“Lauren?” he murmured, but if it was a question she had no idea of the answer

Suddenly he tightened his grip again, wrapping his arms completely around her, and then he was rolling the two of them over.

He stared down at her for a moment that stretched into infinity and she could see the battle he was fighting with himself. She held her breath, trying to tell herself that she didn’t care one way or another, then she saw his head angle toward her and she knew she’d lied.

Then his lips met hers in the briefest and most gentle of kisses, just a fleeting impression of sweetness and warmth. It was perfect, and yet almost as soon as it started it was over, and she was definitely disappointed when he lifted his head again. She’d wanted so much more.

Dear Reader,

When I started planning this book along with the sequel in the duet, More Than a Gift, I wanted to explore the effect that families—or lack of them—can have on us. So Lauren and Laurel were born.

Take a woman who’s never really felt as if she’s belonged anywhere and put her together with a man who needs her to stay—and there are bound to be sparks! Then throw in the accusation that this highly recommended woman, just appointed by this man, might not be everything that she seems…and yet, she’s everything that he hadn’t realized he wanted.

Lauren is strong and self-sufficient because she’s had to be. She’s been on her own long enough to learn how to look after herself, but then she meets Mac and needs to learn a whole new lesson: how good it can feel when someone cares for you. And when it becomes more than caring….

Laurel’s story will be coming in December. I hope you enjoy finding out about each of them as much as I enjoyed the writing.

Josie

More than Caring
Josie Metcalfe

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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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

LAUREN stepped outside the hospital’s side door, paused just long enough to hear the night safety lock catch, then closed her eyes in pleasure as she breathed in.

Even though she’d been in Edenthwaite ten days now, she was still amazed that the air was scented by the myriad things it had passed on its way from the distant fells. Perhaps in time she would become used to it, but after a busy first week on the staff at Denison Memorial, this was one of her newest pleasures.

She drew another draught deep into her lungs and let it out on a sigh. She really hoped that this would be the place that finally made her feel as if she could settle her roots permanently. She was so tired of feeling restless, especially as she didn’t know what she was looking for.

Perhaps, surrounded by the wild beauty of such an unspoiled region of the country, she wouldn’t feel the urge to see what lay over the next hill…unless she was wearing her new walking boots and doing the exploration just to familiarise herself with her new home.

‘Only time will tell,’ she murmured briskly as she set off towards the staff car park, then scowled at the darkness that enfolded her once she’d turned the first corner.

‘The dratted man still hasn’t done anything about those lights,’ she muttered, and made a mental note to beard the lion in his den. No matter what her personal feelings about Marc Fletcher, he was the hospital’s chief administrator and, as such, ensuring staff safety was his responsibility.

It wasn’t that the hospital was in a high-risk city—Edenthwaite couldn’t have been more idyllic in the fading warmth of a September evening. Unfortunately, there were some facets of modern life that had permeated even this little corner of paradise, and one way to guard against them was to have safety lighting working once darkness fell.

‘I told him about it the other day,’ she grumbled under her breath, remembering the way the senior administrator had appeared in her department yet again. It was almost as though he didn’t trust her to be able to do her job, although she knew for a fact that he’d checked every one of her references.

What was it about the man?

He knew that she was perfectly well qualified for the post, so it couldn’t be that. And she hadn’t had time to do or say anything to upset him.

‘Mind you, I’m not sure how you’d tell if he was upset,’ she added snidely, remembering the stony face he’d turned on her each time they’d encountered each other.

Not that he was bad-looking, by any means. His dark hair might be a little shorter than she preferred and the occasional silver strands at his temples made him look distinguished rather than older. His eyes were a strange smoky grey, almost as though the colour was a deliberate screen against anyone reading his thoughts.

As for his body, she was quite ashamed to admit that she’d actually found her eyes following him as he’d stalked off down the corridor the other day. She’d been almost mesmerised by the lithe, ground-eating strides and the evidence of taut, compact muscles camouflaged by his impeccably pressed suit, and she wasn’t someone prone to ogling men.

He certainly wasn’t ogling her when he appeared in the ward, at least once every day. It was almost as if… ‘As if he expects to find me pocketing the silver,’ she finished on an exasperated laugh.

Well, if this continued she was going to have to confront him…ask him if he had some sort of problem with her. She was thoroughly enjoying her new post and if there was something she could do to remove the single fly in the ointment—a rather large fly going by the name of Mr Marcus Fletcher—then she just might have found that elusive niche she’d been searching for all her life.

In the meantime, she was going to have to mention the safety lighting again. One of the staff nurses had mentioned seeing someone loitering at one end of the staff car park, and as they hadn’t been smoking, she’d known it hadn’t been just a fugitive from Denison Memorial’s strict no-smoking policy.

The thought of deliberately seeking out the openly disapproving man sent a shiver up her spine. There was just something about him that set all her nerves on edge; something she’d never encountered before and made her wary of him.

It wasn’t that Marcus Fletcher was one of those enormous hulking brutes she’d grown accustomed to seeing when she’d started frequenting the gym a few years ago. He certainly didn’t seem to be the type to waste his time building muscles for the sake of measuring the number of inches gained. He struck her as more the lean, predatory type—quietly fit and ready for anything that came his way. Or at least he might have been before he’d settled into his administrative job. There certainly wouldn’t be much call for muscles when his day was spent wrestling with columns of figures.

Still, national statistics detailed a year-on-year increase in the number of attacks on all hospital employees, not just accident and emergency staff, a fact she’d seen for her own eyes in her last post at a busy city hospital. An injured friend had actually prompted her to offer her services to run several self-defence courses for her colleagues. Before she’d left, she’d had the satisfaction of knowing that at least two of her pupils had been able to use what they’d learned to ward off attackers.

