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His handsome face broke into deep creases and his chest started to heave as deep, reverberating laughter rocked him.
She summoned every angry, indignant fibre of her being and tried to pierce his self-satisfied aura with a withering look. ‘I’m glad your self-esteem is so well fortified.’
He wiped a laughter tear from his eye. ‘Oh, now, Emily, be fair. The few times we’ve worked together we’ve done exceptionally well. Hey, I even let you boss me around sometimes and I can count on half a hand the people I’ve allowed to do that.’
They did work together well. She hated it that he’d recognised that. It gave her one less argument to cement her case. She tried not to slump against the wall as she bent her leg and pressed the sole of her foot into a groove.
He causally leaned over a rail, his chin resting on his fist. ‘And then there’s your Master’s.’
Her mouth went dry. ‘What do you know about my Master’s?’
His eyes flickered for the briefest moment. ‘Don’t you remember? Last year when we had to sit out that dust storm you told me you wanted to do your Master’s in emergency nursing, but with Kate being away you’d put it on hold.’
Her blood dropped to her feet. He’d actually listened. Listened and remembered. It was completely unexpected—Nathan had never listened, it had always been all about him. She shrugged. ‘It was just a pie-in-the-sky idea.’
He clicked his tongue. ‘It shouldn’t be.’ He gave her a sly look. ‘Warragurra Base would be the perfect place for you to work while you undertook your Master’s.’
Her brain tried to keep up. Every time she had an argument he neatly countered it with almost effortless ease. But right now he was playing dirty pool. He knew she desperately wanted to do her Master’s and that as much as the chief and the Flying Doctors supported the idea in principle, with the way staffing had been lately, it hadn’t been possible.
Achieving her Master’s would mean career security, senior positions and a higher salary. And she’d need that as, unlike her friends, she wouldn’t ever be in the position of sharing income with a loving partner. Study leave hovered over her like the devil tempting her into his lair. Was this an opportunity she could really afford to pass up?
Linton pushed off the rail, walking round to lean his back against the wall so he stood next to her.
His heat slammed into her, dissolving all coherent thought. Emily breathed deeply, forcing air into her constricted lungs, in the hope her brain would soon get the much needed oxygen. Think.
She tried to fortify her resolution. Working at Warragurra Base meant working with Linton. Unrequited love from a distance had been tormenting enough. Up close and personal it would be torture. But still her words rushed out unchecked. ‘How much study leave?’
White, even teeth flashed at her. ‘What about you work a nine-day fortnight? The hospital will pay you for two days a month study leave.’
She narrowed her eyes. If she was selling out she should at least get a good deal. ‘And one week to attend the “on campus” study component?’
He arched one brown eyebrow and tapped his top lip with his forefinger. ‘As long as you can work it so the roster isn’t short.’
She hugged her arms across her tightening chest as she committed herself to a path she’d told herself she’d never take. ‘I can do that.’
He crossed his arms, his biceps straining against the soft cotton of his sleeves. ‘Then we have a deal.’
Deal. The word boomed in her head over and over like the low bass of heavy metal. What have you just done? She silenced the words. Her decision was a career move. Linton would eventually leave town and she would get over her crush. Life would go on and she would have extra qualifications. ‘A deal? I guess we do.’ Somehow she managed to squeak the words out.
He grinned and leaned sideways, nudging her with his shoulder. ‘See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?’
She looked up into a pair of emerald eyes full of satisfaction. And why not? He’d just solved his staffing problem. All was good in his world.
But she’d just taken out a loan on her soul for a chance to study. Unless she was careful, the repayments on the loan would be pieces of her heart.
Emily stared at herself in the mirror in the Warragurra Base Hospital locker room, adjusting to seeing herself in green. Gone were the navy trousers and blue shirt of the Flying Doctors uniform. In their place green scrubs hung baggily revealing nothing of the shape that lay underneath. Hiding the big breasts and the short waist.
You are so ugly. High school had been a nightmare.
University hadn’t been much better. Cover yourself up, you don’t want to put people off their dinner. Nathan’s derisive words boomed in her head. The memory of his curled lip and scornful look wormed its way back into her thoughts despite her best intentions to never let him back into her life in any shape or form.
