The Accidental Romeo

Marnie had made a very good point.

Happy that the patient was being well looked after, Harry headed into the kitchen and to the delicious scent of dinner. ‘Smells good,’ Harry said.

‘I’m trying something different.’ Evelyn smiled at the twins. ‘Tonight we’re eating Russian!’

‘Ooh!’ Charlotte was delighted, Adam not so sure, and Harry was simply grinning because Evelyn was so Australian she thought beef stroganoff was exotic.

Having Evelyn look after the children had, absolutely, been the best idea Harry had had.

Actually, it had been Juan’s idea that he get an older carer for the children.

Yep, mea culpa, Harry had slept with the last nanny and the one before that.

It was exhausting being a widower at times!

Seriously.

Harry didn’t want a wife—he’d had Jill. Sex, though, that was another matter entirely. Why did women always have to complicate things by falling in love?

At least Evelyn didn’t read a single thing into it when Harry suggested that instead of dashing off she join them for dinner.

‘Are you sure?’ Evelyn checked, but she was already pulling out a chair. ‘How was work?’

‘Good,’ Harry said, because, given he was home on time, it must have been a good day. ‘We’ve got a new nurse manager just started,’ Harry said. ‘She seems very efficient.’

‘She’s rude,’ Charlotte said.

‘Rude?’ Harry looked at his daughter, who was spooning sour cream onto her dinner, and tried to recall them meeting her. ‘How can you say Marnie’s rude? You barely even met her.’

‘She didn’t say hello to us,’ Charlotte said.

‘It was her first day,’ Harry commented. ‘I’m sure she had other things to think of.’ Though, as Harry wrestled the sour cream from Charlotte, he did dwell on it for just a second. Charlotte was right, well, not the rude part but usually people did comment on the twins, especially when they realised that they were twins. Charlotte, Harry decided, was just far too used to having people drop to their knees and tell her how cute she was.

Dinner was nice and Harry refused Evelyn’s offer to stay and do the dishes. ‘I can stack a dishwasher!’ Harry said, as he saw her to the door.

‘If you need me tonight,’ Evelyn offered, ‘you just have to call.’

‘I shan’t tonight,’ Harry said. ‘Juan’s on. Things might get a bit busy, though, once he’s off on his honeymoon.’

‘No problem.’

Evelyn really was fantastic, Harry thought as he saw her out. Evelyn was their next-door-but-one neighbour. She had lost her husband many years ago and desperately missed her daughter, who had moved with her husband and baby to China. Evelyn had actually cried when Harry had taken up Juan’s suggestion to get someone older and Harry had asked if she could be there for the twins.

For cash!

Perfect.

Evelyn was saving up to go and visit her family in China and she got to spoil Charlotte and Adam in the interim.

The twins went to day care but on the odd day they were sick, Evelyn was there, and if Harry was on call, Evelyn slept in the nanny’s room. She didn’t even mind the odd time when Harry had to call her during the night.

It wasn’t a complete solution but for now it was working.

Wow!

It was just after seven. Dinner was done and the dishwasher was on.

‘Can we make the banana bread?’ Adam asked.

‘Yep.’

Oh, the bliss of the absence of parental guilt, Harry thought as Adam mashed bananas. In no time there was the lovely scent of banana bread filling the house as he got the twins bathed and ready for bed.

‘The frosting!’ Charlotte said. ‘You promised that I could make the frosting.’

‘I know, but the bread had to cool.’ Harry looked up the recipe on the Internet and squeezed some orange juice, which Charlotte mashed into cream cheese. By nine p.m. the twins were in bed, there was a slice of banana bread wrapped for Adam’s breakfast and a small bowl of frosting for Charlotte. And there was just a glimpse of order to the home for the first time in a very long time.

Harry lay back on the couch and yawned.

They’d made it through another day.

He thought of Marnie stopping Miriam from going to fetch the children, and the strangest thing was he was actually grateful for it. Harry didn’t want people rushing to pick up his children and he loathed all the favours that he constantly had to ask.

It was Marnie who had done him a true favour today.

She’d given him an evening at home with the twins.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘EXCUSE ME!’

