by Sarah Morgan
Georgie felt her colour go to an all-time high. ‘I thought I was here for a cup of coffee, not a discussion about my history of men’s nether regions,’ she said in a clipped tone.
He shifted his mouth from side to side in a contemplative manner. ‘Leaving my burnt groin aside for the moment, is your offer to help my sister shop a genuine one?’
She was momentarily nudged off course by his rapid change of subject. ‘Yes, of course it was,’ she answered. ‘I love shopping and would be glad to help.’
‘Good,’ he said. ‘What about we meet Saturday morning in the city at the Market Street entrance to the Queen Victoria Building, say, at ten?’
‘That would be fine,’ she said. ‘I’m not on call and I was going shopping anyway.’
‘Right, then,’ he said as he got to his feet. ‘Let’s go and chase down a cup of coffee. There’s a café just outside the hospital grounds. I don’t know about you, but I hate the cafeteria stuff.’
‘So only the designer blend will do, huh?’ Georgie said with a pert look. ‘Don’t tell me you’re a bit of coffee snob?’
He held her gaze for a couple of beats. ‘A cup of decent coffee now and again isn’t going to break my budget,’ he returned as he held the door open.
Georgie brushed past him in the door, her nostrils widening to take in the clean male scent of him, her stomach clenching and unclenching at the thought of him holding her close as he had last night. Her body could still feel the hard imprint of his. She had lain awake for hours thinking about him, wondering how she was going to cope with working alongside him for a whole year without falling in love with him. She even wondered if she was starting to do so now. Overhearing his conversation with his mother and witnessing the tender concern he had for his sister was enough to melt any hardened female heart.
The café he took her to was a popular coffee chain, one that had opened up recently. It was buzzing with the second-wave morning crowd but they still managed to find a small table at the back once their coffees were ready.
Georgie kept the lid on her latte and the risk of another spill. No doubt second degree burns would be next and an examination mandatory, so she sipped her coffee through the tiny spout instead.
‘About last night.’ they said in unison.
‘You go first,’ they said, again in unison.
Georgie looked at him and smiled at exactly the same time as he did. ‘I really didn’t mean to toss my coffee in your lap like that,’ she said. ‘I admit I was tempted to throw it in your face but I wouldn’t have done it no matter how provocative you were being.’
‘Was I being provocative?’ he asked with an all-too-innocent look.
She gave him a mock frown. ‘You know you were.’
His mouth stretched into a guilty-as-charged grin. ‘All right, I admit it. Sorry, but I can’t seem to help it. You press all my buttons for some reason.’
Georgie examined the plastic lid of her coffee cup. ‘I guess we didn’t exactly meet under the best of circumstances,’ she said, running the tip of her index finger over the brand name embellished there.
‘No, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a good working relationship,’ he said. ‘You did a good job this morning, especially considering your lack of experience.’
Georgie could feel herself glowing again under the warmth of his praise. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I was really nervous.’
‘You didn’t show it.’
‘I was shaking in my shoes.’
‘As long as your hands are steady I don’t care what your legs are doing,’ he said, and then after a tiny pause added, ‘I’ve been thinking about that patient we operated on this morning, Mrs Tander. I can’t help thinking her injuries were inconsistent with the details we were given about the accident.’ ‘Have you spoken to the police?’
He drummed his fingers on the table for a moment before he answered. ‘Not yet. But I’m considering it. I don’t want to create suspicion unnecessarily—it would cause a lot of distress to the family. But the husband escaped with minor bruising—strange, considering he was the driver. That sort of head injury can be caused by hitting the steering-wheel if airbags aren’t fitted or didn’t inflate.’
‘Her side hit the tree,’ Georgie pointed out. ‘It’s not unreasonable that she would take the brunt of the impact.’
‘I know, but I have a gut feeling about this.’
She raised her brows at him. ‘You’re starting to sound like Rhiannon,’ she told him. ‘She’s into feeling and intuition and other things heading towards the paranormal. She even consults a clairvoyant regularly.’
