Just
One Last Night…

Amy Andrews

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Copyright

About the Author

AMY ANDREWS has always loved writing, and still can’t quite believe that she gets to do it for a living. Creating wonderful heroines and gorgeous heroes and telling their stories is an amazing way to pass the day. Sometimes they don’t always act as she’d like them to—but then neither do her kids, so she’s kind of used to it. Amy lives in the very beautiful Sam-ford Valley, with her husband and aforementioned children, along with six brown chooks and two black dogs. She loves to hear from her readers. Drop her a line at www.amyandrews.com.au

For Olwyn Deane and Lillias Jensen—

two wonderful women who have enriched

the fabric of my life since the day I was born

CHAPTER ONE

DR GRACE PERRY hated feeling unprepared. She’d happily lived her entire adult life totally prepared for all situations. She liked being prepared. Loved it, actually. It gave her power and a sense of control.

She loved control.

And order. And predictability.

Otherwise there was just chaos. And Grace hated chaos.

Unfortunately there’d been precious little order and too much chaos in the last eighteen months.

So today she planned to take back control.

All she had to do was get the job.

An interview she was feeling totally unprepared for after her early-morning flight from Brisbane and Tash’s door slamming condemnation from last night still ringing in her ears.

Grace sighed as she pushed the lift button. How could a sullen fifteen-year-old girl have defeated her—broken her—so utterly? Taken her nice, neat, ordered, controlled world and turned it totally on its ear.

Grace hated defeat.

The lift arrived and Grace put the rare moment of self-pity aside as she strode into it and pushed the button for the eighth floor.

Such negative thoughts did not bode well going into the interview of her life. And however hard it had been on her to become guardian to her niece and nephew, it had been a thousand times worse for Tash and Benji.

The doors opened at her destination and Grace took a moment to straighten the dark grey skirt that flared around her knees, balancing out the flare of very feminine hips. She did up the large buttons on her matching jacket.

You can do this, she lectured herself as her strappy pumps sank into plush carpet. You are a fantastic emergency physician with fifteen years’ experience and a respected manager.

You are outstandingly qualified.

Opposite the lifts was a large reception desk and she made her way to it.

‘Dr Grace Perry to see Dr John Wilkie,’ she said, injecting a note of calm assurance as if the interview was no more trifling than a sutured finger or a strep throat.

The starched-looking receptionist peered at her over half-moon glasses and frowned. She consulted her watch and then some paperwork. ‘You’re early.’

Grace blinked, feeling as if she’d committed some horrible transgression. ‘Yes. It’s a terrible habit of mine.’

Or it used to be anyway before chaos had taken over.

‘Sorry,’ she added, feeling the need to apologise to the un-amused woman in front of her. Then she smiled to reassure the receptionist it wouldn’t happen again and to vanquish the horrible feeling of being caught on the back foot.

The receptionist sniffed then stood. ‘Please follow me.’

Grace did as she was instructed—she didn’t dare not to—following the woman’s brisk march through a series of corridors until they reached a door and entered a lounge area.

‘Take a seat. Dr Wilkie’s conducting another interview.’ She sniffed again. ‘He may be a while.’

‘That’s fine,’ Grace murmured, sinking into the nearest lounge chair. ‘I have some work to do,’ she said, patting her bag.

The receptionist departed and Grace was left to her own devices. Self-directed as ever and rather than think about who was on the other side of the closed door opposite, making a play for her job, she hauled out her laptop, placing it on the low table in front of her. She adjusted her glasses and waited for it to power up.

Twenty minutes later she was fully engrossed in a report when her mobile rang. Distracted, Grace searched through her bag for it. Normally she’d have it attached to her waistband but she had this bloody impractical skirt on today instead of her regulation trousers with their convenient loops so she’d thrown it in her bag.

It trilled insistently as Grace pulled out the entire contents of her bag onto the table in an effort to locate it.

Where could one little phone hide, for crying out loud?

She finally located it and pushed the answer button. ‘Dr Perry,’ she said.

‘Hello, Dr Perry, this is Juanita from Brisbane City High.’

Grace gripped the phone harder as a surge of dread rose like a monster from the deep inside her. ‘What’s she done now?’ She sighed.

‘Natasha hasn’t shown up today. Again. That’s the third time this week.’

Grace shut her eyes. ‘I see.’ She knew her niece had been dropped at school. There’d been a text from Jo, the nanny, when she’d disembarked in Melbourne that morning, telling her so.

‘Right, thanks. I’ll deal with it.’

Grace’s hand shook as she tried Tash’s mobile. It went to the message bank and Grace left a terse message. She rang Jo next and informed her, then texted her niece.

Get your butt to school. Now!

Grace wasn’t overly worried about Tash. If her niece ran true to form, she’d be at the local shopping centre.

Hopefully not shoplifting this time.

Grace was pretty sure Tash had learned her lesson from her brief foray into petty crime. But that boy would probably be there too. What was his name? Hayden? Jayden? Braydon? Something like that … And that was cause for concern.

Caught up in the drama as she was and the sick feeling that had been fermenting in her gut for eighteen months, Grace startled when the door opened abruptly and two male voices intruded on her disquiet.

‘Thanks John, I look forward to hearing from you.’

‘No worries, Brent. The successful applicant will be informed by the end of next week.’

The hairs on the back of Grace’s neck prickled and it had nothing to do with the way the two men shook hands, slapped backs and generally interacted like the outcome was a foregone conclusion.

And everything to do with Dr Brent Cartwright.

Her first love.

She rose abruptly to her feet as if she’d been zapped by some sort of divine cattle prod. Shock waves buffeted her body as twenty years fell away in an instant and the memories flooded back.

His deep, rich voice. The rumble in his laugh. The way he’d looked at her like she was the only woman on the planet. How he’d enjoyed teasing her. The way he’d told stories. His generosity. His intellect. His attention to detail.

The heat of his mouth.

The smell of his neck.

The way he’d filled her more perfectly than any man ever had.

The way he’d shaken his head, his angry words when she’d broken their brief engagement. Broken his heart.

Broken both their hearts.

‘Ah, Dr Perry,’ John Wilkie greeted her from the door. ‘Edwina said you were here already. Give us a few minutes, would you?’ he requested as he backed through the door and shut it again.

Grace nodded dumbly, her pulse tap-dancing a frantic beat at her temples, but had eyes only for an equally stunned-looking Brent.

Brent stared. He couldn’t help it.

Grace Perry.

The one that got away.

He was momentarily speechless. Twenty years and yet the memories rushed out at him. Walking hand and hand through the uni campus as the leaves had changed and they’d fallen in love. Skipping classes. Staying in bed for days in a row. Talking endlessly into the night. Eating cold leftover pizza for breakfast too many mornings to count.

Drinking cheap cafeteria coffee as they swatted up for anatomy exams, desperately trying to catch up on the things they’d missed.

She’d been his first love.

He took a step towards her, reached out a hand. He felt as gauche as a schoolboy. As unsure as the eighteen-year-old man who had considered her way out of his league but had wanted her anyway.

He finally found his voice. ‘Gracie …’

She stiffened as his endearment yanked her back to the present. ‘It’s Grace,’ she said, taking a step back. ‘Just Grace.’

Brent stilled as her don’t-touch-me vibe sparked other memories. The cold stab of her it’s-over speech. The hard bite of the solitaire engagement ring she’d curled into his palm. The straightness of her spine as she’d turned away from him.

He stuffed his hands into his pockets, embarrassed by the impulse and surprised how, even after all these years, it was automatic for him to reach for her.

But if she could be cool and collected, so could he. ‘How are you?’ he asked politely. ‘You’re interviewing for the head of emergency?’

