‘I’m sorry about what happened the other night…Well, not for what happened, but the fact that it happened…Well, not even that, if I’m honest, but the fact that I’ve been like a bear with a sore head and avoiding you…Well, we’ve been avoiding each other…’

Oh, for heaven’s sake! Why on earth was he rambling like this? He hadn’t been this incoherent even when he’d been a tongue-tied teenager asking for his first date.

He snatched a steadying breath and forced himself to meet her eyes, suddenly struck by the fact that it almost looked as if she was about to cry.

‘I’m pregnant,’ she whispered through trembling lips, and turned the piece of paper she held so that it faced him.

Dear Reader

Being one of a large family can be great fun, but being the eldest has its own problems—not least the fact that you’re always being told you have to set a good example.

In David ffrench’s case, with doting parents and a younger sister who idolised him, that was hardly a problem. Ever since he could remember everything had come to him easily: study, sport, friendship and love.

Unfortunately, he’d never needed to learn how to cope with failure or disappointment, and when both struck at his idyllically happy life he found it hard to come to terms with the loss of everything he’d cherished. Determined he wasn’t going to give life the chance to hurt him again, he decided to dedicate himself totally to his absorbing career.

But he’d reckoned without meeting Leah Dawson.

Keenly intelligent and beautiful, Leah was every bit as dedicated as he was—both to her work and to avoiding relationships with the opposite sex. Neither of them had realised that their solitary, well-ordered lives would suddenly seem more like loneliness. Nor had they counted on the sparks that they would ignite in each other.

I hope you enjoy getting to know David and Leah as they struggle to heal the scars from the past so that they can become the supportive partner each of them needs.

Happy reading!

Josie

His Unexpected Child
Josie Metcalfe

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

COVER

Dear Reader

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

LEAH’S hand was shaking violently as she tried to put the telephone back on its cradle and she was only successful on the second attempt.

For just a moment she was blazingly angry that she’d been treated so cavalierly, but then her brain returned to its usual logical processes.

Still, she was sorely tempted to drop her head to the desk and howl her disappointment but the last thing she wanted was for the whole department to know what had just happened—at least, not until she’d had time to come to terms with it.

For a moment she glanced around the cramped room, focusing on all the things she hated about it—the shabby, boring paintwork, the limp, sun-bleached curtains and the institutional furniture piled high with the overflow of case files—and mourned the fact that she wouldn’t have time to finish her self-imposed task of rearranging the chaotic filing system into something more streamlined and efficient.

‘Problem?’ queried a voice from the doorway, and she realised that her trembling hands could not have been the only outward sign of her feelings. She drew in a swift bracing breath before she turned to face the department’s most senior nurse, knowing that the time for licking her wounds was already over.

‘No problem that I know of, Kelly,’ she said brightly, hoping her smile didn’t look as false as it felt.

‘So you got the lab results at last!’ A smile lit her gamine face as she entered the room eagerly.

Lab results? Leah blinked, having to force her mind back to her first phone call of the recent session, the one before disappointment had descended over her.

‘Ah…Yes! Here they are. I got Stanley to read them out for me over the phone and jotted them down.’ She handed the piece of paper to Kelly. ‘They’ve promised to follow up with written confirmation, a.s.a.p., and I promised to come up there personally and extract them with the most painful methods at my disposal if they didn’t keep their promise!’

Kelly laughed at the empty threat. They both knew exactly how important it was that the labs were meticulous, especially in the work of this department, and Stanley was one of the best.

‘Well, we’ll see what happens, won’t we,’ Kelly said with a doubting shake of her dark head. ‘They promised me the same, hours ago, and nothing happened. Still, I’m not the head of St Luke’s Assisted Reproduction department, so perhaps that’ll make all the difference.’

A swift pang of renewed disappointment tightened around Leah’s heart, but she couldn’t avoid breaking the news any longer. Soon everyone would know.

‘Only acting head,’ she reminded Kelly, hoping she didn’t sound as bitter as she felt. She’d been carrying the full load for months while Donald had avoided coming to terms with his need for heart-bypass surgery. Due to her willingness to work herself to a standstill, her superior’s sudden death had hardly registered in the smooth running of the department, and she’d hoped that it would be little more than a formality for her unofficial position as head of the AR department to be given the stamp of approval.

‘That’s just administrative claptrap,’ Kelly declared supportively. ‘We all know you’re the best one for the position, especially as you’ve been doing it for so many weeks—’

‘Apparently, not everyone agrees with you, Kelly,’ Leah interrupted, her voice a little sharper than usual with restrained emotion. ‘The board has appointed a new head of department from outside the hospital. He’s supposed to be joining us in a matter of days.’

‘Oh, Leah,’ Kelly murmured, clearly stricken. At least that was some kind of sop to Leah’s ego. ‘Oh, damn, I’m sorry. Why didn’t you say something? When did you find out?’

‘Just a moment ago.’ She gestured towards the phone. ‘Apparently someone was supposed to have informed me of the board’s decision before the weekend, but in the excitement of snagging someone as eminent as David ffrench…’ She shrugged, trying to appear philosophical about hospital management’s total lack of courtesy.

‘David ffrench?’ Kelly frowned.

‘The name doesn’t ring a bell with me either,’ Leah agreed. ‘But, then, I just grabbed the minimum time necessary from the department to attend the interview. There just wasn’t time to hang around to meet the competition so I don’t even know where he’s been working.’

‘Well, if he’s such hot stuff, how come he’s free to take up a position here at the drop of a hat?’ Kelly demanded.

‘All I know is that he’s apparently been at a top-flight IVF centre in New Zealand and he’s come to Britain for family reasons.’

‘Is he a New Zealander?’ There was a definite spark of interest in Kelly’s dark eyes and Leah actually had to subdue a grin at the predictability of her colleague’s reaction. ‘Oh, tell me he’s one of those gorgeous seven-foot rugby-playing Maoris, please! That’s what this department could do with—a few really sexy hunky single men!’

‘Sorry I can’t oblige,’ said a dry voice behind them, and they both whirled in surprise to face the man who had arrived unannounced at the office doorway. ‘I’m not a New Zealander and it’s years since I played any rugby.’

That didn’t mean he was lacking in the looks department, Leah registered with an unexpected surge of awareness, something that hadn’t happened since…for ever.

At five feet seven, she wasn’t short, but she had to look up some way to meet his uncomfortably direct greeny blue gaze, in spite of the fact that she hadn’t had time to change out of her heeled shoes this morning. His bronzed skin was a testament to the fact that he’d just returned from a summer in New Zealand but his face was all planes and angles as though he’d recently lost more weight than was good for him. He certainly didn’t look as though he was carrying enough muscle bulk to be a rugby player now.

‘You’re English!’ Kelly’s gurgle of laughter startled her and Leah felt a wash of heat surge up into her cheeks. Had she really been standing there admiring the man’s physique, for heaven’s sake? Had he noticed?

‘Through and through,’ their new boss agreed with a slight smile, but Leah noted that, for all his pleasant manner, the smile hadn’t reached his eyes. ‘In fact, I did part of my training at this very hospital.’

