Career Girl in the Country / The Doctor's Reason to Stay (9 page)

Lust drove every other emotion off his face and his hands gripped her buttocks. Rising with her, he drove them both higher and higher, taking them away from everything they’d ever known and hurling them out into a place free of pain and suffering, where they hovered until gravity pulled them back and reality encased them again.

‘Y
OU
look different.’ Sarah gave Poppy a long, interrogating look when choir practice finished.

‘It’s just the hair. You’re used to seeing it pulled back at work.’ Poppy briskly tapped the pages of her music into a neat pile before sliding them into her folder.

Jen lowered the lid of the piano, smiling. ‘No, it’s more than that. You’ve had a secret smile for a few days now and we all know what a secret smile means.’

Poppy schooled her face into a blank expression despite the fact she was really starting to enjoy Sarah and Jen’s company. However, she wasn’t quite ready to confess to having had mind-blowing and universe-altering sex with Matt every night for a week, although she wasn’t totally certain who she was protecting most by staying silent.

She threw her music satchel over her shoulder. ‘Well, I did win the slab of beer for catching the biggest fish when I went out with the theatre techs the other day.’

‘Oh, yeah, that would do it.’ Sarah rolled her eyes and linked arms with Jen. ‘I think she’s holding out on us.’

‘So do I. Especially given there’s some new graffiti in the staff toilet that says, “P is a make-out bandit.”’

Really?
A ridiculous rush of gratitude rushed through her that Matt had actually done that. ‘You so know that isn’t me. That P has to be Penny Duffield.’ Poppy didn’t feel too bad about creating that rumour given she’d seen Penny locking lips with her anaesthetic registrar early last Wednesday morning.

Before Sarah could quiz her any more, Poppy’s phone conveniently beeped and she checked the text message.
Hungry for food but hungrier for you. M.

This time nothing could restrain her smile or the rush of anticipatory heat rising in a flush, racing up her neck and burning her cheeks.

‘I knew it.’ Sarah reached to grab the phone and Jen moved to corner Poppy.

But Poppy had played basketball and could weave and duck, so she used her height to hold the phone high and reached the door before they did. ‘Have to go, girls, but great practice.’ She stepped out of the door, using it as a barricade. ‘Next week I think we’ll start an
a capella
piece because the choir has been singing so well. Night.’

Good-natured jeers floated across the car park. ‘You know we’ll find out.’

‘You can’t hide for long—this is Bundallagong.’

‘I’m not hiding, I’m flying high.’ Laughing, Poppy got into her car as she heard Jen mention Damien’s name. Hopefully her throwaway line would keep them off the scent for a bit longer.

She could hardly concentrate on driving for excitement. She and Matt didn’t see a lot of each other during their workday, and today had been emergency-free so she hadn’t seen Matt at all, but they always got together at night. Late at night. Both of them had kept the deal of no past, no future and no regrets. They were living
for the moment and ignoring everything else. That was the way it had to be.

What if it could be different?

A tiny daydream started weaving its way through her mind but she immediately applied a wet rag to it, dismissing the thought. Once she’d let dreams of marriage and motherhood derail her and they’d taken her to the bottom of a very black pit. Now she knew that her job was the one thing she could rely on; unlike dreams, her career was concrete. She’d spent years sacrificing everything to climb the career ladder and now she was so close to the top job she couldn’t let it go.
Your time here is just a minor detour.

Five minutes later she parked in her carport and a fizz of surprise washed through her as she noticed that her interior lights were on. As she walked up the short path, her front door opened and Matt stood in the doorway, wearing a white-collared shirt with fine purple and green stripes. He looked neat, pressed and very much the eminent country doctor. But she knew appearances counted for little and the man in those clothes had more in common with his dishevelled hair that covered his collar and brushed his cheeks. Neat on the outside but anguished on the inside.

His aura of sadness didn’t seem as dark as when she’d first met him but she wouldn’t kid herself that if had anything to do with her. Both of them were conveniently forgetting their real lives for a few weeks and where was the harm in that? This was perfect.
Too perfect?
She banished the traitorous voice in her head, telling herself that with all the depressing news coming up daily from Perth about how Alistair Roland was ‘owning’ her job, being with Matt gave her something fun to focus on.

She walked straight into Matt’s strong, welcoming arms and breathed in deeply, loving his scent and still not quite believing she could hold him like this whenever they were alone. ‘Hey.’

