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The Army Doc's Christmas Angel
Annie O'Neil
Letting go of his past……to embrace their future!In this Hope Children’s Hospital story, paediatrician Dr Finn Morgan keeps himself fiercely private—after losing his leg in Afghanistan he's pushed everyone away. So his unexpected attraction to colleague physiotherapist Naomi Collins infuriates him! But something in her stunning eyes tells him she’s a survivor too… Christmas is a time for healing. Maybe they’ll both find what they’re looking for—in each other’s arms…
Letting go of his past...
...to embrace their future!
In this Hope Children’s Hospital story, pediatrician Dr. Finn Morgan keeps himself fiercely private—after losing his leg in Afghanistan, he pushed everyone away. So his unexpected attraction to colleague, physiotherapist Naomi Collins, infuriates him! Something in her stunning eyes tells him she’s a survivor too. Christmas is a time for healing, maybe they’ll both find what they’ve both been looking for—in each other’s arms...
Hope Children’s Hospital miniseries
Book 1 – Their Newborn Baby Gift by Alison Roberts Book 2 – One Night, One Unexpected Miracle by Caroline Anderson Book 3 – The Army Doc’s Christmas Angel by Annie O’Neil Book 4 – The Billionaire’s Christmas Wish by Tina Beckett
“Both the main characters were fascinating and I loved their back stories, as they’re so different, and yet, they’re so great together.”
—Harlequin Junkie on One Night with Dr. Nikolaides
“Annie O'Neil is a master of her craft when it comes to feeling what her characters feel and the whole mix together is what made me adore this story.”
—Goodreads on Reunited with Her Parisian Surgeon
ANNIE O’NEIL spent most of her childhood with her leg draped over the family rocking chair and a book in her hand. Novels, baking and writing too much teenage angst poetry ate up most of her youth. Now Annie splits her time between corralling her husband into helping her with their cows, baking, reading, barrel racing (not really!) and spending some very happy hours at her computer, writing.
Also by Annie O’Neil (#uffe204dc-f5ae-5a10-8de3-84d70b9da438)
Her Knight Under the Mistletoe
Reunited with Her Parisian Surgeon
One Night with Dr Nikolaides
Hope Children’s Hospital collection
Their Newborn Baby Gift by Alison Roberts
One Night, One Unexpected Miracle by Caroline Anderson
The Army Doc’s Christmas Angel
The Billionaire’s Christmas Wish by Tina Beckett
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk).
The Army Doc’s Christmas Angel
Annie O’Neil
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-07547-3
THE ARMY DOC’S CHRISTMAS ANGEL
© 2018 Harlequin Books S.A.
Published in Great Britain 2018
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
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www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
This one goes out to the service men and women
in our lives.
The sacrifices they make are unimaginable.
The things they see and the work they do
can often come at a high cost.
Family life, physical health,
even, in those awful cases, loss of life.
And they still go out there and I hope stories like this
one prove we all think their bravery and strength
are extraordinary.
Contents
Cover (#ud98e1883-08eb-5543-9be1-b86310ab116e)
Back Cover Text (#ub938d3f2-f860-5d34-86bc-6c1f6fd9bd43)
About the Author (#u4ae29f50-c9f3-5648-97d3-106946583e44)
Booklist (#uaa68ab42-128a-5d1e-b0c4-2da5062605da)
Title Page (#u34b7468f-adba-5dcf-a86c-318df0565077)
Copyright (#u23e6ef23-9dbb-5361-aff3-23db4bcc956a)
Dedication (#u3b6d1701-11ad-53f3-9292-d786fbe3e067)
CHAPTER ONE (#u01a24cee-a937-58a9-85d9-585aa4bc8cb8)
CHAPTER TWO (#ufc1503fa-20a2-57b8-a135-cf5d10a606c9)
CHAPTER THREE (#u9972aa4f-c594-5308-8509-04ea092fee95)
CHAPTER FOUR (#u4540cd17-92e5-544c-8d2b-756487568447)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#uffe204dc-f5ae-5a10-8de3-84d70b9da438)
“YOU PLANNING ON wearing a track into the floor?”
Finn looked across at his boss, startled to see him in the hospital given the hour, then gave a nonchalant shrug. “Maybe. What’s it to you?”
Theo barked a good-natured laugh. “I paid for that floor. I was hoping we could keep it intact for a few more years before your lunking huge feet are embedded in it.”
Finn looked down at the honey-colored floorboards then up at his boss as he scrubbed his hand through the tangles of his dark hair. About time he got a haircut. Or invested in a comb. It had only been...oh...about fourteen years since he’d given up the buzz cuts. Didn’t stop him from thinking of himself as that fit, adrenaline-charged young man who’d stepped off the plane in Afghanistan all those years ago. Once an army man...
He took a step forward. The heat from his knee seared straight up his leg to his hip. An excruciating reminder that he was most definitely not an army man. Not ever again.
He gave Theo a sidelong look. “What are you doing here, anyway? It’s late.”
“Not that late.” Theo looked at his watch as if that confirmed it was still reasonable to be treading the hospital boards after most folk were at home having their tea. “I could ask you the same question.”
It was Avoidance Technique for Beginners and both men knew it.
They stared at one another, without animosity but unwilling to be the first to break. Lone wolf to lone wolf...each laying claim to the silence as if it were an invisible shield of strength.
Heaven knew why. It was hardly a secret that Finn was treating one of the hospital’s charity patients who was winging in from Africa today. He just...he was grateful to have a bit of quiet time before the boy arrived. His leg pain was off the charts today and once Adao arrived, he’d like to be in a place where he could assure the kid that life without a limb was worth living.
“Want to talk about it?” Theo looked about as excited to sit down and have a natter about feelings as Finn did.
“Ha! Good one.” Finn flicked his thumb toward the staff kitchen tucked behind the floor’s reception area. “I’ll just run and fill up the kettle while you cast on for a new Christmas jumper, shall I?”
Theo smirked then quickly sobered. “I’m just saying, if you ever want to...” he made little talky mouths with his hands “...you know, I’m here.”
“Thanks, mate.” He hoped he sounded grateful. He was. Not that he’d ever take Theo up on the offer.
It wasn’t just trusting Theo that was the issue. It was trusting himself. And he wasn’t there yet. Not by a long shot. Days like today were reminders why he’d chosen to live a solitary existence. You got close to people. You disappointed them. And he was done disappointing people.
Christmas seemed to suck the cheer—what little he had—right out of him. All those reminders of family and friendship and “togetherness.” Whatever the hell that was.
He didn’t do any of those things. Not anymore.
All the jolly ward decorations, staffrooms already bursting with mince pies, and festive holiday lights glittering across the whole of Cambridge didn’t seem to make a jot of difference.
He scanned the view offered by the floor-to-ceiling windows and rolled his eyes.
He was living in a ruddy 3D Christmas card and wasn’t feeling the slightest tingle of hope and anticipation the holiday season seemed to infuse in everyone else.
Little wonder considering...
Considering nothing.
