Claimed: One Wife

by Meredith Webber

  She flashed a grin at Grant.

  'We're not unionised well enough,' she told him. 'Nurses, now, they're different. Come four-thirty when their theatre shift ends, they go automatically onto overtime, and Admin hates paying it. Upsets the budget. It doesn't matter that a morning session went an hour over its schedule, as long as the afternoon's ops end on time. It's a known fact that surgical residents in specialties who have afternoon sessions sew faster than ones who only work mornings.'

  Grant had to laugh.

  'Oh, dear,' he managed when he'd finally controlled himself, 'I know there's an element of truth in all of that, but the image of afternoon surgeons sewing furiously, one eye on the clock, was too much for me.'

  Sally smiled, pleased she'd been able to amuse him. Though amusement hadn't been a priority. All she'd been trying to do had been to divert him away from the subject of mixed changing rooms.

  A diversion she intended to continue.

  'I might have exaggerated slightly, but that's the basic concept. Operating hours are eight-thirty to four-thirty, full stop. Of course, we have the minor procedures theatres attached to A and E, to the ICU and Paediatrics, plus two theatres staffed for emergencies around the clock. But nursing staff on those are rostered on duty rather than on call, and if there's nothing happening in Theatre, they float.'

  Judging by his acceptance of the word, Grant understood about floaters, although the sudden switch from smiling man to one who looked desperately worried puzzled her.

  'Floaters aren't that bad,' she said, hoping to tease him into more laughter—or at least banish the worry.

  He glanced across the table at her, met her eyes and smiled.

  Not a laugh but almost as good.

  'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I hadn't heard the expression before, but the nurse who found my brother was a "floater" between Theatre and the ICU. Sam explained the meaning.'

  'Sam Abbot? Sam Abbot found your brother?'

  Now the man looked wary.

  'You know Sam?'

  Sally beamed at him.

  'Of course. As well as working together in Theatre for ages, she's a distant cousin. Not that we ever saw much of each other until she began nursing. She grew up in the country.'

  Hmm. That didn't help. Rather than looking less wary, he was now looking downright dubious.

  'I suppose—' He broke off, frowned, then spoke again, either rephrasing what he'd been about to say or changing the subject. 'Does she often go off on her own?'

  'Bush-walking? All the time?' The penny dropped. 'You mean she literally found your brother? In the bush? What was he doing there? How did he get lost?'

  Grant ran a hand through his short dark hair, and studied the woman across the table from him. She'd now spooned half the tub of yoghurt over half the fruit and was packing the remainder of the fruit into the space in the tub, not missing a beat in the conversation as she continued to organise their shared meal.

  'We're still piecing that together,' he replied, nodding his thanks as she passed the plate across to him and stabbed a slice of rockmelon with her fork.

  'He said he couldn't remember a lot of things. Amnesia? You must be worried. Is he really a doctor?'

  The disbelief in the last question was so evident that Grant chuckled.

  'Trained and tested.' He was doing what she'd done earlier, answering the last question first.

  Although he fully intended answering the other questions, not evading them as Sally had managed.

  'Yes, he had a knock on the head and suffered some amnesia, although apparently it was more severe a day or two ago. And, yes, I'm very worried. Any head injury is serious, and one resulting in the level of amnesia he's had is doubly so.'

  'Do you want me to arrange a scan—I mean, you can arrange it but do it in my name if you like. Because of not treating relatives.'

  He heard a slight echo of uncertainty in her usually determined voice, but guessed it wasn't to do with offering her services. Maybe she had as little desire to become better acquainted, out of work time, with him as he did with her.

  Of course, his avoidance tactics were necessary—given the attraction he was feeling towards her and his experience of where a relationship could lead.

  But why would she be wary?

  Perhaps her boyfriend, partner, husband—no, he knew she wasn't married—wouldn't like it.

  'I'd love you to arrange a scan,' Grant told her, 'but he tells me he's perfectly all right and I can't force the man to do something he doesn't want to do.'

