LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER ONE

      ‘GOT a minute, Libby?’

      ‘Sure—’ She looked up and flashed him a harassed smile, but it faded as soon as she caught sight of him. ‘Wow, you look rough. I heard you were busy—sounds like a grim night.’

      He grunted. If he looked half as rough as he felt, he must look like hell, because grim wasn’t the word. ‘It was pretty dire. There were three of us in there—someone removing a blood clot from his brain while I stabilised his fractures and someone else sorted out his spleen. It was pretty touch and go for a while,’ he agreed. ‘We were in Theatre for hours. The kid’s only seven—it was a hit and run.’

      Libby winced sympathetically. ‘Poor little mite. How could anybody do that?’

      ‘Search me. I have no idea.’

      ‘How’s he doing?’

      He lifted his shoulders—in truth, there wasn’t much he could add. ‘He’s stable—sort of.’ That was enough. The bare bones—all he had the energy to explain.

      Libby nodded, then bit her lip. ‘Can you give me a sec, Andrew? I won’t be long, I just need to finish this off.’

      ‘That’s fine, you carry on, I’m not in a hurry,’ he murmured.

      He wasn’t. He’d given little Jacob the full focus of his energy and concentration, and it was time to step back and centre himself again. The neuro had got the clot out, the GS had glued the liver and removed the spleen and he’d restored the circulation to his feet and stabilised his legs and pelvis with external fixators, and somehow Jacob had turned the corner and was now in the paediatric intensive care unit, heavily sedated and hopefully on the road to recovery.

      He’d just checked on the little boy again, and he was improving slightly, and although it was far too soon to be overconfident, for now, at least, Andrew could relax.

      Goodness knows, he needed to. He was exhausted, in sore need of a break, and there was nothing more he could do anyway, for now, except watch Libby, and that was fine. He was more than happy to lounge against the doorjamb and watch the pretty young ward sister finish her task while his mind free-wheeled.

      Ideally he’d be at home in bed after a night like that, but life wasn’t ideal, and although it was only seven-thirty he’d already spent half an hour with Jacob’s parents this morning, to fill them in on his part in the proceedings—and in thirty-six hours, after another full day at work, he’d have to go home and face the weekend from hell—another excuse for his mother to trot out a whole load of single girls in the vain hope that he’d find one to settle down with and secure the future of the family line.

      It didn’t make any difference that his brother’s wife was pregnant. If anything it made it worse, because it just made his single status all the more obvious—and his mother, ever the fixer, wanted him to be as happy as Will. So the girls would all be there, and he’d have to deal with them all, from his hopelessly infatuated cousin Charlotte to the predatory gold-diggers, via the perfectly nice girls that he just wasn’t interested in, and watching it all unfold would be his beloved mother with that hopeful look on her face.

      Oh, hell. He was too tired for this, sick of warding them off, sick of making excuses to his mother, and the last thing—absolutely the last thing—he needed was this party. Correction—parties. Two of them.

      With a muffled groan, he shifted his shoulders against the doorframe and watched Libby thoughtfully as she entered notes onto the computer at her desk. Nice girl, he thought. Really nice girl. If things were different, he might be tempted, but they weren’t. More’s the pity, because she really was lovely in every way.

      Her lip was caught between even, perfect white teeth, her long lashes dark crescents against her creamy cheeks as she looked down at the keyboard. A lock of rich brown hair slid down out of her ponytail and she tucked it absently behind her ear. It looked soft, glossy, as if she’d just washed it this morning—in which case it would smell of apples. It always smelled of apples when she’d washed it…

      How had he registered that? Goodness knows. Not deliberately, any more than he’d deliberately noticed the freckles scattered over her nose, or the curve of her bottom as she bent over a child, or the fact that even the hideously unflattering tunic couldn’t disguise her perfectly proportioned breasts.

      He wondered what she was doing this weekend. Something normal, he’d bet. The washing, or going to the cinema with friends. Curling up with a good book on the sofa next to her boyfriend.

      He frowned. Scrub that last image. Although he’d never heard her talk about a boyfriend, he thought, his mind ticking over. And if all she was going to be doing was pottering about at home—

      ‘Doing anything exciting this weekend?’ he found himself saying before he could stop himself, and then held his breath for her reply.

      Libby looked up from the notes she was finishing off and leant back in her chair, finally allowing herself the luxury of looking at him again.

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