by Amy Andrews
No wonder Julian had taken a shine to her.
But looking at the fresh-faced woman before him, he knew that’s where the similarities ended. This woman exuded openness, friendliness, an innocence, almost, that his wife had never had.
Her hair had been dragged back into its band, rather hurriedly by the look of it, with strands wisping out everywhere. It hadn’t been neatly coiffed and primped until every hair was in place.
And Camilla wouldn’t have dared leave the house without make-up. This woman…Nat…was more the girl-next-door version of Camilla. Not the posh English version he’d married.
Even her perfume was different. Camilla had always favoured heavy, spicy perfumes that lingered long after she’d left the room. Nat Davies smelled like a flower garden. And…Plasticine. It was an intriguing mix.
Most importantly, her gaze was free of artifice, free of agenda, and he felt instantly more relaxed around her then he ever had with Camilla.
Alessandro took the proffered hand and gave it a brief shake before extracting his own. ‘Alessandro Lombardi.’
Nat blinked as the fleeting contact did funny things to her pulse. His voice was deep and rich like red wine and dark chocolate, his faint accent adding a glamorous edge to his exotic-sounding name. But the bronzed skin that stretched over the hard planes and angles of his face remained taut and Nat had the impression he wasn’t given to great shows of emotion.
No wonder Julian rarely smiled if he lived with Mr Impassive. Nat looked down at Julian, who was inspecting the floor. ‘Julian, matey, would you like to take Possum Magic home? It’s part of our library. Maybe your papa could read it to you before bed tonight.’
Nat watched as Julian glanced hesitantly at his father, his solemn features heartbreakingly unhopeful.
Alessandro nodded. ‘Si.’
Nat passed the book to Julian, who still looked grave despite his father’s approval. Did he think perhaps his father wouldn’t read him the book? She had to admit that Alessandro Lombardi didn’t look like the cuddle-up-in-bed-with-his-son type. ‘Go and find Trudy, matey. She’ll show you how to fill out the library card.’
They watched Julian walk towards Trudy as if he was walking to his doom, clutching the book like it was his last meal.
Nat’s gaze flicked back to Julian’s father to find him already regarding her, his scrutiny as intense as before. ‘Senor Lombardi, I was—’
‘Mr, please,’ he interrupted. Alessandro was surprised to hear the Italian address. Surprised too at the accuracy of her Italian accent. ‘Or Doctor. Julian knows little Italian. His mother…’ Alessandro paused, surprised how much even mentioning Camilla still packed a kick to his chest. ‘His mother was English. It was her wish that it be his primary language.’
It was Nat’s turn to be surprised. On a couple of counts. Firstly, Julian knew a lot more Italian than his father gave him credit for if today was anything to go by. And, secondly, what kind of mother would deny their child an opportunity to learn a second language—especially their father’s native tongue?
But there was something about the way he’d faltered when he’d talked about his wife, the hesitation, the emptiness that prodded at her soft spot. He was obviously still grieving deeply. And maybe in his grief he was just trying to do the right thing by his dead wife? Trying to keep things going exactly as they had been for Julian’s sake. Or desperately trying to hang onto a way of life that had been totally shattered.
On closer inspection she could see the dark smudges and fine lines around his eyes. He looked tired. Like he hadn’t slept properly in a very long time.
Who was she to pass judgment?
‘Dr Lombardi, I was wondering if Julian had a special toy or a teddy bear? Something familiar from home to help him feel a little less alone in this new environment?’
Alessandro stiffened. A toy. Of course, Camilla would have known that. There was that mangy-looking rabbit that he used to drag around with him everywhere. Somewhere…
‘I’ve been very busy. Our things only arrived a few days ago and there’s been no chance to unpack. We’re still living out of boxes.’
Nat blinked. Too busy to surround your child with things that were familiar to him when so much in his world had been turned upside down?
‘This is none of my business, of course, but I understand you were recently widowed.’
