Читать книгу The Scandalous Kolovskys: Knight on the Children's Ward - Carol Marinelli, Carol Marinelli - Страница 8

‘SLEEP well, Elsie.’ Elsie didn’t answer as Annika tucked the blankets round the bony shoulders of the elderly lady.

Elsie had spat out her tablets and thrown her dinner on the floor. She had resisted at every step of Annika undressing her and getting her into bed. But now that she was in bed she relaxed, especially when Annika positioned the photo of her late husband, Bertie, where the old lady could see him.

‘I’ll see you in the morning. I have another shift then.’

Still Elsie didn’t answer, and Annika wished she would. She loved the stories Elsie told, during the times when she was lucid. But Elsie’s confusion had worsened because of an infection, and she had been distressed tonight, resenting any intrusion. Nursing patients with dementia was often a thankless task, and Annika’s shifts exhausted her, but at least, unlike on the children’s ward, where she had been for a week now, here Annika knew what she was doing.

Oh, it was back-breaking, and mainly just sheer hard work, but she had been here for over a year now, and knew the residents. The staff of the private nursing home had been wary at first, but they were used to Annika now. She had proved herself a hard worker and, frankly, with a skeleton staff, so long as the patients were clean and dry, and bedded at night or dressed in the morning, nobody really cared who she was or why someone as rich as Annika always put her hand up for extra shifts.

It was ridiculous, though.

Annika knew that.

In fact she was ashamed that she stood in the forecourt of a garage next to a filthy old ute and had to prepay twenty dollars, because that was all she had until her pay from the nursing home went in tomorrow, to fill up the tank of a six-figure powder-blue sports car.

It had been her twenty-first birthday present.

Her mother had been about to upgrade it when Annika had declared she wanted to study nursing, and when she had refused to give in the financial plug had been pulled.

Her car now needed a service, which she couldn’t afford. The sensible thing, of course, would be to sell it—except, despite its being a present, technically, it didn’t belong to her: it was a company car.

So deep in thought was Annika, so bone-weary from a day on the children’s ward and a twilight shift at the nursing home, that she didn’t notice the man crossing the forecourt towards her.

‘Annika?’ He was putting money in his wallet. He had obviously just paid, and she glanced around rather than look at him. She was one burning blush, and not just because it was Ross, but rather because someone from work had seen her. She had done a full shift on the children’s ward, and was due back there at midday tomorrow, so there was no way on earth she should be cramming in an extra shift, but she clearly was—two, actually, not that he could know! The white agency nurse dress seemed to glow under the fluorescent lights.

He could have nodded and left it there.

He damn well should nod and leave it there—and maybe even have a quiet word with Caroline tomorrow, or Iosef, perhaps.

Or say nothing at all—just simply forget.

He chose none of the above.

‘How about a coffee?’

‘It’s late.’

‘I know it’s late,’ Ross said, ‘but I’m sure you could use a coffee. There’s an all-night cafe a kilometre up the road—I’ll see you there.’

She nearly didn’t go.

She was extremely tempted not to go. But she had no choice.

Normally she was careful about being seen in her agency uniform, but she didn’t have her jacket in the car, and she’d been so low on petrol … Anyway, Annika told herself, it was hardly a crime—all her friends did agency shifts. How the hell would a student survive otherwise?

His grim face told her her argument would be wasted.

‘I know students have to work …’ he had bought her a coffee and she added two sugars ‘… and I know it’s probably none of my business …’

‘It is none of your business,’ Annika said.

‘But I’ve heard Caroline commenting, and I’ve seen you yawning …’ Ross said. ‘You look like you’ve got two black eyes.’

‘So tell Caroline—or report back to my brother.’ Annika shrugged. ‘Then your duty is done.’

‘Annika!’ Ross was direct. ‘Do you go out of your way to be rude?’

‘Rude?’

‘I’m trying not to talk to Caroline; I’m trying to talk to you.’

‘Check up on me, you mean, so that Iosef—’

He whistled in indignation. ‘This has nothing to do with your brother. It’s my ward, Annika. You were on an early today; you’re on again tomorrow …’

‘How do you know?’

‘Sorry?’

‘My shift tomorrow. How do you know?’

And that he couldn’t answer—but the beat of silence did.

He’d checked.

Not deliberately—he hadn’t swiped keys and found the nursing roster—but as he’d left the ward he had glanced up at the whiteboard and seen that she was on tomorrow.

He had noted to himself that she was on tomorrow.

‘I saw the whiteboard.’

