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She crossed her fingers behind her back for Adao, ignoring the tight twist of nerves constricting the oxygen in her lungs.
“Are you waiting for Ryan?”
Evie nodded, her smile hitting the ear-to-ear register. If a couple of red-breasted robins flew in the front door and began adorning her with mistletoe, she could easily be the poster girl for Cupid’s arrow. “He’s just come out of surgery. I’m swotting up for nursing college in the new term and he’s promised to talk me through all the signs, symptoms and early treatment for scarlet fever if I make him an early Christmas dinner.”
“Turkey and all the trimmings?” Naomi couldn’t hide her shock. She knew they were in love, but Christmas dinner on a “school night”?
“Giant prawn cocktails and pavlova.” Evie shrugged and shifted Grace in her arms again. Whatever her Australian-born fiancé wanted...
Naomi giggled. “You are well and truly loved up, aren’t you?”
Evie blushed in response. Her whole world had changed. “It’s not just me, is it? Have you seen Alice lately? Sunbeams. Everywhere she goes. And Marco can’t stop humming opera during surgery these days.” She drummed her free fingers on her chin and gave Naomi a mischievous sideways look. “I wonder who’s next?”
Naomi put up her hands and laughed. “Not me!” That ship of possibility had sailed long ago.
“Why not? You’re beautiful. Amazing at your job. You’d be a real catch.”
If cowardice was something a man could ever love, sure. But it wasn’t. Which was precisely why she kept herself just out of love’s reach.
She was just about say “Finn Morgan” to be contrary, but stopped herself. The man had scowling down to a fine art. At least around her. But the season of good cheer was upon them so she stuck to what had served her best when her past pounded at that locked door at the back of her mind: a positive attitude. “I reckon Mr. Holkham down in the cafeteria could do with a bit of a love buzz.”
Evie threw back her head and laughed. “A love buzz? I don’t know if that’s a bit too energetic for him. What is he? Around seventy?”
“I think so. I love that Theo hired retirees who wanted to keep active, but...if anyone needs a love buzz it’s him.” She made a silly face. “Anything to make him chirpier when he serves up the lasagna. Who wants garlic bread with a side of gloom?”
“Good point.”
Naomi could almost see the wheels turning in Evie’s mind...already trying to figure out who she could couple with the sweet, if not relatively forlorn, older gentleman. She’d tried to tease a smile from him every day since the hospital had opened, to no avail. Perhaps she should ask him for a coffee one day. Maybe he was just lonely. A widower.
She knew more than most that with love came loss and that’s why being cheerful, efficient and professional was her chosen modus operandi.
“Ooh, Gracie, look. It’s Daddy!” Evie took her daughter’s teensy hand and made it do a little wave as Ryan approached with a broad smile and open arms.
Naomi gave Evie’s arm a quick squeeze and smiled. “I’d better get up there.”
“All right. I’ll leave you to it, then,” Evie said distractedly, her eyes firmly fixed on her future husband.
Naomi took the stairs two at a time all the way up to the fifth floor, as she usually did. She put on the “feel good” blinkers and refocused her thoughts. She was feeling genuinely buoyed by her last session. A cheer-worthy set of results for her patient followed by a discharge. What a way to end a work day!
Watching a little girl skip—skip!—hand in hand with her parents straight out of the hospital doors and away home, where she would be able to spend Christmas with her family. A Christmas miracle for sure. Four months ago, when Violet had been helicoptered in from a near-fatal car accident, Naomi had had her doubts.
It was on days like this her job was the perfect salve to her past. Little girl power at its finest. And knowing she was playing a role in it made it that much better.
If she could keep her thoughts trained on the future, she could hopefully harness some of that same drive and determination in Adao. This was definitely not the time to let her own fears and insecurities bubble to the surface.
Then again, when was it the time?
Never. That was when.
So! Eyes on the prize and all would be well.
She hit the landing for the fifth floor and did a little twirl before pushing the door open.
Happy, happy, happy—Oh.
Not so happy.
The doctor’s hunched shoulders and pained expression spoke volumes.
And not just any doctor.
Finn Morgan.
Of all the doctors at Hope, he was the one she had yet to exchange a genuine smile with. Well...him and the cafeteria chap, but she had to work with Mr. Morgan and he made her feel edgy. The man didn’t do cheery. Not with her anyway.
