At His Service: Her Boss the Hero: One Night With Her Boss / Her Very Special Boss / The Surgeon's Marriage Proposal. Alison Roberts

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СКАЧАТЬ colleague came back in a rush and Mikki realised what an emotional roller-coaster this day was presenting. No wonder she was feeling a little strange.

      Vulnerable.

      And no wonder the relief of seeing a smile on Josh’s face brought tears to her eyes. ‘Hey, I’m not dead, Mouse.’

      ‘You could have been. Thank God the wheel went over your foot and not your head.’

      ‘He would have been fine in that case,’ Tama growled. ‘Not much to damage at that end, is there, mate?’

      Laughter chased away the threat of the silly, feminine tears and then something new got thrown into the emotional cauldron of Mikki’s day.

      Pride.

      ‘You should’ve seen Mouse on this last run,’ Tama told his partner. ‘Intubating a kid in respiratory arrest. Mid-air. Have to say, if she wasn’t heading for war-torn countries in a few months, your job might not be there to come back to.’

      ‘Hey, I can do a threesome. You wouldn’t get rid of me that easily.’

      The nurse who had come in to check Josh’s IV and the attached self-administered pain relief looked up and grinned.

      ‘Threesome, huh?’ She raised an eyebrow at Mikki. ‘Lucky you.’

      ‘Yeah.’ Mikki returned the grin, still bursting with pride from Tama’s praise. Feeling closer to both these men than she ever had to any work colleagues.

      She loved this job.

      She loved them.

      For the first time in her life she was exactly where she wanted to be. She belonged.

      And then she made the mistake of catching Tama’s gaze, and that strand of connection was like liquid fire. There was nothing professional about this non-verbal communication. It was purely sexual. There would be no ‘threesome’, his look told her. This was between the two of them.

      The temperature of the room seemed to be rising steadily but Josh was now busy flirting with his nurse and apparently didn’t notice.

      ‘I might not get in to see you tomorrow,’ Tama told Josh a few minutes later as they prepared to leave. ‘Depends on Mouse, of course.’

      ‘What does?’ Mikki asked.

      ‘I checked my calendar last night,’ Tama said casually. ‘And the long-range weather forecast today. If you’re keen, we could get dropped on the top of a mountain tomorrow and get your survival training out of the way.’

      ‘So soon?’ Mikki wasn’t sure she was ready. ‘I was expecting to have to wait until there was a group for that.’

      Josh was clearly getting a good effect from his pain relief medication. He was grinning broadly. ‘You’re special,’ he told Mikki. ‘Tama wants to give you the royal treatment.’

      ‘Oi!’ Tama’s tone held a distinct reprimand. ‘It’s your fault my diary’s clear, mate. We were supposed to be driving up north so you could be at your mum’s birthday party, remember?’

      Josh groaned. ‘Mum’s on her way here instead. She’s going to sit in the corner of my room and probably knit me a giant sock to go over my leg. You can’t leave me alone listening to those needles clacking, Tama. I’ll go crazy.’

      Tama grinned. ‘So would I. Your mum never gives up trying to tell me it’s time I settled down and started making babies. Think I’d rather be making a snow cave with the mouse, thanks.’

      Mikki tried to ignore the reference to making babies. ‘A snow cave?’ she echoed. No. She couldn’t ignore it after all. ‘We’d be spending the night on the top of a mountain?’

      ‘And another one out in the bush.’

      ‘You could wait,’ Josh grumbled. ‘I’d like to come as well. Could do with a refresher.’

      ‘Can’t wait that long,’ Tama said decisively. ‘What about you, Mouse?’

      He wasn’t looking at Mikki but the innuendo was blatant.

      Dropped into the wilderness and forced to spend their days and nights together, there was absolutely no doubt that the tension simmering between them would have to be addressed.

      Tama was creating this opportunity so did it mean he wanted something to happen? If she didn’t want that, now was the time to say so. To make some kind of excuse. A prior engagement that would make it impossible to spend the next couple of days alone with Tama. It might be the sensible thing to do.

      Carefully, Mikki took a deep breath. She looked at Josh rather than Tama. ‘Sorry, mate, but I can’t turn down an offer like that, can I? We’ll tell you all about it as soon as we get back.’

      Tama was right behind her as she stepped out of the room.

      ‘We’ll see about that,’ he murmured. ‘There may be some aspects of your survival training that you might not want to share with everybody.’

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      SHE could share this with everybody.

      If she could find the right words.

      Words that could convey the sense of desolation she felt seeing Steve taking the helicopter back to base, leaving Tama and herself standing on a snow-covered slope.

      The tiny dot of the aircraft faded into the endless blue sky and Mikki had the weird sensation of looking down from even higher than the helicopter had been. Seeing herself and her sole companion fading to black dots on a pristine white background. Insignificant and then invisible as her mind’s eye saw the towering peaks of the mountains behind them, the tussock-covered high country below and then mile after mile—as far as the eye could see—of bush-covered land.

      Wilderness. The blanket of greenery might give the impression of soft lines but beneath that canopy was a harsh landscape of steep slopes punctuated by baby rivers that tumbled into ravines. Dense bush that would be impenetrable in many places. Slippery tussock sprouting through puddles of icy snow, and where they were right now knee-deep snow, the chill of which Mikki could feel pressing on her leather boots like a solid weight.

      The silence, when the final chop of the helicopter’s rotors had faded to nothing, was as awe-inspiring as the scenery. So deep it seemed almost sacrilege to break it. Not that Tama was sharing Mikki’s reverence.

      ‘Nice, huh?’ He took a deep breath of the cold air. ‘You don’t get a view like this every day.’

      ‘No.’ Mikki was still trying to take it in. To push back a fear she hadn’t expected to be so strong.

      ‘You OK?’

      ‘Yes.’ No. What did they think they were doing, putting themselves into such a hostile environment voluntarily? This was crazy!

      Mikki finally dragged her gaze from the mind-boggling vastness around them. She turned and found it a comfort to see the figure of another human body, especially one СКАЧАТЬ