LITMIR.BIZ

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in on her balcony tryst, heavy on the detail with Tom, more hazy about his father.

      ‘Oh, Hails. Do you think it’s wise to get involved with another motherless boy?’ Rilla asked gently.

      Hailey hadn’t told them much about what had happened in London but Rilla had known, they’d all known, that the sudden death of her sister’s young charge had been a devastating blow. One thing was for sure, Hailey was certainly a very different person from the excitable young gadabout she’d been before her travels.

      ‘I’m not involved,’ Hailey denied hotly, despite three nights’ worth of steamy dreams over a very non-steamy kiss. ‘I’m never likely to come across them again. I don’t even know who he is, for crying out loud.’

      ‘Yes, but he was at the hospital ball so he must at least work here.’

      Hailey shrugged. ‘If he does, he’s new. I’d never seen him before.’ Someone that good-looking would certainly have stood out or at least been worthy of comment on the hospital grapevine.

      ‘No, neither had I. Beth didn’t know him either. I’ll put some feelers out.’

      Hailey rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t do it on my account.’ As her sister had so aptly pointed out, the very last thing she wanted in her life was another little boy. Or his father. ‘How’s the bump going?’ she asked Rilla, deftly changing the subject.

      They chatted for another fifteen minutes. Hailey listened half-heartedly to Rilla’s baby prattle, her mind wandering again to Saturday night.

      ‘I’ll see you later. I’ll ring if I find out anything about Mr Tuxedo.’ Rilla winked as she departed.

      ‘Great,’ Hailey said brightly. Just what she needed, Rilla in matchmaker mode.

      But her mind turned quickly to more pressing matters. This afternoon’s meet and greet with the new director of paediatric services at the Brisbane General was a pretty big deal. She steeled herself mentally. The last director had been in his sixties and around for ever, and a real honey to boot. It had been sad to see him go.

      Getting used to someone new was always a little fraught. Drastic changes to set practices often caused consternation and Hailey knew she wasn’t the only member of staff who was nervous. She crossed her fingers that the transition wouldn’t be too bumpy.

      Hailey answered the phone in the nurses’ station just before lunch. It was the lab with some renal function results and she dutifully wrote them down.

      ‘Excuse me.’

      ‘One moment,’ Hailey said, not bothering to look up from the piece of paper as she double-checked the numbers.

      ‘Thanks, George,’ she said, replacing the phone, then scribbled the patient details down. ‘Yes, sir, can I help you?’

      Hailey looked up expectantly, her greeting dying on her lips. Tom’s father stood before her. He wore a pale lemon business shirt and a funky tie with polka-dot pigs emblazoned on it. He had a hospital ID with a smiley face sticker stuck over his face and a stethoscope slung around his neck.

      ‘Tom’s father,’ she said absently.

      Callum would have laughed had he not also been a little stunned from this development. Hailey was a nurse? Who worked on the kids’ ward? Hailey, who had been on his mind a little too frequently the last few days. Hailey, who Tom had constantly chatted about—nothing but Hailey this and Hailey that since the ball.

      She was in the standard uniform of plain navy pants and white shirt with the Brisbane General logo. Her hair was swept back into a no-nonsense ponytail complete with those familiar escaping tendrils brushing her neck.

      ‘Callum. Callum Craig,’ he supplied, holding out his hand, realising that he hadn’t introduced himself the other night.

      She took his firm warm hand in a daze and was instantly transported back to the moment he’d kissed her, his lips burning a brand into her cheek, his hand on her hip. She searched through the fog of lust in her head—where had she heard that name before?

      ‘Is everything all right? Tom OK?’ She frowned. ‘Oh, God, he’s not sick is he?’

      No. Not any more. ‘He’s fine. I’m just a little early for my appointment, I guess.’

      ‘Oh, I see,’ Hailey said, not seeing at all. ‘Were you here to see Yvonne?’ His name was familiar but her brain cells still weren’t working properly. Perhaps the NUM had mentioned his visit to her earlier?

      ‘Partly, yes. I came to meet everyone and have a poke around.’

      Hailey felt her pulse pick up and start to thrum through the veins in her head. ‘Meet everyone?’ she practically squeaked, suddenly realising why his name was so familiar.

      ‘Yes. I’m the new director. Looks like we’re going to be working together.’

      Hailey nodded dumbly. This was Dr Callum Craig? The stranger who had kissed her on a balcony on New Year’s Eve?

      Oh, hell! So much for never seeing him again. The man was practically her boss!

      Hailey spent the next two days avoiding him. When he was on the ward, she made herself scarce. The panroom, not a particularly fascinating place to be at the best of times, was her number-one choice for rooms in which to hide. It was certainly an inspired one. She’d never met a doctor yet who was comfortable around a bedpan. It was the one room they avoided like the plague.

      She may not have known Callum Craig for very long but she’d known him long enough to know that she’d never had such an instantaneous reaction to a man. And there’d been plenty to make comparisons with. Her twenties had been strewn with brief, fun relationships. Light flirtations that hadn’t gone the distance. They’d burnt brightly with all the pop and sparkle of giddy newness but had fizzled out quickly. Rilla and Beth had teased her that she’d changed her boyfriends as frequently as her underwear.

      But none of them had ever had such an impact on such a short acquaintance. Not even Paul. And they’d bored her so quickly too. They had been boys compared to Callum Craig. She doubted he had a boring bone in his body. In short, Callum Craig unsettled her. And that was to be avoided at all costs. She was moving on with her life—she didn’t need to complicate it by reaching for another attainable man.

      A fleeting moonlight kiss at midnight from a stranger was one thing. She could hug it close, daydream about it and bring it out at night to relive over and over in her sleep. But when that man was a colleague? She had learnt the hard way not to mix work with her private life. What had happened in London had burnt her so badly she was sworn off men for life.

      Particularly men with little boys.

      Callum entered the ward on Thursday afternoon to attend his ward round. He spotted Hailey just as she was disappearing into the panroom. Again.

      She was avoiding him.

      OK, he got it. Her signals were coming across loud and clear. Back off. Not interested. Don’t even think about it.

      She obviously regretted their midnight madness.

      He wished the same could be said for him. It was, after all, the most sensible course of action. The very last thing he needed now was to develop a thing for a woman who wanted nothing to do with him.

      His six years alone—coping with his wife’s death and a six-month-old baby and then struggling to raise Tom and get him through his illness, scared to death most of the time—seemed suddenly magnified. Maybe that was what happened? Maybe Hailey’s kiss had made him realise what a solitary life he led. Why else would his body be reacting so strongly to a woman who was so patently not interested?

      Because he didn’t have the time or the wherewithal for any kind of a relationship. He’d spent the last six years protecting Tom, shielding him from the things life had thrown at him—the loss of his mother and a truly vile illness. He’d dropped the ball with Annie, he wouldn’t do

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