A Very Precious Gift Read online

  Desire?

  Attraction?

  Lust?

  His lips moved against hers, murmuring what might have been endearments, and his arms folded her tightly against his body. She felt the bones of his chest hard against her breasts, felt her nipples pucker with an aching need. Was this what her father had felt?

  So many times…

  Phoebe sprang back, angry with herself for what she saw as weakness, though wondering too about attraction and need, lust and love.

  Sanity prevailed, and she edged further away.

  ‘I’m really not hungry,’ she said, still surprised by the truth of this excuse. ‘I think I’d rather go home.’

  Nick said nothing, though he studied her for a moment, then put out his hand to smooth her hair before unlocking his car and holding the door open for her. But when he turned out of the car park, he headed for her place, not down the road to where he lived.

  She glanced towards him, hoping to read his mood, but his profile, with its high forehead, straight nose and jutting, determined chin gave nothing away.

  Relief and disappointment warred in Phoebe’s breast, but relief was definitely the stronger of the two emotions. After all, she needed time to consider her reactions to Nick’s kisses—and even more time to think about the long-term implications of a one-night stand with her boss!

  This was not an exercise to be undertaken lightly.

  Another glance at that firm profile caused a new feathering of sensation down her spine.

  Dangerous ground.

  Her immediate concern was to find something to talk about to distract her from his closeness—and her own subversive thoughts. She remembered Peter Carter’s distress.

  ‘Will you get permission to try the treatment on Jackie?’

  Nick glanced her way then turned his attention back to the road. He nodded as if he understood what she was doing—and accepted it.

  ‘I would think so,’ he said slowly. ‘But it’s not likely to be granted until all other avenues have been pursued.’

  Something in his voice told her he disapproved of this approach.

  ‘Do you think it will be too late by then?’ she guessed, and saw his shoulders lift and heard the exhalation of a deep sigh.

  ‘Specialists have been using surgery followed by radiation and chemo for decades now. They’ve used radiation to reduce the size of tumours prior to surgery, and come up with variations of the drugs used, and different combinations of drugs, and these have shown some good results. Alfa-interferon, which is a natural protein used to produce a cancer inhibiting protein in unaffected cells, has had the best results to date. On cases caught early, it works, but on cases where the disease has already spread to other organs in the body there’s a very low success rate whatever the drug regime followed.’

  She absorbed the explanation, at the same time inwardly admiring his ability to separate his emotional involvement with Peter from his scientific rationale of the cancer that was killing his friend.

  An ability she’d do well to emulate, considering part of her had been reacting to any change of cadence in his voice as he spoke.

  ‘So you’re saying try the new treatment early?’

  ‘Why not?’ he demanded. ‘At the moment, we’re only allowed to try it on a handful of patients. With Peter, it was approved because, as a scientist himself, he understood it was experimental. One of the arguments the ethicists will use against Jackie having it early is that she’s so young.’

  ‘She’s eighteen now, nearly nineteen, and melanoma is like breast cancer,’ Phoebe protested. ‘It seems to attack young people much more aggressively than older patients. Surely that’s enough reason for us to treat it just as aggressively.’

  She saw his lips twist into a rueful smile.

  ‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you?’

  Phoebe said nothing, thinking instead of the implications of the treatment, wondering why ethics committees might have trouble with the concept.

  ‘But it’s virtually no treatment at all,’ she protested. ‘I mean, all you’re doing is taking some tumour cells from the patient, allowing them to multiply outside the body, then injecting them back in, in the hope they’ll trigger the patient’s own immune system into rejecting them and then rejecting all the similar cells already in his or her body.’

  ‘Autoimmunity!’ Nick murmured, bringing the car to a halt outside her cottage. ‘You’d think it would be the treatment of choice, but, like all new methods of treatment, it has to be proven in clinical trials before being generally accepted for use.’

  He paused then added, ‘Though speaking of immunity, shall we get back off medical subjects and see how yours is holding up?’