  'Have you tried blackmail?' the pretty-faced senior resident said calmly. 'I can almost always blackmail my brothers into doing what I want them to do.'

  Sex, drugs and rock and roll! The phrase Miss Flintock had used in conjunction with Dr Cochrane's brothers flitted through Grant's head.

  'Only "almost" always?' he queried, and she smiled at him, her delight lighting not only the gold lights in her eyes but her entire face so she seemed to radiate fun in the same way the sun shared its heat around.

  'Sometimes I have to resort to violence,' she whispered, 'but I try to keep that quiet.'

  And what you're doing, smiling at her silly conversation, I don't know, common sense muttered, but an empty feeling, deep in Grant's gut, suggested that it was too late for common sense. Something about this woman had sneaked beneath his defences.

  He stared out across the huge room, and tried to remember that other cafeteria where he'd sat with Erica. Tried to recall the pain he'd felt when she'd told him she was marrying Lance. Because he'd be better for her career, she'd said, delivering that final blow with a smile that had suggested he'd understand—that he, Grant, was career-focussed enough for it to seem as reasonable to him as it apparently had been to her.

  But the worst of it had been the gossip. The fact that everyone in the hospital had seemed to know what had happened. Before it had happened? Had they known all along? After all, there must have been some courtship before Lance Binstead had proposed.

  These were the questions that had haunted Grant for months afterwards, when he'd also had to cope with the pitying looks cast his way, and the offers of consolation from female colleagues.

  'I guess it's a lesson for both of us,' he'd said to Tom when they'd escaped for a rare weekend together and had been rediscovering the joy of a couple of days of surf, sun and sand. 'Not to get emotionally involved with colleagues. With anyone for that matter, but especially not with colleagues. We either take the love-'em-and-leave-'em approach or steer clear of women altogether, at least until we're ready to settle down.'

  And at the time, Tom agreed.

  'That's where someone like Jocelyn will come in handy,' he said, with all the arrogance of young manhood. 'Someone sensible who'll make an excellent wife, home-maker and mother. Run the house, entertain guests and not expect all the flowery stuff that women in love seem to crave.'

  'Perhaps we could clone her,' Grant replied. And they laughed together and toasted their 'sensible' futures.

  But the memory of his pain, of the hurt Erica's behaviour and the ensuing talk caused, remained, and he, at least, stuck to his determination to not get too emotionally involved with the women with whom he worked.

  A decision that had been strengthened by circumstances later in his career, he reminded himself grimly, thinking of the two bright young lives lost to the world through a work relationship that had gone horribly wrong. He pushed back his chair, and stood up. Never again, he'd vowed. Never again!

  'Thank you for sharing your lunch with me,' he said, looking down at the table in case startled brown eyes should weaken his resolution. 'I'll have to do the same for you one day.'

  It was only as he strode purposefully out the door that he realised he hadn't got onto the subject he'd wanted to discuss—the changing rooms.

  Or had he been skilfully diverted away from it?

  Sally watched the door swing shut behind Grant's broad, straight back and heaved a sigh of relief. Somehow they'd managed to avoid
the changing-room question—but for how long could she use diversionary tactics before he became suspicious?

  She looked down at the remnants of their lunch. He hadn't eaten the apple. In fact, he hadn't finished his fruit and yoghurt.

  Perhaps he didn't like yoghurt.

  Though he had left very suddenly. What had they been talking about? Could she have upset him in some way?

  She sighed again, but relief didn't get a look-in this time.

  'Problems?'

  Jerry settled into a vacant chair and she smiled at him.

  'Why would you think that?' she asked.

  'That sigh came from somewhere down in your boots,' he said. 'And I've been watching. The boss left in a hurry. One minute, the two of you are sitting here, all pally, laughing and joking, and the next he's up and out of here faster than a man who's sat on an ants' nest.'

  'I think I'm doomed to upset him,' Sally admitted. 'Though what it was this time, I've no idea. Threatening violence to my brothers? Could that have bothered him? I'm sure that's all we were talking about, but he makes me so nervous I tend to rattle on a bit.'

