ONE LOOK AT the mess that was Terry Oakshot’s knee confirmed that he needed a surgeon skilled in reconstruction. The blood supply wasn’t compromised, though. There was no need for immediate intervention for his knee. He needed decent pain relief and transport as soon as possible to the experts in Sydney.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t his knee that was causing Terry to whimper. He was clutching his groin in agony.
It would be agony too, Hugo thought, as Joe helped examine him.
A fast conversation with the mates who’d brought him in had given him all the information he needed. The boys had been having a pre-Christmas party in the footy ground’s stadium. After a few beers someone had shouted for Terry to come down to ground level to kick the footy. After a beer or six, Terry had decided there was a faster way than the stairs and he’d tried to slide down the banister.
It hadn’t been a good idea. Terry had smashed groin first into the bottom post, then toppled onto the wooden stairs. The knee was bad. His groin was worse. One side of his scrotum was swollen and cut, and one testicle was higher than the other. The less injured side didn’t look too good either, and Terry was retching with pain.
‘What’s going on?’ he moaned as his wife arrived. Maree was in her early twenties and seemed terrified. She looked as if she’d been baking. Her face was streaked white with flour, and it was whiter still with shock.
‘You seem to have given yourself a testicular torsion,’ he told him. ‘Terry, your knee’s broken and it’ll need specialist surgery in Sydney, but what’s happened to your groin is more urgent. The spermatic cord running to your testicles has been damaged. The cord’s a blood vessel, so the blood supply’s been cut. We need to work fast to get it sorted.’
‘Fast’d be good, Doc,’ Terry moaned. ‘Fast like now?’ And, with that, Polly’s presence came slamming back at him, bringing a wash of relief. He had an anaesthetist.
‘You know I have another doctor working here?’
‘The one that got bit by the snake?’ Terry demanded.
‘She’s recovered.’ Or almost recovered. She could still do with an early night but this needed to take precedence. ‘Terry, you and Maree don’t have any kids yet, do you?’
‘No!’ And Maree had understood the inference faster than Terry. ‘But we want them. The spermatic cord … Doc, you’re not saying …?’
‘I’m thinking we need to operate fast,’ Hugo told them both. ‘I’ll get Joe to ring Polly. She can do the anaesthetic.’
‘Polly …’ Maree managed. ‘What sort of name is that for a doctor?’
‘It’s short for Pollyanna. It’s a great name for a fine doctor,’ he told her. ‘Wait and see.’
Polly didn’t see the wound until they were in Theatre. Terry declared he ‘wasn’t going to get looked at down there by a female’.
‘You’ll get looked at by anyone who can fix you,’ Maree snapped and clutched Polly as soon as she saw her. ‘We want kids,’ she stammered. ‘You get him right, no matter what.’
‘We’ll do our best,’ Polly told her. She’d arrived at the hospital fast, she was heading to scrub, and she had no time to waste.
Once in Theatre she could focus, and she needed to. Terry was a big man, he was deeply shocked and he’d been drinking. In an ideal world she’d wait for him to sober up, but there wasn’t time.
She ran through the options in her head, talked them through with Hugo. Then they went for it. With Terry safely asleep and intubated, Joe started disinfecting the injured area. For the first time she saw the extent of the damage.
‘Ouch,’ she said and Hugo cast her a look that could almost be amused.
‘You might say that.’
But he was calm. She watched him assess the wound carefully. She watched as he started the procedure as if he’d done it a thousand times.
He was a thoracic surgeon. This was a job for a trained urologist.
He didn’t look concerned. He looked … competent.
He’s good, she thought, and then she relaxed a little, although not very much because her anaesthetic skills were basic, but they were good enough to spare her time to watch Hugo work.
No highly skilled urologist could do a better job than this, she thought. Repairing a damaged spermatic cord was tricky at the best of times, and that was in a large hospital with every piece of modern gadgetry. Large hospitals had magnification, monitors showing exactly what was happening. Large hospitals had skilled backup.
Hugo had a semi-trained anaesthetist, Joe and himself.
If she hadn’t been here …
What then?
Hugo would have needed to send him to Sydney, she thought, and by the time Terry reached Sydney, he and his wife would be fated to be childless or needing a sperm donor.
What if this had happened when she was here by herself?
For the first time, her bold foray into bush medicine looked less than wise. She would have failed this couple.
How could Hugo work here by himself?
‘If you hadn’t been here I would have talked Joe through the anaesthesia. We’ve done it before,’ Hugo said.
