Picking up the Pieces

MILLS & BOON

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Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

NICK DAVIDSON Was Lonely.

Not just alone. He was used to that. He’d been alone for years, since he’d conceded defeat over his disastrous marriage.

Now, for the first time, he was lonely — lonely, and suffering from a severely deflated ego.

He’d always told himself that if he’d wanted to, if he’d really made the effort, he could get Jennifer back.

‘Well, you were wrong, old buddy,’ he muttered.

He glanced round without interest.

It was a typical room in a typical hospital residence — clean, the décor uninspired and marred by little patches on the wall where Sellotape had stripped tiny sections of the shiny paint. This paint was a nondescript cream, not dissimilar to the room at the Audley where he had spent the past two months trying to woo Jennifer back.

He snorted softly.

Fat chance he had stood. She had got married again on Christmas Eve, to a man for whom Nick had the utmost — if grudging — respect. And Tim, Nick’s son, would live with them.

That hurt. The rest — watching her standing beside Andrew as they made their vows, seeing the love in her eyes for another man — none of that had hurt him, although he had thought it would. No, only Tim.

Nick blinked hard and focused his eyes on the that would be his home now for the next few months, until either the post was made permanent or he moved on. His flat was too far away to be of use in this job, and so he had given up his lease, ready anyway for a change of scenery. Perhaps he’d buy a little house if he settled here.

For now, though, it was home, if that wasn’t too evocative a word for the barren little cell he was standing in. Barren and hot. They were all either too hot or too cold. This one was scorching, and Nick threw open the window.

It was New Year’s Eve, and bitterly cold, but it hardly seemed to penetrate the emptiness inside him.

The residence, the teaching block and the old wing of the hospital formed four sides of a square, and in the centre a group of early revellers were singing and dancing round the frozen fountain.

At this rate, he thought sourly, they’ll be out for the count by eleven o’clock and miss all the jollity.

He shut the window again to drown out the noise of their singing and threw himself down on the bed.

The springs growled in protest.

Nick gave a wry snort. That was all he needed — a bed that would keep him awake all night!

There were voices in the corridor now, people laughing, someone yelling something about a party.

But no one was about to invite him, because there was no one who knew him yet. Anyway, he didn’t feel much like celebrating.

Instead, intending to find the orthopaedic wards and make himself known, he tugged on a jumper, slipped his wallet into the back pocket of his trousers and stepped out into the corridor.

Something soft and delicately scented hit him square in the chest, and his hands flew up automatically.

The girl was slim, her shoulders fragile under his hands, her sparkling green-gold eyes framed by a soft mass of gleaming golden curls. She straightened and laughed up at him. ‘Sorry!’ she apologised, and Nick smiled slightly.

‘My pleasure.’

‘Oh!’ A soft flush coloured her cheeks, and her smile faltered. Then it reappeared, and she continued, slightly breathlessly, ‘I’m Cassie — Cassie Blake. You’re new, aren’t you? I saw you moving in earlier.’

He nodded. ‘I’m the orthopaedic SR. Name’s Nick Davidson.’

Her smile dimpled her cheeks. ‘Well, hi. I’m a theatre sister up there — I expect we’ll be seeing a lot of you. Ciao for now!’ She moved away with a little waggle of her fingers in farewell, then turned back. ‘Just a thought — are you doing anything tonight?’

He shook his head. ‘No, nothing. Thought I’d go and introduce myself on the wards.’

She pulled a face. ‘There’s hardly anyone to meet up there. Come to the party — most of them will be there. I’m on duty so I’ll probably be in and out, but I can introduce you round, if you like?’

Suddenly, wandering round the hospital on his own didn’t appeal any more. Nick grinned. ‘Done — give me two ticks to change.’

She ran her eyes over his jeans and cotton sweater, and shook her head, setting the pale gold hair dancing again. Her smile was warm and welcoming, and he felt the loneliness recede a little. ‘You’re fine. Come as you are.’

And so he found himself in the bar, shaking hands, forgetting names almost before they were spoken, smiling and laughing and telling jokes, yelling above the increasing din, until at a quarter to twelve Cassie found him again, her face worried.