And that would account for his appointment, Leah thought waspishly, then had to stifle a grimace.

She knew she was being illogical. No hospital would appoint a head of department without being certain that they were the best for the position, especially when they had several to choose from. She would just have to learn to console herself with the idea that it had probably been her age—or lack of it—and a lack of seniority in this particular discipline that had lost her the headship this time. David ffrench looked to be several years older at least, and had already headed a similar department in New Zealand. Added to that, her experience of holding the department together over the last few months had gone largely unnoticed by the hospital hierarchy as her head of department had been covering his tracks to conceal how badly his health had been hampering him. While the extra burden had been exhausting, Leah hadn’t really blamed Donald for wanting to hang on to the job he loved as long as possible. She knew what it was like to build your whole life around a special profession.

‘I’m Kelly Argent,’ Kelly was saying with the sort of blinding smile that would tell even the slowest-witted man that she was interested. ‘I’m Senior Sister in the department.’

‘David ffrench,’ he said, accepting her handshake but, as far as Leah could tell, not even registering any other offers. ‘I’m not actually starting till the beginning of next week but I was hoping to meet up with my second in command so that we could compare notes about the department and the case load. Is he here at the moment?’

‘He?’ Leah repeated in shock, her thoughts a whirling maelstrom. Had she lost out completely? Had she been so shocked by the announcement of his appointment over her that she’d missed a vital second part to that phone call? Had there been another appointment, replacing her without her knowledge? Was she now relegated to third in the pecking order, or even bounced out of the department altogether?

‘Lee Dawson,’ he said with a hint of impatience. ‘The chap who’s been holding everything together since my predecessor—’

‘Lee!’ Kelly giggled, clearly delighted with his mistake. ‘You mean Leah!’ She sketched a sweeping gesture in her direction. ‘And I bet the panel didn’t tell you that if it weren’t for her working twenty-six hours a day, there wouldn’t be a department for you to take charge of.’

Leah cringed with embarrassment when he turned the full force of those striking eyes on her. It had been for the sake of her—their—patients that she’d worked so long and hard, not to have fulsome praise heaped on her shoulders. She would far rather have had the position of head of department instead.

‘Loyal staff,’ her new boss said quietly, his eyes giving nothing away. ‘That speaks well of a department. I hope I can earn the same sort of loyalty as my predecessor.’

‘Oh, he wasn’t the one—’ Kelly began, but Leah quelled her with a glare. She might be disappointed to have lost the plum job but there was no way she wanted to start off a new working relationship with the rest of the staff taking sides.

A frown briefly pleated the smooth skin of his forehead, as though he’d suddenly become aware of unanticipated undercurrents, but with her deliberately noncommittal expression, Leah hoped that there was nothing for him to glean.

‘Well, then, Leah, if it’s convenient, I’d like to spend some time in the department today to see how things are run at the moment. I expect you’ve got everything ready for my arrival on Monday, but have you got time this morning to go over the current patient files?’

To see how things are run at the moment? Leah’s heart sank. That certainly sounded as if he intended making changes before he’d even seen how things were organised. Not that there weren’t changes that she’d had in mind should she have been given the job, but she already knew what needed changing because she’d been running the department for months.

‘Actually, there’s nothing ready for your arrival on Monday because we had no idea that you were coming,’ she said bluntly, unable to stop her frustration coating her words. ‘In fact, we’d never even heard of you until five minutes before you turned up, and we certainly didn’t know that you’d been appointed head of department.’

To say that he looked taken aback was putting it mildly, Leah thought, and, in spite of her own feelings of disappointment, she suddenly found herself having to fight laughter. Was it hysteria? Perhaps. But it certainly wasn’t a good example of professional courtesy, especially when she was going to have to work with the man.

‘Of course, the patients’ notes are completely up to date,’ she assured him with a touch of justifiable pride. He obviously didn’t think so and she could hardly blame him, given the fact that there were piles of files dotted around as a result of her ongoing reorganisation. ‘And the computer system the hospital uses is very quick to master so you shouldn’t have any trouble accessing any other details you may need.’

‘I see.’ He was silent for a nerve-stretching moment as his eyes roved the apparent chaos surrounding them, the dubious expression on his face saying everything. ‘And will you have any time free this morning?’

There was something in the tone of his voice that she couldn’t put her finger on, but it made Leah feel uncomfortable. She had no idea whether he was pleased to hear that all the paperwork was in order or whether he seriously doubted it and was wondering how soon he could find a way to replace her.

Just the thought of having to leave her beloved department was enough to send a chill down her spine and she instantly resolved to be less prickly. After all, she may have applied for the post but she hadn’t got it. It certainly wasn’t the first disappointment she’d suffered. Life went on.

She slid back behind the desk, leaning forward to press a combination of keys on the computer keyboard until the relevant diary page flashed up onto the screen. She always arrived at least an hour before she was due to start and she may as well get their initial meeting over as soon as possible. The situation wasn’t going to change even if she put him off until the end of the day, and she’d have it hanging over her, too.

‘I’m free for the next three-quarters of an hour,’ she began briskly, then realised that she’d automatically treated the room as her own domain, sitting at the desk as if it was her right. ‘That is, I’ll be free as soon as I’ve had time to take my belongings out of your room…although where I’ll be able to put them…’ she finished under her breath, completely unable to think of anywhere in the department that she could set up as her own space. She’d been doing so much of the day-to-day running of the department for so long that there was very little in the room to remind her that it had actually been her former head of department’s office.

‘That’s not important for the moment,’ he said dismissively. ‘We’ll just have to share the office if there isn’t anywhere else.’

Leah nearly choked at the impossibility of the idea. The room was far too small for a second desk to be shoehorned into the cramped space and they certainly couldn’t share the existing one. What was he proposing? That she should sit on his lap?

‘The important thing,’ he continued while she fought to rid her brain of that seductive image, ‘is that I need to be up to speed before I start work properly on Monday. Where we do it or whose name is on the door is immaterial.’

‘So, what do you think of him?’ Kelly demanded eagerly, her coat over her arm, at the end of her shift.

‘Who?’ Leah asked weakly, knowing it was a forlorn hope that the topic of conversation would be anything other than their new head of department.

‘David ffrench, of course,’ Kelly said impatiently, almost as though she doubted Leah’s sanity. ‘Remember? The man you’ve spent ages closeted with in that cosy little office, you lucky girl.’

‘He’s very different to Donald,’ Leah said blandly, hoping that Kelly hadn’t picked up on the fact that her heart had just performed a sudden jig at the mention of his name. It had been bad enough when he’d been standing in the office doorway and she’d been able to put the width of the desk between them, but sitting side by side with their elbows and knees in almost constant contact had quickly become torture. She’d never been this aware of any man, not even…

‘Duh!’ Kelly mocked, halting that particular train of thought before it could hit the buffers. ‘Tell me something I haven’t noticed! David ffrench is absolutely nothing like Donald, thank God. Tell me…while you were in here, what have you managed to find out about his private life? Is he married, engaged, living with a significant other or is he gloriously, wonderfully free to fall instantly in love with yours truly?’

