‘Anyone in police uniform reminds you of Ben. It doesn’t mean they aren’t corrupt.’
‘Corrupt?’ Her mouth dropped open. ‘What makes you think Matt Daniels is corrupt?’
‘He hardly knows you and here he is, taking you out.’
‘Maybe he’s seriously attracted to me.’ She gave him a pointed look and added in a breathy little tone, ‘Maybe he even wants to have sex with me.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, you’re surely not thinking about jumping into bed with him? You don’t know anything about him!’
‘I intend to get to know him,’ she informed him determinedly. ‘I haven’t been on a proper date in ages and I’m looking forward to it.’
Jack closed his teeth with a snap and watched as she sorted through her things, his gut clenching at the thought of her going out with a man who might very well have murder on his mind.
It wasn’t that he was jealous…
Of course he wasn’t.
He wasn’t the jealous type. He had never felt anything more than a casual interest in any woman so he didn’t see why he should be feeling so edgy about Becky getting involved with a man who could after all be a nice enough guy. He had no proof that Constable Daniels wasn’t above board. All Ben had said was to trust no one.
It had nothing to do with being jealous.
He clenched his jaw.
OK, so maybe he was a little bit jealous.
But it was just because he didn’t like to think of her throwing her life away on someone not good enough for her. As Ben had said, she had lousy taste in men; she could easily be hoodwinked into yet another disastrous relationship.
It wasn’t that he thought of her as a potential partner for himself…
He gave himself a mental shake but no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t quite forget the feel of her mouth, not to mention the caress of her busy little fingers on his—
‘I’m all done,’ Becky announced, jarring him out of his reverie. ‘Let’s go.’
He looked at her blankly for a moment or two.
‘Hello?’ Becky waved her hand in front of his face. ‘Anyone home in there?’
‘What?’ His throat moved up and down in a convulsive swallow.
‘What planet were you just on?’
‘Planet?’
She rolled her eyes at him. ‘Earth to Jack, can you read me?’
‘Yeah…go…sure, let’s go.’ He took the garbage bag and held open the door, his movements mechanical.
It came to him then as if he had indeed been occupying some other planet, where the truth had been concealed from him all this time. He had feelings for Becky Baxter that had absolutely nothing to do with his promise to Ben. Feelings that he’d spent most of his adulthood avoiding.
He drove back to his house in a shell-shocked silence. He was conscious of Becky sitting within touching distance but she may as well have been sitting on the other side of the earth. She had told him so many times how much she disliked him, and even though she’d obviously been tempted to sleep with him the evening before, he knew the alcohol she’d consumed had coloured her judgement. She’d told him as much.
He helped her inside with her things, keeping conversation to an absolute minimum. Once she was more or less settled back in the spare room he made some vague excuse about going to the hospital which he knew could have waited till morning, but he felt in dire need of some breathing space. He reassured himself that after this latest scare she wouldn’t do another disappearing act, and if he was super-quick he’d be back within forty minutes, maybe before she even got out of the shower.
‘Shall I organise something for us to eat for when you get back?’ Becky offered as he made his way to the door.
‘Not for me,’ he said. ‘I’m not hungry, but you go right ahead. Help yourself.’
Becky frowned as she watched him leave. There was something about Jack that didn’t quite add up. He was all protective and concerned for her welfare one minute and the next he looked as if he couldn’t wait to get away from her. She gave a dispirited sigh and looked at her things sitting on the bed, waiting to be unpacked.
Temporarily, she reminded herself with a sharp pang of regret. Jack didn’t want her in his life on a permanent basis, and if it hadn’t been for his friendship with Ben and her parents, she wouldn’t be in at all.
HDU was full that night, all eight beds occupied with post-op cases, some elderly and frail and struggling to recover from routine surgery, others recuperating from major surgery. Jack had two patients there, a severe pancreatitic and the splenectomy with diaphragmatic repair from his recent list. Cindy Jones was special-nursing both his patients and as Jack arrived, Robert greeted him in his usual formal manner.
Jack gave a brief nod in reply and reached for the first patient’s notes.
‘How are they doing, Robert? Any major issues?’
‘Mr Pearson, the pancreatitic, is oliguric, despite pretty vigorous fluid resus. His urine output is under 10 mls per hour. His Ransom criteria are poor, he’s not doing too well.’
‘Have you got the CT report?’
‘That’s what I wanted to show you. They did fine slices through the pancreas with IV contrast. Most of the pancreas doesn’t show up—I think he has major pancreatic necrosis.’
‘Do they report any collection?’
‘No collection, but a lot of peripancreatic oedema.’
‘We may have to debride the pancreas. Can we get a Swan Ganz in and add in IV frusemide to try and up his urine output?’
‘He’s too much for us in HDU, Mr Colcannon,’ Cindy Jones put in. ‘Can we get him transferred to ICU?’
‘I’m inclined to agree with you, Cindy. The last lot of blood gases makes it look like ventilation is going to be needed. Can you speak to ICU, Robert? Get him transferred round there, involve the intensivists, and we’ll review the likelihood of surgery in the morning.’