Alessandro saw the softness in her eyes and wanted to yell at her to stop. He didn’t deserve her pity. Instead, he gave a brief, controlled nod. ‘Si.’
If anything, he looked even bleaker than when he’d first entered but despite his grim face and keep-out vibes Nat was overwhelmed by the urge to pull them both close and hug them. Father and son. They’d been through so much and were both so obviously still hurting. She couldn’t bear to see such sadness.
‘I was wondering if Julian had had any kind of counselling.’ Or if the good doctor had, for that matter. ‘He seems quite…withdrawn. I can highly recommend the counselling service they run here through St Auburn’s. The child psychologist is excellent. We could make an appointment—’
‘You’re right,’ Alessandro interrupted for the second time, a nerve jumping at the angle of his jaw. ‘This is none of your business.’ He turned to locate his son. ‘Come, Julian.’
Nat felt as if he had physically slapped her and she recoiled slightly. Alessandro Lombardi had a way with his voice that could freeze a volcano. He was obviously unused to having his authority questioned.
She’d bet her last cent he was a surgeon.
She watched Dr Lombardi usher his son towards the door. Julian partially lifted his hand, reaching for his father’s, then obviously thought better of it, dropping it by his side. He turned and gave her a small wave and a sad smile as he walked out the door, and Nat felt a lump swell in her throat.
They left side by side but emotionally separate. There was no picking his son up and carrying him out, not even a guiding hand on the back. Something, anything that said, even on a subliminal level, I love you, I’m here for you.
Nat hoped for Julian’s sake that it was grief causing this strange disconnectedness between father and son and not something deeper. There was something unbearably sad about a four-year-old with no emotional expectations.
Having grown up with an emotionally distant father Nat knew too well how soul destroying it could be. How often had she’d yearned for his touch, his smile, his praise after he’d left? And how often had he let her down, too busy with his new family, with his boys? Even at thirty-three she was still looking for his love. She couldn’t bear to see it happening to a child in her care.
But something inside her recognised that Alessandro Lombardi was hurting too. Knew that it was harsh to judge him. As a nurse she knew how grief affected people. How it could shut you down, cut you off at the knees. He had obviously loved his wife very deeply and was probably doing the best he could just to function every day.
To put one foot in front of the other.
Maybe he was just emotionally frozen. Not capable of any feelings at the moment. Maybe grief had just sucked them all away.
She sighed. It looked like she’d also developed a soft spot for the father also. Yep, it was official—she was a total sucker for a sob story.
The next day Nat had finished her stint in Outpatients and was heading back to the accident and emergency department for her very late lunch. She’d been sent there to cover for sick leave and was utterly exhausted.
She didn’t mind being sent out of her usual work area and had covered Outpatients on quite a few occasions since starting at St Auburn’s six months ago but it was a full-on morning which always ran over the scheduled one p.m. finish time. There hadn’t been time for morning tea either so her stomach was protesting loudly. She could almost taste the hot meat pie she’d been daydreaming about for the last hour and a half.
Add to that being awake half the night thinking about Julian’s situation, and she was totally wrecked. And then there’d been
the other half of the night. Filled with images—very inappropriate images—of Julian’s father and his rather enticing mouth.
She’d known she was going to dream about that mouth.
‘Oh, good, you’re back. I need another experienced hand,’ Imogen Reddy, the nurse in charge, said as Nat wandered back. ‘It’s Looney Tunes here. Code one just arrived in Resus. Seventy-two-year old-male, suspected MI. Can you get in and give the new doc a hand? Delia’s there but she was due off half an hour ago and hasn’t even had time for a break. Can you take over and send her home?’
Nat looked at the bedlam all around her. Just another crazy day at St Auburn’s Accident and Emergency. And they wondered why she kept knocking back a full-time position. Nat’s stomach growled a warning at her but she knew there was no way she could let a seven-months-pregnant colleague do overtime on an empty stomach.
She smiled at her boss. ‘Resus. Sure thing.’
