She hadn’t been stabbed in the chest. She hadn’t died.
Luca had pulled her out of the way.
But it didn’t stop the trembling from spreading to all her limbs and then to her insides. She took a couple of deep breaths, desperately trying to quell the outbreak.
It was a reaction, that was all. It would settle.
But the longer she sat, trying to get control of her breathing and the shaking, the more vulnerable she was to her emotions and thoughts. And she hated that—she’d learned long ago they didn’t get you anywhere.
But tonight she didn’t seem to be able to stop them.
Was that how her own father had felt when he’d found out about the paternity of her stillborn sister? Like Stan? Desperate and enraged? If there’d been a knife or a gun handy, would he have used it on her mother?
He’d walked away from them that day but she hadn’t known why until years later. Years of blaming him for abandoning them, years of hating him, only to find out that it had been her mother’s infidelities that had driven her father away.
Mia shook her head.
Stop it. Stop it!
This situation tonight had come too close to home but there was no need to fall apart. She wasn’t ten years old any more. She was an adult.
Clean yourself up and get back out there again!
Mia forced herself to action. To tend to the wound. Open the dressing pack, pour in some antiseptic lotion, pick up the gauze, work away at the dried blood.
It was awkward and hurt like the blazes but she welcomed the distraction from her thoughts and her shaking hands settled with a familiar routine.
Two minutes later Luca strode through the door. Mia glanced up at him, feeling strangely naked with her blouse discarded. Which was ridiculous—she was more than adequately covered. She ignored him, returning to the task at hand.
Luca lounged against the table and smiled to himself as Mia barely acknowledged his arrival. ‘You’re making a mess of that,’ he mused.
Mia glared at him. ‘It’s a little difficult.’
‘I do believe I told you I would attend to your wound.’ He folded his arms across his chest. ‘But you don’t like asking for help, do you, little Mia?’
His slight accent gave his deep baritone a very sexy edge as it rolled over her. ‘It’s Mia, or Dr McKenzie. Please refrain from addressing me any other way.’
Luca chuckled as he pushed off the bench. ‘Okay,
Mia.
’ He sat on the chair next to her. ‘Allow me,’ he said as he picked up some gauze and dabbed at the wound.
Mia didn’t protest—she was making a hash of it anyway. His touch was gentle as he coaxed the dried blood from the cut and she shivered. His fingers were dark against her paler skin and long.
Her father had long fingers. A pianist’s hands. He was tall too, like Luca. He’d told her he was her prince and she was his princess and they’d be together for ever.
And then he’d left.
She squeezed her eyes shut.
Stop it. Stop it.
Luca watched her. It was the first time he’d spent any length of time in her company and he was curious. He’d already noticed on their brief acquaintance she was a good-looking woman with a cute mouth and a sassy swagger.
But up close she was really quite exquisite.
Her face was long, as were her eyelashes. A frown appeared between her brows and her lips parted. She looked in pain.
‘Am I hurting you?’ he murmured.
Mia’s eyes fluttered open.
How had he got that close?
She could see the individual whiskers making up the smooth blue-black of his jaw and just make out the black pupil in the middle of his bottomless brown eyes. His hair, as dark as his eyes, was thick with a slight wave that brushed his forehead and the tops of his ears.
And his mouth. The full curve to that bottom lip was wicked.
His fingers stroked gently over her skin as he cleaned the wound and it reminded her it had been a while since a man had touched her.
She lowered her gaze to the column of his throat. ‘No.’
Luca was captivated by the slide show of emotions in her large blue eyes as magnificent and as transparent as a stained-glass window. The husky timbre of her voice wove between the bands of steel around his heart. ‘Are you okay?’
Mia nodded, keeping her gaze firmly fixed on his throat. The long tanned column of his neck was also shaded in blue-black smoothness. She remembered how
she’d loved the sandpaper roughness of her father’s neck as he’d cuddled her close to read to her at night.
Damn it!
She gripped the back of the chair hard. ‘I’m fine.’