  'He shouldn't make you nervous,' Jerry assured her. 'You're a top surgeon, you're practically a genius, if your exam results are any guide, and you're a darned hard worker. What more could any department head want on his team?'

  What more, indeed?

  The reason they'd lunched together flashed through Sally's head.

  'A man, that's what more he could want!' she said gloomily. 'He's against the mixed changing rooms. He must be one of those throwbacks to the Dark Ages who believe surgery's not for women. Perhaps he's enough of a Neanderthal to still believe a woman's place is in the kitchen.'

  'I'll tell him you said that,' Jerry teased, and Sally glanced anxiously around.

  'No need to tell him. He probably heard. Sometimes I wonder if he's got me wired for sound, the things he does happen to overhear.'

  'You've only a year to go,' Jerry reminded her.

  'Do you think I don't keep telling myself that?' she replied. 'It's like a mantra sounding in my head. One year to go. One year to go!'

  She smiled at her colleague.

  'And speaking of going, I should be off. His lordship's lecturing so I'll whip up to the ward office and struggle through some paperwork.'

  'Good luck with it,' Jerry said. 'I'm actually going to sit in on his lecture. He's good, Sally!'

  'I know that,' she agreed. ' Darned good!'

  And darned attractive, darned sexy, and darned well doing damage to her usually impervious heart!

  Maybe the bookwork would act as an antidote!

  She was still struggling with forms and figures at five-thirty when Jerry poked his head through the door to wish her goodnight. Minutes later, footsteps in the corridor slowed then another head poked around the jamb.

  A very dark, sleekly attractive female head.

  'I'm looking for Dr Hudson,' the woman said, coming into view and revealing an elegantly tailored skirt and jacket outfit that made Sally ache to be taller. 'Someone told me he might be here.'

  Sally looked around the small space designated to doctors on the neuro ward.

  'Nope, he's definitely not here,' she said, deliberately casual as an irrational urge to snarl at the woman all but swamped her.

  'I can see that,' her visitor snapped. 'I want to know where he is.'

  Sally shrugged.

  'We don't keep tabs on each other, you know. I assume you've tried phoning or paging him.'

  'He's not in his office so phoning there's not much use, and he's not answering his mobile.'

  A placatory smile now replaced the slightly petulant look on the woman's face.

  'Could you page him for me?'

  Sally shook her head.

  'If I page him he'll assume he's needed up here on the ward, which he isn't,' she said, while inwardly telling herself it was cheap to feel some satisfaction.

  The smile thinned but remained in place as the woman stepped closer.

  'I know I'm being a nuisance,' she said. 'Especially when you're so busy.' She waved a languid hand towards the piles of paperwork. 'I'm a trained nurse myself so I know what it's like, but Grant, Dr Hudson... '

  The smile became coy.

  'It's not public knowledge. Not something he wanted discussed within a new work situation, but—' Coy shifted to conspiratorial '—if I say I've just moved up from Sydney, taken a new job at far less pay, you'd understand, wouldn't you?'

  Understand you and Grant Hudson as an item? Not in a million years! Sally thought.

  But was all her irritation the result of the woman's manner? Or did it stem from the slightly sick feeling in the pit of her stomach?

  'Whoever you are, I still can't page him to come to the ward under false pretences. If you tell me your name, I could page him and leave a message for him to phone you.'

  'I've already done that,' the still unnamed woman snarled, all pretence of niceness gone. 'And he hasn't answered. All right for him to leave cryptic messages about Tom being found, but has he followed it up? Or made arrangements for dinner when he's stood me up the last two nights?'

  She spun around and stormed from the room, her high heels clacking down the corridor as she headed for the lift.

  Sally waited until the echo died away, then she pushed aside the closest papers, folded her arms on the desk and rested her head on them.

  Professional colleagues, that's all we are, she reminded herself. The man's private life is none of your business.

