both knew the unofficial consensus was that Penny would be pushed to the front of the X-ray list, just so she could quickly be moved up to the ward.
The annexe was very small.
Dominic was not.
He was tall and broad and his eyes demanded that she look at him; Victoria rose to the challenge and met his angry glare as he spoke.
‘I’ve just come from explaining to a father that there’s a three-hour wait for an X-ray. Your arrival has just added to that load.’
‘So what would you like me to do?’ Victoria asked.
She just threw it back at him because, despite the comfortable bed that Penny would have on the ward, once there she would be shuffled to the bottom of the X-ray pile. It could well be midnight before she was brought down to the Imaging Department.
‘It’s not just a matter of filling in an X-ray request,’ Dominic said. ‘She should be examined before she goes around. If anything happens to her without her being seen—’
‘So,’ Victoria calmly interrupted, ‘what would you like me to do?’
She did not engage in small talk; she was confident and assertive and refused to row.
‘There you are.’ Karen came into the annexe. ‘Cubicle four has opened up if you’d like to bring Penny through.’
She and Dominic stared at each other.
The choice was his.
‘Fine,’ he eventually said, and Karen nodded and went back to Penny.
‘Next time...’ Dominic warned, but Victoria just shrugged and walked off.
‘Victoria!’
She halted.
There was an angry edge to his voice, but that wasn’t what stopped her—she didn’t think he even knew her name, so his use of it surprised her.
‘Don’t just shrug and walk off when I’m trying to have a conversation.’
‘A pointless one,’ Victoria said as she turned around. ‘In fact, we had the same conversation three days ago.’
His mood had been just as bloody then and she watched as his eyes shuttered for a moment.
‘As I said then, I just go where I’m told and deal with the inevitable angry consequence—I get your ire if I bring the patient here, or the ire of the ward if they arrive without the X-ray.’
She went to walk off, but this time it was Victoria who changed her mind and continued the conversation.
‘Sometimes it’s made easy though and the staff get that I’m just doing my job. That’s generally the case at Paddington’s, though I guess it just depends who’s on. I have to go and move my patient and then I’m out of here. Which is just as well...’
And then she crossed the line.
For the first time she made it personal. ‘Your misery is catching.’
Dominic watched as she swished out of the annexe and he let out a long breath.
They were both right.
There were limited resources and the staff all fought for the charges in their care.
She had rattled him though, not just with her little sign-off comment, but the reminder that they had had this conversation three days ago.
It was a difficult time for Dominic and he was self-aware enough to know he had been less than sunny on that day as well.
And he knew why.
Dominic had always been serious and a bit aloof but he loathed that, of late—Victoria was right—he was miserable.
Not to the patients though.
He shoved his messy personal life aside there.
And then from outside he heard laughter.
Victoria’s.
He came out of the annexe and there she was making up the stretcher with her colleague.
‘Victoria.’
She turned around. ‘Yes.’
‘Could I have a word?’
She rolled her eyes but came over. ‘Are we really going to do this again?’
‘No, I wanted to apologise for earlier.’
‘It’s fine.’
She didn’t need it.
In Victoria’s line of work, a small stand-off with a doctor barely merited a thought and she was trying to keep it at that.
But this was a genuine apology and he offered her a small explanation.
‘Today’s a tough one.’
He offered no more insight but Victoria knew she was hearing the truth.
‘Then I hope it gets better,’ Victoria said.
‘It shan’t.’
She gave him a smile and Dominic knew he had lied because it already had got a bit better.
Victoria was stunning.
She was wearing green overalls and heavy black boots and it should have been impossible to look stunning in those, yet she did. Her hair was worn on the top of her head but glossy waves tumbled over her face and her hazel eyes held his.
Yes, she was stunning.
And that was why she annoyed him.
Dominic was not looking to be stunned.
His personal life was very messy and, furthermore, Victoria was far from his type.
She was very direct and he usually liked subtle. He liked women who, well, stayed a bit in the background and didn’t demand too much headspace.
And lately Victoria was starting to command a lot of his thoughts.
‘I’m sorry too,’ she said. ‘That bit about you being a misery...well...’ She couldn’t resist a little play. ‘I meant crabby.’
He got her little joke and smiled.
It was not the smile he gave to the patients, because they did not have to fight not to blush, as Victoria was doing. This smile felt as if it had been exclusively designed for her and he was holding her gaze as she completed her apology. ‘I went a bit far.’
‘That’s okay.’
And suddenly things could not go far enough.
There