‘I haven’t got a clue,’ Leah replied honestly, but felt the tide of warmth seeping up her face with the silent admission that for the first time in a long time she’d actually found herself thinking exactly the same questions. ‘All I can tell you is that he doesn’t wear a ring—not that that is any indication of anything these days, especially for a surgeon.’

‘Ah, so you were looking!’ Kelly pounced.

‘Not really, but I couldn’t help noticing as we were working our way through the current case files.’ And couldn’t help noticing what nice hands he had either. They were all lean and long fingered and looked as if they had the sort of sinewy strength that any surgeon needed, combined with the delicacy of touch and fine control that was essential for their exacting specialty.

‘So, do you think he’ll be good for the department?’ Kelly asked, suddenly reverting to a more serious frame of mind. ‘Do you think you’ll be able to work with him?’

‘Time will tell,’ Leah said noncommittally. ‘He certainly seems to know his stuff.’

‘And the fact that he’s so easy on the eyes is a big help, too,’ Kelly joked archly. ‘Not that he seems very interested in playing the flirting game. I think nearly every female in the entire obs and gyn section perked up as he’s gone by, but he didn’t even seem to notice. Oh!’ She gasped as a sudden thought struck her. ‘You don’t think he’s…you know, batting for the other team?’

‘You mean, homosexual?’ Leah fought a grin, determined to at least appear to take the suggestion seriously. ‘I suppose he could be. Once again, though, only time will tell.’

She was grinning openly as a scowling Kelly made her way out of the unit, muttering darkly that all the good-looking men were either married or gay, absolutely certain in her own mind that, married or not, David ffrench was a hundred per cent pure functioning male.

‘Hey, big brother! How did it go today? Did you get a chance to look around your new domain?’

‘Hi, Moggy! How are you doing?’ David felt a wide smile spread over his face at the sound of his sister’s voice at the other end of the phone, grateful for the chance to stop unpacking boxes. He lowered himself into his borrowed armchair and suddenly realised why it had been so eagerly donated when it nearly swallowed him whole. He might have to call for help just to escape from its smothering clutches. ‘Is that new husband of yours treating you right?’

‘Like a fragile piece of priceless china,’ she grumbled, but he could hear the happiness underlying the complaint. It was so good to know that she’d finally found what she’d always wanted—a man who loved her every bit as much as she loved him—and if it left him feeling pea green with envy, that was his own problem. He’d thought he’d had it all once, and look where he was now.

‘Perhaps that’s because you’re not only newly-weds but you’re also pregnant with his baby,’ he pointed out. ‘And you know you wouldn’t want it any other way.’

‘True,’ she conceded cheerfully and with a definite hint of smugness. ‘Hey! No sidetracking! You didn’t answer my question. What did you think of your new department? Are you glad I twisted your arm to apply for the post? Did you have a chance to meet Leah Dawson? What did you think of her? Don’t you think she’s just—?’

‘Hey, Moggy! Give me a chance to answer the first half-dozen questions before you pile on the next dozen!’ He chuckled, glad that she’d never grown out of that habit. He’d been teasing her about it ever since she’d learned to talk.

‘Not so much of the Moggy!’ she complained, as she always did. ‘I’m not ten any more. So, start answering. Isn’t Leah just great?’

For some reason that was the last question David felt like answering, and he couldn’t think of a single logical reason why—at least, not one he cared to contemplate with his nosy little sister on the other end of the phone.

Hurriedly, he reverted to an earlier question.

‘Yes, Moggy, I freely admit that I’m absolutely delighted that you brought the AR vacancy to my attention. It has the makings of an excellent department.’

‘The makings? You mean, once you’ve done your new-broom bit and completely reorganised it?’ she teased, but he knew there was more than a hint of the truth in her words. He did like to put his own stamp on the way his department was run, but he certainly didn’t want to start off by alienating the existing staff.

He wondered just how well his sister knew Leah. Maggie and Jake hadn’t needed the assistance of his new department to start her pregnancy, but she might have met his new colleague when they’d had to call for someone to take a look at a potential admission down in A and E. She might also have met her when she’d accompanied an emergency patient up to the department at some time.

Had she also noticed the chaotic disarray in his predecessor’s office, with files on every available surface? It certainly wasn’t the way he liked to run a department and he’d been amazed that Leah had apparently had no trouble putting her hand on everything he’d requested.

And there she was, back inside his head again, no matter how hard he tried to keep her out. He had far more important things to think about than a pair of serious grey eyes and a wealth of honey-blonde hair tied tightly back to reveal the delicate bone structure of her face.

He shook his head, glad that Maggie couldn’t see him. What did it matter that his new colleague was tall and slender and filled with almost incandescent nervous energy? It certainly hadn’t helped her to keep on top of a simple job like keeping the office straight. Come Monday, he dreaded discovering that her attention to other things, like the important details that should have been recorded in each of those case notes since her superior died, was equally slap-dash. In the short time she’d had free, he hadn’t been able to do much more than get an idea of the scope of patients currently under investigation and treatment, and the general routine of the department on a daily and weekly basis.

‘Would Jake be happy working in a disorganised department?’ he challenged gently. ‘I bet the first thing he did when he got his consultancy was go over every tiny detail in person.’

‘And you’d win, you rat!’ Maggie grumbled. ‘Just promise me something—don’t ruffle too many feathers on your first day. Take it gently until you’ve had a chance to get to know the people you’ll be working with. They’re a good tight-knit team.’

‘Yes, Mother,’ he said in a singsong voice. ‘I’ll play nicely with the other boys and girls.’

‘Oh, you’re impossible!’ she spluttered. ‘Sometimes I don’t know why I bother.’

‘Because I’m your lovable big brother?’ he suggested, tongue in cheek.

‘Exactly,’ she said, heaving a theatrical put-upon sigh. ‘But, seriously, David…’

‘Uh-oh! When she uses those dreaded words…!’ he teased. ‘It’s OK, Moggy. You can stop worrying about me, I’m a big boy now.’

‘I know that, but I don’t just want you to be successful, I want you to be happy, too,’ she said plaintively.

The words hung in the air between them for several seconds.

David knew exactly what she meant. Since she’d found happiness with Jake, she wanted everyone to be equally happy, but he knew that wasn’t possible for him. He’d had his chance and it had all gone horribly wrong.

‘It wasn’t your fault, David,’ she said softly in his ear, and he shivered at the accuracy of the way she’d followed his thoughts. Was he really that transparent?

‘That didn’t make any difference to the pain,’ he said gruffly, startled that he’d even admitted that much. In fact, it was probably the most he’d said to anyone about the loss that would haunt him for ever, and it would be the last. ‘So, if you don’t mind, little sister, I’ll concentrate on my new job and making the department second to none. That’ll make me happy.’

