Her Little Secret

Her Little Secret

Carol Marinelli

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Cover

Title Page

About the Author

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Epilogue

Copyright

Dear Reader

Some people are naturally more cautious than others—that was certainly the case with my heroine, Alison. For her, it wasn’t just a matter of nature, but nurture too—so I really felt for her when she looked up one morning into the gorgeous eyes of Nick and suddenly there it was: her chance to follow her heart and be just a little bit wild and have fun.

Given that I’m not particularly cautious, at times I just wanted to tell her to go for it—in fact, against Alison’s better judgement, I made her go for it.

‘I told you,’ is still ringing in my ears.

Happy reading!

Carol x

About the Author

CAROL MARINELLI recently filled in a form where she was asked for her job title, and was thrilled, after all these years, to be able to put down her answer as ‘writer’. Then it asked what Carol did for relaxation. After chewing her pen for a moment Carol put down the truth—’writing’. The third question asked—’What are your hobbies?’ Well, not wanting to look obsessed or, worse still, boring, she crossed the fingers on her free hand and answered ‘swimming and tennis’. But, given that the chlorine in the pool does terrible things to her highlights, and the closest she’s got to a tennis racket in the last couple of years is watching the Australian Open, I’m sure you can guess the real answer!

CHAPTER ONE

‘AFTER you.’

Alison Carter gave brief thanks as someone stepped aside and she shuffled onto the bus, coffee in hand, and took a seat in her usual spot, halfway down, to the left of the bus and next to the window.

Morning was just peeking in and the sky was full of purples and oranges as the doors hissed closed and the bus made its slow way up the hill. Even though she’d bought a newspaper, till the bus turned the corner Alison did as she always did and stared out at the glorious view—to the energetic joggers on the foreshore, the walkers on the beach, the swimmers in the ocean and out beyond, to where the patient surfers bobbed quietly, waiting for the next good wave.

It was a slice of heaven.

A view that reminded Alison, because sometimes she needed reminding, that she lived in surely the most beautiful part of the world, that she had absolutely nothing to complain about. It was an internal pep talk that she delivered to herself quite often when the travel bug stung—yes, there were other beaches, other worlds to explore, but here was where she belonged and, if you had to be stuck somewhere, then Coogee was a very nice place to be…

Stuck.

Alison closed her eyes for just a second, leant her temple against the window and told herself to stop using that word.

Having recently read an article on positive thinking and the harm of negative self-talk and thoughts, she was resolutely reframing and rephrasing, but she was finding it to be an almost full-time job.

It was a very nice place to be, Alison told herself.

To just be!

As the bus took on its next load of passengers, then commenced its slow turn into the hilly street that would take them from Coogee to Eastern Beaches Hospital where she worked, Alison turned away to concentrate on her newspaper.

Then she saw him.

Craning his neck for a final glimpse of the beach too, it was, Alison was sure, the man who had let her on the bus before himself. The flash of blond hair and pale shirt that she’d glimpsed as she’d turned and briefly thanked him actually belonged to a man more beautiful than any she had ever seen and only then did she recall his English accent, and she was sure, quite sure, that the man she was looking at was the Nick Roberts.

Despite having been on days off from her job as an accident and emergency nurse, Alison had heard all about him from her friends and colleagues. Ellie had told her all about the gorgeous, completely gorgeous new locum registrar, who was filling in in Emergency while the senior registrar, Cort Mason, took some long overdue extended leave. Even Moira had sent her two texts worth of information about the nice surprise she’d found on her late shift one afternoon, warning her that he had to be seen to be believed.

Presuming that it was him, thanks to the hospital grapevine, and because nurses loved to gossip, Alison knew rather a lot about the handsome stranger on her bus. He had been travelling for six months and was doing a two-month stint in Sydney, getting some money together to spend on his prolonged journey home, first to New Zealand and then home to the UK via Asia, and, Ellie had said droolingly, while he was in Sydney, he was staying in Coogee.

