Buch lesen: «Assignment: Single Man»

CHAPTER ONE

IT WAS the sexy grin that did it. That and those arresting cobalt blue eyes that seemed to spear right through her.

She’d come out of the back office to Reception to tell Jackie she was going for a second interview with Xavier Giraud, but she didn’t get a chance. Jackie was no longer alone, and the man in there with her was a man she recognised, a man with a sexy, lopsided grin and the most arresting blue eyes she’d ever seen.

Josh looked up at her, and his smile widened in recognition.

‘Well, if it isn’t the bodacious Sister Williams,’ he said, and Fran suppressed a smile.

‘Well, if it isn’t the accident-prone Mr Nicholson. It’s good to see you alive.’

‘Do you two know each other?’ Jackie chipped in, clearly agog, and he chuckled.

‘Let’s just say we met over a red-hot needle a little while ago.’

‘Yes. How is the chest?’ Fran asked him, and he gave a short, humourless laugh.

‘Oh, the chest is fine—it’s healed beautifully. Unfortunately, though, the rest of me is lagging behind a little, hence my visit here. I need a nurse.’

His smile challenged her—almost dared her to take the job.

Why it seemed like a dare she couldn’t imagine, but for some inexplicable reason it did and her heart was beating a tattoo against her ribs. She forced herself to ignore it.

‘Why do you need a nurse?’ she asked, ruthlessly sticking to the point. ‘If you’ve been discharged from hospital…’

‘I’ve discharged myself,’ he said dryly. ‘The consultant didn’t quite seem to see eye to eye with me about that, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.’

Fran kept her expression carefully neutral. ‘You discharged yourself?’

He nodded, the grin kicking up one side of his mouth in a charming, little-boy appeal that had no business affecting her the way it did. She ignored the flutter in her heart—again—and studied him as he sat there in old jogging bottoms and a sweatshirt, one leg stuck out in front of him, his trousers cut up the side to accommodate the paraphernalia of the external fixator.

His right arm—the same side—was in a cast below the elbow, and his hair had been cropped short, perhaps to stitch a scalp wound? It suited him, she thought, sidetracked again by his lazy good looks and those arresting eyes.

Eyes clouded with pain, she realised. His body must have taken a real hammering.

And yet oddly, as mangled as he was, he still exuded power and confidence as well as an undeniable sex appeal. She dragged her mind back into order.

‘So, how long ago exactly did you have this accident?’ she asked, eyeing the cast on his arm and the metalwork protruding through his trouser leg with concern.

‘Twelve days ago.’

Fran blinked. Could it really only have been twelve days? She remembered the news breaking, just as her world was falling apart. He’d been the only bright spot in a hellish week, and when the accident happened it had been all the more shocking because she’d only just treated him. He’d fallen over a cat and landed in a bin bag full of rubbish, cutting his chest. She’d teased him, and then a few days later he’d nearly died.

Was it really only twelve days ago? It seemed forever, but that was her own personal perspective. In terms of this man’s injuries it was probably plenty—unless there was more than his arm and leg involved.

He shrugged, the crooked grin widening. ‘Well, apart from the bruised spleen, the split liver and the right femur which had to be pinned, not a lot really. Well, except for the clot on my brain. They had to make a little borehole to get it out. Oh, and there’s a crack in my pelvis, apparently.’

Fran felt sick. How many young men had she seen like that—and how many of them had lost their tenuous hold on life? Too many, over and over again, day after day, until she thought she’d go mad. She buried the hideous memories and rolled her eyes. ‘You must be out of your mind, discharging yourself,’ she told him flatly.

The grin faded, showing her for the first time just how bad he really felt. His face was etched deeply with lines of pain that added years to his true age, and as he turned his head towards the light a little, she could see the fading greenish-purple remains of some startling bruises round his eyes, shot through with a truly colourful yellow.

‘I was going out of my mind,’ he corrected. ‘What I need now is rest, that’s all, but I’m not so suicidal that I want to go home on my own, and the last thing on God’s earth I need is my mother fluttering around me like a demented hen.’

