Risk of a Lifetime (Mills & Boon Medical) (7 page)

‘Hi. How was your weekend?’

‘Chaos, thank you. How was yours?’

‘Lovely. We played on the beach, and did a bit of gardening, and went to the playground. And we had a picnic and I caught the sun.’

‘I can see.’ She had a touch of pink across her nose and cheekbones, and a smattering of tiny freckles was starting to appear. God, he wanted to kiss her. He must have been nuts to walk away.

‘So, what have we got?’

‘A dislocated patella, a fractured femur, an acute abdomen, query minor head injury—’

‘Give me the abdomen. You can have the femur.’

‘I was about to tackle the patella. The orthos are coming down to the femur.’

‘When did you last check him?’

‘Her—and ten minutes ago, but could you do it, before you do the abdo? I want to get the patella back in now and put him out of his misery.’

‘So why not get the orthos to do it while they’re here?’

‘Because he’s already had the ketamine, and anyway I like patellas.’

And with a cheeky wink he picked up the notes and walked off, whistling softly, and left her looking after him and trying not to give herself away too hopelessly.

‘He is
so-o-o
cute.’

‘Kate, get over it,’ she said firmly, trying not to think how cute he was and what she was going to do with him. ‘Want to help me with the abdo?’

‘Sure.’ Kate pushed herself away from the desk and followed her, and nothing more was said about him, to Annie’s relief.

Not that it stopped her thinking...

* * *

‘Can I ask you something?’

‘Sure. Does this need a coffee?’

‘Maybe.’ She chewed her lip. She still hadn’t quite committed herself to this crazy idea, but she was tempted. Oh, so tempted. ‘Have you got time?’

‘I have at the moment. The patella’s being put in a cast, the femur’s gone off to Theatre, and the head injury is under observation. How’s your abdomen?’

She sucked it in automatically at the mention of the word. ‘
My
abdomen?’ she said, arching a brow at him.

He glanced down and grinned. ‘Well—not yours. Yours is obviously fine.’

‘Only fine?’ she asked provocatively, and then could have kicked herself for flirting with him. ‘Whatever. My abdo,’ she said hastily, grabbing the conversation and steering it rapidly on to the right track again, ‘is under obs. I’m not sure what it is. Not appendix, I don’t think, but I’m not sure. There’s a fairly convoluted history. I’m waiting for the GP to call me back on my mobile.’

He nodded. ‘Abdomens are funny things. There’s a whole world of stuff in there. Kids with acute abdomens are a nightmare. Two cappuccinos, please. Take out.’

He handed over the money, gave her her coffee and steered her out of the door. ‘I take it this is a private conversation?’

She felt herself colour. ‘I just wanted to clarify things.’

‘OK.’ He sat down, patted the bench beside him and shifted so he was looking at her. ‘Clarify what?’

She looked away. Those dark, grey-blue eyes with the navy rims were disconcerting, and this was hard enough.

‘This...relationship,’ she said, for want of a better word. ‘Are we talking exclusivity?’

He let out a short huff that could have been laughter. He sounded slightly stunned.

‘Of course! What did you think—I was going to run a string of women? I hardly have time to sleep as it is. No.’ He reached out a hand, turned her face gently towards him and shook his head slowly. ‘No way is there anyone else even on my radar at the moment. My life is already hellish complicated, Annie. I need time out—from work, from my grandfather, from...’

From the ramifications of his potential inheritance. ‘From all sorts of things,’ he finished.

She watched him, saw the sadness flicker in his eyes again, the desperation. ‘So, let me get this right. You’re looking for—respite care?’

He laughed softly, his eyes crinkling. ‘Pretty much. I’d rather call it me time.’

‘Me time? I could use some of that.’

‘Was that a yes?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said honestly, but her heart was pounding. ‘I don’t know how we’d arrange it.’

‘You could come to me. My house is just round the corner from yours, a three-minute walk. You can come in the back way, it’s more anonymous. And it’s utterly private. I don’t know my neighbours, and I don’t have time to get to know them. Nobody will know who you are.’

‘But when?’

‘Whenever we’re both free. Whenever your mother is able to let you go.’

She chewed her lip. Oh, Lord. Her mother. ‘I’ll have to tell her,’ she said, and closed her eyes.

