was bleeding to death, the road had to be cleared. Someone could speed around the corner at any minute and a minor accident could become appalling.
But how could he move the crate? It was blocking the road in such a way it stopped both the car and the truck from being moved. He couldn’t lift it.
He didn’t. As she watched, he put his shoulder against it, shoving harder than she’d thought possible.
The crate was about eight feet long by six feet wide, iron webbing built around a floor of heavy iron. It had been on the back of the truck for the last twenty years. She’d had no idea it could come loose.
Gran hadn’t told her that. There were lots of things Gran hadn’t told her, she thought grimly, a long litany of deception. In fact, Maggie’s decision to have this baby had been based partly on Gran’s deceit.
But there was no way she could yell at Gran now. In truth, she was so worried about the old lady she felt sick.
What else? She wanted to cry because her leg was throbbing. She desperately needed to check on her baby’s heartbeat.
But instead she was lying still as ordered, her leg stuck up in front of her, watching this bossy surgeon shift her crate.
If she had to have an arrogant surgeon bossing her while he organised her life, at least she’d been sent one whose body was almost enough to distract her from the pain she was feeling.
When she’d first seen him he’d looked smoothly handsome, expensive. Now his perfectly groomed, jet-black hair was wet with sweat, dark curls clinging to his forehead. A trace of five-o’clock shadow accentuated his strongly boned face, and his dark eyes were keen with the intent of strain.
He also looked gorgeous. It was an entirely inappropriate thought, she decided, but it was there, whether she willed it or not. This man was definite eye-candy.
He had all his weight against the crate now. He was grunting with effort, sweat glistening. One of his arms was bare—courtesy of the pad she was holding above her eye—and his arm was a mass of sinews. As was his chest. The more he sweated, the more his shirt became a damp and transparent nothing, exposing serious muscles.
And the more he sweated the more she was distracted from everything she should be focussed on. This was crazy. She was seven months pregnant. She was injured. She had so many worries her head was about to explode, yet here she was transfixed by the sight of a colleague attempting to move a weight far too big for one man.
Only it wasn’t. The crate was moving, an inch at a time and then faster, and then he found rhythm. He was right behind it and he kept on pushing, right up to the verge.
The verge was too narrow to hold it.
She should have been thinking forward to what he intended, but she was caught. Watching him. Fascinated.
‘Move!’ He gave one last gigantic heave—and it slid onto the verge and further. Before she realised what was happening, the crate was toppling over the side of the cliff, crashing its way down to the beach below. Leaving her stunned.
‘So how do you suggest I get the calves home now?’ she muttered, awed, but he wasn’t listening. He was in her truck already, shoving it into gear, reversing it from the cliff face. It sounded like something disastrous was happening inside the engine, but at least it moved. He drove it further along the road, parked it on a widened section of verge, then jogged back for his car.
She was a passive audience, stunned by his body and by his energy. And by…his car! She’d never seen an Aston Martin up close before. Not bad, she conceded, growing more distracted by the moment. Surgeon in open-topped roadster. Cool.
Or…hot.
Or maybe the blow to her head was making her thinking fuzzy. She should be too caught up with the pain in her knee to react like…well, like she was reacting.
But then, as he turned his fabulous car away from her, suddenly her fuzziness disappeared. It was replaced with a stab of panic so great it took her breath away. He’d backed away from the cliff, turning the car to head north.
North. Toward Sydney.
She was staggering to her feet, her hands out, rushing straight forward so he had to slam his brakes on or she would have run right into him. As it was, he stopped with barely an inch to spare.
She put her hand on the bonnet and tried to regroup. Tried to think of some way to say that this was panic, she hadn’t really thought he’d leave.
She was being hysterical. Insulting.
But she had no breath to say it. She could only lean on his car and gasp. And then he was out of the car, taking her hands, tugging her toward him. He looked shocked to the core, as well he might be. Crazy woman runs straight into path of car.
She had to explain. ‘I—I can’t leave Gran,’ she stammered. ‘You have to take me home. You must. You can’t leave me here.’
She could hardly breathe through fright. He swore and held her, and then as she couldn’t stop trembling he held her tighter.
‘Hey, Maggie, I’m not leaving,’ he said, sounding appalled. ‘I swear. I’m not that big a rat. I was just turning the car away from the bend so it’s safe for you to get in.’ And then as she tried desperately to think how to respond and could only think that her leg hurt and she was close to tears and she could have killed her baby, by running into a car of all things, how could she have been so stupid, he swore again, tugged her even tighter into his arms and held her close.
‘It’s okay,’ he whispered into her hair. ‘I won’t leave you. You’re safe. I’ll take you back to Gran, whoever Gran is. I’ll do whatever we have to do. We’ll do it together.’
His chin was resting on her hair.
He’d assumed she’d realise he was just moving the car; that he had no intention of leaving her. But why would she assume anything? He was a stranger.
Up until now it had been all about him, he thought, savage with himself. Sure, he’d reacted to her injuries, but he’d reacted as if she was a patient in Emergency where he was one of a team; the surgeon doing his job without looking at the whole picture.
But here he had to see the whole picture.
She had no obvious life-threatening wounds, but she was hurt, she was shocked and she was pregnant. Her truck was a write-off, and without a working cellphone she was stranded.
He’d climbed into his fancy car and turned away, probably making it clear by his body language he wanted to be shot of her. Her reaction—that he was about to leave—was so understandable he felt ill.
So he held her close and waited until her racing heartbeat eased, until he felt the rigid terror go out of her. Finally he felt her body soften, mould into his, take comfort from his hold.
It wasn’t exactly professional, to hold her like this, but who was worrying? He’d been shocked, too. If it felt good to hold onto this woman, then so be it. He could take comfort as well as give it.
And it felt good.
Different.
He’d hardly