He had a job. He had to do it. And having his boss appear when he was trying to clear his head before Adao arrived wasn’t helping.
He’d been hoping to walk the pain off. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes, like today, it escalated the physical and, whether he cared to admit it or not, emotional reminders of the day his life had changed forever.
Should’ve gone up to the rooftop helipad instead. No one ever really went there in the winter. Although this year the bookies were tipping the scales in favor of snow. Then it really would be like living in a Christmas card.
“Why are you here? Was there some memo about an all-staff welcoming committee?” Finn knew there wasn’t. He was just giving his boss an out if he wanted it. Bloke talk came in handy for a lot of emotional bullet dodging.
Theo sighed. “Ivy.”
Finn lifted his chin in acknowledgement. Her mystery illness had been the talk of all the doctors’ lounges. “Gotta be tough, mate.”
“’Tis.” Theo flicked his eyes to the heavens, gave his stippled jaw a scrub and gave an exasperated sigh. “I hate seeing her go through this. She’s five years old. You know?”
Oh, yeah. He knew. It was why he’d retrained as a pediatric surgeon after the IED had gone off during a standard patrol. The loss of life that day had been shameful.
All of them children.
Who on this planet targeted children?
At least he’d had an enemy to rail against. Theo was shooting in the dark at a mystery illness. No wonder the guy had rings under his eyes.
“Had anything good today?” Topic-changing was his specialty.
Theo nodded. “A few interesting cases actually.” He rattled through a few of them. “Enough to keep me distracted.”
Finn huffed out an “I hear you” laugh. Work was the only way he kept his mind off the mess he’d made of his personal life.
You’re on your own now, mate. Paying your penance, day by day.
“The diagnostician. She managed to clear her schedule yet?”
Theo nodded. “Took a bit of juggling but she’s here now.”
Finn waited for some more information—something to say what Theo thought of her—but received pure silence. Any topic related to Ivy was a highly charged one so it looked like his boss was going to reserve judgment on the highly touted globetrotter until she’d had a bit more time with his daughter.
“What’s her name again?” Finn tried again when Theo obviously wasn’t going to comment further. “I heard one of the nurse’s call her Godzilla.”
Theo gave a sharp tsk.
He didn’t like gossip. Or anything that stood in the way of the staff acting as a team. “She’s a bit of a loner. Might give off a cooler edge than some of the staff are used to. Particularly around the holidays. But she’s not yet had a chance to get her feet on the ground, let alone establish a rapport with the entire staff.” He gave Finn a quick curt nod, making it very clear that he let facts stand. Not rumor. “She’s called Madison Archer. Doesn’t get much more American than that, does it?”
“Short of being scented like apple pie, I guess not.” Finn smiled at Theo, trying to add a bit of levity, but raised his hands in apology at Theo’s swiftly narrowed eyes.
More proof, as if he needed it, that Finn was no star at chitchat. He called a spade a spade, and other than that his conversational skills were operating on low to subterranean.
Theo’s expression shifted to something indecipherable. “It’s at times like this I understand how the parents feel when they walk in the doors of our hospital. Makes it that much more important we treat each other with respect. Without that, how can we respect our patients? Ourselves?” He lifted up his hands as if seeking an answer from the universe then let them fall with a slap against his long legs.
They looked at one another a moment in silence. This time with that very same respect he’d just spoken of.
Theo was a class-A physician and this hospital—the hospital he’d built—was one of the finest in the world, and still not one of them could put a finger on what was behind Ivy’s degenerating condition. Lethargy had become leg pain. Leg pain had escalated to difficulty walking. They were even considering admitting her full time, instead of dipping in and out, things were so bad.
How the hell Theo went about running the hospital day in, day out when his little girl was sick...it would’ve done his head in.
Precisely why being on his own suited Finn to a T. No one to worry about except his patients. No emotions holding him back...as long as he kept his thoughts on the future and his damn leg on the up and up.
He gave his head a sharp shake, silently willing Theo to move on. A wince of pain narrowed the furrows fanning out from his eyes as he shifted his weight fully onto his right leg.
The infinitesimal flick of Theo’s eyes down then back up to Finn’s face meant the boss man knew precisely what was going on. But he knew better than to ask. Over a decade of wearing the prosthetic leg and he still hadn’t developed a good relationship with the thing. The number of times he’d wanted to rip it from his knee and hurl the blasted contraption off the roof...
And then where would he be? In a wheelchair like Ivy?
Nah. That wasn’t for him.
Helping children just like her—and Adao, who’d learned too much about war far too soon—were precisely why he kept it on. Standing beside the operating table was his passion. And if that meant sucking up the building pressure and tolerating the sharp needles of pain on occasion? Then so be it.
“Well...” He tried to find something positive to say and came up with nothing so fell back on what he knew best. Silence.
After a few minutes of staring out into the inky darkness he asked Theo, “You heard anything about the boy’s arrival time?”
Finn was chief surgeon on the case, but Theo had a way of knowing just that little bit more than his staff. Sign of a good leader if ever there was one.
“Adao?”
Finn nodded, unsurprised that out of a hospital full of children Theo knew exactly who he was referring to. Although they didn’t have too many children flying in from Africa just a handful of weeks before Christmas.
Then again, war never took much time to consider the holidays.
“Did they get out of the local airport in Kambela all right?” Theo asked.
“Yeah.” Finn had received an email from one of the charity workers who’d stayed behind at the war-torn country’s small clinic. “Touch and go as to whether the ceasefire would hold, but they got off without a hitch. They say his condition’s been stabilized, but the risk of infection—” He stopped himself. Infection meant more of the arm would have to come off. Maybe the shoulder. Flickers of rage crackled through him like electricity.
This was a kid. A little kid. As if growing up in a country ravaged by war wasn’t bad enough.
There had been a fragile negotiated peace in the West African country for a few months now, but thousands of landmines remained. The poor kid had been caught in a blast when another little boy had stepped on one. That boy had died instantly. The second—Adao—suffice it to say his life would never be the same.
They’d been out playing. Celebrating another renewal of the ceasefire. The horror of it all didn’t bear thinking about.
Not until he saw the injuries, assessed damage limitation, talked Adao through how he would always feel that missing arm of his, but—
Don’t go there, man. You made it. The kid’ll make it.
Hopefully he wouldn’t actively push his family away the way Finn had. If he had any leanings toward giving advice, he’d put that top of the list.
Keep those you love close to you.
Pushing them away only made the aching hole of grief that much harder to fill.
He knew that now.
Theo pulled his phone out of his pocket and thumbed through the messages. “He was meant to have been choppered in from London a couple of hours ago, right? The charity texted a while back saying something about paperwork and customs, but you’d think a boy with catastrophic injuries would outweigh a bit of petty bureaucracy.”
Finn brought his fist down on a nearby table. That sort of hold-up was unacceptable. Especially with a child’s welfare at stake.
“Hey!” Theo nodded at the table, brow creased. “You’d better apologize.”
