by Amy Andrews
Ruby rolled her eyes. ‘He’s a thirty-five-year-old man whose skill with a scalpel has given countless people all around the world a better life. I’m pretty sure he can handle an egg flip. Sit and eat before your breakfast gets cold.’
‘But—’
‘No buts,’ Ruby said crankily, thinking how their mother had waited on their father hand and foot all their married life and how he’d let her.
She and Adam hated him for it. And they hated how their mother had allowed herself to be completely absorbed by him, totally losing herself in the process.
He doubted Adam would thank Jess for her ministrations.
‘Sit,’ Ruby said when it looked like Jess was about to object again.
Jess raised an eyebrow at Tilly, who turned to Ruby. ‘More coffee,’ she suggested, sweeping Ruby’s cup up as Jess placed her meal on the table and sat. A few minutes later they were chatting about their rare day off together when Adam swaggered back into the kitchen. He was wearing dry boardies and a snug T-shirt and Jess’s throat suddenly felt as dry as the toast she was eating.
‘These are yours, I believe,’ he said, handing Jess her two cushions as he passed her by.
Jess, aware of the speculative gaze of her friends, blushed furiously. The thought of just where those cushions had been deepened the colour to scarlet as she dropped her gaze to her plate.
‘Thank you,’ she murmured.
‘So,’ Ruby, said looking from Adam to Jess then back to Adam again, ‘what’re you up to today?’
Adam smiled to himself as he opened the fridge door and reached for the eggs. Jess’s blush was so damn cute it made him want to tease her more.
A lot more.
‘I have an appointment with Gordon Meriwether later today about organising some visiting surgeon rights.’
All three of them sat up a little straighter. Jess almost inhaled a piece of bacon. Was he coming to work at Eastern Beaches? In the operating theatres?
Her operating theatres?
‘Dr Meriwether from up the hill?’ she clarified.
Adam nodded as he sauntered to the fry pan and turned up the heat. ‘As I was saying yesterday, we had to abort this last mission due to some unrest. There were quite a few cases that we’d reviewed a few months ago that were scheduled to be done. Some bad burns contractures from a horrific fire that wiped out a couple of villages and one really major reconstruction case. We had to leave them.’ He shrugged. ‘That’s not ideal.’ Jess ignored more speculative glances between Tilly and Ruby at Adam’s referral to yesterday. The plight of the people that Adam spoke about turned her already soft heart to complete mush. ‘Oh, how awful,’ she murmured.
‘So…you’re going to do them at Eastern Beaches?’ Ruby asked.
Adam nodded as he cracked his eggs into the pan. ‘That’s the plan. We’ve negotiated with some international charities to bring the patients to Australia, I just need to tee it up with Gordon to use his theatres.’
‘Can’t see that will be a problem,’ Tilly said with a wry smile. ‘Gordon does like publicity.’
Adam smiled back. ‘That’s what I figured. Plenty of photo ops make Gordon a happy boy.’
Jess head was spinning. So…the man she’d fallen head over heels for ever since Ruby had introduced her brother three years ago, the man who had been naked in her bed just yesterday, was going to be walking the same sterile corridors as her?
Maybe the universe was trying to tell her something? Seize the day? Maybe it was her turn to find happiness?
‘So you’ll be working at the hospital soon?’ Jess was pretty sure she managed to keep the squeak out of her voice.
Adam flipped his eggs. He knew Jess had been in the operating theatres for the last few months. He tried to picture her in blue theatre scrubs and failed.
All he could see was that damn towel.
‘If all goes ahead it’ll be a PR exercise so there’ll be a couple of weeks of settling in and fanfare with the obligatory interviews in women’s magazines and for current-affairs television. And the usual press conferences for both the charities and the hospital.’
‘That’s fair,’ Ruby said.
Adam, used to schmoozing and pandering to whatever interests could fund Operation New Faces, simply nodded. He knew full well how this game was played and was prepared to do whatever was required to see that the organisation he’d dedicated the last six years of his life to thrived.
