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If you love Carol Marinelli,

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PUTTING ALICE BACK TOGETHER available from MIRA® Books

Secrets of a Career Girl
Carol Marinelli

www.millsandboon.co.uk

PROLOGUE

THE PATIENTS LIKED her, though.

Emergency Consultant Ethan Lewis glanced up as an elderly lady in a wheelchair, with a younger woman pushing her, approached the nurses’ station and asked if Penny Masters was working today. The lady in the wheelchair still had her wristband on and was holding a bag of discharge medications and a tin of chocolates.

‘I think she’s on her lunch break,’ answered Lisa, the nurse unit manager. ‘I’ll just buzz around and find out.’

‘No, don’t disturb her. Mum just wanted to give her these to say thank you—she really was marvellous that day when Mum was brought in.’

‘It’s no problem,’ Lisa said, picking up a phone. ‘I think she’s in her office.’

Yes, Ethan thought to himself. Unlike everybody else, who took their lunch in the staffroom, Penny would be holed away in her office, catching up with work. He’d been trying to have a word with her all day—a casual word, to ask a favour—but, as Ethan was starting to discover, there was no such thing as a casual word with Penny.

Ethan had been working in the emergency department of the Peninsula Hospital for more than three months now. It was a busy bayside hospital that serviced some of Melbourne’s outer suburbs. The emergency department was, for the most part, a friendly one, which suited Ethan’s laid-back ways.

For the most part.

He watched as Penny walked over. Immaculate as ever, petite and slender, her very straight blonde hair was tied back neatly and she was wearing a three-quarter-sleeve navy wraparound dress and smart low heeled shoes. The female equivalent of a business suit perhaps, which was rather unusual in this place—most of the other staff, Ethan included, preferred the comfort and ease of wearing scrubs. Penny, though, dressed smartly at all times and gloved and gowned up for everything.

‘Mrs Adams, how lovely to see you looking so well.’ Ethan watched as she approached her ex-patient. Without being told, Penny knew her name. Though the greeting was friendly, it was a very professional smile that Penny gave and there was no tactile embrace. Penny stood there and enquired how Mrs Adams was doing with more than mere polite interest, because even though they had clearly just left the ward, the daughter had a few questions about her mother’s medication and Penny went through the medication bag and easily answered all of them.

‘Thank you so much for explaining,’ Mrs Adams’s daughter said. ‘I didn’t like to keep asking the nurse when I didn’t understand.’

‘You must keep asking.’

Yes, the patients loved Penny.

They didn’t mind in the least that she was meticulous, thorough and incredibly inflexible in her treatment plans.

It was the staff that struggled—if Penny wanted observations every fifteen minutes, she accepted no excuses if they weren’t done. If Penny ordered analgesia, it didn’t matter to her that there might be a line-up at the drug trolley, or that there was no one available to check the dose, because her patient needed it now.

Penny walked Mrs Adams and her daughter to the exit, and stood talking for another couple of moments there. As she walked back through the department, Jasmine, a nurse who also happened to be Penny’s sister, called her over to the nurses’ station.

‘What did you get?’ Jasmine asked.

Penny glanced down at the tin she was holding. ‘Chocolate macadamias,’ she said, peeling off the Cellophane. ‘I’ll leave them here for everyone to help themselves.’

She wasn’t even that friendly towards her sister, Ethan thought as Penny put down the chocolates on the bench and went to go. He would never have picked Penny and Jasmine as sisters—it had had to be pointed out to him.

Jasmine was dark and curvy, Penny blonde and very slim.

Jasmine smiled and was friendly, whereas Penny was much more guarded and standoffish. Ethan refused to play by her silent, stay-back rules and he called her as she went to head off. ‘Can I have a quick word, Penny?’

‘I’m actually at lunch,’ Penny said.

The very slow burning Taurus within Ethan stirred a little then—his hazel eyes flashed and, had there been horns hidden under his thick black hair, Penny would now be seeing her first glimpse of them. It took a lot to rile Ethan, but Penny was starting to. Ethan had always known that there might be a problem when he had taken this job—two of the department’s senior registrars had also applied for the consultant position.

Jasmine’s new husband Jed was one of them.

Penny the other.

Knowing the stiff competition, Ethan had been somewhat taken aback when he had been offered the role. He had since learnt that Jed had taken a job in a city hospital, but Penny was still here and, yes, it was awkward. Ethan often reminded himself that her ego might be a touch fragile and that it might take a little while for her to accept him in the role that she had applied for.

Well, it was time that Penny did accept who was boss and, for the first time, Ethan pulled rank as she went to head back to her lunch.

‘That’s fine.’ He looked into her cool blue eyes. ‘But when you’re finished, can you make sure that you come and find me? I need to speak with you.’

She hesitated for just a second before answering. ‘Regarding what?’

No, there was no such thing as a casual word with Penny. ‘I’m on call next weekend,’ Ethan said. ‘Is there any chance that you could cover me for a few hours on Sunday afternoon? I’m hoping to go to a football match with my cousin—’ He was about to explain further, but before he could, Penny interrupted him.

‘I’ve already got plans.’

She didn’t add ‘sorry’.

Penny never did.

As she turned to go Ethan’s jaw clamped down and, rarely for him, his temper was rising. He was tempted to tap her on the shoulder and tell her that this was more than some idle request because his team was playing that weekend. His cousin was actually on the waiting list for a heart transplant.

No, he wouldn’t waste the sympathy card on her and with good reason—Ethan actually smiled a twisted smile as Penny walked off.

‘Did you use it?’ Phil would ask when Ethan rang him tonight.

‘Nope.’

‘Good,’ Phil would say. ‘Save it for women you fancy.’

Yes, it was a black game, but one that got Phil through and gave them both a few laughs.

He certainly wouldn’t be using the sympathy card on Penny.

‘We’re going to the airport to see Mum off on Sunday.’ Jasmine had jumped down from her stool to help herself to the chocolate nuts and offered an explanation where her sister had offered none. She was trying to smooth things over, Ethan guessed, for her socially awkward sister. Except Penny wasn’t awkward, Ethan decided—she simply wasn’t the least bit sociable. ‘It’s been planned for ages.’