“What?” Disbelief flashed across Finn’s features then a smile. “You want me to say sorry to the table? Sorry, table. I don’t know what got into me.” He held his hands out wide. Happy now? the gesture read.
Theo closed the handful of meters between them with a few long-legged strides, crossed his arms over his chest and looked Finn square in the eyes. “Are you all right to handle this?”
His hospital. His terms.
Fair enough.
“’Course.” Finn said. “But if you think I’m not up to it? Take me off. Bear in mind you’ll have to drag me out of here and nurse the black eyes of whoever you think can operate on Adao better than me.”
No point in saying he’d have to deliver the punches from a wheelchair if his knee carried on mimicking a welding iron.
He ground his back teeth together and waited. Theo knew as well as he did that the last thing he’d do was punch someone. But it was Theo’s hospital. Theo’s call.
Theo feigned giving Finn a quick one-two set of boxing punches, making contact with his midsection as he did.
Finn didn’t budge. He had a slight edge on Theo in height, weight and age. The Grand Poo-bah of Limb Specialists, they’d once joked.
“Look at that.” Finn’s tone was as dry as the Sahara. “I’m turning the other cheek.”
Theo widened the space between them and whistled. “Have you been working out again?”
Finn smiled. Always had. Always would.
Pushing himself to the physical limit was one of the things that kept the demons at bay.
Theo gave Finn’s shoulder a solid clap. “You’re the one I want on this. The only one.” He didn’t need to spell out to Finn how his time in the military had prepared him more than most for the injuries Adao had sustained. “Just want to make sure you’re on top form when the little guy arrives.”
“What? Nah.” Finn waved away his concerns, gritting his teeth against the grinding of his knee against his prosthesis. “I just save this curmudgeon act for you. Someone’s gotta be the grumpy old man around here.”
“I thought that was Dr. Riley.”
They both laughed. Dr. Riley had yet to be seen without an ear-to-ear grin on his face. The man had sunbeams and rainbows shooting out of his ears. The children adored him. Most people called him Dr Smiley.
Finn nodded toward the Christmas tree twinkling away in the dimly lit reception area where they stood. “A bit early, isn’t it?”
“Not if you’re Evie.”
Finn grunted. Evie was the resident Mrs. Claus around Hope Children’s Hospital. Especially now she was all loved up. Just being around her and Ryan made him...well...suffice it to say it brought up one too many memories he’d rather not confront. Love. Marriage. They’d never got as far as the baby carriage, he and Caroline. Now he supposed he never would.
Guess that made him the resident Scrooge. Not that he had anything against Christmas in particular, it was just...seeing these poor kids in hospital over the holidays always bugged him. He may not want to hang out with his own family, but he was damn sure these kids wanted nothing more than their mums and dads at the end of their beds on Christmas morning.
“Anyone else about for Adao’s arrival?”
Finn shook his head. “Not that I know about. I’ve got the usual suspects lined up for tomorrow so we can give him a proper assessment.” He listed a few names. “Right.” He clapped his hands together. “I’m going to get on up to the roof, if you don’t mind. Clear the cobwebs before Adao arrives.” He stood his ground. Theo was smart enough to take the absence of movement as his cue to leave and turned toward the bank of elevators.
“Hey,” Theo called over his shoulder as he was entering the elevator. “You know we have a team of experts who look after that sort of thing.”
Theo didn’t have to look at Finn’s knee for Finn to know what he was talking about. He knew the offer was there. He just didn’t want to take it. Pain equaled penance. And he had a helluva lot of making up to do. Parents. Brother. Ex-wife. Friends. And the list went on.
“Good to know.” He waited until the elevator doors closed before he moved.
A string of silent expletives crossed his lips as he hobbled over to a sofa, pulled up his trouser leg and undid the straps to ease the ache in his knee, not even caring when the whole contraption clattered to the floor.
One breath in...one breath out...and a silent prayer of thanks that he had this moment alone. He didn’t do weak.
Not in public anyway.
The handful of moments he’d let himself slide into self-pity over the years...those would remain buried in his chest as bitter reminders of the paths he shouldn’t have taken. The lessons he should’ve learned.
He gave his prosthesis a bit of a kick.
“It’s just you and me, mate. Guess we’d better start finding a way to make nice.”
CHAPTER TWO (#uffe204dc-f5ae-5a10-8de3-84d70b9da438)
“ARE YOU HANGING about for a meet-and-greet with Adao?”
Naomi went wide-eyed at Evie’s question. She hadn’t said anything, but that had definitely been her plan. A volley of responses ricocheted round her chest and lodged in her throat because she didn’t want Evie to hear any of them.
I know how he feels.
He’s probably as scared as I was.
I wanted him to know there’s someone here who understands what it’s like to live in a world ruled by guns and fear.
But Evie knew nothing of Naomi’s past. Having Adao here would be the biggest emotional challenge she’d faced since arriving in Britain at the ripe age of fifteen. Scared. Utterly alone.
Two things she never wanted Adao to feel.
At least he knew his family was waiting at home for him.
Naomi pinned on her bright smile—the one she ensured her patients and colleagues knew her by—and asked, “How’d you guess?”
Evie shrugged in her elfin way. She just did.
Naomi liked to think of Evie as the entire hospital’s resident Christmas faerie. She had a canny knack for intuiting things. That and a heart the size of Britain. She smiled as Evie shifted Grace on her hip, the baby who’d been abandoned at the hospital a few months ago and who was to be adopted by Evie and her soon-to-be husband, Ryan.
“I have a really ridiculous question.” Evie looked at her a bit bashfully.
“Shoot.”
“I’m not exactly sure where Kambela is.”
“Adao’s home?” Naomi knew what Evie was really asking. Is it anywhere near where you’re from? Her English, no matter how hard she tried, was still lightly accented. “It’s on the coast of Africa. Near the Horn.”
Right next door to her country. Zemara.
“Hey...is everything all right with you?”
Uh-oh. Evie’s emotional intuition radar was beep-beep-beeping like a metal detector in her direction...not so good.
“Fine! Great.” Naomi tipped her head toward the glass doors leading out of the front of the hospital and grinned. “Did you see that?”
“Violet being discharged early? Amazing. You did such good work with her.” Evie grinned and shifted Grace from one arm to the other. “Oof! This little girl’s putting on weight at a rate of knots! I’ll have ‘mom arms’ soon.”
Naomi smiled and gave the tip of the baby’s nose a tickle. Hope Hospital had hit the headlines with this little girl and would again soon with Adao...if the surgery went well and the rehab was successful. So much of recovery had to do with a patient’s will. The will to fight. The desire to survive. The stamina to confront what had happened to them head on.
She crossed her fingers behind her back for Adao, ignoring the tight twist of nerves constricting the oxygen in her lungs.
“Are you waiting for Ryan?”
Evie nodded, her smile hitting the ear-to-ear register. If a couple of red-breasted robins flew in the front door and began adorning her with mistletoe, she could easily be the poster girl for Cupid’s arrow. “He’s just come out of surgery. I’m swotting up for nursing college in the new term and he’s promised to talk me through all the signs, symptoms and early treatment for scarlet fever if I make him an early Christmas dinner.”
