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Gesturing intermittently, his arms also drew her gaze. The blue scrubs were a stark contrast to the deep brown tan that only seemed to accentuate the flex of muscles in his forearms, the dusting of blond hairs unmistakeably masculine.
How was it possible to look so poised and comfortable talking about cutting-edge surgery and yet look like he’d just come in from the beach?
Adam spoke for half an hour, covering all the logistics, and he had his team’s full attention. There were occasional interruptions for questions when pertinent, but otherwise they listened intently. Jess listened too. And not just for the information he conveyed. But the way he conveyed it. The deep sexy timbre of his voice, the effortless way he used wit and humour, the unconscious movement of his body as he gestured with his hands and leaned in towards his team as if gathering them closer.
He wasn’t just a sight to behold. He was exceedingly easy on the ear as well.
The briefing broke up when a journalist and photographer from a weekly women’s magazine arrived at the door. Jess watched Adam stride across the room and greet them, his movie-star smile radiating confidence and charisma.
‘This is Brad Hennegan from Week About,’ he said, introducing each of his team to the reporter, who was looking a little out of place and very overawed in his scrubs, cap and the blue paper booties he wore over his shoes.
‘Brad’s here to do some publicity shots and will be in and out during the next few weeks as his magazine is doing some feature articles on the project.’
Brad nodded to the assembled staff. ‘I’m looking forward to following the story.’
Adam gestured for Brad and the photographer to precede him out into the corridor. ‘I’ve teed up Theatre Eight with Martha Cosgrove, our nurse manager,’ he said.
Brad nodded. ‘Can I have one of the nursing staff too, perhaps?’ he asked. ‘We want the readers to see it’s a team effort. Get a real feel for how dynamic the operating theatre really is.’
‘Ah, sure,’ Adam said, turning back to the staffroom door just as Jess stepped out.
‘She’ll do,’ Brad said.
Great … ‘Jess?’
Jess felt her pulse kick up a notch as she approached Adam. He had this amazing magnetic pull that was hard to resist. She probably would have gravitated towards him even if she hadn’t been called.
‘What’s up?’ she asked as she drew to a standstill.
‘I was wondering if you’d mind being in a couple of photos with Dr Carmichael?’ Brad asked. ‘Our readers want to know about the nurses involved as well.’
‘Sure.’ She nodded. Her parents, her grandmother and all the folks back home would be tickled pink to see her in the glossy pages of a national magazine.
And if it meant she got to spend more time with Adam then that suited her fine as well. Between her shifts and his social calendar she’d barely seen him since he’d been home.
They all trooped down to theatre eight and Brad chatted with them about the project while the photographer scoped the room out. When Adam divulged that he and Jess were actually housemates as well, Brad became very excited, talking about how it would make another great angle for the photos.
Half an hour later, Jess was thoroughly sick of smiling. They’d had their pictures taken in every place and pose imaginable. Near the operating table, in the anaesthetic room, with trays of instruments and in front of imaging equipment, with their masks on and their masks hanging half off, scrubbing up at the sinks and drying off.
‘Just a couple more,’ Brad said, consulting with the photographer over their cache. ‘How about more casual shots this time? More like two friends, two colleagues having a laugh together after a hard day’s work in the OR?’
Jess thought that Brad watched too much television but if it meant that her facial muscles could soon cop a break then she was game.
‘How’s this?’ Adam asked, slinging an arm casually around Jess’s shoulders.
‘Good, good,’ Brad enthused as the photographer clicked away.
Jess wasn’t so sure about that as her whole body went on alert. Her nipples tightened in her bra and she thanked goodness for the bagginess of her scrubs. All she had to do was a lean a little and her whole side would be pressed against his.
She could smell his clean male aroma, warm and vital in the cool, sterile surroundings, and the urge to turn her face and burrow it into his neck was surprisingly urgent.
‘Now look up at each other,’ Brad instructed to the clicking of the lens. ‘Like it’s been a good day and you’re going home to veg out in front of the tele with a nice cold beer.’
Adam laughed. ‘I usually hit the surf when I get home.’
‘Okay, that’s good.’ Brad nodded. ‘What about you, Jess? What do you like to do when you get home?’
Wait for Adam to come home from the surf in his wet boardies.
Jess swallowed. ‘This time of the day I usually head to the Stat Bar, meet the girls for a drink.’