‘But you can’t take the department to bed for a cuddle,’ she retorted stubbornly. ‘David, you can’t cut yourself off from people like that. If you don’t want to talk to me, you could phone Mum and Dad. Calls to New Zealand may be expensive, but on your salary—’

‘No way!’ he exploded a second before he could put a guard on his tongue.

‘What?’ Maggie sounded startled. ‘But, David, you’ve always been so close to them—they moved halfway round the world to be near you, for heaven’s sake. Surely they’d be willing to listen if you wanted to talk?’

‘Too damn close!’ he muttered under his breath, then realised that he needed to make some sort of explanation.

‘Mum and Dad—at least, Mum—is one of the reasons why I left New Zealand. I had to get away, Maggie. She was still trying to smother me, the way she did when I was a kid. I’m thirty-four, for heaven’s sake! I don’t need my mother to bandage my grazed knees and kiss them better!’

Maggie giggled. ‘That’s an image to conjure with!’

‘Well, it’s not so funny when you’re on the receiving end of it,’ he pointed out grimly.

‘But, David—’ she began persuasively, but he’d had enough.

‘And you’d better watch your step,’ he warned. ‘If you’re going to start nagging, I’ll set Jake on you. I’ll tell him that he needs to keep a closer eye on you.’

‘Don’t you dare!’ she squealed in dismay. ‘I can hardly breathe as it is. If somebody from Obs and Gyn told him I needed watching he’d never let me out of his sight.’

‘That’s because you and the baby mean that much to him,’ he pointed out softly, the pain of memories tightening its grip around his throat and his heart. ‘Enjoy every precious minute of it, Moggy. Sleep tight.’

‘This isn’t working,’ Leah muttered as she stepped back from her little workbench in disgust.

Usually she could lose herself in the timeless art of repotting, trimming and training her precious bonsai trees, the cares of the day simply melting away as she put her concentration to each measured task. Tonight it just wasn’t happening and it was all his fault.

‘I might just as well be doing something useful, rather than risking spoiling one of you,’ she muttered as she collected and cleaned her tools and put them away. ‘And I know just the job.’

Decision made, it took mere moments before her hands were washed and she was reaching for her keys with a wry grimace. It would always seem wasteful to drive such a short distance, but it would be a very foolish woman who would wander about in the deep shadows between her flat and the hospital buildings in the dark.

Not long after that, she’d shut herself in the nighttime seclusion of the untidy office and was rolling up her sleeves in preparation for the final stage in her reorganisation of Donald’s filing system. The audit of all his files had been long overdue and a surprising number should already have been sent to the hospital archives. The remaining stacks were a far more manageable number for the available space in the filing cabinets.

She pulled open the first empty drawer and couldn’t help chuckling when she remembered the horrified expression on David ffrench’s face when he’d seen the chaos in the room. It had been sheer stubbornness mixed with her disappointment at losing out on the head of department job that had stopped her from explaining what was going on, and she felt a bit guilty about it now.

‘Guilty enough to lose some sleep to finish the job, but as I’ve already checked the contents of each one of these and put them all into alphabetical order, at least this part should be a breeze,’ she muttered as she prepared to slot each file into position. In a relatively short space of time she could have every last piece of paper filed neatly out of sight and she could push the last drawer shut with a warm feeling of achievement.

Suddenly she paused and threw a disparaging glare around the room.

‘The trouble is, when there are none of Donald’s piles of filing to distract the eye, it will be even more obvious just how shabby everything has become.’

The walls, in particular, could do with a fresh coat of paint—something rather more welcoming than dingy Institution Beige. ‘But fresher walls will make the curtains look worse than ever,’ she muttered in defeat, until an image of the spare pair of curtains lurking back at her flat leapt into her head. She’d bought them for her last flat and, while they didn’t fit any of the windows in her new one, they were still nearly new.

‘And if I can corner one of the maintenance men some time tomorrow…Even if he can’t do something about it, perhaps I could get him to beg a can of paint from the stores. Then I could come back again tomorrow evening…’

Course of action decided, she put the pile of files back where she’d got them from, switched off the light and locked the door behind her, a tiny smile betraying the thought that she was actually looking forward to David ffrench starting work on Monday. She could hardly wait to see the expression on his face when he saw the finished transformation.

‘And it’ll be every bit as good as any of the make-overs he’d see on the television,’ she vowed, a fresh spring in her step in spite of the time.

David ffrench stepped back into the shadow of the stairwell with a frown.

‘What on earth is Leah Dawson doing here at this time of night?’ he muttered into the darkness, his eyes following her swiftly moving figure as she made her way to the lifts. She’d obviously been home since the end of her shift because she’d changed from her neatly tailored trousers into a pair of decidedly disreputable jeans, jeans that revealed a figure every bit as neat and slender as he’d imagined.

And that smile! It was the first one he’d seen that didn’t look as if it had been forced out of her by well-drilled manners, and it had instantly intrigued him.

What had she been doing in his office at this time of night…? Well, it would be his office when he took it over on Monday morning. His frown deepened as he considered the possibilities. She must be in her late twenties or early thirties, so far too old for juvenile pranks such as whoopee cushions, and he hoped that she was far too professional to do something as stupid as to mess about with patient files.

‘As if I’d be able to tell,’ he groaned softly, remembering the chaos littering every surface. ‘As it is, it’s going to take me a month of Sundays just to get things organised. How I’m going to be able to run the department at the same time…’

He couldn’t imagine what the patients must think when they were shown into the room for the first time. It certainly wasn’t confidence-inspiring, and the frustration was that he couldn’t do anything about the situation until he officially started work.

‘Unless…’ he mused as he turned and made his way back down the stairs, then shook his head. The possibility of enlisting Leah in some overtime to sort through the mess had briefly flashed through his mind, but it wasn’t a good idea.

‘No,’ he conceded. ‘I’ve got enough to do in the next twenty-four hours with organising my living space. And I really don’t need to get off on the wrong foot with Leah before we’ve even started to work together.’

As he left, he smiled absently at the security guard who’d earlier verified his identity before admitting him to the building, then lengthened his stride as he set off towards the nearby block of flats, wondering why the woman seemed to have taken up permanent residence inside his head when he’d only met her this morning.

‘The last thing I need is getting tangled up with some woman,’ he said aloud, startling an elderly gentleman taking his equally elderly dog out for its late-night constitutional. ‘Been there, done that,’ he muttered more quietly. ‘I’ve got the scars to prove it.’

CHAPTER TWO

‘THAT looks better!’ Leah exclaimed aloud as she clambered down from her perch on the window-sill and stepped back to admire her handiwork.

In the distance, she heard the chimes of the church clock striking two, a reassuring sound that couldn’t be heard at all when the department was busy during the day, but now only served to remind her of just how late it was.

‘If I’m going to be awake enough to work a full shift, I’d better get home to bed,’ she muttered. ‘I wouldn’t want to oversleep and miss out on seeing his reaction.’

She’d already deposited the decorating equipment in a nearby storage cupboard, as arranged with the helpful maintenance man. Now that she’d hung the curtains, she was going to leave the window open for the rest of the night to help to dispel the last of the paint fumes.