She glanced up at him in shock. ‘How do you know what I’m thinking?’
‘You have an entirely readable face. You were concentrating, concentrating, concentrating, and suddenly you looked petrified. I checked the monitors, saw you had nothing patient-wise to be petrified about and figured you had to be projecting yourself into the future.’
‘He has eyes in the back of his head.’ Joe was grinning. ‘You’ll get used to it.’
‘She won’t,’ Hugo said. ‘We’ll work together tomorrow and then I’ll be gone.’
But he’d be back, Polly thought as his skilled fingers continued their fight to repair the appalling damage. In the New Year he’d be back here being a solo doctor with his little niece. He’d be on his own and she’d be …
Where?
She hadn’t figured that out yet. One locum at a time. Wandering …
She’d thought she’d quite like to do a stint for an aid agency, working overseas, getting right away from her parents.
Her diabetes was the killer there. No aid agency, working in Third World conditions, would accept a Type One diabetic.
Maybe that was one of the reasons she wanted it so much. Maybe the locum thing was part of it.
Locum to locum to locum? Never settling? Never doing family?
That was what she’d decided. No more fuss. She couldn’t bear it.
Doing things despite her diabetes …
Was this another way her diabetes was controlling her?
‘I’m thinking …’ Hugo’s voice was a lazy drawl but there was satisfaction behind it and it drew her attention back to where it should be. ‘I’m thinking we might just have succeeded in repairing this mess. The left one’s possible and the right one’s looking certain. We’ll transfer him to Sydney for his knee and get him checked by the urologist while he’s there but I’m thinking we’ve done the thing.’
‘Yes!’ Joe said, but Polly didn’t say anything at all.
Locum to locum to locum …
That was what she’d dreamed of. Why did it suddenly seem so bleak?
And why did what she’d thought of as a dream suddenly seem like running away?
There was no more time for introspection. Polly reversed the anaesthetic, Terry started to come round and Hugo sent her out to talk to Maree.
‘She won’t believe Joe. Something about the beard. Polly, go tell her Terry’s okay.’
‘So she’ll believe a whippersnapper who came on the scene in polka dots with snake bite instead of a beard?’ Joe demanded.
‘Absolutely. If Polly, who’s hung upside down with snakes, decrees someone’s safe, then …’
‘Then she’ll think Polly has a weird definition of safe,’ Joe retorted and he and Hugo chuckled and Polly looked from one to the other and thought that even though Hugo was trapped in this little hospital there were compensations.
It was like family …
Family … There was that word again.
‘I have drips to adjust and you deserve to be the bearer of good tidings,’ Hugo told her. ‘How’s the hand?’
She hadn’t even noticed her hand. She’d double gloved because she couldn’t scrub the dressing and then she’d forgotten about it.
Her ankle wasn’t hurting. She couldn’t feel a bruise.
She felt … a mile high.
Successful surgery … There was nothing like it.
She thought suddenly of her parents’ recriminations when she’d decided on medicine and she knew, without doubt, that medicine at least wasn’t running from her parents’ world. Medicine was what she most wanted to do.
She met Hugo’s gaze and he was smiling and once again she got that blast of knowledge that told her he understood what she was feeling.
‘Good, isn’t it?’ he said softly and he smiled at her—and he might as well have kissed her.
It felt like a kiss. A caress from four feet apart.
And Joe was smiling at them, beaming from one ear to the other, and Polly stepped from the table a bit too fast and could have tripped, but she didn’t. She wasn’t that stupid.
She felt pretty stupid. She backed out of Theatre feeling totally discombobulated.
Terry’s wife was waiting outside, sitting huddled on the room’s big couch. There were people around her, two older couples who looked as if they’d come in a hurry. One of the women was wearing a crimson-smeared apron—very smeared. Her husband had matching crimson smears on his gingham shirt.
They all looked up at her as she emerged and Maree moaned and put her face in her hands.
‘Hey, it’s all right, love.’ The bigger of the two men put a rough hand on her shoulder. He was watching Polly’s face. ‘The Doc’s smiling. You’re smiling, aren’t you, Doc? You wouldn’t do that if our Terry was bad.’
‘I’m smiling,’ Polly told them, smiling even more just to prove the point. ‘Dr Denver’s operated and everything went as smoothly as we could hope. Everything’s been put back together. Terry’s not quite recovered from the anaesthetic yet but as soon as Dr Denver’s set up the drips—he’ll be administering pain relief, fluids and antibiotics—you’ll be able to see him.’
