Marion Lennox - Prescription-One Bride

‘Jess?’

He moved like a sleek cat, somehow propelling himself to stand between Jess and the door. Niall placed strong hands on her shoulders and gazed down into her confused, brown eyes.

His confusion matched hers.

And his desire…

‘Jess,’ he whispered, his hands pulling her to him. ‘Do you feel this thing, too? This thing between us? Dear heaven…’

Jess didn’t reply. She couldn’t.

She wanted to pull away. Desperately she wanted to pull away but her body wouldn’t obey.

Instead she stood mesmerised, caught by the desire in his dark, dark eyes.

Caught by the stirrings of want in her own slight body.

Of need…

She didn’t need. She didn’t!

She didn’t need any man. Not after John Talbot. Once was enough. She’d been stupid once…

The thought gave her strength to pull back but Niall’s hands didn’t release her. His hold tightened and his dark eyes searched hers.

‘What’s wrong, my beautiful Jessie?’ he whispered.

My beautiful Jessie…

The words slashed like a knife. She’d been called that before. Before the pain.

‘No…’ It was a frantic whisper.

‘I’ve told you before-’ Niall’s voice contained a hint of concern ‘-I’ll not hurt you. I swear…’

‘I don’t want…’

‘Me?’ He shook his head. ‘What’s between us, Jess…I don’t understand it any more than you do but I’m starting to think it’s something we should explore. And how else to explore…’

His voice fell away. The dark eyes looked straight into hers, passion flaring in their depths, and he bent his head and kissed her.

Jessie had been kissed before-but never like this.

For a moment she held herself rigid, her body reacting with blind, unreasoning panic.

And then the kiss caught-and held.

It was like the meeting of two halves in a whole. The coming together of parts that had been torn asunder and their rightful place was together.

Niall’s mouth caught and held hers and his arms went round to draw her rigid body to his.

She was powerless-powerless to resist the magnet.

Jess had never felt a kiss so full of longing.

There was desire surging through Niall’s body-she could feel it-and Jess felt a rush of matching need in hers. Her lips were under his and he kissed her mouth with infinite tenderness-as if he had never touched anything so precious.

How could she hold out against such tenderness? How could she? Especially when every nerve in her body was screaming to respond.

She felt her lips open; she felt her mouth welcome his, tasting his arrant maleness and feeling his need. Her arms went around his hard male body and she clung as if drowning.

It was as if there were two Jessies: one being kissed and responding with all her heart and another standing above her body, staring with horror at this man making love-wanting her-demanding a response with every fibre of his being.

And the first Jessie was winning hands down.

The first Jessie wanted this man with all her heart.

What would have happened next the second Jess-the one above the responding Jessie’s head screaming grim warnings-was horrified to think but a gentle tap on the door and then another, more urgent, knock almost brought the first Jess to her senses.

Almost.

It was Niall who drew away first. He stood holding the dazed young vet at arm’s length and the desire was still there, blazing.

‘Damn,’ he said unsteadily as the knocking continued and Jess managed a shaky laugh.

‘Just…just as well.’

‘Maybe.’ Niall touched her face with the finger of one hand. ‘Duty calls,’ he said softly. ‘Damn…’

He swore and kissed her lightly once again before moving to open the door.

It was Sarah.

Of course.

The nurse stood staring from Jess to Niall and back again, clearly confused but too worried to see what was really happening.

If it had been Geraldine then Jess would have been in big trouble. Geraldine would have guessed what she’d interrupted as soon as she’d opened the door. Jessie’s face was suffused with colour. Her breath was coming too fast for comfort. Something deep inside was threatening to burst.

Sarah was too concerned with her own worries, though, to think about what was happening between doctor and vet. Geraldine’s normal nursing partner was returning from holidays in the morning and it couldn’t be too soon for Sarah. She could go back to helping out when things were busy-when there was work to do but little responsibility.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you, Dr Mountmarche, but Mr Reid’s drip has packed up,’ she faltered. ‘I tried your flat, Doctor, but you weren’t there.’

‘Because I was here.’ Niall grinned, the strain that seemed almost permanently round his eyes lifting and lightening. ‘Well hunted. I guess you want me to fix it.’

‘Y-yes, please.’

‘I’ll come now,’ he promised. He cast a thoughtful glance at Jess, his eyes glinting at the colour on her cheeks. ‘But I’ll carry Paige back to my flat first and you can stay with her while I do the drip, Sister.’

‘I’ll do that.’ Sarah relaxed. Caring for a child while Dr Mountmarche took over acute medical care suited her down to the ground.