“Turkey and all the trimmings?” Naomi couldn’t hide her shock. She knew they were in love, but Christmas dinner on a “school night”?
“Giant prawn cocktails and pavlova.” Evie shrugged and shifted Grace in her arms again. Whatever her Australian-born fiancé wanted...
Naomi giggled. “You are well and truly loved up, aren’t you?”
Evie blushed in response. Her whole world had changed. “It’s not just me, is it? Have you seen Alice lately? Sunbeams. Everywhere she goes. And Marco can’t stop humming opera during surgery these days.” She drummed her free fingers on her chin and gave Naomi a mischievous sideways look. “I wonder who’s next?”
Naomi put up her hands and laughed. “Not me!” That ship of possibility had sailed long ago.
“Why not? You’re beautiful. Amazing at your job. You’d be a real catch.”
If cowardice was something a man could ever love, sure. But it wasn’t. Which was precisely why she kept herself just out of love’s reach.
She was just about say “Finn Morgan” to be contrary, but stopped herself. The man had scowling down to a fine art. At least around her. But the season of good cheer was upon them so she stuck to what had served her best when her past pounded at that locked door at the back of her mind: a positive attitude. “I reckon Mr. Holkham down in the cafeteria could do with a bit of a love buzz.”
Evie threw back her head and laughed. “A love buzz? I don’t know if that’s a bit too energetic for him. What is he? Around seventy?”
“I think so. I love that Theo hired retirees who wanted to keep active, but...if anyone needs a love buzz it’s him.” She made a silly face. “Anything to make him chirpier when he serves up the lasagna. Who wants garlic bread with a side of gloom?”
“Good point.”
Naomi could almost see the wheels turning in Evie’s mind...already trying to figure out who she could couple with the sweet, if not relatively forlorn, older gentleman. She’d tried to tease a smile from him every day since the hospital had opened, to no avail. Perhaps she should ask him for a coffee one day. Maybe he was just lonely. A widower.
She knew more than most that with love came loss and that’s why being cheerful, efficient and professional was her chosen modus operandi.
“Ooh, Gracie, look. It’s Daddy!” Evie took her daughter’s teensy hand and made it do a little wave as Ryan approached with a broad smile and open arms.
Naomi gave Evie’s arm a quick squeeze and smiled. “I’d better get up there.”
“All right. I’ll leave you to it, then,” Evie said distractedly, her eyes firmly fixed on her future husband.
Naomi took the stairs two at a time all the way up to the fifth floor, as she usually did. She put on the “feel good” blinkers and refocused her thoughts. She was feeling genuinely buoyed by her last session. A cheer-worthy set of results for her patient followed by a discharge. What a way to end a work day!
Watching a little girl skip—skip!—hand in hand with her parents straight out of the hospital doors and away home, where she would be able to spend Christmas with her family. A Christmas miracle for sure. Four months ago, when Violet had been helicoptered in from a near-fatal car accident, Naomi had had her doubts.
It was on days like this her job was the perfect salve to her past. Little girl power at its finest. And knowing she was playing a role in it made it that much better.
If she could keep her thoughts trained on the future, she could hopefully harness some of that same drive and determination in Adao. This was definitely not the time to let her own fears and insecurities bubble to the surface.
Then again, when was it the time?
Never. That was when.
So! Eyes on the prize and all would be well.
She hit the landing for the fifth floor and did a little twirl before pushing the door open.
Happy, happy, happy—Oh.
Not so happy.
The doctor’s hunched shoulders and pained expression spoke volumes.
And not just any doctor.
Finn Morgan.
Of all the doctors at Hope, he was the one she had yet to exchange a genuine smile with. Well...him and the cafeteria chap, but she had to work with Mr. Morgan and he made her feel edgy. The man didn’t do cheery. Not with her anyway.
Some days she had half a mind to tell him to snap out of it. He was a top surgeon at an elite private hospital. He worked on cases only the most talented of surgeons could approach with any hope of success. And still... King of the Grumps.
It wasn’t as if he wasn’t surrounded by people doing their best to create a warm, loving environment at Hope Hospital, no matter what was going on in their personal lives.
Not that she’d ever admit it, but most days she woke up in a cold sweat, her heart racing and arms reaching out for a family she would never see again.
If she could endure that and show up to work with a smile on her face, then whatever was eating away at him could be left at home as well.
She pushed the door open wider, took a step forward then froze. Her breath caught in her throat at the sound of the low moan coming from his direction. As silently as she could, she let the door from the stairwell close in front of her so that all she could see of him through the small glass window was his rounded back moving back and forth as he kneaded at something. His knee? His foot? She’d noticed a slight limp just the once but the look he’d shot her when he’d realized she’d seen it had been enough to send her scuttling off in the other direction.
Even so...
He was sitting all alone in the top floor’s central reception area, his back to her, the twinkling lights of the city beyond him outlining his broad-shouldered physique.
Her gut instinct was to go to Finn... Mr. Morgan, she silently corrected herself...but the powerful “back off” vibes emanating from him kept her frozen at the stairwell door.
She’d been flying so high after finishing with Violet she’d thought she’d put her extra energy to use helping Adao settle in. She’d already been assigned as his physiotherapist—work that wouldn’t begin until after his surgery with Finn Morgan—but she thought meeting him today might help him know there was someone who understood his world. His fears.
She pressed her hand against the glass as another low moan traveled across from the sofa where Finn remained resolutely hunched over his leg.
Something about his body language pierced straight through to her heart. A fellow lost soul trying to navigate a complicated world the best he could?
Or just a grump?
From what she’d seen, the man wouldn’t know a good mood if it bit him on the nose.
She pulled her gaze away from him and searched the skyline for Adao’s helicopter. She’d come here to find her patient, not snoop on a doctor clearly having a private moment.
She had little doubt the little boy was experiencing so many things that she had all those years ago when she’d arrived in the UK from Zemara. The language barrier. The strange faces. No family.
She swallowed against the lump forming in her throat and squeezed her eyes tight.
It was a long time ago.
Eleven years, two months and a day, to be exact.
Long enough to have moved on.
At least that’s what logic told her. But how did you ever forget the day you saw everyone you loved herded into a truck and driven away off to the mountains? Mountains rumored to be scarred with pre-dug mass graves for anyone the rebels deemed unfit for their indiscriminatingly cruel army.
Blinking back the inevitable sting of tears, she gave herself a sharp shake and forced herself to paste on a smile. Her life was a good one. She was doing her dream job. In one of the most beautiful cities in the world, no less. Every day she was able to help and nurture children who, against the odds, always found a way to see the good in things.
So that’s what she did, too. Focusing on the future was the only way she had survived those early days. And the only way she could live with herself now.
She pressed her forehead to the small, cool window in the door. In the dimly lit reception area—the lights were always lowered after seven at night—Finn had turned his face so that she could clearly see his profile.
