The emergency doctor claims his wife

by Margaret McDonagh

Realising he was not going to pin Annie down now to a time and place to talk, Nathan sighed, took the sparse file the sister handed him, and set off for the ambulance bay to meet the patient assigned to him. As the vehicle drew up Annie joined him, keeping what she clearly thought was a safe distance between them. The doors opened and it became apparent that both their patients were aboard. Before moving forward to assist, Nathan stepped in front of Annie, forcing her to look at him.

  ‘Soon,’ he promised, trailing the tip of one finger down the smoothness of her cheek.

  By the time she had finished dealing with the young man who had suffered smoke inhalation—battling to find him a bed in already full wards, as he needed to be admitted for further observation—Annie was still unable to put Nathan’s dictate out of her mind. More worryingly, her skin continued to tingle from the gentle brush of his finger.

  What was she going to do? She was no closer to making a decision than she had been a couple of days ago, when his reappearance in her life had first driven her to her knees in shock. Even sticking to Will like glue had failed to give her the respite she had hoped for. Nathan was everywhere, and the sight of him, the sound of his voice, his every casual touch, all combined to heighten her unwanted desire for him, driving her insane with doubt and anxiety as well as flooding her mind with unbidden memories of their four years together.

  She had thought Nathan would back off once he realised she was seeing someone else, but he had been far more tenacious than she had expected. All of which left her in an agony of indecision, living on a razor-edge of tension and emotion. She was desperate to escape Nathan’s proximity. His heated looks, whispered words and teasing touches fired her blood, leaving her restless and short of breath. She was looking forward to some respite, thankful that they both had the next couple of days off before being scheduled together for three late shifts.

  ‘One more for you, Annie,’ the receptionist told her when she handed over the notes she had just completed. ‘A firefighter hurt in the workshop incident.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Annie took the notes and went through to the waiting area, having no trouble in locating her patient amongst the clusters of people taking their turn to be seen.

  ‘Anthony Milligan?’ she called, smiling as the good-looking man in uniform rose to his feet.

  He had soot smudges marking his cheeks and jaw, his jacket had been discarded, his fire service T-shirt was torn, and one forearm was wrapped in a makeshift bloodied bandage. Dark-haired and hazel-eyed, Annie judged him to be in his late twenties or early thirties. He could have stepped off the pages of a firefighters calendar, she decided, noting the way all female gazes followed his progress as she led him towards the treatment cubicles. She didn’t recognise him, and soon discovered he had only just joined the local crew, having recently moved to Strathlochan on promotion.

  They chatted as Annie pulled on her gloves and drew up a stool so she could move in closer to study the wound on his arm. ‘This looks nasty,’ she sympathized, once she had removed the dressing and started to examine the deep, jagged cut that ran several inches between his wrist and his elbow.

  ‘A canister exploded in the workshop and I was caught by some flying debris.’

  Collecting the items she needed, she set about cleaning the area, laughing at Anthony’s teasing comments as she worked.

  ‘Are you trying to chat me up?’ she teased.

  ‘Sorry.’ Unrepentant, his hazel eyes twinkled with amusement. ‘I might try it if I wasn’t gay.’

  After giving him some local anaesthetic, Annie sat back and looked at him thoughtfully. ‘And are you seeing anyone?’

  ‘Not at the moment. Like I said, I’ve just moved here and I don’t know anyone yet.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Mmm. There was someone a while ago, but…’ He paused, and she sensed lingering hurt inside him before he smiled again. ‘Well, things didn’t work out.’

  Annie took off her gloves and tossed them in the bin, a plan forming in her mind. ‘Maybe you’ve come to the right place, then.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Don’t you worry.’ She peeped out of the curtain and turned back to him with a wink. ‘I’m going to find someone to stitch that cut for you.’

  It only took her a few moments to track Will down to the staffroom, where he was snatching a rare break. Unfortunately Nathan was there, too. His presence gave her pause—it was a complication she could have done without. How was she going to alert Will without giving any hint to Nathan that her relationship with Will wasn’t genuine? One way was to keep things light and jokey, and she could resort to a code that Nathan wouldn’t understand.