‘It’s not a problem.’ Ethan got back to his notes as Jasmine, taking another handful of the chocolate nuts, headed off, but as he reached to take a handful himself Ethan realised that Penny hadn’t even taken one.

She could use the sugar, Ethan thought darkly.

‘You could try asking Gordon,’ Lisa suggested when it was just the two of them, because Ethan had told her while chatting a few days ago about his cousin, and, no, he hadn’t been using the sympathy card with Lisa!

‘I’ll see,’ Ethan said. Gordon had three sons and another baby on the way. ‘Though he probably needs his weekend with his family, as does Penny.’ He couldn’t keep the tart edge from his voice as he mentioned her name.

‘You don’t know, do you?’ Lisa was trying to sort out the nursing roster but she too had seen the frosty exchange between Penny and Ethan, and though she could see both sides, Lisa understood both sides too. ‘Jasmine and Penny’s mum was brought in a few months ago in full cardiac arrest. They were both on duty at the time.’

Ethan grimaced. To anyone who worked in Emergency, dealing with someone you knew, especially a family member, was the worst-case scenario. ‘Did you manage to keep it from them?’

‘Hardly! Well, we kept it from Jasmine while the resuscitation was happening so at least she found out rather more kindly than Penny did.’ Lisa put down her pen and told Ethan what had happened that day.

‘Penny was just pulling on her gown when the paramedics wheeled her mother in,’ Lisa said. ‘You know how she gowns up all the time.’ Lisa rolled her eyes. ‘Penny takes up half of the laundry budget on gowns alone. Anyway, you know how she usually starts snapping out orders and things? Well, I knew that there was something wrong because she just stood there frozen. She asked for Jed—he was the other registrar on that day—but he was stuck with another patient. Penny told me that the patient was her mum and then just snapped out of it and got on with the resuscitation, just as if it were any other patient. And she kept going until we got Mr Dean here to take over. She did tell me not to let Jasmine in, though.’

Lisa gave a wry smile. ‘I didn’t even know, till that point, that Penny and Jasmine were sisters. Penny likes to keep her personal life well away from work.’

‘I had noticed.’

‘The cruise is a huge thing for their mother. Do you see now why Penny couldn’t swap?’

‘I do,’ Ethan said, and got back to his notes. But that was the problem exactly—he’d never have heard it from Penny herself.

And then he stopped writing, took another handful of chocolate nuts as it dawned on him …

Like him, Penny had refused to play the sympathy card.

CHAPTER ONE

‘HAVE YOU THOUGHT about letting a few people at work know what’s going on?’

Penny closed her eyes at her sister’s suggestion and didn’t respond. The very last thing Penny wanted was the people at work to know that she was going through IVF.

Again.

It was bad enough for the intensely private Penny that her mum and sister knew but, given that Penny was seriously petrified of needles, she’d had no choice but to confide in Jasmine, who would be giving Penny her evening injections soon.

While she couldn’t get through it without Jasmine’s practical help, there were times when Penny wished that she had never let on that she was trying for a baby.

Yes, her family had been wonderfully supportive but sometimes Penny didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t want to hear that they were keeping their fingers crossed for her, didn’t always want to give the required permanent updates and, more than anything, she had hated the sympathy when it hadn’t worked out the first time. Naturally they had tried to comfort her and understand what they could not—they had both had babies.

The two sisters were walking along the beach close to where they both lived. Penny lived in one of the smart townhouses that had gone up a couple of years ago and took in the glittering bay views. Jasmine lived a little further along the beach with her new husband Jed and her toddler son Simon, who was from Jasmine’s first marriage. The newlyweds were busily house hunting and trying to find somewhere suitable between the city, where Jed now worked, and the Peninsula Hospital.

Now, though, the sisters lived close by and, having waved their mother off from Melbourne airport for her long-awaited overseas trip, they walked along the beach with Simon, enjoying the last hour of sunlight.

‘It might be a good idea to let a couple of people in on what you’re going through,’ Jasmine pushed, because she wanted Penny to have the support Jasmine felt that she needed, especially as Penny was going through this all alone.

‘Even my own friends don’t really understand,’ Penny said. ‘Coral thinks I’m being selfish, and Bianca, though she says I should go for it if that’s what I want …’ Her voice trailed off. ‘If I can’t talk about it with my own friends, what’s it going to be like at work?’

‘Lisa especially would be really good.’

‘Lisa is a nurse unit manager,’ Penny broke in. ‘I’m not a nurse.’

‘She runs the place, though,’ Jasmine said. ‘She’d be able to look out for you a little bit.’

‘I don’t need looking out for.’

Jasmine wasn’t so sure. She could see that the treatment was taking its toll on her sister, not that Penny would appreciate her observations.

Jasmine wanted so badly to help her sister. They had never really been close but Penny had always looked out for her—several years older, Penny had shielded her from the worst of their parents’ rows and their mother’s upset when their father had finally left. It had been the same when their mother had been brought into Emergency—Penny had made sure Jasmine hadn’t found out about their mother in the same way that she had.

‘I know this is all a bit new to you, Jasmine,’ Penny said. ‘But I’ve been living with this for years. I’ve known for ages that I had fertility problems.’

‘How long did you and Vince try for?’

Penny heard the tentativeness in Jasmine’s question. They were both working on their relationship, but there were still areas between them that were rarely, if ever, discussed.

‘Two years,’ Penny finally answered.

One year of serious trying and then a year of endless tests and consultations and a relationship that hadn’t been able to take the strain. ‘We didn’t just break up over that, though,’ Penny admitted. ‘But it certainly didn’t help. I can tell you this much.’ She gave a tight smile. ‘We’d never have survived IVF. It doesn’t exactly bring out the best in you.’

‘How are you feeling this time?’ Jasmine asked.

‘Terrible,’ Penny admitted. ‘I’m getting hot flashes.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘I’m completely serious. I’d forgotten that part—you know, at the time you think that you will never forget, but you actually do.’

Jasmine opened her mouth to agree with her sister and then closed it again as Penny turned around.

Penny knew that Jasmine had been about to admit to the same thing, but for very different reasons—Jasmine’s breasts were noticeably larger and she’d had nothing to eat at the airport and had then screwed up her nose when Penny had suggested they get some takeaway for dinner, choosing instead a slow walk on the beach.