‘Oh.’ Maree put her face behind her hands and burst into tears. The crimson lady knelt down and gathered her into her arms.
‘There, dear, what did I tell you? Terry always bounces back.’ And then she glared up at her husband. ‘I told you. Now we have a pot full of burned toffee and a hundred uncoated toffee apples for nothing.’
There was uncertain laughter, the beginnings of relief, and then Maree put her head up again.
‘And he will … we will be able to have babies?’ she whispered.
Polly heard the door swing open behind her. She didn’t have to turn to see it was Hugo—she was starting to sense this man.
Why? What was it between them?
He didn’t say anything, though—it seemed this was her call.
‘Maree, Dr Denver’s done everything we can to make sure that can still happen. We think we’ve succeeded. I’ve just watched him operate and I don’t think any city surgeon could have done better.’
‘Excellent,’ the toffee apple lady said. ‘And will he be home for Christmas?’
‘He won’t be, Lexie.’ And Hugo took over, putting a hand on Polly’s arm as if to signal that he was about to impart medical advice from the team. It was a solid way to go, Polly thought, presenting a united front, and why it made her feel …
Um, no. She wasn’t going there. Right now, she couldn’t.
‘Guys, we’re going to send him on to Sydney,’ Hugo said, firmly now. ‘The operation I just performed was to his groin and, as far as I can tell, it’s successful. But his knee needs a competent orthopaedic surgeon. I’d also like him checked by a specialist urologist. We’ll send him on to Sydney Central as soon as possible. It’ll take about an hour to get the chopper here for transfer. Maree, if you’d like to go with him, I’ll tell the hospital you’ll need accommodation—they have self-contained flats for just this purpose.’
The group had been starting to relax. Now, as one, they froze.
‘But it’s Christmas,’ Maree whispered. ‘We can’t go to Sydney for Christmas.’
‘You don’t have a choice,’ Hugo said, still gently, and Maree burst into tears again.
‘Hey.’ The toffee apple lady still had her in her arms. ‘Hey, sweetheart, it’s okay. We’ll manage.’
‘But what about Grandma?’ Maree lifted a woebegone face to Hugo. ‘What about you, Mum?’
‘We’ll manage.’
‘You can’t. Grandma’s got Alzheimer’s,’ Maree explained, looking wildly up at Hugo. ‘She’s so confused and she gets angry with Mum, but if Terry and I are there she calms down and Mum relaxes and enjoys Christmas. If we’re not there …’
‘We’ll take care of things.’ The other woman spoke then, a woman who by her looks had to be Terry’s mum. ‘We’ll look after everyone.’
‘But we’ll be by ourselves for Christmas.’
‘With a recovering husband. Surely that’s the most important thing?’ It was Terry’s dad, glancing back at the door into Theatre, but all three women turned and glared at him.
‘Christmas with family …’ Maree snapped. ‘What’s more important than that?’
‘Now you know very well that health comes first,’ her mum said. ‘But you know what? Terry’ll be recovering. And you know Aldi Baker? She moved to her son’s big house in the centre of Sydney and now her son’s gone to Paris for Christmas. She’s gone with him and she said if ever we want a base in Sydney we can use that house. So why not now? Why not pack all of us up and we can go to Sydney?’ She looked up at Terry’s parents. ‘You too. Aldi says there’s six bedrooms—can you believe that? It’s as if it’s meant. We can pick up everything—except the toffee apples—they might be well and truly stuffed and they were just for the Christmas Eve fete at the school anyway. We can take everything down there tomorrow morning. If needs be, I bet we could have Christmas in Terry’s hospital room.’
‘The specialists might even let him out by then,’ Hugo conceded, smiling as the despair in the room turned to tentative excitement. ‘He’ll still need tests but if he stays in Sydney … No promises, but it’s possible …’
‘There you go then,’ Maree’s mum said and before Hugo could protect himself she’d flung her arms around him and planted what was probably a very sticky kiss on his cheek. She hugged Polly for good measure and then headed back to hug each and every one of her family.
Family …
And Polly was suddenly staring at them all thinking … family.
She was running away.
Why was she running?
Enough. She was tired, she decided. She was overwrought. Her emotions were all over the place. What she needed right now was bed. Hugo was right—bed rest.
Somewhere away from Hugo.
Why did the presence of this man unsettle her so much? A week ago she’d never met him.
