Czytaj książkę: «Her Knight Under The Mistletoe»

CHAPTER ONE

MATTHEW KNEW HE was making a poor job of hiding his frustration. Maybe he should have succumbed to the frivolities of the season and worn one of those ridiculous holiday jumpers to counterbalance his grim expression and biting tone.

When no answer to his earlier question was forthcoming he repeated, “You said the job was mine.”

From the look on Dr. Menzies’s face he might as well have said Santa wasn’t real.

Ho-ho-ho. Merry Un-Christmas.

His mentor shifted uncomfortably in his chair, ultimately breaking eye contact to throw a look over Matthew’s shoulder toward the floor-to-ceiling windows.

The usual buzz and whirr of the inner city A&E unit was still humming along, as if the rug hadn’t just been yanked out from under his feet. Both his and Dr. Menzies’s feet, from the looks of things. The hospital’s Director of Medicine and Surgery seemed to be taking as little pleasure in the change of events as he was. Or perhaps Dr. Menzies was monitoring the progress of the Christmas decorations going up to mark the advent of the holiday season.

Tinsel, wreaths, super-sized glittering baubles and a surplus of mistletoe... The hospital’s volunteer “Yule Squad” was in turbo drive. Perhaps their powers extended to the weather. The day was cold enough for snow. But the only cloud in the sky had followed Matthew indoors and was hanging directly over his head.

Matthew remained motionless. One of his trademarks when his stress levels hit the roof. It was the only way to ensure that whoever was on the receiving end of his million-miles-away stare was none the wiser.

“As you know, Dr. Chase, these things are often more...” Dr. Menzies searched for the right word “...fluid than initially presented.”

“Fluid.”

Statement, not a question. How could the A&E job he’d been promised suddenly not be his?

“We know you have been incredibly generous—”

Matthew cut him off with a growl and a hand-swipe. He hadn’t donated money for the new wing to buy himself the position.

“I’ve earned this job. The Support our Soldiers unit has nothing to do with me.”

“On the contrary, Matthew, it has everything to do with you. You founded the ruddy charity. Think of the lives that have already been saved by your clinic in Sussex. And if you don’t mind me saying—”

“I do.” Matthew stopped him.

He knew the statistics better than anyone. Veteran suicide had outstripped soldiers dying in combat years ago. Over in the US more than a dozen soldiers were taking their lives a day. A day! He wasn’t about to let the UK match those statistics. Not on his watch.

He knew the toll one of those deaths had taken on a person firsthand.

“With respect, Donald, it doesn’t matter how many times the board ask me to run the unit. I am not your guy. I’m better out there.” He pointed to the A&E and hoped his solid stance would draw a line under the issue.

The anonymity of the A&E was what he was after. Proximity to the SoS unit was merely...useful.

His eye snagged on a couple of orderlies wrestling with a Christmas tree, attempting to set it up haphazardly in a corner of the waiting room. He scowled. Christmas seemed to come round sooner and sooner each year. Bah, humbug, to it. And to the carolers who were virtually blocking the entrance. And to New Year’s as well, while he was at it.

Every day was the beginning of a new year. Just not one highlighted up on the calendar with pictures of adorable rabbits or firemen.

“Dr. Chase, I think there were concerns regarding—”

“Don’t you dare tell me this has anything to do with—” Matthew cut in, then stopped himself.

He couldn’t go there. Not yet anyway. Maybe never. But at this time of year, with all of the Christmas lights, the opulently decorated trees and hordes of shoppers wrestling their gifts home everywhere he walked, it was hard not to have his nuclear family spring to mind.

Nuclear explosion, more like. Implosion? Whatever...

Either way, what was left of his family had fallen apart years ago, and a stack of plum puddings that reached to the moon and back wouldn’t come close to bringing them back together.

As hard as it was, Matthew uncurled his hands from the fists they were forming. Frustration—not fury—had balled them into tight knots of steel and sinew. Okay, flesh and bone—but right now the walls around him were officially being warned. One of them would be getting a new hole if the hospital board didn’t change their minds.

Dr. Menzies waved away his interruption. “There were concerns regarding your history of signing up for repeat tours...”

“What about it? I was doing my duty.”

Avoiding his life, more like.

“Matthew, I know if you say you’re going to do a job, you’ll do it. I have absolute confidence in your ability. But—”

“But what? I’m used to working with mortars pounding around my medical tent. You think I can’t handle an A&E in the center of London?”