He slipped his cooked eggs onto the plate and joined the women at the table. Jess was studiously mopping up every last scrap of yolk with a piece of toast.
He had a sudden urge to know her. To know Jess, the nurse. Not Jess, his sister’s friend, or Jess, the farm girl, or Jess, the blushing housemate.
Jess, the competent professional.
He didn’t understand why.
Had someone put a gun to his head he wouldn’t have been able to explain it. But suddenly he seemed to want to know everything about her.
Not least of all what was beneath that towel.
And how the hell she cleared her bed so quickly of all those damn cushions when the occasion arose. As she must most assuredly on a reasonably regular basis.
Unless all male staff at Eastern Beaches were completely blind. Or stupid.
‘It’ll be a few days’ worth of surgery—there’s nine major operations all up. I’ll need a team. Are you interested?’
Jess looked up sharply from her plate. Interested? She’d give up her claim to the family farm to work with him. Just to be in the same operating theatre as him as he unleashed his magic would be a supreme honour.
‘I’ve only been in Theatre for a few months. I doubt I’m experienced enough for you.’
As soon as the prophetic words were out, Jess wished she could take them back. On so many levels, she just wasn’t up to his skill set.
Adam stilled. He could see pink tinging her high cheekbones again and he suddenly wasn’t thinking about the job. Suddenly he was thinking about all the things he could teach her.
Her teeth sank into the lushness of her bottom lip and his brain temporarily short circuited.
After a moment he blinked and forced himself to shrug casually. ‘Eastern Beaches is a teaching hospital. It doesn’t have any facio-maxillary specialists so it’s not something you’ll probably ever see if you choose to stay at the hospital. It’ll be good experience. Are you up for it?’
Jess forgot all about her plan, which did not involve staying at Eastern Beaches at all. The outback was her first love—red dust ran in her veins—and once she’d completed a year each in the OR, Emergency and ICU she was going home to the chronically understaffed bush.
All she heard was his Are you up for it?
She was up for anything he was offering. Three years of barely even recognising her and suddenly he was offering her a place on his surgical team?
It wasn’t anything romantic, she knew that. But after existing on crumbs for the last few years this was her chance to prove herself worthy. To finally be noticed.
Maybe even as a woman too?
‘I’m up for it.’
Adam had to remind himself as Jess looked at him like he’d created the moon and the stars that she was young and impressionable and very, very off-limits.
Remember Francine.
Remember Ruby.
He inclined his head. ‘I’ll see if I can swing it.’ Jess smiled at him and for a moment he forgot what he’d agreed to do as he smiled back.
Ruby and Tilly exchanged looks. ‘Hot date tonight?’ Ruby asked.
Adam glanced at his sister. Normally a hot date was the only thing on his mind after he’d caught up on some sleep. And sometimes even before that. There’d been more than one occasion he’d pulled up in a taxi outside his Coogee residence not so fresh from the international airport, dragging a woman through the perennially squeaky front gate.
But with Jess smiling at him across the table in her sweet, innocent way, suddenly the names in his little black boo
k didn’t seem as appealing.
And that was stupid with a capital S.
‘You know me.’ He shrugged, thankful for Ruby reminding him of who he was. ‘Work hard. Play harder.’
Jess felt his words slam into her heart as if they’d been delivered by a sledgehammer.
Adam Carmichael was a player.
Not the handsome prince!
The following week Jess hurried along to the staffroom. She was late. The orthopaedic list she’d been scrubbing for had run a little over time. James Leonardi, Ellie’s orthopaedic surgeon fiancé, usually ran a tight ship but sometimes these things happened.
The soft, well-washed cotton of her baggy blue scrubs shifted against her body as she moved, the clip-clop of her clogs reverberated down the corridor.
All the occupants of the room looked up as she entered but she only had eyes for one. ‘Sorry,’ she apologised to Adam, smoothing her theatre cap self-consciously.
‘No worries.’ Adam smiled. ‘We haven’t started yet.’
