Dear Reader

Almost everyone in Australia would associate the Gold Coast, Queensland, with theme parks, beaches, holidays and fun. Everyone except, of course, the people who live there. For them it’s just home. They get to enjoy the lovely beaches and the tranquillity of the rainforest in their own back gardens. Last year, when I was at a conference of romance writers on the Gold Coast, I wondered what it would be like to live in a tourist town—because everyday life isn’t vacation…it’s everyday life! How often do the residents get to the beach or the rainforest?

So, when my editor asked me if I would like to be part of the Gold Coast Angels series, I leaped at the chance—because this was my opportunity to explore living and working in a place that ticked 24/7 with a holiday vibe but was still home to so many people.

Chloe hasn’t really ever had a vacation, even though she’s lived on the Gold Coast for a decade. She’s been too busy supporting her brother Nick and getting her own life back together after being abandoned by her parents at sixteen. Now she’s just turned thirty, and she’s reflecting on her life and where it’s headed. Have the sacrifices she’s been forced to make been worth it?

Luke loved the casual Gold Coast lifestyle in the huge house on the canal that he shared with his wife and daughter, but one moment in time stole all that from him. Now he’s living in a town known for its fun, and yet he’s cloaked in sadness and not able to see a way out of it.

I hope you enjoy Chloe and Luke’s story, set against the backdrop of sun, surf and life lived to the full, and seeing how they manage against the odds to find their place in it and each other.

For photos of the Gold Coast, and tourist information to help you plan your next vacation, head over to my website: www.fionalowe.com. I love to hear from my readers, and you can find me on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, my website and blog, or e-mail me at fiona@fionalowe.com

Happy reading!

Fiona x

Always an avid reader, FIONA LOWE decided to combine her love of romance with her interest in all things medical, so writing Mills & Boon® Medical Romance™ was an obvious choice! She lives in a seaside town in southern Australia, where she juggles writing, reading, working and raising two gorgeous sons with the support of her own real-life hero!

Gold Coast Angels:
Bundle of Trouble
Fiona Lowe

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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DEDICATION

To Kath for sharing her story

and to Christine for telling it.

Wishing you both good health and happiness.

Table of Contents

Cover

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Epilogue

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY!’

The cheers rained over Chloe Kefes and she didn’t know if she wanted to laugh, cry or run. Truth be told, she wanted to do all three as she stared in shocked surprise at the smiling faces of her colleagues.

Somehow she managed to get her legs to move and as she stepped forward into the meeting room, the staff enthusiastically rushed her with balloons and hugs before pressing a polystyrene cup containing a small drop of champagne into her hand. So much for this being a vital patient review meeting on the busy Gold Coast City Hospital’s plastic surgery ward—instead it was a well-meant ambush.

‘To Chloe.’ They raised their cups.

‘Many happy returns, Clo.’

‘Have a good one.’

Her shoulders were squeezed, she was patted on the back, and her arm was pummelled with birthday bumps as half the room—the afternoon shift—rushed past her, dashing back to work.

‘Don’t let Richard eat all the Tim Tams,’ Julie, the radiographer, called out over her shoulder.

Their departure left behind the now off-duty day staff, which comprised a student nurse, a medical student and the plastics registrar, Richard, who had a reputation for eating all the chocolates.

Chloe finally found her voice. ‘Oh, you guys, you didn’t have to do this.’ Really, I wish you hadn’t.

Keri Letterman, the unit nurse manager, gave her a wide smile. ‘You didn’t think we’d let the big three-oh go past without acknowledging it, now, did you?’

‘Wow,’ muttered the barely twenty-year-old student nurse to the twenty-one-year-old med student, ‘I didn’t think she was that old.’

Chloe tried to give the bright and breezy smile she was known for but, despite her very best attempt, her ‘I guess not’ came out a tad strangled.

Up until a few minutes ago she’d really thought she’d managed to slip under the birthday police’s radar, otherwise known as Keri and Kate. Given the fuss they’d made of Lizzie, the ward clerk, on her fiftieth birthday, Chloe probably should have known better. Except that, unlike the rest of the staff, she hadn’t spent the preceding days giving a birthday countdown to anyone who’d listen.

In fact, she hadn’t told anyone it was her birthday and she certainly hadn’t told them it was the dreaded thirtieth.

‘Lucky for you,’ Keri continued, ‘I met Nick, Lucy and those gorgeous twins in the cafeteria and they told me it was your special day. If we were depending on you to tell us, we’d never have known.’

That was the general idea. ‘Who needs enemies when you’ve got a big brother, right?’ Chloe joked, hearing the slight criticism in her boss’s voice. She worked on letting it slide over her. Unlike many of her colleagues, she didn’t bring her private life to work—mostly because she didn’t have one.

Instead, she chatted about her new apartment with the sea view—a ten-centimetre glimpse of the ocean from her kitchen sink—her bushwalks in the rainforest hinterland around Mt Warning, and her latest adventures with sea kayaking. All of it kept the conversation firmly off the very personal.

Her reticence to share stemmed from experience. She’d learned a long time ago that the more you told people about your life, the more questions they asked, and she was only prepared to talk about the last couple of years. Any further back didn’t bear thinking about.

‘So what did you get for your birthday, Chloe?’ Richard asked, licking chocolate off his fingers.

She slid a photo out of her pocket and metaphorically crossed her fingers that the sheer cuteness factor of the photo would forestall the inevitable comments. ‘Chester.’

‘Oh, my God! He’s just like the puppy on the toilet-paper ads,’ Kate, a fellow nurse, gushed. ‘How old is he?’

‘Eight weeks.’

‘That’s little.’ Kate frowned. ‘Who’s looking after him while you’re at work?’

‘He’s at doggie daycare.’

‘Doggie daycare?’ Richard rolled his eyes. ‘Showing us photos of a dog is a sure sign you need a man and a baby.’

Chloe tried unsuccessfully not to let his words slap her. Richard was a congenial guy who had no idea his off-the-cuff comment encapsulated everything she wanted in her life but could never have. ‘Dogs are so much easier,’ she tried to quip lightly, ‘and, unlike you, my puppy will eventually be house-trained.’

