Prognosis Christmas Baby - Amy Andrews Page 0,9

matching navy trousers. They clung in all the right places and Maggie found herself wondering what he’d look like in nothing but the jeans.

‘I’ll shut this across, Maggie, so we don’t wake Toby,’ Linda said.

Maggie nodded mutely and watched as the concertinaed divider between beds three and four shutout not only the spill of light but also Nash Reece and those damn distracting Levi’s.

Trying to concentrate on her work now was utterly useless. The voices next door were muted but she seemed finely tuned in to every low rumble or murmur that was distinctly Nash. Luckily Toby continued to sleep and although his effort remained the same, he still appeared to be coping.

An hour later, as Maggie typed her username and password into the computer to sign for a drug, she felt Nash’s presence behind her like the heat from a nuclear power plant.

‘MMG,’ he mused, reading over her shoulder.

It had taken Nash a few days to get a handle on the electronic charting and there was probably a heap of features he’d yet to work out, but he did know that all the staff user-names consisted of their initials. ‘What’s your middle name, Maggie Green?’

Maggie ignored him, refusing to turn and acknowledge his query. It was none of his business.

Nash moved so he was standing in front of her, one tanned elbow and one lean hip propped against her mobile computer table. ‘Is it May? Are you a “Maggie May”? Was your mother a Rod Stewart fan?’

Maggie thanked her lucky stars for the relative dimness of the room as he crooned the opening notes of the well-known song.

‘Okay, okay,’ she said cutting into his surprisingly good baritone not sure she could stand being serenaded with that particular song about an illicit love affair between a younger man and an older woman. ‘It’s May. But I was named May after my grandmother,’ she said frostily. ‘Not the song. Which had already bene around for ten years when I was born.’

Nash chuckled. ‘I’ve never met a woman so keen to talk up her age.’

Maggie shrugged with as much nonchalance as she could muster. She couldn’t help it if the twentysomethings he dated avoided talk about aging.

‘I guess I’d better get used to it seeing as how I’m working here for the next three months.’

Maggie took a moment to reel in the leap of her pulse. Three months? She frowned at a sudden realisation. ‘You knew!’ she accused. ‘The other day...at lunch...yesterday ...you knew you were coming here.’

Nash smiled. ‘Guilty.’

Maggie looked into his utterly guiltless face. ‘You might have told me.’

‘And have you prepared?’ He laughed. ‘I like seeing you flustered, Maggie Green.’

Nash suspected not much flustered her and the fact that he’d put her off balance three times now was the boost his ego needed in the face of her continued resistance.

Maggie took a breath, refusing to rise to his bait or let him see how the prospect of three months in his vicinity rattled her. ‘So how’d you swing that? The current registrars are only halfway through their term.’

‘A short-term position came up. Dr Perkins offered it to me.’

Maggie frowned. Dr Gemma Perkins, the PICU director, never offered reduced terms. He must be bloody good. ‘Why only three months?’

‘I’ve got a position at Great Ormond Street in January.’

Maggie blinked. London? It must be part of his great career plan. ‘Good hospital,’ she murmured.

Still...London?

She found it hard to believe how he’d survive in the environs of British medicine where suits and ties were mandatory. He’d changed from his retrieval top into a T-shirt, that combined with the faded fashion of his low-rider jeans, was the epitome of laid-back.

Did he even own a tie?

Nash grinned at her understatement. G.O.S.H. was a world leader. ‘The best.’

She nodded. ‘I worked there, years ago.’

Nash couldn’t resist. ‘Back when you were my age?’

Maggie looked into his open flirty gaze, humour skyrocketing his attraction tenfold. ‘No. Back when I was first married. Twenty years ago. I do believe you must have been about ten at the time?’

‘About that.’

Maggie shook her head at his unabashed reply. He was never ten.

‘Well, I guess I’d better get my A into G,’ Nash said, reluctant to leave. ‘I’m sure Mac wants to be getting home.’

Tonight? He was working tonight?

She gave an inward groan. She’d assumed he was just doing the retrieval and then leaving. Great! Now she had to add Nash Reece and his unsettling presence to her first-night blues.

Two hours later Maggie lay in the darkened break room on a