The Temptation Test Page 17

  Then, after slipping glasses, pen and notebook into her capacious handbag, she leant forward and flicked her hands somehow through the mass of hair, twisting it into a knot on the top of her head, and miraculously securing it there.

  Except for the silvery strands that escaped and flirted around her face!

  As she came back into the room he realised he’d wasted the entire two minutes, so now had to grab his swag and roll it hurriedly into a fat sausage shape.

  ‘I told Greg I’d be back on Saturday to see them. OK if I collect my stuff then?’

  He was bent over, trying to do up the swag’s straps with fingers that were about as useful as bananas, when he heard a noise he took as assent. Then her feet walked through his field of vision and tap-tapped their way cautiously down the steps.

  By the time Noah reached the car he was more composed, or so he thought until he saw what she was wearing. Skintight trousers ending just below her knees, revealing swelling calves that just last night had been locked around his back.

  He coughed back a betraying gasp, and pressed his palm against his chest in an effort to slow his heart rate.

  ‘If I could get the library card when we get to the hospital, I’ll go down and see what books there are. I’d like to have something to think about during the day.’

  Something to think about during the day? He wanted to shriek the bland phrase right back at her. Hadn’t last night meant anything? Given her any kind of thrill that just might possibly have lingered in her mind?

  For an hour or two, at least?

  Feeling very hard done by, he muttered agreement and concentrated fiercely on the road. Getting her away from the environs of the hospital to the library was undoubtedly a good idea, considering the way his body was reacting to her presence in the car.

  After what seemed an interminable drive, he finally pulled up in the parking lot, felt in his hip pocket for his wallet to find the library card and realised that in his haste he must have left it at the shack.

  ‘Rhoda will lend you a library card,’ he said, refusing to confess his stupidity. He’d find time to whip back out later. The place was unlockable but vandalism in the isolated area was so rare his wallet would be safe.

  Jena wondered why Noah’s library card was suddenly not available to her, but as the questions she’d ventured to ask on the tense drive in had been answered in terse one- or two-word sentences, she decided not to mention it.

  ‘Not only will I lend you my library card,’ Rhoda told her, ‘but I’ll give you some money from petty cash. Would you mind calling at Davidson’s and picking up some Christmas decorations for the wards? I went through the old stuff we have here and by the looks of it mice have been nesting there for the last twelve months. Most of it’s fit only for the rubbish bin.’

  After checking that the mock-up of the office and theatre were proceeding upstairs, Jena went out to the car park, collected her laundry bag from Noah’s car, dropped it into her own, then hopefully started the engine.

  It fired first time and, after a thankful pat to the dashboard, she set off. Laundromat first to throw the clothes in a machine, then library, then shops. Her conscience suggested she should really be at the hospital, perhaps following the yardsman or domestics around, but being there meant being close to Noah, and right now she needed distance.

  And some time to answer a few questions of her own—like why she wasn’t feeling guilty about sloping off work when usually her work ethic was close to perfect.

  Because the work she was doing no longer seemed important?

  Surely that couldn’t be the case.

  When she’d first switched to working in television, she’d found it challenging and satisfying, while coming to Kareela had been like pausing in an open doorway with the whole world stretched before her, the prospects limitless.

  So why did that world now look less glittering?

  Less appealing?

  She sighed as she pulled up outside the laundromat. Davidson’s was two doors down, the library in the next street. She’d start the wash, walk over there…

  Noah returned to the men’s ward after lunch. He’d begun the day with a phone call to the council inspector who’d assured him his young friends could move into the house. Given the work schedules of vegetable-pickers, it had been too late to organise the house shifting today, so he’d decided he could camp in his aunt’s house himself for a couple of nights and have the kids move in over the weekend.

  Certain he’d delayed long enough for Jena to have left the premises, he’d then done a ward round, sending Toby home, recommending physio for Colin and promising Mrs Burns she’d be out before the weekend. After checking Minnie, who’d been stable, the contractions gone, he’d settled in his office and tackled his paperwork.

