Page 5

“Come on. My car’s over there in the staff car park.” Doctor Khurana tilted her head. “And you can trust me; I’m a doctor.”

“But can you trust me, Doctor?”

One side of the doctor’s mouth lifted in a wry smile. “No idea, but I’m not going to leave you stranded out here after you helped that man last night. One good deed deserves another. Karma, right?”

Alice smiled, too weary to put up a fight, hoping karma wouldn’t come back and bite her in the arse for cracking the poor man’s head open. She fished for her keys in the passenger footwell and scooped up her bag. The doctor creaked the door open and offeredher hand as Alice struggled to her feet in her ridiculous heels.

“It’s Asha, by the way. Or Ash, if you like.”

“Alice.”

Ash grinned. “Alice French, I know.”

Alice had no idea what make or model it was, but unlike her car, which smelled like a damp dog even though she didn’t have one, Ash’s sporty little vehicle smelt of vanilla and leather. And unlike Alice’s car, it didn’t splutter and die, but roared into life when Ash pressed the ignition. Fran would’ve approved… of the engine’s roar, not of Ash.

Fran wouldn’t approve of Alice getting a lift from an attractive stranger, even if that stranger was a doctor and she was just being nice. But then, Fran had no right to know anything about what Alice did any more.

Fran can fuck all the way off.

Ash gave Alice a sidelong glance. “Are you warm enough?”

Alice nodded, even though she was shivering. Ash fiddled with the buttons in the centre console, andwarm air pumped through the vents. “Better?”

“Much. Thank you.”

Ash flicked on the stereo and a way-too-cheerful DJ’s voice piped through the speakers, which she turned down to a comfortable background hum. Alice blinked through her tiredness and fixed her gaze out of the window. Dewy mist rose from a patchwork of fields in the now orange light of daybreak.

“Looks like it’s going to be a nice spring day.”

“Mmm.” Alice didn’t take her eyes off the landscape rolling by.

“I think it’s my favourite season, spring. I love the way nature reanimates everything; all that fresh new life… and the longer days are always welcome.” Ash tapped her thumbs on the steering wheel to the soft beat of the song on the radio.

Alice turned and took in her profile; her straight nose, the soft curve of her jaw, her glossy black shoulder-length hair now hanging loose and tucked behind her pierced ear.

Ash glanced at Alice and grinned a crooked smile. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You’re way too full of the joys of spring for someone who’s just got off a night shift. Aren’t you shattered?”

Ash laughed. “I’m used to it. It’s my routine. The lighter days really do help, though. I’ve even been known to hit the gym before going home, especially if it’s been an eventful shift.”

“And was it?”

“What?”

“An eventful shift?”

Ash’s eyes flicked between Alice and the road. Her long, dark eyelashes fluttered as her lips twisted into a smile. “Yeah, it’s not every day a mysterious woman turns up with an unconscious man.”

Alice stifled a laugh. “I’m not mysterious.”

“Well, it was all a bit odd, you have to admit.”

“Mmm, I guess so. I honestly did just find him in the road, like I told you.”

“I believe you.” Ash frowned and bit her lip. “Earlier you said your evening had been disastrous. How so, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Alice drew in a deep breath, and released it through her nose. “I think I broke up with my… with my someone.”