Kisses at Sunset

by Sarah Morgan

  Josh ignored the smothered laughter from his brother, too intrigued by the girl to care about the teasing he was going to receive later. The sight of her in a black wetsuit was having an alarming effect on his blood pressure. She had a body straight out of a bad boy’s dreams.

  But she wasn’t paying him the slightest bit of attention. She was saving that for the injured man, and as she looked down Josh found himself staring at her thick, dark eyelashes, fascinated by their length.

  She was gorgeous.

  ‘He’s bleeding badly from his arm. Must have caught it on a rock when he came off the board. He was caught by the wave and the board gave him a bash on the head. I saw it happen,’ she said briskly, her fingers gently exploring the man’s head wound before moving to his arm. ‘It’s an artery. He’s cut an artery. Damn.’

  As she shifted the man’s wetsuit, blood pumped skywards and she swiftly applied pressure and elevated the limb. ‘It’s a very jagged cut. I need something to use as a pad…’ Glancing around, she spotted the man’s friends hovering. ‘One of you take the laces out of your trainers and give me your T-shirt.’

  One of the men took a step backwards, looking decidedly green.

  ‘It’s just blood,’ the girl said, a hint of impatience in her tone, ‘and the sooner one of you gives me a T-shirt, the sooner I can stop it. Come on!’

  Josh watched in fascination as one of the men meekly did as she instructed. Quickly and with the minimum of fuss she bound the wound and turned her attention to the man’s head.

  Josh ran a hand over the back of his neck, for the first time in his life feeling totally redundant in a medical situation. He kept waiting for her to do something wrong so that he could intervene, but she was doing everything right and she didn’t even seem to want help doing it.

  She leaned closer to the patient, her body a slim curve in the tight wetsuit. ‘Hello? Can you hear me?’ Her voice was brisk and professional. ‘Can you tell me your name?’

  The man groaned and screwed up his face. ‘My head…’

  ‘I know about your head and I know about your arm.’ Her slim fingers were on the man’s scalp, feeling for damage. ‘But now I need you to tell me your name.’

  The man closed his eyes and the girl frowned slightly. Then she leaned closer to him and gave a sniff.

  ‘He’s been drinking.’ Her nose wrinkled in distaste and she glared at his friends who were still lurking close by, looking as though they’d rather be anywhere else. ‘Was he drinking before surfing?’

  One of them shifted. ‘Maybe, just a bit.’

  ‘A bit?’ She gave them a look designed to freeze boiling water. ‘One of you get on the phone and call an ambulance. He’s going to need to go to hospital. I can’t tell what’s the bang on the head and what’s the alcohol. What’s his name?’

  ‘Dave.’ One of the lads shrugged. ‘He only had a couple of beers.’

  ‘Before surfing? He should have known better. And so should you lot.’ The girl shot them a look of contempt and then turned her attention back to the patient. ‘Dave, I’m going to put a dressing on your head and then get you to hospital. You’re going to need an X-ray and some stitches, and next time either drink or surf but don’t do both together. I need another T-shirt to bind his head.’

  Finally she looked up at Josh and immediately she stilled. Slanting green eyes locked with his and widened as something powerful and indefinable passed between them.

  Josh considered himself an expert on all things female but he’d never seen eyes like those in his life before and he couldn’t look away. Neither, it would seem, could she.

  Mac cleared his throat. ‘Earth calling all doctors…’

  The girl blinked and dragged her eyes away from Josh, but a betraying pink touched her cheeks that had nothing to do with the hot August sunshine and everything to do with powerful chemistry.

  ‘Have you got anything which we can use as a dressing for his head?’

  Josh was having trouble concentrating. ‘I—er…’

  ‘Take your T-shirt off, Josh,’ Mac suggested kindly. ‘It might cool you down. You look a little hot.’

  Josh dragged his gaze away from the girl and glared at his brother. ‘Take your own T-shirt off.’

  ‘Louisa bought me this for my birthday. And I’m not the one who’s overheating.’

  Josh swore softly and dragged his T-shirt over his head, deriving some satisfaction from the fact that the girl stared at his muscular chest for several seconds before grabbing the garment and turning her attention back to the patient.

