Luca's Bad Girl - By Amy Andrews Page 0,27

any day.’ Mable sighed. ‘If I was only forty years younger …’

Mia stared at her patient open-mouthed, shocked by such ribald frankness from an octogenarian.

Mable cackled. ‘I’m old, deary, not dead.’

Mia laughed. From the twinkle in her eyes, Mable was obviously one of those lovely old ladies who loved to shock.

‘Laugh all you want.’ Mable patted Mia’s hand. ‘You blink one day and suddenly you’re eighty-six. Mark my words, young lady—take your opportunities when you get them.’ And then she winked.

‘Mable, you’re incorrigible.’

Mable cackled again, seemingly delighted by Mia’s description. ‘I hope so, deary.’

Mia returned her attention to Mable’s gardening wound, which had developed an infection in the subcutaneous tissues. Had Mable seen something pass between her and Luca—something intangible—that had prompted such an observation, or was she just someone who appreciated good eye candy when she saw it?

Not for the first time she wondered what the hell she and Luca were doing. Okay, there’d been no more liaisons since the party and they’d only been together a few times anyway. But it was a few times more than she’d ever allowed any other man. And, if his rep was accurate, the same applied to him.

Why did this man, Luca di Angelo of all men, have this … pull, this sway over her?

No.

Mia smiled absently at Mable as she pulled the gurney rail up decisively and excused herself to arrange for Mable’s admission for several days of intravenous antibiotics.

She wasn’t going to analyse what had gone on.

She wasn’t going to give it any importance by pontificating over it.

They were attracted to each other. They’d had a good time. And that was that.

Period.

A couple of hours later the red emergency phone rang and Luca picked it up. He scribbled notes as he listened to the ambulance comms officer on the other end.

Mia and Evie looked at him as he hung up and Mia quirked an eyebrow. ‘Multiple casualties, first five minutes out, from the Douglas army base. Some sort of an explosion. Two critical. One with penetrating chest trauma, the other with a partially severed leg.’

Caroline, on triage, appeared at his elbow and said, ‘On it.’

Luca thanked her. ‘I’ll page Finn,’ he said.

Then everyone scattered to do their jobs, ensuring the trauma bays were fully stocked for the incoming wounded and other departments alerted, including Pathology, Radiology and the operating theatres. Luckily it was Sunday when demand for these services was reduced.

Finn, in his standard surgical uniform of blue scrubs, arrived just as the first ambulance was pulling in.

‘You take the chest trauma,’ Luca said to his colleague, donning a yellow paper gown. ‘I’ll take the leg.’

Finn nodded, accepting a gown from Evie and quickly securing it before snapping disposable gloves into place.

‘Evie, you go with Finn. Mia, you’re with me.’

Finn opened his mouth to protest but Mia and Luca had already split off and ultimately it didn’t matter who worked with him as long as they were competent. And, as reluctant as he had been to believe it, Princess Evie knew her stuff.

‘You ready for this?’ he demanded as the paramedic opened the back door.

Evie nodded, determined not to show him how much his enquiry rankled. ‘Of course.’ She gave him a serene smile to hide her gritted teeth.

A cry of pain, like that of a wounded animal, penetrated Finn’s cynicism and tore his attention away to the soldier on the gurney, his dusty boots and army fatigues eerily familiar.

It took him back a lot of years.

He knew all about cries like that. Had heard them too often to forget. Had held Isaac, rocked him, as the yelling had quietened and finally abated, leaving only silence as the life had drained from his brother’s trusting eyes.

‘Twenty-eighty-year-old sergeant, bomb disposal officer at Douglas, took the full impact of an explosive device. Safety gear rendered some protection.’

Finn shook his head and blinked as the rapid-fire handover spat out at him like the rat-a-tat of a machine gun. He couldn’t think about Isaac. About a distant battlefield.

This soldier needed him.

But this soldier was about Isaac’s age and cried out in pain just like Isaac had.

Finn pushed it away, knocked it back as the gurney moved rapidly into the emergency department.

‘Matthew! Matthew!’ the soldier called, pulling the oxygen mask aside with bloodied hands.

The paramedic continued his handover above the soldier’s increasingly frantic cries. Evie listened intently while Finn stared at the young man’s bloody face.

‘Matty!’

‘Matthew is his brother,’ the paramedic informed Finn and Evie quietly as he helped transfer the soldier to the hospital