Jasmine was pregnant.

Penny just knew.

‘I don’t need the whole department watching me for signs of a baby bump,’ Penny said, though it was the opposite for Penny with her sister. She had been trying so hard to ignore the signs in Jasmine, but more and more it was becoming evident and Penny wished she would just come out and tell her now. ‘Or gossiping,’ Penny added.

‘It wouldn’t be like that.’

‘Of course it would,’ Penny snapped. ‘And, of course, they’ll all have an opinion on whether I should be doing this, given that I haven’t got a partner.’ She gave an exasperated sigh. It wasn’t a decision she was taking lightly, not in the least. At thirty-four there was no sign of Mr Right on the horizon and with her fertility issues, even if he did come along, it was going to be a struggle to get pregnant.

After many long conversations with the fertility consultant, more and more Penny felt as if time was running out. ‘If there’s good news at the end of this, I’ll tell people, but they don’t need to know that I’m trying.’

‘But the treatment is so intense. If people only knew …’

Penny didn’t let her finish. ‘You don’t walk into the staffroom and tell them that you’ve come off the pill and had sex with Jed last night.’ When Jasmine laughed, Penny carried on. ‘No, you feed the sharks when you’re good and ready.’ Penny paused, waiting for her sister to open up to her, because even if Penny snapped and snarled a bit she wasn’t a shark, but Jasmine changed the subject.

‘I can’t believe that Mum has finally made it to her cruise.’ Jasmine smiled. ‘Well, she’s made it to her flight.’

‘And she’ll make it to her cruise.’ Penny was firm.

‘What if something happens while she’s stuck in the middle of the ocean?’

‘There’s a medical team,’ Penny said, but of course that didn’t reassure her sister. ‘Jasmine, are you going to spend the next month worrying about things that might happen and every imagined scenario while Mum is no doubt having the absolute time of her life?’

‘I guess,’ Jasmine conceded. ‘Though I really did think we were going to lose her.’

‘We didn’t, though,’ Penny broke in.

While Louise Masters’s heart attack and emergency admission had been a most difficult time, from there good things had sprung—an urgent reminder for all concerned that you should live your life to the full.

Which was why their mother would soon be sailing around the Mediterranean, why Jasmine had followed her heart and opened up to Penny’s then fellow senior registrar Jed, and why Penny was, at this moment, walking along the beach with a face that was bright red and breaking out into a sweat as she experienced yet another wretched hot flash. Not that Jasmine noticed; her mind had moved on to other things.

‘What do you think of Ethan?’ Jasmine asked for Penny’s thoughts on the new consultant, but Penny didn’t answer; instead, she suggested a walk in the shallows, much to little Simon’s delight. Both holding his hands, they lifted him up between them, swung him over the water, and finally Penny felt herself calm, the heat fading from her face, her racing heart slowing, and then Jasmine asked her again what she thought of Ethan.

‘He thinks that he’s God’s gift.’

‘So do a few other people,’ Jasmine pointed out, because since Ethan had arrived, a couple of hearts had already been broken. ‘He is funny, though.’ Jasmine grinned.

‘I don’t think he’s funny at all,’ Penny said, but then again she didn’t sit in the little huddles at the nurses’ station, neither did she wait for the latest breaking news to be announced in the staffroom. Penny loathed gossip and refused to partake in it, though, given it was Jasmine, there was one thing she did divulge. ‘He seems to think that he got the job over me.’ Penny gave a little smirk. ‘He has no idea that I declined to take it.’

‘He doesn’t know?’

‘God, no!’ Penny said. ‘I would assume he knows that Jed turned it down to take the position at Melbourne Central, but it would be a bit much for him to know that he was actually the third choice.’

‘Wouldn’t Mr Dean have told him?’

‘Mr Dean wouldn’t discuss the other applicants with him—you know what he’s like.’ Penny rolled her eyes. Mr Dean had put her through the wringer over the years—he was incredibly chauvinistic and had been reluctant to promote Penny to senior registrar. Penny was quite sure it was because she was a woman—she’d heard Mr Dean comment a few times how you trained women up only for them to get pregnant. Still, Penny had long since proven herself and, though Ethan might think otherwise, the consultant’s position had been Penny’s. She had chosen not to take it, deciding it would be too much on top of going through IVF, and more and more she was glad she had made that decision.

‘Ethan’s gorgeous.’ Jasmine nudged her. ‘He’s so sexy.’

‘Jasmine!’

‘What? Just because I’m married I’m not supposed to notice just how stunning he is?’

Penny conceded with a shrug. Yes, Ethan Lewis was stunning. He had thick silky black hair that seemed always to be just a day away from needing a good cut and had unusual hazel eyes. He was very tall and broad shouldered and so naturally he stood out. He was also a bit chauvinistic, not that the women seemed to mind.

‘The trouble with Ethan,’ Penny said, ‘is that he knows how gorgeous he is and he uses it unwisely. Someone should stamp “not the settling-down type” on his forehead. It might have helped warn the nurse in CCU who keeps coming down to the department to try and speak to him, and also that physiotherapist.’

Penny frowned as she tried to think of the young woman’s name, but gave up. ‘And that’s just two that I’ve seen and heard about, and given that I’m the last person to know anything, I’m quite sure there must be a few more.’

‘Well, at least he doesn’t pretend he’s interested in anything more serious,’ Jasmine said. ‘I was talking to him the other day and I apologised for going on too much about Simon and he just laughed and said he enjoyed hearing it, as it’s the closest he’ll ever get to having one of his own. He’s lovely,’ Jasmine sighed. ‘You should have a fling with him.’

Jasmine would so love to see her very uptight sister unbend just a little. ‘She should, shouldn’t she, Simon?’ Jasmine said as she picked up her little boy, who was finally starting to tire.

‘Don’t bring Simon into this.’ Penny smiled fondly at her nephew. ‘And don’t you listen to your mother.’

Simon smiled back. He adored his aunt and he held out his hands for Penny to hold him, which she did. ‘You’re the cause of all this,’ Penny teased, because seeing her sister pregnant and later as a mum had stirred already jumbled feelings in Penny and she desperately wanted a baby of her own.