A similar effort wouldn’t go amiss at Denison Memorial.

Perhaps, she mused as she crossed the last open stretch before she got to her car, at the same time as she reminded her nemesis about the need to replace the lights as soon as they failed, she could make the same offer here—to run a basic course of self-defence for any female staff who were interested.

Yes, that’s what she’d do as soon as she came in to work in the morning.

She was so busy thinking about her plans for the next day that she failed to follow one of her own basic rules—she had completely forgotten to be aware of what was going on around her.

The scuffling sound of furtive footsteps was only a few feet away from her when she suddenly became aware of them, almost too late to react.

‘Laurel? Laurel Wainwright?’ the shadowy figure demanded as he reached for one arm.

His grip was rough and bruising and for just a split second she was taken back to that nightmare time when she’d been sixteen and feeling so hopelessly alone and vulnerable.

Then Lauren’s carefully honed instincts kicked in…literally. Shrugging off the memories that could still paralyse her with fear if she let them, she whirled into action.

It was easy enough, with a dozen years of practice behind her, to send her would-be assailant cartwheeling over her shoulder to land on the ground with a thud.

She barely had time to draw breath before she recognised the sound of more feet, running this time.

This man was bigger and stronger and she was careful to make sure that he didn’t get a chance to grab hold of her before she flipped him over to join his partner in a heap.

‘Dammit! What did you have to do that for?’ the second assailant demanded angrily, already on his feet as quickly as a big cat and straightening up to his full height. His companion was taking far longer to drag himself up from his ignominious heap, but even he managed to get there in the end.

Lauren took a hasty step backwards, careful to remain out of reach. She certainly hadn’t expected them to recover from her throws quite so quickly. The second one was almost as light on his feet as though he, too, was trained in martial arts, but she should have had time to get into the safety of her car before they both got their breath back.

As it was, the second one, the larger of the two, was already taking a menacing step towards her and she had to force herself to concentrate. It would do her no good at all to notice that his shoulders seemed much broader and his height much more impressive now that he was prepared for her self-defence tactics.

She was just wondering whether she dared attempt a kick manoeuvre on such a gravelly surface when he spoke again.

‘If you’re thinking of drop-kicking me into next week, don’t bother,’ he growled in a voice full of disgust. ‘I was only trying to help.’

‘Help?’ she exclaimed. ‘Help who?’

‘You, of course. I thought I saw someone following you when you left the hospital so I investigated.’

He’d gestured towards the way she’d come, turning just far enough for the light of a distant lamp to catch his face, and she suddenly realised who he was.

‘Mr Fletcher!’ she gasped, horrified to realise that she’d just flung the hospital’s chief administrator over her shoulder. He hadn’t been very keen on her appointment in the first place and this certainly wouldn’t make him any more pleased. ‘I’m so sorry! Did I hurt you?’

‘Only my pride,’ he said wryly, brushing the gravel off the sleeve of his jacket. ‘Who was your friend?’

‘My friend? He’s no friend of…’

She suddenly remembered her first assailant and whirled to discover that he’d taken advantage of her preoccupation with her second opponent and disappeared into the surrounding darkness.

‘Damn. Did you see which way he went?’ she demanded.

‘Why? I hope you’re not thinking of chasing after him.’

‘I should have kept my eye on him so he couldn’t have got away in the first place,’ she retorted. ‘I would have done if you hadn’t got in the way.’

‘Well, excuse me for being concerned. I hope you’re not waiting for me to apologise for coming to help,’ he snapped, visibly affronted.

Lauren could almost feel sorry for him. Not many men could accept the fact that a woman didn’t need them for protection. But, then, none of them would know about the situations she’d been in, where the only person she’d had to rely on had been herself.

‘No, but if you’d done something about the broken lights when I told you about them, the whole situation could have been avoided,’ she pointed out briskly. ‘Perhaps you could manage an apology for that?’

‘The broken lights were replaced within an hour of you reporting them to me,’ he retorted stiffly. ‘The safety of the staff while they’re on Denison Memorial premises is my responsibility and I take my responsibilities very seriously.’

‘Well, then, I suggest you check up on the quality of the lights,’ she said as she turned towards her car, keys already in hand. ‘Because they should certainly have lasted longer than a couple of days.’

Once in the car, she deliberately concentrated on the mundane task of fastening her seat belt so that she wouldn’t have to look at him. She knew he was still standing there, just a few feet away, as though guarding her until she was ready to leave. She could feel those smoky grey eyes on her, almost as if they were touching her skin.

And all the while she was replaying his words inside her head.

I take my responsibilities very seriously.

There had been a definite undercurrent in his voice that had suddenly made her feel uneasy. She’d certainly lost her taste for standing there in the dark, sparring with the man.

She felt uncomfortable enough in his presence in broad daylight. With that critical gaze on her, all she wanted to do was leave the car park as soon as possible and make for the cosy sanctuary of her little cottage.

Lauren wasn’t due to start her shift until half past seven the next morning, but seven o’clock saw her parking her trusty little car right under a light before she made her way inside.

In spite of her lingering embarrassment that she’d thrown him to the ground, she was still determined to approach the formidable hospital manager about running a self-defence class.

She’d planned to use her first break to visit his office, but just before she went in to change into her uniform she caught sight of him entering the lift on the way to his office.

‘There’s no time like the present,’ she muttered as she opted to take the stairs, cross to feel the squadron of butterflies that suddenly took off in spectacular formation inside her stomach.

What was there to be nervous about? He’d either agree, or disagree. And with the suggestion coming from her, the odds were…

‘Can I have a word, please?’ she asked when his deep voice bade her to enter, his secretary’s desk still empty at this time of the morning.

