you haven’t already guessed.’
He kept hold of her hand a little longer than he needed to. He couldn’t seem to get the message through to his brain to release her. The feel of her satin-soft skin against the roughness of his made something in his groin tighten like an over-tuned guitar string. ‘Welcome to Jerringa Ridge.’
‘Thank you.’ She slipped her hand away and used it to tuck an imaginary strand of hair behind her ear. ‘I’m sorry. I expect you think I’m a complete fool but my friend told me she’d organised a surprise and I thought—well, I thought you were the surprise.’
‘Sorry to disappoint you.’
‘I’m relieved, not disappointed.’ She blushed again. ‘Quite frankly, I hate surprises. Hannah—that’s my friend—thinks it’s funny to shock me. Every year she comes up with something outrageous to make my birthday memorable.’
‘I guess this will be one you won’t forget in a hurry.’
‘Yes...’ She bit her lip with her small but perfectly aligned white teeth.
‘Is there a Dr Courtney around here?’ A young man dressed in a courier delivery uniform came towards them from the car park, his work boots crunching on the dusty gravel.
‘Um, I’m Dr Courtney.’ Isabella’s blush had spread down to her décolletage by now, taking Zach’s eyes with it. She was of slim build but she had all the right girly bits, a fact his hormones acknowledged with what felt like a stampede racing through his blood.
Cool it, mate.
Not your type.
‘I have a package for you,’ the delivery guy said. ‘I need a signature.’
Zach watched as Isabella signed her name on the electronic pad. She gave the delivery guy a tentative smile as she took the package from him. It was about the size of a shoebox and she held it against her chest like a shield.
‘Aren’t you going to open it?’ Zach asked.
Her cheeks bloomed an even deeper shade of pink. ‘I think I’ll wait until I’m...until later.’
There was a small silence...apart from the sound of forty or so bodies shuffling and jostling behind them to get a better view.
Zach had lived long enough in Jerringa Ridge to know it wouldn’t take much to get the local tongues wagging. Ever since his fiancée Naomi had called off their relationship when he’d moved back home to take care of his father, everyone in town had taken it upon themselves to find him a replacement. He only had to look at a woman once and the gossip would run like a scrub fire. But whether he was in the city or the country, he liked to keep his private life off the grapevine. It meant for a pretty dry social life but he had other concerns right now.
‘I’d better head back to the station. I hope you enjoy the rest of your birthday.’ He gave Isabella Courtney a brisk impersonal nod while his body thrummed with the memory of her touch. ‘Goodnight.’
* * *
Izzy watched Zach stride out of the reach of the lights of the pub to where his police vehicle was parked beneath a pendulous willow tree. Argh! If only she’d checked the car park before she’d launched into her I-don’t-want-you-here speech. How embarrassing! She had just made an utter fool of herself, bad enough in front of him but practically the whole town had been watching. Would she ever live it down? Would everyone snigger at her now whenever they saw her?
And how would she face him again?
Oh, he might have kept his face as blank as a mask but she knew he was probably laughing his head off at her behind that stony cop face of his. Would he snigger as well with his mates at how she had mistaken him for a— Oh, it was too awful to even think about.
Of course he didn’t look anything like a stripper, not that she had seen one in person or anything, only pictures of some well-built guys who worked the show circuit in Vegas. One of the girls she’d shared a flat with in London had hung their risqué calendar on the back of the bathroom door.
Idiot.
Fool.
Imbecile.
How could you possibly think he was—?
‘So you’ve met our gorgeous Zach,’ Peggy McLeod, one of the older cattleman’s wives, said at Izzy’s shoulder, with obvious amusement in her voice.
Izzy turned around and pasted a smile on her face. ‘Um, yes... He seems very...um...nice.’
‘He’s single,’ Peggy said. ‘His ex-fiancée changed her mind about moving to the bush with him. He and his dad run a big property out of town—Fletcher Downs. Good with his hands, that boy. Knows how to do just about anything. Make someone a fine husband one day.’
‘That’s...um, nice.’
‘His mum was English too, did you know?’ Peggy went on, clearly not expecting an answer for she continued without pause. ‘Olivia married Doug after a whirlwind courtship but she never could settle to life on the land. She left when Zach was about eight or nine...or was it ten? Yes, it was ten, I remember now. He was in the same class as one of my sister’s boys.’
Izzy frowned. ‘Left?’
Peggy nodded grimly. ‘Yep. Never came back, not even to visit. Zach used to fly over to England for holidays occasionally. Took him ages to settle in, though. Eventually he stopped going. I don’t think he’s seen his mother in years. Mind you, he’s kind of stuck here now since the accident.’
‘The accident?’
‘Doug Fletcher rolled his quad bike about eighteen months back. Crushed his spinal cord.’ Peggy shook her head sadly. ‘A strong, fit man like that not able to walk without a frame. It makes you want to cry, doesn’t it?’
‘That’s very sad.’
‘Zach looks after him all by himself,’ Peggy said. ‘How he does it is anyone’s guess. Doug won’t hear of having help in. Too proud and stubborn for his own good. Mind you, Zach can be a bit that way too.’
‘But surely he can’t look after his father indefinitely?’ Izzy said. ‘What about his own life?’
Peggy’s shoulders went up and down. ‘Doesn’t have one, far as I can see.’
* * *
Izzy walked back to her cottage a short time later. The party was continuing without her, which suited her just fine. Everyone was having a field day over her mistaking Zach Fletcher for a stripper. There was only so much ribbing she could take in one sitting. Just as well she was only here for a month. It would be a long time before she would be able to think about the events of tonight without blushing to the roots of her hair.
The police station was a few doors up from the clinic at the south end of the main street. She hadn’t noticed it earlier but, then, during the day it looked like any other nondescript cottage. Now that it was fully dark the police sign was illuminated and the four-wheel-drive police vehicle Zach had driven earlier was parked in the driveway beside a spindly peppercorn tree.
As
