Page 21 of Do Opposites Attract?

He raised an eyebrow. ‘Probably,’ he replied dryly. ‘I was rough. I’m sorry if I hurt you.’

‘Hurt me?’ she exclaimed, eyes glittering. ‘You think I’m angry with you because you were rough? Of all the ridiculous . . .’ She shook her head. ‘It’s not what you did, Dr McBride. It’s what you said.’

Mitch looked baffled. ‘What I said?’

‘You really think I wanted to kiss you just so I could see what it was like to kiss a man who has less money than I do? You think I’m that shallow?’

He took a moment to study the woman on the bed. Nobody had made her come here. She didn’t need a job, like he did. She was here of her own free will, because she wanted to make a difference. ‘No, I don’t think you’re shallow,’ he replied quietly. He held her gaze and something moved between them, something that stirred him, frightened him. He was beginning to like her, as well as fancy her. Never mind shallow, he was in danger of being dragged out of his depth.

He broke the gaze and shoved his hands in his pockets before he was tempted to do anything with them. Like run them down those amazing curves of hers, for starters. ‘Look Brianna. I need to focus on what I’m doing here, without any distractions, tempting though they might be. You’re only here for a few more days, so I suggest we forget about what happened. To avoid any further complications, let’s stay out of each other’s way.’

Brianna watched as Mitch ducked back out of her tent. Possibly he was right. Probably he was right. Certainly staying away from him was exactly what she’d planned after she’d left his tent. Never had a man made her feel so cheap. But now her anger had vanished. Call her foolish, but despite his sometimes cruel words, she saw something in him she hadn’t seen in any of the other men she’d dated. It wasn’t just lust, though his kiss had been far beyond anything she’d ever experienced. Never had she been handled with such wild ferocity, such white-hot passion. He thought he’d been rough? She’d never felt more aroused.

But he was more than a sexy doctor with rugged good looks and an athletic build. Beneath all that there was toughness, layers. She couldn’t fully put a handle on it. Mitch wasn’t a man a woman could ignore. Love him or hate him, he made a mark. He certainly had on her. Yes she wanted his body, but she was also desperate to understand his mind.

She wasn’t sure she was ready to give up on him quite so readily.

Chapter Ten

When she woke the following morning, Brianna could still feel the heat of Mitch’s lips on her mouth and the hardness of his body against the softness of her own. With a groan of pure exasperation, she threw off the sheets and climbed out of bed. Why oh why did she have to fall in lust with the one man who had no intention of following up on the spark between them? She hated this tense, aching feeling that she could only guess was sexual frustration. It was totally alien to her. She was used to turning down what was being offered, not being turned down.

As she sat having breakfast with a few of the team, she realised it wasn’t only her body that had become sensitised to Mitch. It was also her mind. Whenever his name was mentioned, she felt the quickening of her pulse and her eyes automatically scanned for his tall, lean frame. She was acting like a schoolgirl with her first crush, which was frankly ridiculous because she hadn’t indulged in such childishness even when shehadbeen a schoolgirl. She’d had no time for crushes. She’d been too busy deciding which males to date and which to ditch.

In her determination not to brood any further on her fixation with Mitch, Brianna went back to the medical tent and offered her help to Stuart and Jane. With no medical training, she was pretty useless, but at least she could wash floors, serve out drinks and give an encouraging smile or two. The gratitude of the patients was humbling.

It was when she returned from refilling the water jug that Jane tapped her on the shoulder. ‘Just to let you know, there’s been a mudslide a few villages down. It caught everyone unawares and I think a lot of the villagers were still in their homes when it hit.’

Brianna’s heart sank into her boots. These poor people, hadn’t they suffered enough already? ‘Oh my God,’ shemuttered. ‘Are you going to help?’ When Jane nodded and turned to go, Brianna held her arm. ‘Can I come? I know I’m not much use but—’

‘An extra pair of hands is always useful,’ Jane interrupted. ‘Come on.’

* * *

She had never seen so much mud. It was horrific, like something out of a disaster movie. Everywhere she looked was brown and wet. Rescue workers were knee deep in the stuff, only their bright orange vests telling them apart from their surroundings. They dug and dug, some with spades, some with mechanical diggers, some with just their bare hands. Those who’d been lucky enough to be rescued were huddled together in a group. Dirty, shivering, eyes wide with terror. She spotted Mitch at the bottom of the mudslide, hunched over a prostrate body. Grimly she watched as he shook his head at the rescue worker standing next to him. A sheet was pulled over the dead body, and it was stretchered away.

In a daze, Brianna strode up to him. ‘What can I do?’ she asked softly, numbed by the catastrophic scene in front of her.

He turned towards her, eyes like dark, sunken pools. ‘Keep out of the way,’ he replied bluntly.

Brianna flinched. Eyes burning with tears, she stumbled away.

‘Brianna, wait a minute.’ Jane chased behind her. ‘Ignore him. He might work like a machine, but he’s a human being underneath it all. He’s knackered. I think he meant to say, keep away for your own safety.’

‘Maybe.’ She wasn’t so sure. Mitch saw her as a useless upper-class bimbo who was more likely to cause trouble than to help. And with her current track record, she guessed shecouldn’t blame him. ‘Jane, I feel so useless. Is there anything Icando?’

Jane smiled and gave her a reassuring hug. ‘Come on, lovely, I’ve got just the job for you. See those terrified children standing over there?’ She pointed to a grubby, forlorn-looking group. ‘Alice, one of the WHO team, has gone to get some fresh clothes and towels for them. Why don’t you help her clean them up?’

At the sight of their huge sad brown eyes, Brianna’s heart melted. Plastering a smile on her face, she went to help.

For the next few hours she worked with Alice, helping to clean up the uninjured. She tried to offer comfort and a distraction from the fresh disaster that had befallen the area. No sooner had they ferried one group over to the camp, a fresh huddle would form. It was both heartbreaking and uplifting. The more villagers they tended to, the more had been rescued. She tried not to look at the mounting pile of body bags on the other side of the mudslide. She focused on the living, the well. That was traumatic enough.

* * *

Mitch had experienced many bad days in his line of work, but today had to rank with one of the worst. They’d rescued more than were killed, but only just. The saving grace had been that the village buried under the mudslide had been small. Those who’d made it out alive were able to tell them how many people should have been there. He’d worked on much larger mudslides, when they had no hope of knowing how many people had remained buried. That made rescue work really hard, not knowing when to give up. Thankfully, this time, all the villagers had been accounted for, one way or another, by nightfall.

Having showered off most of the grime of the day, Mitch made his way back to his tent. He was used to feeling tired, it was something that never left him when he was on site. Todaythough, the exhaustion was physical as well as mental. Pulling victims out of the mud had been a thankless task, one that had strained at every muscle and sinew. He stopped for a moment, rolling his shoulders to release some of the tension. That was when he caught sight of a slender female figure with her back against a tree. Her face was lit up by the amber glow of a cigarette. It was a face of great beauty, but tonight it held a hint of fragility. Of course the sensible course of action was to walk by and go straight to his tent.

Right now he didn’t feel like being sensible.

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