‘More lights to report?’ One dark eyebrow shot up towards his ruthlessly neat hair.

‘What?’ She blinked, wondering for a moment what he was talking about. ‘Oh, no. Not as far as I know. It’s actually—’

‘Someone had apparently been using the lights for target practice,’ he announced grimly. ‘Several had been smashed in the space of a single day.’

‘Simple vandalism, then.’ She sighed, completely sidetracked. ‘As if the hospital didn’t have enough calls on its budget, we now have to waste money on replacing safety lights on a daily basis.’

‘It’s nice to know someone appreciates that my balancing act isn’t as easy as the media makes out,’ he muttered, then threw her an unexpected grin. ‘So, if it wasn’t the lights, what did bring you into the dragon’s lair?’

The startling change that single smile made to his face—the glint of amusement in those smoky grey eyes and the hint that the crinkles around them might have been put there partly by humour—took her breath away for a second. He really was an attractive man when you took away the weight of his responsibilities.

To cover up her momentary lack of attention Lauren cast a quick glance round the strictly functional room.

‘Is that what this is? The dragon’s lair?’ she challenged lightly.

‘You’d think so, from the fear and trepidation some people exhibit when they have to come here.’ He leant back in his chair, the steel barrel of the pen he’d been using clasped between both hands as he rested his elbows on the arms.

His eyes only left hers for a second to drop in a swift sweep down her body and when a wash of heat followed it she felt almost as though she’d been just one pace too close to the fiery breath of the dragon.

‘You, on the other hand, don’t seem in the least bit intimidated,’ he added thoughtfully, and she was relieved that he apparently hadn’t recognised her reaction to him.

It was completely crazy. She had no more interest in him than he had in her. They were both hospital employees who, apart from his unofficial supervision, would have little cause to meet.

Even if her department were to need to requisition replacements for expensive equipment, the submission would be made on paper rather than in person. Yet, here she was, her eyes defensively fixed on the slender length of his fingers as he slid them back and forth on his pen, only too aware of the fact that his eyes were fixed on her face.

‘Actually,’ she said hurriedly, her face heating when she realised that he was still waiting for an answer, ‘I wanted to ask how to go about arranging a series of self-defence classes.’

He gave a snort of laughter. ‘I wouldn’t have thought you needed any classes, seeing how you took care of two people all by yourself.’ He pointedly rubbed one elbow with a grimace.

She laughed a little uncomfortably. ‘Yes. Well, I’m sorry about that, but I wasn’t asking about taking classes. I was actually proposing to teach them.’

‘You’d teach them?’ He seemed startled by the idea and her pride was stung. It wasn’t only big burly men who could teach such things. Sometimes the fact that she was a slender female and well able to defend herself made her point to other women far more effectively.

‘I’ve done them before, as I said on my CV,’ she reminded him. ‘At my last post, we were having increasing problems with hospital staff being attacked, especially in A and E. The first class started with a small group of female staff just from the accident department, and the word spread.’

He had a frown on his face and she was certain that he was going to turn the idea down. Whether that was because he disapproved of the proposal in principle or because of his continuing wariness about her, she didn’t know.

Well, he might pour cold water on the suggestion this time, but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t going to bring it up again. She knew at first hand the benefits of learning self-defence and she would keep trying until he finally agreed to let her…

‘I’ll see what I can do about scheduling time in the physiotherapy department,’ he announced, completely taking the wind out of her sails with his unexpected agreement.

‘Oh, that’s…great,’ she managed, completely wrong-footed. She’d been so certain that she was going to have a fight on her hands.

‘Unless I’ve got a meeting, I can usually manage to be free by six. Do you want me to organise it for after you’ve finished a shift, or would you rather I made it on one of your off-duty days?’

‘Oh, but you don’t have to be there,’ she said hurriedly, suddenly nervous at the idea of having to put on a performance in front of eyes as keen as lasers.

‘You’ll need a body to use for your demonstrations,’ he pointed out calmly, and her pulse tripped into overdrive.

He expected her to be able to concentrate while he grabbed her and held her close to that lean, muscular body? There might be a constant prickly animosity between the two of them but that didn’t mean that her hormones couldn’t recognise the fact that he was a good-looking man. In spite of the solemn expression he usually wore, he was so gorgeous that few women would want to fight him off.

Then her innate level-headedness kicked in and she brought her whirling emotions under control.

‘You mean you’re volunteering to get thrown around again? Wasn’t one set of bruises enough for you?’ she challenged.

He chuckled wryly and, much to her annoyance, her pulse kicked up another notch.

‘At least this time I can make sure I won’t be landing on concrete. In fact, I’ll make sure the physiotherapy department has taken delivery of the new mats they ordered before I schedule the first class.’

Over the strident summons of one of the three telephones on his desk he promised to call her as soon as he had some dates for her, and suggested she have a think about how she wanted to publicise the classes.

On her way down to the ward to start her shift Lauren should have been thinking about the tasks awaiting her attention, or she should have set her concentration to deciding whether word of mouth would be a better advertisement than putting up posters. But all she could think about was Marc Fletcher’s grin.

Well, it wasn’t just his grin. It was the effect that smiling had on his whole face, from the sparkle it added to the smoky grey of his eyes to the lifting and lightening of the angle of his jaw and the gleam of strong teeth in a surprisingly sensual-looking mouth.

‘Oh, good grief!’ she muttered when she realised she was fixating on the man’s teeth, for heaven’s sake. ‘He’s the hospital manager, remember? He’s got something against you that makes him turn up all the time to keep an eye on you, remember?’