  Josh watched her with masculine speculation. He was experienced enough with women to know when one of them was interested and the girl with the green eyes was definitely interested, despite her pretended indifference.

  He’d felt the attraction like a physical force and he knew that she had, too.

  She was securing his T-shirt in place when they heard the ambulance siren.

  The ambulance drove onto the sand and Mac gave a nod of recognition as the crew hurried towards them.

  ‘His GCS is twelve,’ the girl told them, and proceeded to give them a fluent account of the patient’s injuries. ‘In view of the blood loss from the artery, I want to get a line in and then we need to ship him off as fast as possible. He’s going to need surgery on that wrist and possibly a CT scan. He’s been drinking. Make sure you tell them that in A and E.’

  Josh watched in admiration as she found a vein with apparent ease, strapped the Venflon in place and nodded to the paramedics.

  ‘All right. He’s all yours.’ She stood up, her damp hair trailing down her back like a blaze of fire.

  Anticipating the moment when he could get the girl on her own and swap essential details, Josh paused briefly to chat with one of the paramedics who he knew well, but when he finally glanced up, the girl had vanished.

  He frowned and glanced around him but there was no sign of her.

  Damn.

  Mac gave a grin and slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Well, bro’, that was a first. A woman who didn’t notice you. Think you’ll ever get over it?’

  ‘She noticed me.’ Josh was still looking around the beach. She had to be somewhere. She couldn’t have just vanished that quickly. ‘She definitely noticed me.’

  Where the hell was she?

  ‘Which is why she hung around to get better acquainted. Face it, brother, she’s the one who got away. I saw her face when you used your “I’m a doctor” chat-up line. She was not impressed. I’m a doctor, too, and you’re in my light.’ Mac was still laughing as he recited her words exactly. ‘And she was bloody good with that patient. Knew exactly what she was doing. I wouldn’t mind having her in our department. That really would be a first. A woman who doesn’t notice you.’

  Josh narrowed his eyes, remembering that one, intense moment when their eyes had locked. ‘She noticed me.’

  ‘Well, she certainly didn’t hang around to further the acquaintance,’ Mac drawled. ‘And apart from the body, which I have to admit was impressive, she didn’t seem like your usual type. For a start, she could string words into a sentence. And she’s clearly a doctor, and a good one at that. You never date doctors.’

  ‘Only because I can’t stand the conversation over the dinner table.’ Josh yawned. ‘It’s much more interesting to date someone in a different profession.’

  But he would have made an exception for the girl with the green eyes.

  Mac shot him a wry look as they strolled back along the beach to the dunes that led to his garden. ‘I never realised you were so interested in conversation. I thought all your relationships were enacted beneath the sheets.’

  Josh grinned. ‘Absolutely right. What better place is there?’

  CHAPTER TWO

  KAT unzipped the neck of her wetsuit and stood still with her back against the jagged rocks, waiting until she judged it safe to reappear.

  Only when the two men had walked a safe distance along the beach did she emerge and retriev
e the surfboard that she’d left at the water’s edge. By then the ambulance had gone and the crowd had dispersed.

  Maybe it was cowardly of her to avoid them, but she knew that if she’d hung around then the handsome, blue-eyed doctor would have entered into a conversation that she didn’t want to have. The strength of her reaction to him had shaken her and she sensed that it was mutual. She’d recognised the look in his eyes and knew exactly which direction the conversation would have taken.

  And she just didn’t want to go there.

  Did he think she was some sort of brainless idiot? she wondered bitterly as she tucked the board under her arm and walked in the opposite direction along the beach towards her tiny cottage. ‘I’m a doctor,’ he’d announced in a tone that had suggested that using those words usually delivered a willing female into his lap.

  What had he expected her to do? Gasp and faint?

  She gave a snort of derision, carefully dismissing the memory of the strange sensation she’d felt in the pit of her stomach when their eyes had met. As if a pair of broad shoulders and a near-perfect bone structure was going to be enough to interest her. She’d met men like him before and she’d learned to keep them at a distance. They weren’t worth the trouble.

  And, anyway, she already had one man in her life and that was enough.

