More Than Caring

“Lauren?” he murmured, but if it was a question she had no idea of the answer

Suddenly he tightened his grip again, wrapping his arms completely around her, and then he was rolling the two of them over.

He stared down at her for a moment that stretched into infinity and she could see the battle he was fighting with himself. She held her breath, trying to tell herself that she didn’t care one way or another, then she saw his head angle toward her and she knew she’d lied.

Then his lips met hers in the briefest and most gentle of kisses, just a fleeting impression of sweetness and warmth. It was perfect, and yet almost as soon as it started it was over, and she was definitely disappointed when he lifted his head again. She’d wanted so much more.

Dear Reader,

When I started planning this book along with the sequel in the duet, More Than a Gift, I wanted to explore the effect that families—or lack of them—can have on us. So Lauren and Laurel were born.

Take a woman who’s never really felt as if she’s belonged anywhere and put her together with a man who needs her to stay—and there are bound to be sparks! Then throw in the accusation that this highly recommended woman, just appointed by this man, might not be everything that she seems…and yet, she’s everything that he hadn’t realized he wanted.

Lauren is strong and self-sufficient because she’s had to be. She’s been on her own long enough to learn how to look after herself, but then she meets Mac and needs to learn a whole new lesson: how good it can feel when someone cares for you. And when it becomes more than caring….

Laurel’s story will be coming in December. I hope you enjoy finding out about each of them as much as I enjoyed the writing.

Josie

More than Caring

Josie Metcalfe

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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CONTENTS

COVER

Dear Reader

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

LAUREN stepped outside the hospital’s side door, paused just long enough to hear the night safety lock catch, then closed her eyes in pleasure as she breathed in.

Even though she’d been in Edenthwaite ten days now, she was still amazed that the air was scented by the myriad things it had passed on its way from the distant fells. Perhaps in time she would become used to it, but after a busy first week on the staff at Denison Memorial, this was one of her newest pleasures.

She drew another draught deep into her lungs and let it out on a sigh. She really hoped that this would be the place that finally made her feel as if she could settle her roots permanently. She was so tired of feeling restless, especially as she didn’t know what she was looking for.

Perhaps, surrounded by the wild beauty of such an unspoiled region of the country, she wouldn’t feel the urge to see what lay over the next hill…unless she was wearing her new walking boots and doing the exploration just to familiarise herself with her new home.

‘Only time will tell,’ she murmured briskly as she set off towards the staff car park, then scowled at the darkness that enfolded her once she’d turned the first corner.

‘The dratted man still hasn’t done anything about those lights,’ she muttered, and made a mental note to beard the lion in his den. No matter what her personal feelings about Marc Fletcher, he was the hospital’s chief administrator and, as such, ensuring staff safety was his responsibility.

It wasn’t that the hospital was in a high-risk city—Edenthwaite couldn’t have been more idyllic in the fading warmth of a September evening. Unfortunately, there were some facets of modern life that had permeated even this little corner of paradise, and one way to guard against them was to have safety lighting working once darkness fell.

‘I told him about it the other day,’ she grumbled under her breath, remembering the way the senior administrator had appeared in her department yet again. It was almost as though he didn’t trust her to be able to do her job, although she knew for a fact that he’d checked every one of her references.

What was it about the man?

He knew that she was perfectly well qualified for the post, so it couldn’t be that. And she hadn’t had time to do or say anything to upset him.

‘Mind you, I’m not sure how you’d tell if he was upset,’ she added snidely, remembering the stony face he’d turned on her each time they’d encountered each other.

Not that he was bad-looking, by any means. His dark hair might be a little shorter than she preferred and the occasional silver strands at his temples made him look distinguished rather than older. His eyes were a strange smoky grey, almost as though the colour was a deliberate screen against anyone reading his thoughts.

As for his body, she was quite ashamed to admit that she’d actually found her eyes following him as he’d stalked off down the corridor the other day. She’d been almost mesmerised by the lithe, ground-eating strides and the evidence of taut, compact muscles camouflaged by his impeccably pressed suit, and she wasn’t someone prone to ogling men.

He certainly wasn’t ogling her when he appeared in the ward, at least once every day. It was almost as if… ‘As if he expects to find me pocketing the silver,’ she finished on an exasperated laugh.

Well, if this continued she was going to have to confront him…ask him if he had some sort of problem with her. She was thoroughly enjoying her new post and if there was something she could do to remove the single fly in the ointment—a rather large fly going by the name of Mr Marcus Fletcher—then she just might have found that elusive niche she’d been searching for all her life.

In the meantime, she was going to have to mention the safety lighting again. One of the staff nurses had mentioned seeing someone loitering at one end of the staff car park, and as they hadn’t been smoking, she’d known it hadn’t been just a fugitive from Denison Memorial’s strict no-smoking policy.

