It Started with No Strings...

He knew who Bailey was—the friend who’d been at the salsa club with her—but he really didn’t follow the rest of it. ‘Fine you? Why?’

‘For apologising when I don’t need to.’ She gave him a wry smile. ‘You know how people sometimes have a swear jar if they’re trying to give up swearing, and they put money in it every time they swear? Well, I have a sorry jar. I’m banned from using the s-word more than once a day.’ She bit her lip. ‘And I bet I’ve apologised to you twice already today.’

‘Try three.’ He just about managed to hide a grin. ‘I won’t tell if you won’t,’ he said. ‘And, actually, that was what I was going to say. No telling. What happened at the weekend is just between us and has nothing to do with anyone else.’

‘Thank you.’ She looked relieved. ‘I couldn’t believe it when I saw you. I mean, in a city the size of London—what are the chances of even bumping into you again, let alone finding out that we’re working together?’

‘Pretty small,’ he agreed. ‘Though I guess, given what we both do for a living, we would’ve met again at some point—maybe through a friend of a friend of a friend.’

‘It’s not even as if infectious and tropical diseases is a common speciality,’ she protested.

‘True. But I bet you know everyone in the emergency department.’

‘I guess I do,’ she admitted. ‘If we haven’t worked together on a case, we’ve met at an inter-departmental do.’

‘As I said. Friend of a friend of a friend.’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe we should start again, as if we’ve just met for the first time. Hello. I’m Aaron Hughes, tropical medical specialist. Pleased to meet you.’ He held out his hand.

She shook it, and his skin tingled where she’d touched him. Not good. He really didn’t want to react to her like this. He couldn’t afford any emotional ties.

‘I’m Joni Parker. Also a tropical medical specialist. Pleased to meet you,’ she said.

So she’d been telling the truth about her name on Saturday, then. But ‘Joni’ didn’t start with N, and he was curious. He glanced at her name tag. ‘What does the N stand for?’

‘Nizhoni,’ she said. ‘But my first name’s a bit of a mouthful, so people tend to call me Joni for short.’

‘It’s an unusual name,’ he remarked. Not one he’d ever heard before.

She nodded. ‘It’s a bit exotic.’

‘I guess it goes with your speciality. Also exotic,’ he said. ‘And now I’m going to shut up before I dig myself another hole.’

‘I can’t argue with that. And thank you. For not—well—making a big deal out of it.’ She rewarded him with a real smile. One that made those gorgeous dark eyes light up—and that, in turn, made his blood tingle. Which was a seriously bad idea. He couldn’t afford to let himself get emotionally involved with Joni Parker, no matter how attractive he found her. He’d learned at a young age that keeping his distance was the safe way. The way not to get hurt. Loving someone just led to loss and heartbreak. Keeping your distance was the only way to survive with your heart intact.

‘I guess we both acted out of character,’ he said. ‘And now we’re colleagues. Making a big deal out of what happened is going to make work awkward.’

‘Which is the last thing you need, especially in a new job.’

‘Exactly. And I’m sure you could do without it, too. So today’s the first time we met, OK?’

‘OK,’ she agreed.

‘I think the only difference between here and Manchester,’ he said, ‘is that everyone’s more formal here. I’m used to working on first-name terms with my colleagues.’

‘We do here, too,’ she said. ‘Except for Mr Flinders—he’s a bit of a stickler for formality.’

‘So it’s first-name terms most of the time, and formal around the head of department?’ Aaron asked.

‘Pretty much,’ she said. ‘Nancy’s lovely—she’s the senior sister. Most of the team’s been here longer than I have, but we’ve got a couple of others just started—there’s Mikey, our F1 doctor, who’s not sure if he wants to do tropical medicine or emergency for his specialty, so he’s doing a six-month rotation with us to help him make his mind up, and two newly qualified nurses.’ She filled him in on the rest of the team. ‘Actually, we’re a fairly close bunch. We try to get a team night out at least once a month. We take turns in organising it, and there’s a bit of a competition about who can find the most unusual thing to do.’ She gave him the most mischievous grin. ‘I win, at the moment.’

