LITMIR.BIZ

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at nine-thirty on a Sunday night.

      The place was jumping. There was some music playing on the old-fashioned jukebox but it wasn’t too loud. Most of the noise was coming from a large group of people Lola recognised as belonging to the Herd Across the Harbour event. It had taken place earlier today and they were all clearly celebrating the success of the fundraising venture.

      Grace, Lola’s bestie and flatmate, was the renal transplant co-ordinator for the hospital and had been one of the organisers. In fact, her entire family had been heavily involved. Lola had also been roped in to help out this morning before her afternoon shift, and although she’d gratefully escaped horses, cows and, well...anything country a long time ago, there had been something magnificent about all those cattle walking over the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

      Talk about a contrast—one of the world’s most iconic architectural landmarks overrun by large, hooved beasts. It had certainly made a splash on news services all around the world. Not to mention the pile of money it had raised for dialysis machines for rural and remote hospitals. And then there was the exposure it had given to the Australian Organ Donor Register and the importance of talking with family about your wishes.

      A conversation Lola wished her patient tonight had taken the time to have with his family. Maybe, out of his tragic death, some other families could have started living again.

      And she was back to needing a drink.

      She moved down the bar, away from the happy crowd. Their noise was good—celebratory and distracting—but she couldn’t really relate to that right now.

      Gary, a big bear of a man, took one look at her and said, ‘You okay?’

      Lola shook her head, a sudden rush of emotion thickening her throat. Gary had been running the bar over the road for a lot of years now and knew all the Kirribilli staff who frequented his establishment. He also knew, in that freaky bartender way, if a shift hadn’t gone so well.

      ‘Whaddya need?’

      ‘Big, big glass of wine.’

      He didn’t bat an eyelid at her request. ‘Your car in the multi-storey?’

      Lola nodded. ‘I’ll get a cab home.’ She had another afternoon shift tomorrow so she’d get a cab to work and drive her car home tomorrow night.

      Within thirty seconds, Gary placed a chilled glass of white wine in front of her. It was over the standard drink line clearly marked on the glass. Well over.

      ‘Let me know when you want a refill.’

      Lola gave him a grateful smile. She loved it that Gary already knew this was a more-than-one-glass-of-wine night. ‘Thanks.’

      Raising the glass to her lips, Lola took three huge swallows and shut her eyes, trying to clear her mind of the last few hours. Working in Intensive Care was the most rewarding work she’d done in the thirty years of her life. People came to them desperately ill and mostly they got better and went home. And that was such an incredible process to be a part of.

      But not everyone was so lucky.

      For the most part, Lola coped with the flip side. She’d learned how to compartmentalise the tragedies and knew the importance of debriefing with colleagues. She also knew that sometimes you weren’t ready to talk about it. And for that there was booze, really loud music and streaming movies.

      Sometimes sex.

      And she had no problems with using any of them for their temporary amnesiac qualities.

      Lola took another gulp of her wine but limited it to just the one this time.

      ‘Now, what’s a gorgeous woman like you doing sitting at a bar all by yourself?’

      Lola smiled at the low voice behind her, and the fine blonde hairs at her nape that had escaped the loose low plait stood to attention. ‘Hamish.’

      Hamish Gibson laughed softly and easily as he plonked himself down on the chair beside her. Her heart fluttered a little as it has this morning when she’d first met him on the Harbour Bridge. He was tall and broad and good looking. And he knew it.

      Patently up for some recreational sex.

      But he was also Grace’s brother and staying at their apartment for the night. So it would be wrong to jump his bones.

      Right?

      She could have a drink with him, though, and he wasn’t exactly hard on the eyes. ‘Let me buy you a drink,’ she said.

      He grinned that lovely easy grin she’d been so taken with this morning. She’d bet he killed the ladies back home with that grin. That mouth.

      ‘Isn’t that supposed to be my line?’

      ‘You’re in the big smoke now,’ she teased. ‘We Sydney women tend to be kinda forthright. Got a problem with that?’

      ‘Absolutely none. I love forthright women.’ He gestured to Gary and ordered a beer. ‘And for you?’

      Lola lifted her still quite full glass. ‘I’m good.’ She took another big swig.

      Hamish’s keen blue eyes narrowed a little. ‘Bad shift?’

      ‘I’ve had better.’

      He nodded. Hamish was a paramedic so Lola was certain she didn’t have to explain her current state of mind. ‘You wanna talk about it?’

      ‘Nope.’ Another gulp of her wine.

      ‘You wanna get drunk?’

      ‘Nope. Just a little distracted.’

      He grinned again and things a little lower than Lola’s heart fluttered this time. ‘I give good distraction.’

      Lola laughed. ‘You are good distraction.’

      ‘And you are good for my ego, Lola Fraser.’

      ‘Yeah. I can tell your ego is badly in need of resuscitation.’

      He threw back his head and laughed and Lola followed the very masculine line of his throat etched with five o’clock shadow to a jaw so square he could have been a cartoon superhero. Was it wrong she wanted to lick him there?

      Gary placed Hamish’s beer on the bar in front of him and he picked it up. ‘What shall we drink to?’

      Lola smiled. ‘Crappy shifts?’

      ‘Here’s to crappy shifts.’ He tapped his glass against the rim of hers. ‘And distractions.’

      * * *

      They were home by eleven. Lola had drunk another—standard—glass of wine and Hamish had sat on his beer. They’d chatted about the Herd Across the Harbour event and cattle and he’d made her laugh about his hometown of Toowoomba and some of the incidents he’d gone to as a paramedic. He was a great distraction in every sense of the word but when she’d started to yawn he’d insisted on driving them home and she’d directed.

      But now they were here, Lola wasn’t feeling tired. In fact, she dreaded going to bed. She wasn’t drunk enough to switch off her brain—only pleasantly buzzed—and sex with Hamish was out of the question.

      Completely off-limits.

      ‘You fancy another drink?’ She headed through to the kitchen and made a beeline for the fridge. She ignored the three postcards attached with magnets to the door. They were from her Aunty May’s most recent travels—India, Vietnam and South Korea. Normally they made her smile but tonight they made her feel restless.

      She was off to Zimbabwe for a month next April. It couldn’t come soon enough.

      ‘Ah...sure. Okay.’

      He didn’t sound very sure. ‘Past your bedtime?’ she teased as she pulled a bottle of wine and a beer out of the fridge.

      He smiled as

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