Table of Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

       Chapter Seven

       Chapter Eight

       Chapter Nine

       Chapter Ten

       Copyright

       CHAPTER ONE

      SHE would have known that laugh anywhere.

      It rippled down the corridor, bringing smiles to the faces of the people who heard it, raising a chuckle here and there, leaving no one untouched. It was a rich, warm laugh; a deep laugh, spontaneous and generous, the laugh of a man who knew how to enjoy life.

      It nearly brought Sally to her knees.

      Heart pounding, her mouth dry, the strength in her legs vanishing by the second, she propped herself up against the nearest wall and sucked in a slow, steadying breath.

      Not Nick. Please, God, not Nick. Not here, not now. Not ever! Seven years hadn’t made it any easier to think about him, and if she imagined she’d got over him, well, now she knew that lie for what it was.

      She could hear footsteps approaching, and the low murmur of masculine voices, and before she could prise herself from the wall and run for cover Ryan O’Connor, the senior A and E consultant, appeared around the corner with another man at his side—a man that Sally had longed for and yet had hoped never to see again—and she was trapped.

      ‘Ah, Sally! Just the person I was looking for,’ Ryan said with a broad smile. ‘Meet Dr Nick Baker, my new specialist registrar.’

      Reluctantly, her throat working convulsively to swallow the huge lump that had appeared as if by magic, she let her eyes move from Ryan to Nick.

      How odd, she thought with the small, distant part of her brain that still seemed to be functioning. He’s changed, and yet he’s exactly the same.

      Her eyes, greedy for him, took inventory. Solidly built, a shade under six feet, his mid-brown hair shorter than it used to be but still rumpled and untidy, his eyes the same astonishing blue behind the character lines that bracketed them now, his mouth mobile and expressive, the smile every bit as sexy as it had ever been—

      ‘Hello, Sally,’ he murmured, and the voice like dark chocolate slithered over her nerve endings and brought her hormones snapping to attention.

      ‘Hello, Nick,’ she said automatically, and then Ryan’s words sank in. New specialist registrar? she thought frantically. He’s working here? Belatedly she noticed the white coat, the stethoscope slung casually round his neck, the name badge on his pocket.

      Thank goodness she was still propped up against the wall, because at that moment, without it, she would have fallen over with the shock.

      ‘Sally’s a tyrant,’ Ryan was saying with a hint of laughter in his soft Canadian voice. ‘Stay on the right side of her and you’ll be OK, but she runs a tight ship and she doesn’t suffer fools gladly. Her temper’s legendary.’

      ‘That hasn’t changed, then,’ Nick murmured, his eyes scanning her, and she felt the touch of his gaze like fingers of fire over her body.

      ‘Hey, Sally, your reputation seems to have preceded you,’ Ryan said with an amused chuckle, but Nick shook his head, his eyes never leaving her.

      ‘No. We’re old buddies—aren’t we, Sal?’ he replied, and his eyes challenged her to defy him.

      ‘Absolutely,’ she said, still groping for a coherent thought. She dredged up a smile, hopefully not too inane, and switched her gaze pointedly to Ryan. ‘Well, to be exact, we were old buddies. We worked together, many years ago—’

      ‘Seven,’ Nick said softly.

      And she thought, He remembers. How odd. I’m surprised he can even be bothered to remember my name. She cranked up the smile.

      ‘Is it really? Good heavens.’

      A strong brow twitched sceptically, but he let it go, his mouth tipping in an answering smile more genuine than her own. ‘It’s good to see you again.’

      He was holding out his hand, and without a huge breach of social etiquette it would have been impossible to ignore it. Heart pounding, she placed her hand in his and felt the shock of that contact, the first in seven years, to the tips of her toes.

      His hand was hard and warm and dry, his fingers curling round hers. His thumb brushed against the outside of her wrist—by accident? It sent quivers of reaction up the nerves in her arm.

      She snatched her hand back as soon as was decently possible, but not before the impact of that everyday social gesture had played havoc with her blood pressure and turned her already weakened legs to jelly.

      Ryan grinned at her. ‘Well, since you two know each other, why don’t I leave you to show Nick round the department and catch up on old times? I have a couple of letters to dictate and some calls to make while we’re quiet.’

      ‘Quiet? You do know how to tempt fate, don’t you?’ she said with what she hoped was her usual cynicism, struggling for a normal tone that didn’t betray her shock. Not for the world did she want Nick to know he still had any effect on her—and especially not that effect! She turned to him as Ryan walked away.

      ‘I don’t have long,’ she said crisply. ‘I’m briefing some new nurses in a few minutes, but I can give you a quick whizz round and show you the basics. The rest you’ll pick up as you go along.’

      ‘I’m sure you’ll put me straight if I don’t,’ he murmured, his voice tinged with irony, and she had a flicker of guilt. It was stupid to fall out with him over nothing. Whatever lay behind them, they still had to work together in the near future, and there was no point in them getting off on the wrong foot. And Ryan’s remark about her temper hadn’t helped at all.

      ‘I’m not really the dragon he made me out to be,’ she told him, embarrassed by Ryan’s summing up of her character.

      ‘I’m sure you’re not,’ he said mildly.

      She sneaked a sideways glance at him, but his face was bland and innocent of any expression. Huh! He always had been a hell of a poker player. She wondered if he’d known she was here. He hadn’t seemed surprised to see her—or maybe she just didn’t have the effect on him that he had on her. Even so, after all this time and after what they’d been to each other, she would have expected some reaction.

      She took him round the department, introducing him to people, showing him the layout, while her mind whirled.

      Coincidence, or not? Most people tended to stick to one particular part of the country for their specialist training, because it made for a less disrupted social life. It