He was a handsome man. Not storybook English—blond and blue-eyed, the way she’d once imagined everyone looked before she’d arrived in the UK. More...rugged, as if he’d just stepped off a plane from a long, arduous trek across the Alps rather than a doctor who had taken the elevator up from the surgical ward where he could usually be found. Not that she’d been stalking him or anything. Far from it. He was an arm’s-length kind of guy judging by the handful of terse encounters they’d had.
Come to think of it, every time their paths had crossed since the hospital had opened—either going into or coming out of a session—he’d bristled.
Physically bristled.
Not the usual effect she had on people but, hey...she didn’t need to be his bestie, she just needed a quality working relationship. That...and a bit of professional respect would be nice. Having seen his work on a near enough daily basis, she knew he respected her work...it would just be nice if that respect included the occasional smile or “Thank you.”
His hair was a rich, dark brown. A tangled mess of waves that could easily turn to curls if it grew out. He was a big man. Not fat. No. Tall and solidly built. A “proper” man, as her birth mother would have said. A real man.
She swallowed back the sting of tears that inevitably followed when she thought of her mother. Her beautiful mother, who had worked so hard to pay for her extra lessons from any of the aid workers who had been based out of her hometown for as long as she could remember.
And then, of course, there was also her foster mother. The one who had taught her that she still had it in her to be brave. Face the maze of applications she needed to complete to get into medical school one day and, eventually, fulfil her dream of working as a pediatric physiotherapist.
Touch, she’d come to realize, was one of the most curative things of all.
Finn shifted around on the sofa and—Oh!
Her fingers wove together and she pressed her hands to her mouth to stem her own cry. He wore a prosthesis. She’d had no idea.
And from the looks of things, his leg was hurting. A man as strong and capably built as Finn would have to be in some serious pain to look the way he did now. Slightly ashen. Breath catching. Unaware of everything else around him.
Instinct took over.
Before she thought better of it, she was by his side.
“Please. Perhaps I can help massage...” The rest of her offer died on her lips as she saw equal hits of horror and anger flash across his gray eyes.
She stood, completely frozen, mesmerized by their near-mystical depths.
How had she never noticed them before? So...haunted. She wondered if her dark eyes looked the same.
“What are you doing here?” Finn hastily grabbed his prosthesis and strapped it back on, despite the redness she saw engulfing his knee.
“I was just—I...”
I wanted to help.
“Well?” Finn rose alongside her, the scent of cotton and forest hitting her senses as he did.
She was tall so it took a lot of height to make her feel small. If the irritation radiating from him wasn’t making her feel as if she’d invaded an incredibly private moment, she could almost imagine herself feeling delicate in his presence.
Delicate?
What was that about?
Finn scanned her uniform for her employee badge, though she was sure he already knew her name. It was his signature on the forms requesting her as Adao’s physio.
She sucked in a breath. This was about Adao, not about Finn. Although...
Not your business. You have your secrets. He has his.
“Sorry. Please. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“No.” Finn stared at her for a moment then swiped at the air between them, causing her to flinch. “What do you need?”
“I-I was here to help with Adao,” she stammered. “I thought perhaps I could help settle him in.”
“What?” Finn bridled. “You think I’m not up to being my patient’s welcoming committee?”
She tilted her head to the side and pinched her lower lip with her teeth. Was he hoping for an honest answer? Or was this the famous British sense of humor at play?
Her silence seemed to give him the “No” he was expecting. His swift change of expression told her he was already dismissing her.
So much for trying to go the extra mile! She was about to tell him Adao was her patient too when, mercifully, Finn’s phone buzzed and those penetrating, moonstone-colored eyes of his relaxed their spotlight grip on her.
He was as chatty on the phone as he was with her. A few responses of “Yeah. Yeah. Got it...” later and he was beckoning her to join him.
Okay.
He swiftly crossed to the bank of elevators—so quickly it was difficult to see how he hid the pain—and punched the illuminated button as he pulled his key card out of his pocket. Only staff were allowed up onto the roof and the magnetic key cards were the only way of taking the elevator up there. “Adao’s ten minutes out. You done any helicopter arrivals before?”
She shook her head. Not here anyway. She’d seen more than her fair share before she’d left Zemara, but usually those helicopters had been filled with rebels wielding machine guns. Not charity workers with patients about to undergo life-altering surgery.
“Right.” Finn pulled a crumpled bit of notepaper out of his pocket. “Adao’s seven years old, suffering from—”
“Multiple injuries as a result of a landmine explosion,” Naomi cut in. She’d read the case. Memorized it. It had all but scored itself straight into her heart if the truth be told, but that wasn’t what this showdown was about. She kept on talking as the elevator doors opened and the hit of wintry air all but took her breath away. “Adao’s injuries include loss of his right arm. Efforts have been made to keep infection to a minimum, but our goal is to ensure he retains as much use of his shoulder as possible so that any use of a pros—’ She stopped, her eyes clashing with Finn’s—Mr. Morgan’s—as he wheeled on her.
“Fine. Good. I see you’re up on the case. How’s about we have a bit of quiet time before the chaos begins, yeah?”
Naomi nodded and looked away, forcing herself to focus on the crisp, starlit sky above them.
No problem.
She’d obviously seen far more than Finn—Mr. Morgan—had wanted her to. An incredibly private moment for a man who clearly didn’t do vulnerability.
Vulnerability and strength were two of the reasons she’d chosen to work at Hope. Most of the children here were going through something frightening. Loss of a limb. Surgery. Illnesses that meant they would be facing a future that would present hurdle after hurdle. And despite all the pain and all the suffering, the bulk of the children confronted their futures with a courage that amazed her on a daily basis. If she could be a part of making their future something to actually look forward to, then she was going to give it her all.
She tipped her head up and let the wind skid across her features as she sought out the Milky Way. The night was so clear she spotted it almost instantly. She was constantly amazed by the band of light made up of so many stars, so faraway, they were indistinguishable to the naked eye. In Zemara, they called the spiral galaxy they were such a small part of the Path of Spirits. This was where her family must be now...far above her...looking down...
A rippling of goose-pimples shot across her arms, but it wasn’t the cold that had instigated them.
Guilt had a lot to answer for. Here she was at one end of the galaxy while her family were...only heaven knew where. It wasn’t fair.
“Look.” Finn’s rich voice broke through the thick silence. “Over there.”
She turned and followed the line of his arm and saw the helicopter emerging from the darkness.
CHAPTER THREE (#uffe204dc-f5ae-5a10-8de3-84d70b9da438)
NAOMI’S EYES WERE trained on the helicopter but all Finn could focus on was her.
Why had he snapped at her like he had?
It wasn’t her fault she’d seen him in the lounge...without his leg...exposed as the embittered man he’d become ever since the future he’d thought he’d have had literally been torn away from him.
It also wasn’t her fault that every time he saw her his senses shot to high alert. There was no way he was going to put a name to what he felt each time their paths crossed, but his body was miles ahead of him on that front.
