Dr Chandler's Sleeping Beauty. Melanie Milburne
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‘It’s not in my nature to run this department like a drill sergeant,’ he said, forcing himself to focus on her eyes, not her mouth. ‘I expect a lot from my team, but I don’t ask anything of them I wouldn’t be prepared to do myself. I realise it will take time for you to learn the ropes of how things are done here. I’m prepared to give you some leeway while you settle in. We’ll assess things in a week or two.’
A little frown appeared over her eyes. ‘Are you putting me on some type of probation?’ she asked.
‘That will be all, Dr Cargill,’ Jake said, dismissing her. ‘You’d better get back on the ward. There are patients to see.’
Kitty seethed all the way home from the hospital. She had mostly managed to avoid Jake during the rest of her shift. A steady stream of patients had needed attending to, but nothing major that had required her to interact with him directly.
She didn’t like the thought of his wait-and-see approach to her appointment. She had got the position on merit and she expected to keep it. What right did he have to question her management of patients? She had been trained by some of London’s best. How dared Jake Chandler leave her in such a horrid state of limbo? She had moved all the way across the globe to take this post. He had no right to make her feel insecure and inadequate. She was competent and hardworking. That was the one thing that had carried her through the heartache of the last few months. She might not be the biggest extrovert, or one of those effortlessly glamorous party girls, but she was damn good at her job.
Once she got back to the town house she changed into her one-piece bathing costume and some casual separates and headed straight for the beach. The sting of the sun had eased now it was early evening. The iconic arc of Bondi Beach was still heavily dotted with bodies making the most of the long, hot summer. Dozens of fit-looking surfers were out at the back of the swell, waiting for the perfect wave. Kitty couldn’t help envying their agility and grace. She had never been all that confident around water. She could swim … well, maybe that was stretching it a teensy bit. She could get from one end of a very short pool to the other. The ocean was another thing entirely. She had been to the beach plenty of times, but gentle, bay-like ones—ones with shingle or pebbles, not sand as fine as sugar and a swell that was rolling in with a roar that sounded like thunder as each wave crashed against the shore.
Kitty laid out her towel on the sand, anchoring the four corners with each of her flip-flops and two shells. She carefully tucked her keys inside her hat, along with her sunglasses, before she walked down to the water’s edge between the lifesaver patrol flags.
The water was warmer than she was used to and yet refreshing as she let it froth over her ankles and shins. She went in up to her knees and stood there watching as children half her height went out further, shrieking and squealing in delight as they jumped over or dived under the waves.
The lowering sun was like a warm caress on her back and shoulders, easing some of the tight golfball-sized knots that had gathered there.
‘Watch me, Uncle Jake!’ A young boy’s voice rang out over the sound of the surf.
Kitty felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up and the golfballs in her shoulders knock together.
How many Jakes were there in Sydney and at Bondi Beach on this particular evening?
She looked to her right and saw Jake Chandler—the Jake Chandler—standing watching as a young boy bodysurfed a small wave.
Her heart tripped.
Her belly hollowed.
Her mouth watered.
Jake was standing less than a metre away from her. He was naked from the waist up. He was wet. He was tanned. He was lean. He was muscular in all the right places.
He was gorgeous.
‘Why is that lady staring at you, Uncle Jake?’
Kitty blinked herself out of her stasis, embarrassed colour shooting to her face as Jake’s blue gaze turned and met hers. ‘I’m not staring …’ she said, and stared.
Jake’s thick dark lashes were spiky with seawater. He had a lazy smile playing about his mouth. He had a day’s growth of sexy stubble. His black hair was wet. His shoulders were broad, his hips narrow. His abdomen washboard-flat, his groin—
Kitty swallowed and blushed some more as she dragged her gaze back to his. ‘I didn’t know you were an uncle,’ she said, in a paltry effort to cover her mortification.
Jake put his hand on his nephew’s wiry shoulder. ‘Nathan,’ he said. ‘I’d like you to meet a new member of my staff at the hospital. This is Dr Cargill.’
Kitty smiled at the child, who looked about nine or ten years old. ‘Hi. I’m pleased to meet you, Nathan.’
‘You talk funny,’ Nathan said, screwing up his face.
‘It’s called the Queen’s English, Nate,’ Jake said. ‘You’d do well to learn it—and some manners while you’re at it.’
The boy wriggled out from under Jake’s hand. ‘Can I surf some more?’ he asked.
‘Yeah, but stay between the flags,’ Jake said. He turned and looked at Kitty again. ‘Sorry about that. He’s a good kid but he needs a bit of polish.’
Kitty tried not to stare at those long spiky eyelashes. ‘He’s very like you,’ she said.
His brow came up in a sardonic arc. ‘You think I need a bit of a polish too, do you, Dr Cargill?’
She felt her cheeks burn as she fought to hold his gaze. ‘That’s not what I meant at all,’ she said, with as much composure as she could muster whilst standing partially naked before him. ‘I meant you’re like him in looks. Your eyes, your hair—that sort of thing.’
Jake returned his gaze to the waves, where his nephew was bodysurfing with varying degrees of success. ‘He’s a handful,’ he said. ‘I try and wear him out for my sister Rosie.’ He glanced at her again. ‘That’s whose party it was the other night. As a single mum she doesn’t get to kick up her heels much.’
‘Oh.’ Kitty caught her bottom lip with her teeth.
‘Nathan’s father shot through before he was born.’
‘I’m sorry …’
‘She’s not,’ Jake said, swinging his gaze back to hers. ‘She’s better off without him.’
She tugged at her lip some more. ‘I mean I’m sorry about complaining about the music the other night,’ she said. ‘It must have seemed so … so petty.’
He checked on his nephew again before turning his gaze back to her. ‘You don’t like being out of your depth, do you?’ he asked.
‘What makes you say that?’
‘You’re only wet up to your knees,’ he said. ‘We usually have to drag overseas tourists unconscious from this beach. A lot of them dive in without checking the conditions first.’
‘I don’t like leaping before I look,’ she said.
‘Can you swim?’
Kitty flashed him an affronted look. ‘Of course I can swim.’
‘Give me a shout if you need a hand with some stroke correction,’ he said.
‘No doubt breaststroke is your particular specialty?’ she said with an arch look.
His lips curved upwards in a sexy smile, but not before his glinting eyes had dipped to the hint of her cleavage first. ‘How’d you guess?’ he said, and then before she could think of a return he had joined his nephew in the rushing waves.
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