‘I’ll let you know if I’m going to be late.’ She gave her mum a kiss on the cheek and said goodnight then headed out to the cool, dark street and along to the bar, trying to join in with Ellie’s easy chatter, but it was hard to be light-hearted when her mother made it such an effort to just go out. As she stepped into the bar, however, it wasn’t her mother’s veiled warning or an excess of blusher that had her cheeks pinking up again.
There was Moira and a few others, even Amy the registrar was sitting at the heavy wooden table. Making room for Ellie and Alison to join them, they ordered pizza. It wasn’t at all unusual for the emergency crew to go out on a Friday night and, yes, Coogee was lovely and this bar was one hospital staff often frequented. It was just a rather good turnout from Emergency and Alison knew why—because coming back from the bar, balancing a jug of beer and some glasses with a bottle of water tucked under his arm, was the reason.
‘Hey!’ Nick gave her a smile and gave Ellie one too. This was her local, Alison told herself as she took a seat and glanced through the menu. She didn’t just work nearby, she lived here, so more than anyone she had good reason to be there.
Except, Alison silently admitted, he was the real one.
CHAPTER TWO
EMERGENCY staff the world over knew how to have a good time when they were out, as Nick pointed out. Even the rather aloof Amy was letting her hair down and had had a dance, when she wasn’t monopolising Nick.
‘It’s like a home from home!’ Nick said to Alison as the table got louder and louder. ‘Not that I regularly joined the Friday night out.’
‘Too senior?’ Alison asked.
‘Too sombre,’ Nick said, at least that was what she thought he said, because the music was really loud. ‘Do you come here often?’
Alison grinned as, tongue in cheek, he delivered the cheesy line with a smile. ‘I live five minutes away, but, no, not that often,’ she admitted, because, well, it was true. ‘I like the cafés and restaurants.’ She didn’t get to finish as Moira tottered over, a little the worse for wear, and tugged at Nick to go and dance. Alison didn’t await his response, instead she disappeared through the beer garden and to the loo, where she stood for an inordinately long time, fiddling with her hair. Not that it made any difference but, ridiculously, she felt safer in there.
She could hear the thud-thud-thud of the band through the wall and it matched the thud-thud-thud of her heart, because she’d never, not once, found someone so instantly attractive. Oh, she knew she wasn’t the only one, yet he was the only one—the only one who just on sight triggered something, just on voice confirmed it, just on scent…
‘Moira…’ Nick peeled the nurse’s arm from around his neck with a smile. He was actually very good at letting a girl down gently, he’d had plenty of practice and though he’d enjoyed his holiday to date, the fun stopped when he started work—that sort of fun anyway. He took his work seriously, commanded respect and that was rather hard to come by the morning after a reckless night before. ‘I don’t dance.’
He didn’t flee to the toilets like Alison had, but he made his way there, a little annoyed that he had come, but Amy had suggested it and it had seemed a bit rude to say no. He had sensed things were getting a little out of hand and had been about to head off, but had got talking to Alison and somehow forgotten that he was supposed to be heading for home.
And there she was, walking toward him right now, and here too was the very reason he hadn’t headed for home when he should have.
‘Hey.’ He smiled down at her and she stopped walking. They stood in the beer garden amidst the noise and the chatter.
‘I thought you were dancing.’
‘Not for me.’ He gave her a smile, but it was a wry one, a lying one, a strained one, because as the music tipped into something a little slower, he would at that very moment have danced, would have loved to do just that, because somehow she exceeded his limits, somehow he knew she could break his self-imposed rule, because all of a sudden work didn’t matter.
‘I’m just about to head off,’ Alison admitted, because even if her stilettos seemed glued to the floor her heart was telling her to run.
‘Do you want to go somewhere?’ Nick’s mouth said the words, though his brain insisted he shouldn’t. ‘Just us.’ And Alison’s eyes jerked down instead of up. Down to his forearm, to the blond hairs on it, to long-fingered hands that she wanted to wrap around hers. And maybe it was the overhead gas heaters in the beer garden, but the air was hot and her mind wasn’t clear because with the pulse of the music and the laughter from beyond, it would, at that moment, have been so very easy to just be twenty-four.
To just be.
And, of course, just a moment later she recalled why she couldn’t just be.
Alison looked up then to green eyes that awaited her response, that could never guess the inner turmoil inside her, who assumed, that for Alison, it was as easy as making a decision and grabbing her bag.
She shook her head and with good reason. Coogee was teeming with holidaymakers, with good-looking, testosterone-laden, ‘here for a good time not a long time’ males, and even if he was gorgeous, Nick could never be any different.
‘No, thanks.’
‘Hey, Nick!’ Moira’s radar located them and rather unsteadily she teetered towards them. ‘We’re heading into town…’
Alison didn’t wait to see if Nick was joining them. Instead she said goodnight, gathered her bag and walked, not along the street but along a beach that was dotted with small groups and some couples, and it was a relief to be out of there and a relief to be alone.
He was dangerous.
At least, he was to someone like her.
He had been flirting—oh, not anything major, but his glorious attention had homed in on her, more than a touch. She was quite sure that Nick did want to get to know her a little better—which, to Alison, just seemed pointless. He’d be gone in a few weeks, he was just there for some fun, which Alison didn’t readily do.
Why, she asked herself as she walked along the beach she knew and loved, couldn’t she be like Ellie, or Moira—just out there having fun, without worrying about tomorrow?
Her phone buzzed in her bag and she didn’t need to check it to know it was from her mother. It was fifteen minutes after midnight after all.
‘I just texted you!’ Rose said as she walked in the door. ‘I just wanted to know if you were going to be late.’
‘I said I’d call if I was.’
‘Well, it is after midnight.’
‘Well, it is after midnight.’ For a shadow of a second, she could almost hear Tim’s voice, could almost picture her brother standing right where she was in the kitchen, good-naturedly teasing Rose when he came in late at night and Rose complained.
Except there had been Dad then to argue his case for him and, anyway, Tim had a way to him that always won their mum around.
God, but she missed him.
And her father too.
Missed, not just the people but the family they had been then, the security the others had provided, unnoticed at the time, the certainty they were there for each other, which had all been ripped away. So instead of a smart retort Alison looked instead at the fear in her mother’s eyes and apologised for not texting and had a cup of tea and a chat with her mum, till Rose headed off for bed.
Then later, alone, when surely all her friends were still out, she went on the computer and checked her social network profile. She had one friend request and, yes, it was from Nick. He must befriend everyone, Alison decided,