Australian Bachelors: Outback Heroes: Top-Notch Doc, Outback Bride / A Wedding in Warragurra / The Outback Doctor's Surprise Bride. Fiona Lowe

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      ‘I told you, Kellie, I like my life the way it is for the moment,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry if Trish and the Montgomerys gave you the impression I was a likely candidate for a six-month fling but I prefer to choose my own partners, not have them thrust on me.’

      Kellie glared at him. ‘You think I would agree to a matchmaking scheme like that?’ she asked. ‘Get real, Matt. I like to choose my own partners too, not that I’ve been particularly good at it or anything, but don’t for a moment think I would consider you as a potential lover, far from it.’

      He pushed his half-eaten meal to one side and got to his feet. ‘I’m going out for some fresh air,’ he said, tossing his napkin down on the bed. ‘Don’t wait up.’

      Kellie blew out a frustrated sigh and pushed her half-eaten meal away. OK, so maybe that had been a bit harsh, she thought. The truth was she had more than once considered Matt as a potential lover, but after Harley’s brazen two-timing Kellie was damned if she was going to play second fiddle to another woman again: dead or alive.

      CHAPTER NINE

      WHEN Matt came back to the suite at close to two a.m. Kellie was sound asleep, her small body curled up like a child’s, one of her hands underneath her cheek, the other hanging down over the side of the bed.

      He stood looking at her in the lamplight, feeling guilty for drinking in the sight of her while she was totally unaware of his presence. It seemed voyeuristic, exploitative even, but he couldn’t seem to pull his gaze away.

      She had obviously dispensed with the bathrobe for it was now hanging off the edge of the bed near her feet. Somehow the thought of her naked beneath that thin cotton sheet stirred his senses more than he would have thought possible. She had such a neat body, lean and athletic but unmistakably feminine.

      He went rigid when she suddenly rolled over with a little murmur, the sheet slipping to reveal the creamy curve of one small but perfect breast. He knew he shouldn’t be staring—he was a doctor, for pity’s sake! He’d seen more breasts than he could count, and yet the sight of that creamy globe with its dusky brown nipple took his breath away.

      Her soft mouth opened slightly on a sigh and she nestled back down into the pillow, but just when Matt thought it was safe to draw in a breath she suddenly opened her eyes. She sat bolt upright, her mad scramble for the sheet to cover herself affording him an even better view of her body than she had probably intended.

      ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ she railed at him. ‘You scared me half to death!’

      ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled gruffly. ‘I didn’t mean to wake you. I was just …’

      ‘You were just what?’ She glared at him. ‘Having a little peek while you thought no one was looking?’

      He raked a hand that wasn’t quite steady through his hair. ‘It wasn’t like that at all,’ he lied, a tide of colour heating the back of his neck. ‘I was trying to get to my bed without disturbing you in the process.’

      ‘How long have you been standing there?’

      His eyes shifted away from her accusing narrowed ones. ‘Not long.’

      ‘How long?’

      ‘Can we, please, drop this?’ he asked. ‘Look, I have no designs on you so you can rest easy.’

      She hugged her knees under the sheet, her expression looking a little downbeat. ‘So … what you’re saying is you don’t find me in the least bit attractive?’

      Matt frowned at the edge of insecurity in her tone. ‘Of course I find you attractive,’ he said. ‘You’re very attractive—gorgeous, in fact. Why on earth would you think otherwise?’

      She gave her bottom lip a bit of a nibble before she answered. ‘I don’t know … I guess I’m not all that confident on the dating scene. I think I spent too much time sweating over making dinner for my father and my brothers instead of getting hot and sweaty in a nightclub with the rest of my friends. I keep thinking there must be something wrong with me. My ex certainly made it clear I wasn’t enough to hold his interest.’

      ‘Yeah, well, if you ask me, your ex was a jerk,’ Matt said, pulling down the covers on the queen-sized bed in case he was tempted to cross the floor and pull her into his arms and show her how achingly beautiful she was.

      A little silence passed.

      ‘If the tables had been turned, would you have expected Madeleine to put her life on hold indefinitely?’ Kellie asked.

      ‘Look, Kellie,’ he said injecting his tone with impatience at her persistence over his lack of a love life. ‘I’m not putting my life on hold. But even if I was, it’s not the same thing. It’s so much harder for women.’

      ‘How?’ Kellie asked. ‘Grief is grief. I don’t think either gender has an exclusive take on it.’

      ‘The issue of fertility puts a very definite take on it,’ he pointed out. ‘As a man, if I chose to I can have children at almost any age. Of course, in my twenties, thirties or forties would be ideal, but for women that isn’t the case. They have limited time in which to select a suitable partner to father their child or children.’

      ‘Did you and Madeleine plan to have children?’

      Matt turned from the bed to look at her. ‘It was something we discussed once or twice.’ He looked away again, not comfortable adding how often he had shied away from the topic. Madeleine had been a few more steps ahead of him, now that he thought about it. It had been her idea to get engaged, her idea to bring the wedding forward and very definitely her idea to begin a family straight afterwards. It wasn’t that Madeleine wouldn’t have made a great mother, it was just he had never really seen himself settling down into suburbia in quite the way she had planned. It was a disturbing realisation that two people who had claimed to be in love had not really been in tune with each other’s wants and desires. Was that why he was still punishing himself? he wondered. It wasn’t that he had loved Madeleine too much—it was more that he hadn’t loved her enough …

      Kellie lay back on her pillow with her hands propped behind her head. ‘My mother would have loved to be a grandmother,’ she said on the end of little sigh. ‘She told me that being a mother was great but it was so exhausting she couldn’t wait to be a granny so she could hand back the little ones at the end of the day. I feel sad she won’t be around for my babies, to love and indulge them as a doting granny should. My dad will do his best but it won’t be the same, will it?’

      Matt sat on the edge of his bed. ‘I’m sure he will do what he can to be a good grandfather,’ he said, rather unhelpfully.

      She turned her head to look at him, a soft smile curving her mouth. ‘I’m hoping my time away in the bush will bring about a romance.’

      He automatically tensed. ‘So I was right about Tim and Claire?’ he said, clenching his jaw. ‘I knew it. I just knew they wouldn’t be able to help themselves.’

      She gave him a blank look. ‘What have Tim and Claire got to do with my father and my aunt?’

      It was Matt’s turn to deliver the blank stare. ‘Your father and your aunt?’

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