Her Brooding Italian Surgeon (9 page)

A child had needed his help and he'd totally frozen.

Blinking against the flashes of red soil, green vines, black road and blue sky, he watched the numbers on the bike computer climb to thirty-five kilometres an hour. He had no destination in mind—he just had to ride. Ride until he could feel nothing and forget everything.

His chest muscles strained as he used every atom of oxygen in the hot torpid air and still he pushed harder, taking himself as close to the edge of what his body could bear. He didn't want comfort; he wanted pain. He drove himself until his body turned inward, completely consumed by the overwhelming physical demands. Until all extraneous thoughts, noises, sounds and scents were blocked from his consciousness.

Ten kilometres later he slowed and the tightness in his chest eased, his leg muscles ceased to burn and relief flowed through him. He opened a water bottle and chugged down half the contents, his body soaking up the fluid like a dry crinkled sponge, and then he poured the rest over himself. Pulling off his helmet, he wiped his brow with his bandana and, as his body gradually uncoiled from its exercise-survival mode, his eyes progressively focused on his surroundings.

The distinctive wiry leaves and furrowed bark of the bull-oak came into view, followed by the blue-green leaves of the river red gums with their peeling bark of green, grey and red.
His chest tightened as his head swung around, taking in the muddy edges of brown water, and then his gaze zeroed in on the distinctive carving on one of the trees.
Dom and Christina 4 Eva.

Wadjera billabong.

His heart pounded hard in his chest, pushing a dull and unrelenting ache into every part of him. Why the hell had he ridden here? A place he'd avoided for years. The ride was supposed to help him forget because he sure as hell didn't want to remember.

Every part of him urged him to leave. Buckling his helmet with numb fingers, he prepared to click his left foot into the pedal before swinging his right leg over the seat and riding away fast. Very fast.

The crackling noise of tyres on gravel made him pause. He turned to see a very familiar white four-wheel drive pull into the clearing. Like a film in slow motion, he heard the engine die, the click of the door opening and saw a pair of shapely legs jump down before the owner appeared from behind the door clutching an enormous basket. A pair of questioning green eyes hit him like a king-punch.

‘Leo.'

‘Abbie.' How had she known he was here when he had no clue he would be?

His heart sped up. She'd want to talk about what happened with Zac. Women always wanted to talk.
Get on your bike. Leave now.

Her sweet scent wafted towards him and part of him hesitated. Every cell in his body urged him to flee and his hands gripped his racing handlebars.
Just keep running.

‘I have to get back.'

She stepped closer and a flicker of disappointment flared against banked heat, followed by something vague, half-formed
and undefined. She chewed her lip. ‘Really? I thought you could do with some time away from the hospital. I brought food and drink.' She lowered the basket onto the ground.

The pull to leave couldn't stop his gaze from following her every movement. The sway of her hips, the way her no-nonsense navy-blue straight skirt moulded to her pert behind and the fact that her plain T-shirt fell forward when she bent over, exposing creamy mounds of flesh peeking out of pink lace. His groin tightened.
Go anyway.

He opened his mouth to use his time-honoured excuse that had served him so very well for many years—work. But his words stalled. He wasn't needed at the hospital or the clinic and Abbie knew it. If he used that excuse, the questions he didn't want to answer would start immediately.

She straightened up and stepped in close. His hand released the bike, letting it slip back to rest on the tree. Reaching up, she cupped his cheek with her hand, her smooth palm deliciously cold against his stubbled cheek. She tilted her head back until he was staring deep into luscious pools of rainforest-green that invited him to dive right in. ‘I'm here for you, Leo. Please stay.'

He was instantly hard. Her voice caressed him like the cool and welcoming softness of silk trailing against hot skin, and a deep crevice opened up inside him, desperately seeking that softness and urging him to lose himself in it. Offering him another way to escape. He lowered his mouth towards hers, searching for the haven he so desperately needed.

Abbie recognised the moment Leo decided to stay. Recognised the fading of whatever it was that terrorised him and saw the burning lust move in to replace it. Lust that she recognised intimately—hot, burning, driving desire that stole every rational thought and absolutely nothing could slake except raw, primal sex.

‘I need you, Abbie.' The tormented and hoarse words filled the space between them as his gaze burned for her.

‘I know.'

His lips slid across hers, enticing, demanding and giving. All thought evaporated. She was past thinking, past analysing and way, way past resisting. He needed her and she wanted him. Call it comfort, call it sex. She'd given up resisting him the moment she'd seen his façade crumple. Wrapping her arms tightly around Leo's neck, she didn't care he was sopping wet. Nothing mattered except he was in her arms and his mouth was hard against hers.

