Seth Hardcastle was breathtaking sex on legs. And trouble and heartache

And she’d had more than enough trouble and heartache to last her a lifetime.

But not enough breathtaking sex, her body whispered. No, she wasn’t even going to speculate about what sex with Seth would be like, and she quickly eased her fingers free from his, praying her cheeks weren’t as red as they felt.

“I really must go,” she said, backing up a step.

“I must, too,” he replied, not moving at all.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” she mumbled. He nodded and she walked briskly down the corridor.

I am not going to look back, she told herself. Looking back is what teenagers do when they’re desperate to know whether the boy they’re interested in might be interested in them, so I’m not going to look back.

But she did.

E.R. DRAMA

Blood pressure is high and pulses are racing

in these fast-paced, dramatic stories from

Harlequin® Medical Romance™.

They’ll move a mountain to save a life

in an emergency, be they the crash team,

E.R. doctors, fire, air and land rescue, or

paramedics. There are lots of critical engagements

amongst the high tensions and emotional passions

in these exciting stories of lives and loves at risk!

E.R. DRAMA

Hearts are racing!

Maggie Kingsley returns to the

Belfield Infirmary with this sparkling story

of doctors at work…and in love!

The Surgeon’s Marriage Demand

Maggie Kingsley

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ONE

DEBORAH would have said she was crazy. Deborah would have taken one look at the peeling paintwork, the worn and scruffy floor of the waiting room of the Belfield Infirmary’s A and E department, and said, ‘Liv, are you out of your mind?’

A small smile curved Olivia’s lips. Maybe her sister was right. Maybe she was crazy, but this was what she wanted. Not a pristine, state-of-the-art A and E department, but a place that needed her as much as she needed it. A department where all her organisational talents could be used to the full. She couldn’t wait to get started.

‘They’re moving very quickly today, aren’t they?’

Olivia turned in her seat to see an elderly woman smiling at her, and smiled back. ‘Quickly?’ she repeated.

The woman nodded. ‘Madge on Reception said she didn’t think I’d have to wait for more than two hours today.’

Olivia’s smile vanished. Two hours? OK, so the waiting room was crowded but according to the head of human resources the department had two consultants, a specialist registrar, a junior doctor, plus a full complement of nurses. If they couldn’t manage a fast turnaround on a wet Sunday afternoon in September, how on earth did they manage at Christmas, New Year and during the summer holidays?

‘What are you here for, dear, if you don’t mind me asking?’ the woman continued, and Olivia coloured guiltily.

‘Stomach pains,’ she muttered, and the woman tutted sympathetically, which made Olivia feel even guiltier, but she could hardly tell her elderly companion the truth. That she was snooping. Snooping to find out how efficient—or otherwise—the Belfield’s A and E department might be.

It had been her sister Deborah’s idea.

‘Why don’t you turn up incognito before you officially start work?’ she’d said when Olivia had told her she’d got the job. ‘It’s amazing what you can find out when nobody knows who you are.’

Her sister had been right. Of course, her sister had also said Olivia would be married with a family by the time she was thirty, but big sisters couldn’t be right about everything. Not even big sisters who had the perfect job, the perfect husband and two equally perfect children.

Unconsciously Olivia shook her head. It wasn’t Deborah’s fault that everything she touched turned to gold, whereas she always seemed to end up with the fuzzy side of the lollipop. And things were going to be different from now on. As from tomorrow she was the new clinical director in charge of the A and E department of the Belfield Infirmary, and it sounded good. Actually, it sounded downright wonderful.

‘Uh-oh, looks like trouble,’ the elderly woman beside her exclaimed.

It did. Olivia had noticed the two young men earlier. One was clearly in need of medical attention while the other was obviously only there for moral support. Unfortunately his idea of moral support had been to sing raucous football songs and drink from a bottle for the last forty minutes, but up until now he’d simply been an irritant. Now he’d obviously become bored with waiting and had lurched across to the reception desk. Judging by the receptionist’s tight expression, he wasn’t engaging in pleasantries.

An uneasy frown creased Olivia’s forehead as she watched him. Situations like this could all too easily get out of hand, and whatever the receptionist was saying wasn’t working. Neither, it appeared, was her panic button if the non-arrival of any burly security men was anything to go by.

Oh, blow the incognito bit, Olivia decided, getting quickly to her feet. The receptionist needed help, and she needed it now. But before she could move, her elderly companion reached up and caught hold of her arm.

‘It’s all right, dear,’ she said as the door leading to the examination rooms suddenly opened. ‘Mr Hardcastle’s here. He’ll soon sort everything out.’

Olivia turned in the direction of her companion’s gaze, and blinked. So this was Seth Hardcastle. Seth Hardcastle who, according to his file, was thirty-six, single and one of A and E’s two consultants. What the file had failed to mention—and Olivia really felt it should have—was that he was also six feet two, with thick black hair and possessed a pair of the bluest eyes she’d ever seen.

‘He’s very good looking, isn’t he?’ her companion whispered.

He was. He also looked like the kind of man Olivia had spent a lifetime avoiding. The kind of man whose idea of commitment was a long weekend. The kind of man who’d broken more female hearts than she’d had caffe lattes. She sat down again fast.

‘He’s actually a real sweetie underneath,’ the elderly woman continued, seeing Olivia wince as the consultant asked the receptionist something then jabbed a warning finger in the young man’s chest.

No way was this man a sweetie. This was a man used to giving orders, and having them obeyed. A man who took life by the scruff of the neck, but never any prisoners, and as from tomorrow she was his boss.

So what? her mind protested when Seth Hardcastle suddenly caught hold of the young man by the lapels and began propelling him towards the exit. You’re the new clinical director in charge of A and E. The whole point of you moving from Edinburgh to Glasgow was to make a fresh start. You were going to be the new super-confident, in-your-face type, remember?

Except that perhaps she ought to revise the in-your-face bit, she decided as Seth Hardcastle catapulted the young man out into the street. In fact, perhaps she ought to forget about it completely, she thought with a gulp when the consultant turned and cracked a smile at the enthralled waiting room. A smile she felt all the way down to her toes.

‘He’s wonderful, isn’t he?’ Her companion beamed.

He was certainly something, Olivia thought as she watched the consultant disappear back into the examination rooms, and yet he hadn’t got the clinical director’s post. He should have done. At thirty-six he had two years’ more experience in A and E than she did, and yet he’d been passed over. Which meant he was flawed in some way.

Not in the attractiveness stakes, her mind whispered, and she stamped on the thought quickly. Lack of commitment? Not judging by the way he’d come to the receptionist’s aid. Too abrasive? She shivered, though the waiting room was warm. She certainly wouldn’t want him looming over her the way he’d loomed over the young punk.

‘Looks like we’ve got more trouble,’ the elderly woman beside her sighed.

Olivia’s head snapped round. The waiting room was silent, or as silent as two lustily crying babies and several extremely active children could make it. ‘I don’t see—’

‘Madge is going to make an announcement. That always means trouble.’

Her companion was right. The receptionist was tapping on her desk for attention, and then she cleared her throat.

‘I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but there’s been a multiple car crash on the A82 south of Loch Lomond. The casualties are on their way to us now so I’m afraid our reviewed waiting time looks likely to be three hours.’

A collective groan of resignation went up from the waiting room, and Olivia bit her lip. Casualties. That could mean anything from two to twenty-two people, and in an emergency A and E needed every qualified member of staff it could get.

