The Consultant's Italian Knight

  “I’m going back to work this afternoon, and you’ll have to clap me in irons to stop me.”

  “And you think that can’t be arranged?” he declared, every bit as angry now as she was. For a moment he thought she was going to argue with him, then her lips twisted slightly.

  “Mario, I know you’re just trying to protect me, but I have to go back to work. You’ve been a doctor. People need me, and I can’t let them down. I simply can’t.”

  “I appreciate that, Kate, I do. But this isn’t a game,” he protested.

  “The risk is worth taking.”

  Not for him, he thought, as his eyes met hers. If anything should happen to her…If he never saw her laugh again, or smelled her perfume or saw her chew her lip when she was thinking…But he couldn’t tell her that. He hated admitting it even to himself.

  “Okay,” he said slowly, “if you want to go back to work, then I’ll let you. But,” he continued as her large grey eyes lit up with clear delight, “there are conditions. You have to let me come back and work in your department—”

  “Not a problem.”

  “—and you have to let me move in with you.”

  Dear Reader,

  Before I started writing this book I asked my editor if I could try something a little bit different. “Great,” she said. Trouble was, I couldn’t come up with anything different. I considered forensic medicine, but it didn’t light my fire. And then I thought, “How about a woman-in-jeopardy mystery story set in a hospital?”

  As soon as I’d decided that, I was off and running, and the character of Kate followed just as fast. But my hero was a lot tougher to crack. Zach—yup, he was Zach right up until I was halfway through this book—just wouldn’t speak to me. I kept wondering what was wrong, and then one day, right out of the blue, he said, “I’m Italian.” I tried to keep him quiet, to tell him I was the writer and I would decide what nationality he was, but he kept on saying it, so I went back to the beginning of the book and began rewriting it. The minute Mario hustled Kate into that cupboard I knew he’d been right and I’d been wrong. He was suddenly infuriating and intriguing and absolutely everything a hero should be. In short, I fell in love with him, and I hope you do, too!

  Maggie Kingsley

  THE CONSULTANT’S ITALIAN KNIGHT

  Maggie Kingsley

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘BE CAREFUL what you wish for.’

  That’s what her mother had always said to her when she was a little girl, Kate Kennedy remembered.

  ‘Be careful what you wish for because it might actually come true.’

  Well, it had come true, Kate thought, as she gazed out over the crowded waiting room of the A and E department of the General Infirmary in Aberdeen. Three years ago, at the age of thirty-two, she’d become one of the youngest A and E consultants in the country. She’d got the job she’d always wanted, a husband who had loved her, and the perfect home, but now…

  ‘Broken arm in cubicle 4, Kate. Stomach pains in 6, a wheezer in 1, and a seven-year-old with a cut leg in 3.’

  Kate turned to see Terri Campbell, the blonde-haired, middle-aged sister in charge of the nursing staff of the A and E department regarding her expectantly, and managed a smile.

  ‘Business as usual, then,’ she replied, glancing back at the waiting room in time to see a fight break out between the two young men who had been drinking steadily ever since they’d arrived.

  ‘You OK, Kate?’

  Concern had replaced the expectant look on Terri’s face, and Kate forced her smile back into place.

  ‘Bad attack of Saturday night blues,’ she lied. ‘Everyone else is out there enjoying themselves, and I’m stuck in here, on a hot August evening, tending to the ungrateful, the ungracious and the just plain stupid.’

  ‘Yes, but you wouldn’t want it any other way, would you?’ The sister laughed.

  Once upon a time she wouldn’t have, Kate thought, but now she was beginning to wonder whether the price she’d had to pay for achieving her dream had been too high. Way too high.

  ‘Are you sure you’re OK, Kate?’

  Terri was frowning at her now and, for a second, Kate hesitated, but she and the unit sister had been friends for the past three years and she knew she’d have to tell her eventually.

  ‘It came this morning,’ she said with an effort. ‘My decree nisi.’