She met his kiss with one of her own as every firmly suppressed molecule of longing ripped out of its box, splintering its now flimsy enclosure and exploding inside her in a maelstrom of sheer seeking pleasure. Nothing existed except her driving need for him. She plunged her tongue inside his mouth but nothing had prepared her for the assault of his flavour, filling her so hot and fast that her knees sagged and she fell against him.

Without moving his mouth, Leo instantly clamped one arm against her back, pulling her hard against him. His arousal pressed hard up against her belly, his fingers delved in her hair and his other hand found her breast.

White stars exploded in her head as his thumb caressed her through her T-shirt, her nipples pebbling into hard, sensuous buds straining against the exquisite touch. A moan rose to her lips as she panted against his mouth, frantic to have more of his touch on her and at the same time desperate to touch him.

‘Got…to…feel…you.' Leo swung her around until her back rested against the bark of a tree and his hands pulled at her T-shirt, hauling it over her head. With a flick of his fingers, the bra clasp came undone and her breasts thankfully tumbled out of her bra and into his waiting hands. She cried out from the wonder of the skin-on-skin caress.

His hand stalled. ‘Too fast?'

‘No.' She grabbed his hand and, with a frenzied push, pressed it back on her quivering and heavy breasts. She could hardly speak, she couldn't think at all, she just had a primal drive to feel every part of him on her. She knocked his helmet off his head and tugged at his shirt, splaying her fingers against rock-solid muscle as she traced his spine, vertebrae to vertebrae from his neck all the way down to his hips, memorising every tendon, bone, swell and crevice.

‘You're beautiful.' He rasped the words out as he moved his lips from her mouth and up along her jaw. His tongue delicately traced the curve of her ear before his teeth nipped her ear lobe.

Pleasure shock waves rocked through her and she gasped, bucking her hips towards him. She heard a growl and then felt his arms under hers and suddenly her feet left the ground.

‘Leo.' It came out on a wail of need. She could only force out one word as her body completely took over. One word to represent all that she wanted. She wrapped her legs around his waist and her chest rose and fell with short shallow breaths. Every part of her yelled to have him and she gripped his upper arms and threw herself back against the tree, totally consumed by her desire to have his mouth against her breast.

His mouth suckled her as his hand slid along the soft skin of her inner thigh. She gripped his head as whirls of colour swirled and joined like paint on an artist's palette. Then his fingers brushed the damp, silky crotch of her panties.

Exquisite pleasure rocked her.

His thumb traced tiny circles and then pressed firmly but gently against her.

She sobbed as shafts of wonder built to breaking point.

His fingers stilled.

Her fingernails gripped his back. ‘No, don't stop.'

With his thumb still pressed against her, he curved a finger
around the edge of the silk and slipped it inside her. She shattered and pure bliss poured through her.

But it wasn't enough. Her body now completely ignited, roared for more. Frantic to feel him, her hands shot down his back, fingers clawing against the waistband of his bike shorts as gut-wrenching frustration hit her. She couldn't reach any further.

‘You're sure?' His ragged voice breathed against her ear.

‘I'm way past sure.'

His arms cupped her buttocks and she rose slightly for a moment before leaning back. Her hands found their target. Leo shuddered against her before raising her up again.

This time he lowered her gently. Her body screamed for him but it had been a long time and he took it slowly, moving in a little, out a little, which drove her crazy.

‘Just do it.'

‘Wait.' His growl quivered with hard-held restraint.

She didn't want to wait. She wanted him buried deep inside so he was as close to her as possible. With a cry she pushed down and her muscles almost sobbed in relief as they wrapped themselves tightly around him in a caress they'd ached to give him for so long.

She lost herself in him as they rose together. A scream left her throat as her body flung her into orbit far, far away from him, and as she returned she held him as he shuddered and sagged against her.

A moment later she felt the sharp prickle of bark against her bare back, felt the ripple of a hot breeze against her bare breasts and she gazed down into glittering black eyes. Reality thundered back in brilliant Technicolor. The shadowy image of her mother surfaced. Oh, dear God, what had she just done? She dropped her head into her hands and groaned, ‘Well, that was embarrassing.'

Leo gently tugged her hands away from her cheeks. ‘No, it wasn't; it was fantastic.'

She shook her head. ‘We just had sex in less than four minutes and outside in the open air as if we were animals on heat instead of respectable pillars of the community.'

