A SOLID THIRTY MINUTES. That’s how long it had taken Harvey to calm down after the brief but silent car journey to the hospital with Della. Even now, after a close shave, a cold shower and a fresh shirt and chinos, he could still feel the itch of her under his skin. The infuriating woman needled him like no other and always had. Of course, she was also mind-blowingly sexy.
‘...and this is our emergency department, as you know,’ said Dr Tora, Pacific Health Hospital’s clinical chief of surgery, drawing Harvey away from memories of that one night three years ago when, after socialising with her family, Della had shocked him with a goodbye kiss to the cheek that had turned...explosive. As explosive as the back-and-forth bickering that had always been their main form of communication.
Forcing his head back into the game, Harvey waved hello to a few of the ED staff he recognised from his previous visits. He was proud to continue his support of this hospital. The last thing he needed was for his long-standing discord with Della to tarnish the reputation he’d built over the years.
Just then, Dr Tora’s pager sounded. The older man silenced it and read the display. ‘Oh dear. I’m afraid I have to go. Can I entrust Dr Wilton’s security pass to you? I’m sure she’ll be here soon.’
‘Of course.’ Harvey took the lanyard as if it were a live snake and slipped it into his pocket. Where was Della? His entire reason for meeting her at the airport was to try and mitigate any awkwardness. Since that night they’d had sex, they’d seen each other maybe six times, always in the presence of the other Wiltons. Instead, she’d fried his brain with that sexy little sundress she’d been wearing. Her blond hair was longer that the last time he’d seen her, the cut somehow softer so it fell in waves around her stunning heart-shaped face. But roaring attraction aside, they’d slipped so effortlessly into their respective roles—hers of barely concealed annoyance and his goading out those flashes of fire from her blue eyes—that clearing the air before they headed to the hospital had completely fled his mind. Images of her naked on top of him and under him, her defiant stare judging him even as she cried out in pleasure, had flashed before his eyes. They’d never once talked about that night, simply pretended that it hadn’t happened. But as he’d said to her in the car, like it or not, they were stuck with each other. They’d need to find some way of putting all of that aside to work together. Harvey winced, braced for a very long fortnight.
A rushed patter of feet caused him and Dr Tora to turn around. Out of breath, Della appeared. Still flustered. Still scowling at Harvey. Still sexy as hell. Harvey groaned silently, calling to mind how she always looked at him as if he was something unsavoury she’d found on the bottom of her shoe to manage the constant temptation.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ she said, addressing Dr Tora and completely ignoring Harvey. ‘I got a little lost.’ She laced her lovely smile with apology as she stuck out her hand. ‘I’m Della Wilton from Auckland’s Harbour Hospital. Thank you so much for having me here at Pacific Health.’
Like Harvey, Della had obviously showered and changed since he’d dropped her at the staff bungalows an hour ago. She smelled fantastic, like an ocean breeze, her simple sleeveless dress doing nothing to hide her sensational body, not that Harvey needed a road map. He possessed an excellent memory, and he’d had nearly twenty years to study Della’s abundant plus points.
‘Bula, Dr Wilton,’ Dr Tora said. ‘I’m afraid you’ve just missed the tour of the surgical department, and I must excuse myself. I have an urgent referral patient to see. But I’ll leave you in Dr Ward’s capable hands. He knows his way around like a local after all these years.’
With a warm smile, Dr Tora departed, leaving Harvey and Della to what would no doubt be another polite and impersonal conversation, as was their norm.
‘After all these years?’ she asked, eyeing him suspiciously, as if he’d deliberately ruined her holiday with his presence. Her cheeks were flushed from rushing, the pale freckles on her nose a major distraction. He had intimate knowledge that they matched the ones across her shoulders and chest. Thinking about her freckles led to thinking about her naked, her gorgeous curves revealed for his greedy stare and hands. Her shockingly wild passion that, no matter how hard he tried, or how fiercely they argued, he just couldn’t forget. They were like oil and water, incompatible but still flammable.
Harvey silently counted to five before opening his mouth in the hopes that he wouldn’t say the wrong thing that would lead to another bickering match. The day they’d met, he’d still been grieving the death of his one and only girlfriend, Alice, sleeping around to numb the pain. Then, reeling from his instant and inconvenient attraction to his best friend’s sister, he’d made some clumsy, thoughtless and cynical comment that Della and her long-distance boyfriend likely wouldn’t survive them studying in different cities, in different states. Della had never forgiven him. Over the years, she took every opportunity to point out that, when it came to relationships, they wanted very different things, and her way was better.