In fact, now she thought about it, that was probably the reason why he’d suggested coming along to the classes, too. It wasn’t that he wanted to offer his services as the willing victim so much as he wanted to see what she was getting up to.

Well, he wouldn’t find anything amiss in one of her self-defence classes. She knew only too well how vital the information she would pass on could be—the difference between life and death, in some cases. There was no way she would do anything less than her best, no matter who was standing there supervising her.

In the meantime, there was a ward waiting for her to take over the reins, with the night staff champing at the bit to go home.

An hour later Lauren was beginning to wonder just how many more things were going to go wrong.

There had been a complete mix-up over the patients’ meals, with dietary requirements completely ignored for some and meals being supplied for two ladies who were designated ‘nil by mouth’.

‘Surely you know that pre-operative patients shouldn’t be tucking into bacon and scrambled eggs?’ she demanded of her hastily gathered staff once she’d sorted everything out. ‘Just because the kitchen made a mess of things doesn’t mean you switch your brains off. You know better than this.’

‘I’m sorry, Sister,’ muttered the hapless staff nurse, looking close to tears. ‘It won’t happen again, I promise.’

‘See that it doesn’t,’ Lauren said sternly. ‘Luckily, this time it won’t make too much difference as Mrs Lisle hadn’t eaten more than a couple of mouthfuls before she was stopped. I’ve warned Theatre that she’ll have to be switched to the end of the list as a precaution.’

It was such an elementary mistake that she was quite concerned. Staff Nurse Roberts was usually very dependable. Such a potentially dangerous mistake was unlike her and would bear closer scrutiny.

‘Next point on the agenda is the state of cleanliness, or rather the lack of it,’ she said briskly. ‘There are dust bunnies under some of those beds that are nearly old enough to talk and I spotted used paper hankies lying behind one of the curtains. In a postoperative ward that’s a recipe for disaster. We don’t want an environment where MRSA can flourish, so strict cleanliness, please.’

There were extra arrangements about transporting one patient up for X-rays and a rescheduling of physiotherapy for another, but Lauren was uncomfortably aware that her juniors were only too pleased to escape from her stern presence a few minutes later.

‘Can’t be helped,’ she muttered under her breath as she accessed the computer records to correct the time of administering pre-med to the patient wrongly given her breakfast. ‘I didn’t enter nursing to win popularity contests, and the sooner they learn my ways, the sooner we’ll get along with each other.’

Not that they were a bad bunch by any means. She’d found them very hard-working up to now, so perhaps this was just a minor glitch.

In the interim, she’d have to see if she could engineer a few minutes with Jackie Roberts. Perhaps over a cup of coffee she might loosen up enough to tell her what had brought on this unexpected lapse.

She nearly groaned when she saw how much to heart her nurses had taken her words. Over the next few hours there was almost a full-scale blitz on the ward with every surface attacked as though for a military inspection. What the cleaners didn’t do, the nurses did, prompting the patients to joke that they were expecting to be next on the list for a good scrubbing.

With all that going on she should have had plenty to occupy her mind. Unfortunately that didn’t stop her eyes straying towards the door every so often in expectation of seeing Marc Fletcher standing there with his habitual frown in evidence.

She was almost disappointed when the phone rang just before she was due to hand over at the end of her shift and she heard his voice instead. Had she actually been looking forward to seeing the man, even though she knew he was probably trying to find fault?

‘Would Monday evening be good for your first session?’ he asked briskly. ‘That gives you four days to get the word around.’

Lauren’s mind switched into high gear.

She still had a spare set of the notes she’d made for the last course. It wouldn’t be difficult to have them copied so each attendee could take a set home at the end of the session. That just left the publicising to organise.

‘Monday works for me,’ she agreed. ‘And I wondered if it might be a good idea to start pretty low-key with the publicity this time. I thought I could put up notices in the female staff cloakrooms initially, to see what interest they stirred.’

‘Sounds reasonable for a pilot scheme,’ he said after a brief pause for thought. ‘But put my phone as the contact number just to make sure you don’t get any nuisance calls as a result.’

She’d been wondering how to get around that problem and was grateful for the suggestion but, ‘Won’t that tie up your line?’ she worried.

‘Rather mine than yours,’ he said simply. ‘People who need to get hold of me can always go through the switchboard and get my secretary if my direct line’s busy. Anyway, it’s better that way than leaving you open to the chance of an undesirable getting hold of your number.’

Lauren nodded, silently acknowledging the sense in his caution even though he couldn’t see her. Part of her railed at the need for it, but she had to live with the reality of modern life. Before she had time to say anything, he was continuing inexorably.

‘You’ll want to give some guidelines about what clothes they’ll need to wear, how many sessions and how long each session will last,’ he listed without pausing for breath. ‘If you drop off the outline with my secretary, she can photocopy it so you’ve got the right number to go around. Tomorrow morning, perhaps?’

He’d made it sound like a question but there was the unmistakable air of command in his tone that made her grin, glad that he couldn’t see her response.

The hospital grapevine had suggested that Marc Fletcher had a military background and she could well believe it. He certainly liked to have everything organised and by the book.

‘I’ll do that,’ she said, only just resisting the temptation to say Yes, sir!

Her mind was full of all the things she was going to have to do before she came to work the next morning—not least the fact that there was laundry waiting to be done and carpets needing a clean before she could settle down to design an eye-catching poster.

She wasn’t so busy with her thoughts that she didn’t notice that there was a full complement of safety lights this evening, but still she kept her eyes open. This time there were no unidentified people lurking in the shadows at the edge of the shrubbery, at least none that she could see.

She could chalk up her unfortunate experience yesterday to a random mugging that she’d foiled in spite of her inattention.

