Connor grinned along with them but made a mental note to point out to his anaesthetist colleague, Mike, that the pot shouldn’t be calling the kettle too black. Maybe they’d be able to get a game of squash in this evening and they could discuss it then.
He didn’t get another chance to try and chat Bella up. Partly because he was too busy with his work but also because she got sent out of Theatre. Maybe it wasn’t really her fault that the accident had happened. Technicians were moving some heavy gear and she got in the way somehow and was almost knocked off her feet. Fortunately, she managed not to fall into the sterile field but nobody was thrilled by the explosive disruption of the heavy metal object she’d been carrying hitting the floor. Bella didn’t look too thrilled either, because the collection of used surgical instruments destined for the steriliser had landed on her foot and she was limping quite badly as she slunk out.
She wasn’t limping when he spotted her later, having finally escaped the intense surgical session. She was sitting on a couch near a set of lifts, her shoe off, rubbing at her foot.
‘Broken bone?’ Connor suggested hopefully. ‘Do you need the services of an orthopaedic surgeon perhaps?’
Bella scowled at him. ‘You don’t need to rub it in. I already feel like a complete klutz. It’s just a bruise.’ She glanced at her mobile phone as a text-message alert sounded. ‘Darn … I was hoping to get a ride home but it looks like I’ll have to find a bus.’
It was obviously painful to try and put her foot into her shoe. And no wonder, the high heels weren’t exactly practical.
Connor couldn’t resist a maiden in distress. ‘Don’t force it,’ he advised. ‘Leave it off and get some ice on your foot when you get home.’
‘That’ll be a good look, running for the bus in bare feet.’
‘You could call a taxi.’ Connor wasn’t going to leap in to the rescue if it wasn’t welcome.
Bella shook her head firmly. ‘No way. I’m saving up to head overseas. Every penny counts.’
‘In that case, please let me offer to be of service with no scalpel in sight. I have an extra helmet in my locker.’
‘Helmet?’ Bella’s eyes brightened. ‘You ride a bike?’
‘Sure do.’
Her glance was curious. ‘You’re an orthopaedic surgeon and you just spent hours putting a teenager back together after he fell off a motorbike. Are you nuts?’
‘Probably. Want a ride home?’
Bella grinned. ‘Sure.’
It was all a bit too easy, Connor decided, following Bella’s directions to one of the nicer city suburbs. He should be delighted. Here he was, riding his bike with the arms of a beautiful girl wrapped around his waist. A perfect girl, given her liking for motorbikes and the willingness to take a bit of a risk. Taking her home where she’d probably ask him in for a coffee or something and he could offer to check out her foot and one thing would inevitably lead to another and …
There was no challenge here.
The sacrilegious thought that the predictability could be boring was unexpected. Disturbing, even.
So disturbing that Connor suppressed his intention to decline the offer to go inside the rather lovely old house he took her to. He must be tired or something, he decided. Maybe the loss of one of his young patients had affected him more than he’d realised. If an evening with Bella didn’t perk him up, he’d know there was something seriously amiss.
‘Nice place,’ he said, pulling off his helmet.
‘It belongs to my aunt,’ Bella told him. ‘I’m just living with her while I’m working at St Pat’s. She works there, too. Come on in. You probably know each other already.’
It was quite possible. Connor was friendly with a lot of the older members of the nursing staff. It was a bonus that Bella wasn’t living with a bunch of nurses close to her own age. Even with his current ambivalence about taking this acquaintance any further, it would be rather awkward if an old girlfriend was lurking.
He had time to look around as Bella hobbled up the hallway ahead of him. The house was even nicer on the inside. The aunt clearly had good taste. She could cook, too, judging by the very appetising aroma that was coming from the area Bella veered into at the end of the hallway.
‘Oh, my God,’ he heard a woman’s voice say in concern. ‘Why are you limping? What have you done to yourself this time?’
This time? Was Bella accident prone? Maybe she needed looking after.
‘Someone moved an X-ray machine in Theatre and I wasn’t expecting it,’ Bella was explaining as Connor entered the room. ‘I lost my grip on this bucket of stuff for the steriliser. It wasn’t my fault.’ She twisted her head. ‘Was it, Connor?’
But Connor couldn’t say anything in Bella’s defence. He hadn’t seen the incident in the first place and right now it was the furthest thing from his mind. He wasn’t even looking at Bella. He was staring at Kate Graham.
At least, he thought it was Kate.
Maybe it was the good twin? This woman looked like Kate but couldn’t look more different, which made no sense. His head was spinning. The good twin was wearing jeans. Not just any old jeans. These were beloved old, soft, faded jeans with frayed knees and bare feet beneath them. There was a pale, grey T-shirt that was way too big. Big enough for a bare shoulder to be peeping through the neckline. She had no glasses on and her hair hung in a black curtain almost to her waist. A damp kind of curtain, as though she’d just jumped out of a shower.
Or into a movie scene. The prude versus vamp one. To his horror, Connor felt something remarkably like a blush stirring under his skin.
Bella was looking at him and then at Kate. Back and forth as if she was watching a slow-motion tennis game.
‘I thought you guys would know each other,’ she said. She gave an exasperated huff. ‘Kate, this is Connor. I can’t remember his last name. He’s a surgeon at St Pat’s. Connor, this is my aunt, Kate Graham. She hangs out in Pathology.’ She shrugged. ‘I guess St Pat’s is bigger than I thought so maybe your paths never cross.’
Connor was grappling with a new sensation.
Acute embarrassment? Probably. He couldn’t escape the impression that he was seeing something he wasn’t supposed to be seeing. As if he was some kind of voyeur peeping through a gap in a curtain. This was even worse than the bit of leftover guilt from the knowledge of how rude he’d been to her the other day. On top of both those unpleasant sensations there was also something he didn’t want to identify that had to be blamed on the absurd flight of fancy whilst scrubbing in this afternoon.
He cleared his throat. He had to say something. Kate was doing that totally-lost-for-words thing again.
‘They’ve … um … crossed,’ he muttered.
‘Oh, good.’ Bella gave Kate a quick hug on her way towards the fridge. ‘Have we got any ice? I think I should put some on my foot. Connor was kind enough to give me a ride home when I found I couldn’t fit my shoe back on.’
‘Three days,’ Kate muttered, her tone faintly incredulous.
‘What?’ Bella looked up from the depths of the freezer. ‘You think I need to ice my foot for three days?’
‘I … No, of course not. If it’s still that sore and swollen tomorrow, you’d better get an X-ray. You might have broken something.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ Connor said. ‘Heavy things, those buckets. Especially when they’re full of the kind of surgical gear we use for rearranging bones.’
Bella had a bag