Summer With Love: The Spanish Consultant

‘No. Not a thing.’ She looked at her sister and inhaled deeply. ‘I’m not eighteen any more, Lib. Do you really think I’d be mad enough to get involved with him again?’

After all the pain she’d suffered …

‘You couldn’t help yourself last time,’ Libby pointed out gently. ‘I saw the way you were with him. He was the one, Katy.’

‘I wish you’d stop saying that!’ Katy leapt of the bed, her breathing rapid. ‘He wasn’t the one. He wasn’t! I was too young and inexperienced to know what I was doing.’

‘Not that young.’

Katy shook her head. ‘It can’t be love if it’s one-sided, and Jago never loved me.’

I don’t do commitment, Katy.

‘OK, calm down.’ Libby looked at her warily and stuck out her hand. ‘Have some chocolate. It’s good for the nerves.’

Katy sighed. ‘I’m beyond chocolate.’

Libby looked unconvinced. ‘Nothing is ever beyond the reach of chocolate. Well, if you don’t want chocolate, we could go shopping. I saw this gorgeous pair of shoes today.’

Katy gave a wan smile. Libby’s two big loves in life were chocolate and shoes. ‘If you buy any more shoes we’ll need a bigger flat.’ She bit her lip. ‘I can handle him now, Lib. I’m older and more sensible. I know he’s wrong for me. I don’t want a man like Jago. He’s ruthless and macho and totally not my type.’

She remembered the careless way that he’d dismissed the nurse. It seemed that, whatever career he pursued, Jago had to be in control.

‘He’s Spanish,’ Libby reminded her. ‘These Mediterranean types are all the same. Unreconstructed when it comes to women.’

‘Well, I don’t want unreconstructed,’ Katy said firmly. ‘Not any more. That was just a phase I went through as a teenager. Now I’m older and wiser and I want romantic—like Freddie. Did you see the flowers?’

Libby pulled a face. ‘I could hardly miss them. Freddie certainly isn’t subtle.’

Katy stiffened defensively. ‘He’s kind.’

‘Right.’ Libby looked at her. ‘So is the mechanic that services my car, but I’m not marrying him.’

‘Just drop it.’

‘You know I don’t think you should be marrying Freddie, and neither does Alex.’ Libby looked her straight in the eye. ‘Don’t try telling me you’re not still affected by Jago, Katy. Look at yourself! You’re a nervous wreck. You couldn’t resist him before. What makes you think you can do it this time?’

‘Because I’m older and wiser and I’m marrying Freddie.’

‘Freddie is completely wrong for you.’

Katy gritted her teeth. ‘He’s very romantic. Something that Jago could never be.’

‘But then Jago is one hundred and fifty per cent full-on virile male,’ Libby said softly, ‘something that Freddie could never be.’

‘That’s enough!’ Katy lifted her hands to her ears but Libby didn’t give up.

‘You’re going to be waking up every morning next to Lord Frederick—that’s if he hasn’t left early to get to the office before the markets open …’

Katy still had her ears covered. ‘I’m not listening.’

‘Fine. Don’t listen.’ Libby sprang off the bed and tossed the chocolate wrapper in the bin. ‘But if you think you can work alongside Jago without creating fireworks then you’re deluded.’

‘I—I can,’ Katy stammered. ‘He doesn’t affect me any more.’

Libby lifted an eyebrow. ‘Really?’

‘I don’t even think about him.’

The heat of his mouth on hers, the erotic sweep of his tongue …

‘Right.’ Libby looked at her steadily. ‘Well, in that case, working with him isn’t going to be a problem, is it?’

Two weeks later Katy stood nervously in the A and E department, listening as one of the other consultants showed them round and explained what was expected of them.

A tiny scar hidden in her hairline was the only remaining physical evidence of her accident but emotionally it was a different matter. The shattered pieces of her heart, painstakingly glued back together over the past eleven years, had been torn apart again by just one meeting with Jago.

The air around her felt stuffy and close. She could hardly breathe. Just thinking about bumping into him made her knees tremble and her palms sweaty.

What had possessed her to think that she could do this?

How would he react when he discovered that she was a doctor and that she was going to be working in his department?