Dr. Menzies gave his chin a scrub. “It’s actually nothing to do with that. It’s more a question of...commitment. Whether you’ll want to go and work for SoS—”

“I already told you. I am one hundred percent behind the soldiers’ PTSD unit. I just don’t want to work there. It’s not my forté. Trauma is.”

Physical trauma he could deal with. Emotional...? Not so much. Besides, who would want a daily reminder of the brother he hadn’t saved? The brother he had sworn to look after.

“Dr. Chase, you know I’ll fight your corner until my knuckles bleed, but in this case they’re bleeding and the decision has been made. The board has been clear. A monthlong job share with the other top applicant is the working plan at this point. A decision will be made as to who gets the post in the New Year. It’s nothing to do with your ability. Just the usual politics.”

“Politics.”

The word hung between them like a noose.

Unbelievable. He’d put in the hours, the graft, the blood and the sweat. Maybe not the tears, but if he was going to come back to London for good this job and this hospital were the only reasons why.

Again his gaze drifted to the busy A&E. His pulse elevated just looking at the packed waiting room. He’d far rather be out there doing a fourteen-hour shift than standing in here talking about a job share.

Maybe “they” had a point. The management post he was trying to snag involved a lot of paperwork. And even more politics.

Something in him softened. This couldn’t be easy for Dr. Menzies. He narrowed his gaze, acutely aware that his mentor had aged considerably since they’d last worked together some ten years ago. Right before his first deployment.

Matthew looked him in the eye. “Since when are we back to Dr. Chase?”

The question had the desired effect. The tension in the room went down a few notches and the atmosphere became not exactly friendly, but closer to how they’d been way back in the good ol’ days at the teaching hospital. When learning had been learning, work had been work, and when your boss offered you a job you got it. Not had it swung in front of you like a carrot, only to have it given to another rabbit.

“So...is this how I should look forward to things working here at Bankside? Fluidly?”

To his credit, Dr. Menzies chuckled. The man had been more of a mentor to Matthew than his father ever had. A sting of remorse shot through him. Not that he could blame his father. Grief did strange things to a person. Especially when your one living son had done the single solitary thing he’d begged him never to do. Joined the military.

“Now, Matthew, let’s not get carried away, shall we?”

“Why not?” He leaned against the doorframe of his mentor’s office, having never bothered sitting down. “Yesterday I was under the impression I’d be taking over the A&E unit in a few days’ time and today it’s a job share. I don’t know if I need my ears cleaned, but let’s see if I can remember correctly.” He tapped his chin in a faux display of trying to remember the moment. “Matthew,” he mimicked, expertly but not unkindly, “having you as Director of A&E would be like—”

“Butter on bread,” Dr. Menzies finished for him with a shake of the head. “Look. I’m sorry, Matthew, but this one is out of my hands. You know I’d have you running the A&E this very second if I could, but...” He hesitated and looked away as he spoke on. “If we’re going to carry this simile on further let’s just say the candidate they have in mind would be the...er...marmalade.”

“The marmalade? I’m the butter and this other mysterious candidate is the bloody marmalade?”

Matthew squared up to his boss—grateful there was a desk between them. Never in his life would he dream of laying a finger on him—or anyone, for that matter—but this was news. He wasn’t here to quibble over butter vs. tangy toast toppings.

He might as well have stayed in Iraq if he’d wanted things to be straightforward. Wake up. Survive. Sleep. Repeat.

He’d come back to London to work. Help patients. Make sure the SoS wing opened. Maybe process a few of his own demons while he was at it. But mostly to work. When he worked there wasn’t a thought in his head other than doing the best he could for the patient he was with.

Dr. Menzies rose from his chair and walked round and perched on the edge of his desk. “I know this isn’t what you wanted. What either of us wanted,” he hastily corrected himself, “but this other candidate has got a helluva lot of experience.”

“I have a helluva lot of experience.”

He silently ticked off the countless years of medical school, the military training, working in combat conditions. Turning his father’s plastics factory into an award-winning center for prosthetics. Getting a knighthood for turning the bulk of the profits into a charity for soldiers trying to reintegrate themselves into society. What more did the world expect him to give before he’d proved himself?

“Who is he?”

“Actually...Matthew...he’s a she.”

* * *

“Job share?” Amanda’s cheeks, pink from the icy walk to the hospital, turned hot and her eyes widened as the A&E department’s PA raised her hands in a don’t-shoot-the-messenger gesture.

“From the look on your face, I am guessing our beloved Dr. Menzies didn’t make that clear? Hot tea? It’s freezing out there. Or gingerbread?”