‘You tell Aunty Penny that she should listen to me and have some fun before she’s ankle deep in nappies and exhausted from lack of sleep.’ Jasmine smiled at her son and then turned to her sister. ‘Just one last wild fling before you get pregnant!’

‘I’ve never had a wild fling in my life and I’m certainly not about to start now. You’ve never had IVF, have you?’ Penny’s voice was wry. ‘Believe me, Ethan Lewis and sex and wild flings are the very last thing on my mind right now.’ Penny did suddenly laugh, though. ‘Could you imagine if I did and then twelve weeks later announced that I’m pregnant?’

‘Oh, I would just love to see that.’ Jasmine was laughing too at the thought of the confirmed bachelor Ethan Lewis thinking for a moment that he was about to become a father. ‘It would kill him!’

CHAPTER TWO

‘WHERE THE HELL is X-ray?’ Penny snapped at Jasmine the next afternoon, just as she would to anyone—they weren’t sisters here and no feelings were spared.

They were struggling to stabilise a patient in congestive heart failure who wasn’t responding to the usual treatment regimes. John Douglas had presented to the department struggling to breathe, his heart beating dangerously fast and his lungs overloaded with fluid. It was a common emergency that Penny was more than used to dealing with, but what was compounding the problem was that John was also a renal patient and undergoing regular dialysis at a major city hospital so Penny was trying to sort out the far higher drug doses that were needed in his case.

‘I’m just going to lean you forward, John,’ Penny said, and listened again to her patient’s chest. The oxygen saturation machine was bleeping its alarm. Vanessa, another nurse, returned with John’s blood-gas results and it was confirmed to Penny that things were really grim. She had already paged the medics to come down urgently and was now considering putting out a crash call, because even though he hadn’t gone into cardiac arrest he was very close.

‘Give him another forty milligrams,’ Penny called out to Jasmine, though she wasn’t cross when Jasmine hesitated. ‘He’s a renal patient,’ Penny explained, ‘so he’ll need massive doses of diuretics.’

Still, Penny was concerned about the amount of medication she was having to give and was carefully checking the drug guide, wishing the medics would hurry up and get there. She had just decided to put out a crash call when Ethan approached.

‘Problem?’ Ethan asked, and Penny quickly brought him up to speed.

‘He’s not responding,’ Penny said. ‘And neither are the medics to their fast page. I’m going to call the crash team.’

‘Hold off for just a moment.’ Ethan scanned the drug sheet to see what had been given. He had just come from working a rotation in the major renal unit in a city hospital, so he was familiar with the drug doses required in a case like this and he quickly examined the patient. ‘He needs a large bolus.’

Ethan saw Penny’s face go bright red as he took over the patient’s care. ‘Penny, where I worked before …’ He didn’t really have time to explain things and he wasn’t about to compromise patient care by pandering to Penny’s fragile ego—she was spitting with rage, Ethan could see it. In fact, he was tempted to lick his finger and put it onto her flaming cheek just so that he could hear the hiss.

‘Go ahead,’ came Penny’s curt response, and she thrust the patient notes into his hands and walked off quickly.

‘Have we ordered a portable chest X-ray?’ he asked Jasmine.

‘It’s supposed to be on its way,’ Jasmine answered.

‘You’re going to be okay, sir.’ Ethan listened to his chest and considered calling the crash team himself.

He could see Jasmine was blushing too at her sister’s little outburst and was sorely tempted to ask Jasmine just what the hell her sister’s problem was, though of course Ethan knew. Well, he wasn’t just going to stand back, and if Penny didn’t like it, she’d better start getting used to it. Penny Masters was an absolute … Ethan kept the word in his head as he saw the fluid start to gush into the catheter bag. The patient’s oxygen saturations started to rise slowly. He was just ordering some more morphine when the radiographer arrived for the chest X-ray, along with a much calmer-looking Penny.

‘Thanks for that,’ she said, completely unable to look him in the eye. She had fled to her office, which had a small sink in it, and splashed her face with cold water and run her wrists under the tap. Penny would never have left the patient had Ethan not been there, but she had never had a hot flash so severe. She knew that Ethan was less than impressed, especially when, without a further word, he stalked off.

‘Are you okay?’ Jasmine checked as they waited outside while the patient was being X-rayed, Vanessa staying in with him.

‘Of course I’m not.’ Rarely for Penny, she was close to tears. ‘He thought I was cross at him for making suggestions and that I just walked off in a temper.’

He’d thought exactly that, Jasmine knew. She had seen the roll of his tongue in his cheek and the less than impressed rise of Ethan’s brows. ‘Penny, if people just knew—’

‘What?’ Penny interrupted. ‘Do you really think that I’m going to explain to him that I just had a hot flash?’

Penny was mortified—absolutely and completely mortified. The down-regulation medication to stop her own cycle was in full effect, and she had a splitting headache as well, another of the side effects. The headache she could deal with, but for a woman who was usually so able to keep things in check, the rip of heat that had seared through her face and the rapid flutter of her heart in her chest had felt appalling. She had hardly been able to breathe in there but she had absolutely no intention of telling Ethan Lewis why. ‘Do you really think that Neanderthal would be understanding?’

‘Neanderthal?’ Jasmine grinned in delight at her sister’s choice of word.

‘Just leave it,’ Penny snapped.

Ethan didn’t leave it, though.

Before heading for home, he passed her office, where Penny sat busily writing up her notes. She was sitting very straight, like some schoolmarm, Ethan thought as he knocked a couple of times on her open door.

In fact, it was rather like walking into the headmistress’s office as those cold blue eyes lifted to his and gave him a very stern stare.

‘What time are you on till?’ Ethan asked.

‘Midnight,’ Penny answered—she knew that he hadn’t just popped in for a chat.

‘How is Mr Douglas doing now?’

‘He’s a lot better, but the medics are still stabilising him and then he’ll be transferred so he can have his dialysis.’ She wished he would just leave; she really didn’t want to discuss what had taken place. ‘Thank you for your help with him.’

‘It didn’t feel very welcome.’ Ethan waited a moment, but Penny said nothing, just turned her attention back to her notes and, no, he would not just leave it. ‘What the hell happened back there, Penny?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘I think that you do,’ came Ethan’s swift retort. ‘If there is an issue then it’s time that we discussed it.’