It probably wasn’t him, Alison told herself. Coogee was hardly the outback, there were loads of gorgeous men, loads of travellers, yet she was quite sure that it was him, because this man had to be seen to be believed.

Taller than most, he was sitting on a side seat, doing the crossword in the newspaper, and he kept forgetting to tuck his legs in, having to move them every time someone got on or got off. He had on dark grey, linen trousers and a paler grey shirt. And, yes, there were loads of Englishmen staying in Coogee—he could be anyone, but holidaymakers and travellers weren’t usually on the two-minutes-past-six bus. It was, Alison knew, after nearly three years of taking this very route, a fairly regular lot she joined on the bus each morning.

Of course he caught her looking and he gave her a very nice smile, an open, possibly even flirting smile, and all it served to do was annoy Alison as she pulled her eyes away and back to her newspaper. In fact, she wanted to tell him that she’d been looking, not because he was drop dead gorgeous but because she thought she knew who he was.

And if she was right, then he’d be the last person she’d be interested in.

She’d heard all about him from her friends—the string of broken hearts he had left behind on his travels and daredevil attitude in his quest for adventure.

So, instead of thinking about him, Alison, as always, read her horoscope, which was too cryptic for such an early hour, so she turned, as she always did on a Friday, to the travel section, only the sting she so regularly felt became just a touch more inflamed as she read that airfares had come down dramatically. Even if it was too early for cryptic horoscopes the arithmetic was easy—her meticulous savings, combined with the money her father had left her, were enough for a tiny deposit on an even tinier flat or a round-the-world trip and a year or two spent following her heart.

Alison knew what her father would have chosen.

But she knew too what it would do to her mother.

She glanced up again to the man she thought was Nick Roberts. He had given up on his crossword and sat dozing now, and Alison stared, annoyed with a stranger who had been nothing but polite, jealous of a man she had never even met—because if this was Nick Roberts, then he was living her dream.

Maybe he felt her watching, because green eyes suddenly opened and met hers. He had caught her looking again and smiled. Embarrassed, Alison stood as her bus stop approached, and it was either be extremely rude or return his smile as she walked past.

‘Morning,’ Alison said, and then to show him she said morning and smiled at everyone, she said it to someone else who caught her eye as she moved down the bus.

And it had to be him because he was standing up too and this was the hospital bus stop and there certainly couldn’t be two people as lovely as him working there.

They probably weren’t, but Alison felt as if his eyes were on her as she walked through the car park and towards Emergency, and she was rather relieved when her friend and colleague Ellie caught up with her.

‘Nice days off?’ Ellie asked. ‘Any luck with the flat-hunt?’

‘None,’ Alison admitted. ‘Well, there was one flat that I could just about afford but it needs a kitchen.’

‘You could live without a nice kitchen for a while,’ Ellie pointed out.

‘There’s a hole in the side wall where the kitchen burnt down.’ Alison managed a wry laugh as she recalled the viewing, the initial optimism as she’d walked through the small but liveable lounge, and then the sheer frustration as the renovator’s delight that she’d thought she had found had turned out to be uninhabitable. ‘It’s impossible…’ Alison carried on, but she’d lost her audience because Dr Long Legs had caught up, and Ellie, who never missed an opportunity to flirt, called over to him and he fell in step beside them.

‘This is Alison. Alison, this is Nick,’ Ellie said, and none-too-discreetly gave her friend a nudge that said he was the Nick. ‘He’s with us for a couple of months.’

‘Hi, Nick,’ Alison said, and then to salvage herself, she gave him a smile. ‘We met on the bus.’

‘We did.’

‘Anyone new tends to stand out—it’s a pretty regular lot on the six a.m.,’ Alison added, just to make it clear why she’d noticed him!

‘Alison’s flat-hunting,’ Ellie said.

‘Shoebox-hunting,’ Alison corrected.

At twenty-four it was high past the time when she should have left home. Yes, most of her friends still lived at home and had no intention of leaving in a rush, but her friends didn’t have Rose as a mother, who insisted on a text if she was going to be ten minutes late, and as for staying out for the night—well, for the stress it caused her mother it was easier just to go home.

