by Annie O'Neil
“Good work.” He nodded at the female nurse. “What’s your name?”
“Julia,” she said, and flushed. “Julia Mayhew.”
Oh, no.
Was she flirting? Normally he wouldn’t care. Would play along, even. But feeling Amanda’s hazel eyes upon him, just knowing her eyebrows would be raised, curious to see how he responded, he fought the urge to flash Julia his trademark playboy grin.
“Can you oversee him getting a transfer up to Cardio?”
Julia nodded, obviously a bit put out that he wasn’t up for a bit of naughty doctor-and-nurse foreplay.
Matt turned just in time to see Amanda covering up a snigger with her blue-gloved hands.
“Not bad compressions for a little thing.”
“Ooh...” Amanda cooed, pulling off her gloves. “Thank goodness a big strong man was there to squeeze the oxygen bag. Oh, wait.” She popped a single finger over the bright pink moue her lips had formed. “I think that was Julia. Girl power!”
Though they were walking side by side, Amanda somehow managed to flick her foot up and give him a little trainer-clad swat on the bum.
Matthew grinned. This was the kind of flirting he was comfortable with. Playground style.
He felt as if someone had flicked a switch on the pair of them. From ball gowns to scrubs. Amanda suited the role of doctor every bit as much as she did the role of the chiffon-wearing, champagne-drinking nymph he’d held in his arms—hah!
You had to laugh, didn’t you? It had been about a thousand and one nights ago. At least it wasn’t a thousand and one knights ago. He might not be one to settle down, but something deep within him didn’t want to picture her in the arms of another man. She was special, and she deserved someone who would be there for her...night and day.
“Way to hit the ground running,” he said, finally extracting himself from his proprietorial thoughts. He meant it too. Not everyone could walk into a strange ER and just get to it.
“Why, thank you very much. You weren’t so bad yourself,” she parried.
Nice. He liked a woman who could take a compliment.
“Nothing like a busy ER to get the adrenaline pumping.” She did a little jog in place, then double-stepped to catch up with him.
He gave her a sidelong look and nodded. Her cheeks were flushed, bringing a warm glow to her peaches and cream complexion.
“Is this your usual buzz or are you more country GP looking to the bright lights of London for a rush? Or. no... Wait...”
He framed his hands as if he were a film director and peered at her through the square of his fingers, resisting the urge to ask whether or not there was a husband in the picture.
“Were you a Harley Street girl? Have the hushed corridors and trappings of the rich become a bit too dull for Lady Amanda?”
Amanda stopped and narrowed her eyes. She looked more sultry than suspicious, but he could tell there were questions in her eyes. And then just as quickly she popped them open and gave a quick smile.
“I like helping people. Wherever and whoever they are,” she added pointedly.
“You two free?”
They turned in tandem to see a harried Dr. McBride standing at the main desk with patient folders in each hand.
Without even looking up he stretched out his arms. “Chase, you’ve got a compound tib-fib fracture in Curtain Three. Standard slip and fall. Patient’s had one pint too many—wear a disposable. Wakehurst, can you see Mrs. Whitcomb? She’s the one in the blue dressing gown over in the corner, talking to Miss Parrish. Take both of them. Whatever Mrs. Whitcomb has, Miss Parrish will claim to have caught it first.”
He handed her the second file, then looked up at the pair of them.
Amanda looked over her shoulder at two older women sitting in wheelchairs at the far end of the waiting room. One was knitting and the other was holding up a magnifying glass to the newspaper. The puzzles pages, from the looks of things.
“Are they regulars?”
Ignoring her question, Dr. McBride threw his hands up in disbelief. “What are you waiting for? Go!”
Matthew shot Amanda a look. She could potentially be this man’s boss and she was getting an earful. Dr. Menzies obviously hadn’t clued him in to who they were. He didn’t expect special treatment, but Amanda oozed being a class above—and was most likely used to being treated as such.
“You got it.” She rapped her knuckles on the counter to attract Dr. McBride’s attention. “And keep them coming. I want to get this place cleared as much as you do.”
Matthew grinned as he headed off to find his patient.
Keep them coming...
As if you could stop them.
CHAPTER FOUR
“OOPS!” AMANDA REACHED out and caught near enough the full weight of a young woman losing the battle with her high heels as she stumbled through the double doors. “Steady on.”
The girl threw her head back, allowing her full weight to fall on Amanda, and dissolved into peals of laughter.
Amanda blinked, almost shocked to see how the broad daylight she’d left outside when she’d entered the hospital had turned into the dark, twinkly magic night time that was London in the holidays.
Beyond the girl’s huge tumble of dark curls there were miniature Christmas trees perched on old-fashioned lampposts, shop fronts done up with great swathes of gold, silver, and the beautiful deep maroon that seemed to have bewitched all the designers this year.
Christmas! If she wasn’t careful the entire thing could pass her by.
Time had raced past since she’d first donned her scrubs. They’d barely cleared the lunchtime party crowd before the after-work party crowd had started stumbling in.