And how was she going to react to him?

‘This is the resuscitation room and it’s always kept ready. Basically we divide the department into different areas.’ Totally unaware of Katy’s inner torment, the consultant smiled at the group of doctors gathered around him. ‘For serious injuries we use a team approach in this hospital. It means that different tasks can be performed simultaneously and makes for a more rapid assessment of the patient, and that improves the survival rate.’

Reminding herself that she had a job to do, Katy forced herself to concentrate. It was her first day and at the moment it was quiet, but she’d been warned that there could be an influx of patients at any moment. A group of them had started together and so far everyone seemed friendly enough.

And there was no sign of Jago Rodriguez.

Gradually her knees started to shake a little less and her breathing grew easier.

‘How many people make up the trauma team?’ A good-looking, fair-haired doctor, who’d introduced himself as Carl Richards, asked the question and the consultant turned to face him.

‘We use four doctors, five nurses and a radiographer. One of the doctors acts as team leader, then there’s the airway doctor who does the obvious but also checks the cervical spine and inserts any central or arterial lines that might be needed.’

‘And the other two doctors?’

‘We call them circulation doctors. They help with the removal of the patients’ clothes, put up peripheral lines, insert chest drains—that type of thing. The nurses work in much the same way. The important thing to remember is that there should only be six people touching the patient or it leads to total chaos. The others should keep well back.’

‘And most of the senior doctors.’ It was Carl again. ‘Have they done the ATLS course?’

The consultant nodded. ‘The advanced trauma life support course was originated by the American College of Surgeons, but we now run something similar over here in the UK.’

Katy spoke up. ‘So will we be part of the trauma team?’

The consultant gave a wry smile. ‘You’re going to be part of everything. The team leader is always a consultant but you’ll certainly be working as circulation doctors, obviously operating within your skill level. If certain procedures are unfamiliar, we expect you to say so. Now, I’m going to show you the most important room of all. The staff common room.’

Half an hour later, Katy pushed her bag into her locker, slammed it shut and made to follow the others out onto the unit. They’d had a cup of coffee and now the work was about to start.

Her first day on A and E.

She was the last person left in the common room and she gave a start as the door crashed open and Jago strode in, formidably male, his strong features strained.

‘Tell me this is a joke,’ he launched, slamming the door shut behind him and keeping a hand on it so that no one could disturb them. ‘I’ve just seen your name on the rota. Dr Katherine Westerling?’

If anything, he was even colder than he’d been when she’d been admitted as a patient and Katy closed her eyes briefly.

Maybe it was her fault. She should have warned him, but when she’d been lying in hospital she hadn’t even decided whether she was going to be able to do it.

And now she was having serious doubts.

How could she ever have thought that she could work alongside him without a problem?

Connecting with those volcanic dark eyes, she felt an explosion of awareness erupt inside her body and hated herself for it. It seemed that it didn’t matter how indifferent he was to her, she was still a sucker for his type of raw, masculine sexuality.

‘It’s not a joke.’ Katy’s breathing was suddenly uneven as she struggled to hide the disturbing effect he had on her. At five feet ten she was used to being at eye level with most men, but she’d always had to look up to Jago. He was six feet three of intimidating, angry male, and being in the same room as him had a seriously detrimental effect on her nerves.

‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me when you were in here two weeks ago?’

‘I—I didn’t think it was relevant.’

Because she’d been shell-shocked to see him again.

Because she hadn’t made up her mind whether she would be able to take the job, knowing that it would mean working with him.

‘Not relevant?’ His eyes raked over her in a naked disbelief that would have offended her if she hadn’t become used to it over the years. People always looked at her in disbelief because she didn’t fit their stereotype of a doctor.

Katy sighed, reading his mind. ‘Women become doctors, Jago. Even blondes.’

He frowned sharply. ‘I’m not prejudiced against women doctors.’

‘So what’s wrong?’

‘Seeing you in A and E is what’s wrong,’ he drawled, his penetrating dark gaze locking onto hers. ‘You were a model. A woman whose main priority was the state of her nails.’

That wasn’t true but she couldn’t blame him for thinking that.

