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“Don’t ever think that I’m not here to help,” Marshall told her, his voice low and husky.
“Oh, Marsh, but I have problems at the moment,” she answered, feeling the relief as she let the words spill out. “It’s not fair to you, roping you into my life.…”
He had stiffened a little. She felt it as if they’d been pressed length to length, except that it was still just a finger, stroking her hand with an erotic subtlety she’d never imagined before.
“It’s not a question of being roped in, Aimee,” he said very carefully. “If you want me in your life, I want to be there. Is this about Friday night? Are you having regrets?”
The question was too sudden, too unexpected…and since her brother’s news, too accurate. Friday night had been utterly fabulous in itself, but as each hour went by the timing seemed more and more of a disaster.…
I always know that a book is working particularly well if a minor character starts demanding that I tell his or her story, too. It could be the hero’s brother or the heroine’s best friend. When I wrote Rebecca and Harry’s story in Her Passion for Dr. Jones, it was Rebecca’s father, Dr. Marshall Irwin, who demanded my attention.
Actually, Marsh wasn’t demanding that I tell his story; he’s not that kind of man. Successful and sure of himself, yes, but not arrogant or brash. Honorable, quietly passionate, gorgeous in a well-seasoned way…Of course I wanted to write about him! His wife had died years earlier while he was still in his thirties and his sense of loss had been so acute that he hadn’t even considered the possibility that he’d fall in love again. But I knew there would be someone out there for him when the time was right—someone with the same sense of family, who was at a similar stage in her own life.
Enter Aimee Hilliard. She’s warm, caring and not afraid of new experiences. She has three grown children whom she worries about. And when she thinks no one is around, she lets down her long hair and dances to rock and roll music in the dark. What on earth could go wrong between these two? Plenty, as they soon find out…
Lilian Darcy
A Nurse in Crisis
Lilian Darcy
CONTENTS
‘IS IT serious, Dad?’ Rebecca Irwin asked quietly.
Marshall met his daughter’s intelligent blue-eyed regard across the reception desk of the GP surgery where they both worked. He rested his hands lightly on the papers there and took a moment to think about her question.
He hadn’t expected it. Not right at this moment. The busy Sydney medical practice was quiet as its staff had left for the day. The computer hummed. Its screen-saver of furry yellow and black caterpillars crawling across a carpet of green leaves was now the most colourful thing in the waiting room.
Practice nurse Aimee Hilliard had been the last person to go, just a minute earlier, leaving only Marshall and his daughter. Marsh planned to phone Aimee tonight, and was quietly confident that she’d be pleased to hear his voice after hours. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d made such a call, although he was taking things slowly…
‘I don’t know yet,’ he answered Rebecca, as a pleasant and surprisingly physical warmth began to grow inside him. ‘I’m starting to think it might be. I’d…’ He hesitated, having to struggle to break down his natural reserve. ‘I’d like it to be, actually.’
Rebecca gasped. ‘Dad! What on earth—?’
She seemed appalled. Marshall felt his scalp tighten. She was staring at him, her mouth open and her eyes wide. In a matter of seconds, something had gone seriously wrong with this conversation.
‘Let’s get this clear,’ she said carefully. ‘I’m talking about Mrs Deutschkron’s test results.’
‘Mrs…?’
‘There.’ She gestured. ‘Under your hand. The pathology reports, and hers is on top. I saw the name a few minutes ago when Bev handed them to you.’
‘I haven’t looked at them yet,’ Marshall confessed, his scalp tightening even further. ‘I hadn’t even realised that hers was on top.’
‘So what were you talking about?’ Rebecca accused.
He was hot, now, as guilty and self-conscious as a child caught stealing lollies. ‘Nothing important.’
But she wasn’t buying it. She ticked his recent statements off on her fingers, one by one. ‘You don’t know yet. You’re starting to think it might be. You’d like it to be.’
‘I can see why you hoped it wasn’t Mrs Deutschkron’s test results,’ he joked heartily.
‘Dad…You meant Aimee, didn’t you?’
‘Yes.’ He nodded briefly. ‘Because I thought that you did.’
There was a rather long silence. ‘Been wondering, actually,’ Rebecca finally said.
She was standing by the door, running her fingers up and down the edges of the wooden Venetian blinds in an irritating manner. Marshall found it irritating, anyway. It was permissible to be irritated with grown-up, married and newly pregnant daughters who asked probing questions at the wrong moment.
Only, he remembered, she hadn’t