Sydney Harbour Hospital: Lily's Scandal. Marion Lennox

      Not in the on-call room.

      Luke disappeared and she could get on with her night’s work. Which was just as well. The guy was distracting, to say the least, and the staff reaction was well nigh unbearable. With him gone she could lose herself in what needed to be done.

      She felt mortified. She was also feeling … ill? Her stomach cramps were getting worse, and now there was nausea on top of them.

      She’d left Lighthouse Cove to get rid of the tension that was making her sick. In two days here, she’d only created more tension.

      ‘You’re looking pale,’ Elaine said in passing. ‘You’d better not be coming down with gastro. Half this hospital’s had it, but I thought we were past the worst. Are you feeling okay?’

      ‘I’m just tired,’ Lily said. ‘I’ve had a hard …’ She caught Elaine’s gaze and stopped. ‘I mean …’

      ‘No, no, I understand,’ Elaine said, grinning. ‘You and Luke … I’d imagine he can be very tiring. But according to Dr Blain, who heard it from Dr Lockheart, word is you already know him. Is that right? Why did you make me tell you about him if you’re old friends?’

      ‘I—’

      ‘I know he keeps to himself, but if he pairs up with someone who does the same thing we’re in real trouble,’ Elaine said. ‘Apparently he’s coming to take you home at six. If you make it that long.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘You’re looking sick as a dog. Tell you what, you stick round the nurses’ station until handover and finish the paperwork there. If you’re coming down with gastro, we don’t want you near patients.’

      ‘I’m just tired—and I don’t need anyone to take me home.’

      ‘It’s not anyone, it’s Luke Williams. Paperwork for you, my girl, and then let your lover take you home to bed.’

      Lily had felt bad before. She tackled her paperwork feeling infinitely worse.

      Luke found her in the locker room, preparing to leave.

      He could have gone the whole four weeks of her contract without seeing her again, he thought. With the gastro outbreak almost over, staff levels were nearly back to normal. He could easily arrange for her not to be rostered to Theatre with him.

      He could pretend the encounter had never happened.

      Finn used women to forget, Luke thought. Maybe he could, too.

      Only … there was something about Lily that made him think it hadn’t been a casual embrace. That her need had been almost as great as his.

      A lesser man wouldn’t need to ask why, but for some reason this didn’t feel like a simple matter of honour. It was how she’d made him feel. It had been the generosity of her body, the smile behind her eyes, the touch of her …

      He’d remember it, he thought, and he honoured her for it.

      And she was being labelled because of it. The least he could do was thank her and apologise.

      He opened the locker-room door and she turned to face him. She looked white faced. A bit unsteady on her feet. Wobbling?

      He crossed the room in four long strides to reach her. Gripped her shoulders. Steadied her.

      ‘Hey …’

      ‘It’s … it’s okay,’ she said, and hauled away to plonk herself down on the wooden bench. ‘I’m just having a queasy moment.’

      ‘You’re not pregnant, are you?’

      She gave him a look that would have withered lesser men. It was the look he deserved.

      What had made him say that? Of all the ridiculous …

      ‘We didn’t make it that far, Superman,’ she retorted. ‘You don’t get pregnant by kissing, no matter how hot you think you are.’

      ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, with feeling. ‘That was dumb. Plus offensive. But you’re ill.’

      ‘I suspect,’ she said with as much dignity as she could muster, ‘that I’m coming down with this blasted gastroenteritis that half this hospital seems to have suffered. You should have a huge skull and crossbones on the entrance with a sign saying “Abandon hope all ye who enter here”.’

      ‘Or abandon the contents of your stomach.’

      ‘Don’t,’ she begged. ‘Go away.’

      ‘Let me take you home.’

      She glared. ‘Tell me you don’t have a car with leather upholstery and I might be interested.’

      ‘I do,’ he admitted. ‘But we can go via Emergency and get a supply of sick bags. I had it last week so I won’t get infected.’

      ‘You might have infected me.’

      ‘Then that’d be yet another thing I need to apologise for,’ he said grimly, and took her elbows, propelling her up. ‘We’ll organise you a shot of metoclopramide for the nausea. Then we’ll take some paper bags and take you home and to bed.’

      ‘No.’

      ‘No?’

      ‘I mean, yes, please,’ she said with as much dignity as she could muster. ‘Only I need to spend ten minutes in the bathroom first.’

      They didn’t speak on the way to the address she’d given him. She didn’t lose her dignity, but he could see she was holding onto it with every shred of effort she could muster. One shot of metoclopramide was barely holding it.

      She wasn’t what she’d seemed. Questions were crowding in, but his medical training told him that breaking her concentration would be unwise. So he focused on driving, found the address, pulled up in front of a boarding house that looked as if it had seen better days and watched in astonishment as she struggled out of the car.

      ‘You don’t live here?’

      ‘No,’ she said, closing the car door with care, as if it was a really tricky task. ‘I’m staying here. Thank you for bringing me home.’ And she headed for the gate.

      He was out of the car, through the gate, stopping her.

      ‘Don’t stop me,’ she pleaded. ‘I need …’

      ‘I know this place,’ he said. ‘When I was an intern we averaged one drug overdose a week from this dump.’

      She was trying to shove past him, looking increasingly desperate. ‘It’s only until payday. It has a bathroom. Please …’

      She was nothing to do with him, he told himself. This was none of his business. He’d brought her home. He’d done what he had to do.

      But … she’d held him. She’d stopped his grief from stripping him raw.

      She’d lightened his life.

      That had to be an overstatement, he told himself. One crazy impulse did not mean emotional change. She’d simply been there when he’d needed her, had responded to his need, had maybe used him to assuage her own needs.

      Her own needs were pretty apparent now. She’d broken from him and was doubled over behind a scrubby hedge. The garden was filthy.

      Questions.

      She was a skilled theatre nurse from a town he remembered as being quiet and beautiful.

      His colleagues had her labelled as wanton.

      She’d held him.

      Whatever she was, he couldn’t leave her here.

      She was crouched, trembling, in the filthy garden, sweaty and sick, and he knew he had no choice.

      He waited for the spasms to cease. Then, giving her no chance to argue, he stooped and lifted her into his arms and carried her back to his car. He deposited