by Fiona Lowe
A tingle shot up her spine, leaving a trail of unsettling effervescence. A tingle she barely remembered and had only ever associated with pain and regret. A tingle that had absolutely no place in this situation. He was married with a child and she wasn’t the sort of woman who would ever break up a marriage. Never. Ever.
She tried to throw off the sensation. Ethics aside, she didn’t even know him, so why a flutter of attraction? Her body, unlike her brain, must have its wires utterly crossed. Empathy was the only thing she should be feeling for this man—empathy generated by the sadness in his eyes—nothing else. Definitely not lust.
‘…at eight in the operating theatre, Chloe.’
The way his tongue rolled over her name shocked her back into the conversation and with her heart thumping hard she threw a beseeching look at Keri. ‘Jackie has way more experience than I do working with children.’
‘She does,’ Keri agreed, ‘but she’s not rostered on and you are.’
Chloe thought of her empty social calendar. ‘I can swap.’
Keri shook her head. ‘She’s got her sister’s wedding, remember?’
She turned to Kate, trying to hold her desperation in check. ‘How about you, Kate? As a birthday gift to me?’
‘Sorry, Chloe, I’ve got a family thing on. You know how it is.’
She didn’t know at all. Apart from meals with Nick, she hadn’t had a family thing in fourteen years.
A sigh of frustration hissed from Luke’s thinned lips and it bounced around the room, loud in its disapproval. He zeroed his glare onto her. The ominous, dark look made his high cheekbones sharp and stark, which emphasised the charcoal shadows under his eyes. ‘I’m sorry if my plans are inconveniencing you.’
His sarcasm—so far removed from the friendly, smiling man she’d met a year ago—bit hard, ruffling her usually calm demeanour. Her chin shot up. ‘Your plans are not inconveniencing me in the slightest, Mr Stanley. However, my expertise lies in nursing adults and therefore I may well inconvenience your patient.’
‘For heaven’s sake, I’m not asking you to play games with him.’ He shoved his hand through his hair, the thick curls snagging at his fingers. ‘Look, I need a plastics nurse who’s good at her job. Either you fit the bill or you don’t.’
‘She definitely fits the bill,’ Keri interrupted, her voice full of soothing tones as she threw Chloe a look that said, What on earth is the matter with you? ‘Chloe will head up a team of three nurses to cover each block of twenty-four hours for as long as the child needs that level of care.’
Chloe gulped in a steadying breath to stop the simmer of panic that was threatening to take off into a full-blown boil. Nursing children wasn’t something she did. Even as a student nurse she’d minimised her exposure with a bit of dumb luck. Rostered onto the children’s ward during a flu epidemic, she’d ended up nursing more adults under the bright, owl-covered bedspreads than children. This time, however, her luck had run out.
Keri took Luke’s arm and steered him towards the door. ‘How are Anna and Amber? Happy to be back home in sunny Australia?’
Luke blanched, the little colour he had in his face completely draining away. ‘You don’t know?’
His quiet words sent a chill through Chloe.
‘I don’t think I do,’ Keri said warily.
He looked out towards the ward, avoiding eye contact with the three of them. ‘Anna died thirteen months ago.’
His pain jerked through Chloe and her fingers closed around her cup so hard it crumpled in her hand. The successful surgeon who’d once had everything had lost it.
Keri sagged against the doorjamb. ‘I’m so sorry, Luke, none of us had any idea…’
‘Now you do.’ His words scorched the air like the summer sun—harsh, burning and devoid of any compassion that he’d just delivered shocking news. He turned abruptly to face Chloe, his emotions masked by tight control. ‘Don’t be late on Thursday.’ Just as abruptly, he strode out of the ward.
At that moment Chloe would have given anything to avoid Thursday. As she absently listened to Kate and Keri express their stunned sorrow for Luke, the ramifications of the next few days—weeks even—hit her. The man with the reputation of being fun, forgiving and easy to work with had totally vanished. In his place was a tortured and grieving soul with a personality as black as his jet hair.
It was a hell of a way to start her thirty-first year.