A white-hot, solitary flame had lit that very first staff meeting when they’d all gathered together in the hospital’s huge atrium and he’d first seen her. Even at—what had she been? Fifty meters from him? Twenty? Whatever. The impact had been sharp, forceful, and, if today was anything to go by, unabating.
From the response his body had had to her, she may as well have sashayed up to him in a curve-hugging negligee and wrapped him round one of her long, elegant fingers.
Not that he’d thought about her naked.
Okay, fine. Of course he had.
But it had just been the once, and the woman had all but floated out of the hospital’s therapy pool in a scarlet swimsuit that had made him jealous of the droplets of water cascading down her body.
What else was he meant to do?
Treat her with respect, you numpty.
Everything about her commanded a civility he could tap into for the rest of his colleagues, but Naomi? Whatever it was he felt around her it meant he simply wasn’t able to extend it to her. Not in the manners department anyway.
Naomi’s entire essence sang of grace and an innate sensitivity to both her patients and her environment. Her movements were always smooth. Fluid. Her voice was carefully modulated, lightly accented, but he didn’t know from where. He’d thought of asking once or twice, but that would’ve verged on curious and with half the hospital staff staggering around the hospital with love arrows embedded in their hearts...bah. Whatever. He should just stuff his hormones in the bin and have done with them.
And yet...even now, with her head tipped back as it was, the wind shifting along that exquisitely long neck of hers, there was something almost regal about Naomi’s presence. Not haughty or standoffish, more...wise.
Where he shot from the hip, she always took a moment before responding to his sharp comments and brusque reactions to her.
She wasn’t to know his brush-offs were the age-old battle of desire versus pragmatism.
Where he felt big and lunky, she was lithe and adroit.
Long-limbed. Sure-footed. High, proud cheekbones. Skin the shade of... He didn’t know to describe it. A rich, warmly colored brown? Whatever shade it was, it was beautiful. The perfect complement to her full, plump mouth. Not that he was staring at it. Much.
There was something fiercely loyal shining in those dark eyes of hers. He saw it whenever she was with a patient. But he could also see it now as she trained her eyes on the sky above. For whom or what it shone, he would never know, because he didn’t do personal. Didn’t do intimate. Not anymore.
As if feeling his gaze on her, she turned and met his eyes.
“Is there anywhere we’re meant to stand when they land, Mr. Morgan?”
Finn scowled. Why’d she have to catch him mooning over her? And what was with this Mr. Morgan business? Made him sound like a grumpy old man.
Humph.
Maybe that was the point she was making.
“It’s Finn,” he said. “Over there.” He pointed toward the covered doorway where a porter was wheeling a gurney into place then turned his focus on to the approaching helicopter...willing the beats and syncopation of the blades cutting through the thin, wintry air to knock some sense back into him.
Bah.
He hadn’t been mooning. It had simply been a while. Once he’d cut ties with his past, he’d thought that part of him had all but died.
He should be relieved his body was still capable of responding to a woman like a red-blooded male. So many of the soldiers he’d met during his stint in hospital...hell...he didn’t wish their futures on his worst enemies.
All these thoughts and the raft of others that inevitably followed in their wake fell to the wayside as the helicopter hovered above them for a moment before executing a perfect landing.
And then they all fell to what they did best, caring for their patient.
* * *
There were too many people in Adao’s room. It was easy enough to see from the growing panic in his wide, dark eyes as they darted from person to medical contraption to yet another person.
When they landed on her, all she could see was fear.
He was strapped to the gurney, completely surrounded by medical staff from the charity and the hospital all exchanging stats and information at a rate of knots that would have been impossible for him to comprehend.
Short, sharp counts dictated the swift shift from the gurney to the hospital bed and yet another stream of instructions flowed over him as they hooked him up to fresh IVs and peeled out another ream of information as they pressed monitors to his skinny, bare, little-boy chest. And when he called out for his parents it was all she could do not to tear her heart from her own chest.
“It’s too much!”
The room fell silent as all eyes turned to Naomi.
“I beg your pardon?”
Finn hadn’t moved a muscle, but his voice may as well have been a drill boring straight into her chest for the pain it caused.
She lifted her chin and met his steel-colored gaze. Yes, she was still smarting from his curt form of issuing orders.
“Not on that side.”
“Not too close.”
“Not too far.”
There didn’t seem to be a single thing she could do properly under his hawk-eyed gaze. But when it came to the child—this child—enough was enough.
“Please. Give the boy some peace. He’s known nothing but chaos. This place—this hospital—must bring him peace. Comfort. Not fear.”
Finn’s eyebrows lifted a notch. It was written all over his face. She’d overstepped the mark.
Just as she was about to run out of the room, find a computer and start composing her letter of resignation, he spoke.
“You heard Naomi.” He pointed at one nurse and one doctor, both of whom were on the overnight shift in Adao’s ward. “You two stay. The rest of you...” He made a shooing motion with his hands. “Out you go. And you...’ He pointed directly at Naomi. “You come with me.”
* * *
Finn’s eyes were glued to Naomi’s throat. The tiny pulse point, alive with a blaze of passion he’d not seen in her before.
Their paths had never really crossed in this way. Neither had their temperaments.
Fighting for a patient.
It showed her high-energy, positive approach to work was more than skin deep.
But what he wanted to get to was the why. Why this little boy? Why the specifics? Her slight accent intrigued him. Maybe it was from a French-speaking country? He wasn’t sure. Either way, there was something about Adao that had got under her skin and was making an emotional impact.
Problem Number One.
Finn flexed his fingers, hoping it would rid them of the urge to reach out and touch her throat, smooth his thumb across her pounding pulse point. From the meter or so he’d put between them, he could still tell her skin looked as soft as silk. But her spirit? Solid steel.
The combination pounded a double hit onto his senses. Primal. Cerebral.
Problem Number Two.
He bashed the primal response into submission and channeled his thoughts into figuring out what made her tick.
Work.
That much was obvious. Not that he kept tabs on the woman, but he’d only ever seen her in work clothes. Never did she shift to casual or night-out-on-the-town outfits as loads of other doctors did when they threw their scrubs in for washing. Then again...he wasn’t exactly a social butterfly either.
She was top of her game. No one came more highly recommended in her field of pediatric physio than she did.
Snap. He was up there in the top-rated limb specialists.
She was opinionated.
Snap again.
Fair dos to the woman, she hadn’t blinked once when he’d all but marched her to an empty room a few doors down from Adao’s and wheeled on her.
He counted to ten in time with her heartbeat before he’d steadied his own enough to speak.
“So.” He crossed his arms and tipped his head toward Adao’s room. “What was that all about?”
She gave her head a quick shake as if she didn’t understand.
He waited. His failsafe technique.
Far more effective than saying the myriad of things he could have:
“There’s only one person in charge in that room and it’s me.”
Not his style.
“Since when is a physio a psychiatrist?”
Ditto. He wasn’t into tearing people down, but he did like explanations for outbursts.
The seconds ticked past.
Naomi threw a quick look over her shoulder, stuffed her hands in the pockets of her Hope Hospital hoodie then said, “Okay. Fine. I just feel for the little man, you know?”