Grace nodded. ‘You too?’

‘Yes. I’ve been acting in it for the last four months.’

His voice flowed over her like warm butterscotch sauce oozing into long-forgotten places and Grace’s heart banged like a bongo in her chest. It had no right to betray her. It should be sinking in her chest, not thumping merrily along like it wasn’t aware of the implications of Brent’s words.

What hope in hell did she have of getting the job if there was already someone acting in it?

She groped around for another subject. ‘Have you stayed in Melbourne all these years?’

Brent nodded, keeping his face neutral. ‘Some of us don’t consider that a hardship, Grace.’

It had been twenty years but the slight clench of his jaw still gave him away. She’d pissed him off. She raised her chin and forced herself to shrug.

‘It wasn’t meant to be a criticism.’

Brent, oh, so familiar with that little chin lift, regarded her for a moment. She’d changed. And yet she hadn’t. Her hair was shorter. Her hips were even curvier. She wore trendy glasses instead of contacts. And fashionable clothes. Her make-up had been artfully applied.

But her grey eyes still looked at him the same steady way they always had. The same old frankness was there. And her full lips still parted softly the way they always had, as if silently begging to be kissed.

Her lip gloss was the same too, he noticed absently. It still glistened like dew on cobwebs and its heady vanilla essence curled delicious fingers around his gut. He didn’t have to try it to know it would still taste like honey.

But he wanted to.

He wondered how many years apart it would take to erase that tantalising aroma from his memory cells. The one that occasionally drifted elusively through his dreams.

Brent stared at her mouth for what seemed an age and Grace felt heat build everywhere as she ruthlessly suppressed the nervous—or was that wanton?—urge to trace the outline of her lips with her tongue.

But even more dangerous to her equilibrium was the storm surge of emotions welling inside her. Feelings she’d long since buried spluttered to the surface. The sense of rightness and belonging he’d always stirred inside her. The feeling of completeness when he’d held her.

All of which she’d rejected twenty years ago.

Maybe emotions like that were just too strong to ever truly forget?

She shook her head, fighting to wrest back control.

This was crazy.

Certifiable!

It had to stop …

And then the door behind Brent opened abruptly and John Wilkie was smiling and calling her in, before disappearing back into the room.

‘Coming,’ she said, dragging her gaze from the searing heat of Brent’s.

She turned back to her bag, the contents still strewn over the table, stuffing it all back in, shutting her laptop lid and shoving it in too. Aware of Brent’s heavy stare the entire time—feeling it in her breasts and her belly and her thighs.

But mostly in her heart.

Items slipped through her useless fingers, dropped to the floor, rolled out of reach. Grace wanted to weep she felt so clumsy and …

Out of control.

Chaos reigned again.

Damn it!

She forced the last item in and stood, taking a couple of deep, calm breaths. This interview was important. And she was the best one for the job. She needed to be composed. Prepared. In control.

She drew in three more cleansing breaths before turning to face Brent again. ‘It was … nice … seeing you again,’ she said politely, before gathering all her bravado and walking past him, her head high.

And her knickers twisted into the mother of all knots!

Nice? Nice! Brent stared after her until the softly shut door completely obscured her.

Nice?

It had been surprising. Shocking. Startling.

Cataclysmic.

He sat down on the nearby lounge and shook his head.

Nice? Damn, it was anything but nice.

Even now his body was stuck back in first-year uni, skipping class to stay in bed with her all day. It was a wonder the two of them hadn’t contracted a vitamin D deficiency. Or turned into vampires.

They’d certainly had insatiable appetites!

Brent absently rubbed his jaw as the memories played like an old film reel in his head. He’d never quite managed to erase the images of her. Not through twenty years of distance or even two impulsive marriages and their subsequent fallouts.

And here she was. At Melbourne Central Hospital.

Déjà vu.

Confounding him again. Making him feel things again. Challenging all his assumptions about her being firmly in his past.

He dropped his head in his hands and shut his eyes. For some reason he’d been so sure they’d never cross paths ever again. Her goodbye had been so final—he’d never doubted she meant it even when he’d wasted two years harbouring secret fantasies about a reconciliation.

Meeting her today had been a huge jolt.

And very far from nice.

Dear God. What if she got the job? His job. What if he had to see her every day? Hear that laugh he’d loved so much. Watch that sway to her hips.

Smell that damn lip gloss?

Brent opened his eyes on a silent groan, his gaze falling on an object near his foot. He reached for it, realising it was a photograph. Grace must have dropped it from her bag when she was stuffing everything back in.

He stared at the image for a long time, trying to comprehend what he saw. Two children, a boy and a girl. The girl looked about twelve. The boy four, maybe five. Brother and sister?

They were laughing at the camera, their arms slung around each other’s necks. Trees and a clothesline could just be seen in the background. They looked happy and loved.

And remarkably like Grace.

The girl more so. They both had her grey eyes but the girl had long blonde hair that fell in a white-blonde curtain to her waist, just as Grace’s had back when he’d first known her. The boy looked more like Grace around the mouth. He laughed like her.

Grace had children.

His brain tried to reject the notion but he knew it somewhere deep in his gut. Just like he’d known all those years ago that she’d meant it when she’d said she was never coming back.

Grace had children.

Was she married also? Had she been wearing a ring?

A storm of emotions built inside him and he gripped the corners of the photograph hard. What the hell had happened to remaining childless? To never, ever?

That’s what she’d said the day she’d given him back his ring. The day she’d received her second-year anatomy results and discovered she’d failed the subject. The day she’d totally flipped out, blaming them—blaming him—for derailing her career.

‘I’m the eldest of ten children, Brent. I’ve lived in chaos and clutter and noise all my life. I’ve fed and changed and bathed and rocked and carted and carried and kissed skinned knees and babysat my entire life. And they’re my family and I love them but I don’t want that for me and I never want to do it ever again.

Never, ever.

I’m done with it all. I want to go far away. Live and work and experience somewhere else. Somewhere different. I want to be totally selfish for the rest of my life. To not have anyone but me to worry about. I’m going to make a great aunty—the best—but no babies for me.’

Brent stared at the picture—she’d lied.

Grace felt confident as she shook John Wilkie’s hand half an hour later. Facing a panel interview was always nerve-racking and with the fates conspiring to knock her totally off balance before she’d even begun, she could have easily messed it up.

But she’d clicked into doctor mode, treating the interview like a multi-trauma case, drawing on the focus for which she was known. And she’d nailed it.

The get-the-job plan was looking up.

The last thing she expected when she exited the room was to find Brent waiting for her.

He gave her a rather grim look and stood. Grace’s breath caught in her throat as he unfolded himself. She’d forgotten how he redefined the whole tall, dark and handsome thing. How broad his shoulders were. How his hazel eyes looked tawny in some lights. How his cleanly shaven jaw was impossibly smooth.

‘How did it go?’

Grace blinked at the terseness of his tone. He seemed annoyed with her and she felt her hackles rise. Just because he was already in the damn job it didn’t mean it was his. She really didn’t have enough time or room in her life for his male ego.

‘I nailed it,’ she said bluntly.

Brent snorted. Of course she had. Grace had always done everything well. Failure was not acceptable to her—he’d learned that the hard way.

He passed the photo that had been eating a hole in his gut back to her. ‘You dropped this.’

Grace frowned and took it. Her expression softened as she realised what it was. Tash and Benji. Back before their world had been turned upside down. Before Benji had cried himself to sleep every other night. Before Tash had dyed her hair black and pierced her nose.

They’d been so innocent.