At the time she’d been breathlessly aware that Jago had only dated really, really beautiful women and she’d been determined to be as beautiful as possible to see off the competition. And that had been time-consuming.

It occurred to her suddenly that she and Jago hadn’t ever really talked about anything that mattered. She’d certainly never told him that she’d wanted to be a doctor. In fact, apart from Libby and Alex, no one had known just how badly she’d wanted to be a doctor until the day she’d told her father.

She lifted her chin. ‘I gave up modelling when I was eighteen.’ Just after he’d walked out of her life. ‘I—I had a few years off and then I went to medical school.’

He looked at her. ‘And did your father approve of that?’

Her heartbeat increased at the memory and her gaze slid away from his. ‘No.’

‘So you finally stood up to him about something.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘Good for you. But that still doesn’t make you suitable material for an A and E doctor.’

She stiffened, refusing to be intimidated by his disparaging tone. ‘I was top of my year, Jago.’

‘I never said you weren’t bright and I’m sure you’d make an excellent GP,’ he said dismissively, his expression hard and uncompromising. ‘What was your last job?’

‘Paediatrics.’

‘Go back there,’ he advised silkily. ‘Accident and emergency is medicine in the raw. It’s a real job. It won’t suit you.’

Her heart was thumping so hard she felt dizzy.

‘I’ve done real jobs before.’

‘Really?’ He lifted an eyebrow, his tone heavy with sarcasm. ‘Just how much blood and serious, gut-wrenching trauma have you dealt with in your time, Katy?’

None.

She’d done the required medical and surgical house jobs after she’d qualified, of course, and then she’d done a year of paediatrics before deciding that it wasn’t the route she wanted to take in her career.

It had been her consultant on the paediatric ward who’d observed her calm, unflappable nature and suggested that she might like to consider A and E work.

And despite Jago’s acid comments, she knew she could do it.

‘I’ll be fine.’ She swallowed. If she was honest, she was slightly anxious about how she’d cope with major trauma, but she’d rather stop breathing than admit that to Jago. ‘Being a good doctor isn’t just about blood and guts. I’m good at communicating with patients and I have good instincts when it comes to judging clinical situations.’

His eyes raked over her from head to foot, taking in every inch of her appearance. ‘And do you really think that scraping back that blonde hair, wearing glasses that you don’t need and dressing like my grandmother is going to make you seem tougher?’

Katy touched the glasses self-consciously. Having long blonde hair and being considered exceptionally pretty had turned out to be a distinct disadvantage, so over the years she’d adopted a disguise. She’d discovered that if she dressed discreetly then people paid more attention to what she was saying. But not Jago, of course. He saw through the disguise right to her soul. He’d always been razor sharp.

She decided to be honest. ‘I wear the glasses because they make people take me more seriously.’

His laugh was unsympathetic. ‘And I bet you need all the help you can get, querida.’

She bristled at his tone and lifted her chin with an icy dignity that she’d learned from her mother.

‘I’m a good doctor, Jago.’ She’d had to prove it on umpteen occasions in the past so it was nothing new. ‘I’ll be fine.’

‘Too right you’ll be fine.’ His voice was lethally soft and contained more than a hint of menace. ‘You’ll be fine because I’m going to be breathing down your neck every minute of the day. Everything you do, Katy, every patient you see, I’m going to be there, next to you, watching. I do not need another lightweight doctor in this department. If someone is sick on those designer shoes of yours, you’re going to have to carry on to the end of the shift. You’re going to have to prove yourself to me. And you don’t have to be as good as everyone else, you have to be twice as good. Or you’re out.’

Her heart was thumping double time.

‘I’m not lightweight. You’re making judgements about me—’

‘Based on experience.’ He moved towards her. ‘I know you, Katy. I know how you think. You hate confrontation. There’s no way you’ll cope with A and E. I guarantee that after one week you’ll wish you were back in paediatrics.’

She licked her lips, her whole body pulsating in response to his looming proximity.

‘That won’t happen and you’re totally wrong about me.’

‘Yes?’ His black eyes were as hard as flint. ‘When I knew you, you didn’t even have the courage to stand up to your own father. You were terrified that he might find out you were seeing me.’

She tried to back away but there was nowhere to go. The cold metal of the lockers pressed through the thin fabric of her blouse.

