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‘Now that’s a nice healthy lunch.’
And sometimes the universe was just out to get you.
Maggie tensed as the voice behind her took form and shape in front of her. Hunky, sexy form and shape.
‘May I join you?’
Maggie looked around at the other empty tables. ‘Plenty of places to sit,’ she said pointedly.
Nash suppressed the urge to chuckle. He liked a woman who could hold her own with him. She reminded him of the females he’d grown up around. His five sisters, his mother, his cousins. Country women were no shrinking violets and although he’d spent his life perfecting how to twist them around his fingers, he admired the hell out of their spirit.
‘Ah, but this is my favourite table.’ Nash grinned and pulled up a chair.
‘Gee. Lucky me.’
‘We haven’t formally met.’ He stuck out his hand. ‘Nash Reece.’
No way on earth was Maggie going to touch him. If he could unsettle her with his mere presence, God alone knew what would happen if she allowed her skin to come into contact with his. She took another bite of pie, feeling an instant revival to her flagging blood-sugar level. ‘I know who you are.’
Nash chuckled at her deliberate snub. ‘Ah, my reputation precedes me, I see.’
She looked at his totally unrepentant face. ‘Try to look as if it upsets you,’ she said derisively.
He grinned at her. She had the deepest brown eyes he’d ever seen. They reminded him of his grandmother’s double chocolate fudge brownies. And, man, he was suddenly ravenous for them.
‘So…Maggie? Maggie who?’
She took a swig of her drink. ‘Maggie from ICU.’
He quirked an eyebrow. Maggie from ICU was playing hard to get. Well, there was a first time for everything. ‘So, Maggie from ICU, are you doing anything tonight? Do you fancy getting a bite to eat with me?’
Maggie almost inhaled her drink into her lungs his question startled her so completely. She coughed and spluttered so much that in a final humiliation Nash reached across and belted her between the shoulder blades a couple of times.
His hand moved to her shoulder and he grinned. ‘You okay?’
Not remotely. She shrugged his hand away. ‘Fine.’
He gave her a few moments before he asked again. ‘Well?’
Was he serious? She looked at him—yep, he was. It had been three years since she’d been on a date. And certainly a good decade since she’d been with anyone whose age fell in the thirties. ‘No.’
‘Tomorrow night?’
‘No.’
Nash shrugged. ‘Well I’m easy—’
‘Clearly,’ she interrupted.
Nash grinned and continued. ‘I can fit in with you.’
Maggie shook her head, exasperated by his persistence. He had his elbows on the table, emphasising his wide shoulders. He was big and broad and loomed at her from the opposite side, taking up all the space. ‘You don’t like to take no for an answer, do you?’
‘Why ignore what’s going on between us, Maggie? I’m attracted to you.’ He watched her pale and her wide brown eyes practically double in size. ‘I’m pretty sure you’re attracted to me. Why should we pretend otherwise?’
Maggie stared at him. Was he insane? He reminded her of a kid expecting instant gratification in that infantile egocentric way of theirs. But they weren’t kids.
They were grown-ups and adults were supposed to be a little more cautious. There were rules and etiquette.
‘How old are you, Nash?’
Ah. ‘I don’t care about the age difference.’
‘How old?’ she insisted.
‘Just turned the big three zero.’
Maggie nodded—just as she’d suspected. She wished for a brief second she was thirty again. But then reality invaded. She’d been a mess at thirty. She’d been dealing—very badly—with the heartbreak of her infertility and the ink had still been wet on her divorce papers. She was in a much better place now.
‘And how old do you think I am?’
Nash looked directly at her. ‘Twenty-six.’
Maggie burst out laughing. She had to give him his due, he hadn’t batted an eyelid. She knew that she was looking pretty good for a forty-year-old woman but no one would ever mistake her for twenty-six. ‘Does that line work with everyone?’
Nash laughed with her. ‘Never had to use it before. No one’s ever knocked me back.’
His eyes crinkled at the corners and it was very, very sexy. ‘Oh, dear. Do you think your ego can stand it?’
‘It’s pretty robust.’
