But what could she do?
A sudden plan came to mind.
Desperate, she pulled her mobile phone out of her pocket, turned it on and sent an SOS message to the one person she could trust to save her from herself and stop her from making a monumental mistake.
CHAPTER THREE
‘IS THE damage very bad, Doctor?’
Nathan looked up from his examination of the burns on the elderly woman’s hand, hoping to ease the pain and anxiety reflected in her cloudy blue eyes. ‘You did the right thing getting your hand under cold water straight away, Mrs Mooney, and wrapping it in clingfilm before coming to the hospital gave further protection against infection. Not doing so could have made the resulting injuries worse.’
‘Lucky I took note of all those television programmes,’ she offered with a brave smile.
‘You did well. Aside from the blisters, there are a couple of partial thickness burns, but nothing that appears to be deeper,’ he reassured her, gently turning the injured hand over again and reassessing the situation, carefully checking between the fingers. ‘We’ll give you some pain relief, then we’ll clean things up and remove any dead skin, drain the blisters, and put on some cream before dressing the hand. Do you have someone at home with you?’ he asked, concerned that the woman wouldn’t manage alone.
‘Yes, I live with my daughter and her children.’
‘Then you’ll be able to go home when we’re done.’ He gave her non-injured hand a squeeze. ‘But you’ll need to come back to the outpatient clinic tomorrow, to have the dressing changed and the hand reassessed. After that your GP surgery will be able to manage your aftercare. Is your tetanus cover up to date?’
Mrs Mooney’s lined face creased further as she frowned. ‘Goodness, I can’t remember when I last had a vaccination.’
‘Don’t worry. We’ll give you another injection to be sure. Could you take care of that please, Holly?’ he requested, glancing up at the quietly efficient young staff nurse.
‘Of course, Dr Shepherd. No problem.’
The pretty blonde manoeuvred a trolley next to him, on which she had laid out all the items he required to treat and dress Mrs Mooney’s hand. ‘Thanks.’
‘Your grandchildren are quite a handful, are they, Mrs Mooney?’
Nathan heard Holly’s question, grateful to her for keeping the worried patient’s mind occupied as he checked that the pain relief had done its job so he could begin to clean and dress her wounds. Concentrating on his task, he listened with half an ear as Mrs Mooney responded to Holly’s calm friendliness.
‘Yes, indeed, Nurse.’ She gave a raspy chuckle. ‘You need eyes in the back of your head with those boys. That’s how this happened. I only turned away for a moment to pick up the youngest, who had fallen on the floor. When I looked round his brother had climbed onto a kitchen chair and was pulling the kettle towards him.’
Mrs Mooney’s hand trembled at the memory, and Nathan paused until she settled again before inserting the needle to aspirate the first of the blisters, drawing fluid into the syringe.
‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘I set the baby down, rushed to the counter and managed to pull Johnny aside before he hurt himself. Unfortunately my other arm caught the kettle, spilling the boiling water on my hand.’
‘Ouch.’ Holly tutted in sympathy.
‘I’m just glad the children weren’t burned. I didn’t even think what I was doing. I just acted on instinct and couldn’t help myself. Do you know what I mean, Doctor?’
As he finished cleaning, aspirating and debriding the damaged areas of the hand, Nathan nodded. ‘I do, Mrs Mooney.’
Hadn’t he done the very same thing himself a few hours ago? Despite knowing the timing was wrong, he’d kissed Annie with all the desperation and urgency clamouring within him. He’d been unable to stop, even though he’d known it was too soon to push her to face what remained between them. It had been foolish, but inevitable. And he’d been burned in a very different kind of way, succeeding only in spooking Annie, causing her to strengthen the barriers she had erected against him.
But the need and longing to touch her and taste her had tormented him for five years. When presented with the opportunity, after being deprived of her for so long, the temptation had been too great for him to resist. Now he had set his cause back even further, making the goal he had come here to achieve harder than ever.
