Loe raamatut: «Australian Affairs: Claimed»

CHAPTER ONE

‘I CAN’T believe you talked me into wearing this,’ Kitty Cargill said to her cousin as they entered the city hotel where Julie’s ‘Pimps and Prostitutes’ fancy dress thirtieth birthday party was being held. ‘I’m sure it’s because I’m still suffering from jet lag and I’m not in my right mind.’

‘You look awesome,’ Julie said. ‘I never knew you had such great legs. That PVC skirt really shows some serious thigh.’

Kitty pulled the skirt—which in her opinion was too skimpy even to qualify for the term—down over the ladder in the black fishnet tights that her cousin had insisted was an essential part of the get-up. ‘Now I can see where my mother got her wacky out-there genes,’ she said, cringing in embarrassment at some of the looks she was attracting as they made their way to the function room.

‘Lighten up, hon,’ Julie said. ‘You’re not going to last long in Aussieland unless you strap on a sense of humour. You’re way too conservative. You Brits all act like you’ve been potty-trained at gunpoint.’

‘Ha, ha, ha,’ Kitty said. ‘I’ll have you know I wasn’t potty-trained at all. My parents thought it was far more progressive and fundamental to my development that I sorted it all out for myself when I was good and ready.’

Julie grinned at her. ‘So should I be worried about you going where you shouldn’t while you’re bunking down with me?’

Kitty gave her a look. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I won’t be with you much longer. I’ve already found a town house to rent online. The real estate agent confirmed it this afternoon. It’s not far from the hospital and even closer to the beach at Bondi.’

‘It sounds perfect,’ Julie said. ‘Have you met anyone from St Benedict’s yet? Your boss in A&E or the CEO?’

‘Not yet,’ Kitty said. ‘I’m going to introduce myself in the next day or so. I’m not due to start until next week, but I thought it’d be polite to put in an appearance—given I didn’t go through the normal face-to-face interview process.’

‘I still can’t quite get my head around you being a fully-fledged doctor,’ Julie said, giving her a playful shoulder-bump. ‘Last time I saw you, when Mum and I came to London for Christmas, you were playing with dolls.’

Life was certainly a whole lot simpler then, Kitty thought wistfully as she followed her cousin into the party room, which was thumping with deafening music.

* * *

Jake Chandler was on night shift for the fourth night in a row and feeling it. Friday and Saturday nights were not his favourite times to be on duty. Far too many party-goers with too much alcohol on board and too little common sense clogged public A&E departments like his all over the country. In their noisy midst were the seriously sick and injured.

So far tonight he’d had to deal with the death of a sixteen-year-old girl in a motorcycle accident and a serious stabbing. The girl had been riding pillion on the back of her boyfriend’s bike. It had been her first time on a motorbike and her second date with the boyfriend. She had been the only child of a single mother. Jake could still see the collapse of the girl’s mother’s face when he had told her.

The stabbing had been a drug deal turned sour. The guy had almost bled out before Jake could stem the bleeding. The guy was twenty-four years old—the same age as Jake’s younger brother, Robbie. Would this be how his kid brother ended up? Found in some sleazy back alley, mortally wounded, stoned and senseless? How could he stop it? What more could he do? Robbie’s refusal to grow up and take responsibility for himself made Jake feel he had failed.

He had let his family down.

He had let his mother down.

Jake glanced at the clock on the wall on his way back from escorting the stabbing victim to Theatre.

Five minutes to midnight.

It was about time for the drunk and disorderly to come spilling in. He just hoped Robbie wasn’t one of them.

‘Dr Chandler?’ Jake’s registrar Lei Chung approached him while he was washing his hands at one of the sterilising basins. ‘I have a couple of tipsy call girls in Bay Five. One of them has a suspected broken ankle.’

Jake mentally rolled his eyes as he tugged some paper towels out to dry his hands. ‘They told you they were call girls?’ he asked.

‘They didn’t have to,’ Lei said, rolling his eyes. ‘Just wait until you see them.’

‘They’re entitled to the same level of care as anyone else,’ Jake said, tossing the screwed-up paper in the bin before reaching for a new pair of gloves. ‘Have you ordered an X-ray?’

‘The radiographer will be down in ten minutes,’ Lei said. ‘He’s seeing a patient on the orthopaedic ward. One of his hip patients had a fall.’

