Font Size:  

They lay there for a few seconds after the laughter finally subsided. Brad’s eyes were fixed on the ceiling, staring at yet another rose-coloured light shade.

He turned his head to face Cassidy’s. ‘So, tell me truthfully. Do you think this flat will affect my pulling power?’

Cassidy straightened her face, the laughter still apparent in her eyes. She wondered how to answer the question. Something squeezed deep inside her. She didn’t want Brad to have pulling power. She didn’t want Brad to even consider pulling. What on earth was wrong with her? She’d only met this guy today. Her naughty streak came out. ‘Put it this way. This is the first time I’ve lain on a bed with a man, panting like this, and still been fully dressed.’

His eyebrows arched and he flipped round onto his side to face her. ‘Well, Sister Rae, that almost sounds like a challenge. And I like a challenge.’

Cassidy attempted to change position, the satin bedspread confounding her and causing her to slide to the floor with a heavy thud.

Brad stuck his head over the edge of the bed. ‘Cass, are you okay?’

She held up her hand towards him and shook her head. ‘Just feed me.’

Fifty boxes later and another trip back to the hospital, they both sagged on the sofa. Brad pulled a bunch of take-away menus from a plastic bag. ‘I’d take you out for dinner but I don’t think either of us could face sitting across a table right now.’

Cassidy nodded. She flicked through the menus, picking up her favourite. ‘This pizza place is just around the corner and it’s great. They don’t take long to deliver. Will we go for this?’

‘What’s your favourite?’

‘Thin crust. Hawaiian.’

‘Pineapple—on a pizza? Sacrilege. Woman, what’s wrong with you?’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t tell me—you’re a meat-feast, thick-crust man?’

He sat back, looking surprised. ‘How did you know?’

‘Because you’re the same as ninety per cent of the other males on the planet. Let’s just order two.’ She picked up the phone, giving it a second glance. ‘Wow, my parents had one of these in the seventies.’ She listened for a dial tone. ‘Never mind, it works.’ She dialled the number and placed the order.

‘So, what do you think of your new home? Will you still be talking to Frank in the morning?’

Brad sighed. ‘I think I should be grateful, no matter how bad the décor is. I needed a furnished flat close by—it’s not like I had any furniture to bring with me—so this will be fine.’ He took another look around. ‘You’re right—it’s clean. That’s the most important thing.’ Then he pointed to Bert in the corner. ‘And if he’s happy, I’m happy.’ The wicked glint appeared in his eyes again. ‘I can always buy a new bedspread—one that keeps the

ladies on, instead of sliding them off.’

There it was again. That little twisting feeling in her gut whenever he cracked a joke about other women. For the first time in a lifetime she was feeling cave-woman primal urges. She wanted to shout, Don’t you dare! But that would only reveal her to be a mad, crazy person, instead of the consummate professional she wanted him to think she was.

He rummaged around in a plastic bag at his feet. ‘I’m afraid I can’t offer you any fancy wine to drink. I’ve got orange or blackcurrant cordial.’ He pulled the bottles from the bag. ‘And I’ve got glasses in one of those boxes over there.’

Cassidy reached over and opened the box, grabbing two glasses and setting them on the table. ‘So what’s your story? What are you doing in Scotland?’ And why hasn’t some woman snapped you up already?

‘You mean, what’s a nice guy like me doing in a place like this?’ He gestured at the psychedelic walls.

She shrugged. ‘I just wondered why you’d left Australia. Do you have family there? A girlfriend?’ She couldn’t help it. She really, really wanted to know. She’d wanted to ask if he had a wife or children, but that had seemed a bit too forward. He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, and he hadn’t mentioned any significant other. And he’d been flirting with her. Definitely flirting with her. And for the first time in ages she felt like responding.

‘I fancied a change. It seemed like a good opportunity to expand my experience. Scottish winters are notorious for medical admissions, particularly around old mining communities.’ He paused for a second and then added, ‘And, no, there’s no wife.’ He prayed she hadn’t noticed the hesitation. He couldn’t say the words ‘no children’. He wouldn’t lie about his daughter. But he just didn’t want to go there right now. Not with someone he barely knew.