Adam laughed. ‘You mean perv at the guys that jog by with no shirts on.’
Jess gasped and looked up at Adam. ‘We do not.’ Well, she didn’t anyway. And the other three didn’t any more either.
‘Ruby reckons that’s exactly what you all do.’ He grinned.
The teasing light in his eyes twinkled at her and his smile was so sincere she found herself smiling back. ‘Well, maybe occasionally,’ she admitted.
He laughed and she laughed back, his hand light on her shoulder.
‘Perfect.’ Brad beamed as the photographer nodded at him. ‘Perfect.’
Fifteen minutes later Jess was stepping out of the front door of the hospital in the jeans and T-shirt she’d worn to work, her hair in its regulation ponytail. She sucked in a deep, satisfying breath.
Working in a windowless environment after growing up in the wide open spaces of the outback was something she just couldn’t get used to and she never took that first breath of fresh air for granted.
‘Hey, Jess, wait up.’
Jess didn’t have to look around to know it was Adam calling her. But she did anyway, powerless to resist his lure. He was also in jeans but wore a business shirt to dress them up—untucked, of course. It seemed to strike the perfect balance between casual and professional.
‘You heading home? I’ll walk with you.’
Jess nodded and they fell into step. Home was an easy ten-minute walk down the hill.
‘You heading to the Stat Bar now?’
‘Yep,’ she confirmed. ‘You going for a surf?’
Adam smiled. ‘How’d you guess?’ They walked in silence for a few moments. ‘Did I notice on the calendar that it’s your birthday in a couple of days?’
Jess nodded. ‘Sure is.’
‘Are you having a shindig?’
Jess shook her head. ‘Nah. I’m going home for the weekend so no doubt Mum and Gran will throw a little party for me.’
‘Oh, come on,’ Adam cajoled. ‘I didn’t think you girls needed an excuse to throw a party. It’s your birthday. You can’t just do nothing. Besides, I feel like a party.’
Jess looked at him. ‘Really?’ She wondered if she’d be so bold as to ask him for a birthday kiss? ‘Well, I guess …’
‘Good. That does it then.’ He grinned. ‘Get the girls to spread the word.’
Jess rolled her eyes. ‘Yes, sir.’
Adam chuckled. ‘So how old are you going to be?’
Jess took an internal breath. ‘Twenty-four,’ she murmured.
He slapped his forehead theatrically to cover the internal groan as she gave voice to the paltry number. ‘Still a baby,’ he teased.
Jess opened her mouth to object at the unfairness of his statement. To say, no, not a baby. A woman. A fully fledged woman with a woman’s desires. But a car beeped as they waited for the lights to change at an intersection and people crowded all around them, also waiting for the green flashing man.
It was hardly the kind of thing you said to someone surrounded by a bunch of strangers.
She wished she didn’t look so young. That she could add ten years. Hell, she wished she could add one or two. She didn’t want to be twelve years younger than him. She didn’t want him to think of her as some young girl with a silly crush.
As a baby.
Maybe it was time she showed him she was all grown up?
CHAPTER THREE
JESS eyed Adam’s bedroom door from the kitchen as she mixed a dash of melted chocolate into the already decadent icing mix. He hadn’t come home last night. Not that she’d seen anyway and she’d stayed up very late, feigning interest in some rubbish movie.
He’d gone on a date with some ward nurse from the hospital so she figured he was still playing hard.
The radio, which she’d tuned to the country music station, serenaded her as she took her frustrations out on the icing, beating it into lumpless submission.
The oven timer rang, interrupting her activity, for which her arm muscles were exceedingly grateful.
Jess turned and opened the oven door. A wave of heat rolled over her as the aroma of perfectly cooked Anzac biscuits permeated the entire room. Jess inhaled deeply as she took them out and upended them onto a cooling rack.
The kitchen smelled like baking day back home and she felt suddenly homesick. Her forthcoming trip home couldn’t get here fast enough.
Jess pushed the biscuits aside and dragged the chocolate cake she’d cooked that morning closer. She’d just spooned a dollop of icing onto the cake when Adam sauntered into the kitchen.
‘Mmm. Something smells amazing,’ he said.
Jess looked up. He was lounging in the archway, one shoulder shoved against the jamb, a suit jacket hooked via his index finger over the other. His tie had been pulled askew. A hand buried deep in a trouser pocket pulled the fabric interestingly against a firm bulky quadriceps.