‘Now I’m the messiest thing in the room,’ she said with a grimace for her paint-splattered clothing, but the results were certainly well worthwhile.

In spite of her need to get home, get cleaned up and get some sleep, she couldn’t help pausing by the door for a little gloat at all she’d achieved.

She’d barely had time to rejoice over the improvement—the calm, professional appearance of the ‘business’ end of the room, with not a stray piece of paper to be seen, compared to the softer, more welcoming area where prospective parents would be invited to sit—when her pager shrilled its imperative summons, startling her out of her wits.

‘I hope it’s a misdialled code,’ she muttered even as she was reaching for the receiver to answer the call.

‘Leah? How long will it take you to get here?’ demanded the familiar voice of one of the midwives.

‘Is there a problem?’ Leah made a sound of disgust. ‘Ignore the stupid question, Sally. Blame it on the time of night and change it to “What’s the problem?’”

‘Major, major problem,’ she said grimly. ‘An IVF patient in advanced labour, multiple birth, malpresentation.’

Already Leah’s head was reeling with the staccato presentation of facts. One part of her brain was sifting through ‘their’ patients, but she couldn’t think of any of the sets of twins who were anywhere near due yet.

‘Which one? Is she miscarrying?’ Unfortunately, there was a high rate of loss and all its attendant heart-aches in their vulnerable group of patients.

‘Not one of ours,’ Sally reassured her succinctly. ‘She’s in a bad way. How soon can you get here? I think the only way we’re going to save any of them is an emergency Caesarean, pronto, and Chas is already fully occupied.’

For just a fleeting second she wondered if she was about to bite off more than she could chew. This would be her first really complicated case since Donald had died, and although he hadn’t delivered a baby for several years, there had been a certain sense of security in knowing that such an experienced man had been nearby.

‘How long will it take you to get her into Theatre?’ She glanced across at the clock on the wall above the filing cabinets to confirm the time while she contemplated her course of action. ‘I’ll go straight there and start to scrub.’

‘Ten minutes, tops. I’ve already warned Theatre to get ready,’ Sally informed her, then added, ‘Leah, make it as fast as you can, please. I’ve got a really bad feeling about this one.’

The butterflies in Leah’s stomach became helicopters with those parting words. Sally was an experienced midwife not prone to panicking at the slightest hitch. If she was worried, then there was something to worry about and even though she could have taken the case on herself, Leah knew what she had to do. With mother and babies’ lives at stake, this was no time for egos or hospital politics.

‘Hello, Switchboard, I need to contact one of the consultants urgently, and I don’t have his home number,’ she announced briskly, her fingers crossed that the computer had already been updated ready for David ffrench’s commencement today at a more civilised time. It only briefly crossed her mind that his insurance cover might not start until he was officially on duty. ‘It’s David ffrench…two f’s. He’s the new appointment to Obs and Gyn.’

It took several more precious minutes to persuade the person on the other end that if they made the connection to the outside line, they wouldn’t actually be breaking his right to confidentiality.

‘H’lo?’ said a husky voice right in her ear, and every nerve quivered with the knowledge that she’d just woken him up, that he was probably lying in his bed—totally naked?—with his dark hair all rumpled and…

‘Mr ffrench?’ she squeaked, and had to clear her throat before she could continue, gabbling in her embarrassment at her unruly imagination. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you when you haven’t officially begun working here, but could you possibly come over to the hospital? There’s an emergency Caesarean…multiple birth…And I think I’m going to need you. Oh, this is Leah Dawson.’

‘Foetal distress?’ he demanded, already obviously firing on all cylinders, much to Leah’s envy. She still hated being woken in the middle of the night, even after all these years in the profession. ‘How many weeks gestation and how long has the mother been in labour?’

‘I don’t know much more than I’ve told you,’ she admitted. ‘But it was Sally Ling, one of the most experienced midwives in the department, who called me, and she knows what she’s talking about. Chas—Charles Westmoreland—isn’t available because he’s already dealing with a problem delivery,’ she added, anticipating his next question.

‘I can be there in ten minutes. Get her into Theatre,’ he said tersely, and before she could utter a word of thanks, he’d broken the connection.

Leah could have wasted energy feeling snubbed by his abruptness, but all she was conscious of was relief that he was on his way. Now it was time to get moving.

‘Have you got any more details for me?’ she demanded over her shoulder as she began the scrubbing ritual, the cotton of the theatre greens feeling very thin and insubstantial after her jeans.

Sally’s head appeared round the corner, her dark curls already trying to escape from the disposable cap.

‘Mum tried to tell me that she’s thirty-eight, but I’d say she’s much closer to sixty.’

‘What?’ Leah gaped at her, hands suspended in mid-scrub. ‘You’re joking! She probably just looks a bit…shattered after carrying a double load around for so many months.’

‘You could be right,’ Sally said dubiously. ‘See what you think when you see her. Ashraf’s not too happy about any of it. We’ve got absolutely no previous notes and she’s being extremely cagey about where she had her treatment, and he’s in charge of her anaesthesia.’

‘Not another one!’ exclaimed David as he joined Leah at the sink. He’d obviously heard enough of the conversation as he’d come in to pick up on what was happening. ‘We had one like this at my last post. Apparently she’d had extensive cosmetic surgery so that she could use her niece’s passport for identification as she was well beyond the age limits for properly regulated IVF. We never did find out where she’d been treated and we nearly lost her to eclampsia.’

‘Oh, boy, am I glad I invited you to this little party,’ Leah groaned. ‘By the way, should I make the introductions? David ffrench, new head of our little domain, meet Sally Ling, midwife extraordinaire.’

‘I take it this is what’s called being thrown in at the deep end,’ David commented as he took his turn at having the ties fastened at the back of his gown, then held his hands out for gloves.

‘We wouldn’t like you to think you were going to be bored here, so we thought we’d lay on a bit of entertainment,’ Sally quipped, taking another look into the room behind her. ‘I think Ashraf’s nearly ready for you to begin, but he doesn’t look happy.’

‘Too right, Ashraf’s not happy!’ exclaimed the man in question, his dark eyes firmly fixed on the array of monitors grouped at his end of the table. ‘Some things are just not right.’

‘Is there a problem with her anaesthesia?’ Leah heard the sharp edge of concern in David’s voice.

‘You mean, apart from the fact that her blood pressure’s too high and her lungs aren’t the best?’ he said wryly. ‘No, what I meant was that I reckon we can add at least twenty years to the age the patient’s given us, and a woman in her fifties or sixties should be looking forward to grandchildren, the way nature intended. There are sound physiological reasons why there should be age limits for IVF. And it’s a multiple birth!’ he finished, the words almost completely incomprehensible as his accent became stronger and stronger in his passion.

‘You’ll get no argument from me,’ David said grimly as he painted the grossly swollen abdomen preparatory to the incision. ‘And to turn up obviously intending to leave us completely in the dark about the details of her pregnancy…!’

He didn’t bother finishing the sentence, but Leah knew he didn’t need to when everyone in the room knew just how much that omission could affect the outcome of what they were doing.

