‘Beth,’ he whispered.

He was staring at her mouth, and she ached to feel his lips on hers. She swallowed to moisten her parched mouth as she swayed towards him. She mustered her last skerrick of sense. ‘We shouldn’t be doing this,’ she croaked. ‘Things are complicated enough.’

‘Yes, they are,’ Gabe whispered, his gaze not leaving her mouth. She was so close, her mouth so near he could almost taste her, and he wanted her so much his body throbbed.

‘Can you walk away?’ he asked softly. I sure as hell can’t.

Beth shook her head, not sure she could articulate a response. His intense gaze on her mouth was breathtakingly erotic.

‘Neither can I,’ he groaned as he dropped his head and claimed her lips.

Amy Andrews has always loved writing, and still can’t quite believe that she gets to do it for a living. Creating wonderful heroines and gorgeous heroes and telling their stories is an amazing way to pass the day. Sometimes they don’t always act as she’d like them to—but then neither do her kids, so she’s kind of used to it. Amy lives in the very beautiful Samford Valley, with her husband and aforementioned children, along with six brown chooks and two black dogs. She loves to hear from her readers. Drop her a line at www.amyandrews.com.au

Recent titles by the same author:

THE OUTBACK DOCTOR’S SURPRISE BRIDE

FOUND: A FATHER FOR HER CHILD

THE ITALIAN COUNT’S BABY

SINGLE DAD, OUTBACK WIFE

AN UNEXPECTED PROPOSAL

Dear Reader

Welcome to Brisbane General Hospital! Set in my home town of Brisbane, this trilogy explores the lives and loves of three nurses, the Winters sisters—Beth, Rilla and Hailey. And three very special doctors—Gabe, Luca and Callum.

I’ve always wanted to write a linked series, and was thrilled when my editor suggested it. I love catching up with previous characters and being familiar with a particular setting. And Brisbane General is a beauty. Being a nurse, I can tell you there’s no place quite like a hospital to bring out real emotions and make people realise what is truly important in life.

In TOP-NOTCH SURGEON, PREGNANT NURSE, Beth never thinks she’ll see the stranger she impulsively slept with again—until he turns up at work as the new hotshot surgeon. Now they have to work together in the operating theatres of Brisbane General—and despite the intense attraction she’s determined to pretend it never happened. But their secret will soon be out when Beth discovers she’s pregnant!

There’s never a dull moment at Brisbane General. So fasten your seatbelts and enjoy the ride!

Amy Andrews

Don’t miss Rilla’s story in November 2008!

TOP-NOTCH SURGEON, PREGNANT NURSE

BY

AMY ANDREWS

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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To my dearest friend, Leah. Who knows.

CHAPTER ONE

BETH ROGERS stared at her office wall, reliving Friday night over again in all its horrifying splendour. She blew on her tea as she absently tucked a stray strand of blonde hair back into her theatre cap.

A pair of vivid green eyes, the exact shade of the peridot in her favourite pair of earrings, had haunted her all weekend. Crinkly caramel hair styled into a trendy just-got-out-of-bed fashion had continually flashed on her inward eye. A well-modulated English accent had replayed relentlessly. The aroma of popcorn, coffee and shortbread lingered even now.

How could she have done that? She’d never had a one-night stand in her life. Never.

At thirty-eight, no doubt there were some out there that would think that terribly boring. But having had her life defined by an even worse error of judgement at fifteen, she’d always shunned the casual sex scene. At least this time round she’d made sure they’d used protection.

‘Here she is.’

‘Where else would she be at seven in the morning, even though as NUM she doesn’t start till eight?’

Beth looked away from the very fascinating wall to find her two sisters lounging in her doorway. She smiled at them, plastering an all-is-well-with-the-world look on her face and banishing those peridot eyes. ‘Good morning to you both, too.’

Rilla and Hailey entered and threw themselves down on the low lounge chairs that sat against the wall opposite the desk.

‘Well, I know why I’m here this early—’ Beth began.

‘Because you’re a workaholic,’ Rilla interjected.

Beth ignored her. ‘But why are you both here so early?’ Like she needed to ask. Rilla and Hailey had been hovering for days. ‘I thought you were on days off, Rilla. And, Hailey—you don’t start till one. Wet the bed?’

The sisters looked at each other. ‘Come on, Beth. We’re just worried about you,’ Hailey said, putting all her best counseling skills into the conversation. ‘We’re family. When you hurt, we hurt.’

‘Yes,’ Rilla agreed. ‘We’ve been fretting all weekend about you.’

Beth looked at her sisters and felt their love and concern. They were so different from her. She was lanky and blonde, like the few photos she’d seen of her mother. They were darker and curvier, like Penny, their mother. But she’d been part of the Winters family for over twenty years and, blood bond or not, she was as close to them as any sisters.

She shook her head and smiled at them. ‘I’m fine guys, really. This is a tough time of year for me. I know you know that better than anyone else and I appreciate your concern.’

The sisters exchanged looks again. Beth’s words were reassuring but they knew how bruised her heart was still, even twenty-three years down the track. Had lived through that tumultuous time all those years ago as well and even though they’d both been quite young, Beth had been unbearably sad and it had left a lasting impression.

‘So did you go and see that movie Friday night?’ Hailey asked.

Friday night. No, she was trying not to think about Friday night. ‘Yep,’ she said, hoping to sound nonchalant.

Rilla looked at, Beth waiting for more information. None was forthcoming. ‘Was it able to distract you like you hoped?’ she prodded.

The movie hadn’t but what had happened afterwards certainly had! It had kept her distracted all weekend. ‘Yep,’ she said again.

Rilla and Hailey exchanged yet another look. ‘I didn’t think an action movie would hold your attention for long, you’re more a foreign-film buff,’ Rilla persisted.

‘Oh, yes, all that blowing up stuff.’ Beth nodded convincingly, ‘very good distraction.’

‘What did you do afterwards? I hope you didn’t go back to your house and brood all night. You know we would have come over.’ Hailey frowned, her concern all too obvious.

Yes, she knew. But she hadn’t been able to bear the thought of it. Her sisters’ efforts to keep her mind off the baby she’d given birth to twenty-three years go would only have served to focus her mind on it more. They’d been there to witness the aftermath of that turbulent time and their presence alone would have been enough to stir the memories.

Beth decided to throw them a crumb to sidetrack them. ‘I actually walked ou t of the cinema into a medical emergency. A woman had collapsed into a diabetic coma and then she started to fit. This…’ Beth paused slightly while she searched for an adequate description. ‘Guy and I, rendered some first aid while we waited for the ambulance.’