‘Have you seen Trevor Armitage?’ she yelled.

He frowned. ‘Rings a bell. I don’t know — what does he look like?’

She grabbed his arm and dragged him out of the noisy bar into the corridor.

‘That’s better. He’s short, fair hair, moustache — he’s the other orthopaedic reg. There’s a whole scad of RTAs out there and we need him, but he isn’t answering his bleep — oh, damn, this is typical.’

‘Er — I think I saw him headed for the loo — let me go and check.’

Nick turned back into the cacophony of the bar and made his way across the crowded floor to the gents’.

There, sprawled across the floor with a sickly smile on his face, was a man with fair hair and a moustache.

‘Are you Trevor?’ Nick asked him.

‘Might be … Who wansh to know?’ he slurred.

Nick straightened. ‘Forget it, friend, you aren’t doing anything tonight.’

He headed back out and found Cassie waiting for him by the door.

‘Well?’

‘Out for the count.’

‘Oh, damn — what are you doing for the next few hours?’

He grinned in defeat. ‘Operating?’

‘Are you sober?’

Nick nodded. ‘Better than him — I’ve been on mineral water since ten, and I only had two drinks before that.’

Cassie’s face lit up. ‘Great. Come on, the team’s waiting. When does your contract start officially?’

Nick glanced at his watch. ‘In about six minutes?’

‘Perfect.’

‘Oh, my … He is gorge-ous!’

‘Hmm?’

Cassie tried to drag her eyes away from the mirror and her inch-by-inch inspection of Nick, scantily clad in theatre greens, the short sleeves amply displaying his lean, well-muscled arms with their dark scatter of hair; there was more of the same hair clustered at the base of his throat, curling slightly against the edge of the V. It looked impossibly soft. She wondered how it would feel ——

‘Ah-hem.’

‘What?’ She jumped guiltily and blinked at her colleague. ‘Sorry, Mary-Jo, did you say something?’

Mary-Jo chuckled. ‘Pardon me for interrupting! I said, he’s gorgeous. Six feet of solid M-A-N — whoo-whee!’

Oh! Well, I suppose so, if he’s your type…’ Cassie hastily stuffed her hair under her cap and skewered it with grips, and tried to ignore Mary-Jo’s soft laughter behind her.

‘Oh, yes, he’s my type … I wonder if he’s single?’

‘Haven’t got a clue.’

‘I’ll have to find out.’ Mary-Jo practised her smile in the mirror beside Cassie, and then winked at her. ‘We can’t have all that testosterone going to waste — criminal!’

Cassie laughed. ‘You’re disgusting.’

‘No, I’m realistic. It wouldn’t hurt you to be exposed to a little testosterone every now and again. In fact, I’ll be generous. As a seasonal gesture of goodwill, I’ll let you have him — how about that for a New Year present?’

‘Wasted,’ Cassie said drily.

Mary-Jo shrugged. ‘Oh, well, don’t say I didn’t offer, but there’s a limit to my generosity, and he is quite spectacularly gorgeous …!’

Gorgeous? Gorgeous didn’t even begin to touch it, Cassie thought. All afternoon she’d noticed him, carrying stuff in and pottering in and out of his room, and then their meeting — well! Crashing into his chest was just calculated to do unbelievable things to her blood-pressure, but surely to goodness it should have settled down by now!

And she was going to be working with him, though how she had no idea. Every time she looked up, he seemed to fill her vision, and her heart seemed to have acquired a unique rhythm all of its own tonight.

Lord knows what’s so special about him, she thought. He wasn’t particularly tall — maybe six feet, certainly not much more — not particularly broad, although what she could see of him was beautifully put together; all in all, he was pretty average, really, except for those eyes. That was it, the eyes, that amazing, shatteringly clear blue — or was it the way that oh, so soft dark hair flopped over his eyes, or the little-boy grin, lop-sided and appealing?

She shook her head hard to clear it, muttering under her breath, and jumped when his soft, husky voice sounded in her ear.

‘OK?’