She glanced down at her baggy tracksuit bottoms and sweatshirt emblazoned with the words MAKE MY DAY. She was hardly dressed for the occasion but it couldn’t be helped. With a sigh she pulled a scrunchie from her handbag, dragged her shoulder-length brown curls back into a ponytail and stood up.

‘Leaving, dear?’ the woman beside her said.

‘In a manner of speaking,’ Olivia replied ruefully, and made her way to the reception desk to introduce herself to the receptionist.

‘ETA for the casualties ten minutes, Seth,’ Sister Babs Grant declared, putting down the phone and reaching for her notepad. ‘One severe chest and head injuries, one nasty leg wound, a woman who’s fractured both her femurs and a seven-year-old with extensive burns.’

‘Burns?’ The consultant frowned, and the sister nodded.

‘The car he was travelling in caught fire after the pile-up. I’ve paged Tony, alerted Intensive Care and Theatre’s on standby.’

Jerry Swanson grinned. ‘Poor Tony. He’s only just gone off duty after a sixty-hour shift.’

‘Hard work’s good for the soul,’ Seth observed. ‘Especially for the souls of junior doctors. Keeps them off the street and out of the pubs.’

‘I bet you didn’t think that when you were a junior doctor.’ The specialist registrar laughed, and Seth’s lips curved.

‘Still don’t if I’m honest. And speaking of honesty,’ he continued as Babs hurried away, ‘I don’t care what you say. I give this Olivia Mackenzie three months and she’ll walk.’

The specialist registrar groaned. ‘Seth, you’ve been gnawing at this particular bone ever since we heard she’d got the job. Dr Mackenzie starts work here tomorrow. Live with it.’

‘How?’ Seth protested as he strode down the examination room and Jerry followed him. ‘It should have been obvious to anyone that A and E’s no place for a woman. It’s like a battlefield in here some nights and it’s tough enough watching our own backs without having to look after a woman as well.’

‘Our nurses seem to manage.’

‘Only because they know which patients are the troublemakers and which are the druggies,’ Seth argued back. ‘This woman will know damn all.’

‘Perhaps Admin don’t plan on her actually working in the department,’ Jerry observed. ‘Perhaps they feel we’re more in need of a co-ordinator rather than a hands-on consultant.’

‘Oh, terrific. That’s all we need—another pen-pusher. Three months, Jerry. I’ll give her three months, and she’ll throw in the towel.’

‘She’s bought a house in Edmonton Road. Doesn’t sound to me like she intends throwing in any towel.’

A frown creased Seth’s forehead. ‘And we know this how?’

‘Charlie in Dietetics happened to see her when she came for her interview. They got talking, and he happened to mention how hard it was to find rented accommodation in Glasgow. She said it wasn’t a problem as she’d bought one of those old houses in Edmonton Road.’

‘And did Charlie happen to find out anything else?’ Seth asked caustically.

‘Just that she’s thirty-four, divorced and seemed nice.’

‘Nice?’ Seth repeated with exasperation. ‘We don’t want nice, Jerry. We want a tough, committed, hands-on boss, not some wimp who’ll run screaming from A and E when a druggy throws up on her, or a roll-over merchant who’ll accept all of Admin’s crackpot ideas without a murmur.’

Jerry sighed as he erased the name of the last patient he’d seen from the whiteboard. ‘Seth, I hate to say this, but this antagonism you seem to feel towards Dr Mackenzie…’ He shot his boss a swift, sidelong look. ‘It’s not simply a bad case of sour grapes, is it?’

Seth opened his mouth, then closed it again. Jerry was right. Dammit, he’d worked in the A and E department of the Belfield Infirmary for the past twelve years. He was good at his job, and to be passed over for a thirty-four-year-old outsider who knew damn all about the department…

‘OK, so maybe I do think it should have been an inside appointment,’ he conceded, suddenly realising that his specialist registrar was waiting for a reply. ‘The department has two consultants, me and Watson Forrester—’

‘Watson still works here?’ Jerry eyebrows rose. ‘That’s going to come as a big surprise to everybody.’

A slight tinge of colour darkened Seth’s cheeks. ‘OK, so maybe he’s not been pulling his weight lately—’

‘Seth, he’s never here. If he’s not off to some conference, he’s away at a seminar. He wants out of A and E. You know it, and so do I.’

Seth did, but it didn’t make him feel any better. In fact, it made him feel worse. He gazed round the examination room, at the peeling paint, the tattered cubicle curtains, and bit his lip. ‘Jerry, do you ever feel like you’re stuck in a rut?’

‘Can’t say I do. I get the blues occasionally—everybody does—but there’s far too much variety in A and E for me ever to get bored.’

Once Seth would have agreed with him, but just lately he’d had the worrying feeling that their patients were beginning to merge, to blend, into faceless, nameless anonymity. ‘I think I’m getting too old for this job.’

‘Seth, you’re thirty-six,’ Jerry protested. ‘You don’t get burn-out in A and E until you’re fifty.’

‘Maybe I should sign up as a doctor on one of those luxury cruise liners,’ Seth continued as though his specialist registrar hadn’t spoken. ‘The ones that sail the Mediterranean or the Caribbean.’

‘Dispensing sea-sickness pills and fighting off the advances of the blue-rinse brigade?’ Jerry grinned. ‘I’d give you a month, and you’d be bored out of your skull.’

‘Médicins sans Frontiéres, then,’ Seth murmured. ‘They’re always looking for new doctors.’

Jerry started to laugh, then stopped when he saw his boss was in earnest. ‘Okay, let’s forget all this crap about Dr Mackenzie, cruise ships, and Médicins sans Frontiéres. What’s wrong, Seth—and I mean really wrong?’

The consultant picked up the whiteboard eraser from the table, stared at it for a second, then tossed it down again. ‘I don’t know—and that’s the honest truth. All I do know is nothing seems fun any more. Not my job, not dating, not even sex.’ He frowned. ‘Especially not sex.’

‘I don’t see how changing your job is going to make your sex life any better,’ Jerry pointed out. ‘Look, who are you dating at the moment?’

Seth looked over his shoulder, then lowered his voice. ‘Nobody. I haven’t been out on a date since June.’

‘You haven’t had sex for three months? Seth—’

‘I’m losing it, aren’t I?’ the consultant exclaimed. ‘If I can’t even be bothered to have sex any more, I’m definitely losing it.’

Jerry stared thoughtfully at him. ‘No, you’re not. I think you’re just beginning to realise there’s more to life than work and a string of casual relationships. I think what you need is to settle down with just one woman.’

‘Are you crazy?’ Seth spluttered. ‘The minute a bloke settles down, he’s brain dead.’

‘Hey, I take great exception to that,’ Jerry exclaimed. ‘Carol and I have been married for a year, and I’m certainly not brain dead.’

‘Not yet, but you soon will be,’ Seth said darkly. ‘In a couple of years’ time your idea of a sparkling evening’s entertainment will be sitting in front of the television, poring over some DIY magazines. And when the kids start arriving…’ He shuddered. ‘I’ll ask how they are—just to be polite—and you’ll whip out their latest photographs and start telling me all about little Isolde’s first tooth and Tristram’s first step.’

‘That isn’t being brain dead,’ Jerry said uncertainly. ‘It’s…it’s being proud of your family, loving them, being committed to them.’

It also meant waving goodbye to any exciting foreign holidays because little Isolde didn’t like travelling, Seth thought glumly. Goodbye to any visits to a restaurant or to the movies because little Tristram got upset if he was left with a babysitter. And it wasn’t just the kids who made you brain dead. It was living with the same woman for the rest of your life, having to see the same face over the breakfast table every morning.