  Phoebe turned in her seat and stared at him. He must file every little comment away in his computer-like brain, to have remembered her mentioning her immunity.

  And as it wasn’t holding up at all well, a fact which he must surely know, then sitting a second longer in this car was definitely not a good idea.

  ‘Mine’s great,’ she lied, while her fingers fumbled for the doorhandle.

  ‘It’s over here,’ Nick said, leaning across her so his body pressed against her breasts. ‘That’s if you’re sure you want to go.’

  ‘Quite s-sure!’ Phoebe stammered, going hot all over as the words faltered from her lips. ‘Don’t bother getting out with me. I’ll be fine. Save you locking the car.’

  But he ignored her flow of excuses. Easing himself out of the car, he walked around the bonnet to hold the door as she stood up.

  He escorted her down her path, beside her but not touching, took the key from her now nerveless fingers and opened the front door for her.

  Then, while she waited uncertainly for his next move, half hoping and half dreading he’d come in, he bowed a funny little bow and said, ‘Goodnight, sweet Phoebe.’

  And walked away without a backward glance.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  PHOEBE slept badly and blamed the fact she’d missed dinner, but she certainly hadn’t been hungry when Nick had dropped her home. Disappointed in a way, but not hungry.

  She woke to bright sunshine, but closed her eyes against its yellow glow. Far too cheerful a day when her mind was confused and her body restless. Rain would have been better.

  A deluge.

  Floods.

  Tidal waves.

  The shrill ring of the phone cut short her ruminations, which had switched from the actual weather to weather-like comparisons of her runaway emotions.

  ‘Phoebe? Are you up and about? Free for a couple of hours today? The Americans have heard about our Beach Watch Programme and want to see us at work. Charles is…’

  The sudden pause in Nick’s explanations gave Phoebe time to recapture the breath the sound of his voice had stolen.

  ‘Busy!’ he finished. ‘Considering they’ll have TV cameras and a reporter on the beach, I’d like to have two of us going through our paces.’

  ‘TV cameras and a reporter?’ She echoed the words that made the least sense to her.

  ‘Having visiting experts here is far more interesting to our local media than having the same old faces pushing sun safety, but, regardless of why they’re interested, this is a great opportunity not only for some publicity for the clinic but to spread the word.’

  Phoebe nodded into the phone. Spreading the word that even limited sunbathing was dangerous was one of Nick’s pet projects. It was why he’d initiated Beach Watch, using students and clinic staff to walk among the sunbathers on the popular local surfing beaches, distributing leaflets about sun safety and asking if people wanted a quick skin examination.

  ‘Are you still there?’ he demanded.

  ‘Of course! I was just thinking.’

  ‘Don’t think, just say yes. Or are you busy? I didn’t mean to push.’

  Phoebe chuckled.

  ‘Of course you meant to push. You did it to me back when I was a student—you push all the female students into helping you right thro
ugh summer because you believe young men on the beach are far more likely to agree to a woman examining their skin.

  ‘Not that I mind,’ she added quickly, as early detection of possible danger signs gave her immense satisfaction.

  ‘So you can come today? The camera crew will be there at eleven, but I thought—’

  ‘As we were going to be on the beach anyway, we might as well do a patrol,’ Phoebe finished for him.

  He chuckled and she was pleased she’d made him laugh.

  ‘You know me too well,’ he told her, causing a little trickle of excitement along her nerves as her wayward mind took the words another way. ‘I’ll drop by your place at about ten. That suit you?’

  She nodded again, then realised he couldn’t see her nod and managed a casual, ‘Fine.’

  Though it wasn’t fine. It was stupid. Perhaps she should get this ‘ending her virginity’ thing right out of her mind, and revive her immunity to men like Nick. What would happen if she fell in love with him? Really in love?

  Beyond whatever it was she was feeling now?