Smothering a sigh, he glanced up at the clock on the cubicle wall. His shift had officially ended half an hour ago, but he’d never been one to clock off to time. His presence was determined by his patients’ needs. A few doctors and nurses might walk off and hand their patient over to another member of staff coming on duty, but that had never been his way. The nature of accident and emergency medicine involved a rapid turnaround of multiple patients, but within that he believed in giving the best continuity of care possible, and he tried to see each case through to the end.
Annie had held the same philosophy. He could only hope that hadn’t changed, and that he would still have a chance to catch up with her before she left for home. Seeing her was a necessity—as was pinning her down so they could talk away from the lack of privacy and the pressures of the hospital.
Returning his attention to Mrs Mooney, grateful that she appeared less distressed, and knowing that was as much due to Holly’s expert care as anything else, Nathan applied some silver sulphadiazine cream to the injured hand before using sterile non-adherent dressings and covering the whole hand with a special glove which was secured around the wrist. That done, he stripped off his surgical gloves and tossed them in the bin.
After prescribing some analgesia and anti-inflammatory medication for her to take at home for any pain, and a precautionary antibiotic to stem any infection, he left Holly tidying the cubicle and escorted Mrs Mooney out. Her worried daughter waited with the two boisterous boys. Nathan gave them some reassurance, and a few last-minute instructions for her care, then returned to finish up the notes and have a word with Holly before leaving.
‘You’ve been great, Holly…thanks for all your help today.’
Surprise and gratitude were evident in the young woman’s expression. ‘Thank you, Nathan.’
Her shy smile failed to lift the lingering sadness that shadowed her eyes, and he paused a moment, unsure whether to say anything more. Several times during the day he had sensed tension between Holly and junior doctor Gus Buchanan, and he had wondered what the story was. He hated to see anyone unhappy, but at the same time didn’t feel he had been in the department long enough to intrude—not without knowing more about the dynamics, anyway. Shaking his head, he said goodnight and made his way towards the staffroom. He’d keep an eye on Holly just in case. Being there for other people was the story of his life—something he had long resented when it had been forced upon him, but a trait he was unwilling to break when it came to patients, colleagues and friends. Right now, however, he had enough problems of his own to sort out, and for once he had to put himself first.
There were several people in the staffroom. Thankfully, the predatory Olivia Barr was not one of them, but then neither was Annie. He’d checked when returning the notes on his final patient and knew she was only minutes ahead of him. A few discreet queries and he discovered she was in the women’s locker room, changing. Feeling nervous and uncomfortable, he loitered in the corridor, pretending to read the messages pinned higgledy-piggledy on the staff noticeboard. Knowing he couldn’t give Annie too much time to think and harden her heart even further against him, he was determined to catch her before she left the hospital.
As he waited, he thought back to the moment he had first seen Annie. He would never forget it.
By the time he had negotiated a temporary escape from the ties of home and managed to get to medical school he had found himself a few years older than the other students in his intake. Having always felt alone, never having connected with or been part of a group, he had approached those early days at medical school with a mix of inten
se apprehension and an unbelievable sense of freedom. At last he had been doing what he wanted with his life, and he had been able to put himself first—at least for part of the time. In medical school he’d had no one else depending on him, making demands on him, holding him back.
From day one he had been drawn to Annie Webster. Young and full of life, something about her had reached out to the lonely man inside him, the hidden part of him no one knew but which craved someone to love…yearned even more for someone to love him. One look at Annie’s captivating face, laughing blue eyes and widely smiling mouth and he’d lost his heart. During the first months of training she had still been involved with a boyfriend from home, so Nathan had smothered any hopes of more between them. But they had formed a deep friendship. The first of his life. Her enthusiasm and determination to be a doctor had matched his own, but she’d struggled with some of the study demands. He’d been pleased to help, receiving so much more back by basking in Annie’s sunshine, her joyousness and zest for life.