It was on the tip of Jessie’s tongue to say, Leave Paige here. I’ll look after her.

She didn’t make the offer. The tip of her tongue wasn’t working properly. The sensations running through Jessie’s body were almost overwhelming.

All she wanted to do was to hide. To be alone. To think through events that threatened to overwhelm her.

She stood aside as Niall gathered his precious bundle, wrapping his daughter in blankets and carrying her to the door.

‘I’ll bring back the blankets later,’ he told Jess.

‘No.’

Jess shook her head, refusing to meet his eyes.

‘I’ll be asleep later,’ she managed. ‘Morning will be fine.’

‘I see.’ Burdened with the child, Niall couldn’t force her to look at him. His voice was troubled, though. ‘Are you OK, Jess?’

‘Fine.’

She wasn’t fine at all. She was scared stiff.

‘I have a clinic booked in the morning…’

‘Paige can come with me while you work,’ Jess told him. ‘She’s always welcome and there’s little I do where she can’t watch.’ She took a deep breath, still not meeting his eyes, but her voice was almost back to normal. ‘My patients don’t worry about modesty or confidentiality.’

‘I suppose they don’t.’ It was an absurdly formal conversation.

She wished he’d go. She just wished he’d go.

‘Jess?’

‘Yes?’ Jess was acutely aware of Sarah watching from outside the door. For heaven’s sake, the nurse must know there was something going on between them. The tension was almost visible it was so strong.

‘I wish you sweet dreams,’ Niall said softly.

Jessie’s eyes flashed up to meet his-and then wished she hadn’t. His look was a caress all by itself. ‘I hope…I hope your daughter has sweet dreams,’ she managed to whisper in reply. ‘That’s all I care about.’

JESS fed her babies at five a.m. and then set her alarm for seven. It didn’t have a chance to go off. Fifteen minutes before it was due there was a series of loud thumps on the door from hospital to flat and then the sound of crutches across the kitchen floor.

‘Can I come in?’

Jess surfaced reluctantly from troubled sleep. There was a small face peering round her bedroom door. ‘Paige?’

The child was still in her nightdress. She clumped across to the bed and stared down at Jessie’s nose emerging from the quilt.

‘I knew you’d be awake,’ she said triumphantly. ‘Daddy said, “Go away it’s not even morning,” but I told him everyone would be awake. So then he said I could go and find out whether everybody really was awake all by myself and I did.’

‘Everybody meaning me?’

‘Especially you.’ Paige beamed as though signalling a very special honour.

‘Your daddy is a very generous person,’ Jess said drily.

‘I didn’t have a nightmare.’ Paige laid her crutches on the floor and put both hands on the bed to support herself. ‘It’s cold out here,’ she said hopefully.

‘Well, you’d better come in.’ Jess pushed back her quilt invitingly and the child scrambled up. In seconds she was cocooned against Jessie’s body, her cold toes on Jessie’s legs.

‘Ooh, you’re warm.’

‘That’s more than I can say for you, twerp,’ Jess smiled and obligingly put her arms round the child and cuddled.

It seemed that human contact was all Paige wanted. To be cuddled. To draw maximum warmth from this strange, fearful adult world.

‘Daddy’s very pleased I didn’t have a nightmare,’ the child announced. ‘Are you?’

‘Very pleased.’

‘He says we might stay here again. Lots of times. That means I can visit you every morning.’

‘Wow!’

‘You’ll like that?’ The child was suddenly anxious, sensing the laughter in Jessie’s ‘Wow’, and Jess gave her thin body a squeeze.

‘It’ll be delicious,’ she agreed. ‘Much better than an alarm clock.’

‘It sort of seems better here than at the farm,’ Paige confided. ‘When I’m here…I play a game…’

Her voice was suddenly shy, as if about to confess something she wasn’t sure about

‘What sort of game?’

‘That I have a mummy.’

Jess closed her eyes. Instinctively she pulled the child closer. ‘Paige, you don’t have to pretend,’ she said softly. ‘You do have a mummy. Your mummy’s travelling at the moment but she left you with some lovely people who found your daddy for you.’

‘You’re talking about Karen,’ Paige said scornfully. ‘She’s not my mummy.’

‘Paige, she is…’

‘No.’ The child’s voice hardened as if she was reciting a well-learned lesson-one she didn’t like a bit ‘Karen says I’m not to call her Mummy. She says only bourgeois children have mummies and I have to learn to be ind-independent and stand on my own two feet She says the sooner I learn not to need her all the time the better it’ll be for me and for her but I sort of think…’