Harry’s tongue rolled in his cheek as he heard Marnie’s beguilingly soft voice. She walked over to Sheldon, the resident, who was washing his hands at the surgical sink.

Poor Sheldon, he had no idea what was coming.

Harry did. Marnie had delivered Harry exactly the same lecture she was now giving Sheldon.

‘You see these long taps, Sheldon?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, it might surprise you to hear that they’re not designed for helping doctors who happen to have big hands.’

Harry couldn’t resist looking up. He could see Sheldon blushing and Marnie smiling as she delivered a very firm lecture but in the sweetest voice. ‘And, neither were they designed for busy doctors so that they could just push them back quickly. The designers were far more thoughtful than that—do you know why the taps are so long, Sheldon?’

‘Okay, Marnie, I get it,’ Sheldon said through gritted teeth.

‘But I don’t think that you do. You see, they’re designed that way so that you can turn them on and off with your elbows. I’ll show you…’

‘I already know,’ Sheldon said as Marnie demonstrated how to turn the taps on and off with her own elbows.

‘You know that?’ Marnie checked. ‘I’m so sorry, Sheldon, I didn’t think you did because when I saw you just washing your hands…’

Harry shook his head and got back to his notes as Marnie continued to give Sheldon a lesson on hand-washing. She was obsessed with cleanliness and hand-washing was at the top of her list, along with cleaning the curtains and light switches.

‘What,’ Marnie had demanded, ‘is the point of cleaning your hands and then opening a filthy curtain with them?’

Oh, and she had a thing about sunlight.

‘It’s cheaper than bleach,’ Marnie had said when she had called Maintenance down to prise open windows that had never, in all the time Harry had been there, been opened. ‘Sunlight kills everything.’

In the two weeks that Marnie had been at Bayside she had turned the Titanic.

The place was glistening, the cupboards were well stocked, and breaks were being taken, though heaven help you if you left the kitchen without washing and putting away your coffee cup.

Love her or loathe her, there was no doubt that the place was well run under Marnie’s command and, as a consultant in the busy emergency department, Harry should be feeling extremely pleased at that fact.

He was pleased.

It was just…

Marnie did not give an inch. No, Harry didn’t want favours, but a bit of flexibility wouldn’t go amiss either. With Juan now in Argentina and Dr Cooper’s starting date still a few weeks away, for Dr Vermont and Harry the wheels were again starting to come off. They were relying heavily on locums—some were excellent, others not. But locums were exactly that, they didn’t have the investment in the place that the regular staff had. Sheldon, for one, was becoming increasingly exasperated about who the latest boss was and at what point he should call the regular senior staff in.

‘Marnie!’ Harry heard the surprise in Sheldon’s voice and looked up as Sheldon spoke on. ‘Did anyone ever tell you that you could be a hand model?’

‘I get told it all the time!’ Marnie said.

‘I’m serious.’ Sheldon was turning her hands over and examining them. ‘They’re amazing.’

‘I know they are,’ Marnie said. ‘Really, I should just take the plunge and get them insured and go off and make my fortune.’

‘Harry,’ Sheldon called, ‘have you seen Marnie’s hands?’

‘Er, no,’ Harry lied. He’d noticed them when Marnie had given him the little hand-washing lecture the other day and Sheldon was right—they were incredible. Her skin was unblemished and pale, with long, slender fingers that tapered into very neat, oval nails. They really were beautiful.

‘Show Harry,’ Sheldon said.

Marnie duly walked over and held out her hands. Emergency was a mad place at times, so this sort of thing wasn’t in the least peculiar. Even Kelly came over to admire Marnie’s hands.

‘They’re lovely,’ Harry said.

‘Harry’s got a bit of a thing about hands,’ Kelly teased, but even she was surprised when Marnie took it a stage further.

‘Do they turn you on, Harry?’ Marnie said. Harry couldn’t help but smile back and Kelly gave a slightly shocked laugh. Marnie was a minx—sexy yet cold, flirtatious at times but only when it suited her mood. And…Harry liked her.