He’d been the one to put the final nails into any delusions she might have had about herself. She now knew for certain that her body wasn’t worthy of being on show, so she hid it, avoiding further pain and protecting herself from the glances of men—scrutinising glances that immediately turned to pitying ones.
She tied the string of the shapeless, baggy green pants. It was better this way. Men no longer saw her as a woman and didn’t seek her out, which was exactly what she wanted. Her heart, which had loved Nathan and been so badly trampled on, was now well protected.
She turned away from the mirror and spritzed on some perfume, one of the few feminine luxuries she allowed herself. As the only female growing up on a sheep and cattle station, surrounded by men, being a girl hadn’t always been easy.
When she was working on the station she generally became ‘one of the boys’ and fitted in that way. She could shoot a mean game of pool, muster on horseback for a full day without getting saddle-sore and was known for her skill in coaxing difficult engines into life. Her father, brothers and the employees at Woollara had long forgotten she was a woman.
If she was everyone’s mate at Woollara, she was all nurse at work. ‘Professional, organised and reliable’ were the words that always turned up on her performance reviews. At work she had a different ‘uniform’ from the cowboy boots and jeans she wore at the station. But it was a uniform, and it made her blend in with the other medical professionals and told the community she was a nurse. The role absorbed her and she gave herself to it, enjoying every moment.
The only part of her that really said ‘Emily’ was her perfume, although most people missed that. They thought the thing that defined her was her dyed hair. But her hair was just a ruse. Bright hair hid her pain. Bright caused people to look up rather than down and distracted them so she could avoid their scrutiny of her lack of attributes.
She ran some hair gel through her hair. She’d worn it spiky short for so long that its current length surprised her. It was still above her shoulders but long enough for the curls to come back and taunt her. She tried to tame them into place with the waxy product.
In celebration or commiseration of the new job—at this point she wasn’t exactly certain which one it was—she’d dyed her hair purple. The mirror reflected purple hair and green scrubs. Hmm, the women’s movement would be proud of her. Then again, others might think she was going to take up tennis at Wimbledon.
She nervously fingered the hem of her top and then tugged down hard before breathing in deeply. She spoke to the mirror. ‘Right, Emily. You’re the unit manager and working for Linton for better or worse. Linton only sees you as a nurse so you’re safe and your heart is safe. You’re a professional and all personal feelings get left on this side of the door.
‘This is work. Work is your shield against his charm. Focus on the job. You can do this.’ She pulled her name tag and security tag over her neck and spun round to face the door.
CHAPTER THREE
PUSHING open the door, Emily walked into her new department. Unlike the last time she’d been in A and E—when it had held an air of panic and unravelling control—today it seemed almost serene.
‘Emily!’ Karen waved at her, pausing with one hand on the curtains of cubicle two, the other hand holding a dish containing a syringe. ‘It’s so great to have you here. I’ll see you at the desk in a few minutes.’
She waved and smiled at the warmth in the other nurse’s greeting. She hoped Karen represented the rest of the nursing staff with her friendliness.
‘Emily, you’re finally here.’ Linton spun round, his freshly starched white coat sitting square across his broad shoulders and his stethoscope draped casually around his neck. Unlike his informal clothes on Saturday, today he wore a blue and white pinstriped business shirt with a silk tie. Everything about him said, ‘A doctor in charge of his department’.
Puffs of heat spiralled through her. How could one man look so devastatingly handsome perched casually on the edge of a desk?
‘I am, I’m here.’ Duh! Of course she was here. What happened to ‘lovely to be here’ or ‘looking forward to working with the team’? So much for wowing him and everyone else with scintillating conversation.
He glanced at her name tag, which snuggled into the indentation under her breasts. ‘Survived the admin orientation, I see?’
She laughed, remembering her long and excruciatingly dull morning. ‘As long as I remember to fill out every form in triplicate, I should be fine. I sometimes think Admin believes patients should be in triplicate as well.’ She glanced up at the patient board. It was pretty empty, only listing two patients in cubicles and no one in the resus room.
‘It looks like I’ve got a nice quiet afternoon to settle in on my first day.’