  She’d be repeating her mother’s mistake—that’s what would happen. Reliving her mother’s life with her father all over again.

  But she wouldn’t fall in love with him.

  All these weird reactions were the result of a chemical attraction—a physical thing. Which made him the ideal candidate for The Plan!

  A temporary lover. Like a locum. Filling in for a short time. That was all she wanted of Nick David.

  These thoughts stayed with her as she showered, then dressed in what she thought of as her ‘Beach Watch’ outfit. A white bikini because it got hot on the beach even at the very beginning of the summer season, covered by loose white cotton harem trousers and a long-sleeved white cotton shirt, sheer enough to allow her skin to breathe but dense enough to combat most of the sun’s lethal rays.

  Even with the covering, she’d still apply sunscreen, and reapply it after swimming. There was no point in hammering home a sun-safe message to the general public then ignoring it yourself.

  She was checking the contents of her beach bag when the doorbell announced Nick’s arrival.

  ‘Aha! Phoebe clad in virginal white! Wasn’t the original Phoebe a goddess of some kind? Was she a virgin?’

  Phoebe clutched the door frame for support.

  Damn the man! Was he tuned into her thoughts? She battled the heat she knew was heading for her cheeks, and bent her head over her large beach-bag in case she lost.

  ‘She was the moon goddess, if you must know,’ she muttered at him, then glanced up as his low chuckle tripped a quiver down her spine.

  She turned her attention back to the bag. Sunscreen, sunglasses—

  ‘I knew there must have been a reason for kissing you in the car park last night. I couldn’t figure if it was moon madness or Phoebe madness, and now you tell me they’re one and the same thing.’

  ‘Well, I’d hate to think it was because you found me attractive!’ she told him tartly. ‘Heaven forbid!’

  ‘There’s no moon now,’ he murmured, and again she looked up from her pretended absorption with the beach-bag, this time to see blue eyes, dark with what looked like desire, studying her intently.

  ‘Which is why we should be on our way to the beach,’ she reminded him, deliberately misinterpreting his words in order to divert the conversation into safer channels.

  She led the way out the door, leaving him to pull it shut behind them. He was as well covered as she was, but his casual trousers were of a natural linen fabric, his shirt a manly version of her own. Nubby linen, but woven loosely so the material did nothing to hide the contours of his chest or the sprinkling of dark hair on his chest and the suggestion of more, arrowing downward from his waist.

  ‘Got your hat?’ he asked, and she realised she’d been too caught up in the suggestive conversation to remember that basic sun-accessory. Found her keys in the bag and went back inside, grabbing the floppy-brimmed Panama off the hook inside the door then walking out again.

  ‘How’s Peter this morning?’ she asked, by way of taking the conversation and her mind on to work-related topics.

  ‘Much brighter,’ Nick told her, but the gravity in his voice told her it was a temporary thing.

  ‘Do you think his tumours are too widespread for this treatment to work?’

  He shook his head, opened his car door for her and didn’t answer until he, too, was seated in the car.

  ‘It’s working on some tumours and not on others,’ he said. ‘Trials in other hospitals have had similar results in their patients. The immune system seems to kick in to reduce the size of some of the tumours though why it is so selective we can’t work out.’

  He started the car and eased out from the kerb, his eyes on the road but the frown between his eyebrows suggesting his mind was elsewhere.

  ‘But you’re using cells from the patient’s own tumours to trigger the response,’ Phoebe said, trying to follow his train of thought. ‘And as all the tumours are secondary as a result of melanoma, shouldn’t they all have the same characteristics?’

  ‘And respond in the same way?’ Nick said, then he sighed and added, ‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you? That’s why it’s such a puzzle.’

  ‘Could the tumours change in their nature or structure?’

  Nick shrugged.

  ‘They do to the extent that they are a proliferation of the cells of the particular organ where they form, but when you consider that every cell in the body has the same DNA configuration, then you would also assume they’d have the same response to this treatment.’