Some days she had half a mind to tell him to snap out of it. He was a top surgeon at an elite private hospital. He worked on cases only the most talented of surgeons could approach with any hope of success. And still... King of the Grumps.
It wasn’t as if he wasn’t surrounded by people doing their best to create a warm, loving environment at Hope Hospital, no matter what was going on in their personal lives.
Not that she’d ever admit it, but most days she woke up in a cold sweat, her heart racing and arms reaching out for a family she would never see again.
If she could endure that and show up to work with a smile on her face, then whatever was eating away at him could be left at home as well.
She pushed the door open wider, took a step forward then froze. Her breath caught in her throat at the sound of the low moan coming from his direction. As silently as she could, she let the door from the stairwell close in front of her so that all she could see of him through the small glass window was his rounded back moving back and forth as he kneaded at something. His knee? His foot? She’d noticed a slight limp just the once but the look he’d shot her when he’d realized she’d seen it had been enough to send her scuttling off in the other direction.
Even so...
He was sitting all alone in the top floor’s central reception area, his back to her, the twinkling lights of the city beyond him outlining his broad-shouldered physique.
Her gut instinct was to go to Finn... Mr. Morgan, she silently corrected herself...but the powerful “back off” vibes emanating from him kept her frozen at the stairwell door.
She’d been flying so high after finishing with Violet she’d thought she’d put her extra energy to use helping Adao settle in. She’d already been assigned as his physiotherapist—work that wouldn’t begin until after his surgery with Finn Morgan—but she thought meeting him today might help him know there was someone who understood his world. His fears.
She pressed her hand against the glass as another low moan traveled across from the sofa where Finn remained resolutely hunched over his leg.
Something about his body language pierced straight through to her heart. A fellow lost soul trying to navigate a complicated world the best he could?
Or just a grump?
From what she’d seen, the man wouldn’t know a good mood if it bit him on the nose.
She pulled her gaze away from him and searched the skyline for Adao’s helicopter. She’d come here to find her patient, not snoop on a doctor clearly having a private moment.
She had little doubt the little boy was experiencing so many things that she had all those years ago when she’d arrived in the UK from Zemara. The language barrier. The strange faces. No family.
She swallowed against the lump forming in her throat and squeezed her eyes tight.
It was a long time ago.
Eleven years, two months and a day, to be exact.
Long enough to have moved on.
At least that’s what logic told her. But how did you ever forget the day you saw everyone you loved herded into a truck and driven away off to the mountains? Mountains rumored to be scarred with pre-dug mass graves for anyone the rebels deemed unfit for their indiscriminatingly cruel army.
Blinking back the inevitable sting of tears, she gave herself a sharp shake and forced herself to paste on a smile. Her life was a good one. She was doing her dream job. In one of the most beautiful cities in the world, no less. Every day she was able to help and nurture children who, against the odds, always found a way to see the good in things.
So that’s what she did, too. Focusing on the future was the only way she had survived those early days. And the only way she could live with herself now.
She pressed her forehead to the small, cool window in the door. In the dimly lit reception area—the lights were always lowered after seven at night—Finn had turned his face so that she could clearly see his profile.
He was a handsome man. Not storybook English—blond and blue-eyed, the way she’d once imagined everyone looked before she’d arrived in the UK. More...rugged, as if he’d just stepped off a plane from a long, arduous trek across the Alps rather than a doctor who had taken the elevator up from the surgical ward where he could usually be found. Not that she’d been stalking him or anything. Far from it. He was an arm’s-length kind of guy judging by the handful of terse encounters they’d had.
Come to think of it, every time their paths had crossed since the hospital had opened—either going into or coming out of a session—he’d bristled.
Physically bristled.
Not the usual effect she had on people but, hey...she didn’t need to be his bestie, she just needed a quality working relationship. That...and a bit of professional respect would be nice. Having seen his work on a near enough daily basis, she knew he respected her work...it would just be nice if that respect included the occasional smile or “Thank you.”
His hair was a rich, dark brown. A tangled mess of waves that could easily turn to curls if it grew out. He was a big man. Not fat. No. Tall and solidly built. A “proper” man, as her birth mother would have said. A real man.
She swallowed back the sting of tears that inevitably followed when she thought of her mother. Her beautiful mother, who had worked so hard to pay for her extra lessons from any of the aid workers who had been based out of her hometown for as long as she could remember.
And then, of course, there was also her foster mother. The one who had taught her that she still had it in her to be brave. Face the maze of applications she needed to complete to get into medical school one day and, eventually, fulfil her dream of working as a pediatric physiotherapist.
