The Honourable Army Doc by Emily Forbes Page A

didn’t need another thing to deal with.
    His schedule meant he was lucky to catch a glimpse of Ali in the clinic between patients and they hadn’t had a moment alone since they had shared his bed. Thememory of that night was helping to sustain him but he knew it wouldn’t last for ever. He was desperately trying to work out how they could be together again but he feared there wasn’t going to be an easy solution.
    He was just finishing the paperwork for his final patient before his lunch break when his mobile phone beeped with an incoming text message. Fearing the worst before realising the hospital would hardly text with bad news, he picked up his phone. The message winked at him.
    Leftover rogan josh for lunch if you’d like to join me. A xx
    A flash of red caught his eye as he read the message. Through the window in front of his desk he could see out to the garden. Ali, wrapped up like a Christmas present in her red coat, was sitting at the outdoor table with two steaming bowls of leftovers in front of her. She saw him looking through the window and she smiled and waved and gestured at the food.
    He nodded. He didn’t need to be asked twice and grabbed his jacket from behind his door. The early spring sun was starting to get a little bit of warmth but it was still cool enough to need an extra layer even in the middle of the day.
    He was outside in a matter of seconds, eager to make the most of this opportunity. It was the first chance they’d had to be alone in five and a half days. The first moment they’d had alone since he’d woken up after making love to her and found her note beside his bed.
    He was grinning like the village idiot as he sat down opposite her. He wanted to gather her into his arms and kiss her senseless, but while his consulting room and Ali’s both overlooked the side garden so did the nurse’s. Who knew who might be looking their way.
    ‘You have perfect timing,’ he told her.
    Ali blushed and Quinn knew she was thinking back to Saturday night. He felt a stirring in his groin as his mind replayed the evening too.
    ‘I meant with lunch,’ he teased.
    ‘Oh.’ She grinned as her blush deepened further. ‘That just took a bit of forward thinking. I had to shuffle my diary three days ago to match up our lunch breaks. I’m amazed it worked.’
    Quinn was touched that Ali had changed her schedule just to be able to share some time with him. Until Ali had come into his life it had been a long time since anyone had done anything just for him. He’d grown accustomed to his solitary lifestyle and more recently to trying to take care of Julieanne and the girls, and he’d forgotten how nice it was to have someone do something for him just because they wanted to. His life was rapidly becoming divided into two parts—Before Ali and After Ali.
    ‘Thank you,’ he said, thinking what an inadequate attempt at expressing his gratitude that was. Maybe he could express his thanks in other ways later? Next time he had a spare hour maybe, whenever that might be.
    He resisted the temptation to lean across the table and kiss her and instead bent his head over his bowl andpicked up the fork that lay beside it. ‘This smells fantastic. I can’t remember the last time I sat down to eat.’
    ‘Have things been that bad?’
    Quinn nodded, his mouth full of lamb curry. He chewed and swallowed the tender meat before replying. ‘I haven’t been ignoring you, it’s been completely crazy. I have a whole new respect for working mothers and single parents.’
    ‘How is Julieanne?’ Ali asked. ‘What did the specialist say about the Avastin?’
    ‘Have we not even had that conversation?’ He was so tired and frantic that he couldn’t remember what he had and hadn’t been doing half the time.
    Ali shook her head.
    ‘According to the specialist, Julieanne is living on borrowed time and there’s nothing else he can do,’ he told her, ‘but I’m not sure I would call lying in a hospital bed and