Gold Coast Angels: Bundle of Trouble

‘Maybe.’ He drained his glass, trying not to think of that night when the gendarmes had told him his car had drifted onto the wrong side of the road. ‘I had to tell them, Steph. I had to watch their horror and then their sympathy. God, I thought by now I was over having to tell people. I thought at least that part would be done.’

‘It’ll get easier.’

‘Don’t say that.’ He glared at her, hating platitudes. He’d heard enough of them to know they only made the speaker feel better. Nothing was ever going to make him feel better. Nothing could erase the bald fact that he’d unwittingly killed his darling wife.

Steph’s usually smiling mouth flattened. ‘We’ll always miss Anna. You know I meant walking into the hospital and talking with the staff will get easier. Try to look on the plus side. By the time you return on Thursday they’ll have digested the news and be onto something else. Besides, given the turnover of staff, half of them probably don’t even know you.’

The image of a pair of hazel eyes framed by black-rimmed glasses, followed by a mane of glossy, chestnut hair, pinged into his mind. Eyes that seemed familiar and yet he felt sure that he’d never met the nurse before. If they’d met, he’d have remembered that particular combination of khaki-green flecked with brown. He knew that grief screwed with memory and his had been bad lately but, even so, she hadn’t shown any spark of recognition either. Hell, he really didn’t know why he was even thinking about her.

He tried to stop the picture of her at those eyes but, like a movie reel, his brain recalled way more. In vivid detail, it rolled over her round, smiling face, her ruby-red lips that peaked in a delectable bow and her lush curves that no uniform could hide. Natural curves that in a bygone era women had embraced but which today so many tried to dominate into submission. Curves that said, I am all woman.

His mouth dried as the same short, sharp kick of arousal he’d experienced the first time he’d seen her stirred again. He rubbed the back of his neck. God, what was wrong with him? Anna had only been dead just over a year and he missed her every single day. He didn’t want to look at other women, let alone lust after them.

‘You okay, Luke?’

No. ‘Yep.’ He didn’t like the inquiring look in his sister’s eyes so he shifted conversational gears. ‘The daycare centre called and they can take Amber for the extra days each week while you’re away on your big trip.’

Relief flitted across Steph’s face. ‘That’s good news. Of course, if you hadn’t sold the house around the corner…’

He shook his head, thinking about the five-bedroom house with its indoor-outdoor living, swimming pool and a spectacular view of the tidal canal and its constant boat traffic.

He and Anna had bought the colonnaded home when he’d been appointed to Gold Coast City. It was the place they’d taken Amber home to from the hospital and settled her into her nursery with the crooked wallpaper frieze of pastel balloons that he’d put on the wall. Anna had taken one look at his dodgy handiwork and had teased him not to give up his day job.

‘I couldn’t live in that house, no matter how close it was to you, and besides…’ he raked his hand through his hair ‘…it’s moot in this instance because you’re going to be gone for two months. I appreciate that you’ve been having Amber three days a week while I’ve been doing some private practice stuff, but I don’t want you putting your life on hold for me. Marty’s been talking about driving up the centre from Adelaide to Darwin for as long as I’ve known him, and it isn’t fair to you, him or the girls to put it off again.’

‘Luke, we’re family and we help each other out. It’s what families do. And the moment we get back I want to have Amber three days a week again.’ She leaned closer to him and smiled. ‘We love having her here, and the girls have stopped pestering me for a baby brother or sister so it’s win-win.’

He tried to match her smile. ‘No more baby plans, then?’

‘No. Marty wanted two and I wanted four so we’ve compromised on three.’

Luke detected a wistfulness in his sister’s voice, but before he could say anything Amber took a tumble on the grass and sent up a shriek of shocked surprise.

‘Up you get, honey,’ Luke called out as he rose to his feet and crossed the lawn. He swung his daughter into his arms and gave her knees and elbows a quick inspection for skin damage but could only see grass stains. He kissed her. ‘Bath time for you, young lady.’

‘Play ducky?’ Amber asked hopefully.

‘Play ducky in your bathtub,’ Luke replied, bracing himself for a howl of disappointment that Amber had to leave her beloved cousins and come with him.