  Her mind made up, she tried to ignore Nathan as she walked across to join Will, but she felt him watching her the whole time and a ripple of awareness ran along her spine.

  Nathan finished his mug of tea, his gaze on Annie as she sidled across to Will. She was up to something. He knew that mischievous expression of old, and trouble usually followed in its wake.

  ‘I’ve just met Strathlochan’s hunky new firefighter,’ she announced with a provocative smile.

  Will looked up from the medical magazine he was flicking through and raised an eyebrow in query. ‘How hunky?’

  ‘GAG hunky.’

  What the hell did GAG mean? Nathan frowned, noting the interested speculation that sparked in Will’s grey eyes as he tossed the magazine aside.

  ‘He got a nasty cut during that workshop incident earlier,’ Annie continued, her smile widening. ‘I’ve given him a local anaesthetic, and I’m just waiting for that to work before going back to stitch his arm.’

  ‘I’ll do it for you, hon,’ Will announced, rising to his feet.

  ‘I thought you might.’ Annie chuckled as Will passed her on his way to the door. ‘Cubicle Three.’

  ‘What was that about?’ Nathan’s puzzlement bettered him, and the question escaped before he could prevent it.

  ‘Nothing.’

  Annie’s frosty reply had his frown deepening. There had been undercurrents he hadn’t understood—silent messages passing between Annie and Will. Why had Will wanted to take over the stitching? Was he jealous, or worried that Annie was attracted to this ‘hunky’ firefighter?

  Before he could ask anything more, or take the chance of having some private time with Annie, the door opened and one of the nurses peeped in. ‘Sorry to disturb your break—we get few enough of them—but minors is filling up again, and Sister is on the rampage. The other doctors are busy with patients, and Robert is in Resus with a young woman with a suspected ectopic pregnancy. Can you come?’

  ‘Of course,’ he and Annie agreed in unison.

  Cursing the loss of another opportunity to speak to Annie alone, Nathan followed her back to the department. Even the customary scrubs couldn’t detract from the graceful way she moved—the sexy sway of her hips, her innate femininity. The shapeless material hid a body that made his mouth water…toned muscle, womanly curves and impossibly silky-soft skin. He couldn’t bear to believe that he would never see or touch her again—that it had been five long years since they had made love and been consumed by a fire of passion that had raged hotter and hotter between them.

  More than anything he wanted to sweep her into his arms, carry her off somewhere private and never let her go again. The temptation to do so was great. Will or no Will. And, whilst he’d never had caveman tendencies before, if Annie found ways to avoid him for much longer he might just have to act out of sheer desperation. Then, after he’d loved her into oblivion and sated the desire that burned within him, he would somehow make her listen—make her face up to the mistakes they had both made in the past. He didn’t absolve himself, but Annie had to accept the truth of her own responsibility, and at the moment she wasn’t doing that.

  So desperate was he to spend time with her that he had even agreed to fill a gap in the department’s ten-pin bowling team that evening. He was uneasy in social situations but, having discovered
Annie was on the team, he was prepared to do whatever was necessary to keep in her sight and her thoughts. Even if it meant being with other people, who made him uncomfortable.

  Frustrated at the way Annie was ignoring him, edgy and uncertain about where things might go between them, he took the file handed to him at Reception and went in search of his next patient. It turned out to be a quick and simple case to solve. A teenage girl, who had just begun to use contact lenses, had experienced difficulty removing one, causing her to panic and make her eye sore. Under the watchful gaze of the girl’s father, Nathan moistened the displaced soft lens with saline, and was then able to remove the offending object without too much problem. After giving her advice on how to bathe her eye, and guidance on how to use her lenses, he showed her and her father out.

