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The Spice of Life
Caroline Anderson
REDEEMING THE REBEL DOCSister Kath Hennessy loves her career in the Emergency department at Audley Memorial Hospital. Marriage and children aren’t on her mind—yet. Then new consultant Jack Lawrence storms into her life, steals her parking place, and is sexy enough to make her heart race. It’s clear too that Jack is more than interested in a hot affair with Kath. She knows this playful rebel doc is a bad risk—but he intrigues her. Why does he love dangerous sports and claim he doesn’t want commitment or kids when he’s so obviously good with little patients? And she’s tempted…very tempted—something tells her that this man is worth redeeming…THE AUDLEY—where love is the best medicine of all…
The Spice of Life
Caroline Anderson
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Table of Contents
Cover (#u03fff1e0-c29c-5687-8b52-5fbe7ae51684)
Title Page (#uc40d8cf8-d9fe-5b2c-841b-425b58aa9560)
Chapter One (#u7a3f9c27-7e4d-5d6d-93c5-c7b774983d32)
Chapter Two (#uccb6c685-1a37-56a0-9bd9-a61db7e72a89)
Chapter Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
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)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_b0ff5cc8-67f2-596d-b272-917dbdb3d444)
KATHLEEN HENNESSY was spoiling for a fight.
She had just spent a weekend at home in Belfast dutifully admiring the latest Hennessy grandchild and enduring countless little digs about good Catholic girls and settling down to raise a family instead of racketing about the world enjoying herself—as if it was such a sin to enjoy life, for God’s sake, she thought angrily, and anyway six years as Sister in the accident and emergency department of the Audley Memorial in Suffolk hardly constituted racketing! Anybody would think she was a promiscuous little tart, the way her family reproached her for her single status …
All except Maria. She understood—mainly because she was only twenty-six and already had four children and another on the way. She had had such a promising career as a physio, Kathleen thought crossly, and now she was trapped at home with her children while her husband powered quietly on up the career ladder, leaving her behind.
And nothing wrong with it at all, if that was what was right for you, but it wasn’t right for Maria, and it sure as eggs wasn’t right for Kath!
She turned her little car precisely into a parking place in the hospital car park, climbed out and slammed the door. Damned dictators! Why couldn’t they just understand that she didn’t want to be married and settled with umpteen kids and a mortgage up to the sky and no life to call her own?
Selfish, they’d called her. OK. That was fine. So she was selfish. Perhaps that was why she worked the hours she did in the most gruelling part of the hospital, picking up the pieces—literally, sometimes—and putting them back together if possible, consoling distraught relatives if not.
‘They probably think I’m still carrying bedpans all day!’ she said to no one in particular, and locked her car door with a vicious twist.
As she did so she glanced towards the entrance of A and E, checking automatically for Jim Harris’s car—except it wouldn’t be there, she remembered with a twinge of regret. Jim had left, moved on to London and was heading up a new Rapid Response Unit there in connection with HEMS, the Helicopter Emergency Medical Service.
She wondered what his replacement would be like. Well, they’d find out soon, she thought, glancing at her watch, and then stared in amazement as a heavy black motorbike cruised lazily into the consultant’s slot and stopped.
‘Well, of all the nerve!’ she muttered, and, yanking her keys out of the door, she shoved them into her bag and marched across the car park, head held high.
‘Excuse me, you can’t leave that there!’ she said firmly, and looked him straight in the eye.
Her first mistake. Even through the streaky visor she could see that he had the most mesmerising eyes—laughing eyes—laughing at her. She looked hastily away—and found her eyes glued to a body that had no business being so magnetically attractive.
He was still sitting astride the bike, balancing it with his long, lean legs tautly encased in black leather. Hell, the whole man was tautly encased in black leather! His body flexed as he hauled the heavy bike up on to the centre stand, and her heart jerked and accelerated to a steady two hundred beats a minute. Well, that was what it felt like.
Ridiculous! She dragged her eyes up and watched as, unhurriedly, he stripped off his heavy gloves and laid them across the bike before lifting his helmet off and balancing it in front of him. His hair was dark, almost black, rumpled by the helmet but unruly anyway, and a heavy stubble covered his jaw, lending him a rakish and piratical air. His lips were firm and sensual—and twitching.