Maggie grinned despite herself. She did not want to be charmed by him but his easy charisma and self-deprecation made an irresistible combination. ‘I’ll just bet it is.’
He sat and watched her as she returned her attention to her lunch. Her teeth bit into the pastry of her pie and flakes stuck to her lips before her tongue darted out to remove them. It shouldn’t be erotic—she was just eating, for crying out loud—but it was. God knew, he wanted to lick them away himself.
For his own sanity he moved his gaze upwards. Her short brown hair with chunky blonde streaks looked salon perfect. Her layered fringe swept across her forehead from a side parting. The rest of it fell in fashionably shaggy layers and feathered down her nape into fine wisps.
She finished her pie and patted her mouth with her serviette. If she hadn’t seemed so totally oblivious to his reaction, he’d have suspected she was deliberately trying to provoke him. He certainly would have expected it from any other woman.
‘Well?’
Maggie had tried to ignore him as she’d eaten but his intense blue gaze had made it impossible. She sighed. ‘I’m forty, Nash.’
He shrugged. ‘So?’
‘So? So I’m a whole decade older than you.’
‘So?’
‘I was in high school when you were running around in nappies.’
‘So?’
‘I got married while you were still in primary school.’
Nash’s gaze flicked to her left hand. No ring. No telltale white mark. ‘So?’
‘I’ve been divorced longer than you’ve been a doctor.’
He smiled at her. ‘You’re available, then?’
She shot him an impatient look. ‘Nash don’t you think you should be playing with women your own age?’
He reached across the table and picked up her hand. ‘Maggie from ICU, you look better than any woman I’ve ever met.’
She could feel herself blushing beneath his intense gaze. She was drowning in the warmth of his tropical island gaze and her pulse hammered where his thumb drew slow circles at her wrist.
Damn it all—she would not be flattered by his easy words. She wasn’t going to get involved with a man ten years her junior. Especially one who dated for sport and made her breathless with just one look. That would just be plain dumb. And she wasn’t that hard up for company.
Maggie removed her hand. ‘I’m going to do you a favour, Nash Reece. I’m going to turn you down. And you should be grateful. Men like you need a woman like me—’
‘That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,’he interrupted.
She smiled. ‘A woman who’ll say no. Too many yes-women make Nash a spoilt boy. You’ll thank me for it one day.’
He chuckled. ‘I doubt it.’
She crunched up her paper bag and screwed the lid back on her empty drink bottle and then stood. ‘Yeah well, your wife will.’
Nash really laughed then. He had no intention of ever marrying. And women had tried. Man, had they tried. Country girls, yearning for an escape from the outback had tried, city girls wanting to snare a doctor had tried. But he had a career plan carefully mapped out that did not involve weddings, and nothing was more important to him than that.
‘Wife? Nope. Not me. Besides, I’m already married. To my career. I’m on a path.’
Maggie was surprised to see a suddenly serious side to the flirty man who’d charmed himself into the seat opposite. He was once again the serious doctor from this morning. She wondered how many women got to see beneath the playboy exterior to the goal-driven man. ‘And yet you have time to date?’
Nash grinned again. ‘I do allow myself some diversions. Come on, Maggie. You know you want to.’
She shook her head, even though he was right. She did want to. It was crazy—but she did. Still, she knew enough about Nash Reece in a handful of minutes to know that one date would never be enough. ‘Denial is good for the soul.’
‘Denial sucks.’
He reminded her again of a child seeking instant gratification and she laughed. Yes. Yes it did. ‘Goodbye, Dr Reece.’
Nash watched her turn away, the creamy skin of her neck exposed as she twisted, pulling her shirt across her chest. ‘I’m gonna keep asking,’ he called after her.
She stopped and looked back at him as his silky promise stroked insidiously along her pelvic floor. ‘There’s a shock.’
Nash chuckled. ‘I’ll be seeing you around, Maggie from ICU.’
They were the same words he’d used that morning and they had a preternatural foreboding to them. ‘Don’t count on it.’
He worked in A and E. She worked two floors up in ICU. As far as hospitals went they were totally different worlds. And after today she had no intention of letting him into hers. Ever.
