He placed his folded coat down on top of his briefcase, removed his scarf and rolled up his sleeves.
He had beautiful forearms … Smooth. Strong.
If he hadn’t just given her a dressing-down, she might have been tempted to appreciate them a bit more. ‘Right. Erm … thanks.’
He looked the tree up and down. ‘This old tree ought to have been passed through a chipper years ago.’
‘I don’t think they do that to fake trees.’
‘No. Probably not.’
He started to take off some more of the decorations that he could reach just by standing there, which Naomi hadn’t had a chance in hell of reaching, and then he passed them to her, so she could put them in their boxes a little more carefully than she’d been doing earlier. She hated feeling like a chastised child and wanted to get back on a more even keel, so she ventured some basic conversation. ‘So you’ve worked here for a while, then?’
He glanced at her. ‘Yes. What made you come to Welbeck?’
He didn’t need to know her history. He probably didn’t even want to know. He was just being polite. Or, at least, as polite as he could be.
She’d already vowed not to mention her past to anyone here. She didn’t want pity or sympathy. She just wanted to get on with her life. If she told people she’d come out of a marriage where she’d been more of a carer than a wife, they tended to look at her with pity.
‘I used to live in the East Midlands, originally, but I fancied a change of pace, so I got myself a cheap bedsit down here and hoped for the best.’ This was better conversation, she thought. Much better than being told off.
‘I thought I heard an accent.’
She smiled, never having thought of herself as someone with an accent. ‘Really?’
‘Yes. Bit of a northern twang. I’ll go up the ladder and get the rest of them.’
‘Be my guest.’ She held it steady as he went up and together they made a quick, efficient team. The tree was soon naked of ornaments, broken down into its segments and boxed away for next year. Naomi quickly swept up the debris. It hadn’t taken them more than fifteen minutes to get it sorted. ‘Thanks for the help. It was really kind of you.’
‘No problem.’ He seemed to look at her for a moment longer than was comfortable, then suddenly shook his head at whatever thought he’d had and picked up his coat and briefcase. ‘Let’s try not to get hurt tomorrow, Nurse Bloom, hmm?’
‘Course not.’ She watched him walk away and let out a breath that she hadn’t been aware she’d been holding.
Wow. What a bear!
And he was her boss! That was embarrassing. Her first day and she had already been caught breaking a rule, although thankfully not breaking anything else.
She determined to try and stay out of Dr Williams’s way as much as possible. She would only let him notice her when she was being brilliant, providing outstanding nursing care.
She headed in the other direction and went to fetch her coat.
The weather was doing its best to let the people of London know that it was winter. There’d been snow a few days ago and, though there’d been nothing since, it was still on the ground, due to the freezing temperatures. The surrounding buildings looked grey, damp and cold and as Naomi came out of the hospital to head for home—a place she really didn’t want to go, knowing it would be just as awful inside as it was out—she wrapped her knitted green scarf around her tightly and pulled on her gloves.
There were people standing outside the entrance to A&E puffing away on cigarettes, their hands cupped around them, as if somehow gaining a small measure of warmth. One of them was the drunk that had confronted Naomi earlier and he looked up, catching her gaze with vehemence. He came staggering back over to her, the overwhelming stench of body odour and stale alcohol almost overpowering. With one grimy finger he pushed her in the chest. ‘You lot kept me waiting.’
Naomi felt disconcerted. And a little afraid. She could handle this sort of aggression when she was at work. In the hospital. Then she had her uniform on and was surrounded by people who she knew would come to her aid. Violence against hospital staff wasn’t tolerated and they had security guards, too. But out here, outside work, in her normal clothes, she felt more vulnerable.
‘Look, sir—’
‘You lot … kept me waiting!’ He gave her another shove and she stumbled backwards, caught off balance, her heart pounding. What a first day she was having. She’d wound up her new boss and now she was being accosted by a member of the public. She held up her hands as if in surrender and backed away, afraid of what might happen, when suddenly a tall figure stepped between them.
It was Tom. He had stepped in, towering over the drunk like a menacing gladiator.
‘Step away.’ He dropped his briefcase to the floor without taking his eyes off the belligerent man and then slowly walked towards him.
Naomi watched, open-mouthed in shock. It had to be him! Rescuing her again!
What must he think of me?
‘What you gonna do? Huh? I know my rights!’ A small piece of spittle flew from the man’s mouth, but his swagger and bravado soon dissipated as Tom continued to step towards him.
‘If you ever touch a member of my staff again, you’ll find yourself in a police cell quicker than you could ever imagine.’
The man staggered backwards, blinking. ‘All right! All right! I’m going!’ He looked most put out that his bullying tactics hadn’t worked and he’d been knocked back by a better, stronger man. ‘You lot are all the same!’ He shuffled off, muttering, his cigarette smoke surrounding him like a dirty cloud.
Tom watched him go, his coat collar turned up around his neck. Only when he was convinced that the drunk was far enough away did he turn around to look at Naomi, his gaze checking her for any injury, concern in his eyes. ‘Are you all right?’ His voice held a note of the same concern.
She nodded quickly. Briefly. She was unable to believe how quickly the situation had escalated.
‘Mick’s a frequent flyer here. Often presents drunk. He’s lonely, I think.’ His voice had an odd tone, but whatever he’d been thinking disappeared from his face when he turned again to make sure Mick had truly gone.
‘But still he has a go at the people trying to help him.’
He smiled, disarming her. ‘It happens.’
‘You can say that again.’ She watched Mick from afar, glad that Tom had intervened. Although she felt she would have handled it, if she’d had to. She’d taken kick-boxing classes once, years ago. She had needed something intensely physical to do, seeing as it wasn’t required in her marriage. At home, she’d had to be careful in everything she did, walking on eggshells, making sure she made no dramatic movements so as not to cause inadvertent injury. Being extra careful all of the time had just seemed to emphasise her natural clumsiness. By the end, her marriage had been a physical prison.
‘Thanks again. It seems you’ve rescued me twice in one day.’ She tried to break the tension she was feeling by making a joke. ‘You really ought to be wearing shining armour and riding a white horse, or something.’
He just stared at her, his face impassive.
Not a lover of jokes either. Okay.
‘Anyway. Thank you.’
‘Will you get home all right?’
She nodded and pulled up the collar of her own coat. ‘It’s not far. Just around the corner, to be honest. St Bartholomew’s Road.’
‘Then I’ll walk you home. Mick