‘I…er…Why?’
‘Because you’re going to stop being stubborn, put your bike in the back of my car and let me give you a lift home. It’s the least I can do,’ he said, making her close her mouth on the argument she’d been about to produce. ‘You were kind enough to ask me to join you tonight.’
You plural, not you singular, she reminded herself. ‘I…er…’ Oh, why was she suddenly so inarticulate?
‘Where’s your bike?’ he asked again.
‘Chained to that lamppost,’ she said, pointing to the elderly and slightly battered racer she’d inherited from Matt fifteen years before, on her thirteenth birthday, and had liked too much to replace with a newer—or more feminine—model.
‘Keys?’ he asked, holding out his hand.
She shook her head, unlocked the bike herself, and wheeled it alongside him to his car. ‘Are you sure about this?’ she asked, eyeing the four-wheel-drive doubtfully. It was big enough to cope with her bike, but it was also pristine. And, judging by the number plate, less than six months old.
‘Sure.’ He opened the back and hauled her bike inside. ‘Hop in.’
Being in an enclosed space with Sam Taylor was a definite mistake, she thought. It was a big car, but she was still very much aware of how close he was to her. If she shifted her hand less than six inches, her fingers would brush against his. Fingers that were gentle with his patients. How would they be with her?
Stop it, Jodie, she told herself fiercely. And yet she couldn’t help remembering the look in his eyes as she’d fed him pizza. She could imagine them lying in the park on a sunny day, with his head in her lap as she fed him seedless grapes and morsels of Brie—and then bending down to kiss the crumbs away from his lips…
That’s the last time you ever drink more than one glass of wine in his company, Jodie Price, she warned herself.
Then she flushed as she became aware that he’d been talking to her, and she hadn’t heard a single word he’d said. ‘Sorry. I was miles away,’ she apologised.
‘Where do I go from here?’ he asked.
He sounded completely cool and calm. Obviously he didn’t feel the same pull and she’d be wise to remember that. Dragging her thoughts together, she directed him through the back streets of the city to her small terraced house. He parked the car and hefted her bike down.
‘Thanks for the lift.’
‘No problem.’
Should she ask him in for coffee? It was only polite, seeing as he’d given her a lift home, but she didn’t want him misreading her motives.
In the end Sam made the decision for her. ‘Goodnight, Jodie.’
It was the first time he’d ever used her name, and she wasn’t prepared for the sudden lurch of her heart. ‘Goodnight,’ she muttered, not quite daring to use his first name but not wanting to rebuff him by using a more formal mode of address.
She watched him as he drove away. She still knew virtually nothing about him, despite having spent most of the evening talking to him. He was as mysterious and distant as ever. Though there had been a moment when she’d thought she’d come close to breaking through his wall.
Shaking her head, she walked into the house. Maybe he didn’t want to be rescued. But that sultry silver in his eyes told her that she couldn’t give up. Not yet.
As he drove away, Sam could have kicked himself. Why had he insisted on taking her home? He’d been so close to breaking a personal rule. When he’d taken her bike out of the car, the way she’d looked up at him, her eyes all shiny and her mouth so soft and warm and inviting…His body had been screaming out for him to take her in his arms and kiss her, and to hell with the consequences.
But the sensible side of him had overruled it. Just. Apart from the fact that affairs with colleagues were bad news, he’d sworn he’d never get involved again. Not after his extremely messy divorce.
Come off it. What have you got to lose? Angela’s the complete opposite of Jodie, the voice in his head taunted. Just look at her.
Angela was petite, slender and well groomed, and she only ever wore little suits teamed with designer shoes, handbag and briefcase, whereas Jodie was tall, curvy and had a much more casual attitude towards clothes. Angela’s make-up was always immaculate, whereas Jodie’s barely existed—he suspected that the nearest Jodie came to cosmetics was a lip-salve. Angela would never have dreamed of letting her expensive haircut get wet—and if she’d had a bike it would have been an expensive and trendy mountain bike, not a battered, elderly racer.
Maybe that was the attraction: Jodie was the opposite of Angela. No, that was unfair. Jodie was a little like the Angela he’d fallen in love with at university, the young lawyer with a sparkle in her eye and a sense of fun that had stopped him being too serious.
The sparkle that had soon dimmed when Angela had discovered what a failure Sam had been as a husband—that he couldn’t give her what she most wanted in the world. And it would be exactly the same with Jodie. It might start out fine, full of love and laughter, but over the months it would change and one day he’d come home to an empty house and an apologetic note. Just like he had with Angela.
Though what was he doing, even thinking about Jodie in those terms? She wasn’t interested in him and he didn’t have the right to get involved with anyone. Not with his past.
She said being an honorary auntie was enough for her, the little voice reminded him.
Only because her biological clock hasn’t started ticking yet.
She was serious. She’s dedicated to her career.
Now, maybe. Things change. She’s a natural mother. You can see it in her eyes, in the way she acts with the children on the ward.
But supposing—
Supposing nothing. It’s not going to happen.
‘I’M JODIE PRICE,’ she said, extending a hand to the pale-faced woman who was sitting holding a small baby. ‘And this is Dr Taylor, who’s sharing the assessment clinic with me.’ Mr, actually, but she’d learned that it was easier to say ‘Doctor’ than go through all the explanations about when you got high enough up the career ladder, you swapped Dr for plain Mr or Ms. Worried parents weren’t interested in the social niceties: they just wanted reassurance about their sick children. Right now.
She glanced down at her notes. ‘This is Harry, yes?’
The woman nodded.
‘And he’s seven weeks old.’
Tears welled in the woman’s eyes. ‘He’s so small…I thought it was just a cold. And then he couldn’t breathe…’
‘You’re here now and we can help him, Mrs Bartlett,’ Jodie soothed,