He smiled and kissed her thoroughly.

She lost herself in the pleasure of his mouth and her hands were reaching for the buttons on his shirt when he unexpectedly cupped her cheeks, kissed her on the nose and said, ‘I thought we’d eat here.’

She leaned back slightly to focus on his face and at the same time focus on the change in their routine. Every other time she’d been the one to open the door to him and they’d kiss and that led to sex. Always. Granted, he normally arrived at around 11:00 p.m. because one of them had been caught up working, so tonight was unusual because it was only 8:00 p.m. and he was opening the door for her.
Her door.

She tilted her head. ‘By eating here, you mean my fridge has food in it. Food that’s required to make something.’

He winked as they walked inside. ‘That’s part of it but I did bring wine.’

‘So you’ve been waiting here for me to arrive home and cook?’ A spurt of irritation washed through her and Steven’s voice, which had faded to almost nothing recently, sounded deep and loud in the recesses of her mind.
Is it so unreasonable to expect you to cook?
She stomped towards the kitchen, annoyance growing into anger. She’d had a huge operating day followed by choir practice and the last thing she wanted to do was have to create a proper meal from scratch. The door swung open and the two glasses of white wine and two plates of salad with grilled chicken sat waiting on the bench.

She spun around to see him standing in the doorway, eyebrows raised and a questioning look on his face. Her hand shot to her pendant. ‘Oh, God, I’m so predictable, aren’t I?’

He stepped in close and kissed her cheek. ‘Actually, you’re not. Given any other combination of food in the fridge and dinner wouldn’t be waiting for you, but the one culinary thing I can do is barbecue.’

‘And supposedly make hedgehog, although I’ve yet to see any.’ She smiled, returning his kiss. ‘I must remember to always stock meat, then, so you can grill.’ She glanced at the tiny kitchen table and then out the window. The sun was dropping fast and the sky was streaked in the vibrant colours of red and orange that Bundallagong offered up almost every night, and that she was coming to love. Right then she lamented the fact she didn’t have a deck. ‘It’s gorgeous out there. Why don’t we eat on your deck and enjoy the sunset?’

A tremor of tension rolled across his shoulders. ‘The outdoor furniture’s covered in bird poop and it needs cleaning. Here’s fine and we can enjoy the sunset through the window.’ He placed the plates on the set table and then brought over the wine. ‘Cheers.’

She tried to shrug off her disappointment.
‘Salut.’
She clinked his glass distractedly, realising with a start that every time they’d been together it had been here, at her place. Still deep in thought, she cut into the fragrant and moist chicken and absently put a piece into her mouth. They’d fallen into a routine of him arriving late and usually leaving her bed around 3:00 a.m. to return to his place. She understood that he wouldn’t want to have sex in the house he’d shared with his wife but did that preclude social stuff? Deep inside an ache
sent out a niggle of distress that she could never compete with a dead woman.

You don’t want to compete. This is short term, remember? You don’t want long term. Steven burned you for that.

‘Earth to Poppy?’

His words broke into her reverie and she jerked her head up to see his gaze full of questions. ‘I’m sorry, what were you saying?’

‘I was asking you about your pendant.’

‘Oh.’ Her hand automatically fingered the tiny diamonds at the bottom of the fine silver. ‘It’s a Tiffany P.’

‘I gathered that.’ He smiled. ‘Who gave it to you?

Family?’

She thought of her father and his endless array of trinkets that turned up by express post at birthdays, always with a note explaining why he couldn’t visit. ‘My father tried to give me a lot of jewellery but not this one.’

He frowned, his dark brows pulling down. ‘Your husband, then?’

She flinched. ‘My ex-husband and, no, he didn’t give it to me. If he had, I wouldn’t be wearing it.’ She stabbed at her salad. ‘Why would you assume someone gave it to me?’

‘Because I’ve noticed you always touch it when you’re feeling out of your depth.’

She stared at him, horrified. ‘I thought we were just having sex, not analysing each other.’

He leaned in towards her. ‘We’re having fabulous sex but that doesn’t mean I don’t notice things. And the fact you’re getting defensive means I’m right, doesn’t it?’

She took a large sip of her wine, wishing he wasn’t
perceptive and feeling like she was more exposed than when he gazed at her naked. ‘I gave it to myself when I got divorced.’

