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She looked up quickly. For the briefest of seconds she looked a bit startled, but he could almost see her natural demeanor settling back into place. “How do you know I ducked out? You were too busy snoring.”
He shook his head. “I don’t snore. You, however...”
“You never told me you were a doctor.” The words were almost accusing.
“Neither did you.”
For a second she didn’t speak. It was almost like a Mexican standoff.
He could see her swallow, and then she gave him a haughty stare. “I don’t mix with fellow doctors.”
Jack leaned forward. “What does that mean?” He held out his hands. “And what do you call this?”
“This,” she said firmly, “is breakfast. Breakfast is fine.”
He kept his elbows on the table, wondering if he could lean even closer. “Oh, so I can buy you food. But you can’t spend the night with me?” He wanted to laugh out loud. She sounded so uptight, and that seemed a total turnaround from the woman he’d met last night.
But now he was curious. “So, what exactly is wrong with doctors? After all, you’re one.”
She gave an exasperated sigh. “I know. It’s just...” He could see her try to find the words. “It’s just that I don’t like to mix work with...” She winced.
“Pleasure?” He couldn’t resist.
She closed her eyes for a second.
He sat back in his chair and folded his arms. “So, if I’d told you last night in the bar I was a doctor, you wouldn’t have come back to my room with me?”
She bit her bottom lip. He could tell she knew she was about to be challenged.
“Well, yes.”
He held open his arms. “It’s a conference full of medical professionals. The hotel is full of them. Who did you think you might meet in the bar?”
She shrugged. “There’s more than one conference on in this hotel. I thought you were maybe one of those—” she waggled her hand “—business, economic-type guys.”
He let out a laugh. He couldn’t help it. From the second he’d started studying medicine it had felt as if he practically had doctor stamped on his forehead. He put his hand on his chest. “Me? You honestly thought I was some kind of accountant, computer, business-type geek?” He shook his head. “Oh, my army colleagues would just love that.”
She looked distinctly uncomfortable and he tried to rein in his amusement.
“Why are you getting yourself so worked up? Nothing happened. You know it didn’t.” He gave her a kind of sideways glance. “Maybe...if things had been different and jet lag hadn’t been involved then we could be having an entirely different conversation today.”
He was probably pushing things. But it was true. There had been a spark between them last night. He wouldn’t let her try and deny it.
Her face was pinched; there were faint wrinkles along her brow. He couldn’t actually believe it. She really, really did have an issue with the fact he was a doctor.
He’d worked with colleagues in the past who didn’t like to mix work with relationships. It wasn’t so unheard of. Maybe if he’d adopted that rule he wouldn’t have ended up losing someone. He wouldn’t have felt the need to shut himself off entirely from the rest of the world.
But even as he had that thought he knew it was ridiculous. Relationship or not, they would still both have been posted to Afghanistan. He’d been tortured with what-ifs for a long time before he realized nothing would have changed.
He saw a glimmer of something in Amber’s blue eyes. A spark at his words. Baiting her was easy.
She flung her paper napkin at him. “No way.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Purely because I’m a doctor?”
She neglected to answer that part of the question and gave him a long stare. “Let’s just say had you been some mysterious businessman...” She leaned back in her chair and crossed her long legs. “It’s a bit insulting, really.”
Was she changing tack? He mirrored her actions and leaned back in his chair. “What is?”
“A man inviting you back to his room, then promptly falling asleep and ignoring you.”
He squirmed. When he’d woken up this morning he’d cringed. He remembered sitting up in the bed together to eat their second burger and fries. He also remembered watching some old movie with her and laughing along at the lines. And he could just about remember a warm body wrapped around his in the middle of the night. He’d tried not to remember the fact it had felt good because that flooded him with things he didn’t want to acknowledge.
He lifted his hands. “Guilty as charged. Sorry. It was the jet lag.” He put his elbow on the table and leaned a little closer. “But now? Jet lag is gone. Let’s start again.”
Even though she’d just tried to joke with him, she still looked the tiniest bit uncomfortable. She obviously took her “no fraternization with other medics” rule seriously. He couldn’t help but be curious.
He waved his hand. “Relax, Amber. This is just breakfast. Nothing more. Nothing less. What do you have against fellow doctors, anyway?”
She didn’t meet his gaze; she just sucked in a breath as her fingers toyed with the cutlery on the table. “Let’s just say I lived in an environment with an absentee medic who was obsessed with his work. As a child I had no choice. As an adult, it’s not a situation I ever want to repeat.”
He wanted to ask questions. He did. But somehow he got the impression it wasn’t really the time. He was curious about this woman. And after two years, that was a first for him—one that he couldn’t quite understand.
