CHAPTER ONE

      Two months later

      QUINN WISHED THEY did an easy-to-read, step-by-step guide for anxious foster mums going through these operations too. It was difficult to know what to do for the best when Simon resisted all attempts to comfort him pre-op.

      He turned his face away when she produced the well-worn kids’ book the hospital had provided to explain the surgical process.

      She sighed and closed the book.

      ‘I suppose you know this off by heart now.’ Not that it made this any easier. After the countless hours he’d spent on the operating table they both knew what they were in for—pain, tears and a huge dollop of guilt on her part.

      She hadn’t caused the fire or his injuries but neither had she been able to save him from this suffering. Given the choice she’d have swapped places with the mite and offered herself up for this seemingly endless torture rather than watch him go through it.

      ‘Can I get you anything?’ she asked the back of his head, wishing there was something she could do other than stand here feeling inadequate.

      The pillow rustled as he shook his head and she had to suppress the urge to try and swamp him into a big hug the way her mother always had when she’d been having a hard time. Simon didn’t like to be hugged. In fact, he resisted any attempt to comfort him. That should’ve been his real mother’s job but then apparently she’d never shown affection for anything other than her next fix. His too-young, too-addicted parents were out of the picture, their neglect so severe the courts had stripped them of any rights.

      Quinn and Simon had barely got to know each other before the fire had happened so she couldn’t tell if his withdrawal was a symptom of his recent trauma or the usual reaction of a foster child afraid to get attached to his latest care giver. She wasn’t his parent, nor one of the efficient medical staff, confident in what they were doing. For all she knew he’d already figured out she was out of her depth and simply didn’t want to endure her feeble overtures. Maybe he just didn’t like her. Whatever was causing the chasm between them it was vital she closed it, and fast.

      As if on cue, their favourite surgeon stepped into the room. ‘Back again? I’m sure you two are sick of the sight of me.’

      That velvety Irish accent immediately caught her attention. She frowned as goose bumps popped up across her skin. At the age of thirty-two she should really have better self-control over an ill-conceived crush on her foster son’s doctor.

      ‘Hi, Matt.’ An also enchanted Simon sat upright in bed.

      It was amazing how much they both seemed to look forward to these appointments and hate them at the same time. Although the skin grafts were a vital part of recovery, they were traumatic and led to more night terrors once they returned home as Simon relived the events of the fire in his sleep. He’d been one of the most seriously burned children, having been trapped in his classroom by falling debris. Although the emergency services had thankfully rescued him, no one had been able to save him from the memories or the residual pain.

      Matt, as he’d insisted they call him, was the one constant during this whole nightmare. The one person Simon seemed to believe when he said things would work out. Probably because he had more confidence in himself and his abilities than she did in herself, when every dressing change made her feel like a failure.

      The poor child’s face was still scarred, even after the so-called revolutionary treatment, and his arm was a patchwork quilt of pieced together skin. Technically his injuries had occurred in school but that didn’t stop her beating herself up that it had happened on her watch. Especially when the fragile bond they’d had in those early days had disintegrated in the aftermath of the fire. Unlike the one he’d forged with the handsome surgeon.

      Matt moved to the opposite side of the bed from Quinn and pulled out some sort of plastic slide from his pocket. ‘I’ve got a new one for you, Simon. The disappearing coin trick!’ he said with flare, plucking a ten pence piece from the air.

      ‘Cool!’

      Of course it was. Magic was a long way away from the realities of life with second-and third-degree burns. Fun time with Matt before surgery offered an escape whilst she was always going to be the authority figure telling him not to scratch and slathering cream over him when he just wanted to be left alone.

      Somehow Simon was able to separate his friend who performed magic tricks from the surgeon who performed these painful procedures, whereas she was the one he associated with his pain. It was frustrating, especially seeing him so engaged when she’d spent all day trying to coax a few words from him.

      ‘I need you to place the coin in here.’ He gave Simon the coin and pulled out a tray with a hole cut out of the centre from the plastic slide.

      Concentration was etched on his face as he followed instructions and once Quinn set aside her petty jealousy she appreciated the distraction from the impending surgery. After all, that’s what she wanted for him—to be the same as any other inquisitive five-year-old, fascinated by the world around him. Not hiding away, fearful of the unknown, the way he was at home.

      ‘Okay, so we push it back in here—’ he slid the tray back inside the case ‘—and this is the important bit. We need a magic word.’

      ‘Smelly pants!’ Simon had the mischievous twinkle of a child who knew he could get away with being naughty on this occasion.

      ‘I was thinking along the more traditional abracadabra line but I guess that works too.’ Matt exchanged a grin across the bed with her. It was a brief moment which made her forget the whole parent/doctor divide and react as any other woman who’d had a good-looking man smile at her.

      That jittery, girlish excitement took her by surprise as he made eye contact with her and sent her heart rate sky high. Since Darryl left her she hadn’t given any thought to the opposite sex. At least not in any ‘You’re hot and I want you’ way. More of a ‘You’re a man and I can’t trust you’ association. She wasn’t prepared to give away any more of herself—of her time or her heart—to anyone who wouldn’t appreciate the gift. All of her time and energy these days was directed into the fostering process, trying to make up for the lack of two parents in Simon’s life. Harbouring any form of romantic ideas was self-indulgent and, most likely, self-destructive.

      She put this sudden attraction down to the lack of adult interaction. Since leaving her teaching post to tutor from home and raise Simon, apart from the drive-by parents of her students, and her elderly neighbour, Mrs Johns, the medical staff were the only grown-ups she got to talk to. Very few of them were men, and even fewer had cheekbones hand-carved by the gods. It was no wonder she’d overreacted to a little male attention. The attraction had been there since day one and she’d fought it with good reason when her last romantic interlude had crashed her world around her. Everything she’d believed in her partner had turned out to be a lie, making it difficult for her to trust a word anyone told her any more. She kept everyone at a distance now, but Matt was such a key figure in their days that he was nigh on impossible to ignore. As the weeks had gone on she found herself getting into more arguments with him, forcing him to take the brunt of her fears for Simon and the annoyance she should have directed at herself.

      Matt waved his hand over the simple piece of plastic which had transformed Simon’s body language in mere seconds.

      ‘Smelly pants!’ he shouted, echoed by his tiny assistant.

      The magician-cum-surgeon frowned at her. Which apparently was equally as stimulating as a smile.

      ‘It’ll