‘No kidding?’ he said with a crooked smile as he casually hooked one arm over the back of the vacant chair beside him.
Georgie had to tear her eyes away from the bunching of his biceps. ‘Yes, her name is Madame Celestia,’ she said trying not to stare at the sexy tilt of his mouth. ‘Rhiannon is totally convinced the woman has special powers. She even had the gall to consult this woman on my behalf. I would have been really angry if I believed for a minute any of it was true.’
‘What did this clairvoyant say about you?’ he asked.
‘She said I was going to marry a blonde doctor,’ she answered with a can-you-believe-it roll of her eyes.
His right shoulder went up and down in a little shrug of assent. ‘It could happen.’
She looked at him in surprise. ‘You surely don’t believe in any of that nonsense, do you?’
‘No, of course not, but you are a doctor and spend a large proportion of your time with other medicos so it’s not unreasonable to assume you’ll end up in a relationship with one at some point. Most of my medical friends are hooked up with colleagues. Besides, who’s got the time to go anywhere else to meet someone?’
She gave him an embittered look. ‘I’ve had two relationships with doctors and both of them were disasters. My last one had an ex-girlfriend he was still seeing while he was dating me.’
‘Yeah, well, I know that feeling,’ he admitted ruefully. ‘Leila was seeing someone else on the nights I was on call. It had been going on for a couple of months before I found out about it.’
‘That’s terrible!’ Georgie said. ‘You must have been devastated.’
He gave a dismissive shrug. ‘I should have known she wasn’t the right one. My sister hated her on sight and so did my mother.’
‘You’re really close to your family, aren’t you?’ she asked.
His eyes met hers across the table. ‘When you’ve been through the sort of stuff we’ve been through as a family you either pull together or pull apart. We were lucky enough to pull together. My stepfather is a great man who has been a fabulous father figure to me, even though no one could ever really replace my real father. I have enormous respect for Jack as it’s the hardest job in the world to love someone else’s kid.’
Georgie felt another tight gear shift in her chest. ‘You are lucky as I have several friends who positively loathe their stepparents,’ she said. ‘It’s made their relationships with their real parents very strained, which is terribly sad.’
‘As I said, it’s not easy taking on the responsibility of someone else’s children, but Jack has done so without complaint,’ Ben said. ‘In fact, if you hadn’t been told you’d never guess I wasn’t his biological child. He treats me exactly the same as he treats Hannah.’
‘I’m looking forward to meeting her,’ Georgie said.
‘Thanks for coming to the rescue,’ he said. ‘I was starting to panic about helping her choose underwear and things like that. There’s eighteen years between us so she’s always been a little girl to me, but now she’s thinking about boys and dating. It’s scary stuff.’
‘It’s hard, being a girl,’ she said, ‘especially at that age. You’re sort of stuck with a foot in both camps. Not quite an adult, not quite a child.’
He picked up his coffee again. ‘Was it hard for you, growing up as an only child?’
She ran her finger over the r
aised logo again. ‘I had my moments of wishing I had less of my parents’ company but on the whole I think I’ve been lucky. Although I’ve often wondered what it would have been like to have a brother or sister, especially now as my parents seem a bit lost and vulnerable.’
‘I can’t imagine your father ever allowing himself to be vulnerable,’ he commented. ‘He’s the archetypal control freak.’
‘Not according to Madeleine Brothers,’ she put in with a tilt of her chin. ‘She spoke of him with nothing but praise, so your attempt to discredit him in my eyes failed. No one I’ve spoken to thus far has said a bad word about him.’
‘That’s because you’ve been speaking to the wrong people,’ he countered. ‘Madeleine worked with him for a short time in a private hospital, not a cash-strapped public one with overworked staff.’
‘She warned me about you,’ Georgie said. ‘She said you were a heartbreaker.’
His brows lifted slightly. ‘Did she?’
‘Yes.’
‘I can assure you I am nothing of the sort,’ he said. ‘For one thing I don’t have the time to date indiscriminately, and secondly I’m starting to feel the need to settle down.’
