‘OK, you can go…’ She held up her hand as the squeals of delight started. ‘But you and I will be having a big talk before then about how you behave in other people’s houses, especially if you’re staying the night.’
‘Sure. Hey, Mum, you’ll have the whole house to yourself. What will you do?’
Fleur laughed. ‘Worry about you. What else?’
So determined was Alex not to jeopardise his chances of going to the party that Fleur had absolutely no problem getting him to bed early. In fact, by seven-thirty she was working herself into a state, wondering what on earth she’d been doing suggesting to Mario this evening alone together. What were they going to talk about without the relative safety of Alex and, worse still, what if talking was the last thing on Mario’s mind? What then?
Walking over to the mantelpiece, she took down her wedding picture. There was Rory, so straight and proud, his blond hair shining in the afternoon sun, his green eyes smiling down at his new bride. Fleur examined her image carefully. How young and carefree she’d looked, her hair piled up loosely on her head, peppered with gypsophila, her blue eyes gazing adoringly back at Rory. Clear blue eyes, she noted. No early lines or dark circles like now. No real cares or worries then, just all the promise that tomorrow held.
‘Oh, Rory,’ she whispered. ‘I miss you so much. Why did you have to leave us?’ How long she stood there, staring at the photo, she couldn’t be sure, but certainly long enough to realise that though the passage of time had soothed the initial pain, nothing could diminish her grief for all she had lost. And now here she was, inviting someone new into her life, moving on, not in leaps or bounds but with slow, painful steps that terrified her. There were so many uncertainties, so much to deal with. She wanted Mario, wanted him to kiss her. To deny it would be a lie, but what then? Would she be thinking of Rory, imagining it was him in her arms? Comparing them?
‘Do you understand, Rory?’ she whispered. ‘Tell me I’m doing the right thing.’ She stared harder, searching for what she wasn’t sure—an answer, a sign? But, of course, pictures didn’t answer, pictures didn’t always paint a thousand words. With a sigh Fleur replaced the picture on the mantelpiece. A thousand words would be wonderful, she mused, but right now she’d settle for just one…
* * *
True to his word, Mario brought two bottles, and as they curled up on the sofa and tucked into a risotto Fleur had prepared, she thanked the heavens for her earlier conversation with Wendy. How easy it would have been otherwise to have spoken only about herself—how the day had affected her, how she’d coped with the grief of Rory on top of the MVA and Archie. But Wendy’s words had hit a nerve so, instead of answering Mario’s concerned questions and exploring her own emotions, she had the foresight to turn the tables and ask Mario about himself—how he felt, how he reacted to the endless demands on his spirit. She was rewarded a hundred times over as gradually, piece by piece, he filled her in on his life, his feelings and his family back in Rome.
‘My mother is the typical Italian mother. Gorgeous, of course, feeds me way too much, worries endlessly about the fact that I’m not married and giving her hundreds of grandchildren to dote over and thoroughly spoil.’
Fleur laughed. ‘And what about your father?’
‘He is a doctor also, a physician. He works far too hard and ignores his own health, which hasn’t been too good lately. He’s a wonderful man.’
‘Does he worry too—about you not being married, I mean?’
‘He says no, but deep down I think he is just as bad as my mother is. I’m well into my thirties now, as my mother keeps reminding me. She keeps thrusting these single women at me and, of course, then I ‘‘shame’’ both families by not asking the lady out for a second date.’
‘Why? I mean, are they awful—the girls your family sets you up with?’
Mario laughed. ‘On the whole, no. They were perfectly nice girls that I’m sure will make some perfectly nice guys happy. Just not me.’
‘But if you gave them a chance, maybe one of them would be ‘‘the one’’.’ The wine had loosened Fleur’s tongue or she wouldn’t have probed further. ‘If you never ask for a second date, you’re never going to find out.’
Mario shook his head. ‘Fool that I am, I believe in… What is it you say here? Love at first look.’
‘Love at first sight.’
‘That’s the one. And if it doesn’t happen on the first date, it never will.’
Fleur took a hefty sip. ‘So you never get past a first date!’