Jess smiled shyly back at him and Adam felt a strange kick in the centre of his chest. Her theatre cap obscured her hair and exposed her face in a way he’d not seen before. Her eyes, the exact shade of her scrubs, practically glowed beneath the fringe of mocha lashes, and her flawless skin flowed over high cheekbones and dipped into interesting hollows near her mouth.
And that mouth. Man, that mouth! All wide and pink with full soft lips that pulled at him like a homing beacon. She didn’t wear any make-up and her gaze was open and honest with absolutely no artifice.
She was just plain…lovely.
Lovely?
‘Shall we begin?’ prompted Martha Cosgrove, the NUM of the operating theatres.
It took a moment for Adam’s brain to realise the room had fallen silent and people were looking at him expectantly. ‘Of course,’ he said.
He turned and headed for the whiteboard attached to the far wall, castigating himself as he went.
Since when did he do lovely?
Hot, sexy, bodacious. These were things he did. Lovely? Definitely not. He turned to face the room, his gaze somehow automatically finding Jess. She was now sitting on one of the low chairs that lined the walls. Her legs were crossed and she was looking at him with interest. And suddenly, sitting amidst her nursing colleagues, dressed in her scrubs and cap, she didn’t look so young any more. Gone were the jeans and Ts and the ever-present ponytail that made her look like she was still stuck in her teens.
She looked like a professional. Capable. Confident.
She looked all grown up.
‘I’d like to thank you for joining me today,’ he said dragging his gaze from her and getting back on task. ‘Congratulations, you’re all part of a team that’s going to make a huge difference to the lives of nine human beings who would otherwise be outcasts amongst their own people.’
A feeling that she was doing something worthwhile consumed Jess and she started to clap. Others followed and she took the opportunity to look around her at Adam’s team. An anaesthetist, five nurses—three senior, two junior—a surgical registrar and a surgical resident.
She flicked her gaze back to Adam. It was the first time she’d ever seen him in his theatre garb and his magnificence was breathtaking. She’d thought nothing could top the floral sheets but the scrubs definitely made the man.
He looked like every charismatic screen doctor she’d ever watched on television rolled into one. He oozed sexiness and virility and that special brand of confidence that highly skilled surgeons exuded so effortlessly.
In some doctors it would be described as arrogance.
In Adam it was pure self-belief.
‘We’re hoping to begin the three days of surgery in a fortnight,’ Adam continued. ‘There’s a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes—dotting all the Is and crossing all the Ts with the different charities involved and from a humanitarian visa point of view and certainly for Lai Ling, our most complicated case, there needs to be further imaging and bio-modelling to be done before it can go ahead.’
As he spoke Jess was distracted by wisps of his sandy blond hair that had escaped the theatre cap. She was reminded of how it had looked lying against her pillow. All shaggy and badly in need of a cut and crying out to be ruffled.
Gesturing intermittently, his arms also drew her gaze. The blue scrubs were a stark contrast to the deep brown tan that only seemed to accentuate the flex of muscles in his forearms, the dusting of blond hairs unmistakeably masculine.
How was it possible to look so poised and comfortable talking about cutting-edge surgery and yet look like he’d just come in from the beach?
Adam spoke for half an hour, covering all the logistics, and he had his team’s full attention. There were occasional interruptions for questions when pertinent, but otherwise they listened intently. Jess listened too. And not just for the information he conveyed. But the way he conveyed it. The deep sexy timbre of his voice, the effortless way he used wit and humour, the unconscious movement of his body as he gestured with his hands and leaned in towards his team as if gathering them closer.
He wasn’t just a sight to behold. He was exceedingly easy on the ear as well.
The briefing broke up when a journalist and photographer from a weekly women’s magazine arrived at the door. Jess watched Adam stride across the room and greet them, his movie-star smile radiating confidence and charisma.
‘This is Brad Hennegan from Week About,’ he said, introducing each of his team to the reporter, who was looking a little out of place and very overawed in his scrubs, cap and the blue paper booties he wore over his shoes.