‘Guy?’ Rilla and Hailey said in unison, recognising the significance of Beth’s hesitation, sensing a juicy titbit.

Damn it! She shouldn’t have stumbled over how to explain him. She should have known her sisters would jump on that part of the information.

‘What was he like?’ Rilla asked.

‘What’s his name?’ Hailey pressed.

‘What’s he do?’ Rilla added.

‘Spill!’ Hailey demanded.

Hot. He was hot. Amazing green eyes, beautiful mouth and a way with her body that had made her weep in his arms.

‘He seemed nice enough,’ she fobbed them off, hoping her nose wasn’t growing. ‘His name is Gabe. He’s English. He’s a teacher.’ They were looking at her expectantly and she knew how tenacious they could be so she threw them another crumb.

‘We had coffee.’

And he made me laugh. He made me forget. And he was flirting and he had desire in those amazing eyes and something else, something sad, and when he suggested I go back to his hotel room I did because I couldn’t bear to be alone with the memori es, and we had sex. All-night sex. Last-night-alive-on-earth sex. Armageddon sex. Until I slunk out of his room at dawn.

‘Coffee?’ the sisters said in unison again, looking at Beth speculatively.

‘Do you fancy him?’ Rilla asked.

Beth rolled her eyes. ‘He’s…younger than me.’

‘How much younger?’ Hailey demanded.

‘Thirty-three.’ But he hadn’t looked a day over twenty-eight.

‘So?’ Hailey shrugged.

Her sister’s words triggered a Friday-night flashback.

‘Look, I’m flattered but you’re a little young for me,’ she had said and had laughed nervously.

‘So?’ Gabe had said, staring at her with desire and heartbreak in his eyes.

‘Don’t you think you should be playing with girls your own age?’ she’d practically squeaked.

‘No.’

And he’d been so sure of what he’d wanted and yet still kind of vulnerable, her insides had melted and she’d taken his proffered hand and followed him without any further argument.

‘Is he married?’ Hailey’s persistent voice broke into her wandering thoughts.

Beth gave her sister a scandalised look. ‘No.’

‘So?’ Hailey stated again.

Beth looked from one to the other, her head spinning. She was glad her instinct to keep Friday evening’s full story to herself had kicked in. For as long as she could remember her sisters had been trying to set her up with men. It was their payback for years of her mothering them. But the last thing she needed was them constantly questioning her about Gabe.

She didn’t want to be frequently reminded of her completely out-of-character actions. She already had a son out there somewhere to remind her of that. Her one-night-stand-man was best left at the hotel.

‘So nothing. We had a pleasant chat.’ Beth waited for a lightning bolt to strike her. ‘He’s in Australia for seven months. I’m never likely to see him again.’

‘What sort of a teacher is he?’

‘I don’t know. We didn’t really talk about our jobs,’ Beth said wishing she was wearing a theatre mask to hide the heat she felt rising in her face. She’d slept with someone she barely knew. They’d talked about the movies and books and music. And then they hadn’t talked about much at all.

Beth was saved any further interrogation by the arrival of the Brisbane General’s Chief of Staff. She’d never been so happy to see the man who’d been more like a father to her than the man who had actually given her life.

‘Ah, not one daughter but all three,’ John Winters said, beaming at his girls. He didn’t have to ask why they were altogether—he knew why.

‘Hi, Dad.’ Rilla and Hailey rose to hug their father and he gave them a big grateful squeeze each. He winked at Beth over the top of their heads. ‘How are you darling?’ he asked gently.

Oh, God, not you too. ‘I’m good, John. Really, I’m OK.’

John moved into the office and Beth rose to embrace him. He was tall and broad and handsome still, his hair greying nicely at the sides. She lingered in the circle of his arms, thankful every day that John and Penny had taken her in and given her a second chance at life.

‘To what do I owe the pleasure of your hallowed company?’ Beth teased. ‘It’s a bit far down from the executive suites to the bowels of the hospital, isn’t it?’

John chuckled and sat on the corner of her desk. ‘I’m just showing the visiting neurosurgeon around. He’s meeting me here shortly.’

‘Dr Fallon?’ Beth asked.

‘The English guy? The one who’s leading the neuro team to separate the Fisher twins?’ Hailey piped up. ‘What’s he like?’

‘He has an impeccable reputation. He’s only thirty-three but has a very bright future. He’s worked on some real cutting-edge stuff in Oxford and has a very successful private practice. He’s been involved with separating two sets of craniopagal conjoined twins already. The Fishers are lucky to have him. The General is lucky to have him.’

‘That’s not what she meant, Dad,’ Rilla said, laughing at her sister.

John’s eyes twinkled. He’d known exactly what his youngest daughter had meant. ‘Well, he doesn’t do much for me but I guess you young things would call him a hottie. Why, interested?’

‘No way,’ Rilla said vehemently. ‘But Beth, on the other hand…’ she turned to look at her older sister ‘…needs a good man.’

‘Hey!’ Beth protested. ‘If anyone needs a man around this joint, it’s you. It’s about time you started moved on. It’s been seven years since Luca left.’

‘Absolutely,’ Hailey agreed.

‘You can’t talk,’ Rilla said turning to her younger sister to deflect the attention from her. ‘How long has it been for you?’

Hailey laughed. ‘Give me a break. I only got back into the country eight weeks ago.’

‘You’re normally faster than that,’ Rilla pointed out.

Hailey started to protest and then figured it was a little rich to be outraged by her sister’s comment when it was essentially true. She’d had a string of boyfriends. But things had changed in London. ‘I’m mellowing in my old age.’ Hailey shrugged.

They all laughed and Hailey joined them. It was good to be back home among the family again. She’d missed them on the other side of the world and their familiarity was like a soothing balm to her burnt-out soul.

Dr Gabriel Fallon heard their laughter all the way down the corridor. He looked up at the sign that jutted out from the wall above the door where all the noise appeared to be coming from. It read ‘O.T. Nurse Unit Manager.’ Definitely where John had told him to come. Looked like the Brisbane General was going to be a fun place to work. It would make a nice change from the gloom he’d left behind in England.

He approached the office and knocked quietly on the door. John was sitting on the desk, two women were sitting in the chairs against the wall and another, behind the desk—John’s daughter, he presumed—was obscured from his view by her father.

‘Am I interrupting something?’

Beth felt the laughter die a sudden death on her lips. That voice. That accent! She’d know it anywhere. The same voice that had asked her to his hotel on Friday night. The same voice with the sexy accent that had whispered outrageous things to her all night.

‘Gabriel,’ John said, rising to his feet and ushering the newcomer inside. ‘Pardon us. Clan gathering. Meet my daughters. This is Rilla. She’s the middle child. She works down in Accident and Emergency.’

