LITMIR.BIZ

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contact with him. They’d agreed to be polite to each other and work as a team, for the sake of the ward. That was enough.

      Outside London City General, she’d stay well clear of him. She wasn’t going to get sucked back into that old attraction. She wasn’t going to fall for those beautiful blue eyes. Or the well-shaped mouth that knew exactly where and how she liked being kissed. Or the clever hands that she’d known would be gentle with patients but were passionate with her.

      Get a grip, Holls, she told herself again. Physically, he’s your type. And, yes, the sex was good. But that was in another life, another world. It was over between you years ago. He’s probably married. Married, with children. She linked her hands across her abdomen and pulled tight to take away the emptiness, the memories of the child they’d made who hadn’t been born. And even if he isn’t, he’s not the kind you can rely on. He’s not worth it. Just forget him.

      So who was the real Holly Jones?

      The question had been nagging at David all day. And even an hour’s unbroken swim hadn’t driven the question out of his head.

      Who was she?

      She was a doctor. Caring. Kind to patients—he’d discovered that she’d lent her own fan to Lucy, their patient with the thyroid storm, before Lucy had been transferred to the ward. It was the kind of thing that the Holly he remembered would have done.

      But she had a reputation here for being that little bit unapproachable. Scary. And she’d been ambitious enough to dump him just before their A levels, concentrating on her work rather than her relationship. She’d even made arrangements to sit her exams elsewhere—and when she hadn’t turned up at Southampton he’d realised the truth. She never had wanted to do the village GP thing with him. She’d just been playing with him, marking time. Holly Jones had gone off to conquer the world.

      His mum had been the one to tell him.

      ‘Sorry, son. She rang while you were out. She doesn’t want to see you any more.’

      He hadn’t believed her. His mother had never liked Holly, saying that she was stuck-up and was only slumming it with David to pass the time. He’d always been able to shrug it off, until he’d gone down to the phone box on the corner to ring Holly. And then he’d spoken to her mum.

      ‘Sorry, David. She doesn’t want to see you again.’

      ‘I’d just like to speak to her, please, Mrs Jones.’

      ‘I’m afraid she won’t come to the phone. She really doesn’t want to be bothered with you, David.’

      He’d refused to leave it at that. As soon as he talked to Holly they’d be able to sort out the problem, whatever it was. He knew it. So he’d tried hanging about in the street in the hope that he would see her. But the one occasion when he’d seen her get into her mother’s car she’d averted her eyes. She’d refused even to look at him.

      Then David had finally realised that his mother was telling the truth after all. Holly had grown bored with him. She hadn’t even had the guts to tell him to his face that it was over. So maybe his mother’s prejudices had been right all along.

      He grimaced and went for a shower. The water was almost scalding hot but he didn’t feel it. Didn’t feel anything.

      Because Holly was back in his life.

      Holly. The woman who’d ruined him for relationships. The woman who’d been a ghost throughout his marriage—as his ex-wife had thrown at him the day she’d walked out on him.

      He’d learned not to do relationships any more. So now he was a dedicated doctor. A good one. He’d be able to treat Holly as just another colleague.

      Wouldn’t he?

      The emergency department was trialling a different way of working shifts: instead of the usual internal rotation of two or three earlies plus two or three lates for three weeks, then four nights in the fourth week, they were trying two earlies, two lates, two nights, four off. Which would have been fine by David if Holly hadn’t been on his team—because her shifts were identical to his.

      If he asked for a change, people would notice. Especially as he’d admitted to knowing her at school. The hospital grapevine was definitely stronger here than it had been in Southampton or Newcastle, and he didn’t want to become the focus of gossip. He knew Holly wouldn’t take it well either. So he had to put up and shut up.

      His doubts lessened as the week went on because Holly stuck to the rules: she treated him as just another colleague, giving him as much information as he needed about patients and steering well clear of anything remotely personal. Which suited him fine.

      Until the Friday night, when David was treating a patient with chest pains and heard an almighty racket coming from Reception.

      He glanced at the clock. Yep, just as he’d thought: chucking-out time from the pubs. It sounded as if there were a number of drunken people wandering round Reception, demanding treatment. Probably a punch-up, he thought. Bruises, lacerations, the odd fracture.

      But they’d probably demand immediate treatment and would harry the receptionist until they were seen. Which meant he needed to step in before things escalated.

      ‘I’ll be back in a moment,’ he promised the elderly man. ‘Keep breathing the oxygen for me. Slow breaths. In and one and out and one,’ he counted, checking that his patient was keeping the same time. ‘That’s great. If the pain gets any worse, press the buzzer here.’

      Oh, great. Just what they didn’t need on a busy Friday night. Six men in their early twenties who’d all drunk way too much beer. Probably with a few vodka or tequila chasers. And they were getting aggressive with Siobhan.

      If she didn’t do something, right now, this could escalate into something really nasty.

      Holly strode over to them. ‘I believe you gentlemen require assistance?’

      As she’d hoped, they turned away from Siobhan, giving the receptionist a chance to hit the panic button. All Holly needed to do now was to keep them talking until Security arrived.

      ‘You going to kiss it better for me, then?’ One of them swaggered over to her.

      I’ll kick it, more like, if you don’t put a sock in it, Holly thought, but she smiled sweetly. She’d had it drummed into her at medical school that you treated all patients the same, even if you didn’t like them. Conflict slowed things down and made it more likely that you’d make a clinical error. You had to defuse volatile situations as quickly as you could.

      ‘I know you need to be seen, but Friday nights are always really busy, and, I’m sorry, that means you’re in a queue. We’ll be able to treat you much more quickly if you wait in a line and give our receptionist the details she needs—one at a time. If you’re all talking at once she’s not going to be able to hear you properly and that’s how mistakes get made.’

      ‘Bossy. Bet you like it on top, don’tcha?’ The one with the black eye leered at her. ‘You can give me one, if you like.’

      She laughed it off. ‘I can tell you’ve had a bump on the head.’

      ‘Oi, you’ve got to see our mate. Now. He’s been knifed—he’s bleeding,’ one of them said, jabbing a finger in the air at her.

      Holly kept her arms calmly by her sides and flexed her fingers to avoid her gut reaction of balling her fists ready to punch him. ‘We’ll see you all in time. But there’s one thing you should all know.’

      ‘Yeah?’

      She beckoned the one with the black eye closer. ‘If you’re drunk, I’ll have to assume your body won’t be able to tolerate any anaesthetic—because it’ll make you ill,’ she said quietly. This wasn’t strictly true, but she was banking on his knowledge of medicine being confined to TV dramas. ‘With a bloke your size, I’m going to have to use a big needle to stitch your wounds. Without anaesthetic, it’s going to hurt.’

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