LITMIR.BIZ

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against applying for the job at Manhattan Mercy.

      What had she been so afraid of? That old feelings might resurface and she’d have to suffer the humiliation of being dismissed so completely again?

      To find that the opposite had happened was even scarier. That old connection was still there and could clearly be tapped into but... Grace didn’t want that.

      Well...she did...but she wasn’t ready.

      She might never be ready.

      Charles must think she was crazy. He must have sensed the connection at the same moment she had, when they’d shared their amusement about the spiders that had eyes on their legs, otherwise he wouldn’t have touched her like that.

      And he must have seen that fierce shaft of desire because she had felt it throughout her entire body so why wouldn’t it have shown in her eyes?

      Just for those few, deliciously long moments she had been unaware of anything but that desire when he’d kissed her. That spiralling need for more.

      And then his hand had—almost—touched her breast and she’d reacted as if he’d pulled a knife on her or something.

      It had been purely instinctive and Grace knew how over the top it must have seemed. She was embarrassed.

      A bit ashamed of herself, to be honest, but there it was. A trigger that had been too deeply set to be disabled.

      The net effect was to make her feel even more nervous about her next meeting with Charles than she had been about the first one and he hadn’t been at work the next day so her anxiety kept growing.

      She had sent out mixed messages and he had every right to be annoyed with her. How awkward would it be to work together from now on? Did she really want to live with a resurrection of all the reasons why she’d taken herself off to work in the remotest places she could find?

      No. What she wanted was to wind back the clock just a little. To the time before that kiss, when it had felt like an important friendship was being cemented. When she had discovered a totally unexpected dimension in her life by embracing a sense of family in her time with Charles and his sons and Houston.

      So she had sent through that photo she had taken of Max and Cameron waiting for the cookies to cool. Along with another apology for the mess they had all created. Maybe she wanted to test the waters and see just how annoyed he might be.

      He had texted back to thank her, and say that it was one of the best photos of the boys he’d ever seen. He also said that they were going to a family birthday celebration that afternoon and surprised her by saying he didn’t think it would be nearly as much fun as baking Halloween cookies.

      A friendly message—as if nothing had changed.

      The relief was welcome.

      But confusing.

      Unless Charles was just as keen as she was to turn the clock back?

      Of course he was, she decided by the end of that day, as she took Houston for a long, solitary walk in the park. He had as big a reason as she did not to want to get that close to someone. He had lost the absolute love of his life under horrifically traumatic circumstances. Part of him had to want to keep on living—as she did—and not to be deprived of the best things that life had to offer.

      But maybe he wasn’t ready yet, either.

      Maybe he never would be.

      And that was okay—because maybe they could still be friends and that was something that could be treasured.

      * * *

      Evidence that Charles wanted to push the ‘reset’ button on their friendship came at increasingly frequent intervals over the next week or two. Now that his nanny, Maria, had recovered from her back injury enough to work during week days, he was in the emergency room every day that Grace was working.

      He gave her a printed copy of the photograph, during a quiet moment when they both happened to be near the unit desk on one occasion.

      ‘Did you see that Horse photobombed it?’

      Grace laughed. ‘No...I thought I’d had my thumb on the lens or something. I was going to edit it out.’

      She wouldn’t now. She would tuck this small picture into her wallet and she knew that sometimes she would take it out and look at it. A part of her would melt with love every time. And part of her would splinter into little pieces and cry?

      She avoided looking directly at Charles as she slipped the image carefully into her pocket.

      ‘Did your cleaning lady resign the next day?’

      ‘No. She wants the recipe for your homemade mac and cheese.’

      It was unfortunate that Grace glanced at Charles as he stopped speaking to lick his lips. That punch of sensation in her belly was a warning that friendship with this man would never be simple. Or easy. That it could become even worse, in fact, because there might come a time when she was ready to take that enormous step into a new life only to find that Charles would never feel the same way.

      ‘I’d like it, too.’ He didn’t seem to have noticed that she was edging away. ‘I had some later that night and it was the most delicious thing ever. It had bacon in it.’

      ‘Mmm... It’s not hard.’

      ‘Maybe you could show me. Sometime...’

      The suggestion was casual but Grace had to push an image from her mind of standing beside Charles as she taught him how to make a cheese sauce. Of being close enough to touch him whilst wrapped in the warmth and smells of a kitchen—the heart of a home. She could even feel a beat of the fear that being so close would bring and she had to swallow hard.

      ‘I’ll write down how to do it for you.’

      Charles smiled and nodded but seemed distracted now. He was staring at the patient details board. ‘What’s going on with that patient in Curtain Six? She’s been here for a long time.’

      ‘We’re waiting for a paediatric psyche consult. This is her third admission in a week. Looks like a self-inflicted injury and I think there’s something going on at home that she’s trying to escape from.’

      ‘Oh...’ His breath was a sigh. ‘Who brought her in?’

      ‘Her stepfather. And he’s very reluctant to leave her alone with staff.’

      ‘Need any help?’

      ‘I think we’re getting there. I’ve told him that we need to run more tests. Might even have to keep her in overnight for observation. I know we’ve blocked up a bed for too long, but...’

      ‘Don’t worry about it.’ The glance Grace received was direct. Warm. ‘Do whatever you need to do. I trust you. Just let me know if you need backup.’

      Feeling trusted was a powerful thing.

      Knowing that you had the kind of backup that could also be trusted was even better and Grace was particularly grateful for that a couple of mornings later with the first case that arrived on her shift.

      A thirteen-month-old boy, who had somehow managed to crawl out of the house at some point during the night and had been found, virtually frozen solid, in the back yard.

      ‘VF arrest,’ the paramedics had radioed in. ‘CPR under way. We can’t intubate—his mouth’s frozen. We’ve just got an OPA in.’

      Grace had the team ready in their resuscitation area.

      ‘We need warmed blankets and heat packs. Warmed IV fluids. We’ll be looking at thoracic lavage or even ECMO. Have we heard back from the cardiac surgical team yet?’

      ‘Someone’s on their way.’

      ‘ECMO?’ she heard a nurse whisper. ‘What’s that?’

      ‘Extra corporeal membrane oxygenation,’ she

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