Which was impossible.
Lust at first sight was possible—she had no doubts about that—but anything else?
She wasn’t going to give the alternative ‘L’ word brain space.
Cam watched her dash away. She’d coloured as she’d thanked him for the breakfast that some fit of hitherto undiscovered whimsy had prompted him to make for her. Had he embarrassed her?
He didn’t have a clue. For some reason, all the useful information on how women thought, stuff his brain had collected from his sisters and his ex-fiancée, was no help at all in figuring out this particular woman.
Though why he thought it should when he’d only known her, what—less than two days.
And why it mattered …
He pondered these things as he made his way down the steps to the surgery, deciding in the end that it was because his body was attracted to her that his brain was confused.
Well, it would just have to stay confused, because he wasn’t going to act on the attraction. Honour was important in the army and how honourable would he be if he did act on the attraction? How could he have an affair with a woman when he was still getting over his experiences in the war, still getting vivid flashes of injured and dying young men, still hearing echoes of their cries in his ears, and not only when he was asleep?
He knew these flashbacks sent him into a kind of shock, making him withdraw, making him appear all the things Penny had said he was—remote, detached, morose—cutting him off from whatever company he was in.
Could he land some other woman with those mood swings?
Make her suffer as Penny must have to have broken off the engagement?
Best to stay unattached.
Jo heaved a sigh of relief when she saw Kate and one of the nurses in the lunch-room. No need for one-on-one again with Dr Cameron, although Cam wasn’t present and, no, she wasn’t going to wonder where he was. He could have been delayed with a patient, or gone shopping, surfing, anything.
Avoiding her as she would like to be avoiding him?
Her relief was short-lived.
‘Heard you and the new doc in town, our delectable Dr Cam, were dining together at the surf club last night,’ Kate said brightly, and too late Jo remembered Kate’s brother was the apprentice chef at the club.
Small towns.
‘We were eating together—late. It had been a long day.’ Jo hoped her repressive tone would stop further conversation, but she’d bargained without Kate’s persistence.
‘Moonlight on the water, was there?’
‘Where? When?’ Cam would choose that moment to come into the room. Not that he seemed interested in the answer, already delving into the refrigerator to check out the sandwiches on offer today.
‘Last night,’ Kate told him. ‘The view from the surf club. Romantic?’
Cam looked up at her and grinned.
‘Now I know what your boss means when she talks about small towns.’ He put enough emphasis on the ‘your’ to make Kate look a little uncomfortable. ‘For your information, we’d just completed an errand of mercy, it was late, and we were hungry. It was the surf club or fast food.’
He turned to look at Jo.
‘Was the moon out? Can you remember?’
Jo was so pleased he’d diverted the conversation she smiled at him.
‘Far too interested in my calamari to notice,’ she said, then she turned to Ellie, the nurse who did shifts at the surgery and the hospital, to ask about the babies’ sleep programme.
But she was aware that the community interest she’d foretold when she’d taken Cam on board was already rife, and with a small twinge of sadness accepted there’d be no more dinners at the surf club with him.
Or was she being silly?
She could handle talk, especially talk that had no basis in fact.
Although given the instant lust thing going on, there was probably a teeny, tiny basis …
‘Are you listening?’ Ellie demanded.
‘Of course,’ Jo told her, hoping her mind could rerun Ellie’s explanation for her. ‘You need at least four nights. If we could get Amy in over a weekend—starting Friday and running through to Tuesday—it might be easier for Todd to get help with the milking.’
‘If you left it until the school holidays—another couple of weeks—there might be a high school kid who’d be happy to have the work.’
Obviously Cam had been following the conversation better than she had, that he’d come up with such a sensible suggestion, although—
‘If Kaylin’s sleep avoidance is as bad as Amy suggested, another couple of weeks might be too long to wait,’ Jo told him.
‘What about an in-home arrangement?’ Coming from Cam, this second suggestion was so surprising Jo had to ask.
‘You’ve been in the army, not general practice, what would you know about in-home arrangements?’
He gave her a smug smile—but even smug it tickled her sensitive bits.
‘Three sisters and at last count eight nieces and nephews. One of my sisters had terrible trouble with her second baby and she got someone to come in.’
He turned to Ellie.
‘It sounds as if you’re involved in the programme at the hospital. What exactly do you do?’
Ellie straightened in her chair and Jo realised she wasn’t the only one in the practice who was feeling the effect of the pheromones that had infiltrated the atmosphere with Cam’s arrival.
‘We put the mum to bed in a separate room and one nurse stays up with the baby, handling it when it wakes. We don’t use controlled crying, but use a coaching technique that we’ve found successful. It’s best with babies who’ve started solids three times a day, and usually it works in three nights, though we say four in case we need the extra night.’
Jo thought about it then nodded.
‘Kaylin’s six months old and she’s on solids. In fact, although she’s still being breastfed, I suggested Amy try her on them when she came in about sleep problems earlier.’
She was still thinking about Kaylin when Cam entered the conversation again.
‘If you’re doing this programme at the hospital, would you be willing to do it at their home?’
Cam realised he’d gone too far—taken the extra step when it was Jo who should be making decisions about her staff deployment.
He turned to her, hands up in the air.
‘Sorry, I shouldn’t be making suggestions without consulting you, Jo. You’re Ellie’s employer, not me, but I get carried away.’
Fortunately Jo wasn’t put out, flashing him a cheeky smile before saying, ‘I was wondering when you’d remember that, but it’s an excellent idea. Ellie, if you’d be happy to do it, I’d be happy to pay you for the four nights—and days so you can sleep. What are your hospital shifts like? Could you fit it in some time soon?’
‘Next week,’ Ellie told her. ‘I’d love to give it a go. I don’t have hospital shifts next week because I refuse to work schoolies week. Tom gets contract nurses in, and I’m off duty here as well.’
Cam felt a surge of satisfaction out of all proportion to the small contribution he’d made—a surge that made him think maybe general practice in a