‘HAVE you heard who your next registrar is yet?’ David Lucas asked as he came into the doctors’ room late on Tuesday afternoon.Ben Blackwood looked up from the newspaper he’d been reading. ‘No. I’ve been seeing private patients in my rooms all day. Anyone we know?’The anaesthetist gave him a glad-it’s-you-and-not-me look. ‘Professor Willoughby’s daughter,’ he said, and seeing his colleague’s grim expression added, ‘I thought that might make your day.’Ben tossed the paper to one side. ‘So Daddy’s little girl is trying her hand at neurosurgery, is she?’ he asked with a little curl of his lip.‘Looks like it,’ David answered as he poured himself a coffee. ‘You’d better behave yourself, Ben. I know you don’t like the man but his only child is on the training scheme and you have a responsibility to train her just as you would any other registrar.’Ben got to his feet and gave his workmate a confident smile. ‘You know me, Davo, I will remain professional at all times,’ he said, push
‘NOT your usual mode of transport to work,’ Rob Athol, the accident and emergency doctor, remarked dryly as Ben was unloaded from the ambulance. ‘They phoned through and told us you got knocked off your bike. How are you feeling?’Ben gave him a scowl as he ripped off the oXygen mask and collar. ‘I’m perfectly fine, thank you,’ he said. ‘Some stupid girl flung her car door open on me. I was lucky another car wasn’t coming.’‘You were lucky she was a doctor,’ Rob commented, as his gaze ran over the bandages on Ben’s arms and legs. ‘It looks like she did a pretty good job on you.’Ben gave him another furious scowl as he struggled out of the bandages, tossing them in the bin as he went. ‘I’m more than half an hour late for Theatre,’ he growled. ‘And it couldn’t have happened on a worse day. I’ve got a new registrar to train.’‘You sure you’ll be OK to operate?’ Rob asked, reaching for his ophthalmoscope.‘Don’t you start,’ Ben said. ‘Besides, I’ve got a full list today. Too many pu
‘SO HOW was your first day?’ Rhiannon asked as Georgie came home later that evening. Georgie tossed her bag on the sofa and clamped her hands to the sides of her head above her ears. ‘Arrrggghhhh!’ Rhiannon winced. ‘Oh, dear,’ she said. ‘That doesn’t sound so good.’ ‘I cannot believe everyone thinks that man is God’s gift to the public health system,’ Georgie ranted. ‘He was insufferable!’ ‘Insufferable, huh?’ Rhiannon curled up on the sofa and, tucking a cushion against her middle, waited patiently to hear the rest. ‘Yes,’ Georgie said, still pacing the floor in agitation. ‘Insufferable, arrogant, rude and … and …’ ‘Nice-looking?’ Rhiannon offered helpfully. Georgie turned to face her with an irritated expression on her face. ‘That’s completely irrelevant.’ Rhiannon’s finely arched brows lifted. ‘Is it?’ ‘Of course it is,’ Georgie said. ‘You know what we said. No dating until after Easter.’ ‘Just checking,’ Rhiannon said with a little grin. ‘So what did he do to get you so
‘SO WHERE is the registrar this morning?’ Ben asked Irene Clark, the unit head nurse on duty.‘She called the unit a few minutes ago. She’s going to be a few minutes late,’ Irene said. ‘She said something about an accident.’Ben gave a grunt and turned to the four medical students and the intern hovering in the background. ‘Just for the record if you need to make up an excuse for being absent or late, make sure it’s an original each time,’ he said. ‘I will be keeping a mental record of how many grandmothers’ funerals, toothaches or minor traffic accidents occur.’There was a snigger from the group just as Georgie burst onto the ward. ‘Sorry I’m so late,’ she said a little breathlessly. ‘I was caught up in an accident and—’Ben hooked one brow upwards. ‘Another one, Dr Willoughby?’Georgie stopped in her tracks, her eyes taking in the interested stares from the medical students and Jules Littlemore the intern. She drew her shoulders back and met Ben’s dark satirical gaze with an e
Georgie disguised a little swallow as her gaze dipped to his mouth. She was so close to him she could see the pepper of dark stubble on hisface as if he had skipped shaving that morning. It gave him an arrantly masculine look that was devastatingly attractive. She tried to edge her fingers away from his but somehow one of his hands had come down over both of hers, trapping them beneath his.‘W-what consequences?’ she croaked as her eyes returned to his. Long seconds seemed to pass before he spoke.‘I’m not going to tolerate this sort of performance, Dr Willoughby. If there is any more slacking off, you’ll be out on your ear. Understood?’‘Perfectly,’ she said through tight lips.He released her hands as he straightened, his hands going to his trouser pockets, the deep thrust of them drawing her eyes like a magnet. He had such long, strong legs, toned by hours of hard exercise, his waist lean and his stomach flat and ridged with muscle that was clearly visible through the lightwei
‘HAS anyone seen Dr Willoughby about?’ Ben asked in the unit later that day. ‘I think she’s left for the day,’ the afternoon shift nurse Carla Yates informed him. ‘She was on call last night so I expect she was feeling a bit tired. It was a busy night. Do you want me to get her on the line for you?’ ‘No,’ he said, reaching for his phone. ‘I’ll call her myself. It’s not urgent.’ ‘She’s nothing like her father, is she?’ Carla asked after a little pause. Ben looked at her with as little animation as possible. ‘What?’ ‘Georgie Willoughby,’ she said. ‘She’s rather a sweetie, don’t you think?’ He gave the nurse a noncommittal shrug. ‘She’s OK, I guess.’ ‘Jennifer Patterson was telling me Georgie quite possibly saved a young baby’s life this morning,’ she carried on. Ben felt another wave of remorse begin to tighten his stomach. ‘Oh, really?’ ‘Yes, she was first on the scene at a minor accident but insisted on the baby being brought in for observation. It turns out the little girl ha
THE Italian restaurant he had chosen was small but full of the delicious aromas of garlic and basil and home-cooked pasta. It was run by an Italian couple in their late fifties, Gina and Roberto, who greeted Ben warmly as he came in with Georgie a step or two behind. ‘Buona sera, Dottore Blackwood. Is this your new lady friend? And about time, too. We have been waiting for this for months. Leila Ingham was not pretty enough for you. This one magnifico!’ ‘She’s my new registrar, actually,’ Ben said, clearly bursting the restaurateur’s bubble. ‘Georgie, this is Roberto and Gina Di Copella.’ ‘Piacare di conoscerla,’ Georgie said with a friendly smile. ‘Parlate Italiano!’ Georgie rocked her hand back and forth in a gesture of modesty. ‘A little.’ Ben waited until they were seated and drinks ordered before he said, ‘I didn’t realise you were a bit of a linguist. That must come in handy at times.’ ‘My parents paid for me to go on a siX-week holiday to Italy when I finished high schoo
GEORGIE buried her head in the menu, her fingers still tingling where Ben’s had touched hers. She was ashamed at her weakness. She had been so confident she would win the bet with Rhiannon but she could see that things were going to get tricky if she didn’t put a stop to this right now. She couldn’t remember a time when she had been so instantly attracted to a man. Sure, she’d had a few boyfriends, and Andrew McNally, the last one, had been relatively serious. She had even considered herself in love enough to contemplate marriage until she had found out his previous girlfriend hadn’t quite moved out of his life.Georgie realised that it had been her pride that had taken the beating, not her heart. But falling in love with Ben Blackwood was not just going to lose her a thousand dollars. He had a chip on his shoulder that was going to take quite some shifting and she wasn’t sure she was up to the task of doing it.Besides, she was supposed to be focusing on her career, not marriage an