‘Okay.’

‘Okay.’ He kissed her again, battling a surge of sadness for them both. ‘Let’s go…’ He couldn’t bring himself to say home because the cottage was just a house.

Chloe checked little Made’s observations as the six-year-old slept. The white of the sheets and pillowcases made his black hair and deeply olive skin seem even darker, and in the big hospital bed he looked tiny and in need of protection. Her protection.

She bit her lip against the rush of emotions—some caring, some painful, most tinged with loss. She’d lost her baby and along with it her chance to be a mother. Self-preservation meant she’d chosen not to nurse children, and in her off-duty life, while she didn’t technically avoid children, she didn’t actively seek them out either.

She knew from bitter experience that letting her mind drift backwards was unwise and unhealthy so she drew on every ounce of her professionalism. He’s a patient, like all your other patients.

She picked up the Bahasa-English dictionary she’d purchased and thumbed through the pages. Last night she’d recalled her basic Indonesian from primary school, and using the dictionary she’d looked up the words for pain and thirst, adding them to her small list of phrases. The little boy’s mother spoke less English than Chloe spoke Bahasa, which wasn’t saying much, so the dictionary was getting a good workout.

Between them, they were muddling along and Made was pain-free, which right now was the most important thing for his recovery.

Chloe stifled a yawn. It had been a long day and she still had an hour to go before her relief took over. She’d started her shift early due to Luke Stanley’s request that she attend the operation. She’d arrived before him and had spent the time chatting with the anaesthetist about Made’s post-operative pain relief while the rest of the theatre staff had scurried around, getting ready. The scout nurse had set up Mr Stanley’s favourite playlist of music but the moment he’d walked briskly into Theatre he’d demanded it be turned off.

The mood of the room had instantly changed—people had become tentative and quiet. Eyes had flashed and flickered over the tops of surgical masks, sending coded messages to each other. Luke Stanley had operated almost silently, his only words being infrequent curt demands for instruments that the experienced scrub nurse had failed to anticipate, and as a result the air was thick with confused tension. People wanted to be sympathetic and understanding, but nothing about Luke Stanley’s demeanour allowed it.

Initially, Chloe hadn’t understood why Luke had insisted she be in the operating room, but it had been utterly hypnotic watching him in action and seeing how those long, strong and competent fingers had freed the thick, scarred adhesions on Made’s neck. He deserved his reputation as a talented surgeon and his skills were restoring little Made’s life to normality. The young boy would once again be able to turn his head, and in time he would once again enjoy playing childhood games.

Although it hadn’t been absolutely necessary to attend the operation to be able to nurse Made effectively, knowing exactly what Luke Stanley had done, seeing from where the skin grafts had been taken and how they had been positioned, did help. She rechecked Made’s analgesia drip and then set about her fifteen-minute routine of observing the skin grafts. Circulation was key and she wanted to see pink, warm skin, not white and cool skin.

‘How’s he doing?’

Surprised, Chloe spun around at the sound of Luke’s deep but curt voice. Just like their first encounter fifteen months ago, she hadn’t heard him enter the ward—only this time her hands were thankfully empty. This time Luke’s face wasn’t open, smiling and cheerful. Instead, gaunt skin stretched over high cheekbones, giving him a haunted look.

‘He’s doing great,’ she said, suppressing a shudder at the pain Luke wore like a greatcoat. Her brain sought for something she could say that could give them a shared connection, which might make him look less formidable and unapproachable. ‘Do you always enter the room panther style?’

His dark brows drew down. ‘What are you talking about?’

She ignored his brusqueness and tried a smile. ‘You have a habit of entering a room silently and surprising me.’

He looked blank and utterly uncomprehending. ‘This is the first time I’ve seen you with a patient.’

She shook her head. ‘Just before you went to France, you walked into this same ward very quietly and gave me such a fright that I covered you in iodine.’

His vivid green eyes finally flashed with recognition. ‘Chloe? Nick’s sister?’ He said the words as if he needed to hear them to cement them in his mind.

‘That’s right. Lucky for you that today my hands are empty,’ she joked.

