‘You don’t want to settle down?’
There it was. Their conversations always seemed to come back to that. No matter what they were discussing, her mother always seemed to be able to raise the topic of settling down.
By the age of twenty-six Lucy had been a mother of three but Ruby knew it hadn’t all been by choice and she had no intention of making the same mistakes her mother had made. She chose to ignore the fact that not only had she made some of the same mistakes, she had also made other, different, ones and now she was trying just to get through life. She wanted company but she didn’t want commitment. She didn’t want to share her private thoughts or her history with anyone else.
She could feel her hackles rising.
She knew she should be mature enough not to fight with her mother, especially not at the moment next to her sister’s ICU bed. Rose always tried to avoid confrontation and Ruby didn’t want to get into a fight here in case Rose could hear them. She knew she wouldn’t have given work a second thought if Lucy hadn’t asked about it and that realisation put a match to her already short fuse. She needed to remove herself from the situation before Lucy could ask any more questions.
‘Have you eaten today?’ she asked. She needed some breathing space and a quick trip to the hospital kiosk would give her a chance to get it. ‘I’m starving. I skipped breakfast so I might go and grab something to eat. Would you like something?’ She couldn’t remember when she’d last seen her mother eat and, as she expected, Lucy declined her offer.
As she left the ICU she couldn’t help but look at the empty space in the cubicle beside Rose. She hoped the vacant bed meant he’d been moved because he was recovering well. She didn’t want to think that things might have gone from bad to worse.
She kept her eyes peeled for him as she made her way along the hospital corridors but he was nowhere to be seen. It wasn’t as though she’d really expected to bump into him but she still felt a frisson of disappointment as she stepped up to the counter of the hospital kiosk and placed her order.
She just wanted to see him once more. She needed to know he was okay.
She picked up her green tea and vegetarian wrap and turned from the counter and found the person she’d been searching for. He was sitting on the opposite side of the room, watching her with his bright blue eyes.
It had been twenty-four hours since she’d seen him and she couldn’t help but think what a difference a day made. One day ago he’d been in an intensive care bed and now he was dressed and sitting in the hospital kiosk. Watching her.
Although he was on the far side of a crowded room Ruby would have sworn they had the place to themselves. She certainly wasn’t aware of anyone else. Not while he was watching her. Even from a distance the colour of his eyes was a vivid blue and somehow he had become familiar to her despite the fact she still had no idea who he was.
He smiled and her heart skipped a beat.
He didn’t look surprised to see her. Neither did he seem embarrassed to be caught watching her. If she didn’t know better she would think he’d been waiting for her.
Her heart pounded in her chest as she walked towards him. She told herself she had to walk past him to get out of the kiosk but there were actually several different exits, she could have easily chosen a different route, but her feet were already moving in his direction. It was no use pretending she didn’t want to see him; for the past two days she’d thought of nothing else except her sister and the stranger in the bed next to her.
She was three steps away when she discovered that the path she’d taken was blocked by his wheelchair. She hesitated and looked up, meeting his eyes, before continuing on another step.
‘Hello.’ His voice rumbled through her. It was deep and strong but quiet. It sounded as though he was far away but it was loud enough to bring her to a stop beside him. It was only one little word, two syllables, but to Ruby’s ears it was so much more than a simple greeting. To Ruby it was the start of something more.
‘HELLO,’ SHE MANAGED in reply, before her words disappeared and she stood in front of him completely speechless. She wasn’t normally tongue-tied and she knew she’d had a whole conversation planned for when she next saw him but that had been based on the expectation that he would still be in the ICU. Not sitting in the middle of a busy kiosk looking a picture of health.
Someone had washed his hair and Ruby could see now that it was more blond than brown. It swept back from his forehead in a widow’s peak, exposing his strong brow and allowing his blue eyes to shine, and hung to his jaw line, framing and accentuating the oval shape of his face. Despite the length of his hair and the fullness of his lips his was a masculine face, and as if to reinforce the fact his jaw was darkened by the growth of a new beard. In contrast to his hair his three-day designer stubble was more brown than blond. His face was pleasant and friendly and his smile was brilliant.
Ruby’s eyes dropped from his lips to his body. His right arm was tucked inside his T-shirt and she could see the tell-tale bumps and lumps from the sling, but his left arm was tanned and muscly, really muscly, and lightly dusted with fair hair.
He was wearing shorts and a hinged knee brace was fitted over his right leg. She remembered the list of injuries the nurse had rattled off. A fractured clavicle, ribs, elbow and femur. He’d certainly done a good job on himself. From the neck down he didn’t really look in a fit state to be out of the ward, let alone left abandoned in the kiosk.
‘Would you do me a favour?’ he asked, as Ruby finished her inspection and lifted her eyes back up to his face. She blushed slightly. She’d been caught blatantly checking him out.
Anything, she thought, but she just nodded in reply, still unable to find her voice.
At least he seemed willing and able to carry on a conversation. ‘Would you mind pushing me outside? I’d really love to get into the sunshine but I can’t move this damn thing without help,’ he said, as he used his head to gesture towards his chest and his arm where it lay trapped in the sling. ‘Actually, that’s not quite true,’ he clarified. ‘I can move but only if I’m happy to go round in circles.’
He smiled at her and Ruby’s heart skipped another beat. His smile was full of cheek and made his blue eyes sparkle. She could feel herself being taken in by his charm. He was handsome and charismatic and in her experience that was a dangerous combination. And she’d always been a sucker for danger.
She tilted her head to one side as she studied him. ‘How did you get down here?’ she asked. Her voice was husky. That wasn’t unusual but even to her ears it sounded huskier than normal, as if it had been days, not minutes, since she’d used it.
‘I bribed a nurse,’ he said with a wink.
Ruby felt the heat from his gaze course through her and she could just imagine the nurses falling over themselves to help him. She knew they’d normally be too busy to lend a hand—if a patient wanted to get outside they’d have to do so under their own steam—but seeing his smile and his automatic wink she knew just how that scene would have played out.
She raised one eyebrow. ‘I bet it was a young nurse.’
He laughed, or rather he began to laugh before he stopped short and winced, and Ruby realised his broken ribs must have been protesting, but even so the brief sound of his laugh reverberated through her and made her smile along with him.
‘It was,’ he admitted. ‘So, will you help me? I’ve had enough of being cooped up inside.’
She couldn’t blame the nurse who’d fallen for his charms, she could see