Twinges of guilt tickled at Amanda’s conscience. She knew she hadn’t even been rostered on, but with the A&E still filled to the brim with patients it felt as if she was bailing by going home.
She managed to steer the girl round so she could get a glimpse at the wall clock. Seven o’clock.
Late! Always late. Her aunt needed to go out to an art exhibition and Tristan would be expecting his bedtime story anytime now.
Thank goodness the house was a quick five-minute run round the corner from the hospital. Even in the heels she’d slipped back on.
She bit down on the inside of her cheek as she grappled with balancing the girl. Until she got this job she didn’t have a nanny. Until she had a nanny she wouldn’t be able to do the job. The single mother’s double-edged sword.
As she slipped her arms under the young woman’s shoulders Amanda received a strong hit of mojito breath. Rum, lime and mint. She was sure of it. It had been one of her favorite cocktails back in the day, when she’d been just like this short-skirted, sequin-dressed hellion.
“Ha-a-appy Christmassh!” the girl slurred into her face.
Perhaps not exactly like her.
Even so, the girl’s overall demeanor was one of reckless holiday abandon. A path she herself had followed one too many times. Ha! Who was she kidding? The whole reason she was where she was now was because she’d taken the whole society girl thing too far and her parents had kicked her out when she’d failed to pull up her proverbials.
When she’d been a trust fund girl? Sigh...
There had been a lot of room for improvement.
Holding on to this near mirror image of her old self, Amanda couldn’t stop a teensy wave of nostalgia for the days when all she had worried about was attending lectures and then finding the trendiest bar and the hottest guy in it.
Perhaps she had a bit more in common with Matthew Chase than she was admitting. Were they kindred spirits somewhere beneath their protective layers? His macho gadabout to her... Well, she was still working on her image. Ice Queen seemed to working for now.
She looked acro
ss to see Matthew effortlessly lifting yet another reveler off the floor and into a cubicle. It seemed the whole of London was celebrating the first of December as if it were Christmas Eve itself, blissfully unaware of the twelve-hours-plus shifts the staff at Bankside were pulling just to keep the numbers manageable.
If she and Matthew hadn’t shown up...
She tried to maintain eye contact with the young woman as she righted her and held her in place for a moment so she could regain her balance. Just as Amanda was about to let go the girl leant forward and popped a bright red lipstick kiss on Amanda’s cheek.
“’Tis the season!” She giggled, before realigning her features to look terribly serious. “Now, Doctor Lady. Can you tell me where I can get this treated?”
She flourished her incredibly long and very highly decorated nails in Amanda’s face and waggled her fingers.
“I’m sorry...” Amanda inspected the fingers. She didn’t see any bruising or swelling. No bleeding. “What seems to be the problem?”
“Isn’t it, like, completely obvious?”
The girl’s cut-glass accent became more pronounced as she widened her eyes and looked around to a group of women who had to be her friends and were now stumbling through the automatic double doors in her wake. What was it her father had always called Amanda and her group of so-called friends? A charm of charmers.
If only they knew how meaningless it all was. Like a fistful of glitter. Beautiful at first and then...poof...gone with the first gust of wind.
“It’s my naaaaail.” The young woman over-enunciated the word, as if to explain it to a stupid person.
“Ah!” Amanda fought the urge to thin her lips and tell the girl to get a grip.
Instead, she put on a bright smile, before placing her hands on the woman’s shoulders to turn her back toward the entryway. This was exactly the sort of time-wasting the A&E department could do without.
“There are ten-minute emergency manicures available on Long Acre, in Covent Garden. Ten pounds a pop. Far better than our team could ever do.”
“But I pay my taxes!” The girl looked back at her friends, who all looked at each other as if to ascertain whether or not that might be true.
Amanda guessed that Daddy paid taxes. These girls were dead ringers for the group she’d hung out with. Fair weather friends.
“Your taxes go to medical care. Not manicures. Besides...” She changed her tone to one of sisterhood because she knew firsthand that preaching didn’t work. “Take a look at these. One of the nurses did them.”
She flourished her own hand, showing off the insanely bad “manicure” her son had tried to give her. Suffice it to say his ability to color inside the lines wasn’t quite up to par yet. But he’d had fun.
“You want your nails to look like this? Be my guest. You want to look fab? Head to Long Acre.”
“Seriously?” The girl blinked heavy lashes as her cocktails took their toll on her motor skills.
Amanda nodded. “The best. Shellac. Gel. Whatever you want.” She leaned in and stage-whispered for effect, “They even do grayscale.”
“No!” The girl’s fingers flew to her mouth. “That’s it. I’m not having them done here. Not a chance.”
She whirled around and hooked arms with the two young women who were behind her, announcing to anyone who cared to listen, “We’re off to Covent Garden, girls. Nail emergency!”
Amanda shook her head and laughed. Thank goodness her aunt was constantly on trend. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d had her nails done properly.
“Adroitly handled.”
For the second time that night the baritone voice rippled along her spine. Matthew was going to have to stop sneaking up on her. Especially when every spare brain cell she had was trying to figure out how best to keep him out of her and her son’s lives.
