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She just didn’t know how to love her right now.
She wanted Ross.
She wanted to hide in his arms and fall asleep.
She wanted to go over and over it with him.
The truth was so much worse than the lies, and yet she could sort of understand her mother’s side.
The family secret had darkened many shades, and her mother had begged her not to tell anyone.
Oh, Annie knew, and no doubt so did Millie, Levander’s wife, but they were real partners. Ross and Annika … they were brand spanking new!
How could she land it on him?
And anyway, he would soon be heading off for Spain!
For the first time in her life she had a tangible reason to sever ties with her mother. Instead she found herself there more and more, listening to Nina’s stories, understanding a little more what had driven her parents, what had fuelled their need for the castle they had built for their children.
‘I haven’t seen you so much,’ Elsie commented.
‘I’ve cut down my shifts,’ Annika said, with none of her old sparkle. ‘I need to concentrate on my studies.’
Cashing the cheque had hurt, but then so too did everything right now. When push had come to shove, she’d realised that she actually liked her shifts at the nursing home, so instead of cutting ties completely, she’d drastically reduced her hours.
Ross was around, and though they smiled and said hello she kept him at a distance.
She had spent the past week in cots, which didn’t help matters.
The babies were so tiny and precious, and sometimes so ill it terrified Annika.
She was constantly checking that she had put the cot-sides up, and double- and triple-checking medicine doses.
She longed to be like the other nurses, who bounced a babe on their knee and fed with one hand while juggling the phone with the other.
She just couldn’t.
‘How’s that man of yours?’ Elsie asked, because Annika was unusually quiet.
‘He goes to Spain soon—when he gets back we will maybe see each other some more.’
‘Why wait?’
‘You know he’s a doctor—a senior doctor on my ward?’
‘Oh.’ Elsie pondered. ‘I’m sure others have managed—you can be discreet.’
‘There’s stuff going on.’ Annika combed through her hair. ‘With my family. I think it’s a bit soon to land it all on him.’
‘If he’s the right one for you, he’ll be able to take it,’ Elsie said.
‘Ah, but if he’s not …’ Annika could almost see the news headlines. ‘How do you know if you can trust someone?’
‘You don’t know,’ Elsie said. ‘You never know. You just hope.’
CHAPTER TEN
ROSS always liked to get to work early.
He liked a quick chat with the night staff, if possible, to hear from them how things were going on the ward, rather than hear the second-hand version a few hours later from the day nurses.
It was a routine that worked for him well.
A niggle from a night nurse could become a full-blown incident by ten a.m. For Ross it was easier to buy a coffee and the paper, have a quick check with the night staff and then have ten minutes to himself before the day began in earnest. This morning there was no such luxury. He’d been at work all night, and at six-thirty had just made his way from ICU when he stopped by the nurses’ station.
‘Luke’s refused to have his blood sugar taken,’ Amy, the night nurse, explained. ‘I was just talking him round to it and his mum arrived.’
‘Great!’ Ross rolled his eyes. ‘Don’t tell me she took it herself?’
‘Yep.’
It had been said so many times, but sometimes working on a children’s ward would be so much easier without the parents!
‘Okay—I’ll have another word. What else?’
There wasn’t much—it was busy but under control—and so Ross escaped to his office, took a sip of the best coffee in Australia and opened the paper. He stared and he read and he stared, and if his morning wasn’t going too well, then someone else’s wasn’t, either.
His pager went off, and he saw that it was a call from Iosef Kolovsky. He took it.
‘Hi.’
‘Sorry to call you for private business.’ Iosef was, as always, straight to the point. ‘Have you seen the paper?’
‘Just.’
‘Okay—now, I think Annika is on your ward at the moment …’ Iosef had never asked for a favour in his life. ‘Could you just keep an eye out for her—and if the staff are talking tell them that what has been written is nonsense? You have my permission to say you know me well and that this is all rubbish.’
‘Will do,’ Ross said, and, because he knew he would get no more from Iosef, ‘How’s Annie?’
‘Swearing at the newspaper.’
‘I bet. I’ll do what I can.’
He rang off and read it again. It was a scathing piece—mainly about Iosef’s twin Aleksi.
On his father’s death two years ago he had taken over as chief of the House of Kolovsky, and now, the reporter surmised, Ivan Kolovsky the founder must be turning in his grave.
There had been numerous staff cuts, but Aleksi, it was said, was frittering away the family fortune in casinos, on long exotic trips, and on indiscretions with women. A bitter ex, who was allegedly nine weeks pregnant by him, was savage in her observations.