‘Rilla.’ Gabe nodded extended his hand. ‘A pleasure to meet you.’

Beth watched Rilla blush under Gabe’s gaze and knew exactly how she felt. His accent flowed over her like warm icing on a hot cake. Oh, God, oh, God! What the hell was he doing here? Gabe? Teacher Gabe? Her Gabe was the new hotshot from the UK? No wonder he’d been so good with the diabetic. First-aid course, my fat eye!

‘This is Hailey, the youngest child. She’s just started on the kids’ ward. She’s been away for three years in your neck of the woods.’

‘Oh, whereabouts?’ Gabe asked, shaking her hand.

‘London,’ Hailey confirmed.

Oh, God, it’s me now. Beth wished she could hide under the table as she watched her father and Gabe turn towards her. Time ground to a halt as their actions appeared to unfold in slow motion.

‘And this is the woman in charge around here. She’s also done quite a bit of travelling and even worked in Oxford. This is my oldest daughter—’

Gabe’s eyes widened as recognition dawned. ‘Beth!’ he supplied before John had a chance.

Gabe couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The woman who’d been on his mind all weekend was standing in front of him. Her hair may be obscured by a cap, her lithe body covered in baggy theatre greens, but he’d remember that flawless complexion, those eyes, that mouth anywhere. Hell!

Beth swallowed, trying to moisten her suddenly parched mouth. Nothing had prepared her for the impact of seeing him again. On Friday night he’d worn jeans and a polo shirt. Today he was wearing dark grey trousers, a striped business shirt and an impeccably matching tie. But she knew neither were a match for what lay beneath.

‘Hello, Gabe.’

John frowned. ‘You two know each other?’

Intimately. Gabe had thought about no one else since he’d woken alone in his bed on Saturday morning. He’d slept with the boss’s daughter? A colleague? Oh, good move, Gabriel! He saw a burst of panic flare her pupils and her blue eyes darted nervously to John and then back to him. She didn’t want her family to know. ‘We…met on Friday night.’

Beth could see Hailey and Rilla exchange looks in her peripheral vision as his green eyes captivated her, making it impossible to look away.

‘You’re the guy who helped her with the diabetic?’ Rilla exclaimed.

Among other things. Gabe smiled at Rilla and then turned back to Beth. ‘Yes. We made quite a team.’

John was looking at Beth and she quickly filled him in with an abridged version of events, ignoring the familiar undertone in Gabe’s voice.

‘Well, then. No introduction needed,’ John said.

Gabe saw a slight hint of pink adorn Beth’s high cheekbones. Definitely no introduction needed. He wondered if John Winters would have been so welcoming had he known just how well acquainted he was with Beth.

‘It’ll be a pleasure working with you,’ Gabe said.

Beth nodded, unable to speak, trying not to focus on the word ‘pleasure’. Was it just her hyperactive imagination or had he emphasised it slightly? Her body was still tingling in places from the pleasures they had shared.

No! This couldn’t be happening. If she’d known she was going to have to work with him, she would never have thrown common sense and a lifetime of caution to the winds and slept with him. The one thing, the only thing, she’d managed to comfort herself with over the weekend had been she’d never have to see him again.

‘Well, we’d better be getting on,’ John said. ‘I believe Dr Fallon has an afternoon list, Beth?’

Beth looked at John and nodded. She forced herself to concentrate on only him, ignoring both Gabe’s and her sister’s speculative. ‘Starts at one.’ She leafed through some papers on her desk and handed one to Gabe.

‘Thanks,’ he said softly as he took the theatre list. He watched her intently as she avoided his gaze. ‘I guess I’ll see you after lunch.’

Beth gave him a quick smile, which she hoped appeared friendly, and made a show of straightening the papers on her desk. Rilla and Hailey were shrewd. Too shrewd. If she ignored him, started acting weirdly, they’d be onto her. She could tell they were already bursting to get her alone.

John gestured for Gabe to exit first. ‘See you later, girls.’ John smiled at his daughters as they left the office.

Beth sat, her shaky legs dubiously supportive. She adjusted a few things on her desk and then risked a look at her sisters. They were looking at her with grins on their faces.

‘What?’

‘You didn’t mention that Gabe was so gorgeous,’ Rilla stated.

‘Very sexy,’ Hailey concurred. ‘Slip your mind?’

‘He’s OK, I guess.’ she shrugged.

‘You guess?’ Hailey laughed. ‘That man is so damn cute I thought about slipping into a diabetic coma just to grab his attention.’

Beth grinned at the image and then sobered. ‘Well that man is now apparently a colleague so the rest of it doesn’t matter.’

‘Thought you said he was a teacher?’ Hailey said.

Beth shrugged. ‘That’s what he told me.’

A great start to their working relationship. Not only had they slept together but he’d lied to her. Had the flirting and flattery been lies too? To get her into bed? He had confessed to her, as they’d eaten from room service at three in the morning, that he’d never done anything so spontaneous before. Had that been another lie?

She had suppressed the impulse to question him further at the time knowing that a few hours in bed with a stranger did not permit her access to the intimate details of his life, and now wished she hadn’t. She’d known what had driven her to act so outrageously—what had been his excuse?

Beth groaned inwardly. What did his reasons matter? The more important question was how she was going to work with him. The next six months stretched before her interminably and she wished they were over already.

‘Well.’ Rilla grinned and winked at Hailey. ‘Looks like Gabe’s going to be around for a while. You never know what could happen in that time.’

Beth looked from one to the other. Their brown eyes sparkled mischievously at her. ‘No.’

Rilla and Hailey’s grins widened.

‘No,’ Beth repeated, more emphatically this time.

‘Oh, come on, Beth,’ Hailey cajoled. ‘I think he fancies you.’

Beth tried not to remember just how much he’d fancied her on Friday night. ‘I’m not interested.’

‘Liar, liar pants on fire,’ Rilla teased.

‘I do not date colleagues.’

‘Oh, Beth,’ Rilla chided. ‘You do not date, full stop.’ She made a chicken noise and flapped her arms a couple of times. Hailey giggled.

Beth fixed her sister with a glare. ‘Rilla, you of all people should know how disastrous relationships at work can be.’

Rilla’s smile died and Hailey’s laughter cut off abruptly. Her sisters looked at her as if she’d slapped them, and Beth knew she’d stepped over the line. Damn Gabe Fallon! She’d done nothing but mother and dote on them since she’d entered their lives twenty-three years ago. Rilla ha been seven at the time and Hailey five.

‘I’m sorry, Ril,’ she said immediately, getting up from behind the desk and crouching beside her sister’s chair. ‘I spoke without thinking.’