‘Is everybody ready?’ he asked, and Leah threw one last look around the assembled staff. Apart from those grouped around the operating table, there were two teams waiting in the background with the high-tech Perspex incubators for the other two tiny individuals who would hopefully be joining them in the room soon. What they were going to do if both babies needed high-dependency nursing was another problem entirely. There were never enough beds or specially trained staff to cope, and they would need to do some serious juggling with the babies already in the unit to cope with just one seriously sick preemie. A second one would probably have to face a life-threatening dash to whichever NICU had the nearest free HDU bed. She’d probably have to spend several hours on the phone begging and pleading…

But that was in the future. First they had to deliver the babies.

‘Ready,’ she confirmed as she turned back to the table. Those striking eyes were waiting for her, somehow all the more potent for the fact that they were all she could see of him above his disposable mask. For just a second it almost felt as if the two of them had made some sort of silent connection but then he had his hand out ready to receive the scalpel, and when he immediately applied it to their patient’s skin in an expert arc she knew she must have been mistaken.

It was lovely to watch him work, she thought, admiring the efficient way he’d exposed the uterus. Without a word needing to be spoken, she was ready to zap the inevitable bleeders then stood poised with suction as he carefully chose the site for the second incision. The last thing they needed was to injure one of the babies with an injudicious cut.

Amniotic fluid gushed out of the widening aperture and he had to pause for a moment before he could insert two fingers into the gap as a guide, positioning them between the wall of the uterus and the babies it contained to enable him to continue cutting.

‘It’s all arms and legs in here,’ he muttered as he inserted one long-fingered hand through the incision. ‘Ah! Gotcha! Leah?’ he nodded towards the exposed belly above the incision.

She placed one hand on the strangely brown flesh and waited for his signal, but he hardly needed her assistance, the baby’s head emerging cradled in his palm and the rest of the spindly body following in a rapid slither.

‘It’s a girl!’ Leah announced as the cord was cut and she immediately turned to place the wriggling infant into the waiting warmed blanket held out by Sally just as she let out her first wail.

‘One down, one to go,’ David said as he inserted his hand again, this time emerging with a tiny foot and going back to find the other one of the pair. ‘Come on, sunshine,’ he said encouragingly. ‘There’s a lot of people out here waiting to meet you.’

Leah smiled behind her mask, once more poised for the nod that would come if he needed help to get the baby’s head out into the world.

‘It’s another girl,’ she said, the sex of the baby all too obvious in such an undignified position, then it was time to cut the cord and hand her little charge over to the second waiting team.

She turned back, expecting to find David dealing with the clean removal of two placentas, but found him scowling darkly.

‘I don’t believe it!’ he exclaimed. ‘There’s a third one in here!’

‘What!’ Leah gasped, unable to believe her ears.

For a second nobody moved, then they all spoke at once.

‘You’re joking!’

‘We’ll need another team with an incubator. Hurry.’

‘Her blood pressure’s dropping.’

It was the final voice that silenced them all, and while Leah knew that there was frantic activity behind her as extra help was summoned from the NICU, she was focusing solely on David.

If she hadn’t been so close to him for the last half-hour she probably wouldn’t have noticed the new urgency in his movements, but, as it was, she could almost feel the tension emanating from him.

‘Come on, come on!’ she heard him mutter under his breath, almost growling with frustration.

Perhaps his hands were too large for the job, even though they were relatively slender for a man. Perhaps her smaller ones would help—anything to bring the unexpected third baby out successfully.

‘Do you want me to—?’

‘Got it!’ he exclaimed, interrupting her offer before it had been made. ‘It was a transverse lie and the poor little thing had been squashed by its sisters trying to get out.’

Even as he was speaking he was lifting the tiny scrap out of its mother’s body, and Leah’s heart clenched when she saw the state the infant was in.

‘He’s terribly floppy!’ she exclaimed, already reaching out to take the precious burden. ‘Is he breathing?’

She didn’t really want to pass the tiny being over, all her protective instincts demanding she take care of it herself, but with Ashraf’s renewed warning that they needed to finish the operation as soon as possible, all she could do was relinquish her into Sally’s waiting hands, knowing that her colleague would do everything she could.

In the meantime, there were now three placentas to remove and check for completeness before the incisions in both uterus and skin could be closed—and all with the clock ticking ominously.

‘Damn! Where is all that blood coming from?’ David swore suddenly. ‘Leah, suction! I can’t see what’s going on…’

‘Hurry up, guys,’ Ashraf warned. ‘We’re going to lose her.’

‘Not without a fight,’ David countered fiercely. ‘Get some more fluids into her as fast as you can,’ he directed as he peered into the gaping wound. ‘Damn it, the uterus is paper thin. It’s almost shredding as we look at it.’

‘You’ll have to do a hysterectomy,’ Leah said, hoping she sounded calmer than she felt. ‘With blood loss this rapid there isn’t time for any sort of repair, not if she’s going to be around for those babies.’

David met her eyes for the briefest moment and she knew that they’d both come to that same decision.

She’d thought she’d seen him working quickly before, but it was nothing to the speed at which he excised the life-threatening tissue in a room filled with the din of shrilling monitors warning of imminent disaster.

‘She’s going to crash!’ Ashraf called, and out of the corner of her eye Leah could see his hands flying from one control to another as he tried his best to support their failing patient.

‘Thirty seconds, Ashraf!’ David growled, without pausing for a single one of them in his determination to cheat death. ‘Just keep her going for another thirty seconds.’

‘I’ll do my best, but I can’t promise you’ve got even that long,’ the anaesthetist warned as the monitor told them that their patient’s heart was beating almost out of control in an attempt to circulate the remaining blood, but David didn’t even falter.

Leah was aware of a strange feeling that was almost exhilaration as she assisted in one of the most frantic operations she’d ever witnessed. For the first time ever in an operation, the lead surgeon didn’t even need to say what he wanted. Somehow she just knew and was there ready with the next clamp or the diathermy to seal off another bleeding blood vessel.

‘Bowl,’ David said, even as Leah was holding it out to him. He finally glanced towards Ashraf. ‘How is she doing?’

‘Holding her own—just,’ he said cautiously, and checked all his monitors again. ‘We’re actually managing to get some volume into her, now that she’s not leaking like a sieve. Her heart rate is coming down and her blood pressure’s coming up.’

‘In that case, Leah, would you like to close?’ He raised one dark eyebrow but she was more interested in the expression of relief she detected in those beautiful eyes.

‘Oh, yes. Of course,’ she floundered, feeling like a fool for standing gazing at him like that. What on earth was going on? She’d never behaved like this before. Imagine—standing in the operating theatre in the middle of a procedure and thinking that the new consultant had beautiful eyes!

Whatever next? she demanded silently as she did a final check to make sure that nothing was bleeding any more, then carefully sutured the abdominal musculature layer by layer.

‘Nice neat job,’ David murmured at her elbow, but she’d known that he was watching, every nerve seeming to recognise his proximity even though she couldn’t see him.

