The Accidental Romeo Read Online Free Page A

doctor and believe me when I say such a highly skilled doctor is usually pretty hard to entice to come and work at Bayside Hospital. Once immigration and everything is sorted, Juan’s going to be a huge asset to the place but he only agreed to take the role if I accommodated his annual leave request.’
    ‘You acquire annual leave,’ Marnie said. ‘Juan hasn’t acquired any, from what I can see.’
    Harry tried a different tack. ‘The guy broke his neck a while back, he was barely able to walk when he got to Australia. As well as getting married, he really wants to return home and let his family see how well he’s doing.’
    Oh, but Marnie was having none of it. ‘So Juan breaking his neck means you have to bend over backwards and break yours to accommodate his love life?’
    Harry was sure then that he hadn’t slept with her!
    He’d certainly remember—Harry had never met anyone like her in his life! ‘You’re not a romantic, I take it?’ Harry’s voice was dry.
    ‘There’s not a single romantic bone in my body,’ Marnie said. ‘But so long as you can assure me that the department will be adequately covered with senior medical staff then it’s not my issue.’
    ‘It will be covered.’
    ‘Good.’
    Harry stood up and turned to go, but how well they might have known each other was driving him crazy, so he decided to simply bite the bullet and ask, ‘What year were you at Melbourne Central?’
    ‘You really don’t remember?’ Marnie said. ‘I was blonde then, if that helps.’
    ‘Blonde?’ Harry looked at her very thick black hair. ‘That would have taken some peroxide.’
    ‘It did,’ Marnie said. ‘You still don’t remember me, do you?’
    She loved his discomfort—loved the small swallow in his neck—and she watched as he drew in a breath while attempting to come up with a suitable answer. Then those green eyes met hers and a smile spread on Harry’s lips, lips that had been just a little insolent and teasing in their day, Marnie recalled, and they were becoming that now.
    ‘How could I ever forget you, Marnie?’
    The little game Marnie had been playing had suddenly gone too far because it was Marnie, most unusually, who struggled to calm a blush, and she rapidly decided to put an end to it, while still keeping the upper hand. ‘It’s okay, Harry, I’ve been teasing you. You don’t have to worry—I’m very possibly the only student nurse at Melbourne Central that you didn’t sleep with.’
    ‘Glad to hear it,’ Harry said, still smiling back at her, except the smile sort of wavered, because maybe that wasn’t the right answer to give.
    What was the right answer to a statement like that? Harry wondered as he walked off.
    He couldn’t make Marnie out. She was a strange mix. Forthright yet distant, funny yet stern but, even if he was smiling at the little game she’d played on him, Harry knew as he headed back to the patients that the holiday was over. Not that you could ever call this place a holiday, but there would be no asking Marnie if she could keep an eye out for the twins in the staffroom, even if it was right near her office. There would be no appealing to her feminine side and asking her to grab them from day care, or would she mind if one of the nurses in the obs ward kept an eye on them for an hour.
    Harry just knew it.

CHAPTER THREE
    Y ES , M ARNIE WAS everywhere.
    As Harry sat having his lunch he found out, if he hadn’t known already, just how forthright she was—the pint-sized Marnie didn’t even try to mince her words when she answered a personal call.
    Marnie didn’t excuse herself from the staffroom to take the call—instead, she tucked the phone between her neck and chin and squirted salad dressing over her home-made salad. As she thanked Dave for returning her call, she stirred in the dressing.
    Oh, her accent was as soft as butter as she spoke but you could almost feel it choking the rather unfortunate Dave’s arteries.
    ‘Absolutely, I signed the