‘Is that a problem?’

‘Only that she’ll know what we’re doing.’

‘You could tell her you’re playing bridge.’

‘Late at night? More likely poker.’

He laughed again, and she felt the huff of his warm breath against her skin. ‘Annie, don’t sweat it. Tell her you’re going to the cinema, going for a walk—anything.’

‘Lie?’

‘No! Just—keep it private. Between us.’

‘Private sounds good,’ she said quietly. ‘I don’t want anyone knowing. They just ask questions, and I don’t need that.’

‘Nor do I. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. Especially not anyone here. The rumour mill is rife as it is just because we went to the theatre. Oh, which reminds me, I sent some flowers to Elizabeth as a thank-you for the tickets, and Jerry popped in this morning to thank me. She’s doing well.’

‘Good. And talking of telling each other things, I think you should know Kate thinks you’re cute, by the way.’

‘Cute?
Cute
?’

He sounded disgusted, and she laughed at him. ‘What’s wrong with cute?’

‘Little girls are cute,’ he said, his disgust evident, and she suppressed her laughter, but then his expression changed, his eyes searching hers. ‘So—is that a yes?’

Trapped by those amazing, expressive eyes, she stared up at him and her heart thumped against her ribs.

‘Yes,’ she said slowly. ‘That’s a yes.’

CHAPTER FOUR

T
HE
REST
OF
the day crawled by.

She admitted her acute abdo, moved on to a wrist fracture, dealt with indigestion that turned out to be a partially blocked coronary artery and went home, her emotions in turmoil.

She was meeting him that evening at his house, at nine. Time for her to put the girls to bed and get ready, time for him to finish his shift and put his grandfather to bed and come home. She’d phoned and asked her mother already if she would mind babysitting that evening, made the excuse of being busy at work to avoid getting trapped into a difficult conversation, and now she was walking up the path to the matriarchal version of the Spanish Inquisition.

Not that her mother would ask any questions, or anything. She didn’t need to. She’d just look, and
know
, in that uncanny way mothers had. Annie understood that. She was beginning to do it herself. Which made it even more disturbing.

The girls, however, were on their own, to her relief, kneeling up at the dining table in a riot of paper and crayons.

‘Mummy!’

The welcome, as ever, centred her and she crossed over to them, bathed in the sunshine of their smiles.

‘Hello, my lovelies,’ she said, hugging them and admiring their drawings, and then her mother came back into the room and her guilt came rushing back to haunt her.

‘Hello, darling. Good day?’ she asked, putting the kettle on, and then without missing a beat asked, ‘What time are you going out?’

‘Just before nine,’ she said, and she could feel colour crawling up her neck and heading for her face. ‘I’ll just go and change out of my work clothes.’

She fled, shutting herself in her room and pressing herself against the inside of the door. She could feel her heartbeat, a steady, insistent throb that echoed throughout her body, and she did
not
want to have this conversation with her mother in front of the children!

Should she lie?

Maybe, this time at least, because if it was a total disaster, if he took one look at her naked body and wanted to run, then she wouldn’t have the humiliation of having to explain to her mother why it wouldn’t be happening again.

Cutting off that line of thought before she talked herself out of going, she stripped off her clothes, pulled on her jeans and a T-shirt and went back to the kitchen and normality. ‘That’s better. Oh, is that tea for me? Thanks, Mum.’

She sat down at the table with the children and listened to their chatter with half an ear. There had been a bit of a ruckus at nursery. One of the boys had pushed one of the girls over, and he’d been made to stand on the naughty spot
all day
! Well, according to Chloe it had been all day, but Grace thought it was only after milk and biscuits, so that wasn’t all day. All day was breakfast to supper, wasn’t it?

‘I expect it felt like all day,’ she said, mediating with the bit of her brain that wasn’t wondering what on earth she’d agreed to. ‘Right, girls, put the crayons away, please, it’s nearly time for your bath and bed.’

‘But I haven’t finished!’ Chloe protested.

‘So put it away and finish it tomorrow. Come on, it’s bathtime and if you mess around now you won’t get a story.’

Chloe put it away. Stories were sacrosanct, and the mere suggestion was enough to ensure her cooperation. If it hadn’t been, Grace would have taken the picture from her and put it away herself, she thought with an inward smile.