‘New start?’ He drizzled balsamic dressing over his salad.

She shook her head. ‘More of a reminder to be true to myself. My marriage, unlike yours, was very much a mistake.’

A pensive look crossed his face. ‘How so?’ She sighed. ‘For all intents and purposes, I married my father.’

He shrugged. ‘Was that such a bad thing? I married my childhood sweetheart and statistically that shouldn’t have worked either, but it did.’

Childhood sweetheart?
It was the first time he’d voluntarily offered up any information about his marriage. She hadn’t asked him any more about Lisa because this thing between them didn’t mean spilling their guts to each other and dredging up painful memories.

Be honest, you ‘re protecting yourself. You don’t want to be held up against the perfect wife and citizen that you can never be.
She wanted to put her hands against her ears to drown out the noise in her head or yell
I’m a damn good surgeon,
but both those options would have Matt doubting her sanity.

Instead she said, ‘Given my relationship with my father, it was a bad move and not thought out at all. Very unlike me.’

He ran his finger around the base of his wine glass. ‘Love is never rational.’

‘Now, that
is
handy to know.’ She heard the waspish tone that came out automatically to close down the conversation but it only seemed to make him smile.

‘OK, point taken. We’ll change the subject. Tell me the story behind your name.’

She immediately relaxed. ‘Stanfield?’ We go back to the Norman Conquest.’

He grinned. ‘How very apt. But I meant Poppy.’

Relaxation vanished. ‘Of course you did.’ She put her knife and fork together on the plate and decided to just blurt it all out and get it over with in one fell swoop. ‘My father wanted a son and I was to be named Hugh after him, his father, his father before him and back another three generations. When I arrived and couldn’t be Hugh, he gave the naming rights to my mother. She was a florist and my fate was sealed. I was Poppy to Mum, and Dad called me “mate”.’

With a pang of immense sadness, Matt thought of his laughing Annie and all his affectionate pet names for her. He felt his brows draw down. ‘Mate?’

Her shoulders rose and fell, and resignation rolled off her. ‘He wanted a boy and, you know what? I did a damn good job trying to be a son for him. I learned pretty early on that if I played sport, he noticed me, so I became very good at tennis and basketball and I even got to the point where I occasionally beat him at one on one. Things got sticky when I started to develop breasts.’ She refilled her glass. ‘Around that time he also left my mother for his secretary and finally got the son he’d always wanted.’

Matt’s parents had enjoyed a happy marriage so he could only imagine what losing her father’s affection must have been like for her. ‘Tough to compete with a baby boy?’

‘Impossible. Even harder when a second son arrived.’ Her usually firm voice cracked for a moment and then steadied. ‘I sometimes wonder if it would
have been better if Dad had cut himself off completely from my life but instead he’d send money and gifts for every birthday, every academic prize and sporting trophy, leaving me constantly hoping one day he’d actually turn up.’

Matt saw the remnants of a young girl’s pain on her face, and caught the moment the steely, determined woman caught up.

She rolled her shoulders back. ‘Still, the flip side is that I drove myself to impress him, which got me into medicine, and for
that
I can never have regrets.’

Her words illuminated her work ethic and the constant striving to win, and he realised what had started out as a bid for affection had become ingrained behaviour. ‘And your husband was a father figure to you?’

His question shot out on an urge to find out more about the unknown man he actively disliked with an intensity that surprised him. He didn’t really expect her to answer it.

Her amazing mouth formed into an ironic pout. ‘Not that I was aware of at the time, although the counsellor I saw once post-divorce did point that out.’ She took in a quick breath as if gearing up to get something nasty out of the way quickly. ‘Steven was fifteen years older than me, divorced and an “empty-nester” with grownup children. We met when I was a surgical registrar and his brother was one of my first solo procedures. Sadly, his presentation of a perforated bowel turned out to be undiagnosed cancer and he was riddled with secondaries. He died on the table.’

Poppy’s fingers laced, her knuckles shining white. ‘Perhaps it was my inexperience in dealing with relatives after losing a patient, perhaps it was his charm that was so similar to my father’s, I don’t know, but we
started dating. For a few short weeks he made me feel like the centre of his world and when he proposed, I accepted. We hit the wall within weeks when he realised I wasn’t going to be the sort of wife he’d expected. It got angry and ugly, and we divorced.’