LITMIR.BIZ

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both women deep in their own thoughts for a moment. ‘Come and have a cuppa before they wake up,’ Melissa said finally with forced cheerfulness. ‘I’ll go and put the kettle on.’

      ‘Sounds marvellous.’

      ‘Wait till you taste the cake I’ve made. Ross is already champing at the bit.’

      ‘Melissa?’ Shelly called as Melissa made her way out of the ward. ‘Just what did you say to Ross exactly?’

      ‘That I’d baked a cake!’ Melissa gave Shelly a quizzical look as if she’d gone completely mad!

      ‘I’m not talking about the cake, Melissa.’ Shelly took a deep breath. She didn’t want to ruffle any feathers but the fact Melissa had taken it on herself to tell Ross so much about Shelly’s personal life needed addressing—the very last thing she needed was Melissa playing Cupid. Ross Bodey had enough women after him without thinking he had Shelly on his list of swooning fans. ‘Ross knows Matthew’s name, he seems to know all about the divorce, I just wondered how.’

      ‘I might have said something…’ Melissa shrugged.

      ‘You mean you gave him a life update on me the second he entered the ward. Why?’

      ‘I didn’t,’ Melissa said quickly. ‘I hadn’t laid eyes on Ross until I saw him when I was with you, honestly,’ she insisted as Shelly gave her a disbelieving look. ‘Believe it or not, as riveting as your life might seem to you, it’s not my favourite topic of conversation. Ross and I have kept in touch while he’s been away, I probably said a few things then in passing.’

      ‘Oh.’ Thankfully the room was in semi-darkness and Melissa couldn’t see the blush flaming on her cheeks, but with the heat it was radiating Shelly was sure she must be able to feel it winging its way across the quiet room.

      ‘He’s rung a few times at night when he’s needed something looked up or wanted a bit of advice on a patient. He’s a good doctor is Ross, not too up himself to ask a nurse for advice, and when he rang we’d have a chat. He’d ask what the gossip was, who was seeing who, who was pregnant, who was leaving, that type of thing. We didn’t just talk about you, Shelly.’

      Suitably chastised, Shelly wished the ground would swallow her up whole.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘I was just taken back that he knew so much about everything.’

      ‘That’s Ross for you.’ Melissa shrugged. ‘You know he loves all the gossip.’

      ‘Sure.’ Fiddling with the oxygen tubes, Shelly kept her voice even. ‘Go on, then, get the kettle on, I’ll finish up in here.’

      Once alone, Shelly sank onto the camp bed she had made up for the baby’s mother. Sitting perched on the end, she buried her burning cheeks in her hand, trying for the life of her to fathom why Ross keeping in touch with Melissa had upset her. Why was she feeling like a jealous schoolgirl all of a sudden?

      ‘Blast,’ she muttered, then flicked her eyes open to check the coast was still clear. As if Ross would be that interested in her marriage problems. As if Melissa was going to rush to fill him in on the latest saga.

      She really wasn’t that important.

      It had just been a casual chat, a snippet of gossip Melissa had imparted to a bored doctor stuck in the middle of nowhere, eager for a chat, happy to while away the lonely hours on call with an old friend. She should have been relieved, relieved that Melissa hadn’t embarrassed her, that she hadn’t bent his ear about the divorce with a nudge and a wink and a load of innuendo.

      But…

      The green-eyed monster was rearing its ugly head again.

      Why hadn’t Ross rung her? Why had he kept in touch with Melissa over the last few years?

      And why did it matter so much?

      ‘Damn,’ Shelly said more strongly, the words whistling through her gritted teeth as she forced herself to take a deep steadying breath as realisation finally hit.

      The hairdresser’s, the perfume, the long overdue meeting with her razor hadn’t been a coincidence. Hadn’t even been a vague attempt to show an old friend she hadn’t completely let herself go.

      Of all the stupid things to go and do…

      Of all the ridiculous, ludicrous things she had done in her time, this one certainly took the biscuit.

      Developing a king-size crush on a certain Ross Bodey was the last thing Shelly needed to deal with. Her cheeks scorched with embarrassment at the thought of him finding out, that the dependable, organised Shelly, his on-duty friend and confidante, had succumbed like legions of others to his blue-eyed charm.

      He was miles out of her league, young free and single, not just a world away but an entire galaxy from Shelly’s routine existence, and it would serve her well to remember the fact.

      Ross Bodey was way out of bounds.

       CHAPTER TWO

      PULLING up a chair at the nurses’ station, Shelly smiled at a now much happier Nicola.

      ‘She’s great, isn’t she?’ Nicola said, happily munching into a huge slab of walnut cake.

      ‘Told you. Melissa’s bark is far worse than her bite. Once the day staff are gone she relaxes—and feeds us,’ Shelly added, helping herself to a generous slice.

      ‘Save some for me!’ Ross perched on the edge of the desk, depositing a mountain of files and X-rays as he did so.

      ‘How’s the baby in Emergency?’

      ‘Heading this way,’ Ross sighed. ‘He’s pretty sick but he’s holding his own at the moment. The children’s hospital has got an ICU cot but not a general one, whereas we’ve got a general but no ICU. I can’t believe I’d managed to forget the constant battle with the bed state.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Looks like we’re in for a long night. Hopefully Melissa will go easy on me, I didn’t really have any choice but to admit him. Emergency’s steaming down there, it’s no place for a sick baby.’

      ‘I agree.’ Melissa, coming up behind Ross, caused him to jump. ‘I don’t mind being busy, Ross, it’s just the general thoughtlessness that annoys me. Annie should have had him up here hours ago. Instead, we’ve got a sick baby to assess and an overwrought mum to deal with in the middle of the night. A little bit of foresight wouldn’t have gone amiss.’

      Ross nodded his head in agreement. ‘Right, what have you got for me? I’d better clear the pile before Kane gets here. Who knows when I’ll find time otherwise?’

      ‘Just a couple of IV orders that need updating, and I think Shelly wants some antibiotics written up for cot five—his blood culture results are back.’

      Ross nodded. ‘Yeah, the lab just paged me.’ One hand tapped away on the computer as he brought up the results. ‘This is the life,’ he sighed. ‘Pathologists on call, X-Ray just a stone’s throw away.’

      ‘I thought you said it was civilised where you were,’ Shelly teased, desperately trying to resume normal services despite her internal bombshell.

      ‘It was. The clinic I worked in at Tennagarrah was comparable to a luxury caravan. All the basics were there but you weren’t exactly spoilt for choice and you had to work for everything. This in comparison is a five-star hotel.’ With an exaggerated whoop of delight he jumped down and opened the drug fridge. ‘And just look at the mini-bar, where do I start? Bactrim, flucloxacillin, gentamicin, vancomycin. What can I get you, Sister?’

      Shelly peered at the monitor in front of her, reading the blood results and the antibiotic sensitivities. ‘Well, a large dose of flucloxacillin would hit the spot.’

      ‘Coming right up.

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