She chivvied them into the bathroom, perched on the loo and listened to more of the little boy’s misdemeanours as the girls played in the bath and soaped themselves.

‘Don’t get your hair wet, it doesn’t need washing tonight,’ she reminded them, and then one by one she dried them, cleaned their teeth and sent them to get into their pyjamas.

They had two stories, mostly because she felt so guilty about the ‘me time’ that was coming that she was overcompensating, and then, unable to stall any longer, she tucked them up in bed and went to brave her mother.

‘Gosh, that smells good,’ she said, going back into the kitchen.

‘Shepherd’s pie. Nice and simple, and the girls love it.’

‘I love it, too. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate coming home every evening to a cooked meal and safe, happy children. Will you marry me?’

Her mother laughed and hugged her. ‘Silly girl. I’d be lonely without you all.’

‘Well, good, because it’s not likely to happen.’

And seamlessly, as if the two thoughts were connected, which they probably were, knowing her mother, she said, ‘So, where are you going tonight? Anywhere nice?’

Her heart skipped a beat. ‘I’m meeting Ed for a drink,’ she told her. It was the truth, or as close to it as she intended to get. She was sure that at some point in the proceedings they’d have a drink, and it was a nice simple social thing that didn’t necessarily have any massive implications.

Except that of course it did, for them, and she felt her heart thump and the colour creeping up again towards her cheeks.

‘That’s nice,’ her mother said, setting the pie dish on the table and pulling up her chair. ‘So what are you going to wear?’

‘Oh, nothing smart,’ she said, wondering herself what would be appropriate. Lacy underwear?
No underwear
—?

‘Jeans and a top?’ she offered hastily, mentally fanning herself.

‘Will you be inside or out? It can get chilly if you’re sitting outside at the pub.’

‘Oh, I doubt if we’ll do that. It’s a bit breezy today.’
Especially with no underwear—

‘Well, take a jacket just in case. There’s nothing worse than being too cold.’

Cold?
Cold
? Not a chance she’d be too cold. She was practically catching fire at the thought of what was to come. The only thing that was stopping her from spontaneous combustion was the little icy finger of dread crawling up her spine at the thought of taking off her clothes in front of someone so beautiful and having to endure the disappointment in his eyes.

‘I’ll take a jacket,’ she said. ‘I’m going to walk there and back in any case. Yum, this is delicious. Thank you. So, what have you been up to today? Done anything nice?’

* * *

So there it was.

Number fifty-six, in shiny letters on the gate. She glanced up and down the street, but it was deserted, and she opened the gate and went through into the carport. There was a car in there, a sleek, wicked-looking BMW convertible that had
bad boy
written all over it, and as she closed the gate she heard the scrape of a chair and he ducked through a curtain of wisteria and walked slowly towards her.

He was dressed, like her, in jeans, with a washed-out blue cotton shirt open at the neck, and he looked good enough to eat. He gave a slight smile, and she thought he looked—relieved?

He stopped a few feet away. ‘Hi. I wasn’t sure you’d come,’ he admitted, and the touch of vulnerability took away some of her nerves.

‘I said I would,’ she told him, although she’d hesitated at the gate. Her heart was trying to climb out of her chest, her mouth was dry and her legs felt like boiled noodles, but he held out his hand and she walked up to him and put her hand in his, and he drew her to his side, dropped a gentle, undemanding kiss on her cheek and ushered her through the trailing wisteria to the secluded garden.

It was beautiful, heavy with the scent of honeysuckle, touched with the last rays of the evening sun, and it enclosed them in a little green haven. It could have been the garden of Eden, and any minute now she expected the serpent to appear with an apple.

No serpent. Just Ed, his hand warm on her spine, leading her to a little bistro set tucked into a sheltered corner. ‘I’ve got a bottle of Prosecco on ice, or if you don’t fancy that I have wine, juice, tea and coffee—all sorts,’ he said.

There was an ice bucket on the table, next to a pair of elegant champagne flutes and a cluster of bowls, and she sat down just before her legs gave way.

‘Prosecco sounds lovely. Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome. How was your mother about it?’

‘Fine. I told her I was going for a drink with you.’