‘Maybe that’s exactly what you need,’ Fran suggested, suppressing a smile. ‘A bit of home cooking, a little motherly love, all from someone who knows you inside out—’

She was interrupted by a rude snort. ‘You’ve never met my mother,’ he said bluntly. ‘She doesn’t do home cooking, and she certainly doesn’t know me inside out. I’m not even sure about the motherly love, but I do know she’d drive me even crazier than being in hospital. And if I don’t have a nurse, she’ll insist on coming to look after me, and I might just have to kill her.’

The grin surfaced again. ‘You could always look on it as your moral duty as a law-abiding citizen, preventing a murder.’

The eyes twinkled in his bruised and battered face, and she crumpled. Let’s face it, she thought to herself, he certainly needs help, and you aren’t in a position to be fussy. Looking after him might even turn out to be fun.

‘This is a live-in post, I take it?’ she asked him, but her eyes were on Jackie, sitting back and watching the byplay between her newest recruit and her even newer client with avid interest.

‘Jackie?’ Fran prompted, wanting her input. It was her nursing agency, after all, and she was the one in charge of who went to which client and under what terms and conditions.

Jackie collected herself visibly and nodded. ‘Oh, yes, it would have to be, wouldn’t it, Mr Nicholson?’

He nodded agreement. ‘Absolutely. The slightest loophole and my mother will be in there quicker than a sniper’s bullet.’

Fran suppressed another smile. ‘And the hours?’

He shrugged. ‘Whatever. Minimal. However long it takes to go to the supermarket and buy some instant food and whack it in the microwave—oh, and I suppose the pins in my leg will need looking at from time to time. The rest of the time you can do what you like, so long as you’re around to take me anywhere I need to go. I take it you can drive?’

‘I can drive,’ she confirmed.

‘Well, that’s fine, then. I just need a token nurse in self-defence.’

Compared to the hell on wheels of her previous job in a busy London A and E department, it sounded like a positive doddle. Her only worry was that it would be so light on the nursing that she’d get bored to death, but maybe it was exactly what she needed. She certainly didn’t feel emotionally strong enough yet to deal with anything more front line.

She glanced at Jackie, who raised an eyebrow in question. ‘May be possible,’ she said quietly.

Jackie smiled bracingly at both of them. ‘I’m sure it will be fine.’ She turned to the man. ‘If you could just give us a few moments to sort out the paperwork, Fran’ll be all yours,’ she assured him, and then fixing Fran with a meaningful look, she led her into the office at the back. The door closed with a definite click and Jackie sagged against it, clutching her chest and sighing theatrically.

‘Oh, my God, he is so gorgeous!’ she said under her breath. ‘I can’t believe you know him. You are going to take this job, aren’t you? You’re not going to be silly?’

Fran shook her head. ‘No. I’m going to see Dr Giraud at eleven, and I’m probably going to take his job—if he offers it to me. And I don’t know Josh, I’ve only met him once.’

‘Well, surely you know who he is? Good grief, he’s famous—’

‘Yes, they talked about him at work. I’d never heard of him,’ Fran confessed. ‘I gather he’s got a bit of money.’

‘A bit? I think the expression is “fabulously wealthy”,’ Jackie said with a chuckle. ‘Anyway, what about the job? He needs looking after. It was a high-speed crash on the A12—something about a horse on the road. It was one of those really dark nights. Judging by the sound of it, he was very lucky to escape with his life. I’d forgotten all about it. Fran, it’s the chance of a lifetime. You have to take the job!’

‘It’s a thought. At least I wouldn’t be slumming it,’ Fran said with a weak attempt at humour, ‘and it might be quite interesting to see how the other half live. I feel a bit guilty about Xavier Giraud, though. I told him on the phone just before Josh came in that I’d go back and see him, and I was thinking about taking the job if he offered it.’

‘So think about it. Do you want to work part time as a practice nurse and look after Xavier’s disabled daughter in the afternoon, or do you want to work for Josh Nicholson? I know which I’d do in your situation.’

