Phil’s behaviour was exemplary, and when he put his arm around her as they walked back to her place, she accepted it, knowing he was a toucher, and telling herself they’d be working together for a year and she’d better get used to it. But having Phil walk her home wasn’t the same as having Alex do the short trip, and she felt a surge of regret that he’d been called away.
A totally uncalled-for surge of regret, given how adamant she’d been about their dinner together not being a date.
Phil saw her safely to her door, said goodnight, took a couple of steps towards the gate, then turned.
‘I’m sorry it was Alex called away, not me,’ he said. ‘He doesn’t do much relaxing and I think an evening with you would have been just what the doctor ordered for him.’
He grinned at her, then added, ‘Just what this doctor would have ordered, anyway.’
He hesitated, as if expecting her to say something, and when she didn’t, he spoke again.
‘Are you interested? In Alex?’
Another pause during which he maybe realised he’d overstepped some invisible boundary.
‘Not that it’s any of my business,’ he added quickly. ‘But I kind of like the chap and I’d like to see him happy. Not that he’s not happy. Lives for his work. But that’s hardly a balanced life.’
Annie beat down the excitement this conversation had generated, and said quietly but firmly, ‘I don’t think we should be discussing Alex behind his back.’
Phil seemed surprised, but he took it well, shrugging his shoulders and repeating his goodnight. Then he walked off up the road, not turning in at his gate but going on to the hospital.
Where little Amy was fighting for her life!
Annie wanted to call Phil—tell him she’d go with him—but there was nothing she could do up there, and Amy was in the best possible hands.
But knowing that didn’t help her sleep, and at five she gave up, got out of bed, showered and dressed and walked up to the hospital.
The first person she saw in the ward was Alex. An exhausted, unshaven-looking Alex, who greeted her with a tired smile.
‘You know, you’re admin staff now and don’t have to be here all the time,’ he teased, and she was pleased to hear the words, certain he wouldn’t be making light-hearted comments if Amy hadn’t survived the night.
‘She’s all right?’ Annie asked, needing the verbal confirmation.
‘She’s one tough little lady,’ Alex said. ‘It’s an infection, not a haemorrhage—thank heaven.’
Then he rubbed his hands across his face.
‘Fancy thanking heaven for an infection in so frail a child, but I doubt she’d have survived another operation. We’ve done a culture and now have gram specific antibiotics running into her, and she’s slowly improving. I’m worried about fluid retention. The kidneys are susceptible to damage when a patient’s on bypass, and I hate to think we’ve added kidney problems to her other burdens.’
‘Catheter OK?’ Annie asked, remembering a child she’d nursed who’d had every test imaginable for bladder and kidney problems, and in the end the trouble had been with his catheter.
‘I like your thinking,’ Alex told her. ‘They’re such tiny tubes for infants, they could easily block or kink. I’ll check that now.’
Annie stayed and talked to Amy’s father, who came out of the room while Alex watched the intensivist on duty remove the old bladder catheter and insert a new one.
‘He’s been here all night,’ Mr Carter told her, nodding towards the glass-enclosed room where they could see Alex bending over the bed. ‘I doubt my wife would have gone away to have a rest if he hadn’t persuaded her and promised he’d stay himself until she got back. You don’t get many specialists like that.’
‘No, you don’t,’ Annie agreed, feeling ashamed she’d regretted him being called away, though it had hardly been a date with Phil there. Then she wondered just when Mrs Carter would get back. Alex, too, needed to sleep.
Annie went into the next room, where small Alexander Ross was now off the ventilator. An older woman—one of the brace of grandparents, no doubt—was dozing in the chair beside his bed.
‘He’s doing well enough to be going to the ward tomorrow.’
Annie swung towards the speaker, and then regretted it, because she wanted nothing more than to run her hands across his face, smoothing away the lines of tiredness.
‘That’s wonderful,’ she said instead. ‘His recovery’s going far better than we’d expected, isn’t it?’
Alex nodded then led her out of the room.
‘Far better,’ he confirmed. ‘Are you going back home now you’ve checked on your two patients?’
‘I suppose so,’ Annie said, ‘though Dad will still be in bed so I thought I might stop at the canteen for breakfast. They do a wicked big breakfast here.’
‘I obviously didn’t feed you enough last night,’ Alex said mournfully. ‘But now you mention it, a big breakfast might just hit the spot. Mrs Carter is back with Amy so, come, let me escort you to the canteen.’
He bent his arm and held it towards her and Annie could hardly refuse to tuck her hand into the crook of his elbow. What did surprise her, though, was the way Alex then drew her hand close to her body and, in so doing, drew her body close to his.
‘Story of my life,’ he said conversationally as they walked along the corridor to the far lift that would take them directly down to the canteen. ‘Phil and I entertaining a beautiful lady, and he gets to take her home.’
He was holding her too firmly for Annie to pull away, and she hoped he didn’t feel the blush that spread through her body.
‘Beautiful lady, indeed!’ she scoffed, as they reached the foyer and were waiting for the lift. ‘Look at me! Straight out of bed into jeans and trainers—slept-in hair and no make-up.’
But if he heard the last part he gave no sign of it, saying only, ‘I do look at you, Annie,’ in a voice that made her toes curl in the tips of the maligned trainers. ‘All the time.’
CHAPTER SIX
‘WHAT do you mean?’
Her voice seemed to come from a long way off, and it wavered slightly, but she got the question asked.
Alex looked down at her and a smile shifted the lines in his tired face.
‘Just that,’ he said. ‘I find myself looking at you—or looking for you if you’re not around. Part of it’s to do with a ghost who’s haunted me for the past five years, but more to do with the flesh-and-blood woman who came into my life less than a week ago. Crazy, isn’t it?’
The lift arrived and they squeezed in, Alex still holding her close. The lift was full of staff heading for breakfast, and various acquaintances greeted Annie. Hospital gossip being what it was, she was glad she was working in the unit now and not out on a ward where she’d have been teased unmercifully about such blatant behaviour as standing arm in arm with her boss.
But the press of bodies also saved her answering Alex—had she had an answer—and they travelled in silence, then discussed food options as they stood in the queue, everything so back to normal that Annie thought they were safely past the conversation until, once seated at a table in a quiet corner of the room, Alex reintroduced it.
‘You must think I’m crazy, and maybe I am. If this conversation embarrasses you, please write it off as lack of sleep, but yesterday in the park I spent so much time