She looked back at Brent, who was looking at her expectantly. Like she owed him some kind of explanation. And suddenly his terseness made sense.

It wasn’t about the job at all.

She lifted her chin. ‘Thank you.’

Brent scrunched his fingers into fists by his sides to prevent himself from reaching out and shaking her. ‘You have kids.’

It wasn’t a question and Grace hesitated for less than a second. She did. She did have kids. She may not have given birth to them, she may not have a clue how to deal with them, but they were blood and they’d been living under her roof for eighteen months.

And she loved them.

So, yes, she had kids. ‘Yes.’

Brent nodded, shoving his fists into his pockets. Part of him had been hoping she’d deny it. ‘You’re married.’

Again, not a question. ‘No.’

Brent rejected the slither of hope her denial engendered. ‘Divorced?’

‘No.’

‘Widowed?’

‘No.’

‘In any kind of a relationship with their father?’

‘No.’

Brent regarded her for a moment. She looked so aloof behind her glasses and her salon-styled hair. It was all layered and shaggy at the back with multi hues of blonde and brown. Her bangs swept across her forehead and the sides neatly tucked behind the ears. She looked like a poster girl in an optometrist’s window.

Gorgeous but untouchable.

‘In any kind of relationship at all?’

Grace raised her chin. None of this was his business and she was damned if she was going to unload the whole sorry story on him just because once upon a time he’d been a really good listener. Even if she did feel absurdly like doing just that.

The details of her personal life were on a need-to-know basis only. And he did not need to know.

‘I hardly see that as being relevant, do you?’

So that was a no …’I thought you never, ever wanted kids.’

Grace did not appreciate his accusatory tone. ‘I was twenty years old, Brent.’ God, had she ever been that young?

He nodded. ‘I do believe I made that point at the time but you were pretty adamant.’

Grace was weary. She spent most of her days arguing with a recalcitrant teenager. She didn’t have the emotional energy to play one-upmanship with an ex-lover.

Even if he’d been her first.

And the best.

She shrugged. ‘It was two decades ago, Brent. So sue me.’

Right now suing her was the last thing on his mind. Shaking her, on the other hand, was looking more and more viable. Putting her over his knee and spanking her even more so.

But there was a tiredness to her words, to the set of her shoulders that gave him pause.

She was right.

It had been twenty years. An age ago. They’d been kids. Young and in love and foolish.

And it belonged in the past.

He sighed. ‘Would you like a tour of the department?’

Grace eyed him warily. The doctor in her was exceedingly interested in a tour of Melbourne Central’s state-of-the-art Department of Emergency Medicine. She was, after all, hopefully about to become its director.

But the woman inside was urging her to run away. Fast. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars.

Do not do anything that prolonged their time together.

Do not be foolish.

She’d been foolish with him before and where had it got her?

Flunking medical school.

She thought back to that day, that horrible day when she’d got her anatomy results. The fail had viciously yanked the blinkers from her eyes. Burst the happy little love-is-enough bubble she’d been floating around in.

She’d been on a scholarship, for crying out loud. With twelve mouths to feed her parents hadn’t been able to afford to send her to uni and she’d worked her butt off to earn that full scholarship.

One that had demanded academic success. Not failure.

She’d known right then it was medicine or Brent. Both of them were all-consuming. Both of them demanded a singular focus.

She’d had to choose.

She’d wanted to be a doctor since she’d been eight years old and had had her appendix out.

She’d loved Brent for two years.

And in those two short years he’d made her forget all her career aspirations and long-term goals. He’d made her fail anatomy. He’d put her scholarship on the line.

Ending it, transferring to another uni, had been the logical thing to do.

But it had hurt. Oh, how it had hurt.

Twenty years on the stakes were even higher. Her life was careening out of control and this was her chance to get it back on track. It wasn’t just about her any more. There were two kids involved.

But how foolish would it be to pass up this opportunity? She needed to be informed and who better to do so than the current—if temporary—director? The doctor inside, the pragmatist, knew it made sense. And she’d got through the last twenty years, made a success of her life by listening to the doctor and not the woman.

It would be foolish to start doing so now.

CHAPTER TWO

BRENT put everything, including the fact that Grace was a rival for his job, aside and gave her the full tour. When he’d been seconded to Melbourne Central he’d been far from enthusiastic about the change. After fifteen years at the Royal Melbourne he had been utterly dedicated to his old hospital.

He’d planned on taking the helm, keeping the ship running until they found the right candidate and then head back to the Royal.

But since moving into the brand spanking new Melbourne Central he’d changed his mind. He’d realised he’d grown stagnant staying in one place. Roots were all well and good but the challenge of heading a new department, if only temporarily, had been exhilarating. And working with top-notch equipment in state-of-the-art facilities had been a luxury he’d quickly grown used to.

He’d put his stamp on this place and he was proud to share it with Grace. To show her that the boy with dreams she’d once known had more than fulfilled his goals.

He showed her around the twenty cubicles and seven resus beds, introduced her to the staff and demonstrated the central monitoring and fully integrated computer system that was run from the central work station.

Afterwards he took her around the other side of the station and opened a door. ‘And this is my office.’

Grace looked inside. It wasn’t palatial. But it was big enough, with a decent-sized desk and a very comfortable-looking leather chair. She looked at him. ‘You mean my office?’

Brent gave a grudging half-laugh. ‘Okay, the director’s office.’

His laughter slipped over her skin like a satin nightgown—light and silky—and Grace smiled. For a moment. Before reality intruded. ‘What will you do if I get the job?’

Brent regarded her for a few moments, wondering whether to tell the truth. He decided to give her no quarter. The old Grace hadn’t liked to be mollycoddled.

‘I hate to be the bearer of bad news but I really don’t see that happening, Grace. I’ve been here since the beginning. They’re only advertising the role because they have to. It’s just a formality.’

Grace held his gaze. It was surprisingly gentle, considering the impact of his words, and had come over all tawny again. She appreciated his frankness. Hell, she’d suspected as much when he’d told her he was acting in the position.

Still, it irked. She needed it. Jobs like this at her senior level, with regular hours, didn’t grow on trees. She wasn’t just going to cede it to him.

‘Well, we’ll see about that, won’t we?’

Brent saw the chin tilt again. ‘You want it that badly?’

‘I need it,’ she corrected.

Brent knew the concession wouldn’t have come easily to Grace and he saw in her gaze she was already regretting it. ‘Need it?’

She hesitated for a moment, already cross with herself for giving away more than she should have and hyper-aware that they were standing very close in the small doorway. She could smell his aftershave wafting towards her and memories of how good it had felt to bury her face against his neck assailed her.

She took a step back, out of the doorway. ‘More regular hours for the kids would be a blessing.’

Brent noted her withdrawal, pleased for the breathing space. It seemed twenty years hadn’t dulled her effect on him. ‘What are their names?’

‘Tash …’ Grace cleared her throat. ‘Natasha and Benji.’

He nodded liking the way her voice softened as she said their names. She sounded like a mother and it called to something primitive inside him. After all, he’d once hoped she’d be the mother of his children.

Children she hadn’t wanted.

‘You could still come and work here you know, if this position doesn’t come off. We’re always looking for staff. You could have a job with flexible hours.’

Brent surprised himself with the invitation. But good hospitals needed good doctors. And he knew she wouldn’t be being interviewed unless she was damn good. He wanted the best for the Central, for his department. Their history was immaterial.

He shrugged. ‘The offer’s there, anyway.’

Grace glanced at him, startled. That was a big call. And very generous. But it also had danger written all over it. Her life was complicated enough, without repeating past mistakes.

‘Thanks,’ she said, filing it in a mental bin. ‘So …’ she looked around ‘… is there a minor ops room somewhere?’