‘You’ve been through an ordeal tonight. That knife came very close to—’
‘I said I’m fine,’ Mia interrupted, raising her face to scowl at him. ‘Just clean the damn wound.’
CHAPTER TWO
L
UCA
paused in his ministrations for a moment, the blue of her eyes frosty now. He’d only known her for a few short weeks and while he’d been impressed with her empathy for patients and her good rapport with her colleagues he’d also sensed she was a woman who preferred to keep herself pretty much to herself.
But she’d always been polite about it.
Something was definitely eating at Mia McKenzie tonight.
He shifted his attention back to the wound.
‘It’s borderline,’ he mused, looking at the clean ten-centimetre laceration. ‘It’s deeper laterally, could probably do with a couple of sutures there.’
Mia nodded to the pile of medical supplies on the table. ‘Steri-strips there somewhere.’
‘Sutures would be better.’
‘Steri-strips will be fine.’
‘The scarring will be worse if we use steri-strips.’
Mia shrugged. ‘I don’t care about a scar.’
Luca looked at her for a moment then fished around for the strips. ‘Most women would,’ he murmured when
he located them. He doubted he’d ever been with a single woman who didn’t obsess over the slightest blemish.
‘I’m not most women.’
Luca chuckled. ‘Yes. I think you are right.’
Mia sat still as he opened the packet and secured the wound edges together, applying firm tension through each sticky strip. Then he applied an adhesive dressing over the top. She watched as he absently brushed the pad of his thumb back and forth over the dressing as if he were a parent, rubbing a boo-boo better.
Just like her father had done.
‘You look like you’ve got a lot on your mind,’ he murmured.
Unfortunately, he was right. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her father since Stan’s episode. It had probably been the first time ever she’d been confronted with how emotionally untenable it had been for him to stay.
‘It’s busy,’ she said brusquely, rising from the chair and clearing away the detritus from her dressing and tossing it in the bin. ‘We can’t just skulk in here all night.’
‘The team have got it covered. And you’re not going back out there until you’ve had a break. Try and get some sleep.’ She opened her mouth to protest and he stood. ‘That’s an order.’
Great!
What in the hell was she going to do alone in here with a bunch of unwanted memories that wouldn’t quit?
Things she just wanted to forget.
‘What if a bus crash comes in?’
Luca grinned. ‘I’ll come and wake you.’
Mia felt the grin right down to her toes. It twinkled
in his eyes and gave the devil a whole new degree of wicked.
The fact that she noticed his twinkling eyes rankled. ‘Are you flirting with me?’ she demanded, crossing her arms.
Luca chuckled. She didn’t beat around the bush. ‘Would it be a bad thing if I was?’
‘Yes,’ she said. Something told her he wouldn’t be an easy man to walk away from. Not disposable, like the others. ‘Stop it. I have no desire to become a notch on what I understand is your very crowded bedpost.’
Luca regarded her for a moment. In her top and jeans, arms crossed, a frown knitting her brows, she looked quite fierce. But Luca knew women. He knew them well.
And Mia McKenzie was definitely protesting too much.
His gaze slipped to her mouth. ‘Are you sure?’
Mia felt her lips tingle beneath his heated stare and felt her resistance ebb.
Now, he was something that could make her forget for a little while.
Luca grinned, pleased to have discomforted her. ‘Goodnight, Mia. Don’t let the bed bugs bite.’
By four a.m. Luca was ready to head home. The craziness had settled and things were quiet—for now anyway.
He’d checked on the MVA from earlier—the laparotomy had found a perforated bowel. Stan had been admitted to the psych unit on a ninety-six-hour hold. The baby was settled into the special care nursery for overnight monitoring.
And his paperwork was up to date.
Just one last thing to do—check on Mia.
He hesitated, his hand on the doorknob of the on-call room. Prickly little Mia probably wouldn’t appreciate being checked up on.
Her prim
I have no desire to become a notch on what I understand is your very crowded bedpost,
had played on his mind ever since she’d uttered it.
She obviously disapproved.
What the hell was wrong with indulging in a little flirtation here and there? Spending an enjoyable few hours with a woman who was fully aware that one night was all he was interested in?
