Читать книгу It Happened One Night Shift - Amy Andrews - Страница 8

BILLIE WAS THANKFUL as she talked to the police a few minutes later she’d never have to see anyone here ever again. She doubted if any of these seasoned veterans blinked an eye at someone barfing at the scene of an accident and they’d all been very understanding but she was the doctor, for crying out loud.

People looked to her to be the calm, in-control one. To take bloodied accident victims in her stride. She was supposed to be able to hold herself together.

Not throw up at the sight of blood and gore.

Billie wondered anew how she was going to cope in the emergency room for the next six months. For the rest of her life, for that matter, given that emergency medicine was her chosen career path.

Mostly because it was high-flying enough to assuage parental and family expectations without being surgical. The Ashworth-Keyes of the world were all surgeons. Choosing a non-surgical specialty was not an option.

Unless it carried the same kind of kudos. As emergency medicine, apparently, did.

And at least this way Billie knew she’d still be able to treat the things that interested her most. Raw and messy were not her cup of tea but infections and diseases, the run-of-the-mill medical problems that were seen in GP practices across the country every day were.

But Ashworth-Keyes’ were not GPs.

And Billie was carrying a double load of expectation.

She glanced across at Gareth, who was looking relaxed and assured amidst a tableau of clashing lights. The milky phosphorescence of the moon, the glow of fluorescent safety striping on multiple uniforms and the garish strobing of red, blue and amber. He didn’t seem to be affected by any of it, his deep, steady voice carrying towards her on the cool night air as he relayed the details of the accident to a police officer.

Billie cringed as she recalled how he’d held her hair back and rubbed between her shoulders blades as she’d hurled up everything in her stomach. Then had sourced some water for her to rinse her mouth out and offered her a mint.

It seemed like he’d done it before. But, then, she supposed, an ER nurse probably had done it a thousand times.

Still … why did she have to go and disgrace herself in front of possibly the most good-looking man she’d seen in a very long time?

She’d noticed it subliminally while they’d been performing CPR but she’d had too much else going on, what with holding someone’s life in the balance and trying not to vomit, to give her thoughts free rein.

But she didn’t now.

And she let them run wild as she too answered a policeman’s questions.

Billie supposed a lot of her friends wouldn’t classify Gareth as good looking purely because of his age. The grey whiskers putting some salt into the sexy growth of stubble at his jaw and the small lines around his eyes that crinkled a little as he smiled told her he had to be in his late thirties, early forties.

But, then, she’d always preferred older men.

She found maturity sexy. She liked the way, by and large, older men were content in their skins and didn’t feel the need to hem a woman in to validate themselves. The easy way they spoke and the way they carried their bodies and wore their experience on their faces and were comfortable with that. She liked the way so many of them didn’t seem like they had anything to prove.

She liked how Gareth embodied that. Even standing in the middle of an accident scene he looked at ease.

Gareth laughed at something the policeman said and she watched as he raked a piece of hair back that had flopped forward. She liked his hair. It was wavy and a little long at the back, brushing his collar, and he wore it swept back where it fell in neat rippled rows.

She’d noticed, as they’d tried to save the driver’s life, it was dark with some streaks of grey, like his whiskers.

And she liked that too.

His arm dropped back down by his side and her gaze drifted to his biceps. She’d noticed those biceps as well while they’d been working on their man. How could she not have? Every time she’d opened her eyes there they’d been, contracting and releasing with each downward compression.

Firm and taut. Barely covered—barely constrained—by his T-shirt.

Billie shivered. She wasn’t sure if it was from the power of his biceps alone or the fact he was wandering around on a winter’s night with just a T-shirt covering his chest.

Why hadn’t someone given him a blanket?

Although, to be fair, he did look a lot more appropriately dressed for a roadside emergency than she did. His jeans looked snug and warm, encasing long, lean legs, and he had been wearing a fleecy hoody.

It sure beat a nine-hundred-dollar dress and a pair of strappy designer shoes.

He looked up then, pointing in the direction she’d been driving, and their gazes met. He nodded at her briefly, before returning his attention to the police officer, and she found herself nodding back.

Yep, Billie acknowledged—Gareth was one helluva good-looking man. In fact, he ticked all her boxes. And if she was up for a fling or available for dating in the hectic morass of a resident’s life then he’d be exactly her type. But there was absolutely no hope for them now.

