Free Harry St Clair: Rogue or Doctor? by Fiona McArthur Page A

way down, like a silver ribbon, a small stream meandered along under the lush rainforest that lay in pockets between the layered rice fields.
    Further along the veranda, on what seemed like acres of tiles, cushioned cane furniture waited patiently for a casual visitor to drop and soak in the scene below.
    A feeling of closeness grew as she shared Harry’s vision of his home. Like a window into a part of him that could help her understand him. ‘Thank you for bringing me here, Harry. It’s wonderful.’
    A smiling Balinese man, perhaps in his sixties, approached with welcoming hands held out towards her. Harry spoke from behind her shoulder. ‘Ketut, this is Miss Bonnie. She is a midwife and flies back to Darwin tomorrow.’
    Ketut inclined his head and smiled warmly. ‘Welcome,Miss Bonnie. It is with great pleasure I meet you. Come, sit, let me make you both tea after your journey.’
    Well, that answered who else would be there, Bonnie thought, and stifled pathetic disappointment they wouldn’t be alone. She remembered then that Harry had spoken of his mother’s caretakers. She should have remembered.
    ‘Hello, Ketut.’ Bonnie settled into the luxurious cushions and raised her brows at Harry. She mouthed,
Wow
at the whole setting. ‘Tea would be lovely. Thank you.’ Ketut smiled and hurried away.
    ‘I thought we’d have afternoon tea here.’ Harry gestured to the view. ‘You could look around after that and decide where you’d like to eat. If you’d rather come back here, we can let Ketut know in time for him to whip something up. He’s a great cook.’
    A busy restaurant was the last thing she wanted but she’d definitely be safer—from herself. Here, she knew she’d be tempted to peer through the cracks in the walls of Harry’s isolation, to see why he affected her, why she worried about his inner sadness that he hid from the world but not from her, how she could help him. Every time she felt close to the answer in public he’d shut her out again and step back. Did she need that angst? Could she stop herself anyway? What if he did open up to her and they connected in a way that would hurt much more when she flew away tomorrow?
    No, she didn’t need that. ‘We could go out. There’s dozens of restaurants nearby. I’m easy.’
    ‘No, you’re not.’ Harry watched her blink in surprise and her shock was ironic. He wasn’t finding any of this girl/boy stuff easy when it concerned this woman. Anotion all of his friends would find vastly amusing. ‘But it’s not your fault I find you difficult to fathom. Maybe I’m just out of practice.’ He shrugged. ‘But back to dinner. If you truly don’t mind, let’s eat here. We could walk the gardens. I’ll show you the house and we can have drinks on the platform overlooking the valley. Ketut will be happy doing what he loves and we’ll still drive through Ubud at night to show it to you when we leave to take you back to your hotel.’
    She looked away to the river below as she tried to stay relaxed—or at least appear that way. Hard with her knee almost touching his as they sat side by side. Tension simmered like a pot of soup between them. Millions of tiny bubbles that surfaced beneath her skin as the heat of Harry increased. And there was the intimacy of the setting. His house. Foreign country. Alone except for the caretakers.
    The mood settled when Ketut returned with fresh ginger tea and a gorgeous seed cake, but Bonnie laughed at them both when each rushed into speech as soon as Ketut left. ‘You first …’ Harry said.
    Bonnie picked her cake up with forced enthusiasm, anything to break the awkwardness of the moment. ‘I won’t need dinner.’
    Harry’s glance warmed her. ‘I want to feed you up before you go on the plane tomorrow.’ That reminded them both she was going, until the direction of his gaze settled on her lips. She wished he wouldn’t do that and she tried to concentrate on her imminent departure. His knee touched hers