‘There is no issue.’

Ethan begged to differ. She was the most difficult woman that he had ever met and he’d met a lot of women! Yes, she was a fantastic doctor. Ethan had no qualms there, and in fact he was quietly surprised, having seen her work, that she hadn’t been given the consultant’s position. He could well understand how angry she must be, but somehow they had to work together and if she was going to storm off every time he stepped in on a consultation, something had to be said. ‘We have to work together, Penny.’

‘I’m aware of that.’

‘Which means that at times we’ll disagree.’

‘I’m aware of that too.’ Her face was starting to burn again, but from embarrassment this time. ‘Look, thank you for stepping in with Mr Douglas, it was much appreciated. I’m not as familiar as I would like to be with renal patients so I’m very pleased that you were there. We do seem to have our wires crossed, though.’ She gave tight smile. ‘I wasn’t cross or upset.’ She saw his incredulous look.

‘You walked off.’

Penny said nothing, just stared at this huge, very masculine man. She didn’t know how to tell him and she didn’t really want to try, except her silence invited him to continue speaking.

‘I wasn’t trying to take over. You seem to have formed an opinion that I’m—’

‘Formed an opinion?’ Penny stopped him right there. ‘I’m actually a bit busy in my life right now. I haven’t had time to think, let alone form an opinion of you.’

His lips twitched almost into a smile at her not-too-subtle putdown. ‘Oh, but I think that you have,’ Ethan said, and there and then he took the gloves off. He’d tried niceness, he’d tried politeness, he’d accepted that the situation might be a little difficult for her, but at the end of the day Penny needed to get over it and accept that he had been given the job. ‘Do you know what, Penny? I’m starting to form an opinion of you, and your behaviour this afternoon is leading me to think it might be the right one.’

‘Whatever!’ Penny hadn’t got this far in her career on charm. To do her job you needed to be tough and she certainly wasn’t there to make friends. ‘You carry right on forming your opinion of me and, while you do, I’ll get back to my patients.’ Penny stood. ‘Or is there anything else you want to discuss?’

‘Nothing that won’t keep.’

She brushed past him and he was terribly tempted to catch her as she walked past, to turn her round and just have the row that was so clearly needed. Perhaps it was wiser to just let it go, Ethan thought, letting out a rare angry breath as he heard her heels clip down the corridor, but he turned at the sound of Lisa’s voice. ‘There he is.’

‘Kate?’ Ethan smiled when he saw that Lisa was with his sister, wondered, albeit briefly, what on earth she was doing at his workplace, and then properly read her face. ‘One of the kids …’

‘The kids are fine, Ethan.’ She took a breath and he knew what was coming. ‘It’s Phil—we need to get to the hospital.’ And still his brain tried to process things kindly. He waited for her to smile, to hold up crossed fingers and to say ‘this is it,’ that a heart had been found for their cousin, but she just looked at him. ‘Carl’s watching the kids. We need to hurry and get there.’

No, it would seem that Phil wasn’t going to get that heart.

Ethan was glad that Kate hadn’t told him by phone, realised that had he not stopped to talk to Penny he could have been sitting in his car, stuck on the packed Beach Road and finding out that Phil was about to die.

‘I’ll meet you there.’ He was already heading to his office to grab his car keys but Kate shook her head. She knew how close Ethan and Phil were.

‘I’ll drive.’

It was just as well that she did, because the rush-hour traffic didn’t care that there was somewhere they needed to be. Ethan could feel his temper building as they inched towards the hospital, could sense the mounting urgency, especially when his mother called to see how far away they were.

‘A couple of minutes,’ Ethan said.

‘Get here,’ came his mother’s response.

They were pulling into Melbourne Central and again Ethan was very glad that Kate had been driving. He was grateful that there was no competition in the grief stakes between him and his twin—she knew that he and Phil were like brothers. Kate dropped him off at the main entrance and then went to find a place to park the car as Ethan ran through the hospital building, desperate to get to his cousin in time, still holding a small flame of hope that something could yet be done.

It was extinguished even before he got to Phil’s room.

Because standing outside was Phil’s ex-wife, Gina, and unless he was dying she’d never be there otherwise. She’d be sitting outside in the canteen as she usually did when she brought Justin in to visit. It had been a wretched divorce and Phil’s parents hadn’t exactly been kind in their summing up of Gina—and not just behind her back. There had been some terrible arguments too.

‘Gina,’ he said, but she just flashed him a look that said he was a part of the Lewis family and could he please just stay back.

‘I’m here for Justin,’ Gina said, and Ethan nodded and went in the room. His eyes didn’t first go to Phil but to Justin. Ethan could see the bewilderment and fear on the little boy’s face as Vera and Jack, Phil’s parents, told him to be brave. Ethan felt his head tighten, wanted to tell them to stop, but then his eyes moved to the bed and to his cousin and there wasn’t even time to say to Phil all he wanted to.

It was all over by the time Kate arrived.

CHAPTER THREE

PENNY PARKED HER car and took a couple of moments to sort out her make-up and hair. She wondered, not for the first time, how she was going to get through this. It was eight a.m. and she had just come from having a blood test and vaginal ultrasound. If the results were as expected, she would be starting her injections this evening.

She collected her handbag and the little cool bag holding the medication and told herself that lots of women worked while they went through this.

And she told herself something else, something she had decided last night—at the very first opportunity she would apologise properly to Ethan. Penny had come up with a plan. She wouldn’t tell him everything, just explain to him that she was on some medication and that yesterday she hadn’t felt very well. If he probed, she might hint that it was a feminine issue.

Her lips twitched into a smile as she pictured Ethan’s reaction—that would soon silence him.

Walking towards Emergency, Penny saw a dark blue car pull up in the entrance bay, where the ambulances did, and she watched as a security guard walked towards it to warn the occupants that they couldn’t park there.

Except the woman wasn’t parking her car.

Instead, she was dropping Ethan Lewis off.