The waiter appeared with the coffee and filled up their cups. Jack decided to take things back to neutral territory. “You might have told me you were a speaker.”
She raised her eyebrows. “You might have told me you were starting off the conference.” She gave a thoughtful nod. “You were good. I was impressed.” Her eyes ran up and down his uniform. “I can’t believe I thought you were at the business conference. I should have guessed. Your suit didn’t quite fit perfectly—and, let’s face it, those guys probably spend on their suits what I would on a car. I should have guessed you were an army guy. I’m still surprised you didn’t mention it.”
“I’ll try not to be insulted by the suit comment—because you’re right. I much prefer to drive a reliable car than buy a fancy suit. If you want to split hairs, you didn’t mention you worked for the Disease Prevention Agency. Aren’t you guys supposed to walk about in giant space suits?” He grinned and nodded his head. “Now I understand the comments at the bar about the peanuts.”
She shuddered. “You have no idea what we’ve found on bar snacks.”
He laughed as he kept shaking his head. “And I don’t want you to tell me.” This was better. This was more what he wanted. He could gradually see the tension around her neck and shoulders start to ease.
The waiter appeared with their eggs and toast, and Amber leaned over the plate and inhaled. “Oh, delicious. And just what I need.”
She ate for a few minutes then looked back up at him. “Your wound dressing. It looks good. How on earth did you discover the science behind it?”
Jack was spreading butter on his toast. “There’s been quite a bit of work on clot-forming dressings. My problem was they just didn’t work quickly enough for the situations we were in. But—” he gave her a smile; she was watching him with those big blue eyes “—the Internet is a wonderful thing. I contacted a few people who’d led other studies and asked if we could try a combination. I knew the specifics of what I really needed. I needed something so simple that it could be slapped on by anyone—and so quick acting it could stop bleeding within twenty seconds.”
The glance she gave him was filled with admiration. “I heard people talking after you finished. They think you’re sitting on a gold mine.”
Jack shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “It’s not about money,” he said quickly.
Amber didn’t even blink, just kept staring at him with that careful gaze. “I know. I got that.”
He picked at his eggs with his fork. “I know that for a lot of people medicine is a business. Britain isn’t like that. The army isn’t like that. Our health care is free—always has been and hopefully always will be. I’m not sure I can exist in a climate where every dressing gets counted and every profit margin looked at.”
She took a sip of her coffee. “You’ve already been approached, haven’t you?”
He bit the inside of his cheek, unsure of how much to tell her. Jack liked being straightforward. And from what little he’d seen of Amber, she seemed to operate that way too. That thing on the stage had just been a wobble—he was sure.
“Right from the beginning we had a contract arranged and a product license developed. It was developed during army time, so they have a part ownership, as do the original creators of the components.” He sighed. “I knew this could happen. As soon as I realized how good it was, I wanted to make sure that it wouldn’t end up being all about the money. That’s not why I did this—it’s not why we did this. And I know it’s good. I know it could save lives around the world, and that’s what I want it to do.”
She tipped her head to the side and studied him for a few seconds. “I like that.” The color had finally returned to her cheeks and she seemed more relaxed.
He gave her a smile. “Your presentation was good too. I know the basics about meningitis but not the rest. I had no idea just how quickly the strains were mutating.”
She pushed her plate away. “Thank you. The presentation was important. I’m the only person here from the DPA this time, and I wanted to be sure that I gave a good impression.” Her fingers were still wrapped around her fork, which she was drumming lightly on the table. “Monitoring infectious diseases is all about good international working.” She let out a little laugh. “Let’s just say that some of our counterparts have been a bit reluctant to share information in the past. In a world of international travel it makes contact tracing interesting.”
“Ouch.” Jack wrinkled his brow. He couldn’t imagine trying to contact trace across continents. It was bad enough on the few occasions he had to make an urgent call to a far-off relative, and that was with all the army resources at his disposal.
He topped up his coffee. “Want anything else to eat?”
She shook her head. “I think I’m done. Thank you for this.”
She kept staring at him, with a hint of a smile around her lips. He waited a few seconds then couldn’t help himself.
“What?”
This was odd. It was the most relaxed he’d been around a woman for a while.
But he liked this woman’s sense of humor. He liked her sassiness. And he was curious about the hint of vulnerability he’d seen on the stage. Not that it had stopped her—she’d gone on to deliver an impressive talk.
And he couldn’t help but be curious about the No Doctor rule she’d obviously decided to follow.
There was a rumble outside and they both glanced out at the darkening and choppy ocean. “I thought Hawaii was supposed to be sunshine, sunshine and more sunshine.” He frowned.