‘I come here every year,’ he said, leading the way to the emergency department staff room. ‘I usually run a few update seminars for our Fijian colleagues, do a few surgeries to help out.’ It wasn’t like he had a partner or family to holiday with, and he’d always preferred to keep busy.
‘Of course you do,’ she scoffed, her kissable mouth pursed with irritation. ‘Why is it that you’re everywhere I look, Harvey—invited to my family functions, working my job in Melbourne and now hijacking my holiday?’
‘I could say that you followed me, Della,’ he pointed out, his stare drawn to the elegant slope of her neck, a place he remembered the skin was soft and fragrant. ‘It’s not like I came to Fiji this year with the sole purpose of rattling your cage.’
‘I wouldn’t put it past you,’ she muttered, walking off.
Harvey dragged in a deep breath. How would he survive two weeks in her company when they could barely make it through one conversation before she took umbrage or he goaded her? Should he remind little miss high and mighty how she’d used him for rebound sex three years ago, after her divorce?
Following, he caught up with her outside the occupied staff room where several nurses were taking a break. ‘So, this is the ED staff room,’ he said, biting his tongue for the sake of harmony. ‘And this is the doctors’ office.’ Across the corridor, they found the office empty and stepped inside. ‘Computer terminals, printers, photocopier, etc.’ Harvey slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out her security pass. ‘Use this to log in to the computer and printer.’
She took it, her expression wary.
Harvey scanned his own pass over the digital display in pointless demonstration. Della was a consultant trauma surgeon in New Zealand’s leading hospital. She was perfectly capable of figuring out how to use a photocopier. Enough procrastinating. Time to have that tricky personal conversation.
‘So, how have you been?’ he asked, shoving his hands in his trouser pockets to appear relaxed and non-threatening. Better to get the sex talk out of the way before they started work.
‘Oh, you know...’ she said, moving around the room, away from him, as she pretended to scrutinise the posters on the notice board. ‘Still the same old Della—still divorced, still working in Auckland.’
She always did that when she felt threatened—pointed out what she considered to be her worst failings, as if saying them aloud first, before anyone else could, was a defence mechanism. Not that Harvey had been about to raise either of those touchy subjects. He wasn’t stupid.
‘Look, Della,’ he said, pushing the office door closed to give them a bit of privacy. ‘I collected you from the airport because I wanted to clear the air.’ He stepped into her line of vision so she couldn’t ignore him. ‘I know we’ve never talked about that night, but it was just sex.’
Just sex. The kind that had forever altered his perception and awareness of this woman. For sixteen years he’d successfully fought his attraction to her, thinking of her only as the untouchable sister of his best friend, a feat for which he surely deserved some sort of gold medal.
‘There’s no need to allow it to interfere with us working together for the next two weeks,’ he finished, keeping his stare locked with hers. Because to look at her body was to remember that night and the way it had lit some sort of primed fuse and changed everything. Since then, there was no ignoring Della, his only defence to keep reminding himself that she was a relationship person and he was the opposite.
‘As if,’ she scoffed, a telltale flush creeping up her neck. ‘I’m a professional, and it wasn’t that good.’
‘Liar,’ he said simply, daring her with his eyes to argue the point so he could bring up how they’d set the bed ablaze, how she’d come twice and left his place looking sexily satisfied, if a little dazed. But then she’d confessed he’d been her first since her marriage had broken down six months earlier. Thinking about how she’d used good old Harvey to get over her ex that night, his stomach twisted. He hadn’t realised how much it had bothered him until the next day when he’d awoken with the scent of her perfume on his sheets. He’d wanted to call her so badly, he’d locked his phone in the filing cabinet at work.
But Della hadn’t finished insulting him.
‘Well, there’s no need to worry that I’ll tempt you to break your one time and done rule,’ she said, her expression withering.
She’d always made it clear what she thought of Harvey’s commitment avoidance, always judged him and stuck up for the women he slept with and looked at him as if he was some kind of dirt bag. Of course, she had no idea that keeping his brief relationships superficial was how Harvey dealt with the losses in his life. Both his mother and Alice had left him in their different ways, and he never wanted there to be a third woman who made him feel powerless. He was better off alone and in control.
Harvey shook his head in disbelief, her jibe predictable but no less offensive. ‘I’m not worried, and I don’t have a one time and done rule.’ He almost wished he did. That way he absolutely wouldn’t be thinking about sleeping with Della again.
And was it his fault that Della was a relationship person, and with the exception of Alice, he was a bit of a loner? Was it his fault they shared a competitive streak, that they were professionally similar but personally opposites? She’d grown up surrounded by the loving but boisterous Wilton family, whereas Harvey’s mother had abandoned him when he was eight years old. Was it his fault that, over the years, Harvey had deliberately stayed single whereas Della had fallen in and out of love with several unworthy men who’d one by one broken her too-big heart?