Jake twitched the curtain aside of Bay Five. ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘I’m Dr Chandler.’

The girl sitting beside the one lying on the trolley shot to her feet. ‘I’m so terribly sorry about this,’ she said, speaking in a cut-glass London accent that didn’t fool Jake for a moment. ‘I don’t think it’s broken. I’m sure it’s just a sprain. But my cousin is in so much pain I thought we should have it X-rayed. I thought it best if—’

Jake quirked one brow upwards. ‘Your…cousin?’

‘Her name is Julie Banning, and I’m—’

‘Hello, Julie,’ Jake said, turning to the girl on the trolley. ‘Can you tell me what happened?’

‘I was dancing with this guy and his legs got twisted with mine,’ Julie said, with an Australian accent even broader than his. ‘I hit the floor and twisted my ankle. I heard something snap—I swear to God I did. It hurts like freaking hell.’

‘Let’s have a look, shall we?’ Jake said.

He examined the ankle, but found only swelling and tenderness over the lateral ligaments and no obvious fracture. He checked the patient for any other injuries, but apart from a bruise on her elbow she was all clear—which was lucky considering how much alcohol he could smell on her and her posh-sounding little sidekick.

‘I’ll order an X-ray just to be on the safe side,’ he said. ‘An orderly will be with you shortly. And go easy on the partying, OK? You could’ve really done some serious damage. You might not be so lucky next time.’ He gave the other young woman a cursory nod and left the cubicle.

‘Dr Chandler?’ The young woman spoke from behind him just as he got to his office.

Jake turned to look at her. ‘Yes?’

She shifted her weight from foot to foot, looking distinctly uncomfortable. He didn’t know working girls could blush. Maybe she was new to the game. She didn’t look very old. Her skin was porcelain-smooth and her eyes—in spite of the heavy eyeshadow—were clear and bright and a rather stunning shade of grey. Perhaps she was worried he was going to ask for a drug screen on her ‘cousin’, or a blood alcohol level.

‘I wanted to say thank you for seeing my cousin so promptly,’ she said. ‘I was worried it might take hours and hours. She seemed in a lot of pain and I—’

‘Do you realise the dangers of binge drinking?’ Jake asked, frowning at her reproachfully.

Her eyes flickered. ‘Pardon?’

He stripped her with his gaze. ‘You smell like a brewery, the both of you.’

Her cheeks flushed bright red. ‘I’m not drunk!’

He rolled his eyes in disdain. ‘Yeah, that’s what they all say.’

‘But I’m not!’ she said. ‘Julie spilt her drink on the floor when she fell. I knelt down to help her and got soaked in it. I’ve only had half a glass of champagne the whole night.’

‘How much has your cousin had to drink?’ he asked.

‘A bit…’ She bit her bottom lip. ‘A lot…quite a lot…loads, actually. It’s her thirtieth birthday. I told her to slow down but she wouldn’t listen.’ She made a self-deprecating movement of her mouth. ‘She thinks I’m too conservative.’

Jake flicked his gaze over her sinfully short PVC skirt and the black bustier top that showcased a rack that was small but no less impressive. ‘I can see what she means,’ he said dryly.

Her big grey eyes with their raccoon-like eyeshadow widened in affront and her small neat chin came up. ‘Dr Chandler, perhaps I should take this opportunity to properly introduce myself,’ she said. ‘My name is Kitty Car—’

‘Kitty as in Kitty Litter?’ Jake put in, without holding back on his mocking smile.

Her generously plumped mouth flattened. ‘No,’ she said, those storm cloud eyes flashing at him resentfully. ‘Kitty as in Katherine. Katherine Cargill. Dr Katherine Cargill, to be precise.’

Jake rocked back on his heels. So this was the new three-month appointment who had been recruited while he’d been away on leave. He’d been wrong about the accent. Funny, but he’d thought it way too posh to be for real. Maybe it was time to have a little fun. Let her get to know the colonial natives, so to speak. God knew he could do with a bit of a laugh after the night he’d had.

‘Have things got so bad in the public health system that junior doctors have to moonlight in other less salubrious professions?’ he asked.

She glared at him. ‘This is not what it looks like,’ she said, waving a stiff hand to encompass her attire. ‘It’s a costume.’

