by Amy Andrews
‘Cricoid pressure,’ he murmured.
Maggie automatically reached for the child’s throat using her thumb and forefinger to apply gentle pressure mid-trachea to the cricoid cartilage, temporarily occluding the oesophagus to prevent aspiration of stomach contents into the lungs.
Nash was impressed with the nurse’s quick, sure location and technique. Often the pressure applied was too much, deviating the airway anatomy, but her technique was perfect.
‘Heart rate one sixty-five. Sats ninety-two.’
Nash nodded as he completed the procedure. ‘I’m in.’
He held the tube in place as Maggie attached the bag and puffed in a couple of gentle breaths. The patient’s tiny chest rose and fell. Rose and fell. Her sats climbed.
‘Do you want to listen?’ Maggie asked.
Nash nodded, taking the bag from her whilst keeping a firm grasp on the tube. He held very still as she carefully pulled his stethoscope from his neck, and placed it in his ears. Her gaze brushed his as she did so and then stuck. Her cheeks were a pretty pink and even though a part of his brain was listening for the whoosh of breath sounds as she moved the bell of the stethoscope around the patient’s chest, the other part was noticing her deep brown eyes, her high cheekbones, her wide, full lips.
‘What a beautiful noise,’ he murmured, not taking his eyes off her.
Maggie swallowed. This close, he was incredibly handsome. His eye colour defied belief. A clear pale blue, like tropical waters or maybe, depending on his mood, glacial ice. His skin was tanned, stretched nicely across prominent cheekbones, and he had deep crinkles on his forehead and tiny lines around his eyes like he enjoyed a good laugh as much as he enjoyed a good dose of Australian sunshine.
She became aware she was staring again and snapped herself out of it. ‘Shall we get this tube taped in?’ she prompted.
‘Good idea,’ Nash murmured.
Maggie dragged her gaze away, grateful to have a job that required looking down and not up. She’d applied the first piece of tape, ignoring his long tanned fingers holding the tube firmly in place, when the ICU reg finally made his entrance.
‘Mac,’ Nash greeted him. ‘You’re a little too late.’
‘Sorry,’ Mac Caldwell panted, bending over and clutching his side. ‘I ran all the way.’
Nash laughed. ‘Have a seat, man. Crisis over.’
Maggie found concentrating on the finicky task of wrapping zinc tape around the tube even more difficult with him being so close. His chest was at her head level and his body heat combined with his intoxicating aftershave formed a potent mix.
Her downward gaze took in the rich tan of his chinos and the obvious flatness of his abdomen beneath the casual masculinity of his checked shirt. He wore it open at the neck and rolled up to his elbows revealing tanned forearms in stark contrast to the covering of blond hairs.
She listened as he filled Mac in on the case and spoke with just the right amounts of empathy, confidence and authority to the infant’s distressed mother.
‘Let’s hook her up to the portable ventilator,’ Nash requested as the last tape was secured around the tube. ‘We’ll get an X-ray to check the tube position, and can we load her with some anti-convulsants, please, Zoe?’
‘I’ll just let the consultant know we’ve got ourselves another customer,’ Mac said, excusing himself to find a phone.
Maggie fussed with the tapes, trimming one end that had been stuck across the little girl’s tiny ear, hyper-aware of Nash still standing close. Her elbow occasionally came into contact with his shirt and she seemed to be tuned into his every move, every breath.
‘Thank you...’ Nash glanced at the nametag clipped to his assistant’s collar. She had a smiley-face sticker over her picture and a red heart sticker covering her surname. ‘Maggie. Thank you, Maggie.’
Her hands stilled as his voice washed over her like warm treacle and Maggie chanced a look at him and immediately wished she hadn’t. He was smiling one of those hey-baby smiles and she was equal parts turned on and annoyed.
Annoyed won out.
Some men were just too charming for their own good. Some men just didn’t know how to turn it off. She aimed for nonchalance with her shrug. ‘Just doing my job.’
‘Ah, but you do it so well.’
Maggie felt things shift inside at the suggestive quality of his low, sexy voice. She sniffed, not at all comfortable with shifting innards. This man was too young and too sure of himself by far. ‘Well, I would, wouldn’t I? I have been doing this for a very long time.’
Nash chuckled at the emphasis. He got it — she didn’t approve of him flirting with someone of her years. ‘I love experienced women.’
Maggie refused to be flattered by such a consummate flirt. She raised an eyebrow. ‘Only experienced women?’
He grinned. ‘Okay, you got me.’
‘Nash?’