She swallowed, forced herself to meet those beautiful eyes in the mirror and nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘Let’s go, then. The patient’s up here.’

She had already introduced him to the rest of the team, and now she watched as he quietly took charge as soon as the anaesthetist handed over.

He had studied the X-rays and decided to use an external fixator on the shattered tibia exposed by the sterile drapes.

‘Circulation’s a bit iffy — I want to see if I can improve that. Maybe when the bones are realigned the pressure might ease.’

After cleaning the wound and manipulating the bones back into approximate alignment, he concentrated for a while on the blood vessels, and Cassie was fascinated to watch him. He worked swiftly and economically, causing as little disruption to the tissues as possible.

She had seen other surgeons clearing such a large area of skin away from the field that the skin subsequently died and had to be replaced with grafts.

Not so with Nick. He was steady, thorough and absolutely meticulous, completely absorbed in his task, and Cassie found herself able to anticipate exactly what he needed and have it ready to give him at the precise second he needed it. As the operation proceeded, they found their minds and hands meshing in a carefully orchestrated dance, as if they were one.

It was exciting, totally absorbing, and she felt as if they’d been working together for years. There were no hitches, no hold-ups, no words needed bar the absolute minimum.

Compared to the way she worked with Trevor, it was a miracle, but then Trevor often did what she would not have done. Perhaps that was the answer. Nick seemed blessed with a methodical logic that was a gift to follow — or perhaps he was just her sort of person.

She didn’t want to think about that. The last time she had worked with a surgeon who was ‘her sort of person’, he had turned out to be someone else’s sort of person, too — and that person had been his wife.

The hurt had been deep, and the wariness still lingered, three years later. Oh, there were dates, but nothing serious, nothing — well, physical. Not now. Not since Simon.

Nick shifted slightly and she was instantly aware of the change of pressure between them, standing as they were so close together. She tried to move away, but it was impossible without moving the trolley, so she was forced to stand there, his hip hard against hers, desperately conscious of the warmth of his body and the subtle flex of muscle in his thigh as he shifted again.

He held out his hand, and she blindly reached for the trolley and slapped an instrument in his hand.

There was a little snicker from Mary-Jo, and Nick sighed pointedly.

Her eyes flew up to his face, and the blaze of fury and contempt in his eyes took her breath away. Horrified, she looked down at his hand and saw a scalpel lying there.

‘How the hell am I meant to suture him with that?’

His voice was cutting, and she felt the flush crawl up her throat and stain her cheeks. ‘Sorry, I was thinking about something else,’ she mumbled helplessly.

‘Evidently. I want —’

‘I know what you want,’ she muttered, reaching for the suture.

He said something under his breath. It could have been ‘You and me both,’ but she wasn’t sure. She wasn’t about to ask him to repeat it, anyway. She was ready with the suture but his admonishment had wounded her and she bit her lip.

She wouldn’t be much use either to him or to the patient if she couldn’t keep her mind on the job!

It seemed to take forever, but finally he was satisfied that the circulation and nerve supply was restored as well as possible. At last the fixator was screwed home, and the patient wheeled out to recovery.

As he moved away to talk to the anaesthetist about the next case, she checked her instruments, wheeled the trolley out and stripped off her gloves.

Her hands were shaking, but whether from the contact with his body or the reaction to his anger she didn’t know. It was going to be a long old night.

It was, every minute of it as long as she could have imagined, and fraught with difficult cases. As Nick said, it was the anaesthetist who had the hardest job, because several of their patients had had a skinful and their systems were already severely depressed, but she would have swapped with the anaesthetist in a second. Anything rather than stand hip to hip with a man whose temper had scalded her.

Not that she hadn’t deserved it; although her lapse hadn’t been that major, it had thrown his concentration. Not hers, though. Hers had already been thrown, or she wouldn’t have done anything so stupid. Even so, she had been unprepared for the anger in his eyes — not to mention the contempt. And they had been working so well together until then …

One man was seriously touch and go, and when the anaesthetist reported a plummeting blood-pressure Nick shook his head and stood back.