‘And yet you’re forty-two and have never been in a relationship that lasts longer than a bottle of milk,’ she said, that curl of contempt tugging at her gorgeous mouth.
‘Why do you always do that?’ he asked, once more questioning the wisdom of coming to Fiji as planned once he’d discovered from Brody that Della would also be there.
‘Do what?’ She put one hand on her hip as if deliberately taunting him with her spectacular figure.
‘Insinuate that my sex life bothers you?’ He took a half step closer, his pulse accelerating as her pupils dilated, as if their bickering was a kind of verbal foreplay. ‘Being sceptical about love isn’t a crime, Della. And it didn’t seem to matter when you needed a quick roll in the hay to celebrate the granting of your divorce order.’
She might despise his lifestyle, see him as some sort of threat because their views on commitment were so dissimilar, but she couldn’t deny their rampant chemistry.
‘It doesn’t bother me,’ she said, her breaths coming a little faster and her cheeks reddening. ‘And don’t act as if you hoped us sleeping together three years ago would be the start of something more. That’s not your style.’
She was right. Just because they were trapped there together, he’d be a fool to act on this, a fool to do anything but ignore it as usual.
‘So? You knew what you were getting into that night and wanted me anyway,’ he pointed out. ‘Perhaps because you needed a safe bet, and good old Harvey was available.’ It was a low blow, but he couldn’t stop himself from taunting her, not when she was acting so...holy. Not when she’d used him and never mentioned it again. Had she even given that night a second thought over the past three years?
Her mouth hung open and she blinked up at him, maybe searching for something cutting to say. But Harvey had already exposed too much. He didn’t want her to know he’d been aware that he’d served a purpose that night. That her using him had stung. Maybe he could exact a little revenge now.
Stepping closer, he lowered his voice. ‘Perhaps you like the idea of spending another night in my bed, Della. If that’s the case, you only have to ask. For you, my bedroom door is always open.’
‘Of course it is,’ she muttered, triumph glittering in her wide stare. ‘Same old Harvey. You never change.’
‘Neither do your judgements,’ he said, tempted to exaggerate stories of his past philandering for maximum effect. ‘But as you’ve raised the subject of relationships, you obviously want me to ask. So, are you seeing anyone? Is husband-to-be number two waiting for you back in Auckland?’
Harvey clamped his runaway mouth shut. He didn’t want to upset her any more than he already had just by being there. But a twist of envy gripped his gut. He shouldn’t care if she was dating again. It was none of his business. All he needed to do was get through these two weeks in one piece.
Della raised her chin, her eyes dipping, but not before Harvey spied a flash of doubt. So that was no then. Hell...it would be so much easier for him if she was dating and therefore untouchable again.
‘I’ve been busy...’ she confirmed, glancing away. ‘Moving countries, starting a new job, travelling home to Melbourne to visit my family every chance I get.’
Another dig about the Melbourne job... But now, fingers of unease slithered up Harvey’s spine. Was she talking about the past three and a half years?
‘So no dating at all since your divorce?’ he pushed, the pitch of his voice changing to incredulous. Did that mean she hadn’t slept with anyone else since she’d slept with him? Surely not. But now he was aflame with curiosity.
‘My love life doesn’t concern you,’ she said primly, her stare bold.
Harvey saw red. ‘Not even when you used me for sex, knowing that you were safe to walk away and never mention it again, despite the fact that we see each other all the time?’ Now why had he said that? Why couldn’t he have handed over her security pass, ignored how badly he wanted to kiss her and kept his mouth shut? Why was it these days, since that one hot night, he and Della always seemed to have some sort of unfinished business?
Her mouth agape, she blinked up at him, breathing hard.
His own heart rate thundering, his gaze dipped to the lovely curve of her lips. He knew how those lips tasted, recalled how they parted on breathy sighs. Had felt them against his skin as she’d cried out in passion. The metallic taste of fear coated his mouth. Forget the awkwardness; it wasn’t their biggest problem. He wasn’t going to survive these two weeks, fourteen long days, in Della’s company without cracking and doing something stupid. Perhaps he should just kiss her now, suggest they sleep together again and get the sex out of their systems so they could go back to bickering over nothing.
Just then, as they faced each other, head-to-head, stares locked in defiance, there was a knock at the door. They stepped away from each other as Seema, one of the ED nurses, entered the room.
‘Harvey, we’ve just had a walk-in casualty, and it looks bad—can you come?’