Not only had staff been cut, but his own sister, a talented jewellery designer, had been cut off from the family trust and was now living in a small one-bedroom flat, studying nursing. Along with a few pictures of Aleksi looking rather the worse for wear were two of Annika—one of her in a glamorous ballgown, looking sleek and groomed, and the other … Well, it must have been a bad day, because she was in her uniform and looking completely exhausted, teary even, as she stepped out into the ambulance bay.
There was even a quote from an anonymous source that stated how miserable she was in her job, how she hated every moment, and how she thought she was better than that.
How, Ross had fathomed, was she supposed to walk into work after that?
She did, though.
He was sitting in the staffroom when she entered, just as the morning TV news show chatted about the piece. An orthopaedic surgeon was reading the paper, and a couple of colleagues were discussing it as she walked in. Ross felt his heart squeeze in mortification for her.
But she didn’t look particularly tense, and she didn’t look flushed or teary—for a moment he was worried that she didn’t even know what was being said.
Until she sat down, eating her raisin toast from the canteen, and a colleague jumped up to turn the television over.
‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘I’ve already seen it.’
The only person, Ross surmised as the gathering staff sat there, who didn’t seem uncomfortable was Annika.
Ross called her back as the day staff left for handover. ‘How are you doing?’
‘Fine.’
‘If you want to talk …?’
‘Then I’ll speak with my family.’
Ross’s lips tightened. She didn’t make things easy, but he didn’t have the luxury of thinking up a smart retort as his pager had summoned him to a meeting.
‘I’m here if you need me, okay?’
The thing with children, Annika was fast realising, was that they weren’t dissimilar from the residents in the nursing home. There, the residents’ tact buttons had long since been switched off—on the children’s ward they hadn’t yet been switched on.
‘My mum said you were in the paper this morning!’ A bright little five-year-old sang out as Annika did her obs.
‘What’s “allegedly” mean?’ asked another.
‘Why don’t you change your name?’ asked Luke as she took down his dressing just before she was due to finish. Ross wanted to check his leg ulcer before it was re-dressed, and Annika was pleased to see the improvement. ‘Then no one would know who you are.’
‘I’ve thought about it,’ Annika admitted. ‘But the papers would make a story out of that too. Anyway, whether I like the attention or not, it is who I am.’
His dressing down, she covered his leg with a sterile sheet and then checked off on his paperwork before the end of her shift.
‘What’s your blood sugar?’
‘Dunno.’
It had been a long day for Annika, and maybe her own tact button was on mute for now, but she was tired of reasoning with him, tired of the hourly battles when it was really simple. ‘You know what, Luke? You can argue and you can kick and scream and make it as hard as you like, but why not just surprise everyone and do it for yourself? You say you want your mum to leave you alone, to stop babying you—maybe it’s time to stop acting like one.’
It was perhaps unfortunate that Ross came in at that moment.
‘His dressing’s all down,’ Annika gulped.
‘Thanks. I’ll just have a look, and then you can redress.’
‘Actually, my shift just ended. I’ll pass it on to one of the late staff.’
She turned to go, but Ross was too quick for her.
‘If you could wait in my office when you’ve finished, Annika,’ Ross said over his shoulder. ‘I’d like a quick word.’
Oh, she was really in trouble now.
She hadn’t been being mean—or had she?
Maybe she should have been more tactful with Luke …
She couldn’t read Ross’s expression when he came in.
He was dressed in a suit, even though he hadn’t been in one this morning, and he looked stern and formidable. Unusually for Ross, he also looked tired, and he gave a grim smile when she jumped up from the chair at his desk.
‘Is Luke okay?’
‘He’s fine. I asked Cassie to do his dressing.’
‘Was he upset?’
‘Upset?’
‘Because I told him he should be taking his own blood sugars?’
‘He just took it.’
‘Oh.’
Ross frowned, and then he shook his head in bewilderment. ‘Do you think you’re here to be told off?’
‘I told him he was acting like a baby.’
‘I’ve told him the same,’ Ross said. ‘Many times. You were fine in there—would you please stop doubting yourself all the time?’
‘I’ll try.’
‘How come you’re finishing early?’
‘I worked through lunch; I’m going home at three.’ She let out a breath. ‘It’s been a long day.’
‘That offer’s still there.’ He saw her slight frown. ‘To talk.’
‘Thank you.’