Richard laughed good-naturedly as his pager beeped. Grabbing the last two Tim Tams before Kate could stop him, he called the students to follow him and he left with a wicked grin.

Keri looked at the photo of Chester. ‘He is cute. Did I show you the photo of Tahlia dressed up as a cat?’

‘You did.’ Chloe tried to stop the smile on her face from freezing. She’d seen every photo of Tahlia from a wet, slippery newborn on her mother’s chest right up to the most recent ones taken on her second birthday. Keri, like most proud parents, loved to spread her mother joy around, sharing every milestone with anyone and everyone who would listen. If they didn’t want to listen, she told them anyway.

‘Jack’s off his training wheels.’ Kate pulled out her phone and brought up a photo of her second son.

‘He looks so grown up,’ Keri said.

‘I know, right? I remember the day he took his first step and now he’s six and riding his own bike.’ Kate scrolled to another photo. ‘Chloe, you have to see this one.’

‘Lovely,’ Chloe said faintly. Chester’s photo was supposed to be her weapon against this sort of thing but instead the cuteness of the puppy seemed to be reminding everyone else that their children were cute too.

‘You okay, Chloe?’ Keri asked

She renewed her smile, putting extra wattage into it. ‘Fine, why?’

‘You’re shredding the rim of your cup.’

‘I must need more champagne, then.’ She picked up the bottle and sloshed in more of the straw-coloured liquid before gulping it down.

Kate held out her cup for a refill. ‘What are your plans for tonight?’

A walk along the beach with Chester, followed by take-out Indian and then tucking up in bed and watching all four hours of North and South. Only Kate, who was married with young kids and had rose-coloured memories of being single, would be horrified at the thought. ‘I’m hitting The Bedroom with some friends.’ It wasn’t strictly a lie.

Kate’s eyes lit up. ‘Oh, I remember nightclubs. Good for you, Chloe.’

‘I bet Nick and Lucy have plans to spoil you,’ Keri said as she started to tidy up the remains of the food.

She thought of her wonderful and loving brother, who’d been her sole supporter since she was sixteen. They’d been through a huge amount together and their joint determination to succeed had kept the other going during the tougher times.

Nick’s recent marriage was wonderful and she’d been thrilled he’d found such a supportive life partner in Lucy but, as expected, the wedding and the arrival of the twins had changed things between them. His focus was now on his wife and children, not his sister, which was right and proper—and as much as she loved the twins she found it excruciatingly hard to be around them. All of it meant there were times she missed Nick very much.

‘Nick organised for Café Sunset to open at six and we ate breakfast watching the sunrise—’

‘Sorry to interrupt the party.’

Chloe swung around at the deep and slightly disdainful voice that didn’t sound sorry at all.

‘Luke?’ Keri squealed with delight, and rushed forward, hugging him hard.

His body stiffened and he closed his eyes for a moment, as if he was seeking a way to endure the affection.

Chloe blinked and then gave her glasses a surreptitious polish and took another look. Was this gaunt man with a spray of silver at his temples really Luke Stanley? The eminent plastic surgeon who was known for his good humour and easygoing manner? She scanned her memory, barely recognising him.

She didn’t know him personally—in fact she’d only ever had one brief encounter with him and that had been well over a year ago. Just thinking about it made her cheeks burn with embarrassment. It had been her first day on the ward.

Due to her age, everyone had assumed she’d been nursing for years, but her education had been truncated at sixteen and it had taken her a few years to return to study. Graduating from university at twenty-eight had meant she’d had to work doubly hard to appear totally competent compared with the younger nurses for whom other staff members automatically made allowances on account of their youth and inexperience.

With that in mind, back on her first day she’d been busy concentrating on preparing a dressing pack by a patient’s bed, readying to check the skin edges, where his finger had been stitched back in place. As she had been mentally checking off all the items she required, she’d suddenly heard a deep and booming voice behind her saying, ‘Hello, Mr Benjamin.’

Startled, she’d swung around fast, completely forgetting she’d been holding an open container of iodine. The sudden movement had propelled the brown liquid out of the bottle, sending it flying up into the air where it had paused for a perilous moment—mocking her and her total lack of control over its trajectory. Gravity had pulled it down fast and it had landed on Mr Stanley, plastic surgeon, and, to all intents and purposes, her new boss.

As the indelible dark stain had oozed down his striped shirt, his crystal-clear green eyes had widened in surprise.

‘Oh, God, I’m s-so s-sorry,’ she stammered. ‘Of course I’ll replace it.’ Juggling this month’s bills to pay for what was probably a two-hundred-dollar shirt would involve robbing Peter to pay Paul—otherwise known as raiding her car fund yet again.

He raised his head—his neatly clipped and styled jet-black curls barely moving—and he smiled. ‘This is the third hit this shirt’s taken today. My wife frowns whenever I wear it as apparently it’s not my colour and I shouldn’t be trusted to shop alone,’ he said with good humour. ‘My baby daughter added her opinion by sicking up on it this morning just as I was racing out the door, and now this. I think you may have done me a favour…I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.’

‘Kefes. Chloe Kefes. I’m new today.’

Mr Benjamin, bless him, chimed in with, ‘She’s been taking excellent care of me, Doc.’

‘I’m sure she has.’ Luke tilted his head in contemplation. ‘Our obstetrician’s surname was Kefes. He works here at Gold Coast City and I think my wife secretly fell in love with him when he delivered Amber.’ He laughed and pulled out his phone, showing her a photo of a newborn baby in a bath.

With huge, dark eyes and a thatch of black hair, the baby, like all newborns, looked unmistakably like her father. Chloe thought of a baby lost in the mists of time and she teetered on the edge of darkness.

‘This is Amber an hour after Nick delivered her,’ he said fondly. ‘Believe me, I was in awe of him as well. I don’t suppose he’s any relation?’

She grabbed onto the lifeline of a conversation about her brother—one far removed from babies—and said, ‘Actually, Nick’s my brother and he is pretty awe-inspiring.’