‘I’ll get on to it now, Mr Colcannon. The splenectomy is fine, needing a lot of physio on his left chest, but OK.’
‘Thanks, Robert. You’re doing a great job with these difficult cases.’
‘Thanks, sir. I’ll see you in the morning. Have a good evening.’
‘Right,’ Jack said, glancing at his watch. If he put his foot down he’d be home in record time.
Becky had finished a simple meal of cheese on toast and had not long stepped out of the shower when she heard the sound of Jack moving about downstairs.
She towelled her hair and called out to him, ‘How were things at the hospital?’
He didn’t answer and she sighed as she reached for the hairdryer and gave her head a quick blast.
OK, so he was still annoyed with her for arranging to meet Matt Daniels the following evening. She couldn’t understand why he was being so dog-in-the-manger about it. Even though he’d kissed her he’d made it perfectly clear he had no interest in her personally. He even avoided looking at her unless he absolutely had to. She’d seen the way his green eyes flicked away whenever she asked him something lately.
She turned off the dryer and peered at herself in the mirror above the basin and sighed. Was she that unattractive? Sure, she had a couple of pounds to lose, but what girl with an incurable sweet tooth didn’t? So, she didn’t quite meet his exacting standards. So what? His ex-girlfriend Marcia hadn’t exactly been an oil painting.
Actually, she had, Becky conceded with a twist to her mouth as she unplugged the dryer. Marcia was a hospital physiotherapist who had the sort of face and figure that made most women envious and all men drool.
But that was beside the point.
She put the hairdryer down with a snap. She had the right to date whoever she liked and if she wanted to go out with Matt Daniels then she would go and enjoy herself. It wasn’t as if she was going to let it go any further. How could it, when she was in love with Jack?
There was another sound of movement downstairs and, tucking the towel around her chest sarong-wise, she opened the bathroom door
and called out once more.
‘Jack?’
The house was quiet.
Too quiet.
Becky felt the sharp edges of fear claw at her insides as she strained her ears, her heart starting to leap about in her chest.
Was that a footstep on the stairs?
A creaking floorboard?
She spun around for a weapon, her eyes going to the still warm hairdryer. She grabbed it in both hands, holding it in front of her like a gun.
This had gone on long enough.
She wasn’t going to be found cowering behind the bathroom door, waiting for her attacker to seek her out. No way.
She was going to come out fighting.
She took a steadying breath and pushed open the bathroom door.
CHAPTER NINE
‘WHAT the—?’ Jack stumbled backwards in shock as something caught him a glancing blow to his head. White spots of light flashed before his eyes and he clutched for the wall to keep himself upright.
‘Ohmigod!’ Becky stared in horror at the blood spurting from a gash just above Jack’s right eye. ‘It’s you!’
‘Yeah, it’s me.’ His words came out sounding a little woozy but his tone was still unmistakably dry. ‘Or at least it was until you half brained me.’ He lifted his fingers up to inspect the damage, wincing as they came back down covered in blood. ‘But who knows? This could bring on that personality bypass you’ve been insisting I need.’
‘I think it needs stitching.’ She caught her lip between her teeth.
‘Well, you’d better do it,’ he said, brushing past her to enter the bathroom. ‘I have a weak stomach when it comes to blood.’
‘Very funny.’ She spun on her heel to join him in the bathroom, meeting his eyes in the mirror where he was examining the wound. ‘D-does it hurt?’
‘Only when I breathe.’ He held a facecloth to it and turned around to look at her. ‘What made you do it? I thought we’d agreed to call a truce.’
‘I thought you were an intruder.’ She suddenly realised she was still holding the hairdryer and put it down with a little clatter on the vanity top. ‘You didn’t answer when I called out to you.’
‘I called out to you three times, but you had the dryer going,’ he said.
‘Oh.’
He turned back to the mirror and checked the bleeding. ‘Can you get my doctor’s bag? It’s in my study downstairs. I don’t want to drip blood all over the carpet.’
She made a quick detour to her room, tossing the towel aside as she slipped on her bathrobe, before going for his bag and bringing it back up.
‘You’d better sit down on the toilet seat while I do this,’ she instructed.
He did as she said and she opened the bag, conscious of his long legs right behind her. She rummaged in the kit and found some steristrips and dressings, and gave her knuckles a mental crack or two.
‘Maybe I’ll just steristrip it,’ she said somewhat nervously. Treating a highly skilled surgeon when you didn’t have any major surgical skills except for anaesthetic procedures was not to be recommended, Becky thought ruefully as she leaned forward.
Jack removed his hand from the facecloth he’d been pressing to stem the flow of blood, but there was still a significant trickle from the wound.
‘It’s still bleeding. Put some pressure on it for five minutes and it should stop.’
‘Lean back a bit so I can push on it.’ Becky grabbed a pad of gauze she’d found in the medical kit.
After what seemed like five hours instead of five minutes with his body so close to hers in the tight space, she removed the gauze, relieved the bleeding had stopped.
‘It’s dry. I’ll steristrip it now.’
