happy.
The doctor’s hunched shoulders and pained expression spoke volumes.
And not just any doctor.
Finn Morgan.
Of all the doctors at Hope, he was the one she had yet to exchange a genuine smile with. Well...him and the cafeteria chap, but she had to work with Mr. Morgan and he made her feel edgy. The man didn’t do cheery. Not with her anyway.
Some days she had half a mind to tell him to snap out of it. He was a top surgeon at an elite private hospital. He worked on cases only the most talented of surgeons could approach with any hope of success. And still... King of the Grumps.
It wasn’t as if he wasn’t surrounded by people doing their best to create a warm, loving environment at Hope Hospital, no matter what was going on in their personal lives.
Not that she’d ever admit it, but most days she woke up in a cold sweat, her heart racing and arms reaching out for a family she would never see again.
If she could endure that and show up to work with a smile on her face, then whatever was eating away at him could be left at home as well.
She pushed the door open wider, took a step forward then froze. Her breath caught in her throat at the sound of the low moan coming from his direction. As silently as she could, she let the door from the stairwell close in front of her so that all she could see of him through the small glass window was his rounded back moving back and forth as he kneaded at something. His knee? His foot? She’d noticed a slight limp just the once but the look he’d shot her when he’d realized she’d seen it had been enough to send her scuttling off in the other direction.
Even so...
He was sitting all alone in the top floor’s central reception area, his back to her, the twinkling lights of the city beyond him outlining his broad-shouldered physique.
Her gut instinct was to go to Finn... Mr. Morgan, she silently corrected herself...but the powerful “back off” vibes emanating from him kept her frozen at the stairwell door.
She’d been flying so high after finishing with Violet she’d thought she’d put her extra energy to use helping Adao settle in. She’d already been assigned as his physiotherapist—work that wouldn’t begin until after his surgery with Finn Morgan—but she thought meeting him today might help him know there was someone who understood his world. His fears.
She pressed her hand against the glass as another low moan traveled across from the sofa where Finn remained resolutely hunched over his leg.
Something about his body language pierced straight through to her heart. A fellow lost soul trying to navigate a complicated world the best he could?
Or just a grump?
From what she’d seen, the man wouldn’t know a good mood if it bit him on the nose.
She pulled her gaze away from him and searched the skyline for Adao’s helicopter. She’d come here to find her patient, not snoop on a doctor clearly having a private moment.
She had little doubt the little boy was experiencing so many things that she had all those years ago when she’d arrived in the UK from Zemara. The language barrier. The strange faces. No family.
She swallowed against the lump forming in her throat and squeezed her eyes tight.
It was a long time ago.
Eleven years, two months and a day, to be exact.
Long enough to have moved on.
At least that’s what logic told her. But how did you ever forget the day you saw everyone you loved herded into a truck and driven away off to the mountains? Mountains rumored to be scarred with pre-dug mass graves for anyone the rebels deemed unfit for their indiscriminatingly cruel army.
Blinking back the inevitable sting of tears, she gave herself a sharp shake and forced herself to paste on a smile. Her life was a good one. She was doing her dream job. In one of the most beautiful cities in the world, no less. Every day she was able to help and nurture children who, against the odds, always found a way to see the good in things.
So that’s what she did, too. Focusing on the future was the only way she had survived those early days. And the only way she could live with herself now.
She pressed her forehead to the small, cool window in the door. In the dimly lit reception area—the lights were always lowered after seven at night—Finn had turned his face so that she could clearly see his profile.
He was a handsome man. Not storybook English—blond and blue-eyed, the way she’d once imagined everyone looked before she’d arrived in the UK. More...rugged, as if he’d just stepped off a plane from a long, arduous trek across the Alps rather than a doctor who had taken the elevator up from the surgical ward where he could usually be found. Not that she’d been stalking him or anything. Far from it. He was an arm’s-length kind of guy judging by the handful of terse encounters they’d had.
Come to think of it, every time their paths had crossed since the hospital had opened—either going into or coming out of a session—he’d bristled.
Physically bristled.
Not the usual effect she had on people but, hey...she didn’t need to be his bestie, she just needed a quality working relationship. That...and a bit of professional respect would be nice. Having seen his work on a near enough daily basis, she knew he respected her work...it would just be nice if that respect included the occasional smile or “Thank you.”
His hair was a rich, dark brown. A tangled mess of waves that could easily turn to curls if it grew out. He was a big man. Not fat. No. Tall and solidly built. A “proper” man, as her birth mother would have said. A real man.
She swallowed back the sting of tears that inevitably followed when she thought of her mother. Her beautiful mother, who had worked so hard to pay for her extra lessons from any of the aid workers who had been based out of her hometown for as long as she could remember.
And then, of course, there was also her foster mother. The one who had taught her that she still had it in her to be brave. Face the maze of applications she needed to complete to get into medical school one day and, eventually, fulfil her dream of working as a pediatric physiotherapist.
Touch, she’d come to realize, was one of the most curative things of all.
Finn shifted around on the sofa and—Oh!
Her fingers wove together and she pressed her hands to her mouth to stem her own cry. He wore a prosthesis. She’d had no idea.
And from the looks of things, his leg was hurting. A man as strong and capably built as Finn would have to be in some serious pain to look the way he did now. Slightly ashen. Breath catching. Unaware of everything else around him.
Instinct took over.
Before she thought better of it, she was by his side.
“Please. Perhaps I can help massage...” The rest of her offer died on her lips as she saw equal hits of horror and anger flash across his gray eyes.
She stood, completely