She pushed a plate of decorated ginger biscuits—stars, bells, Santas and something she couldn’t identify—across her desk and rolled her eyes.

“My mum’s on a mission this year to be the Christmas biscuit champion of her WI group. The weird one is a submarine. My dad.” She offered as a means of explanation.

Amanda accepted a star-shaped biscuit with a smile, her eyes flicking to the PA’s nameplate: Deena Stokes. She looked no-nonsense enough, even with her nails decorated like Christmas tree baubles. She also looked as if this wasn’t the first time she had delivered unwelcome news to someone who should already have been in the loop.

Her dry tone intimated a certain world-weariness with her boss and his lack of communication, but her body language spoke volumes, too. She was the gatekeeper to the director’s domain—and right now the drawbridge wasn’t anywhere near close to landing on the other side of the moat. So it was suck it up and take a biscuit or...

“Your mum’s in with a good shot if these are anything to go by.”

Amanda lifted the half-eaten cookie as evidence, though with her nerves jangling round her like elves on hyperdrive even the finest pastries in the universe would taste like cardboard.

She looked toward the closed office door and tilted her head back to Deena. “I’ve not met with him yet. I’ve only had meetings with the board.”

Amanda shook her head in disbelief and finished her biscuit. You had to laugh, didn’t you? Just when she’d thought she’d had all her ducks lined up in a row...

“I’d been under the impression this meeting was just a formality. That the job was already mine.”

Deena quirked an inquisitive eyebrow.

Humph! Looked as if someone knew better than to assume anything.

Rookie error. Amanda silently chastised herself for going soft in her time off from “the big leagues.” If you could call raising a child and taking every locum shift in every inner city A&E on offer time off.

She shrugged away the thought. She had her Auntie Flo. And an entire floor of Flo’s big old tumbledown four-story house right in the center of one of London’s smartest neighborhoods. It might look like the hands of time had not moved since the first Wakehurst had set the grandfather clock up in the central entryway back in 1749, and it still lacked central heating, but it was more than most single mothers had. A lot more.

She parted her lips, about to ask how deep a salary cut she’d be taking, then thought better of it. The job was round the corner from her house, in a department that brought her to life in a way no other area of medicine did. And right before Christmas beggars couldn’t really be choosers. Just thinking of putting herself up for more overnight locum shifts made her tired.

Deena flicked her pen in the direction of Dr. Menzies’s office. “He’s just finishing up with an appointment. If you’d like to take a seat, he shouldn’t be long.”

“The other candidate?”

The PA gave a shrug, but with enough leeway for interpretation that Amanda knew that was precisely who was inside.

Amanda watched as Deena’s eyes traveled from the door to some mistletoe hanging above her desk.

Hmm...

From what she’d heard, Dr. Menzies was old enough to be Deena’s father, so... Her job share partner must be good-looking. She cleared her throat and sniffed. Didn’t matter. She was immune to romance. Whoever was in that office was the competition, and nothing was going to stand in the way of providing for her son.

Amanda’s gaze shifted toward the door. She tipped her head to the side, wishing she possessed some sort of lopsided superhero power to see through hard wood. There was the muffled flow of voices. Both male.

Most likely the old boys’ club. She could picture it perfectly. A promise of the top job made over cigars and tumblers of whiskey in an exclusive members’ club, no doubt. She could almost hear the tinkle of ice cubes against heavy crystal as they toasted the new Divisional Medical Director in front of a roaring fire.

She shuddered at the thought. It was how her father always did business...

So much for stuffing herself into this stupid form-fitting suit and tippy-toeing across the square in these ridiculous high heels. She should have just worn scrubs and her favorite running shoes, because from the looks of things she was going back to locum shifts at whatever trauma center would take her. The regular hours of this job would have been a godsend, but...

As per usual, it seemed that heaven was putting a hold on doling out any brownie points she might have earned up to this point.

Both women started at the eruption of a huge chorus of laughter coming from Dr. Menzies’ office.

Just as she’d suspected: Old Boys’ Club.

Her fingers tightened round the straps of her handbag. If she was going to go down she was going to go down fighting.

Having Tristan had necessitated dropping out of “the game” for a while. For the first three months Amanda’s entire life had revolved around diapers, breastfeeding and laundry. Once Tristan had got the knack of sleeping through the night she’d started picking up shifts here and there, without bothering to take part in the “let’s meet for a drink” charade. Why should she when her number one priority was her son?