‘I’m baking,’ she said unnecessarily as her heart lifted a little. He hadn’t gone out last night in a suit so maybe he had come home after all?
She marvelled at the many faces of Adam—boardies, scrubs, birthday suit and now a business suit. They were all so tantalising she couldn’t decide which one she preferred.
‘So I see,’ he remarked, pushing off the jamb and prowling into the kitchen. His stomach rumbled and he realised his meeting had run over and he hadn’t eaten any lunch. He slung his jacket around the back of a chair and reached for a cooling biscuit.
‘Be careful,’ Jess said, blowing out of her eye a piece of fringe that had loosened from her ponytail. ‘They’re hot.’
Adam’s mouth watered. They weren’t the only things that were hot. Jess bouncing around the kitchen in a ponytail and an apron was pretty damn hot too.
He gave himself a mental shake as he picked up the closest biscuit. Since when had he ever thought domesticated women were hot? Where had it ever got his mother?
He bit into the biscuit gingerly to hide his confusion.
‘Wow!’ he said as golden syrup and melted brown sugar infused his taste buds with glorious sensation. ‘This is a damn good biscuit.’
Jess felt her heart fill with joy at his enthusiastic compliment. His look of bliss as he’d savoured that first bite would be duly categorised in her memory banks as one of her best Adam moments. ‘You wait till you taste the birthday cake.’
‘You’re making your own birthday cake?’
Jess laughed. ‘Of course. You can’t have a birthday party without cake.’
‘We could have bought you a cake. You shouldn’t have had to make your own.’
Jess waved her hand at him, dismissing his suggestion outright. ‘Why buy one when I can make something much better?’
Adam eyed the cake. ‘It’s that good, huh?’
Jess pulled the spoon out of the icing and they both watched as its glossy texture slid off the back like treacle. For good measure she licked the back of the spoon and sighed. ‘Hell, yeah.’
Adam, who had followed every single second of Jess’s pink tongue gliding across the metal surface, temporarily lost his train of thought as a bolt of desire ignited his loins. In any other woman he would have said it was a deliberate come-on but Jess just looked at him with the same openness she always did.
No hint of coyness or agenda.
‘I didn’t know you baked,’ he said, changing the subject.
Jess nodded. ‘Always. I love to bake. Which is just as well seeing as how I have a terrible sweet tooth.’
With the image of Jess licking the spoon fresh in his mind, Adam had to admit there was something about a woman who loved to eat. Too many of the women he dated barely ate a thing. It was a revelation to see one embrace the whole process with such enthusiasm.
‘Well, these biscuits are winners.’
‘They most definitely are,’ Jess said with pride. ‘They’re my grandmother’s recipe. She’s known throughout the district for them. They’ve won her the blue ribbon at the Edwinburra Show for the last thirty-eight years.’
Adam chuckled. He took in the whole scene. A country song played in the background. The kitchen smelled like an old-fashioned bakehouse. Jess was dressed in a gingham apron with ‘Bless This House’ embroidered across the yoke.
He eyed her speculatively. ‘You really are a country girl, aren’t you?’
Jess wasn’t sure if admitting it was a good thing or a bad thing. But she refused to pretend to be something she wasn’t. Even for Adam. ‘Through and through.’
A look of contentment infused her features into a mask of pure serenity and kicked him hard in the chest. Had he ever felt the way she looked?
The urge to know more surprised him.
‘Tell me about home,’ he said, pulling up a kitchen chair.
Jess looked at him uncertainly. ‘The farm?’
‘Is that where you grew up?’ She nodded. ‘Tell me about the farm.’
Jess paused for a moment as a hundred images crowded her mind. She shrugged. ‘It’s … beautiful out there. The sky is so … blue … not like it is here. Like this giant glass dome that seems to stretch on for ever, and the smells … they’re so different to the city. Dirt and eucalypt, campfires and horses. And at nighttime the stars … they take your breath away.’
Adam stilled as the far-away look in her eyes seemed to reach deep inside him and squeeze. ‘The sunsets are stunning—ochres and reds and then … scarlet skies full of cockatoos. The billabongs are surrounded by gum trees and in the late afternoon hundreds of pink galahs feed on the banks …’
Jess felt her earlier sense of homesickness return with a vengeance and she became aware of Adam watching her intently. She blushed as she realised she’d been prattling on and on.