  At midday, as a reward for a job well-done, he’d taken himself back out to the lake, where he’d retrieved not only his wallet but, conscious of the dangers of returning when Jena was there, his swag, clothes and toilet gear. He’d considered leaving his small refrigerator and food supplies, then had smiled to himself as he’d remembered Miss Independent’s fury over the shower.

  Best he take them, too, he’d decided, if he didn’t want her yelling at him again. Though yelling had been better than the polite attempts at conversation she’d made earlier this morning, peppering the drive to town with remarks and questions, forcing him to respond when all he’d wanted to do had been to run his tongue across her skin—every inch of it—to taste her sweetness one last time.

  Regret that he hadn’t achieved this aim clung like a film to his skin, and permeated his mind, making normal thought processes difficult. So to find Jena right in front of him, perched atop a ladder as she nailed one end of a red and green garland to the wall above the door, was an exacerbating experience.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he demanded, and she had the hide to grin down at him.

  ‘Want to guess?’ she teased. ‘What about multiple choice? Am I fixing my hair, taking a shower, cooking dinner or putting up Christmas decorations?’

  Colin Craig, who, Noah noticed belatedly, had parked his wheelchair at the foot of the ladder and had a box of decorations balanced on his plastered limbs, chuckled at the joke.

  Noah ignored him—and her—crossing the room to speak to the patient he’d come to see. Behind him, he could hear her talking and joking with Colin, and he had to restrain himself from telling her to concentrate on what she was doing—to be careful—not to fall.

  In fact, lifting her down off the ladder would be his most favoured option. Then, once he had her in his arms—

  He hauled his mind back into medical mode, decided to visit the other patients later and walked out, detouring through the women’s ward so he didn’t have to pass Jena again.

  ‘Aren’t you even going to comment?’ Jill asked. He glanced around and realised this room had already been decorated, gold and silver foil circling the walls like a patterned border, while convoluted red and green streamers spread out from above the fan in the centre of the ceiling to the walls.

  ‘We’re putting up a tree as well, in the hall,’ Jill told him. ‘It’s the old one we’ve had for ages. Apparently the mice didn’t like the taste of that particular plastic.’

  The explanation made no sense whatsoever to Noah but, then, nothing much did today. He headed back to his office where a proposal to set up a hospice in the area needed his attention.

  Or what attention he was able to give it.

  Jena’s ancient LandCruiser was gone from the car park when he finally left work, but the note under his windscreen wiper started his nerves jumping again.

  ‘Meeting tonight at your house if you want to be part of Carla and co.’s float,’ she’d written, her handwriting neatly upright, projecting an image of the bespectacled Jena he didn’t want to be seeing in his head.

  Indecision kept him rooted to the ground. It was already six-thirty, the designated ‘rehearsal’ time, so he had to move if he wanted to avoid
being part of the ‘false noses and giant syringe’ frivolity.

  Against that, of course, was the added contact with the one woman he wanted to avoid, but how many ‘rehearsals’ would one need to be a statue?

  ‘Plenty!’ Jena said, telling Suzy, who’d actually asked the question, not long after Noah had arrived and taken a seat on the back verandah of his own home.

  Jena was propped against the outdoor table, her long legs crossed at the ankle—the very picture of a woman totally at ease. He studied her as unobtrusively as possible, unable to believe she could be as relaxed as she appeared when he was strung tighter than a pro’s tennis racket.

  ‘Why?’ Davo asked.

  ‘Because I think it will work better. I’ll show you. Come on, Carla, and Suzy, and you, too, Will. Stand up here and be statues. Carla, you’re like this.’ Jena stretched out her arms as if holding a bow with an arrow fitted to its string. ‘Suzy, like this.’

  This time she made out she was holding a shallow bowl, her slim arms curled gracefully out in front of her, fingers making the pose look—well, statuesque!