It was true that at eighteen she’d been terrified of her father. And as it had turned out, her fear had been fully justified.

But Jago didn’t know that, of course. He’d vanished into the sunset before any of it could get ugly, ignorant of the devastation he’d left behind him.

He’d never known what her father was like.

Very few people did.

‘Your father was a tough man—probably still is—but he’s a walk in the park compared to some of the patients we see in this department on a Saturday night.’

A walk in the park?

Remembering just what had transpired after Jago had left, Katy was shocked into speechlessness.

He stepped closer. ‘You don’t like disagreements or controversy and you hate all forms of violence. We do violence quite well in A and E, you know.’ His tone was smooth. ‘Saturday afternoons after football and rugby, nights after the pubs close. What are you going to do when the department is full of drunks? What are you going to do when someone turns round and hits you?’

He was trying to scare her off but it wasn’t going to work.

The only thing that frightened her about working in A and E was being close to him.

Especially the way he was acting at the moment.

Like a madman.

As if he wasn’t the man who’d taken her virginity and then walked away without a backward glance.

She cast him a confused look. ‘Why are you being like this?’

His gaze was hard and unsympathetic. ‘Because this is a horrifically busy department and frankly I don’t have time to nursemaid someone who’s main concern in life is whether she needs to file her nails.’

He made her sound frivolous and shallow, but maybe she’d seemed that way to him when he’d known her at eighteen. One thing was sure, if they were ever going to be able to work together effectively, they had to get the past out of the way.

‘You don’t know me any more.’ She kept her tone conciliatory, the way she did when her father was in one of his scary moods. ‘It’s been eleven years since you last saw me. Maybe we should talk about what happened, Jago.’

Maybe he could explain why he’d walked away.

Jago’s eyes were cold and his broad shoulders were rigid with tension. ‘The past is history. There’s nothing that I want to talk about and if you’re trying to convince me that you’ve changed, you’re wasting your breath. You’re forgetting that I met the man you’re engaged to.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘That in itself was enough to prove to me that you haven’t changed one little bit.’

Maybe he had changed, she reflected. Despite his Spanish ancestry, Jago had always been so emotionally controlled that in the past she’d longed to do something which would shake him out of his almost permanent state of indifference. Yet she sensed that at this moment he was hanging onto control by little more than a thread. For the first time she was seeing a hint of that volatility that was supposed to characterise Mediterranean men.

But what she didn’t understand was why. Something had obviously really challenged his legendary cool and she had absolutely no idea what. And his lack of remorse about the way he’d treated her still puzzled her. He seemed so hard.

She forced her mind back to the subject. ‘You don’t know anything about Freddie.’

‘I know he’s the man your father’s chosen for you.’ That burning dark gaze locked on hers with all the lethal accuracy of a deadly weapon. As he stepped even closer to her his voice dropped to a low purr, like a tiger soothing its prey before the kill. ‘Does he make you hot inside, Katy? Does he make you so desperate that he has you panting and ripping at his clothes?’

Powerful images exploded in her head and her face burned with shock and embarrassment at his explicit words.

‘Have you finished?’ Determined not to betray just how uncomfortable she felt, she looked him straight in the eye. It was a mistake.

She tumbled into the fathomless depths of his dark eyes and felt her knees tremble.

He leaned forward. ‘That man has no idea how to unlock the real Katy.’

‘And I suppose you think you do!’

‘Of course.’ The lazy arrogance in his voice was the final straw and she lifted a hand and slapped him so hard that the palm of her hand stung.

‘Dios mio.’ His head jerked backwards and he looked at her with raw incredulity, disbelief pulsating in the depths of his eyes.

Stunned by her own behaviour, Katy opened her mouth to apologise and then closed it again. There was no way she was apologising to him!

‘Eleven years is a long time, Jago, and you don’t know anything about who I am any more.’ Her small hands clenched by her sides and she forced herself to breathe normally. ‘I’m more than capable of working in this department and I’m going to marry Freddie.’

They stood, eyes trapped by an invisible force, until the door opened and a male voice said, ‘I’ve found our straggler. She’s still in the common room.’

