Her heart rate is coming down and her blood pressure’s coming up.’
‘In that case, Leah, would you like to close?’ He raised one dark eyebrow but she was more interested in the expression of relief she detected in those beautiful eyes.
‘Oh, yes. Of course,’ she floundered, feeling like a fool for standing gazing at him like that. What on earth was going on? She’d never behaved like this before. Imagine—standing in the operating theatre in the middle of a procedure and thinking that the new consultant had beautiful eyes!
Whatever next? she demanded silently as she did a final check to make sure that nothing was bleeding any more, then carefully sutured the abdominal musculature layer by layer.
‘Nice neat job,’ David murmured at her elbow, but she’d known that he was watching, every nerve seeming to recognise his proximity even though she couldn’t see him.
‘Thank you, sir,’ she said with a mock curtsey, then stepped back to allow others to take over the application of protective dressings before their patient was taken through to Recovery.
‘And may I return the compliment, in spades,’ she continued, when they’d made their way out of Theatre to divest themselves of their liberally splattered clothing. Sudden nervousness at the thought that he was about to see her in nothing more than her underwear made her chatter. ‘I’ve never seen anyone work that fast or that accurately, and I’ll be eternally grateful that you agreed to come in tonight. I know I could have delivered the babies, but I doubt whether I’d have been able to save the mother when it all went pear-shaped so quickly.’
Suddenly confronted by the tanned width of his naked chest, her tongue stopped working, her jaw all but hanging open. Had she thought he was too thin? She could obviously blame his tailor because there was nothing wrong with the body she was seeing in front of her…close enough to touch if she just reached out…
‘You’ll be surprised what you can manage to do when there aren’t any other options,’ he said quietly, jerking her out of that dangerous line of thought, then a glint of mischief lit his eyes. ‘And I like the sound of eternally grateful. Does that translate into fetching cups of coffee?’
‘In your dreams!’ she retorted, grateful that he hadn’t noticed the way she was eyeing him and surprised that he felt at ease enough to tease. The rather solemn man she’d met the other day hadn’t looked as if he had a single joke in him.
‘But you’d join me in one?’
She glanced up at the clock and pulled a face.
‘I may as well,’ she agreed. ‘It certainly isn’t worth going back to bed now, and I’m going to need plenty of it, strong and sweet, if I’m going to stay awake today.’
‘Well, shall we agree that the first one out of the shower pours the coffee?’ he suggested. ‘How do you like yours, exactly?’
‘You’re making the assumption that you’ll finish first,’ she pointed out sweetly. ‘I like mine strong but white with just a dash of sugar—how do you take yours?’
‘White. Without,’ he said, then grinned. ‘I’ll see you in a few minutes, then. Your coffee should have cooled enough to drink by the time you get there,’ he added in what was clearly a challenge.
David tensed when he heard the door open behind him, wondering how he could possibly know that it was Leah who had just entered.
He was surprised to see that there was a slight tremor to the hand that was pouring the coffee when it had been perfectly steady in the life-and-death situation just a few minutes ago in Theatre.
‘Drat!’ he heard her say, and knew that it was in response to the fact that he’d beaten her.
He quickly stretched a triumphant smile over his face and turned to face her with a coffee in each hand, and nearly dropped both of them.
He certainly wouldn’t have expected her hair to be that long, and to see it hanging all the way to the middle of her back, still dripping with water, sent his imagination into overdrive…until he hastily put the brakes on it. He was still having difficulty trying to forget the sight of her elegant curves clothed in nothing more than creamy lace underwear as she’d stripped off after surgery.
Now was not the time for mental images of Leah in the shower, slick, wet hair flowing over her naked body, not while she was standing in front of him with her hand held out for the coffee he was clutching like a lifeline.
‘All right, I concede,’ she said. ‘But under duress. If I cut my hair as short as yours I’d be able to—’
‘Don’t!’ he exclaimed in horror at the idea. It was only when he saw the surprise on her face that he realised he’d spoken aloud and was abashed to feel the slow crawl of heat up his face. Was he blushing like a gauche teenager, for heaven’s sake? What was this woman doing to him? ‘I mean, it must have taken you years to grow it that long. It would be such a shame to just…’ He was making it worse, he realised when he saw her fighting a grin.
‘It would grow again,’ she said with a shrug, apparently totally unconcerned by the prospect of destroying what used to be called a woman’s crowning glory. ‘I’d even thought of getting people to sponsor me to have my head shaved, to raise money for charity.’
‘Shaved!’ He was definitely horrified. ‘Well, would you take offers not to cut it?’ he countered, while a tiny voice inside his head tried hard to remind him that this woman was little more than a stranger and there was absolutely no reason why she should take any notice of his wishes.
‘Now, that’s another possibility,’ she said as she put her cup down and casually twisted the length of her hair into a thick rope and wound it neatly against the back of her head, securing it with a giant clip. ‘But sometimes I think it’s not worth the bother and all the time it takes. After all, with a shaven head, I would easily have beaten you to the coffee.’
She took a careful sip to test the temperature then a larger mouthful when she found it bearable. He nearly groaned aloud when she closed her eyes and moaned in ecstasy.
‘Why does the first cup of the day taste so good?’ she demanded.
He didn’t reply. The memory of waking up to other activities, and the realisation of just how long ago that had been, reminded him with a jolt of all the reasons why he shouldn’t be indulging in this sparring with her. It wasn’t right, not when he had absolutely no intention of following through. His days on the relationship merry-go-round were over, and he was glad of it. He wouldn’t willingly go through that pain again for anything.
‘I stuck my head round the door to check up on the babies,’ he announced, needing to get his thoughts onto more professional matters. As that was the only sort of relationship the two of them could have, he might just as well set the boundaries right from the start. ‘Baby three—the little boy who got squashed—wasn’t doing very well, but his big sisters were doing amazingly well, in spite of their size and prematurity.’
‘And Mum?’
‘Still in Recovery. Ashraf’s hovering over her. All her vital signs seem to be slowly coming good but she hasn’t really shaken off the anaesthetic yet.’ He frowned briefly. ‘She’s certainly not compos mentis enough to be told what happened on the table.’
‘Well,