  Will she positioned like a man delivering a speech, one arm outstretched as he gestured to his audience. When she had the three posed to her satisfaction, in a loosely structured circle, she whispered to each in turn then went back to join the ‘audience’.

  When the stillness of the three had gone on so long Noah wondered if Jena had hypnotized them, she murmured, ‘Now!’ The poses changed. Each statue took on the position of person to the left of him or her.

  The stillness reigned again, so complete that Noah wondered if he’d imagined any of the three had ever held a different pose.

  ‘OK, relax,’ Jena told them, then she appealed to all the group. ‘What do you think? Don’t you think the pose changing, preferably right down a line, would make it so much more interesting?’

  The young folk all agreed with her, as did Noah, though he didn’t feel obliged to add his voice. After all, Jena was treating him as just another member of the group—and he could be offhand, too, if he tried.

  She opened the books she must have chosen from the library, showing pictures of statues which had what might be considered typical poses. The young folk tried them out, then fooled around a bit, pushing at each other, but fell quiet when Jena spoke again.

  ‘It’s not easy,’ she reminded them, ‘and has to be perfectly done to be effective. No one’s going to be impressed by a statue who’s shuffling his or her feet, or scratching body paint from his nose. I’ve spoken to our carpenters and they’ll rig up a float fitted to the back of my vehicle. It will be a simple stage with a circle of light cardboard columns on it, and you’ll pose between them.’

  She flipped through the book to where another picture illustrated the general idea of a small temple to the gods.

  ‘Could you leave the books?’ Suzy asked.

  ‘And come back again early next week to see how we’re going?’ Will added. ‘After all, the parade’s Saturday fortnight. Not far away.’

  Jena agreed, talked some more, then said she’d have to go.

  ‘Stay to dinner,’ Carla suggested, but Jena shook her head.

  ‘I’d rather get home,’ she replied.

  ‘Since no one’s invited me to stay to dinner, I’d best be going, too,’ Noah said, immediately prompting warm invitations from his young friends.

  He raised his hands and smiled.

  ‘I was teasing! I’ve got to go back up to the hospital for a while.’

  ‘Thanks for coming,’ Davo said, then he looked embarrassed but added gamely, ‘For everything. This house, the programme, helping out. We know you hate us saying we’re grateful, but we truly are.’

  Jena watched Noah cope with his own embarrassment. He wasn’t a man who found praise easy to accept. Found anything easy to accept, she guessed.

  ‘Are you sure you’re going to be all right out there on your own?’ he asked, catching up with her as she walked around the side of the house towards her car.

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ she assured him. Truthfully, as it happened, because she was certain she’d feel better once she got away from him—from the temptation to touch him, kiss him, beg him for one more night together.

  No! No begging, Jena, she reprimanded herself, and missed what he was saying.

  ‘I’m sorry. My thoughts were miles away,’ she said—not true that time. ‘What were you saying?’

  ‘I wondered if you’d like to have dinner with me. By the time you drive out to the lake and cook something yourself it will be very late.’

  Have dinner with him? Sit across a table from him again? Watch the way his hands held cutlery, his lips moved as he ate?

  ‘No, thank you,’ she said politely, though desire warred with common sense and she knew if he pushed she’d probably weaken.

  ‘You’re probably right,’ he admitted, but though they’d reached her car he didn’t move away.

  ‘I’ve told Carla and co. they can have the house until the weekend. I’m staying at my aunt’s old place until then. Do you want to see it?’

  She looked him in the eyes, breathed deeply and said, ‘I thought we’d both agreed it was a one-night stand.’

  Saw a smile stretch one corner of his lips.

  ‘And if we’re together in a less public place than this we’ll lose all control? Is that what you’re saying?’

  She returned his smile, although her heart was thudding heavily with a mix of loss and desire.

  ‘It’s more than likely, isn’t it?’

  He touched her then. Just one finger, sliding up her arm.

