No.
That was not his intention. Before she could guess what he was about he’d caught her, reaching up, and taken her face between his broad hands and directed her kiss.
To his mouth.
And this wasn’t some feather-light kiss of good luck. This was a kiss! While the entire population of Birrini Bush Nursing Hospital cheered and applauded, Harry McKay kissed his doctor-cum-partner.
And his doctor-cum-partner’s senses shuttered down right there and then.
She managed a gasp-sort of-but then her brain decided it had other things to concentrate on that were much more important than gasping. There was the vague sound of clapping and cheering, but it was only vague and then it disappeared entirely. There was just Harry.
He was pulling her down to him, his lovely hands were through her hair, holding her close. His mouth was on hers. In hers. The feel of his mouth… It was the only reality there was.
She felt herself sinking…sinking… He was tugging her in closer; warmth and desire were flooding her body from the toes up… And then he slipped his tongue into her mouth. She was bending to meet his kiss-the man was in a wheelchair, for heaven’s sake-but she wasn’t aware. She was only aware of the taste of him. The feel of him. Her knees were giving way. Dear heaven, was she going to sink to the ground while the entire population of Birrini Bush Nursing Hospital looked on?
They wouldn’t mind. The cheering and laughter were gaining momentum so that even she could hear them.
She didn’t care. She couldn’t care. She grabbed at his arms for support and her eyes closed, and he was all there was.
Here was her heart. All there was in her world was the heat of his mouth, the feel of his fingers running through her hair and the sensation that all that had ever been wrong in her world was suddenly right.
She was where she belonged. She was home.
‘Do you think we should run the race without them?’ It was Lillian, choking back laughter. Joey was behind her and his eyes were sparkling with mischief. ‘Should someone ring Emily and tell her the wedding’s off, then?’
Emily.
The word was enough to haul them back. To have them pulling away from each other. To have Lizzie step back, confused and disoriented, her hand flying to her lips, reluctant to lose the sensation of such sweet pressure.
Emily. The race. Medicine. Edward. Queensland.
Jim, the hospital orderly, had been standing to one side, holding Phoebe by the collar. The big dog seemed to have been adopted by the entire hospital, and wherever there was action there was Phoebe. Now, sensing Lizzie needed something to ground her-anything-Jim released her collar and the basset nuzzled her way forward and pushed against her mistress with a whine.
It helped. The dog’s flabby warmth against her legs gave her back reality. It enabled her to say with a voice that was almost steady, ‘Now, are you still saying you’ve been disadvantaged, Dr McKay? If you want a longer good luck kiss than that, you’ll have to ask Phoebe.’
It broke the tension. Almost. There were faces in the crowd that stayed speculative, but it gave them the footing to pretend that the kiss had been a joke.
As it had been, Lizzie told herself desperately. It couldn’t mean anything. Could it?
‘It’s time to race,’ she told them. ‘Anyone want a good luck kiss from the dog or shall I start you off?’
‘Let’s go,’ Harry told her, and the look he gave her was strange. There was laughter there-teasing-but there was also something…something more.
Something she didn’t want to think about.
‘On the count of three,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Beat him, Lilly. Show him what a woman can do. One, two, three…Go!’
Lilly beat Harry. Of course she beat him. Some things were never in doubt.
The path was wide and strewn with leaves, weaving in and out of the big gums overshadowing the gardens leading down to the headland. The first part was cultivated garden but outside the hospital boundary it became a rougher track, flattened by locals exercising their dogs or kids putting their trail bikes through their paces.
Lilly was a wraith-like figure but with the anorexic’s typical compulsion for exercise she was a fighting fit wraith.
Harry was super-fit.
Lilly’s chair was streamlined and light. Harry’s was big and cumbersome, but it was more stable, meaning that he didn’t have to slow as much over the worst of the bumps.
For Lizzie, following behind, she could almost see the moment when Harry backed off-not much. He surged ahead a few times as if desperately trying to maintain the lead. But enough…
They reached the point where the headland gave way to sand dunes and then to beach. Jim had dashed ahead, Phoebe waddling beside him, to set up flags.
Lilly hit the flags a nose ahead and the cheers could well have been heard in Tasmania.
‘You didn’t let me win,’ Lilly demanded as, flush faced and triumphant, she turned to face her opponent.
Harry gasped for breath, took a couple of seconds to answer and then told her, ‘Of course…’ gasp. ‘Of course I let you win. It was sheer good manners on my part.’ Gasp. Gasp. ‘I’m the world’s kindest doctor.’
And Lillian’s face relaxed into a wreath of smiles. ‘You didn’t,’ she announced with jubilation. ‘I beat you.’
‘Thanks very much,’ Harry said morosely, and then, as Phoebe waddled up to Lillian, wagging her tail, he groaned.
‘That’s right. A kiss for the winner.’ Then he looked around for Lizzie. ‘Hey…’
‘Don’t even think about it,’ she told him. ‘Winner takes all.’ And she walked over and gave Lillian a kiss that wasn’t anything like the one she would have liked to have given Harry.
He was a wonderful doctor, she thought. This community was so lucky to have him. He was so caring. So giving…
Emily was lucky to have him.
And that was a stupid thought. Stay uninvolved, she told herself severely. Stay out of the hearts and minds of this community. Of Harry.
He’s getting married and you’re moving on.
‘I’m going back to the hospital,’ she told him. ‘Some of us have work to do, even if others can afford to spend their time in idle wheelchair racing.’
‘All your patients are here,’ Harry pointed out.
‘I’ll find some who aren’t.’
‘Lizzie?’
‘Yes?’ She met his eyes. The community was crowding around now-there were people between them-but somehow their eyes locked and held.
‘Thank you,’ he said simply, and she knew he was talking about much more than refereeing the race. ‘Thank you, Lizzie.’
‘I’m just glad you didn’t break your leg.’
‘Me, too.’
It was still…more. They were grinning at each other like fools. It was ridiculous, Lizzie thought desperately. What she was feeling was really, really ridiculous.
But she couldn’t help what she was feeling.
‘Are you still on duty?’
Lizzie had run a shortened version of the evening clinic-or not so short as everyone was talking about the race and everyone wanted to quiz her about the kiss-and by the time she returned to the hospital it was almost eight. She found May carefully changing the dressing on old Mrs Scotter’s leg. Mavis Scotter had cut it a week ago- chopping wood, of all things-and by the time she’d come to see Lizzie it had been an infected mess. The old lady’s skin was so parchment-thin that they’d be lucky if it healed without a skin graft, but they were doing their best.
