Risk of a Lifetime (Mills & Boon Medical) (9 page)

Except it wasn’t love, and she didn’t want it to be. And neither did he.

But it had certainly been spectacular.

Win-win.

‘I think I’ll just get a glass of water and go to bed, then, if you’re not staying up,’ she said, glad she didn’t have to stay and chat while her mother grilled her. ‘Thanks for looking after the girls. I take it they didn’t wake up?’

‘No, they’re fast asleep, I haven’t had a peep out of them.’

‘Bless you. I’ll go and tuck them up. ’Night, Mum.’ She dropped a kiss on her mother’s cheek, checked the girls and went into the bathroom. She caught a glimpse of her naked body in the mirror, and her eyes widened.

Whisker-burn, over her nipples, around her collar bone, a touch of it across her lip.

She touched it, remembering the feel of his mouth, the slight rasp of stubble on her body. So, so sexy. And he hadn’t recoiled in horror when he’d seen her. Far from it. He’d even come back for more...

Smiling to herself, she cleaned her teeth, took off her make-up and went to bed.

* * *

He strolled slowly home, the smile that wouldn’t seem to fade teasing the corners of his mouth.

For some crazy reason, probably because it had been a while, he’d been really wound up before she’d arrived, but her own nerves had calmed him and once he’d kissed her, any hesitation had gone. Well and truly.

He blew his breath out slowly through his mouth. She’d been so responsive, so warm, so ready, so generous. She’d held nothing back, and neither had he, and it had been amazing.

As far as he was concerned, the evening had been a definite success. He was pretty sure she agreed, but time would tell. He’d see her at work in the morning. Sheesh. That would be a challenge. It had been difficult enough before.

He shut the gate behind him and locked it, then walked across the garden. There was a crunch, and he looked down and saw the breadstick on the paving. She’d dropped it when he’d pulled her to her feet, right before he’d kissed her. He closed his eyes briefly as the memory crashed over him, leaving fire in its wake.

He wanted her again. Now. This minute.

But he couldn’t have her. There was a time and a place, and this wasn’t it.

He sent her a text.

Great evening. Thank you. See you tomorrow.

His phone pinged, and he pulled up the reply.

The pleasure was all mine ;-) A x

He smiled, keyed in his reply and hit Send.

Two streets away, Annie opened his reply.

I think not. We should check it out again some time soon.

She grinned. It couldn’t be soon enough.

Whenever you’re ready.

She typed with her lip caught between her teeth, excitement and anticipation fizzing in her veins.

She hit Send, put the phone down on her bedside table, snuggled down under the quilt and lay there hugging her feelings to her chest. He’d been—amazing, really. Warm, funny, sexy—oh, yes, so-o-o sexy—and after the initial few moments he’d seemed more relaxed than she’d ever seen him.

She thought about his grandfather, and ached for him. He was gutted. It was obvious how much he loved the old man, obvious how much they were all hurting. No wonder he’d needed this so much, a time out from the inescapable reality of life and death.

Old age could bring many joys and pleasures, but it could also bring great sadness. She knew this. She’d lost her father before she was old enough to understand, but she’d watched her grandmother and mother cope with the loss of her own grandfather only a few years ago, and she knew first-hand the impact such a loss had on a family.

Well, that was fine. He could chill out with her, take time out from the hellish emotional roller coaster they were riding, and she could have some simple, uncomplicated fun, something that had been sorely lacking from her life for the past three years.

Except for the girls. The girls were fun, great fun, and she adored them, but tonight...

Tonight had been personal.

Deeply personal, she thought, and heat washed through her again at some of the things he’d done to her. She was sure they’d barely scratched the surface of his repertoire, but it hadn’t for a moment felt sordid or tacky. Far from it. He’d made her feel special, cherished. Beautiful.

She rolled to her side, hugged her pillow close and waited for sleep to come. She wouldn’t sleep, she knew that. She was so wired—

The yawn caught her by surprise. Her muscles ached, she felt tired and relaxed, as if she’d just had a workout. Her mouth tilted into a sleepy smile. Funny, that...

CHAPTER FIVE

T
HE
FOLLOWING
DAY
was—well, to call it interesting was an understatement.