The man had held her hair back while she’d vomited.

She cringed again. If she ever saw him again it would be too soon.

Gareth was acutely aware of Billie’s gaze as he answered the police officer’s questions. It seemed to beam through the cold air like an invisible laser, hot and direct, hitting him fair in the chest, diffusing heat and awareness to every millimetre of his body.

It made her hard to ignore.

Of course, the fact she was sparkling like one of those movie vampires also made her hard to ignore.

The gauzy skirt of her black dress shimmered with hundreds of what looked like crystal beads. Who knew, maybe they were diamonds? The dress certainly didn’t look cheap. But they caught the multitude of lights strobing across the scene, refracting them like individual disco balls.

As if the dress and the petite figure beneath needed to draw any more attention to itself. Every man here, from the fireman to the paramedics, the police to the tow-truck driver, was sure as hell taking a moment to appreciate it.

Their attention irritated him. And the fact that it did irritated him even more. She was a stranger and they were at an accident scene, for crying out loud!

But it didn’t stop him from going over to her when the police officer was done. He told himself it was to check she was feeling okay now but the dress was weirdly mesmerising and he would have gone to her even if she’d not conveniently vomited twenty minutes ago.

She had her back to him but, as if she’d sensed him approaching, she turned as he neared. Her loose reddish-brown hair flowed silkily around her shoulders, her hair curling in long ringlets around her face. Huge gold hoop earrings he’d noticed earlier as she’d administered the kiss of life swung in her lobes, giving her a little bit of gypsy.

He smiled as he drew closer. She seemed to hesitate for a moment then reciprocated, her scarlet lipstick having worn off from her earlier ministrations.

‘You sure know how to dress for a little unscheduled roadside assistance,’ he said, as he drew to a halt in front of her.

Billie blinked, surprised by his opening line for a moment, and then she looked down at herself and laughed. ‘Oh, yes, sorry,’ she said, although she had absolutely no idea why she was apologising for her attire. ‘I’ve just come from a gala reception.’

This close his biceps were even more impressive and Billie had to grip the blanket hard to stop from reaching her hands out and running her palms over them. She wondered if they’d feel as firm and warm as they looked.

‘Aren’t you cold?’ she asked, engaging her mouth before her brain as she dragged her gaze back to his face.

He did a smile-shrug combo and Billie’s stomach did a little flip-flop combo in response. ‘I’m fine,’ he dismissed.

Billie grimaced. Where had she heard that already tonight? ‘I really am very sorry about earlier.’

‘Yeah.’ He grinned. His whole face crinkled and Billie lost her breath as his sexiness increased tenfold. ‘You’ve already said so. Three times.’

She blushed. ‘I know but … I think I may have splashed your shoes.’

Gareth looked down at his shoes. ‘They’ve seen far worse, trust me.’

‘Not exactly the impression I like to give people I’ve just met.’

Gareth shrugged. She needn’t have been worried about her impression on him—he doubted he was going to forget her in a long time, and it had nothing to do with his shoes and everything to do with how good she looked in those gold hoops and sparkly dress.

And if he’d been up for some flirting and some let’s-see-where-this-goes fun he might just have assured her out loud. He might just have suggested they try for a second impression. But hooking up really wasn’t his thing.

Hooking up at an accident scene even less so.

‘We haven’t exactly met properly, have we? I mean, not formally.’ He held out his hand. ‘I’m Gareth Stapleton. Very pleased to make your acquaintance—despite the circumstances.’

Billie slipped her hand into his and even though she’d expected to feel something, the rush of warmth up her arm took her by surprise. She shook his hand absently, staring at their clasped fingers, pleased for the blanket around her torso as the warmth rushed all the way to her nipples, prickling them to attention.

Gareth smiled as Billie’s gaze snagged on their joined hands. Not that he could blame her. If she felt the connection as strongly as he did then they were both in trouble.

Just as well they wouldn’t be seeing each other again after tonight. Resisting her in this situation was sensible and right. But if there was repeated exposure? That could wear a man down.

Sensible and right could be easily eroded.

‘And you’re Billie?’ he prompted, withdrawing his hand. ‘Billie …?’

Billie dragged her gaze away from their broken grip, up his broad chest and deliciously whiskery neck and onto his face, his spare cheekbones glowing alternately red and blue from the lights behind him.