  ‘Oh, Kate—’

  ‘It’s not like it was unexpected,’ Kate interrupted, not wanting the sister’s sympathy, knowing she couldn’t deal with it right now. ‘We both knew there was no way back when John left me last year, but I sort of thought…’ She sighed and shook her head. ‘I don’t know what I thought. Maybe that the decree nisi would be bigger, more impressive, but it was just an ordinary piece of paper. Not much to show for six years of marriage. Five years if you don’t count the year John and I were separated, and I don’t suppose I should.’

  Terri stared at her helplessly. ‘Kate, I’m so sorry. I hoped there might be a chance of you and John getting back together again.’

  ‘He’s found somebody else,’ Kate said. ‘He told me last week. Her name’s Sandy. She weighs seven stone including her hair extensions, and she’s a fashion buyer.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’ Terri bit her lip, then pushed her glasses firmly up the bridge of her nose. ‘Well, at least some good might come out of this.’

  ‘Some good?’ Kate repeated faintly, and Terri nodded.

  ‘If she’s a fashion buyer maybe she’ll be able to talk him out of those God-awful black suits and button down shirts he will persist in wearing. The ones which make him resemble a third-rate undertaker.’

  Kate stared speechlessly at the sister for a second, then burst out laughing.

  ‘Oh, Terri, what would I do without you?’ she exclaimed, and the sister grinned.

  ‘Be even loopier than you already are?’ she suggested. ‘Seriously, if I can help at all—if you want to scream or yell or just generally vent—I’m here for you.’

  Did she want to scream and yell? Kate wondered. Did she really?

  She might feel hurt, and confused, and not a little bewildered, but if she was honest with herself—and Kate fully intended to be honest—she didn’t want John back. They’d fallen out of love a long time ago.

  ‘I’m fine, Terri,’ she declared. ‘Truly I am.’

  ‘Well, the offer’s there if you should ever want it,’ Terri said. ‘Lord knows, you’ve listened to my worries about my son more times than I care to remember.’

  ‘Neil will be OK, Terri—I know he will,’ Kate said gently. ‘He’s only eighteen, and we all make stupid mistakes at that age, but he’s got you and Frank, and now this new job. He’s beginning to turn his life around.’

  ‘I hope so, but working in a bar…It’s not what I imagined for him,’ Terri said unhappily. ‘He was—is—such a clever boy, and if he hadn’t got in with the wrong crowd at school…Frank says the bar work will do him good, make him stand on his own two feet, but…’

  ‘Terri, he’ll be fine,’ Kate insisted. ‘He will.’

  ‘And so will you,’ the sister said, clearly deliberately changing the subject. ‘There’s somebody out there who’s just right for you, I know there is.’

  ‘I don’t want to meet anybody else,’ Kate said firmly. ‘One failed marriage is quite enough for me.’

  ‘Kate, you’re only thirty-four—’

  ‘Thirty-five at the beginning of ne
xt month,’ Kate reminded her.

  ‘—and just because it didn’t work out with John,’ Terri continued determinedly, ‘doesn’t mean it won’t work out with somebody else. For all you know, Mr Right could be just about to walk through that door this very minute, and change your life completely.’

  Not Mr Right, but Mr Never-in-a-Million-Years, Kate thought, with a shaky inward chuckle, as Terri sped across to their receptionist to see why she was waving frantically at her and the door of the waiting room opened and two men appeared.

  The younger of the two men was tall, in his early thirties, with neat blond hair and a frank, open face, but his companion…

  Intimidating. That was the only word that could adequately describe him, Kate decided, and it wasn’t just because he was considerably taller and more muscular than his companion. It wasn’t even because his thick black hair brushed the neck of an ancient brown leather jacket, or his denims were faded and worn, or even that he was wearing a pair of the scruffiest trainers she’d ever seen. It was his face.

  Darker skinned than the average Aberdonian, she would have guessed him to be Spanish, or Italian, if it hadn’t been for his eyes. Cobalt-blue eyes. Piercing blue eyes that stared back at her with neither warmth nor gentleness, but only a world-weary cynicism that said all too plainly, Don’t mess with me.

