Luca's Bad Girl

by Amy Andrews

  ‘What the devil is going on here?’ he demanded.

  Stan swung around again, slashing the air in Luca’s general direction. ‘Stay back,’ he yelled.

  Luca stopped. ‘Dr McKenzie?’

  ‘It’s fine, Dr di Angelo,’ she said, a placid smile plastered to her face as she inched closer to Stan. Very soon there’d be maximum force at her disposal—she could do without the Lone Ranger potentially ramping the situation up in the mean time.

  Even if he did look good enough to spread on toast.

  Mia’s stomach rumbled.

  ‘Stan here just wants a paternity test so he’s going to give me the baby and I’ll draw some blood. Right, Stan?’

  ‘No.’ Stan looked wildly between the two of them. ‘The baby stays,’ he insisted.

  Luca watched Mia in his peripheral vision as she crept forward at a snail’s pace. ‘But how can we take blood when you’re holding a baby, Stan?’ Luca reasoned, distracting the man.

  Mia, grateful if a little surprised that Luca had caught on really fast, took another step closer.

  ‘Stay back,’ Stan bellowed. The baby’s cries rose another octave.

  ‘I can’t take your blood from here, Stan,’ Mia soothed.

  The adrenaline flowing through her system brought everything into sharp focus. The sweat on Stan’s brow. The harsh suck of his breath as he heaved air in and out of his lungs. The white spittle forming at the corner of his mouth. The way he turned the knife over and over in his palm and constantly shifted his weight from one foot to the other as his gaze darted between the two doctors.

  But she was probably even more aware of Luca. Somehow it was he who dominated the room, not Stan. He towered over the knife-wielding man, all lean and broad shouldered, in sharp contrast to Stan’s stocky stature. And despite the deceptive casualness of his hands-in-pocket stance, Mia could see the hard clench of his jaw and sense the coiled rigidity in those muscles barely contained behind the snug-fitting polo shirt.

  She reminded him of a taipan, ready to strike. Swift and deadly.

  Just then there was a commotion behind them as several security staff arrived at once.

  Stan looked over Mia’s shoulder. ‘What are they doing here?’ he roared, his hold on the baby tightening and causing further lusty protest.

  Luca held out his hand as Stan’s agitation increased. ‘It’s standard hospital procedure,’ Luca soothed, moving a little closer. ‘It’ll be all right, though. I’m going to ask them to stand back, okay?’

  ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea, Doc,’ the chief security officer said.

  ‘Back! You heard him, get back!’ Stan shouted, brandishing the knife a little too close to the baby’s head.

  The midwife gasped.

  Luca turned to the security contingent. ‘It’s okay,’ he assured them. Then he turned back to Stan. ‘They’re going, see?’ Luca said as he heard the guards shuffling away.

  Mia kept her gaze focused on Stan and the baby. ‘Okay, Stan, now we’ve done something for you, you’ve got to do something for us.’ She covered up her next step closer by holding out her arms. ‘Give me the baby. He’s scared and hungry. Listen to him. I’m sure a nice feed will settle him down and we can talk about this without upsetting him any more.’

  And, frankly, the infant’s cries were getting on her last nerve. The situation was fraught enough without the distinct urgency of an escalating newborn baby’s cries.

  ‘She’s right, Stan,’ Luca agreed as he edged nearer too. ‘This isn’t something a baby should be part of.’

  ‘It’s not my fault.’ Stan’s voice cracked as his face beseeched them. ‘I work hard all day and she repays me by sleeping with half the neighbourhood.’

  Mia felt a chill as if a ghostly hand from the past had stroked down her spine. She ignored it.

  Luca nodded. ‘I know. Believe me, I know.’ And he did. He understood the desperation that Stan was feeling, the sense of betrayal. Intimately.

  Mia glanced sharply at Luca. There was empathy, real empathy, in his tone.

  ‘We can talk about all that, Stan,’ Luca continued. ‘Just give the baby to Dr McKenzie.’

  Stan looked from one to the other and Mia saw the uncertainty on his face, saw that even Stan in his crazed state had registered Luca’s compassion. She took advantage and moved forward slowly, unsurprised to sense Luca doing the same.

