My legs began to tremble.

“I thought this was just a one-night stand,” I whispered.

“I thought it was, too,” Ryder said, his eyes scanning my face, “but it’s more than that. I don’t know what it is, but one night with you isn’t enough.”

My stomach fluttered with butterflies.

“Yes,” I whispered. “I’d love to go out on a date with you.”

“Good.” Ryder teasingly grinned. “I wasn’t taking no for an answer anyway.”

“Is that so?” I laughed, merrily. “Do you think you can get what you want from me so easily?”

“I do,” he replied, smugly. “And if all else fails, I’ve other methods at my disposal to persuade you into doing things my way.”

“Yeah?” I asked, my breathing picking up in pace. “What other methods would that be?”

Ryder pressed his front against mine and lowered his head, brushing his lips tenderly against me. I gasped when he bent down and his hands suddenly gripped my behind. I wrapped my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist when he lifted me into the air. He turned and walked over to the stairs.

“I can show you a lot better than I can tell you,” he said, grinning.

My laughter and his tangled together as he climbed the stairs, and soon after, so did our bodies in the most delicious of ways. I lay in Ryder’s bed long after we had sex for the third time and when I caught myself watching him sleep I knew I was royally screwed because I could see myself falling in love with him very easily if I wasn’t careful.

Guard your heart, my mind whispered as my eyes drifted shut. Don’t give him the power to break you.

I didn’t realise it then, but Ryder had the power to break me from the moment he locked his eyes on mine in Darkness, and there wasn’t a damn thing that I could do about it.

Present day…

I yelped with fright when a pink folder was dropped on the desk of the nurses station. I was reliving a moment from my past, and was completely blindsided by the sudden movement and noise.

“Sorry,” Ash’s voice quickly apologised. “I thought you heard me.”

I placed my hand over my chest, feeling my heart rapidly pound against my chest.

“I’m fine,” I breathed. “I was in a world of me own.”

I looked up and caught Ash frowning at me, so I waved his concerns off.

“I’m okay, just daydreamin’.”

He was hesitant for a moment and then nodded.

“It’s quiet on the ward, you can daydream if you want to.”

I snorted. “I wish I had that luxury. I want to keep a close eye on the patient in room one.”

“I just checked on her,” Ash said. “She got her epidural and is sleeping. Her husband is too. Everything is progressing well with her, a few more hours at most then she’ll deliver and be moved downstairs.”

My shoulders sagged with relief.

“Thank God,” I breathed. “I couldn’t take any more of her screamin’. I try me hardest to be considerate and never open me mouth about how the women deal with their pain, but damn, she hasn’t shut her mouth since she was brought on the ward.”

Ash snickered. “I could hear her, too. Sally said she was going to jam the gas and air down her throat if she didn’t give it a rest soon.”

As if summoned, Sally strolled down the hallway with two pink folders in her arms. The site of the folders caused me to groan, it meant two new patients were about to be admitted to the delivery ward and put into our care.

Sally was what we called the mother of the ward, and not because she was the eldest member of our staff, but because she was the most experienced. She had been at the hospital since it opened nearly thirty-five years ago and had the most deliveries under her belt. She was a delivery ward veteran, and everyone knew it. She was married to Doctor Hector Harris that ran the OR.

“Hey Sally,” I said when she looked up.

She stopped in front of the nurses station and gave me a bright smile. “Hello, Branna darlin’. Great job on your delivery time to the OR with the patient this mornin’, I read the report you and Ash submitted and Hector told me about it. Ninety-one seconds, that’s very fast. I’ve only capped at one zero two at the earliest, so be proud of yourself.”

I felt heat stain my cheeks with Sally’s praise, and my blush spread even further when I felt Ash’s approving gaze on me.

“Thanks, Sally,” I said but quickly added, “but I wouldn’t have been able to do it without Ash and the others. It was a team effort.”

Sally winked. “That, right there, is why you’re such a good midwife, you act as a team and never a lone wolf.”

It was something she taught me when I used to volunteer at the hospital many years ago, and something that stayed with me. You aren’t better than your fellow midwife, and together in numbers you’re stronger.

“Well, I work with the best.” I smiled then looked to Ash and bumped him with my leg.

He snorted. “Sweet talker.”

Who is sweet talking who here?

I blinked away Ryder’s voice in my head and refocused on Sally who was talking to me and Ash.

“—should be a busy day, and we’ll have to keep a tight ship.”

Ash saluted Sally. “You got it, beautiful.”

Sally fanned herself. “If I wasn’t married and old enough to be your mother I’d—”

“Sally!” I cut her off with a laugh.

She waved me off. “What I’d do to him if I was your age is public knowledge, I always tell him.”

Ash grinned. “She does.”

“You’re both as bad as each other,” I chuckled.

Sally giggled as she ventured off to do her duties; I glanced at Ash who got to work evaluating the new patients’ folders. I shook my head at him and grabbed the second folder Sally brought us.

“Why’re you shaking your head?” he asked, not looking up from the folder.

I shrugged. “You amuse me.”

“Of course I do, I’m hilarious.”

Cocky shite, my mind teased.

“Hey Branna.”

I looked up at Yolanda, a lovely African lady who had been working the delivery ward as a cleaner since it first opened.

“Hey Yolanda,” I smiled. “How are you today?”

She gave me her trademark beaming smile, and it only caused me to mirror the action.

“I’m great, hon. Jesus woke me up this morning so I can’t complain.”

I felt the corners of my eyes crease as my smile deepened. “I’m glad to hear it, how are your grandkids? Are they over their dose of the flu?”

Yolanda blessed herself. “Yes, thank Jesus, I prayed every morning and night for them.” She frowned. “I hate seeing them so unwell, but I know Jesus will look after them.”

Yolanda was very religious, everything out of her mouth was ‘Jesus this and Jesus that’.

I nodded. “I can imagine. When Bronagh was sick growin’ up, I worried meself silly about every cold or stomach bug.”

Yolanda winked. “That’s what we do, we worry about our babies no matter how old they are. Jesus, help us.”

Ain’t that the truth, I thought.

“I hear you,” I said as she pushed her mop bucket down the hall in the direction of the supply room.

I looked over my shoulder to Ash when he exited the break room with two cups of tea in his hands. I groaned out loud and reached for my pink cup. “I could kiss you,” I said as I took the cup and sipped on the addictive sugary liquid.

Tea was—quite literally—my life; I could not function without it.

“You can’t go and do a thing like that,” Ash said. “You’d break Sally’s heart, she loves me, you know?”

I cocked a brow. “She loves the attention from you, that’s all.”

Ash grabbed his chest. “You heartless wench, how dare you dismiss what Sally and I have!”

It took everything in me not to laugh, or crack a smile.