‘Yeah.' He grinned like a kid who'd just got away with stealing lollies. ‘I kept telling you what lay between us was explosive. Plus, let's face it—' a wicked grin lit across his face ‘—you were a ticking time bomb.'

She groaned again and let her head drop onto his shoulder. ‘I was so easy.'

His finger caressed her chin and then tilted it upwards so she had to look into his eyes that glowed with desire and appreciation. ‘You were amazing and if you're so worried about the frenetic speed, I promise to make long, slow, languid love to you. Just give me a few more minutes.' His grin suddenly faded as if he'd been zapped by electricity. ‘We didn't use protection.'

Her voice rose on the back of her agitation. ‘That's what I mean. We should have known better; we're doctors!'

He lowered her down so her feet hit the ground and then he bent and picked up her T-shirt. As he handed it to her, frown lines scored his brow and a horror-struck look loomed large in his eyes. ‘Hell.' His hand raked his hair. ‘OK, well, emergency contraception is eighty per cent effective so the stats are on our side, right?'

She tugged her shirt over her head, stunned that pregnancy was his first concern. ‘Leo, it's not pregnancy I'm worried about. I've still got an IUD in from…' She stopped, refusing to think about her past.

The frown faded and he wrapped his arms around her and dropped a kiss into her hair. ‘Abbie, stop worrying. You're the only woman I haven't used a condom with and, as you've been celibate, am I right in thinking we're both healthy and there's nothing to worry about?'

His arms urged her to snuggle in against his chest and seek refuge in his reassurance. ‘I guess so.'

‘So stop worrying.' He trailed kisses along her forehead and down to the bridge of her nose and her blood immediately fired off rafts of tingling and an overwhelming need for him consumed her.

‘But if you want long and languid in a bed we need to leave right now.'

Laughing, they grabbed their belongings and ran to the truck.

A
BBIE
lay in her bed, propped up on one elbow, while her other arm lay across Leo's chest, her fingers absently tracing along his ribs while her gaze stayed fixed on his face. Part of her couldn't believe she had a man in her bed but Leo had needed her. His pain had called to her so strongly it had hurt, and she didn't regret the sex at all.

His heavy-lidded eyes smiled up at her. ‘We're not very good at long and languid yet but I think we could improve if we keep practising.'

She laughed, thinking about the wild, almost uncontrolled coupling in the shower before they'd hit the bed and managed to slow things down slightly. Even so, the sex hadn't been a one-way thing. Since coming home he'd been a generous lover, giving as much back to her as she had offered to him.

Leo wound a curl around his finger and pulled her head down to his. ‘If you want, we've got a month to get it right.'

‘A month?' Could she do that? It was a period of time with a firm end-date so it came with built-in protection.

He nodded. ‘You can make up for lost time and we can have four weeks of fun. You can't deny the sex so far has been amazing.'

And she couldn't deny it. She couldn't deny that her body
had craved him from the moment she'd first seen him. She wanted him and she didn't want to fight herself any more. She lowered her mouth, grazing his lips with hers. Her traitorous heart hiccoughed but Warrior Abbie was too busy reclining with a cigarette in her hand to provide any sort of protection.
One month, one month, one month.

‘A month it is, then.' She stared down into black eyes filled with tenderness but she could still glimpse the lingering and lurking shadows. The time had come to find out what had put those shadows so firmly in place.

Leo lay back on the pillow, not able to remember when his body had been this relaxed or content. For days his dreams had been filled with Abbie but the reality of having her in his arms and the explosive sex they'd shared blew the dreams out of the water. Abbie would make these few weeks in Bandarra bearable. Nonna was improving and Abbie was the perfect distraction from everything else. He just had to hold it together for a bit longer and then he could leave Bandarra still in one piece.

Her fingers drew tiny circles across his chest, slowly creeping up his torso, and his breathing slowed as he enjoyed her touch, his mind spinning out on all the ways they could enjoy each other over the next few weeks.

‘What's the story behind this one blemish on an otherwise perfect face?' Her forefinger caressed his chin, neatly tracing the outline of the now-white-with-time scar.

His hand shot out, his fingers clenching around hers as his sense of peace vanished and every muscle tensed under the assault of adrenaline. ‘No story.'

Knowing green eyes bored into him. ‘Then why do you have the same look on your face that you had when you saw Zac?'

His breath jerked in his chest. ‘Don't exaggerate. How can you compare me lying here after mind-blowing sex with the life-and-death situation we had this afternoon?'

But, like a dog with a bone, she wouldn't give it up. ‘Leo, I've never seen you lose your cool, even when Jenny almost exsanguinated on the table, but you did today.'