‘What did you do?’ he asked, intrigued.

‘Pizza night,’ she said.

‘And that’s unusual how exactly?’ he asked, not understanding in the slightest. There was practically a pizzeria on every street.

Her grin broadened. ‘It’s unusual if you have to walk through a rainstorm without getting wet first.’

He looked at her, understanding even less. ‘How does that work? You’re telling me you can predict the weather?’

She took pity on him. ‘No, it was an art installation. It’s finished now, or I’d suggest you go, because it was utterly brilliant and I went four times. Basically there were sensors that picked up your movements and stopped the “rain” falling on you. Though that depended on how you moved and how quickly you moved.’

‘That sounds like fun,’ he said.

‘It was. We were like a bunch of kids, trying to get the sensors to rain on us. We tried hopping through the room, waltzing, moonwalking, doing the samba …’ She laughed, and again Aaron felt his blood heat. Hell. Get with the programme, he reminded his head. She’s off limits.

‘We’ve done ice-skating, had a tango lesson—oh, and there’s always food afterwards, whether it’s fish and chips or pizza or a curry. And then there’s the quarterly quiz night with the emergency department. The losing team keeps the winners in chocolate biscuits for a week. I hope you’re good at general knowledge, because we lost the last three.’ She gave him another of those mischievous grins that made him want to pull her into his arms and kiss her. ‘We could really do with a win this time, just to stop them gloating quite so much.’

‘I’m reasonable at general knowledge, but don’t bet the biscuits on me,’ he said, returning the grin. ‘It’s nice that you’re close to other departments.’

‘We are.’ She sighed. ‘But the new hospital director doesn’t quite see it like that. He’s sending a group of us on a team-building exercise in a couple of weeks, to one of those outdoor course places.’

‘It sounds as if you don’t approve,’ he remarked.

‘I think we do a good enough job on our own. If we really need expert help in building a relationship with our colleagues in other departments, that’d make us a pretty sad bunch. And if we really have to have the experts in, then I’d rather get someone to come in for a morning to do a team-building thing in one of the hospital meeting rooms, and spend the rest of the money on the patients, rather than spend all that cash sending teams of staff out to some expensive place.’ She shrugged. ‘But it’s not my call and I guess we have to do what the hospital director says.’

‘I guess,’ he said. ‘Can I buy you a coffee?’

She looked wary. ‘Why?’

‘Just to say thank you for showing me around and telling me pretty much everything I need to know about how the department works,’ he added swiftly.

She smiled, looking relieved; Joni Parker really was an open book, Aaron thought. What you saw was exactly what you got. Clearly she wasn’t used to hiding her emotions, the way he was.

‘You really don’t have to—I’m always happy to show people round—but thank you, a coffee would be lovely. Cappuccino, please, but no chocolate on the top.’

Yeah. He remembered. And he was glad of the excuse to leave their table before he did something reckless. Like asking her out to dinner. Because that would be a really stupid thing to do. They were colleagues. They didn’t need complications like being attracted to each other. Even if she was the most gorgeous woman he’d ever met. He needed to resist these wild, utterly ridiculous urges.

He had to hide a grimace when he brought their coffee back to their table and took a sip of his espresso. And for once he clearly wasn’t that successful in hiding his thoughts because she said, ‘You hate it, don’t you?’

‘I’m a bit of a coffee geek,’ he said. ‘So I’m not answering that one.’

She smiled. ‘In that case, I should warn you that the stuff in the ward kitchen is instant, and it’s not that posh barista-style instant coffee either. It’s whatever happens to be on special offer in the supermarket when Nancy takes the kitty and tops us up on tea and coffee. And the tea’s usually worse than the coffee.’

‘Warning heeded,’ he said.

‘So how did you get to be a coffee geek?’

It was a personal question, but not an emotional one, so he didn’t mind answering. ‘I worked as a barista while I was a student. And it was at an indie coffee house, not a chain. My boss was a super-geek—the coffee equivalent of a wine buff. I learned a lot from him.’