  Nathan returned to the desk to sign off his case and collect the information for his next patient just as Will pulled back the curtain around Cubicle Three and escorted the injured firefighter towards Reception. Nathan looked the man over. He supposed he was attractive, in the rugged pin-up sort of way that appealed to women. Will shook the man’s hand and moved to wipe his details off the main whiteboard, signifying the treatment cubicle was free. Nathan was about to turn away when Annie appeared out of nowhere and hurried towards the exit after the departing firefighter.

  ‘She wouldn’t…’ Will groaned.

  Standing beside him, Nathan watched as Annie put her hand on the firefighter’s arm, talking and laughing with him. They both looked round, glancing towards Will and himself, and then the firefighter was writing something on a piece of paper Annie gave him, smiling as he tucked it in the pocket of her scrubs. With that he turned and left.

  ‘Damn it, Annie, what have you done?’ Will demanded as Annie walked back to them, giving a saucy wink as she approached.

  ‘Anthony doesn’t know anyone here. So I’ve got his number and said we’d be happy to help him settle in.’ Unrepentant, she grinned. ‘He’s coming to the get-together tonight—and I’ve invited him round for dinner next week.’

  Stunned at the way Annie was all but taunting Will, having flirted with another man right in front of him, Nathan felt his concern and puzzlement increase. The Annie he had known five years ago would never have done such a thing. Had she changed that much? She had kissed him, after all, while being involved with Will. A knot of disappointment tightened inside him.

  Will advanced towards her. ‘Are you going to give me that piece of paper?’

  ‘I haven’t decided!’

  ‘I’ll have to spank you if you don’t behave,’ Will warned, but Annie just laughed and kissed his cheek.

  ‘Promises, promises!’ Picking up a patient file, she headed to the waiting room, glancing back over her shoulder. ‘Be nice to me and who knows what I’ll do for you?’

  Nathan had tensed at the very idea of Will spanking Annie, even if she thought it was funny. He turned to remonstrate, expecting to find anger on the other man’s face, but Will was laughing.

  ‘She’s amazing, isn’t she?’

  ‘Amazing,’ Nathan murmured.

  As Will took the next file out of the tray and went to call his own patient, Nathan shook his head, totally bemused. What on earth was going on between those two? He was determined to find out. Because there was something very odd that he was missing, and if all was not well between the couple he needed to know. If there was the vaguest chance that he could win Annie back, he planned on doing it.

  Somehow he was going to get Annie alone, sort out the past, unravel the present, and see if there was any way they could still have a future together.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘ARE you ready to go, hon? We’re going to be late.’

  ‘I’ll be there in a minute,’ Annie called down the stairs, in response to Will’s query.

  The evening she had been so looking forward to—meeting up with friends, relaxing and having fun—had become an ordeal to be faced now she had learned that Nathan had been cajoled into filling the empty space on the A and E department’s ten-pin bowling team. Spending time with him, albeit in the company of others, was not a good idea. Not given how horribly aware she was of him, and how her body betrayed her at the slightest provocation. While her mind rebelled, filled with hurt and fear and confusion, urging her to keep Nathan at a distance, every cell and hormone within her came surging to life around him and demanded she rip his clothes off and have her way with him.

  No way was she going to do that, she assured herself. She wasn’t. She couldn’t afford the pain of repeating the past. So why was she still in front of the mirror, fussing with her appearance in a way she hadn’t bothered doing for years? an annoying inner voice taunted her. She refused to admit that she had taken extra care to look nice because of Nathan. Disconcerted, she set down her hairbrush, dabbed her pulse-points with her favourite jasmine scent and walked out of the room, determined to set Nathan from her mind.

  Only his image refused to be banished. She saw him as she had first known him, reserved and alone, and as he was now, more mature, just as attractive and sexy, but still with that aloof, unapproachable air. She saw him as he was in his doctor role, caring and attentive, incredibly gentle and sweet with children, respectful and kind to the elderly, stalwart and ice-cool in an emergency. She could see his rare smile, see the way the shutters sometimes came down to hide his emotions, see that heated, sensual look that darkened his eyes when he looked at her. She shivered in response to the memory of that look.