  At the thought of Archie she looked around her and gave a nod of satisfaction. At the first opportunity she was going to take him down to the beach and show him what she’d discovered today. They were going to have such fun together, living in this place. It was a whole new life, as far removed from their tiny flat in the depths of busy, faceless London as it was possible to be.

  All she could see for miles was coastline. Wild cliffs, crazy sea and soft grass all blended together to make Cornwall. And it had the best surfing anywhere in England.

  A five-minute walk along the beach in the opposite direction brought her to the little row of fishermen’s cottages, which almost touched the sand. Kat stopped dead and stood for a moment, breathing in the fresh sea air, feeling the sun burning through her wetsuit, unable to believe that she had the right to call this wonderful place home.

  Hers.

  She couldn’t contain the smile.

  It was like a fairy-tale.

  Acting on an impulse that was totally out of character, she’d paid the deposit, taken out a huge mortgage and moved in. And now they lived here. She and Archie.

  A new life.

  Her gaze shifted slightly to the abandoned lifeboat station that stood proudly at the head of a slipway near the cottages. It had been sympathetically converted into a luxury home, and from her vantage point on the beach Kat could see that the floor-to-ceiling windows of the living area gave the occupant fabulous views over the Cornish coast. On the abandoned slipway that led down to the beach there was a boat, obviously in the process of being restored, and a wetsuit lay over a bench.

  Whoever lived there obviously had taste and style and clearly loved the sea, she mused as she dumped her surfboard in the tiny shed in her new garden and walked towards her cottage with a smile on her face.

  She had a few hours before Archie was due home and she intended to finish the unpacking, shower and then devour the new textbook on accident and emergency medicine that she’d ordered from a store in London. Not that a few hours’ reading would make much difference to her performance in a busy A and E department, she thought ruefully, experiencing a sudden attack of nerves at the thought of starting her new job in the morning.

  Would it be very different from London? she wondered, and then gave a shrug. Accidents were accidents wherever they happened and whatever the mechanism. She was a good doctor, she reminded herself firmly. She had nothing to be nervous about. Whatever was thrown at her here, she’d be able to cope.

  Her new life was about to begin.

  And she was looking forward to it.

  * * *

  ‘So, how was the weekend? Did you manage without me yesterday?’ Josh strolled onto the A and E unit early the next morning and grinned at a staff nurse who was just going off duty after a night shift.

  ‘Just about, but it was a terrible struggle,’ Hannah said solemnly, removing her locker key from her pocket and jangling it in the palm of her hand. ‘I suppose you were sailing or surfing or something similarly wet and watery? Did you have an exciting day?’

  Josh thought of the girl on the beach. ‘Not as exciting as it might have been,’ he murmured regretfully, glancing at the whiteboard on the wall and scanning the list of patients. ‘So—we’re pretty full already, I see. Did you do any work at all last night or were you leaving it all for me?’

  ‘Filing my nails took longer than anticipated,’ Hannah said brightly, but she lifted a fist and punched Josh on the arm. ‘For your information, buster, none of us managed more than a snatched glass of water last night, so if you want to live to catch another wave on that board of yours, don’t make that remark to anyone else! Least of all the new doctor, who is waiting in Mac’s office. On first meeting she seems really nice, and I don’t want you teaching her bad habits.’

  ‘New doctor?’ Josh was still frowning at the whiteboard. ‘What new doctor?’

  ‘The new SHO. She was bright and early.’

  ‘The new SHO…’ Josh raked long fingers through his dark hair and pulled a face. ‘I’d forgotten the new doctors were starting today.’

  ‘It’s August,’ Hannah reminded him cheerfully. ‘And actually there are only three of them because most of the old lot are staying on, as you’d remember if you could put your mind to anything other than sailing and surfing.’ She gave a careless shrug. ‘Can’t think why they’ve chosen to stay on, personally. Given the chance, I’d be out of this place like a shot. Talking of which, how’s Louisa?’

  ‘Very pregnant,’ Josh drawled, ‘and Mac is driving me nuts. He’s totally lost his sense of humour.’