CHAPTER TWO
THE NEXT DAY was her day off but Maggie found herself at the hospital anyway. She was actively involved in Radio Giggle and volunteered there regularly. In fact, she’d been on the original committee that had pushed for its establishment after seeing the success of Radio Lollipop during her stint at Great Ormond Street in London.
Maggie had seen their humble service expand over the years from a handful of people launching the first two-hour broadcast to a band of volunteers that worked tirelessly, promoting the healing power of play.
Radio Giggle volunteers actively engaged children throughout the hospital in a variety of entertainment, from helping with the shows, requesting songs and hearing themselves on the radio through to bedside crafts, games and other activities for those children unable to make it to the studio.
In fact, anything that could be done to help make a child’s stay in hospital a little less frightening and a lot more fun, Radio Giggle were on it.
It wasn’t her usual day to volunteer but Ross Calvin, Giggle’s programme manager and only paid employee, was off sick today and had rung to ask her if she could take his place. Maggie hadn’t hesitated. Not being able to have her own children had been a huge blow, but hanging out with these kids helped to fill the gap.
Five-year-old Douglas Werner, a long-term inpatient, was the first person she saw when she entered the Radio Giggle office.
‘Dougy.’ She smiled and crouched down accepting the little boy’s enthusiastic cuddle.
‘He’s been asking for you.’
Maggie looked up to see fifteen-year-old Christine Leek, a cystic fibrosis patient and another regular in the Radio Giggle studio. ‘Well, here I am,’ she said, giving the little boy a quick rib tickle and laughing at his endearing shriek.
‘Guess what?’ Christine spoke over the top of Doug. ‘Ross said I could conduct the interview today all by myself.’ She looked over Maggie’s shoulder. ‘Have you seen him yet?’
Maggie watched while the painfully thin teenager shifted from foot to foot, her lip pulled between her bottom teeth. Christine was a blossoming DJ who wanted a career in community radio and spent every possible minute with the Radio Giggle organisation. ‘I’m afraid Ross is off sick today.’
‘Oh.’
Maggie couldn’t bear to see her so crestfallen. ‘You can still do it, though,’ she reassured her. Christine’s face lit up like a fireworks display and Maggie felt her heart contract.
‘Really?’ she squeaked.
‘Of course.’ Maggie laughed. ‘You know your way around the dials better than I do.’
They went through to the brightly painted studio and for the next half an hour Maggie and Christine worked out their music schedule with the requests they had in from the previous day. Christine was an eager helper, pulling out all the CDs they needed and stacking them in order, which was just as well as Dougy had commandeered Maggie’s lap.
He sat imperiously, his IV pole supporting his lifesaving fluids close by, well used to adults indulging him. He leant his colouring book against the console and Maggie chatted to him, accepting the crayons he gave her and colouring where he pointed. Meanwhile she juggled Christine’s questions and those of the volunteers as they wandered in and out on their way to the various wards in their bright Radio Giggle T-shirts.
Maggie knew the outside play area would be full of kids over the next couple of hours as those who could came down to see how a real radio show was run. They usually put callouts to their bed-bound friends and families and took part in the activities organised by the volunteers.
At four o’clock the programme got under way. Maggie and Dougy stayed in the studio and let Christine run the show. Dougy knew he had to be quiet and while he had his colouring book he was happy to sit without talking on Maggie’s lap and draw. Radio Giggle never pretended to be a professional outfit, given that the shows were largely run by kids, but it never hurt to strive for excellence.
Maggie rubbed her face against his blond curls and inhaled the hospital-soap smell as she dropped a kiss against his scalp. Dougy had been born prem to a drugaddicted mother and had developed necrotising enterocolitis, necessitating the removal of a large portion of his non-viable bowel.
He’d been very ill for the first year of his life and had been transferred from NICU to PICU at three months of age for ongoing management. He now had short-gut syndrome, which meant he didn’t have enough bowel length to absorb his food and had to be fed intravenously through a permanent line.
He’d been in hospital virtually all his life due to his condition and he made regular appearances in PICU with various infections which, due to his compromised immune system, usually knocked him for six. His last stay had been a few months ago during winter for bilateral pneumonia.