‘Seth, listen—’

The consultant couldn’t have, even if he’d wanted to. The examination-room doors clattered open and the paramedics who’d attended the multiple car crash appeared, each clamouring for attention.

‘Twenty-six-year-old male, Doc. Open leg wound, Glascow coma scale 3-3-4. Blood loss extensive, definite class 11 shock. His saturation levels are falling and he’s hardly moving any air.’

‘My bloke’s in really bad shape, too, Doc,’ another paramedic declared. ‘Chest and head injuries. GCS 2-2-4. We’ve tubed him and set up an IV line, but his BP’s been falling steadily since we lifted him.’

‘Tony—where’s Tony?’ Seth demanded, and to his relief the junior doctor appeared. He looked as though he’d been dragged out of bed, but at least he was there.

‘Seth, the child with the burns needs attention, and fast,’ Babs declared, casting her professional eye quickly over the trolleys. ‘He’s cyanotic for sure.’

The child was. Even from where he was standing Seth could see the characteristic blue tinge of the boy’s face which indicated his blood wasn’t receiving enough oxygen.

‘Jerry, you take the bloke with the head and chest injuries, I’ll take the child. Tony, the guy with the open leg wound is yours. Tube him, but keep a careful watch for any signs of a tension pneumothorax or major rupture of his diaphragm.’

‘Right,’ the junior doctor replied, looking anything but happy.

‘What about my patient, Doc?’ one of the paramedics protested. ‘Diane Lennox, late thirties. She’s fractured both her femurs, and I think she could be bleeding internally.’

Seth stared indecisively at the badly burnt child, then across at the female casualty, and exploded. ‘This is ridiculous! We need another pair of qualified hands. We need another doctor—any kind of doctor!’

‘Will I do?’

Seth spun round to see a tall, slender woman wearing a pair of baggy tracksuit bottoms and a sweatshirt emblazoned with the words MAKE MY DAY, gazing back at him, and shot a fulminating glance at Madge from Reception who was hovering beside her. ‘Madge, could you escort this lady through to the relatives’ waiting room? She shouldn’t be—’

‘Seth, she’s not a relative,’ the receptionist interrupted. ‘She’s a bona fide doctor. I’ve seen her ID, and Admin have verified it. She starts work tomorrow, and she’s actually—’

‘Boss, I’ve got the tube in, but this bloke’s trachea has definitely shifted to the left,’ Tony Melville exclaimed, panic plain in his voice.

‘Then he obviously needs a needle thoracotomy,’ Seth retorted, more caustically than he’d intended, and the junior doctor flushed.

‘I know, but I’ve never done one before, and…’

Impatiently Seth snapped on a pair of surgical gloves, strode across the examination room and deftly thrust a needle into the patient’s chest.

‘I’ll insert a thoracotomy tube for you in a minute,’ he declared when a satisfying hiss of air came from the patient’s lungs, ‘but in the meantime start him on a two-litre infusion of Ringer’s lactate and then get a sterile pad over his leg and apply pressure to stop that bleeding.’

The junior doctor nodded, and Seth swung round to discover that Madge had disappeared and Dr Sweatshirt had not only donned the spare white coat they kept hanging on the back of the examination room door but she’d also slipped an IV line into the badly burnt child’s arm and was in the process of inserting a catheter into his bladder.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ he exclaimed, shooting back across the examination room and elbowing her roughly aside.

‘What it looks like,’ Dr Sweatshirt protested. ‘The child urgently needs fluids to counteract shock, and surely we need to know how much smoke he might have inhaled?’

She was right, but even if her ID was legit that still didn’t mean she knew anything about A and E medicine. She could be a dietician or, even worse, a chiropodist.

‘What’s your specialisation?’ he demanded.

‘I majored in surgery, but surgery isn’t my specialisation now. Look, I think I can set your mind—’

‘Paediatrics, or adult?’

‘Adult, and if you’d just let me finish—’

‘Seth, my head and chest injuries need Neurology,’ Jerry called. ‘I’m stabilising him as best I can, but he’s definitely got an intracranial haematoma.’

‘OK, I’ll—’

‘Seth, could you please come and take a look at Mrs Lennox?’ Babs exclaimed. ‘Her BP’s all over the place.’

‘I’ll be there in a—’

‘This child’s urine is very dark,’ Dr Sweatshirt observed. ‘Looks like possible myoglobinuria to me—iron and protein being released from a damaged muscle into his blood and urine. You really should be taking blood samples.’

‘And do I look as though I’ve got six pairs of hands?’ Seth exclaimed with frustration, then swore under his breath when a tide of hot colour washed across Dr Sweatshirt’s cheeks.

He shouldn’t be taking out his frustration on her. It wasn’t right, and it wasn’t fair. She hadn’t needed to offer to help, especially as she didn’t officially start work at the Belfield until tomorrow. ‘Look, I’m sor—’

‘Seth, I really do need you,’ Babs protested. ‘Fiona and I have got an IV line into Mrs Lennox, and we’ve checked her ABCs, but we’re not doctors.’

Ms Sweatshirt was. She’d been right about the possibility of myoglobinuria, and with a specialisation in surgery she probably knew as much—if not more—about burns patients as he did.

‘OK, Dr whatever-your-name-is,’ he said brusquely. ‘Can you take care of the child while I check out Mrs Lennox?’

Dr Sweatshirt nodded. She didn’t meet his gaze but she nodded, and he hurried across the examination room.

‘I’ve paged Orthopaedics,’ Babs declared. ‘Do you want Fiona to get the technicians down for a scan?’

‘Yes, please, and, Babs…’ He lowered his voice. ‘Would you assist Dr Sweatshirt? Watch what she does, and if you’re worried—’

‘Seth, I’ll assist her with pleasure, but you heard what Madge said. She’s a bona fide doctor, and she starts work in the hospital tomorrow, so stop stressing. Ye gods, if ever a woman looked as though she knew what she was doing, she does.’

She did, Seth thought as he glanced across at Dr Sweatshirt. She looked calm, in control and completely professional. She was also quite attractive if a man’s taste ran to women with soft brown eyes and riotously curly brown hair pulled back into a lopsided ponytail. His didn’t. He preferred big-busted blondes with pizzazz, not skinny, wholesome-looking women who looked as though they could have got a part in a remake of Anne of Green Gables, but that didn’t excuse the fact that he’d been quite unforgivably rude to her.

He sighed as he inserted a catheter into Mrs Lennox’s bladder, then checked her femoral pulses. Time for an apology. Time for a quick blast of the old Hardcastle charm.

He cleared his throat pointedly, and saw Dr Sweatshirt’s head come up.

‘I owe you an apology, don’t I?’ he said. ‘I’ve been quite appallingly rude to you when you didn’t need to volunteer to help, so if you want to lob an IV bag in my direction I promise I won’t duck.’

She looked momentarily startled, but when he threw her one of his guaranteed gotta-love-me Hardcastle grins he was the one who blinked when an answering smile slowly curved her lips. Hey, but that smile was quite something. It lit up her face, completely transforming her. Maybe she could be his type after all. Not permanently, of course, because he didn’t do permanence, but maybe for dinner tonight, a few dates…

‘I’ve just realised I don’t even know your name,’ he said, upping his smile a notch. ‘I’m Seth Hardcastle, A and E consultant, and you are—’

‘OK, which of you jokers called for a brain expert?’