‘Thank you, sir,’ she said with a mock curtsey, then stepped back to allow others to take over the application of protective dressings before their patient was taken through to Recovery.

‘And may I return the compliment, in spades,’ she continued, when they’d made their way out of Theatre to divest themselves of their liberally splattered clothing. Sudden nervousness at the thought that he was about to see her in nothing more than her underwear made her chatter. ‘I’ve never seen anyone work that fast or that accurately, and I’ll be eternally grateful that you agreed to come in tonight. I know I could have delivered the babies, but I doubt whether I’d have been able to save the mother when it all went pear-shaped so quickly.’

Suddenly confronted by the tanned width of his naked chest, her tongue stopped working, her jaw all but hanging open. Had she thought he was too thin? She could obviously blame his tailor because there was nothing wrong with the body she was seeing in front of her…close enough to touch if she just reached out…

‘You’ll be surprised what you can manage to do when there aren’t any other options,’ he said quietly, jerking her out of that dangerous line of thought, then a glint of mischief lit his eyes. ‘And I like the sound of eternally grateful. Does that translate into fetching cups of coffee?’

‘In your dreams!’ she retorted, grateful that he hadn’t noticed the way she was eyeing him and surprised that he felt at ease enough to tease. The rather solemn man she’d met the other day hadn’t looked as if he had a single joke in him.

‘But you’d join me in one?’

She glanced up at the clock and pulled a face.

‘I may as well,’ she agreed. ‘It certainly isn’t worth going back to bed now, and I’m going to need plenty of it, strong and sweet, if I’m going to stay awake today.’

‘Well, shall we agree that the first one out of the shower pours the coffee?’ he suggested. ‘How do you like yours, exactly?’

‘You’re making the assumption that you’ll finish first,’ she pointed out sweetly. ‘I like mine strong but white with just a dash of sugar—how do you take yours?’

‘White. Without,’ he said, then grinned. ‘I’ll see you in a few minutes, then. Your coffee should have cooled enough to drink by the time you get there,’ he added in what was clearly a challenge.

David tensed when he heard the door open behind him, wondering how he could possibly know that it was Leah who had just entered.

He was surprised to see that there was a slight tremor to the hand that was pouring the coffee when it had been perfectly steady in the life-and-death situation just a few minutes ago in Theatre.

‘Drat!’ he heard her say, and knew that it was in response to the fact that he’d beaten her.

He quickly stretched a triumphant smile over his face and turned to face her with a coffee in each hand, and nearly dropped both of them.

He certainly wouldn’t have expected her hair to be that long, and to see it hanging all the way to the middle of her back, still dripping with water, sent his imagination into overdrive…until he hastily put the brakes on it. He was still having difficulty trying to forget the sight of her elegant curves clothed in nothing more than creamy lace underwear as she’d stripped off after surgery.

Now was not the time for mental images of Leah in the shower, slick, wet hair flowing over her naked body, not while she was standing in front of him with her hand held out for the coffee he was clutching like a lifeline.

‘All right, I concede,’ she said. ‘But under duress. If I cut my hair as short as yours I’d be able to—’

‘Don’t!’ he exclaimed in horror at the idea. It was only when he saw the surprise on her face that he realised he’d spoken aloud and was abashed to feel the slow crawl of heat up his face. Was he blushing like a gauche teenager, for heaven’s sake? What was this woman doing to him? ‘I mean, it must have taken you years to grow it that long. It would be such a shame to just…’ He was making it worse, he realised when he saw her fighting a grin.

‘It would grow again,’ she said with a shrug, apparently totally unconcerned by the prospect of destroying what used to be called a woman’s crowning glory. ‘I’d even thought of getting people to sponsor me to have my head shaved, to raise money for charity.’

‘Shaved!’ He was definitely horrified. ‘Well, would you take offers not to cut it?’ he countered, while a tiny voice inside his head tried hard to remind him that this woman was little more than a stranger and there was absolutely no reason why she should take any notice of his wishes.

‘Now, that’s another possibility,’ she said as she put her cup down and casually twisted the length of her hair into a thick rope and wound it neatly against the back of her head, securing it with a giant clip. ‘But sometimes I think it’s not worth the bother and all the time it takes. After all, with a shaven head, I would easily have beaten you to the coffee.’

She took a careful sip to test the temperature then a larger mouthful when she found it bearable. He nearly groaned aloud when she closed her eyes and moaned in ecstasy.

‘Why does the first cup of the day taste so good?’ she demanded.

He didn’t reply. The memory of waking up to other activities, and the realisation of just how long ago that had been, reminded him with a jolt of all the reasons why he shouldn’t be indulging in this sparring with her. It wasn’t right, not when he had absolutely no intention of following through. His days on the relationship merry-go-round were over, and he was glad of it. He wouldn’t willingly go through that pain again for anything.

‘I stuck my head round the door to check up on the babies,’ he announced, needing to get his thoughts onto more professional matters. As that was the only sort of relationship the two of them could have, he might just as well set the boundaries right from the start. ‘Baby three—the little boy who got squashed—wasn’t doing very well, but his big sisters were doing amazingly well, in spite of their size and prematurity.’

‘And Mum?’

‘Still in Recovery. Ashraf’s hovering over her. All her vital signs seem to be slowly coming good but she hasn’t really shaken off the anaesthetic yet.’ He frowned briefly. ‘She’s certainly not compos mentis enough to be told what happened on the table.’

‘Well, that’s certainly going to be an interesting set of notes to write up. Perhaps you could make a presentation of the case at the monthly meeting.’

‘A presentation?’ He was startled by the suggestion. At his last post he’d barely had time to breathe, let alone prepare presentations, then he realised how logical the suggestion was when she continued.

‘Not only would it serve as a cautionary tale for those who weren’t involved today, but it would also scotch the rumours that are bound to grow with every telling.’

‘Ah, yes. The hospital grapevine,’ he said ruefully. ‘That’s one aspect of our job that’s the same wherever we go—a hairline crack becomes multiple fractures and a Caesarean delivery and hysterectomy becomes—’

‘A life-saving procedure performed superbly to give mother and all three babies the best chance possible,’ she interrupted, and for the first time in a long time, in spite of his embarrassment, he allowed himself a brief moment to bask in the warmth of her praise.

‘Which I couldn’t have attempted without a damn good team to back me up,’ he added, giving them their due, too. ‘Ashraf’s definitely one of the best anaesthetists I’ve worked with. That woman was emptying out so fast…’ He shook his head at the scary memory. ‘I honestly don’t know how he kept her going long enough for me to tie everything off. And as for you…’

It was her turn to blush, but he wasn’t giving her empty words—he wouldn’t waste his time on anything but the truth.

‘I admit that I was quite surprised to hear that you were one of the applicants for the AR head of department. I couldn’t believe that someone so young could possibly have the necessary skills.’ He bowed briefly towards her. ‘Suffice it to say that since I’ve witnessed your skill and intuition, albeit assisting this time rather than leading, I’m no longer surprised. You knew exactly what I was going to do and how to make it easy for me—proof, in spite of your own doubts, that you would have been equally able to do the job.’