And she could have sworn that he blushed. Oh, his cheeks didn’t flare like a match to a gas ring, as Annika’s did—he was far too laid-back for that, and his skin was so much darker—but there was something that told her he was embarrassed. He blinked, and then his lips twitched in a very short smile, and then he blinked again. There was no colour as such to his eyes—in fact they were blacker than black, so much so that she couldn’t even make out his pupils. He was staring, and so was she. They were sitting in an all-night coffee shop. She was in her uniform and he was telling her off for working, and yet she was sure there was more.

Almost sure.

‘So, Iosef told you to keep an eye out for me?’ she said, though more for her own benefit—that smile wouldn’t fool her again.

‘He said that he was worried about you, that you’d pretty much cut yourself off from your family.’

‘I haven’t,’ Annika said, and normally that would have been it. Everything that was said stayed in the family, but Ross was Iosef’s friend and she was quite sure he knew more. ‘I see my mother each week; I am attending a family charity ball soon. Iosef and I argued, but only because he thinks I’m just playing at nursing.’

This wasn’t news to Ross. Iosef had told him many things—how Annika was spoilt, how she stuck at nothing, how nursing was her latest flight of fancy. Of course Ross could not say this, so he just sat as she continued.

‘I have not cut myself off from my family. Aleksi and I are close …’ She saw his jaw tighten, as everyone’s did these days when her brother’s name was mentioned. Aleksi was trouble. Aleksi, now head of the Kolovsky fortune, was a loose cannon about to explode at any moment. Annika was the only one he was close to; even his twin Iosef was being pushed aside as Aleksi careered out of control. She looked down at her coffee then, but it blurred, so she pressed her fingers into her eyes.

‘You can talk to me,’ Ross said.

‘Why would I?’

‘Because that’s what people do,’ Ross said. ‘Some people you know you can talk to, and some people …’ He stopped then. He could see she didn’t understand, and neither really did Ross. He swallowed down the words he had been about to utter and changed tack. ‘I am going to Spain in three, nearly four weeks.’ He smiled at her frown. ‘Caroline doesn’t know; Admin doesn’t know. In truth, they are going to be furious when they find out. I am putting off telling them till I have spoken with a friend who I am hoping can cover for me …’

‘Why are you telling me this?’

‘Because I’m asking you to tell me things you’d rather no one else knew.’

She took her fingers out of her eyes and looked up to find that smile.

‘It would be rude not to share,’ he said.

He was dangerous.

She could almost hear her mother’s rule that you discussed family with no one breaking.

‘My mother does not want me to nurse,’ Annika tentatively explained. And the skies didn’t open with a roar, missiles didn’t engage. There was just the smell of coffee and the warmth of his eyes. ‘She has cut me off financially until I come back home. I still see her, I still go over and I still attend functions. I haven’t cut myself off. It is my mother who has cut me off—financially, anyway. That’s why I’m working these shifts.’

He didn’t understand—actually, he didn’t fully believe it.

He could guess at what her car was worth, and he knew from his friend that Annika was doted upon. Then there was Aleksi and his billions, and Iosef, even if they argued, would surely help her out.

‘Does Iosef know you’re doing extra shifts?’

‘We don’t talk much,’ Annika admitted. ‘We don’t get on; we just never have. I was always a daddy’s girl, the little princess … Levander, my older brother, thinks the same …’ She gave a helpless shrug. ‘I was always pleading with them to toe the line, to stop making waves in the family. Iosef is just waiting for me to quit.’

‘Iosef cares about you.’

‘He offers me money,’ Annika scoffed. ‘But really he is just waiting for this phase to be over. If I want money I will ask Aleksi, but, really, how can I be independent if all I do is cash cheques?’

‘And how can you study and do placements and be a Kolovsky if you’re cramming in extra shifts everywhere?’

She didn’t know how, because she was failing at every turn.

‘I get by,’ she settled for. ‘I have learnt that I can blowdry my own hair, that foils every month are not essential, that a massage each week and a pedicure and manicure …’ Her voice sounded strangled for a moment. ‘I am spoilt, as my brothers have always pointed out, and I am trying to learn not to be, but I keep messing up.’

‘Tell me?’

She was surprised when she opened her screwed up eyes, to see that he was smiling.

‘Tell me how you mess up?’

‘I used to eat a lot of takeaway,’ she admitted, and he was still smiling, so she was more honest, and Ross found out that Annika’s idea of takeaway wasn’t the same as his! ‘I had the restaurants deliver.’

‘Can’t you cook?’

‘I’m a fantastic cook,’ Annika answered.

‘That’s right.’ Ross grinned. ‘I remember Iosef saying you were training as a pastry chef … in Paris?’ he checked.