Still, there was a strange niggling doubt at the back of her mind. Something that she’d ignored, or a detail that had slipped her memory. There was something about the whole event…or non-event, as it had turned out…that was irritating her like a burr caught in clothing, if only she could remember what it was.

Unfortunately, the thing she remembered most clearly was the strangely electric sensation that had shot through her when she’d realised that the second man that she’d just deposited unceremoniously on the ground had been the punctilious Marc Fletcher.

Mixed in with the dismay at her faux pas was a wicked thrill that she’d actually caught the man by surprise and, big and strong as he was, flipped him base over apex.

She wished she had a photo of that. It was something that would have been able to make her smile on even the greyest of days. As it was, she was just going to have to rely on the memory.

CHAPTER TWO

MARC waited until he saw the taillights of Lauren’s car disappear into the September dusk before he switched the light back on in his room and sat down behind his desk.

Wretched woman would probably cause a scene if she knew that he’d been looking out for her this evening, but he couldn’t do anything else. At thirty-nine, the sense of responsibility had been part of him for far too many years for him to switch it off now.

If only he could switch it off, his life might be less stressful, but there would still be the guilt to keep him awake at night.

He sighed heavily, forcing himself to focus on the file spread open on his desk, then groaned again when he saw what it was.

In a larger hospital he wouldn’t have been so intimately involved with so many of the different departments. Here, at Denison Memorial, he had a role to play in almost every aspect of the day-to-day running of things. That included being a member of the interview panel for the appointment of new members of staff, but he was guiltily aware that wasn’t the reason why Lauren Scott’s file was on his desk.

As she’d reminded him, there was documented evidence of the self-defence courses she’d run at her previous post. What she didn’t know was that, in the course of checking her references, he’d also managed to find out about her involvement, almost to Olympic level, with several of the more strenuous forms of martial art.

He shook his head, bemused all over again. To look at her, so slender and elegant even in the loose-fitting tunic and trousers of her hospital uniform, you’d never know that her hands and feet could almost be classed as lethal weapons. Perhaps he should be counting himself fortunate that he had little more than a bruised elbow as a souvenir of their car park encounter.

He felt the wry smile edge over his face and knew that there was more than a hint of admiration in it. Her reaction to the perceived threat of his arrival on the scene had been so swift that he’d hardly had a chance to prepare himself for the impact.

He couldn’t help admitting that this was a hidden side to her character that he found uncomfortably fascinating. He’d watched her at work on her ward and all he’d seen had been a gentle woman with a caring word or touch for anyone who needed it.

She was slightly taller than average but because she was slender he hadn’t realised the fact until she’d faced him down in the car park. Then he’d had to notice that, in a pair of heels, her eyes would almost be on a level with his and her mouth…

‘Her mouth would probably take a bite out of me, rather than kiss me,’ he muttered, then was startled to feel a slow wash of heat spreading up over his face at the thought of those teeth sinking into his shoulder. And where had the thought of kissing her come from in the first place?

‘Crazy!’ he growled, slapping the file closed. ‘Doubly crazy,’ he added with a touch of bitterness that echoed around the unadorned walls of his office. ‘She won’t be staying long enough to start any kissing. She never stays anywhere long enough. And anyway, you’re not interested in starting any sort of relationship.’

He deliberately buried Lauren’s file under the heap of paperwork still to be done before he went home.

Not that he was in any rush to leave the hospital. There certainly wasn’t anything worth going home for. Just an empty cottage along a fairly isolated lane, one of a pair. He hadn’t even had any neighbours until a week or ten days ago when someone had taken up residence while he’d been at work.

If he were the sociable sort he could have gone round with a welcoming bottle of wine or something. As it was, he was grateful that whoever was renting the property seemed to lead just as busy a life as he did and was quietly content to keep himself to himself. The last thing he needed was some happy couple living right under his nose, reminding him of everything that was missing in his own life. Thank goodness the cottage was too small to accommodate a family with children.

Not that he begrudged others their happiness. He’d had it all once, until his own selfishness had put it in danger. He’d had to come to terms with the fact that duty and responsibility were going to fill his life from now on.

‘And paperwork,’ he said with a baleful glare, suddenly loathing the fact that his job involved so little activity. Once upon a time… ‘No. It’s over. Finished!’ he said fiercely. ‘I can take care of people just as effectively this way—by making sure that their medical services are running properly—as I ever could by running around, playing the hero.’

He forced himself to concentrate on the latest forecast figures for the hospital wages but still couldn’t stop the sudden shiver of awareness that snaked up his spine at the thought of Lauren’s self-defence class. She was intending that the first sessions were just going to be run for interested female staff and was probably hoping that, in spite of his offer to help with her demonstrations, he would be happy to sit at the back as an observer.

What she didn’t know was that he had every intention of being an active member of those classes. What he didn’t know was whether that decision was based on the desire to make sure that the lessons were thorough and accurate, or whether it had anything to do with the growing need to see if Lauren’s slender body was every bit as lithe and strong as he remembered.

‘Damn. I’m going to be late!’ Lauren muttered with a quick glance at her watch. She hastened her steps past the X-ray department, wondering why some days turned out like that.

She should have had plenty of time to get to the physiotherapy department and give her notes a final read through before the first brave souls arrived. Now she’d be lucky to get there before it was time for the class to start.

‘Ah! Here she is!’ called a male voice as she pushed the doors open, and she had to deliberately tamp down the swift surge of pleasure that Marc’s husky voice set off.

Then she saw him and almost forgot how to breathe.

He looked good in the business suits he wore to work each day, but in the softly draping fabric of a tracksuit she could see just how well the formal clothing camouflaged the muscles beneath. And to see him lounging easily against the wall with his arms folded across an impressively broad chest…

It was a real physical effort to drag her eyes away and acknowledge the half-dozen assorted members of staff waiting for her.

