at work had gone fine. It was only the things that had happened after her shift that had been so awful! Now, after being berated by her boss and saved by him from physical assault, she was being comforted by him. He might not be the most smiley individual in the world, but he was being kind.
‘You need to pack some clothes for an overnight stay.’
‘Right.’ He was right. Being practical would also help to take her mind off what had happened. She couldn’t stay here. The place felt violated. Dirty. She didn’t want to have to stay there a moment longer than she had to. ‘You’re right …’
‘What is it?’
She bit her lip. ‘I have nowhere to go.’
‘You must have family?’
‘They’re all up north. A four-hour drive away.’
He frowned. ‘Friends?’
‘I’ve just moved here. I don’t know anyone.’
‘Of course not.’ He let out a heavy sigh, his hands on his hips. ‘A hotel?’
She winced at having to admit it. ‘I couldn’t afford it.’
‘Right. I suppose you’ll have to come to mine, then. For the night. I can take you to work in the morning, too.’
Naomi tried hard not to show how horrified she was by the thought of having to share a living space with the one man whom she’d humiliated herself in front of so much today.
She couldn’t stay at his. They’d only just met and, yes, he was her boss, but he was also a prickly individual, standoffish and cool. He already clearly thought of her as incompetent and now he was offering to share his home with her …
Seriously … she couldn’t accept his offer.
‘That’s very gracious of you, but—’
‘Then it’s settled. Pack your things and let’s get going.’
Her mouth dropped open for a moment and when she became aware that she probably looked like a landed goldfish, she closed it again and headed to her bedroom.
I can’t believe I’m doing this.
NAOMI WAS IN her bedroom, packing her clothes into a suitcase, as Tom sat on the torn-up sofa and stared into space.
Nurse Naomi Bloom.
What had happened?
He’d been his usual work-focused self. He’d been on call all night in the hospital and then he’d worked a full twelve-hour shift in A&E on top of that. He always did what was needed. Worked hard. He treated patients and kept his mind on work.
It was what worked for him. The work was a salve. A sticking plaster over the savage gash that was his heart. If he worked, if he took care of patients, if he investigated their ills, then he didn’t have to focus on his own. His own pain. His own grief. Work kept the hurt firmly in its box where he never had to pay it any attention.
He’d been on his way home. Heading back for a shower, a change of clothes, maybe a quick four-hour nap. Then he’d planned on coming back to work.
But then he’d seen this woman climbing up a wobbly ladder, a ladder she should never have been up in the first place, on her own. He’d seen her reaching out for things that she hadn’t got a chance in hell of reaching.
He’d seen how badly it had wobbled and he’d dropped his own briefcase and caught her, feeling the weight of her fall into his arms. He’d looked into her eyes up close, those pools of liquid brown, flecked with gold and green, and had felt a smack of something hard in his gut.
He’d intended to give her a dressing-down there and then. To yell at her for being so stupid and complacent, but in the fall her long hazelnut hair had come loose of its clip and lain over his arm, soft and silken, and it had taken a moment for him to realise that he’d been staring at her for much too long and that he really ought to let her go. The way you let go of a dangerous animal before it could bite or sting you.
She’d been unthinking in her actions. She’d assumed she would be okay, that somehow the rules didn’t apply to her, and she’d been wrong.
Her beauty had thrown him briefly. There had been a second, maybe two, in which he’d momentarily been stunned by those chocolate eyes of hers, but then he’d cast those distracting thoughts to one side.
So she was attractive. So what? Beauty counted for nothing in his department. He needed solid workers. Excellent nurses. Team players. People who played by the rules. Not lone rangers who thought the whole world ought to revolve around them.
She’d blushed, looked embarrassed and had glanced down and away from him. His insides had twisted at her sweetness, flipping and tumbling like an acrobat in the Cirque du Soleil and the sensation had so startled him that he’d almost been unable to speak.
Offering to help her with the tree had seemed logical. Gentlemanly. A way for him to gather his thoughts and reactions. To make sure she stayed safe. And give him time to put his own walls back up.
But it had been more than that. Exactly what, he couldn’t say. It had been a long time since a woman had disturbed him like that.
Not since Meredith …
He looked at the rest of Naomi’s things dashed across the floor and started to pick them up again, trying to find places for them, trying to find order in the chaos.
He hadn’t thought about Meredith for ages.
But that was a good thing surely. It meant he was moving on, didn’t it? For too long, it had been a painful, persistent memory. When he’d thought of his wife, it had been about the days following the accident—sitting at her bedside in hospital, holding her hand, praying that she would wake, praying that she would recover. Holding out hope for her.
As the years had passed, the better memories of his time with Meredith had come to the fore. He was able to remember the good times they’d shared. Their happiness on their wedding day. Their love. The pain and grief was still inside would still torment him when he allowed it to, but it had taken on a different form recently.
His vow to never get involved with another woman, never to open his heart up to another, had held strong. He could never love another the way he’d loved his wife; it just wasn’t possible.
Until now, he’d never had to doubt himself, or feel that that vow was threatened in any way.
Yet something about Naomi Bloom needled him. In the short time he’d known her, she’d practically demanded his attention, his protection, his help. He’d been forced to get involved. No decent man would have left her to fend for herself with Mick. No gentleman would have walked away from her after the burglary. When he’d found out she had nowhere to go, there’d been no other sensible option but to ask her to stay.
It would be difficult having her in his home. But he could stay out of