“Not forgetting the killer surf waves,” she added as she kept her eyes on the ocean. “I think you were right. It looks like you brought Scotland’s weather with you.”
He shook his head. “Believe me, you wouldn’t go into the sea in Scotland when it looks like that. Even on a roasting hot day, the sea still feels like ten below zero. On a day like today? You’d be a frozen fish finger.”
She burst out laughing. “A what?”
He wrinkled his brow and drew a tiny rectangle on the table with his finger. “You know, cod or haddock, covered in bread crumbs. For kids. They’re kind of rectangular.”
“Oh...” She nodded. “You mean a fish stick.”
The wrinkles grew even deeper. “A fish stick? What’s a stick about it? It’s a rectangle.”
She folded her arms across her chest. “Well, what’s a finger about it?”
He waved his hand in mock exasperation. “You Americans.”
“You Scots,” she countered just as quickly.
“Is this what we’re going to do?” He couldn’t help himself. He lowered his voice. The look she gave him through her thick lashes sent tingles across his skin.
“What do you mean?”
He gestured to the table. “Eat food and argue about words. We’re starting to be a habit.”
She glanced at her watch. “A habit? After less than twenty-four hours? Has to be a new world record.”
He leaned his head on his hand. He really should go back in to the auditorium and listen to some of the other talks. He should be thinking about his career, and be circulating and making contacts the way he’d failed to last night. But somehow, like last night, the only contact he was interested in making was right in front of him.
Three days in Hawaii. That was how long he planned to be here. He could easily lose himself in three days with a woman like Amber Berkeley. She was smart. She was fun. And he could sense the spark between them.
In a way he was glad nothing had happened last night. It meant their flirtation could happily continue and he could find out a little bit more about her. All within the confines of the conference. Whether they attended any more talks or not was entirely a different story.
As for her No Docs rule? Rules were made to be broken. And they didn’t work together—never would. Maybe she could be persuaded to spend some more time together. His stomach gave the weirdest little lurch. He couldn’t believe he’d actually just thought like that.
He’d imagined landing in Hawaii to scorching sun, colorful flowers and interesting birds and wildlife. That was the picture he’d always had in his head.
He’d lived so long in his own little bubble that finding someone to exchange anything other than clinical findings with was odd. But odd in a good way.
He looked her straight in the eye. “You’ve never just met someone and clicked?”
She blinked for a second as if she wasn’t quite sure how to answer. “Is this a trick question?”
He shook his head. “What? No.”
Then she tapped her fingers on the table slowly. “Okay, since you found out my name, did you look me up online?” She looked a little anxious.
He shook his head again. He was getting more confused by the second. “No. Why, should I?”
She hesitated for a few seconds then rolled her eyes and waved her hand. “There’s no point hiding it. If you search up my name you’ll find the whole news headlines. A very long time ago, when social media was a mere babe, and I was working as an intern, I met a fellow medic.” She lifted her fingers. “And I clicked.”
He folded his arms across his chest. “You clicked? Oh, no. You’re not getting away with that. What happened to the No Doctors rule?”
She sighed. “Let’s just say this was a huge contribution to the No Doctors rule.”
“Tell me more.”
She gave a slow rueful nod and held up her hands. He couldn’t quite work out the expression on her face; it was a mixture of sad, exasperated and just...tired. “I was duped, I admit it. Or I was charmed.”
“How charmed?” He was definitely curious. Amber didn’t seem like the kind of girl to be either duped or charmed. Maybe there was a reason for the slightly brash exterior?
“Charmed enough to plan a wedding.” She stopped for a second. “My father was a very accomplished surgeon, notorious for only picking the best of the best for his residents. He was also notoriously sexist. There were no women on his team. Charles used me, to get to him.” The words were matter-of-fact, but the way that she said them wasn’t.
“He did?” Jack couldn’t help the wave of disgust that swept over him and the way his heart twisted a little for her. “So what happened?”
She shrugged. “I found out on the morning of the wedding via an overheard conversation in the local hairdresser that he’d been boasting about getting on my father’s team, and worming his way in through me.”
“I thought women were supposed to drink champagne on the morning of their wedding.”
“Oh, I was drinking champagne as they pinned my hair up. I thought about it all the way home. I thought about it all the time I stepped into my dress and little things came into my head, like a giant jigsaw puzzle slotting into place. By the time I reached the church and saw him standing at the top of the aisle, the smug expression on his face told me everything I needed to know. I turned on my heels, picked up my dress and ran.”
“You ran?” He couldn’t actually believe it.
