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He threw back his head and laughed and Lola followed the very masculine line of his throat etched with five o’clock shadow to a jaw so square he could have been a cartoon superhero. Was it wrong she wanted to lick him there?
Gary placed Hamish’s beer on the bar in front of him and he picked it up. ‘What shall we drink to?’
Lola smiled. ‘Crappy shifts?’
‘Here’s to crappy shifts.’ He tapped his glass against the rim of hers. ‘And distractions.’
* * *
They were home by eleven. Lola had drunk another—standard—glass of wine and Hamish had sat on his beer. They’d chatted about the Herd Across the Harbour event and cattle and he’d made her laugh about his hometown of Toowoomba and some of the incidents he’d gone to as a paramedic. He was a great distraction in every sense of the word but when she’d started to yawn he’d insisted on driving them home and she’d directed.
But now they were here, Lola wasn’t feeling tired. In fact, she dreaded going to bed. She wasn’t drunk enough to switch off her brain—only pleasantly buzzed—and sex with Hamish was out of the question.
Completely off-limits.
‘You fancy another drink?’ She headed through to the kitchen and made a beeline for the fridge. She ignored the three postcards attached with magnets to the door. They were from her Aunty May’s most recent travels—India, Vietnam and South Korea. Normally they made her smile but tonight they made her feel restless.
She was off to Zimbabwe for a month next April. It couldn’t come soon enough.
‘Ah...sure. Okay.’
He didn’t sound very sure. ‘Past your bedtime?’ she teased as she pulled a bottle of wine and a beer out of the fridge.
He smiled as he took the beer. His thick, wavy, nutmeg hair flopped down over his forehead and made her want to furrow her fingers in it. There were red-gold highlights in it that shone in the downlights and reminded Lola of Grace’s gorgeous red hair.
‘I’d have thought Grace would still be up.’
Lola snorted. ‘I’m sure she is. Just not here. Did you forget she got engaged to Marcus today?’
‘No.’ He grinned. ‘I didn’t forget.’
‘Yes well...’ Lola poured her wine. ‘I’m pretty sure they’re probably celebrating. If you get my drift.’
The way his gaze strayed to her mouth left Lola in no doubt he did.
‘He’s a good guy, yeah?’
‘Oh, yeah.’ Lola nodded. ‘They’re both hopelessly in love.’
Lola was surprised at the little pang that hit her square in the chest. She’d never yearned for a happily ever after—she liked being footloose and fancy-free. Why on earth would she suddenly feel like she was missing something?
She shook it away. It was just this night. This awful, awful night. ‘Let’s go out to the balcony.’
She didn’t wait for him to follow her or even check to see if he was—she could feel the weight of his gaze on her back. On her ass, actually, and she wished she was in something more glamorous than her navy work trousers and the pale blue pinstriped blouse with the hospital logo on the left pocket.
Lola leaned against the railing when she reached her destination, looking out over the parkland opposite, the night breeze cool as befitting August in Sydney. She could just detect the faint trace of the ocean—salt and sand—despite being miles from Manly Beach.
She loved that smell and inhaled it deeply, pulling it into her lungs, savouring it, grateful for nights like this. Grateful to be alive. And suddenly the view was blurring before her eyes and the faint echo of a thirteen-year-old girl’s cries wrapped fingers around Lola’s heart and squeezed.
Her patient tonight would never feel the sea breeze on his face again. His wife and two kids would probably never appreciate something as simple ever again.
‘Hey.’
She hadn’t heard Hamish approach and she quickly shut her eyes to stop the moisture becoming tears. But he lifted her chin with his finger and she opened them. She was conscious of the dampness on her lashes as she was drawn into his compelling blue gaze. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it?’
His voice was low and Lola couldn’t stop staring at him. He was wearing one of those checked flannel shirts that was open at the throat and blue jeans, soft and faded from years of wear and tear. They fitted him in all the right places. He radiated warmth and smelled like beer and the salt and vinegar chips they’d eaten at the bar, and she wanted to talk about it.
Who knew, maybe it would help? Maybe talking with a guy who’d probably seen his fair share of his own crappy shifts would be a relief. Lola turned back to the view across the darkened park. His hand fell away, but she was conscious of his nearness, of the way his arm brushed hers.
‘My patient... He was pronounced brain dead tonight. We switched him off. He had teenage kids and...’ She shrugged, shivering as the echo of grief played through her mind again. ‘It was...hard to watch.’
Her voice had turned husky and tears pricked again at the backs of her eyes. She blinked them away once more as he turned to his side, his hip against the railing, watching her.
