A Doctor, A Nurse: A Christmas Baby

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‘About that.’

Maggie shook her head at his unabashed reply. He was never ten.

‘Well, I guess I’d better get my A into G,’ Nash said, reluctant to leave. ‘I’m sure Mac wants to be getting home.’

Tonight? He was working tonight? She gave an inward groan. She’d assumed he was just doing the retrieval and then leaving. Great! Now she had to add Nash Reece and his unsettling presence to her first-night blues.

Two hours later Maggie lay in the darkened break room on a mattress on the floor, cocooned in warm blankets from the blanket warmer, trying to sleep. But her thoughts kept turning to Nash Reece with his impossible blue eyes.

Damn it! She was supposed to be sleeping.

She had one precious hour to recharge her batteries and here she was staring at the ceiling with Nash’s I like seeing you flustered, Maggie Green whispering its treachery into her subconscious.

After twenty minutes she admitted defeat, got up and headed for the tearoom, feeling tired and irritable. She was going to have to settle for bad late-night TV and a cup of tea instead. She was channel-surfing when Nash entered the room a little later.

‘Couldn’t sleep, Maggie?’

His voice purred around her and her irritation ballooned. It was all his fault she was going to feel like death warmed up in the morning.

‘Are you watching that?’ he asked, not waiting for her to answer.

Maggie passed him the remote control. There was nothing on. ‘Not really.’

‘Goodo.’ He took the gadget and flicked it to a sport channel. ‘Country versus city,’ he said to her. ‘I missed it this afternoon.’

‘You can take the boy out of the country, hey?’

He grinned at her. ‘Something like that.’

Maggie sipped her cup of tea for a few minutes while Nash watched the television. The silence between them was unsettling. Not that he looked unsettled but she sure as hell felt it. It was too…intimate.

‘So where exactly is home?’ she asked.

‘Far western New South Wales. The family owns a couple of hundred thousand acres.’

‘You’re a long way from your roots. I thought country boys hated the city?’

Nash hooted. ‘Are you kidding? I love the city. I may be a country boy at heart but I feel like a kid in a lolly shop here. Don’t get me wrong, I love getting down and dirty and dusty…’ Nash paused as he watched Maggie’s knuckles grow white around her mug. He knew she wasn’t as indifferent to him as she pretended. ‘But I love the theatre and the shopping and the night life.’

Maggie swallowed a snort. She just bet he liked the night life. She just bet he fitted right in and the girls in the clubs drooled over his strange mix of metro-sexual hottie and country-boy charm.

He was going to adore London. London was certainly going to adore him. ‘So you’re converted?’

‘It’ll do for now.’

‘Ah.Your great career plans?Your path? Tell me about it.’ This was good, they were chatting. Like two normal, reasonable adults. No vibe, just polite small talk.

Nash shrugged. ‘Become the best damn paediatrician in Australia and then take myself back home. The bush is notoriously underresourced and underfunded. I want to start up a flying paed service.’

Maggie shouldn’t have been surprised by that, given the stuff he’d talked about yesterday during his interview. His childhood promise to his sister. But she was. She couldn’t have been more surprised if he’d said he was going to drop out of medicine and become a drag queen.

When he’d talked about being married to his career the other day and finding out about London tonight she’d assumed it was for some hotshot, high-profile calling. To discover he was staying true to his boyhood promise was stunning.

Nash Reece, the charming flirt who’d made it clear he wanted her, had been pretty irresistible. Nash Reece, honourable doctor with a selfless purpose born from his sister’s illness, was completely irresistible. She’d caught a glimpse of this man yesterday in the studio. And she was looking at the rest of him now.

‘Your sister must be very proud of you,’she murmured.

Nash shrugged. ‘I’m sure she would be if she was alive.’

Maggie stilled as a sense of dread washed over her. Nash’s features had become shuttered. ‘Oh, Nash. I’m sorry.’

‘It’s fine,’ he dismissed. ‘She had leukaemia. I was eight. She was ten. It was a long time ago.’

‘I’m sorry, I just assumed yesterday…you didn’t say,’ she ended lamely.

‘I didn’t think it was appropriate to broadcast my sister’s death on a kids’radio show in a children’s hospital.’

‘No,’ she murmured. ‘I suppose not.’

He was silent for a moment as the overwhelming rawness of that time came back to him. He didn’t often talk about Tammy. Maybe the interview yesterday had sparked the memories again but he found himself wanting to tell Maggie about it.

