CAROL MARINELLI - The Scandalous Kolovskys - Knight on the Children's Ward

‘Which is?’

‘Reyes,’ Ross said, and then he gave her a little part of him that he didn’t usually share. ‘That’s actually my real name.’

‘I lived with my father. Every day I saw him,’ Annika said, giving back a little part of herself, ‘but I don’t think I knew him at all.’

‘I know about Levander.’ He watched her swallow. ‘I know that Levander was raised in the Detsky Dom.’

‘Iosef shouldn’t talk.’

‘Iosef and I have spent weeks—no, months, working in Russian orphanages. It’s tough going there—sometimes you need to talk. He hates that Levander was raised there.’

‘My parents were devastated when they found out …’ She was glad she’d read that press release now. ‘On his deathbed my father begged that we set up the foundation …’ Her voice cracked. She was caught between the truth and a lie, and she didn’t know what was real any more. ‘We are holding a big fundraiser soon. If nursing doesn’t work out then I am thinking of working full-time on the board …’

‘Organising fundraisers?’

‘Perhaps.’ She shrugged. ‘I’ll get dessert …’

‘You made these?’ He couldn’t believe it. He took a bite and couldn’t believe it again—and then he said the completely wrong thing. ‘You’re wasted as a nurse.’

And he saw her eyes shutter.

‘I’m sorry, Annika; I didn’t mean it like that.’

‘Don’t worry.’ She smiled. ‘You’re probably right.’

‘Not wasted …’

‘Just leave it.’

‘I can’t leave it,’ Ross said, and her eyes jerked up to his. ‘But I ought to.’

‘At least till I have finished on the ward,’ Annika said, and her throat was so tight she didn’t know how to swallow, and her chocolate box sat unopened.

‘I’ll be in Spain,’ Ross said.

‘Slow is good.’ Annika nodded. ‘I don’t want to rush.’

‘So we just put it on hold?’ Ross checked, and she nodded. ‘Just have dinner?’ He winced. ‘When I say just …

‘Maybe one kiss goodnight,’ Annika relented, because Elsie would be so disappointed otherwise.

‘Sounds good,’ Ross said. ‘Now or later?’

‘You choose.’

Four hours of preparation: tempering the chocolate, slicing the boxes, choosing the best raspberries. And the mousse recipe was a complicated one. All that work, all those hours, slipped deliciously away as he pulled her across the table and her breast sank into her own creation.

His tongue tasted better than anything she could conjure. They both had to stretch, but it was worth it. He tasted of chocolate, and then of him. His hair was in her fingers and she was pressing her face into him, the scratch of his jaw, the press of his lips. She wanted more, so badly she almost climbed onto the table just to be closer, but it was easier to stand. Lips locked, they kissed over the table, and then did a sort of crab walk till they could properly touch—and touch they did.

The most touching it was possible to do with clothes on and standing. She felt his lovely bum, and his jeans, and she pressed him into her. It was still just a kiss, one kiss, but it went on for ever.

‘Oh, Annika,’ he said, when she pulled back for a gulp of air, and then he saw the mess on her top and set to work.

‘That’s not kissing …’ He was kissing her breast through the fabric, sucking off the mousse and the cream, and her fingers were back in his hair.

‘It is,’ he said.

And the raspberries had made the most terrible stain, so he concentrated on getting it out, and then she had to stop him. She stepped back and did something she never did.

She started to laugh.

And then she did something really stupid—something she’d cringe at when she told Elsie—well, the edited version—but knew Elsie would clap her approval.

She told him to dance—ordered him, in fact!

She lay on the sofa and watched, and there was rather more noise than usual from Annika’s flat—not that the neighbours noticed.

She lay there and watched as his great big black boots stamped across the floor, and it was mad, really, but fantastic. She could smell the gypsy bonfire, and she knew he could too—it was their own fantasy, crazy and sort of private, but she would tell Elsie just a little.

And she did only kiss him—maybe once or twice, or three times more.

But who knew the places you could go to with a kiss?

Who knew you could be standing pressed against the door fully dressed, but naked in your mind?

‘Bad girl,’ Ross said as, still standing, she landed back on earth.

‘Oh, I will be!’ Annika said.

‘Come back to the farm …’

‘We said slowly.’

So they had—and there was Spain, and according to form he knew he’d hurt her, but he was suddenly sure that he wouldn’t. She could take a sledgehammer to his bedroom wall if she chose, and he’d just lie on the bed and let her.

‘Come to the farm.’ God, what was he doing?

‘I’ve got stuff too, Ross.’

‘I know, I know.’

‘Don’t rush me.’

‘I know.’ He was coming back to earth as well. He’d never been accused of rushing things before. It was always Ross pulling back, always Ross reluctant to share—it felt strange to be on the other side.

‘And I’ve never been bad.’

He started to laugh, and then he realised she wasn’t joking.

‘The rules are different if you’re a Kolovsky girl, and till recently I’ve never been game enough to break them.’

Oh!

Looking into her troubled eyes, knowing what he knew about her family, suddenly he was scared of his own reputation and knew it was time to back off.

Annika Kolovsky he couldn’t risk hurting.

AT HER request, things slowed down.

Stopped, really.

The occasional text, a lot of smiles, and a couple of coffees in the canteen.

It was just as well, really. There was no time for a relationship as her world rapidly unravelled.

Aleksi had hit a journalist and was on the front pages again.

Her mother was in full charity ball mode, and nothing Annika could say or do at work was right.

‘He’s that sick from chicken pox?’ Annika couldn’t help but speak up during handover. Normally she kept her head down and just wrote, but it was so appalling she couldn’t help it. An eight-year-old had been admitted from Emergency with encephalitis and was semi-conscious—all from a simple virus. ‘You can get that ill from chicken pox?’

‘It’s unusual,’ Caroline said, ‘but, yes. If he doesn’t improve then he’ll be transferred to the children’s hospital. For now he’s on antiviral medication and hourly obs. His mother is, of course, beside herself. She’s got two others at home who have the virus too. Ross is just checking with Infectious Diseases and then he’ll be contacting their GP to prescribe antivirals for them too.’ Caroline was so matter-of-fact, and Annika knew she had to be too, but she found it so hard!

Gowning up, wearing a mask, dealing with the mum.

She checked the IV solutions with a nurse and punched in the numbers on the IVAC that would deliver the correct dosage of the vital medication. She tried to wash the child as gently as she could when the Div 1 nurse left. The room was impossibly hot, especially when she was all gowned up, but any further infection for him would be disastrous.

‘Thank you so much.’ The poor, petrified mum took time to thank Annika as she gently rolled the boy and changed the sheets. ‘How do you think he’s doing?’

Annika felt like a fraud.

She stood caught in the headlamps of the mother’s anxious gaze. How could she tell her that she had no idea, that till an hour ago she hadn’t realised chicken pox could make anyone so ill and that she was petrified for the child too?