Jake leisurely ran his gaze over every inch of her outfit, right down her long shapely legs encased in sexy fishnets to the scarily high heels on her dainty feet. ‘It’s very convincing,’ he said.

She frowned at him. ‘Haven’t you been to a fancy dress party before?’

‘Yeah,’ he drawled. ‘I went as the Big Bad Wolf. I huffed and I puffed and brought the whole house down.’

She gave him a haughty look down the length of her nose that was right out the pages of a Jane Austen novel. ‘At least you wouldn’t have had to go to the trouble and expense of hiring a costume,’ she said. ‘You would have gone just as you are.’

Jake held her feisty little eye-lock. He felt a stirring in his groin that had nothing to do with her skimpy outfit. There was something about her imperious air and her toffee-nosed accent that made his flesh tingle from head to foot.

Was it his self-imposed dating drought that had stirred his senses so intensely? He’d made a bet with his sister at Christmas that he could give up sex for the rest of the summer. Rosie had criticised his playboy lifestyle, even going as far as saying it was setting a bad example for her young son, Nathan. If he lost the bet he would have to pay Rosie a thousand dollars towards Nathan’s education fund. He had no problem with donating the money for Nathan. He would give that and more, bet or no bet. But he did have a problem with his kid sister thinking he had no self-control and discipline. So he’d set a new record for himself—a new personal best. He didn’t like admitting it, but abstinence had been good for him. His sex life had become a bit boring and predictable over the last year. But he didn’t want anything long-term. He was happy with his fancy-free approach to relationships. It had just been a bad year, that was all.

Besides, he liked his flings short and uncomplicated.

No strings.

No rings.

No promises.

Once his period of celibacy was up, Kitty Cargill, with her I’m-just-pretending-to-be-a-wild-child routine, could be just the one to kick things off for the rest of this year.

‘You can take your cousin home as soon as she’s had her X-ray,’ Jake said. ‘And I hope when I next see you in this unit you’re wearing something a little more appropriate. We’re supposed to be saving patients’ lives here, not giving them myocardial infarcts. Understood?’

She gave him a glittering glare. ‘Perfectly, Dr Chandler.’

* * *

‘Grrrgghhh!’ Kitty was still fuming as she unpacked her things at her new town house three days later. She cringed in embarrassment when she thought of turning up for work the following Monday. How on earth was she going to face him?

Julie, damn her, was still laughing about it, in spite of hobbling about on crutches and having to take time off from her job as a beautician. Her cousin thought the sprained ankle was worth it to have seen someone as prim and proper as Kitty floundering so far out of her depth.

‘God, he was so gorgeous,’ Julie had said only that morning when Kitty had rung to check on her. ‘Did you see how dark his blue eyes were? And so tall! He must have been six foot three or four, don’t you think?’

‘I’m trying not to think about him,’ Kitty said. ‘That was singularly the most excruciatingly embarrassing evening of my entire life.’ Well, apart from finding my best friend, Sophie, in bed with my long-term boyfriend the very weekend I thought he was going to propose to me. ‘I wonder if it’s too late to ask for a transfer to another hospital…’ She bit down on her lip, daunted at the thought of finding a new placement at such short notice.

‘He had great hands,’ Julie rabbited on. ‘So strong and capable and masculine. I wonder if he’s married. I don’t think he was wearing a ring. But he was wearing gloves, so who knows? Maybe a little fling with your new boss will be just the trick to get that two-timing jerk Charles Wetherby out of your system once and for all.’

‘Will you stop it, for pity’s sake?’ Kitty said. ‘I don’t want to talk about Dr Chandler.’ Or Charles, she added silently, with a tight cramping pain over her heart.

But even so her mind kept rerunning the whole debacle like a DVD-player jammed on replay. Jake Chandler had accused her of being drunk and yet she was more or less a teetotaller. He’d thought she was a prostitute, and yet she was twenty-six years old and had only had one lover—her childhood sweetheart, who had turned out not to be such a sweetheart after all.

This three-month trip Down Under was part of her coping strategy.

Kitty had always considered herself a gracious and forgiving type, but staying in London while Charles got married to Sophie Hamilton was stretching the bounds of her grace and forgiveness a little too far.