‘He doesn’t need me. He’s got comparatively little bleeding from this femur — he needs someone to take a look inside that abdomen.’

‘Spleen?’ the anaesthetist murmured, and Nick nodded.

‘I reckon. He was the driver, wasn’t he? I think he’s got an encapsulated haemorrhage, and I’m not going to go rooting about in there. Is there anyone available?’

‘Ted’s on, isn’t he?’ Cassie said quietly.

Stephen, the anaesthetist, nodded. ‘I believe so.’

Mary-Jo, the circulating nurse, left the room at Cassie’s signal, and came back moments later.

‘The switchboard are paging him. He’s in the hospital.’

He appeared within seconds, and within minutes was scrubbed and opening the man up.

‘Ouch,’ he muttered. ‘Splenectomy — that’ll get his new year off to a good start!’

They were running whole blood into him as fast as possible, and as soon as the blood supply to the spleen was clamped his condition started to pick up immediately.

‘Lucky.’

The surgeon peered at Nick over the patient. ‘He may not think so when he comes round. What are you going to do about the femur?’

Nick frowned. ‘I’ll have to pin it — it’s a nasty spiral. If we could do it with traction I would, but it’ll just slide every time he moves and he’ll be back to square one. I’ll let you finish and see how he is.’

‘He seems stable now,’ the anaesthetist told them from the head of the table.

Ted shrugged. ‘You carry on — I’ve done the tricky stuff. Just warn me if you’re going to hammer anything and shake him about so I don’t stick a suture into his aorta.’

Nick grinned, his eyes crinkling above the mask. ‘OK. Here we go, then.’

They worked well together, pausing for each other occasionally, and when they were finished and the man was taken away they left the operating-room and went into the staff lounge in the theatre suite.

‘New, aren’t you?’ Ted asked, eyeing Nick over his coffee.

Nick grinned at Cassie, his anger apparently forgotten. ‘Ah — you could say that. Actually I’m supposed to start officially on Tuesday, but technically my contract runs from the first of January, so I guess I’m on the staff as of about —’ he glanced up at the clock ‘— six hours ago.’

‘Is that the time?’ Cassie asked incredulously.

The ODA popped his head round the door. ‘That’s all, folks. All quiet on the Western front.’

‘Well thank the lord,’ Mary-Jo said with a heartfelt sigh, and, kicking off her rubber boots, she curled up in the chair and rubbed her feet.

Now how does she manage to look elegant doing that? Cassie wondered in amazement. Even more amazing was the sudden realisation that Nick didn’t even seem to have noticed, but was turning to her, just as her mouth opened in an enormous yawn.

He followed suit, displaying a full set of even, gleaming white teeth, and then chuckled.

‘I wonder why yawning’s so infectious?’ she said with a strained little laugh.

Nick’s mouth lifted in a heart-stopping, crooked grin. ‘Defence mechanism. If you yawn, perhaps your body knows something mine doesn’t, so if I yawn, I’ve covered my bases without having to go to the effort of finding out why.’

‘You’re crazy,’ she told him, her voice uncooperatively breathless.

‘Mmm. Fancy some breakfast? I’m starved. I didn’t get round to eating last night, and I could eat a horse.’

Cassie’s stomach rumbled in anticipation, and she clapped a hand over it and giggled. ‘Betrayed! How can I pretend otherwise?’

His smile was slow and lazy. ‘Your body’s not very good at keeping secrets, is it?’

She flushed, suddenly aware of him again and wondering what else her body was giving away apart from exhaustion and hunger. Oh, lord, had he known what she was thinking when she handed him the wrong instrument?

Nick unwound his legs and stood up, holding out a hand to pull her to her feet.

‘Come on, then, let’s get out of this fancy dress and go and find some food.’

They disappeared into their separate shower-rooms, and emerged a few minutes later looking much refreshed. Nick could have done with a shave and Cassie felt her make-up needed a bit of attention, but, considering the night they had had, she felt they looked pretty respectable.

She was unprepared, however, for Nick’s open appreciation over breakfast in the gloomy canteen.

She paused, a loaded fork hovering in front of her mouth, and met his eyes.