Why was the concept of family suddenly everywhere?
‘I’ll see you back at the house,’ she mumbled and Hugo took her arm and led her to the door.
‘I’ll take you.’
‘It’s two minutes’ walk.’
‘I’ll take you,’ he said more firmly, and then he turned back to Terry’s family. ‘I’ll be back in a few minutes. Joe’s looking after Terry. He’ll let me know the minute he’s awake enough for you to see him. But, Maree, that chopper lands in an hour so it might be better to grab some clothes now …’
‘We’ll all be in Sydney by midday tomorrow,’ her mum said. ‘We can bring everything she needs.’
‘And I don’t need toffee apples, Mum,’ Maree managed and everyone laughed and Hugo’s arm tightened around Polly’s shoulders and he led her to the door.
‘I do need to take Polly home,’ he said. ‘She’s still suffering after-effects …’
‘From the snake bite.’ Terry’s dad finished the sentence for him and came forward and took her hand—her bad hand—and gripped it and didn’t even notice her wince. ‘You’re amazing. Thank God you came to the Valley, girl. If you’d like to stay for ever, you’d be very, very welcome.’
Her hand hurt. The grip had been hard.
Her ankle hurt.
Actually, all of her hurt. The aches and bruises that had been put on the backburner by adrenaline now started to make themselves known.
She really was wobbly. She really did need Hugo’s arm around her as they headed across the path from hospital to house.
Or she told herself that. Because somehow it felt … okay.
It felt as if his hold was somehow linking her to … reality?
That was a nonsense thought, but then her head was producing a lot of nonsense at the moment.
It was his skill, she told herself. His surgeon’s fingers had been amazing to watch. Skill was always a turn-on.
Skill had nothing to do with it.
Hugo was a turn-on.
She was so aware of him. She was behaving like a teenager with a crush, she decided, but the thought was fleeting because the sensation of being held, being cared for, was so infinitely sweet …
They reached the veranda steps. He took her arm and she let herself lean on him as she climbed.
She hated being cared for. Didn’t she?
‘I need to go back,’ he said, and she heard a reluctance in his voice that matched hers. ‘I need to organise transport.’
‘Of course you do.’
‘Mmm?’
‘Thank you.’
‘There’s no need to thank me,’ she said, whispering suddenly although there was no need to whisper because there was no one to hear but Hamster, who’d wagged his tail once when they’d reached the top of the steps and then gone back to sleep. He was a dog obviously used to the comings and goings of his master. ‘I believe I’m being paid.’
‘Not enough,’ he said and she turned and smiled. She knew her smile was shaky. She knew she was too close and she knew what she was doing was unwise—but she was doing it anyway.
‘I’d do it for free,’ she murmured and his smile suddenly faded and so did hers. And his hands came out to take hers and almost unconsciously—as if she had no say in what was happening at all—she tilted her chin in a gesture that meant only one thing.
That meant he had nothing to do but lower his mouth to hers.
That meant he had nothing to do but kiss her.
She’d never been kissed like this.
She must have been, she thought dazedly. She’d had boyfriends since her early teens. Her mum had been matchmaking for ever, and Polly wasn’t exactly a shrinking violet. Boyfriends were fun. Kissing was nice.
This kissing wasn’t nice. This kiss was …
Mind-blowing. There were no other words big enough, for from the moment his mouth met hers she seemed to be melting. It was as if his body was somehow merging into hers, supporting her, warming her, becoming part of her.
Her senses were exploding.
His mouth enveloped hers and all she could do was taste him, feel him, want him. She was kissing with a fierceness that almost frightened her.
She’d never been out of control with her boyfriends. She dated ‘nice’ boys.
This was no nice boy. This was a man who was as hungry as she was, as demanding, as committed …
Hungry? Demanding? Committed? That described her. She could be none of those things, yet right now she was all three. She surrendered herself to his kiss and she gloried in it. Her fingers entwined themselves in his hair, tugging him closer. She was standing on tiptoe but his arms were around her waist, pulling her up, so the kiss could sink deeper …
She was on fire.
Hugo … His name was a whisper, a shout, a declaration all by itself. Pollyanna Hargreaves was right out of her comfort zone. She was right out of control.
If he picked her up and carried her to his bed right now, would she submit?
There was no submit about it. If she had her way it’d be Polly who’d be doing the carrying. She wanted him!
She couldn’t have him. Even as the crazy idea hit, the need to carry this straight through to the bedroom, he was putting her back.