Nat stopped just outside the resus cubicle and pulled a pair of medium gloves out of a dispenser attached to the wall. She snapped them on, took a deep breath, flicked back the curtain and entered the fray.
‘Okay, Delia. You’re off,’ she said, smiling at her colleague who happened to be the first person she saw amidst the chaos. ‘Go home, put your feet up and feed the foetus.’
Delia shoulders sagged and she gave Nat a grateful smile. ‘Are you sure?’ She turned and addressed the doctor. ‘Are you okay if I go, Alessandro? You’re getting a much better deal. Nat here is Super-Nurse.’
Alessandro? Nat swung around to find Alessandro Lombardi, all big and brooding, behind her. The bustle, the sounds of the oxygen and the monitors around her faded out as she stared into those coalpit-black eyes.
They were alert, radiating intelligence, but if anything he looked more tired than he had yesterday. He stared back and Nat felt as if she was naked in front of him.
She dropped her gaze as some of the images from last night’s dream revisited. Bloody hell. He was the new doctor? Working part-time generally kept Nat out of the loop with medical staff rotations and she’d just assumed Imogen had meant a new registrar. Surely Julian’s father was a little too old to be a registrar?
So much for her surgeon theory.
Alessandro took in the woman who had been the cause of another sleepless night. A new cause, granted, but still a complication he didn’t need. She was different today, out of her shorts and T-shirt. Very professional looking in the modest white uniform with the zip up the front. Her hair was a little neater in her ponytail and in this environment he felt on a more even keel around her.
Still, his gaze dropped to the zip briefly and before he could stop it, an image of him yanking the slider down flitted across his mind’s eye.
He looked at Delia briefly. ‘Yes. We’ve met.’
Then he turned back to the patient and Nat felt thoroughly dismissed. If only he knew what he’d done to her in her dreams last night…
Had she had time she might have been miffed but her patient caught her attention. ‘Super-Nurse, hey?’ he croaked behind his oxygen mask.
Nat dragged her gaze away from the back of Alessandro’s head to look at the patient. He was sweaty and grey with massive ST changes on his monitor. Multiple ectopic beats were worrying and as she watched, a short run of ventricular tachycardia interrupted his rhythm.
His heart muscle was dying.
He was also in pain despite the morphine that she noted had already been administered, but there was still a twinkle visible in his bright eyes. He was obviously one of those stoic old men who didn’t believe in complaining too much.
‘Yes, sir.’ She reached for his hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘That’s me. To the rescue.’
The patient gave a weak chuckle. ‘Ernie,’ he puffed out. ‘Looks like I’m in safe hands, then.’
Nat glanced at Alessandro. She hoped so. She hoped he was better at doctoring than he was at communicating. At fathering. ‘The very best.’
‘What’s the ETA on the CCU docs?’ Alessandro asked no one in particular.
Seeing Nat Davies from the crèche was a bit of a surprise but he didn’t have time to ponder that, or her damn zip, now. He had to focus on his patient, who needed that consult and admission to the coronary care unit pronto.
Ernie’s ECG was showing a massive inferior myocardial infarction. They were administering the right drugs to halt the progress of the heart attack but these patients were notoriously unstable and with age against him, Alessandro worried that Ernie would arrest before the drugs could work. Or that his heart was already too damaged.
‘Couple of minutes,’ someone behind him said.
As it turned out, Ernie didn’t have a couple of minutes and Alessandro’s worst fears were realised when the monitor alarmed and Ernie lost consciousness.
‘VF,’ Nat announced as the green line on the screen developed into a series of frenetic squiggles. Her own heart rate spiked as a charge of adrenaline shot through her system like vodka on an empty stomach.
Alessandro pointed at Nat. ‘Commence CPR. I’ll intubate. Adrenaline,’ he ordered. ‘Charge the defib.’
Nat hiked the skirt of her uniform up her thighs a little as she climbed up onto the narrow gurney. She planted her knees wide and balanced on the edge of the mattress, a feat she’d performed a little too often, as she started compressions.
