have I done now?’ He gave a slight grimace. ‘Or, rather, what haven’t I done? I don’t know where I’m at this morning. Helen just wiped the floor with me for not signing off on one of my drug orders.’
‘Actually, it’s not about a patient.’ Rachael swallowed, her cheeks burning as he turned and looked at her more closely. ‘Well, not directly anyway.’
‘Oh.’ She could hear the surprise in his voice but he held her stare. ‘So what’s the problem?’
‘I’d rather not go into it here.’ She watched a frown mar his perfect features but as the lift pinged and the doors slid open, all of a sudden the wave of courage, the explosive anger that had assailed her just moments before seemed to be vanishing at a rate of knots. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said quickly. ‘I’m sure it will keep. You’d better get back to Theatre. I’ll catch you later.’ Turning, Rachael walked off, furious with herself for not following through with her intentions, yet relieved all the same. She would tell him exactly what she thought, but later, when she had calmed down.
‘You’ve got me intrigued now!’ Rachael nearly jumped out of her skin as she realised he had followed her into the IV cupboard.
‘I thought you were in a rush.’
‘They can wait,’ he said haughtily, but it was softened with a smile. ‘They’re hardly going to start the operation without me. So come on, Rachael, what’s the problem?’
‘You are actually.’ And though she wasn’t looking at him, though Rachael was concentrating on restacking an already neat row of IV flasks, she just knew the easy smile had vanished from his face. ‘What on earth made you think you had the right to give a patient such personal information about me? Not only have you made things very awkward for me, you’ve made Hailey feel uncomfortable. She’s spent the last three days avoiding me.’
‘As opposed to you avoiding her,’ Hugh said without a trace of contrition.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘You’re a great nurse, Rachael. You’re professional, knowledgeable and you’re also very friendly and personable—at least with patients,’ Hugh added. ‘And someone sitting in bed, recovering from an operation, hasn’t much else to do but watch the staff. How do you think Hailey would have felt if she’d seen you being nice to all her fellow patients and then running a mile every time she tried to strike up a conversation with you?’
‘I’d have handled it,’ Rachael said through gritted teeth.
‘By avoiding her,’ Hugh said, unmoved by her obvious fury. ‘The same way you handle your colleagues—running a mile every time someone tries to talk to you about anything that isn’t a patient or a drug.’
‘How dare you make such an assumption? You hardly even know me—’
But Hugh cut her off in mid-sentence. ‘I dare to, because it is just that—an assumption. That’s how we form our opinions of people. I’ve seen you sitting on your own in the canteen at lunchtime, I’ve noticed how you’d rather scald your tongue drinking boiling coffee in the staffroom than, heaven forbid, actually relax on your coffee-break and talk to your colleagues. From that, therefore, I assume you’d rather not get too close to your co-workers.’
‘You’re wrong,’ Rachael flared, her mind racing for a crushing answer. But none was forthcoming and she had to settle for a second, but less emphatic, ‘You’re wrong.’
‘Then have lunch with me.’ He gave a small triumphant smile as Rachael practically jumped out of her skin. ‘I’ve only two quick patients left on my theatre list, so I should be finished by midday. I can page you when I’m done and we can share a very questionable version of hotpot together in the canteen.’
‘I hate hotpot.’ It was a stupid response, pathetic actually, but it was the best Rachael could come up with at such short notice.
No notice at all, in fact. Hugh’s invitation had caught her completely unawares. The hospital canteen mightn’t be the most exotic of locations but, given her fragile state, he might just as well have been asking her to fly off to Fiji.
‘Fine, then we’ll throw caution to the winds and try the ham salad.’
‘I can’t. I’ve got things to do on my lunch-break. I have,’ she insisted as he raised an eyebrow. ‘My car’s being repaired, I need to phone the garage and—’
‘It’s OK, I get the message, Rachael.’ His pager was bleeping, Theatre was waiting—everyone wanted a piece of him, but still he stayed.
‘I hope you do. I hope this will be first and last time you try to look out for me. I don’t need your help, Hugh. I don’t need anyone’s help and I certainly don’t need the patients knowing my business. It’s hard enough as it is, without telling all. If that’s going to be the case, I might just as well walk around with a ‘‘fragile, handle with care’’ label around my neck.’
‘What would be so wrong with that?’ Hugh asked. ‘Why shouldn’t you be treated a bit more gently, given all that you’ve been through?’
‘I’d far rather be treated normally,’ Rachael retorted, not quite with a snarl but with a definite curl at the edge of her top lip. ‘For your information, I actually prefer it when people don’t know what’s happened. It’s strangely refreshing to get through an entire conversation without people lowering their voices.’ Clearing her throat, Rachael adopted a rather po face as Hugh stood there patiently digesting her outburst, listening as she lowered her tone and adopted the voice of a social worker. ‘‘How are you, Rachael?’’ No, that’s not quite right,’ she corrected herself. ‘It’s more like, ‘‘How are you, Rachael’’ or, and this one’s my favourite, ‘‘How are you coping, Rachael?’’
‘People are allowed to ask Rachael. They’re just being nice, for heaven’s sake.’
‘Maybe.’ Rachael shrugged. ‘But I’ll tell you this much, Hugh. Right now I’d settle for being treated like a normal human being.’
‘Normal human beings eat,’ Hugh ventured, his smiling demeanour such a contrast to Rachael’s surly expression.
‘You don’t give up, do you?’ A very reluctant smile was starting to soften her frown.
‘Only when it’s a lost cause.’ His pager was bleeping incessantly now and Hugh turned it off impatiently and read the words on the small screen with a frown. ‘I was wrong. It looks like they are prepared to start the operation without me.’
‘Then you’d better go.’ Green eyes were looking at her, dark green eyes that weren’t judging or patronising, the kind of eyes that might even make the canteen’s hotpot palatable, the kind of eyes it would be so easy to open up to.
It was the longest few seconds of her life.
‘Go,’ Rachael said again, jerking her face away, terrified he might somehow sense the sudden shift in tempo, hear the contradiction of her spoken word, because surely her eyes must be saying otherwise?
Going was the last thing she wanted him to do.
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