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Nicky laughed. ‘In other words, somewhere totally impractical.’
‘That’s me.’ Keely beamed at her. ‘I came up here to escape from the city. If I wanted the city I’d still be living in London.’
‘So why the Lakes?’
Keely shrugged and took a sip of her drink. ‘Because this unit has a good reputation and because I love walking.’
And because it was sufficiently far away from her totally oppressive family to give her some much needed breathing space.
‘I like walking.’ Nicky munched at the crisps. ‘So does Sean. He was in the army before he trained as a doctor so he’s a real expert at climbing and things. And Zach loves the outdoors too.’
That explained the athletic body…
‘Well, I’m going to go and see some rental properties as soon as I get a free moment,’ Keely muttered, pushing thoughts of Zach’s body away and glancing at her watch. ‘I suppose I’d better be going. I’ve got some serious studying to do.’
Fiona lifted an eyebrow. ‘Studying?’
‘Yes, studying.’ Keely gave a wry smile, deciding to confess. Even though they’d only worked together for a week, she already liked her new colleagues enormously. ‘The last time I saw Zach I was sixteen years old and he obviously still sees me that way. I need to impress him.’
‘Sixteen?’ Nicky put her drink on the table with a thump and stared at her in amazement. ‘How did you come to meet Zach at the tender age of sixteen?’
‘He trained with my brother,’ Keely said, carefully missing out that he’d also worked for her father. The less people knew about her family the better. ‘He used to come and stay sometimes.’
‘Wow.’ Fiona gave her a saucy wink. ‘I bet he played havoc with your hormones at sixteen.’
Keely managed a weak laugh. He was playing havoc with her hormones at twenty-four, too.
‘Anyway, I clearly have to work harder to impress him than everyone else.’
Nicky frowned. ‘I don’t think that’s true. You impressed him yesterday—you told him that the man had taken tricyclics.’
‘Yes—and I was the one who didn’t know the answer,’ Adam reminded them with a sheepish grin. ‘If anyone needs to go home to study it’s me.’
‘No.’ Keely stared into her now empty glass. ‘Zach doesn’t see you as a teenager.’
Nicky wiggled her toes in front of the fire. ‘If I were you I’d just be yourself. From what I’ve seen today you’re going to make a great casualty officer. You’re good humoured, you don’t panic in an emergency, you’re friendly to everyone and you’re nice with the patients. Zach will see that for himself soon enough.’
Would he?
Keely wasn’t so sure. After the way he’d reacted this week it was fairly obvious to her that Zach thought he needed to keep an eye on her.
She’d give it a few more days and then she’d have to have a word with him.
* * *
‘There’s been a pile-up on the motorway. Six cars. They’ve asked for a medical team. Zach, I’d like you to go.’ Sean Nicholson glanced at the other cas. officers. ‘And Keely.’
Keely felt a rush of excitement which died immediately when she heard Zach contradict him sharply.
‘Not Keely. I’ll take Adam.’
Adam?
Keely opened her mouth to protest and then shut it again, glancing instead towards Sean. Surely he’d object?
But he didn’t. He merely gave a brisk nod. ‘Fine. Nicky and I will get things ready here. Nicky, which of your nursing staff do you want to send?’
‘Liz,’ Nicky said promptly, and immediately everyone swung into action.
Seething with fury, Keely helped prepare Resus for a large influx of casualties and she liaised with Ambulance Control and the wards.
By the time the patients had been admitted and dealt with her shift was almost over, but she was determined to have a word with Zach. She thought she knew why he hadn’t sent her out with the medical team, but she wanted to hear it from his lips.
‘May I talk to you?’
He looked slightly surprised but he gave a nod and they walked towards his office.
‘Were there any fatalities?’ It was small talk but she didn’t want to tackle her problem in the corridor with the whole department listening.
‘Two. Trapped inside one of the vehicles. It was the usual story—everyone driving too close together, bunched up in the fog.’
He opened the door to his office and she followed him inside and closed the door firmly behind them.
His eyes drifted quizzically to her hands which were still holding the door handle. ‘So what’s the matter, Keely?’
She took a deep breath. ‘You’re the matter. Or rather, the way you treat me is the matter. Why are you doing it, Zach?’
He looked at her warily. ‘Why am I doing what?’
She gave him an impatient look. ‘You don’t ask me any questions, you don’t let me see any complicated patients, you hang over me like a nursemaid and now you just refused to let me go out as part of an emergency team even though Sean obviously thought I was capable of it.’ She ticked the reasons off one by one on her fingers. ‘I know you don’t trust me but I think you should at least give me a chance.’
There was a long silence and then he turned and walked over to his window, staring out into the darkness towards the fells. ‘I do trust you.’
‘No, you don’t!’ She walked over to him, determined to make him look at her. ‘You never let me work the way you let the other doctors work.’
‘That isn’t because I don’t trust you,’ he muttered, raking long fingers through his already ruffled hair.
Keely frowned, baffled by his response. ‘Why, then? If you trust me then why aren’t you just throwing me in the deep end along with everyone else? Why wouldn’t you let me go out as part of the emergency team? It’s obvious that you don’t trust my clinical judgement—’
‘That’s not true.’ He frowned sharply, as if the thought hadn’t occurred to him. ‘From what I’ve seen, your clinical judgement is spot on.’
‘So why…?’
He turned to look at her, his blue eyes suddenly hard. ‘Because sometimes these pile-ups are dangerous and the medical team ends up operating in lethal conditions. You could have been sitting in a squashed car giving pain relief to some poor chap who was going to be trapped for hours, you could have been dealing with someone who’d been thrown through the windscreen…’
She swallowed, taken aback by his grim expression and by the harsh tone of his voice. ‘But you sent Adam.’