Any ill will she may have been harbouring towards Dr Lombardi fizzled in an instant at the totally professional way he ran the code. It was textbook. But that wasn’t doing him justice. It was more than textbook. He didn’t see a seventy-two-year-old man and give up after a few minutes. He gave Ernie every chance. It wasn’t until the down time reached thirty minutes that he finally called it.
He placed his hands on Nat’s, stilling their downward trajectory. ‘Thank you,’ he said. Then he looked at the clock. ‘Time of death fifteen twenty-two hours.’
Nat looked down at his hands. She could just see her own through the gloved fingers of his. She noticed for the first time his sleeves were rolled back to reveal the dark hair of his bronzed forearms and she absently thought how strong they looked. How manly.
She glanced at him and their eyes locked, a strange solidarity uniting them. She could see the impact of this loss in his bleak stare. As she watched, his gaze drifted briefly south, lapping her cleavage, and she felt her nipples bead as if he’d actually caressed them. When he looked back at her, all she could see was heat.
Two beats passed and then as quickly as the heat had come it disappeared and he was removing his hands, extending one to help her off the gurney. Dragging her gaze from him, she accepted, easing back to the floor.
Her knees nearly buckled and Nat snatched her hand away, grabbing for the edge of the trolley to steady herself.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked as he watched her wobble slightly.
Nat rubbed her at her knees. ‘Fine’
Except, staring down at Ernie, she knew it wasn’t. Ernie was dead. And whatever was going on between her and Alessandro didn’t matter next to that. Neither did it matter that she’d only known Ernie for only a handful of minutes—he was still dead. Gone. The twinkle in his eyes extinguished for ever. In fact, it made it worse that she didn’t know him. It was wrong that a person should die surrounded by strangers.
She felt as she always did, overwhelmingly sad.
Alessandro nodded. ‘We need to talk to his family.’
His cold onyx gaze bored into hers with an air of expectation, no trace of the heat from a moment ago.
Looked like she was going with him.
Confronted with the businesslike professional, she wondered if she’d imagined the fleeting glimpse of sorrow and passion she’d seen. Her tummy growled again and she bargained with it for another half an hour.
Alessandro strode briskly ahead and Nat worried as she followed him. Sure, the view was good. His trousers hugged the tight contours of his butt and each stride emphasised not only the power of his legs but pulled
at his shirt, emphasising the broadness of his back.
But none of that meant this man was remotely equipped to talk to grieving relatives. He was still grieving himself. Had Ernie’s death resonated with him? Had this death reminded him of his dead wife, of his own grief?
He was obviously a consultant, she didn’t think for a moment this was his first time. But if he was as emotionally disconnected with this family as he was with his son, it could be disastrous for them. As a nurse she was used to being involved in these conversations but did he only want her there to fill in the emotional gaps for him? Was she going to be left to pick up the pieces like she’d done too many times before in her career because too often doctors were ill equipped for this sort of situation?
She contemplated saying something. But despite the brief flare of desire that had licked her with heat, his terse This is none of your business from yesterday still rang in her ears and she didn’t want to annoy him before this heart-wrenching job. But he seemed as tense as yesterday, as distant, and not even the growling of her stomach could override the foreboding that shadowed her as she tried to keep up with his impossibly long stride.
Telling someone their husband/child/mother/significant other had died was always dreadful. As a health-care worker, Nat would rather clean bedpans all shift than witness the devastating effects of those awful few words. But she knew Ernie’s wife and kids deserved the truth and she knew they’d have questions that only someone who had been there could answer.
And that was her.
She couldn’t back away from that. No matter how much she wanted to.
Much to her surprise, Alessandro again totally confounded her. He spoke softly, his accent more apparent as he gently outlined what had happened and how they’d tried but in the end there had been nothing they could do to bring Ernie back. The family cried and got angry and asked questions and Alessandro was calm and gentle and patient.