‘Of course. I especially arranged it to welcome you.’ His tanned face creased into a sparkling smile, which travelled rapidly up his cheekbones and into his eyes. Twinkling eyes, the same aqua green as the water around the coral cays of the Pacific Ocean.
She wanted to stretch out and float lazily in his gaze, revelling in the emphasis he put on the word ‘you’. But that was far too dangerous. Keep it all business. She flicked a recalcitrant curl out of her eye. ‘Especially for me? Yeah, right, I’ll remind you of that when it’s frantic and I still don’t know where everything is.’
He gave her a long, pensive look, which finished with one brow rising. ‘Ah, Emily, for a moment I forgot you don’t let me get away with anything.’
A trail of pain pricked her. Surely she hadn’t offended him? But there was no way she could flirt with him. He saw flirting as a game. As it was, she was gripping the last vestiges of her self-esteem when it came to Linton, and that was one game she couldn’t play.
Before she could speak he slid off the desk, rising to his feet, his height dwarfing her. ‘Now, I think you’ve met almost everyone except for the night staff. You know Karen and you’ve met Jason and Patti. Our students are with us for three months, and as you worked out the other Saturday, they’re in their first weeks. As well as you starting today, we have a new resident, Daniel, and an agency nurse, Jodie. She’s on a six-week contract but if she’s any good we’re hoping she can stay longer.’
‘That’s a lot of new staff.’ A flutter of panic vibrated in her stomach. ‘When do Michael and Cathy get back from their honeymoon?’
He drew in a long breath and sighed. ‘Another six weeks.’
She did the mental maths of the number of hours in the day over available staff. ‘So the roster’s still short?’
He grinned. ‘Not as short as it was a week ago.’
‘And that’s supposed to reassure me?’ She heard the rising inflection of her voice.
He gave her a playful thump on the shoulder, similar to the ones she received from her brothers on a regular basis. ‘I told you I needed you here.’ He turned away and started walking as if he knew she would follow.
Irritation at his highhandedness quelled her mounting panic. She cut off a quip and took three quick steps to catch up as he was already talking as if she was standing next to him.
‘If I’m out of the department when a patient comes in, I want to be notified. If it’s a straightforward case then you and Daniel can deal with it, but page me if you need me or if you believe Daniel needs me.’ He gave her a knowing look.
‘New resident-itis?’
His shoulders rose and fell. ‘It’s early days but I don’t want him taking on something he can’t handle.’ He stopped walking as he reached his office door, his face suddenly clearing of the usual fun and flirty expressions that defined him. ‘Emily, we’re a team. Don’t ever feel you have to cope on your own. I’m only ever a page or a phone call away.’
His sincerity washed through her, trickling under her defences like floodwaters squeezing through cracks in a levee. Her mind threatened to leap from work to studying how his eyelashes almost brushed his cheek when he blinked. Stop reading more into this than exists. He’s your boss and he’d be telling all new staff this.
She forced her attention back to the job. ‘What meetings are expected?’
He ushered her into his office and picked up a stack of folders from his desk. ‘We have a weekly meeting to discuss medical and nursing issues but I have an open-door policy so, please, don’t wait until Tuesdays at two to discuss something important. Honest and open communication is vital in a department like this.’
Honest and open. As long as it only pertained to work, she was off the hook. She couldn’t work at Warragurra Base if he knew how she really felt about him. She was embarrassed enough by it. She didn’t want to feel this way. She hated it that after everything she’d been through with Nathan, even though she knew she wasn’t ready for another relationship, she couldn’t control her body’s reaction to Linton.
‘Right, I promise I won’t let anything fester.’ She held out her arms. ‘Are they for me?’
He winked. ‘Just a bit of light reading. We’re in the middle of a policy review.’
‘Policy review?’ A vision of reading long into the night popped into her brain. Not that she slept that well, with Linton always hovering in her dreams. ‘Did you just happen to conveniently forget to tell me that when you were twisting my arm in the woolshed?’
His eyes widened in feigned outrage. ‘Twisting your arm? I don’t coerce my staff, Emily.’ He dumped the folders into her outstretched arms. ‘By the way, have you enrolled for your Master’s?’