He closed his eyes briefly and gave a sigh. ‘Yes. I sent Adam.’
‘Because he’s a man?’ Keely frowned. ‘Because you don’t think I can handle the stress? Why can Adam handle the stress better than me? I didn’t think you were a chauvinist, Zach.’
He muttered something under his breath. ‘I am not a chauvinist.’
‘Then why did you choose not to send a woman into that situation?’
‘I didn’t choose not to send a woman.’ His jaw was rigid with tension. ‘I chose not to send you.’
‘Me?’ Keely stared at him. ‘So you’re saying you would have sent another woman, but not me.’
He held her gaze. ‘Maybe.’
She felt bemused and frustrated. ‘Because you think I’m a child?’
‘No.’ He shook his head impatiently. ‘This is nothing to do with your age. More your personality.’
Keely’s heart was thudding and her lips felt stiff. ‘What’s wrong with my personality?’
‘Nothing’s wrong with it!’ He lifted a hand and rubbed his fingers along his forehead. ‘You’ve got a lovely personality.’
‘But?’
‘But nothing,’ he said quietly, sitting on the edge of his desk and watching her steadily. ‘I just know how sensitive you are.’
Keely gave an outraged gasp. ‘That is not fair! You don’t know me at all—you’re just remembering how I was as a teenager. I’m trying to learn and be part of a team, and you’re stopping me. Anyway, why should it bother you if I do get upset? It’s my problem, not yours.’
He held her gaze without flinching. ‘It bothers me because I feel responsible for you.’
‘Responsible for me?’ She gaped at him. ‘Why are you responsible for me?’
‘Because you’re miles away from your family—’
Her eyes widened. ‘I’m a grown woman, Zach! Believe it or not, I don’t need to keep running to Daddy!’
‘Keely, I just don’t want you hurt.’
She stared at him, touched and frustrated at the same time. ‘But you weren’t worried about Adam?’
‘Of course not!’ He gave a short laugh. ‘Adam can take care of himself.’
‘And so can I,’ Keely said softly. ‘So can I, Zach. Whatever you may think of me, whatever your memory tells you, I’m completely grown up now. I don’t need your protection, however well meaning.’
His expression was bleak. ‘We see some hideous things in Casualty.’
‘Then I’ll see them, too,’ Keely said firmly, pushing her blonde hair behind one ear. ‘Please, Zach, this is ridiculous. All week you’ve been hanging over my shoulder, asking everyone questions except me, treating me like the teenager I used to be. I am not a teenager any more. This isn’t even my first job. You’re driving me mad.’
Zach winced and had the grace to look guilty. ‘Have I been that bad?’
‘Worse!’ Keely scowled and then grinned, her natural good nature reasserting itself. ‘But I’ll forgive you if you stop policing my every movement.’
Zach walked towards her and stopped dead, his eyes scanning her face as if he was trying to see her for who she was and not for who he remembered her to be.
‘I just don’t want you hurt,’ he said gruffly. ‘I know Prof would want me to keep an eye on you.’
‘He certainly would,’ Keely agreed sweetly, ‘but you never did what Prof wanted when you worked for him, so don’t use that as an excuse. I distinctly remember him saying that you were the brightest, most frustrating doctor he’d ever worked with. You questioned everything and you took risks that made his hair stand on end. And those risks usually paid off.’
‘OK. I take your point.’ He spoke slowly, a wry smile playing around his firm mouth. ‘You have a right to spread your wings, too. I’ll stop treating you as a child. On one condition.’
‘Which is?’
His voice was soft. ‘If you have a tough day, you come and talk to me. As a friend. We all need someone to turn to in this department. I want to be sure that you won’t bottle anything up just to because you’re trying to prove yourself.’
‘I never bottle anything up—you of all people should know that.’ She coloured slightly but decided that she might as well clear the air once and for all. ‘If I was any good at hiding my emotions, Zach, I wouldn’t have yelled at you just now and I wouldn’t have proposed to you all those years ago.’
The corners of his mouth twitched and his blue eyes gleamed. ‘I thought we weren’t going to mention that again.’
She gave a groan. ‘I know. You’ve been so discreet and I can hardly bear to think about it, it’s so embarrassing. But I still feel that I haven’t really apologised properly.’
‘I’ve already told you you don’t need to apologise.’
‘Zach, Iproposed to you!’
His blue eyes twinkled. ‘It was a leap year, sweetheart. You were allowed to propose to me. I was very flattered.’
Sweetheart. The way he said it made her insides melt even though she knew it hadn’t been meant in that way.
Keely pulled herself together and cleared her throat. ‘Anyway, I apologise for behaving like such an idiot and embarrassing you.’
‘You didn’t embarrass me.’ His gaze was steady on hers and for a moment she stared at him, her pulse picking up as she looked at the broad shoulders and the dark hair. He was seriously gorgeous…
She suppressed a whimper. Why did he have such a powerful effect on her. Why? She wasn’t a teenager any more, but when she was with him she certainly felt like one.
No!
She wasn’t making that mistake again.
She was not going to fall for Zach a second time.
‘So that’s agreed, then.’ She made an effort to ignore the effect he had on her. ‘You’ll treat me like an adult and forget the fact that I once had pigtails and proposed to you.’
‘It’s a deal,’ he said softly. ‘Oh, and by the way—you look considerably better without the pigtails.’
For a moment their eyes held and she immediately forgot all her resolutions and allowed herself the luxury of one brief fantasy. Zach looking deep into her eyes and telling her that he loved her…
Oh, help! She was going mad.
‘Right, then.’ She backed away, forcing herself to break the spell. ‘I’d better get back to work.’
As she closed his office door behind her she gave a low groan.
