The Scandalous Kolovskys: Knight on the Children's Ward

He was sitting in the staffroom when she entered, just as the morning TV news show chatted about the piece. An orthopaedic surgeon was reading the paper, and a couple of colleagues were discussing it as she walked in. Ross felt his heart squeeze in mortification for her.

But she didn’t look particularly tense, and she didn’t look flushed or teary—for a moment he was worried that she didn’t even know what was being said.

Until she sat down, eating her raisin toast from the canteen, and a colleague jumped up to turn the television over.

‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘I’ve already seen it.’

The only person, Ross surmised as the gathering staff sat there, who didn’t seem uncomfortable was Annika.

Ross called her back as the day staff left for handover. ‘How are you doing?’

‘Fine.’

‘If you want to talk …?’

‘Then I’ll speak with my family.’

Ross’s lips tightened. She didn’t make things easy, but he didn’t have the luxury of thinking up a smart retort as his pager had summoned him to a meeting.

‘I’m here if you need me, okay?’

The thing with children, Annika was fast realising, was that they weren’t dissimilar from the residents in the nursing home. There, the residents’ tact buttons had long since been switched off—on the children’s ward they hadn’t yet been switched on.

‘My mum said you were in the paper this morning!’ A bright little five-year-old sang out as Annika did her obs.

‘What’s “allegedly” mean?’ asked another.

‘Why don’t you change your name?’ asked Luke as she took down his dressing just before she was due to finish. Ross wanted to check his leg ulcer before it was re-dressed, and Annika was pleased to see the improvement. ‘Then no one would know who you are.’

‘I’ve thought about it,’ Annika admitted. ‘But the papers would make a story out of that too. Anyway, whether I like the attention or not, it is who I am.’

His dressing down, she covered his leg with a sterile sheet and then checked off on his paperwork before the end of her shift.

‘What’s your blood sugar?’

‘Dunno.’

It had been a long day for Annika, and maybe her own tact button was on mute for now, but she was tired of reasoning with him, tired of the hourly battles when it was really simple. ‘You know what, Luke? You can argue and you can kick and scream and make it as hard as you like, but why not just surprise everyone and do it for yourself? You say you want your mum to leave you alone, to stop babying you—maybe it’s time to stop acting like one.’

It was perhaps unfortunate that Ross came in at that moment.

‘His dressing’s all down,’ Annika gulped.

‘Thanks. I’ll just have a look, and then you can redress.’

‘Actually, my shift just ended. I’ll pass it on to one of the late staff.’

She turned to go, but Ross was too quick for her.

‘If you could wait in my office when you’ve finished, Annika,’ Ross said over his shoulder. ‘I’d like a quick word.’

Oh, she was really in trouble now.

She hadn’t been being mean—or had she?

Maybe she should have been more tactful with Luke …

She couldn’t read Ross’s expression when he came in.

He was dressed in a suit, even though he hadn’t been in one this morning, and he looked stern and formidable. Unusually for Ross, he also looked tired, and he gave a grim smile when she jumped up from the chair at his desk.

‘Is Luke okay?’

‘He’s fine. I asked Cassie to do his dressing.’

‘Was he upset?’

‘Upset?’

‘Because I told him he should be taking his own blood sugars?’

‘He just took it.’

‘Oh.’

Ross frowned, and then he shook his head in bewilderment. ‘Do you think you’re here to be told off?’

‘I told him he was acting like a baby.’

‘I’ve told him the same,’ Ross said. ‘Many times. You were fine in there—would you please stop doubting yourself all the time?’

‘I’ll try.’

‘How come you’re finishing early?’

‘I worked through lunch; I’m going home at three.’ She let out a breath. ‘It’s been a long day.’

‘That offer’s still there.’ He saw her slight frown. ‘To talk.’

‘Thank you.’

And when she didn’t walk off, neither did Ross.

‘Do you want to come riding?’ There was an argument raging in his head—he was going away soon, they had promised to keep things on ice till he returned, and yet he couldn’t just leave her like this.

‘Riding?’

‘At the farm.’

‘I’ve never ridden.’

‘It’s the best thing in the world after a tough day,’ Ross said. ‘You’ll love it.’

‘How do you know?’ Annika said.