She looked down into the depths of warm, sludgy icing. ‘Sorry,’ she murmured as she absently stirred it again. ‘I get a little carried away.’
Adam dismissed her apology with a wave of his hand. He’d liked hearing her voice soften and watch her eyes follow invisible flocks of cockatoos as she’d painted her outback picture for him.
‘It must have been hard to leave.’
Jess nodded, feeling the wrench of leaving all over again. ‘It felt like I’d lost my best friend.’ She’d cried for the entire seven-hour bus trip. ‘But …’ Jess shrugged and looked at him ‘ … it’s a means to an end.’
‘Oh?’
‘Once I’ve got city experience under my belt I can go back home to where I’m really needed. There’s a chronic nursing shortage in the bush—too many people have to go to the city, leave all that’s dear to them, to get medical care. It’s not right.’
Adam felt relief flood his system, knowing Jess was planning on heading back out west. That alone should be enough to kill any ridiculous notions that had filled his head since she’d cluelessly licked that spoon and put his body on high alert.
‘Is that why you became a nurse?’
She nodded. ‘My grandfather died when I was twelve in a Sydney hospital. He’d wanted to come home to Edwinburra but there were no beds at the hospital because there were no nurses to staff them. So he died far away from the house he’d helped his father build and the land he’d worked his entire life.’
Jess felt the old feelings of injustice resurface and well in her chest. It was amazing how raw it still felt from time to time and she dropped her gaze back to the bowl of icing.
‘I grew up in that house, the only kid in a houseful of adults. I saw him every day of my life until he got sick and I didn’t get to say goodbye.’
Adam felt the ache in her voice right down to his bones. ‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured after a moment.
Jess sucked in a breath and blinked hard. ‘Thanks.’ She gave him a small smile. ‘Anyway,’ she said briskly, suddenly feeling foolish for confiding in him, ‘this isn’t getting the cake iced.’ She touched the biscuits, satisfied that they’d cooled enough, and stacked them in a nearby container.
Adam guessed that the abrupt changing of topic and sudden flurry of activity was his signal to drop it. And if he wasn’t mistaken, her cheeks looked pink. He hadn’t wanted to embarrass her. So he stood and followed her lead.
‘Are these for tonight?’ he asked, reaching his hand into the container to snag another biscuit.
‘No, and just as well,’ Jess said pointedly as she removed them from his reach, pleased to be back on solid ground. ‘Anzacs are not party food. But the oven was on and they’re Cort’s favourites.’
‘So what are we eating tonight?’ Adam asked as he took a step towards her, angling to get closer to the biscuits.
Jess nearly rolled her eyes. Typical man—suggested the party then left it up to everyone else to organise. She shifted the biscuits again as he closed in on them.
‘We’re getting in some of those Lebanese-style pizzas,’ she said.
Coogee had some truly magnificent ethnic eateries and Jess adored the Lebanese take-away. The closest thing to ethnic in Edwinburra was imported olives at the local deli.
Adam reached across her but Jess tugged the container out of his reach. They looked at each other for a solid moment. He, demanding to be allowed another. She, daring him to try again.
But suddenly he realised how close they were and she smelled like chocolate and treacle and his appetite turned … carnal.
His body moved from high alert to defcom four.
He sighed. ‘That’s it. You leave me no choice.’ And he dipped his finger in the nearby icing bowl.
She automatically slapped his hand but it was too late. He was bringing the icing-dipped finger back to his lips and slipping it inside his mouth.
Jess watched as if it was playing in slow motion. The way his lips parted, the glide of his chocolate-lubricated finger as it slid inside his mouth, the soft clamp of his lips, the slow passage of a stray drip as it trekked down his chin, the way his cheeks hollowed as they created enough suction to strip the icing off, his finger reappearing a few moments later clean and moist from the ministrations of his tongue.
‘Mmm, mmm.’ Adam shut his eyes as layers of sweetness coated the inside of his mouth. ‘This,’ he said, opening his eyes, ‘is very, very good.’ He licked his finger again, hoping for any residual flavour.
Jess didn’t know what to say. Or do. All she could think about was the smudge of chocolate icing on his chin. So very, very near his mouth.
‘You have chocolate on your chin,’ she said, hating the suddenly breathy quality of her voice.
Adam looked down at her, at her gaze fixed just south of his mouth. The sadness that had lurked in her eyes before was well and truly gone. There was heat now—lots of heat. His body tensed even further.