Cassidy nodded, sending silent prayers upwards for his last words, but fixed her expression, ‘There’s around two and half thousand extra deaths every winter. They can’t directly link them to the cold. Only a few are from hypothermia, most are from pneumonia, heart disease or stroke. And last year was the worst. They estimated nine pensioners died every hour related to the effects of the cold. Fuel payments are through the roof right now. People just can’t afford to heat their homes. Some of the cases we had last year broke my heart.’

Brad was watching her carefully. Her eyes were looking off into the distance—as if she didn’t want him to notice the sheen across her eyes when she spoke. He wondered if she knew how she looked. Her soft curls shining in the dim flat light, most of them escaping from the ponytail band at the nape of her neck. It was clear this was a subject close to her heart—she knew her stuff, but as a sister on a medical receiving unit he would have expected her to.

What he hadn’t expected was to see the compassion in her eyes. Her reputation was as an excellent clinician, with high standards and a strict rulebook for the staff on her ward. But this was a whole other side to her. A side he happened to like. A side he wanted to know more about.

‘So, what’s the story with you, then?’

She narrowed her eyes, as if startled he’d turned the question round on her. ‘What do you mean?’

‘What age are you, Cassidy? Twenty-seven? Twenty-eight?’ He pointed to her left hand. ‘Where’s your other half? Here you are, on a Monday night at...’ he looked at his watch ‘...nearly nine o’clock, helping an orphaned colleague move into his new flat. Don’t you have someone to go to home to?’

Cassidy shifted uncomfortably. She didn’t like being put on the spot. She didn’t like the fact that in a few moments he’d stripped her bare. Nearly thirty, single and no one to go home to. Hardly an ad for Mrs Wonderful.

‘I’m twenty-nine, and I was engaged a few years ago, but we split up and I’m happy on my own.’ It sounded so simple when she put it like that. Leaving out the part about her not wanting to get out of bed for a month after Bobby had left. Or drinking herself into oblivion the month after that.

His eyebrows rose, his attention obviously grabbed. ‘So, who was he?’

‘My fiancé? He was a Spanish registrar I worked with.’

‘Did you break up with him?’

The million-dollar question. The one that made you look sad and pathetic if you said no. Had she broken up with him? Or had Bobby just told her he was returning to Spain, with no real thought to how she would feel about it? And no real distress when she’d told him she wouldn’t go with him.

Looking back she wondered if he’d always known she wouldn’t go. And if being with her in Scotland had just been convenient for him—a distraction even.

She took a deep breath. ‘What’s with the questions, nosy parker? He wanted to go home to Spain. I wanted to stay in Scotland. End of story. We broke up. He’s back working in Madrid now.’ She made it sound so simple. She didn’t tell him how much she hated coming home to an empty house and having nobody to share her day with. She didn’t say how whenever she set her single place at the table she felt a little sad. She didn’t tell him how much she hated buying convenience meals for one.

‘Bet he’s sorry he didn’t stay.’

Cassidy’s face broke into a rueful smile and she shook her head. ‘Oh, I don’t think so. He went home, had a whirlwind romance and a few months later married that year’s Miss Spain. They’ve got a little son now.’

She didn’t want to reveal how hurt she’d been by her rapid replacement.

He moved a little closer to her. ‘Didn’t that make you mad? He left and played happy families with someone else?’

Cassidy shook her head determinedly. She’d had a long time to think about all this. ‘No. Not really. I could have been but we obviously weren’t right for each other. When we got engaged he said he would stay in Scotland, but over time he changed his mind. His heart was in Spain.’

Her eyes fell downwards for a few seconds as she drew in a sharp breath, ‘And I’d made it clear I didn’t want to move away. I’m a Scottish girl through and through. I don’t want to move.’

Brad placed his hand on her shoulder. ‘But that seems a bit off. Spain’s only a few hours away on a plane. What’s the big deal?’

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
Articles you may like