Hearts Of Gold. Meredith Webber

Annie. Hospital gossip being what it was, she was glad she was working in the unit now and not out on a ward where she’d have been teased unmercifully about such blatant behaviour as standing arm in arm with her boss.

      But the press of bodies also saved her answering Alex—had she had an answer—and they travelled in silence, then discussed food options as they stood in the queue, everything so back to normal that Annie thought they were safely past the conversation until, once seated at a table in a quiet corner of the room, Alex reintroduced it.

      ‘You must think I’m crazy, and maybe I am. If this conversation embarrasses you, please write it off as lack of sleep, but yesterday in the park I spent so much time assuring you that dinner would just be a colleague-with-colleague thing—emphasising the casualness of it—and then I had to leave you with Phil last night. Phil with his charm and his good looks and his success with women! I was caught up with Amy and there you were with Phil—that’s when I realised.’

      He stopped, perhaps realising now that he wasn’t making a lot of sense, and looked across the table at Annie. Then he shook his head, and this time his smile was tiredly rueful.

      ‘What I’m trying to say in my inadequate way is that I like you, Annie Talbot. I’m attracted to you, and if it’s OK with you, I’d like to get to know you better.’

      Excitement vied with apprehension, but beneath both these emotions was a longing so deep Annie was shaken by it.

      It was a longing for love in the biggest, widest, most wonderful sense of the word. A longing to be part of a couple—to share a little of another person’s life, to give and take support, to have someone to laugh and cry and rejoice with, to have someone to hug, or to give a hug to when a hug was needed.

      ‘What really rocks me is that I thought I’d got over wanting someone in my life,’ she said, looking at Alex as she spoke, knowing he probably wouldn’t understand, as she was no better with words than he had been. ‘I’ve built my life as a single person and, truly, Alex, I’ve enjoyed it. I do enjoy it. I have company when I need it, a job I love, I’m career-focussed and happy that way.’

      Alex watched her carefully choosing words and putting them together. He listened to them and though they didn’t spell it out, he was reasonably certain she was telling him she was no longer quite as happy with her chosen path, which, as far as he was concerned, was tantamount to admitting she was as attracted to him as he was to her.

      ‘Eat your breakfast before it gets totally cold,’ he told her, though he smiled so she would know it wasn’t an order.

      She smiled back and a little of his tiredness lifted. Somehow they’d muddled through a very awkward conversation and reached a place where he was pretty sure they could go forward.

      Together.

      On a kind of trial basis.

      He felt an insane urge to shout or clap or otherwise celebrate this breakthrough in the Annie-Alex relationship, but then he remembered other relationships he’d had and the dismal hash he’d made of them. He watched Annie cut a piece of bacon then spear it on her fork, and more doubts assailed him.

      Not doubts about Annie and wanting to get to know her better, but doubts about his ability to make her happy—to chase away the shadows he sometimes saw in her eyes.

      Was he, with his antipathy to and avoidance of emotional dependency, the right kind of a man for Annie? Could he give her the kind of unconditional love she would need to heal whatever wounds she carried from the past? And wouldn’t wrapping Annie in the kind of love she needed mean unwrapping the protective barriers he’d erected around himself? How else could he bring her close?

      And had she actually said she was happy to get to know him better? No, she hadn’t. She’d waffled on as badly as he had, and hadn’t really said anything at all when you got right down to it.

      Because she wasn’t sure?

      Wasn’t sure about exposing herself to love and perhaps to whatever hurt it had brought to her before?

      So he’d have to be mighty careful! Mighty sure that nothing he did would put her in more emotional jeopardy.

      ‘Aren’t you going to eat yours?’ she asked, drawing his wandering thoughts back to the here and now.

      ‘I’d better, hadn’t I?’ he said. ‘Or I won’t have the strength to walk you home.’

      He watched her as he spoke and saw the shadows he’d been thinking of chase across her face, and he felt a steely resolve to do whatever he could to chase those shadows away.

      ‘It’s not commitment, Annie,’ he said quickly, not wanting to lose her before the relationship had begun. ‘Just a “getting to know you” kind of relationship. A “let’s see where it goes” experiment.’

      The shadows cleared and she smiled at him.

      ‘In the interests of science, of course,’ she teased, and Alex felt the tension drain out of his body. Yes!

      He didn’t punch the air, not physically, but in his head he saw his fingers clench and his hand go up in triumph.

      Because she’d tentatively agreed to get to know him better?

       Come on, man!

      But he couldn’t curb his inner excitement, though he hoped it wasn’t showing on the outside.

      He attacked his breakfast, barely noticing it was less appetising than it would have been if eaten hot, but before he’d finished his pessimism had surfaced again, reminding him he was a stranger in a foreign land, in a city he didn’t know. Where was he going to take Annie for a first date? First dates should be special.

      ‘What are you worrying about now?’ she asked, reminding him he had company at the table.

      ‘How do you know I’m worrying?’

      ‘Your eyebrows knit together.’ She softened the blow with another smile. ‘And your lips go tight.’

      He tried loosening his tight lips with an only slightly tight smile, and admitted his dilemma.

      ‘I don’t know where to take you. For our first date.’

      He’d expected understanding, but not laughter. She laughed and laughed, the sound so joyous he couldn’t help but enjoy it, though he was a little disgruntled that he could cause such mirth.

      ‘It’s not a cardiac operation,’ she said when she’d controlled herself enough to speak. ‘It doesn’t have to be planned to the nth degree. We can go to the beach—or for a walk around the harbour foreshore. We can eat at the Thai restaurant down the road from where we live, or at the little Italian place on the other side of the park.’

      And why are you suggesting places to go with this man when you know full well you shouldn’t be seeing him at all? Annie’s head asked her, but the longing had won out over caution, and already she was excited about going to the beach or walking the foreshore with Alex.

      If he ever had any time off, she amended as a buzzing sound had them both reaching for their pagers.

      ‘It’s mine,’ he said, pushing back his chair and standing up. ‘It’s the ward. I’ll phone from over there…’ He nodded towards the house phone on the wall. ‘But if it’s the unit, I’ll have to go.’

      He hesitated for a fraction of a second, then reached out and touched his hand to her hair.

      ‘May I call and see you later? When I’ve slept and showered and shaved?’

      Big moment this, but Annie barely hesitated.

      ‘I’d like that,’ she said, then she looked up into his face. ‘But if you don’t make it, I’ll understand. You need to catch up on your sleep. That’s far more important than visiting me.’

      Alex smiled at her.

      ‘I wouldn’t be too