‘I’m good,’ she said. ‘John should have called. I would have told him I was okay and spared you the trouble of making the trip.’

‘I wanted to see you.’

She stood up, awkwardly because of her bulk. He made an instinctive movement to help-and then stopped.

She saw it. He didn’t want to help. He didn’t want to touch her.

Okay, then. She stood knee deep in the shallows and shook herself like a dog, her curls flying every which way. She’d braided her hair but it refused to stay braided in the surf. She looked whale-like and wild, she thought.

Not Max Ashton’s sort of woman at all.

‘So there you go,’ she said tightly. ‘You’ve seen me. Okay?’

‘Maggie, can we talk?’

‘If you get any closer you might mess with me.’

‘That was a dumb thing to say,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry I said it.’

She glowered, but then she thought, no, this was childish. She could be the grown-up here. Maybe it’d even make her feel better to act magnanimously. ‘It’s okay,’ she conceded graciously. ‘I was acting a bit needy. I needed to be pulled up.’

‘You didn’t. I was out of line. I’m sorry.’

Was this what happened when you were magnanimous? You got someone feeling nicely off balance and guilty in return. Excellent. ‘Thank you,’ she said, still attempting grace. ‘Apology accepted.’ She didn’t move, though. Walking forward, out of the water, seemed a bad idea, and walking closer to him seemed worse.

Not to mention the fact that her walk was now more like a waddle. Not a lot of grace there.

‘You swim amazingly,’ he said, still sounding stilted.

‘For an Englishwoman,’ she finished for him, eyeing him with caution. Trying to figure where to go from here. ‘William spent most of his summers at Yandilagong. Betty taught him to surf and he taught me. Just after we finished medical school we did a rotation at Durness in Scotland. Do you have any idea how cold the sea water is around Scotland? This place is a sauna in comparison.’

Was she gabbling? Maybe she was.

‘This still looks winter-cold to me,’ Max said, and, yes, he was looking at her as if she was gabbling. He still seemed wary.

Did he still think he had the capacity to get to her?

However true that might be, she refused to be got to.

‘You’re dreaming.’ She eyed him challenging. He looked so collected. So not part of this beach scene. She desperately wanted to get things on an equal footing. ‘It’s not cold,’ she lied. ‘Come in and try it.’ She raised her brows in mock challenge.

‘I don’t have swim gear.’

‘Are you wearing boxers or jocks?’

‘I…’ He seemed thoroughly disconcerted, as well he might be, she thought. Even more excellent. She wanted him disconcerted and she wasn’t backing off.

‘Well?’

‘Boxers,’ he conceded reluctantly.

‘Then where’s the problem?’ she demanded, amazing herself at her effrontery. What was she doing? She didn’t care, though. What was there to lose? ‘Your audience would be two male lifesavers and me. You’d hardly be playing to a packed gallery, Dr Ashton.’

He’d never do it. Or would he? She stayed right where she was and watched the cool, collected, man of the world, his expensive jacket flung over his shoulder, his Italian brogues in his hand, think about his dignity.

Saw the exact moment when he decided to lose it.

He gave her a long, considering look-then walked twenty yards up the beach, dropped his jacket and shoes on the dry sand and then dropped everything else except his boxers. Taking her breath away.

The first time she’d seen him she’d thought he did serious gym work. Stripped to his boxers she was sure of it.

This man was a doctor. He spent his days in hospitals with sick people. What was he doing having a body like this? It was all she could do not to gape.

Maybe she did gape, but luckily he was already hitting the water, running into the waves as if he was a man decided on a mission and determined not to let a little thing like icy water stand in his way. She saw the first shock as he hit the water, and she saw his determination deepen. She watched as he launched himself into the surf by diving head first into the first wave, swimming out past the breakers and then body-surf back in again. She watched, and she thought there were serious things going on here, serious things in her head that she didn’t know what to do with.

He was worried he’d mess with her head?

He already had.

She had to get herself together. He surfed back to her, right to her feet, then stood up. Water was streaming down his face. His hair was flopping wetly onto his forehead. He looked ten years younger, ten years more…more…

Whoa. This seriously pregnant woman does not need complications, she told herself, and knew she already had complications in droves.

‘You lied. This is c-cold,’ he muttered, abandoning bravado, and she grinned and sank back down into the water and rolled herself over and over in the shallows.