It was a wrench like no other. Their mouths parted and she felt … lost.
‘I need to go.’ His voice was ragged. ‘Terry needs …’
‘Y … yes.’
He took a step back, turned away and then paused and turned back. ‘That wasn’t a casual kiss.’
‘You could have fooled me,’ she managed and he gave a twisted smile.
‘Polly, what I’m feeling …’
And suddenly it was out there, this thing between them. Lust, love—whatever. Only it couldn’t be love, Polly thought dazedly, because they’d only known each other for three days and no one fell in love that fast.
Lust, then. The way she was feeling … certainly it was lust.
‘Yeah, I’m feeling it, too,’ she managed. ‘So it’s just as well you’re going away soon because I’m just over a possessive boyfriend. And I don’t do casual affairs, or family either, for that matter, and you have a daughter …’
‘A niece.’
‘A niece.’ She closed her eyes as she corrected herself. A waif-like kid who Hugo loved. Why did that make him seem more sexy, not less?
Why was Ruby suddenly in the equation?
‘Hugo, I don’t do family,’ she said again and surprisingly her voice sounded almost calm. ‘That’s why I’m here—to get away from ties.’
‘This isn’t some kind of trap.’ He said it fast.
Trap? How could she ever think of a kiss as a trap?
‘Of course it’s not,’ she agreed. ‘It was a kiss, simply that. Excellent surgical skills always turn me on, Dr Denver.’
‘So if I had warts on my nose, a sagging middle and a disinclination to wash, but I removed an appendix with style, you’d still turn into a puddle of molten passion?’
He was smiling, making things light, and she had to too. ‘You’d better believe it.’
‘So, on a scale of one to ten … speedy repair of ingrown toenail?’
‘Ooh, don’t talk dirty,’ she managed and scraped up a grin. ‘Next you’ll be talking laparoscopic gallstone removal and I have no defences.’
He chuckled but it sounded forced. He was as shaken as she was, she thought.
But they were apart now. Work was waiting and they both knew it.
‘Bed,’ he said and she blinked.
‘Is that an order?’
‘I guess it is.’
‘You’re not my doctor.’ It suddenly seemed important—incredibly important—to make that clear.
‘I know.’ He hesitated. ‘And in two weeks I won’t be your colleague.’
‘And I’ll be on the other side of the world.’
‘Really? Where?’
‘Sudan, maybe. Ethiopia.’
‘With Type One Diabetes?’ He sounded incredulous.
‘I can cope.’
‘Polly …’
‘Don’t fuss.’
‘I’m not fussing.’ Except he was, she thought, and she also thought, with a modicum of self-knowledge, that she’d driven him to fuss. It was like someone with one leg declaring they intended to be a tightrope walker.
She could probably do it.
Her parents would worry.
This man might too, and by making such a declaration … it had been like a slap. Fuss if you dare; it’ll give me an excuse to run.
It wasn’t fair.
‘Go,’ she told him. ‘Work’s waiting. The chopper should be here soon.’
‘Yes.’ But still there was hesitation.
‘The kiss was a mistake,’ she said. ‘An aberration.’
‘We both know it was no such thing, but I can’t push. I have no right. Polly …’
‘Go,’ she said. ‘No such thing or not, I’m completely uninterested.’
Hugo headed back to the hospital feeling … empty. Gutted?
What had just happened?
He’d been knocked back. He’d kissed her. She’d responded with passion but that passion had given way to sense. She was fiercely independent and wanted to be more so. He had a commitment that would tie him here for life.
He was trapped here. How could he possibly ask a woman to share this trap?
Maybe he could move back to Sydney. Maybe he could pick up the strings of the life he’d known before. He moved in the circles Polly moved in …
Except she wasn’t going back to Sydney. She was escaping family and he had Ruby. The life he had in Sydney was over.
The thought of Sydney was like a siren song. He could go back to performing the surgery he’d trained for. He was picking up his family medicine skills here, but the surgical skills he’d fought to gain … to let them fade …
He had no choice but to let them go. Ruby had lost far more than he had. He could take Ruby back to Sydney—of course he could—but apartment life wouldn’t suit her or Hamster. He’d be back working twelve-hour days. Ruby wouldn’t be surrounded by people who cared about her.
His trap had firmly closed.
He sighed and squared his shoulders and headed up the ramp to the hospital entrance.
A wallaby was sitting by the door.