‘She died in the city because there weren’t the appropriate support services at home to help with palliative care. Having to make long trips into Sydney was a drain on our family life and my parents’ finances. Being separated from Tammy a lot of the time was really, really hard on the rest of us. We missed her.’

Maggie nodded. ‘I can imagine.’

He looked at her, compassion swirling in the fudge-brownie depths of her eyes. It was nice not to have to explain the true impact of that to someone. The PICU got its share of oncology patients and he knew Maggie would understand the true horrors of the illness.

‘It took a long time for Mum and Dad to get over it. I mean, they tried hard…for the rest of us, but they were just…sad.’

‘Of course they were,’ she murmured. ‘I’m sure you all were.’

Nash looked at her, seeing not only compassion but respect. Suddenly she didn’t look at him like he was an annoying bug buzzing around. Or a child, to be tolerated or humoured. Suddenly she looked as if she was taking him seriously. Not dismissing him with a pat on the head. She was looking at him like he was a man.

Sort of like how he’d felt about her yesterday when he’d discovered her background with Radio Giggle. Instantly she’d become a three-dimensional entity and he’d had to face that there was more than a physical trigger to the tug he felt when they were together.

He didn’t know whether to be pleased by this development or to get up and leave the room. There was something in her gaze that saw deep inside him. Something he knew for sure would demand more from him than he was usually prepared to give.

The television erupted. The crowd cheered and the commentator’s voice rose an octave or two as one of the country team made a mad dash for the goalpost. Nash was grateful for the diversion and he dragged his gaze from hers and feigned interest in the game.

Maggie was also pleased for the distraction. Things had suddenly gotten quite intense and it was the last thing she wanted. Writing Nash off as a frivolous jack-the-lad had made it easier to ignore the attraction between them. But his family tragedy and dedication to his career had added a whole further dimension. A fully fleshed-out Nash Reece was going to be much harder to ignore.

‘Well, my time’s up.’ Maggie stood. Actually, she had another eight minutes but she really needed to get away.

Nash nodded, deliberately keeping his eyes trained on the television. Something had passed between them, making his interest in Maggie Green very unwise. He needed to give up on her pronto, because the Maggie who had just looked at him with compassion and respect in her eyes wouldn’t be so easy to turn his back on come January.

And that he couldn’t allow. There was London and then home. No woman had ever swayed him from his goal and he wasn’t about to get tangled up with one who could.

So, there was chemistry. So, he wanted her. Maggie Green was off limits.

He’d better get used to it.

CHAPTER THREE

NASH SPENT THE next two weeks ignoring his attraction to Maggie. Something he never did. He’d learnt from his sister’s passing that life was short and should be lived to its fullest. But during their talk the other night he’d realised Maggie was not the type of woman with whom he could indulge in a quick fling.

There was something about her that flashed a big red warning light at him. Maggie was a forever kind of woman. And he wasn’t a forever kind of guy.

He had years left of his training to go, several in London and then back to the bush. Maybe one day, maybe, he’d find a nice country girl to settle down with, maybe have what his parents, his grandparents had, but he was certainly in no rush.

But then he made the fatal error of joining the staff for Friday night drinks and he knew he couldn’t deny it any more. Two hours of watching her moist lips suck amber liquid out of long-necked bottles and he was wishing he was her beer. She was driving him to distraction. He had to have her—despite the warning light, despite knowing it was crazy.

He couldn’t remember ever wanting a woman this badly.

Maggie lifted her gaze to his for a brief second before she hastily looked away and smiled at something Linda was saying. He knew she could feel the pounding of attraction growing out of control too. Louder than the noise of the juke box and the chatter all around them. It was as if the social situation, far removed from the hospital, had changed the boundaries between them.

She’d been slipping him furtive looks all evening when she’d thought he hadn’t been watching and while it was dim inside her desire flared like a lighthouse beacon, beckoning him closer. Even though the rocks were treacherous and he risked being snagged, their attraction pulled at him like the undertow of a tsunami.

He needed another drink.

Maggie breathed a sigh of relief as Nash left the table. She’d felt the weight of his gaze all evening and it excited and terrified her in equal measure. She had an overwhelming feeling of inevitability and it sucked the breath out of her lungs.

He looked his usual laid-back sexy self tonight in faded jeans and a polo shirt the exact shade of his tropical-waters eyes. It touched all the right places on him and inside her. He looked good enough to sprinkle with sugar and eat with a spoon.