‘I just know.’ He watched her cheeks darken further. ‘Annika, I will not lay a finger on you. It’s just a chance to get away …’

‘I don’t like talking like this when I’m on duty.’

‘Then give me half an hour to call in a favour and I’ll meet you in the canteen.’

She wasn’t going back to the farm with him. Her hand was shaking as she opened her locker, and then she picked up her phone and turned it on. She saw missed calls from her mother, her family’s agent, her brother Iosef, a couple from Annie and four from Aleksi. She turned it off. Right now she was finding it very hard to breathe.

She didn’t want to go home.

Didn’t want to give a comment.

Didn’t want a spin doctor or a night out at some posh restaurant with her family just to prove they were united.

Which was why she turned left for the canteen.

He drove; she followed in her own car. He had a small flat near the hospital, Ross had explained, for nights on call, but home was further away, and by the time they got there it was coming up for five. As they slid into his long driveway, she saw the tumbled old house and sprawling grounds. For the first time since she had been awoken by a journalist at five a.m., asking her to offer a comment, Annika didn’t have to remember to breathe.

It just happened.

And when she stepped out of the car she saw all the flowers waving in the breeze—the same kind of flowers he had brought for her.

Ross had picked them.

The inside was scruffy, but nice: boots in the hallway, massive couches, and a very tidy kitchen, thanks to the cleaner who was just leaving.

‘Hungry?’ Ross asked, and she gave a small shrug.

‘A bit.’

‘I’ll pack a picnic.’

‘Am I to learn to ride in my uniform?’

He laughed and found her some jodhpurs that he said belonged to one of his sisters, some boots that belonged to someone else, though he wasn’t sure who, and an old T-shirt of his.

Annika didn’t know what she was doing here.

But it was like a retreat and she was grateful for it.

She was grateful too for familiarity in the strangest of places. There were pictures of Iosef there with Ross, from twenty years old to the present day. They grew up before her eyes as she walked along the hallway—and, though she had never really discussed the Detsky Dom with her brother, somehow with Ross she could.

‘I expected them to be more miserable,’ Annika said, staring at a photo of some grinning, pimply-faced teenagers, with Ross and Iosef beaming in the middle. It was a Iosef she had never seen.

‘Our soccer team had just won!’ Ross grinned at the memory. ‘It’s not all doom and gloom.’

‘I know,’ Annika said, glad that now she did, because there were so many questions she felt she couldn’t ask her brothers.

‘There’s an awful lot of love there,’ Ross said, ‘there’s just not enough to go around. The staff are wonderful …’

And she was glad to hear that.

She was glad too when she walked back into the kitchen. They had had very little conversation—she was too tired and confused and brain-weary to talk—but he got one essential thing out of the way.

He held her.

It was as if he had been waiting for her, and she stepped so easily into his arms. She never cried, and she certainly wouldn’t now, but it had been a horrible day, a rotten day, and although Iosef, Annie, Aleksi, her friends, would all do their best to offer comfort—she was sure of that—Ross was far nicer. He didn’t ask, or make her explain, he just held her, and the attraction that had always been there needed no explanation or discussion. It just was. It just is, Annika thought.

His chest smelt as she remembered. He was, she decided as she rested in his arms, an absolute contradiction, because he both relaxed and excited her. She could feel herself unwind. She felt the hammer of his heart in her ear and looked up.

‘One kiss,’ she said.

‘Look where that got us last time.’

‘Just one,’ Annika said, ‘to chase away the day.’

So he kissed her. His lovely mouth kissed hers and her wretched day disappeared. He tasted as unique as he had the first time he’d kissed her, as if blended just for her. His mouth made hers an expert. They moved as if they were reuniting, tongues blending and chasing. His body was taut, and made hers do bold things like press a little into him. Her fingers wanted to hook into the loop of his belt and pull him in harder, and so she did. Their breathing was ragged and close and vital, and when he pulled back he gave her that delicious smile.

‘Come on.’

He gave her his oldest, slowest, most trustworthy horse to ride, and helped her climb on, but even as the horse moved a couple of steps she felt as if the ground was giving way and let out a nervous call.

‘Sit back in the saddle.’ Ross grinned. ‘Just relax back into it.’