  ‘MVA on the way,’ Terri declared as she rejoined her. ‘Single car hit the crash barrier on the motorway, broken tib and fib, and suspected internal bleeding. Oh, and you’re going to love this,’ she added, her expression clearly suggesting otherwise. ‘We’ve also got a young man coming in from Aberdeen airport. He collapsed just after he came through Customs, and the security guys suspect he’s a body-packer.’

  Kate groaned inwardly. That was all she needed this evening. If the young man was a body-packer then his collapse suggested that one of his packets had burst, and the only other body-packer she had ever treated had died. Swiftly, and extremely painfully.

  ‘OK, make sure we’ve plenty of house red for the MVA,’ she declared. ‘As for the body-packer…Let’s hope he’s simply an innocent traveller who’s had a heart attack.’

  And the man in the waiting room was still staring at her, she noticed as she turned to go back into the treatment room. Staring, and smiling. Not at her, she realised, but at something his companion had said, but that smile…Just for a second it completely softened his face, making him heart-clutchingly attractive. He was still as intimidating as hell, of course, but that smile…Yup, it definitely pushed all of her buttons and, unconsciously, her fingers went up to the hair clips which were spectacularly failing to keep her shoulder-length, auburn hair back in a neat chignon.

  Getting her hair restyled was on her ‘to do’ list. So was losing some weight and buying more furniture for the ground floor flat she’d moved into when she and John had separated. The flat that depressed the hell out of her every time she opened the front door, but why she should suddenly find herself thinking about that, and her hair, and losing some weight, just because an attractive—OK, make that very attractive—man was sitting in the waiting room was beyond her.

  ‘Kate?’

  Terri was still waiting for her, and Kate squared her shoulders firmly.

  The man was just a man. Someone she’d probably never see again, and that was exactly the way she wanted it. No more relationships, no more heartbreak, plus the likelihood of somebody like him ever being interested in someone like her was nil, she thought wryly, as she began to walk towards the treatment room door. No man who looked as good as he did when he smiled would ever be interested in an overweight little woman like her.

  Which was just as well, she told herself, as she risked a quick glance over her shoulder and saw he was still watching her. Relationships might be fraught with uncertainty and danger at the best of times, but this man already had danger written all over him.

  ‘I thought he’d be here by now,’ Ralph Evanton declared, dragging his fingers impatiently through his blond hair as he sat down on one of the waiting room chairs. ‘According to our info, the ambulance picked him up ten minutes ago.’

  ‘It’s Saturday night,’ Mario Volante replied. ‘The traffic will be heavy.’

  ‘I suppose so.’ Ralph glanced round, then lowered his voice. ‘Do you reckon he’s still alive?’

  ‘If the ambulance comes in with its siren blaring, he’s alive. If it doesn’t…’ Mario pulled over one of the battered waiting room chairs and sat down, too. ‘Either way—alive or DOA—we’ll know soon enough.’

  ‘You’d think they’d realise it was a mug’s game, wouldn’t you?’ Ralph observed. ‘That what they’re buying into can all too quickly become a one-way ticket to the Big Guy upstairs.’

  Mario shrugged. ‘Life’s tough. It’s even tougher if you’re stupid.’

  Ralph stared at him silently for a moment, then cleared his throat. ‘You know, you can be a complete and utter bastard at times.’

  ‘I prefer to call myself a realist.’

  ‘Yeah. Right.’

  Absently, Ralph drummed his fingers against the side of his chair, then pulled his mobile phone out of his jacket only to swiftly pocket it when Mario nudged him and gestured towards the sign on the waiting room wall reminding all visitors that mobile phones must be switched off within the hospital confines.

  ‘Oughtn’t we to at least introduce ourselves to that woman on Reception?’ Ralph demanded. ‘Tell her why we’re here?’

  ‘The fewer people who know who we are, the better.’

  ‘I guess so.’ Ralph turned in his seat as the waiting room door opened, and grimaced as a girl with a badly cut knee limped in. ‘I hate hospitals.’