‘Wuss. I’ve been in for half an hour.’ Then she relented. ‘Okay, at first it’s cold. You need to swim to warm up.’

‘You’ve been swimming that long?’

‘And loving it. I’m getting wrinkly now-it’s time I got out-but if you want to keep swimming I’ll join the lifesavers on guard duty.’

‘Maggie…’

‘Just swim,’ she advised him kindly. ‘You look like you’re a man who needs to get something out of his system. I don’t know what it is but, whatever the problem, I’ve always found exercise helps. Off you go and enjoy yourself.’

‘You’re not going to swim with me?’

‘Closeness isn’t a good idea,’ she said, and she knew that she was suddenly sounding stiff and formal but she couldn’t help it. ‘You said it yourself. You get the gremlins out of your system, Dr Ashton, but you need to do it alone.’


It was a weird, almost out-of-body experience. He swam the length of Coogee Bay and back again, twice, then a third time for good measure. Up on the beach Maggie was wrapped in what looked like an enormous beach towel-bright blue with yellow splodges. She was sitting on the sand, chatting to the lifesavers, watching him.

He was too far away to see their faces, to have any idea what they were saying, but they looked cheerful. Maggie was waving an expansive arm in his direction. Was she talking about him?

Did it matter?

Maybe it did-but that thought wasn’t going anywhere. He put his head down and swam some more.

He’d checked on her. She was obviously coping splendidly by herself. There was no need for him to have come.

There was no need for him to stay.

So finally he surfed to shore and strolled up the beach. Maggie was laughing at something the lifesavers were saying and they were laughing back. They seemed at ease together, like old friends, but then he got close enough to watch the guys’ faces and he knew that, pregnancy or not, they were totally aware that this was one attractive woman.

Was he jealous?

Yes, he conceded. Yes, he was, which just went to show how dumb this whole set up was.

Get out of here, he told himself. Get out of here fast. But then Maggie rose to greet him and he stopped thinking about anything but Maggie.

Her towel was amazing. It was vast, sky blue and dotted with brilliant yellow sunflowers. Draped around her very pregnant body she looked…she looked…

‘Like an elephant,’ she said before he said a word, and he blinked.

‘Pardon?’

‘That’s what these guys here say I resemble. An elephant with sunflowers. Elegance-R-Us.’

‘You look cute,’ he said lamely, and the lifesavers looked at him like he was a sandwich short of a picnic. Which maybe he was. Cute didn’t cut it.

Sexy did, though.

‘I don’t think anything this big can be classified as cute,’ Maggie retorted. ‘But I’m going for whale rather than the elephant. A cute little sexy mama whale. You say I’m cute? The guys here say I’m sexy. I say I’m just enormous.’ She twirled around, full circle, grinned and unwrapped herself, then proffered her towel. ‘Meanwhile, would you like to borrow this? You need to dry yourself or you’ll get cold.’ And before he could stop her she’d handed her over her sunflowers.

He was dripping. He had no other towel, so it’d be churlish to refuse.

But her towel smelled of her. There it was again, that faint citrusy thing, mixed now with the salt from the sea. She must use it in her washing powder, he thought. Or maybe it was just Maggie. Maggie exuding lemons and limes, tangy, clean and beautiful.

She was smiling happily at him as if she was really pleased he’d dropped by, and she was really pleased that he’d seemed to enjoy the swim she’d persuaded him to take.

Yep, beautiful. And sexy. And cute. The whole lot wrapped together.

But she was reaching into her bag, fetching out a sarong and wrapping it round herself. Sliding her toes into sandals. Preparing to leave.

‘That was wonderful,’ she said. ‘It was great to see you again, Max, but it is getting cold. Thank you for coming. Goodbye.’

So there it was. He’d been dismissed. His duty was done; he could leave.

‘You’re not going to ask me back to your place for a drink?’ he said before he could stop himself, and she looked him up and down, appraisingly.

‘Risky,’ she said.

‘Risky why?’

‘You know why.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ he said. ‘And I’d rather not drive back to my place covered in sand. Your apartment’s just over the road. It was your concierge who told me where to find you.’

That was what his mouth was saying. Was he out of his mind? He needed to leave, yet here he was, arguing.

Something was driving his tongue that wasn’t his head.

‘You’d be second in line to the shower,’ she said cautiously. ‘It’s my shower. I get to go first.’

‘Deal,’ he said, and that was that. The lifesavers looked almost disappointed as Maggie turned to them and waved.