Jacobs.’ She smiled, mentally scolding herself. As if a guy as effortlessly divine as Cole wouldn’t be taken. Not that she was on the lookout for romance, it was just the mental checklist every half-respectable single girl did when they met a halfway decent man for the first time. Despite her internal sigh, the fact he was wearing a wedding ring actually helped. There was nothing worse than, a few hours in, finding out that the man you’d actually started to like had a wife and nine children at home or even an LSG, as Kathy and she had abbreviated longstanding girlfriend to.
Or in Glynn’s case, a significant other.
No, far better to know from the outset that this was one tree it definitely wasn’t worth barking up.
‘From your accent, I take it you’re from England.’ When she nodded he carried on, ‘So how long have you been in Australia?’
‘A year,’ Leah answered. ‘I’m heading back on Sunday. How about you? Are you on your way home?’
Cole nodded. ‘I’ve been at a medical conference in Cairns.’
‘Ah, yes.’ Leah grinned. ‘Dr Richardson. And from what I remember, you didn’t confirm your flight either.’
She was sure they would have carried on talking but the plane, which had been gently taxiing along the runway, suddenly sprang into life, the lights dimming as the engines started to roar.
‘I hate this bit,’ Leah admitted. ‘I mean, I know it’s the safest form of transport, I know I’ve got more chance of being killed crossing the road and all that.’ She was gabbling now, words spilling out of her mouth as she tried not to think about what was going on. ‘I’m fine once it’s up, it’s just the take-off and landing that sends me into a spin.’
He nodded, turning those lovely eyes to hers, and she waited for a few soothing words to calm her, some tranquil platitude about how he flew all the time, how there was nothing to it, that if the stewards weren’t worried then neither was he…
‘Take-offs and landings are the most dangerous part.’
She blinked back at him, momentarily taken aback by the callous insensitivity of his statement.
‘It’s the truth.’ Cole shrugged, his eyes idly drifting to the window as Leah shrank back in her seat, screwing her eyes closed as the plane lifted into the late afternoon sky.
‘Remind me not to get sick when you’re around,’ Leah muttered, but he must have had ears on elastic because he turned sharply.
‘Excuse me?’
‘We’ll, you’re not exactly sensitive. I bet you’re one of those doctors who reel off every last possible complication before you allow a patient to sign a consent form. I bet you list off all the possible side effects before you hand over a script and are only too happy to remind people about the errors of their ways.’
‘It’s my job.’ Cole shrugged again, then gave a rather tight smile. ‘Why shouldn’t people be informed? Mind you, being an emergency consultant, most of the damage has usually been inflicted long before a patient comes into my care. Still, there’s normally a chance for a bit of patient education.’
Suddenly the wedding ring didn’t matter a jot. Divine he may be to look at, but his wife was welcome to him, the poor woman!
‘We’re up.’ Those navy eyes were smiling now.
‘Oh.’
She’d been so angry she’d forgotten to be frightened, and as the steward wheeled past with the bar Leah thought she’d died and gone to heaven when she was handed a glass with ice and lemon, let alone the hefty gin and tonic that followed a few seconds later. ‘Beats Economy.’ Leah grinned, taking a sip. ‘You have to buzz three times for a glass of water.’
‘Cheers.’ He lifted up his whisky and soda and after his little lecture, Leah was tempted to play him at his own game, to remind him about the perils of drinking, how that one tiny whisky was killing off brain cells as they spoke, but not sure he’d understand her rather offbeat humour, instead she raised her glass and touched it to his.
‘So what do you do?’ Cole asked. ‘It’s only fair you tell me, given I’ve already told you.’
‘I, well, I…’ Leah started, toying with whether or not to tell him. The fact he was an emergency consultant and she was an emergency nurse could only lead to one thing—four hours spent discussing work, which was the very thing she was hoping to forget right now. ‘A bit of this and a bit of that,’ she finished lamely, as Cole looked at her quizzically. ‘I’ve been doing some waitressing, a bit of bar work here and there—enough to save a bit and move on.’ She watched a slight frown begin on his forehead and it irritated the hell out of her. Was he such a snob he didn’t think she merited a seat next to him? ‘I’ve had a ball in Australia, white-water rafting, bungyjumping. There wasn’t exactly time to hold down a responsible job as well.’
‘I’ve just been to a conference,’ Cole responded, and his smile was most definitely derisive. ‘You see, I do hold down a responsible job. So responsible, in fact, that we spent the best part of a week discussing your type and the best way to deal with them.’
‘My type.’ Leah’s jaw clanged downwards. Just who did this man think he was? ‘And what’s my type exactly, Dr Richardson? Are you going to complain to the airline that you were forced to sit next to a lowly waitress and a backpacker to boot?’
‘I don’t give a damn what sort of work you do,’ Cole responded crisply. ‘I was talking about tourists that come here and decided to throw all caution to the wind and engage in the types of activity that no normal person would even consider. The type of person that thinks that just because they’re on holiday no harm will come to them.’
‘And no harm did come to me,’ Leah pointed out, taking a grateful sip of her gin as she recalled her one and only bungy-jump and the utter fear that had flooded her as she’d peered over the edge of the raised platform into the tiny river below, remembering how her legs had shaken convulsively as they’d tied the elastic rope around them, how she’d sworn if she only lived to tell the tale she’d never do something so stupid again.
‘Obviously.’ He gave an on-off smile. ‘But if it had, no doubt it would have been my type left to pick up and somehow try to put back together the pieces.’
A smart reply was on her lips, a really crushing one, just there for the taking, but even as she thought it, her fury died.
Cole Richardson had a point and, as uninvited as his opinion was, it was a valid one.
It was all very well for her alter ego to sit here and argue the merits of scaling walls and jumping off manmade platforms in an eternal search for adrenaline but the real Leah Jacobs was every bit as jaded with the world as the doom-and-gloom merchant sitting beside her.
Every bit as tired of picking up the pieces of other people’s lives.
Leah Jacobs, emergency nurse and Miss Responsible to boot, had burnt out every last piece of emotional reserve after four years in charge of a busy emergency department, had frazzled away every last piece of the cast-iron shield that got emergency nurses through.
This year hadn’t just been a long dreamed-of holiday.
This