He was always open and honest about his intentions. And he never made the mistake of giving false hope by going back for seconds. He knew his limitations where relationships were concerned—had learned them at a very early age.
Best not to set expectations
—
that way you couldn’t let anyone down.
He loved women—bronzed, natural, fun-loving Australian women in particular—and they loved him. And he was a healthy adult male.
Still, Mia intrigued him. Her resistance even more so. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t want her.
He twisted the knob and opened the door. She wasn’t around and the light had been turned out. Sleeping room one had its door shut and he padded over to it, knocking lightly when he reached his destination.
No reply was forthcoming. He hesitated again before gently twisting the knob and opening the door a crack—checking on her
was
the right thing to do.
The sight stopped him in his tracks.
She had fallen asleep in a semi-upright foetal position
on the triple-seater couch. Her head was snuggled against the fat cushions of the sofa, her spine propped up against the squishy arm, her legs, tucked in close to her bottom, had fallen sideways to rest against the back of the couch.
She’d taken her hair out of its clasp and it fanned around her shoulders and the couch cushions. Her feet were bare. A medical journal lay open on her chest.
The lamp on the table beside the couch illuminated her relaxed profile in a warm yellow glow. His gaze tracked the outline of her nose, the slope of one cheekbone, the plump fullness of her mouth.
He was satisfied to see the journal on her chest rise and fell in a regular rhythm. His eyes dropped to the white dressing covering her upper arm and he absently noted there was no fresh ooze.
She was obviously fine.
As he watched, a little frown wrinkled her forehead and a soft mew escaped her mouth. He wondered what she was dreaming about. Her near-death experience? The flash of a blade? The bawling of a baby?
His question—
are you sure
?—from earlier?
She mewed again and he realised he was staring at a sleeping woman who would most definitely not appreciate the attention. He left the door ajar and turned away.
Mia was trapped in a dream she didn’t seem able to fight her way out of. It was one she hadn’t had since she’d been a little girl but it was disjointed, jumping back and forth between now and then. Between Stan and her father. Each slash of the knife through the air shunting the dream to the other person, to another time.
Her mother was there too somewhere, holding a
wrapped bundle that Mia knew was her stillborn sister. Her mother was sobbing those deep, gut-wrenching sobs that had been indelibly woven through the fabric of Mia’s life.
She was holding her father’s hand, her little ten-year-old fingers tugging at his long ones, asking him not to go. And then Stan would yell to get back, get back as the knifepoint came ever closer.
Daddy, don’t go. Don’t go.
Slash. Back, get back. Slash.
Please, Daddy, don’t go.
Slash. Slash. Back! Get back!
Daddy!
‘Daddy, come back!’
Luca was almost at the door when he heard her cry out. Without thinking, he hurried back to her, pushed open the door and strode over to the couch as Mia cried out again, flinging her head from side to side. The journal had already fallen to the floor.
Luca took her by the shoulders and gave her a gentle shake, mindful of her injury. ‘Mia! Mia.’
Mia heard a voice. A different voice. And the urge to run towards it, to run away from the feelings of hopelessness, was overwhelming.
Luca? Luca?
‘Mia.’ He shook her again. ‘It’s Luca. Wake up. Wake up.’
Mia’s eyes flew open.
Luca?
Luca was here?
The mellow lamplight bathed his strong masculine features, softening them—his jaw, his cheeks, his mouth—and he finally looked like that angel. She blinked away the crazy thought as tendrils of dread clung to every heartbeat.
Mia tried to sit up but her limbs wouldn’t co-operate and her arm throbbed. ‘Luca?’
‘Shh,’ he murmured, the pads of his thumbs absently stroking her shoulders. Her large blue eyes reflected her confusion. ‘It’s okay, you were having a bad dream.’
Mia nodded. ‘It was … there was …’
‘Your father?’
Mia blinked up at him. He pronounced the
th
softly, giving the word a gentleness it hadn’t had in the dream. Her head was crowded with memories. One after the other, battering her brains and beating against the locked door to her heart.
Old and long forgotten. Supposedly.