CHAPTER TWO
‘HOW WAS SHE today?’ Luke asked, sitting at his sister’s outdoor table under the protective shadow of a huge shade sail and watching Amber running around the yard with her older cousins. He tried not to think about the fact he had to take her home to a quiet and empty house.
‘The kids ran her ragged and she napped for three hours straight,’ Steph said with an apologetic shrug. ‘I guess that means she’ll be hard to settle tonight. Sorry.’
He thought about the hard-fought routine he’d established with his toddler daughter, all of which was about to change now he was returning to full-time work. ‘Hopefully, she’s running off more energy now and will snuggle down at seven.’
His sister gave him a contemplative glance. ‘So, how was it?’
‘What?’ He was being deliberately obtuse just in case his perceptive sister was having an off day.
‘Being back at Gold Coast City?’
The memory of the shocked expression of the nurses slugged him. ‘They didn’t know.’
‘Hell.’ Her hand touched his arm.
‘Yeah.’ He stirred the ice at the bottom of his glass. ‘I thought someone would have told them. I mean, hospitals are usually seething with gossip, rumour and innuendo, but just when I needed my personal life to be part of that mill, it wasn’t.’
‘I guess because it happened in France…’
‘Maybe.’ He drained his glass, trying not to think of that night when the gendarmes had told him his car had drifted onto the wrong side of the road. ‘I had to tell them, Steph. I had to watch their horror and then their sympathy. God, I thought by now I was over having to tell people. I thought at least that part would be done.’
‘It’ll get easier.’
‘Don’t say that.’ He glared at her, hating platitudes. He’d heard enough of them to know they only made the speaker feel better. Nothing was ever going to make him feel better. Nothing could erase the bald fact that he’d unwittingly killed his darling wife.
Steph’s usually smiling mouth flattened. ‘We’ll always miss Anna. You know I meant walking into the hospital and talking with the staff will get easier. Try to look on the plus side. By the time you return on Thursday they’ll have digested the news and be onto something else. Besides, given the turnover of staff, half of them probably don’t even know you.’
The image of a pair of hazel eyes framed by black-rimmed glasses, followed by a mane of glossy, chestnut hair, pinged into his mind. Eyes that seemed familiar and yet he felt sure that he’d never met the nurse before. If they’d met, he’d have remembered that particular combination of khaki-green flecked with brown. He knew that grief screwed with memory and his had been bad lately but, even so, she hadn’t shown any spark of recognition either. Hell, he really didn’t know why he was even thinking about her.
He tried to stop the picture of her at those eyes but, like a movie reel, his brain recalled way more. In vivid detail, it rolled over her round, smiling face, her ruby-red lips that peaked in a delectable bow and her lush curves that no uniform could hide. Natural curves that in a bygone era women had embraced but which today so many tried to dominate into submission. Curves that said, I am all woman.
His mouth dried as the same short, sharp kick of arousal he’d experienced the first time he’d seen her stirred again. He rubbed the back of his neck. God, what was wrong with him? Anna had only been dead just over a year and he missed her every single day. He didn’t want to look at other women, let alone lust after them.
‘You okay, Luke?’
No. ‘Yep.’
He didn’t like the inquiring look in his sister’s eyes so he shifted conversational gears. ‘The daycare centre called and they can take Amber for the extra days each week while you’re away on your big trip.’
Relief flitted across Steph’s face. ‘That’s good news. Of course, if you hadn’t sold the house around the corner…’
He shook his head, thinking about the five-bedroom house with its indoor-outdoor living, swimming pool and a spectacular view of the tidal canal and its constant boat traffic.
He and Anna had bought the colonnaded home when he’d been appointed to Gold Coast City. It was the place they’d taken Amber home to from the hospital and settled her into her nursery with the crooked wallpaper frieze of pastel balloons that he’d put on the wall. Anna had taken one look at his dodgy handiwork and had teased him not to give up his day job.