Nick had sacrificed a lot and worked really hard to get to where he was today and she loved hearing how well regarded he was in the community.

Luke’s smile widened. ‘Caring professions must run in your family. Did you grow up in a medical household?’

She shook her head, not wanting to go anywhere near that mess of tangled and fraught emotions. ‘Are you sure you’re okay about your shirt?’

Again his ready smile graced his tanned cheeks. ‘Please don’t worry about it. Chances are Anna will probably write you a thank-you note for making it unwearable.’ He turned his attention to his patient. ‘So, Mr Benjamin, I just want to have a look at your fingers and see if my handiwork has counteracted the impact of the circular saw.’

That was the last time she’d seen him until today. Soon after the iodine debacle, a memo had been sent out from medical administration stating that Luke Stanley was on sabbatical for a year. At the time she hadn’t thought anything of it. Consultants came and went, and her job was all about the patients. But now, looking at him, she wondered if he’d been on sabbatical in a place that lacked sunshine. The man who once could have been glibly described as tall, dark, tanned, charming and with a ready smile looked pale, tired and tense.

Keri smiled as she stepped back from the hug. ‘I saw your name was back on the surgery list and I was wondering when you’d come up and say hi.’ She extended her arm. ‘You remember Kate, but I don’t think you’ve met Chloe.’

Kate raised her hand in greeting. ‘Welcome back, Luke.’

‘Thanks.’ The gruff word lacked grace.

Then eyes that Chloe remembered as having been bright and full of fun swung a dull gaze at her. No sign of recognition registered in their mossy dark depths. He gave her a curt nod of acknowledgment and an unruly curl fell across a slanted black eyebrow, highlighting his general dishevelment.

The inky stubble on his jaw had passed the three-day requirement of fashionable growth and now cried out for the tidying touch of a razor. Instead of a crisp shirt tucked into a pair of tailored suit trousers, he wore a dark red polo shirt and crumpled chinos that looked as if he’d slept in them. Perhaps he was jet-lagged and had just got off the plane?

He swung his attention back to Keri. ‘I’ve got a complicated surgery this week on a child the foundation’s brought over from Bali. He’s got shocking scarring on his neck and face due to the burn of hot oil and he can’t close his mouth or move his head. He’ll need one-on-one nursing and I want him nursed here by a plastics nurse, not in Paediatrics.’

Keri nodded. ‘What day are we talking?’

‘Thursday.’

The unit manager consulted the nursing roster on the notice-board. ‘Chloe’s rostered on through Sunday.’

‘Good,’ Luke said, sounding weary and resigned, as if everything was an effort but at least one job had been sorted out.

No, not good at all. A mild flutter of anxiety batted Chloe’s chest. She nursed adults and she didn’t like where this conversation was heading at all.

Luke’s gaze raked her again—a desolate look in his eyes calling up a sadness in her that she knew only too well. A sadness she’d learned to avoid thinking about. As she tried to shake off the melancholy his glance had elicited, she caught a momentary flash of something in his eyes that lit up the brilliant green.

A tingle shot up her spine, leaving a trail of unsettling effervescence. A tingle she barely remembered and had only ever associated with pain and regret. A tingle that had absolutely no place in this situation. He was married with a child and she wasn’t the sort of woman who would ever break up a marriage. Never. Ever.

She tried to throw off the sensation. Ethics aside, she didn’t even know him, so why a flutter of attraction? Her body, unlike her brain, must have its wires utterly crossed. Empathy was the only thing she should be feeling for this man—empathy generated by the sadness in his eyes—nothing else. Definitely not lust.

‘…at eight in the operating theatre, Chloe.’

The way his tongue rolled over her name shocked her back into the conversation and with her heart thumping hard she threw a beseeching look at Keri. ‘Jackie has way more experience than I do working with children.’

‘She does,’ Keri agreed, ‘but she’s not rostered on and you are.’

Chloe thought of her empty social calendar. ‘I can swap.’

Keri shook her head. ‘She’s got her sister’s wedding, remember?’

She turned to Kate, trying to hold her desperation in check. ‘How about you, Kate? As a birthday gift to me?’

‘Sorry, Chloe, I’ve got a family thing on. You know how it is.’

She didn’t know at all. Apart from meals with Nick, she hadn’t had a family thing in fourteen years.

A sigh of frustration hissed from Luke’s thinned lips and it bounced around the room, loud in its disapproval. He zeroed his glare onto her. The ominous, dark look made his high cheekbones sharp and stark, which emphasised the charcoal shadows under his eyes. ‘I’m sorry if my plans are inconveniencing you.’

His sarcasm—so far removed from the friendly, smiling man she’d met a year ago—bit hard, ruffling her usually calm demeanour. Her chin shot up. ‘Your plans are not inconveniencing me in the slightest, Mr Stanley. However, my expertise lies in nursing adults and therefore I may well inconvenience your patient.’

‘For heaven’s sake, I’m not asking you to play games with him.’ He shoved his hand through his hair, the thick curls snagging at his fingers. ‘Look, I need a plastics nurse who’s good at her job. Either you fit the bill or you don’t.’

‘She definitely fits the bill,’ Keri interrupted, her voice full of soothing tones as she threw Chloe a look that said, What on earth is the matter with you? ‘Chloe will head up a team of three nurses to cover each block of twenty-four hours for as long as the child needs that level of care.’

Chloe gulped in a steadying breath to stop the simmer of panic that was threatening to take off into a full-blown boil. Nursing children wasn’t something she did. Even as a student nurse she’d minimised her exposure with a bit of dumb luck. Rostered onto the children’s ward during a flu epidemic, she’d ended up nursing more adults under the bright, owl-covered bedspreads than children. This time, however, her luck had run out.

Keri took Luke’s arm and steered him towards the door. ‘How are Anna and Amber? Happy to be back home in sunny Australia?’

Luke blanched, the little colour he had in his face completely draining away. ‘You don’t know?’

His quiet words sent a chill through Chloe.

‘I don’t think I do,’ Keri said warily.

He looked out towards the ward, avoiding eye contact with the three of them. ‘Anna died thirteen months ago.’