He glanced down at his scrubs, as if he couldn’t remember what he was wearing, and then shrugged his wide shoulders like it really didn’t really matter anyway. ‘If there’s any change with Made’s grafts, notify me immediately. You have my mobile number?’

She swallowed a sigh. So much for attempting a friendly connection with the man. ‘I do. Are you leaving the hospital now?’

He seemed to stiffen. ‘Yes. I have to pick my daughter up from daycare. They don’t like it when I’m late.’

‘I don’t suppose she likes it either.’

His eyes burned, emitting sparks of green. ‘You think I want Amber in daycare ten hours a day? She doesn’t have a choice and neither do I.’

The loud and terse words slammed into her like a punch to her solar plexus, making her heart race.

Made’s mother startled from her nap in the chair. ‘Apa yang salah?’ Mrs Putu asked anxiously.

Chloe didn’t need to understand the words to know that the mother was stressing that Luke’s raised voice meant something was wrong with her son. She reached out her hand to comfort and reassure the woman.

‘Semuabaik,’ Luke said softly. ‘All is well.’

‘Terimakasih, Dokter.’ The woman visibly relaxed and sank back in her chair.

Chloe turned back to face Luke, surprised at the ease in which the foreign language had rolled off his tongue but furious with him for upsetting Mrs Putu. For deliberately misconstruing her own words. Adrenaline pelted through her, sending rafts of agitation jetting along her veins, and she needed to work extra-hard to appear calm.

Choosing her words carefully, she shepherded Luke towards the door. ‘I’m not judging you about daycare,’ she said, sotto voce, ‘I was talking about the fact your daughter probably doesn’t like it when you’re late either.’

He stared down at her, his jaw tight, his height dwarfing her by a good thirty centimetres, and she caught the scent of his spicy cologne. His eyes, which at times could be bright green, were now a dark moss and filled with so many flickering emotions that it was hard to decode any of them over and above the dominant and glaring pain.

Tall, dark, gorgeous, brooding and tortured.

Her heart did a ridiculous leap, which had absolutely nothing to do with his indignation or her chagrin.

Oh, no, she told herself sternly. The man is grieving and you do not need to rescue him. You’ve just got your own life back on track. You’ve got a dog to love and be loved by.

Shimmering tingles taunted her, spinning through her with their intoxicating call. But it’s been so long…

No way in hell, Chloe! her ever-vigilant internal guard yelled. Keep it simple, remember?

She sucked in a long, deep breath, trying desperately to banish the delicious buzz of addictive warmth. ‘Everything’s fine here, Mr Stanley. Go and get your daughter.’

His eyes widened at her dismissal of him, and he rubbed his forehead with his fingers and his temple with his thumb as if his head hurt. ‘Goodnight, then.’

She watched him turn and leave without giving an apology and she tried not to let it rankle. After all, it shouldn’t bother her one bit because she was used to working with surgeons who believed all should bow down before them and kiss their feet. She also knew that apologies for bad behaviour were few and far between. Only Luke Stanley had always been an exception to that rule.

His reputation for skill and good humour had always meant that people had fallen over themselves to work with him. The nursing and auxiliary staff, from cleaners to occupational therapists, had loved him, and whenever he’d put together a team to go to Asia or Africa for a six-week stint with the foundation, repairing cleft lips and palates, there had always been more applicants than positions.

That man had utterly disappeared when his wife had died.

She wasn’t a stranger to grief, and she understood the pain of it all too well. She’d been lost in the midst of it once, for a year, floundering in the suffocating darkness that had become both enemy and friend. It had been her beloved brother Nick who’d hauled her unwilling teenage mind out of the black and treacherous morass and pushed her back into the light of life.

At the time it had hurt like nothing she’d ever experienced before or since and the battle not to let grief become a toxic legacy had been beyond hard, but she’d done it. Years later, when Jason had told her he wouldn’t marry her because she couldn’t give him a child, she’d teetered on the edge but she’d survived and learned. Today, she knew that even though her life now wasn’t anything like that she’d imagined for herself as a naïve sixteen-year-old, and neither was it the life she truly wanted, it was a life worth living and living well.

You could show him how to do it.

The thought clanged loudly in her head like the penetrating sound of a fire alarm and she wished she could put noise-cancelling headphones over her brain.