‘Sorry...’ She dashed away a tear that had refused to be quelled. ‘I’m being melodramatic.’
He shrugged. ‘Some get to you more than others.’
The sentiment was simple but the level of understanding was anything but and something gave a little inside Lola at his response. There were no meaningless platitudes about tomorrow being another day or empty compliments about what an angel she must be. Hamish understood that sometimes a patient sneaked past the armour.
‘True but... Just ignore me.’ She shot him a watery smile.
‘I’m being stupid.’
He shook his head. ‘No, you’re not.’
Lola gave a half laugh, half snort. ‘Yes. I am. My tears aren’t important.’ This wasn’t about her. It was about a family who’d just lost everything. ‘This man’s death shouldn’t be about my grief. I don’t know what’s wrong with me tonight.’
‘I think it’s called being human.’
He smiled at her with such gentleness and insight she really, really wanted to cry. But she didn’t, she turned blind eyes back to the view, her arm brushing his. Neither said anything for long moments as they sipped at their drinks.
‘Was it trauma?’ Hamish asked.
‘Car accident.’ Lola was glad to be switching from the emotion of the death to the more practical facts of it.
‘Did he donate his organs?’
Hamish and Grace’s sister-in-law, Merridy, had undergone a kidney transplant four years ago, so Lola knew the issue meant a lot to the Gibson family.
She shook her head. ‘No.’
‘Was he not a candidate?’
Lola could hear the frown in Hamish’s voice as she shook her head, a lump thickening her throat. What the hell was wrong with her tonight? She was usually excellent at shaking this stuff off.
‘He wasn’t on the register?’
The lump blossomed and pressed against Lola’s vocal cords. She cleared her throat. ‘He was but...’
Her sentence trailed off and she could see Hamish nod in her peripheral vision as realisation dawned. It was a relief not to have to say it. That Hamish knew the cold hard facts and she didn’t have to go into them or try and explain something that made no sense to most people.
‘I hate when that happens.’ Hamish’s knuckles turned white as he gripped the railing.
‘Me too.’
‘It’s wrong that family can override the patient in situations like that.’
She couldn’t agree more but the fact of the matter was that family always had the final say in these matters, regardless of the patient’s wishes.
‘Why can’t doctors just say, too bad, this was clearly your loved one’s intention when they put their name down on the donation register?’
Lola gave a half-smile, understanding the frustration but knowing it was never as simple as that. ‘Because we don’t believe in further traumatising people who are already in the middle of their worst nightmare.’
It was difficult to explain how her role as a nurse changed in situations of impending death. How her duty of care shifted—mentally anyway—from her patient to the family. In a weird way they became her responsibility too and trying to help ease them through such a terrible time in their lives—even just a little—became paramount.
They were going to have to live on, after all, and how the hospital process was managed had a significant bearing on how they coped with their grief.
‘Loved ones don’t say no out of spite or grief or even personal belief, Hamish. They say no because they’ve never had a conversation with that person about it. And if they’ve never specifically heard that person say they want their organs donated in the event of their death. They...’ Lola shrugged ‘...err on the side of caution.’
It was such a terrible time to have to make that kind of decision when people were grappling with so much already.
‘I know, I know.’ He sighed and he sounded as heavy-hearted as she’d felt when her patient’s wife had tearfully declined to give consent for organ donation.
‘Which is why things like Herd Across the Harbour are so important.’ Lola made an effort to drag them back from the dark abyss she’d been trying to step back from all night, turning slightly to face him, the railing almost at her waist. ‘Raising awareness about people having those kinds of conversations is vital. So they know and support the wishes of their nearest and dearest if it ever comes to an end-of-life situation.’
She raised her glass towards him and Hamish smiled and tapped his beer bottle against it. ‘Amen.’
They didn’t drink, though, they just stared at each other, the blue of his eyes as mesmerising in the night as the perfect symmetry of his jaw and cheekbones and the fullness of his mouth. They were close, their thighs almost brushing, their hands a whisper apart on the railing.
Lola was conscious of his heat and his solidness and the urge to put her head on his chest and just be held was surprisingly strong.
When was the last time she’d wanted to be just held by a man?
The need echoed in the sudden thickness of her blood and the stirring deep inside her belly, although neither of them felt particularly platonic. Confused by her feelings, she pushed up onto her tippy-toes and kissed him, trapping their drinks between them.
She shouldn’t have. She really shouldn’t have.
