Tamed By The Renegade. Emily Forbes
unavailable.’
Getting days off wasn’t difficult but losing the pay cheque would hurt. But there wasn’t anything she could do about that. She wasn’t leaving until Rose was out of the woods.
‘Are you still working agency? You don’t want something more permanent?’
Lucy had been working for the same aged care facility for ever. Ruby knew she was very attached to the residents but they didn’t live forever. In normal nursing patients came and went and Ruby couldn’t see what difference having a permanent job would make to her life when there was so much change anyway. Ruby didn’t want to form attachments, it would make leaving difficult.
‘It’s just as well I’m doing agency work as it meant I could jump on a plane and come to Adelaide without letting anyone down,’ she said, but she knew better than to expect that to be the end of the conversation. She waited for the inevitable question.
‘You don’t want to settle down?’
There it was. Their conversations always seemed to come back to that. No matter what they were discussing, her mother always seemed to be able to raise the topic of settling down.
By the age of twenty-six Lucy had been a mother of three but Ruby knew it hadn’t all been by choice and she had no intention of making the same mistakes her mother had made. She chose to ignore the fact that not only had she made some of the same mistakes, she had also made other, different, ones and now she was trying just to get through life. She wanted company but she didn’t want commitment. She didn’t want to share her private thoughts or her history with anyone else.
She could feel her hackles rising.
She knew she should be mature enough not to fight with her mother, especially not at the moment next to her sister’s ICU bed. Rose always tried to avoid confrontation and Ruby didn’t want to get into a fight here in case Rose could hear them. She knew she wouldn’t have given work a second thought if Lucy hadn’t asked about it and that realisation put a match to her already short fuse. She needed to remove herself from the situation before Lucy could ask any more questions.
‘Have you eaten today?’ she asked. She needed some breathing space and a quick trip to the hospital kiosk would give her a chance to get it. ‘I’m starving. I skipped breakfast so I might go and grab something to eat. Would you like something?’ She couldn’t remember when she’d last seen her mother eat and, as she expected, Lucy declined her offer.
As she left the ICU she couldn’t help but look at the empty space in the cubicle beside Rose. She hoped the vacant bed meant he’d been moved because he was recovering well. She didn’t want to think that things might have gone from bad to worse.
She kept her eyes peeled for him as she made her way along the hospital corridors but he was nowhere to be seen. It wasn’t as though she’d really expected to bump into him but she still felt a frisson of disappointment as she stepped up to the counter of the hospital kiosk and placed her order.
She just wanted to see him once more. She needed to know he was okay.
She picked up her green tea and vegetarian wrap and turned from the counter and found the person she’d been searching for. He was sitting on the opposite side of the room, watching her with his bright blue eyes.
It had been twenty-four hours since she’d seen him and she couldn’t help but think what a difference a day made. One day ago he’d been in an intensive care bed and now he was dressed and sitting in the hospital kiosk. Watching her.
Although he was on the far side of a crowded room Ruby would have sworn they had the place to themselves. She certainly wasn’t aware of anyone else. Not while he was watching her. Even from a distance the colour of his eyes was a vivid blue and somehow he had become familiar to her despite the fact she still had no idea who he was.
He smiled and her heart skipped a beat.
He didn’t look surprised to see her. Neither did he seem embarrassed to be caught watching her. If she didn’t know better she would think he’d been waiting for her.
Her heart pounded in her chest as she walked towards him. She told herself she had to walk past him to get out of the kiosk but there were actually several different exits, she could have easily chosen a different route, but her feet were already moving in his direction. It was no use pretending she didn’t want to see him; for the past two days she’d thought of nothing else except her sister and the stranger in the bed next to her.
She was three steps away when she discovered that the path she’d taken was blocked by his wheelchair. She hesitated and looked up, meeting his eyes, before continuing on another step.
‘Hello.’ His voice rumbled through her. It was deep and strong but quiet. It sounded as though he was far away but it was loud enough to bring her to a stop beside him. It was only one little word, two syllables, but to Ruby’s ears it was so much more than a simple greeting. To Ruby it was the start of something more.
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