‘You are asking if I’m a thirty-five-year-old virgin?’
The hefty sip ended up spluttering across the room in a most unladylike fashion. ‘No,’ she said indignantly, then relented. ‘Well, maybe I am. You’re not, are you?’
Mario laughed. ‘What a frightening thought. I’d be walking around like an unexploded time bomb. No, my lack of sexual prowess was reserved for the dates my mother set up.’ He shook his head. ‘I’d be at the bottom of the river with bricks tied to my feet otherwise.’
Fleur’s eyes widened then she started to laugh when she realised he was teasing her.
‘Actually, I’m a very good lover.’
‘Modest, too.’
‘No, just stating a fact. How about you?’
Now, this really was getting personal. ‘I don’t know,’ she said indignantly. ‘It’s not as if I got Rory to hold up a scorecard or anything.’
Mario really laughed then. ‘I’m not that crude. I meant, do you believe in love at first sight?’
‘Oh.’ Embarrassed, she filled up her wineglass. ‘I suppose.’
‘You suppose? Elaborate, come on. How was it with you and your husband?’
Suddenly Fleur did feel like holding up a scorecard and cheering. This was the first time since Rory died that another adult had spoken about him without lowering their voice. The first person that had accepted that Rory had been and still was a huge part of her life, that she wanted, no, needed to talk about him in a context other than his death.
‘Well, for us it was love at first sight. He’d just moved to the area and started at my school when we first met. But when I say love, it was the sort of love that fifteen-year-olds feel. You know, he’s the one! I’ll simply die if he doesn’t ring! It sort of grew from there. Everyone said we were too young to be serious, that it would fizzle out, but it never did. He went to the police academy, I did my nursing training, then we saved like mad and finally people stopped questioning us. We got engaged the day we put the deposit on this place.’
‘You had a happy marriage obviously, from the way you talk about him.’
Fleur nodded. ‘It was wonderful. Sure, we had our fights and our rough patches here and there, but it was a good marriage.’ This time there was no lump in her throat as she spoke, just a sense of freedom at being able to discuss Rory so openly.
‘What were your fights about?’
Fleur thought back. ‘He didn’t like me working in Accident and Emergency. He thought it was too rough but, considering the job he did, he didn’t really have a leg to stand on.’
‘And what about you, Little Miss Perfect? What did you do that annoyed Rory?’
Fleur rolled her eyes. ‘I was the typical neurotic first-time mum. Didn’t want to leave Alex with babysitters, constantly thought that the first sign of a sniffle meant meningitis, that sort of thing. It drove him mad.’ She gave him a slightly embarrassed grin. ‘Pretty much as I am now. Anyway, enough about me. If you’re such a wonderful lover, how come you’re not married? Haven’t you ever been in love?’
Mario shrugged. ‘I’ve thought I was a few times. I’m a romantic, I guess, but it’s never worked out.’
‘Why?’ She felt confident, probing after revealing so much of herself.
He tapped the pager sitting on his belt. ‘Usually this was the culprit.’
‘How come? Normally doctors have to beat the women off with a stick.’ Especially such a handsome one, Fleur wanted to add, blu
shing at the thoughts that were starting to take form, but instead she took refuge behind her fringe.
‘Work always came first. I’d miss important family parties or get stuck late one too many times at the hospital. The only women that understood had a pager themselves and, I’m sorry to say, I didn’t like it when the shoe was on the other foot.’
‘You mean, when you were the one left waiting?’
Mario nodded.
‘But that’s so chauvinist.’ Fleur argued. ‘So you want your woman barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, happily waiting for the master to return?’
Mario shook his head vehemently ‘Who said anything about bare feet? A good stiletto works for me anytime.’ He ducked as a cushion flew past his ear. ‘Just kidding. I guess the truth is that I never really was in love. The pager, work, whether her or me—they were all just good excuses to end something that had already run its course. When I look back, I’m sure I could have been fairly happy with a couple of them, had a decent marriage, I guess. But when I listen to how you talk about your Rory I know I am right to wait. I, too, want a good marriage. My mother will just have to wait for the bambinos.’
