* * *
With the door swinging open and a lab technician carrying a coolbox coming into the stairwell, there was no chance of hearing any response Josh might have made to that impulsive question. Which was probably just as well, Stevie decided later that afternoon as she hurried away from work at the end of her shift. Josh’s aversion to anything like permanence, or family, was just as hardwired into his brain as her own difficulty in trusting men had been.
Had he even answered her? Maybe he might have thought she was pushing boundaries that he’d made very clear a long time ago. It wasn’t as if she’d seen him on the ward again this afternoon and had had the opportunity to share a glance or a smile and reassure herself that nothing had changed.
Stevie had walked to work that morning but the quickest route home was to cut diagonally through the car park to get to the main road. And maybe it was because she was thinking about Josh that made it so easy to spot him even well up ahead, walking across her intended path towards the main hospital building.
‘Hi,’ she called. ‘What are you doing out here?’
He didn’t seem to have heard her. Or was he ignoring her? Stevie’s smile faltered. It looked as if he was just going to keep going, cross her path and not even look at her. He was looking over his shoulder, in fact, his attention seemingly caught by an extremely flash car. A silver car, which rang a vague bell for Stevie but she ignored it because she was more worried than ever that she might have been skating on thin ice by putting labels on their relationship when it was something they never really talked about.
What was worse was that, when Josh did turn his head, he seemed to look straight at Stevie and not even blink as he focused on the hospital buildings ahead of him. As if he didn’t see her. Or didn’t want to? What on earth was going on? And what was he doing, wearing a suit? Josh never wore suits. He often came to work in jeans before he changed into his scrubs.
‘Hey... Josh?’
She knew he had to be able to hear her but he was still walking away. Stevie had the sudden, horrible realisation of what it might be like if whatever it was they had between them at the moment fizzled out and she was aware of a beat of fear. But, at the same time, the Josh she knew would never treat anybody this rudely. Bewilderment coated the fear and somehow became anger.
‘Oi!’ she shouted. ‘What’s going on, Josh? Are you seriously just going to walk away from me?’
That stopped him in his tracks. He turned to face Stevie as she kept marching towards him. But then her steps faltered and it felt as if the earth’s axis was tipping slightly off kilter—but not in a good way, like it had the first time Josh had kissed her.
He looked weird. And kind of angry.
‘What is it with people calling me Josh?’ he demanded. ‘It seems to happen everywhere I go around here. And who the hell are you?’
Stevie opened her mouth and then closed it again, her brain spinning as she took in the fact that this wasn’t Josh. It was someone who looked astonishingly like him, however, but up close she could see the differences. This man was a little more solid, perhaps—his hair was shorter and he had some carefully managed designer stubble going on. Most of all, the way he was looking at her held nothing of the warmth she was so used to seeing in Josh’s eyes now.
And that was when something clicked. Stevie could hear again a snatch of a conversation she’d overheard in the staffroom a few weeks ago between Ruby and Josh.
‘Saw you over at Cheltenham Central Hospital...’
‘That’s a flash new car you’ve got... Silvery thing...’
‘Good to see that you’ve had a shave since then, anyway...’
Stevie opened her mouth again. And swallowed hard.
‘My name’s Stevie,’ she told him. ‘And I’m sorry I shouted at you like that but...but you look incredibly like a friend of mine. Someone who works here. I...thought he was ignoring me.’
‘Ah...’ His smile was polite. ‘And this friend is called Josh, I take it?’
‘Yes...’
‘I’m Lachlan,’ he told her. ‘Lachlan McKendry. If you work here, perhaps you can help? I’m heading for a meeting in the paediatric department.’
‘Oh...of course. I’ve heard about you. You’re the famous plastic surgeon.’
The way his eyebrow quirked stole Stevie’s breath away. He was so like Josh it was spooky. They said everybody had a doppelganger out there somewhere but this was impossible.
Unless...
Stevie knew that her intense stare was coming across as being rude. That this renowned paediatric surgeon had probably decided it would be better to go and find the department he was looking for by himself. Yes...he was turning on his heel as if he couldn’t wait to get away from her.
‘Wait...’ Stevie sucked in a quick breath. ‘I know this might sound totally crazy but...are you, by any chance, adopted?’
That stopped him for a second time. His expression was more dumbfounded than angry now.
‘Not that it’s any of your business,’ he said slowly. ‘But, no, I’m not.’
‘Sorry...’ Stevie bit her lip. ‘It’s just that you look so much like Josh, you could be brothers. Twins, even.’
That made him laugh but then he shook his head. ‘Sounds like the stuff of fairy tales. If you’ll excuse me, I don’t want to be late for my meeting.’
His meeting.
With Josh and the other specialists involved in Toby’s case, like the neurosurgeon, David and the orthopaedic surgeon and all their respective registrars.
Stevie could imagine how shocking it would be to come face to face with someone who looked so much like herself that it would be like looking into a slightly cracked mirror and it certainly wouldn’t be something she wanted to happen in front of other people. And, even if her wild idea that these men could be closely related was no more than the remotest possibility, it was still a potential bomb that was about to be thrown into Josh’s life.