She felt as if she would fall backwards, or slide off, every muscle in her body tense as they clopped at a snail’s pace out of the stables.

‘Keep your heels down,’ Ross said, as if it were that easy. Every few steps she lost a stirrup, but the horse, along with Ross, was so endlessly patient that soon they were walking. Annika concentrated on not leaning forward and keeping her heels down, and there was freedom, the freedom of thinking about nothing other than somehow staying on. After a little while Ross goaded her into kicking into a trot.

‘Count out loud if it helps.’ He was beside her, holding his own reins in one hand as she bumped along. It was exciting for maybe thirty seconds, as she found her rhythm and then lost it. She pulled on the reins to stop, and then the only thing Annika could do was laugh. She laughed with a strange freedom, exhilaration ripping through her, and Ross was laughing too.

‘Better?’

‘Much.’ She was breathless—from laughing, from riding, from dragging in the delicious scent of dusk, and then, when she slid off the horse and he spread out a picnic, she was breathless from just looking at him.

‘It helped,’ Annika said. ‘You were right.’

‘After a bad day at work,’ Ross said, ‘or a difficult night, this is what I do and it works every time.’ He gave her a smile. ‘It worked for me today.’

‘Was today a bad day?’ Annika asked, and he looked at her.

‘Today was an exceptionally bad day.’

‘Really?’ She cast her mind back. Was there something she had missed on the ward? An emergency in ICU, perhaps?

But Ross smiled. ‘I had a meeting with the CEO!’

‘I wondered what was with the suit.’

‘On my return they want me to commit to a three-year contract. So far I have managed to avoid it …’

‘Does a three-year contract worry you?’

‘More the conditions.’ He gave a tight smile. ‘I’m a good doctor, Annika, but apparently wearing a suit every day will make me a better one.’

‘At least it’s not an apron,’ she joked, but then she was serious. ‘You are a good doctor—but why would you commit if you are not sure it is what you want?’

And never, not once, had he had that response.

Always, for ever and always, it had been, ‘It’s just a suit. What about the mortgage? What if …?’

‘I love my job,’ Ross said.

‘Do you love the kids or the job?’ Annika checked, and Ross smiled again. ‘There will always be work for you, Ross.’

‘I’ve also been worrying about you.’

‘You don’t have to worry about me.’

‘Oh, but I do.’

They ate cold roast beef and hot mustard sandwiches and drank water. The evening was so still and delicious, so very relaxing compared to the drama waiting for her at home.

‘I should get back …’ She was lying on her back, staring up at an orange sky, inhaling the scent of grass, listening to the sounds of the horses behind them. Ross was so at ease beside her—and she’d never felt more at home with another person.

She looked over to him, to the face that had taken her breath away for so long now, and he was there, staring back and smiling.

A person, Annika reminded herself, who barely knew her—and if he did …

If she closed her eyes, even for a moment, she knew she would remember his kiss, knew where another kiss might lead, right here, where the air was so clear she could breathe, the sky so orange and the grass so cool.

‘I should get back,’ she said again. She didn’t want to, but staying would be far too dangerous.

‘You don’t have to go,’ Ross said.

‘I think I do,’ was her reluctant reply. ‘Ross, it’s too soon.’

‘Annika, you are welcome to stay. I’m not suggesting a weekend of torrid sex.’ Low in her stomach, something curled in on itself. ‘Though of course …’ he grinned ‘… that can be an optional extra …’ And then he laughed, and so too did she. ‘There’s a spare room, and you’re more than welcome to use it. If you want a break, a bit of an escape, here’s the perfect place for it. I can go and stay at the flat if you prefer …’

‘You’d offer me your home?’

‘Actually, yes!’ Ross said, surprised at himself, watching as she turned on her phone again and winced at the latest flood of incoming messages. ‘Hell, I can’t imagine what you have to go home to.’

‘A lot,’ Annika admitted. ‘I have kept my phone off all day.’

‘You can keep it off all weekend if you like.’

Oh, she could breathe—not quite easily, but far more easily than she had all day.

‘I don’t want to stay here alone.’

‘Then be my guest,’ he said.

‘I have a shift at the nursing home tomorrow night.’