Ignoring the kick of her heart as she met his eyes again without the intervention of the visor, she tried again.
‘You can’t leave your bike here, it’s the consultant’s parking space! If he’s needed urgently and he can’t find anywhere to park, he could waste precious minutes while someone’s lying dying for want of his attention!’
A dark, slender brow arched tauntingly above the laughing grey eyes. Holy Mary, he had lovely eyes! She forced herself to concentrate.
‘Aren’t you being rather melodramatic?’ he said in a deep, cultured voice with a deceptively lazy lilt to it. It made her toes curl just listening to him, and perversely that made her even angrier.
‘No, I’m not, and if you knew the first damn thing about Accident and Emergency you would know I wasn’t!’ she snapped.
He inclined his head in a cheeky little salute and grinned. ‘I concede to your superior knowledge, Sister,’ he murmured.
Oh, that voice!
‘Good,’ she said, and was disgusted to notice that her voice was softening. She firmed it up. ‘So, please move your bike.’
His lips twitched. ‘I really don’t think—’
‘Are you going to move it, or am I going to contact the hospital security staff and get them to move it for you?’
The smile blossomed on his lips and, lifting his hand, he coiled a lock of her hair around his finger, drawing her closer. ‘You know, Irish,’ he said softly, his voice like raw silk sliding over her senses, ‘with a temper like that you really ought to have red hair …’
For a full second she was too stunned to move, but then she slapped his hand away, and, drawing herself up to her full five feet four, she glared at him furiously.
‘That just about does it!’ she hissed. Spinning on her heel, she stalked away with her head in the air.
In the midst of the morning rush-hour his laughter drifted after her, curling round her senses and inflaming her still further.
She marched into A and E, slapping the swing doors out of the way with the palm of her hand, and turned smartly into the cloakroom. Two nurses in there straightened away from the walls, murmured, ‘Good morning, Sister,’ and faded into the corridor.
Kathleen turned and studied herself in the mirror. ‘Red hair, indeed!’ she muttered. ‘Rude man.’ In fact, there was a trace of red when the sun was on it, but she didn’t want to dwell on that at the moment! No, it was plain old dark brown, cut in a blunt bob at her chin, easy to keep neat and tidy—unlike his wild tangle that was almost black, except at the temples where it was streaked with grey.
To match his eyes, she thought, and her own lost focus as she remembered the strange way the colour had seemed to change as he laughed. Like pebbles underwater, flickering with the light.
Yuck. She’d be reciting poetry next!
Her own eyes were a muddy green, and just now they were spitting fire, like a little cat. In fact it was a wonder there wasn’t smoke pouring out of her ears!
But, my God, he did look good in all that leather gear …
She turned away from the mirror with a sound of disgust. Imagine getting turned on by a biker! He was probably smothered in tattoos, for heaven’s sake! She ruthlessly suppressed a little shiver of curiosity. Perhaps her family were right; maybe it was time she settled down.
She took her frilly cap out of the locker and skewered it to her hair with the pins, adjusting it until she was satisfied that it was absolutely correct. Nothing got past Sister Hennessy that wasn’t correct—including That Man!
She glanced at her watch and pulled a face. There wasn’t time to report the bike to the security staff before hand over. She left the cloakroom and went to her office, took the report from the night sister and then went out of the office towards the nursing station.
However she didn’t get there. One of the nurses she had seen in the cloakroom was standing in the middle of the corridor, flushed pink and grinning like an idiot, while That Man lounged on one leg in all his taut leather and chatted her up.
Enraged, she marched up to them.
‘I’m sorry, sir, but you aren’t allowed in this area. It’s staff only. Nurse, are you here for a reason?’
The girl blushed even pinker, and stood up straight. ‘Oh—yes, Sister. I’m starting on A and E today.’
Kathleen eyed her up and down. ‘Are you, indeed? Well, you’d better come with me. The exit’s that way, sir,’ she added pointedly, and then marched the nurse into the CSSD store.
‘Right, young lady, there are a few things you need to know about how I run this unit, and the first is that my nurses don’t loll around in the corridors indulging in idle chatter with strange men!’
