CHAPTER THREE

      ‘WOW, Mr Beck must have really laid down the law with you,’ Jane Melrose said as she saw the orderlies in the process of transferring two patients to other hospitals.

      Mikki gave her a speaking glance. ‘He can be very persuasive. But to tell you the truth, he has a point. This place could be better managed.’

      ‘Jack French won’t want to hear you say that,’ Jane said. ‘He thinks he’s the best director this unit’s ever had.’

      ‘He does the best he can,’ Mikki said. ‘But it’s always complicated. Look at poor Mrs Yates, for instance. Eighty-seven years old, on a ventilator with no sign of improvement after her bile-duct injury. Her daughters want us to withdraw support but her son is refusing to allow it.’

      ‘I think it’s about her will.’ Jane said. ‘I heard one of the relatives talking about it. Apparently she changed it recently and the son wants it changed back. Fat chance of that happening. Greedy vultures, some people.’

      ‘You certainly see the best and worst of human behaviour in here,’ Mikki said with a sigh.

      Jane cocked her head at her. ‘Hey, do you know what I heard when I was on break?’

      Mikki kept her voice cool and disinterested. ‘I have no idea.’

      Jane swung back and forth on the ergonomic chair. ‘Mr Beck has bought a house in Tamarama overlooking the beach. Do you reckon it’s that house you were telling me about, the big one across from you where that soap actress used to live with her boyfriend before they moved to Hollywood?’

      Mikki felt a feather of suspicion dance up her spine. ‘I did happen to notice a “Sold” sign on it when I got home yesterday but I have no idea who the new owner is.’

      ‘That’d be cool, being neighbours with Mr Beck, don’t you think?’ Jane said.

      Mikki tried to keep her face and her tone blank. ‘I can’t imagine why anyone would think that would be cool.’

      Jane stopped swinging to look at her. ‘Don’t you like him, Mikki?’

      Mikki gave an up-and-down lift of her shoulders. ‘He’s all right, I guess.’

      ‘He’s more than all right,’ Jane said. ‘My heart flutters every time I see him. I’d love him to ask me out. Maybe I’ll make the first move. I know some men don’t like that but what have I got to lose?’

      ‘I think you’d be wasting your time,’ Mikki said. ‘He’s already got a girlfriend.’

      ‘Has he?’

      ‘Yes, a dark-haired gorgeous woman who looks like she could be a model,’ Mikki said, feeling the pain all over again as she thought of that bone-crushing hug Lewis had given his date.

      ‘How do you know?’ Jane asked, looking at her with intrigue.

      ‘I saw them when I had dinner with my mother. They were dining in the same restaurant.’

      ‘Well, that’s a shame,’ Jane said, flopping back in her chair. ‘Why are all the good ones already taken?’

      ‘It’s life,’ Mikki said wearily, and reached to answer her ringing phone.

      * * *

      After Mikki spent a good hour in the gym she drove home to her little town house squeezed in between the exclusive mansions in a cul-de-sac in the beachside suburb of Tamarama. It was going to take a lifetime to pay off, but it was wonderful to be within walking distance of the ocean. The briny smell of the sea and the rolling waves cleared her head as nothing else could. She loved standing on her small balcony and watching for dolphins in amongst the die-hard surfers who were in the water no matter what the season.

      In spite of living there for well over a year now, she hadn’t got to know any of her neighbours all that well. She stopped to chat to one or two of them now and again, but the hours she worked made socialising a little difficult and her free time was so precious she mostly spent it alone or at the gym. As for dating, well, that had been an area of her life that had never quite got off the ground after she’d returned from London. She’d had dinner a couple of times with a friend of a friend just recently but nothing had come of it. It was intensely annoying but every time she went out with another man she couldn’t help comparing him to Lewis. It was as if Lewis was her benchmark of what she felt to be the ideal man. Everyone else fell short, if not in height, then in looks and personality and intelligence.

      It wasn’t that she still felt anything for him, well, nothing she was prepared to openly admit. In her most private moments she allowed herself to unlock that door in her heart where she stored that still weeping wound. Was love supposed to hurt for this long? Surely by now she should have forgotten about him and moved on.

      When she had heard he was coming to Sydney to take up a position at St Benedict’s she had been furious. What right did he have to come waltzing back into her life, even if it was only professionally? That was how she had fallen for him in the first place. She had been a medical student on rotation in London, the same hospital where Lewis had been doing his registrar training. The irony was they hadn’t met at the hospital but in a pub frequented by homesick Aussies. She had come in out of the rain just as he had been going out. She had almost stabbed him in the stomach with her umbrella and he had stolen her heart with his ghost of a smile.

      It had been a whirlwind romance, or at least for her. Mikki suspected Lewis had been used to a rapid turnover of bedmates. He was very experienced, but looking back she realised that had probably been in comparison to her inexperience.

      She had been so terribly young and naive, so fresh faced and enthusiastic about life. She had fallen hard for Lewis, very hard. He had been her polar opposite. She had been bubbly and happy and he had been dark and brooding and serious. She had loved their differences. She’d loved making him smile. She’d taken it on as a mission to make him laugh out loud. She had never achieved it but she had made those lips of his curve upwards at her and his amazingly blue eyes dance a little.

      Lewis had always seemed so controlled and in control. He hadn’t needed anyone. He’d had no one to need. His mother had died when he was young, and his father when he’d been a teenager, which had left him with no extended family to speak of. For someone who’d craved others’ approval so much, Mikki had found his air of untouchable aloofness devastatingly attractive. His lone-wolf status had intrigued her. She had been unable to imagine having no one in her life to lean on, but he had always shrugged off any notion of regret about being without a family.

      Their first meeting had turned into a date, and then another. Within days of meeting they were sleeping together. She told him she loved him the third week they were together, a spontaneous gushing confession that to this day still embarrassed her. He had not said he loved her back, at least not then. He had just given one of his half-smiles and ruffled