And he knew it. His temples throbbed and he shifted into damage control, using a politician's ploy of diverting a question with a question. ‘What? You don't get that extra tug when it's a kid that might die?'

Two deep lines carved into the skin at the bridge of her nose. ‘Of course I do but it was more than that with you.'

The jarring sound of a hammer against metal clanged in his head. She was getting too close. ‘Just leave it alone.'

Her lips pursed and her brows shot up under a tangle of curls. ‘Like you left me alone after Penny and Alec?'

Her words sliced into him, carving straight down to his moral compass. He sat up, swinging his feet over the side of the bed, intending to get up and walk away, not caring that his only clothing option was sweat-soiled cycling gear.

‘Stop running, Leo.'

Her voice punched him from behind. ‘I'm
not
running.'

‘Yeah, you are. Just like you did this afternoon.'

Her hand touched his shoulder and a part of him wanted to throw off her touch but most of him wanted to hold on to it. Hold it tightly. He shrugged his shoulder and spoke through clenched teeth. ‘I went on a bike ride, Abbie.'

Her soft palm stayed put. ‘With something chasing you. When you left Theatre you looked like you'd seen a ghost and I was so worried about you.'

Building panic dug in. ‘Well, you didn't have to. I'm a grown man and I didn't need you chasing after me. Anyway, how did you know where I was?'

‘I asked Maria where you might have gone and that's how I found you.'

Fury and betrayal burst inside him as grief pummelled
him, and he refused to turn around and look at her. ‘Nonna shouldn't have told you anything.'

She blinked in surprise at his tone. ‘She didn't say anything other than you might be at the waterhole. But I'm stringing snapshots together, Leo—today with Zac, you walking away from canoeing, your grandmother's need to be home by the twenty-seventh.'

Her words cloaked him and right then he knew he'd just hit the dead-end of a very long road. He slowly turned around to see her sitting cross-legged on the bed, beautiful and serene. Something so strong and kind pulled at him, unlike anything he'd ever experienced from anyone. Two decades of holding everything at bay collapsed around him. He pulled her down and lay with her, his arms tight around her as if he feared she'd disappear, but if he was going to bare his soul he needed her as close as possible. ‘You know this morning you said you bet I'd wished I had a brother… Well, I have one. Dom.'

His throat tightened and he forced out the words he hated to say. ‘He drowned in front of me when I was nineteen.'

His pain hit Abbie so violently she shuddered for the youth who'd suffered that trauma and for the adult that still held it so close. She rested her forehead on his. ‘I can't imagine how awful that must have been.'

‘I've pretty much tried to forget.'

‘Doesn't work, though, does it?'

His jaw clenched. ‘I was doing OK until today.'

She didn't believe him but she let the comment pass, not wanting to interrupt his story.

His arms tightened around her again. ‘Growing up, we were inseparable. We shared a room, we rode our bikes everywhere, and the only time we spent apart was at school. I was a year ahead.'

‘The twins that weren't?'

He huffed out a breath. ‘Something like that, at least right up until I left for uni, anyway.' He buried his face in her hair for a moment and then continued. ‘When I came home in the mid-year holidays, we met Christina. She was a cousin of one of the local families and she'd just arrived from Italy for a year in Australia. She was a country girl, pretty naïve and a bit overawed by how different things are here, so my parents insisted we do the right thing and invite her to picnics and introduce her to our friends. We had a lot of laughs and she had a bit of a crush on me but my focus was on uni and I headed back and didn't really give her another thought. By the time I came home for the long summer break, Dom and Christina were very much a couple in the intense way only almost eighteen-year-olds in their first relationships can be.'

Abbie remembered. ‘No one else in the world exists?'

He grunted. ‘That's right and I got a shock. The last time I'd been home, Christina had been more my friend than Dom's and I guess I expected things at home to stay the same. Not that I loved her more than a friend but it was odd seeing my younger brother with a girlfriend. Dom had always looked up to me, even though I was only a year older than him, and whenever he had a problem he'd talk to me about it. Now Christina was his confidante and my brother didn't seem to need me any more.'

Abbie frowned in concern. ‘But he would have.'

His voice became hoarse. ‘Yeah, he did, but when he came to me for help I let him down.'

His agony reverberated through her and she held him tightly.

‘It was a stinking hot day and we were at the waterhole just before I headed back to uni. After a summer of him avoiding me, it was Dom who suggested we go. We'd been swinging off the old rope we'd put in a giant river red gum years before and talking about all sorts of stuff and I realised how much I'd
missed his company. And then he told me Christina was pregnant. He'd knocked up an Italian girl whose traditional family wouldn't take her back unless she was married.'