Work. Parenting. That was all she had time for. Before that it had just been work. And before that...

She screwed her eyes tight and pressed her fingers to them, as if it would squish the memories away. Before that nothing.

She gave herself a quick shake and pasted on her smile. Another laugh sounded from the room, chased up with more rapid-fire male conversation she couldn’t make out through the thick door.

Suddenly exhausted at the idea of going through the mockery of this “interview,” Amanda was sorely tempted to lean in, scratch her name out in Deena’s appointment book and scarper when the door handle turned and the door opened. Two men emerged, shaking hands, clapping each other on the shoulder as if in congratulations of some sort of excellent deal made.

She didn’t stand a chance in—

“Hell.”

Amanda’s fingers flew to her mouth. She was shocked the word had escaped her lips. Her lungs ached for air as an atom bomb of emotion detonated in her chest. And just as abruptly everything stopped. The roar of blood between her ears. The blurred vision. Her heartbeat.

Nature’s way of allowing the rest of her body to process seeing the one man who had proved to her that life was still worth living. The one man who had changed everything.

Matthew Chase.

Her tongue instinctively swiped at her lips. Even from a distance she could taste him as if it was yesterday.

One part sweet to one part salty. Vintage champagne and top-of-the-line caviar, if she remembered correctly. And she had an excellent memory. Besides, her parents never threw a party that swung anywhere close to below the top line.

The third part of his taste...the spice...that had been pure, unchecked desire.

Dark hair and bright blue eyes were a personal weakness for her, and on that early spring night she had wanted more than anything to succumb. To slide her fingers into the dark silky hair just threatening to turn into curls around his shirt collar. To spend unchecked minutes gazing into his sapphire-bright eyes, trying to divine what stories might lie in the kaleidoscope of blue that lay within them.

To feel anything. She’d been numb for so long she’d hardly known what to do with herself.

Matthew Chase had been the first person to remind her of the spark buried so deep in her heart she’d all but forgotten it had ever existed.

Amanda could feel Deena’s curious gaze on her now. And Dr. Menzies’s. But she still couldn’t move. She was a deer caught in the headlights of the one powerhouse of energy and seduction she had never expected to lay eyes on again.

Matthew’s scent—aura, more like—was another thing altogether. And when he took a step toward her there was a swirl of... How on earth did he smell like a Nordic woodsman peeling a blood orange in the center of London? In a hospital, no less?

It was all she could do to keep her knees doing their job.

The heat blazing from his bright blue eyes struck her like bolts of lightning. This meeting was obviously as unexpected to him as it was to her.

A one-night stand.

That was all it was ever meant to have been.

It was all it had been for him.

But...

If she closed her eyes Amanda knew flashes of that night would come back to her so vividly it would be like living it all over again.

He’d seen her first. She’d known that because she’d felt his gaze on her from across the room as intensely as she was feeling it now. He hadn’t just looked. His gaze had felt...tactile. As if he had already been undressing her. And when their eyes had met...

Fireworks.

One of those hits of recognition some people waited a lifetime for and never had. She had known that having it that night was a lifeline. A sign from above—or wherever signs come from—that she shouldn’t give up. Not just yet.

She cleared her throat as Matthew closed the distance between them with another long-legged step. The whorls of heat in her chest turned into protective bars of steel. He wouldn’t—couldn’t—know about what had also happened that night.

She’d overheard enough of his cocktail party chitchat to know he was a tried and true bachelor. A determined playboy, if his one-liners were anything to go by. A committed army doctor if the newspaper headlines were to be believed. Or had he recently been decommissioned? Given himself over to the finer things in life?

She gave herself a sharp shake. Playboy or not, if he was the one threatening to take the job she rightfully deserved she was going to have play her A-game.

This was her job. She hadn’t sat through countless interviews and buttoned herself into this ridiculous suit heaven knew how many times just to let it go without a fight.

“You two have met?” Dr. Menzies stepped between the pair of them, throwing anxious looks first at Amanda and then at Matthew.

Amanda realized that both she and Matthew had slowly been advancing on each other—as natural predators would. Cheetah vs panther? Or tiger vs lion? She’d like to think of herself as the lioness in this scenario. Ready with a killer hairdo and a roar that would knock anyone for six if they were brave enough to stick around and listen.

“Not formally,” Amanda answered, quirking an eyebrow in Matthew’s direction but turning on a hundred-watt smile and reaching out a hand to Dr. Menzies. “You must be Donald Menzies?”