Yes, she was a nurse, a member of a caring profession, and, yes, she had the ability to recognise when someone needed help. Luke Stanley definitely fell into that category—he needed help big-time—but she was also a survivor. Helping a grieving man with a child would be more harmful to her than helpful to him and she wasn’t prepared to risk her hard-won stability.

No, it wasn’t her job to do the ‘hands-on’ helping stuff with Luke Stanley, but she’d talk to Keri and Kate. After all, they knew Luke a hell of a lot better than she did.

CHAPTER THREE

‘WANT BUNNY,’ Amber sobbed into Luke’s shoulder, her tears making a damp patch on his cotton shirt.

‘Hello, Amber, I’m Mr Clown,’ Luke said in a voice he thought might sound like a clown’s as he waggled the soft toy near his daughter’s face.

Amber’s hand knocked the clown sideways. ‘Want bunny!’

Luke’s head pounded with fury at himself and despair for Amber, which rumbled through him and reminded him he had so much to learn as a father. How had he forgotten to check that her beloved bunny had been in the backpack when he’d collected Amber from daycare?

Because you were thinking about Chloe Kefes.

His anger at himself was buried deep with sharp roots. How had he forgotten ever meeting her? Unlike most of his colleagues, he didn’t forget names and faces, especially when there was another connection, like her being Nick’s sister. But today he’d needed all her prompting to recall the iodine incident.

He hated that he’d forgotten as much as he hated the fact his mind kept repeating the way her plump lips curved into a smile. A generous, captivating smile, which dimpled her round cheeks and danced in her eyes. A smile that had faded under the onslaught of his bitter words—words generated by his own self-loathing and hurled out to land on the nearest target. It wasn’t Chloe’s fault that Amber was motherless and in full-time daycare. No, that responsibility lay solely at his feet.

Amber’s wails sounded even louder than before.

Damn it, he shouldn’t still be thinking about Chloe. What sort of a pathetic excuse for a father was he?

Poor Amber. She was rarely without her talisman bunny—her security blanket in her ever-changing world. Her one stable item in a confusing place, where her previously mostly at-home father was now absent during the day, and her aunt, uncle and cousins were unexpectedly gone too.

He’d telephoned the director of the daycare centre, who, although sympathetic to his plight, had not been prepared to make the twenty-minute drive to open the building to retrieve the bunny, no matter what Luke had offered. The doctor in him understood. The father with the hysterical child wasn’t quite so reasonable.

He lined up all Amber’s cuddly toys. ‘Look, honey, Teddy’s sad and needs a cuddle,’ he tried, desperate to turn the situation around.

Amber screamed.

Abandoning any attempts to try and settle her into her cot, Luke carried her outside to the deck. The slow and rhythmic roll of the waves hitting the sand boomed around them and the silver rays of moonlight beamed down through the streaks of cloud to sparkle on the Pacific Ocean. He lowered himself onto the sun lounger and settled Amber on his chest, his hand patting her sobbing and shuddering body and matching the beat to the tempo of the waves.

Oh, so very slowly, as the inky darkness cloaked them both, Amber’s frantic sobs turned into occasional, gulping hiccoughs until her breathing steadied and her body relaxed against his. Despair finally turned to sleep. He knew he should probably take her into her room and settle her into her cot, but after the last hour he didn’t dare move in case she woke up, remembered the missing bunny and was again faced with having to go through the same trauma.

He knew all about that. Even now, living in a different house, he still woke occasionally expecting to find Anna there, only to have the realisation she was gone dump all over him. Over and over. Anna was gone because he’d made a critical error that couldn’t be fixed. At least Amber was spared the memory of missing her mother, or at least he hoped she was. She’d only been six months old when Anna had died. Did she miss someone she couldn’t remember?

He pulled a beach towel off the chair next to him and covered both of them with it to ward off the slight chill of the night air. Amber may not have a mother, but she had a loving extended family who smothered her in love. Were aunts, uncles and cousins enough?

The image of clear and honest hazel eyes beamed into his brain and he instantly shut them out. He’d only ever had eyes for one woman, and even though Anna was gone he had no desire to look elsewhere. The idea was abhorrent to him. Closing his eyes, he found himself battling random images of dimples and long, glossy chestnut hair. Desperate, he focused on the sound of the sea and willed sleep to come.