His pain jerked through Chloe and her fingers closed around her cup so hard it crumpled in her hand. The successful surgeon who’d once had everything had lost it.

Keri sagged against the doorjamb. ‘I’m so sorry, Luke, none of us had any idea…’

‘Now you do.’ His words scorched the air like the summer sun—harsh, burning and devoid of any compassion that he’d just delivered shocking news. He turned abruptly to face Chloe, his emotions masked by tight control. ‘Don’t be late on Thursday.’ Just as abruptly, he strode out of the ward.

At that moment Chloe would have given anything to avoid Thursday. As she absently listened to Kate and Keri express their stunned sorrow for Luke, the ramifications of the next few days—weeks even—hit her. The man with the reputation of being fun, forgiving and easy to work with had totally vanished. In his place was a tortured and grieving soul with a personality as black as his jet hair.

It was a hell of a way to start her thirty-first year.

CHAPTER TWO

‘HOW WAS SHE today?’ Luke asked, sitting at his sister’s outdoor table under the protective shadow of a huge shade sail and watching Amber running around the yard with her older cousins. He tried not to think about the fact he had to take her home to a quiet and empty house.

‘The kids ran her ragged and she napped for three hours straight,’ Steph said with an apologetic shrug. ‘I guess that means she’ll be hard to settle tonight. Sorry.’

He thought about the hard-fought routine he’d established with his toddler daughter, all of which was about to change now he was returning to full-time work. ‘Hopefully, she’s running off more energy now and will snuggle down at seven.’

His sister gave him a contemplative glance. ‘So, how was it?’

‘What?’ He was being deliberately obtuse just in case his perceptive sister was having an off day.

‘Being back at Gold Coast City?’

The memory of the shocked expression of the nurses slugged him. ‘They didn’t know.’

‘Hell.’ Her hand touched his arm.

‘Yeah.’ He stirred the ice at the bottom of his glass. ‘I thought someone would have told them. I mean, hospitals are usually seething with gossip, rumour and innuendo, but just when I needed my personal life to be part of that mill, it wasn’t.’

‘I guess because it happened in France…’

‘Maybe.’ He drained his glass, trying not to think of that night when the gendarmes had told him his car had drifted onto the wrong side of the road. ‘I had to tell them, Steph. I had to watch their horror and then their sympathy. God, I thought by now I was over having to tell people. I thought at least that part would be done.’

‘It’ll get easier.’

‘Don’t say that.’ He glared at her, hating platitudes. He’d heard enough of them to know they only made the speaker feel better. Nothing was ever going to make him feel better. Nothing could erase the bald fact that he’d unwittingly killed his darling wife.

Steph’s usually smiling mouth flattened. ‘We’ll always miss Anna. You know I meant walking into the hospital and talking with the staff will get easier. Try to look on the plus side. By the time you return on Thursday they’ll have digested the news and be onto something else. Besides, given the turnover of staff, half of them probably don’t even know you.’

The image of a pair of hazel eyes framed by black-rimmed glasses, followed by a mane of glossy, chestnut hair, pinged into his mind. Eyes that seemed familiar and yet he felt sure that he’d never met the nurse before. If they’d met, he’d have remembered that particular combination of khaki-green flecked with brown. He knew that grief screwed with memory and his had been bad lately but, even so, she hadn’t shown any spark of recognition either. Hell, he really didn’t know why he was even thinking about her.

He tried to stop the picture of her at those eyes but, like a movie reel, his brain recalled way more. In vivid detail, it rolled over her round, smiling face, her ruby-red lips that peaked in a delectable bow and her lush curves that no uniform could hide. Natural curves that in a bygone era women had embraced but which today so many tried to dominate into submission. Curves that said, I am all woman.

His mouth dried as the same short, sharp kick of arousal he’d experienced the first time he’d seen her stirred again. He rubbed the back of his neck. God, what was wrong with him? Anna had only been dead just over a year and he missed her every single day. He didn’t want to look at other women, let alone lust after them.

‘You okay, Luke?’

No. ‘Yep.’ He didn’t like the inquiring look in his sister’s eyes so he shifted conversational gears. ‘The daycare centre called and they can take Amber for the extra days each week while you’re away on your big trip.’

Relief flitted across Steph’s face. ‘That’s good news. Of course, if you hadn’t sold the house around the corner…’

He shook his head, thinking about the five-bedroom house with its indoor-outdoor living, swimming pool and a spectacular view of the tidal canal and its constant boat traffic.

He and Anna had bought the colonnaded home when he’d been appointed to Gold Coast City. It was the place they’d taken Amber home to from the hospital and settled her into her nursery with the crooked wallpaper frieze of pastel balloons that he’d put on the wall. Anna had taken one look at his dodgy handiwork and had teased him not to give up his day job.

‘I couldn’t live in that house, no matter how close it was to you, and besides…’ he raked his hand through his hair ‘…it’s moot in this instance because you’re going to be gone for two months. I appreciate that you’ve been having Amber three days a week while I’ve been doing some private practice stuff, but I don’t want you putting your life on hold for me. Marty’s been talking about driving up the centre from Adelaide to Darwin for as long as I’ve known him, and it isn’t fair to you, him or the girls to put it off again.’

‘Luke, we’re family and we help each other out. It’s what families do. And the moment we get back I want to have Amber three days a week again.’ She leaned closer to him and smiled. ‘We love having her here, and the girls have stopped pestering me for a baby brother or sister so it’s win-win.’

He tried to match her smile. ‘No more baby plans, then?’

‘No. Marty wanted two and I wanted four so we’ve compromised on three.’

Luke detected a wistfulness in his sister’s voice, but before he could say anything Amber took a tumble on the grass and sent up a shriek of shocked surprise.

‘Up you get, honey,’ Luke called out as he rose to his feet and crossed the lawn. He swung his daughter into his arms and gave her knees and elbows a quick inspection for skin damage but could only see grass stains. He kissed her. ‘Bath time for you, young lady.’

‘Play ducky?’ Amber asked hopefully.

‘Play ducky in your bathtub,’ Luke replied, bracing himself for a howl of disappointment that Amber had to leave her beloved cousins and come with him.

