Typical, she thought angrily. Rafael Ransome thinks he’s too damned special to wait his turn. As she watched he began to speak in a low voice to the befuddled guy who had been holding everyone up. There was nothing threatening about his body language and the conversation, considering the older man’s loud hostility, seemed to be perfectly amicable. Possibly too amicable for Rafe, she thought as the drunk suddenly threw his arms about the younger man’s neck and announced to everyone that this was a good guy!
Natalie watched in disbelief as the man let Rafe lead him back to a seat in the waiting area and bring him a drink from the vending machine. It would seem that nobody was immune to Rafe’s charm and persuasiveness.
By the time the overtaxed security team arrived the queue was moving smoothly and Rafe had, much to Natalie’s discomfort, joined her.
‘Did you have to interfere? What if he’d got nasty? You could have made things worse.’ She heard her voice rise to an unattractive, shrill accusing note. ‘You should have left it for the people who are paid to deal with that sort of thing,’ she gritted. ‘The ones who know what they’re doing.’
One of that number chose that precise moment to approach them. ‘Cheers, mate,’ he said, slapping Rafe on the shoulder. ‘Understand we owe you one. Old Charlie’s a regular,’ he explained, nodding in the direction of the old man who was now snoring happily away. ‘But he can get nasty. Last time he took a swing at a nurse.’
‘See, you shouldn’t have interfered,’ Natalie insisted, glaring up at the modest hero. ‘Have-a-go heroes usually get themselves or someone else hurt.’
‘Well, I didn’t.’
Natalie, who was feeling physically ill visualising a scenario where he had got injured, didn’t reply.
‘I just need to find out which ward they’ve taken Rose to,’ she explained hoarsely. ‘You don’t need to hang around,’ she added pointedly.
Rafe smiled down into her face but didn’t budge.
To Natalie’s intense annoyance, when it was her turn and she enquired about Rose from the pretty girl behind the desk it was to Rafe the young woman replied.
‘Your little girl has been taken up to Ward Six. If you and your wife—’
‘She’s not his little girl and I am not his wife!’ Natalie snarled before she stamped away. ‘That should make you happy,’ she added under her breath. It just made her sick that some women were so obvious, and some men just lapped it up.
‘You think I’m in with a chance there, then?’
He must have incredibly acute hearing. ‘Listen, I’m grateful you got me here,’ she said, sounding anything but, ‘but, like I said, there’s absolutely no need for you to stay.’ As she spoke they came to another intersection; Natalie took the right turn without looking at the direction sign overhead.
‘I take it you’ve been here before,’ Rafe observed drily.
‘Why are you still here?’ she puffed, genuinely puzzled by his continued presence.
‘It would be like walking out before the end of a film if I left now…I’d be wondering all night what happened.’
They had reached the door to the ward. Natalie pressed the buzzer and waited. Still slightly breathless from the brisk jogging pace he’d set, she tilted up her head to the man beside her—it went without saying that he wasn’t out of breath. Just looking at him standing there in his designer suit with not a hair out of place made her bristle with antagonism. How had she ever imagined they could be friends…?
‘I’m so glad we are providing some entertainment for you!’ she exclaimed bitterly. ‘Better than interactive telly.’
A muscle clenched in his lean cheek. ‘For God’s sake, woman, it was a joke. I know you think I’m some sort of heartless creep…’ It was pretty hard to miss the fact—she didn’t fall over herself to deny this estimation. ‘What is it with you? Why can’t you accept people want to help? Why do you throw their concern back in their faces?’
The anger faded from his face as he looked into her pale, upturned features—too-bright eyes looked back at him. He judged that she was keeping going on nervous tension alone. Take that away and she would shatter like a piece of the fragile porcelain she reminded him of.
Natalie blinked. ‘You want to help…?’
‘I’d like to stay until you find out how your daughter is.’ Rafe’s frustrated urge to protect her from dead-beat ex-husbands and her own stubborn independence found release in a fresh burst of anger. ‘You’ll drive yourself into the ground with this I-don’t-need-anyone stuff,’ he predicted grimly. ‘Who’s going to look after your daughter then?’ Natalie winced at this brutal observation. ‘Your loser ex…?’
Her eyes filled with tears. Nice one, you always have to go too far, don’t you, Rafe…?
‘If you want me to go, just say so and I will,’ he grunted.
Gold-shot green locked with electric-blue and Natalie’s mind went a blank, then from out of nowhere she heard herself say, ‘No! No, I don’t want you to go.’
