‘Need some help, ma’am?’ he drawled, and without waiting for a reply hunkered down beside her and reached for the papers.
‘Thank you. If you wouldn’t mind,’ she said in an English accent. She lifted her sunglasses and pushed them on top of her head. Bright green eyes caught his for a second and something shifted behind his ribs. She might have the best pair of pins he’d seen in a while, but those eyes. Man, a guy could lose himself there for a while. The rest of her wasn’t too bad either. Her nose was pert, a little too turned up for some tastes perhaps, but he thought it made her look cute. Without that nose her face would have been too perfect, too severe almost. He’d dated enough perfect-looking women and after a while they began to merge into one. The way this woman looked … well, she wasn’t so easily forgettable.
He reached for a book that had slithered under her car. He read the title as he passed it to her. Mmm … interesting reading. Not just beautiful, but bright. Unless of course the book was for someone else. That was okay too. Brains were a plus, but not essential.
Instinctively he glanced at her hands. No ring. That was good. He had a date for tonight, but he could easily cancel. Plead pressure of work or something. Now he needed a name and a number to add to his growing collection.
‘I’m Dr Stuart,’ he said easily. ‘One of the neurosurgeons.’ That, he found, never failed to impress.
Didn’t seem to be working with this one, however. She raised an eyebrow, looking amused.
‘Indeed?’ She smiled showing even white teeth. ‘I would offer to shake your hand but …’ she indicated the files in her arms ‘… I don’t fancy having to pick them all up again.’
He, on the other hand, would be quite happy to spend another few minutes looking into those green eyes. Later. There would definitely be later. Would she be a dinner-and-a-show girl, or an outdoorsy one? He was looking forward to finding out.
He placed a hand under her elbow to help her up to her feet.
He was checking out the rest of her and just about to move on to stage two when he noticed something that sent a wave of regret from his libido to his brain. She was pregnant. No doubt about it. The way her yellow dress clung to her slim frame emphasised the swell of her belly. Around sixteen weeks, he guessed. And just when it was going so well.
Her eyes held his and the corners creased with amusement as she seemed to notice his reaction.
‘Thank you, Dr Stuart.’ Her smile was wide and mischievous.
‘You’re welcome.’ Damn. His timing was off on this one. His mind shifted away. There was no reason to cancel Melissa after all, and if her dark hair and liquid eyes seemed less appealing now, it was only because this buttercup-yellow woman had made him think of sunshine rather than a cool winter evening.
His pager bleeped insistently. That would be the theatre nurse letting him know that his patient was on his way. His thoughts moved away from the buttercup woman and towards the theatre. Images of the structures of the brain were forming in his head, as they always did just before he operated. He had approximately ten minutes to get changed and into Theatre.
He smiled in the direction of buttercup woman.
‘Got to go and save a life. See you around,’ he said, and spun on his heel. Two seconds later he’d forgotten all about her.
Olivia pushed her way through the double doors and into the emergency room, still grinning. What an idiot Dr Stuart was. Did he honestly use that line? I’m a neurosurgeon and I save lives! Good grief. And did women actually fall for it? Admittedly, he was gorgeous, with his wide, sexy smile and platinum eyes. His physique wasn’t too bad either. Even under his scrubs she could discern the lines of his muscular legs and broad shoulders. Clearly he was a man who worked out.
As usual, ER was already going like a fair. Most of the chairs in the waiting room were occupied. Two gurneys were lined up in the corridor, with patients waiting to be taken to the wards, and in one of the exam rooms she saw several shadowed figures through the semi-opaque glass as her colleagues from the night shift worked over a patient.
Kelly, the chief ER nurse, barely glanced at her as Olivia placed the folders down on the reception desk.
Olivia knew Kelly didn’t mean it. The ER nurse had worked in the department for years, and despite her claims that she would sail off into the sunset in a heartbeat if only she would win the lottery, everyone knew she was lying through her teeth. The department without Kelly was as unthinkable as Kelly without the department. The staff often joked that Kelly must live in the hospital as she always seemed to be there when they arrived, and was there again when they came back the next morning.
This time Kelly did raise her head. ‘The usual mix—three suspected fractures, one MI, half a dozen with vague symptoms that have to be investigated, and an elderly lady they’re working on in exam room one.’ She pushed a carton of sugary doughnuts towards Olivia. ‘Help yourself. You’re going to need at least five to get through the day.’
Olivia glanced longingly at the carton. Doughnuts were her favourite. At one time she had survived on them, washing them down with strong black coffee. But these days she feasted on fruit and oats and refused to let anything without a vitamin past her lips.
She shook her head and regretfully pushed the box back across the counter well away from temptation. ‘No, thanks. Proper food is all I’m eating these days.’
‘And how is that working out for you?’ Kelly said, with a sarcastic lift of her eyebrow. ‘You disappoint me, Dr Simpson. I thought I had found an ally in this city where no one eats real food, and now I find you have gone over to the other side!’ She smiled. ‘I have to say, for someone who eats nothing but rabbit food, you are looking good, girl. And how is that baby doing?’
Kelly was one of the few people who knew the whole story behind Olivia’s pregnancy. The others speculated, Olivia knew, and that was hardly surprising. Since Richard had died, she hadn’t dated anyone, to their knowledge. Yet here she was, pregnant. Their curiosity was natural, but that didn’t mean she was prepared to go into long, elaborate explanations. Her pregnancy was her business.
She patted her stomach protectively. She had waited a long time for this baby. All she wanted to do was enjoy every moment of being pregnant. She only wished Richard was still alive to enjoy it with her.
Her heart still ached when she thought of Richard, but somewhere over the last couple of years the intense, breath-robbing pain had eased. It had been three years since he’d died and slowly she’d come to accept that it was time to start a new chapter in her life. She’d promised Richard, after all.
Unexpectedly, an image of the man she’d met in the car park flashed into her head. Despite his bad taste in chat-up lines, he really was a hunk—if you liked that sort of casual look. He’d been unshaven—not totally professional for a surgeon—but she only had to think of his grin and her heart turned over.
She pushed the image away. Men were still off the agenda. Typical, though. The first time she had found a man that had made her pulse bounce, he was an idiot. Not that what she thought made the slightest difference, given her condition. Nevertheless, she was curious.
‘I met someone in the car park,’ she said casually as Kelly shoved a herbal tea in her direction. ‘Dr Stuart, I think he said his name was. I haven’t seen him about. Is he new?’
Kelly eyed her with amused exasperation. ‘Not you too! What planet have you been on? The nurses and female doctors have been talking about nothing else lately. Dr Stuart has joined us from New York. Started last week.’ Kelly always knew everything about the hospital. She made it her business to know. ‘He was in this morning when we admitted a patient with a head injury. I’d almost swear the nurses arranged it so they could get him down here for a consult!’ Kelly’s eyes were twinkling as she lifted an eyebrow. ‘Don’t tell me he’s managed to capture the cool Dr Simpson’s attention? That would be a first.’
Olivia moved across to the