Alison had moved out at eighteen to share a house with some other nursing students but at the end of her training, just as she’d been about to set off for a year of travel that her mother had pleaded she didn’t take, her brother and father had died in an accident. Of course, she had moved straight back home, but though it had seemed right and necessary at the time, three years on Alison was beginning to wonder if her being there was actually hindering her mother from moving on. House-sharing no longer appealed and so the rather fruitless search for her own place had commenced.

‘There are a couple of places I’ve seen that are nice and in my price range,’ Alison sighed, ‘but they’re miles from the beach.’

‘You’re a nurse…’ Ellie laughed. ‘You can’t afford bay views.’

‘I don’t need a view,’ Alison grumbled, ‘but walking distance to the beach at least…’ She was being ridiculous, she knew, but she was so used to having the beach a five-minute walk away that it was going to be harder to give up than coffee.

‘I’m on Alison’s side.’ Nick joined right in with the conversation. ‘I’m flat-sitting for a couple I know while they’re back in the UK.’ He told her the location and Alison let out a low whistle because anything in that street was stunning. ‘It’s pretty spectacular. I’ve never been a beach person, but I’m walking there every morning or evening—and sitting on the balcony at night…’

‘It’s not just the view, though,’ Alison said. They were walking through Emergency now. ‘It’s just…’ She didn’t really know how to explain it. It wasn’t just the beach either—it was her walks on the cliffs, her coffee from the same kiosk in the morning, her cherry and ricotta strudel at her favourite café. She didn’t want to leave it, her mother certainly didn’t want her to leave either, but, unless she was going to live at home for ever, unless she was going to be home by midnight every night or constantly account for her movements, she wanted somewhere close enough to home but far enough to live her own life.

‘I’m going to get a drink before…’ He gave her a smile as they reached the female change rooms. ‘I look forward to working with you.’

‘Told you!’ Ellie breathed as they closed the doors. ‘I told you, didn’t I?’

‘You did,’ Alison agreed, tying up her long brown hair and pulling on her lanyard. ‘Have you got my stethoscope?’

‘That’s all that you’ve got to say?’

‘Ellie, yes, you did tell me and, yes, for once you haven’t exaggerated. He’s completely stunning, but right now I need my stethoscope back.’ She certainly didn’t need to be dwelling on the gorgeous Nick Roberts who was there for just a few weeks and already had every woman completely under his spell.

‘Here.’ Ellie handed back the stethoscope she had yet again borrowed. ‘Have a look at him on Facebook—there’s one of him bungee-jumping and he’s upside down and his T-shirt’s round his neck…’ Ellie grinned as Alison rolled her eyes. ‘There’s no harm in looking.’

Ellie raced off to the staffroom, ready to catch up on all the gossip, and for a moment Alison paused, catching sight of her reflection—brown hair, serious brown eyes, neat figure, smart navy pants and white top. Her image just screamed sensible. Too sensible by far for the likes of Nick. Yes, he was a fine specimen and all that, but he also knew it and Alison was determined not to give him the satisfaction of joining his rather large throng of admirers.

He was sitting in the staffroom as he had on the bus, with his long legs sprawled out, drinking a large mug of tea and leading the conversation as if he’d been there for years instead of one week, regaling them all with his exploits—the highlight a motorbike ride through the outback—which did nothing to impress Alison. In fact, the very thought made her shudder and prompted a question.

‘How is that guy from last week?’ Alison turned to Ellie. ‘Did you follow him up?’

‘What one?’

‘Just as I went off last Sunday—the young guy on the motorbike?’ And then she stopped, realising it sounded rude, perhaps a touch inappropriate given Nick’s subject matter, though she hadn’t meant it to. Nick had just reminded her to ask.

‘We didn’t have any ICU beds,’ one of the other staff answered, ‘so he was transferred.’

‘Thanks,’ Alison said, looking up at the clock, and so did everyone else, all heading out for handover.

She really didn’t want to like him.