Brent stared at her for a moment longer then took the hint. ‘This way.’

They walked to a corridor that ran along the back of the department with several more rooms evenly spaced along its length.

‘That’s X-Ray through there,’ Brent said, pointing to the door at the far end of the corridor. ‘This here …’ he indicated, opening a door ‘… is for minor ops.’

Grace perused the layout and equipment before they moved on to several other rooms, including a storeroom, medication room and an examination room for eye patients housing an expensive specialised microscope.

‘Dokator Brent!’

‘Oh, hell,’ Brent groaned at the raised female voice from nearby floated towards them. He looked behind him at the trail of black scuff marks his shoes had left on the polished linoleum floor.

‘Dokator Brent!’

The heavily accented voice was closer this time, more insistent, and Grace looked at Brent, perplexed. ‘Who is that?’

‘That’s Sophia,’ he said, frantically scrubbing at the nearest mark with his shod foot. ‘She’s the department’s cleaner. She’s a dear old thing, has to be about ninety years old. Russian or Slavic or something like that. Salt of the earth but takes fanatical pride in her floors. Does not like having them besmirched, and these damn shoes always leave horrible marks.’

As Grace watched he moved on to the next black smudge. She stared at his shoes. They looked expensive—a far cry from the tatty sneakers he’d worn when they’d been young and in love.

‘I don’t usually wear them, except of course I had the interview today. She’ll give me a terrible tongue lashing,’ he groaned, the sole of his shoe erasing the marks.

Grace smiled. She couldn’t help herself. Brent Cartwright terrified of a little old lady. She laughed then, unable to stop herself. Twenty years fell away and she was back at uni with him, goofing around.

He looked up at her laughing face and it took his breath away. She was looking at him like she had back then, like the intervening years had never happened. Like they were still lovers.

‘Oh, you think it’s funny?’ He grinned at her, letting the years disappear. ‘Just you wait. Trust me, no one wants to be on Sophia’s bad side.’

She laughed again as he smiled and his foot scrubbed at the floor. Another ‘I vill find you, Dokator Brent’ came from very close by.

Brent stopped what he was doing, grabbed Grace by the hand. ‘Quick,’ he whispered, and pushed her through a nearby door, pulling it closed after them.

Grace didn’t register the small confines of the room or the fact that it stank of the cleaning products that weighed down its three rows of shelves. It seemed to be a supply room. Not much bigger than a cupboard really. She was laughing too hard to even notice how close they were standing.

‘Shh,’ Brent whispered.

Just then the door opened abruptly, pushing them even closer together as they huddled behind it to stay obscured. He put his hand over Grace’s mouth to help stifle her laughter. He felt the texture of her lip gloss as a waft of vanilla and honey drifted his way.

What was it called again? Honey something …

Sophia called out, ‘I know you here somawhere, Dokator Brent.’

The door shut again but not before Grace heard Sophia muttering under her breath in some strange tongue.

Grace pulled his hand aside and burst out laughing again. ‘Oh, God, I’m so sorry, Brent.’ She grabbed his shirt as she leant forward a little, trying to catch her breath and laugh at the same time.

‘You should see your face. I can’t believe that the big important Dokator is afraid of a sweet little old lady.’

‘She isn’t so sweet when she’s pointing a mop at you.’

He grinned down her. She was so … familiar, so … Gracie it was impossible not to.

Impossible also not to be aware that her hand was warm on his chest and her breasts kept grazing the front of his shirt as laughter spasmed through her rib cage. Or the vanilla aroma of her lips, which somehow overpowered the smell of bleach and hospital-grade disinfectant. Or that his hand was firmly planted on one of her hips and all he needed to do was exert minimum pressure and she’d be pushed against him completely.

Grace slowly became aware of his fading smile and his growing silence and the fact that she was scrunching his shirt in her hand. He felt tense beneath her grip and he was staring at her mouth. He was big and warm and so very near.

So very Brent.

She eased her hold on his shirt and absently smoothed it with her palm. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered, as she became aware of the heavy thud of his heart beneath her fingers.

‘I needed that,’ she said, to ease the growing silence.

Today had been stressful, and this unexpected laughter had been the perfect release. Still, the fact remained that she was in a cupboard with Brent, giggling like a teenager.

It was insane.

She straightened slightly and put her hand on his chest, levering some distance between them.

‘Pleased me and my shoes could be of assistance,’ he said, moving back, as much as he was able in the confined area, placing temptation further out of reach.

Grace smiled at his joke. ‘I think it’s safe to go out now.’ She checked her watch. ‘And my plane leaves in a couple of hours.’

‘That’s a flying visit. Are you not even dropping in on your parents?’

Grace shook her head. She hadn’t told her family. She didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up. ‘I saw them a couple of weeks ago,’ she lied. ‘I have to get home to the kids.’

There was Tash to deal with. And Benji hadn’t coped well with changed plans since his parents’ accident.

The kids. Brent still couldn’t wrap his head around that one. ‘Who’s looking after them now?’

‘The nanny.’

‘Very suburban mum,’ he murmured, as an incredible surge of something potent—jealousy, longing—clawed at his gut.

Grace felt the husky edge to his voice all the way to her toes. And all the places in between.

She straightened her clothes, finger-combed her hair, adjusted her glasses. ‘I have to go.’

Brent nodded as he watched her reach for the doorknob. ‘It was … nice … seeing you again, Grace,’ he murmured. His chest bubbled with absurd laughter at the irony of his understatement.

Grace’s hand stilled in mid-twist. ‘Yes. You too.’

Then she opened the door and walked out without looking back.

‘I hate you,’ Natasha said as the plane touched down at Melbourne’s Tullamarine airport six weeks later.

Grace sighed. ‘Yes. I got that.’

They’d been over and over her decision to move them all back to Melbourne. She wasn’t about to have the same conversation in front of a couple of hundred strangers.

‘I love Jayden. He loves me. How could you rip us apart like this?’

Grace looked into Tash’s tear-stained face. Her heavily kohled eyes, the same colour as her hair, looked raccoonlike as her mascara ran. The twinkle of a shiny stone chip in her niece’s previously perfect nose winked cheerfully amidst all the teenage angst.

Somehow, it managed to look even more ridiculous.

Grace was sorely tempted to roll her eyes and tell her niece to stop being so melodramatic. That being in love at the grand old age of fifteen was absurd and, contrary to popular romantic myths, the world would not end.

Even though she’d been a scant few years older and had, in actual fact, felt exactly like the world was going to end when she’d walked away from the only man she’d ever loved.

But she just looked at Tash and said, ‘If he truly loves you, he’ll want the best for you. As do I. And this is the best thing for all of us right now.’

She wanted to say, Do you think I want this? Do you think I want to uproot myself and my career and sell my lovely house I slaved countless hours to pay off and leave my friends and a job that I love? Do you think it was my plan to upend my entire life to accommodate two orphans? So I could live with a pissed-off teenager and an emotionally fragile little boy?

Do you think I wanted my sister to die?

But she didn’t.

‘Look,’ said Benji, sitting on his haunches in the window seat, his nose pressed to the glass, ‘we’re here, Tash. We’re here.’

Natasha, mouth open and about to let loose what Grace felt was no doubt another embittered teenage diatribe, turned to her brother, scrubbing at her face and forcing a smile on her face. ‘Yep, Benji.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘Grandma will be waiting for us and all the cousins.’

And in that instant Grace’s heart melted. Behind all that horrible teenage surliness and you-don’t-understand-me façade was a really great kid. Whose whole carefree existence had come to an end in a crash of twisted metal.