He loved the way she said “feel”—even if it was a verb he didn’t include in his own vocabulary. She said it as if the word had heft. Gravitas, even. As if it meant something.
What a thing to have all that emotion churning round in your chest. Way too much extra baggage to haul around the hospital if he wanted to do his job properly. If he professed to know one solitary thing about himself it was this: Finn Morgan did not do baggage.
Ha!
He coughed into his hand to hide a self-deprecating smirk.
If his ex-wife could read his thoughts, she would’ve pounced on them like a mouse on cheese.
One of the last things she’d said to him before he’d left his past where it belonged was that he was “Made of baggage.” And one day? “One day,” she’d said to him, “all of that baggage will tumble open and wreak havoc with the man you keep telling yourself you are.”
How about that for a “let’s keep it friendly” farewell.
On a good day he recalled her “prophesy” as tough love.
On bad days? On bad days he tried not to think of her at all.
He shifted his weight off his knee and brought his thoughts back to Adao and Naomi. “How do you ‘feel’ for him? Are you from Kambela?”
“No, I’m...” She started to say something then pressed her lips together and started again. “I know what it’s like to arrive somewhere new and feel...overwhelmed. Not know who to trust.”
“Oh, I see. So you’re the only one he can trust here, is that what you’re saying?”
Why was he being so confrontational? She was clearly doing what any employee of Hope Children’s Hospital should be doing: Holding the patient’s needs first and foremost in their mind. At all times.
Take it down a notch, man. She’s trying to do right by the kid.
He shrugged the tension out of his shoulders and adopted what he hoped was a less confrontational pose. “I see what you’re saying. The kid’s been through a lot. But the one person he’s got to trust is me.” He let it sink in a minute. He was the one who would be holding the scalpel tomorrow. He was the one who would be changing Adao’s life forever.
“You’re the one who will help him live. I’m the one who’s going to help him rebuild his life,” Naomi shot back.
Wow. The pronouncement was so loaded with barbs he could take personally he almost fell back a step. Good thing he didn’t take workplace slanging matches personally.
The surgery and recovery Adao required was a step-by-step process. And they weren’t anywhere near rehab. No point in popping on rose-colored glasses at this stage. Whether she liked it or not, Adao had a long road of recovery ahead of him, and the first step was the operating table. Finn’s operating table.
“You got the order right,” Finn said. “Life first.”
And that was the simple truth of the matter.
Naomi didn’t respond verbally. But the pursed lips followed by a swift inhalation told him all he needed to know. She knew the facts as well as she did. She just didn’t like them.
“C’mon.” He steered her, one hand pressed to the small of her back, toward Adao’s room. “All the basics should be taken care of right now. How ’bout you sit in while I talk Adao through his first twenty-four hours here at Hope?”
If she was surprised, Naomi masked it well. If she noticed he dropped his hand from her back about as quickly as he’d put it there, she made no sign of it either. As if the moment had never happened.
The tingling in his fingers spoke a different story. When he’d touched her? That flame in his core had tripled in size.
* * *
Leaning against the doorframe, having refused Finn’s invitation to join him, Naomi had to silently admit the truth.
She was impressed.
As cranky and gruff as Finn was with her...with Adao?...he was gentle, calm and capable of explaining some incredibly complicated facts in a way that didn’t patronize or confuse. When Adao spoke or asked questions, she recognized the same lilting accent she’d acquired when learning English from American missionaries or aid workers. Hers, of course, was softened by years in the UK and was now predominantly British English. His was still raw—lurching between the musical cadence of his mother tongue and wrestling with all the new English words.
“We can go over all of this again,” Finn was saying, “whenever you want. But the main thing is we’re here to help. Okay, little man? Anything you need?”
Adao shook his head now, his small head and shoulders propped up on the big white pillows. He was a collection of bandages with little bits of his brown skin peeking out at intervals. And his eyes...those big brown eyes rimmed with tears...spoke volumes.
Fear. Bewilderment. Loneliness.
He nodded at Finn but said nothing.
She got that.
The silence.
Admitting there was something or someone you missed so much you thought your heart might stop beating was as good as admitting a part of you wished it would. And despite the anxiety creasing his sweet little brow, she also saw fight in him. He wouldn’t be here otherwise.
She ached to go to him. Be by his side. Tell him all the things she wished she had been told when she’d arrived in the UK. That these were good people. And while they weren’t family...
Her eyes unexpectedly misted over as Finn and Adao did a big fist, little fist bump.
You couldn’t ever replace family. Could you?
Finn crossed to her.
“I think it’s time we let him get some rest.” Finn tipped his head toward the staffroom. “His minder from the charity is just getting some coffee. She’ll stay with him tonight. The chair in the corner converts to a bed, so...we’d best leave him to settle in quietly.” He gave her a weighted look. “As you suggested.”
Nothing like having your own words come back to bite you in the bum.
He was right, of course. And Adao was in the best possible place. But leaving the little boy was tugging at a double-wide door to her heart she’d long jammed shut. It felt wrong.
“Now,” Finn mouthed, when the woman from the charity appeared from round the corner and Naomi’s gaze inevitably skidded back in Finn’s direction as if he were some sort of homing beacon. It was madness, considering Finn Morgan was the last set of arms she’d throw herself into if she needed comforting. It would be like skipping up to a hungry grizzly bear and asking if he minded if they shared a den. Not. Going. To. Happen.
He had his hand on her elbow and was filling up the rest of the space in the doorframe.
There it was again. That cotton and forest scent. And something extra. She looked up into his slate-colored eyes as if they would give her the answer she needed.
Her heart pounded against her ribcage when it did.
That other scent?
Pure male heat.
* * *
Naomi scooped her keys off the ground for a second time.
What had got into her?
She blew out a slow breath, waited until the cloud dissipated, then put the key in the lock and turned it.
See? There.
All she needed to do was blank any thoughts of Finn Morgan and—Doh!
There went the keys again. At least she was inside this time.
She jogged up the stairs to her flat, opened the interior door, flicked on the lights and popped her keys into the wooden bowl that rested on the small table she had at the front door.
Home.
She grinned at it.
The studio flat was dinky, but she loved it. Her cocoon. A twenty-minute walk from the hospital. Fifty if she took a run along the river on the way, which, let’s face it, was every day. Going to the river had become a bit of a pilgrimage. If only one day she would come back from the river and find everything was—
If only nothing.
She toed off her trainers—against her own advice!—and pushed her door shut with her elbow.
Brightly lit. Simply furnished. Secure. Two floors above a bookshop/coffee shop that catered to students and, as such, was open all night. All the things she needed to get to sleep at night.
She shrugged out of her padded gilet then pulled her hoodie, her long-sleeved T-shirt and her wool camisole off, all but diving into her flannel jimjams that she’d laid out on the radiator when she’d left in the morning.
The one thing about England she’d failed to get used to was the cold. This winter was particularly frigid. Rumors of a white Christmas were swirling around the hospital like...like snowflakes.