‘Okay.’

‘Okay.’ He kissed her again, battling a surge of sadness for them both. ‘Let’s go…’ He couldn’t bring himself to say home because the cottage was just a house.

Chloe checked little Made’s observations as the six-year-old slept. The white of the sheets and pillowcases made his black hair and deeply olive skin seem even darker, and in the big hospital bed he looked tiny and in need of protection. Her protection.

She bit her lip against the rush of emotions—some caring, some painful, most tinged with loss. She’d lost her baby and along with it her chance to be a mother. Self-preservation meant she’d chosen not to nurse children, and in her off-duty life, while she didn’t technically avoid children, she didn’t actively seek them out either.

She knew from bitter experience that letting her mind drift backwards was unwise and unhealthy so she drew on every ounce of her professionalism. He’s a patient, like all your other patients.

She picked up the Bahasa-English dictionary she’d purchased and thumbed through the pages. Last night she’d recalled her basic Indonesian from primary school, and using the dictionary she’d looked up the words for pain and thirst, adding them to her small list of phrases. The little boy’s mother spoke less English than Chloe spoke Bahasa, which wasn’t saying much, so the dictionary was getting a good workout.

Between them, they were muddling along and Made was pain-free, which right now was the most important thing for his recovery.

Chloe stifled a yawn. It had been a long day and she still had an hour to go before her relief took over. She’d started her shift early due to Luke Stanley’s request that she attend the operation. She’d arrived before him and had spent the time chatting with the anaesthetist about Made’s post-operative pain relief while the rest of the theatre staff had scurried around, getting ready. The scout nurse had set up Mr Stanley’s favourite playlist of music but the moment he’d walked briskly into Theatre he’d demanded it be turned off.

The mood of the room had instantly changed—people had become tentative and quiet. Eyes had flashed and flickered over the tops of surgical masks, sending coded messages to each other. Luke Stanley had operated almost silently, his only words being infrequent curt demands for instruments that the experienced scrub nurse had failed to anticipate, and as a result the air was thick with confused tension. People wanted to be sympathetic and understanding, but nothing about Luke Stanley’s demeanour allowed it.

Initially, Chloe hadn’t understood why Luke had insisted she be in the operating room, but it had been utterly hypnotic watching him in action and seeing how those long, strong and competent fingers had freed the thick, scarred adhesions on Made’s neck. He deserved his reputation as a talented surgeon and his skills were restoring little Made’s life to normality. The young boy would once again be able to turn his head, and in time he would once again enjoy playing childhood games.

Although it hadn’t been absolutely necessary to attend the operation to be able to nurse Made effectively, knowing exactly what Luke Stanley had done, seeing from where the skin grafts had been taken and how they had been positioned, did help. She rechecked Made’s analgesia drip and then set about her fifteen-minute routine of observing the skin grafts. Circulation was key and she wanted to see pink, warm skin, not white and cool skin.

‘How’s he doing?’

Surprised, Chloe spun around at the sound of Luke’s deep but curt voice. Just like their first encounter fifteen months ago, she hadn’t heard him enter the ward—only this time her hands were thankfully empty. This time Luke’s face wasn’t open, smiling and cheerful. Instead, gaunt skin stretched over high cheekbones, giving him a haunted look.

‘He’s doing great,’ she said, suppressing a shudder at the pain Luke wore like a greatcoat. Her brain sought for something she could say that could give them a shared connection, which might make him look less formidable and unapproachable. ‘Do you always enter the room panther style?’

His dark brows drew down. ‘What are you talking about?’

She ignored his brusqueness and tried a smile. ‘You have a habit of entering a room silently and surprising me.’

He looked blank and utterly uncomprehending. ‘This is the first time I’ve seen you with a patient.’

She shook her head. ‘Just before you went to France, you walked into this same ward very quietly and gave me such a fright that I covered you in iodine.’

His vivid green eyes finally flashed with recognition. ‘Chloe? Nick’s sister?’ He said the words as if he needed to hear them to cement them in his mind.

‘That’s right. Lucky for you that today my hands are empty,’ she joked.

He glanced down at his scrubs, as if he couldn’t remember what he was wearing, and then shrugged his wide shoulders like it really didn’t really matter anyway. ‘If there’s any change with Made’s grafts, notify me immediately. You have my mobile number?’

She swallowed a sigh. So much for attempting a friendly connection with the man. ‘I do. Are you leaving the hospital now?’

He seemed to stiffen. ‘Yes. I have to pick my daughter up from daycare. They don’t like it when I’m late.’

‘I don’t suppose she likes it either.’

His eyes burned, emitting sparks of green. ‘You think I want Amber in daycare ten hours a day? She doesn’t have a choice and neither do I.’

The loud and terse words slammed into her like a punch to her solar plexus, making her heart race.

Made’s mother startled from her nap in the chair. ‘Apa yang salah?’ Mrs Putu asked anxiously.

Chloe didn’t need to understand the words to know that the mother was stressing that Luke’s raised voice meant something was wrong with her son. She reached out her hand to comfort and reassure the woman.

‘Semuabaik,’ Luke said softly. ‘All is well.’

‘Terimakasih, Dokter.’ The woman visibly relaxed and sank back in her chair.

Chloe turned back to face Luke, surprised at the ease in which the foreign language had rolled off his tongue but furious with him for upsetting Mrs Putu. For deliberately misconstruing her own words. Adrenaline pelted through her, sending rafts of agitation jetting along her veins, and she needed to work extra-hard to appear calm.

Choosing her words carefully, she shepherded Luke towards the door. ‘I’m not judging you about daycare,’ she said, sotto voce, ‘I was talking about the fact your daughter probably doesn’t like it when you’re late either.’

He stared down at her, his jaw tight, his height dwarfing her by a good thirty centimetres, and she caught the scent of his spicy cologne. His eyes, which at times could be bright green, were now a dark moss and filled with so many flickering emotions that it was hard to decode any of them over and above the dominant and glaring pain.

Tall, dark, gorgeous, brooding and tortured.

Her heart did a ridiculous leap, which had absolutely nothing to do with his indignation or her chagrin.