Abbie could picture two teenage youths, not quite men, trying to deal with one of life's biggest dilemmas. ‘That would have been pretty scary.'

Leo's eyes burned with unbearable memories. ‘I was so furious with him for putting himself in this position where he had no choice, and stalling his life before it had even started, that I yelled at him. I called him a jerk, a moron and plenty of other unspeakable things. He yelled back and told me if he'd wanted to hear crap like that he would have told Papa. He stormed off towards the water, preparing to bomb into it and shut me out.'

His words slowed and he shuddered. ‘My rage had me picking up my towel to leave and then Christina arrived. I couldn't speak to her so I strode past her and, as I did, I heard a terrifying crack. Christina screamed and I turned around to see a huge tree limb crash into the billabong, taking Dom down with it. I remember shouting his name, running into the water, diving under, but you can't see a thing in that freaking muddy water. I ripped myself on snags but I kept diving. On the third attempt my hands touched his legs and I pulled but he was wedged tight under the tree. I couldn't move him.' His eyes darkened into bleak black discs. ‘I let him down, I let him die.'

Abbie's stomach rolled and acid burned her throat. Shocked by his words, she gripped his arm hard. ‘Leo, it was a tragic accident. You didn't let him die. The red gum limb probably killed him before he went under the water.'

He wouldn't meet her gaze. ‘Dom was under that tree because I drove him away instead of helping him. I let him die.'

Her palm pressed his cheek, gently pulling his face to meet hers, needing him to understand. ‘Leo, I'm sorry the last words
you had with your brother were harsh but you know gums just drop limbs without warning in extreme heat. This was bad timing but it wasn't your fault.'

He shrugged, his jaw tense and his cheeks hollow. She knew her words hadn't touched him, hadn't even grazed what he believed and she blinked back the urge to cry.

In an emotionless tone Leo continued. ‘He died on February the twenty-seventh and you're right, that's why Nonna wants to be home. She visits the billabong every year on that day.'

The Costas had lost their child, Leo had lost his brother and a young woman had lost her first love. Abbie's thoughts went to her, pregnant and grieving in a foreign country. She did a quick calculation and worked out the baby would now be almost the same age as his father was when he died. ‘Does Christina visit?'

He shuddered. ‘No. When we got divorced she went back to Italy.'

‘
You
married Christina?' Her shocked voice sounded unsteady to her own ears.

A steely rigidity entered his body. ‘I had to. I had to make it right. Dom would have married her and because of me he died. I took her to Melbourne and married her quietly there. She miscarried soon after and I lost the last part of Dom I had.'

She could hardly take it all in. Duty, honour and heart-wrenching pain lay deeply hidden inside this complex man.

‘And what about you?' Abbie asked the question but she had a strong idea she already knew the answer.

He ploughed his hand through his hair. ‘I haven't been back to the waterhole since the accident. At least not until today and God knows why I went—I sure as hell wasn't planning to. Hell, I hardly visit Bandarra unless I have to. This trip is the longest I've stayed in years.'

‘Perhaps it was time.'

He gave her a look that seared her. ‘I didn't take you for a New Age guru.'

He was picking a fight but she refused to give him one. She'd seen past the image he wanted the world to see—the successful surgeon and charming man. She now knew how much it was costing him to stay in Bandarra, to spend time with his beloved grandmother. With his family. With the memories that plagued him.

She realised with startling clarity why he'd pursued her so relentlessly. Why he'd been as desperate as her this afternoon out at the billabong. Why they'd literally self-combusted with need, but for very different reasons.

Her heart cramped and she crossly ignored it. So what that he wanted to use her to forget. She was using him for fun, sex, good times and then goodbye.

You had sex with him because you saw a hurting man who needed you.

She slammed the voice out of her head. No. She had sex with him so she could get this bubbling desire out of her system and then find her even keel again. The one that had served her well for three years. Neither of them wanted a relationship. They could both use each other for a month and then walk away. Safe in that knowledge, she gently pushed him onto his back, slid her body over his and kissed him.

 

‘Good wines are made in the vineyard and nothing can be rushed. A bit like life, eh?'

Leo felt his father's hand grip his shoulder and knew the part of his father who was the backyard philosopher had finally caught up with him. They were walking through the vines with the rich irrigated soil sticking to their feet. Stefano had caught Leo alone in the house and had insisted he inspect the grapes with him.

‘So how is your life, Leo? It's been a long time that you've been on your own. I think you're too much like the winery right now—busy holding your breath.'