Penny tried not to look as they shared a brief embrace and then a thoroughly seedy-looking Ethan climbed out. He was unshaven and unkempt, dressed in yesterday’s rumpled scrubs. She tried to turn her attention away from him, but her gaze went straight to the car he had just come from. And it was then that Penny felt it—the red-hot poker that jabbed into her stomach as she glanced at the woman, a red-hot poker that temporarily nudged aside her loudly ticking biological clock. And at six minutes past eight and a few months later than most women at Peninsula Hospital, Penny realised that Ethan Lewis really was an incredibly sexy man and it wasn’t a hot flash that was causing her to blush as they walked into the department together.

‘Ethan.’ She tried to keep to the script she had planned. ‘I was wondering if I could speak to you about yesterday. I realise that I—’

‘Just leave it.’ He completely dismissed her, so much so that he strode ahead of her and into the male changing rooms.

Charming!

Ethan ignored her all day and Penny decided that she wasn’t about to try apologising again.

She took her lunch break in her office, waiting for the IVF nurse to ring, which she did right on time. Penny took a deep breath as she found out that, as expected, she was to start her injections that evening, which meant she needed to call Jasmine.

‘I’m on till six,’ Penny said. ‘I don’t think I’ll be able to get away early.’

‘Penny, when do you ever get away early? It’s not a problem, I’ll come and give it to you at work, but Jed won’t be home so I’ll have to bring Simon in.’

Penny grimaced. She did not want to make a fool of herself in front of her nephew as it would terrify him. Simon, like his mother, was very sensitive. Still, there was no choice.

There really wasn’t time to worry about her upcoming jab. The department was busy enough to keep her mind off it and she smiled when she saw her next patient, an eight-week-old named Daniel.

‘He’s had a bit of a cold,’ Laura, the mother, explained. ‘I took him to my doctor yesterday and he said that he didn’t have a temperature and his chest sounded fine. I’ve been putting drops up his nose to help with feeding,’ Laura continued. ‘But this afternoon I came in from putting out the washing and went to check on him and he was pale, really pale, and he’d been sick. I know he’s fine now …’

He seemed fine and Penny examined Daniel thoroughly, but apart from a cold and a low-grade temperature there was nothing remarkable to find.

‘Has he been coughing?’

‘A bit,’ Laura said, as Penny listened carefully to his chest, but apart from a couple of crackles it was clear.

Still, Penny was concerned and it did sound as if he might have had an apnoeic episode so she decided to ring the paediatricians, who were very busy on the ward.

‘They’re going to be a while,’ Penny explained to the mum. ‘I’m going to take some bloods and do some swabs, so hopefully we’ll have some results back by the time they get down here. And I’ll order a chest X-ray.’

To show that she wasn’t, in fact, too up herself to value Ethan’s opinion, late in the afternoon when she was concerned about the baby and the paediatricians weren’t anywhere around, instead of speaking with Mr Dean, Penny decided that she would ask Ethan.

He barely looked up from the form he was filling out when Penny asked if she could have a word.

‘Sure.’

‘I’ve got an eight-week-old I’m concerned about.’ He glanced up. ‘Mum found him very pale in his cot after his nap and he’d vomited, but he picked up well. He’s had a cold, struggling to feed, he’s a bit sniffly, just …’ She moved her hand to show she was wavering. ‘His chest is clear, and he’s got a small cough, which is unremarkable. I’ve done some swabs and some bloods.’

‘What did paeds say?’ Ethan asked.

‘They’ll come down when they can, but they’re busy and they’re going to be ages,’ Penny said. ‘Mum just wants to take him home now that he’s had the tests and wait to get the results, but I’m not sure.’

Ethan came and though he had been scowling at Penny, he was lovely with the mum. He carefully checked the infant, who was bright and alert and just hungry. Penny put some saline drops in his nose and they watched as the baby latched on and started to feed happily, but just as Ethan was about to go, Daniel spluttered and broke into a coughing fit. As he came off the breast Ethan took him and held him and Penny watched, the diagnosis becoming more and more evident as he broke into a prolonged paroxysmal cough and then struggled to inhale and then cough again. Ethan was holding him up and tapping his back as Penny turned on the suction, but thankfully it wasn’t needed.

‘He wasn’t doing that.’ Laura was beside herself, watching her son. ‘He’s just had a little cough.’

‘That might have been what happened this afternoon,’ Penny said, ‘when you found him in his cot.’ She had to explain to the mother that it would seem her baby had whooping cough.

‘He’s not making any noises, though.’

‘People, especially babies, don’t always, but he’s struggling to get air in during the coughing attack,’ Penny explained. ‘It’s not evident straight away but he’s moved into the coughing stage now.’ She looked at the baby Ethan was holding—he had stopped coughing and was again desperate to be fed. ‘I’m going to call the paediatricians …’

‘Can I feed him?’

‘I’ll watch him feed while you go and call Paeds,’ Ethan said to Penny, handing the crying baby back to his mum. ‘Wait one moment before you feed him.’ He stepped out with Penny. ‘He’s to be transferred. I know he seems fine at the moment but, given his age, he needs to be somewhere with PICU.’

‘I know.’ Penny nodded.

‘Can you get Lisa to come in and watch him feed? I’ll stay in for now.’

Penny nodded. The coughing episodes were scary at best and someone calm and experienced needed to be in with the mum to help deal with them. ‘I’ve never actually seen whooping cough,’ Penny said to Lisa.

‘I’ve had it,’ Lisa said. ‘Hundred-day cough they call it and I know why. Poor baby and poor mum having to watch him. I’ll go and relieve Ethan.’

Penny spoke again to the paediatrician and started the baby on antibiotics, but really there was no treatment that could stop the coughing attacks and, as Ethan had said, given his tender age, he really did need to be somewhere with paediatric intensive care facilities in case he suddenly deteriorated.

‘They’re going to come down and see him just as soon as they can,’ Penny said when Ethan came out. ‘I’ll go and let mum know.’

‘She’s in for a tough time,’ Ethan said. ‘Are you immunised?’

‘All up to date,’ Penny said, because though she was terrified of injections, before embarking on IVF she had made herself get all her immunisations up to date and poor Jasmine had been the one who’d had to do them. Still, it was worth it, Penny realised, for days such as this.

‘Right.’ Ethan glanced at his watch. ‘I’m going home.’

‘See you tomorrow,’ Penny said, but Ethan shook his head.