The urge to protect him was as fierce as any Stevie had ever felt to protect Mattie. The kind of urge that could only be this strong when you loved someone enough for their welfare to be more important than your own. Not that Stevie was going to take any time to think about what was going on in her head—or her heart—and what it might mean for the future. She just knew that she wasn’t about to let Josh face this without her being there to support him if he needed her.
‘I know exactly where you need to be,’ she told Lachlan McKendry. ‘Follow me.’
They walked in silence as Stevie led Lachlan swiftly into Gloucester General Hospital, along corridors and up the stairs. She couldn’t make small talk because there was too much going on in her head.
What if the almost impossible was somehow true? That Josh was about to discover he had a cousin, perhaps? Or a brother? It would force something on him that he believed he had never needed and had no desire for now.
Family.
Real family. Not a chosen sort of family that she might dream that she and Mattie could become one day. This was flesh and blood kind of family. Someone that you had a genetic bond with. Someone who could drag a painful past that Josh had kept secret into a present that he couldn’t escape.
This could turn his world upside down.
There would be time later to worry about how this might affect her and, more importantly, how it might affect Mattie, but right now she had to try and engineer a way that could provide the privacy she knew was essential for two men who could both be about to face something life-changing. It was only when Stevie noticed she had gone above the level for the paediatric department that she realised her subconscious had come up with the perfect plan. She pushed open the heavy doors that led out to the rooftop garden where she’d been, only hours ago, with Josh.
‘What’s going on?’ Lachlan blinked as he looked around.
‘Wait here.’ Stevie injected the
same kind of authority into her voice that she’d used with Mattie when he’d been too little to understand why he couldn’t just run out onto a pedestrian crossing. ‘Trust me, please... There’s someone you have to meet before you do anything else. He’s the head of the paediatric department so it’s who you’ve come here to see, anyway, but...’ Stevie’s brief head shake acknowledged that this was too complicated to try and explain. ‘I’ll be back in a few minutes and then you’ll understand why this is so important.’
It wasn’t simply that she had run down the stairs so fast that had Stevie’s heart thumping hard as she tapped on Josh’s office door a minute or two later.
‘Josh?’
The note of urgency in her voice made him look up instantly but Stevie couldn’t offer any kind of reassurance, like a smile. What was happening here wasn’t just some strange coincidence. Stevie just knew it was huge and she knew that Josh could see that in her face because he was already getting to his feet and his forehead was creased with concern.
‘What’s wrong, Stevie?’
‘Come with me. There’s something you need to see.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
JOSH KNEW WHERE they were going as soon as they started heading upstairs and the fact that Stevie wanted them to be somewhere as private as possible was alarming, to say the least.
Had something happened to Mattie?
But Stevie’s son seemed to be the last thing on her mind right then.
‘Do you remember that day when Ruby thought you had a new car?’ Stevie was racing up the stairs. ‘A really flash one?’
‘Yeah...something ridiculous like a Maserati.’
‘And she said you’d needed a shave?’ Stevie was out of breath as she reached the door at the top of the stairwell and she paused to look back at Josh. ‘She was telling the truth.’
‘What? I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘I know.’ Stevie had her hands on the heavy door, ready to push it open, but she paused to catch his gaze. ‘Whatever this is,’ she said quietly, ‘it’s going to be okay...’
There was something in the depths of those gloriously hazel eyes that Josh had never seen before. It felt like a promise—that she would do whatever it took to make it okay?
No wonder Josh felt like he might be stepping far too close to the edge of a cliff as he followed her outside. And then he found himself staring at the man who was clearly waiting for them and he could actually feel his world being turned inside out.
‘Josh? This is Lachlan McKendry. Lachlan, this is Josh Stanmore. Um... I thought it might be a good idea if you two had a bit of time before your meeting.’
Neither Josh nor Lachlan responded. They were both staring at each other.
Fascinated.
Spooked.
Josh could feel Stevie watching him. He could hear the concern in her voice in the way it faltered. ‘Do you want me to stay?’
He turned towards her and, for a moment in this free-fall of what felt like a seismic change in his life, Josh knew that his friendship with Stevie was a safe haven if he needed one. Not that he could run away from this. And it was not something that anyone other than himself and the man in front of him could deal with, but knowing that he had someone he could trust who was in his corner was enough to give him the strength he needed.
He gave his head only a single shake. ‘Thanks, Stevie.’ He held her gaze long enough to let her know just how much he appreciated the fact that she’d given him a chance to deal with this privately, at least to begin with. Had she chosen this obscure part of Gloucester General because she’d remembered that it was where he’d brought her to protect her own privacy? It felt like a lifetime ago but it was a reminder of how solid their friendship had become. How much trust there was between them.
‘We’ll talk soon,’ he promised.
* * *
‘Soon’ turned out to be three days later, thanks to a day off for Stevie, a shift that didn’t coincide and the understandable confusion laced with astonishment that meant Josh needed to spend any free time he had right now with Lachlan McKendry. Apart from a text message or two that assured Stevie he was fine and a promise that he wasn’t going to let anything interfere with his time with Mattie, she had no idea how Josh was really coping until he dropped Mattie home after their Big Brother session on Thursday. Stevie knew then that she had been right to feel worried.