What were they talking about? Oh, yes, formal introductions. ‘Ashworth-Keyes,’ she said automatically. ‘Although if you want formal formal then it’s Willamina Ashworth-Keyes.’

Gareth quirked an eyebrow as a little itch started at the back of his brain. ‘Your first name is Willamina?’

Billie rolled her eyes. ‘Yes,’ she said, placing her hand on her hip. ‘What about it?’

Gareth held up his hands in surrender. ‘Nothing. Just kind of sounds like somebody’s … spinster great-aunt.’

Billie frowned, unfortunately agreeing. Which was why she’d carried over her childhood pet name into adulthood.

‘Not that there’s anything remotely spinsterish or great-auntish about you,’ he hastened to add. The last thing he wanted to do was insult her. The very last thing. ‘Or,’ he added as her frowned deepened, ‘that there’s anything wrong with that anyway.’

This woman made him tongue-tied.

How long had it been since he’d felt this gauche? Like some horny fifteen-year-old who couldn’t even speak to the cool, pretty girl because he had a hard-on the size of a house.

Not that he had a hard-on. Not right now anyway. Or probably ever again if this excruciatingly awkward scene replayed in his head as often as he figured it would.

Billie’s breath caught at Gareth’s sudden lack of finesse. It made her feel as if she wasn’t the only one thrown by this rather bizarre thing that had flared between them.

And she’d liked his emphasis on remotely.

She laughed to ease the strange tension that had spiked between them. ‘Only my parents call me Willamina,’ she said. ‘And generally only if I’m in trouble.’

‘And are you often in trouble?’

Gareth realised the words might have come across as flirty, so he kept his face serious.

Billie felt absurdly like laughing at such a preposterous notion. Her? In trouble? ‘No. Not me. Never me.’ That had been her sister’s job. ‘No, I’m the peacekeeper in the family.’

Gareth frowned at the sudden gloom in her eyes. The conversation had swung from light to awkward to serious. It seemed she wasn’t too keen on the mantle of family good girl and suddenly a seductive voice was whispering they could find some trouble together.

Thankfully the little itch at the back of his brain finally came into sharp focus, obliterating the voice completely.

‘Wait …’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘Ashworth-Keyes? As in Charles and Alisha Ashworth-Keyes, eminent cardiothoracic surgeons?’

Billie nodded. Sprung. ‘The very same.’

‘Your parents?’ She nodded and he whistled. Everyone who was anyone in the medical profession in Brisbane knew of the Ashworth-Keyes surgical dynasty. ‘That’s some pedigree you’ve got going on there.’

‘Yes. Lucky me,’ she said derisively.

‘You … don’t get on?’

Billie sighed. ‘No, it’s not that. I’m just … not really like them, you know?’

He quirked an eyebrow. ‘How so?’

‘Well, I’m no surgeon, that’s for sure. I’m a little too squeamish for that.’

Gareth surprised himself by laughing at the understatement but he couldn’t help himself. ‘Really?’ he asked, looking down at his shoes. ‘You hide it well.’

Billie shot him a cross look but soon joined him in his laughter.

‘And?’ he asked. ‘What else?’

What else? Being a surgeon was all that mattered in the Ashworth-Keyes household. ‘It’s … complicated.’

Gareth nodded. Fair enough. Complicated he understood. It really wasn’t any of his business anyway. ‘So what field is the next Ashworth-Keyes going to specialise in? Clearly something … anything that doesn’t involve the letting of blood? Dermatology? Radiology? Maybe … pathology?’

Billie shook her head. ‘Emergency medicine,’ she said. Even saying it depressed the hell out of her.

Gareth blinked. ‘Really?’ Surely Billie understood the squeamish factor could get pretty high in an ER?

‘Yep,’ she confirmed, sounding about as enthusiastic as he usually did just prior to starting a night shift. ‘I’m starting my six-month emergency rotation at St Luke’s ER next week in fact.’

Gareth held his breath. ‘St Luke’s?’

‘Yes.

Crap. ‘Ah.’

She frowned at him in that way he’d already grown way too fond of. ‘What?’

‘That’s where I work.’

‘You … work at St Luke’s?’

He nodded. ‘In the ER.’

‘So we’ll be … working together,’ she murmured.

‘Yup.’

And he hoped like hell she didn’t look as good in a pair of scrubs as she did in a black sparkly dress or sensible and right were going to be toast.