never again would she see the man she loved. After the way she’d had to leave him, he probably wouldn’t want to have anything to do with her, but that didn’t mean that she regretted meeting him. Far from it.
Laurel didn’t need to have him in front of her to be able to picture him perfectly, starting with those mesmerising eyes.
‘EXCUSE me?’
Fear had been Laurel’s first reaction at being accosted, and she’d frozen. It had always been her first emotion in those days. Fear that someone had finally seen behind her deception and tracked her down. She hadn’t seen how they could have, since she’d changed the name she was known by on the ward, but still, with the necessity of at least one person in the admin department knowing her legal name so that she’d been able to be paid, there had always been a risk that something could get back to Robert Wainwright.
The softly spoken voice behind her had a definite accent but it wasn’t one that Laurel recognised. Neither did she recognise the shiver of awareness that the velvety sound had on her nerves.
She forced herself to turn, and looked up into the most amazing eyes she’d ever seen.
They were grey, but not like any grey she’d ever seen before. They didn’t look the cold colour of steel but almost as if they carried the searing heat of molten silver, and set against the intriguing slant of lean cheeks and surrounded by long dark lashes they seemed more mysterious than ever.
For several long seconds Laurel stared into them, almost mesmerised by their intensity. It wasn’t until he blinked that those sinfully long lashes broke the spell and she realised that she hadn’t said a word.
‘I’m sorry. Can I help you?’ At least she hadn’t dropped the armful of clean sheets she was carrying.
‘I hope so. Can you tell me, which way to ryebyonak?’
‘Ryeby—what?’ Laurel asked, wondering if her brain was so scrambled that she couldn’t understand simple English any more.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said with a rueful grin. ‘I was thinking of home—of Russia—and sometimes the wrong words come out. I should have said I was looking for the…the babies. Neonatal department.’
‘I’m going that way myself. I can show you,’ she offered, hoping her cheeks weren’t as red as they felt. His eyes had hardly left her face since she’d turned round and she was now wondering if she’d got a coffee moustache, or something. She would have to check as soon as she had a moment. It was imperative that she didn’t draw even the most innocent attention to herself, not until she’d accomplished what she’d set out to do.
‘Here. Let me take those for you,’ he offered, and before she even realised what he was going to do, let alone argue about the need, he’d scooped the heavy pile of linen out of her arms and tucked them easily under one arm.
And all she could think about was the fact that she could smell the scent of soap on his skin.
‘You work in the department?’ he asked as they set off, and she wondered if he was having to shorten his stride to allow her to keep up with him. She wasn’t particularly short at five feet eight, but guessed that he must be at least six feet and probably an inch or two more.
And every inch of it seemed as lean and powerful as one of those swimmers she’d seen on television, practising for the next Olympics. He might be dressed in a smart charcoal-grey suit and white shirt at the moment, but she could just imagine what he’d look like in a pair of those skin-tight shorts, or…
Whoa! Enough!
What on earth was happening to her? She’d never been the sort to fantasise about men, let alone naked men. And all he’d done had been to carry a pile of sheets and ask her…
‘Oh, yes!’ she said hurriedly, suddenly realising that he was still waiting for an answer. ‘I work on the neonatal ward—well, I’ve only recently started in the department. It’s my first post since I qualified.’
‘And was this an assignment, or was it something that you have chosen?’
His expression was so intent that she could almost imagine that her answer mattered more than if it was just for the sake of conversation.
‘Oh, I chose it,’ she said, feeling quite flustered. She just wasn’t accustomed to being the focus of anyone’s attention, unless they were looking to find fault. ‘It’s what I’ve always wanted to do.’
‘I hope it meets your expectations,’ he said with a thoughtful nod, then continued softly, so softly that, coloured by his exotic accent, she couldn’t be sure she’d heard him correctly, ‘You will be good for the babies.’
That had sounded like a compliment, something else that she wasn’t accustomed to hearing and had no idea how to respond to. Thank goodness they had reached the ward.
‘Sister should be in her office. Shall I show you where…?’
‘No, thank you. That won’t be necessary,’ he said with a smile that almost had her swallowing her tongue. This man was more deadly than anything the old Soviet Union might have once had in its nuclear arsenal. ‘I can find my way around the ward. I just have trouble finding my way around the hospital at the moment.’
He relinquished his hold on the pile of sheets.
‘Perhaps you need to drop a trail of breadcrumbs so you can find your way back,’ she suggested with a grin of her own, only realising how flippant she must have sounded when she reached the linen cupboard. That was hardly the right way to go about keeping a low profile.
‘Get a grip on yourself,’ she muttered under her breath as she stacked the shelves neatly. They couldn’t afford to run low on clean linen when their patients were among the most fragile and susceptible to infection in the whole hospital.
At least disposable nappies had eliminated one set of supply problems. She could just imagine how many traditional cloth ones would have been used in a day.
Now she needed to let Sister know that she’d returned from her errand and find out about her next task. That was one thing about working in a busy unit like this, there was so much going on and so many things to do that she was learning something new every day. Still, it would be nice when she was proficient enough to do more than assist her more senior colleagues.
‘Roll on the day when I’m not one of the lowest of the low,’ she murmured. Having had to fight to be allowed to do her nursing training, she was several years older than most newly qualified staff, and she was human enough to feel a twinge of resentment when she was being ordered to do relatively menial tasks by much younger women. ‘And as there’s no way I’ll be moving up the ladder until they’re sure that I’m competent enough, that situation can only be remedied by time and hard work.’
She consciously straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. The fact that her flight from home had also cost her the plum post she’d been offered at the hospital where she’d done her training was just another thing to lay at her family’s feet. At least her ‘record’ as a former tranquilliser addict was in the past, buried by the hospital at which she’d done her training. They’d actually told her that after