  Phoebe relaxed and gave her mind to the problem. Discussing work with Nick always challenged her and now it was a welcome diversion.

  ‘I suppose you’ve tried taking cells from the tumours that aren’t reacting and using them for the next lot of treatment?’

  Nick shot her a smile.

  ‘Same negative result. Except that they seem to work less effectively overall and at a hundred and forty thousand dollars a shot we can’t afford to play around too much.’

  ‘It’s an enormous expense,’ Phoebe agreed, knowing all the variable costs from space in hospital labs to staff wages that were factored into this ‘per treatment’ accounting. ‘So it makes sense to stick to what works.’

  ‘Does it?’ Nick demanded. ‘That’s what’s really bugging me at the moment. Do we put our resources into something that has some results, or go all out to find the final answer? It’s got to be there somewhere.’

  ‘Someone certainly has to be looking further ahead,’ Phoebe told him. ‘But in the meantime we’ve got all the Peters and Jackies in the world. Surely they’re entitled to a chance at what’s already available.’

  ‘Of course they are.’ He had pulled up at traffic lights and now slammed his hand against the steering wheel as if the frustration he was feeling couldn’t be put into words.

  ‘Well, we can only do what we can,’ Phoebe reminded him. ‘By doing our beach patrols at least we have a chance of saving some poor soul from ending up where Peter and Jackie are now.’

  The lights changed and the car rolled forward.

  ‘First a mother hen and now a little ray of sunshine. You were wasted on Charles, young woman. Totally wasted.’

  Phoebe glanced his way, assuming he was teasing her, but the look on his face was more grim than light-hearted, and she wondered whether his thoughts remained with Peter. Disturbed by the physical responses merely looking at him evoked, she turned her attention to the scenery beyond the car. Tree-lined streets were a much safer focus for her eyes.

  Silence made Nick turn towards his companion. That darned white gear enhanced her dark beauty and for all the smart remarks he might make about moon goddesses or mother hens, he found himself thinking about Phoebe Moreton in ways he knew he shouldn’t.

  Kissing those full, sensual lips was bad enough, but imagining his lips on other parts of her body was insanity. She was definitely not a lo
ve ’em and leave ’em type of woman, and right now—at least until his commitment to Peter was over—he had no time to give to any other form of relationship.

  Yet, since that first—undoubtedly foolish, but totally indescribable—kiss in the corridor it was as if she’d got into his blood, and now every time he saw her his body reacted in a way it had never reacted before.

  To any woman!

  He put it down to lust but that bothered him even more. Some strait-laced part of his mind told him it was wrong to feel such an earthy emotion for a woman like Phoebe. It was somehow indecent.

  Which didn’t stop his body reacting to her presence in a way that made wearing such loose-fitting trousers practically compulsory. Hopefully, she wouldn’t see through their weave to the swimming trunks which had suddenly become too tight.

  ‘Divide the available resources or get more money?’

  He realised she must have been talking for some time while he’d pursued his dark thoughts. She’d ended with a question—but what question?

  ‘Use some funds for development of new treatments and the rest for the clinical trials already under way?’ He took a stab at what she’d asked. ‘I’m tempted to suggest that to the board but it limits the amount available in both spheres and lessens the impact of the research. More money is the answer, but finding donors takes time and effort and a lot of follow-through work.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘I’ve been willing to put in the effort, but time’s another thing. Some days it seems all we do is steal from Peter to pay Paul.’

  Speaking about money reminded him of what he’d meant to tell her earlier in the week.

  ‘I met—’ he began, then Phoebe screamed, and out of the corner of his eye he saw the small figure of a child darting into the road. He slammed on the brakes, and spun the wheel to pull the car away from that direction. They jolted to a halt as the bonnet hit a car coming towards them. He heard the dull thunk as Phoebe’s head connected with the window, but when he turned towards her she was already struggling to release her seat belt. Anxious to get out—no doubt to find the child.