She sucked in a breath and reminded herself to be patient.

Grace felt unaccountably emotional as they walked up the sky bridge into the terminal to be greeted by her entire extended family. The Perry clan—her parents and eight siblings and assorted progeny—surged forward and Grace felt as if she’d come home.

After fleeing Melbourne twenty years ago she hadn’t expected to feel such a strong sense of homecoming. She’d happily made her life away from it all. And it had been a very good life. One that she’d been more than a little reluctant to leave behind.

But the events of the last eighteen months had been climactic and Grace felt like she’d been slowly sinking in quicksand.

And it was now up to her neck.

It felt good to know her family were throwing her a lifeline.

‘Welcome home, darling,’ her mother said, wrapping her in a tea-rose hug. The scent of her childhood.

‘Mum,’ she said, hugging back, holding on tight.

Her mother had aged so much since Julie’s death. For a woman with ten kids she’d always been remarkably spry. Full of energy and lust for life. Grace had constantly marvelled at how she did it—goodness, she herself was exhausted just trying to keep track of two!

But Trish Perry was greyer now, more pensive, less energetic. The sparkle in her eyes had been replaced by shadow. The spring in her step had disappeared completely.

And the same for her father. They were just … less.

Grace stood back to let her parents hug their grandchildren. A lump rose in her throat as a tear slid from behind her mother’s closed lids. A spike of guilt lanced her. Had it been wrong for her to take the two most tangible connections to her sister so far away?

But Natasha had desperately wanted to get away from Melbourne. Sure, she’d made a song and dance about always having wanted to live in the Sunshine State but no one had bought that. They’d known that she had wanted to get far away from the memories.

And, in the end, they’d all agreed that it might be for the best.

How were any of them to know it had been an unmitigated disaster?

‘Come on,’ Trish said over the general din, wiping at the tear before disentangling herself, all mother-of-ten businesslike again. ‘Let’s get you all home. I’ve made roast lamb, your favourite, Benj, and for you, young lady …’ Trish ruffled Tash’s hair ‘… I made chocolate crackles.’

Grace tensed and waited for Tash to primp her hair back into place or scoff at her grandmother’s offering. The way she had when Grace had made a batch the week the kids had come to live with her—after a particularly harrowing night shift—because she’d known that they were her niece’s favourite.

Tash’s vehement ‘You’re not her’ had been cutting and Grace had been walking on eggshells ever since.

‘Cool. My favourite,’ Tash said.

Grace expelled a breath. Teenagers!

The next couple of weeks were crazy busy. Grace re-enrolled the kids in the school they’d been in prior to moving to Queensland—the school she herself had attended a million moons ago—and spent a small fortune on books and uniforms and all the assorted paraphernalia.

The school was local to the Perry family home, and was also attended by the current generation of Perry children. None of Grace’s siblings had flown too far from the nest, all setting up house within a ten-kilometre radius of the family home and sending their kids to the same school they’d attended.

She had been the only black sheep.

With the kids settled, Grace went house-hunting. Her parents wanted her to continue to stay with them and she was happy to until she found somewhere else. But Grace had been independent for too long to move back home at the grand age of thirty-nine.

Her brothers and sisters may have been happy to stay close but Grace had always wanted more. And while she was grateful to have the amazing support of her family after doing the whole mother thing alone, she needed her space too.

Her parents’ home was just too chaotic—even more so than it had been growing up—with thirty grandchildren from babies through to teenagers coming and going at all hours of the day and night.

Grace had missed the love and laughter but not the sheer noise of it all. She’d forgotten how loud and busy it always was. And how everyone was in everyone else’s business.

That was something Grace hadn’t missed.

In short, she needed privacy. A place that was quiet. Still. A place that was hers.

It had been tempting to look at real estate on the other side of the city, close to her new workplace. Had she moved back to Melbourne in different circumstances it would have been exactly what she would have done. Found a dinky little terraced cottage in the inner city close to cafés and shopping.

But the point of coming home was to be close to family. Was to have them as an extended support system. Multiple places the kids could go and stay when she invariably got stuck at work. Always someone to pick up the kids if she couldn’t. Cousins to have sleepovers, share homework or catch a movie with. Aunts and uncles to spoil them and take them places and keep an eye on them. Grandparents to babysit.

No more nanny.

So Grace very sensibly looked only at houses for sale in the immediate vicinity of the school. The market was much more inflated in Melbourne and Grace was shocked at the prices. Luckily she’d made a good return on her investment with her place back in Brisbane and she calculated she could afford a three-bedroom house without going into a hideous amount of debt.

Julie and Doug had provided for the children’s expenses in their wills but they’d been heavily in debt at the time of the accident so there hadn’t been much money left. And what there was Grace hadn’t wanted to touch. It belonged to Tash and Benji and she knew her sister would have wanted the money to be put towards the kids’ university educations.

By the end of the second week she finally found what she was looking for. It was about a kilometre from the school in one direction and even less from her parents’ in the other. It was a post-war, low-set brick with a small backyard. It needed a little TLC—the décor definitely needed modernising—but it was of sturdy construction and she could afford it.

Tash had stared aghast at the lurid shagpile carpet in the hallway and the childish wallpaper in her room the day Grace had taken them to visit their new home. She’d also been completely unimpressed that she was going to have to share a bathroom with everyone else.

Benji had been kinder, his interest lying only in the fact that due to the backyard a puppy might be in the offing. Grace had fobbed him off, promising to think about it for Christmas.

But maybe, Grace thought as she signed the contract, she and the kids could work at modernising it together? She could let them make over their rooms—involve them. Working part time would be very conducive to a DIY project.

She had to try and engage Tash somehow. She’d hoped her niece would get over her resentment at being forced to move from Brisbane but it was just one more thing for Tash to hold against her. She was stubbornly recalcitrant where Grace was concerned. She was pleasant enough with everyone else but cut Grace no slack.

It broke Grace’s heart. She’d always been Tash’s favourite aunty. Cool Aunty Grace. Whenever Grace had come back for holidays Tash had been Grace’s shadow. They’d chatted on the phone every few days since Tash had been old enough to speak.

But those days had long gone.

‘Be patient,’ her mother had said.

Except patience had never been a virtue she’d mastered.

She was losing Tash. And she couldn’t bear it. But she just didn’t know what to do. How to reach her. She was a fifteen-year-old girl who had lost her parents and shut herself off from the one person she’d once been closest to.

The one person who could help her the most.

And with all this weighing on her mind, Grace would have expected there to be no room for thoughts of Brent Cartwright.

But she’d been wrong.

It had been eight weeks since she’d seen him, since that awkward moment in the supply room, and tomorrow she had to face him again.

And every day after that.

A heavy feeling had been sitting like a lead lump in her stomach ever since she’d accepted the job. Nervousness. A sense of dread.

And that she could cope with.

It was the rather contrary bubble in her cells and the fizz in her blood that made her uneasy.

Very, very uneasy.

CHAPTER THREE

‘ANXIOUS about today, darling?’

Anxious? Grace was so nervous she could barely pick up her cup of tea without it rattling against the saucer.

Why her mother was the only person on the planet not to have switched to mugs was a complete mystery.

She looked around at the expectant faces at the table. It had been nice to slip back into the family breakfast ritual but this morning she could have done with a little less companionship.

The kids were inhaling cereal like they’d never eaten before. Her father was reading the paper. Her brother Marshall had called in on his way to work to drop off his two kids and was currently eating his second breakfast of the day.

‘No.’ Grace shook her head and forced down the toast that her mother had insisted on making her.

The food was in imminent danger of regurgitation but at least it gave her something to think about other than Brent.