He looked away from Maggie reluctantly. ‘Yes, Zoe?’
‘Can you assess the kid in cube two for me? I think he can progress to hourly nebs now.’
‘Sure, be right there,’ Nash said. He turned back to Maggie. ‘I’ll be seeing you around, Maggie.’
She sent him a stiff smile. Not if she could help it.
Maggie finally got to lunch at two o’clock. The day had been crazy-busy and everyone’s lunch-breaks had been pushed back. She found an isolated table in the almost empty canteen, glad she didn’t have to spend her thirty minutes making small talk with anyone. She cracked the lid on her calorie-laden fizzy drink and sank her teeth into the divine-smelling hot meat pie.
A pair of freakish blue eyes rose unbidden and she shook her head to dispel them from her mind. There’d been no time this morning to think about her weird response to Nash Reece and she was damned if she was going to spend her precious break thinking about him either.
‘Now that’s a nice healthy lunch.’
Aaand sometimes the universe was just out to get you.
Maggie tensed as the voice behind her took form and shape in front of her. Hunky, sexy form and shape.
‘May I join you?’
Maggie looked around at the other empty tables. ‘Plenty of places to sit,’ she said pointedly.
Nash suppressed the urge to chuckle. He liked a woman who could hold her own with him. She reminded him of the females he’d grown up around. His five sisters, his mother, his cousins. Country women were no shrinking violets and although he’d spent his life perfecting how to twist them around his fingers, he admired the hell out of their spirit.
‘Ah, but this is my favourite table.’ Nash grinned and pulled up a chair.
‘Gee. Lucky me.’
‘We haven’t formally met.’ He stuck out his hand. ‘Nash Reece.’
No way on earth was Maggie going to touch him. If he could unsettle her with his mere presence, God alone knew what would happen if she allowed her skin to come into contact with his. She took another bite of pie, feeling an instant revival to her flagging blood-sugar level. ‘I know who you are.’
Nash chuckled at her deliberate snub. ‘Ah, my reputation precedes me, I see.’
She looked at his totally unrepentant face. ‘Try to look as if it upsets you,’ she said derisively.
He grinned at her. She had the deepest brown eyes he’d ever seen. They reminded him of his grandmother’s double chocolate fudge brownies. And, man, he was suddenly ravenous for them.
‘So...Maggie? Maggie who?’
She took a swig of her drink. ‘Maggie from ICU.’
He quirked an eyebrow. Maggie from ICU was playing hard to get. Well, there was a first time for everything. ‘So, Maggie from ICU, are you doing anything tonight? Do you fancy getting a bite to eat with me?’
Maggie almost inhaled her drink into her lungs his question startled her so completely. She coughed and spluttered so much that in a final humiliation Nash reached across and belted her between the shoulder blades a couple of times.
His hand moved to her shoulder and he
grinned. ‘You okay?’
Not remotely. She shrugged his hand away. ‘Fine.’
He gave her a few moments before he asked again. ‘Well?’
Was he serious? She looked at him, his face absolutely serious. It had been three years since she’d been on a date. And certainly a good decade since she’d been with anyone whose age fell in the thirties. ‘No.’
‘Tomorrow night?’
‘No.’
Nash shrugged. ‘Well I’m easy —’
‘Clearly,’ she interrupted.
Nash grinned and continued. ‘I can fit in with you.’
Maggie shook her head, exasperated by his persistence. He had his elbows on the table, emphasising his wide shoulders. He was big and broad and loomed at her from the opposite side, taking up all the space. ‘You don’t like to take no for an answer, do you?’
‘Why ignore what’s going on between us, Maggie? I’m attracted to you.’ He watched her pale and her wide brown eyes practically double in size. ‘I’m pretty sure you’re attracted to me. Why should we pretend otherwise?’
Maggie stared at him. Was he insane? He reminded her of a kid expecting instant gratification in that infantile egocentric way of theirs. But they weren’t kids.
They were grown-ups and adults were supposed to be a little more cautious. There were rules and etiquette.
‘How old are you, Nash?’
Ah. ‘I don’t care about the age difference.’
‘How old?’ she insisted.
‘Just turned the big three zero.’
Maggie nodded — just as she’d suspected. She wished for a brief second she was thirty again. But then reality invaded. She’d been a mess at thirty. She’d been dealing — very badly —with the heartbreak of her infertility and the ink had still been wet on her divorce papers. She was in a much better place now.
‘And how old do you think I am?’
Nash met and held her gaze. ‘Twenty-six.’