‘Sorry to be late but I got delayed on the ward,’ she said in a strangely breathless voice.

‘You don’t need to apologise to us. We know it goes with the territory,’ groaned a staff nurse she vaguely recognised from the accident and emergency department. It was amazing the difference a slim-fitting pair of jeans made when she was accustomed to seeing the young woman in baggy cotton theatre greens.

‘It doesn’t help when staff numbers are down either,’ said another with a dark look in Marc’s direction.

‘You don’t need to tell me,’ he said, his hands held up in surrender as he shouldered himself away from the wall to join the group. ‘Most nurses are working the equivalent of one and a half jobs but aren’t being paid a fair rate for one. That’s why recruitment is so difficult.’

‘Well, love of the job won’t pay the grocery bills,’ said another voice, and Lauren realised her class was in danger of being hijacked by the perennial nursing complaint.

‘So, does anyone here want to learn how to defend themselves against people desperate to mug them for their lavish salary?’ she joked, and heard the mixture of groans and chuckles she was looking for. ‘If you’d like to come over and perch yourselves on these benches, we’ll start with a few basics.’

‘This reminds me of being in gym classes at school,’ said Sam, the youngest member of the group, with a giggle as they settled in a row on the low wooden bench.

‘OK, now, I’ll start with a general introduction. For those who don’t know me, I’m Lauren Scott, a recent recruit to Denison Memorial. Before I came here I worked in a big inner city hospital in a rather rough part of an industrial town. It was bad enough having to cope with so many victims of physical violence but when some of them were our own staff, I wanted to see if I could do something about it.’

She paused a moment to draw breath, needing to subdue the ache of memories of a friend she would never see again, knifed right outside the hospital by an assailant trying to snatch her bag to support a drug habit. If she had her way, none of these women would end up victims. That was what she should concentrate on.

‘At school I was into sport and, like a lot of women, I enjoyed pitching myself against the boys in my class.’ There was another chuckle and some shared glances that told her she hadn’t been the only one. ‘Unfortunately, as we moved up the school, the boys got bigger and stronger, especially in their upper bodies, and when I realised that I was going to have to learn to use guile to beat them, I turned to martial arts.’ It wasn’t the whole story by a long chalk, but it was enough to get their attention.

‘You mean judo? That sort of thing?’ Sam asked eagerly. ‘There have been several films recently with women doing that.’

‘Judo and Tae Kwon Do,’ Lauren said with a nod. ‘It came in very useful when the body-builders tried to get a little more friendly than I wanted, but it wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I realised how few women know how to defend themselves against the threat of random violence.’

‘But if it’s random, you can’t be prepared against it, can you?’ objected one of her older pupils, a senior nurse from the A and E department. ‘It must be different if you’re waiting for a bell to go at the start and finish of a bout in a competition.’

In spite of the fact that she’d carefully positioned herself to keep him out of her direct line of sight, Lauren caught a glimpse of Marc’s expression and was suddenly gratified to see that he was every bit as interested in what she had to say as the rest.

She dragged her eyes away and forced herself to gather her thoughts.

‘In one way, you’re absolutely right. You can never know when violence might explode out of nowhere. But you can be prepared, especially if you learn to take sensible precautions on a daily basis.’

Getting into her stride, she started off with what was for her the number one rule.

‘The best way to get out of a difficult situation isn’t becoming an expert at martial arts, it’s running,’ she announced baldly, and watched them blink.

‘You mean, go to keep-fit classes, or take up jogging?’ Marc asked with a frown. It obviously wasn’t what he’d expected. He looked almost as though she’d disappointed him.

‘Not necessarily, although we could probably all do with a bit of extra exercise if only we had the time and energy,’ Lauren said. ‘No, what I actually mean is, if you’re attacked, the best thing you can do is to run away—even if your attacker has grabbed your handbag. It’s never worth being injured or even losing your life over a bag full of odds and ends.’

Lauren reached for the shoulder-bag she’d deposited with her notes and demonstrated how to carry it tucked tightly under her arm with the long handles folded well out of reach.

‘Most attacks on lone women happen at night, so it’s important that you’re aware of any dangerous places on your journey—badly lit short cuts, for example—and that you find a safer way to go.’

She had their attention now but, strangely, she was most aware of a certain pair of smoky grey eyes following her every word.

‘I’ve prepared a set of notes that you can each take home with you at the end of the session, just to remind you of the points that we’ll go through in each class.’

She handed out the notes and waited a moment till they settled down again then began working her way through the list of basic safety strategies for women travelling alone.

It turned into a lively discussion…much to Marc’s surprise, if she was reading his expression correctly.

Had he expected her just to stand in front of them and deliver a dry lecture? she wondered crossly. Just wait until she started teaching them some of the really physical stuff. She’d prove to him that she was just as good at this as she was at her nursing job.

‘As you can see, self-defence has some similarities with medicine,’ she pointed out. ‘Much of the prevention side is just common sense.’

‘Like parking in well-lit areas,’ Marc said, a meaningful glint in his eye just for Lauren.

‘Which brings us back to the aspect of planning ahead,’ she hastily added, hoping the sudden wash of heat she could feel in her face wasn’t showing as a blush. ‘If you’re parking a car during the day, don’t forget to check that it’s still going to be a safe position to come back to at the end of your shift when it’s dark.’

‘There was one of those programmes on the television that gave out advice like this and they said you should have your keys in your hand when you go out to your car,’ Sam offered.

Lauren was delighted that the youngest member of the group had so much to contribute. She was such a bubbly personality that she would be an excellent person to spread the word about the classes.

