CAROL MARINELLI - English Doctor, Italian Bride

‘Oh, sorry, I forgot I was a mere nurse.’ Bonita smarted. ‘Forgive me for having an opinion!’

‘That’s quite all right, Nurse!’ He winked. Somehow Hugh had always put her in her place. Growing up, he’d made it clear she was an annoyance, had sat bored through her teenage tantrums and had roared with laughter when she’d announced she was going to be a nurse.

Why couldn’t he have stayed in England, where he belonged?

At eighteen he had come to Australia on a gap year. He’d intended to head back to England to study medicine, only Hugh had fallen in love with the country and after a year travelling, he’d transferred his course to Australia. At med school he’d met her brother Paul and become something of a regular fixture in the Azetti household during those years of study. Bonita’s parents had a sprawling home on the Mornington Peninsular where they ran a winery, growing their own grapes and producing a boutique wine. Along with her mother’s riding school, the winery had expanded successfully over the years. Apart from his blond hair, Hugh had slotted right in with her family. He’d come for regular dinners, stayed over sometimes, picked fruit during semester breaks, worked in the cellar door shop, exercised the horses—not that he’d needed to work, the Azettis had later found out. His family background meant he could have spent the six years it had taken to get through medical school concentrating solely on his studies and partying. Hugh, though, had managed to accommodate all three—work, study and partying, in fact he was a master of them all!

He was almost an honorary son in the Azetti household. One of the only times Bonita had actually seen her mother cry had been when Hugh’s father had fallen ill and Hugh had headed quickly back to the UK, not for a holiday, but to live.

Oh, he’d kept in touch, witty postcards and letters regularly appeared in their mailbox, and her mother Carmel had happily read them out. Paul often forwarded Hugh’s emails, regaling his latest tales of success, promotions, girlfriends, family deaths, engagements and breakups, but there had been no direct contact between Hugh and Bonita. His had just been a name that had cropped up in conversation, or in an email to read second hand that displayed his stunning dry wit. Bonita had watched Hugh grow from young man to mature adult on a third-party basis, only privy to his life by default.

Until six months ago.

Until she’d arrived home to find him at the family’s dinner table—a surprise guest, with surprising news.

He was back.

And not just back—he had taken up the position of registrar in the accident and emergency department of her small town. Which, of course, had delighted everyone. Andrew Browne thrilled that such an eminent London doctor was taking up residence, her family delighted that the prodigal son had returned, all the female nurses and ancillary staff finding an excellent reason to apply a second coat of mascara in the morning. Her mother had long since wound down the riding school, so that just a few of the mounts remained, and Hugh had promptly bought one—Ramone, a devil of a horse—which meant to her parents’ delight that he was a regular visitor, paying agistment fees and stopping in for coffee after he’d ridden!

Yes, Hugh’s return had delighted everyone, except herself…

Woozy with the gas, she stared at his silky blond hair, flopping over his high smooth forehead, the full, sulky mouth that delivered such effortless mocking wit, dark green eyes that crinkled at the edges when he smiled—and never had she hated him more.

‘I need your good arm!’ Hugh said, his voice kind now, gently leaning her forward, but every movement was agony. ‘Just take a couple of breaths on the gas.’

‘It’s not helping!’ Her words were muffled by the mask Deb had clamped over her face.

‘It won’t if you keep talking instead of breathing. Come on, Bonny!’ She hated it that he called her that. That was what her family called her, and it was OK for them to do it, but here at work she was Bonita. She pulled her face away to tell him but he wasn’t listening. ‘Let the sling take the weight,’ Hugh said, trying to prise her good arm away, but she was terrified to let go, terrified of even the tiniest movement, tears stinging in her brown eyes, determined not to let him see her cry again. But it was so hard to be brave.

‘I don’t like gas.’

‘OK!’ He gave a tight smile as he gave in, then spoke in his commanding snobby voice and patronised her just a little bit more. ‘Let’s just take a moment to relax, shall we? I’ll be back shortly.’ She saw him roll his eyes to Deb, a sort of apology, Bonita decided, that his patient wasn’t meekly behaving, before he, no doubt, went to apologise to his girlfriend, Amber, that the five minutes he had promised her she’d have to wait was turning into fifteen.

‘Sorry to be such an inconvenience,’ Bonita called to his departing back. She was very close to tears, but managed a dash of sarcasm before he walked out, hating how much it hurt, hating she was being such a baby, hating making a fool of herself, and especially in front of him!

‘Don’t be daft,’ Deb said. ‘Nobody thinks you’re an inconvenience, do we, Hugh?’

‘Not at all…’ Hugh attempted, but didn’t elaborate. Instead, he stalked out, clearly less than impressed.

‘I saw him roll his eyes.’

‘He’s worried about you!’ Deb soothed. ‘I told him to go off to the wedding reception, that Andrew would get to you very soon, but he insisted on getting you some pain control.’

Which meant nothing! He was a doctor after all, and would stay and help a colleague just as he would a dog in the street—it didn’t mean a thing!

‘OK, then!’ Hugh breezed back in with a little medicine pot. ‘I’ve got some oral Valium, which will relax you. And we can have another go when it kicks in.’

‘Just do it,’ Bonita said, refusing the tablet and gritting her teeth, determined it would work this time.

‘As you wish.’ Hugh put down the medicine cup and picked up his tourniquet. ‘Now, it doesn’t matter if it’s making you feel sick or dizzy, Bonny, I want you to take some deep breaths of the gas and let the sling take the weight…’ As Deb clamped the mask over her face, Bonita caught Hugh’s dark green eyes. ‘Like it or not, you’re going to have to trust me!’

Never .

Oh, she didn’t say it out loud, couldn’t say it really because Deb was holding the mask over her mouth, but her brown eyes said it all as, for the first time in six years, they actually met and held his. Even though they’d worked together these past months, even though she’d seen him at her parents’ and had made idle chitchat, for the first time in years she looked into his eyes and remembered the last time she had.

The last time his face had been close.

The last time that full, sensual mouth had captured hers, and somehow she’d believed in him.

But not now.

Older, wiser, and a good dash more bitter, she wouldn’t trust Hugh Armstrong as far as she could see him, let alone throw him. She had witnessed first hand his treatment of women…his treatment of her.

‘Give me your hand, Bonny.’ He was prising it away now, and whether it was the gas, or that the sling was taking the weight, or just that his slow movement didn’t jolt her, when finally she let him, it didn’t hurt that much at all.

OK—so she trusted him as a doctor, Bonita conceded, as she shook off the mask. In the months she’d worked alongside him he had been nothing other than brilliant with the patients and their care—it was the man she had issues with!

‘Good girl,’ Hugh said, wrapping a tourniquet around her arm.