Page 22 of You Are Cordially Invited

“Here, give me that.” Stacey ripped the report from my hands and waltzed back to the nurses station. “I’m pretty sure the patient would like to get discharged sometime before Christmas.”

“You’re lucky I don’t fire you,” I called out with zero heat.

“You’re lucky I don’t kick your arse,” she fired back, and everyone laughed. “Go make yourself useful and get everyone a coffee. If this is what the rest of the week is going to be before you go on leave, I’m not sure we’ll survive.”

She wasn’t wrong. But then she had no idea my tightly bound Pandora’s box of stress factors had just exploded in my face, leaving the telling scent of baby powder in the air.

Alison, my best staff nurse, breezed past me with our weekly treat box from the bakery opposite Auckland Med’s main gates. She sent me a cheeky wink. “Come on, grumpy face.”

My stomach might’ve growled.

“There better be at least two salted caramel donuts in that box with my name on them,” I warned. “That’s if you want a snowball’s chance in hell of getting even half those roster requests you put in for next month. I’m down a nurse already that week, and I’m open for bribes.”

She looked over her shoulder and grinned. “I’m surprised you even have to ask. Check out your office desk. They’re sitting next to a tube of that new lime lip gloss you admired last week... and another request.” She wiggled her full hips and shimmied her way into a warm welcome from the other nurses who jumped on the treat box like a pack of rabid hyenas.

I laughed. “Damn, girl, you make me proud. But be sure to put a warning on that box for those medical staff who haven’t contributed to the slush fund. I caught our esteemed haematologist stealing a lamington last week, and the last time Jim Foley opened his wallet, bats flew out. And I’d check on Michael as well.”

“And good morning to you too, Charge Nurse Cameron Wano.” A voice slid over my shoulder and the nurses station erupted in laughter.

Fuck.

“How are you this bright and wonderful Monday? Cheerful and generous as usual, I see.”

I spun to find myself face to face with the man I’d been looking for all morning. He appeared fresh, well-rested, and bright as a button, and I hated him on sight. “DrOliver, how delightful of you to turn up to work,finally.”

His gaze narrowed. “Did you miss the memo, Charge Nurse Wano? I switched with Alan to start at eleven. It’s not like you to be behind in your paperwork.” He smirked. “A little worse for wear from a certain party, are we?”

Son of a bitch.I’d missed the damn switch. Checking the rosters was usually the first thing I did when I clocked on, but my head had been cotton wool all morning.

“Everyonewas worse for wear from the party.” I regarded him suspiciously. “And who the hell taught you to mix a cocktail? Those things blew the head off anyone silly enough to order one, and most of the people who didn’t, since you only had to be in the general vicinity to risk alcohol poisoning through osmosis.”

“I notice it didn’t seem to stopyou.” He laughed and picked a bit of lint off my scrub top and flicked it away.

“Stop that.” I slapped his hand away. “And I only had too much because Reuben kept calling the waiter over. I blame him.”

“I just bet you do.”

“Mark fell asleep on our lounge floor—don’t ask why they were at our place because no one really knows. And I just passed Ed in the cafeteria. He was headed to court looking for all the world like some old bone Tink had dug out of their garden a week before. Green, of questionable heritage, and definitely not to be consumed.”

Michael laughed. “Well, they both had to look better than Josh who was still in our bed at dinner time yesterday threatening Sasha with a ten-year grounding if she didn’t turn her music down. Even Paris had enough sense to steer clear.”

I snorted. “I was surprised you two hung around after the lap dance, to be honest. You looked ready to eat your husband alive.”

Michael pouted. “If I’d had my way, we’d have left the minute it finished. But since he missed the first half of the party, Josh was eager to catch up with everyone first. Enough to say he has a taste for my cocktails. Cooked my own damn goose there. He couldn’t have got it up with a hoist by the time we got home.”

I snorted. “Serves you right.”

“It was a great party.”

I shot him a grin. “Yes. Much as it pains me to say, it was. So, thank you.” I glanced at the clock. “But you’re still ten minutes late.”

He rolled his eyes. “I got talking to the neurologist out front about that sailing accident last week. And I don’t believe for a second that you actually knew I’d switched with Alan. Which isn’t like you, by the way, so what’s up?”

“Nothing,” I lied. Reuben and I had agreed not to mention the baby to anyone until we’d made a decision. “Just a bit tired with all the palaver for the wedding.”

Michael shot me a look. “Also not believed. You’ve loved every minute of thatpalaveras you call it.”

I avoided his gaze, concentrating on the nurses station instead. Auckland Med’s resident wannabe playboy cardiologist was busy chatting up one of my nurses who was doing her best to brush him off.

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