his intention to decline the offer to go inside the rather lovely old house he took her to. He must be tired or something, he decided. Maybe the loss of one of his young patients had affected him more than he’d realised. If an evening with Bella didn’t perk him up, he’d know there was something seriously amiss.
‘Nice place,’ he said, pulling off his helmet.
‘It belongs to my aunt,’ Bella told him. ‘I’m just living with her while I’m working at St Pat’s. She works there, too. Come on in. You probably know each other already.’
It was quite possible. Connor was friendly with a lot of the older members of the nursing staff. It was a bonus that Bella wasn’t living with a bunch of nurses close to her own age. Even with his current ambivalence about taking this acquaintance any further, it would be rather awkward if an old girlfriend was lurking.
He had time to look around as Bella hobbled up the hallway ahead of him. The house was even nicer on the inside. The aunt clearly had good taste. She could cook, too, judging by the very appetising aroma that was coming from the area Bella veered into at the end of the hallway.
‘Oh, my God,’ he heard a woman’s voice say in concern. ‘Why are you limping? What have you done to yourself this time?’
This time? Was Bella accident prone? Maybe she needed looking after.
‘Someone moved an X-ray machine in Theatre and I wasn’t expecting it,’ Bella was explaining as Connor entered the room. ‘I lost my grip on this bucket of stuff for the steriliser. It wasn’t my fault.’ She twisted her head. ‘Was it, Connor?’
But Connor couldn’t say anything in Bella’s defence. He hadn’t seen the incident in the first place and right now it was the furthest thing from his mind. He wasn’t even looking at Bella. He was staring at Kate Graham.
At least, he thought it was Kate.
Maybe it was the good twin? This woman looked like Kate but couldn’t look more different, which made no sense. His head was spinning. The good twin was wearing jeans. Not just any old jeans. These were beloved old, soft, faded jeans with frayed knees and bare feet beneath them. There was a pale, grey T-shirt that was way too big. Big enough for a bare shoulder to be peeping through the neckline. She had no glasses on and her hair hung in a black curtain almost to her waist. A damp kind of curtain, as though she’d just jumped out of a shower.
Or into a movie scene. The prude versus vamp one. To his horror, Connor felt something remarkably like a blush stirring under his skin.
Bella was looking at him and then at Kate. Back and forth as if she was watching a slow-motion tennis game.
‘I thought you guys would know each other,’ she said. She gave an exasperated huff. ‘Kate, this is Connor. I can’t remember his last name. He’s a surgeon at St Pat’s. Connor, this is my aunt, Kate Graham. She hangs out in Pathology.’ She shrugged. ‘I guess St Pat’s is bigger than I thought so maybe your paths never cross.’
Connor was grappling with a new sensation.
Acute embarrassment? Probably. He couldn’t escape the impression that he was seeing something he wasn’t supposed to be seeing. As if he was some kind of voyeur peeping through a gap in a curtain. This was even worse than the bit of leftover guilt from the knowledge of how rude he’d been to her the other day. On top of both those unpleasant sensations there was also something he didn’t want to identify that had to be blamed on the absurd flight of fancy whilst scrubbing in this afternoon.
He cleared his throat. He had to say something. Kate was doing that totally-lost-for-words thing again.
‘They’ve … um … crossed,’ he muttered.
‘Oh, good.’ Bella gave Kate a quick hug on her way towards the fridge. ‘Have we got any ice? I think I should put some on my foot. Connor was kind enough to give me a ride home when I found I couldn’t fit my shoe back on.’
‘Three days,’ Kate muttered, her tone faintly incredulous.
‘What?’ Bella looked up from the depths of the freezer. ‘You think I need to ice my foot for three days?’
‘I … No, of course not. If it’s still that sore and swollen tomorrow, you’d better get an X-ray. You might have broken something.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ Connor said. ‘Heavy things, those buckets. Especially when they’re full of the kind of surgical gear we use for rearranging bones.’
Bella had a bag of frozen peas in her hand. ‘Can I use these? Much better than ice blocks.’
‘Sure. Just don’t put them back in the freezer so we eat them by mistake.’
‘Speaking of eating …’ Bella lifted a lid on a pot. ‘Ooh, yum. This smells divine.’ She grinned at Connor. ‘My aunt is the best cook in the world.’
‘I can believe that.’ Connor couldn’t help licking his lips.
Bella took another look in the pot. ‘There’s heaps here. Connor could stay and have some dinner with us, couldn’t he, Kate?’
‘I … uh …’ Kate had no idea what to say.
This was an appalling situation. Nobody from her work had ever been into her home. Her private life was exactly that. Private. She didn’t want anyone here. She especially didn’t want this man. St Pat’s playboy doctor. The one who thought she was buttoned up and needed a life. She had exactly the life she wanted. Private and … and safe.
Until now.
Good grief, she was only just out of the shower and her attire could hardly be deemed presentable. And even if she’d still been in her work clothes she would have felt half-naked with that look he’d given her when he’d come into the room. For heaven’s sake, he’d brought Bella home. What did he think he was doing, looking at her like that?
And why did it give her the most peculiar ripple of sensation in places she was barely aware of?
She’d known Bella would be capable of discovering the most desirable of any available men at St Pat’s and she had imagined her arriving home on the back of Connor’s motorbike. But she’d given it a fortnight. Three days had be breaking some sort of record, surely? And did she want to sit and watch this embryonic, going-nowhere, purely sexual relationship develop under her gaze? In her own home?
No, she damn well didn’t.
Connor was looking just as uncomfortable at the prospect but somehow that didn’t mollify Kate in the least.
‘I can’t stay,’ he said hurriedly. ‘I’ve got—’
He didn’t get time to finish his sentence because Bella had turned around with the bag of peas in her hand to head for a chair but when she put weight on her foot, she gave a cry of pain and looked like she was about to fall. Connor stepped forward with commendable speed, caught Bella and practically lifted her bodily onto the kitchen bench.
‘That foot needs looking at,’ he said firmly. ‘Sit still.’
Bella sat.
Connor pulled a kitchen chair
