‘I am being lazy,’ Annika said as she crossed the room.
‘Why not?’ Ross said. ‘You have to work tonight.’
And he might never know how nice that sentence was—for surely he could never understand the battle of wills, the drama it entailed, merely for her to work.
Ross accepted it.
It was warm. The sun was streaming through the window, falling on the crumpled bed. After hot coffee and the omelette, wearing a thick dressing gown under the covers was suddenly making her feel way too hot. She stared at him, wanting to peel her dressing gown off, to stand naked before him and climb in bed beside him. He stared back for the longest time. The air was thick with lust and want, but with patience too.
‘Sleep.’ He answered the heavy unvoiced question by standing up. He stood in front of her, and she thought he would go, but she didn’t want him to.
There was a mire of confusion in her mind, because it was too soon and sometimes she wondered if she was misreading him. What if he was just a very nice guy who perhaps fancied her a little?
And then he answered her fleeting doubt.
His hands untied the knot of her dressing gown, and she stood as he slid it over her shoulders. She saw his calm features tighten a fraction, felt the caress of his gaze over her body and the arousal in the air.
She was naked in front of him, and he was dressed, and yet it felt appropriate. She could not fathom how, but if felt right that he should see her, that they glimpsed the future even if it was too soon to reach for it. She felt safe as he pulled the bedcovers over her.
Only then did he kiss her. He kissed the hollows of her throat, sitting on the bed, leaning over where she lay. He kissed her till she wanted him to lie down beside her again, but he didn’t. He kissed her until her hands were in his thick black hair, her body stretched to drag him down, but he didn’t lie down. He just kissed her some more, till her breath was as hard and as ragged as his. It was just a kiss, but it brought with it indecent thoughts, because they both explored what they knew was to come. Their faces and lips met, but their minds were meshed too. It was a dangerous kiss, that went on and on as her body flared for him, and then he lifted his head and smiled down.
‘Go back to sleep.’
‘You are cruel.’
‘Very.’ He smiled again, and then he left her, a twitching mass of desire, but relaxed too. She had never slept more, never felt more cherished or looked after. The horrors were receding with every hour she spent in his presence.
She slept till seven, and then showered and pulled on her uniform. She made his bed before heading downstairs. He offered her some dinner but she wasn’t hungry.
‘I need to go home and get my agency uniform, and perhaps …’ she blushed a little at her own presumption ‘… perhaps I should pack a change of clothes for tomorrow.’
‘Here.’ He handed her a key. ‘I lie in on Sunday. Let yourself in.’ And he handed her something else—a brown paper bag. ‘For your break.’
He had made her lunch—well, a lunch that would be eaten at one a.m., after she had helped to get twenty-eight residents into bed and answered numerous call bells.
She deliberately didn’t look inside until then. She sat down in the staffroom and took the bag out of the fridge and opened it as excited as a kid on Christmas morning.
He had made her lunch!
A bottle of grapefruit juice, a chicken, cheese and salad sandwich on sourdough bread, a small bar of chocolate and, best of all, a note.
Hope you are having a good shift.
R x
PS I am no doubt thinking about you. R xx
He was thinking of her.
Even though she had slept for most of the day, it had been nice knowing Annika was there, and without her now the house seemed empty and quiet.
He had never felt like this about anyone, of that he was sure.
Gypsy blood did flow in his veins, and it wasn’t just his looks that carried the gene. There was a restlessness to him that so many had tried and failed to channel into conventional behaviour.
He didn’t feel like that with Annika.
Yet.
Her vulnerability unnerved him, his own actions sideswiped him—it had taken Imelda months to get a key; he had handed it to Annika without thought.
He was going away in little more than a week, digging deep into his past, thinking of throwing in his job … He could really hurt her, and that was the last thing he wanted to do.
Ross headed upstairs and stepped into his room. He smiled at the bed she had made. The tangled sheets were tucked into hospital corners, his pillows neatly arranged. If it been Imelda it would have incensed him, but it was Annika, and it warmed him instead.
And that worried him rather a lot.
CHAPTER TWELVE
SHE flew through the rest of her shift.
There would be no words of wisdom from Elsie, though.
As Annika flooded the room with light at six the following morning, Elsie stared fixedly ahead, lost in her own little world. And though, as Elsie had revealed, she enjoyed being there, this morning Annika missed her. She would have loved some wise words from her favourite resident.
Instead she propped Elsie up in bed and chatted away to her as she sorted out clothes from Elsie’s wardrobe, her stockings, slippers, soap and teeth. Then Annika frowned.
‘Drink your tea, Elsie.’
No matter Elsie’s mood, no matter how lucid she was, every morning that Annika had worked there the old lady had gulped at her milky tea as Annika prepared her for her shower.
‘Do you want me to help you?’
She held the cup to her lips, but Elsie didn’t drink. The tea was running down her chin.
‘Come on, Elsie.’
Worried, Annika went and found Dianne, the Registered Nurse.
‘Perhaps just leave her shower this morning,’ Dianne said when she came at Annika’s request and had a look at Elsie. Instead they changed her bed, combed her hair, and Annika chatted about Bertie and all the things that made Elsie smile—only they didn’t this morning.
Annika checked her observations, which were okay. The routine here was different from a hospital: there was no doctor on hand. There was nothing to report, no emergency as such.
Elsie just didn’t want her cup of tea.
It was such a small thing, but Annika knew that it was vital.
It felt strange, driving home to someone.
Strange, but nice.
Since her mother had refused to talk to her about her work since she had supposedly turned her back on her family to pursue a ‘senseless’ career, Annika had felt like a ball-bearing, rattling around with no resting place, careering off corners and edges with no one to guide her, no one to ask where she was.
It felt different, driving to someone who knew where you had been.
Different letting herself in and knowing that, though he was asleep, if the key didn’t go in the lock she would be missed.
She felt responsible, almost, but in the