time for anything else.’
‘He has time to swim.’ Allie’s blue eyes flashed mischievously.
‘Yeah?’ Paula’s attention was on Allie now.
‘Mmm-hmm. I left my trainers downstairs in the gym the other day and went to fetch them after work. He was in the pool, doing laps.’
‘Hmm. Perhaps I’ll go buy myself a swimming costume. Common interests can be very important in a relationship.’
‘So you’ve thought this through, then?’ Charlotte wished that Paula and Allie would keep their voices down. Not that the nurses were in any danger of being heard. It was difficult enough to get Edward’s attention even when he was supposed to be listening to you. It just seemed somehow wrong to be talking like this.
‘Who hasn’t? I reckon he just needs a good woman. And I’ll apply for the position if no one else is interested.’
Allie laughed. ‘Steady, Paula. Remember there’s a queue and I’m in it. Charlotte, too, eh?’
Charlotte considered the prospect. She couldn’t get away with a lie that big. ‘Yeah, okay. Just to keep you two company, though. I don’t have time for dating.’
Or the money. Or the inclination, most of the time. Apart from when Edward... Her gaze wandered over to the glazed wall of his office. He was behind his desk now, deep in thought, a stack of papers and books in front of him.
‘Yeah, right.’ Paula was laughing now. ‘Guess we could share him around.’
Oh, no. Edward wasn’t for sharing. He was for being loved, nurtured by one woman, not passed around like a beautifully wrapped, enormously sexy parcel. He looked up, as if somehow the thought had penetrated the walls of his office, his eyes suddenly focussing in Charlotte’s direction.
She could feel the flush spreading up from the back of her neck to her cheeks. Edward might be for one woman, but that woman definitely wasn’t her.
Charlotte turned, trying to pretend that he hadn’t just caught her staring at him. ‘I’ll leave you to do that. I’ve got to do my last ward round and my friend is bringing Isaac here soon.’
‘Really?’ Paula always made a particular fuss of Isaac. ‘What do we owe that pleasure to?’
‘There’s no school today and my friend’s been looking after him. Lucy’s got a date tonight so she’s dropping him off here before she goes on to hit the town. If you see them, will you get them to wait here?’
Paula nodded. ‘Sure thing. Take your time.’
* * *
Edward North had just got to the complex part. Not that tomorrow’s microsurgery wasn’t all complex, but this particular section was intricate in the extreme. Running through it in his head was his preferred method of preparation, and the swimming pool in the basement of the Hunter Clinic his preferred place. Working his body seemed to free his mind, but he couldn’t be assured of solitude until the clinic was closed for the day, so his office was going to have to do.
‘No. Not like that...’ He shook his head, muttering in disgust at his own ineptitude. He’d have to start over now. Or at least from the last set of microscopic sutures. Edward took a breath, cleared his mind, and...
The image that floated into his mind was nothing like the one he was concentrating on building. Pale chestnut hair, bound in a tight knot at the back of her head. Light brown eyes. He couldn’t see the flecks of gold from this distance, but he knew that they were there. Somehow Charlotte’s eyes had impressed themselves on his consciousness when he had difficulty in recalling the names, let alone the eye colour, of most of the rest of the nursing staff.
She’d looked away, then. Blushing.
The exact mechanics of that particular form of vasodilation was child’s play alongside the complexities of its causes. Most things were. Edward closed his eyes, cleared his mind, and went back to the matter in hand.
* * *
Lucy was already standing at the nurses’ station when Charlotte returned from her ward round.
‘Hey, Lucy, you look nice. I won’t be a minute. I’ve just got to pick up my coat.’ Charlotte looked around. Just one glimpse of her son after a long day was always enough to lift her spirits.
‘Sure. Why don’t you leave Isaac here with me?’
‘Isn’t he with you?’
‘No. He ran ahead up the stairs. I called after him to wait for you here...’
For one split second the two women stared at each other. Charlotte almost choked as something squeezed tight around her heart, and then instinct and the sure knowledge that she needed to move now took over.
‘Go downstairs, Lucy. Make sure he’s not slipped out of the building. I’ll look for him here.’
She glanced over in the direction of Edward’s office. The view inside was partially obscured by a long, low cabinet, running the length of the glass wall and designed to keep the mess of books and other artefacts under some semblance of control, but she could see that he was no longer sitting at his desk. Not that he’d probably notice if a whole horde of five-year-olds started roaming the corridors, but he’d been the only one there and beggars couldn’t be choosers.
Isaac shouldn’t have gone into any of the treatment rooms. He knew not to do that. All the same she looked, trying not to panic, trying not to cry. Allie hadn’t seen him and neither had Paula. She opened every cupboard, every locked door, just in case. And each time her baby wasn’t there the agitation in the pit of her stomach grew.
‘The receptionist says that he can’t have got out of the building. He would have had to have either opened one of the back doors, and they’re all alarmed, or gone straight past her.’ Lucy arrived back upstairs, red and breathless.
That was something, at least. Mind you, there was plenty of trouble right here that a five-year-old could get into. The swimming pool... Charlotte remembered the swimming pool in the basement and felt suddenly sick.
‘I’ll call Security...’ She grabbed for the phone and then dropped it. Either she was hearing things, or...
Isaac laughed again. That was definitely not a hallucination.
Lucy had heard it, too. ‘Where is he?’ Lucy looked around wildly.
Another laugh. This time deep, round and rich. The kind of laugh that Edward might have, only Charlotte didn’t think she’d ever heard him laugh. Wordlessly she swung round and marched towards the door of Edward’s office, opening it without bothering to knock.
For a moment, in the relief of seeing that Isaac was safe, she didn’t register the scene in front of her. Somehow she noticed that Isaac’s favourite toy, the blue bunny that he carried with him everywhere, was sitting in Edward’s black leather chair, and that Edward was on the floor.
‘Isaac!’ Charlotte gulped out his name. ‘What are you doing?’
Her son looked up at her. Innocent blue eyes and dark blond hair framed the sweet smile which never