The elevator doors closed and Callie Richards, neonatal specialist, wished she could turn off her pager and hide in the steel box for an hour. She knew it was just an idle dream, however, because the NICU was full of sickies and Nick Kefes, Gold Coast City’s beloved obstetrician, had just called her, flagging a possible case that might require her skills. She hoped Nick was being his usual overcautious self and that she might actually get home tonight to sleep in her own bed.

Who else’s bed would you sleep in? Certainly not arrogant Cade Coleman’s.

Shut up!

She hated how her conscience threw up unexpected reminders of her most stupid mistake to date—flirting outrageously with Cade Coleman. Just when she’d been convinced she’d successfully let go of the embarrassing memory, her brain did this to her. It made little sense because it wasn’t like he was the only man she’d ever had practise forgetting. Truth be told, he was just one in a long line of men—men she rarely gave a second thought after she’d picked up her shoes and tiptoed quietly out their doors, never to see them again.

Correction—thinking about Cade made no sense because she hadn’t even got to first base with him, thank God, let alone kissing and sex. But flirting with him had been a basic error—a rookie mistake she should be long past making.

Rule Number One: don’t hit on the men you work with. Prior to Cade, she’d held fast to that rule like superglue because it meant she never had to deal with coming face to face with her folly on a daily basis.

Mind you, the man didn’t seem perturbed by that fact so she shouldn’t be either and, damn it, she wasn’t. Just yesterday she’d given him a polite nod and not felt a moment’s regret. Well, not very much of a moment, anyway.

Emotionally stunted men like Cade are not worth thinking about. She repeated the mantra to herself.

The elevator pinged, the doors opened and she stepped out to see Chloe Kefes standing and staring through the large windows of the special care nursery. On the other side of the glass were the cots that were home to the premature babies who were now almost full term. The staff affectionately called this part of the room the ‘fattening-up’ corner and when babies graduated here, they were close to being discharged home into the loving care of their parents.

‘Hi, Chloe, you’re a long way from Plastics.’

The nurse looked momentarily flustered and a pink flush stained her cheeks. ‘I’m on my way back from Pathology.’

‘You’re taking the long way, then.’ Callie laughed, understanding exactly, because sometimes in a fraught and busy hospital, taking a circuitous route gave a professional the only breathing space they got in a day. She followed Chloe’s gaze. Twin boys had managed to each get a hand out from under their bunny rug and their little fingers were exploring the air.

‘Those two were so sick and now look at them. They’re just itching to explore life,’ Callie said with a glow of satisfaction.

‘Hmm.’

Callie glanced at Chloe, who was usually a lot chattier. ‘Tough day?’

Chloe shrugged. ‘I used to love coming to work but for the last few weeks the ward’s been on tenterhooks. It seems no matter what we do, we can’t do anything right.’

‘Luke Stanley?’

She nodded. ‘When the consultant’s not happy…’

‘No one is.’ Although Callie didn’t know Luke, she’d heard the news of his wife’s death on the hospital grapevine. She touched Chloe’s arm in an understanding gesture because nurses often took the brunt of a doctor’s unhappiness.

‘When my day sucks, I often come down here and look at the babies.’ Callie smiled. ‘There’s something about them that makes you feel better and gives you hope, right?’

Chloe spun away from the window so fast that she almost knocked into her. ‘I have to get back to work, Callie. Catch you later.’

She walked away before Callie had time to say another word. Astonished by the nurse’s abrupt departure, she watched her disappear into the lift. Chloe was usually so upbeat—one of those people who seemed to be almost too bright, bubbly and good humoured to be real, although Callie knew her to be absolutely genuine. Chloe Kefes was one of the hospital’s best nurses, with a perfect blend of professionalism, empathy and good cheer. For her to be so skittish, Luke Stanley must really be getting her down.

Men. Working with them should be straightforward but so often it was far from that. Thoughts of Cade threatened to rise but she cut them off at the knees. She’d made a fool of herself once and she had no plans to do it again. She was over and done with Cade Coleman.