‘I’m not kidnapping you—you’re free to come and go,’ Ross replied, and after a moment she nodded.

‘I’d love to stay, but I should let Aleksi know.’

She rang her brother, and Ross listened as she checked if he was okay and reassured him that she was fine.

‘I’m going to have my phone off,’ Annika said. ‘Tell Mum not to worry.’

He busied himself packing up the picnic, but he saw her run a worried hand through her hair.

‘No, don’t—because I’m not there,’ she said. ‘I’m staying with a friend.’ She caught his eye. ‘No, I’d rather not say. Just don’t worry.’

She clicked off her phone and stood. Ross called the horses, and they walked them slowly back.

‘It’s nice,’ Annika said. ‘This …’ She looked over to him. ‘Do your grandparents have horses?’

‘They do.’

And he’d so longed for Spain, longed for his native land, yearned to discover all that had seemed so important, so vital, but right now he had it all here, and the thought of Spain just made him homesick.

Homesick for here.

It was relaxing, settling the horses for the night, then heading back to his house.

‘Have a bath,’ Ross suggested.

‘I have nothing to change into. Maybe I should drive back and pack. I haven’t got anything.’

‘You don’t need anything,’ Ross said. ‘My sisters always leave loads of stuff—they come and stay with the kids some weekends when I’m on call.’ He went upstairs and returned a few moments later with some items of clothing and a large white towelling robe. ‘Here.’ He handed her a toothbrush. ‘Still in its wrapper—you’re lucky I did a shop last week.’

‘Very lucky.’

‘So now you have no excuse but to relax and enjoy.’

He poured her a large glass of wine and told her to take it up to the bath, and then he showed her the spare room, which had a lovely iron bed with white linen.

‘You have good taste.’

‘Spanish linen,’ Ross said, ‘from my grandmother … She’s the one who has good taste.’ On the way to the bathroom he kicked open another door. ‘I, on the other hand, have no taste at all.’

His bedroom was far more untidy than his office, with not a trace of crisp linen in sight. It was brown on black, with boots and jeans and belts, a testosterone-laden den, with an unmade bed and a massive music system.

‘This reminds me of Luke’s room.’

‘You can come in with your bin liner any time,’ Ross said. ‘My door is always open …’ Then he laughed. ‘Unless family’s staying.’

The bathroom was lovely. It had a large freestanding bath that took for ever to fill, a big mirror, and bottles of oils, scents and candles.

His home confused her—parts looked like a rustic country home, other parts, like his bedroom, were modern and full of gadgets. It was like Ross, she thought. He was doctor, farmer, gypsy—an eclectic assortment that added up to one incredibly beautiful man.

Settling into the warm oily water, she could, as she lay, think of no one, not one single other person, whose company could have soothed her tonight.

His home was like none she had ever been in.

His presence was like no other.

She washed out her panties and bra, but stressed for a moment about hanging them over the taps to dry. They were divine: Kolovsky silk in stunning turquoise. In fact all her underwear was divine—it was one of the genuine perks of being a Kolovsky. It was seductive, suggestive, and, Annika realised, she could not leave it in the bathroom!

So she hung it on the door handle in her bedroom and then headed downstairs, where he sat, boots on the table, strumming at a guitar, a dog looking up at him. She thought about using her fingers as castanets and dancing her way right over to his lap, but they’d both promised to be good.

‘Why would you do this for me?’ She stood at the living room door, wrapped in his sister’s dressing gown, and wondered why she wasn’t nervous.

‘Because my life’s not quite complicated enough,’ Ross said, with more than a dash of sarcasm. ‘Just relax, Annika, I’m not going to pounce.’

So she did—or she tried to.

They watched a movie, but she was so acutely aware of the man on the sofa beside her that frankly her mother would have been more relaxing company. When she gave in at eleven and went to bed, it was almost frustrating when he turned and gave her a very lovely kiss, full on the lips, that was way more than friendly but absolutely going nowhere. It was, Annika realised as she climbed the steps, a kiss goodnight.

She could taste him on her lips.

So much so that she didn’t want to remove the toothbrush from its wrapper. But she did, and she brushed her teeth, and then when she heard him coming up the stairs she raced to her bedroom. She slipped off her dressing gown and slid naked into bed, then cursed that she hadn’t been to the loo.