Chew. Chew. Chew. Swallow.

Chew. Chew. Chew. Swallow.

‘You’ll be fine once you get stuck in,’ Marshall added.

‘I have a five-day hospital orientation first. Boring stuff like fire lectures and workplace health and safety stuff, so I won’t be getting stuck in until next week. But at least its nine to five.’

‘I hate starting a new job.’ Marshall shuddered.

Trish nodded. ‘It’s always hard starting over somewhere new.’ She squeezed her daughter’s hand. ‘I know you’re my oldest and you haven’t been little for a very long time, but I’ll still worry as if it was your first day at kindy. It’s not easy walking into a place where you don’t know a soul.’

Irritated by being babied and by their incessant need to talk about what was making her feel incredibly nervous, she blurted out, ‘Brent works there.’

There was a moment of double-take around the table that would have been quite comical to an outsider. Her mother sucked in a very audible breath. Her father looked up from his paper. Marshall stopped chewing in mid-mouthful.

‘Brent Cartwright?’ her father said.

‘You didn’t mention that before,’ her mother said.

‘Wow. That’s a blast from the past,’ Marshall said.

Tash looked from one adult to the other. ‘Who’s Brent Cartwright?’

‘Grace’s old boyfriend,’ Marshall said, reaching for his fourth slice of toast.

Grace glared at him and turned to Tash. ‘He was someone I knew a long time ago. We went to med school together.’

‘I didn’t think you were still in touch with him?’ Trish said.

‘I’m not.’ She shrugged with as much nonchalance as she could gather. ‘I … bumped into him when I came down for the interview. He works at the Central.’ Grace kept it deliberately vague.

‘Well, how is he? What’s he been doing with his life? Goodness … it’s been, what … twenty years? Is he married? Does he have kids?’

Grace realised she couldn’t answer any of the personal questions about him. She hadn’t asked about his life and he hadn’t volunteered.

Had be been wearing a ring?

The lump of lead sank a little deeper into the lining of her stomach at the prospect. Which was utterly ridiculous. Of course he’d be married by now. With a swag of kids to boot. It was all he’d ever wanted.

A family to call his own.

She shook her head. ‘I don’t know, we barely talked,’ she said.

‘Well, how’d he look?’ Trish sighed and fluttered her hand against her chest. ‘He was always such a handsome boy.’

Marshall gave a hoot and Grace shot him her very best I-used-to-change-your-nappies look as she stood. ‘I guess he still looks okay,’ she muttered, figuring she was probably about to be struck down dead and that would, at least, cure her horrible bout of nerves.

He’d looked incredible. Just like the old Brent but with a maturity that had taken his sexiness to a whole new level. ‘Anyway, gotta go.’

She bustled around to the other side of the table and dropped a kiss each on Tash and Benji’s heads. Benji gave her one of his sweet smiles but Tash fluffed her hair as if to erase it.

Grace ignored the pointed action. ‘See you both about five-thirty,’ she said, picking up her case and turning to go.

‘You should invite him to dinner one night. It’d be lovely to see him again.’

Grace stopped in mid-stride. She looked at her mother, ever the hostess. ‘Mmm …’ she said noncommittally, ignoring Marshall’s wink in her peripheral vision, and headed towards the front door.

That was so not going to happen.

As it played out it wasn’t until lunch of her third day that she finally met up again with Brent. She was standing in line at the cafeteria when a familiar sense of him surrounded her. She didn’t have to look to know he was near.

It had always been like that between the two of them.

‘Grace.’

She gripped her tray as his quiet greeting brushed her neck and nestled into her bones as familiar to her, even after all these years, as her own marrow.

She didn’t bother to turn and face him. ‘Brent.’

‘What are you having? They do a good Chicken Parmigiana.’

‘The quiche.’

Brent frowned at the continued view of the back of her head. ‘Let me guess. With chips drenched in vinegar?’

Grace smiled. ‘Yes.’

The waitress interrupted them and Brent let her order.

‘That’s twelve dollars fifty, Doc.’

‘Here,’ Brent said, smiling at the middle-aged woman behind the counter, ‘add up mine too and take them both out of this.’

Grace, who was handing over her card, froze and finally faced him. ‘I pay my own way, Brent.’

A man would have to be deaf, blind and stupid not to pay heed to the ice in her tone and the chill in her gaze.

But somehow it just made him more determined.

He shrugged. ‘For old times’ sake.’

A surge of molten rage erupted in her chest so fast it took her breath. Hadn’t he learned anything from the old times? He’d wanted to take care of her and all she’d wanted had been for him to realise she could take care of herself.

She hadn’t needed a carer. She’d wanted a partner. An equal. Someone who didn’t need the trappings of the traditional to be validated. But Brent, a product of a broken home and an even more broken foster-system, had craved the conventional.

He’d wanted roots. A wife, some kids, the whole white-picket-fence catastrophe. And she’d just wanted a career.

‘No.’

She didn’t mean it to come out as a growl but she suspected from the rounded eyes of the nurse standing behind Brent that it had. ‘Put it away.’

Brent nodded and withdrew his money, cursing his stupidity under his breath. It had been the wrong thing to do and the wrong thing to say.

Why did he suddenly feel like a gangly eighteen-year-old around her? Trying to prove he was a suave urbane gentleman and not some gutter urchin who had been dragged through a system that had been underfunded and overstretched?

She hadn’t treated him as if he’d been unworthy back then—why would she now?

Grace paid for her meal. ‘We need to talk,’ she said, before she stormed off to an unoccupied table as far away from the nearest lunchtime customers as possible.

Grace continued to fume as she watched Brent charm the woman at the register and then his unhurried stride towards her. He’d been in a suit that day of the interview, which had only hinted at the perfection she knew lay beneath. But today he was in trousers and a business shirt that left nothing to the imagination.

Was it possible that he was even broader twenty years on?

‘I’m sorry,’ he said as he placed his tray on the table and sank into a chair. ‘It won’t happen again. In fact, I think you should pay for me next time. I reckon I could set up a tab here and have them bill you at the end of each month. You could also pay for my parking if you like.’

Grace, who’d opened her mouth to launch into her how-dare-you diatribe, shut it again. He was grinning at her and it seemed like nothing had ever gone wrong between them. How many times had they sat in a cafeteria, eating some awful uni food and laughing at his silly jokes?

It seemed like yesterday.

She raised an eyebrow. ‘Surely the director of emergency medicine gets his own car space?’

Brent grinned again. ‘Yeah, you got me there. So, just my cafeteria bill, okay?’

Grace felt all the angst melt at his infectious smile. Seemed like she was still a sucker for that mouth.

The urge to reach out and stroke the rich-looking fabric of his shirt, as she once would have done, prowled inside her like a living, breathing beast. She forced herself to pick up her cutlery instead.

As they ate they chatted about her orientation and Grace also told him about the house she’d bought. Twenty minutes passed easily. He loved listening to her talk. Her voice was just the way he remembered—soothing and melodic.

In fact, so many things about her were the same. Familiar. Her great big smile. Her mannerisms.

But the way her eyes crinkled at the corners when she laughed was new. She’d obviously done it a lot and he was torn between being happy for her and annoyed that she’d obviously had a rich and full life without him.

Of course her hair was completely different. And then there were the glasses. He knew she was severely long-sighted and was essentially as blind as a bat without some kind of corrective device, but what had made her switch from contacts?

‘So, why the glasses?’ he asked as conversation dwindled.

Grace shrugged and adjusted them with sudden nervousness. This was moving into personal territory.

‘I’ve had so many problems with contacts over the years. Glasses are simpler. And they’re excellent splash protection. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve copped an unexpected spray of blood in my face and they’ve saved my eyes every time.’

