before.
The lift doors slid open, and they stepped out into a glass-sheathed corridor, the inner wall displaying, as Gaz had said, the tops of the palm trees in the atrium.
Drawn to the glass, Marni peered down.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said, turning to him to share her delight.
He was staring at her, a small frown on his face, as if something about the sight of her bothered him.
‘What?’ she asked, and he shook his head, before again, with another light touch on her elbow, guiding her forward, around the atrium to the far side, where a restaurant spread across the corridor so the atrium was indeed visible from the tables.
The place was dimly lit and quiet, only a few tables occupied.
‘Are we too early or too late for the usual dinner hour?’ Marni asked, desperate to talk about something—anything—to distract herself from the effect this man was having on her, especially with his casual touches and watchful dark eyes.
‘Early for the diners coming off late shift, late for those going on night duty,’ Gaz told her as the young man on the reception desk greeted Gaz in his own language then bowed them towards a table close to the atrium.
Gaz held up a hand and said something, and the young man bowed again and led them in a new direction so they crossed the room.
‘You have seen the tops of the palms in the atrium,’ Gaz explained, ‘but possibly not the desert in the moonlight.’
The table was beside a wall of glass, so Marni felt she was seated in space above the long waves of dunes. The moon silvered the slopes it touched, and threw black shadows in between, so the desert seemingly stretched away for ever with a patterned beauty that took her breath away.
‘I hadn’t known—hadn’t realised…’
‘That it could be so beautiful?’ Gaz asked as her words stumbled to a halt.
She smiled at him, but the smile was an effort because something in the way he said the word ‘beautiful’ made it seem personal—although that could hardly be true. The women she’d met here were so stunningly attractive she felt like a pale shadow among them, a small daisy among vibrant dark roses.
Answer the man, her head suggested, and she struggled to get back into the conversation—to at least act normal in spite of the chaos going on in her body.
‘Yes, that,’ she said, ‘definitely that, but I hadn’t realised the hospital was so close to the desert. I’ve always come to it from the direction of the city, from the sea side, but the desert’s right there—so close you could touch it—and so immense.’
‘And dangerous, remember that,’ Gaz said.
‘Dangerous?’ Marni repeated, because once again there seemed to be an underlying message in his words.
It’s the accent, you idiot, she told herself. Why should there be some sensual sub-text when the man barely knows you?
‘You have deserts in Australia—inhospitable places where a man without water or transport could perish in a few days.’
‘Of course. I hadn’t thought about it but it would be the same in any desert, I imagine.’
She’d caught up with the conversation, but it hadn’t mattered for Gaz was now conferring with a waiter, apparently discussing the menu. He turned to her to ask if she’d like to try some local dishes, and if so, would she prefer meat, fish or vegetarian.
‘Meat, please, and yes to local dishes. I’ve tried some samples of the local cooking in the souks. There’s a delicious dish that seems to be meat, with dates and apricots.’
‘And to drink? You would like a glass of wine?’
And have it go straight to my head and confuse me even further?
‘No, thank you, just a fruit juice.’
Her voice was strained with the effort of making polite conversation. Her nerves were strung more tightly than the strings of a violin, while questions she couldn’t answer tumbled in her head.
Was the attraction she felt mutual?
Could this be the man—not for a lifetime, it was far too early to be considering that—for a fling, an affair?
Worse, could she go through with it if by some remote chance he was interested?
The waiter disappeared and Marni took a deep breath, knowing she somehow had to keep pretending a composure she was far from feeling. But how to start a conversation in a place where personal conversations just didn’t seem to happen?
Gaz saved her.
‘You mentioned the souks. You have had time to see something of my country?’
She rushed into speech, describing her delight in all she’d seen and done, the beauty she’d discovered all around her, the smiling, helpful people she’d encountered.
Gaz watched her face light up as she spoke, and her hands move through the air as she described a decorated earthen urn she’d seen, or the tiny, multicoloured fish swimming through the coral forests. He saw the sparkle in her pale, grey-blue eyes and the gleam where the lights caught her silvery-blonde hair, and knew this woman could ensnare him.
Actually, he’d known it from the moment he’d seen her—well, seen her pale eyes framed by the white mask and lavender cap on her first day in Theatre.
There’d been something in those eyes—something that had caught at, not his attention but his inner self—a subliminal connection he couldn’t put into words.
At the time he’d dismissed the idea as fanciful—the product of a mind overburdened by the changes in his life, but now?
Impossible, of course! He had so much on his plate at the moment he sometimes doubted he’d ever get his head above water.
He groaned inwardly at the mess of clichés and mixed metaphors, but that’s how his life seemed right now. He’d stolen tonight from the schedule from hell, and by the time he had his new life sorted, this woman would be gone.
There’ll be other women, he reminded himself, then groaned again.
‘Are you all right?’
The pale eyes showed genuine concern, and a tiny line of worry creased the creamy skin between her dark eyebrows.
‘I will be,’ he answered. ‘There are some massive changes happening in my life right now, which, as far as I’m concerned, is really bad timing.’
He reached across the table and touched her hand, which was wrapped around the glass of pomegranate and apple juice the waiter had set in front of her.
‘Bad timing?’ she repeated.
‘Very bad timing,’ he confirmed, and said no more, because he knew that although an attraction as strong as the one he was feeling couldn’t possibly be one-sided, there