  ‘Is there such a thing as a two-night stand?’

  She’d shivered at the touch, but the words made her feel even colder.

  ‘Not for this chick!’ she said, hoping the words sounded flippant enough to cover her own sense of loss. She remembered suggesting the two-night thing the previous night. But spending another night in Noah’s arms, making love with him again, would magnify the difficulties she was experiencing, not remove them.

  Noah nodded, as if to accept her thoughts as well as her words, but his voice, when he murmured, ‘Take care,’ was gravelly with more than concern.

  It was impossible to avoid Noah at work the following day, as it was minor-surgery day and Jena wanted to see as much of it as possible. This was what they’d use the mock theatre for, and it would be up to the editor to cut shots from the real thing in with long and angled shots which would be taken upstairs.

  She’d just have to banish all thoughts of their lovemaking from her mind.

  Being crammed into the small theatre with Noah, one of the local GPs who acted as anesthetist, plus two nurses, was hardly conducive to banishing him from her mind, but she got through the day and headed gratefully back to the shack—deciding that the loneliness and the ache his absence generated was better than being near him and aching for his touch.

  On Saturday, as she walked along the beach, she met up with Greg and Rose and the two little girls. Jena played with the children, building a sandcastle complete with turrets and a moat while their parents swam.

  Tired of the sandcastles game, they turned on her for amusement, indicating with signs and little pushes that she lie down. They began to shovel sand over her, so intent on their task she was able to close her eyes and think of Noah—of why, on so short an acquaintance, she found him so appealing.

  Because he’d made it very obvious he wasn’t available? Had her subconscious seen it as a challenge?

  Trying to answer honestly, she decided it wasn’t that. Heavens, she’d said the same thing often enough to have respected his wish to not get involved.

  Not that they had got involved. Which was the hard part. Though the man had appeared to be slightly staid at first meeting—well, angry at first meeting but coming across as staid on further acquaintance—there’d been something about him so attractive, to Jena anyway, that she’d been kissing him on day two!

  Not like her at all.


  Had the fact that she hadn’t wanted to get involved with anyone right now made her reckless?

  She was darned if she could think of any other explanation!

  Except, of course, the one she refused to contemplate. Love at first sight simply didn’t exist. You got to know a man as a person first, and love developed. It didn’t come crashing down on you with all the unpredictability of a summer thunderstorm.

  She was buried up to her neck, only her face visible, her brain tossing suggestions about, arguing and discarding but getting no closer to a solution, when two long, bare and very masculine legs appeared in her limited line of sight.

  ‘I know they make glass from sand. Is this a variation of Sleeping Beauty’s glass coffin?’

  Before Jena could answer, the children were greeting Noah with shy smiles, then dragging him towards the water to swim with them, leaving Jena, encased and forgotten, in the sand.

  She broke out quite easily, lifting first one leg, then the other, sitting up and shaking herself. But sand stuck everywhere. It was caked on her body, and thick in her hair.

  Great! she thought. A truly glamorous image to present to the man who’s haunting your dreams.

  She walked slowly down towards the water, wondering if she could swim far enough out to strip off her bikini to wash out the sand that had crept under it.

  Then she’d have to put it back on again, which might not be easy while treading water in the middle of the lake.

  She was still considering this when she reached the water’s edge, some distance from where two excited little girls were splashing around Noah, apparently using his body as a surfboard and clambering all over him. Greg and Rose had finished their swim and were sitting, hand in hand, on the damp sand at the edge of the lake.

  Jena waved to them but kept her distance, diving in well away from Noah.

  Though distance did little to diminish her physical longings, or ease the muddle in her mind.

  She swam parallel to the shore of the lake, towards the part of the beach in front of Matt’s shack. She’d left her towel and shirt there and only later had walked along and joined the family. Not saying goodbye was rude, but it couldn’t be helped. Surely she deserved a couple of Noah-free days a week.