Oh, no, she told herself sternly. The man is grieving and you do not need to rescue him. You’ve just got your own life back on track. You’ve got a dog to love and be loved by.

Shimmering tingles taunted her, spinning through her with their intoxicating call. But it’s been so long…

No way in hell, Chloe! her ever-vigilant internal guard yelled. Keep it simple, remember?

She sucked in a long, deep breath, trying desperately to banish the delicious buzz of addictive warmth. ‘Everything’s fine here, Mr Stanley. Go and get your daughter.’

His eyes widened at her dismissal of him, and he rubbed his forehead with his fingers and his temple with his thumb as if his head hurt. ‘Goodnight, then.’

She watched him turn and leave without giving an apology and she tried not to let it rankle. After all, it shouldn’t bother her one bit because she was used to working with surgeons who believed all should bow down before them and kiss their feet. She also knew that apologies for bad behaviour were few and far between. Only Luke Stanley had always been an exception to that rule.

His reputation for skill and good humour had always meant that people had fallen over themselves to work with him. The nursing and auxiliary staff, from cleaners to occupational therapists, had loved him, and whenever he’d put together a team to go to Asia or Africa for a six-week stint with the foundation, repairing cleft lips and palates, there had always been more applicants than positions.

That man had utterly disappeared when his wife had died.

She wasn’t a stranger to grief, and she understood the pain of it all too well. She’d been lost in the midst of it once, for a year, floundering in the suffocating darkness that had become both enemy and friend. It had been her beloved brother Nick who’d hauled her unwilling teenage mind out of the black and treacherous morass and pushed her back into the light of life.

At the time it had hurt like nothing she’d ever experienced before or since and the battle not to let grief become a toxic legacy had been beyond hard, but she’d done it. Years later, when Jason had told her he wouldn’t marry her because she couldn’t give him a child, she’d teetered on the edge but she’d survived and learned. Today, she knew that even though her life now wasn’t anything like that she’d imagined for herself as a naïve sixteen-year-old, and neither was it the life she truly wanted, it was a life worth living and living well.

You could show him how to do it.

The thought clanged loudly in her head like the penetrating sound of a fire alarm and she wished she could put noise-cancelling headphones over her brain.

Yes, she was a nurse, a member of a caring profession, and, yes, she had the ability to recognise when someone needed help. Luke Stanley definitely fell into that category—he needed help big-time—but she was also a survivor. Helping a grieving man with a child would be more harmful to her than helpful to him and she wasn’t prepared to risk her hard-won stability.

No, it wasn’t her job to do the ‘hands-on’ helping stuff with Luke Stanley, but she’d talk to Keri and Kate. After all, they knew Luke a hell of a lot better than she did.

CHAPTER THREE

‘WANT BUNNY,’ Amber sobbed into Luke’s shoulder, her tears making a damp patch on his cotton shirt.

‘Hello, Amber, I’m Mr Clown,’ Luke said in a voice he thought might sound like a clown’s as he waggled the soft toy near his daughter’s face.

Amber’s hand knocked the clown sideways. ‘Want bunny!’

Luke’s head pounded with fury at himself and despair for Amber, which rumbled through him and reminded him he had so much to learn as a father. How had he forgotten to check that her beloved bunny had been in the backpack when he’d collected Amber from daycare?

Because you were thinking about Chloe Kefes.

His anger at himself was buried deep with sharp roots. How had he forgotten ever meeting her? Unlike most of his colleagues, he didn’t forget names and faces, especially when there was another connection, like her being Nick’s sister. But today he’d needed all her prompting to recall the iodine incident.

He hated that he’d forgotten as much as he hated the fact his mind kept repeating the way her plump lips curved into a smile. A generous, captivating smile, which dimpled her round cheeks and danced in her eyes. A smile that had faded under the onslaught of his bitter words—words generated by his own self-loathing and hurled out to land on the nearest target. It wasn’t Chloe’s fault that Amber was motherless and in full-time daycare. No, that responsibility lay solely at his feet.

Amber’s wails sounded even louder than before.

Damn it, he shouldn’t still be thinking about Chloe. What sort of a pathetic excuse for a father was he?

Poor Amber. She was rarely without her talisman bunny—her security blanket in her ever-changing world. Her one stable item in a confusing place, where her previously mostly at-home father was now absent during the day, and her aunt, uncle and cousins were unexpectedly gone too.

He’d telephoned the director of the daycare centre, who, although sympathetic to his plight, had not been prepared to make the twenty-minute drive to open the building to retrieve the bunny, no matter what Luke had offered. The doctor in him understood. The father with the hysterical child wasn’t quite so reasonable.

He lined up all Amber’s cuddly toys. ‘Look, honey, Teddy’s sad and needs a cuddle,’ he tried, desperate to turn the situation around.

Amber screamed.

Abandoning any attempts to try and settle her into her cot, Luke carried her outside to the deck. The slow and rhythmic roll of the waves hitting the sand boomed around them and the silver rays of moonlight beamed down through the streaks of cloud to sparkle on the Pacific Ocean. He lowered himself onto the sun lounger and settled Amber on his chest, his hand patting her sobbing and shuddering body and matching the beat to the tempo of the waves.

Oh, so very slowly, as the inky darkness cloaked them both, Amber’s frantic sobs turned into occasional, gulping hiccoughs until her breathing steadied and her body relaxed against his. Despair finally turned to sleep. He knew he should probably take her into her room and settle her into her cot, but after the last hour he didn’t dare move in case she woke up, remembered the missing bunny and was again faced with having to go through the same trauma.

He knew all about that. Even now, living in a different house, he still woke occasionally expecting to find Anna there, only to have the realisation she was gone dump all over him. Over and over. Anna was gone because he’d made a critical error that couldn’t be fixed. At least Amber was spared the memory of missing her mother, or at least he hoped she was. She’d only been six months old when Anna had died. Did she miss someone she couldn’t remember?

He pulled a beach towel off the chair next to him and covered both of them with it to ward off the slight chill of the night air. Amber may not have a mother, but she had a loving extended family who smothered her in love. Were aunts, uncles and cousins enough?