‘I do?’ he asked.
Jess nodded and handed him the washcloth she had handy. ‘Here.’
Adam regarded it. Any other woman, with this much sexual tension filling the air, would have offered to lick it off. God knew, he’d lost his mind enough to let her. But that obviously wasn’t her style.
And that should have been a turn-off.
But there was something so sweet about her primness, especially with all that heat in her gaze, it only intrigued him further.
‘Thanks,’ he said, taking the proffered cloth.
He cleaned his chin and passed it back to her. There was another moment when she just looked up at him and he gave serious thought to kissing her. Her mouth was pink and parted slightly and he knew she’d taste like chocolate icing.
‘Any time,’ she murmured.
Adam stared at her lips as they moved. ‘Happy birthday, Jess.’
Jess smiled. ‘Another year older.’
Adam nodded, dragging his gaze from her mouth and stepping away.
Still the same age as Ruby.
He unhooked his jacket from the chair. ‘I have a couple of meetings to go to so I’m going to be late to the party. Start without me.’
And then he was gone.
Jess blinked. She could have sworn he was going to kiss her. And then she’d gone and spoilt it by reminding him of her age.
Stupid.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
‘I need a dress. A sexy dress. A very sexy dress.’
Tilly looked up from blindly trying to find the hole in her ear with the hook of her dangly earrings.
‘Okay … I thought you were just wearing jeans.’ She looked down at her own casual attire. ‘I thought we weren’t getting dressed up.’
‘It doesn’t have to be dressy. Just …’
‘Sexy.’
Jess nodded. ‘Very sexy.’
Tilly nodded towards her wardrobe. ‘Help yourself.’
Jess clapped her hands, entering Tilly’s purple room and scooting over to what she knew to be a veritable treasure trove of girly dresses.
‘Is there a man you’re hoping to impress tonight?’ Tilly asked hopefully.
Jess refused to even think of Adam as she flicked through the multitude of coat hangers. ‘Nope, just tired of being the jeans and T girl.’
‘Right …’
Jess looked at her friend. ‘It’s my party,’ she said defensively. ‘I want to look like the party girl.’
‘Of course.’ Tilly nodded.
Jess narrowed her eyes. ‘What?’ she demanded.
Tilly bit her lip, choosing her words carefully. ‘Well … it’s just that … you’re not really the party-girl type … are you?’
‘I am tonight.’ She held up a red dress with no back and a plunging neckline.
Tilly shook her head. ‘What about this baby-doll dress with the—?’
‘No,’ Jess interrupted, shaking her head vigorously. ‘No baby anything.’
‘Okay … let’s see.’ Tilly hunted a bit more. ‘What about this one?’
She held up the chocolate-brown short cotton sundress against Jess. It had a funky fringed hem and the colour suited Jess’s blonde hair and emphasised the amazing blue of her eyes. The V-neckline wasn’t too risqué and given that Jess was a couple of inches shorter than Tilly, it would probably fall to mid thigh.
‘It’s an amazing colour on you,’ Tilly said.
Jess inspected herself in the mirror on the inside of the wardrobe door. ‘Is Marcus around?’
Marcus was an obstetrician at Eastern Beaches. He and Tilly had met when Marcus had tried to shut down Tilly’s beloved birth centre.
He’d seen the error of his ways.
Tilly shook her head. ‘He doesn’t finish for another hour.’
‘Good.’
Jess whipped off her T-shirt and threw the dress over her head. It did suit her but the neckline gaped because Jess didn’t have enough cleavage to do it justice. She plucked glumly at the sagging material.
‘Here.’ Tilly reached into a drawer behind them and pulled out a shopping bag. ‘Use this. It’ll work a treat.’
Jess looked at the fancy push-up bra that seemed more padding than anything else. How it would ever fit Tilly she had no idea.
Tilly seemed to read her mind. ‘I bought it in a hurry on sale without trying it on. I never did get round to taking it back. Consider it a birthday gift.’
Jess held the bra against her. ‘Really?’
Tilly nodded. ‘It’s yours.’
Jess gave her friend a quick hug. ‘Thanks. You’re a lifesaver.’
The party had been in full swing for two hours when Adam finally showed. Jess was aware of him the second he entered, even though the lights had been dimmed right down and music blared out from the sound system.