He kept a hand on her nape as he called to the paramedic who had just backed out of the back of the ambulance and was closing the doors. ‘Gaz? Can you take Kayla back with you for a once-over?’
‘Sure, no problem.’
Beneath his palm, he could feel the delicate shifting of muscle as Kayla shook her head.
‘That’s not necessary, Sergeant. I—’
He looked back at her. ‘I think it is, Kayla. You were a hair’s breadth from being involved in a nasty accident tonight. And the name is Tom.’ If she called him Sergeant one more time tonight, he’d plant a kiss right on that luscious mouth and completely ruin her opinion of him.
‘But I need my car.’ She looked mutinous, her silver eyes glowing with irritation.
‘And I’ll see that you get it,’ he said as he stood. ‘For now, I’m impounding it.’
Her mouth opened.
He bent, slipping one arm around her shoulders, the other under her knees and scooped her up. Her mouth snapped shut on a small squeak as she grabbed at his shoulder to steady herself. He smiled grimly. His hands were on Kayla and he couldn’t do a thing about it. Torture. He looked down on the curve of lashes on her cheek, the gentle swell of her breasts…the fist in her lap. He’d take no bets on where she’d like to plant it.
He was a masochist.
‘Open your front passenger door for me, Gaz.’
‘Sure thing, Tom.’ Gary grinned as he opened the door wide.
Tom shovelled his armful of warm woman onto the seat, wondering if his reluctance to let her go was obvious to anyone other than him.
God, he had to get out of here before he made an idiot of himself. He stepped back quickly and cleared the congestion from his throat.
‘Buckle up, Doc,’ he said as he shut the door.
Kayla’s narrow-eyed glare should have sizzled his skin. At least her anger had brought some colour to her pallid cheeks. A little hectic but colour just the same.
Tom pivoted and strode over to where Jack Campbell was rolling up the hose. The bonnet of the car had been wrenched open and the engine was now well doused with fire-retardant foam.
‘Kayla okay?’ asked Jack.
‘She says so.’ Tom avoided his friend’s shrewd eyes. ‘I’ve sent her back with the ambos for a check over.’
‘And she was okay with that?’
‘Sure. Why wouldn’t she be?’ Tom set his jaw and ignored the laughter he could see in Jack’s face. ‘I’ll get one of your guys to drive her car back to the hospital when we go, if that’s okay?’
‘Sure. Might as well be me. I want to roust Liz out. She should have been home a couple of hours ago.’
‘Good luck with that.’
‘Yeah.’ Jack chuckled.
Kayla sucked another deep breath into her oxygen-deprived lungs. Her diaphragm had frozen from the moment the sergeant had lifted her. Making a conscious effort to ease her tension, she uncurled the fists in her lap. Her short practical nails had dug into the soft tissue, leaving small red dints in her palm.
Even with his disturbing presence gone, she could still feel his touch. Hard enough when it had just been his hand on her nape, strong fingers clasped gently on her neck, the rasp of his calloused skin while he’d been holding her head down. Being clasped to his chest, surrounded by his warmth and strength…the awareness of her female softness against the hardness of his muscular frame had overwhelmed her.
The honest, earthy scent of him, a smell that owed more to a hard day’s work than scientists testing essences in a laboratory, seemed to call to her in a way that was disturbing, primitive. She’d always liked men to be well groomed, wearing a subtle, musky aftershave. Yet no one she’d dated had ever affected her as profoundly as this man in his snug jeans and a simple black T-shirt.
Thank goodness he didn’t realise he was responsible for her light-headed state. Or at least partially responsible. If she’d eaten a proper meal before leaving Melbourne, if she hadn’t straightened from her bent position so quickly. If he hadn’t crept up on her, spoken her name so unexpectedly. Panic had made her head jerk upright, had flooded her system with an explosion of contrary stimuli. Instead of doing anything sensible, she’d nearly pitched face down at his feet. Would have if he hadn’t caught her.
Which brought her full circle back to being held in his arms. She shivered.
What was it about his brand of masculinity that left her dizzy with all sorts of chaotic feelings? Whatever it was, she didn’t like the feeling of vulnerability. There were so many strikes against him. A career police officer, strong and hard. Controlled and used to controlling. She had to find a way to cram the sergeant back into the mental box she’d managed to keep him in for the two months she’d been living in Dustin.
He’d said she should call him Tom. She didn’t even want to think about him that personally…intimately. Ridiculous though it was, if she thought of him as Tom, he’d become too real, a man she’d have to deal with. As Sergeant Jamieson, he was a police officer, someone she could keep at a distance. She was only here for another four months. Surely she could lock her unruly reactions down long enough to get through that.
She rolled her head to look at him where he stood with Jack Campbell. Both were long, lean, athletic men. Two of a kind. Yet she’d never felt threatened by Jack. He was a honey. She knew he and Liz had had their problems but they’d come through them and now their marriage was stronger than ever. They were a family, one adorable daughter and another baby on the way.
Sergeant Jamieson was a different proposition altogether. He had hot eyes. At the few social occasions she’d attended, she’d felt him watching her. He’d never put a foot wrong, but in her mind he was disturbing. Radiating a hunger that she didn’t want to think about. For things that weren’t his, things he had no right to. She shivered again. He made her feel utterly conscious of her vulnerability as a woman.
She mentally shook herself. It didn’t matter what he wanted. What she wanted was what counted. And she didn’t want any man in her life at the moment.
And definitely not someone like Sergeant Tom Jamieson.
CHAPTER THREE
TOM fell into step with Jack as they walked towards the bright lights at the hospital entrance.
‘Here are Kayla’s keys.’ Jack held out his hand.
‘Thanks,’ Tom said, spotting his quarry as soon as he stepped through the sliding door into the emergency depart ment.
Tall and straight in the shapeless green theatre pants and top, Kayla still looked entirely too appealing. Her pale face turned towards them. When she realised it was him, an interesting shade of pink bloomed along her cheek bones and her eyes darkened to stormcloud grey. He might have flattered himself that his appearance had that effect—except for the ferocious
