‘I really didn’t have any choice.’ Shelly shrugged. ‘There’s been a big fat zero beside my name where night shifts have been concerned recently. Bring back the old days, I can’t stand internal rotation.’
‘Sounds painful!’
Shelly let out a gurgle of laughter and stood up delightedly. ‘Ross!’
‘The one and only.’
‘Only you could find a sexual connotation with the nursing roster! So how are you finding it? Back in civilisation after all this time?’
‘I’ve had a very civilised couple of years, thank you very much,’ Ross corrected, wagging his finger playfully. ‘There’s a bit more to the outback than tents and billy tea but, yes, it’s good to be back, I think.’
‘You think?’ Shelly questioned with a grin. ‘I would have thought they’d be treating you gently on your first day back.’ She was blushing to her toenails now, shamefully aware that the perfume, the hairdresser’s, even the shaved legs and smooth bikini line had been done entirely for the benefit of this quick delicious moment at handover, to show Ross somehow that she hadn’t completely let herself go just because she’d had a baby. There was nothing like an old friend reappearing after a prolonged absence to force a critical look in the mirror, and now that the vague chance she’d catch Ross on his way off duty had materialised, Shelly was taken back by the rush of emotion that had engulfed her.
Ross Bodey was back in town, and he looked absolutely divine, his blond hair practically white now, courtesy of the hot Australian sun, and his face brown and smooth, accentuating the impossibly blue eyes.
‘I’ve only just set foot in the place.’ Ross grimaced. ‘Luke Martin is off sick so they rang me at the crack of dawn this morning to tell me I’m going to be stuck on nights for the next week, so there goes my social life. How about you?’
For a second Shelly’s eyes flickered to Melissa who sat innocently staring at the whiteboard, jotting down the names of the children and babies under the care of the ward that night. ‘I don’t have a social life, Ross. I’ve got a son to think of now. Wine bars and night-clubs are but a distant memory these days.’
‘I meant what shift are you on?’
‘Nights.’ Shelly had to forcibly remove the grin from her face and remember she was supposed to be disgruntled about the fact.
‘So we’re stuck with each other?’ Ross wasn’t even pretending to look disgruntled. He was grinning from ear to ear, teasing her with his smile.
‘It looks that way.’
‘So you don’t have a social life.’ Smiling, he tutted a few times. ‘Haven’t you heard of babysitters?’
‘Not with the tantrums my son’s been throwing lately. I wouldn’t inflict that temper on anyone just yet.’
Ross just laughed. ‘So Matthew’s hitting the terrible twos with a vengeance?’
‘That’s an understatement.’ Shelly’s voice stayed light, her grin stayed put, but her mind was whirring as the beginning of a frown puckered her forehead. ‘How did you know his name?’
Ross shrugged. ‘Melissa told me. So who’s looking after him tonight?’
Her frown deepened. Melissa had obviously told Ross a bit more than Matthew’s name. ‘My parents are, they’ve been really good. You know about Neil and me, then?’
Ross nodded. Moving away from the desk slightly, they found their own private space in the corridor, slipping so easily back into their ways of old. ‘It can’t have been easy for you.’
Shelly gave a slightly brittle laugh. ‘That’s an understatement.’
Ross didn’t comment at first, the silence around them building as Shelly stood there wondering how much to tell, scuffing the highly polished floor with her rubber soles and leaving little black marks that would have the cleaners in hysterics in the morning.
‘Neil told me he was leaving us the day I was due to be discharged from hospital, the day I was supposed to bring Matthew home.’ Her voice was shaky and she couldn’t even look up as she recounted her story, sure the inevitable pity she was so tired of seeing in people’s eyes would send her into floods of tears. ‘He said he couldn’t cope with a handicapped child, that it just wasn’t what he was cut out for.’
‘Then you’re better off without him.’
Shelly looked up with a start. There was no pity in his voice or in his gorgeous blue eyes, just the cool sound of reason.
‘So everyone keeps telling me,’ Shelly sighed. ‘And they’re all probably right. But is it better for Matthew? Surely he needs a father?’
‘Not that sort,’ Ross said quickly, his voice strangely flip, a defiant jut to his chin. Suddenly he looked older than twenty-seven. He certainly didn’t look like the carefree backpacker she’d built in her mind. He looked every bit the man he was. ‘Children need to feel loved, safe and wanted, which are the three things Neil can’t give him, so if you ask me, Matthew’s better off without him. You, too, so I’m not going to make small-talk, passing on my condolences about the demise of your marriage when your divorce obviously agrees with you. You look the happiest I’ve seen you in a long time.’
‘I am,’ Shelly said slowly, the words a revelation even to herself. The divorce had hurt, but her grief had been expended long ago. The tears she cried now when she thought about the end of her marriage weren’t for herself and what she’d lost but for her little boy, a two-year-old child whose father simply didn’t want to know. Yet for all the angst, for all the struggle, both financially and emotionally, for all the responsibility of being a single parent, for the first time in over two years Shelly actually realised just how much she had moved on.
That she was finally making it.
Not happy exactly, but definitely getting there.
As Melissa stood up Shelly picked up her notepad. ‘I’d better go and get the handover. I’ll catch up with you later.’
‘No doubt about that.’
Her cheeks were burning as she took handover, her mind flitting as she desperately tried to concentrate, tried to ask intelligent questions and make sure she had all the drip rates and drugs due diligently written down in her usual neat handwriting as Annie, the sister in charge of the late shift, told the night staff about the patients on the ward. But there was no chance of that. Her mind was saturated with Ross, going over and over their brief but long-awaited exchange. Still, when Annie gave the details of the latest admission, Shelly’s ears pricked up and all thought of Ross flew out of the window, momentarily at least.
‘We’ve got a new patient direct from Theatre—Angus Marshall, twenty months old with a spiral fracture of the femur.’
Shelly’s eyes shot up as Annie continued. A spiral fracture in a child was an injury that sounded alarm bells and Shelly’s were ringing, but Annie quickly shook her head to dispel any worries.
‘The staff in Emergency are happy with the story—they don’t think it’s a non-accidental injury. Apparently he’s just started walking so the injury could have happened when he fell.’
‘Could have?’ Shelly questioned, knowing that injuries like that were sometimes caused by an abusive parent.
‘They’re not sure how it happened, there’s a big sister and a new baby at home so it’s obviously a busy house. Apparently Angus was very grouchy and reluctant to weight-bear and his mum noticed the swelling so she took him to their GP who sent them over to us. They’re nice people, the child’s beautifully looked after.’
‘That doesn’t mean anything.’ Melissa’s stern voice matched Shelly’s thoughts exactly.
‘I’m