Читать книгу Gold Coast Angels: A Doctor's Redemption - Marion Lennox, Marion Lennox - Страница 9

ZOE SLEPT FITFULLY, waking during the night to flashbacks—to dune buggies crashing down, to Sam’s haunted face, to the thoughts of the mess in her car. She slept enough to function, however. Uniformed and professional, she hit the wards with determined cheer—and found she was a minor celebrity.

She’d been at Gold Coast City for almost a week. Her new colleagues had been friendly enough but she still felt very much an outsider. This morning, though, Ros, the ward clerk, met her with a beaming smile and practically boomed her welcome.

‘Here she is, our Zoe the lifesaver. You’ve saved our Bonnie!’

‘Our Bonnie?’ she said faintly.

‘Everyone in the hospital loves Bonnie,’ Ros told her. ‘When she’s not surfing with Sam, she comes in as a companion dog. We use her for the oldies or for distressed kids. If Sam tells her to stay with a needy patient she treats them as her new best friend until Sam comes to pick her up again. I can’t tell you how many patients she’s calmed and comforted. And the hoons nearly killed her.’

Her face lost its beam and creased in distress. ‘Of all the…well, never mind, we heard the cops have already charged them. The report from the vet half an hour ago said Bonnie’s on the mend, and Sam says to tell you he left your purse downstairs in the safe in Admin for you to collect when you go off duty. How lucky was it that you were there? Callie says you saved her.’

‘I was glad to help,’ Zoe muttered, embarrassed, and headed to changeover fast, only to be met with more congratulations and thanks.

It went on all day. She was tired, she was still feeling fragile, but by the time her shift ended she seemed to be best friends with everyone in the hospital.

At three she was done. Yay, Friday. The weekend stretched before her, and even fatigue didn’t stop it seeming endless with possibilities. Her first weekend here. Her first time alone.

It felt fantastic.

She walked down to Admin to collect her purse, and hummed as she hit the lifts. Last night had been horrible, but the outcome looked good. This job seemed great. She’d been rostered onto the paediatric ward for older kids. She’d been run off her feet all day—which she loved—and somehow what had happened last night seemed to have made her accepted as a part of the Gold Coast team faster than she’d thought possible.

She had an almost irresistible urge to ring Dean and gloat.

How childish was that? She grinned, the doors of the lift opened at the administration floor—and Sam Webster was waiting for her.

Sort of.

This was a different Sam Webster.

Last night he’d looked every inch a surfer. Now he looked every inch a cardiologist.

He must have been consulting rather than operating, she thought, dazed. He was wearing the most beautiful suit—Italian, she thought, and then wondered wryly what she would know about Italian suits. But the sleek, blue, pinstriped suit looked like it was moulded to him. His shirt was crisp, white, expensive-looking, and the only hint that he worked with kids was the elephants embroidered on his blue silk tie.

This was an image that would give frantic parents reassurance that they were in the hands of the best.

He looked the best.

Why was she standing here, gawking, when she should be doing, saying…something?

She managed a smile and moved forward, squashing the dumb, irrational wish that she wasn’t in her nursing pants and baggy top, that her hair was free and not hauled into a practical work knot, that she had some decent make-up on—and she didn’t look like she’d just come off a long, hard shift.

‘Hi,’ she managed. ‘They tell me Bonnie’s still good. Actually, everyone tells me Bonnie’s still good. I hadn’t realised she was a celebrity.’

‘She has good friends,’ he said, smiling at her in such a way that her heart did a crazy twist. ‘She made a new very good friend last night. Callie told me your shift finished at three. I came down to make sure you got your purse.’

‘I’m getting it now,’ she said, uselessly, and then couldn’t think of anything else to say.

He had a faint mark on his cheek. Callie was right, the fingermarks had faded, but the bruise was still there. It made her want to crawl under the floor and stay there.

‘It doesn’t hurt,’ he said, and grinned, and she flushed. How did he know what she was thinking?

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Sorry that it doesn’t hurt?’

‘Of course not.’ Her chin tilted a bit and she regained her bearings. If he was going to tease…

‘I’ve fixed your car,’ he told her, and his grin faded but the faint, teasing mischief was still behind his eyes. ‘Come and see.’

‘It’s not at the vet’s?’

‘The least I could do was bring it back here. Grab your purse and I’ll show you where.’ Then, as she still hesitated—what was it with this man that had her disconcerted?—he smiled at the girl at the desk, who handed over her purse, having obviously been listening to every word of their conversation, and he ushered her out to the car park.

That made her feel even more disconcerted. He was so…gorgeous. She was in her nurse’s uniform.

People were glancing at them, smiling at Sam, smiling at her as if she was somehow attached to Sam. It felt weird.

‘You didn’t have to fix my car,’ she told him as he led her across the car park. ‘How did you get it done so fast?’

‘What do you do when you’re faced with a laundry basket full of dirty shirts and you need a clean shirt straight away?’ he asked.

‘I…’ Uh-oh. What she suddenly suspected was dumb—wasn’t it? Surely.

‘You buy a new one,’ he told her, confirming her lunatic thought in five words. ‘Or, in your case, a good second-hand one because I thought a brand-new one might be a bit over the top.’ And he stopped and motioned to a small white sedan parked right next to where they were standing. It was the same model as hers, only about twenty years younger. It was about a hundred years less battered.

‘It’s two years old,’ he told her, ‘but it’s a take-a-little-old-lady-to-church-on-Sunday vehicle. The local dealer had a son born with a mitral valve disorder. I’m still running routine checks on Dan’s son after successful surgery, but he’s doing brilliantly, and Dan’s assured me this vehicle is almost as good as his kid’s heart.’

‘You bought me a car?’

‘I need to thank you,’ he said gently. ‘You saved my dog’s life. Doug and I could barely get your car started last night and we thought it’d cost more to clean than you’d get for it if you sold it. I’m a surgeon and a well-qualified one at that. I’m not married. I have no kids. All I have is my dog. Thanks to your actions last night I still have her. I can easily afford to do this, and I hope you’ll accept with pleasure.’

She stared at the car. It was little and white and clean. It looked a very nice car. It looked very dependable.

It looked sensible.

She thought back to the bucket of bolts she’d driven from Adelaide. She thought of all the times she’d had to stop.

She’d bought a mechanic’s manual in Adelaide before she’d left and she’d studied it with one of her sisters’ boyfriends. She’d spent half the time she’d taken to get here sitting on the roadside studying that book or ringing her sister’s boyfriend and having him talk her through what she needed to do.

She looked again at the little white car.

I hope you’ll accept with pleasure.

Why not? She had no doubt this guy could afford to buy her a car. It’d be years before she could afford one this good—and she had saved his dog.

‘But it’s not my car,’ she heard herself say, before the sensible side of her could do any more sensible thinking.