Kitty had grown up with Charles. He had lived in the same village, on the same street, in a house only four doors down from hers. She had gone through infants, primary school, high school and medical school with him. They had done their residency and internship at the same hospitals. They had practically been joined at the hip. Everyone had described them as the perfect couple. They’d never argued. They’d been best friends. They’d enjoyed the same things. They’d had the same friends. They had wanted the same things—or so Kitty had thought.

For months she had been expecting a romantic proposal. She had even secretly chosen a ring to match the promise ring Charles had given her on her sixteenth birthday. She had walked into bridal shops and dreamily tried on gorgeous gowns and voluminous veils. She had bought dozens of bridal magazines, making copious notes as she flicked through them. She had even—she cringed in embarrassment even now—gone to several wedding venues to check on prices and availability.

Now Charles was gone and she was on her own.

No perfect white wedding.

No honeymoon in a luxurious and exotic location.

No happy ever after.

Kitty worked on flattening cardboard boxes for the recycling bin in the town house complex car park. She was hot and sweaty. She wondered if she would ever get used to this oppressively humid heat. Just as well she was only staying twelve weeks. London could get hot in summer, but Sydney in early February was like living in a pizza oven. She had been to the beach, but the sun—in spite of layers of sunscreen—had scorched her pale skin and given her even more freckles on her nose. Tendrils of her thick chestnut hair were sticking to her neck, even though she had piled it as high as she could in a ponytail-cum-knot on the top of her head.

She brushed her forearm across her perspiring brow and reached for the last box. The last box, however, was reluctant to be reduced to a flat layer. She stomped on it, but it flapped back up to snap at her ankles. ‘Down, down, down, damn you to sodding hell and back,’ she cursed, and she gave it one last almighty stomp by jumping on it with both feet.

‘Need some help?’ A deep male voice drawled from behind her.

Kitty swung around so fast she almost lost her footing. Her eyes went wide and her heart gave a flap like a sail in a fifty-knot wind. ‘You!’ she gasped.

He gave a sweeping obsequious bow. ‘At your service, ma’am.’

Kitty felt her skin pebble all over with irritation and embarrassment. ‘I was just—’ She waved her hand at the recycling bin. ‘Um…recycling…’

His eyes were smiling, no—laughing at her. ‘Looks like you need a man to do that for you,’ he said.

‘I do not need a man.’ She felt the slow burn of Jake Chandler’s gaze as it took in her baggy track pants and tank top, pausing for a heartstopping moment on her breasts. Her stomach felt as if it was being stirred by a long-handled spoon and her heart kept leaping and jumping as if it was being prodded by the wire of a high-voltage electric current.

She couldn’t remember Charles ever looking at her like that—as if he could see right through her clothes to the flesh beneath. She couldn’t remember feeling so taken aback by a man’s looks before, either. She had to admit Jake Chandler had looked pretty hot in theatre scrubs on Saturday night, but dressed in dark blue jeans and a white T-shirt he looked staggeringly gorgeous. The white of the T-shirt highlighted his naturally olive-toned skin, and his perfectly formed pectoral muscles and flat, toned stomach indicated he was a man who worked hard and played harder. He was certainly every bit as tall as Julie had suggested, and because Kitty wasn’t wearing four-inch heels she had to crane her neck to meet his dark sapphire-blue eyes.

‘Are you the new tenant?’ he asked.

‘Yes, I’m renting number three,’ she said, with the sort of cool composure that would have earned her an Oscar if she were an actor. But she certainly didn’t feel cool around Jake Chandler. She felt blisteringly hot, and it didn’t have a thing to do with the searing temperature of the summer day. There was something about his dark blue gaze that made her feel as if each time he looked at her he wasn’t seeing her as she was dressed now but as she had been dressed the other night. ‘Don’t let me keep you,’ she said, bending down to scoop up the recalcitrant cardboard.

‘Here,’ he said, reaching for the bundle that was almost as tall as her. ‘Let me help you with that.’

Kitty felt one of his hands brush against her right breast in the exchange. It was like a strike of lightning against her flesh. It zapped right through her body, sizzling it with erotic heat and making every hair on her head rise up from her scalp. She stepped back as if she had been burnt, her face flaming, her heart going at a pace that would have made any decent cardiologist call for an immediate ECG.