The consultant walked in and gave Jago a nod before turning to Katy. Fortunately he didn’t seem to notice the reddened streak on Jago’s cheekbone.

‘If you’ve finished in here, I’ll take you out and see which member of staff you’re allocated to. We find that the new casualty officers settle in quickly if they work closely with another member of staff. I’ll just check who that is.’

‘You needn’t bother.’ Jago’s voice was soft and his eyes were still fixed on Katy’s pale face. ‘Dr Westerling will be working with me.’

His colleague looked startled. ‘Oh, right—well, you’ve obviously already met Jago Rodriguez, one of our other consultants. In that case, I’ll leave you in his capable hands. I’m sure you’re keen to get started.’

Jago’s mouth curled into a smile. ‘I’m sure Dr Westerling can’t wait.’

There was a sardonic gleam in his sexy dark eyes that brought a flush to her pale cheeks and a sick feeling to the pit of her stomach.

Working with Jago wasn’t just going to be difficult.

It was going to be a nightmare.

Twenty-four hours later Katy was wondering why she’d ever thought she’d be able to cope with A and E.

She’d seen a never-ending stream of patients, most of them angry at having been kept waiting for hours.

‘Can’t we see patients any faster?’ she asked Charlotte, the sister who had looked after her when she’d been brought in after her car accident. ‘I’m fed up with being verbally abused by everyone I see.’

‘Welcome to A and E.’ Charlotte handed her a set of X-rays to check. ‘We make a dent and then an emergency comes in and takes priority. That’s the way it works. That’s why we have triage. Non-emergency cases go to the bottom of the pile and they stay there until someone has time to see them.’ She smiled sympathetically at Katy’s drawn expression. ‘Don’t worry, you get used to people yelling at you after a while.’

‘I don’t mind people yelling,’ Katy lied quickly, not wanting to risk Charlotte telling Jago that she couldn’t cope. ‘I just wish we didn’t have to keep people waiting.’

‘At least you’re working with Jago. He can be a pretty hard taskmaster, I know, but he’s a brilliant doctor. You’re lucky.’

Katy kept her mouth clamped shut. Lucky? She certainly didn’t feel lucky to be working with Jago. She felt as though she must have done something seriously wrong in a previous life to have deserved such punishment.

Realising that Charlotte was looking at her oddly, she managed a smile.

‘I’m sure you’re right,’ she replied smoothly. ‘I’m looking forward to learning from him.’

‘As a doctor he’s staggeringly gifted,’ Charlotte went on. ‘He has this uncanny ability to spot things that other people miss, but sometimes he forgets that the rest of us are human. Don’t let him get to you.’

He was getting to her.

He made it perfectly obvious that he didn’t think she had what it took to work in A and E and he was watching her every move, waiting for her to make a mistake. Why did he hate her so much?

All she’d ever done had been to fall in love with him, and surely that was her problem, not his.

They hadn’t really talked about what had happened in the past. Maybe she should bring it up. Clear the air.

Feeling totally miserable, Katy sighed and reached for the X-rays but at that moment Annie, one of the staff nurses, rushed up.

‘Ambulance Control just rang. They’re bringing in a forty-year-old man who’s had an accident in a warehouse. He got caught by a forklift truck. Apparently he’s in a bad way. Very weak pulse and virtually no blood pressure. They should be here in less than five minutes.’

‘Find Jago,’ Charlotte said immediately, but his voice came from behind them.

‘I heard. Annie, get the trauma team together in Resus and make sure we have a radiographer. I don’t want to be hanging around for X-rays.’ His gaze flickered to Katy. ‘You can join us in Resus and act as one of the circulation doctors. You saw us in action yesterday—do you think you can cope?’

Katy’s stomach lurched and her pulse rate quickened, but she met his gaze without flinching.

‘Of course.’

She’d cope or die in the attempt.

‘Good.’ His dark eyes locked on hers moodily and then he strode off towards Resus, leaving her to follow.

Charlotte alerted the nursing team and one of them was given the task of informing people in the waiting room that the waiting time was likely to be increased because a major injury was coming in.

‘There’ll be a riot,’ Annie predicted gloomily, and Harry, one of the other consultants, nodded.