The image of clear and honest hazel eyes beamed into his brain and he instantly shut them out. He’d only ever had eyes for one woman, and even though Anna was gone he had no desire to look elsewhere. The idea was abhorrent to him. Closing his eyes, he found himself battling random images of dimples and long, glossy chestnut hair. Desperate, he focused on the sound of the sea and willed sleep to come.

The elevator doors closed and Callie Richards, neonatal specialist, wished she could turn off her pager and hide in the steel box for an hour. She knew it was just an idle dream, however, because the NICU was full of sickies and Nick Kefes, Gold Coast City’s beloved obstetrician, had just called her, flagging a possible case that might require her skills. She hoped Nick was being his usual overcautious self and that she might actually get home tonight to sleep in her own bed.

Who else’s bed would you sleep in? Certainly not arrogant Cade Coleman’s.

Shut up!

She hated how her conscience threw up unexpected reminders of her most stupid mistake to date—flirting outrageously with Cade Coleman. Just when she’d been convinced she’d successfully let go of the embarrassing memory, her brain did this to her. It made little sense because it wasn’t like he was the only man she’d ever had practise forgetting. Truth be told, he was just one in a long line of men—men she rarely gave a second thought after she’d picked up her shoes and tiptoed quietly out their doors, never to see them again.

Correction—thinking about Cade made no sense because she hadn’t even got to first base with him, thank God, let alone kissing and sex. But flirting with him had been a basic error—a rookie mistake she should be long past making.

Rule Number One: don’t hit on the men you work with. Prior to Cade, she’d held fast to that rule like superglue because it meant she never had to deal with coming face to face with her folly on a daily basis.

Mind you, the man didn’t seem perturbed by that fact so she shouldn’t be either and, damn it, she wasn’t. Just yesterday she’d given him a polite nod and not felt a moment’s regret. Well, not very much of a moment, anyway.

Emotionally stunted men like Cade are not worth thinking about. She repeated the mantra to herself.

The elevator pinged, the doors opened and she stepped out to see Chloe Kefes standing and staring through the large windows of the special care nursery. On the other side of the glass were the cots that were home to the premature babies who were now almost full term. The staff affectionately called this part of the room the ‘fattening-up’ corner and when babies graduated here, they were close to being discharged home into the loving care of their parents.

‘Hi, Chloe, you’re a long way from Plastics.’

The nurse looked momentarily flustered and a pink flush stained her cheeks. ‘I’m on my way back from Pathology.’

‘You’re taking the long way, then.’ Callie laughed, understanding exactly, because sometimes in a fraught and busy hospital, taking a circuitous route gave a professional the only breathing space they got in a day. She followed Chloe’s gaze. Twin boys had managed to each get a hand out from under their bunny rug and their little fingers were exploring the air.

‘Those two were so sick and now look at them. They’re just itching to explore life,’ Callie said with a glow of satisfaction.

‘Hmm.’

Callie glanced at Chloe, who was usually a lot chattier. ‘Tough day?’

Chloe shrugged. ‘I used to love coming to work but for the last few weeks the ward’s been on tenterhooks. It seems no matter what we do, we can’t do anything right.’

‘Luke Stanley?’

She nodded. ‘When the consultant’s not happy…’

‘No one is.’ Although Callie didn’t know Luke, she’d heard the news of his wife’s death on the hospital grapevine. She touched Chloe’s arm in an understanding gesture because nurses often took the brunt of a doctor’s unhappiness.

‘When my day sucks, I often come down here and look at the babies.’ Callie smiled. ‘There’s something about them that makes you feel better and gives you hope, right?’

Chloe spun away from the window so fast that she almost knocked into her. ‘I have to get back to work, Callie. Catch you later.’

She walked away before Callie had time to say another word. Astonished by the nurse’s abrupt departure, she watched her disappear into the lift. Chloe was usually so upbeat—one of those people who seemed to be almost too bright, bubbly and good humoured to be real, although Callie knew her to be absolutely genuine. Chloe Kefes was one of the hospital’s best nurses, with a perfect blend of professionalism, empathy and good cheer. For her to be so skittish, Luke Stanley must really be getting her down.

Men. Working with them should be straightforward but so often it was far from that. Thoughts of Cade threatened to rise but she cut them off at the knees. She’d made a fool of herself once and she had no plans to do it again. She was over and done with Cade Coleman.

She pushed open the door of the nursery and did a round of her little patients. The baby with bronchomalacia, who was being nursed in the open cot, was improving and she hoped that by tomorrow he’d be breathing without the assistance of continuous positive airway pressure. She took the time to reassure anxious parents about the standard procedure of using an apnoea mattress with all premature babies, and she was thrilled to be able to help a mother hold her premature baby for the very first time.

Callie loved her job. Unlike her private life, here at the hospital she was in control and she knew exactly what she was doing. After she’d completed the discharge papers for the twins, Nick still hadn’t called back, so she decided to grab something to eat while she had the chance.

As she reached the tearoom door, laughter and conversation rolled out to meet her.

‘Oh, my God, that Cade Coleman has to be the sexiest man ever to walk the floor of this hospital.’

Callie recognised the voice of Sara Hennessey, one of the NICU nurses, and she stopped short of entering the room.

‘I know, right? And that accent! He only has to say hello and I’m a puddle of lust,’ replied a voice Callie wasn’t familiar with.

‘He is without a doubt the best addition to Gold Coast City in a very long time. I heard from the theatre nurses that Callie Richards—’

Oh, God, no! Callie hastily spun on her heel, away from the tearoom, and punched open the nursery door. It took every ounce of control she had to keep her feet from breaking into a run. One dumb mistake. It was bad enough she’d plastered herself all over him when they’d danced and then gone on to suggest that she was open to more, but to have the nursing staff talking about her was more than she could bear. She’d worked so hard at keeping her private life exactly that—private.

Never again was she going to give anyone any excuse to talk about her. From this day forward she was marking Cade Coleman and every other red-blooded male in the hospital as off limits.

‘What is the point of writing down clear instructions if no one reads them?’

