Carol Marinelli - Australian Affairs - Seduced

‘Do you have a moment?’ Marnie asked.

‘Sure.’

‘Not here.’

Harry had guessed this would be coming—Cate had warned him that Marnie had been less than impressed about Juan taking time off. With a slight roll of his eyes he headed to her office and took a seat, leaning back in the chair and stretching out his legs, absolutely refusing to jump through hoops for Marnie, as everyone else seemed to be.

‘I was just looking through the doctors’ roster and it would seem that we are very short of senior medical staff.’

‘We have been,’ Harry said. ‘But things are steadily improving. We’ve got Juan now and there’s another new consultant—Dr Cooper—starting soon.’

‘Which would be great but I’ve just found out that Juan has been given three weeks’ annual leave, starting well before Dr Cooper commences.’

‘He’s going home to Argentina—you can hardly go there for a long weekend.’

‘But that will leave us with just you and Dr Vermont to cover the department.’

‘I’m aware of that.’ Harry was more than aware— things had only just started improving and now the nightmare was going to begin all over again, not that he was going to reveal the logistical nightmare to Marnie. ‘Juan’s getting married,’ Harry pointed out, assuming that there the discussion would end.

He just didn’t know Marnie.

‘Could he not have delayed his wedding till Dr Cooper had started?’

‘It was a whirlwind romance,’ Harry answered with a wry smile.

‘Please!’ She rolled her eyes. ‘There’s no such thing and, even if there was, surely true love could at least wait a month.’

‘Apparently not!’ Harry said. ‘Look, Juan is an amazing doctor and believe me when I say such a highly skilled doctor is usually pretty hard to entice to come and work at Bayside Hospital. Once immigration and everything is sorted, Juan’s going to be a huge asset to the place but he only agreed to take the role if I accommodated his annual leave request.’

‘You acquire annual leave,’ Marnie said. ‘Juan hasn’t acquired any, from what I can see.’

Harry tried a different tack. ‘The guy broke his neck a while back, he was barely able to walk when he got to Australia. As well as getting married, he really wants to return home and let his family see how well he’s doing.’

Oh, but Marnie was having none of it. ‘So Juan breaking his neck means you have to bend over backwards and break yours to accommodate his love life?’

Harry was sure then that he hadn’t slept with her!

He’d certainly remember—Harry had never met anyone like her in his life! ‘You’re not a romantic, I take it?’ Harry’s voice was dry.

‘There’s not a single romantic bone in my body,’ Marnie said. ‘But so long as you can assure me that the department will be adequately covered with senior medical staff then it’s not my issue.’

‘It will be covered.’

‘Good.’

Harry stood up and turned to go, but how well they might have known each other was driving him crazy, so he decided to simply bite the bullet and ask, ‘What year were you at Melbourne Central?’

‘You really don’t remember?’ Marnie said. ‘I was blonde then, if that helps.’

‘Blonde?’ Harry looked at her very thick black hair. ‘That would have taken some peroxide.’

‘It did,’ Marnie said. ‘You still don’t remember me, do you?’

She loved his discomfort—loved the small swallow in his neck—and she watched as he drew in a breath while attempting to come up with a suitable answer. Then those green eyes met hers and a smile spread on Harry’s lips, lips that had been just a little insolent and teasing in their day, Marnie recalled, and they were becoming that now.

‘How could I ever forget you, Marnie?’

The little game Marnie had been playing had suddenly gone too far because it was Marnie, most unusually, who struggled to calm a blush, and she rapidly decided to put an end to it, while still keeping the upper hand. ‘It’s okay, Harry, I’ve been teasing you. You don’t have to worry—I’m very possibly the only student nurse at Melbourne Central that you didn’t sleep with.’

‘Glad to hear it,’ Harry said, still smiling back at her, except the smile sort of wavered, because maybe that wasn’t the right answer to give.

What was the right answer to a statement like that? Harry wondered as he walked off.

He couldn’t make Marnie out. She was a strange mix. Forthright yet distant, funny yet stern but, even if he was smiling at the little game she’d played on him, Harry knew as he headed back to the patients that the holiday was over. Not that you could ever call this place a holiday, but there would be no asking Marnie if she could keep an eye out for the twins in the staffroom, even if it was right near her office. There would be no appealing to her feminine side and asking her to grab them from day care, or would she mind if one of the nurses in the obs ward kept an eye on them for an hour.

Harry just knew it.

YES, MARNIE WAS everywhere.

As Harry sat having his lunch he found out, if he hadn’t known already, just how forthright she was—the pint-sized Marnie didn’t even try to mince her words when she answered a personal call.

Marnie didn’t excuse herself from the staffroom to take the call—instead, she tucked the phone between her neck and chin and squirted salad dressing over her home-made salad. As she thanked Dave for returning her call, she stirred in the dressing.

Oh, her accent was as soft as butter as she spoke but you could almost feel it choking the rather unfortunate Dave’s arteries.

‘Absolutely, I signed the contract but let me ask you this, Dave—was one month’s rent really worth it? I certainly shan’t be staying on when my lease is up.’ Harry listened as she made it very clear that she wouldn’t be using him in the future and hopefully, if the hospital grapevine served her well, neither would anybody else from Bayside. ‘So, to be clear,’ Marnie concluded, ‘you have my notice and I have photos of before and after so I’ll be expecting to receive my deposit in full—the place was nothing but a filthy swamp before I set to work.’

‘Ripped off?’ Kelly asked, and Marnie nodded.

‘It’s my own fault for signing a lease on a place that I hadn’t seen. He only showed me the first half of Beach Road…’ She didn’t elaborate and she didn’t sit around for much longer—after finishing her salad, Marnie stood and left the staffroom.

‘I can’t make up my mind whether or not I like her,’ Kelly grumbled.

‘Well, I’ve made up my mind and I don’t.’ Abby, another of the nurses, sighed. ‘I was given a ten-minute lesson on the correct way to wash my hands, as if I didn’t already know. I think that she’s got OCD!’

‘She’s got ADHD,’ Kelly grumbled. ‘She just never stops.’

‘Ladies!’ Dr Vermont said, and didn’t even look up from his newspaper as he delivered a warning for the nurses to stop gossiping.

Though, a few hours later, he indulged in a little gossip of his own as he put on his jacket to head for home. ‘What do you think of Marnie?’ Dr Vermont asked Harry.

‘I don’t know what to think,’ Harry admitted. ‘She’s not exactly here to make friends, is she? Marnie doesn’t seem to care who she offends.’

‘I like that about her,’ Dr Vermont said. ‘The trouble with Christine was that she was either your best friend or your worst enemy.’ He thought about it for a long moment. ‘I know that it’s very early days but so far I’m impressed.’

Dr Vermont was more than a colleague to Harry. He was a friend and mentor and Harry admired him greatly. If Dr Vermont liked Marnie, that was high praise indeed and almost as good as a reference.