She hovered, just for a moment, haunted by the memory of Dr Giraud’s rich, mellow voice with its merest suggestion of a French accent. Then she thought of the sadness in his house—the loss of his wife, the crippling injury his daughter had sustained in the accident—and wondered if she had enough caring left inside her to do the job properly. Probably not.

She shook her head. ‘No. I can’t do him and his daughter justice. I need a rest, Jackie. I’ve had enough.’

And that was it. Five minutes of paperwork, and they were off. She followed his taxi as it wove through the streets of Woodbridge, then they left the town, crossed the river and turned down a track that led through the trees. From time to time she could glimpse the river on her right, then suddenly the trees opened up to reveal his house, and her jaw dropped.

She certainly wouldn’t be slumming it! The house was nestled in amongst the trees, a long, low curve, single storey except at the end nearest them, where the garage and a few rooms beyond it were tucked underneath, taking advantage of the natural slope. The path rose from the drive, curving round towards the front door in a long, graded sweep, and she pulled up beside the taxi and got out, awestruck.

It was huge, and yet oddly it blended in, cut into the landscape by the hand of a genius, and below it the river stretched out into the distance towards the sea. Slightly upstream she could see the distinctive shape of the tide mill on the opposite bank, with all the houses and shops of the old town clustered together around it and up the hill beyond.

Downstream all the little boats bobbed at their moorings, sunlight gleaming off their masts and sparkling on the wind-ruffled water, and she could almost hear the clink of halliards against the masts.

What a fabulous spot! And she was going to be living here for a while, steeped in the silence of the woodland around them. Amazing.

She pulled herself together and helped the taxi driver extract the wheelchair from the boot and ease her patient into it. Josh thanked him and paid him what seemed like an extortionate amount of money, and then suddenly they were alone.

Totally alone. Fran was suddenly aware of how isolated his house was, and how difficult it would be to get help if anything went wrong, but she suppressed the panic.

She was being silly. Nothing was going to go wrong. He wasn’t going to bleed to death, or he would have done it already. He’d be fine, and so would she. He was well on the way to recovery. All she had to do was get him into bed for a rest.

‘Got the keys?’ she asked him, and was met with a blank stare.

He swore softly under his breath. ‘They’re at the garage, with the car.’

‘Is there a spare one here, hidden under a flowerpot or something?’ she suggested hopefully, but he shook his head.

‘Not a chance.’

‘We’ll have to go and get them, then,’ she said pragmatically.

He eyed her car with evident disgust. ‘You want me to get into that?’

Fran felt her anger flare and stamped it down. ‘It may not be what you’re used to—’

He sighed. ‘I wasn’t criticising,’ he said wearily, ‘I was just wondering how on earth I’m going to fold myself up inside it.’

Of course. She hadn’t seen him standing up properly, but there was no mistaking the rangy length of his thighs. He was a big man, and her car was a little city car. Still, it was that or sit on the doorstep until she came back with the keys, and as she didn’t know where the garage was, he might have a very long wait. She pointed this out to him, and with a quiet sigh he resigned himself to the struggle.

Josh ached. Things ached that he didn’t even know he had. Her car was a nightmare, one of those cute little city cars that suited cute little city women, but it hadn’t been designed with a man of his size in mind, and most particularly not one with an external fixator on his leg and umpteen other broken bones. He could kick himself for not having thought about the keys before, but all he’d cared about had been getting home and the keys hadn’t really seemed a high priority then.

He shifted awkwardly in the seat so he could see her face, and he watched her as she drove. It put her off. Interesting. Her face was more interesting than he remembered, too, not classically beautiful but fine in a very English way. Her skin was a beautiful clear ivory, her hair dark and worn loose, falling in a waving, glossy curtain to well below her shoulders. He had an urge to reach out and touch it, but he thought she’d probably dump him on the road if he tried it.

She had wonderful cheekbones, and her eyes, a lovely soft grey-blue touched with lilac, spoke volumes. He wondered what had gone wrong and why a woman of her age was taking live-in jobs when she should have been at home with her husband and children or forging a dynamic career in her A and E department.