She whirled around and turned her accent up a notch closer to the Queen’s. “You know how it is with us socialites.”
“Do I?”
“Better than most, I would assume.”
She gave him an up-and-down appraisal. There wasn’t a chance in the universe he would be able to convince her the night they’d shared together was more than a one-time thing for him. He had the smooth lines, the good looks and the finesse to shake off trouble like snowflakes. The kind of man to whom nothing stuck.
Which was exactly why she hadn’t hunted him down the day she’d found out she was carrying his child.
She pulled the belt of her coat a bit more snugly round her waist. “I’m surprised you don’t have a tuxedo lying in wait in your locker. After all, ’tis the season to dazzle the ladies of London with your Christmas...largesse.”
He arched an eyebrow at her, the flash of darkness crossing his eyes a direct contrast to the smile teasing at his full lips. Lips she would jolly well consider paying to kiss.
If it were for charity, of course.
When she met his gaze again she was shocked to see there wasn’t a trace of humor in it.
“What makes you think I don’t?” Matthew countered, lowering thick black lashes to mask his eyes for a moment, before lifting them just enough for Amanda to glimpse the unfathomable pain he masked with suave comebacks and indecipherable smiles.
His hand lifted to scrub the length of his stubbled chin. She remembered the sensation of that stubble softly abrading her belly as he’d kissed the length of her midriff, moving lower, lower in a trail of kisses until she’d closed her eyes and let sensation upon sensation take possession of her and it had felt as if the heavens themselves were exploding in her body’s epicenter.
“Don’t you?” Matthew asked.
She saw his lips moving, but heard the words as if on a delayed audio track.
“Don’t I what?”
She had been lost. Lost in those clear blue eyes of his, trying to unravel his mysteries. Now she just felt ridiculous.
Matthew, on the other hand, seemed to be enjoying her little moment of unabashed ogling.
“Ball gown in your locker. Or is Cinderella off the clock for tonight?”
Amanda twisted her embarrassment into a coil of indignation. “Some of us have responsibilities outside the hospital.”
Where had that come from?
She never used her son as an excuse for anything and—uh-oh—from the look on Matthew’s face the comment hadn’t gone down well at all.
“And some of us are channeling all our energies into proving we genuinely want to run the A&E.”
“Is that a dare?”
“No,” he replied solidly. “It’s a challenge.”
“Well, then.” Amanda tugged her coat collar round her throat in preparation to swoop out through the door. “I guess it’s pistols at dawn.”
She swirled around in a waft of indignation—only to run straight into yet another paramedic crew wheeling in a gurney weighted with a heavily pregnant woman.
Terrific.
She rolled her eyes and diverted her course around the gurney, knowing full well that if she were to turn around that glint of humor would definitely have returned to Matthew’s eyes.
* * *
Matthew stared out at the glittering reflection of Christmas lights on the River Thames. The darkness of the flat behind him seemed to make each light outside his floor-to-ceiling windows shine brighter—as if they were leering at him. Daring him to fling off the cloak of too many dark reflections and enjoy himself.
Seeing Amanda had well and truly knocked him off course. When she’d swept into his life and disappeared as if she’d never been there at all he’d been able to handle it. Knowing he’d see her day in and day out for a month... Dangerous.
He’d wanted to walk into Dr. Menzies’s office and withdraw his candidacy. The only thing that had stopped him was pride. He’d al
ready given his parents ample fodder to prove he didn’t have what it took to handle any task. He sure as hell wasn’t going to have London’s medical elite thinking the same thing. Matthew Chase has no staying power.
“Look after your brother, son. Can you do that for us?”
The words chilled him to the bone even today.
His father’s death had done nothing to lessen the guilt.
Nor had his mother’s disappearance to the Antipodes, where he had little doubt she’d started a new life. A new family. Where no one would know that her soldier son had come back from combat duty and hung himself in the attic while they were out Christmas shopping.
Abruptly, Matthew pushed himself out of the solitary chair he’d bought when he moved in and tugged open the sliding doors to the balcony, savoring the icy bite of winter air travelling deep into his lungs.
The pain felt good against the burning ache of loss.
He lifted his gaze from the festive river’s edge and counted rooftops until he thought he could see Bedford Square. His chest tightened against the swell of emotion seeing Amanda again had elicited. It was a sensation he was going to have to crush.
Having Amanda Wakehurst in his life again was just a reminder of happiness he didn’t deserve.
* * *
As gently as she could, Amanda eased the curly blond head out from under her arm. She rarely slept the whole night through with her little guy in the same room now that he was a toddler, but tonight... Tonight she hadn’t been able to resist that small warm body crawling into her bed, snuggling into the cocoon of protective warmth she made for him when they spooned. She lifted his small ever-changing form, growing heavier in her arms almost by the day, and walked as carefully as she could toward the next room where his toddler bed was all made up with an overindulgence of soft toys.
She had to laugh. She and her aunt didn’t have money coming out of their ears, but whatever money they did get they put toward Tristan. Their little Knight of Bedford Square. Or, as she liked to call him at this time of year, the best early Christmas present she’d ever had.