  And at your age, it's hardly surprising your suppressed hormones would start twitching back to life. Someone had to be the catalyst.

  'Sleeping on the job, Dr Cochrane?'

  The voice made her shoulders stiffen. Had she developed extrasensory powers—an ability to call him up, make him materialise, merely by thinking of him?

  She debated pretending to be asleep. Remaining exactly where she was, head hidden from view. Decided it wasn't an option. Apart from anything else, her hormonal twitches might show! She slowly raised her head.

  'There was a woman looking for you. She went that-a-way.'

  Sally jerked her thumb towards the corridor, and pulled the pile of papers back to the front of the desk.

  'A woman?'

  He sounded puzzled enough for Sally's sense of humour to return. She waved her hands in the air to indicate a female form.

  'A shapely human, supposedly fashioned from Adam's rib,' she said helpfully. 'The gender you object to in the changing rooms. Ringing any bells?'

  Blue eyes grew murderous.

  'I know exactly what you meant by woman, Dr Cochrane,' he muttered. 'I was after a little more elucidation. Females of the species are in the majority in hospitals so something more definitive than "a woman" might have helped.'

  The pompous tone tightened Sally's nerves another notch, but she wasn't going to let him see that. Smiling impishly, she tilted her head to one side and said, 'Five-nine, brunette, tailored suit and blood-red talons? Claims to be a special person in your life? Ringing any bells?'

  She rather fancied a faint flush of colour rose beneath his cheeks but from the glow in his eyes it could have been rage. However, he held himself together remarkably well, and counter-attacked, saying, 'Showing talons of your own, Doctor?' Sally had to concede him a point.

  She relaxed enough to grin at him. 'Only small ones,' she assured him. 'Must be hunger getting to me. After all, I only ate half my lunch.'

  Grant Hudson threw his arms into the air in a gesture of surrender, and laughed loudly.

  'You win,' he told her, when he'd caught his breath. 'I can't possibly counter that one. Tell me, are you always this combative or do I merit special treatment?' He paused, but before she could consider a reply he added, 'And is it as a man, or as your boss, I'm singled out?'

  'That's at least two and possibly three questions,' Sally told him, rustling frantically through the papers in the hope she'd give an impression of furious busyness. And he'
d take the hint and go away.

  'None of which you're going to answer,' he suggested smoothly. And far from going away, he settled one hip comfortably on the opposite side of the desk and gave every indication of staying for ever.

  In fact, he reached out and lifted one of her bits of paper, then pretended to study it as he said, 'It's an almost an art form with you, isn't it? Dodging questions.'

  Sally shrugged, which he could take as a yes if he wanted.

  'I really do have work to do, and your friend was anxious to contact you, so perhaps you should be looking for her rather than bothering me.'

  'Am I bothering you, Sally?'

  Something in the way he asked the question made her stomach curl, and she looked up to meet his eyes. They didn't give the slightest clue as to what he was thinking. Nothing there but the query itself, as if the question were as basic as one about a patient's pulse or blood pressure.

  'Of course you're bothering me,' she said crossly, and let the truth have a moment to itself before she added, 'Taking up room on the desk, messing up my papers, picking things up and putting them back in the wrong pile.'

  His sigh had a hint of disappointment in it—or was that wishful thinking on her part? But whatever it meant, her protest had worked for he stood up and reached across the desk to replace the paper he'd been holding.

  'See! Back in the right place!' he said, then he walked out of the room, leaving Sally feeling curiously bereft.

  Finding Tom was one thing, Grant decided savagely. But coping with the emotional fallout was more than a man should have to handle while struggling to settle into a new job.

  A task not simplified by a snippy, sniping resident who never gave a straight answer to his questions, fluttered long dark eyelashes over her gold-flecked eyes and deliberately flaunted her near-naked body in the changing rooms!

  Well, perhaps not deliberately. He grudgingly gave Sally the benefit of that particular doubt as he headed back towards his office, hoping to track Jocelyn down before she took it into her head to go to his home.