Yes, it was another reason Harry wasn’t feeling best pleased. Liking Marnie was too inconvenient for words.

‘I have an interest in hands,’ Harry said, and Marnie smirked at his response, ‘not a fetish.’

‘You really should be a hand model,’ Kelly said, peering at them and then at her own.

‘And who would keep you lot in place?’ Marnie asked. ‘Though I do know what you mean. Sometimes I look down at them and find myself smiling.’

No one was smiling a little while later when the nursing off-duty was revealed. It was the first one Marnie had done and a group of nurses had fallen on the diary the moment that it had appeared.

Abby, who loathed night duty, found that she was about to do her first stint after two years of having managed to avoid it.

Harry, who should be moving on to the next patient, couldn’t help but stretch out his patient notes just so that he could listen as Abby voiced her concerns to Marnie.

Of course, they fell on deaf ears.

‘I hate nights too.’ Marnie smiled. ‘Which is one of the reasons that I went into management, though I’m doing a stint myself soon, just to see how the place runs at night. We can be miserable together.’

Harry didn’t look up as Abby slunk off, only for Kelly to take her place. ‘Er, Marnie…’ Kelly started. ‘I wrote in the request notes that I don’t do early shifts at the weekends, yet you’ve put me down for an early shift on Saturday next week and again a fortnight later.’

‘I saw that you had requested that, Kelly, but you didn’t write down a reason. I really am trying my best to accommodate everyone. Why can’t you do an early shift on a Saturday?’

‘Well, the thing is…’ Kelly attempted, and Harry listened to the discomfort in her voice as she tried to give a suitable reason. ‘I like to go out on a Friday night.’

‘Of course you do!’ Marnie answered calmly. ‘We all love to go out and get blethered on a Friday night—heaven knows, we need it after a week in this place—which is why we share around the pleasure of a lie-in on a Saturday. Everyone takes their turn.’

And with that she walked off.

‘I want to loathe her,’ Kelly said. ‘I have every reason to loathe her and yet…’

Harry glanced up. There was Marnie, catching the poor maintenance man before he escaped as she had plenty more jobs for him.

‘She’s efficient,’ Harry said.

‘She’s cold,’ Kelly corrected. ‘She’s been here for a couple of weeks and, do you know, nobody knows one single thing about her.’

Kelly was right and it was unusual. Emergency was a place that thrived on gossip, yet Marnie just didn’t partake. Yes, long before he’d noticed her beautiful hands he had noticed that there was no wedding or engagement ring. Not that that meant anything—after all, he still wore his. He’d also noticed a large bunch of flowers has been delivered on the day that she had arrived. But, as She had taken delivery and inhaled the fragrances of the bouquet, Marnie had offered no explanation as to the sender. She never spoke about last night or what her plans were for the weekend. All she really spoke about was work and yet, no matter how he tried to tell himself it didn’t matter, Harry kept finding himself wanting to know a little bit more.

She was intriguing.

It was as if she looked at the world through a different end of the telescope from everyone else—a case in point was Juan. All the staff raved about Juan and how lucky Cate was, how wonderful the wedding would be and what a great catch he was.

Marnie screwed up her nose.

‘He’s a fine doctor, but he’d drive me bonkers to live with,’ Marnie said. Everyone was trying really hard not to like her but sometimes she just lit up the department with her commentary. Just like the windows she insisted on opening, she made the drab suddenly brighter.

‘But he’s gorgeous,’ Abby said.

‘He’s a bit too New Age for me and I’d get tired of him being, oh, so understanding.’ Marnie seemed to think about it for a moment and then shook her head. ‘Imagine trying to have a row with that…’

‘So you like a good row?’ Harry asked.

‘Of course,’ Marnie said. ‘Can you imagine trying to row with Juan? “No, I don’t want my shoulders massaged…”’

Yet as funny and as intriguing as she could be, Marnie was also, as Harry had guessed she would be, completely immutable in certain areas.

‘Marnie…’ Harry approached her after taking a call. ‘Day care just rang and Adam’s not feeling too well. There’s still a bit of a backlog and I thought I might just pop him in the staffroom—’

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