His glass was empty now and, ever the hostess, Fleur leant across to fill it. His hand wandered to her thick blonde hair, lifting the heavy fringe and pushing it off her face. ‘Why you always hide behind your hair?’ His voice was soft, questioning, his accent like a tender caress.
‘Do I?’ His hand held her hair back. There was nowhere to hide now, nowhere to run. Fixing him with a bold look, she caught her breath as his face moved towards her, his wide, sensual mouth not aiming for her cheeks this time but coming to rest directly on her soft full lips. Alex might get up… That was her last coherent thought as his rough face brushed her soft skin. And then nothing else mattered. Just the weight of him pressing her back on to the sofa, the scent of him drowning out all logic. His skillful hands undoing her blouse, freeing her aching breasts from their confines as his warm fingers moulded the heavy flesh beneath them. Everything she needed was in his kiss. It filled her, awoke her, excited her, terrified her.
‘Mario,’ she gasped as his lips nuzzled her neck. It was Mario’s face pressed against hers, his black silky hair she was running her fingers through, his body she was arching against. It was Mario she was with and there was no place she would rather have been.
‘I want you so much,’ he groaned. ‘So very much.’
And she wanted him too, wanted to feel him naked against her, wanted to explore the taut muscular body, to trace her fingers the length of his body, to feel him inside her. But as Fleur’s eyes caught sight of her wedding photo, the image of her and Rory staring back, unblinking, she knew she couldn’t go on—not here, not yet. Their bodies were so close, their emotions so attuned, he felt her sudden reluctance immediately.
‘I’m sorry.’ Tears were pricking at her eyes, not tears of regret but tears of frustration. With infinite tenderness he kissed her tears away.
‘Never be sorry. How can you be sorry about something so beautiful?’
‘Because…’ She searched for the words. ‘I feel as if I’ve let you down, led you on.’
His voice was gruff. ‘You think that is why I came here? Just to make love to you?’
Fleur shook her head. ‘No. It’s just that I know what happened then. You wanted to, I wanted to. I just couldn’t…’ The words died on her lips.
‘There is nothing you have to explain.’ He sat up and pulled her towards him, wrapping his arms around her protectively as she sobbed into his chest. ‘Of course it is too soon. And here…’ she felt his hand gesture to the room ‘…is not the place, not for our first time. We will go somewhere special, somewhere really special where I can spoil you. And if it’s still too soon, then so be it. We can talk and hold each other like we are now. You’ll know when you are ready and, Fleur, I promise you this,’ he said with a rueful laugh, ‘I will be ready also.’
Fleur sniffed. She didn’t doubt that bit for a minute— the conversation had done nothing to diminish his rather obvious ardour. ‘So I’m going to get a second date?’
Mario held her tighter. ‘This was never our first date. The footy was our first date, and all the other precious moments with you in between. You think I would let things go so far with such a lady on the first date? I told you before, I don’t want to end up in the river.’
Fleur sat up, suddenly feeling better. ‘So you liked me way back then?’
‘Liked you?’ he said incredulously. ‘I’ve been crazy about you since that first day at Auskick.’
‘But you said there was nothing in it, that you went out with everyone from work.’
‘And I do,’ he said simply. ‘Don’t you see that I had to play it down, or you’d never have agreed to come out with me? The people from work are just friends. You, Fleur, are different.’
Fleur gave a gurgle of laughter. ‘Oh, yes, I’m a lady.’
‘Not just a lady,’ he said, his face moving closer. ‘Every bit a woman.’
* * *
The gods that had been treating Fleur gently at work until now obviously thought she was ready for a baptism of fire, and when she walked into Resus the following morning the place seemed to explode. Mario was at his most fiery and Danny at his most irritating. For Fleur it was a case of head down and get on with it when yet another paramedic crew raced in. ‘We’re full,’ she said apologetically as she searched in vain for an empty gurney. ‘I’ll have to bring a trolley over from the cubicles.’
