Hearts Of Gold. Meredith Webber

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      He could feel her heart beating against her ribs and sensed a tension in her, as if kissing a strange man was a very risky business even with two hundred congress delegates and their partners within screaming distance. And while he guessed she wasn’t not enjoying it, she was also poised for flight.

      Then suddenly she was with him, opening her lips to him, responding—whatever inhibitions had been holding her released.

      Had they really kissed for an hour, or had they danced for longer than he’d thought they had? Afterwards he tried to work out the timing, but found he couldn’t.

      Unless they had kissed for an hour…

      Could anyone kiss for an hour?

      All he knew was that they’d kissed for a long time, demanding more and more of each other until it had seemed they’d known each other’s blood.

      Until he’d known they’d had to get off the terrace before they’d become a public spectacle!

      ‘Can I walk you to your room?’ he asked, voice husky with the passion kissing had aroused.

      She leaned back in his arms, and looked up into his face. Dark eyes—brown or hazel, though he couldn’t tell which in the shadows—scanned his face, while his own eyes were riveted on her bruised and swollen—well-kissed—lips.

      ‘No,’ she said, and pushed away from him, but as he released her he felt a shudder pass through her body, as if his suggestion had repelled her.

      When she’d kissed him like she had?

      Then she touched his hand and said gently, as if apologising for the shudder, ‘My room’s too far away.’

      And with that she departed, not back into the bar where the dancers were now gathering for nightcaps, but down the steps towards the lawn, vanishing into the night’s shadows.

      He’d find her again, he vowed as disappointment doused the fire within his body.

      The congress ran for three more days, and the hotel was closed to all but congress attendees and their partners.

      Partners? He hadn’t seen her at any congress sessions. She was with someone?

      Married?

      But unhappy—he’d felt her unhappiness from the moment they’d met.

      He’d find her. Find out about her.

      Kiss her?

      That would be up to her!

      CHAPTER TWO

      ‘YOU know something, Henry,’ Annie said, pouring milk over the cereal she’d piled in both their bowls, ‘I hate the idea of starting this new job.’

      Henry, far more interested in the preparation of his breakfast than in Annie’s conversation, said nothing, prompting Annie to explain.

      ‘I know I was excited about it back when it was first offered to me. Really excited. Well, all right, I was over the moon—but that was before I realised Dan Petersen was leaving. I thought Dan would be my boss.’

      She lifted Henry’s bowl and put it in front of him.

      ‘Now I’ve got a new job and a new boss! And there’s something dodgy about it, I know there is. I’ve been invited for little chats with just about every hospital executive, which, even when you consider it’s a new unit, seems strange. And there’ve been looks between those pencil-pushers, and conversations that stop when I walk near them. Definitely dodgy.’

      Henry gave a derisive huff, as if he didn’t believe a word she was saying.

      ‘Then there’s the man himself—the new boss,’ Annie continued, refusing to be put off by his lack of support. ‘You know I don’t listen to gossip—’

      Henry’s look of disbelief forced her to add, ‘Well, I do listen, it’s the lifeblood of the hospital, but I don’t repeat it, except to you. And even if I didn’t listen I couldn’t have helped but hear the stories about him—they’re legion. He may be a surgical genius but he’s a tyrant both in Theatre and in the ward, and the words they use about him. “Ruthless” seems to come up most often. Now ruthless, as you and I both know, usually implies a person who’ll do anything to get ahead, so why’s a ruthless top US surgeon with an international reputation coming here, to Jimmie’s, to work? Working here, even setting up a new unit, isn’t going to put four stars on his CV—not even one star, to tell the truth—so why? That’s what I want to know.’

      Soft brown eyes looked into hers, but Henry offered no comment. Instead, he turned away, scoffed his breakfast then, realising she hadn’t started hers, looked hopefully at her.

      ‘You’re not getting it,’ she told him, ‘so don’t sit there drooling all over the floor. Go outside and chase a cat. Bark at something. Wake the neighbours.’

      He gave her a look that acknowledged her contrary mood but made no move to offer comfort by bumping his big head against her legs. You’ve only yourself to blame, he was telling her. Or maybe she was telling herself, only it seemed more definitive coming from Henry.

      ‘That dog doesn’t understand a word you say.’ Her father propelled his wheelchair into the kitchen. ‘They go on tone of voice. Listen.’

      In the sweetest, kindest voice a gruff and unemotional man could muster, he called Henry all the harshest names under the sun, berating him without mercy, while the dog fawned at his feet—bumping his head against her father’s knees in utter adoration.

      ‘We all know that trick, Dad,’ Annie grumbled, picking up her handbag and looping the strap over her shoulder. ‘I’ll leave you two here, bound in mutual admiration, and go to work to earn some money to keep us all.’

      Her father grinned at her, while his hand, twisted and gnarled by the rheumatoid arthritis which had also crippled his body, fondled Henry’s head.

      ‘Someone’s got to do it,’ he said, ‘and Henry’s got a full-time job taking care of me.’

      Annie dropped a kiss on his head, patted the dog and left the pair of them in the sunny kitchen. Her going out to work to keep them all was an old joke between them, her father being well enough off to afford to pay for whatever care he might need and to keep her and Henry in relative comfort. But her father knew how much her work meant to her, so had encouraged her to continue her career.

      ‘Or how much work used to mean to me,’ she muttered to herself as she strode along the tree-lined street towards the hospital. ‘Back when getting back to work was part of feeling normal, and having responsibilities in a job gave me a sense of being in control. Maybe it’s the control thing that’s making me edgy about the new position. Maybe I’m afraid this man will take that away from me. Maybe I’m not ready to lose control again…’

      Two schoolboys steered a wide path around her, no doubt taking her for a nutter because she was talking to herself.

      ‘A lot of people talk to themselves,’ she said, turning to address the words to their departing backs.

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