Seth turned to see the consultant from Neurology standing in the doorway, and laughed. ‘Jerry did, but I wouldn’t say no to a quick brain transplant.’

‘I don’t do freebies, Seth.’ The consultant grinned, but as he walked towards Jerry it wasn’t Seth who sighed but Olivia.

She needed a quick brain transplant too or, perhaps more accurately, a quick course in self-assertiveness. She should have told Seth Hardcastle who she was. She should have said, Look, sunshine, I’m your boss, but the trouble was she’d never been the ‘Look, sunshine’ type. She’d always favoured the softly-softly approach both in her personal and her professional life, coaxing by persuasion rather than by confrontation, and it had worked. Well, it had worked in her professional life at any rate.

‘Liv, Phil was a jerk, and you divorced him,’ Deborah had said. ‘Get over it, move on.’ And she would. Eventually. But six months wasn’t nearly long enough to forget that the man who had promised to love and cherish her had been bedding his secretary on a depressingly regular basis throughout their short married life.

‘Are you all right?’

Babs was gazing at her curiously, and Olivia forced a smile.

‘I’m fine. It’s just…Is the department always this chaotic?’

The sister chuckled. ‘You should see us on a Saturday night. I don’t know how we’d manage without Seth and Jerry.’

Jerry Swanson. The department’s specialist registrar. Thirty-two and married to one of the nurses in Women’s Surgical, according to his file. She could handle him, but Seth Hardcastle…

The trouble was he looked even more impressive up close than he’d done in the waiting room. He shouldn’t have done. His blue eyes were bloodshot, his chin was dark with stubble and his black hair was falling carelessly over his forehead. He looked as though he hadn’t slept for days. He also looked as sexy as hell, and it wasn’t a reassuring combination.

‘I know Seth can be a bit abrasive,’ the sister continued, clearly misinterpreting her silence, ‘but he’s one of the best consultants I’ve ever worked with.’

And if I don’t toughen up, he’s going to walk right over me, Olivia thought as she heard Seth snap at something Tony Melville had said.

‘Oh, hallelujah,’ Babs exclaimed with relief. ‘Here come the crispy squad.’

The crispy squad. The irreverent name most A and E units gave to the burns unit. The crispy squad would take care of the little boy, Neurology was attending to the chest and head case, and Seth and Jerry could look after Mrs Lennox and the man with the open leg wound. She wasn’t needed any more. She could simply slip away, and she fully intended doing just that when she suddenly heard Seth say her name.

‘I’m afraid Seth’s on his high horse about our new clinical director,’ Babs said ruefully as a slight crease furrowed Olivia’s forehead. ‘He’s not very happy at her appointment.’

Not very happy was the understatement of the year, Olivia thought as she heard Jerry declare, ‘Look, all I said was I can’t see Admin appointing somebody with no A and E experience,’ and Seth flashing back, ‘Well, if she’s not a pen-pusher, I bet her so-called experience consists of performing unnecessary cosmetic operations on women with more money than sense.’

A spurt of anger flared inside Olivia as she stared at the consultant’s irate face, a spurt she hadn’t felt since she’d found out about Phil’s extra-marital affair. Just who the hell did Seth Hardcastle think he was? Well, she might not be able to tell him who he was, but she sure as shooting could tell him what he was.

She strode across the examination room, her brown eyes flashing, and arrived in time to hear Seth declare, ‘Just don’t come complaining to me when you discover she’s as much use as a plastic bag in a thunderstorm. This woman—’

‘This woman feels she ought to introduce herself before you say anything else,’ Olivia interrupted, her voice ice-cold. ‘I’m Olivia Mackenzie, your new pen-pushing clinical director.’

Jerry let out an anguished groan, but Seth didn’t look one bit discomfited. Instead, he met her gaze squarely.

‘I suppose you’re expecting an apology?’

‘Well, your manners could certainly do with some work—’

‘We don’t have time for manners in A and E, Dr Mackenzie, not when our patients are often bleeding like stuck pigs.’

‘No, but you seem to have plenty of time to bad-mouth a colleague behind her back,’ she snapped. ‘For your information, I worked for ten years in the A and E department of the Edinburgh General, and even if I hadn’t I would have expected you to extend me the courtesy of at least meeting me before you tore my character to shreds!’

A wash of bright colour flooded across Seth’s cheeks, and Olivia only just restrained herself from punching the air in triumph. She’d taken the wind right out of his sails, and it hadn’t been hard. In fact, it had been easy. She could be the in-your-face type after all, and it felt wonderful.

‘I…um…Our shift finishes in half an hour, Dr Mackenzie,’ Jerry Swanson said, far too brightly. ‘Would you like to stick around, join us for coffee in the staffroom?’

Seth didn’t second the suggestion. From his rigid expression she reckoned he was probably too busy wishing her dead.

‘I’m afraid I can’t,’ she said, summoning up her most gracious smile for the specialist registrar. ‘I told George I wouldn’t be long, and he must be wondering where I am.’

And with a nod to Babs and Tony Melville, she turned on her heel and walked out of the examination room, knowing Seth’s eyes were following her the whole way.

‘Arrogant, rude, obnoxious man,’ she muttered to herself as she drove home. ‘Somebody should have chopped him down to size years ago, and I don’t take back a word of what I said. I don’t.’

George clearly agreed with her when she told him all about it. At least, he followed her into the kitchen, keeping his eyes fixed firmly on her, which sort of suggested he agreed.

‘It’s not a bad department, George,’ she told him as she slid a chill-cook curry into the microwave. ‘Their treat and street times are far too long, and the waiting room is a disgrace, but at least they all seem to know what they’re doing. Even Seth Hardcastle.’

Actually, especially Seth Hardcastle, she thought, pausing as she reached for two bowls. He was obviously a first-rate consultant. A first-rate and now extremely angry consultant. Maybe she shouldn’t have been quite so in-your-face. Maybe she ought to have approached the situation differently. Maybe….

Oh, for crying out loud. Who’s the new clinical director here—you or him? He had no right to be talking about you behind your back, so stop being a wimp. You were a wimp for two years with Phil, and look where that got you.

She glanced down at George. ‘Do you think I went too far—said too much?’

He stared back at her uncomprehendingly for a second, then put his shaggy head down on his paws, and she sighed.

That was the trouble with dogs. No verbal reassurances, no bracing words of encouragement when you most needed them. They might be more loving and loyal than the average husband, but great conversationalists they weren’t.

Unlike her sister, she thought when the phone rang and she went out into the hall to answer it.

‘I just thought I’d phone to wish you the best of luck for tomorrow,’ Deborah exclaimed, bright and cheerful as always.

Her sister thought she needed luck? Maybe after meeting Seth Hardcastle she did. No, she didn’t. She was the new super-confident, in-your-face Olivia Mackenzie. ‘Deb—’

‘Harry says he still can’t understand why you had to move from Edinburgh to Glasgow. He says there’s lots of clinical directors’ posts in Edinburgh in nice hospitals in nice areas.’

Her brother-in-law the snob. ‘Deb—’

‘Liv, all I want is for you to be happy. I know Phil dumped you for a twenty-four-year-old blonde with a 36D cup and an eighteen-inch waist, but that doesn’t mean you should give up on men. You’re bright and kind, and lots of men prefer brains to looks.’

Olivia met George’s gaze. She’d been wrong. Talking to a dog was sometimes infinitely preferable to talking to a human being.