  ‘He’s certainly worried about her,’ Hannah agreed, ‘and I miss working with Louisa. She’s such a great nurse.’

  ‘She’s also a great cook, so at least one of her skills is still in use,’ Josh observed, thinking of the delicious lunch his sister-in-law had prepared for him the day before. ‘All right, I’ll grab the SHO, brief her and then we start the day. I hope she’s competent. Have a good sleep.’

  Josh strolled down the corridor to his office, suppressing a yawn as he pushed open the door.

  A girl stood looking out of the window, but she turned as he entered the room and Josh stopped dead.

  Yesterday she’d been wearing a wetsuit and today she was wearing the light blue scrub suit worn by all the A and E staff, but there was no mistaking those incredible green eyes and the fiery hair, twisted on top of her head.

  ‘Well, well…’ His voice was soft as he let the door swing shut behind him. ‘The girl with the green eyes and the sharp tongue.’ And the perfect body. ‘You ran off yesterday before we could be properly introduced. I’m Josh Sullivan. Pleased to meet you.’

  He walked towards her, his hand outstretched, and after a moment’s hesitation she slid her hand into his.

  Her fingers were slim and cool. Delicate, like the rest of her, he mused, watching with interest as she quickly removed her hand from his. Did she know that she’d just taken a step backwards?

  ‘I’m Kat O’Brien.’ Her voice was steady, professional and more than a little chilly. ‘And I didn’t run off.’ Her eyes flashed slightly at the suggestion, and he smiled.

  ‘Well, you didn’t exactly hang around to chat.’ He cast her a speculative look. ‘O’Brien? A good Irish name. Does it come with a good Irish temper?’

  Her eyes held his, accepting the challenge. ‘When provoked.’

  His smile widened. ‘I look forward to seeing that.

  What about the Kat part? Short for Katy? Kathleen?’

  ‘Katriona.’

  He nodded. ‘Pretty name. Well, Katriona, welcome to Cornwall and A and E. As you’re obviously going to be my new SHO, we
’re going to have plenty of time to get to know each other better.’

  Was it his imagination or did her fingers curl into her palms?

  ‘You’re the A and E consultant?’

  He nodded. ‘One of them. And you’re on my team.’

  Her eyes slid towards the door as if she was expecting someone else to appear at any moment. ‘But I suppose I’ll be working mostly with your senior registrar.’

  Josh gave a rueful smile. ‘You would if I had one, but unfortunately we’re a bit down on numbers at the moment, so you’re going to be landed with me. I hope you like hard work.’

  She licked her lips. ‘We’re going to be working together?’

  ‘Well, if you want to learn something about working in A and E, that is the general idea,’ Josh said gently, wondering why she was so tense. ‘Although judging from your performance on the beach, you obviously know quite a bit already. Why don’t you tell me a bit about yourself?’

  ‘What do you want to know?’

  Suddenly Josh discovered that he wanted to know everything there was to know. He wanted to know whether she was always so tense and what it took to get her to relax. He wanted to know what made her laugh and what made her cry. He wanted to know what made her happy. He wanted to know what her legs looked like under the scrub suit…

  He pulled himself together with an effort. ‘Why don’t you start by telling me where you worked last? Obviously this isn’t your first A and E job.’

  She shook her head. ‘No. I did A and E and then a stint in Obstetrics but I missed the buzz of Emergency so I decided to apply for this job.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. Patching up drunks beats delivering babies any day in my book.’ He gave a mock shudder. ‘So where did you work?’

  ‘London.’ She named one of the prestigious teaching hospitals and Josh nodded.

  That would explain why she’d known what she’d been doing. ‘Obviously good experience. You did well yesterday afternoon.’

  She shrugged. ‘The guy just had a banged head.’

  ‘He’d also been drinking and, as you well know, drinking and head injuries don’t go well together,’ Josh said mildly, strolling over to his chair and sitting down. ‘I was impressed. So was my brother and, believe me, that takes some doing. He runs this department so you’ve got yourself off on the right foot.’ He watched the faint rise of colour in her cheeks. ‘Have a seat. You’ll probably find some of our cases a little different from London, but not much. Did you see any gunshot wounds?’