The inevitability of Ruby’s situation didn’t ease the impact of her words. Nash felt the little girl’s death deep in his soul. Remembered Tammy’s death and the devastating time that had followed all over again. He ran his hand across to Maggie’s shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze.
She shut her eyes at his comforting gesture, grateful for his silence. He’d known just what she’d needed like only another who worked in the field could. Her ex, an engineer, had never understood. He’d tried to fill her sadness up with clichéd phrases or contrived distractions, but none of them had worked as well as Nash’s simple touch.
She didn’t blame Peter. He’d tried hard but ultimately he hadn’t been able to understand that every death took a little piece out of her soul. That she was diminished a little each time.
That life made a little less sense with each tragedy.
‘I’m sorry. I get too involved,’ she murmured, falling back against her pillow and staring at the ceiling.
Nash rolled up on his elbow and looked into her sad brown eyes. He’d hoped that the nurses who had looked after Tammy at the end had been even half as involved. ‘You should never apologise for that.’
Maggie smiled at him and lifted her palm to cradle his jaw, scratchy with blond stubble. ‘Thank you.’
Nash turned his head and pressed a kiss to her palm. ‘Are you hungry?’
His lips tickled against her palm and she moved it up higher, pushing her fingers into his thick, wavy hair. ‘Starving.’
He kissed her briefly on the mouth. ‘Stay there, I’ll rustle us up something to eat.
‘There’s not much there, I’m afraid.’ Maggie had been on a run of days before her nights and hadn’t had the chance or the inclination to shop.
Nash rolled off the bed and grinned down at her. ‘I am a master of making meals out of nothing.’
‘Oh?’ Maggie said, her gaze wandering down his naked body because he was just too magnificent to ignore.
Nash’s dick twitched in respond to her blatant enjoyment. ‘Years of sharing flats and camping out back home have honed my culinary skills. Trust me.’
‘Hmm,’ she said, distracted by his burgeoning interest being displayed in full-frontal colour.
‘Of course, if you keep looking at me like that, I’m just going to skip it and go straight to dessert.’
Maggie dragged her eyes away from his groin and blushed at the way his gaze was devouring her breasts. Her nipples hardened. But then her stomach growled into the silence and he chuckled.
‘I’ll be right back. Don’t move a muscle.’
Nash made a brief detour into the bathroom for his underwear before heading for the kitchen. He opened the fridge and surveyed the sparse contents. A tub of yoghurt, skimmed milk, half a loaf of bread, a dried-out-looking carrot and three tomatoes.
Hmm. This was going to be a challenge even for him.
He opened the freezer and smiled. Maybe not. ‘Dessert after all,’ Nash said a few minutes later, carrying in a tray with two bowls piled with ice cream.
‘What no loaves-and-fishes miracle today?’ Maggie teased.
Nash laughed as he placed the tray on the bed. ‘Please. Mother Hubbard has more food than you. But,’ he said, ‘I can’t fault your taste in ice cream.’
A waft of something floral tickled her nose and Maggie’s gaze fell to the other object on the tray. The miniature crystal vase she kept on her window sill was sporting a spray of frangipani blossoms. She glanced at Nash. ‘They from my garden?’
He nodded. ‘I hope you don’t mind. I noticed them through the window.’
Maggie was inordinately touched. She hadn’t pictured Nash as the romantic type but after the horror of last night it was the perfect gesture. She fingered a velvety petal admiring the vibrant yellow centre. ‘Of course not. It was a lovely thought.’
He smiled at her and passed her a bowl. ‘Eat up.’
Maggie sat and they ate the decadent chocolate macadamia ice cream in silence for a few moments. She felt tired but his company and the aroma of frangipani was keeping the dreadful sadness at bay.
Nash was distracted from the sensational taste by the swing of her breasts in his peripheral vision as she sat cross-legged and oblivious. Thoughts of dropping a spoonful of the dark ice cream on the centre of her chest and watching as her body heat warmed it and it ran in rivulets over her breasts, taunted him.
He didn’t think he would ever be able to get enough of seeing her naked. Maggie, he realised, was becoming addictive. Like double chocolate macadamia ice cream.
Like a drug.
‘Why don’t we keep this thing going?’ he asked casually as he took another mouthful.
Maggie paused with the spoon halfway to her mouth. Her heart skipped a beat. ‘What thing?’
Nash swallowed. ‘This,’ he said, waving his empty spoon between them. ‘Us.’
He watched her, waiting for her reaction. She piled some more ice cream on her spoon and popped it in her mouth. ‘I know it was supposed to be a one-night deal, Maggie.’
It was suddenly vitally important that he convince her. He couldn’t think of another person he’d rather spend time with before he went overseas.
‘But we’ve already stepped over that line. What harm can there be just having fun together for the next couple of months?’
What harm indeed? He made it sound so simple. So tempting. And maybe it was. Looking at him, at all his incredible male vitality, his youth, his vigour, the prospect of a relationship with him seemed utterly ludicrous. But sitting next to him eating ice cream, his bare broad shoulders so close Maggie could lean in and press a kiss to them, a short affair involving mutual gratification seemed infinitely possible.
But. Was it right?
It might seem ridiculous to a lot of people but Maggie prided herself on always trying to do the right thing. Was having sex with a man ten years her junior the right thing to do?
Just because they desired each other?
And what about the gossip? Did she want to be the laughing stock of the hospital? The resident cradle-snatcher? ‘I’m not really into casual.’
Nash chuckled. ‘What’s wrong with casual, Maggie May?’
His laugh was full of humour and sin and licked flames deep inside her, and she suddenly felt old. The differences between them were stark. He didn’t have a problem with keeping it light, casual. Whereas she’d reached a stage in her life that craved the security of a relationship. Of waking up together every day with someone.
Maggie knew from experience how good it could be, how fulfilling. It wasn’t that she was out there actively looking for it but she knew she was too old to play games.
After her divorce she hadn’t thought she’d ever feel like this again, and she was surprised to discover she did now that Nash had forced her hand. She didn’t want to invest too much emotional energy in someone who wasn’t sticking around. Who wasn’t a keeper.
Because, as she’d already told him, she got too involved.
Nash was still trying out all the rides in the playground. And that was fine. But he could keep the swings and roundabouts. ‘Nothing, I guess,’ she murmured. ‘Just not my style.’
‘You have a style?’
Maggie smiled. ‘I do now.’ She finished her dessert and pushed the bowl onto the bedside table, easing herself down until she was on her back again, the pillow behind her head, the sheet pulled up.