‘Do the rest of you know why?’ Lauren asked, opening the question up to the whole group. ‘Can you suggest any reasons why it would be a good idea to carry your keys on the way to your car?’

‘You wouldn’t have to stand there for ages trying to fish the darned things out of the bottom of your bag,’ groaned one.

‘You’d have them in your hand to use as a weapon,’ suggested her bloodthirstier neighbour.

‘It’s down to that “be prepared, look prepared” thing again, isn’t it?’ said a third. ‘You won’t look like a dithery potential victim.’

‘Good,’ Lauren said, trying to block out the approving nod she caught from Marc. She didn’t need it to tell her that this was probably the most receptive group she’d had so far. Or was that just her heightened perception because of the presence of her largely silent observer?

‘Now, let’s take it a step further. You’ve unlocked the car. What do you do next?’

‘Get in quickly and lock the door?’ suggested one with a smile.

Lauren had turned towards her as she’d spoken, so she saw Marc silently reach out towards the speaker in front of him.

‘And what if you’ve just locked yourself in the car with a stalker?’ he growled menacingly as he placed his hands around her neck.

The young nurse’s shriek was almost enough to curdle the blood. It was certainly enough to drive the point home.

‘As Mr Fletcher has just kindly demonstrated,’ Lauren said to a slightly nervous chorus of chuckles, ‘you should always look in the back of the car before you get in, to make sure you haven’t picked up any unwanted passengers. And do it every time you leave the car, even if it’s been parked on a brightly lit forecourt while you filled up with petrol. To be really safe, lock the car when you go to pay for the fuel, and take your handbag with you.’

‘It’s all such obvious stuff, isn’t it?’ groaned her oldest pupil, Marion. ‘So simple that we should be doing it on an everyday basis without even thinking about it.’

‘If it’s any consolation, it doesn’t take long before it actually does become routine,’ Lauren promised. ‘By the time you finish the course you’ll find that it’s become automatic to plan an outing with the safety factor as an integral part of it. You’ll no more think about setting off without making arrangements for your return than you’d go on a journey without letting someone know where you’re going and what time you expect to arrive back. You’re just planning to stay safe—and stay alive—without letting fear take over and rule you. After all, it’ll probably never happen, especially if you take precautions.’

‘What about at home? Do we need to turn our houses into fortresses?’ Marion asked.

‘Only if the Queen’s in the habit of lending you the crown jewels on a regular basis,’ Lauren teased. ‘Most people need do nothing more than fit good locks and a safety chain and make sure they use them.’

Lauren invited questions but they all seemed perfectly happy with the basics they’d covered so far. A quick glance at her watch told her that they still had plenty of the allotted time left but she didn’t know whether the group would have had enough for one session and decided to leave the decision up to them.

‘Well, ladies…and gentleman,’ she added with a tilt of her head towards Marc, ‘that’s the end of the first part—the mainly theoretical side concerned with trying to avoid getting into dangerous situations. Have you had enough to take in for one day, or do you want to continue?’

‘Is this the bit where we learn how to throw giants around like matchsticks?’ her youngest pupil demanded with relish. ‘Like that kung fu stuff they do in films?’

‘And leap tall buildings in a single bound? Not exactly, Sam,’ Lauren said with a grin. ‘If you want to learn martial arts you’ll have to find classes where they can teach you from scratch. Here, you’re just learning the basics to help you get out of dangerous situations. And remember, the most important one is to run.’

‘Run?’ her young pupil said dismissively. ‘Running away’s cowardly. I’d rather wipe the floor with the so-and-so who tries to attack me.’

Lauren saw the frown beginning to darken Marc’s face and had a feeling that he was tempted to break in. She was glad when he resisted the urge.

She confronted the problem head on, hoping to inject a touch of humour to get it across.

‘OK, Sam, I know that we’re always taught that it’s cowardly to run away from our problems,’ she agreed. ‘And I’d be the first to admit that it can give you a buzz when you manage to throw a much bigger opponent…’ She paused just long enough for another, more wicked grin, telling herself that it wasn’t being aimed at Marc. ‘But I doubt the buzz would last very long when you realised what damage he’d done to your face with the knife he was carrying in his other hand. Or what about the broken jaw or the shattered eye socket when your attempts failed on the first try and you only succeeded in making him angry?’

Several members of the class pulled faces and Lauren could see from the thoughtful expression on Sam’s face that she might have succeeded in her aim.

‘At this moment, we’re just interested in defensive manoeuvres rather than offensive ones. But if you’re feeling particularly bloodthirsty there’s nothing to say that you couldn’t have all the fun you need, learning to throw people around in classes. Now, who’s going to be my guinea pig while I do some basic demonstrations?’

Lauren was expecting Sam to be the keenest but before the young woman even had a chance to offer, Marc was on his feet and making his way to the front of the group.

‘It would make more sense if I volunteered,’ he said firmly, the direct expression in those smoky grey eyes almost daring her to object. ‘Then all the others get an equal chance to see what’s going on.’

He was right, of course, but just the thought of being in any sort of close contact with the man was enough to have her pulse throbbing at twice its usual rate.

‘Well, yes, of course,’ she muttered, startled to realise that there was more than a little anticipation mixed in with the apprehension. ‘Good idea.’

‘So,’ he said as he pushed his sleeves up to reveal surprisingly muscular forearms shaded with dark hair, ‘what do you want me to do?’

‘Grab me…or rather, grab my clothing,’ she directed, then prayed that she’d manage to fight the blush working its way up from her throat. ‘I want to demonstrate how to break your hold.’