‘Turn left here,’ he said, and reminded himself that her reasons for working for him were none of his business. He should just be grateful that somebody suitable had been available with absolutely no notice. At least, he supposed she was suitable and hadn’t been dismissed for some flagrant conduct. He imagined that she’d been vetted by the agency, but he hadn’t checked. Yet another thing he’d overlooked. That wasn’t like him. It must be the bang on the head.

‘That’s it, up ahead on the right.’

She slowed and turned onto the garage forecourt, and came to a halt. ‘You stay here, I’ll go and ask,’ she suggested, but he shook his head.

‘I want to see the car.’

‘I don’t think that’s a very good idea,’ she said firmly.

She was probably right but, nevertheless, he wanted to see it and even if he hadn’t, her vetoing it was enough to get him out of the car, with or without her help.

‘I don’t employ you to have opinions,’ he told her bluntly. ‘I need a nurse, not a nanny. Get the chair.’

She opened her mouth to say something, then snapped it shut, got out of the car and slammed the door, then yanked it open again, muttering something under her breath that he couldn’t quite hear. Tipping her seat forwards with a thump, she yanked his wheelchair out of the tiny space behind it and hurled the door shut again with force.

He suppressed a grim smile. So she had a temper. Even more interesting. It would make his convalescence much less tedious.

His door was yanked open and she thrust his wheelchair up against the side of the car. ‘I think you’re mad,’ she told him with a directness that bordered on insolence, but he didn’t bother to argue.

It had occurred to him while she’d been banging about in a temper that, before he struggled out of the car, it would be an idea to check that his own car was actually here on the premises, but now didn’t seem the time to raise that. Anyway, George was coming over, thank goodness, a beaming smile splitting his face.

‘Mr Nicholson! Good to see you, sir.’

‘Hello, George. I’ve come to pick up some stuff from the car. I take it it’s here?’

‘Oh, yes, it’s here. We’ve collected all your things together—they’re in the office. I’ll get one of the lads to find them for you. It’s best if you stay here.’

Why were they all being so damned protective? ‘I’d like to see it,’ he said firmly, and he saw doubt flicker in George’s eyes.

‘Well, of course, if you must, it’s your car after all, but I really—’

‘I’d like to see it,’ he repeated in a voice that brooked no argument, and with a slight shrug George gave in.

‘Let me give you a hand into the chair, sir,’ George said, scrubbing his oily hands on a bit of rag, and Fran moved the wheelchair back a little to give them room. Once he was settled George wheeled him through into the back of the workshop, and there, with the top missing and every panel battered almost beyond recognition, was his car.

Josh took a steadying breath and steeled himself. ‘It looks a tad mangled,’ he said mildly, ignoring the pounding of his heart and the nausea that had come up out of nowhere. He could see blood all over the leather seats and in the footwell, and he suddenly wondered how the hell he’d got out of it alive. He looked away.

‘Um, I need the keys and the garage door remote—and any of the CDs that aren’t broken. I assume it’s a write-off?’

George made a smothered sound and smiled grimly. ‘I think we can safely assume that, sir. The keys and the garage remote are in the office with a few other bits and pieces, but we haven’t got the boot open yet and the CD player’s in there. I’ll drop them round to you just as soon as we’ve forced the lock. To be honest, sir, we weren’t expecting to see you quite so soon. In fact, to be truthful, we were all pretty amazed to know you’d survived.’

Seeing the car, Josh could only agree. He nodded slightly, acknowledging George’s remark, and looked up at Fran. Suddenly he’d seen enough. ‘Why don’t we go back to the car while George finds my things?’ he suggested, hoping that for once she wouldn’t challenge him.

To his amazement she didn’t, just took the wheelchair from George, turned it around so he was no longer facing the mangled evidence of his close encounter with death, and pushed him back out into the sunshine. He let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding, and he felt his shoulders drop inches.

To her eternal credit she didn’t say, I told you so, but merely helped him back into the car without a word and put away the wheelchair, while George handed him the keys and the remote and wished him well.