‘Of course,’ Harvey said, rushing to the trauma bay in the ED with Della at his heels. All the adrenaline he’d prepared for sparring with Della fuelled him now as he joined the man being wheeled on a stretcher into the resuscitation bay.
‘His work colleagues literally carried him in,’ Seema said about the patient, who was conscious and groaning in pain, his breathing harsh behind an oxygen mask. ‘He fell from second-floor scaffolding, a drop of over twenty feet. His name is Warren.’
Harvey glanced at Della as he reached for a stethoscope. Their reckoning would have to wait. As if they were used to working together, she took up position opposite Harvey, on the other side of the patient, reaching for a second stethoscope, as the nurses cut away the man’s clothing to expose his chest. Harvey noted his vital signs. His blood pressure was on the low side, his heart rate rapid but regular.
‘He has an open fracture of the left humerus,’ Della said, her eyes meeting Harvey’s in silent communication.
Their casualty would be heading to theatre, but first they needed to eliminate anything more life-threatening than a broken arm.
‘Any loss of consciousness or seizures?’ Harvey asked Seema, testing the man’s pupillary reflexes with a pen torch. They needed to exclude a head injury. Fortunately someone had fitted a neck brace to immobilise the man’s cervical spine.
‘No,’ Seema said. ‘One of the work colleagues who brought him in was on the ground and got to him pretty quickly.’
‘I just need to examine you, Warren.’ Harvey palpated the trachea above the breast bone before placing his stethoscope over the lung fields to listen to the breath sounds.
‘He’s got a pneumothorax on the left and tracheal deviation,’ he told Della, knowing she would understand the urgency of the man’s condition. In cases of tension pneumothorax, if they didn’t drain out the escaped air from his chest and reinflate the collapsed lung, he could go into shock.
Della nodded, reaching for a sterile wide-bore cannula from the trolley at the head of the casualty. They needed to relieve the pressure on the heart by allowing the trapped air to escape before they could organise X-rays or they risked cardiac arrest.
‘I think he might have a flail chest on this side,’ Della said, adding to the list of problems. ‘There’s a lot of bruising of the chest wall and some surgical emphysema.’ She peeled open the cannula as the blood pressure monitor emitted an ear-piercing alarm.
‘His blood pressure is dropping. Let’s decompress and then review,’ he said to Della, who quickly swabbed the skin and inserted the needle into the man’s chest cavity to allow the trapped air from the punctured lung to escape.
Harvey drew up some intravenous analgesia and, as the blood pressure rose, administered it via a cannula in the patient’s arm. ‘Warren. We think you might have some fractured ribs that have punctured the lung. We’re going to organise some X-rays to be sure.’
‘Let’s get a chest drain kit ready, please,’ Della said to Seema. ‘And we need an urgent cross-match for blood transfusion.’ She quickly labelled some blood vials and handed them to a porter, who would run them around to the haematology lab.
With the patient stabilised for now, Harvey and Della moved aside to talk, their personal grievances and the constant pull of attraction set aside.
‘That humerus will need to be internally fixed,’ Della said with a frown of concern, shifting to make room for the radiographer, who wheeled in the mobile X-ray machine.
‘We might need to surgically stabilise the fractured ribs, too,’ Harvey said, his mind racing through the worst-case scenarios for the patient. Often, a flail segment, an area of ribs fractured in more than one place, was treated with mechanical ventilation and analgesia, but in some instances, surgery was required, especially if there were other complications like chest wall damage, haemorrhage or rib dislocations.
Della nodded in agreement. ‘I’ll call the anaesthetist and theatre. Either way, he’ll need to be admitted to ICU.’
‘And I’ll speak to Warren’s next of kin and consent him for surgery,’ Harvey said, impressed with the way they’d forgotten their personal differences and their competitive natures and worked together for the first time.
‘I didn’t expect to operate on our first day.’ She looked up at him, a flicker of surprise and respect shining in her eyes. ‘Do you want the humerus or the chest?’
‘Let’s figure it out together when we get to theatre,’ he said, confident that Della and he could set aside everything else when it came to their work.
‘Sounds like a plan,’ she said, her expression registering relief.
Before they found themselves trapped together in Fiji, he’d have been convinced they would squabble over the decision or over who was the better surgeon. But when it came to the safety of their patient, there was no room for ego, despite how he’d teased her earlier at the airport.
As they set about their different tasks, putting their patient first, Harvey wondered how long their enforced truce would last. Their sexual chemistry was obviously going nowhere. They would need to revisit the conversation on how best to manage it, providing they could tolerate each other long enough to talk.
As predicted, it was going to be the longest fortnight of Harvey’s life.