  ‘Really?’A glimmer of a smile creased Mario Volante’s lips. ‘I never would have guessed. Look, will you relax?’ he continued as Ralph opened his mouth to protest. ‘I’m trying very hard not to draw attention to myself, but you’re squirming around as though you’ve sat on something.’

  ‘Sorry. I just—’

  ‘Hate hospitals,’ Mario finished for him, his smile widening. ‘Yeah, so you said.’

  ‘It looks like something might be happening,’ Ralph declared, sitting up straighter in his seat and nodding in the direction of the reception desk. ‘That blonde-haired nurse with the glasses looks worried, and so does the pretty little nurse with the auburn hair.’

  ‘The chubby, auburn-haired one is a doctor not a nurse.’

  ‘Mario, she only looks chubby to you because you usually date toothpicks,’ Ralph protested. ‘To me she looks like a real woman. A woman with her curves in all the right places.’

  ‘And does Jenny know you’re looking at other women and deciding whether they have their curves in all the right places?’ Mario said with a quizzical glance.

  Ralph looked smug. ‘My wife trusts me.’

  ‘Uh-huh. Plus, I distinctly remember her saying at your wedding that if you ever cheated on her she’d nail your butt to the wall and use it as a dartboard.’

  ‘She did, too,’ Ralph said with a splutter of laughter. ‘But I stand by what I said. That girl has all her curves in the right places, and she’s pretty, too.’

  But not happy, Mario decided as he stared across at the auburn-haired girl. In his work it was his job to read people, and this girl—woman—was definitely not happy. There were shadows under her large grey eyes, and her face was white and drawn as though she hadn’t been sleeping well recently.

  ‘That’s what you need,’ Ralph observed, seeing the direction of his gaze. ‘A good woman in your life.’

  ‘And just when did this paragon become not just a real woman, but also a good one?’ Mario protested, and Ralph shook his head, clearly amazed at the question.

  ‘She’s a doctor, Mario. It stands to reason she’ll be the caring, nurturing type.’

  With a backbone of steel if he was any judge of character, Mario decided as he watched the auburn-haired doctor reply to something the nurse had said. Medicine was a tough prof
ession for a woman, and for this woman to work in A and E she had to be no pushover, and from the stubborn tilt of her jaw he knew she wasn’t.

  ‘What you need is some stability in your life, Mario,’ Ralph continued, ‘starting with a proper, grown-up relationship.’

  ‘You’ll be trying to fix me up with your kid sister next,’ Mario said dryly. ‘Or your cousin from Glasgow.’

  ‘I wouldn’t trust you with either of them, but that girl looks as though she could handle you.’

  ‘You think I need handling?’ Mario declared, amusement plain on his face, and Ralph raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Mario, you discard women with as little thought as you change your socks. Now, that girl—’

  ‘Enough, Ralph,’ Mario interrupted, his patience clearly at an end. ‘I’m not interested.’

  ‘Then you should be,’ Ralph insisted. ‘Hell, mate, you’ve been divorced for four years, and, OK, so divorce is never pleasant and Sue hurt you badly, but it’s time you moved on, time you buried the hurt.’

  He would have done, Mario thought grimly, if Sue really had hurt him, but the trouble was she hadn’t. If she had hurt him he would at least have known he was still able to feel, to care, but when she’d left all he’d felt was an overwhelming sense of relief that the arguing was finally over.

  ‘Mario, listen to me—’

  ‘Madre di Dio!’ Mario exclaimed, and Ralph held up his hands in defeat.

  ‘OK—OK. When you start speaking Italian I know it’s time to shut up. You’re happy as you are. Fine. Great.’

  And he was happy, Mario thought as he watched the auburn-haired doctor fiddle with her hair. Lovely hair it was, too. The kind of hair that should never be tied back but allowed to flow loose and free, and Ralph had been right about the curves. They were definitely in all the right places, but he wasn’t interested. He had a job that he loved, the career he’d always wanted, and it was enough for him. OK, so there were times when he was lonely, but if he’d been looking for a new relationship—and he wasn’t—the girl standing at the reception desk wasn’t for him. He preferred his women quiet, placid and accommodating, and he suspected the auburn-haired doctor was anything but.