‘Deb, I have to go—my dinner’s ready,’ she lied.

‘OK, but promise me you’ll keep your eyes open for any dishy-looking men. Ciao, Liv.’

The phone went dead before Olivia could tell her sister that nobody said ‘Ciao’ or ‘dishy’ any more, and that the last thing she wanted was a man, dishy or otherwise.

You won’t even have to look, a little voice at the back of her mind reminded her as her microwave pinged. As from tomorrow you’ll have the most incredibly dishy-looking man working right under your nose.

‘Terrific,’ she said without enthusiasm, and George wagged his tail in agreement.

CHAPTER TWO

‘THAT has to be the most ridiculous suggestion I’ve ever heard!’ Seth exclaimed, and Olivia gritted her teeth until they hurt.

A week. She’d been at the Belfield Infirmary for exactly one week, and Seth Hardcastle had disagreed with every plan she’d put forward to improve the running of the department. Good grief, he’d even argued against redecorating the waiting room when it must have been obvious to anyone that the place was a dump.

‘It is not a ridiculous suggestion,’ she said with difficulty. ‘The health department has conducted a survey—’

‘Oh, well, if they’ve conducted a survey.’

‘And sixty-five per cent of the general public object to their names being written up on a whiteboard,’ she continued, deliberately ignoring his sarcasm. ‘They feel it’s an invasion of their privacy.’

Seth leant back in his seat and folded his arms across his chest. ‘An invasion of their privacy. Right. And if we remove the whiteboard, just how—precisely—are we supposed to identify patients?’

‘By communicating with each other, of course,’ she snapped, and saw his lip curl.

‘So, on a busy Saturday night, when we’re full to capacity, and somebody’s bleeding to death on one trolley and somebody’s having a coronary on another, we’re supposed to make time for these illuminating conversations, are we?’

Olivia dug her clenched fingers deep into the pockets of her white coat, but it didn’t help. Why did their morning meetings have to always end like this in acrimony and disagreement? The rest of the A and E department had made her feel welcome, but Seth…He never stopped arguing, and it wasn’t just the arguing which was getting her down. It was his unerring ability to make her feel small and stupid. A feeling which wasn’t helped this morning by her sneaking suspicion that he was right about the whiteboard, and the health board’s directive was crazy.

‘Whether you approve of the whiteboard coming down or not, it is coming down,’ she said tightly. ‘And speaking of coming down,’ she continued as he opened his mouth, clearly intending to argue. ‘Watson Forrester.’

He stirred uncomfortably in his seat. ‘What about Watson?’

She picked up one of the folders on her desk and extracted a sheet of paper from it. ‘According to this, he’s been to two seminars, three conferences and four courses this year.’

A faint flush of colour seeped across Seth’s cheeks. ‘Watson likes to keep abreast of the latest A and E developments.’

‘By going to conferences on food nutrition?’ He winced and her battered self-esteem sent up a silent Yeah! of triumph. ‘I want his resignation, Seth,’ she said quickly, before he had time to come up with one of his crushing put-downs. ‘He’s in London for another couple of days on this food nutrition course, then he’s off on his annual leave, but when he comes back I want his resignation.’

Seth looked as though he’d like to argue, but he also looked as though he knew when he was beaten. Being beaten, however, didn’t stop him from muttering, ‘You’ll be wanting Jerry’s resignation next.’ She closed the folder with a snap.

‘Certainly not. He’s an excellent specialist registrar. In fact, the whole team works very well together, including young Tony Melville.’

‘You think so?’

Something about his tone brought a slight crease to her forehead. ‘You don’t?’ He didn’t reply, and her frown deepened. ‘Look, if there’s something I should know about Tony, I’d far rather you just told me.’

He opened his mouth, closed it again and shook his head. ‘It’s nothing—just a gut feeling.’

‘A gut feeling you’re clearly not prepared to share with me,’ she said icily. ‘Fine. If that’s the way you want to play it.’

‘I’m not playing anything,’ he protested. ‘I just don’t think I ought to condemn the guy without concrete facts.’

It was on the tip of her tongue to say that hadn’t prevented him from bad-mouthing her, but she didn’t. Persuasion, Olivia, she told herself. You’ve always succeeded in the past with even the stroppiest of consultants by using the gentle art of persuasion, so back off. Back off, and regroup.

She fixed a conciliatory smile to her lips. ‘I think I’ve covered everything I want to discuss this morning. Is there anything you’d like to talk to me about?’

‘No.’

Not an ‘I don’t think so’ or an ‘I can’t think of anything’—just a bald, flat ‘No’. Couldn’t he even pretend to be civil, attempt to meet her halfway? Apparently not, judging by the rigid set of his jaw. Well, irrespective of how he felt, they couldn’t permanently be at loggerheads. They had to find some common ground or they would never be able to work together.

‘Listen, Seth,’ she declared, doing her best to radiate sympathy and understanding, which wasn’t easy when what she really felt like doing was hitting him. ‘I know this can’t be easy for you—having me as your boss. You’re bound to feel slightly resentful—’

‘I don’t feel even remotely resentful,’ he interrupted. ‘I just don’t think a woman should be in charge of A and E.’

Her jaw dropped. Was he kidding? He didn’t look as though he was, and her sympathy and understanding disappeared in an instant.

‘Now, listen here,’ she exclaimed, her brown eyes stormy. ‘It may have escaped your attention—it clearly has escaped your attention—but women moved out of the kitchen years ago. There are women politicians, women judges, women consultants—’

‘I’m quite aware of that,’ he exclaimed, annoyance plain in his voice, ‘and I have no objection to female consultants in principle. The head of Ophthalmics is a woman. The head of Geriatrics is a woman—’

‘You just don’t want one in your own back yard,’ she finished for him furiously. ‘Well, I’m sorry, but I’m here for the duration, and you and your fragile male ego are just going to have to get used to it!’

Yikes, but where had that come from? she wondered, seeing anger darken his blue eyes. She’d never been the confrontational type. Deborah was always telling her she was too darned soft for her own good, but this man…He constantly seemed to bring out the worst in her.

Which didn’t mean she was going to apologise.

Dammit, why should she? If he was a chauvinist—and she’d never in a million years have pegged him as one—then he was going to have to learn she wasn’t a pushover.

Or at least not a complete one, she thought, forcing herself not to flinch back in her seat when he got to his feet and his broad shoulders blocked out the sunlight from her window.

‘Seth, listen—’

‘My shift starts in half an hour, and I’d like a coffee before I go on duty, so if there’s nothing else, Dr Mackenzie…?’

He couldn’t even call her Olivia. Everybody else did. Jerry, Tony, Babs, Fiona. Only Seth seemed unable—or unwilling—to force her name through his teeth.

‘Seth—’

‘I really would like that coffee.’

It was hopeless, she thought as she gazed up into his implacable face. Completely and utterly hopeless.

‘I’ll see you later, then,’ she said, and without a word, or even so much as a nod, he was gone.

Stupid, pompous, arrogant man. What on earth was she going to do with him? If they couldn’t establish a decent working relationship she would have to ask for his resignation, and she didn’t want his resignation. He was an excellent consultant. Skilled, intuitive, unflappable.

Handsome, too, her mind whispered as she gathered up the folders on her desk and she let out a huff of impatience. OK, so he was handsome, and when he smiled…Not that he’d done any smiling in her direction during the past week, but she’d seen him smile at Babs and Fiona, and it was the kind of smile that did odd things to a woman’s stomach.