Rilla blinked and smiled weakly. ‘It’s OK, Beth. I know you didn’t mean it that way. Just because it didn’t work out for me, it doesn’t mean they’re necessarily a bad thing. You have to stop punishing yourself. It’s been twenty-three years…’

It was both incredible and daunting to have two other human beings who knew everything about you and loved you anyway. Who knew what kind of ice cream you liked or what you wished for when a falling star crossed your path or how you’d cried yourself to sleep for a year. Despite their physical differences, despite their different surnames, Hailey and Rilla were her family. She didn’t know what she’d do without them.

Beth looked into Rilla’s earnest brown eyes. She took her sister’s hand and gave it a squeeze. She reached for Hailey’s and did the same.

‘Listen, guys. I love you both but I don’t need fixing up. I like my life. I have a great job and my own place and I can do what I like, when I like. I’m happy.’

Beth knew it was hard for her younger sisters to grasp. They were both still at an age when marriage and children were possible. Two years off forty, she’d given up on the often desperate need to hold a baby in her arms and her dreams of becoming a mother again. And she’d mourned that for a while but in the last couple of years had found some peace with it.

‘Now, come on, you two,’ Beth said, breaking away and standing up. ‘Thanks for coming but go away now. I have work to do.’

Rilla and Hailey stood and they all huddled together for a group hug, their foreheads touching.

‘You could just use him for sex,’ Hailey suggested. ‘He looks like he’d know some pretty slick moves.’

Rilla burst out laughing and Beth joined in despite shaking her head at Hailey. You have no idea, sister, dearest!

‘Goodbye you two.’ Beth kissed both her sisters and returned to her desk, pleased to be alone again.

She put her head on the desk and groaned. Now what? How was she supposed to see Gabe every day and act like she hadn’t seen him naked?

The day got worse. Kerry Matthews, her second in charge and the scrub nurse rostered to work in Theatre Four with the new neurosurgeon, went home at lunchtime with a migraine. The other two nurses allocated to the theatre were junior and as such had had little experience in neurology cases.

Beth had cut her teeth in neurosurgery. She’d worked for two years at the internationally renowned Radcliffe in Oxford when she’d first gone traveling, and had been working there again when she’d come home for Rilla’s wedding eight years ago and decided not to go back.

So, with the other theatres staffed and running smoothly, Beth resigned herself to having to scrub in. She stood at the washbasins outside Theatre Four and put her mask on. She could do this, she thought briskly as she tied the paper straps. Just hand him the instruments as he asks for them and try and anticipate his needs. Nothing she hadn’t done for any other surgeon in the past eighteen years.

Except she’d never slept with any of the surgeons she’d worked with. And it wasn’t like she hadn’t had her share of opportunities. Because she had. But she didn’t do that. She didn’t sleep around. At all. And certainly not with colleagues.

Sure, there had been some relationships. But her past had made her very reserved and distrustful so nothing had been successful for long. And no one had got past the detached veneer to the softness beneath.

Letting that go long enough to let someone in was a big step for Beth. Too big. It meant giving up some hard-won control and that terrified her. Too many things had happened in her younger years that she hadn’t been able to control. Being fostered by the Winters had put her back in charge of her life and it had been the gift she’d treasured most from her new family.

Beth flicked the taps and pushed the surgical scrub dispenser with her elbow. Green liquid squirted into her hand and she began the three-minute routine she could perform in her sleep, trying not to think about having to stand close to Gabriel Fallon for the next few hours.

‘You ran out on me.’

Beth started. She hadn’t heard him approach. The hairs on the back of her neck stood to attention as his presence loomed beside her. She turned her head to see him lounging against the sink, applying his mask. Looking at her.

‘Yes.’ What else could she say?

‘I was hoping to…have a late breakfast. Maybe make a weekend of it.’

Beth faltered in mid-scrub. A whole weekend in bed with Gabriel Fallon. The mind boggled.

‘You lied to me. You said you were a teacher.’

Gabe turned to face the sink and flicked the tap on. ‘I do a little lecturing.’

Beth glared at him over the top of her mask.

Gabe chuckled. ‘Look. I’m sorry. I don’t usually tell people I’m a neurosurgeon. I’m good at my job but it takes up so much of my life. I have a killer schedule and I so rarely get the chance to socialise. When I do, I like to keep my work at work. And it can get weird. People know you’re a doctor and they always want a consultation.’ He scrubbed at his soapy hands for a few moments. ‘Would you have stayed if I’d told you I was a neurosurgeon?’

She could hear the smile in his voice and she didn’t have to look at his peridot eyes to know they’d be laughing. Beth snorted. ‘I wouldn’t have gone to bed with you if I’d known you were a neurosurgeon.’

He nodded as he scrubbed at his wrists. ‘I’m glad I was…economical with the truth, then.’

Beth worked the soap down towards her elbows, ignoring the way the mask muted his voice, accentuating the accent, making it sound husky as hell.

Time for a few home truths. ‘I don’t do one-night stands.’

He’d known that the minute he’d suggested she go back to his room. He could still recall how totally shocked she’d looked for those seconds before something had changed in her eyes and she had taken his hand. ‘I never intended it to be a one-night stand.’

‘I don’t do two-night stands either,’ she said primly, horrified by the leap her pulse took at his statement.

He laughed and the noise caused a flutter inside her and she scrubbed harder at her arms. ‘This is not funny. This is a disaster.’

Gabe frowned. ‘No, a disaster would have been if we’d slept together and it had been awful. And it wasn’t.’ He looked down at her and their gazes clashed. ‘It was good. It was very, very good.’

Beth heard her breathing go all funny. She couldn’t refute it, no matter how much she knew she had to get this conversation back on an impersonal level.

She cleared her throat and turned back to concentrate on her scrub technique. ‘Be that as it may, we have to work together for the next seven months so I think we need to establish some ground rules.’

Gabe smiled behind the mask. ‘This should be good.’

‘One. Forget Friday night happened.’ She looked at him for confirmation.

He nodded.

‘Two. No references to Friday night—ever.’

Gabe nodded again.

‘Three. Be professional at all times. I will call you Dr Fallon and you will call me Sister Rogers. Four—’

‘Rogers?’ Gabe interrupted, frowning. ‘I thought John said you were his daughter? Oh, God…you’re not married, are you?’ She hadn’t mentioned a husband and she hadn’t been wearing a ring. Maybe that’s why she’d looked so panicked?

‘No!’ Beth said indignantly. Did he really think she would have slept with him had she been married? ‘John is my foster-father. I’ve been with them since I was fifteen.’