‘Brad’s here to do some publicity shots and will be in and out during the next few weeks as his magazine is doing some feature articles on the project.’
Brad nodded to the assembled staff. ‘I’m looking forward to following the story.’
Adam gestured for Brad and the photographer to precede him out into the corridor. ‘I’ve teed up Theatre Eight with Martha Cosgrove, our nurse manager,’ he said.
Brad nodded. ‘Can I have one of the nursing staff too, perhaps?’ he asked. ‘We want the readers to see it’s a team effort. Get a real feel for how dynamic the operating theatre really is.’
‘Ah, sure,’ Adam said, turning back to the staffroom door just as Jess stepped out.
‘She’ll do,’ Brad said.
Great… ‘Jess?’
Jess felt her pulse kick up a notch as she approached Adam. He had this amazing magnetic pull that was hard to resist. She probably would have gravitated towards him even if she hadn’t been called.
‘What’s up?’ she asked as she drew to a standstill.
‘I was wondering if you’d mind being in a couple of photos with Dr Carmichael?’ Brad asked. ‘Our readers want to know about the nurses involved as well.’
‘Sure.’ She nodded. Her parents, her grandmother and all the folks back home would be tickled pink to see her in the glossy pages of a national magazine.
And if it meant she got to spend more time with Adam then that suited her fine as well. Between her shifts and his social calendar she’d barely seen him since he’d been home.
They all trooped down to theatre eight and Brad chatted with them about the project while the photographer scoped the room out. When Adam divulged that he and Jess were actually housemates as well, Brad became very excited, talking about how it would make another great angle for the photos.
Half an hour later, Jess was thoroughly sick of smiling. They’d had their pictures taken in every place and pose imaginable. Near the operating table, in the anaesthetic room, with trays of instruments and in front of imaging equipment, with their masks on and their masks hanging half off, scrubbing up at the sinks and drying off.
‘Just a couple more,’ Brad said, consulting with the photographer over their cache. ‘How about more casual shots this time? More like two friends, two colleagues having a laugh together after a hard day’s work in the OR?’
; Jess thought that Brad watched too much television but if it meant that her facial muscles could soon cop a break then she was game.
‘How’s this?’ Adam asked, slinging an arm casually around Jess’s shoulders.
‘Good, good,’ Brad enthused as the photographer clicked away.
Jess wasn’t so sure about that as her whole body went on alert. Her nipples tightened in her bra and she thanked goodness for the bagginess of her scrubs. All she had to do was a lean a little and her whole side would be pressed against his.
She could smell his clean male aroma, warm and vital in the cool, sterile surroundings, and the urge to turn her face and burrow it into his neck was surprisingly urgent.
‘Now look up at each other,’ Brad instructed to the clicking of the lens. ‘Like it’s been a good day and you’re going home to veg out in front of the tele with a nice cold beer.’
Adam laughed. ‘I usually hit the surf when I get home.’
‘Okay, that’s good.’ Brad nodded. ‘What about you, Jess? What do you like to do when you get home?’
Wait for Adam to come home from the surf in his wet boardies.
Jess swallowed. ‘This time of the day I usually head to the Stat Bar, meet the girls for a drink.’
Adam laughed. ‘You mean perv at the guys that jog by with no shirts on.’
Jess gasped and looked up at Adam. ‘We do not.’ Well, she didn’t anyway. And the other three didn’t any more either.
‘Ruby reckons that’s exactly what you all do.’ He grinned.
The teasing light in his eyes twinkled at her and his smile was so sincere she found herself smiling back. ‘Well, maybe occasionally,’ she admitted.
He laughed and she laughed back, his hand light on her shoulder.
‘Perfect.’ Brad beamed as the photographer nodded at him. ‘Perfect.’
Fifteen minutes later Jess was stepping out of the front door of the hospital in the jeans and T-shirt she’d worn to work, her hair in its regulation ponytail. She sucked in a deep, satisfying breath.
Working in a windowless environment after growing up in the wide open spaces of the outback was something she just couldn’t get used to and she never took that first breath of fresh air for granted.