  ‘It’s okay, Stan, you’re doing the right thing,’ Mia reassured him.

  Stan shook his head from side to side. ‘I just need to know.’

  ‘Of course,’ Luca murmured. ‘Of course you do, Stan.’

  They were close now and Mia could sense Stan weakening. His grip on the knife had slackened. But so had his hold on the baby. Everything inside her urged her to leap forward and snatch the bawling infant from him but she knew any sudden movements would be a bad idea.

  ‘Give your little boy to me, Stan,’ she implored quietly.

  Stan looked down at the crying bundle, the red hair even more vivid against the white of the wrap. He shook his head, his grip tightening again.

  ‘He’s not my baby!’ he roared, lunging the knife at her.

  Everything slowed as Mia watched it come towards her chest. She wasn’t conscious of anything else, just the hypnotic arc of the blade as its point drew closer to her heart.

  ‘Mia!’

  Luca reached out and grabbed her, pulling her towards him. The sweeping slash of the knife missed her torso completely but sliced into the flesh of her upper arm. Mia gasped as bright, piercing pain stole her breath.

  Luca swore in his native tongue as his hand shot out and crushed Stan’s wrist in a vice-like grip. Stan yelped and dropped the knife.

  ‘Security!’

  His voice cracked like a whip into the charged atmosphere and in an instant five burly guards had entered the fray. The fight instantly went out of Stan at the sight of overwhelming force.

  ‘The baby,’ Luca demanded, and the midwife leapt forward, snatching the squalling infant.

  ‘Go easy,’ Luca ordered as the guards hauled a now passive Stan away. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked switching his attention to Mia.

  She nodded automatically as the baby, now safe in his mother’s embrace, began to settle. ‘I’m fine.’ Even though the hand that had instinctively covered the wound to apply pressure was sticky with her own blood. It had quickly oozed through the material of her cotton shirt.

  Luca looked at the dark red blood running down her arm and shook his head. Most women he knew would have been hysterical by now. But not Mia. She’d kept her head in the face of an emotionally overwrought father with a knife and had dismissed what looked like a substantial wound as if it were a paper cut.

  ‘Go to the minor ops room, I’ll take a look at it.’

  ‘It’s fine, just superficial,’ she said dismissively.

  Luca pointed. ‘Blood is running down your arm.’

  Mia looked down at the thick trickle, surprised to see it. ‘I’ll get Evie to look at it.’

  ‘I sent her home.’

  ‘Dr di Angelo?’ Caroline interrupted them. ‘The psych reg is on the phone. He wants to speak with you.’

  Luca quirked an eyebrow at her. ‘I can’t have one of my staff expiring from blood loss. It wouldn’t look very good. Minor ops. Now. I’ll be along after the call.’

  Mia watched him go, a well of resentment rising in her. She’d been looking after herself for a lot of years, she didn’t need Mr Tall Dark and Handsome pulling the boss card and she certainly didn’t need him fussing over her.

  No one had ever fussed over her. And that was just the way she liked it.

  A couple of steri-strips and she’d be fine.

  A few minutes later, Mia pushed into the on-call room and plonked herself down at the table in the kitchen area, spilling her supplies on the cluttered top. Her arm hurt like hell and all she wanted to do was crawl into one of the private rooms off to her left and collapse on one of the pull-out be
ds.

  The adrenaline had worn off and her earlier tiredness had taken hold and intensified.

  And if she was asleep, the memories that Stan’s actions had unleashed tonight couldn’t bother her.

  It was quiet in the room as she fumbled one-handed with the buttons of her blouse. The sleeves had a firm cuff that sat snugly around her biceps and couldn’t be rolled up enough to gain a good visual of the damage. She winced as she slipped the blouse off, every movement jarring though her lacerated deltoid.

  She tossed it on the floor—that was going straight in the bin.

  She inspected her spaghetti-strapped top, pleased to see that no blood had seeped into it. This kind of undergarment was a permanent fixture beneath whatever shirt she was wore on a night shift. The hospital air-conditioning seemed to reach freezing point at around four in the morning and, even in summer, the extra layer helped.