‘But, Sister, he asked me—’
‘I don’t want to know what he asked you! I’ve already had trouble with him today. The best thing you can do is keep out of his way until I get rid of him. Right, this place is chaotic. I want everything cleared up and sorted out before the rush starts again, all right? If you think we’re getting low on anything, I want to know, please. I’ll send another nurse in to help you. Here’s the check list.’
And she swept out, heading for the phone again.
There was no sign of him now, thank goodness. Security said they’d send someone over right away, and she busied herself for the next few minutes with the half-dozen patients in the waiting area.
There was a nasty sprain which needed an X-ray, a query appendix for the surgical reg and a couple of cuts and other minor injuries which needed cleaning up and suturing.
Mick O’Shea, the surgical registrar on take and one of her old SHOs, breezed in as she was cleaning up one of the patients with a cut hand.
Top o’ the mornin’ to you, Sister Hennessy!’ he sang, cheerful as ever, and she shot him a black look.
‘Good morning, Dr O’Shea,’ she said repressively.
He pretended to look chastened, and inspected the cut with great care.
‘Just a couple of wee stitches—sure you can manage, Sister?’
‘Probably a great deal better than you,’ she replied with a sugary smile, and after a reassuring word to her patient, she led Mick out into the corridor.
‘Your patient’s in here,’ she said shortly.
Mick stopped her with a hand on her arm.
‘What’s eating you today?’
She gave a strained little chuckle. ‘It shows?’
He grinned. ‘Only to an expert in family relationships—and I know you were away for the weekend!’
Her chuckle relaxed. ‘I’ve been home—got lots of grief about not being settled down with fourteen children—’
Mick laughed. ‘Why under God do you imagine I never go home?’
They shared a commiserating smile, and Mick put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a friendly hug. ‘Of course you could always marry me and blame the lack of children on my war wound—’
She spluttered with laughter. ‘What war wound?’
He grinned cheekily. ‘Poetic licence, m’darlin’! We’d make a lovely couple, don’t you think? Can’t you just see your mother in a pink floppy hat with cherries on it? How about a quick kiss to seal the pact?’
‘Put me down, you lecherous old goat!’ she said with a laugh, and, pushing him away, she straightend up in time to see That Man emerge from Jim’s old office with Ben Bradshaw, the senior registrar.
He had obviously showered, the almost-black hair falling in damp curls over his broad forehead, and he had changed into casual trousers and a shirt. The stubble was gone, and he was even wearing a tie—well, nearly. It hung round his neck, the knot well below the open collar of his shirt, and in the vee she could see the cluster of damp curls at the base of his throat. He looked almost respectable—and very, very sexy. He was also in the wrong place again. Kathleen opened her mouth, and a lid drooped over one of those fabulous grey eyes in a wicked wink.
‘We meet again,’ he said with a grin.
‘Morning,’ Mick greeted him. ‘Good weekend?’
That Man shrugged. ‘Not bad—bit windy earlier. Good thermals, though.’
Thermals? As in underwear? Never! Kathleen glanced sharply up at Mick. ‘Do you know him?’
Mick nodded, and Ben Bradshaw stepped into the yawning void. ‘Have you met Sister Hennessy yet?’ he asked.
That Man’s full lips twitched. ‘Yes, we have—er—spoken,’ he said, and the smile won and tipped the corners of his lips, bringing an enticing little dimple to one cheek. He held out his hand. ‘Jack Lawrence,’ he said, and if the floor could have opened up and swallowed her she would have been delighted.
As the fiery blush mounted her cheeks, she shook his hand briefly, desperately hoping for a miracle.
Holy Mary, she thought, all these years I’ve been a good girl—can’t you do something?
Apparently not. The floor stubbornly resisted her prayers and imprecations. Jack Lawrence released her hand and turned to Ben.
‘So, how’s the rest of the weekend been? Sorry I had to desert you yesterday.’
‘Oh, not a problem. There wasn’t anything too drastic.’
‘Good. So, Sister Hennessy, how would you like to offer me a cup of coffee so we can get acquainted while these two young men carry on with their duties?’
Her mind flailed. ‘I—I have somebody to suture——’
‘Ben, would you? I think Sister Hennessy and I need to have a chat. We’ll be in my office.’
And that was the end of that.