The thought of deliberately seeking out the openly disapproving man sent a shiver up her spine. There was just something about him that set all her nerves on edge; something she’d never encountered before and made her wary of him.

It wasn’t that Marcus Fletcher was one of those enormous hulking brutes she’d grown accustomed to seeing when she’d started frequenting the gym a few years ago. He certainly didn’t seem to be the type to waste his time building muscles for the sake of measuring the number of inches gained. He struck her as more the lean, predatory type—quietly fit and ready for anything that came his way. Or at least he might have been before he’d settled into his administrative job. There certainly wouldn’t be much call for muscles when his day was spent wrestling with columns of figures.

Still, national statistics detailed a year-on-year increase in the number of attacks on all hospital employees, not just accident and emergency staff, a fact she’d seen for her own eyes in her last post at a busy city hospital. An injured friend had actually prompted her to offer her services to run several self-defence courses for her colleagues. Before she’d left, she’d had the satisfaction of knowing that at least two of her pupils had been able to use what they’d learned to ward off attackers.

A similar effort wouldn’t go amiss at Denison Memorial.

Perhaps, she mused as she crossed the last open stretch before she got to her car, at the same time as she reminded her nemesis about the need to replace the lights as soon as they failed, she could make the same offer here—to run a basic course of self-defence for any female staff who were interested.

Yes, that’s what she’d do as soon as she came in to work in the morning.

She was so busy thinking about her plans for the next day that she failed to follow one of her own basic rules—she had completely forgotten to be aware of what was going on around her.

The scuffling sound of furtive footsteps was only a few feet away from her when she suddenly became aware of them, almost too late to react.

‘Laurel? Laurel Wainwright?’ the shadowy figure demanded as he reached for one arm.

His grip was rough and bruising and for just a split second she was taken back to that nightmare time when she’d been sixteen and feeling so hopelessly alone and vulnerable.

Then Lauren’s carefully honed instincts kicked in…literally. Shrugging off the memories that could still paralyse her with fear if she let them, she whirled into action.

It was easy enough, with a dozen years of practice behind her, to send her would-be assailant cartwheeling over her shoulder to land on the ground with a thud.

She barely had time to draw breath before she recognised the sound of more feet, running this time.

This man was bigger and stronger and she was careful to make sure that he didn’t get a chance to grab hold of her before she flipped him over to join his partner in a heap.

‘Dammit! What did you have to do that for?’ the second assailant demanded angrily, already on his feet as quickly as a big cat and straightening up to his full height. His companion was taking far longer to drag himself up from his ignominious heap, but even he managed to get there in the end.

Lauren took a hasty step backwards, careful to remain out of reach. She certainly hadn’t expected them to recover from her throws quite so quickly. The second one was almost as light on his feet as though he, too, was trained in martial arts, but she should have had time to get into the safety of her car before they both got their breath back.

As it was, the second one, the larger of the two, was already taking a menacing step towards her and she had to force herself to concentrate. It would do her no good at all to notice that his shoulders seemed much broader and his height much more impressive now that he was prepared for her self-defence tactics.

She was just wondering whether she dared attempt a kick manoeuvre on such a gravelly surface when he spoke again.

‘If you’re thinking of drop-kicking me into next week, don’t bother,’ he growled in a voice full of disgust. ‘I was only trying to help.’

‘Help?’ she exclaimed. ‘Help who?’

‘You, of course. I thought I saw someone following you when you left the hospital so I investigated.’

He’d gestured towards the way she’d come, turning just far enough for the light of a distant lamp to catch his face, and she suddenly realised who he was.

‘Mr Fletcher!’ she gasped, horrified to realise that she’d just flung the hospital’s chief administrator over her shoulder. He hadn’t been very keen on her appointment in the first place and this certainly wouldn’t make him any more pleased. ‘I’m so sorry! Did I hurt you?’

‘Only my pride,’ he said wryly, brushing the gravel off the sleeve of his jacket. ‘Who was your friend?’

‘My friend? He’s no friend of…’

She suddenly remembered her first assailant and whirled to discover that he’d taken advantage of her preoccupation with her second opponent and disappeared into the surrounding darkness.

‘Damn. Did you see which way he went?’ she demanded.

‘Why? I hope you’re not thinking of chasing after him.’

‘I should have kept my eye on him so he couldn’t have got away in the first place,’ she retorted. ‘I would have done if you hadn’t got in the way.’

‘Well, excuse me for being concerned. I hope you’re not waiting for me to apologise for coming to help,’ he snapped, visibly affronted.

Lauren could almost feel sorry for him. Not many men could accept the fact that a woman didn’t need them for protection. But, then, none of them would know about the situations she’d been in, where the only person she’d had to rely on had been herself.