‘Have I got a smut on my nose?’ she joked to break the tension.

‘I didn’t realise eating could be so erotic,’ he said softly, and she felt hot colour flood her cheeks.

She set her fork down again.

‘You’re being ridiculous.’

‘Am I?’ His gaze was hot, intent, and he took a bite of toast and ran his tongue round his lips to retrieve the crumbs. ‘Really?’

Cassie’s heart jerked against her ribs, and she looked away, taking refuge in her coffee.

‘You’re beautiful.’

She choked into her cup.

‘And you’re nuts,’ she croaked, glaring balefully at him over the remains of her coffee.

His mouth lifted again, one side tilting slightly higher to lend a touch of piracy to his lean, shadowed cheeks and wickedly twinkling blue eyes. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘You look like a pirate,’ she said without thought, and his smile widened.

He leant towards her, and his hair flopped forward again; her fingers itched to smooth it back. ‘Is that your private fantasy?’ he murmured. ‘To be captured and dragged off on to the high seas, condemned to a life of sexual slavery at the hands of the autocratic pirate king?’

She snorted inelegantly. ‘Sounds like your private fantasy to me,’ she told him bluntly.

His grin was wicked. ‘You’ve found me out. Finish your breakfast — I promise not to ogle.’

But her appetite had gone, replaced instead by another hunger, one long suppressed.

‘I don’t want any more,’ she told him, and pushed back her chair, glancing at her watch. ‘It hardly seems worth going to bed,’ she said rashly, and could have bitten her tongue out as his brows arched speculatively.

‘Oh, I don’t know.’

She glared at him, trying hard to ignore the beating of her heart and the slow spread of warmth through her veins.

He stood up too. ‘I’ll walk you back to your room.’

‘There’s no need.’

‘There’s every need. I don’t know where you sleep. How can I indulge my fantasies without knowing where you sleep?’

‘Precisely my point,’ she retorted, but her heart beat even faster. She had to get away.

‘I’ll follow you,’ he taunted softly.

She turned to glare at him, hands on hips, and met the challenge in his laughing eyes.

She chuckled, defeated. ‘You would, as well. All right, you can walk me to the door, but you’re not coming in.’

‘Of course not.’

‘Hmph.’

They made their way through the corridors of the awakening hospital, bustling now with the new shift coming on, the cleaners timing their assault on the floors to coincide exactly with the busiest period.

It was worse in the residence, with doors banging and water running, radios blaring, occasional laughter, the odd plea for quiet from some overhung young reveller desperate for a few more hours of oblivion.

‘Here we are,’ she said, and turned her back to the door. ‘My flat — or “flatette”. It isn’t really big enough to be called a flat, but it’s home, and it’s a sight cheaper and cleaner than the only sort of hovel I could find in London —’ I’m babbling, she thought frantically, but she didn’t know how to get rid of him. Try the blunt approach, she told herself. She forced herself to meet those lazy, knowing blue eyes.

‘Thank you for breakfast. Goodbye —’

‘But you’re not safely in. You might have lost your keys, or you could have had an intruder —’

‘Nice try, Mr Davidson. Bye-bye.’

He grinned appealingly. ‘Thirty seconds? There’s something I have to say to you.’

‘Can’t you say it out here?’

He pulled a thoughtful face. ‘It’s a little sensitive. It’s about your — er — lapse in Theatre.’

She whipped the door open and dragged him in, shutting the door and leaning back against it.

‘I’m sorry about that. I was…’

‘Distracted?’ he supplied helpfully. ‘So was I. I believe I owe you an apology. I’m sorry I lost my temper. I was rather unkind to you, and it was just because I was…’

‘Distracted?’ she suggested, and his mouth softened.

‘Completely. All I could think about was the feel of your body pressed up against me, and every time I tried to shift away from you you followed me —’

‘I didn’t! I was trying to get away, and you kept following me!’ Heat flared in her cheeks. His voice was like a caress, and she could feel again the heat of his thigh against hers, the shift of his hip, the hardness of his leg muscles as he braced himself …