Nick’s my brother and he is pretty awe-inspiring.’
Nick had sacrificed a lot and worked really hard to get to where he was today and she loved hearing how well regarded he was in the community.
Luke’s smile widened. ‘Caring professions must run in your family. Did you grow up in a medical household?’
She shook her head, not wanting to go anywhere near that mess of tangled and fraught emotions. ‘Are you sure you’re okay about your shirt?’
Again his ready smile graced his tanned cheeks. ‘Please don’t worry about it. Chances are Anna will probably write you a thank-you note for making it unwearable.’ He turned his attention to his patient. ‘So, Mr Benjamin, I just want to have a look at your fingers and see if my handiwork has counteracted the impact of the circular saw.’
That was the last time she’d seen him until today. Soon after the iodine debacle, a memo had been sent out from medical administration stating that Luke Stanley was on sabbatical for a year. At the time she hadn’t thought anything of it. Consultants came and went, and her job was all about the patients. But now, looking at him, she wondered if he’d been on sabbatical in a place that lacked sunshine. The man who once could have been glibly described as tall, dark, tanned, charming and with a ready smile looked pale, tired and tense.
Keri smiled as she stepped back from the hug. ‘I saw your name was back on the surgery list and I was wondering when you’d come up and say hi.’ She extended her arm. ‘You remember Kate, but I don’t think you’ve met Chloe.’
Kate raised her hand in greeting. ‘Welcome back, Luke.’
‘Thanks.’ The gruff word lacked grace.
Then eyes that Chloe remembered as having been bright and full of fun swung a dull gaze at her. No sign of recognition registered in their mossy dark depths. He gave her a curt nod of acknowledgment and an unruly curl fell across a slanted black eyebrow, highlighting his general dishevelment.
The inky stubble on his jaw had passed the three-day requirement of fashionable growth and now cried out for the tidying touch of a razor. Instead of a crisp shirt tucked into a pair of tailored suit trousers, he wore a dark red polo shirt and crumpled chinos that looked as if he’d slept in them. Perhaps he was jet-lagged and had just got off the plane?
He swung his attention back to Keri. ‘I’ve got a complicated surgery this week on a child the foundation’s brought over from Bali. He’s got shocking scarring on his neck and face due to the burn of hot oil and he can’t close his mouth or move his head. He’ll need one-on-one nursing and I want him nursed here by a plastics nurse, not in Paediatrics.’
Keri nodded. ‘What day are we talking?’
‘Thursday.’
The unit manager consulted the nursing roster on the notice-board. ‘Chloe’s rostered on through Sunday.’
‘Good,’ Luke said, sounding weary and resigned, as if everything was an effort but at least one job had been sorted out.
No, not good at all. A mild flutter of anxiety batted Chloe’s chest. She nursed adults and she didn’t like where this conversation was heading at all.
Luke’s gaze raked her again—a desolate look in his eyes calling up a sadness in her that she knew only too well. A sadness she’d learned to avoid thinking about. As she tried to shake off the melancholy his glance had elicited, she caught a momentary flash of something in his eyes that lit up the brilliant green.
A tingle shot up her spine, leaving a trail of unsettling effervescence. A tingle she barely remembered and had only ever associated with pain and regret. A tingle that had absolutely no place in this situation. He was married with a child and she wasn’t the sort of woman who would ever break up a marriage. Never. Ever.
She tried to throw off the sensation. Ethics aside, she didn’t even know him, so why a flutter of attraction? Her body, unlike her brain, must have its wires utterly crossed. Empathy was the only thing she should be feeling for this man—empathy generated by the sadness in his eyes—nothing else. Definitely not lust.
‘…at eight in the operating theatre, Chloe.’
The way his tongue rolled over her name shocked her back into the conversation and with her heart thumping hard she threw a beseeching look at Keri. ‘Jackie has way more experience than I do working with children.’
‘She does,’ Keri agreed, ‘but she’s not rostered on and you are.’
Chloe thought of her empty social calendar. ‘I can swap.’
Keri shook her head. ‘She’s got her sister’s wedding, remember?’
She turned to Kate, trying to hold her desperation in check. ‘How about you, Kate? As a birthday gift to me?’
‘Sorry, Chloe, I’ve got a family thing on. You know how it is.’
She didn’t know at all. Apart from meals with Nick, she hadn’t had a family thing in fourteen years.
A sigh of frustration hissed from Luke’s thinned lips and it bounced around the room, loud in its disapproval. He zeroed his glare onto her. The ominous, dark look made his high cheekbones sharp and stark, which emphasised the charcoal shadows under his eyes. ‘I’m sorry if my plans are inconveniencing you.’
His sarcasm—so far removed from the friendly, smiling man she’d met a year ago—bit hard, ruffling her usually calm demeanour. Her chin shot up. ‘Your plans are not inconveniencing me in the slightest, Mr Stanley. However, my expertise lies in nursing adults and therefore I may well inconvenience your patient.’
‘For heaven’s sake, I’m not asking you to play games with him.’ He shoved his hand through his hair, the thick curls snagging at his fingers. ‘Look, I need a plastics nurse who’s good at her job. Either you fit the bill or you don’t.’
‘She definitely fits the bill,’ Keri interrupted, her voice full of soothing tones as she threw Chloe a look that said, What on earth is the matter with you? ‘Chloe will head up a team of three nurses to cover each block of twenty-four hours for as long as the child needs that level of care.’
Chloe gulped in a steadying breath to stop the simmer of panic that was threatening to take off into a full-blown boil. Nursing children wasn’t something she did. Even as a student nurse she’d minimised her exposure with a bit of dumb luck. Rostered onto the children’s ward during a flu epidemic, she’d ended up nursing more adults under the bright, owl-covered bedspreads than children. This time, however, her luck had run out.
Keri took Luke’s arm and steered him towards the door. ‘How are Anna and Amber? Happy to be back home in sunny Australia?’
Luke blanched, the little colour he had in his face completely draining away. ‘You don’t know?’
His quiet words sent a chill through Chloe.
‘I don’t think I do,’ Keri said warily.
He looked out towards the ward, avoiding eye contact with the three of them. ‘Anna died thirteen months ago.’
His pain jerked through Chloe and her fingers closed around her cup so hard it crumpled in her hand. The successful surgeon who’d once had everything had lost it.
Keri sagged against the doorjamb. ‘I’m so sorry, Luke, none of us had any idea…’
‘Now you do.’ His words scorched the air like the summer sun—harsh, burning and devoid of any compassion that he’d just delivered shocking news. He turned abruptly to face Chloe, his emotions masked by tight control. ‘Don’t be late on Thursday.’ Just as abruptly, he strode out of the ward.
At that moment Chloe would have given anything to avoid Thursday. As she absently listened to Kate and Keri express their stunned sorrow for Luke, the ramifications of the next few days—weeks even—hit her. The man with the reputation of