‘Don’t worry about it,’ Jasmine said. ‘You’re actually better than you used to be.’
‘Really?’
‘A bit,’ Jasmine lied. ‘How are the hot flashes?’
‘Only two today.’
‘How’s Ethan been?’ Jasmine asked as Penny tucked herself in.
‘Horrible,’ Penny said. ‘He’s still sulking about yesterday. I tried to apologise but he wasn’t having any of it. There’s not much more that I can do.’
But even if she shrugged it off to her sister, Penny was rattled because, yes, she had wanted to put it behind them, had wanted to start again, and, no, she didn’t want to but she felt the tiniest bit attracted to him.
ETHAN HAD LONG known that his cousin might die but on the eve of the funeral he couldn’t really acknowledge that Phil had.
Kate kept ringing and asking him to come over, except he didn’t want to talk about it, not even with those closest to him. Ethan had been dreading the funeral, had found himself starting to tear up when he’d asked Gordon to cover for him for the day, though he had kept the details minimal. Then Gordon rang to tell Ethan that he was up in Maternity as his wife, Hilary, had gone into early labour so he wouldn’t be able to cover Ethan’s shift after all.
‘Someone else should be able to cover you, though.’
‘It’s fine, Gordon,’ Ethan said. ‘I’ll sort something out, you just do what you have to.’ He wished him good luck and then looked at the roster. There were several doctors he could change with, he and Penny were on till six today, but tomorrow …
As she walked past he called over to her. Penny was perhaps not his first choice to ask, but it was a pretty straight swap.
‘Can I ask a favour?’
Please, don’t, Penny thought as she saw him looking at the roster because, in her impossible schedule, for the next couple of weeks there really was no room for manoeuvre, not that Ethan would know that.
‘Tomorrow I’m on from nine till six and you’re twelve till nine—is there any chance we can swap?’ She just blinked. ‘Though I might not get in till one.’
‘I can’t swap tomorrow, Ethan.’ She couldn’t. Not only did she have an ultrasound and blood test booked for tomorrow, she had a meeting with the specialist at nine.
‘I’ve got to attend a funeral,’ Ethan pushed, but didn’t go into detail, didn’t tell her that this was personal, he simply couldn’t. ‘Gordon was supposed to be covering for me, but his wife has gone into labour—premature labour,’ he added.
Penny hesitated; she knew she couldn’t say no.
Except she couldn’t say yes either, she simply could not miss her blood test—it was as essential as that.
She’d ring the IVF nurse, Penny decided, see if she could fiddle around her appointment, but for now, till she had, she’d have to stand firm.
‘Is there anybody else you can ask?’
‘A few.’
‘Well, see if they can help and if not, let me know.’
If she occasionally smiled, Ethan thought, she would actually be exceptionally attractive, but even then, with her terse attitude and unfeeling ways, Penny could never be considered beautiful. A black smile spread across his lips. She really was the limit and instead of leaving it there, Ethan found that he couldn’t. ‘What is your problem, Penny?’
‘Problem?’ Penny frowned. ‘I don’t have a problem. I simply can’t come in early tomorrow, that’s all.’
‘It was the same when I asked you to come in for a few hours the other day.’
‘So that you could go to a football match.’ Penny stared back coolly, looking into his angry eyes and surprisingly tempted to tell him that she had a vaginal ultrasound and a blood test booked for ten past eight tomorrow, just so that she could watch him squirm. ‘I’m sorry, Ethan, I have things on. I’m not able to simply change my schedule at a moment’s notice. If you can check with the others …’
‘Like it or not,’ Ethan said, ‘there has to be a senior staff member on at all times, and that sometimes means making last-minute changes to the roster.’
‘I’m aware of that,’ Penny responded.
‘Yet you don’t …’ He watched two spots of colour rising on her cheeks, and then she turned abruptly to go, but Ethan refused to leave it there. ‘You’re going to have to be more flexible.’
Her back was to him and he watched as Penny stilled, her shoulders stiffened and she slowly turned around. ‘Excuse me?’
‘In the coming days you’re going to have to be more flexible—Gordon will need some time after all.’
‘If Gordon’s wife having a baby leaves us short-staffed then it might be prudent to look at getting a locum because—and I am warning you now—I am not going to be dropping everything and coming into work and leaving here late and changing shifts at the last moment to accommodate Gordon, his wife and their baby.’
Penny was angry now and with good reason—part of her mandatory counselling before she’d commenced IVF had addressed problems such as this. Timing was important. These weeks were incredibly intense and to keep it from becoming a staffroom topic of conversation Penny had worked out her appointments very carefully around her work schedule. And now Hilary had gone into labour and she was supposed to juggle everything.
Well, Penny was doing this for her baby.
‘You’re such a team player,’ Ethan said.
‘Oh, but I’m not,’ Penny responded. ‘Ask anyone.’
‘I don’t need to ask, I’d say it’s already common knowledge.’ It was—Penny was the ice queen. He’d heard it from many and had seen it for himself, but she hadn’t finished yet, pulling Ethan up on a very pertinent point.
‘You’re talking as if Hilary is about to deliver a micro-prem when, in fact, she’s actually thirty-five weeks’ gestation.’ Ethan at that point actually had to suppress a smile, because she had well and truly caught him out. When he’d said premature labour he had been appealing or rather searching for the softer side to Penny, but he was fast realising that she simply didn’t have one. ‘I don’t respond to bells and whistles, Ethan. Give me a real drama and I’ll deal with it accordingly.’ She walked off and Ethan watched.
She was absolutely immaculate. Her straight blonde hair was tied low at the back of her neck. Her sheer cream blouse looked as if it had come straight off a mannequin at an expensive boutique and her charcoal-grey skirt was perfectly cut to show a very trim figure. If she had been just a few inches taller she could be walking down a runway instead of the corridor of the emergency department.
‘What do you respond to, Penny?’ The words were out of Ethan’s mouth before his brain had even processed them, and how he wished, the moment they were uttered, that he could take them back.
He was more than aware of the not-so-slight sexual undertone to them, and Ethan half expected her to turn on her low heels and march back to give him a sharp piece of her mind, or perhaps to head straight to Mr Dean’s office, but what happened next came as a complete surprise.
Ethan watched as Penny threw her head back and laughed and then glanced over her shoulder at him. He saw not the glitter of ice in those cold blue eyes but something far more fetching. And her mouth was