holding a stethoscope, which she took from him.
‘Thank you,’ Candy said, ‘though you didn’t have to rush to bring it back down. It’s only a hospital-issue stethoscope.’
‘Oh,’ Steele said. ‘I thought I’d pinched yours. Still, it doesn’t matter, I was coming down anyway. I’m waiting for a patient to arrive—a direct admission from her GP, though she’s refusing to go straight to the ward. She’s just agreed to a chest X-ray and some blood tests, and then she thinks she’s going home!’
‘Thinks?’ Candy asked as Steele sat down beside her and stretched out his long legs. It was nice that he sat down next to her when there were about twenty seats to choose from. She turned and smiled as he spoke on.
‘Her GP is extremely concerned about her. He thinks there’s far more going on than she’s admitting to. Macey has had the same GP for thirty years and if he’s worried about her then so am I. He thinks she’s depressed.’ He turned and looked right into her eyes and Candy felt her heart do a little flip-flop. ‘It’s a big problem with the elderly.’
‘Really?’
Steele nodded and looked at what she was eating. ‘That looks so bad it has to be good.’
‘It’s fantastic,’ Candy said, and ripped off half her sandwich and gave it to him. ‘The trick is lots of butter.’
‘That’s amazing!’ Steele said, when he’d tasted it.
‘I’m brilliant with bread,’ Candy said. ‘Toasted sandwiches, ice-cream sandwiches, beans on toast …’
‘I thought a nice Italian girl like you would be brilliant in the kitchen.’
‘Sadly, no,’ Candy said. ‘I’m a constant source of concern to my mother. Anyway, who said I’m nice?’
They smiled.
A smile that was just so deliciously inappropriate for a man you’d met only an hour or so ago. A smile she had never given to another man before and, really, she had no idea where it had come from.
Candy Anastasi! she scolded herself as she looked into those dark brown eyes.
Step away from the very young nurse, Steele told himself, but, hell, she was gorgeous.
Lydia came in then and they both looked away from each other. Lydia was waving a postcard of a delicious aqua ocean and Candy found that she was holding her breath in tension as Lydia read out the card. ‘There’s a postcard from Gerry. It reads, “Glad that none of you are here.”’
Lydia gave a tight smile as she pinned it on the board and Candy just stared at the television.
Was that little dig from Gerry aimed at her?
‘When is he back?’ Trevor asked.
‘End of July, I think.’
Lydia’s voice was deliberately vague and Candy knew why. Gerry, the head nurse in Emergency, had been strongly advised to take extended leave.
Gerry was one of the reasons that Candy wanted a couple of weeks on a beach with no company.
Candy’s parents had freaked when, at twenty-two, she had broken up with a man they considered suitable and had declared she was moving out. They had been so appalled, so devastated at the prospect of their only daughter leaving home that Candy had ended up staying for another year.
She’d simply had to leave in the end.
Her mother thought nothing of opening her post. She constantly asked whom Candy was talking to on the phone and when Candy pointed out she was entitled to privacy they would ask what it was she had to hide.
Last year she had moved out and, really, she had hardly let loose. She’d had a brief relationship with Gerry when she’d first moved into her flat but that hadn’t worked out and she had been happily single since then.
A couple of months ago, aware that Gerry was having some problems, she’d agreed to go out for a drink with him.
It had resulted in a one-night stand that had left Candy feeling regretful. Gerry had been annoyed to find out that their brief relationship hadn’t been resumed.
It was all a bit of a mess, an avoidable one, though. Candy was just grateful that no one at work knew about that regrettable night and Candy wanted it left far behind.
‘You’ll be sending postcards soon,’ Steele said, but Candy shook her head.
‘I won’t be thinking about this place for a moment.’
That wasn’t quite true, though. She would be thinking about work—Candy was seriously thinking of leaving Emergency.
JUST AS SHE RETURNED from lunch she was informed that Steele’s patient was here but refusing to come inside the department and had requested, loudly, that the ambulance take her home.
‘I’ll come out and have a word with her,’ Candy said as Steele was taking a phone call. She headed out to the ambulance and was met by a teary woman who introduced herself as Catherine, Macey Anderson’s niece.
‘I knew that she was going to do this,’ Catherine said. ‘It’s taken two days to persuade her to come in. She used to be a matron on one of the wards here, and still thinks she is one.’ Catherine gave a tired smile. ‘She was in a few months ago and she was just about running the place by the time she was discharged.’
‘I want to go home,’ Macey shouted as Candy came into the back of the ambulance.
Macey was a very tall, very handsome woman, with wiry grey, curly hair, a flushed face and very angry dark green eyes. She had all her stuff with her, a huge suitcase, a walking frame and several other bags.
‘Mrs Anderson—’ Candy started, but already she was wrong.
‘It’s Miss Anderson!’
‘I’m sorry, Miss Anderson. I’m Candy Anastasi, one of the nurses in Emergency, and I’m going to be looking after you today.’
‘But, as I’ve told everyone, many times, I don’t want to be looked after,’ Macey retorted. ‘I want to be taken home.’
It was all pretty hopeless. The more they tried to persuade her to come into the department the more upset Macey became. The last thing Candy wanted to do was wheel her through when she was distressed and crying and so, instead, she tried another tack, wondering if, given that Macey had once been a matron, she might not want to get another nurse in trouble.
‘Dr Steele is already here to see you,’ Candy said. ‘He’s been waiting for you to arrive. Am I to go in and tell him that I can’t get you to come into the hospital?’
Macey looked at her for a long moment and then she looked beyond Candy’s shoulder and Candy knew, she simply knew, that it was Steele who had just stepped into the ambulance.
‘Is there a problem, Nurse? Only I’ve been waiting for quite some time.’ His low voice sounded just a touch ominous and Candy met Macey’s eyes for a brief moment.
‘No,’ Macey answered for Candy. ‘They were just about to bring me in.’
‘Good,’ Steele said. ‘Then I’ll come and see you shortly, Miss Anderson.’
As he headed back into the department the paramedics lowered the stretcher to the ground and Candy found out perhaps why it was that Steele was so sharply dressed. ‘At least he’s not twelve and wearing jeans,’ Macey muttered.
Candy smiled—yes, Steele’s appearance and authoritarian tone had appeased Macey.
They took Macey into cubicle seven, aligned the stretcher with the trolley, and Candy positioned the sliding board that would