‘I’m on days off now.’

‘Enjoy them.’

He didn’t answer. In fact, since her attempt to apologise, unless it was about a patient, Ethan had said nothing at all to her and she felt like poking her tongue out at his back as he and his bad mood walked off together.

Maybe it was just as well he was on days off. Hopefully by the time he was back they could put yesterday’s incident behind them and start again.

And she’d hopefully be finished with the hot flashes by then.

As predicted, there wasn’t a hope of her getting away at six, but when it neared, Penny told Lisa she was taking a short break and, seeing Jasmine walking down the corridor with Simon in his stroller, the moment she had been silently dreading all day was finally here.

‘I don’t want Simon seeing me upset.’ Penny was starting to panic. ‘It could make him as terrified of needles as I am.’

‘There’ll be someone in the staffroom who can watch him for five minutes,’ Jasmine said. ‘You go on and get everything ready and I’ll come in.’ They both knew it wasn’t a question of Penny being brave because her nephew was there—it was the one thing, apart from her fertility, that Penny couldn’t control, and her response to injections was varied and unpredictable.

‘Vanessa’s watching him,’ Jasmine said when she came into the office a few minutes later.

‘I don’t know if I can do this again,’ Penny said. Her hand was shaking as she checked the doses the IVF nurse had given her.

‘In a couple of moments you’ll be one evening down.’

‘With God knows how many more to go,’ Penny said. She took a deep breath and undid her skirt. ‘Just do it.’

She closed her eyes but could not stop shaking as Jasmine walked over. She had hoped so much that things would be different this time, but she was crying again, just as she had that morning at her blood test, and she was very glad that Simon wasn’t there to see his aunt make an absolute fool of herself.

‘It’s done.’ Jasmine massaged in the medication. ‘You’re done for the day.’

‘It’s ridiculous,’ Penny whimpered. ‘I’ve given so many injections today, I’ve taken blood from an eight-week-old …’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Jasmine said. ‘You’re actually better than you used to be.’

‘Really?’

‘A bit,’ Jasmine lied. ‘How are the hot flashes?’

‘Only two today.’

‘How’s Ethan been?’ Jasmine asked as Penny tucked herself in.

‘Horrible,’ Penny said. ‘He’s still sulking about yesterday. I tried to apologise but he wasn’t having any of it. There’s not much more that I can do.’

But even if she shrugged it off to her sister, Penny was rattled because, yes, she had wanted to put it behind them, had wanted to start again, and, no, she didn’t want to but she felt the tiniest bit attracted to him.

CHAPTER FOUR

ETHAN HAD LONG known that his cousin might die but on the eve of the funeral he couldn’t really acknowledge that Phil had.

Kate kept ringing and asking him to come over, except he didn’t want to talk about it, not even with those closest to him. Ethan had been dreading the funeral, had found himself starting to tear up when he’d asked Gordon to cover for him for the day, though he had kept the details minimal. Then Gordon rang to tell Ethan that he was up in Maternity as his wife, Hilary, had gone into early labour so he wouldn’t be able to cover Ethan’s shift after all.

‘Someone else should be able to cover you, though.’

‘It’s fine, Gordon,’ Ethan said. ‘I’ll sort something out, you just do what you have to.’ He wished him good luck and then looked at the roster. There were several doctors he could change with, he and Penny were on till six today, but tomorrow …

As she walked past he called over to her. Penny was perhaps not his first choice to ask, but it was a pretty straight swap.

‘Can I ask a favour?’

Please, don’t, Penny thought as she saw him looking at the roster because, in her impossible schedule, for the next couple of weeks there really was no room for manoeuvre, not that Ethan would know that.

‘Tomorrow I’m on from nine till six and you’re twelve till nine—is there any chance we can swap?’ She just blinked. ‘Though I might not get in till one.’

‘I can’t swap tomorrow, Ethan.’ She couldn’t. Not only did she have an ultrasound and blood test booked for tomorrow, she had a meeting with the specialist at nine.

‘I’ve got to attend a funeral,’ Ethan pushed, but didn’t go into detail, didn’t tell her that this was personal, he simply couldn’t. ‘Gordon was supposed to be covering for me, but his wife has gone into labour—premature labour,’ he added.

Penny hesitated; she knew she couldn’t say no.

Except she couldn’t say yes either, she simply could not miss her blood test—it was as essential as that.

She’d ring the IVF nurse, Penny decided, see if she could fiddle around her appointment, but for now, till she had, she’d have to stand firm.

‘Is there anybody else you can ask?’

‘A few.’

‘Well, see if they can help and if not, let me know.’

If she occasionally smiled, Ethan thought, she would actually be exceptionally attractive, but even then, with her terse attitude and unfeeling ways, Penny could never be considered beautiful. A black smile spread across his lips. She really was the limit and instead of leaving it there, Ethan found that he couldn’t. ‘What is your problem, Penny?’

‘Problem?’ Penny frowned. ‘I don’t have a problem. I simply can’t come in early tomorrow, that’s all.’

‘It was the same when I asked you to come in for a few hours the other day.’

‘So that you could go to a football match.’ Penny stared back coolly, looking into his angry eyes and surprisingly tempted to tell him that she had a vaginal ultrasound and a blood test booked for ten past eight tomorrow, just so that she could watch him squirm. ‘I’m sorry, Ethan, I have things on. I’m not able to simply change my schedule at a moment’s notice. If you can check with the others …’

‘Like it or not,’ Ethan said, ‘there has to be a senior staff member on at all times, and that sometimes means making last-minute changes to the roster.’

‘I’m aware of that,’ Penny responded.

‘Yet you don’t …’ He watched two spots of colour rising on her cheeks, and then she turned abruptly to go, but Ethan refused to leave it there. ‘You’re going to have to be more flexible.’

Her back was to him and he watched as Penny stilled, her shoulders stiffened and she slowly turned around. ‘Excuse me?’

‘In the coming days you’re going to have to be more flexible—Gordon will need some time after all.’

‘If Gordon’s wife having a baby leaves us short-staffed then it might be prudent to look at getting a locum because—and I am warning you now—I am not going to be dropping everything and coming into work and leaving here late and changing shifts at the last moment to accommodate Gordon, his wife and their baby.’