‘You were quite right,’ he said quietly as she drove off. ‘I really didn’t need to see that.’

Fran’s shoulders lifted in a little shrug. ‘I just knew how it would look,’ she told him. ‘I’ve worked in A and E for years, and I’ve attended lots of road traffic accidents. It often seems quite amazing that people survive them.’

‘It all rather puts it in perspective,’ he said. ‘I imagine any one of the injuries might have been enough to kill me.’

‘I think it’s unlikely that a broken wrist would do it,’ she teased, and he laughed, a little gusting laugh that took more of the tension out of his shoulders.

He leant his head back against the headrest and sighed, and she shot him a quick look, too quick for him to be sure that it really was concern in her eyes.

‘We’ll soon be home,’ she said gently. ‘You can have a rest and—’

‘I haven’t had a rest in the afternoon for years,’ he told her in disgust. ‘Not since I was about three.’

‘I expect there are lots of things that you’ve had to do in the last two weeks that you haven’t done since you were about three, but it’s no good crying over spilt milk. And while you’re sleeping,’ she went on relentlessly, ‘I’ll turn out the fridge, go through your cupboards and the freezer, and then go shopping. OK?’

What was there to say? Apparently nothing. Josh shrugged slightly, turned his head away and stared sightlessly out of the window. He was obviously going to have to resign himself to being fussed and mothered by this woman, but at least she was better-looking than his real mother, so he supposed that was a bonus. No less opinionated, though, he realised with a sinking feeling. They’d probably get on together like a house on fire. Oh, hell.

They turned onto the track leading to the house, and he felt every last pebble. He’d refused to take any of the painkillers they’d given him, but maybe that had been a little rash. Perhaps he’d have one when they got home. In the meantime, he gritted his teeth and said nothing.

He looked awful. The sight of the car, as she’d known it would be, had been a real shock to him. Experienced as she was, it had been a real shock to her, as well, and she still wasn’t entirely sure how he’d managed to escape with his life. Fran had no idea what make it was. There hadn’t been a recognisable panel on it, but she knew instinctively that it would have been almost new and hideously expensive. Not that that mattered, not compared to his life.

He was struggling now, she realised, and she wondered if he’d had any painkillers before he left the hospital. Probably not. He was stubborn enough for an entire army. Oh, well, he wouldn’t die of it, he’d just feel wretched, and if that was how he wanted to play it, who was she to interfere?

The track turned into his drive, and she pulled up in front of the garage and cut the engine.

‘Right,’ she said, turning to him with a smile, ‘all we have to do now is get you out of the car and into the house.’

Josh’s answering smile was a little tight, and she thought her guess about the painkillers had probably been correct. She manoeuvred him into the wheelchair, pushed him up the grass beside the path to save having to negotiate the steps, and then once the path flattened out she pushed him quickly up to the front door and opened it with his key.

Immediately something started to beep, and he pointed across the hall towards a door. ‘In there—the burglar-alarm control. Key in “5836”, then “Part Set”, then “No”.’

She did, and the beeping stopped, to her relief. ‘Right, let’s get you in,’ she said, and turned him round.

Hitching the wheelchair over the step was a problem, but with a little huffing and puffing she managed, and finally he was in. In fact, it wasn’t until she’d retrieved his case from the car and closed the front door behind herself that she actually noticed the house, and then her jaw sagged.

There was nothing ostentatious about it, not overtly, but everything screamed quality. The solid, light oak floor, the heavy timber doors in the same pale wood as the floor, the clean, simple lines were stunning. So, too, were the original works of art on all the walls, the value of which she didn’t even dare to guess at, and this was just the hall!

She shut her mouth firmly and followed his directions along the hall and into a wonderful room with a high, vaulted ceiling and a spectacular view of the river. It was a multi-purpose room, part kitchen, part breakfast area, part informal sitting room, full of rich colour and texture, and she guessed it was his favourite place in the house.

‘Right, if you show me where your bedroom is I’ll change your sheets and get it ready for you.’

