more closely into his face, despite the early heat, and wiped his eyes so he could focus on the delicate shoulders of the woman riding in front.
Kirsten was tall for a woman, he knew that. When she was standing in front of him in the unit, he could just see over her head. He used that trick to keep the mental distance between them. He’d discovered if he spent too long looking into her wonderfully expressive face he’d lose track of what she was saying and just enjoy the show.
He really didn’t think she was aware that she threatened his peace of mind.
The first marker was coming up and she still sat lightly, and delightfully, on her throne-like seat as if she’d grown up there. He wasn’t quite as comfortable but that didn’t mean he couldn’t win.
Dormant competitiveness surfaced where it had been lacking. ‘Second really isn’t good enough,’ he said to himself as he urged his camel on, tapping with his crop to let the beast know.
Kirsten was only winning because of her lighter weight and those strange encouraging noises she was making to her camel, but he had to admit she could ride. Her white burnoose billowed out behind her and the sun glinted off the flying cloud of red hair which she usually kept confined. He realised she was attracting the attention of the raucous local contingent.
The corner barrel appeared and he almost checked the gait of his animal until he saw she wasn’t going to slow her beast. She skidded around full pelt and he watched in trepidation. Her camel swayed unsteadily and she hauled on the reins to direct it into the turn. The woman was mad—and scared the bejesus out of him when she was like this—but he felt his own blood begin to pound.
Incredibly, still mounted, she flashed back past him towards the winning post and, as usual, her eyes were wild with exhilaration and the joy that seemed to shine on everything she did. In that instant, the barrier he’d erected against the entire female race five years ago finally splintered into a thousand pieces of flying sand and he woke up to life again.
Which was even more reason why he couldn’t let her win. If she could send the safety factors to hell, so could he.
Hunter and his camel rounded the barrel at a gravity-defying angle and for a moment he thought he was going down with his mount, but his camel strained to keep its feet. Swaying high above the sand, Hunter urged his mount to greater speed. The beast responded to the command in his voice. This wasn’t a charity race day any more. This was a personal struggle for supremacy between him and that alluring woman.
He charged her down with sand flying and the other contestants left far behind. The cheers from the hospital crowd were a distant buzz in his ears.
‘Come on,’ he growled, and the camel flicked its ears as if to tell him to go to hell. The ground was a blur below him but he could see nothing but the red hair in front which was drawing closer. Inch by inch he gained on her until he passed her camel’s tail and then its bony rump and finally he was level with Kirsten’s shoulder.
She laughed at him, tucked in her chin and slapped her camel on the rump with her tiny crop, and pulled away for a moment. But her camel was tiring, finally, and Hunter edged back level so that right at the end they crossed the finish line together.
Both camels slowed to a trot and then finally stopped, their hairy sides heaving and breath snorting from their huge nostrils. ‘Well ridden, Sister Wilson,’ Hunter had to concede, as they pulled up.
‘Well ridden yourself, Dr Morgan.’ She laughed back at him, barely breathless. Then she slid lightly down the great height from her camel without waiting for the boy who was running towards her. Kirsten moved to the camel’s face, stroked the giant’s neck and whispered something in its ear. For a horrible moment there, Hunter thought she was going to kiss the disgusting beast.
His own camel turned and nipped at his leg as if to say, I’ve given you all I’ve got—now get off!
He tapped behind its knobbly knee with his crop and the camel knelt down to allow him to slide off.
The other riders began to dismount around them and he shook hands with the contestants. Hunter drew a deep breath and smiled. He felt terrific.
The flags fluttered in the morning air and the colours of the barrackers suddenly seemed brighter than he’d noticed earlier. It really was the most beautiful day and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d noticed something mundane like the weather. His eyes were drawn to Kirsten, surrounded by her fellow nurses, and he forgot the weather to appreciate the woman.
Later, on the winner’s dais, when Kirsten stood beside him to share the trophy, Hunter frowned down the calls of their fellow medical staff to kiss her. Unexpectedly, she stretched up and kissed his cheek before he realised what she was doing.
Kirsten’s hair smelled of some herbal shampoo and a whiff of camel, and the feather-light feel of her lips against his cheek was more delightful than he was prepared for. His hand lifted of its own accord and caught her chin as she started to turn away, and he tilted her face back towards him. When he swooped to steal his own kiss, he wasn’t sure who was the most surprised—him or her.
Hunter hadn’t realised how much he’d wanted to do this. She felt right in his arms, as if she belonged there. It had been so long since he’d held any woman and now he knew why. He’d been waiting for Kirsten.
The feel of her lips against his was magic and when he released her, he could see the surprised recognition of something special mirrored in her beautiful green eyes. Then she was swept away by an admiring crowd of mostly male hospital staff. This time he followed.
And so it had started—eight weeks of magic. Silly, inconsequential conversations about stars and myths and unlikely scenarios that made him laugh in the cool of the evening after their shifts. Rendezvous at breakfast, eating fruit and rolls out under a tree in the courtyard while she fed the birds, hilarious trips into the bazaars where she would haggle fiercely with wizened street vendors as he watched in almost embarrassed awe until she’d won her bargain. Gradually they came to spend most of their off duty time together.
At work, they concentrated on their jobs and she remained Sister Wilson, Nursing Unit Manager of Neonatal Intensive Care, and he Dr Morgan, Paediatrician, because that was how Hunter wanted it.
He was terrified to rush or be sidetracked by the fierce ache to possess her, a trap that had snared him into foolishness and disaster in his first marriage. The simmering sexual tension between them only added to the intoxication of Kirsten. Hunter finally began to trust again.
Until that morning when his world shattered and he saw Kirsten in the arms of Jack Cosgrove, the senior consultant—and he realised that the woman he loved was just like his ex-wife. The darkness surrounded him again and he couldn’t believe he’d been such a fool. But he wouldn’t be one again.
Sydney—late September
MIRA! Kirsten Wilson stood outside the familiar three-storey headquarters of Mobile Infant Retrieval Australia and sighed with contentment at the sign. It was a relief to be back, both at MIRA and in Sydney.
Six years ago she’d watched the stabilisation and retrieval of a premature infant from Gladstone, her home town in northern New South Wales, and Kirsten had known MIRA was where she wanted to be. Before her stint in Dubai, she’d spent a year here at MIRA