God, this was getting way out of hand. They’d spent a fortnight studiously avoiding each other. Oh sure, the zing between them was there but it was as if he’d decided to crank back the vibe. He didn’t flirt. He was polite, friendly. And that suited her just fine.

In fact, she was very grateful for his detachment and returned it in the same spirit. But tonight it was if a channel of energy had opened up across the table between them, a portal visible only to them, and the bounds they’d subliminally put on their relationship had been sucked away.

Nash returned to the table with a glass of beer and looked directly at her, his gaze grazing her face before dropping to the V neckline of her T-shirt. He looked back up at her and Maggie could see the raw hunger in his eyes. She stood. She couldn’t bear it any longer. If she didn’t leave now she was going to drag him into the loo just to get it out of their system.

‘I’m off,’ she announced.

There was a chorus of protest but Maggie waved it all away.

‘Me too.’ Nash stood, leaving his untouched beer. ‘Do you think you could give me a lift?’ he asked, looking directly at her.

Maggie swallowed, hoping the heat between them wasn’t as obvious to everyone else. ‘I’m getting a taxi.’

‘Good. We can share.’

Maggie saw the desire in his gaze light up his blue eyes with purpose and it scared her witless. But she nodded anyway.

There was a queue at the taxi rank and Maggie’s heart belted along at triple time as they stood side by side, jostled by others in front and behind.

‘What are we going to do about this, Maggie May?’

Maggie heard the murmur of his voice near her ear and knew they were standing at a crossroads. The wise thing to do would be to stick to her side of the path. But as she looked up into his face she knew she wanted him to kiss her more than she’d wanted anything in the last decade, and she knew she was powerless to resist.

Tonight, anyway.

They moved to the top of the queue and she looked around at the people behind, relieved to see they were too engrossed in their own conversations to be paying any heed to theirs.

‘One night,’ she said, amazed at the steadiness of her voice as she took charge of her destiny to the pounding of her bongo-drum pulse. ‘One night only.’

Nash’s heart crashed to a brief standstill in his chest before galloping madly. He searched her gaze for a moment. He’d expected her to knock him back, to persist with her denial. But she was looking at him calmly. Intently. No doubts. No Maggie of old. Just double chocolate fudge brownie eyes sucking him in, tempting him further.

And one night was good. Enough to quench the attraction but not for it to be misconstrued as anything other than two adults having a good time. Perfect. ‘Works for me.’

Maggie breathed again. ‘How far away do you live?’

‘Ten minutes.’

‘I’m closer.’

A taxi pulled up. ‘Get in,’ he said, opening the door.

A trill of lust squirmed through her abdomen at what she’d just initiated, and her hands trembled a little before her legs kicked into action. She hesitated at the door for a moment then Nash smiled at her like he already knew all her secrets and wild horses wouldn’t have kept her out of the cab.

She slid across the seat, giving the driver her address, aware of Nash like she’d never been aware of anyone before as he scooted across the seat. He moved in close, draping his arm along the back of the seat, crowding her, surrounding her.

He nuzzled her ear and her neck, and when his hand skimmed her thigh, slowly creeping up one denim-clad leg, Maggie almost whimpered out loud she was so turned on. She should have been mortified that they were necking like teenagers but she was so utterly caught up in his heat and his smell and the sexual squall lashing her insides and scrambling her thought processes, she couldn’t have cared less.

She wanted to feel his lips on her so badly she turned her face towards him, her mouth seeking his as she clutched at his shirt, fisting it. ‘Nash,’ she whimpered as his lips brushed lightly against hers. Soft, teasing. She clutched his thigh, trying to anchor herself in the maelstrom.

Nash felt her desperate whimper right down to his toes and knew exactly how she felt. He wanted to tear her clothes off right here and now, push her back against the seat and have his way with her, audience or not.

And if he deepened the kiss that’s exactly what would happen. ‘Shh, Maggie,’ he whispered, kissing her forehead, her eyes, her cheek. ‘Nearly there.’

Maggie made a sound of protest deep in her throat. How could he be so controlled when she was practically blind with lust? His thigh felt thick and powerful beneath her hand and she massaged it convulsively, trying to claw back her breath, her sanity.

Nash clasped his hand over hers as it moved higher. God, didn’t she know he was holding on by a thread? He placed his forehead against her cheekbone, forcing himself to slow it down, to think practically for a moment while he still had the chance.