Amy Andrews - Waking Up With Dr Off-Limits

‘So … you’re going to do them at Eastern Beaches?’ Ruby asked.

Adam nodded as he cracked his eggs into the pan. ‘That’s the plan. We’ve negotiated with some international charities to bring the patients to Australia, I just need to tee it up with Gordon to use his theatres.’

‘Can’t see that will be a problem,’ Tilly said with a wry smile. ‘Gordon does like publicity.’

Adam smiled back. ‘That’s what I figured. Plenty of photo ops make Gordon a happy boy.’

Jess head was spinning. So … the man she’d fallen head over heels for ever since Ruby had introduced her brother three years ago, the man who had been naked in her bed just yesterday, was going to be walking the same sterile corridors as her?

Maybe the universe was trying to tell her something? Seize the day? Maybe it was her turn to find happiness?

‘So you’ll be working at the hospital soon?’ Jess was pretty sure she managed to keep the squeak out of her voice.

Adam flipped his eggs. He knew Jess had been in the operating theatres for the last few months. He tried to picture her in blue theatre scrubs and failed.

All he could see was that damn towel.

‘If all goes ahead it’ll be a PR exercise so there’ll be a couple of weeks of settling in and fanfare with the obligatory interviews in women’s magazines and for current-affairs television. And the usual press conferences for both the charities and the hospital.’

‘That’s fair,’ Ruby said.

Adam, used to schmoozing and pandering to whatever interests could fund Operation New Faces , simply nodded. He knew full well how this game was played and was prepared to do whatever was required to see that the organisation he’d dedicated the last six years of his life to thrived.

He slipped his cooked eggs onto the plate and joined the women at the table. Jess was studiously mopping up every last scrap of yolk with a piece of toast.

He had a sudden urge to know her. To know Jess, the nurse. Not Jess, his sister’s friend, or Jess, the farm girl, or Jess, the blushing housemate.

Jess, the competent professional.

He didn’t understand why.

Had someone put a gun to his head he wouldn’t have been able to explain it. But suddenly he seemed to want to know everything about her.

Not least of all what was beneath that towel.

And how the hell she cleared her bed so quickly of all those damn cushions when the occasion arose. As she must most assuredly on a reasonably regular basis.

Unless all male staff at Eastern Beaches were completely blind. Or stupid.

‘It’ll be a few days’ worth of surgery—there’s nine major operations all up. I’ll need a team. Are you interested?’

Jess looked up sharply from her plate. Interested? She’d give up her claim to the family farm to work with him. Just to be in the same operating theatre as him as he unleashed his magic would be a supreme honour.

‘I’ve only been in Theatre for a few months. I doubt I’m experienced enough for you.’

As soon as the prophetic words were out, Jess wished she could take them back. On so many levels, she just wasn’t up to his skill set.

Adam stilled. He could see pink tinging her high cheekbones again and he suddenly wasn’t thinking about the job. Suddenly he was thinking about all the things he could teach her.

Her teeth sank into the lushness of her bottom lip and his brain temporarily short circuited.

After a moment he blinked and forced himself to shrug casually. ‘Eastern Beaches is a teaching hospital. It doesn’t have any facio-maxillary specialists so it’s not something you’ll probably ever see if you choose to stay at the hospital. It’ll be good experience. Are you up for it?’

Jess forgot all about her plan, which did not involve staying at Eastern Beaches at all. The outback was her first love—red dust ran in her veins—and once she’d completed a year each in the OR, Emergency and ICU she was going home to the chronically understaffed bush.

All she heard was his Are you up for it?

She was up for anything he was offering. Three years of barely even recognising her and suddenly he was offering her a place on his surgical team?

It wasn’t anything romantic, she knew that. But after existing on crumbs for the last few years this was her chance to prove herself worthy. To finally be noticed.

Maybe even as a woman too?

‘I’m up for it.’

Adam had to remind himself as Jess looked at him like he’d created the moon and the stars that she was young and impressionable and very, very off-limits.

Remember Francine.

Remember Ruby.

He inclined his head. ‘I’ll see if I can swing it.’ Jess smiled at him and for a moment he forgot what he’d agreed to do as he smiled back.

Ruby and Tilly exchanged looks. ‘Hot date tonight?’ Ruby asked.

Adam glanced at his sister. Normally a hot date was the only thing on his mind after he’d caught up on some sleep. And sometimes even before that. There’d been more than one occasion he’d pulled up in a taxi outside his Coogee residence not so fresh from the international airport, dragging a woman through the perennially squeaky front gate.

But with Jess smiling at him across the table in her sweet, innocent way, suddenly the names in his little black book didn’t seem as appealing.

And that was stupid with a capital S.

‘You know me.’ He shrugged, thankful for Ruby reminding him of who he was. ‘Work hard. Play harder.’

Jess felt his words slam into her heart as if they’d been delivered by a sledgehammer.

Adam Carmichael was a player.

Not the handsome prince!

The following week Jess hurried along to the staffroom. She was late. The orthopaedic list she’d been scrubbing for had run a little over time. James Leonardi, Ellie’s orthopaedic surgeon fiancé, usually ran a tight ship but sometimes these things happened.

The soft, well-washed cotton of her baggy blue scrubs shifted against her body as she moved, the clip-clop of her clogs reverberated down the corridor.

All the occupants of the room looked up as she entered but she only had eyes for one. ‘Sorry,’ she apologised to Adam, smoothing her theatre cap self-consciously.

‘No worries.’ Adam smiled. ‘We haven’t started yet.’

Jess smiled shyly back at him and Adam felt a strange kick in the centre of his chest. Her theatre cap obscured her hair and exposed her face in a way he’d not seen before. Her eyes, the exact shade of her scrubs, practically glowed beneath the fringe of mocha lashes, and her flawless skin flowed over high cheekbones and dipped into interesting hollows near her mouth.

And that mouth. Man, that mouth! All wide and pink with full soft lips that pulled at him like a homing beacon. She didn’t wear any make-up and her gaze was open and honest with absolutely no artifice.

She was just plain … lovely.

Lovely?

‘Shall we begin?’ prompted Martha Cosgrove, the NUM of the operating theatres.

It took a moment for Adam’s brain to realise the room had fallen silent and people were looking at him expectantly. ‘Of course,’ he said.

He turned and headed for the whiteboard attached to the far wall, castigating himself as he went.

Since when did he do lovely ?

Hot, sexy, bodacious. These were things he did. Lovely? Definitely not. He turned to face the room, his gaze somehow automatically finding Jess. She was now sitting on one of the low chairs that lined the walls. Her legs were crossed and she was looking at him with interest. And suddenly, sitting amidst her nursing colleagues, dressed in her scrubs and cap, she didn’t look so young any more. Gone were the jeans and Ts and the ever-present ponytail that made her look like she was still stuck in her teens.