‘That would be the arm-twisting Master’s?’ She clutched the folders to her chest.
His mouth twitched smugly. ‘All I did was provide you with an opportunity to do something you’ve wanted to do for a while.’ He lowered himself on the corner of his desk, his eyes full of curiosity, appraising her. ‘So, which subject are you starting off with?’
Surprise hit her so hard she swayed on her feet. She stared back at his face, so unexpectedly full of genuine interest. She hadn’t expected that. ‘I, um, I’m starting off with “Interpersonal Relationships in the Clinical Environment”.’
Otherwise known as how to survive working closely with a boss whose presence turns your mind to mush and your heart into a quivering mess.
He rubbed his chin in thought. ‘That sounds meaty. There’s lots of scope there on so many levels—patient-staff, staff-staff, patient-relative, relative-staff.’
His gaze settled back on her, unnerving her with its solicitude. The fun-loving charmer seemed to have taken a back seat. She’d never known him to take such an interest in her before. Her usual approach of friendly mockery didn’t seem right. She managed to stammer out, ‘I—I thought so.’
‘In a high-octane environment like A and E it can be pretty fraught at times, which is why staff wellbeing is high on my agenda.’ He walked her to the door. ‘Let’s do drinks at the end of the shift.’
She almost dropped the folders as blood rushed to her feet, making her fingers numb. He’s inviting you out for a drink.
Not a good idea, Emily.
But common sense had no chance against the endorphin rush. All thoughts of staying detached and professional got swept away by the sheer joy that exploded inside her. Her feet wanted to happy dance and her hands wanted to high-five.
Stay cool and calm. ‘That would—’
‘Emily, Linton, you’re needed,’ Sally, the desk clerk, called them to Reception.
Jodie dashed past, holding two kidney dishes. ‘Gastro in cubicles one, two, three and four.’
Emily picked up the histories and noted the patients all had the same surname. ‘Looks like it’s one family.’ She handed out the histories. ‘Jason, you and Patti share Mr Peterson and Jodie’s in with Mrs Peterson. Get base-line obs and assess for dehydration.’
Linton took the remaining histories. ‘You examine the teenager and then join me with the eight-year-old.’ He shot her a cheeky grin. ‘Your hair colour will convince him you’re a clown and he’ll relax while I’m inserting an IV.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Ha, ha, very funny. I think I just have my first example for my Master’s of interpersonal relationships with staff and harassment.’ She jokingly tapped his chest with her forefinger. ‘Be nice or I might not help.’
She turned away and pushed open the curtain to see a fourteen-year-old boy heaving into a bowl, his ashen face beaded with sweat. ‘David, I’m Emily.’
He fell back against the pillow, exhausted. ‘I feel terrible.’
‘You don’t look too flash.’ She picked up his wrist and her fingers quickly located his pulse, which beat thinly and rapidly under her fingertips. She pushed an observation chart under the metal clip of the folder and recorded his pulse, respirations, blood pressure and temperature. ‘When did the vomiting start?’
‘After lunch.’ He flinched and gripped his stomach, pulling his legs up. ‘Arrgh, it really hurts.’ His quavering voice stripped away the usual teenage fa?ade of bravado.
She hated seeing people in distress. ‘I can give you something to help with the spasms but first I have to insert a drip, which means a needle in your arm.’
‘Oh, man.’
She stroked his arm. ‘It won’t hurt as much as the cramps. Tell me, what did you eat for lunch?’
‘Sausages and chops.’ He grabbed the bowl again, gagging.
‘Take long, slow deep breaths, it really helps.’ Emily quickly primed the IV. ‘When was the meat cooked?’
‘Dad and I barbequed it and then we ate it straight away.’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘I think I can smell the smoke from the fire on your clothes.’
‘Yeah, it was an awesome bonfire. I’d been collecting the wood for a week.’
What was it about men, testosterone and fire? Her brothers loved nothing better than a midwinter bonfire. ‘Was it a special occasion?’
He nodded weakly. ‘Dad’s birthday. Mum even bought coleslaw and potato salad.’
Wrapping the tourniquet around his arm, she kept mental notes of the food. ‘Did you have cake?’