As Luke’s terse words broke over Chloe like jagged shards of glass, she counted slowly to five. Despite talking with Keri and Kate and outlining her concerns about Luke, and their meeting with staff in Theatre to try and work out the best way to handle him, not much had changed in two weeks. With Keri and Kate, with whom he’d worked before, he seemed to hold himself in check, but there were still moments when he was difficult, and on those occasions he took down everyone in his path.

Oh, why had Keri gone to a seminar today, leaving her in charge of the ward? Now she had to deal with the man she’d nicknamed the panther. Like the big black cat, he was a perfect specimen—sleek, muscular and strong. At times his emerald eyes would glow with ruthless keenness that made her shiver with delicious anticipation.

It unnerved her because she didn’t want to be attracted to him. She didn’t want to be attracted to any man, let alone one who had a neon ‘excess-baggage’ sticker plastered all over him. That would be like throwing herself under a truck—both dangerous and deadly to her peace of mind.

Stay strong. Remember, no man is for you, especially not this one.

A raft of heady need skipped through her, deaf to her entreaties, and she stomped on it hard. She didn’t even like this version of Luke, so why was her body doing this to her? When he was in one of his moods, he pounced on any weakness, attacking first and pausing second. Yes, the man was grieving, and for the last couple of weeks the staff had been making allowances for him, but that didn’t absolve him from basic manners.

Glancing up at his handsome but scowling face, she said, ‘And hello to you, Mr Stanley. Welcome to Ward Six.’

‘Chloe.’ He gave her a stiff nod as if he recognised that he should have at least greeted her first before lobbing his complaint at her like a grenade. ‘Mrs Wharton’s drain tubes should have been removed today. The woman’s been through breast cancer and the least she can expect is to be free of tubes so she can get an idea of how her new breasts are going to look.’

‘I agree.’

‘I don’t need you to agree.’ He rubbed his temple and squinted at her as if he was having trouble focusing. ‘I just need the drain tubes out.’

‘And they will come out.’ In every encounter with the irascible consultant she’d needed to draw on her counselling skills. It was exhausting. ‘As a result of your busy morning in the operating theatre, we’re flat out here with post-op checks. Along with that, we’re one nurse down and as I am sure you’re aware you didn’t specify an exact time for the removal. There’s still a lot of today left.’

She smiled at him to reinforce her commitment. ‘I guarantee you that the drain tubes will be out before I go off duty at three.’

‘Good,’ he said gruffly, scrawling an order on another patient’s chart. ‘Make sure they are.’

His response crossed her threshold of what she was prepared to have dished out to her. ‘Mr Stanley…Luke.’

His silver pen stilled in his hand. ‘Yes?’

‘I may not be Keri and we may not have had a long working relationship but I’m good at my job. When I give you my word, know that it will be honoured. I’d appreciate being treated with the same professional respect that I accord you.’

Despite the semi-permanent dull ache behind his eyes, Luke felt Chloe’s words strike him and strum a chord. God, when had he turned into such an ogre?

Since you killed your wife. The cancerous words spread their malignancy through him again, ramping up the hatred he held for himself—an abhorrence he shielded Amber from. Like a full reservoir, there were times when it spilled out at work, no matter how hard he tried to contain it.

‘I have a headache.’ He rubbed his eyes and hid behind an excuse because it was easier than telling Chloe the truth.

Her hazel eyes widened in disbelief at his justification for rudeness, which even sounded lame to his own ears.

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ she said, her chin tilting up defiantly, ‘but is there any need to inflict it on us? Here…’ She fished a foil disc out of her pocket. ‘Take some ibuprofen.’

He accepted the two white tablets along with the admonishment and tried a wry smile. ‘Spoken like a true nurse.’

Her lush mouth softened into a smile and the stirrings of warmth that eddied in him each time he met her became waves of liquid heat. Then she laughed and the sound surfed on the heat, pulling up memories of the times he’d laughed easily. For a brief moment the constant reminders of why he didn’t laugh much any more—why he didn’t feel any more—faded away and he let the wondrous and glorious sensations of life surge through him.

Betrayer.

Guilt seared him like the dry heat from a furnace, sucking the oxygen from the joy until it shrivelled to nothing. He didn’t deserve to feel happy. He wanted to turn and leave—march away from Chloe immediately. Away from the temptation that represented everything he could no longer have in his life.

You have to work with her.

He did, and it wasn’t Chloe’s fault that Anna was dead. It wasn’t Chloe’s fault that with one ill-timed action he’d screwed up his perfect life.

He stood facing her with his fingers clenched on his Swiss pen and tried to apologise. ‘I do appreciate your work here, Chloe.’

‘Thank you.’

This time her smile made her dimples and her eyes dance, and the treacherous heat flared again, filling him with longing before vanishing and leaving only bitterness. Hell, he couldn’t cope with this roller-coaster ride of emotions every time he came to the ward, but he could hardly ask Administration to have her removed. A thought struck him—the perfect solution for six weeks or more.

‘You did a great job with Made, so great, in fact, that I think you should sign up for the foundation’s cleft palate tour that leaves next week.’ He tried for what he hoped was a reassuring smile. ‘Jenny Patrick’s looking for people and you’re a natural with kids.’

She flinched as if he’d struck her. ‘I appreciate the compliment but that won’t be possible.’

No. ‘Why not?’ He heard the bark in his voice and wished he could snatch the words back because, damn it, his fear sounded the same as anger.

She blinked at him as if she couldn’t believe he’d asked her the question. ‘Because…’ Her cheeks flamed red and she twirled her ponytail tightly around her forefinger as if she was struggling to give a reason. ‘Because it’s just not possible.’ She picked up Glenda Wharton’s drug chart and slapped it against his chest. ‘Please write up some milder analgesia for her and I’ll take out the drain tubes now.’

Her expression—a combination of defiance and pain—was all too familiar and it silenced him. As much as he didn’t want to have to see Chloe every day, he didn’t want to hurt her either. While he quickly wrote the order across the page, neither of them said another word.

He got the distinct feeling both of them were battling demons they wanted to keep secret.

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