‘Odd things to her brain, too,’ she murmured out loud as she put the folders in her filing cabinet and closed the drawer with a bang. ‘Face it, Liv. A man like Seth Hardcastle would leave you emotionally scarred for life.’

Yes, but think of the fun while it lasted.

Don’t think of the fun, she told herself severely as she walked out of her office and down to the examination room. The only thing you want from Seth Hardcastle is a good working relationship. Nothing more, nothing less.

There didn’t seem to be much work going on in A and E when she opened the door. In fact, there didn’t seem to be any work going on at all, just Babs and Fiona crouched up against the back wall surrounded by a mass of squashed fruit.

‘What on earth’s going on?’ Olivia asked, only to duck quickly as a pear suddenly came shooting out of cubicle 6 followed by the sound of a male voice calling, ‘Cock-a-doodle-doo!’

‘Brian Taylor,’ Babs replied. ‘He came in with a badly cut hand, and Fiona and I had just got a saline drip into him when all hell broke loose.’

‘He’s one of our regulars, and a chronic alcoholic,’ the staff nurse chipped in. ‘We reckon he’s been on one of his three-day benders.’

‘Which doesn’t alter the fact that his hand needs stitching,’ Olivia said firmly. ‘Why haven’t you sedated him?’

A watermelon sailed out of the cubicle and landed with a dull thud at Babs’s feet.

‘Because we’d rather like to finish the day in one piece,’ the sister replied. ‘So if you have any bright ideas on how we can get close enough to him…’

It was a good point. It was also at times like this that Olivia wished she was a man. Preferably a six-foot-two-inch tall man with broad shoulders and blue eyes, but if she paged Seth he’d never let her forget it.

‘Where are Jerry and Tony?’ she asked.

‘Jerry’s in cubicle 1 with a possible duodenal, and Tony’s trying to figure out what’s wrong with the woman in 3.’

Which meant she was on her own.

Well, brawn wasn’t everything, she told herself. In fact, the voice of sweet reason could often be surprisingly effective.

‘Mr Taylor?’ she called out in her most reassuring voice. A bunch of bananas came hurtling through the curtains, and he started cock-a-doodling again. ‘What’s he got in there, Babs?’ she hissed. ‘The entire contents of a fruit shop?’

The sister grinned. ‘We’re just hoping he didn’t stop off at his local fishmonger’s before he came here.’

Olivia fervently hoped so, too. She chewed her lip for a second, then made up her mind. ‘I need a syringe loaded with the strongest sedative you’ve got.’

Babs did as she asked, but when Olivia pocketed the syringe and got down on her hands and knees, the sister eyed her uncertainly. ‘Are you sure about this? I could call Seth—’

Over her dead body. ‘Of course I’m sure,’ Olivia replied, but she didn’t feel anything like as confident when she crawled into the cubicle and caught sight of Mr Taylor sitting on top of the trolley.

Dear lord, but he was huge. If he stopped throwing fruit and started throwing his fists, she was going to be in serious trouble.

Think positive, Olivia, she told herself firmly. You might not have physical strength but you have intelligence. And probably about ten seconds in which to use it, she calculated as she stretched up, yanked the saline drip off its hook and then crouched down again fast.

Make that five seconds, she amended with a sinking heart as an ominous rustling sound came from the trolley, which suggested that Mr Taylor was delving into his shopping bag again.

‘There’s no need to get agitated, Mr Taylor,’ she said soothingly. ‘I’m here to help you.’

‘Get lost!’

‘And I love you, too,’ she muttered under her breath as she swiftly injected the syringe full of sedative into the drip tube. ‘Now, if you could just breathe in deeply for me, I’ll—’

She didn’t get a chance to finish what she’d been about to say. Tomatoes began raining down on her, splattering her white coat, and she squeezed on the saline bag for all she was worth. It was a quick-acting sedative, but he was a big man and it could be several seconds before it took effect. All she could hope was that it kicked in before he ran out of tomatoes.

‘Sleepy time, Mr Taylor,’ she crooned. ‘Time to go to the land of nod. Time for Mr Sandman to come along and close your eyes.’

‘Get lost,’ he said again, but this time with slightly less enthusiasm, and she squeezed even harder on the bag.

‘Maybe you should consider visiting the Merkland Memorial next time you injure yourself,’ she continued. ‘Much as we love having your custom…’

Bingo! With a surprising grace for such a big man, Mr Taylor keeled over on the trolley, and she caught his bag of groceries just before it hit the floor.

A smile curved her lips. She’d been right. Brawn wasn’t everything. Brains could be just as effective, but it had been a close-run thing.

‘OK, Mr Tough Guy,’ she murmured, getting awkwardly to her feet. ‘Let’s see what damage you’ve done to yourself.’

To her relief his hand wasn’t as badly injured as it had looked. He’d certainly sliced his thumb pretty badly, and there were lacerations to his other fingers, but luckily he hadn’t hit any vital arteries.

‘You must have a charmed life,’ she observed as she cleaned his hand, then inserted some stitches. ‘Pity I can’t say the same about your manners.’ A loud snore was her only reply and she chuckled. ‘See you around, Mr Taylor—but hopefully not for a very long time.’

Quickly she pulled back the cubicle curtains and blinked as a round of applause greeted her.

‘Way to go, boss!’ Babs beamed. ‘Whoever said women were the weaker species?’

‘Not at the Belfield they’re not,’ Fiona exclaimed, and Jerry grinned.

‘You look as though you’ve had a tussle with a mad axe murderer and lost.’

‘Oh, funny.’ Olivia laughed. ‘Babs, Mr Taylor’s hand will need a dressing. I’ve given him enough sedative to knock out an elephant but keep your eye on him. He—’

‘What the hell’s going on?’

Olivia turned to see Seth striding down the examination room towards her, and smiled. ‘Crisis over. Mr Taylor—’

‘You’re bleeding,’ Seth declared, concern plain on his face. ‘Babs, we’ll need a cross-match, X-rays—’

‘Seth, these are tomato stains,’ Olivia said, beginning to laugh, only to stop when she saw his expression. ‘I’m not laughing at you—honestly I’m not. It was sweet of you to be concerned, but Mr Taylor just decided to throw some fruit around, and I was the unlucky recipient of the tomatoes. I’ve stitched—’

‘Babs, have you telephoned the janitor to come and clean up this mess?’ he snapped, cutting right across Olivia’s explanation.

The sister flushed. ‘Not yet, but—’

‘Then I suggest you do it now. If a patient slips and falls we’ll have a negligence suit slapped on us before you can say diddly squat and I don’t think Admin will consider that a laughing matter, do you?’

‘And I don’t think there was any need for you to chew poor Babs’s head off,’ Olivia protested as the sister hurried towards the phone and Fiona escaped into Mr Taylor’s cubicle. ‘It’s been pretty hairy in here for the past quarter of an hour, and—’ He’d walked away from her. He’d just upped and walked away, and she turned to Jerry furiously. ‘Of all the rude, arrogant…What is wrong with that guy?’

‘I think he was worried about you,’ the specialist registrar replied, and Olivia rolled her eyes heavenwards.

‘Worried? Seth Hardcastle wouldn’t care if I was strung up by a mob of rioting yobs.’