Maggie burst out laughing. She had to give him his due, he hadn’t batted an eyelid. She knew that she was looking pretty good for a forty-year-old woman but no one would ever mistake her for twenty-six. ‘Does that line work with everyone?’
Nash laughed with her. ‘Never had to use it before. No one’s ever knocked me back.’
His eyes crinkled at the corners and it was very, very sexy. ‘Oh, dear. Do you think your ego can stand it?’
‘It’s pretty robust.’
Maggie grinned despite herself. She did not want to be charmed by him but his easy charisma and self-deprecation made an irresistible combination. ‘I’ll just bet it is.’
He sat and watched her as she returned her attention to her lunch. Her teeth bit into the pastry of her pie and flakes stuck to her lips before her tongue darted out to remove them. It shouldn’t be erotic — she was just eating, for crying out loud —but it was.
God knew, he wanted to lick them away himself.
For his own sanity he moved his gaze upwards. Her short brown hair with chunky blonde streaks looked salon perfect. Her layered fringe swept across her forehead from a side parting. The rest of it fell in fashionably shaggy layers and feathered down her nape into fine wisps.
She finished her pie and patted her mouth with her serviette. If she hadn’t seemed so totally oblivious to his reaction, he’d have suspected she was deliberately trying to provoke him. He certainly would have expected it from any other woman.
‘Well?’
Maggie had tried to ignore him as she’d eaten but his intense blue gaze had made it impossible. She sighed. ‘I’m forty, Nash.’
He shrugged. ‘So?’
‘So? So I’m a whole decade older than you.’
‘So?’
‘I was in high school when you were running around in nappies.’
‘So?’
‘I got married while you were still in primary school.’
Nash’s gaze flicked to her left hand. No ring. No telltale white mark. ‘So?’
‘I’ve been divorced longer than you’ve been a doctor.’
He smiled at her. ‘You’re available, then?’
She shot him an impatient look. ‘Nash don’t you think you should be playing with women your own age?’
He reached across the table and picked up her hand. ‘Maggie from ICU, you look better than any woman I’ve ever met.’
She could feel herself blushing beneath his intense scrutiny. She was drowning in the warmth of his tropical island gaze and her pulse hammered where his thumb drew slow circles at her wrist.
Damn it all — she would not be flattered by his easy words. She wasn’t going to get involved with a man ten years her junior. Especially one who dated for sport and made her breathless with just one look. That would just be plain dumb.
And she wasn’t that hard up for company.
Maggie removed her hand. ‘I’m going to do you a favour, Nash Reece. I’m going to turn you down. And you should be grateful. Men like you need a woman like me —’
‘That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,’ he interrupted.
She smiled. ‘A woman who’ll say no. Too many yes-women make Nash a spoilt boy. You’ll thank me for it one day.’
He chuckled. ‘I doubt it.’
She crunched up her paper bag, screwed the lid back on her empty drink bottle then stood. ‘Yeah well, your wife will.’
Nash really laughed then. He had no intention of ever marrying. And women had tried. Man, had they tried. Country girls, yearning for an escape from the outback had tried, city girls wanting to snare a doctor had tried. But he had a career plan carefully mapped out that did not involve weddings, and nothing was more important to him than that.
‘Wife? Nope. Not me. Besides, I’m already married. To my career. I’m on a path.’
Maggie was surprised to see a suddenly serious side to the flirty man who’d charmed himself into the seat opposite. He was once again the serious doctor from this morning. She wondered how many women got to see beneath the playboy exterior to the goal-driven man. ‘And yet you have time to date?’
Nash grinned again. ‘I do allow myself some diversions. Come on, Maggie. You know you want to.’
She shook her head, even though he was right. She did want to. It was crazy — but she did. Still, she knew enough about Nash Reece in a handful of minutes to know that one date would never be enough. ‘Denial is good for the soul.’
‘Denial sucks.’
He reminded her again of a child seeking instant gratification and she laughed. Yes. It did. ‘Goodbye, Dr Reece.’
Nash watched her turn away, the creamy skin of her neck exposed as she twisted, pulling her shirt across her chest. ‘I’m gonna keep asking,’ he called after her.
She stopped and looked back at him as his silky promise stroked insidiously along her pelvic floor. ‘There’s a shock.’
Nash chuckled. ‘I’ll be seeing you around, Maggie from ICU.’
They were the same words he’d used that morning and they had a preternatural foreboding to them. ‘Don’t count on it.’
He worked in A and E. She worked two floors up in ICU. As far as hospitals went they were totally different worlds. And after today she had no intention of letting him into hers.
Ever.
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