Brent nodded. Having had a couple of splash injuries over the years, he could relate to that.

He liked the glasses very much—they, along with the short, layered hairdo, took her to a whole new level of sexy. There was a maturity to her sex appeal now that pulled even more treacherously at his libido than it had when he’d been a teenager.

She seemed all schoolmarm, all touch-me-not.

Perversely, it had the opposite effect.

He swallowed his last mouthful and pushed his plate away, sinking back into his chair. ‘Have you been avoiding me?’

Grace looked at him, startled for a moment, before forcing herself to calmly pick up her cup and take a sip of her tea. They’d definitely moved beyond hospital safe-lift policy and dreadful wallpaper.

‘The boss of the emergency department has an ego, I see,’ she said dryly.

Brent chuckled. ‘Is that a yes?’

Grace fought the urge to shut her eyes as his laughter bathed her in testosterone. No one chuckled quite like Brent. ‘It’s been a busy few days—that’s all.’

‘If you say so.’

Grace ignored the jibe and watched as he picked up his coffee cup the way he always had. His long, strong fingers disregarded the convenience of the curved handle, preferring to encompass the whole cup.

No ring. ‘You’re not married.’

The statement slipped out unchecked. Not surprising since his marital status had weighed on her mind since her mother had put it there.

But not something she’d wanted him to know she’d been thinking about.

Brent looked at her for a moment before looking down at his bare left hand. ‘No. Not now.’

Now? Oh. ‘Divorced?’

Brent nodded. ‘Twice.’

Grace blinked. ‘Twice?’

He nodded. Marrying twice and failing at both wasn’t a record he was proud of. ‘In my early twenties.’

After Grace had walked away Brent had been determined never to date another career-woman. And while party girls had been fun and up for anything, the reality of married life with a poor medical student or an overworked, underpaid resident had soon lost its sparkle.

‘They were both brief. My first one didn’t see out a year. The second one didn’t see two. Both of my exes have since happily remarried. One now lives in Hong Kong. The other in Darwin. They were both amicable.’

‘Okay,’ she said. Because frankly she didn’t know what else to say. She certainly hadn’t expected that.

Deep down she’d secretly thought he’d never find anyone to replace her. That what they’d had was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. She’d certainly never found another man who’d come close to measuring up to Brent.

Brent could see she was grappling with the news. ‘I was looking for … I wanted …’

He stopped. He hadn’t known what he’d wanted.

Grace. But not Grace.

She nodded. ‘Yeah … I know.’ He’d wanted connection. Family. Roots. The perfect white-picket life he’d never had. ‘Any kids?’

Brent shook his head. Forty years old and the kids he’d always imagined he’d have hadn’t panned out.

He’d never been short of partners. In fact, he’d earned quite the playboy rep. But the problem with dating party girls was that they were as reluctant to settle and have babies quickly as career-women were.

And after two divorces, the idea of the perfect family had taken a battering. He’d resigned himself to the fact that he just wasn’t meant to be a father.

‘I guess I never found the right person. It just hasn’t happened.’

Maybe perfect only came along once? Maybe he’d been holding out for another Grace? Sitting opposite her, he suspected that it could possibly be true. The thought alarmed him and he opened his mouth to distract himself from it.

‘I coach a football team, though. Made up of kids in the system. It’s run by a Melbourne-based charity.’ He smiled, thinking about his beloved Little Warriors. ‘They range in age from five to twelve. They’re a bit of a ragtag bunch, but they’re keen and they love their Aussie rules.’

Grace watched as Brent’s face softened, his sexy mouth moving into an easy smile. His admission didn’t surprise her. His time in foster-care had given him deep insight into a fraught system. That he would be doing his bit to improve it all these years later was typical of the Brent she’d known.

And after remembering him with her siblings, it was easy to visualise him running around on a field, chasing after a bunch of kids, a whistle in his mouth, laughing.

‘Every few weeks I hire a corporate box at the MCG and we all go and watch a game together.’

Grace whistled. That wouldn’t be cheap. ‘They’re lucky to have you.’

Brent shook his head. ‘I’m lucky. They’re great kids.’ He gave a half-smile. ‘They keep me young.’

Grace wished she could say the same about her kids. Tash was single-handedly turning her grey. ‘Sounds great,’ she said, trying not to sound resentful. Coaching a bunch of kids who hero-worshipped you for a couple of hours was very different to parenting day in, day out. Especially when you weren’t wired that way.

‘Enough about me,’ he said, looking directly at her. ‘You never married?’

She shook her head. ‘Nope.’

‘Why?’

There was a certain amount of amazement in his voice and she laughed. ‘Women do chose to stay single, Brent. It’s not a crime. Especially in a field like medicine where the climb to the top is a long, hard slog. I made a choice to put my career first.’

And it hadn’t even been difficult. Sure, there’d been relationships over the years but none of them had stimulated her like medicine. Or Brent. She’d always figured she’d had her shot at grand love and blown it.

And if sometimes, deep in the night, she’d craved a man’s arms around her, dreamt about Brent, it was the price she’d paid. And she didn’t have any regrets.

At least she hadn’t until Brent had swept back into her life, reminding her of things that could have been.

‘And yet you had children?’

Grace frowned. It took a second for her to understand what he was saying. He still thought Tash and Benji were hers …

‘Ah. Actually … I have a confession to make.’

Brent raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh?’

She took a deep breath, already dreading the way she knew this conversation was going to go. Rehashing all the grief and opening all the wounds again. ‘They’re not mine. Tash and Benji. They’re Julie’s.’

‘Julie? Your sister?’ She nodded and he continued, a smile lighting his face. ‘Do you remember that time she called us at three in the morning from that nightclub? She was underage and had drunk too many West Coast coolers and she was scared she was dying from alcohol poisoning?’

He laughed at the memory. ‘What the hell she thought two green medical students could do I have no idea.’

Grace smiled the familiar ache in her chest roaring to life. She remembered it as if it was yesterday. Julie hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol since that night.

They’d been so close. With only eleven months between them they’d been more like twins—inseparable. And when Grace had made the heart-wrenching break to Brisbane to finish her medical degree she’d missed her sister almost as much as she had Brent.

‘She threw up for a day,’ Grace murmured. ‘I had to come up with that elaborate lie for Mum and Dad.’

Brent chuckled. So the kids were her sister’s. It certainly made a lot more sense. The notion of Grace having kids had been completely foreign to him and he’d spent a lot of time in the last weeks trying to wrap his head around it.

But that didn’t explain why she hadn’t set him straight from the beginning. Had she wanted him to think they were hers as some kind of proof that she’d been fine without him?

‘So … you let me believe they were your kids because …?’

Grace cleared her throat of the huge lump that had suddenly taken up residence. ‘Because they are. Mine. That is. Julie and Doug were killed in a car accident eighteen months ago. I’m …’ She drew in a shaky breath. ‘I’m their legal guardian.’

Brent felt his gut twist at the huskily imparted news. He sat very still for a moment, watching Grace fight to stay contained, observing the thick mist of grief clouding her grey gaze.

‘Oh, no, Gracie …’ He reached for her across the table, his hand squeezing her forearm. He knew how close they’d been. ‘I’m so sorry.’

His touch and the way he said her name, like he could see deep inside her bruised heart with just one glance, nearly brought her undone and she snatched her arm back. She would not break down in front of Brent.

In a public cafeteria.

For God’s sake, she hadn’t seen him in two decades!

It was ridiculous.

And if she started to cry now, she didn’t know if she could stop. And then he would haul her into his arms and the way she was feeling right now, she’d go willingly.

