Read Knight on the Children's Ward for Free Online

nurse dress seemed to glow under the fluorescent lights.
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    He could have nodded and left it there.
    He damn well should nod and leave it there—and maybe even have a quiet word with Caroline tomorrow, or Iosef, perhaps.
    Or say nothing at all—just simply forget.
    He chose none of the above.
    â€˜How about a coffee?’
    â€˜It’s late.’
    â€˜I know it’s late,’ Ross said, ‘but I’m sure you could use a coffee. There’s an all-night cafe a kilometre up the road—I’ll see you there.’
    She nearly didn’t go.
    She was extremely tempted not to go. But she had no choice.
    Normally she was careful about being seen in her agency uniform, but she didn’t have her jacket in the car, and she’d been so low on petrol… Anyway, Annika told herself, it was hardly a crime—all her friends did agency shifts. How the hell would a student survive otherwise?
    His grim face told her her argument would be wasted.
    â€˜I know students have to work…’ he had bought her a coffee and she added two sugars ‘…and I know it’s probably none of my business…’
    â€˜It is none of your business,’ Annika said.
    â€˜But I’ve heard Caroline commenting, and I’ve seen you yawning…’ Ross said. ‘You look like you’ve got two black eyes.’
    â€˜So tell Caroline—or report back to my brother.’ Annika shrugged. ‘Then your duty is done.’
    â€˜Annika!’ Ross was direct. ‘Do you go out of your way to be rude?’
    â€˜Rude?’
    â€˜I’m trying not to talk to Caroline; I’m trying to talk to you .’
    â€˜Check up on me, you mean, so that Iosef—’
    He whistled in indignation. ‘This has nothing to do with your brother. It’s my ward, Annika. You were on an early today; you’re on again tomorrow…’
    â€˜How do you know?’
    â€˜Sorry?’
    â€˜My shift tomorrow. How do you know?’
    And that he couldn’t answer—but the beat of silence did.
    He’d checked.
    Not deliberately—he hadn’t swiped keys and found the nursing roster—but as he’d left the ward he had glanced up at the whiteboard and seen that she was on tomorrow.
    He had noted to himself that she was on tomorrow.
    â€˜I saw the whiteboard.’
    And she could have sworn that he blushed. Oh, his cheeks didn’t flare like a match to a gas ring, as Annika’s did—he was far too laid-back for that, and his skin was so much darker—but there was something that told her he was embarrassed. He blinked, and then his lips twitched in a very short smile, and then he blinked again. There was no colour as such to his eyes—in fact they were blacker than black, so much so that she couldn’t even make out his pupils. He was staring, and so was she. They were sitting in an all-night coffee shop. She was in her uniform and he was telling her off for working, and yet she was sure there was more.
    Almost sure.
    â€˜So, Iosef told you to keep an eye out for me?’ she said, though more for her own benefit—that smile wouldn’t fool her again.
    â€˜He said that he was worried about you, that you’d pretty much cut yourself off from your family.’
    â€˜I haven’t,’ Annika said, and normally that would have been it. Everything that was said stayed in the family, but Ross was Iosef’s friend and she was quite sure he knew more. ‘I see my mother each week; I am attending a family charity ball soon. Iosef and I argued, but only because he thinks I’m just playing at nursing.’
    This wasn’t news to Ross. Iosef had told him many things—how Annika was spoilt, how she stuck at nothing, how nursing was her latest flight of fancy. Of course Ross could not say this, so he just sat as she continued.
    â€˜I have not cut myself off from my family. Aleksi and I are