must be new here?’ She saw him glance at her name badge.
‘Naomi.’ She reached out her hand to shake his. ‘Bloom. A&E nurse. First day.’
He looked at her hand briefly as if she were offering him a handful of sputum. Then he ignored it. ‘Tom Williams. Clinical Lead and doctor. Almost your doctor for that stunt you just pulled.’
She faltered, her hand dropping away from him. This was her boss? She looked away, trying to think quickly, before returning her gaze to his. ‘I’m sorry, I—’
‘You had your induction this morning?’ If this had been any other situation, she could have listened to his voice all day. It was rich and warm, classy. It was the sort of voice you heard from an English villain in an American movie.
Focus.
‘I did, but—’
He smiled at her but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. ‘The health and safety briefing was covered?’
She nodded, feeling like a naughty child who was standing in front of a headmaster. ‘Yes, but I didn’t want to pull anyone away from their work, as they were all so busy, so I thought I’d do it myself.’ The words burbled out of her quickly, showing her horror at having been caught so badly in the wrong.
She’d assumed she had been doing the right thing. Naomi had learnt the value of being able to do something for yourself. It was a pleasure denied to many people. A normality that they craved. To be able to do simple things like opening their own cupboard to reach for a mug, or taking themselves to the toilet. On their own. Without someone to help them.
He glanced at the tree. ‘Well, luckily I managed to save you from a sprained ankle. Or something worse.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘A sprained neck wouldn’t have gone down well on your first day. Nor would me having to fill in a three-page incident-report form after I’ve just spent twenty hours on non-stop duty.’
‘I’m sorry, Dr Williams.’
Tom frowned, seeming concerned as he looked around them and over towards the waiting area. ‘Who asked you to do this?’
She shrugged. ‘I volunteered.’
‘You volunteered?’ He let out a short, impatient sigh. ‘Well, if you’re going to insist on doing this, I’d better stay and make sure you’re safe.’
‘Oh, you don’t have to—’
‘You might head back up that ladder. Besides, I was only on my way home.’ He placed his folded coat down on top of his briefcase, removed his scarf and rolled up his sleeves.
He had beautiful forearms … Smooth. Strong.
If he hadn’t just given her a dressing-down, she might have been tempted to appreciate them a bit more. ‘Right. Erm … thanks.’
He looked the tree up and down. ‘This old tree ought to have been passed through a chipper years ago.’
‘I don’t think they do that to fake trees.’
‘No. Probably not.’
He started to take off some more of the decorations that he could reach just by standing there, which Naomi hadn’t had a chance in hell of reaching, and then he passed them to her, so she could put them in their boxes a little more carefully than she’d been doing earlier. She hated feeling like a chastised child and wanted to get back on a more even keel, so she ventured some basic conversation. ‘So you’ve worked here for a while, then?’
He glanced at her. ‘Yes. What made you come to Welbeck?’
He didn’t need to know her history. He probably didn’t even want to know. He was just being polite. Or, at least, as polite as he could be.
She’d already vowed not to mention her past to anyone here. She didn’t want pity or sympathy. She just wanted to get on with her life. If she told people she’d come out of a marriage where she’d been more of a carer than a wife, they tended to look at her with pity.
‘I used to live in the East Midlands, originally, but I fancied a change of pace, so I got myself a cheap bedsit down here and hoped for the best.’ This was better conversation, she thought. Much better than being told off.
‘I thought I heard an accent.’
She smiled, never having thought of herself as someone with an accent. ‘Really?’
‘Yes. Bit of a northern twang. I’ll go up the ladder and get the rest of them.’
‘Be my guest.’ She held it steady as he went up and together they made a quick, efficient team. The tree was soon naked of ornaments, broken down into its segments and boxed away for next year. Naomi quickly swept up the debris. It hadn’t taken them more than fifteen minutes to get it sorted. ‘Thanks for the help. It was really kind of you.’
‘No problem.’ He seemed to look at her for a moment longer than was comfortable, then suddenly shook his head at whatever thought he’d had and picked up his coat and briefcase. ‘Let’s try not to get hurt tomorrow, Nurse Bloom, hmm?’
‘Course not.’ She watched him walk away and let out a breath that she hadn’t been aware she’d been holding.
Wow. What a bear!
And he was her boss! That was embarrassing. Her first day and she had already been caught breaking a rule, although thankfully not breaking anything else.
She determined to try and stay out of Dr Williams’s way as much as possible. She would only let him notice her when she was being brilliant, providing outstanding nursing care.
She headed in the other direction and went to fetch her coat.
The weather was doing its best to let the people of London know that it was winter. There’d been snow a few days ago and, though there’d been nothing since, it was still on the ground, due to the freezing temperatures. The surrounding buildings looked grey, damp and cold and as Naomi came out of the hospital to head for home—a place she really didn’t want to go, knowing it would be just as awful inside as it was out—she wrapped her knitted green scarf around her tightly and pulled on her gloves.
There were people standing outside the entrance to A&E puffing away on cigarettes, their hands cupped around them, as if somehow gaining a small measure of warmth. One of them was the drunk that had confronted Naomi earlier and he looked up, catching her gaze with vehemence. He came staggering back over to her, the overwhelming stench of body odour and stale alcohol almost overpowering. With one grimy finger he pushed her in the chest. ‘You lot kept me waiting.’
Naomi felt disconcerted. And a little afraid. She could handle this sort of aggression when she was at work. In the hospital. Then she had her uniform on and was surrounded by people who she knew would come to her aid. Violence against hospital staff wasn’t tolerated and they had security guards, too. But out here, outside work, in her normal clothes, she felt more vulnerable.
‘Look, sir—’
‘You lot … kept me waiting!’ He gave her another