He unsettled her for reasons she didn’t want to examine and she hoped he was horrible to work with—arrogant, or dismissive with the patients. Unfortunately, he was lovely.

‘I’m here for a good time, not a long time,’ she heard him say to some young surfer who had cut his arm on the rocks. Nick was stitching as Alison came in to give the young man his tetanus shot. ‘I want to cram in as much as I can while I’m here.’

‘Come down in the morning,’ surfer boy said. ‘I’ll give you some tips.’

‘Didn’t I just tell you to keep the wound clean and dry? ‘Nick admonished, and then grinned. ‘I guess salt water’s good for it, though. I’ll look forward to it.’

‘You’re going surfing with him?’ Alison blinked.

‘He lives near me and who better to teach me than a local?’ Nick said. ‘Do you?’

‘Do I what?’

‘Surf.’

Alison rolled her eyes. ‘Because I’m Australian?’

‘No,’ he said slowly, those green eyes meeting hers. ‘Because you want to.’ And she stood there for a moment, felt her cheeks darken, felt for just a moment as if he was looking at her, not staid, sensible Alison but the woman she had once been, or rather the woman she had almost become, the woman who was in there, hiding.

‘If I wanted to, I would,’ Alison replied, and somehow, despite the wobble in her soul, her voice was even. ‘I’ve got a beach on my doorstep after all.’

‘I guess,’ Nick said, but she could almost hear his tongue in his cheek. ‘I’ll let you know what it’s like.’

His assumption irritated her, perhaps more than it should have, but she wasn’t going to dwell on it. She’d save a suitable come-back for later—perhaps this time tomorrow morning when she was stitching his forehead after his board hit him, Alison thought, taking the next patient card from the pile.

‘Louise Haversham?’ Alison called out to the waiting room, and when there was no answer she called the name again.

‘Two minutes!’ came the answer, a pretty blonde holding up her hand at Alison’s interruption and carrying on her conversation on her phone, but perhaps realising that Alison was about to call the next name on the list she concluded her call and walked with Alison to a cubicle.

‘How long have you had toothache for?’ Alison asked, checking Louise’s temperature and noting it on her card.

‘Well, it’s been niggling for a couple of weeks but it woke me up at four and I couldn’t get back to sleep.’

‘Have you seen your dentist?’ Alison asked, and Louise shook her head.

‘I’ve been too busy—I’m working two jobs.’ She glanced up at the clock. ‘How long will the doctor be? I’m supposed to be at work at nine.’

Then Alison had better hurry the doctor along!

‘Who’s next?’ Nick asked cheerfully. ‘A nice motorbike crash, perhaps?’ He winked, just to show her he’d heard her in the staffroom.

‘I’m saving the good stuff for later,’ Alison said. ‘I’ve got a toothache.’

‘I’m sorry to hear it.’

She rolled her eyes at the very old joke, but it did make her smile just a little bit and he was so easy to talk to, because somewhere between the work station and Cubicle Five she’d told him that she was going to the dentist herself next week. He opened the curtain where the very pretty blonde with a sore tooth that couldn’t possibly wait till nine a.m. for a dentist was no longer chatting on her phone but cupping her jaw in her hand and looking an absolute picture of misery.

‘Good morning.’ He introduced himself and Louise introduced herself and managed, Alison noted, despite her agony, to perk up just a touch and give him a very brave smile.

‘I’m so sorry.’ She was far nicer to Nick than she had been to Alison. ‘I just couldn’t stand it any longer. I haven’t slept all night…’

‘Not at all. Dental pain’s awful,’ Nick said. Warning her he wasn’t a dentist, he first had a feel of her jaw before he looked in her mouth, then long brown fingers examined her jaw again and felt around her neck. ‘What was her temperature?’ Nick asked, and Alison told him it was normal. ‘There’s no swelling. Still, I think we should give you something for the pain and a poultice for the tooth, but you really do need to see your dentist.’ He turned round. ‘Alison, do we have any oil of cloves?’

Right at the back of the treatment cupboard.

‘Busy?’ her friend Moira asked minutes later as she watched Alison curiously.