Josh looked as if he hadn’t slept properly for days. As if he’d lost weight, too, and he even had a noticeable five o’clock shadow today, which made him look even more like Stevie remembered Lachlan had looked. The almost haunted look in Josh’s eyes squeezed her heart so hard that it hurt and he was holding her gaze with an intensity that suggested he had been missing her company as much as she had been missing his.
‘When did you last have a proper meal?’ she asked.
‘I’m not that hungry, to be honest.’
Stevie thought quickly. She already had Mattie’s favourite fish fingers and chips dinner keeping warm in the oven but she could hardly offer some of that to Josh. He clearly needed to eat something, though. And maybe he needed someone to talk to even more. He was still holding her gaze and, if they hadn’t been able to hear Mattie in the background, she was quite sure he would be kissing her senseless. The desire for that to be happening was so strong that Stevie knew she had to, at least, have some time with Josh.
‘There’s an Italian restaurant down the road,’ she told him. ‘Cheap and cheerful but they do the best lasagne I’ve ever tasted and their fresh salad and garlic bread is to die for.’ Yeah...he was hungry. Stevie could see the spark of interest in those dark eyes. ‘How ’bout I meet you there in ten minutes? I just need to get my neighbour to keep an eye on Mattie. Someone has to make sure you have a decent meal. You’re not on call tonight, are you?’
‘No.’ Josh was smiling now. Maybe he liked that she was taking charge and trying to look after him?
‘Have a glass of wine while you’re waiting, then.’
Stevie put her hand on his arm to encourage him to turn and, despite her body’s protest that what she wanted to do more than anything was to pull him back and into her arms, she gave him a gentle shove on his back to make sure she didn’t give in to that desire. And to make sure Josh didn’t hang around to protest that he wasn’t hungry.
‘I’ll see you there,’ she said, closing the door behind him.
* * *
The carafe of red wine looked to be half-empty by the time Stevie arrived at the small, local restaurant and the plate of pizza-style garlic bread only had crumbs left on the red, gingham napkin that matched the tablecloth.
‘I was hungrier than I thought I was,’ Josh admitted. ‘Shall I order some more?’
Stevie nodded as he signalled the waiter. ‘I’ll have a glass of wine, too, please. And then I want to know what’s going on.’
Josh shook his head as he poured her some wine from the carafe. ‘I don’t even know where to begin. It’s crazy...’
‘Start at the beginning. From when I left you on the roof. I haven’t even seen you since then.’ Stevie added a smile to counteract what could have been interpreted as a somewhat desperate undertone to her words. She couldn’t let Josh know just how much she’d been missing him. That she might be starting to depend on his presence in her life?
Josh was smiling back. ‘I’m sorry. And you’re the only person I can really talk to about this—the only one who will get just how much of a shock it is.’
‘So you are brothers?’ Stevie tucked away those words of being the only person he could talk to about this. She knew they would feel like a verbal hug when she pulled them out again, later.
‘The first thing I asked him was where and when he was born. Same place as me—in Cheltenham. Same year as me. Same day...’
‘Oh, my God,’ Stevie whispered. ‘I knew it. You’re t
wins...’
‘Lachlan was as shocked as I was. He couldn’t believe that his mother could have given one of her babies away. He decided that maybe I’d been stolen. That his mother had been told one of her twins had died or something to cover it up.’ Josh stopped and took a deep breath. ‘But the whole time we were talking about it we were watching each other, you know? And it was so weird. His voice is so like mine and we’d start speaking at the same time and we’d move at the same time and...it was like looking in a mirror.’
‘Did you go to that meeting?’
‘No. We had to postpone it. It’s not as if the surgery is urgent and neither of us would have been able to focus, which would have made it a waste of time for everybody involved. Plus, I’m not ready for the grapevine to get hold of this information with all the gossip that’ll happen. I don’t think anybody saw us together but thank goodness you intercepted him before he turned up at the paediatric ward. Can you imagine how Ruby would have reacted?’
The fragrant, steamy triangles of fresh garlic bread straight from the pizza oven were placed in front of them, along with a big bowl of fresh salad and the lasagne they’d both ordered.
‘She would have whisked him off to her office and interrogated him,’ Stevie joked. ‘Nicely but, oh, so thoroughly.’
‘Exactly. So thank you for giving us the best private space we could have had—until Lachlan came to my place the next evening, that is, and, man, did we need the private space then.’
‘Why?’
‘He was wrecked.’ Josh was silent for a moment as he tasted his food. ‘Oh, boy...this is good.’ He ate in silence for another minute but then put his fork down. ‘This is a hell of a lot harder for him than it is for me, I think. He didn’t even know he was adopted.’
Stevie nodded as she added a scoop of salad onto her plate. ‘He sounded quite sure he wasn’t, when I suggested it.’
A Pup to Rescue Their Hearts Page 10