LITMIR.BIZ

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have mother worries.

      Luke William’s lover didn’t.

      ‘So how long has this been going on? Why haven’t we heard about her before this? Where have you been keeping her? And where is she now?’

      To say he was besieged was an understatement.

      Luke’s Thursdays were always frantic—it was the day he did his kids’ list, birth defects, procedures that took all his skill and emotion. Today he was doing graft work on Ruby May Ellington’s left thigh. Ruby May was four years old. Born as a conjoined twin, her sister had died at birth. Her sister’s death had meant there had been no hard ethical decisions to be made, but the surgery to separate them had been performed urgently. There’d been no time for preparation of excess skin flaps, and the grafting still was ongoing.

      Luke had been working on this case when Hannah had died. The day she’d died, his team had saved Ruby’s life.

      The medical imperative tore a person in two. Like now, when he was concerned about the woman he’d left in his apartment. She was suffering from gastro but instinct told him it was more. She was too thin. Too tired. Too … shadowed.

      She was running from something, he thought, but what?

      He worked on, but the questions kept coming.

      And they kept coming from the people around him.

      Who was this Lily he’d kept so dark?

      ‘Why didn’t you tell us?’ The head of paediatrics, Teo, a Samoan with a heart almost as big as his body, had been involved in Ruby’s care from the beginning and, like Luke, he was willing the little girl a good outcome. It wasn’t, however, deflecting him from hospital gossip. ‘You’ve had this woman for how long?’

      ‘That’s none of your business.’

      ‘Hey, this is the Harbour,’ Teo said mildly. ‘Everything’s everyone’s business. And now you’ve installed her in Kirribilli Views … You expect to keep her to yourself?’

      ‘Until she’s better, yes.’

      ‘You have the next three days off, right?’ With the procedure over, Luke was stripping off his theatre garb. Teo had hitched himself up onto the sinks and was regarding him thoughtfully.

      ‘Yes.’ What was coming?

      He knew what was coming. Teo had a huge extended family and he treated the hospital as part of it. He shouldn’t be a paediatrician, he should be a party organiser.

      ‘I’m having a party on the beach on Saturday night,’ Teo told him. ‘My aunties are bringing food. You’ve knocked me back now one hundred and seventeen times …’

      ‘A hundred and seventeen?’

      ‘I’ve been counting,’ Teo said. ‘You disappear every time you have time off, and now we know why. But since you’ve introduced your Lily into the medical team, the least you can do is bring her along.’

      His Lily? ‘No.’

      ‘No?’

      Finn walked in and Teo turned to him. ‘He’s not cooperating,’ he complained. ‘Tell him letting us in on this lady is in his contract.’

      ‘It’s not,’ Finn said shortly, and Luke glanced sharply at his boss. Was he in pain? His voice was tight, tense. Luke had seen a lot of pain in his professional life. There was something wrong.

      ‘Leave him alone,’ Finn snapped before Luke could get any further. ‘He chose to flaunt his woman once, it doesn’t mean he has to do it again.’

      ‘I didn’t … flaunt,’ Luke said, and Teo grinned.

      ‘Having it off in the on-call room? I’d call it flaunting. Bring her on Saturday. You’re going to spend the whole weekend fending off visitors anyway. Word is Ginnie Allen’s already figured out she’s Lily’s new best friend. She’ll be knocking on the door asking for a cup of sugar right now. So … party it is.’

      ‘Party it isn’t,’ Luke growled.

      ‘Are you taking Mariette to Teo’s party on Saturday?’

      Finn Kennedy groaned. Surely as Surgical Director he should have privacy. He’d been back in his office for a whole two minutes and now Evie Lockheart was leaning on the doorjamb, surveying him with sardonic amusement.

      ‘No.’

      ‘No?’ She raised her brows. ‘Just as well. Everyone’s tiptoeing around you but maybe someone ought to let you know David Blackmore, the new paediatric intern, is breaking his heart over Mariette.’

      ‘What does that have to do with me?’ The pain in Finn’s shoulder was driving him nuts and this woman was driving him nuts. She had no power in this hospital. She was one cog in a very big machine.

      Her family money meant she could lean on the doorjamb and look … sardonic.

      She also looked concerned. ‘Is there something wrong with your arm?’

      ‘No. Butt out.’

      She butted, but only so far. ‘Mariette’s afraid to break things off with you because she’s scared you’ll sack David.’

      ‘I won’t sack David. And Mariette …’

      ‘Has a reputation,’ Evie said evenly. ‘Which is why you’re using her. You don’t use women you can hurt. All I’m saying is that David’s smitten and Mariette’s worried enough to be not backing off from you for his sake. David might be the making of her. They say love cures all …’

      ‘You’re telling me this why?’

      ‘Just so you know,’ Evie said blithely. ‘You’re the ogre around this place. No one stands up to you.’

      ‘Except you.’

      ‘And Luke,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘There’s another case in point. Love conquers all. He has a lady and he’s taking her to the farm this weekend. I’m thinking we should change the quarantine rules so neither can come back to the hospital for a week. It wouldn’t hurt to give them a push.’

      ‘If you think I have time to waste …’

      ‘On romance? I know you don’t,’ she said, and straightened. ‘Just saying. Just going. Think about Mariette, though. She’s a good kid at heart. And as for interfering with Luke’s hot weekend—’

      ‘I have no intention—’

      ‘Excellent,’ Evie said. ‘I do like a man with no intentions.’

      Every second Friday Luke had off. Every second Friday was tomorrow.

      Luke’s normal routine was to work for eleven days straight. He was happy to be rostered on public holidays, Christmas and Easter; in fact, he preferred it. But at the end of every two weeks he had three days off for the farm. For his sanity.

      His farm was his place, his sanctuary, his solitude.

      Solitude? Lily?

      The entire hospital now believed he was taking Lily there.

      In the brief moments he’d had to himself since settling Lily into his apartment, he’d decided that he’d go to the farm as usual this weekend and that she’d stay where she was. Only now he’d started a lie.

      Lily was deemed his long-term lover. He’d hardly go away to the farm the moment she arrived.

      If he did, everyone at Kirribilli Views would know she was ‘home alone’, and what’s worse, he wouldn’t put it past them to drop in on Lily. To sympathise? To check on her for him?

      He could see Teo dragging her to his party whether she willed it or not. The man’s charm was legendary.

      He didn’t mind if Teo’s charm was second to none, he told himself,

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