But, oh...it was lovely. The feel of his arms coming around her, the heat of his mouth, the swipe of his tongue. The quick rush of warmth to her breasts and belly and thighs. The funny bump of her heart in her chest.
The way he groaned her name against her mouth.
But she had to stop. ‘I’m sorry.’ She broke away and took a reluctant step back. ‘I shouldn’t have done that.’
His fingers on the railing covered hers. ‘Yeah,’ he whispered. ‘You absolutely should have.’
Lola gave him a half-smile, touched by his certainty but knowing it couldn’t go anywhere. She slipped her hand out from under his, smiled again then turned away, heading straight to her room and shutting out temptation.
CHAPTER TWO (#u4a2e050f-6a7a-5161-8bdf-612e6272d250)
BUT LOLA COULDN’T SLEEP. Not after finishing her glass of wine in bed or taking a bath or one of those all-natural sleeping tablets that usually did the trick. She lay awake staring at the ceiling, the events of the shift playing over and over in her head.
Her patient’s wife saying, ‘But there’s not a scratch on him...’ and his daughter crying, ‘No, Daddy!’ and his teenage son being all stoic and brave and looking so damn stricken it still clawed at her gut. The faces and the words turned around and around, a noisy wrenching jumble inside her head, while the oppressive weight of silence in the house practically deafened her.
She felt...alone...she realised. Damn it, she never felt alone. She was often here by herself overnight if Grace was at work or at Marcus’s and it had never bothered her before. She’d never felt alone in a city. But tonight she did.
It was because Hamish was out there. She knew that. Human company—male company—was lying on the couch and she was in here, staring at the shadows on the ceiling. And because it wouldn’t be the first time she’d turned to a man to forget a bad shift, her body was restless with confusion.
Was it healthy to sex away her worries? No. But it wasn’t a regular habit and it sure as hell helped from time to time.
Lola had no doubt Hamish would be up for it. He’d been flirting with her from the beginning and he’d certainly been all in when she’d kissed him on the balcony. The message in his eyes when she’d pulled away had been loud and clear.
If you want to take this to the bedroom, I’m your guy.
And if he hadn’t been Grace’s brother, she would have followed through. And not just because she needed the distraction but because there was something about Hamish Gibson that tugged at her. She’d felt it on the bridge this morning and at the bar.
It was no doubt to do with his empathy, with his innate understanding of what she’d witnessed tonight. She didn’t usually go for men who came from her world, particularly in these situations. Someone outside it—who didn’t know or care what she’d been through—was usually a much better distraction.
Someone who only cared about getting her naked.
Who knew familiarity and empathy could be so damn sexy? Who knew they could stroke right between your legs as well as clutch at your heart?
Lola rolled on her side and stuffed her hands between her thighs to quell the heat and annoying buzz of desire. Wasn’t going to happen. Hamish was Grace’s brother. And she couldn’t go there. No matter how much she needed the distraction. No matter how well he kissed. No matter the fire licking through her veins and roaring at the juncture of her legs.
Lola shut her eyes—tight.
Go to sleep, damn it.
* * *
At two o’clock in the morning, Lola gave up trying to fight it. Grace wasn’t here—she’d texted an hour ago to say she was staying at Marcus’s—and Hamish would be gone in the morning.
What could it hurt? As long as he knew it was a one-off?
Decision made, she kicked off the sheet and stood. She paused as she contemplated her attire, her underwear and a tank top. Should she dress in something else? Slip on one of her satiny scraps of lingerie that covered more but left absolutely nothing to the imagination? She’d been surprised to learn over the years that some guys preferred subtlety.
Or should she go out there buck naked?
What kind of guy was Hamish—satin and lace or bare flesh?
Oh, bloody hell. What was wrong with her? Had she lost her freaking mind? Hamish was probably just going to be grateful for her giving it up for him at two in the morning and smart enough to take it any way it was offered. She was going to be naked soon enough anyway.
Just get out there, Lola!
Quickly snatching a condom out of the box in her bedside drawer, she headed for her door, opened it and tiptoed down the darkened hallway. Ambient light from a variety of electrical appliances cast a faint glow into the living room and she could make out a large form on the couch. She came closer, stepping around the coffee table to avoid a collision with her shins, and the form became more defined.
He’d kicked off the sheet, which meant Lola could see a lot of bare skin—abs, legs, chest—and she looked her fill. A pair of black boxer briefs stopped her from seeing everything and his face was hidden by one bare arm thrown up over it. The roundness of his biceps as it pushed against his jaw was distracting as all giddy up.
As was the long stretch of his neck.
