her, which made her feel just a little sad as she walked with him across the courtyard towards their quarters.

‘So, if you’ve seen enough, how about I take you for a quick drive around the town and we grab something to eat down on the foreshore? There’s a great French restaurant on the front that most of the visiting staff use as a home away from home.’

‘But Zoe said that monster barbecue is yours—that you cook?’

He grinned at her, alerting all the bits she’d just damped down.

‘You make it sound somehow shameful,’ he protested. ‘I enjoy cooking—well, barbecuing—and patients bring us food so I feel obliged to cook it. Some of them have so little, yet they give whatever they can. But tonight there’s no free gift so we might as well eat out.’

He hesitated for a moment, then said, ‘You probably want to shower and change before we go. We’ll leave in an hour? Is that okay with you?’

‘I won’t need an hour to shower and change,’ she said. ‘Embryologists still get called out at night from time to time, so I’ve retained my get up and go skills.’

He smiled again, something she was beginning to wish he wouldn’t do because being attracted to a man she’d only just met was ridiculous. Just as ridiculous as reacting to something as simple as a smile.

‘Ah, but in our case, remember, we share the bathroom, and after a morning wrestling with a pelican I, too, need to use it.’

‘A pelican?’

‘I’ll tell you later,’ he said, and for some obscure reason it sounded like a special promise.

‘So the shower? You’ll use it first?’ he prompted, before adding with a teasing grin, ‘Unless, of course, we shower together.’

She didn’t blush—she hadn’t, even when she was young—but she knew if she was a blushing type she’d have been ruby red. Not that she could let him guess that reaction.

‘And wouldn’t the other staff view that as unprofessional behaviour?’ she asked, hoping she sounded far cooler than she felt.

‘Maybe they wouldn’t know,’ he replied, the teasing note lingering in his voice. ‘They don’t live in, you know.’

He wasn’t serious, she was one hundred per cent sure of that, yet there’d been an undertone in his voice that unsettled her even more than she was already unsettled.

An undertone she didn’t want to think about.

Except the conversation did suggest that he had felt whatever it was that had arced between them...

‘I just want to check something back at the lab,’ she said, turning on the spot and hurrying away, calling over her shoulder, ‘so you can have first shower.’

She was being ridiculous.

As if he’d be interested in her.

It was his way. Teasing and maybe a bit flirtatious—laid-back like the islanders—he was that kind of man.

Could she flirt back?

The idea excited her but deep down she knew she couldn’t play that game. She’d never been able to flirt.

Oh, for Pete’s sake, what was she doing, standing in this makeshift lab having a mental conversation with herself about flirting!

CHAPTER TWO (#u1c52834c-f19e-5c58-b5d2-004d1459b283)

SHE STALKED BACK to the little apartment and shut herself in the bedroom where she stared at her ‘casual’ clothes and realised just how different the concept of ‘casual’ was here in the islands. Thinking of photographs she’d seen of Pacific islands, she’d thrown in one long, silky shift, not as voluminous as the muumuus all the women seemed to wear, but at least it would look more relaxed than slacks. It was pretty, too, a mix of blue and green in colour, a gift from a friend who’d claimed she’d bought it for herself before she realised the colours didn’t suit her.

It was still unworn because it was then that Fran had found out about Nigel and Clarissa—such a cliché that had been! Coming home from work early because she wasn’t feeling well! Desperately hoping it was a sign that she was pregnant—the test kit in her handbag—and Clarissa in her bed!

To make it a thousand times worse, the test strip had been, like all the others, negative...

So the lovely new shift had been inevitably tied to that devastating day and had been consigned to the back of her wardrobe.

At least now she could laugh about it—almost!

‘Bathroom’s free!’

Damnation! Even the man’s voice was unnerving her. But as long as he didn’t realise the effect he was having on her, it wouldn’t matter, would it?

She had a shower and pulled on the dress, brushed her hair and turned to the mirror so she could twist it into a neat knot on the top of her head, but upswept hair didn’t go with the neckline of the dress and she let her hair fall so it brushed her shoulders and hung softly about her face.