He was filling the bath.

She could hear it, so she decided to make a quick dash for it, but she came out to find him walking down the landing wearing only a black towel round his loins. His body was delicious, way better than her many imaginings, and his hair looked long, and his early-morning shadow was a late-night one now. She just gave a nod.

‘Feel free …’ He grinned at her awkwardness.

‘Sorry?’

‘To wash your hands …’

‘Oh.’

So she had to go into the bathroom, where his bath was running, as he politely waited outside. She washed her hands and tried not to look at the water and imagine him naked in it.

‘Night, Annika.’

‘Night.’

How was she to sleep? He was in the bath for ever, and then she heard the pull of the plug and the lights ping off. She lay in the dark silence and knew he was just metres away. And then, just as she thought she might win, as a glimpse of sleep beckoned, she heard music.

There was no question of sleeping here in a strange house, with Ross so close. She couldn’t sleep, so instead she did a stupid thing—she checked her phone.

Even as she turned it on it rang, and foolishly she answered. She listened as her mother demanded that she end this stupidity and come home immediately—not to the flat, but home, where she belonged. She was wreaking shame on her family, and her father would be turning in his grave. Annika clicked off the phone, her heart pounding in her chest, and headed out for a glass of water.

The low throb of music from his room somehow beckoned, and his door was, as promised, open. She glanced inside as she walked past.

‘Sorry.’

‘For what?’

‘I’m just restless.’

‘Get a drink if you want …’ He was lying in the bed reading, hardly even looking up.

‘I’ll just go back to bed.’

‘Night, then.’

She just stood there.

And Ross concentrated on his book.

His air ticket was his bookmark. He’d done that very deliberately—ten days and he was out of here; ten days and he would be in Spain. And then, when he returned—well, then maybe things could be different.

‘Night, Annika.’

She ignored him and came and sat on the bed. They kept talking. And it was hard to talk at two a.m. without lying down, so she did, and even with her dressing gown on it was cold. So she went under the covers, and they talked till her eyes were really heavy and she was almost asleep, and then he turned out the light.

‘The music …’

‘It will turn itself off soon.’

She turned away from him; there were no curtains on the window, just the moon drifting past, and he spooned right into her. She could feel his stomach in her back, and the wrap of his arms, and it was sublime—so much so that she bit on her lip. Then he kissed the back of her head, pulled her in a little bit more, and she could feel every breath he took. She could feel the lovely tumid length of him, and just as she braced herself for delicious attack, just as she wondered how long it would be polite to resist, she felt him relax, his breathing even, as she struggled to inhale.

‘Ross, how can you just lie there …?’ He wasn’t even pretending; he really was going to sleep!

‘Relax,’ he said to her shoulder. ‘I told you, nothing’s going to happen—I had a very long bath.’

And she laughed, on a day she had never thought she would, on a day she had done so many different things. She lay in bed and counted her firsts: she had been cuddled, and she had hung up the phone on her mum.

The most amazing part of it all, though, was that for the first time in ages she slept properly.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

IT WAS midday when she woke up.

Annika never overslept, and midday was unthinkable, but his bed was so comfortable, and it held the male scent of him even though he had long since gone. Instead of jumping guiltily out of bed she lay there, half dozing, a touch too warm in her dressing gown, smiling at the thought that there was really no point getting up as she had nothing to wear—and there was no way she was getting on a horse today!

She hurt in a place she surely shouldn’t!

‘Afternoon!’ He pushed the bedroom door open, and the door to her heart opened a little wider too. He hadn’t shaved, and looked more gypsy-like, dark and forbidden, than she had ever seen him, but he was holding a tray and wearing a smile that she was becoming sure was reserved solely for her. She smiled back at him.

‘What did I do to deserve breakfast in bed?’

‘You didn’t snore, which is very encouraging,’ he said, waiting till she sat up before placing a tray on her lap, ‘and it’s actually lunch in bed.’

It was the nicest lunch in the world: omelette made from eggs he had collected that morning, with wild mushrooms and cheese. The coffee was so strong and sweet that if she had given orders to the chef at her mother’s home he could not have come up with better.