‘No, but if you’d done something about the broken lights when I told you about them, the whole situation could have been avoided,’ she pointed out briskly. ‘Perhaps you could manage an apology for that?’

‘The broken lights were replaced within an hour of you reporting them to me,’ he retorted stiffly. ‘The safety of the staff while they’re on Denison Memorial premises is my responsibility and I take my responsibilities very seriously.’

‘Well, then, I suggest you check up on the quality of the lights,’ she said as she turned towards her car, keys already in hand. ‘Because they should certainly have lasted longer than a couple of days.’

Once in the car, she deliberately concentrated on the mundane task of fastening her seat belt so that she wouldn’t have to look at him. She knew he was still standing there, just a few feet away, as though guarding her until she was ready to leave. She could feel those smoky grey eyes on her, almost as if they were touching her skin.

And all the while she was replaying his words inside her head.

I take my responsibilities very seriously.

There had been a definite undercurrent in his voice that had suddenly made her feel uneasy. She’d certainly lost her taste for standing there in the dark, sparring with the man.

She felt uncomfortable enough in his presence in broad daylight. With that critical gaze on her, all she wanted to do was leave the car park as soon as possible and make for the cosy sanctuary of her little cottage.

Lauren wasn’t due to start her shift until half past seven the next morning, but seven o’clock saw her parking her trusty little car right under a light before she made her way inside.

In spite of her lingering embarrassment that she’d thrown him to the ground, she was still determined to approach the formidable hospital manager about running a self-defence class.

She’d planned to use her first break to visit his office, but just before she went in to change into her uniform she caught sight of him entering the lift on the way to his office.

‘There’s no time like the present,’ she muttered as she opted to take the stairs, cross to feel the squadron of butterflies that suddenly took off in spectacular formation inside her stomach.

What was there to be nervous about? He’d either agree, or disagree. And with the suggestion coming from her, the odds were…

‘Can I have a word, please?’ she asked when his deep voice bade her to enter, his secretary’s desk still empty at this time of the morning.

‘More lights to report?’ One dark eyebrow shot up towards his ruthlessly neat hair.

‘What?’ She blinked, wondering for a moment what he was talking about. ‘Oh, no. Not as far as I know. It’s actually—’

‘Someone had apparently been using the lights for target practice,’ he announced grimly. ‘Several had been smashed in the space of a single day.’

‘Simple vandalism, then.’ She sighed, completely sidetracked. ‘As if the hospital didn’t have enough calls on its budget, we now have to waste money on replacing safety lights on a daily basis.’

‘It’s nice to know someone appreciates that my balancing act isn’t as easy as the media makes out,’ he muttered, then threw her an unexpected grin. ‘So, if it wasn’t the lights, what did bring you into the dragon’s lair?’

The startling change that single smile made to his face—the glint of amusement in those smoky grey eyes and the hint that the crinkles around them might have been put there partly by humour—took her breath away for a second. He really was an attractive man when you took away the weight of his responsibilities.

To cover up her momentary lack of attention Lauren cast a quick glance round the strictly functional room.

‘Is that what this is? The dragon’s lair?’ she challenged lightly.

‘You’d think so, from the fear and trepidation some people exhibit when they have to come here.’ He leant back in his chair, the steel barrel of the pen he’d been using clasped between both hands as he rested his elbows on the arms.

His eyes only left hers for a second to drop in a swift sweep down her body and when a wash of heat followed it she felt almost as though she’d been just one pace too close to the fiery breath of the dragon.

‘You, on the other hand, don’t seem in the least bit intimidated,’ he added thoughtfully, and she was relieved that he apparently hadn’t recognised her reaction to him.

It was completely crazy. She had no more interest in him than he had in her. They were both hospital employees who, apart from his unofficial supervision, would have little cause to meet.

Even if her department were to need to requisition replacements for expensive equipment, the submission would be made on paper rather than in person. Yet, here she was, her eyes defensively fixed on the slender length of his fingers as he slid them back and forth on his pen, only too aware of the fact that his eyes were fixed on her face.

‘Actually,’ she said hurriedly, her face heating when she realised that he was still waiting for an answer, ‘I wanted to ask how to go about arranging a series of self-defence classes.’

He gave a snort of laughter. ‘I wouldn’t have thought you needed any classes, seeing how you took care of two people all by yourself.’ He pointedly rubbed one elbow with a grimace.

She laughed a little uncomfortably. ‘Yes. Well, I’m sorry about that, but I wasn’t asking about taking classes. I was actually proposing to teach them.’

‘You’d teach them?’ He seemed startled by the idea and her pride was stung. It wasn’t only big burly men who could teach such things. Sometimes the fact that she was a slender female and well able to defend herself made her point to other women far more effectively.