Touch, she’d come to realize, was one of the most curative things of all.
Finn shifted around on the sofa and—Oh!
Her fingers wove together and she pressed her hands to her mouth to stem her own cry. He wore a prosthesis. She’d had no idea.
And from the looks of things, his leg was hurting. A man as strong and capably built as Finn would have to be in some serious pain to look the way he did now. Slightly ashen. Breath catching. Unaware of everything else around him.
Instinct took over.
Before she thought better of it, she was by his side.
“Please. Perhaps I can help massage...” The rest of her offer died on her lips as she saw equal hits of horror and anger flash across his gray eyes.
She stood, completely frozen, mesmerized by their near-mystical depths.
How had she never noticed them before? So...haunted. She wondered if her dark eyes looked the same.
“What are you doing here?” Finn hastily grabbed his prosthesis and strapped it back on, despite the redness she saw engulfing his knee.
“I was just—I...”
I wanted to help.
“Well?” Finn rose alongside her, the scent of cotton and forest hitting her senses as he did.
She was tall so it took a lot of height to make her feel small. If the irritation radiating from him wasn’t making her feel as if she’d invaded an incredibly private moment, she could almost imagine herself feeling delicate in his presence.
Delicate?
What was that about?
Finn scanned her uniform for her employee badge, though she was sure he already knew her name. It was his signature on the forms requesting her as Adao’s physio.
She sucked in a breath. This was about Adao, not about Finn. Although...
Not your business. You have your secrets. He has his.
“Sorry. Please. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“No.” Finn stared at her for a moment then swiped at the air between them, causing her to flinch. “What do you need?”
“I-I was here to help with Adao,” she stammered. “I thought perhaps I could help settle him in.”
“What?” Finn bridled. “You think I’m not up to being my patient’s welcoming committee?”
She tilted her head to the side and pinched her lower lip with her teeth. Was he hoping for an honest answer? Or was this the famous British sense of humor at play?
Her silence seemed to give him the “No” he was expecting. His swift change of expression told her he was already dismissing her.
So much for trying to go the extra mile! She was about to tell him Adao was her patient too when, mercifully, Finn’s phone buzzed and those penetrating, moonstone-colored eyes of his relaxed their spotlight grip on her.
He was as chatty on the phone as he was with her. A few responses of “Yeah. Yeah. Got it...” later and he was beckoning her to join him.
Okay.
He swiftly crossed to the bank of elevators—so quickly it was difficult to see how he hid the pain—and punched the illuminated button as he pulled his key card out of his pocket. Only staff were allowed up onto the roof and the magnetic key cards were the only way of taking the elevator up there. “Adao’s ten minutes out. You done any helicopter arrivals before?”
She shook her head. Not here anyway. She’d seen more than her fair share before she’d left Zemara, but usually those helicopters had been filled with rebels wielding machine guns. Not charity workers with patients about to undergo life-altering surgery.
“Right.” Finn pulled a crumpled bit of notepaper out of his pocket. “Adao’s seven years old, suffering from—”
“Multiple injuries as a result of a landmine explosion,” Naomi cut in. She’d read the case. Memorized it. It had all but scored itself straight into her heart if the truth be told, but that wasn’t what this showdown was about. She kept on talking as the elevator doors opened and the hit of wintry air all but took her breath away. “Adao’s injuries include loss of his right arm. Efforts have been made to keep infection to a minimum, but our goal is to ensure he retains as much use of his shoulder as possible so that any use of a pros—’ She stopped, her eyes clashing with Finn’s—Mr. Morgan’s—as he wheeled on her.
“Fine. Good. I see you’re up on the case. How’s about we have a bit of quiet time before the chaos begins, yeah?”
Naomi nodded and looked away, forcing herself to focus on the crisp, starlit sky above them.
No problem.
She’d obviously seen far more than Finn—Mr. Morgan—had wanted her to. An incredibly private moment for a man who clearly didn’t do vulnerability.
Vulnerability and strength were two of the reasons she’d chosen to work at Hope. Most of the children here were going through something frightening. Loss of a limb. Surgery. Illnesses that meant they would be facing a future that would present hurdle after hurdle. And despite all the pain and all the suffering, the bulk of the children confronted their futures with a courage that amazed her on a daily basis. If she could be a part of making their future something to actually look forward to, then she was going to give it her all.