‘Popped in for a check-up?’ he asked the little creature. The wallaby seemed to be admiring her reflection in the glass door. ‘Or is there anything more urgent I can help you with?’
The wallaby turned and gazed at him, almost thoughtfully. They stared at each other for a long moment and then the helicopter appeared, low and fast, from the east. The wallaby looked up at the sky, looked again at Hugo and then bounded off, back down the ramp and into the bush.
Back to freedom. No ties there.
‘I’m not jealous,’ Hugo muttered as he headed through the doors and made his way to the waiting Terry. ‘I can make a life here.’
Without Polly?
‘And that’s a stupid thought,’ he told himself. ‘You made that decision well before Polly came on the scene. How one red-headed, flibbertigibbet doctor can mess with your equanimity …’
‘A flibbertigibbet?’ he demanded of himself and he must have said the word too loud because Joe was waiting for him and he raised his brows in enquiry.
‘The wallaby,’ he explained. ‘She was looking at her reflection in the glass door. She’s headed back to the bush now. I thought she might have a medical issue, but she was probably just checking her mascara. Flibbertigibbet. Wallabies are like that.’
‘Yes, Doctor,’ Joe said cautiously. ‘Mate, are you … okay?’
‘Never better,’ he murmured. ‘One more day of work and then I’m off for Christmas holidays. Bring it on.’
‘You can’t wait to get out of here?’
‘How can you doubt it?’ he demanded, but he thought of Polly standing on the veranda looking after him and he knew that doubt was totally justified.
Polly stayed on the veranda for a very long time.
The kiss stayed with her.
She sank into one of the big cane chairs and Hamster licked her hand and put his big boofy head on her knee. It was almost as if he knew she needed comfort.
Why did she need comfort? What possible reason was there to feel bereft?
Just because someone had kissed her …
Just because someone was impossible.
She should leave now. That was what part of her felt like doing—packing her little sports car and driving away, fast.
That was fear talking—and why was she fearful?
Where was the new brave Polly now? The intrepid Polly who’d walked away from her family, who’d vowed to be independent, who’d hankered after a life free of the obligations of loving?
It had all seemed so simple back in Sydney. Toss in her hospital job. Declare her independence to her parents. Start treating herself as a grown-up.
She wasn’t feeling grown-up now. She was feeling … just a little bit stupid.
‘Which is stupid all by itself,’ she told Hamster. ‘Here I am, less than a week into my new life, and I’m questioning everything. I haven’t given it a chance. And if I left here … where would I run to? Back to my parents? Not in a month of Sundays. Off to Ethiopia? We both know that’s not going to happen. No, all I need to do is stay here, keep my feet firmly on the ground, keep lust solidly damped and get on with my work. And I’ll work better if I sleep now.’
But the kiss was still with her, all around her, enveloping her in its sweetness.
‘Hugo’s back at work and he’s probably forgotten all about it,’ she told Hamster. ‘Men are like that.’
Hamster whined and put a paw on her lap.
‘With one exception,’ she told him generously. ‘And by the way, if Hugo thinks he’s taking you back to that boarding place while he’s away, he has another think coming. You’re staying with me for Christmas.’
Because she didn’t want to be alone?
The question was suddenly out there, insidious, even threatening.
She did want to be alone, she told herself. That was what this whole locum bit was about. She’d been cloistered since birth. She needed to find herself.
She didn’t need Hugo.
‘And he doesn’t need me,’ she told herself, rising and heading indoors, not because she wanted to but because it was sensible and a woman had to be sensible. She had the remnants of a snake bite and a cut hand to take care of. Medicine … That was what she was here for, and that was what she needed to focus on.
‘And nothing else,’ she told herself as she passed the tree in the living room with Ruby’s stack of origami gifts.
She hoped Ruby was having a happy sleepover with her friend tonight.
‘But that’s nothing to do with me either,’ she told Hamster and she took a couple of deep breaths and poured herself a glass of juice for her bedside, because a woman had to be sensible.
‘That’s the new me,’ she told Hamster as she headed for her bedroom. ‘Sensible R Us. I’m Dr Pollyanna Hargreaves, with the frivolous name, but there’s nothing else frivolous about me. I’m here to focus on medicine and nothing else. I will not think about Hugo Denver. Not one bit.’
She lied.
She went to bed and lay in the dark and all she could think of was Hugo. All she could feel was Hugo. His kiss enveloped her dreams and she tossed and turned and decided that snake bite venom was insidious.
It had turned one sensible doctor into an idiot.