‘You don’t need to change the sheets—the cleaning agency I use will have seen to it,’ he told her tiredly.

‘OK, in that case I’ll just help you change into something more comfortable and settle you down for a while. Where is it?’

Josh waved in the direction of the door on the other side of the room, and she pushed him through it, past a glass-walled study overlooking the river, past another few doors and through the one at the end.

They must be in the room over the garage, she realised, because in the end wall there were French doors opening onto the balcony above the drive, and there was another window on the front wall with the same spectacular view as from the kitchen and study.

‘Well, at least you’ll have a lovely place to lie and convalesce,’ she said, trying not to sound like a thunderstruck adolescent.

He grunted. ‘I have no intention of lying anywhere and convalescing,’ he pointed out bluntly. ‘From tomorrow onwards, I have every intention of getting back to work.’

She stifled the snort of disgust, and set the brakes on the wheelchair with a decisive jab. ‘We’ll see,’ she said crisply. ‘Right, let’s get you into bed.’

She leant forward, ready to tuck her right arm under his to help him up, but he just looked at her, his jaw set defiantly. ‘I thought I’d already told you that I don’t need a nanny,’ he said, his voice deathly quiet.

She felt her eyebrows go up but was helpless to prevent it. ‘So you did,’ she said calmly. ‘You also told me that you needed a nurse, but if you’re going to be difficult and uncooperative the entire time, I’m going to have to leave. I shouldn’t worry, though, because I expect your mother will be only too happy to come and look after you.’

He opened his mouth to argue, then snapped it shut, linked his arm through hers and pulled himself up out of the chair without another word. So he didn’t like being threatened with his mother, she thought with a smile. How useful to know that.

Storing the little snippet for later, Fran set about undressing him, exposing yet more of the colourful bruises as well as the livid lines of his recent surgery. Under other circumstances she’d found the powerful planes and angles of his body fascinating. As it was, she ignored them, more concerned with getting him comfortably settled in bed before he keeled over. It seemed more likely with every passing second.

Josh told her where she could find soft jersey boxer shorts and a T-shirt, and she helped him into them, only too glad when he was finally lying flat on the bed and able to relax.

‘Bliss,’ he said with a low grunt of relief.

She eyed him thoughtfully. It would take more than simply lying down to get him truly comfortable, but how to talk him into it? Easy. Instead of asking him if he wanted a painkiller, she’d tell him it was time. She tucked a pillow in beside his leg and arranged the quilt so it didn’t pull on his foot, then straightened up.

‘Now, where are all the drugs they gave you when you left the hospital?’ she asked him. ‘It must be time for a painkiller by now.’

For a moment he hesitated, and then he surrendered, as she’d hoped he would. ‘In the case,’ he muttered. ‘I don’t know what else there is. Antibiotics, possibly. I haven’t got a damn clue.’

‘That’s why I’m here, so you don’t have to think about it,’ she said calmly. She fetched him a glass of water from the sumptuous kitchen and held it while he took the pills, then he settled back onto the pillows with a sigh.

‘Thank you,’ he said in a low voice.

Thank you? Good heavens. She schooled her face. ‘My pleasure. Right, now I’m going to turn out the fridge so we don’t get food poisoning, and if you’re feeling OK I’ll go to the supermarket. I’ve got a mobile, I’ll give you the number and you can call me if you have a problem.’

She went out, leaving the door ajar, and by the time she’d emptied the fridge and made a shopping list, he was fast asleep. She wrote her mobile number on a piece of paper and tucked it under the edge of the phone on his bedside table then, taking his keys with her, she let herself out and headed back into town.

She didn’t want to do a big shop, just a few basic provisions and something for tonight. After all the jostling about, she didn’t really like leaving him, but all she’d found in the fridge had been a few curls of dried-up smoked salmon and a bit of cheese that had seen better days. The milk was solid in the bottle, and what few vegetables there were were well past their sell-by date. There was precious little in the cupboards either, and the freezer contained nothing more than a few ready meals that left her cold.