‘I couldn’t live in that house, no matter how close it was to you, and besides…’ he raked his hand through his hair ‘…it’s moot in this instance because you’re going to be gone for two months. I appreciate that you’ve been having Amber three days a week while I’ve been doing some private practice stuff, but I don’t want you putting your life on hold for me. Marty’s been talking about driving up the centre from Adelaide to Darwin for as long as I’ve known him, and it isn’t fair to you, him or the girls to put it off again.’
‘Luke, we’re family and we help each other out. It’s what families do. And the moment we get back I want to have Amber three days a week again.’ She leaned closer to him and smiled. ‘We love having her here, and the girls have stopped pestering me for a baby brother or sister so it’s win-win.’
He tried to match her smile. ‘No more baby plans, then?’
‘No. Marty wanted two and I wanted four so we’ve compromised on three.’
Luke detected a wistfulness in his sister’s voice, but before he could say anything Amber took a tumble on the grass and sent up a shriek of shocked surprise.
‘Up you get, honey,’ Luke called out as he rose to his feet and crossed the lawn. He swung his daughter into his arms and gave her knees and elbows a quick inspection for skin damage but could only see grass stains. He kissed her. ‘Bath time for you, young lady.’
‘Play ducky?’ Amber asked hopefully.
‘Play ducky in your bathtub,’ Luke replied, bracing himself for a howl of disappointment that Amber had to leave her beloved cousins and come with him.
‘Okay.’
‘Okay.’ He kissed her again, battling a surge of sadness for them both. ‘Let’s go…’ He couldn’t bring himself to say home because the cottage was just a house.
Chloe checked little Made’s observations as the six-year-old slept. The white of the sheets and pillowcases made his black hair and deeply olive skin seem even darker, and in the big hospital bed he looked tiny and in need of protection. Her protection.
She bit her lip against the rush of emotions—some caring, some painful, most tinged with loss. She’d lost her baby and along with it her chance to be a mother. Self-preservation meant she’d chosen not to nurse children, and in her off-duty life, while she didn’t technically avoid children, she didn’t actively seek them out either.
She knew from bitter experience that letting her mind drift backwards was unwise and unhealthy so she drew on every ounce of her professionalism. He’s a patient, like all your other patients.
She picked up the Bahasa-English dictionary she’d purchased and thumbed through the pages. Last night she’d recalled her basic Indonesian from primary school, and using the dictionary she’d looked up the words for pain and thirst, adding them to her small list of phrases. The little boy’s mother spoke less English than Chloe spoke Bahasa, which wasn’t saying much, so the dictionary was getting a good workout.
Between them, they were muddling along and Made was pain-free, which right now was the most important thing for his recovery.
Chloe stifled a yawn. It had been a long day and she still had an hour to go before her relief took over. She’d started her shift early due to Luke Stanley’s request that she attend the operation. She’d arrived before him and had spent the time chatting with the anaesthetist about Made’s post-operative pain relief while the rest of the theatre staff had scurried around, getting ready. The scout nurse had set up Mr Stanley’s favourite playlist of music but the moment he’d walked briskly into Theatre he’d demanded it be turned off.
The mood of the room had instantly changed—people had become tentative and quiet. Eyes had flashed and flickered over the tops of surgical masks, sending coded messages to each other. Luke Stanley had operated almost silently, his only words being infrequent curt demands for instruments that the experienced scrub nurse had failed to anticipate, and as a result the air was thick with confused tension. People wanted to be sympathetic and understanding, but nothing about Luke Stanley’s demeanour allowed it.
Initially, Chloe hadn’t understood why Luke had insisted she be in the operating room, but it had been utterly hypnotic watching him in action and seeing how those long, strong and competent fingers had freed the thick, scarred adhesions on Made’s neck. He deserved his reputation as a talented surgeon and his skills were restoring little Made’s life to normality. The young boy would once again be able to turn his head, and in time he would once again enjoy playing childhood games.
Although it hadn’t been absolutely necessary to attend the operation to be able to nurse Made effectively, knowing exactly what Luke Stanley had done, seeing from where the skin grafts had been taken and how they had been positioned, did help. She rechecked Made’s analgesia drip and then set about her fifteen-minute routine of observing the skin grafts. Circulation was key and she wanted to see pink, warm skin, not white and cool skin.