Then she’d been free, her relationship having failed to survive the distance, and having grown apart from her school sweetheart as their lives went in different directions. She had been sad, but not heartbroken, and after a decent interval Nathan had plucked up the nerve to ask her out. To his amazement she’d said yes. Head-over-heels, they had soon moved in together. Annie had made his world whole for the first time ever—only to destroy it four years later, when he had refused to immediately agree to her unreasonable demand. His own plea to discuss it further had fallen on deaf ears. She had left him—and the hospital—with no warning and without a backward glance.
He had made a mistake by not confiding more in Annie about his past and his home life. He could acknowledge that now. But she had never asked anything about him. She had accepted him for who he was and, addicted to her, enjoying the novelty and freedom to be himself, he’d never volunteered the information. It had been as if there were two Nathans—the one weighed down with the responsibility and shackles of home, forced to grow up years before his time, and Annie’s Nathan, happy, loved, following his dreams. He hadn’t wanted sad, dour, friendless Nathan to spoil what he had with Annie, and so he had followed her example to live each day as it came, embracing life and enjoying the moment.
And so they had gone on, as emotionally and physically close as two people could be. Yet while Annie had been open, exposing every part of herself and drawing him into her life and her family, he had revealed little about the man beneath the surface. That was his fault. Had she known of his background it might have made a difference that last day. It might have made her understand his instinctive reaction to her demand. But she had never asked or given any sign she wanted to know anything more about him as a person. And he had been insecure, scared—a part of him always waiting for her to tell him he wasn’t good enough for her, in his own heart believing he didn’t deserve her.
Now, five years on, he had been released from the burdens of his past and could face life as he wanted to, with no one else to think about or provide for. It was time to reach for his own goals and needs. And so he had come to find Annie, to discover if they could reclaim what they had lost or, if it was truly over, to lay it to rest so he could move on once and for all. Today had made it clear that his feelings had not diminished and he loved Annie as much as ever. She was as essential to his life as breathing. It was equally clear that Annie had woven her own view of the past—one that would be hard to challenge because, however distorted from reality, she believed it. He had to try to open her mind and her heart.
And so he was here, waiting, hurting, needing…hoping against hope for a second chance with the only woman he had ever loved. The woman who held his fate and the shattered fragments of his heart in her hands.
‘Damn.’
Annie cursed under her breath as she cracked open the door of the locker room and peeped out. Spying Nathan waiting near the noticeboard, blocking her route towards the exit, she carefully closed the door and leaned back on it, barely resisting the urge to bang her head against the adjacent wall. She should have known she couldn’t evade him so easily.
How long was he going to wait her out? He was dogged in his determination once he set his mind to something. Restless, she paced across the small, thankfully deserted room, a frown on her face as she checked her bag. Fastening her locker and pocketing the key, she placed her discarded scrubs in the container provided, as always approving of the hospital board’s policies regarding infection control and cleanliness. Thankfully Strathlochan had an excellent record in tackling and preventing superbugs, but no one could afford to be too careful or become complacent.
Impatient, Annie glanced at her watch. It was past time to leave. There had been no response to her earlier SOS text message and she was worried. What if it hadn’t got through? What if her plan failed before it even started? She really didn’t want another face-to-face with Nathan alone.
Setting her bag at her feet, she sat down on a wooden bench near the door, hoping no one else would come in…hoping that Nathan would just go. The same questions that had plagued her all day still pounded in her head. Why was he here? Why now, after five years, did he want to rake over the past? Why had he kissed her? Worse, why had she kissed him back with such mindless passion?
No answers eased her troubled mind and she sighed, one hand rubbing the back of her neck, where tension had tightened her muscles. The strain of the day was catching up with her. She was tired, and wanted nothing more than to go home and have a long soak in a hot, fragrant bubble bath before falling into bed. The oblivion of sleep had never seemed more attractive. After the incident on the stairs she had been a nervous wreck throughout the rest of her busy shift. Half the time had been spent worrying whether her risky emergency plan would work and the other half trying to avoid Nathan as much as possible. It hadn’t helped that the feel and taste and scent of him had lingered to torment and tempt her.