‘Of course he would. Look, he’s not normally like this,’ Jerry continued as Olivia shook her head. ‘All right, so he can be a bit abrasive at times if he thinks a patient’s trying to con him, or if Admin’s giving him the runaround, but—’

‘So you’re saying it’s me—my fault?’ Olivia exclaimed, pulling off her stained white coat and throwing it into the laundry basket with rather more force than was strictly necessary. ‘Jerry, he’s impossible. If I said white, he’d say black, just to be difficult.’

The specialist registrar looked uncomfortable. ‘I know he has some pretty strong views—’

‘Some?’ Olivia spluttered. She opened her mouth to give Jerry chapter and verse of all the things Seth had said and done over the past week, then snapped her jaw shut. Gossiping with a member of staff about another member of staff was a definite no-no. Asking for information, however, wasn’t. ‘Jerry, why didn’t he get the clinical director’s job? He’s got the experience, the ability, so why didn’t he get the job?’

Jerry sighed. ‘Seth’s always been a bit of a maverick, and I guess Admin’s not keen on guys doing their own thing.’

Independence wasn’t a bad thing, Olivia thought as she stared down the examination room to where Seth was deep in conversation with one of the nurses. She just wished his particular brand of independence wasn’t always constantly directed at her.

‘Well, I can’t change my sex,’ she said belligerently, ‘so he’s just going to have to live with it.’

Jerry looked startled. ‘Can’t change your…? Why would you—?’

‘Oh, lord, what’s wrong now?’ Olivia exclaimed as Tony strode angrily out of cubicle 3, followed by an equally irate-looking man.

‘Looks like young Tony’s in trouble,’ Jerry observed.

‘Looks like young Tony needs help,’ Olivia said, and together they hurried towards him.

‘Dr Mackenzie, perhaps you can convince Mr Carter that I’m a bona fide, fully qualified medic,’ Tony said the moment he saw her. ‘He seems to feel—’

‘Is either of you somebody in authority?’ Mr Carter demanded, glancing from Jerry to Olivia then back again.

‘I’m the clinical director in charge of this department,’ Olivia replied. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘You’re in charge of the department?’

The man’s surprise was palpable, and Olivia gritted her teeth for the third time that morning. Where were all these New Age men she kept reading about? Her tally for today—and it wasn’t even eleven o’clock yet—was two male chauvinists and a drunk who thought women should be used as target practice.

‘Yes, I’m in charge of the department,’ she said as evenly as she could. ‘What seems to be the trouble?’

‘There is no trouble,’ Tony insisted. ‘I’m just trying to convince Mr Carter that his wife has a bad cold—’

‘My wife does not have a cold,’ Mr Carter interrupted. ‘My wife is ill—very ill—and I want a second opinion.’

Out of the corner of her eye Olivia could see that Seth was no longer talking to the nurse but staring intently at the whiteboard. He didn’t fool her for a second. He was eavesdropping, listening to find out how she was going to handle the situation. Well, let him listen. She didn’t need his help. If she could deal with a fruit-throwing alcoholic, she could deal with an irate husband.

She beckoned to Babs. ‘Sister, could you take Mr Carter—?’

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ the man exclaimed, his eyes angry, his colour high. ‘I’m staying right here until you find out what’s wrong with my wife.’

He would, too, unless she found some way to placate him, and Olivia summoned up one of her best trust-me-I’m-a-doctor smiles. ‘I’m afraid it’s against hospital policy for us to examine a patient while a relative is present.’

‘He didn’t say that,’ Mr Carter protested, gesturing at Tony. ‘In fact, he—’

‘It’s written into my contract,’ Olivia declared, and saw Seth’s lips twitch. OK, so it was a feeble excuse but if Tony’s diagnosis was wrong, the last thing she wanted was Mr Carter present when she discovered it. ‘I’ll be as fast as I can, Mr Carter,’ she continued, upping her smile a notch. ‘And the second I’ve made my diagnosis you’ll be the first to know.’

That Mr Carter didn’t want to go was plain, but Olivia kept on smiling, kept on radiating confidence, and eventually he reluctantly followed Babs out of the examination room.

‘OK, what have we got?’ Olivia said, turning to Tony.

‘Mrs Carter’s shivering, she’s slightly feverish and she has a headache. She has all the classic symptoms of a cold.’

She also had all the classic symptoms of something else, Olivia realised when she’d finished examining the woman.

‘Malaria?’ the junior doctor gasped. ‘You think she has malaria?’

‘Didn’t you notice how brown she was?’ Olivia said. ‘We might have had a good summer, but there’s no way she could have got that suntan in Glasgow. My guess is she’s been to Africa or Asia, and that’s where she contracted the disease.’

The junior doctor stared unhappily at her. ‘I feel like an idiot.’

‘Don’t,’ Olivia protested. ‘Good grief, it’s not as though malaria’s so rampant in Glasgow that even our janitor would have recognised it. And we don’t even know for certain yet that she has malaria,’ she continued when Tony didn’t cheer up, ‘so why don’t you take some blood samples and get them checked by the lab?’

With a nod and a worried frown Tony hurried back into the cubicle, and as Olivia pulled off her examination gloves Jerry stared at her thoughtfully.

‘That was a very kind thing to do. A lot of consultants would have nailed him to the wall for a mistake like that.’

‘I’ve seen a couple of cases of malaria before,’ Olivia replied dismissively. ‘He hasn’t.’

‘It was still a kind thing to do,’ Jerry insisted, and Olivia’s eyes flicked across the examination room to where Seth was still hovering by the whiteboard.

‘Believe it or not, I’m actually quite a nice person. And now I’d better find out how Mr Taylor’s doing,’ she continued, ‘before some people accuse me of not pulling my weight.’

She’d gone before Jerry could reply and the specialist registrar shook his head as Seth walked across to him. ‘You asked for that.’

‘What makes you think she meant me?’ Seth demanded.

Jerry gave him a hard stare. ‘Seth, I’d have to be blind and deaf not to see you’re never off her back. She’s smart, on the ball and more than pulls her weight in the department, so what’s your problem?’

Seth opened his mouth, clearly thought the better of what he’d been about to say and muttered grimly, ‘She said I was sweet. I am not sweet.’

Jerry laughed. ‘Yes, you are. You’re nothing but a big pussy cat at heart, so stop riling her.’

‘Me rile her?’ Seth choked. ‘Listen, Jerry—’

‘I like her.’

‘Fine. Feel free to have a mad, passionate affair with her, and when Carol slices off your reproductive organs with a scalpel, don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

‘Carol knows I wouldn’t cheat on her, and I won’t.’ The specialist registrar glanced down the examination room to where Olivia was talking to Fiona. ‘She is pretty, though, isn’t she?’

She was, Seth thought as he followed the direction of the specialist registrar’s gaze. Not beautiful—her nose was too small and her chin was too pointed for beauty—but she was pretty in a gentle, homespun sort of way, and when she smiled… ‘She’s OK.’

‘You thought she was a lot better than OK when you first saw her.’

He had, but that had been before he’d discovered who she was. ‘She’s too skinny.’

Jerry tilted his head and surveyed Olivia critically. ‘Slender. Not skinny—slender. And she’s got great legs.’

She had. Long legs. Endless legs. The kind of legs a man could fantasise about. The kind of legs guaranteed to give a man wet dreams.

‘I’ve never been a leg man myself,’ Seth lied. ‘And even if I was,’ he added quickly as Jerry’s eyebrows rose, ‘she’s already in a relationship.’

‘Says who?’

‘She did last week. Some guy called George.’

‘Oh. Right.’ Jerry’s eyes drifted down the examination room again. ‘Pity.’

