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* * *
Ranjini was ready when they arrived back at the clinic. Gentle hands lifted the girl from the truck, transferring her inside, while Ranjini took charge of her father, guiding him into the building. Jaye followed, beckoning to Megan.
‘Help me get cleaned up.’ He made a beeline for the clinic’s shower room, and Megan followed him. Easy. This was going to be easy because, however many of his clothes Jaye discarded, there was an urgent need to get clean and dressed again.
He caught his breath in pain as she stripped his shirt from his back. His hand must be really hurting by now. She switched on the shower and he ducked the top half of his body under it, rivulets of dust tracking their way down to expose smooth, dark skin.
No time to think about how good
it felt to touch him as she quickly soaped his hands and arms. Then she towelled him dry and he pulled one of the scrub tops from the pile, easing it carefully over his head as he made for the door.
How could one snatched glance imprint itself so indelibly? She had other concerns right now, and Megan wanted to hurry back to the girl’s side, but as she gathered up the towels, putting the soap back in its holder, all she could see was Jaye. Broad shoulders, slim hips, a triangle of visual pleasure leading down to the ultimate physical pleasure.
‘Stop. It.’ How many times was she going to have to say this before her fantasies listened? If things had been the other way round, Jaye would have managed it without leering at her, and she should be able to give him the same consideration.
Hurrying after him, she found that Jaye was already in the emergency treatment room with Ranjini and another of the senior nurses. Blood was taken and tested for type, and an IV drip was set up. Ranjini cut the temporary dressing from the girl’s leg and another was applied, with as little blood loss as could be managed. Covered in dust and grime still, all that Megan could do was press her face against the glass door and watch.
He’d worked with everyone here before, and everyone knew exactly what to do. Jaye could stand back a little, giving quiet instructions, and allow Ranjini to be his hands. It felt as if Megan’s other, stronger half had been ripped away, leaving her just a pale shadow on the sidelines.
She watched as the nurses wheeled the gurney out of the emergency room in response to Jaye’s call for an X-ray. Suddenly, everything that needed to be done had been done, without any input from Megan.
‘I don’t think the leg’s broken, but we’ll take an X-ray to be sure. Once she’s stable I’ll have Dr Stone do the stitches.’ He stopped next to her, speaking as if she’d been an integral part of the process.
‘How’s her BP?’
‘Steady. Beginning to rise a little.’ He smiled. ‘She’s beginning to feel the pain, and I’ve sedated her.’
That was a good thing. The child was coming back to them, and as she did so she was starting to register pain.
‘Do you need a hand with the X-ray machine? I can go and clean up.’
He grinned. ‘No. Ranjini can deal with that on her own.’
She wasn’t needed, even for that. And she couldn’t even look Jaye in the eye, she was so afraid of what she’d see there. That he didn’t need her at all. After the intensity of the connection between them it was almost physically painful.
His finger moved under her chin, tipping her head up. Megan instinctively moved to swat his hand away, but she couldn’t. The warmth in his eyes wouldn’t allow that.
‘I could really do with some coffee, though.’
* * *
Jaye sat in the small living area of Megan’s bungalow. It wasn’t so different from his own as the bungalows were all built to the same plan and were furnished the same. It was the little changes that Megan had made that made it so special.
There was a bright, woven throw across the back of the small sofa, obviously from Africa. A couple of large candles on the coffee table, which Megan must have brought with her from England. He liked the fact that she’d felt the soft light warranted the space they’d take in her suitcase. And the scent of her soap, which seemed to follow him around whenever he was close to her.
Something had happened. He wasn’t sure what but, whatever it was, it had changed everything. This morning they’d set out, both flinching every time the other got too close. And now...
It was if they’d been taken, shaken and then thrust together in an intimacy that should have sent Jaye running scared. At the time it had been necessary, but now he had the leisure to replay it in his head.
Her yelp sounded from the small shower room. Clearly the water was cold. The bungalows were powered by solar panels, and there was a choice between shade in the afternoons and consistently hot water. It was a design flaw, and Jaye turned his mind to how he might rectify it, in the hope that it would take his mind away from the idea that Megan must currently be naked.
It didn’t. Not being able to see her now didn’t mean that he didn’t remember the softness of her skin against his cheek. He’d felt it again today, and somehow it had been just the same. Working with her wasn’t the same as an embrace, but the two seemed to have a lot in common.
He puzzled over the thought for a while, and then Megan breezed back out of her bedroom, wearing a striped T-shirt and a clean pair of chinos. She walked over to the small kitchenette in the corner of the room and reached up into the cupboard.
‘I have ground coffee...’
‘Where did you get that from? Not the kitchen, surely.’