Gabe struggled with relief and curiosity. ‘Ah. I see,’ he said, even though he didn’t really.

Beth pressed on. ‘Where was I?’

‘Number four, I believe.’

Beth nodded. ‘Four. No fraternising outside work—’

‘Look, Beth, let me spare you the rest of the list,’ Gabe interrupted. ‘I happen to agree. Relationships at work should be avoided.’

Not that it was a strict rule for him. He’d had relationships with colleagues before but they’d always known the score. Relationships with women who didn’t, women like Beth, were to be avoided at all costs.

‘I have no intention of continuing where we left off. I live on the other side of the world. I’m here for seven months only. There would be very little point.’ Except for the pretty amazing sex, of course. ‘You have no need to fear. I will be nothing but professional.’

‘Good.’ Beth held her arms up under the tap and let the water run down them from her fingertips to her elbows, sluicing the soap off. ‘We’re both on the same page, then.’

She shut off the taps with her elbow and waited for the excess water to drip off her arms squashing the traitorous flutter of disappointment at his easy capitulation. She flapped her arms, briskly to dispel it altogether, keeping her arms bent. And then she turned on her heel, her now sterile arms held out in front of her.

Gabe watched her go, pushing open the theatre doors with her shoulder, her green theatre scrubs accentuating the length of her thighs and the slimness of her hips and bottom. He shook his head as he watched the last drips of water fall from his elbows.

That morning Beth had been thrown but this afternoon she’d been back in control. All business. Where was the woman who had struck such a chord with her sad eyes on Friday night? Who had come apart in his arms? Who had wept as she had come down from the heights they’d climbed?

Something had been up with Beth Rogers on Friday night. Maybe it had been his own recent grief that had made him sensitive to her inner turmoil but something had made her act completely out of character. Impulsively. As had he.

He’d known after about five minutes in her company that she wasn’t the type to sleep with a virtual stranger. And yet after her initial shock she had followed him willingly—surprised the hell out of him—and given him everything she had.

He could still hear the gut-wrenching quality of her sobs as she had curled herself into a ball beside him. There had been such misery in her outpouring. Heartbreak and sorrow and grief. It had come from something buried deep inside. And, with his own emotions still a little raw, it had affected him more than he wanted to admit.

Beth Rogers was certainly a conundrum. Not that he had the time or the inclination to find out what made her tick. She was right. They were colleagues and he didn’t need any complications messing with his burgeoning career. Separating conjoined twins was complicated enough.

He flicked off the taps and drew a mental shutter on their one-night stand. He had an aneurysm to clip.

CHAPTER TWO

TWO weeks later, Gabe was staring down at the eight-month-old Fisher twins, lying back to back in their pram, fused occipitally. He was still amazed at the rare phenomenon. One in two hundred thousand live births. And craniopagus? Only two per cent of Siamese twins were joined at the head.

Most doctors could go a whole lifetime and never see this condition but in his relatively young career he’d now seen three sets of craniopagus-conjoined twins and had successfully separated two of them. Consequently, he was one of the world’s foremost experts.

As the late, great Harlan Fallon’s son, the world had expected big things of him, and fate, it seemed, had intervened to ensure that Gabe’s career was just as stellar as his father’s had been. A tremor of excitement ran through him. In approximately four months he could give these precious babies separate lives.

He hoped. Gabe was aware, more than anyone, of the pressures that were being put on him to ensure a third successful operation. With two positive outcomes under his belt and the Fallon reputation at stake, failure wasn’t an option—despite the enormous odds against him. But he’d faced long odds twice already and won. Looking down at the girls now, he hoped his luck wasn’t about to run out.

Bridie babbled away while her sister slept. She smiled a dribbly smile at him and he offered her his finger, which she grasped willingly.

‘She likes you,’ June Fisher commented.

‘Well, I do have a way with women,’ he joked as he allowed Bridie to suck his finger.

‘Oh, yeah, you’re real big with the babes.’ Scott Fisher grinned.

Gabe laughed and they chatted some more about the op. ‘As I explained earlier, the most important thing we can have on our side is time. We’d like to wait until Bridie and Brooke are at least ten kilos before we operate. It’s a big operation and we want them to be as strong as possible. Brooke is almost there but her sister…’ He stopped and smiled down at Bridie ‘…is still lagging behind. We’ll get the dietician involved and hopefully she should be bang on target for her first birthday.’

‘That’d be a great birthday present for them,’ a teary June said. ‘To be able to see each other for the first time.’

Gabe repeated his warning that while they would do everything they could, it was a long, risky operation and there were no guarantees. They could lose one or both of the girls. Or even if they both survived the rigours of the operation, one or both of them could have brain damage. He was particularly worried about Bridie. Her sluggish weight gain indicated she wasn’t as strong as her twin.

‘The team’s going to be spending these next four months practising every step of the operation. I have all the scans, the MRIs and the angiography, and we have 3D images as well as several plastic models of the girls’ heads we’re working with so when we come to operate, every step will have been rehearsed.’

Gabe had been consulted in the Fisher case since their birth and, thanks to the wonders of the internet, had been involved with the planning right from the start.

‘I want you to come along to the weekly case conferences we’ll be having. It’s important to me that the whole team meets both you and the girls so we can all get to know each other. It’ll be a good forum for any questions you may have too.’

Scott nodded. ‘Of course. We’d love to get to know the people who are going to be involved in the girls’ separation. Thank you for involving us. You’ve been great, disrupting your life and career in the UK. We can’t thank you enough, Gabe.’ He gave his wife’s hand a squeeze.

Gabe smiled. ‘Don’t thank me yet. The other thing we need to think about is that, despite everything, we may have to go for an emergency separation if something unforeseen happens.’

‘Yes, we’ve been told that’s a possibility,’ Scott said.

Gabe nodded. ‘It’s obviously something we want to avoid. We want to be able to control as much of the situation as possible so the girls get the best outcome possible. If we have to go for an emergency separation it’ll be because one or both of the girls’ health is failing, and that’s not an optimal condition to be operating under. So keep doing what you’re doing. Feed them up and keep them healthy.’

Gabe chatted with the Fishers for a little while longer and then held open his office door as June manoeuvred the pram out. He waved at them as they walked away, shutting the door as they disappeared round a corner. Two lovely people, parents who would go to the ends of the earth for their children—he hoped he didn’t let them down.

He stood looking at the scans illuminated on the viewing box. The enormity of the task ahead was staring back at him. Two separate but fused brains, tethered together by networks of wispy fibres.

It would take hours, at least twenty if everything went successfully—many more if it didn’t. And involve a team of about thirty people. Several other neurosurgeons, plastic surgeons, vascular surgeons, anaesthetists, radiographers and nurses.

