and blonde and rigid, and he was so very dark and laid-back and dangerous, and they were both thinking about black-haired, blue-eyed babies, or black-eyed blonde babies, of so many fabulous combinations and the wonderful time they’d have making them.
‘I have to get back.’
Annika had never flirted in her life. She had had just one boring, family-sanctioned relationship, which had ended with her rebellion in moving towards nursing, but she knew she was flirting now. She knew she was doing something dangerous and bold when she picked up a thick black olive, popped it in her mouth and then removed the pip.
‘Nice?’ Ross asked
‘Way better than I remember.’ And they weren’t talking about olives, of that she was certain. She might have to check with Elsie, but she was sure she was flirting. She blushed—not from embarrassment, but because of what he said next.
‘Oh, it will be.’
And as she sped back to the ward late, she was burning. She could hardly breathe as she accepted Caroline’s scolding and then went to warm up a bottle for a screaming baby. Only when he was fed, changed and settled did she pull up the cot-side and let herself think.
Oh, she didn’t need to run it by Elsie.
Ross had certainly been flirting.
And Annika had loved it.
CHAPTER FIVE
‘I DON’T want a needle.’
Hannah was ten and scared.
She had flushed cheeks from crying, and from the virus that her body was struggling to fight, and Annika’s heart went out to her, because the little girl had had enough.
Oh, she wasn’t desperately ill, but she was sick and tired and wanted to be left alone. However, her IV site was due for a change, and even though cream had been applied an hour ago, so that she wouldn’t feel it, she was scared and yet, Annika realised, just wanted it to be over and done with.
So too did Annika.
Ross was putting the IV in.
‘I’ll be in in a moment,’ he had said, popping his head around the treatment room door—and Annika had nodded and carried on chatting with Hannah, but she was exhausted from the hyper-vigilant state he put her in. She knew he was in a difficult position; he was a consultant, she a student nurse—albeit a mature one. She also knew a relationship was absolutely the last thing she needed. Chaos abounded in her life; there was just so much to sort out.
Yet she wanted him.
Elsie, when Annika had discussed it with her, had huffed and puffed that it should be Ross who asked her out, Ross who should take her out dancing. But things were different now, Annika had pointed out, and she’d already said no to him once.
‘Ask him,’ Cecil had said when she had taken him in his evening drink. He had a nip of brandy each night, and always asked for another one. ‘You lot say you want equal rights, but only when it suits you. Why should he risk his job?’
‘Risk his job?’
‘For harassing you?’ Cecil said stoutly. ‘He’s already asked you and you said no—if you’ve changed your mind, then bloody well ask him. Stop playing games.’
‘How do you know all this?’ Annika had demanded, and then gone straight to Elsie’s room. ‘That was a secret.’
‘I’ve got dementia.’ Elsie huffed. ‘You can’t expect me to keep a secret.’
‘You cunning witch!’ Annika said, and Elsie laughed.
She hadn’t just told Cecil either!
Half of the residents were asking for updates, and then sulking when Annika reported that there were none.
So, when Ross had asked her to bring Hannah up to the treatment room to have her IV bung replaced, even though Cassie had offered to do it for her, Annika had bitten the bullet. Now she was trying to talk to her patient.
‘The cream we have put on your arm means that you won’t feel it.’
‘I just don’t like it.’
‘I know,’ Annika said, ‘but once it is done you can go back to bed and have a nice rest and you won’t be worrying about it any more. Dr Ross is very gentle.’
‘I am.’
She hadn’t heard him come in, and she gave him a small smile as she turned around to greet him.
‘Hannah’s nervous.’
‘I bet you are,’ Ross said to his patient. ‘You had a tough time of it in Emergency, didn’t you? Hannah was too sick to wait for the anaesthetic cream to work,’ he explained to Annika, but really for the little girl’s benefit, ‘and she was also so ill that her veins were hard to find, so the doctor had to have a few goes.’
‘It hurt,’ Hannah gulped.
‘I know it did.’ Ross was checking the trolley and making sure everything was set up before he commenced. Hannah was lying down, but she looked as if at any moment she might jump off the treatment bed. ‘But the doctor in Emergency wasn’t a children’s doctor …’ Ross winked to Hannah, ‘I’m used to little veins, and you’re not as sick now, so they’re going to be a lot easier to find and because of the cream you won’t be able to feel it …’
‘No!’
She was starting to really cry now, pulling her arm away as Ross slipped on a tourniquet. The panic that had been building was coming to the fore. He did his best to calm her, but she wasn’t having it. She needed this IV; she had already missed her six a.m. medication, and she was vomiting and not able to hold down any fluids.
‘Hannah, you need this,’ Ross said, and as she had done for several patients now, Annika leant over her, keeping her little body as still as she could as Ross tried to reassure her.
‘Don’t look,’ Annika said, holding the little girl’s frightened gaze. ‘You won’t feel anything.’
‘Just because I can’t see it, I still know that you’re hurting me!’ came the pained little voice, and something inside Annika twisted. She felt so hopeless; she truly didn’t know what to say, or how to comfort the girl.
‘Watch, then,’ Ross said. ‘Let her go.’
He smiled to Annika and she did so, sure that the little girl would jump down from the treatment bed and run, but instead she lay there, staring suspiciously up at Ross.
‘I know you’ve been hurt,’ he said, ‘and I know that in Emergency it would have been painful because the doctor had to have a few goes to get the needle in, but I’m not going to hurt you.’
‘What if you can’t get the needle in, like last time?’
‘I’m quite sure I can,’ Ross said, pressing on a rather nice vein with his olive-skinned finger. ‘But if,
