‘You can talk to me, Annika. You can trust that it won’t—’
‘Trust?’ She gave him a wide-eyed look. ‘Why would I trust you?’
It was the strangest answer, and one he wasn’t expecting. Yet why should she trust him? Ross pondered. All he knew was that she could.
‘You need to get home and get some rest,’ Ross settled for—except he couldn’t quite leave it there. ‘How about dinner …?’
And this was where every woman jumped, this was where Ross always kicked himself and told himself to slow down, because normally they never made it to dinner. Normally, about an hour from now, they were pinning the breakfast menu on the nearest hotel door or hot-footing it back to his city abode—only this was Annika, who instead drained her coffee and stood up.
‘No, thank you. It would make things difficult at work.’
‘It would,’ Ross agreed, glad that one of them at least was being sensible.
‘Can I ask that you don’t tell Caroline or anyone about this?’
‘Can I ask that you save these shifts for your days off, or during your holidays?’
‘No.’
They walked out to the car park, to his dusty ute and her powder-blue car. Ross was relaxed and at ease, Annika a ball of tension, so much so that she jumped at the bleep of her keys as she unlocked the car.
‘I’m not going to say anything to Caroline.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Just be careful, okay?’
‘I will.’
‘You can’t mess up on any ward, but especially not on children’s.’
‘I won’t,’ Annika said. ‘I don’t. I am always so, so careful …’ And she was. Her brain hurt because she was so careful, pedantic, and always, always checked. Sometimes it would be easier not to care so.
‘Go home and go to bed,’ Ross said. ‘Will you be okay to drive?’
‘Of course.’
He didn’t want her to drive; he wanted to bundle her into his ute and take her back to the farm, or head back into the coffee shop and talk till three a.m., or, maybe just kiss her?
Except he was being sensible now.
‘Night, then,’ he said.
‘Goodnight.’
Except neither of them moved.
‘Why are you going to Spain?’ Unusually, it was Annika who broke the silence.
‘To sort out a few things.’
‘I’m staying here for a few weeks,’ Annika said, with just a hint of a smile. ‘To sort out a few things.’
‘It will be nice,’ Ross said, ‘when things are a bit more sorted.’
‘Very nice,’ Annika agreed, and wished him goodnight again.
‘If you change your mind …’ He snapped his mouth closed; he really mustn’t go there.
Annika was struggling. She didn’t want to get into her car. She wanted to climb into the ute with him, to forget about sorting things out for a little while. She wanted him to drive her somewhere secluded. She wanted the passion those black eyes promised, wanted out of being staid, and wanted to dive into recklessness.
‘Drive carefully.’
‘You too.’
They were talking normally—extremely politely, actually—yet their minds were wandering off to dangerous places: lovely, lovely places that there could be no coming back from.
‘Go,’ Ross said, and she felt as if he were kissing her. His eyes certainly were, and her body felt as if he were.
She was shaking as she got in the car, and the key was too slim for the slot. She had to make herself think, had to slow her mind down and turn on the lights and then the ignition.
He was beside her at the traffic lights. Ross was indicating right for the turn to the country; Annika aimed straight for the city.
It took all her strength to go straight on.
CHAPTER FOUR
ELSIE frowned from her pillow when Annika awoke her a week later at six a.m. with a smile.
‘What are you so cheerful about?’ Elsie asked dubiously. She often lived in the past, but sometimes in the morning she clicked to the present, and those were the mornings Annika loved best.
She recognised Annika—oh, not all of the time, sometimes she spat and swore at the intrusion, but some mornings she was Elsie, with beady eyes and a generous glimpse of a once sharp mind.
‘I just am.’
‘How’s the children’s ward?’ Elsie asked. Clearly even in that fog-like existence she mainly inhabited somehow she heard the words Annika said, even if she didn’t appear to at the time.
Annika was especially nice to Elsie. Well, she was nice to all the oldies, but Elsie melted her heart. The old lady had shrunk to four feet tall and there was more fat on a chip. She swore, she spat, she growled, and every now and then she smiled. Annika couldn’t help but spoil her, and sometimes it annoyed the other staff, because many showers had to be done before the day shift appeared, and there really wasn’t time to make drinks, but Elsie loved to have a cup of milky tea before she even thought about moving and Annika always made her one. The old lady sipped on it noisily as Annika sorted out her clothes for the day.
‘It’s different on the children’s ward,’ Annika said. ‘I’m not sure if I like it.’
‘Well, if it isn’t work that’s making you cheerful then I want to know what is. It has to be a man.’
‘I’m just in a good mood.’
‘It’s a man,’ Elsie said. ‘What’s his name?’
‘I’m not saying.’
‘Why not? I tell you about Bertie.’
This was certainly true!
‘Ross.’ Annika helped her onto the shower chair. ‘And that’s all I’m saying.’
‘Are you courting?’
Annika grinned at the old-fashioned word.
‘No,’ Annika said.
‘Has he asked you out?’
‘Sort of,’ Annika said as she wheeled her down to the showers. ‘Just for dinner, but I said no.’
‘So you’re just flirting, then!’ Elsie beamed. ‘Oh, you lucky, lucky girl. I loved flirting.’
‘We’re not flirting, Elsie,’ Annika said. ‘In fact we’re now ignoring each other.’
‘Why would you do that?’
‘Just leave it, Elsie.’
‘Flirt!’ Elsie insisted as Annika pulled her nightgown over her head. ‘Ask him out.’
‘Enough, Elsie,’ Annika attempted, but it was like pulling down a book and having the whole shelf toppling down on you. Elsie was on a roll, telling her exactly what she’d have done, how the worst thing she should do was play it cool.
On and on she went as Annika showered her, though thankfully, once Annika had popped in her teeth, Elsie’s train of thought drifted back to her beloved Bertie, to the sixty wonderful years they had shared, to shy kisses at the dance halls he had taken her to and the agony of him going to war.