And that didn’t take into account the hours of treatments and scans they’d already endured. A month ago plastic surgeons had implanted tissue expanders under the scalps around the operative site. Every week the twins had came back to have saline injections into the expanders so the skin would be nice and stretched and able to be closed over the gaping surgical wound that would remain after the separation.

Gabe switched off the light and removed the scans. He checked his watch. Three o’clock. His outpatient clinic was over for the day. He had time to go down to Theatres and get some more practice in on the Fisher twin model.

He entered the male staff change room and climbed into a set of theatre greens. He donned a blue hat and tied it securely in place at the base of his skull and covered his shoes with the slip-on bootees made out of the same thin, gauzy material as his hat.

He passed Beth’s office but noticed she was talking to a group of people and didn’t stop. Their relationship had been cordial, strictly business, their night together a taboo subject. Which was just as well. Neither his career nor the Fisher twins could afford the kind of distraction that could flare out of control should they ever cross that line again.

Except as he snapped the scans in place on Theatre Ten’s viewing boards, he realised he did think about her and their night together an awful lot. Too much. Even now, while he was trying to concentrate on the intricate meshing of Bridie and Brooke’s cerebral vasculature, his mind was wandering to the room down the corridor.

Damn it! He turned away from the scans in disgust. In a few short months, maybe less if they were unlucky, he had to separate the intertwined circulation—he needed to focus!

Gabe was good at focus. Focus had got him to where he was today. One of the world’s foremost neurosurgeons. And at work his mind was always on the job. Always. He was driven. Career orientated. Focused. Nothing distracted him. Certainly no woman. And he couldn’t let that happen now.

His father had reached the pinnacle of transplant medicine by never letting anything divert his attention. Not a wife or son or colleagues or a reputation as an arrogant, pompous bastard. Thousands of transplant patients had benefited from the advances Harlon Fallon had pioneered and that was the most important thing. If ever Gabe had felt neglected or had yearned for a little attention, he’d remembered the Nobel Prize his father had won.

His father had made a difference to the course of modern medicine. And that’s what he wanted to do. He wanted to be to neurosurgery what his father had been to organ transplantation. And before his death his father had been proud of him. But he couldn’t rest on his laurels. He’d gained an impressive global reputation, now it was his job to build on it.

Beth stared at the four student nurses standing in front of her. They looked terrified. She remembered how scary and overwhelming it had been when she’d first been sent to the operating theatres as a student and softened her words with an encouraging smile.

She was giving them her usual spiel about her high standards and what she expected of them. The operating theatres were a dynamic environment where one mistake could have serious ramifications—one careless miscount, one accidental contamination of a sterile field. She needed them to be vigilant.

They all looked impossibly young. They were second years. The three young women didn’t look twenty. The young man looked slightly older, maybe twenty-two or three. The same age as her son. Her heart ached just looking at David Ledbetter. He was tall and blond with a dimple in his chin, and she found herself wondering for the millionth time what her own son would look like before she ruthlessly quashed it.

‘OK, then. Time for a tour. Go round to the change rooms.’ Beth pointed to the door through which they’d entered. ‘Put on a set of greens, a pair of bootees and a cap and then knock on my door.’ She pointed to the door on the other side of her office that led into the theatres.

The four of them stood there, looking nervous. ‘Now,’ she prompted.

The students darted from her office and Beth relaxed. For a moment she wished she could be one of those NUMs that she heard the students talk about with affection. The ones who smiled a lot and befriended their students. But she was a little too reserved for that. Her background had taught her to be wary. Detached. So a reticence to get too close or involved was almost second nature to her.

Although Gabe hadn’t had any problems getting past her reserve.

And it was difficult to be chummy when she had to ride them over their sterile technique and lecture them on the necessity of the endless cleaning required to keep the ultra-clean environment of the operating theatres as pristine as possible.

Her job required that she be a perfectionist—patients’ lives depended on it. It was up to her to set standards and see they were maintained. And in the operating theatres, the standards had to be highest of all. Sterility and safety were paramount and the buck stopped with her. There was no place in her theatres for sloppy standards. And everyone who worked in the OT knew it.

Beth had struggled for years over how to bridge the gap between the person she had to be and the less reserved, more outgoing one she’d like to be. And in the end she’d given up. The people who mattered, who had known her for a long time, knew the real Beth beneath the guarded exterior. And she was fine with that.

There was a knock at the door and Beth opened it, stepping onto the sticky antiseptic mat which removed any dirt that had dared to venture into her office and stick to the bottom of her clogs. She gave a brisk nod of acknowledgement.

‘This is the main theatre corridor,’ Beth said, looking up and down, launching straight into it.

‘Down this side are a couple of offices, the staffroom, change rooms and storeroom. On the other side…’ she pointed to the swing doors of Theatre Five opposite ‘…are the ten theatres.’

She strode down the corridor. ‘The theatres are not to be entered from these doors we see here but rather through the anaesthetic antechamber.’

Beth walked through an open doorway into Theatre Eight’s antechamber. ‘The patient is put under anaesthetic and intubated in here.’ Beth indicated the monitoring equipment and stocked trolleys. To the left a double swing door separated the operating suite from the anaesthetic area.

She walked through the antechamber and under another open doorway. ‘This is the room where the surgeons and scrub nurses scrub up.’ The room housed a line of four sinks and it too had a closed swing door to the left which led into the theatre.

‘This door,’ Beth said, walking past the sinks to the far side of the scrub room, ‘leads to the equipment corridor.’ She pushed the single swing door open and indicated for the students to precede her. ‘Basic supplies are kept here. It’s also where the trays of instruments are sterilised prior to each procedure.’ Beth stopped at a large steriliser fixed to the wall, its door open.

‘At the end of the procedure, after all the instruments have been accounted for, the instrument trays come back out here and are passed through this window,’ Beth pointed to the small double-hung opening behind the students.

‘You lift the window, place the tray on the bench and shut it again. This puts the instruments in the hands of the nurses who run the dirty corridor beyond the window. This is the area where the instruments are cleaned, the trays reset and then sent to the central sterilising department.’

Beth drew breath and looked at the students, who all looked like their heads were about to explode with information overload. She saw the lost look on David’s face and her heart went out to him.

‘It’s OK,’ she said, taking pity on them. ‘It’s a lot to take in now but you’ll soon get the hang of it.’

It didn’t seem to help. None of them looked convinced so she kept them moving back out to the main corridor.

‘There are ten operating suites. Two are usually kept free for emergency operations. Today that’s Theatres Eight and Ten. This afternoon in the other suites we have three general surgery lists, two orthopeadic lists, an ENT list, one Caesar list and one gynae. Tomorrow you can go in and observe cases.’