She was obviously trying to bury her embarrassment in her coffee-cup but he could tell that she was pleased with his recognition of her skills. He had a brief image of the chaos that awaited him in his office and suppressed a shudder that it had been allowed to get into such a state. Was it just that organisation was not one of her skills? He supposed he had to make allowances for the fact that she’d been trying to run the department short-handed, but just in case her weakness was paperwork, he was going to offer to write up this morning’s case notes himself.

‘Are you sure?’ she said doubtfully. ‘Donald hated doing them—said he’d rather have his teeth pulled.’

‘I’m sure,’ he said with an even deeper sense of foreboding. Had he been unlucky enough to take over a department that hadn’t had anyone willing to take on the essentials? ‘I’ve brought everything with me and I shall have another cup or three of coffee while I get it done.’

‘In that case, I’m going to check up on Mum then sneak in for a peep at the babies. I wonder if anyone’s been able to contact their father yet.’

‘I’ll leave you to check up on that and I’ll see you in my office at, say, eight?’ he suggested.

For just a moment there was a strange expression on her face but it was gone too quickly for him to decipher it. Was it chagrin that it was now his office rather than hers, or was it the fact that she was handing it over in such a disastrous state? Well, either way, there was nothing she could do about it now. The job was his, and, providing there wasn’t a run of emergencies like this morning’s, it really shouldn’t take him long to get everything organised, even if he had to ask Personnel for the temporary loan of some sort of specialist filing clerk.

In the meantime, he had a complicated surgery to document, right down to the last suture and cc of drugs. At least that ought to push Leah out of his mind until he saw her again at eight.

CHAPTER THREE

‘HELLO…Ah, g-good morning, sir,’ Leah ended up stammering, suddenly unaccountably uncertain as to what she should call her new boss.

Working together in Theatre in such fraught conditions had definitely given her a feeling of connection with him, but perhaps he preferred a little more formality from the more junior members of his…

‘Sir?’ he queried with a blink, then ostentatiously looked over his shoulder as if looking for someone else she might be addressing.

Leah couldn’t help the brief giggle that escaped her. It was probably the result of the nerves that had built up while she was trying not to look as if she was hovering around in the corridor, waiting for him to arrive. She’d even unlocked the door in preparation for his arrival, in case he hadn’t been given his own set of keys yet.

Then he’d swept open the door at the other end of the corridor and begun striding towards her, all long lean legs and broad shoulders, and all her rational thought processes had ceased.

‘That’s better,’ he said with an answering smile as he reached for the door handle. ‘Obviously, there has to be a degree of formality when there are patients present, but at all other times you’re free to call me…God! What on earth happened here?’

He took a step back to look at the name-plate on the door, as though doubting that he’d come to the right room, but even that had been changed after she’d chased Maintenance to install his name in place of Donald’s—just one of the last-minute things she’d done while he’d been occupied writing up the post-op notes.

His reaction was everything she could have hoped for, but it was his slip of the tongue that actually made her laugh aloud. It was a struggle to speak for several seconds.

‘So, let me get this right,’ she said, smiling in the face of his frown of puzzlement. ‘You don’t want formality but I’m free to call you…God?’ she teased.

He was walking warily towards the miraculously clear desk.

‘You know I didn’t mean that,’ he objected distractedly as he turned in a circle. ‘When did all this happen and who did it?’ he demanded, then she saw panic take over from approval. ‘What happened to all the files, Leah? Where are they? They haven’t been taken away, have they?’

‘They’re all here,’ she soothed, taking the bunch of keys out of her pocket and selecting the correct one to open the first filing cabinet. ‘And all in their proper alphabetical order, too.’

‘But…I only saw this room on Friday…’

‘And you’ve been having nightmares about it ever since,’ Leah finished for him. ‘The walls were dingy, the curtains were limp, drab and sun-bleached and there was paperwork on every horizontal surface.’

‘Exactly!’ he agreed. ‘So…who, what, when, why and how? Obviously when I saw it before you must have known that the room was due for a visit from Maintenance for some overdue redecoration.’

‘Not exactly.’ She knew it was time to come clean. His surprise had been everything she’d hoped for, but she wanted him to know the real reason for the chaos he’d stumbled into on his first visit. The last thing she wanted was for her new boss to think that had been the way she’d been happy to run the department. That impression might linger and could affect what he wrote about her when she needed a reference when another AR department headship came up.

She refused to let herself ponder the fact that the idea of leaving St Luke’s had suddenly become much less attractive than it had been when she’d been told about David’s appointment. She needed to concentrate on making her explanation.

‘Maintenance were here this morning to install your name-plate and they also supplied the paint and brushes over the weekend.’

‘And?’ he prompted. ‘Am I to take it that you provided the labour? When on earth did you find the time with all the hours you’ve been putting in on keeping the department running?’

‘Well, it only took a couple of hours one evening to give everything a once-over.’ And another couple for a second coat when the dinginess refused to disappear the first time, she added silently, but he didn’t need to know that. Anyway, she wasn’t into blowing her own trumpet. ‘And the curtains were a spare set I had at home. They’ve hardly been used but they don’t fit any of the windows in my new flat.’

‘OK, so that’s how the décor changed, but what about all the piles of paperwork? You certainly couldn’t have sorted through all that and filed it away in a couple of hours one evening.’

‘Actually, that’s almost exactly how long it took,’ she said giving him a smug smile, forgiving herself again for exaggerating a bit. After all, a doctor was well used to late nights, whether it was to deliver triplets or to sort out patient case notes. ‘I’d already completed an audit of all the files, so some of the piles you saw on Friday were ready for collection to be archived. As for the rest, the only reason why I hadn’t returned them to the filing cabinets was because that would have made them too heavy to move when I decorated.’

‘And you achieved the whole thing in a weekend!’ he marveled, and she didn’t correct him with details of the many weeks it had taken to do the audit in the first place. She’d been horrified to find that Donald had probably avoided auditing his files ever since he’d come to the department, and the overfilled cabinets were the reason why the current patients’ files had permanently littered the room, albeit in relatively tidy piles.

She’d actually believed that she’d been doing the tedious job for her own benefit, hoping that she’d get the appointment, but as it turned out…

‘Well, I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you went to all this trouble.’ He spread his arms to indicate the whole pristine room. ‘Not only will it be nicer—and more efficient—to work in, but it will look far more welcoming to the patients. And…’ He drew the word out, suddenly pacing across the room and back again with a determined expression on his face.

‘Yes! I thought so,’ he announced. ‘Now that you’ve removed all those boxes and piles, you’ve made enough room—if my desk is moved just a little further across—to juggle another desk in here, so you won’t have to be served with an eviction order after all.’

That was the last thing she’d expected him to say, and while her heart had suddenly taken up a faster beat at the thought of sharing this room with him on a daily basis, her reason was telling her that he would probably be such a distraction that she’d never get any work done. She’d have to do some careful juggling of her own to make sure that she only came in here when he was otherwise occupied.

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