Natalie saw some emotion, strong but unidentifiable, flicker in the back of his eyes and she went pink. Her no hadn’t been a laid-back, if-you-like sort of no, more a raw, you’ll-leave-over-my-dead-body sort of no. Another of those silences filled with dangerous currents began to stretch between them. It was broken when a crackly voice emerged from the speaker on the wall.
With a sigh of relief Natalie identified herself and the door clicked open.
She turned to Rafe and gave an offhand shrug. ‘I didn’t mean to be rude but I’m used to doing this alone.’
‘And do you like it that way?’
‘I haven’t had much choice. Someone has to make the decisions and I’m the one on the spot,’ she explained matter-of-factly. ‘You can stay if you like, but you’ll have to wait here.’ She nodded towards some seats and left him. She had no expectation that he would still be there when she returned.
He was.
CHAPTER SIX
NATALIE stopped mid-yawn and stared. ‘You’re still here!’ The clock on the wall behind him read half-past midnight.
Rafe languidly uncurled his long, lean length from the uncomfortable-looking chair that was far too small to accommodate him and stretched. The action caused his shirt to pull tight, revealing the definition of his well-developed chest muscles shadowed by dark body hair and his washboard-flat belly.
She knew she was staring but tiredness made Natalie less able to adequately disguise the effect this disturbing spectacle was having on her—if not from him, certainly from herself. Finally in a position where she couldn’t hide from the truth, she could hardly believe that she’d been walking around for weeks acting as if the facts her blood pressure went rocketing and she couldn’t think straight when he was around were simply a coincidence.
Talk about fooling yourself!
‘Why…?’ she asked, closing her eyes briefly while she regained a degree of composure. Now she had accepted how attracted to him she was, she could guard against it. If she’d been more honest sooner that kiss might not have happened.
When she opened her eyes again Rafe had fastened a button on his loose-fitting jacket. She watched, her expression carefully neutral, as he smoothed back his thick hair, which to her eyes seemed perfectly ordered. She found herself considering how it might feel to mess it up again…to run her fingers deep into that lush— Stop that, Natalie!
‘I had nowhere else to be.’
Natalie could not allow a lie this blatant to pass unchallenged. ‘I find that difficult to believe.’
‘So now you’re wondering what my ulterior motives are. Actually, Natalie…I fell asleep,’ he ruefully revealed in the manner of someone making a clean breast of it. ‘I had a long session with Magnus Macfaden today…the usual battle of attrition.’
He seemed genuine enough and she supposed the explanation was just about plausible.
‘No wonder you’re tired, then.’ Natalie had never met the head of the famous electronics firm but she had heard about him. ‘I’m
just surprised you managed to sleep through the noise.’ Everyone entering and leaving the ward would have passed by him and it had been a busy evening.
‘Oh, I can sleep anywhere, any time.’
‘And with whoever you want, but then you already know that. Everyone who reads a tabloid knows that.’ Please tell me I didn’t just say that out loud.
‘Are your objections moral or personal?’ he enquired with interest.
‘Neither!’ she squeaked. ‘Your personal life is your own business.’
‘It’s not nearly as…active, as the papers would have you believe.’
‘Whatever,’ she said, evincing disinterest.
‘How is your daughter?’
‘Rose is much better, thanks. She’s finally asleep and off the nebuliser. I just thought I’d stretch my legs; if you fall asleep in one of those chairs you can’t move in the morning.’
Rafe let his head fall back and flexed his shoulders. ‘That I can believe,’ he grimaced.
‘What you need is a massage,’ she observed without thinking—at least, she was thinking, but of things she had no business to be thinking about.
A half-smile played around his lips. ‘Are you offering…?’
Natalie went as red as it was possible to go without spontaneously combusting. ‘Most certainly not!’
His suggestive sigh of pity combined with the lingering image in her head of her hands sliding over oiled golden flesh made her stomach muscles flutter madly. Their eyes touched and the liquid heat pooled shockingly between her thighs.
‘Have you done many all-night stints in the chairs?’
Natalie couldn’t look at him.
‘One or two. You know, about that kiss earlier…I don’t want you to get the wrong idea…’ she said awkwardly.
‘What idea would that be?’
‘I don’t…well, I don’t have casual relationships. It wouldn’t be fair to Rose for her to get fond of a man only to have him disappear from her life. She’s already had that happen once. I’m not saying this because I think you want to…’