Absurdly, he’d been the one she’d secretly craved most after Julie’s death. Having him so near now was dangerous. Her life was complicated. Chaotic.

There wasn’t room for any more.

‘Thank you,’ she said stiffly, refusing to acknowledge the flash of emotion she saw in his hazel eyes at her rejection of his touch.

‘What happened?’

Grace filled him in briefly on the accident. ‘Doug died instantly,’ she concluded. ‘Julie was cut free but died shortly after arriving at the Royal.’

Brent frowned. ‘I must have been on holidays when it happened.’ He thought back. Yes, he had been. He’d gone skiing in France with friends. ‘I wish I’d been there when she came in.’

Grace sucked in a husky breath. She wished he had too. It would have made it somehow easier to bear to know that Julie had had a familiar face with her that night. To know that maybe she might not have been so frightened.

It should have been her.

If she’d been there, maybe she could have saved her sister. Maybe Brent could have.

‘Me too.’

Brent nodded. She was hugging herself now, so removed, so shut down. It was clear she was hurting and it killed him. He’d do anything to take her pain from her. But she was as closed off, as forbidding as that day she’d told him she was leaving and excised him from her life.

And it hit him—any thoughts he’d been harbouring deep down that they might have a chance at rekindling their relationship were utter fancy.

She was no closer to committing now than she had been back then.

And he was no sadist. In the aftermath of their devastating break-up and two failed marriages he’d hardened his heart to relationships and happily settled into a life of playing the field.

After a childhood of being pushed from pillar to post, Brent knew all about loving the one you were with.

He wasn’t about to lose his head to her a second time. She’d walked away last time. And he was damned if he was going to allow nostalgia open the door to her again.

‘I wish I’d known,’ he said, falling back on polite socially acceptable conversation. ‘I know it’s probably too late but is there anything I can do …’

Grace shook her head. ‘You already have. I’m very thankful that you offered me this job when I didn’t get yours. Not many places offer part-time work at my level and I really appreciate it.’

Grace had been devastated when she’d been informed she hadn’t been successful. And had rejected Brent’s job offer that had come soon after. But then Tash had gone AWOL after school a few days later, scaring the absolute daylights out of her, and as much as she knew it would be challenging for them to work together again, she’d known she needed to come home.

So she’d swallowed her pride and emailed him.

He shrugged. ‘I want the Central’s emergency department to be the best. It makes sense to hire the best.’

Grace paused, trying to decide whether to mention the elephant in the room or not. But she’d always believed in tackling things head on. ‘I appreciate that it’s not easy, given our history. I know it’ll be awkward to start with.’

Brent nodded. Then he held out his hand. If they set the boundaries at the beginning, they’d both be on the same page. ‘So let’s make a pact. The past is the past. Today is a new page. Friends?’

Grace’s heart thunked in her chest as her hand slid into his and his warmth flowed up her arm and through her body. ‘Friends.’

Brent felt it too and quickly withdrew his hand. ‘We kinda skipped that part, didn’t we?’

Grace gave a half-smile. They certainly had.

She suddenly felt on steadier emotional ground. She looked at her watch. ‘Gosh. I have to go.’ She stood. ‘Thank you. For … being so understanding.’

He shrugged. ‘What are friends for?’

Grace smiled, picked up her tray and departed. Brent watched her walk away. The sway of her hips drew his gaze to their hourglass curve and her cute bottom and he had to remind himself of the pact he’d made just a few seconds before.

Friends.

CHAPTER FOUR

GRACE was pleased to get her first day in the actual department started. She loved emergency medicine and even a few weeks away from it had left her yearning for the hustle and bustle.

It was the sort of work that was completely absorbing, leaving no time to worry about anything in the outside world. And now she and Brent had agreed to be friends, there was no reason for apprehension.

It was actually a respite for Grace to come to work.

She’d been too free to over-think her situation over the last few weeks, and the problems with Tash and the uncertainty of what would happen next had been unsettling.

She never felt unsettled at work. At work there was certainty.

And control.

As she entered Melbourne Central’s emergency department via the sliding doors fifteen minutes before her official start time of eight a.m., Grace pulled in a deep lungful of hospital air. The smell of antiseptic and floor polish was as familiar to her as her own minty toothpaste breath and she almost sighed out loud.

She wanted to stop in the middle of the all-but-deserted waiting area with its rows of hard plastic chairs and announce, ‘Honey, I’m home.’

She smiled to herself as she kept walking, nodding to the nurse at the triage desk as she made her way to the empty staffroom. Stowing her bag in the locker she’d been allocated, she fixed herself a quick cup of coffee at the kitchenette and wandered out to the handover room where she knew the night medical staff would be passing on information to the day doctors.

The handover room, used by both medical and nursing staff, was an office off the main medical station that formed the central hub of the department. It wasn’t very large and consisted of an overflowing desk, crammed bookshelves weighed down with medical texts and several chairs.

There were two large glass windows so comings and goings could be watched, and on one wall was a large fixed whiteboard with various patients’ names and conditions corresponding with the cubicle number they currently occupied.

Grace introduced herself to the assembled residents and registrars. A large glass jar that sat on the desk containing assorted lollies was passed around and the handover began. Two minutes later Brent strode into the room.

‘Sorry, I’m late,’ he apologised. ‘Bloody traffic is getting worse. Terrible impression to give the new kid on the block. Sorry, Grace, I know how you hate tardiness.’

Grace bristled as she felt the force of several speculative gazes. Yes, she did abhor tardiness. Growing up in a family of twelve, they’d rarely been on time anywhere, and punctuality was one of the things since flying the nest that she’d always prided herself on.

But the familiarity of his greeting, not to mention the way his damp hair curled around his collar and the distinct soap and aftershave aroma he’d brought into the room with him, rankled.

He’d filled the room with such effortless masculinity and, in the process, transported her back twenty years.

When what she really needed was to be in the here and now.

‘I’ll make sure HR docks it from your pay, Dr Cartwright,’ she murmured.

It scored her a couple of laughs but also, she hoped, delivered her message loud and clear. Friendship had its limits.

Brent heard it loud and clear. Obviously being friends didn’t entail anything too familiar.

Fine by him.

But still, as the report progressed he realised how hard it was going to be in reality to ignore their history. He was super-conscious of her. Of knowing that beneath her tailored trousers and cotton shirt lay very familiar territory.

He remembered what she looked like naked.

How she liked to be touched.

And what she sounded like when she came.

It may have been twenty years but those memories were still just as potent today. He’d forgotten nothing.

‘So what time is the ultrasound booked for the suspected gall bladder?’ Grace asked the night reg.

Brent, who hadn’t realised he’d tuned out, dragged his mind out of Grace’s underwear and tuned back in to the handover. Hopefully, seeing Grace regularly like this—at work, as colleagues, in a non-sexual way—would blunt those old memories.

Hopefully, they’d eventually dissipate altogether.

Hopefully.

It took all of Grace’s willpower to block out Brent’s presence in her peripheral vision but once she had, she found herself enjoying the relaxed atmosphere of the handover. Her new colleagues stopped every now and then to have a joke or throw in an anecdote.

The department was in its early morning lull so there was no need to rush. Not every morning was like this so it was great to be able to take their time when they could.

Brent joined in with his own witty observations and Grace could see how respected he was. The junior doctors deferred to him and he was generous with his support and knowledge. But he also challenged them to think laterally and to look outside the box when answers were elusive.

And he was liberal with praise, murmuring, ‘Good catch,’ when an apparent case of heartburn at two in the morning had been correctly diagnosed as an impending myocardial infarction.

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