Free Melting the Argentine Doctor's Heart / Small Town Marriage Miracle by Meredith Webber / Jennifer Taylor Page A

other arm, and began again, unaware of the passing of time until she was done, and Jorge touched her arm and she stepped back from the table.
    ‘Lila will clean up here and move him into our little ward and we have a night nurse who will watch over him and call if we are needed. I’ve given him a massive dose of antibiotics and have prepared morphine for him if he wakes in pain. We’ll go home and eat our dinner if it hasn’t completely spoiled.’
    Caroline had stripped off her gloves and was using a wet cloth Lila had handed her to wipe her arms, but what she needed most badly was a shower.
    Not to mention an explanation!
    The shower took precedence.
    ‘Will dinner spoil more if I take five minutes for a shower?’ she asked, and Jorge smiled at her.
    ‘Could I deny it to you when you have helped me out this way? I, too, need a shower, but I can have one here. We’ll meet back at the hut.’
    There had been absolutely nothing in his tone of voice to suggest that the idea of showering together, as once they would have done, had even flashed through his mind, but as Caroline made her way back to the hut she had a stupid longing for what might have been.
    Except if he
hadn’t
ever loved her they probably wouldn’t still be together, let alone sharing a shower.
    Jorge stood beneath the tepid water, running the soap over the puckered skin on his torso. Caroline had begun her journey back to Australia, frantic with worry over her mother’s diagnosis of breast cancer, when the rocket had hit their small hospital. He knew only what he’d been told of the accident, remembering nothing until he’d woken up in hospital in France, his body broken in so many places he’d wondered if it would ever heal. He’d been splinted and bandaged from head to toe, but not for long, the bandages being removed so he could be plunged into a bath where dead burnt skin was carefully peeled away.
    This treatment had been agonising, but no more agonising than his decision to break up with Caroline. Uncertain not only whether he’d live or die, but whether he
wanted
to live or die, his one seemingly rational decision had been to send her the email that would keep her from rushing to his side at the first available opportunity. He’d told himself it was because he knew her mother needed her but he knew the motivating factor had been not wanting to see horror and revulsion in her eyes, notwanting the burden of the pity he knew would be in her heart.
    He turned off the water and dried himself, slipping on a loose T-shirt—all his clothes were loose these days, illness having stripped off the weight and physical labour replacing it with muscle—and a pair of
bombachas,
the baggy cotton trousers worn by horsemen and outdoor workers all over the country.
    Now to face the woman who had brought such chaos into his life and such confusion to his mind.
    She was already in his small kitchen area, stirring the mixture in the pot, wearing long, loose pants not unlike the ones he wore, only hers had bright bananas all over them, and on top she wore a faded yellow T-shirt.
    ‘Very fetching,’ he remarked, determined to keep the conversation light. Back when he’d mentioned showers so many memories had flashed through his mind he’d thought he might lose it altogether, but he was back in charge of his thoughts and feelings now—touching his own scarred skin usually had that effect.
    ‘What would they have been fighting about?’ she asked, moving away from the cooking pot as if ceding his right to be in charge. She perched on one of his chairs, propped her elbows on the table and rested her chin in her hands as she waited for his answer.
    ‘A bit of tin for a roof, perhaps a scrap of pipe one of them found, a woman? Who would know?’
    ‘I thought the other men, the men who brought him in, would have told you. You spoke to them for some time.’
    She hadn’t changed much, Jorge realised. She’dalways questioned everything, especially things she