It didn’t take long to demonstrate several ways to break an attacker’s hold but Lauren was glad when it was time for each member of the class to take a turn to be victim and aggressor. At least with Marc sharing the supervision she had a chance to calm down.

It shouldn’t be like this, she told herself sternly. He was just a colleague, and a rather disapproving one at that. He certainly wasn’t someone who should be sending her hormones into orbit when all he was doing was grabbing hold of a handful of her clothing.

‘Now, grab my hair,’ she directed, trying to adopt an air of briskness as she demonstrated several ways of breaking his hold while losing as little hair as possible in the process. ‘And don’t forget, as soon as you’ve broken free, run before he’s had a chance to work out how you got away.’

Once again, Marc assisted as each of the members of the class practised the simple manoeuvres that would startle an attacker into releasing his hold.

It was just by chance that Lauren caught sight of the clock on the wall and realised that they’d overrun their allotted time.

She could almost have predicted the groans that went up when she called an end to the session. All of them were obviously taking everything seriously, but that didn’t mean that they weren’t prepared to have fun while they were learning. Especially if it came at Marc’s expense, it seemed.

‘If you’re going to start teaching them how to throw me around, I don’t think I’ll come next time,’ he groaned theatrically as they made their farewells. The others laughed sympathetically and promised to dump him gently if he was brave enough to turn up for the next instalment.

Lauren was surprised at the sudden stab of disappointment his announcement caused, then cross with herself for being disappointed.

She hadn’t expected him to turn up in the first place and when he had, she hadn’t expected that he would be so helpful, not after the way he’d been keeping such an eagle eye on her in the ward.

She also hadn’t expected to find herself responding to him as anything other than the man intent on watching and waiting for her to make a disastrous error of some sort. She certainly didn’t want to see him as an attractive man who set her blood racing.

‘Thank you for your help,’ she said politely as he waited beside the door to switch the light off behind them.

‘You’re welcome. I actually enjoyed it.’

Lauren couldn’t help chuckling. ‘In a masochistic way?’

‘Sounds like it, doesn’t it?’ He gave one of those grins guaranteed to set a firecracker under any woman’s libido. ‘I actually meant the whole thing. You’re good at putting the stuff across so they take it in.’

‘I had a good teacher,’ she said briefly, allowing herself a fleeting memory of the indefatigable woman who had made it her life’s mission to teach self-defence after she’d lost her only daughter in an attack.

They’d reached her car, sitting safely under the blue-white glow of the safety light. As she turned to say goodnight she was suddenly aware of a strange reluctance for the evening to end. Not that she had any reason to prolong her farewell. Marc was far too busy even to take time out to attend her class this evening, let alone walk her out to her car.

‘Lauren, you haven’t remembered anything more about the other night, have you?’ he demanded, much to her surprise. She’d actually managed to put the whole incident to the back of her mind.

‘Remembered anything more?’ she repeated, puzzled. ‘Like what? I barely saw the man because it was so dark, remember?’

‘So you wouldn’t recognise him if you saw him again?’

‘Not if he were standing in front of me right this minute,’ she confirmed honestly.

‘Well, did he say anything? Make any threats? Did he have a particular regional accent, for example?’

‘I honestly can’t remember…’ she began, only to pause as that niggling impression rose up from its hiding place in the back of her mind. ‘Wait a minute…There was something…’

He started to speak but she put up her hand to stop him, not wanting anything to interfere with her concentration. There had definitely been something odd about the encounter…something that had stuck like a burr in a totally inaccessible place…

‘He called out to me,’ she said aloud as she ran through the events, like replaying a video in her mind. ‘I’d broken my own rules because until he spoke I hadn’t even realised that he was there. Then he grabbed me…’

‘And you sent him neatly over you to land in a heap,’ Marc finished for her with an unexpected edge of satisfaction in his voice. ‘I saw that part, but do you remember what his voice sounded like? Or what he said?’

‘My name. No! That was it! It wasn’t my name, but just for a moment I thought it was, so I was a bit slow on the uptake.’

‘So, what did he say?’

‘He called me Laura…no, Laurel something. I can’t remember exactly.’ Lauren resorted to the trick she used with crossword puzzles of running through the alphabet in her mind. She’d almost reached the end when she exclaimed, ‘Wright! No, that’s still not quite…Something-Wright…Arkwright? Wainwright? Yes! That’s it. He called me Laurel Wainwright.’

‘And you’ve no idea why?’

‘None at all. I’ve never heard the name before.’

‘And it’s not as if you’re from the area, so he couldn’t have recognised you and just forgotten your name,’ Marc mused.

‘Oh, well. It’s probably destined to remain one of life’s great mysteries,’ Lauren quipped. ‘Along with what happened to my other pair of walking socks when I did the laundry yesterday. I could have sworn I put both pairs in, but only one pair came out.’

‘Hmm. They can’t have gone to the Planet of Lost Socks, then. They only accept them if they arrive one at a time,’ Marc retorted with a straight face, then spoilt it by laughing at her expression.

Lauren couldn’t help joining in. The last person from whom she’d have expected such whimsical nonsense was super-efficient, perennially serious Marc Fletcher, but with just that one sentence he’d revealed another, deeply hidden facet.

Suddenly, she knew she was in trouble; knew it was time she said a swift goodbye and made her way as far away from the man as quickly as she could.

It had been easy to resist his physical attraction…with a minor lapse or two while she’d watched that gorgeous body striding away down yet another corridor. All the while he was being so suspicious and grouchy her emotions were in no danger.

Unfortunately, the Marc Fletcher she’d seen this evening was another matter altogether—generous with his time, sharply intelligent, and with a surprising sense of the absurd.

This was a man who could easily chip away at the self-sufficiency that had become so much a part of her over the last decade or so.

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