‘I was only there six months.’ Annika wrinkled her nose. ‘I had given up on modelling and I so badly wanted to go. It took me two days to realise I had made a mistake, and then six months to pluck up the courage to admit defeat. I had made such a fuss, begged to go … Like I did for nursing.’

He didn’t understand.

He thought of his own parents—if he’d said that he wanted to study life on Mars they’d have supported him. But then he’d always known what he wanted to do. Maybe if one year it had been Mars, the next Venus and then Pluto, they’d have decided otherwise. Maybe this was tough love that her mother thought she needed to prove that nursing was what she truly wanted to do.

‘So you can cook?’ It was easier to change the subject.

‘Gourmet meals, the most amazing desserts, but a simple dinner for one beats me every time …’ She gave a tight shrug. ‘But I’m slowly learning.’

‘How else have you messed up?’

She couldn’t tell him, but he was still smiling, so maybe she could.

‘I had a credit card,’ she said. ‘I have always had one, but I just sent the bill to our accountants each month …’

‘Not now?’

‘No.’

Her voice was low and throaty, and Ross found himself leaning forward to catch it.

‘It took me three months to work out that they weren’t settling it, and I am still paying off that mistake.’

‘But you love nursing?’ Ross said, and then frowned when she shook her head.

‘I don’t know,’ Annika admitted. ‘Sometimes I don’t even know why I am doing this. It’s the same as when I wanted to be a pastry chef, and then I did jewellery design—that was a mistake too.’

‘Do you think you’ve made a mistake with nursing?’ Ross asked.

Annika gave a tight shrug and then shook her head—he was hardly the person to voice her fears to.

‘You can talk to me, Annika. You can trust that it won’t—’

‘Trust?’ She gave him a wide-eyed look. ‘Why would I trust you?’

It was the strangest answer, and one he wasn’t expecting. Yet why should she trust him? Ross pondered. All he knew was that she could.

‘You need to get home and get some rest,’ Ross settled for—except he couldn’t quite leave it there. ‘How about dinner …?’

And this was where every woman jumped, this was where Ross always kicked himself and told himself to slow down, because normally they never made it to dinner. Normally, about an hour from now, they were pinning the breakfast menu on the nearest hotel door or hot-footing it back to his city abode—only this was Annika, who instead drained her coffee and stood up.

‘No, thank you. It would make things difficult at work.’

‘It would,’ Ross agreed, glad that one of them at least was being sensible.

‘Can I ask that you don’t tell Caroline or anyone about this?’

‘Can I ask that you save these shifts for your days off, or during your holidays?’

‘No.’

They walked out to the car park, to his dusty ute and her powder-blue car. Ross was relaxed and at ease, Annika a ball of tension, so much so that she jumped at the bleep of her keys as she unlocked the car.

‘I’m not going to say anything to Caroline.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Just be careful, okay?’

‘I will.’

‘You can’t mess up on any ward, but especially not on children’s.’

‘I won’t,’ Annika said. ‘I don’t. I am always so, so careful …’ And she was. Her brain hurt because she was so careful, pedantic, and always, always checked. Sometimes it would be easier not to care so.

‘Go home and go to bed,’ Ross said. ‘Will you be okay to drive?’

‘Of course.’

He didn’t want her to drive; he wanted to bundle her into his ute and take her back to the farm, or head back into the coffee shop and talk till three a.m., or, maybe just kiss her?

Except he was being sensible now.

‘Night, then,’ he said.

‘Goodnight.’

Except neither of them moved.

‘Why are you going to Spain?’ Unusually, it was Annika who broke the silence.

‘To sort out a few things.’

‘I’m staying here for a few weeks,’ Annika said, with just a hint of a smile. ‘To sort out a few things.’

‘It will be nice,’ Ross said, ‘when things are a bit more sorted.’

‘Very nice,’ Annika agreed, and wished him goodnight again.

‘If you change your mind …’ He snapped his mouth closed; he really mustn’t go there.

Annika was struggling. She didn’t want to get into her car. She wanted to climb into the ute with him, to forget about sorting things out for a little while. She wanted him to drive her somewhere secluded. She wanted the passion those black eyes promised, wanted out of being staid, and wanted to dive into recklessness.

‘Drive carefully.’

‘You too.’

They were talking normally—extremely politely, actually—yet their minds were wandering off to dangerous places: lovely, lovely places that there could be no coming back from.

‘Go,’ Ross said, and she felt as if he were kissing her. His eyes certainly were, and her body felt as if he were.

She was shaking as she got in the car, and the key was too slim for the slot. She had to make herself think, had to slow her mind down and turn on the lights and then the ignition.

He was beside her at the traffic lights. Ross was indicating right for the turn to the country; Annika aimed straight for the city.

It took all her strength to go straight on.