Beth noticed the lights ablaze in the tenth suite as she approached. ‘This is not acceptable,’ she muttered as she strode towards it. ‘I try to run these theatres as efficiently as possible. These big theatre lights are hellishly expensive to run,’ she lectured. ‘Lights must always be out if the suite is not in use.’

Beth entered the anaesthetic area, making a mental note to talk to Tom, the head theatre orderly, about it. It was the orderly’s job to do end-of-day cleaning and that involved turning the lights off.

She veered to the left and shoved the double swing doors open with a shoulder, the students following close behind.

Gabe looked up at the interruption to his concentration. He’d been engrossed in a particularly tricky vessel dissection and was annoyed at the intrusion. Especially as it was thoughts of the woman in front of him that had made it difficult for him to get into it in the first place.

‘Oh.’ Beth stopped abruptly.

Neither of them said anything for a moment.

‘I’m sorry, Dr Fallon, I didn’t realise you were in here.’

Gabe gritted his teeth at her formality. Despite agreeing to the necessity for it, he longed to hear her say ‘Gabe’ again, like she had that night. ‘That’s quite all right, Sister Rogers. I was just working on the Fisher case.’

Beth nodded. ‘I’m showing some student nurses around. They’ll be with us three days a week for the next six months.’

‘Ah,’ Gabe said, loosening a little. He never missed an opportunity to teach. ‘They might be here when we separate the twins.’

‘The Fisher twins?’ Joy, one of the students, asked.

Gabe smiled at her. ‘Yes. Come over here. I’ll show you the scans.’

Beth stood back a little while Gabe explained the unusual anatomy and answered the students’ eager questions. A little too eager, Beth thought. If the girls batted their eyelashes any more they were bound to fall out. Not that she could blame them. The combination of his well-modulated voice with his touch-of-class accent was hard to resist. He should have been working for a phone-sex hotline. His voice stroked all the right places.

‘How often are you practising?’ David asked.

‘I try to do a little each day,’ Gabe said. ‘But we’re having our first multi-disciplinary practice here on Saturday.’

He looked at Beth and she gave a brisk nod. Not something she was looking forward to. Seeing him every day was hard enough, without having to spend hours in his company on what should have been a day off.

‘We’re starting at eight,’ she confirmed.

‘And what does the practice entail?’ David asked.

‘Saturday is mainly big-picture stuff,’ Gabe said. ‘The logistics of the amount of people involved. Trouble-shooting and contingencies if things don’t go according to plan. We have a weekly case conference starting Monday to discuss the intricacies.’

‘How many staff will be required on the actual day?’ Joy asked.

Beth almost rolled her eyes at the way the student nurse was preening in front of Gabe. She was a pretty redhead with a cute nose and an even cuter spray of freckles across it. Gabe shot her a smile and Beth couldn’t suppress the frown that wrinkled her forehead.

‘The cases I was involved with in the UK had about thirty personnel helping in one way or another during the separation process.’

Beth could tell each of the students was hoping to get a look-in. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said to them, ‘only the most experienced staff will be on the team.’

Gabe nodded. ‘Sister Rogers is right. With so many variables, so much potential for disaster, we need to have only the most skilled people.’

The students asked a few more questions. ‘OK, I think we need to let Dr Fallon get on,’ Beth broke in, checking her watch. ‘We’ll continue our tour.’ She paused at the door, looking back over her shoulder. ‘Don’t forget the lights when you’re done, Dr Fallon.’

Gabe’s gaze met hers. Business as usual. ‘I won’t, Sister Rogers.’

Beth shook off the intensity of his gaze as she took the students to the recovery unit next, explaining the set-up and routine post-op monitoring. She didn’t get too detailed. There would be more for them to see and learn next week and she could tell they had already overdosed on information. Before sending them on their way, she handed out their workbooks and briefly explained the competencies they’d be expected to achieve while here.

It was nearly five o’clock when Beth sat back down at her desk. All the lists except for Theatre Three’s had finished for the day and Recovery was emptying. She should have gone home an hour ago but she was due at John and Penny’s place for the regular weekly Winters family meal and decided she’d work on the roster for an hour and go straight from work to tea.

The roster was the worst part of her job. With ten theatres to staff and eighty nurses to appease, someone was bound to miss out on their requests. She always tried to be fair with the weekend and on-call shifts but invariably she managed to alienate some of her staff.

There was a knock on her door. ‘Come in,’ she called, not bothering to look up from the spreadsheet on her computer screen.

‘Have you got a moment?’

Beth’s head snapped up. She hadn’t expected it to be Gabe. How was it that the man even made a pair of plain cotton theatre scrubs look good? ‘Certainly, Dr Fallon.’

Gabe’s brow wrinkled. ‘Really, Beth, is it necessary to continue with such formality when we’re alone? I have seen you naked, remember?’

Beth gasped. ‘Do you mind?’ She got up from her desk and shut the door as images of a naked Gabe filled her mind. ‘Yes, it is necessary, Dr Fallon. At work, it’s imperative.’

The truth was, Beth was scared stiff that if she called him Gabe, everyone would know they’d slept together. That there would be a betraying catch in her voice that would give her away. ‘Gabe’had been what she’d called him when he’d been inside her. ‘Gabe’ had far too many intimate connotations for her to bandy it around with any ease.

‘And I would appreciate it if you didn’t use “naked” in any sentence when talking to me.’

Gabe sighed as he lowered himself into a chair opposite her desk. Beth’s office smelled of her. The same fragrance that had stayed with him since they’d first met. Like cinnamon doughnuts and a citrus orchard. Whatever it was, it overrode the pervasive antiseptic smell that invaded the operating suites.

‘OK then, Sister Rogers…no “n” word. Whatever. I was wondering if you’d given any thought to rostering the nursing team for the big day.’

Beth was relieved he’d dropped the subject and had gone straight to talking shop. Her heart was still galloping madly as she tried to follow his train of thought. ‘I was going to look at that on Saturday. I know who we need, it’ll be a matter of who’s available when the date’s chosen.’

Gabe nodded. ‘I’m thinking we should set a tentative date. That will help with staffing in all departments.’

‘Even if we can narrow it down to an approximate week. If we’re looking at four months from now, that’s May,’ Beth scrolled through to her annual leave spreadsheet. ‘I’ll have to rearrange some things. A couple of my most experienced staff are down to take leave during that time.’

‘Yes, OK. I’ll look at trying to set an estimated date. Will that help?’