Georgie couldn’t help feeling surprised by his open admission. Most men his age were reluctant to date monogamously, one-night stands and short-term casual hook-ups being the preferred choice of dealing with their sexual needs.
‘You look as if I’ve suddenly grown two heads,’ he commented. ‘Isn’t it de rigueur for an almost thirty-five-year-old man to admit to wanting a wife and family?’
‘It’s not all that common these days,’ she said. ‘Most of the men I’ve met are commitment-shy. The mere mention of a baby sends them running faster than a greyhound on steroids.’
He smiled at the cynical twist to her mouth. ‘You’ve obviously been meeting the wrong men, Georgie. I know about twenty farmers who are desperately looking for a good woman to settle down with. Perhaps it’s just city men who don’t want the whole deal.’
She lowered her gaze from the deep blue intensity of his. ‘Perhaps …’
‘Come on,’ he said after a tiny pause. ‘We’d better get back to work. You’re working on Richard DeBurgh’s theatre list with him this afternoon, aren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ Georgie said as she followed him out of the café, her forehead beginning to furrow in a frown of apprehension.
He looked down at her as they waited for the pedestrian lights to change. ‘Don’t be nervous, Georgie,’ he said. ‘You’re doing just fine.’
She gave him a little lopsided smile. ‘Thanks, it’s kind of you to say so.’
He led the way as the ‘walk’ sign appeared, his long strides making her almost skip to keep up. ‘We need to get together some time in the next week or so to work on your research proposal,’ he said as they went through the front entrance. ‘I’m seeing public patients in the clinic this afternoon and I’m operating at Greenfield Private tomorrow, so how about Friday afternoon, say, five?’
‘OK,’ she said. ‘Shall I meet you in your office?’
‘Yes, that would be good. I have to pick up Hannah at Central Station at seven so that should give us enough time to get the outline down on paper.’
He reached for his mobile as it started to ring. ‘Ben Blackwood,’ he said, and frowned as he listened to the caller. ‘All right. I’ll be there in ten minutes.’
‘An emergency?’ Georgie asked.
‘Not here,’ he answered. ‘One of my private patients has developed pneumonia. I’d better go and have a look at him before I start my public clinic. If anything comes in while I’m away, get Madeleine to cover for me. I’ll give her a call now to warn her.’ He opened his phone again and added before he pressed rapid dial, ‘Don’t forget what I said about my suspicions about Mrs Tander. Gut feelings aside, I haven’t heard anything from the police and until I do, let’s keep a lid on it.’
‘Good idea,’ Georgie said and watched as he strode back out of the hospital entrance, the phone pressed to his ear as he chatted to his colleague, his long legs making short work of the distance to where his utility was parked in the hospital car park.
She let out a shaky little sigh and turned towards the lifts. A girl could get kind of used to having that heartbreakingly handsome smile bestowed on her every day of her life.
CHAPTER TEN
GEORGIE was totally exhausted by the time her list with Richard DeBurgh ended and she still had three more hours of on call before she could finally relax. Richard had been encouraging towards her but he was nothing like Ben in Theatre. Richard had a tendency to snap at the nursing staff if instruments weren’t handed to him quickly enough, and when a patient with a meningioma had a major venous bleed from the sagittal sinus he swore as his tension level rose, which made everyone feel on edge. At one point he bellowed at Georgie for bumping the microscope while he was suturing the sagittal sinus bleed, and although he had moved it himself, she knew there was no point in trying to defend herself.
Linda Reynolds, the scrub nurse Georgie had met in Ben’s theatre on her first day, caught up with her in the female change rooms once the list was over.
‘See what I mean about there being a waiting list to work on Ben’s lists?’ she said as she stripped off her theatre scrubs. ‘Richard is fine unless things go awry. Don’t take it too personally if he occasionally shouts at you. He’s not the first and he probably won’t be the last.’
‘I know,’ Georgie said. ‘I hate it when surgeons do that though. It doesn’t help things at all to lose your cool. I get so flustered when people shout at me and that’s when mistakes get made. Why don’t they offer compulsory anger management courses at the college?’