‘Frantic!’ She rolled her eyes to show that she wasn’t in the least. ‘I’m making an oil-of-cloves poultice,’ Alison said, her own teeth slightly gritted.

‘A what?’ Moira frowned. ‘What’s that?’

‘Some old English treatment. Actually, I remember my mum giving this to me once. I’ve never been asked for it.’

‘Nick?’ Moira checked and gave a little sigh. ‘He asked me for some gentian violet yesterday.’ She held up her palms to show the evidence. ‘He dishes out the TLC, wish he’d dish some out in my direction!’ Moira was Irish, just passing through Coogee too as she nursed and travelled her way around the world. She was fun and flirty and just…fun!

‘Is he always so nice to everyone? It’s like a social club in Section B.’

‘Always,’ Moira said cheerfully.

Returning to Cubicle Five, Alison wondered if he’d still be so nice when the place was frantic, but for now he was taking his time with his patient.

‘Okay, Louise, I’ve given you a note for the dentist—you need to get that seen to this morning.’

Louise, once she’d bitten down on her cotton bud soaked in oil of cloves, managed to rally enough to tell him the name of the bar she worked at in the city, and that she was on at the weekend if he wanted to stop by for a drink on the house.

‘I’m working…’ Nick grinned ‘…but that’s terribly kind of you.’

‘He’s worth getting toothache for,’ Louise commented as he swept out and only the fresh scent of him lingered. They shared a little smile. ‘If I suddenly come over all dizzy, will you call him back for me?’

‘I’ll get Amy, the other registrar.’ Alison winked. ‘She’s good with dizzy females.’

‘Shame.’

Nick changed the atmosphere of the place—he seemed delighted to be there, nothing was too trivial and nothing major unnerved him, as Alison found out when the husband of a swollen-ankle case suddenly complained of chest pain and started to pass out. Still Nick remained unruffled, breaking the gentleman’s fall as Alison quickly wheeled out his wife, pressing the emergency bell and collecting the crash trolley.

By the time she returned, about twenty seconds later, the man had gone into full arrest and between them they had him clipped to the portable monitor, with Alison commencing cardiac massage even before help had arrived.

‘Let’s get him down to Resus.’ Amy, the emergency registrar, called for a trolley, but Nick thought otherwise.

‘Let’s just keep going here.’ It was a tiny override, or just a difference of opinion—nothing really—but when Amy, who easily took offence, simply nodded and they all just carried on working on the man on the cubicle floor, Alison realised the respect he had garnered in the short while he had been here.

Pads on, Nick shocked him, and before the crash team had arrived, the poor man was back in sinus rhythm and starting to come round.

‘It’s okay, sir…’ Nick’s was absolutely the voice you wanted to come round to. He didn’t talk down to the man and he didn’t scare him as he lay there groaning. ‘You’re doing fine—your heart went into an irregular rhythm but it’s beating normally now.’ He smiled up to Amy. ‘Okay, let’s get him on a trolley and down to you guys. I’ll go and speak with his wife.’

‘What was he in for?’ Amy asked.

‘He’s here with his wife, Doreen,’ Nick explained. ‘She’s got an ankle injury.’

Having seen what was going on, Libby, the receptionist, had taken Doreen to an interview room and taken the husband’s details from the shaken woman. After quickly writing his notes and checking the new patient’s name, Nick walked down to the interview room with Alison.

He was very thorough, first checking her husband’s details and assuming nothing—that Ernest was, in fact, her husband and finding out if she had contacted anyone. Then Nick got to the point, explaining that it would appear Ernest had had a heart attack.

‘It probably doesn’t feel it now, but your husband is an extremely lucky man—he could not have been in a better place when this happened.’

‘Will he be okay?’

‘We certainly hope so. He’s conscious, the cardiologists will be running some tests now, but certainly the next twenty-four hours will be critical. I’m going to go and speak with my colleagues now and find out some more for you. I suggest you ring your son and get some family here to support you.’ He stood and shook her hand. ‘And I’ll be back soon to take a good look at your ankle.’