  Mia was especially grateful for it tonight.

  She looked down at the wound on her upper arm. The blood had dried and crusted, making it difficult to tell the extent of the laceration. It looked ugly, though, as she gently probed it with her index finger. It was quite long and for a moment she let herself think about what could have happened had Luca not pulled her out of the way.

  She noticed her hand was trembling and she dropped it from the wound, clamping down on her thoughts.

  She hadn’t been stabbed in the chest. She hadn’t died.

  Luca had pulled her out of the way.

  But it didn’t stop the trembling from spreading to all her limbs and then to her insides. She took a couple of deep breaths, desperately trying to quell the outbreak.

  It was a reaction, that was all. It would settle.

  But the longer she sat, trying to get control of her breathing and the shaking, the more vulnerable she was to her emotions and thoughts. And she hated that—she’d learned long ago they didn’t get you anywhere.

  But tonight she didn’t seem to be able to stop them.

  Was that how her own father had felt when he’d found out about the paternity of her stillborn sister? Like Stan? Desperate and enraged? If there’d been a knife or a gun handy, would he have used it on her mother?

  He’d walked away from them that day but she hadn’t known why until years later. Years of blaming him for abandoning them, years of hating him, only to find out that it had been her mother’s infidelities that had driven her father away.

  Mia shook her head. Stop it. Stop it!

  This situation tonight had come too close to home but there was no need to fall apart. She wasn’t ten years old any more. She was an adult.

  Clean yourself up and get back out there again!

  Mia forced herself to action. To tend to the wound. Open the dressing pack, pour in some antiseptic lotion, pick up the gauze, work away at the dried blood.

  It was awkward and hurt like the blazes but she welcomed the distraction from her thoughts and her shaking hands settled with a familiar routine.

  Two minutes later Luca strode through the door. Mia glanced up at him, feeling strangely naked with her blouse discarded. Which was ridiculous—she was more than adequately covered. She ignored him, returning to the task at hand.

  Luca lounged against the table and smiled to himself as Mia barely acknowledged his arrival. ‘You’re making a mess of that,’ he mused.

  Mia glared at him. ‘It’s a little difficult.’

  ‘I do believe I told you I would attend to your wound.’ He folded his arms across his chest. ‘But you don’t like asking for help, do you, little Mia?’

  His slight accent gave his deep baritone a very sexy edge as it rolled over her. ‘It’s Mia, or Dr McKenzie. Please refrain from addressing me any other way.’

  Luca chuckled as he pushed off the bench. ‘Okay, Mia.’ He sat on the chair next to her. ‘Allow me,’ he said as he picked up some gauze and dabbed at the wound.

  Mia didn’t protest—she was making a hash of it anyway. His touch was gentle as he coaxed the dried blood from the cut and she shivered. His fingers were dark against her paler skin and long.

  Her father had long fingers. A pianist’s hands. He was tall too, like Luca. He’d told her he was her prince and she was his princess and they’d be together for ever.

  And then he’d left.

  She squeezed her eyes shut. Stop it. Stop it.

  Luca watched her. It was the first time he’d spent any length of time in her company and he was curious. He’d already noticed on their brief acquaintance she was a good-looking woman with a cute mouth and a sassy swagger.

  But up close she was really quite exquisite.

  Her face was long, as were her eyelashes. A frown appeared between her brows and her lips parted. She looked in pain.

  ‘Am I hurting you?’ he murmured.

  Mia’s eyes fluttered open. How had he got that close? She could see the individual whiskers making up the smooth blue-black of his jaw and just make out the black pupil in the middle of his bottomless brown eyes. His hair, as dark as his eyes, was thick with a slight wave that brushed his forehead and the tops of his ears.

  And his mouth. The full curve to that bottom lip was wicked.

  His fingers stroked gently over her skin as he cleaned the wound and it reminded her it had been a while since a man had touched her.

  She lowered her gaze to the column of his throat. ‘No.’

  Luca was captivated by the slide show of emotions in her large blue eyes as magnificent and as transparent as a stained-glass window. The husky timbre of her voice wove between the bands of steel around his heart. ‘Are you okay?’