  Then she nearly laughed out loud as she recalled the utter confusion that had been on his face that afternoon when she had accosted Anthony Milligan, the new firefighter, and got his phone number before he had left the hospital. She could only imagine what Nathan had thought. It was clear he had no clue what had happened, and hadn’t deciphered the code she and Will used.

  Her smile faded as she jogged down the stairs and followed Will outside into the chilly night air. It had seemed such a good plan at the time. She really liked Anthony. He was smart and funny, and it was clear he and Will had hit it off. She had been so pleased with herself that the implications of her matchmaking had taken a while to sink in. Only while enjoying a hot shower before preparing for the evening out had she realised that if she succeeded in getting Will and Anthony together it was going to seriously affect her own situation. She needed Will as a diversion against Nathan, but she also wanted Will to be happy. He deserved it, and had been on his own too long after his painful break-up with that creep Carl. Anthony could be just what he needed—and vice versa, she thought, remembering Anthony’s own story.

  Sitting in silence in the car, on the way to the sports and entertainment complex that housed the ten-pin bowling lanes, Annie worried her lower lip with her teeth. If she wasn’t very careful things were going to get impossibly complicated.

  The truth of that was driven home to her as the evening progressed. The usual crowd of assorted medical staff, fire and rescue personnel and police officers had assembled for their monthly gathering. Noisy, irreverent and exuberant, they mingled and chatted over vast quantities of pizza, beer and soft drinks, whilst taking turns on the bowling lanes, each four-person team determined to win for their unit or department.

  Trying to avoid Nathan, Annie first sat with her friend Gina McNaught. One of the best trauma nurses Annie had worked with, Gina had left the hospital a few months ago to join the staff at the town’s new multi-purpose drop-in centre. It was Gina’s defection from the A and E bowling team that had left a spot open for Nathan to fill tonight. After spending some time with Gina, and hearing all about her upcoming wedding, planned for May, Annie arranged to meet up with her to go swimming and have lunch on the next day they were both off duty. She swiftly moved on when she spotted Nathan closing in on her.

  Annie managed to escape only because he had been waylaid by Olivia Barr. Watching the nurse flirt shamelessly with Nathan made her uncomfortable, and she experienced deep satisfaction at the way Nathan evaded the predatory
woman. Another sign of her contrariness. Annie sighed, confused at her wayward emotions. She didn’t want to feel anything, but she couldn’t stop her warm, fuzzy relief at Nathan’s obvious uninterest in Olivia, who flounced away in her high heels and impossibly short skirt, a disgruntled pout on her furious face.

  And now Nathan was deep in conversation with two of the drop-in centre’s doctors: Seb Adriani, Gina’s handsome Italian fiancé, and Thornton Gallagher, the enigmatic clinical director. At that moment Nathan glanced up and met her gaze. There was a promise—or a threat—in his dark eyes, one that matched his earlier one-word declaration…‘soon’. It warned her that, however much she tried to hide in plain sight, she was not going to evade and deny him for long. The sensual hunger he made no effort to mask caused a slow-burn heat to warm her from the inside out, trapping the breath in her lungs and tightening the hollow ache in her womb. How could he still affect her so intensely after all the heartache he had caused her? Did she have no sense of self-preservation?

  Annie set down her drink when she realised her hands were shaking. If only Nathan had never come to Strathlochan. Exactly why he had, and why he was so determined to pursue things with her now, she was too scared to examine. Far better that she kept her distance. She couldn’t allow him close again. The pain had been so terrible last time that she knew she would never survive a second experience. He hadn’t cared for her enough before—had rejected her, refused to commit—so why did he want her now? What was the purpose in raking over dead ground and opening old wounds after all this time?

  ‘So, what’s the story with you and Nathan?’

  ‘Mmm?’

  Callie’s voice had penetrated Annie’s troubled reverie, and she pulled her gaze away from Nathan’s compelling, almost psychic hold with difficulty and turned towards the woman who sat next to her. Callie was positively glowing—unsurprising, as not only was married life clearly agreeing with her, but she had just confided that she was pregnant.