As a trolley was located and wheeled in, the paramedic filled Fleur in on the patient’s history. ‘Mrs Vera Holroyd, sixty-eight years of age, collapsed at home. The GP went to do a home visit and could see her through the letterbox. He called for the ambulance.’
Fleur looked at the emaciated woman who had a coloured scarf tied around her head, tiny strands of hair escaping as they lifted her off the stretcher and onto the trolley. ‘What’s her history?’
‘She’s just finished a course of chemotherapy for ovarian cancer. Apparently there’s secondaries in the liver, but that’s only just been diagnosed. She’s been relatively well up until now.’
‘Any family?’
‘She’s a widow, but apparently the daughter is flying in from Queensland this morning. She’s got no idea her mother is as sick as she is, of course. It’s going to be a shock for her when she arrives. Anyway, I’ve got a neighbour’s telephone number—she’s going to keep an eye out for the daughter and let her know what’s happened.’
‘Thanks, guys.’
‘No worries, Fleur.’ The paramedic grinned as he neatly folded up the blanket and replaced it on his stretcher. ‘I don’t suppose we can beg a coffee? I hear Beryl makes a mean cappuccino.’
As Fleur took the woman’s blood pressure she started to come to, moaning and thrashing around the trolley.
‘It’s all right, Vera, you’re in hospital. I’m going to get the doctor.’ Fleur said soothingly. It was obvious the woman was in some considerable pain. The junior doctors were struggling to keep up in the cubicles. Mario was shut in the interview room with some distressed relatives. Luke Richardson did his best to answer Fleur’s plea to get Vera seen, but as he was juggling two extremely critical patients it was going to take a while.
‘What’s going on here?’ Danny popped his head around the curtain as Vera screamed loudly.
‘Vera Holroyd. Ovarian cancer, with liver mets, found unconscious.’ Fleur spoke in low tones. ‘She’s come to now. I’ve done obs and an ECG, I’m just waiting for the doctor to see her.’
‘She’s in pain,’ Danny stated.
‘I know, but everyone’s tied up. Luke’s going to get to her next.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t hold your breath. We’ve just had an alert that an MVA is on the way—I’ve paged the trauma team. We’re going to have to make some more room in here. When’s the chest pain going up to CCU?’
Fleur rolled her eyes. ‘CCU are supposed to ring when they’r
e ready. I’ll give them a buzz now and tell them he’s on his way up, ready or not.’
‘Where’s Mario?’
‘In with my aneurism’s relatives.’
Danny gave an exasperated sigh. ‘Why the hell aren’t the surgeons in there with them? We need him out here.’
‘They went on ahead to scrub. Danny I really need another nurse in here.’
‘There isn’t another nurse.’ Danny answered, visibly perplexed. ‘There are already a few pretty sick ones in the cubicles that really ought to be in here—if there was room,’ he added. ‘I can’t spare anyone.’
Fleur understood what he was saying but it didn’t mean she liked it. ‘Please, see what you can do, it’s getting dangerous in here. I’ve rung Theatre and told them how busy we are and they’re going to send a nurse down directly to take the patient up.’
‘Good. I’ll ring CCU and get them to do the same while you set up for the MVA.’ He looked over to the trolley as Vera let out a guttural scream. ‘Get her seen, Fleur, for heaven’s sake. She needs some pain control.’
Easier said than done. Luke’s patient suddenly deteriorated and Fleur had to assist Felicity in the resuscitation while simultaneously setting up for the MVA and attempting to soothe Vera. Thankfully the theatre and CCU nurses arrived speedily, which probably had more to do with Danny’s menacing mood than anything else.
There was the tiniest breathing space as two of the patients exited the area, and Fleur was able to concentrate on helping Felicity. But as the wailing of sirens filtered through and blue lights flashed past the darkened windows, the momentum soon lifted.
One look at the new patient and Fleur knew he was in big trouble. ‘Danny, I need more help in here!’ she called out to the corridor. ‘Now!’
The trauma team, consisting of the orthopaedic registrar and an anaesthetist, arrived just as the patient was lifted over. Mario rushed in moments later, somewhat breathless.
The Italian's Touch (Promotional Presents) Page 9