Free A Nightingale Christmas Wish by Donna Douglas

Effie knew he was breaking his heart over it.
    Not that Jess seemed to understand, when Effie explained it to her. ‘I hope you’re not getting too involved,’ she warned.
    ‘Of course not. I don’t know why you’d think that.’
    ‘Because I know you.’ Jess smiled. ‘You’re far too soft-hearted for your own good.’
    Effie frowned, irritated. ‘You sound just like my sisters!’ Why did everyone always think the worst of her?
    When she returned to the ward the following morning, she went straight to Adam’s bed. Typically, he looked put out to see her.
    ‘You again,’ he groaned.
    She smiled. ‘Did you miss me?’
    ‘Not really. You nurses are all the same to me.’
    ‘You’re a cheery soul, aren’t you?’ She reached into the bib of her apron. ‘I’ve a good mind not to give you this present.’
    He looked sideways at her. ‘A present?’
    She handed him the packet of writing paper. ‘I’ve brought this for you. So you can write to Adeline.’
    ‘You brought it for me?’ He stared at it, then at her. For a moment she thought he looked almost touched.
    Then he lifted the notepaper to his face. ‘Why does it smell of cheap scent?’ he complained.
    Effie sighed. And to think everyone imagined she would want to get involved with someone like him!

Chapter Ten
    ‘ I NEED YOUR help,’ William said.
    Helen paused halfway through pulling the red rubber mackintosh sheet off the bed. She and her brother had just finished the Gynae Outpatients’ clinic. William, a junior registrar, had taken the clinic, as the consultant Mr Cooper was away in France with his wife.
    ‘How much do you want?’ she sighed.
    William looked offended. ‘I don’t need your money, thank you very much.’
    ‘There’s a first time for everything, I suppose.’
    ‘Do you mind? I’m not a penniless medical student any more.’
    ‘You could have fooled me. You certainly dress as if you are.’ Helen looked pointedly at his scuffed shoes. ‘So what do you want?’
    William paused. ‘The thing is, I’m in rather a sticky situation. It’s not what you think,’ he insisted, as she rolled her eyes. ‘It isn’t woman trouble this time. Well, not entirely. Anyway, the long and the short of it is, I need someone to do a duet with me in the Christmas show.’
    ‘I thought your latest girlfriend was singing with you?’
    ‘Ah, well, you see, that’s the trouble. She is no more, I’m afraid.’
    ‘Not another one?’ After his long love affair with an orthopaedic doctor had ended a year earlier, William had returned to his old womanising ways. Much to Helen’s dismay and to the delight of the other nurses.
    She regarded him across the consulting room. Tall and lanky, with a permanently dishevelled air and cowlick of dark hair that never seemed to lie flat, she couldn’t see what it was about him that other women found so irresistible. To her, he would always be an annoying big brother.
    ‘I know, I know,’ he sighed. ‘But it wasn’t my fault this time. She was the one who ended it, not me.’ He paused. ‘Admittedly, it was after she caught me kissing that delightful nurse on Male Medical, but all the same . . .’ He put on his appealing look, the melting dark eyes that she supposed worked a treat on other women. ‘Will you help me out, Helen? You don’t have to do much, just join in with the chorus and look pretty. You can do that, can’t you?’
    ‘The last thing I’d want to do is stand on a stage with you.’ Helen went back to stripping off the bed. ‘Why don’t you ask that delightful nurse on Male Medical?’
    ‘Delightful she may be, but her voice is as flat as a pancake.’ William grimaced. ‘Honestly, Hels, she’d make a cat sound like Dame Nellie Melba. You, on the other hand, have the voice of an angel.’
    ‘Oh, no.’ Helen shook her head. ‘You can’t get round me as easily as you can your empty-headed nurses, William Tremayne.’
    ‘Want to bet?’ He grinned. ‘Please, Helen. Just