Beth nodded briskly, trying to be businesslike when that chair had never been filled so well in all its life. ‘I take it you’ll want to do this on a weekend? We’ll be needing so many staff we won’t be able to run other theatres as well. It would leave them too short.’

‘Yes, logistically it’s the only way to do it,’ Gabe agreed. ‘Of course, that’s in a perfect world. If we need to go to an emergency separation, that could happen on any day.’

Beth nodded. ‘We may have to cancel some cases if that happens. Is it likely?’

Gabe rubbed his jaw. ‘Bridie is definitely the weaker twin. She’s not thriving like her sister. They’re both in good health at the moment but if Bridie picks up a bug and can’t fight it off, she could jeopardise Brooke’s health too. It’s a possibility.’ He gave her a smile that was half-grimace. ‘I guess we have to cross that bridge if we get to it.’

Beth saw a flash of vulnerability in his green gaze and realised the enormity of the job that had landed in Gabe’s lap. Sure, the surgery would require a team effort, but he was the leader, the ‘expert’. The outcome, good or bad, would be on his head.

She felt a rush of tenderness welling inside her as she remembered the carefree man she’d slept with. How different was the man before her? Dr Gabriel Fallon was an entirely different animal to Gabe, her Friday-night man.

She remembered the first day she’d scrubbed for him, Dr Gabriel Fallon, eminent neurosurgeon. She’d been worried how it would work so closely on the heels of their one-night stand, but she needn’t have been. He’d all but ignored her, demanding perfection from her and everyone in the theatre. Treating her with the utmost in professional courtesy. As if their fling had never happened.

So different from the Gabe of their first meeting. Gabe, the lover. Sure, she hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that something hadn’t been quite right with him that night either, and he’d all but confirmed that when he’d admitted to his spontaneous behaviour, but he’d still been relaxed and laid back.

And if the whispers she’d heard since about his reputation were anything to go by, that Gabe enjoyed a party and a flirt and the company of women who knew the score.

Beth supposed the pressures of his work almost demanded this type of split personality. His job was highly stressful so it seemed only sensible to release the pressure through playing jack the lad in his downtime.

She opened her mouth to say, It’ll be all right, Gabe, then caught herself in time. She pressed her lips firmly together. She didn’t want to be part of his downtime. Best not to give him any encouragement.

‘Fingers crossed, we won’t.’ Beth stood. ‘Was there anything else, Dr Fallon?’ she asked primly.

Gabe contemplated saying something shocking just to rattle her. Beth was one single-minded woman. ‘No, Sister Rogers.’ He stood also. ‘I’ll consider myself dismissed.’

Beth watched him go wishing it was just as easy to dismiss him from her thoughts.

* * *

The sun was setting as Beth pulled up at the Bullimba house she’d called home since she’d been fifteen. Her gaze took in its rambling whitewashed exterior. It had been a palace compared to some of the dives she’d lived in on the streets and she’d loved it the second she’d clapped eyes on it.

She was running a little late. She’d done battle with the roster for another hour and then given it up as a bad joke. Gabe’s scent, sweet like shortbread, had invaded every corner of her office, making a mockery of her concentration. She’d stopped at the nearby shopping centre and picked up a bunch of flowers for Penny.

Beth walked up the path and was raising her hand to insert her key in the lock when she heard a car door slam behind her and a sexy voice say, ‘Wait…’

Beth’s heart crashed against her ribs as she turned towards the voice. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ she demanded.

Gabe laughed. ‘That’s no way to speak to a dinner guest.’

He was wearing the clothes he’d worn to work this morning. Chocolate-brown trousers and a purple pinstriped shirt. The tie had been removed, the top buttons undone.

‘I hope your family are drinkers,’ Gabe said as he drew level with her, holding up a bottle of wine.

His crinkly caramel hair was still a little flat from his theatre cap and despite her absolute horror when she realised she would be sharing the table with him, she suppressed the urge to ruffle it. ‘You’re having dinner with us?’ Great. She’d drink the entire bottle all by herself!

Gabe nodded. ‘I ran into your father on my way out of the hospital.’

Damn John. ‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘You can’t have dinner with us.’

Gabe chuckled. ‘Yes, I can. John asked. I accepted.’

‘But…Dr Fallon—’

‘Beth,’ Gabe said sternly, ‘I swear to God, if you call me Dr Fallon all evening…’

‘Sorry Dr…er…Gabe.’ Beth tried not to stumble over the word but she did anyway. ‘Look, you don’t understand. It would make me feel very uncomfortable.’

Gabe frowned. ‘Why?’

She stared at him for a few moments, wondering whether he’d lost his mind. ‘Because we slept together,’ she said, lowering her voice to a harsh whisper. ‘Or have you forgotten that already?’

He grinned at her, remembering in vivid detail. ‘So?’

So? So! So she couldn’t exchange polite pleasantries with him in front of her family and not give herself away. ‘Rilla and Hailey are very shrewd. They’ll guess. And I don’t need them on my case. They’ll try to matchmake and it was a one-off G-Gabe. A one-off. Not to mention that my father is your boss. You want to be sitting across the table from him when he realises just how well you know me?’

Gabe could see the pink in her cheeks as her straight blonde hair brushed her shoulders. He sighed. ‘How old are you Beth?’

Beth glared at him. ‘Older than you. Old enough to know better than to jump into bed with a complete stranger.’ How could she have been so stupid?

‘I don’t care who knows that we slept together, Beth.’

‘Well, I do,’ she snarled. ‘What happened with us is not the way I act. I’m embarrassed by it. I’d like to keep it to myself, if that’s all right. I’m worried we might slip up and let the cat out of the bag, especially if we’re together socially with my family. They know me too well.’

‘Beth, what happened between us wasn’t exactly normal for me either. We were both acting out of character. There was something obviously weighing on you that night. Don’t forget, I held you while you cried your heart out. It meant something to me that you could let go. Whatever you think, it was more than just a one-night stand.’

Beth shut her eyes. She could hear the sincere note in his voice and wished he hadn’t reminded her of how she had broken down. The fact that it apparently meant something to him she couldn’t even begin to process.

‘Please…’ She opened her eyes and fixed him with pleading eyes. ‘If it really meant something then I’m asking you to just turn around and leave. I need to be more prepared than this.’

Gabe saw the desperation in her eyes and a hint of the sadness that had afflicted her that fateful night. He handed her the wine and opened his mouth to agree.

The door opened abruptly. ‘There you are. Both of you,’ John boomed. ‘Well, don’t just stand there, come on in. Penny is so looking forward to meeting you.’

Gabe shot Beth an apologetic look as he allowed John to usher him into the house.

Beth stood staring after them, wine bottle in one hand, flowers in the other.

Damn it!

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