Linda smiled as she untied her bandana. ‘Tell me about it,’ she said. ‘Mind you, your father had a bit of a temper at times.’
Georgie met the scrub nurse’s gaze in the mirror. ‘I’ve heard both good and bad reports about my father,’ she said. ‘It makes me feel a bit confused. He’s never raised his voice to me once in the whole of my life. He’s one of the most placid people I know.’
Linda bent down to pull off her paper overshoes. ‘Yeah, well, stressful jobs have a habit of extracting different facets of personality from all of us, I guess. The angel at home, the devil at work scenario is very common,’ she offered. ‘Take me, for instance. I’m fanatical about cleanliness in Theatre and yet you should see my kitchen at home. It drives my husband nuts. He’s forever coming after me with antibacterial spray and paper wipes when I’m cooking.’
Georgie smiled. ‘I guess you’re right.’
Linda straightened and turned to look at her directly. ‘How are you and Ben getting along after your rough start?’ she asked.
Georgie wondered if anyone had seen them have coffee that morning or dinner the night before. The hospital community was a small one and many staff members lived locally. Gossiping about colleagues was an occupational hazard—one she wanted to avoid if she could. ‘Fine,’ she answered, shifting her gaze. ‘He’s been very gracious about it all.’
‘He’s a gorgeous guy and I don’t just mean in looks,’ Linda said. ‘He’s got such a heart for patients. I reckon half of the time he spends advocating for patients against ridiculous decisions made by hospital management in their splendid isolation from the actual people they are meant to listen to. He works too hard, of course, but, then, most of us around here do. It’s part of the profession, but he always seems to go that extra mile. I guess it’s the country boy in him. You know what they say—you can take the boy out of the country but you can’t take the country out of the boy.’
Georgie grimaced inwardly at how insulting she had been when she’d refused his offer of a lift home the previous evening. She had come across as a toffee-nosed brat, born to wealth and privilege and overbearingly proud of it.
‘Well, I’m off,’ Linda said as she went to the door. ‘What are you planning for this evening?’
‘Once my on-call is over
I’m going to the gym, have some dinner and then fall into bed.’
Linda’s green eyes began to sparkle. ‘You sound exactly like someone else I know,’ she said. Patting her tubby belly, she added, ‘Do a couple of hundred abdominal crunches for me, OK?’
Belinda Bronson was in the cardio room when Georgie arrived so she took the treadmill next to her. ‘How’s it going, Belinda?’ she asked as she started her warm-up. ‘Is it your day off?’
‘Yep, thank God,’ the policewoman said, wiping her forehead with her wristband. ‘I’ve got four days off. I tell you, the way I’m feeling after the last few days, if I have to face another drunken, drugged-up dropout, I’ll scream.’
‘I don’t know how you do it,’ Georgie said. ‘It must be so hard dealing with violent people, not to mention being first on the scene at horrific accidents and murders.’
‘You get used to most of it after a while—sometimes unexpected things can get under your guard,’ Belinda said. ‘My mother thinks I’ve toughened up too much. She reckons I scare men off. But you have to toughen up, don’t you? You’d be the same dealing with sick people. I mean they don’t all get better, do they?’
‘No, they certainly don’t,’ Georgie agreed, thinking of Marianne Tander, who was still in a coma and unlikely to recover.
They chatted about other things for a while before Georgie decided to discuss the Tanders’ accident with her. She reasoned Belinda was a cop so Ben’s instructions to keep things quiet didn’t include talking to a member of the police force. She gave Belinda the details of the accident and the injuries the wife had sustained and expressed her own and Ben’s concerns that the left-side head injury seemed unusual in a motor vehicle accident unless air bags hadn’t been fitted to the car.
‘I’ll have a look into the accident report for you,’ Belinda said. ‘It could well have been an old-model car. If there’s anything suspicious about it the accident investigation team will get onto it pretty quickly, if they haven’t already.’