Every time he turned round, Annie was there, and now that he knew exactly what was under her scrubs, he was finding it increasingly difficult to keep his body under control.

She bent over to get something out of a cupboard, and he groaned. Scratch difficult. He was finding it impossible. Utterly impossible.

He found himself some admin to do, sitting at a desk with his back to her, but he knew she was there, his radar now so attuned to her that he could sense her distance from him down to microns.

‘Paediatric trauma call, five minutes. Paediatric trauma call, five minutes.’

Thank God.

He shot the chair back and headed for Resus.

* * *

‘Have you and Ed fallen out?’

Annie flicked a quick glance at Kate and looked away again hastily. ‘No, of course not.’
Far from it.

‘Are you sure? Because for two people who are supposedly speaking, you’re both doing a fine job of ignoring each other.’

‘Rubbish. What makes you say that?’

Kate rolled her eyes and sighed. ‘Annie, you haven’t so much as
looked
at him today if you haven’t had to! And he hasn’t looked at you either—well, not openly. There’s been the odd sly glance—’

Annie snapped the file shut and turned to Kate. ‘There have been no
sly
glances, we aren’t
not speaking
, we’re just busy and we haven’t had occasion to. Mrs Grover’s results are back, she’s fine. Please discharge her and tell her to go to her GP if she gets a recurrence of her symptoms.’

She thrust the notes at Kate and headed for Resus, determined to prove her wrong, and looked Ed straight in the eye.

‘Need any help with this one?’

He looked straight back, utterly professional, focused on the job. Wow, he was good. If she hadn’t seen him lose control so spectacularly in her arms yesterday, she wouldn’t have believed it.

‘Could do. Seven-year-old boy, fallen onto his arm from a climbing frame in a school playground. Sounds like a very nasty fracture. I’ve contacted the ortho team but we need to assess him for head and other injuries. Possible LOC briefly at the scene, they aren’t sure.’

She nodded. ‘OK. Are you leading?’

‘If that’s all right?’

She nodded again. ‘Sure. You’re the paeds guru.’

Their patient arrived a moment later, a skinny, gangly boy with a chalk-white face and a mother who didn’t look much better. The paramedic filled them in.

‘This is Oliver Wells. He missed a handhold on the climbing frame and fell six feet onto a rubber mat, but he landed awkwardly on his left arm.’

‘Awkwardly’ was an understatement, Annie thought, looking at the child’s splinted arm propped on a pillow. It was a mess.

‘Possible loss of consciousness for a moment, but they think he might have fainted. GCS fifteen all the time we’ve been with him.’ The paramedic reeled off the stats and the treatment to date, and they transferred him to the resus bed and introduced themselves.

While Ed checked him over and calmly issued instructions, Annie took the mother to one side and talked to her for a moment, calming her down and trying to reassure her before going back to Oliver’s side.

He was trying so hard not to cry, but he had to be in significant pain. Frankly, that arm was enough to make the toughest of men cry, she thought, and he was just a little boy.

There was no sign of a head injury, no bumps or bruises or other indications, but they were still waiting for the X-rays and in the meantime his arm was their concern.

‘How’s the pulse in his wrist?’ she asked softly, and Ed met her eyes across the child’s body.

‘Weak,’ he murmured. ‘Where are the orthos?’

‘Coming, I think. Ah, here’s the radiographer.’

The pictures spoke for themselves. The bones above and below the elbow joint were all fractured, the tip of the elbow had been sheared off and it was going to take some very skilled surgery to put him back together.

‘Right, send that to the orthopaedic surgeon on call and say I want him down here stat,’ Ed said crisply, just as the door swung open.

‘Hi. You’ve got a query fractured arm for me?’

‘I don’t think there’s a query,’ Ed said drily, and flicked through all the views on the screen.

‘Well, isn’t it a good job I like jigsaws?’ the surgeon said, wincing, and turned to the family. ‘Hi, there. Oliver, is it? And are you his mother?’

‘Yes.’

He was swiftly assessed for surgery and shipped out in the company of the nurse, leaving them alone with nothing between them but air that was filled with tension.

Ed met her eyes and his lips flickered in a wicked smile. ‘Well, hi, Dr Brooks,’ he murmured. ‘How are you today?’