‘I’ve done them before, as I said on my CV,’ she reminded him. ‘At my last post, we were having increasing problems with hospital staff being attacked, especially in A and E. The first class started with a small group of female staff just from the accident department, and the word spread.’

He had a frown on his face and she was certain that he was going to turn the idea down. Whether that was because he disapproved of the proposal in principle or because of his continuing wariness about her, she didn’t know.

Well, he might pour cold water on the suggestion this time, but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t going to bring it up again. She knew at first hand the benefits of learning self-defence and she would keep trying until he finally agreed to let her…

‘I’ll see what I can do about scheduling time in the physiotherapy department,’ he announced, completely taking the wind out of her sails with his unexpected agreement.

‘Oh, that’s…great,’ she managed, completely wrong-footed. She’d been so certain that she was going to have a fight on her hands.

‘Unless I’ve got a meeting, I can usually manage to be free by six. Do you want me to organise it for after you’ve finished a shift, or would you rather I made it on one of your off-duty days?’

‘Oh, but you don’t have to be there,’ she said hurriedly, suddenly nervous at the idea of having to put on a performance in front of eyes as keen as lasers.

‘You’ll need a body to use for your demonstrations,’ he pointed out calmly, and her pulse tripped into overdrive.

He expected her to be able to concentrate while he grabbed her and held her close to that lean, muscular body? There might be a constant prickly animosity between the two of them but that didn’t mean that her hormones couldn’t recognise the fact that he was a good-looking man. In spite of the solemn expression he usually wore, he was so gorgeous that few women would want to fight him off.

Then her innate level-headedness kicked in and she brought her whirling emotions under control.

‘You mean you’re volunteering to get thrown around again? Wasn’t one set of bruises enough for you?’ she challenged.

He chuckled wryly and, much to her annoyance, her pulse kicked up another notch.

‘At least this time I can make sure I won’t be landing on concrete. In fact, I’ll make sure the physiotherapy department has taken delivery of the new mats they ordered before I schedule the first class.’

Over the strident summons of one of the three telephones on his desk he promised to call her as soon as he had some dates for her, and suggested she have a think about how she wanted to publicise the classes.

On her way down to the ward to start her shift Lauren should have been thinking about the tasks awaiting her attention, or she should have set her concentration to deciding whether word of mouth would be a better advertisement than putting up posters. But all she could think about was Marc Fletcher’s grin.

Well, it wasn’t just his grin. It was the effect that smiling had on his whole face, from the sparkle it added to the smoky grey of his eyes to the lifting and lightening of the angle of his jaw and the gleam of strong teeth in a surprisingly sensual-looking mouth.

‘Oh, good grief!’ she muttered when she realised she was fixating on the man’s teeth, for heaven’s sake. ‘He’s the hospital manager, remember? He’s got something against you that makes him turn up all the time to keep an eye on you, remember?’

In fact, now she thought about it, that was probably the reason why he’d suggested coming along to the classes, too. It wasn’t that he wanted to offer his services as the willing victim so much as he wanted to see what she was getting up to.

Well, he wouldn’t find anything amiss in one of her self-defence classes. She knew only too well how vital the information she would pass on could be—the difference between life and death, in some cases. There was no way she would do anything less than her best, no matter who was standing there supervising her.

In the meantime, there was a ward waiting for her to take over the reins, with the night staff champing at the bit to go home.

An hour later Lauren was beginning to wonder just how many more things were going to go wrong.

There had been a complete mix-up over the patients’ meals, with dietary requirements completely ignored for some and meals being supplied for two ladies who were designated ‘nil by mouth’.

‘Surely you know that pre-operative patients shouldn’t be tucking into bacon and scrambled eggs?’ she demanded of her hastily gathered staff once she’d sorted everything out. ‘Just because the kitchen made a mess of things doesn’t mean you switch your brains off. You know better than this.’

‘I’m sorry, Sister,’ muttered the hapless staff nurse, looking close to tears. ‘It won’t happen again, I promise.’

‘See that it doesn’t,’ Lauren said sternly. ‘Luckily, this time it won’t make too much difference as Mrs Lisle hadn’t eaten more than a couple of mouthfuls before she was stopped. I’ve warned Theatre that she’ll have to be switched to the end of the list as a precaution.’

It was such an elementary mistake that she was quite concerned. Staff Nurse Roberts was usually very dependable. Such a potentially dangerous mistake was unlike her and would bear closer scrutiny.

‘Next point on the agenda is the state of cleanliness, or rather the lack of it,’ she said briskly. ‘There are dust bunnies under some of those beds that are nearly old enough to talk and I spotted used paper hankies lying behind one of the curtains. In a postoperative ward that’s a recipe for disaster. We don’t want an environment where MRSA can flourish, so strict cleanliness, please.’