‘How’s he doing?’
Surprised, Chloe spun around at the sound of Luke’s deep but curt voice. Just like their first encounter fifteen months ago, she hadn’t heard him enter the ward—only this time her hands were thankfully empty. This time Luke’s face wasn’t open, smiling and cheerful. Instead, gaunt skin stretched over high cheekbones, giving him a haunted look.
‘He’s doing great,’ she said, suppressing a shudder at the pain Luke wore like a greatcoat. Her brain sought for something she could say that could give them a shared connection, which might make him look less formidable and unapproachable. ‘Do you always enter the room panther style?’
His dark brows drew down. ‘What are you talking about?’
She ignored his brusqueness and tried a smile. ‘You have a habit of entering a room silently and surprising me.’
He looked blank and utterly uncomprehending. ‘This is the first time I’ve seen you with a patient.’
She shook her head. ‘Just before you went to France, you walked into this same ward very quietly and gave me such a fright that I covered you in iodine.’
His vivid green eyes finally flashed with recognition. ‘Chloe? Nick’s sister?’ He said the words as if he needed to hear them to cement them in his mind.
‘That’s right. Lucky for you that today my hands are empty,’ she joked.
He glanced down at his scrubs, as if he couldn’t remember what he was wearing, and then shrugged his wide shoulders like it really didn’t really matter anyway. ‘If there’s any change with Made’s grafts, notify me immediately. You have my mobile number?’
She swallowed a sigh. So much for attempting a friendly connection with the man. ‘I do. Are you leaving the hospital now?’
He seemed to stiffen. ‘Yes. I have to pick my daughter up from daycare. They don’t like it when I’m late.’
‘I don’t suppose she likes it either.’
His eyes burned, emitting sparks of green. ‘You think I want Amber in daycare ten hours a day? She doesn’t have a choice and neither do I.’
The loud and terse words slammed into her like a punch to her solar plexus, making her heart race.
Made’s mother startled from her nap in the chair. ‘Apa yang salah?’ M
rs Putu asked anxiously.
Chloe didn’t need to understand the words to know that the mother was stressing that Luke’s raised voice meant something was wrong with her son. She reached out her hand to comfort and reassure the woman.
‘Semuabaik,’ Luke said softly. ‘All is well.’
‘Terimakasih, Dokter.’ The woman visibly relaxed and sank back in her chair.
Chloe turned back to face Luke, surprised at the ease in which the foreign language had rolled off his tongue but furious with him for upsetting Mrs Putu. For deliberately misconstruing her own words. Adrenaline pelted through her, sending rafts of agitation jetting along her veins, and she needed to work extra-hard to appear calm.
Choosing her words carefully, she shepherded Luke towards the door. ‘I’m not judging you about daycare,’ she said, sotto voce, ‘I was talking about the fact your daughter probably doesn’t like it when you’re late either.’
He stared down at her, his jaw tight, his height dwarfing her by a good thirty centimetres, and she caught the scent of his spicy cologne. His eyes, which at times could be bright green, were now a dark moss and filled with so many flickering emotions that it was hard to decode any of them over and above the dominant and glaring pain.
Tall, dark, gorgeous, brooding and tortured.
Her heart did a ridiculous leap, which had absolutely nothing to do with his indignation or her chagrin.
Oh, no, she told herself sternly. The man is grieving and you do not need to rescue him. You’ve just got your own life back on track. You’ve got a dog to love and be loved by.
Shimmering tingles taunted her, spinning through her with their intoxicating call. But it’s been so long…
No way in hell, Chloe! her ever-vigilant internal guard yelled. Keep it simple, remember?
She sucked in a long, deep breath, trying desperately to banish the delicious buzz of addictive warmth. ‘Everything’s fine here, Mr Stanley. Go and get your daughter.’
His eyes widened at her dismissal of him, and he rubbed his forehead with his fingers and his temple with his thumb as if his head hurt. ‘Goodnight, then.’