Penny was angry now and with good reason—part of her mandatory counselling before she’d commenced IVF had addressed problems such as this. Timing was important. These weeks were incredibly intense and to keep it from becoming a staffroom topic of conversation Penny had worked out her appointments very carefully around her work schedule. And now Hilary had gone into labour and she was supposed to juggle everything.

Well, Penny was doing this for her baby.

‘You’re such a team player,’ Ethan said.

‘Oh, but I’m not,’ Penny responded. ‘Ask anyone.’

‘I don’t need to ask, I’d say it’s already common knowledge.’ It was—Penny was the ice queen. He’d heard it from many and had seen it for himself, but she hadn’t finished yet, pulling Ethan up on a very pertinent point.

‘You’re talking as if Hilary is about to deliver a micro-prem when, in fact, she’s actually thirty-five weeks’ gestation.’ Ethan at that point actually had to suppress a smile, because she had well and truly caught him out. When he’d said premature labour he had been appealing or rather searching for the softer side to Penny, but he was fast realising that she simply didn’t have one. ‘I don’t respond to bells and whistles, Ethan. Give me a real drama and I’ll deal with it accordingly.’ She walked off and Ethan watched.

She was absolutely immaculate. Her straight blonde hair was tied low at the back of her neck. Her sheer cream blouse looked as if it had come straight off a mannequin at an expensive boutique and her charcoal-grey skirt was perfectly cut to show a very trim figure. If she had been just a few inches taller she could be walking down a runway instead of the corridor of the emergency department.

‘What do you respond to, Penny?’ The words were out of Ethan’s mouth before his brain had even processed them, and how he wished, the moment they were uttered, that he could take them back.

He was more than aware of the not-so-slight sexual undertone to them, and Ethan half expected her to turn on her low heels and march back to give him a sharp piece of her mind, or perhaps to head straight to Mr Dean’s office, but what happened next came as a complete surprise.

Ethan watched as Penny threw her head back and laughed and then glanced over her shoulder at him. He saw not the glitter of ice in those cold blue eyes but something far more fetching. And her mouth was parted in a slightly mocking yet somehow mischievous smile as she answered him. ‘That’s for me to know!’

Ethan found himself smiling back, a proper smile this time. He almost called out that he was looking forward to finding out but then he checked himself, the smile fading, and he turned back to the roster he had been viewing before Penny had come along, and wondered what the hell had just happened. She had been completely immutable with the roster, thoroughly unfriendly and yet somehow it had ended in a smile.

A flirtatious one at that.

Ethan had no trouble with flirting—he was an expert at it, in fact. He had just never expected to find himself going there with Penny, but more to the point, Ethan thought darkly, he still didn’t have anyone to cover him for the funeral.

‘Not now!’ Penny said a few moments later when Jasmine knocked on her office door as she came in to start her late shift. Penny was seriously rattled by the small confrontation she’d had with Ethan and wanted a few moments alone to process things and to ring the IVF nurse to see if she could possibly swap. More unsettling than that, though, was the flutter in her throat and the blush on her cheeks at her response to him. Her face still burnt red even as she tried to put off her sister from coming in, but Jasmine wanted a quick word.

‘It won’t take a second—I’m just letting you know that Mum rang this morning from a satellite phone.’

‘Where is she?’ Penny smiled and it was genuine. She was thrilled to hear from her mum.

‘Heading for Mykonos,’ Jasmine said, and Penny groaned her envy.

‘I’m sure that I don’t need to ask if she’s having a good time.’

‘Completely loving it,’ Jasmine said. ‘She said that she should’ve done this years ago and … don’t fall off your chair, but I think she might have met someone.’

‘You mean a man?’ Penny blinked in surprise. ‘I don’t know what to say … I don’t know what to think.’

‘I know.’ Jasmine smiled. ‘I can’t imagine Mum with anyone.’

Louise Masters had been single since the day her husband had left. A very volatile marriage had made Louise swear off men and instead she had focused heavily on her career and had done her best to instil the same very independent, somewhat bitter values into her daughters.

‘Anyway,’ Jasmine continued, ‘we didn’t talk for long. I’ve no idea how much it would have cost her to call. She just wanted to send her love and to find out how you were getting on. I told her that you were doing fine.’ Jasmine hesitated. She’d heard a few whispers, knew that Penny was putting noses out of joint everywhere, which wasn’t unusual. Penny was known for being tough, it was just a lot more concentrated at the moment. ‘Are you doing fine, though?’

‘Not really,’ Penny admitted. ‘Actually, Jasmine, I think you’re right, I might have to let a few people at work know. It’s proving impossible. I’ve just had an argument with Ethan—he needs me to come in early tomorrow so that he can go to a funeral. God.’ Penny buried her face in her hands. ‘Imagine saying no to that—it’s a funeral!’

‘Penny, it was a football match a couple of weeks ago that Ethan asked you to cover him for.’ Jasmine was indignant on her sister’s behalf. ‘And Mr Dean has a corporate golf day on Thursday and Rex is getting a divorce. The fact is that this place needs more doctors, but they still won’t employ another one.’

‘A funeral, though.’ Penny groaned.

‘Penny, you go to more funerals than anyone I know.’ It was true. Of course they couldn’t attend the funeral of every patient who died, but Penny’s black outfits were taken for a trip to the dry cleaner’s more than most. ‘You have to keep the next few weeks clear.’ Jasmine was firm. She knew how hard this was for Penny and just how hard her sister worked. ‘And I do think you should let your colleagues know. Not everyone, but if you told Lisa …’

‘How can Lisa help with the doctors’ roster?’

‘Well, just tell Ethan or Mr Dean …’ Her voice trailed off.

‘It’s hopeless, isn’t it?’ Mr Dean wasn’t going to be exactly thrilled to find out that his senior registrar was trying to get pregnant—it was the reason he had hesitated to promote her a few years ago—of that Penny was sure.

‘Penny, you can’t come in early tomorrow. You can’t miss a blood test, it determines the whole day’s treatment.’

‘I know. I just really thought I could handle working and doing this. I thought that it might be easier the second time around, that I’d know more what to expect, that I’d at least be used to the needles.’

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