But Jake Chandler seemed totally unaffected. He stuffed the cardboard into the bin and shoved it down as if it were a marshmallow with a powerful press of his muscled and deeply tanned arm. ‘Do you need anything else done?’ he asked. ‘Furniture shifted? Boxes carried up the stairs?’ His dark blue eyes glinted again. ‘Costumes unpacked—that sort of thing?’

‘I’m fine…Thank you,’ she said, wishing she could stop blushing like a silly little schoolgirl. What was it about this man that made her feel so gauche? Was it his laughing blue eyes or his in-your-face masculinity or both? ‘You’ve done quite enough.’

A tiny silence crept past as he continued to hold her flustered gaze with his unwavering one.

‘I’m having a few people over for a barbecue this evening,’ he said. ‘Nothing fancy. No cucumber sandwiches or anything. Just a few steaks and snags slapped on the grill and some beers. Feel free to pop over and join us.’

Kitty thought of the frozen, calorie-controlled, most probably hideously tasteless dinner she had bought. She thought of eating it alone, just like all the other frozen meals she had mechanically consumed with tears on the side since the break-up. She hadn’t seen the point in cooking for one person so she had stopped.

But then she thought of spending the evening with Jake Chandler and his coterie of like-minded beer-swilling friends. What if some of them were other staff members from St Benedict’s? He was probably only inviting her so he could make fun of her in front of them. She had met his type before: the confident, smooth-talking charmer who was the life of every party.

She would be roasted alive.

‘Thank you for the invitation, but I think I’ll pass,’ she said.

‘I hope we don’t keep you awake,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t expecting anyone to move in for another week or two. The people between your house and mine are overseas. Feel free to pop over if you change your mind or find yourself at a loose end.’

‘Thank you, but no,’ she said, even more crisply this time.

His dark eyes twinkled again. ‘Social diary that full already, is it?’ he asked.

She sent him a flinty look. ‘Packed,’ she said, and turned and left.

* * *

At just before midnight Kitty stuck her head under the pillow for the tenth time but it didn’t make a single bit of difference. The doof-doof of Jake Chandler’s sound system reverberated through her building. He was on the opposite side of the complex but it felt as if he was in the next room. She was surprised no one else had complained, but then she remembered the other occupants were away on a trip overseas.

She threw the pillow aside and stomped over to the window overlooking the small courtyard that separated their town houses. She could see people drinking and dancing in Jake’s living room. All the lights were blaring and the appetising smell of steak and sausages and onions was still lingering in the air. The sight of all that fun going on was a cruel reminder of her aching loneliness. She hated feeling so bitter, but how could she help it? Everywhere she looked people were acting as if they had not a care in the world.

Didn’t Jake Chandler have to show up for work in the morning? What was he thinking, partying on as if there was no tomorrow? So much for his sanctimonious lecture on binge drinking. What a hypocrite!

Kitty decided there was only one way to attack and that was on the front line. She ditched her nightwear and dressed in her track pants and a shapeless cotton shirt and slipped her feet into a pair of flip-flops. It wasn’t sophisticated or glamorous, but at this ungodly hour she didn’t give a damn.

* * *

‘Wasn’t that the doorbell?’ asked Rosie, Jake’s younger sister, her eyes brightening with hope. ‘Maybe Robbie decided to come after all.’

Jake gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. ‘Don’t get your hopes up, kiddo,’ he said. ‘You know what he’s like. He probably won’t even remember it’s your birthday.’

‘Yeah, what was I thinking?’ Rosie’s shoulders dropped resignedly and she made her way back to her friends.

Jake let out a quick sigh before he turned to open the door to find his cute posh little neighbour standing there. ‘Hey,’ he said flashing her a smile. ‘You changed your mind. Do you want a beer?’

‘Your music is keeping me awake,’ she said, sending him an arctic look. ‘I would very much appreciate it if you would turn it down.’

Jake ran his gaze over her pretty girl-next-door face with its cloud of chestnut hair that was currently looking more bird’s nest than brushed. Her cheeks had two spots of bright red on them and her plump pink mouth was pushed forward in a pout. ‘My kind of music not your thing, huh?’ he said. He leant indolently against the doorjamb, one ankle crossed over the other, as he rubbed at the regrowth on his jaw. ‘Let me guess…Classical, right?’