‘I doubt if Carol would think so,’ Seth said testily, and Jerry grinned.

‘I’m not thinking of me, you dummy. I was thinking of you.’

‘Hey, who are you calling a dummy?’ Seth protested, but the specialist registrar was already hurrying away in answer to Babs’s call.

He wasn’t a dummy. He just had a healthy sense of self-preservation. OK, so Olivia had a pair of incredible legs and nice eyes, but dating your boss was asking for trouble. Dating your boss on a strictly let’s-have-fun-for-a-few-dates-and-then-it’s-over basis was career suicide.

Not that she’d ever go out with him, he thought ruefully as he watched all laughter disappear from her face when she noticed him staring at her. She thought he was a jerk, and he was. All the crap he’d given her about how it ought to have been a man appointed clinical director. He didn’t give a damn that she was a woman. What really bugged him was she’d got the job, and he hadn’t.

‘Childish,’ he muttered out loud. ‘No, not you, Tony,’ he added quickly, seeing the startled look on the junior doctor’s face as he emerged from Mrs Carter’s cubicle clutching a blood sample. ‘Me.’

And he was being childish, he thought as the junior doctor scurried away.

Jerry was right. Olivia more than pulled her weight in the department, and she was spunky, too. Lord, just thinking about her tackling Brian Taylor was enough to make him shudder. The man was unpredictable enough when he was sober, but when he was drunk…

And she’d been terrific with young Tony. Any other consultant would have torn the junior doctor to shreds. He probably would have done so himself, and yet Olivia had taken the softly-softly approach, ensuring the young man’s confidence wasn’t shattered.

He’d have to apologise to her, but apologising would mean telling her why he’d behaved as he had, and she’d think he was a jerk, and he didn’t want her thinking he was a jerk.

‘Something wrong?’ Babs asked curiously, seeing him frown as she passed, and he shook his head.

‘Nothing I can’t fix,’ he replied lightly, but who was he kidding? It was going to take a lot more than one of his smiles to smooth down Olivia’s ruffled feathers. But what?

Nothing occurred to him as he treated the elderly woman with the worst case of haemorrhoids he’d ever seen. No solution presented itself when he patched up the victim of a horrific car crash, and because he couldn’t think of anything his temper grew shorter and shorter and it was a relief to everyone when their shift finally ended.

‘Boy, but Seth’s been a little ray of sunshine today, hasn’t he?’ Jerry observed when Olivia helped him to gather up the notes on the patients they’d seen that day.

‘What do you mean, “today”?’ she replied. The specialist registrar chuckled, but his laughter faded as he saw Seth striding towards them with a look of grim determination plain on his face.

‘Want me to stick around, act as a referee?’ he murmured. ‘Or, then again, perhaps not,’ he added, his smile returning as Olivia shot him a look that spoke volumes. ‘OK, I’m out of here.’

Lucky you, Olivia thought with a deep sigh, but if Seth thought he was going to bend her ear for the next half-hour he was very much mistaken.

‘Five minutes,’ she said as soon as he came to a halt in front of her. ‘You’ve got exactly five minutes, and then I’m going home.’

‘Five minutes is all I need,’ he replied, shouldering open the examination-room door then standing back so she could walk out into the corridor ahead of him.

It had better be, she thought grimly.

‘OK, what’s so important that it won’t wait until tomorrow?’ she demanded, once they were both standing outside in the corridor.

‘I just wanted to say how much I admired the way you dealt with Tony this morning—not ripping into him when the lab confirmed Mrs Carter’s malaria.’

Praise from Seth Hardcastle? That had to be a first, and he also looked uncomfortable. He never looked uncomfortable. He was up to something.

‘I’m glad you approve,’ she said. ‘Now, if there’s nothing else—’

‘I also think you were right when you said we needed to talk. We do need to talk, Olivia.’

He’d called her by her first name. He’d praised her, and he’d called her by her first name. He was definitely up to something.

‘What kind of talking?’ she said warily.

‘I think we need to talk about us.’

Us? As in him and her? His blue eyes were fixed on her, dark, and liquid and fathomless, and she swallowed—hard. Surely he wasn’t going to hit on her? He must know she’d knock him back. She was his boss, and relationships between staff members never worked, and she didn’t want to get involved with him anyway, and…

‘Seth—’

‘We always seem to be arguing, and I don’t want us to argue.’

Neither did she but, oh, lord, now he was smiling at her. That heart-stopping smile she hadn’t seen since last week. The smile which did odd things to her stomach and made her toes curl.

She took a steadying breath. ‘I don’t want to argue with you either, but—’

‘So I think there’s only one thing we can do.’

Oh, cripes, he was going to hit on her, and it wouldn’t work, she knew it wouldn’t. OK, so he was jaw-droppingly attractive but she didn’t do casual relationships, and he didn’t do permanence, and though a fling with him might be fun—hell, of course it would be fun—the repercussions didn’t bear thinking about.

‘What…?’ Her voice had come out way too high, and she cleared her throat and started again. ‘What—exactly—did you have in mind?’

‘A truce.’

A truce. Not ‘Why don’t we have a wild passionate affair?’ but a truce. Well, of course she’d known deep down that he wasn’t going to suggest an affair. Good grief, they’d only known each other a week, and she wasn’t his type, but…

‘Sounds good to me,’ she said, suddenly realising he was waiting for a reply. ‘What sort of a truce did you have in mind?’

He leant back against the corridor wall. ‘That you agree I might occasionally be right because of the length of time I’ve worked here, and I agree you might occasionally be right because you’re seeing everything with fresh eyes.’

It made sense. It made a lot of sense. A niggling voice at the back of her head pointed out that he could still be up to something, but she decided to meet him halfway.

‘Agreed,’ she said.

He stuck out his hand. ‘Shake on it?’

Try as she may, she couldn’t prevent a chuckle springing to her lips. ‘Shake on it,’ she agreed, and put her hand in his.

It was a mistake. She knew the minute their fingers touched that it was a mistake. Her hand felt so safe in his. Safe, and warm, and protected, and any woman who thought she was safe with Seth Hardcastle needed her head examined. He was breath-taking sex on legs, and trouble and heartache, and she’d had more than enough trouble and heartache to last her a lifetime.

But not enough breath-taking sex, her body whispered. Sex with Phil had been dull and unsatisfying, whereas sex with Seth…No, she wasn’t even going to speculate about what sex with Seth would be like, and quickly she eased her fingers free from his, praying her cheeks weren’t as red as they felt.

‘I have to go. George—’

‘Ah, yes. I’d forgotten about George.’

His voice sounded oddly flat, and she wondered if he didn’t like dogs. Phil hadn’t. He’d pretended to like George, and George had pretended to like him, and then she’d discovered Phil had only been pretending to love her and her marriage had ended.

‘I really must go,’ she said, backing up a step.

‘I must, too,’ he replied, not moving at all.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow, then,’ she mumbled, and he nodded, and she walked briskly down the corridor.

I am not going to look back, she told herself. Looking back is what teenagers do when they’re desperate to know whether the boy they’re interested in might be interested in them so I’m not going to look back.

But she did.

Just as she pushed open the door leading to the car park she glanced over her shoulder, and he was still there, still watching her, and his face creased into a smile. A smile that had her smiling back like some dippy, moonstruck, sixteen-year-old. A smile that had her heart doing a happy quick-step. As she stepped out into the open air, she muttered out loud to nobody in particular, ‘Oh, damn.’

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