She gave herself a wry grin in the bathroom mirror as she let warm water run over her freezing fingers. At least the sub-zero temperatures helped keep her heart on ice.
She shivered, thinking of that hot, intense flare of heat she’d seen in Finn’s normally glacial gaze.
Did it mean that he...? No. The man was like a snapping turtle. Don’t do this. Do that. Not here. There. Me right. You wrong.
She thought of his athletic build, his bear-like presence. Maybe he was more... Abominable Snowman than snapping turtle. Could one make love to a yeti?
She gave her head a shake. Clearly she’d lost a few brain cells on the cold walk home. Even if Finn wrapped a ribbon round his heart and handed it to her on a velvet cushion... Pah-ha-ha-ha! Can youimagine?
She tugged on her wool-lined slipper boots, padded across to her tiny strip of a kitchen and opened the fridge.
Yup! Forgot to go shopping. Again.
She stared at the handful of condiments she’d bought in yet another failed moment of “I’ll invite someone over” and wondered what it would be like to open up her fridge and know that she’d be making a meal for herself and her family. She closed the refrigerator door along with the thoughts.
Being in a relationship wasn’t on the cards for her. Each time she’d tried...whoomp. Up had gone the shields holding court round her heart.
She laughed into the silence of her flat.
At last! She’d found something she and Finn had in common.
Now all she had to do was find a way to get along.
CHAPTER FOUR (#uffe204dc-f5ae-5a10-8de3-84d70b9da438)
“DID YOU MANAGE to get some sleep?” Finn looked over at Adao’s case worker from the charity when all he elicited from the little boy was an uncertain mini-shrug.
“He slept a little.” She gave the boy’s creased forehead a soothing stroke with the backs of her fingers before crossing to him and holding out a sheaf of paperwork. “I’m Sarah Browning, by the way. I’m afraid we’re short-staffed and I’ve got to get a move on.” Her features creased apologetically.
Finn nodded and took the paperwork. “Not a problem. We’ve got plenty of folk who are looking forward to spending time with this little guy. Myself included.” He looked over at Adao for any sign of emotional response.
Nothing.
Hardly surprising considering what he’d been through. It was a shame the charity’s financial reach couldn’t have extended to bringing at least one of the family members over. Then again...from what he’d read prior to the boy’s arrival, both the mum and dad worked and his teenage sister was still in school, so...not easy to uproot an entire family.
He slapped the papers against his thigh. Too loudly, from the sharp look the charity worker sent him.
“Right.” Finn gave Sarah his best stab at a smile. “Looks like you need to get a move on and I need to assess Adao before we get him into surgery this afternoon.”
He went to the doorway and called to the small team of doctors and nurses who would be in surgery with him. “Righto, mateys. Let’s get a move on, shall we?” A twinge of déjà vu hit him as the team moved toward the door as one solid mass. Naomi had been right. Too many people standing around Adao might render the kid less responsive than he already was.
“Hey, mate.” He looked Adao in the eye. “We’ve got a bunch of people who are going to come in, but they’re all here to help you, yeah? We’re all on your side.”
The little boy pursed his lips and then nodded. He understood. He didn’t like it. But it wasn’t exactly as if he was in a position to argue.
Finn’s heart went out to the little man, but he needed to keep his cool. Clean, clear precision was what was required when he stepped into surgery today. Anything less wasn’t acceptable.
Finn went out into the corridor as the team crowded into the smallish room to hear the details of Adao’s case and help set up a battle plan for the afternoon’s surgery.
Battle plan.
The cruel irony of it...
He heard a laugh and his eyes snapped to the nurses’ station. The hairs on his arms prickled to attention and a deep punch of heat rocket-launched itself exactly where it didn’t belong.
Dammit.
Last night’s gym session clearly hadn’t drilled his body’s organic response to her out of his system.
Who knew a woman’s scent could linger in the physio gym hours after she’d left the hospital?
He did, that’s who. He didn’t know if she wore perfume or body spray or what...he just knew that jasmine and vanilla were forever lost to him as plain old smells now.
“Mr. Morgan? I was wondering if I could have a quick word.”
“Yes?” Grabbing his work tablet from the counter, he looked back up at her then instantly regretted it. Those dark eyes of hers were blinking away his brusque greeting as her hands rose to tug on each of her loosely woven, below-the-shoulder plaits.
They made her look fun.
And sexy as hell.
“Hi. Um...hello.” Naomi stepped behind the high counter of the nurses’ station, putting a physical buffer between them.
So she felt it too. Or was avoiding the “back off” daggers he was sending her way.
Fair enough. He’d hardly been Prince Charming last night. Or the day before that. Or...yup. Patterns. He saw it, but she messed with his focus and he didn’t like his highly honed “this way trouble lies” vibes being messed with.
“What is it? I’ve got the team waiting for the pre-surgery assessment.”
“I...um...” Something flickered in those dark brown eyes of hers. Had he ever noticed they were flecked with gold?
Yeah. Just like she’d probably noticed his eyes were flecked with amber when the sun hit them. Not. Can it, Romeo. Those days are over.
“You coming in to listen or is the idea to break up the assessment mid-flow with more of your touchy-feely stuff?”
Why are you being such an ass?
Naomi’s dark irises flashed with disbelief at his narky question. Even the ward sister shot him a sharp look. Great. Just what he needed. More fodder for the nurses to continue the tar-and-feather job they no doubt had begun in the break room.
And it was deserved.
All of it.
If Naomi turned on her heel and marched straight up to HR to report him, he wouldn’t blame her.
He was at war with himself and no one was coming out the victor. His body wanted one thing, his head wanted another. His heart was being yanked from side to side and therein lay the crux of the matter.
Good thing he didn’t do feelings. Or poetry, for that matter. Ode to a smashed-up, battered heart didn’t have much of a ring to it.
To his surprise, and the charge nurse’s, Naomi shook her head and gave him a gentle smile. “No, no. Please. Go ahead. I’m here to listen.”
He gave her a curt nod. “Fine.” Then he turned and walked into Adao’s room.
* * *
“Looks like someone’s gunning for a lump of coal in his stocking this Christmas.”
Naomi willed herself to smile back at Amanda, the charge nurse, who was always ready with a quip. She could tell from Amanda’s expression it looked as forced as it felt. It appeared all she needed to do to rile Finn Morgan was exist!
“Don’t let him get to you, Naomi.” Amanda gave her shoulders a quick squeeze as she handed her a mini gingerbread man. “We all bank on you and your sunny smile to keep us cheery, so don’t give him the satisfaction of taking it away.”
Naomi blinked in surprise.
“Don’t look so shocked. We’re all in awe of your energy.”
“My energy?”
“Of course. Who else around here runs up the stairs after running to work and running round with patients all day. Just watching you is exhausting! We all call you the Fizzy Physio.” Amanda laughed then leaned in close after giving a swift conspiratorial look around the reception area. “He’s all grizzly on the outside and perfectionist on the inside. We’ve all decided there’s a bit of gold in there somewhere but someone has yet to unearth it.”
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