  Mia nodded, keeping her gaze firmly fixed on his throat. The long tanned column of his neck was also shaded in blue-black smoothness. She remembered how she’d loved the sandpaper roughness of her father’s neck as he’d cuddled her close to read to her at night.

  Damn it! She gripped the back of the chair hard. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘You’ve been through an ordeal tonight. That knife came very close to—’

  ‘I said I’m fine,’ Mia interrupted, raising her face to scowl at him. ‘Just clean the damn wound.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  LUCA paused in his ministrations for a moment, the blue of her eyes frosty now. He’d only known her for a few short weeks and while he’d been impressed with her empathy for patients and her good rapport with her colleagues he’d also sensed she was a woman who preferred to keep herself pretty much to herself.

  But she’d always been polite about it.

  Something was definitely eating at Mia McKenzie tonight.

  He shifted his attention back to the wound.

  ‘It’s borderline,’ he mused, looking at the clean ten-centimetre laceration. ‘It’s deeper laterally, could probably do with a couple of sutures there.’

  Mia nodded to the pile of medical supplies on the table. ‘Steri-strips there somewhere.’

  ‘Sutures would be better.’

  ‘Steri-strips will be fine.’

  ‘The scarring will be worse if we use steri-strips.’

  Mia shrugged. ‘I don’t care about a scar.’

  Luca looked at her for a moment then fished around for the strips. ‘Most women would,’ he murmured when he located them. He doubted he’d ever been with a single woman who didn’t obsess over the slightest blemish.

  ‘I’m not most women.’

  Luca chuckled. ‘Yes. I think you are right.’

  Mia sat still as he opened the packet and secured the wound edges together, applying firm tension through each sticky strip. Then he applied an adhesive dressing over the top. She watched as he absently brushed the pad of his thumb back and forth over the dressing as if he were a parent, rubbing a boo-boo better.

  Just like her father had done.

  ‘You look like you’ve got a lot on your mind,’ he murmured.

  Unfortunately, he was right. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her father since Stan’s episode. It had probably been the first
time ever she’d been confronted with how emotionally untenable it had been for him to stay.

  ‘It’s busy,’ she said brusquely, rising from the chair and clearing away the detritus from her dressing and tossing it in the bin. ‘We can’t just skulk in here all night.’

  ‘The team have got it covered. And you’re not going back out there until you’ve had a break. Try and get some sleep.’ She opened her mouth to protest and he stood. ‘That’s an order.’

  Great! What in the hell was she going to do alone in here with a bunch of unwanted memories that wouldn’t quit? Things she just wanted to forget.

  ‘What if a bus crash comes in?’

  Luca grinned. ‘I’ll come and wake you.’

  Mia felt the grin right down to her toes. It twinkled in his eyes and gave the devil a whole new degree of wicked.

  The fact that she noticed his twinkling eyes rankled. ‘Are you flirting with me?’ she demanded, crossing her arms.

  Luca chuckled. She didn’t beat around the bush. ‘Would it be a bad thing if I was?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. Something told her he wouldn’t be an easy man to walk away from. Not disposable, like the others. ‘Stop it. I have no desire to become a notch on what I understand is your very crowded bedpost.’

  Luca regarded her for a moment. In her top and jeans, arms crossed, a frown knitting her brows, she looked quite fierce. But Luca knew women. He knew them well.

  And Mia McKenzie was definitely protesting too much.

  His gaze slipped to her mouth. ‘Are you sure?’

  Mia felt her lips tingle beneath his heated stare and felt her resistance ebb. Now, he was something that could make her forget for a little while.

  Luca grinned, pleased to have discomforted her. ‘Goodnight, Mia. Don’t let the bed bugs bite.’

  By four a.m. Luca was ready to head home. The craziness had settled and things were quiet—for now anyway.

  He’d checked on the MVA from earlier—the laparotomy had found a perforated bowel. Stan had been admitted to the psych unit on a ninety-six-hour hold. The baby was settled into the special care nursery for overnight monitoring.

  And his paperwork was up to date.

  Just one last thing to do—check on Mia.