She huffed out a breath, her errant thoughts turning to her first days of medical school and meeting Nathan. She had been eighteen, bursting with enthusiasm and an almost naïve zeal. Most of the rest of the students in the group had been around the same age…all except Nathan. At twenty-two he had stood apart, serious, already seeming much more mature and interesting than the rest of the intake.
On the surface he had been reserved and shy, a very private person. He had kept to himself, but as they had become friends and he’d relaxed more around her she had discovered that he was caring, intelligent, warm and surprisingly funny. He had also been generous with his time and knowledge, always willing to help her when she struggled with areas of the coursework. She was at her best with people, while Nathan, although having a special touch with patients, was gifted academically, preferring to focus on his studies and avoid the social merry-go-round, where he had seemed awkward and out of place. They had made a good team, and the relationship had blossomed into so much more when she had accepted Nathan’s tentative invitation to date. Friendship had led to passion…and to four years of happiness together.
She would never forget the first time they had made love. She’d had only one serious boyfriend before Nathan, and, whilst she had enjoyed sex, she’d soon realised how innocent and tame her previous experience had been. For Joe had been a boy, and nothing had prepared her for Nathan the man—for all he’d done to her and made her feel…out of control and soaring to the heavens with indescribable pleasure. Nathan had indulged and encouraged her adventurous spirit, and she had met and matched his fiery passion, the challenge to explore and experiment and push the boundaries. Nathan’s sensual wickedness had been a delicious surprise. She’d teased him about it always being the quiet ones who had hidden depths. He’d just smiled that slow, sexy smile, and then shown her over and over again how very sinful he could be.
Annie frowned as she considered how it had all gone so wrong. Nathan’s rejection of her stung as painfully now as it had then. She hadn’t understood him at all, she realised. And there
was so much about him that she still didn’t know. Her frown deepened. She had been so happy. Nothing else had seemed important. And Nathan had never volunteered information about his background. It hadn’t mattered. Or so she had thought. They’d been in love, the perfect couple, and she had believed they would be together for ever. Until it had all come crashing down around her, leaving her broken and bewildered, her dreams and her heart in tatters.
Now, a few short hours after Nathan’s shocking reappearance in her life, her body was rousing itself from a long-enforced slumber and letting her know how enjoyable it would be to renew their acquaintance. She suppressed the shiver of desire that rippled through her and shook her head. That was so not going to happen. She had barely survived the last time. If she allowed Nathan to get close again it would destroy her. Despite everything she had made something of herself—something different than she had once planned, but more than she had ever expected. She couldn’t let Nathan take that from her.
Hearing a faint rumble of voices from beyond the door, Annie cracked it open again to peep out, and saw two figures further down the corridor. Relief swelled inside her when she saw who Nathan was talking to. Thank God. Please let this plan work, she begged silently, rising to her feet, shouldering her bag and draping her coat over one arm. Hoping that nothing would go wrong in the next few moments, she left the room. It was show time. Disaster management was the name of the game—to give her some breathing space until she came up with a viable long-term solution.
A sound drew Nathan’s attention and he turned round, disappointed to discover that it was not Annie emerging from the locker room. Instead, a man he didn’t recognise was now loitering further down the corridor. In his late twenties, Nathan judged, the man had short, spiky blond hair, and was dressed in a well-worn black leather jacket, faded jeans with rips across one thigh, and studded black boots. Unable to detect any hospital ID, and cautious about security after his spells in big city hospitals, Nathan moved towards the man, unconsciously putting himself between Annie in the locker room and any hint of a possible problem.
Six Sexy Doctors Part 1 (Mills & Boon e-Book Collections): A Doctor, A Nurse: A Little Miracle / The Children's Doctor and the Single Mum / A Wife for ... / The Playboy Doctor's Surprise Proposal Page 62