She smiled back, suddenly shy as the memory of what they’d done last night flooded through her. ‘I’m fine. I thought I’d better come and do something with you. Kate thought we’d had a row.’ She gave him a wry smile. ‘Apparently we’ve done too good a job of keeping our distance.’

He gave a slightly raw laugh. ‘OK. Well, do you think we’ve passed the test?’

‘I have no idea. I hope so.’

‘Time for coffee?’

‘Love one. Is that going too far?’

‘Hell, no. We can have coffee, Annie. We just can’t grope each other on the bench.’

Her eyes widened, then she started to laugh.

‘You are so rude.’

‘I’d like to be. Come on, before that damn phone rings.’

They took it to their usual spot, and he sat with his elbows on his knees and the paper cup dangling between them from his fingers, and she didn’t have a clue what he was thinking. Oh, well, only one way to find out.

‘Penny for them,’ she said, and he turned his head and gave her a wry smile.

‘I was just thinking if I sat like this long enough maybe my body would start to behave itself.’

She felt her nipples spring to attention. ‘Well, that’ll teach you to talk about groping me on the bench.’

‘Won’t it just?’ He sat back, crossed one leg over the other knee and took a mouthful of coffee. ‘So, since our minds are clearly on the subject, when are you free next?’

She felt her jaw sag slightly as heat shot through her, and shut her mouth fast. ‘Um—not tonight, Mum’s got something on, and tomorrow she’s got book club—that’s every Wednesday, so they’re all out. Thursday my grandmother’s coming over for supper and we’re going to watch a film together.’

‘Friday?’

She nodded, thinking it sounded like for ever, but there was no way they could meet up sooner and she didn’t want to get in too deep too soon anyway. ‘Friday I can do.’

‘Thank goodness for that.’ He sighed, and his mouth twisted in a slight smile. ‘I was beginning to wonder if you’d have to wash your hair.’

‘Ed, I’m not making excuses,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I’m really sorry it’s so long, but at least from my mother’s point of view it won’t look suspiciously like we’re properly seeing each other, and I can always make it sound like a group of colleagues going out. It has been known. If it’s any consolation,’ she added, going for broke because it was a little late for any pretence at reluctance, ‘I’d happily make it tonight.’

She heard the suck of his breath, then a muttered oath. ‘Why? Why tell me that here, now, when there’s nothing we can do about it?’

She laughed softly. ‘Because I didn’t want you to think I wasn’t interested?’

‘I think we proved that one already,’ he said drily. ‘On both sides.’

‘Yeah. Maybe we did.’

‘No maybe about it. Sheesh, Annie, this is going to be so tough.’

She shook her head, a curious feeling of disappointment washing over her as she mentally scanned their rotas. Disappointment she hastily crushed. ‘Well, if it’s any help I’m not working tomorrow, I’m working on Thursday and you’re off then, and neither of us are on duty on Friday, so it’s only today we’ve got to deal with. We should be able to cope with that.’

Except that meant he wouldn’t see her again for days, and he was shocked at the stab of disappointment that realisation brought with it.

‘Probably as well,’ he said, suddenly troubled by how deep in he seemed to have got already.

It’s just physical. It doesn’t mean anything, just that she’s hot and you want more than just one night.

But it wasn’t that. Or at least, not just that. And that
was
troubling. Very troubling. Damn.

‘Time to go,’ he said abruptly, and necked his coffee and went, leaving Annie sitting on the bench slightly open-mouthed and wondering what she’d missed.

Maybe he was miffed that she wasn’t more readily available, that maybe he should have gone for Kate after all? And then she wouldn’t be feeling like this, so desperate to spend time with him that Friday seemed light years away.

She was getting in too deep. She’d thought she could have fun, but maybe she wasn’t strong enough, and maybe a little more distance this week would be good for them both.

She finished her coffee and followed him, but she made sure that for the rest of the day they weren’t working together.

Better safe than sorry...

* * *

Friday crawled round.

The days seemed endless, divided between work and his grandparents’ house, dealing with the fallout of his grandfather’s relentless deterioration, and as for the nights...

The nights were hell on wheels.

He was on duty on Wednesday night, which was a relief because he didn’t have to spend the night lying awake with a throbbing groin and the ridiculous urge to go round to her house and climb in the window and bury himself in her before he went mad.