‘I can do it myself by looking in the mirror.’ Jack started to get up off the toilet seat but she put a hand on his shoulder and pressed him back down.
‘I know it’s been a while since I’ve done this,’ she said, ‘but surely you trust me?’
He gave her an ironic glance from beneath his lashes. ‘I don’t trust you at all, but I’m too embarrassed to rock up to A and E and tell whoever’s on duty that I’ve been assaulted with a hairdryer in my very own house.’
Becky felt the colour surge in her cheeks as she reached for some antiseptic, soaking a pad generously before turning to apply it to his wound.
‘Ouch!’
‘Don’t be such a baby,’ she chided him, stepping between his spread thighs to get closer to his wound.
She was intensely conscious of her nakedness beneath her worn bathrobe, her skin suddenly feeling overly sensitive where it brushed the cotton with each tiny movement she made.
She took a prickly sort of breath and added, ‘I would have thought you’d be a little braver, considering the amount of pain you inflict on some of your patients at times.’
He grunted something under his breath before grumbling, ‘I hope you’re not going to leave me with a Dr Frankenstein scar.’
‘Will you shut up and let me concentrate?’ She put the antiseptic to one side. ‘I’m not used to patients speaking to me while I tend them.’
‘Just as well.’
‘Hold still,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to make a mess of it. Is it still hurting?’
‘Not really, but I’ve got the mother of all headaches.’
‘You might be a little concussed.’ She carefully applied the steristrips, making sure the edges of the wound were close together. ‘You might also end up with a black eye but hopefully you won’t need plastic surgery.’
‘Thank God.’
‘Want to have a look before I dress it?’
He got up from the toilet seat and looked at the row of neat butterfly strips over his eye. ‘Not bad.’
‘Wow, a compliment from Mr Perfect himself!’ She unpeeled a sterile dressing and reached up to apply it to his head. ‘Bend down a little,’ she said. ‘You’re too tall…There, that’s it.’
‘Don’t you think you should check my pupils for any irregularities?’ Jack said.
She stood on tiptoe and peered into his eyes. His pupils were dilated, but evenly, his green eyes glittering with something…was it pain, or maybe something else?
The silence seemed to stretch like a piece of elastic that had been under too much pressure for too long.
Becky felt the magnetic pull of Jack’s gaze and suddenly found it hard to breathe. The air felt too thick. It dragged at her chest and throat until she was sure she was going to pass out with the effort of inflating her lungs enough to speak.
‘I—I’m so sorry.’ She stumbled over her apology. ‘I didn’t expect you back so soon. I really thought you were an intruder.’ She twisted her hands a little bit and went on to explain, ‘I didn’t want to hide away like a coward, waiting for him to strike me down. I thought I’d get in first.’
He gave her a look of incredulity. ‘So you thought you’d take him on all by yourself with a hairdryer? What were you thinking?’ He gave a snort of derision. ‘You wouldn’t stand a chance defending yourself.’
She lifted her chin. ‘I caught you off guard. You went down like a ton of bricks.’
‘I did not!’
‘Yes, you did.’ Her mouth kicked up in a tiny smile. ‘You didn’t even block my hit.’
He gave her a disdainful look. ‘That’s because I knew it was you.’
‘Then why didn’t you say something and stop me?’
‘How could I? You came at me like a bull at a gate. Besides, I didn’t want to hurt you. One decent block from me might have broken your arm.’
Deep down Becky knew he was right, although the very last thing she wanted to do was admit it. She’d flown at him in such a rush, not even stopping to check his identity. If he’d so much as put up his arm to block her attack, she would have bounced off him like a rubber ball off a brick wall. Her brief bout of bravery seemed rather pathetic now she looked back at it with hindsight.
‘I’ll get you some Panadeine,’ she mumbled and started for his bag.
‘I don’t need them,’ he said. ‘I think I’ll lie down for a while with a cold pack. I have a full list tomorrow and I don’t want to be drugged up to the eyeballs.’
He moved past her and she began clearing away the mess, grimacing at the amount of blood on the pads she threw in the bin.
‘How are you feeling this morning?’ Becky asked the next morning as she came into the kitchen where Jack had his head bent over the newspaper.
He lifted his head to look at her.
‘Oh, my God, your eye!’ she gasped. ‘It’s totally black!’
‘As you see,’ he said, his tone clipped.
‘The cold pack didn’t work?’
‘Apparently not.’
‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘It’s been my experience with you that least said is soonest mended,’ he commented dryly as he reached for his coffee.
Becky pursed her mouth in sudden anger. How like him to want to make her feel even worse.
‘I’m going to work,’ she announced tersely.
His glance went to the clock on the wall before returning to her flashing eyes.
‘A whole hour early?’
‘Why not?’ She folded her arms crossly. ‘You do it every day.’
‘How are you intending on getting there?’ He quirked one dark brow at her over the rim of his coffee-cup.
‘I—’ She snapped her mouth closed. She’d forgotten all about her car.
‘Come on,’ he said, pushing his cup aside. ‘I’m ready to leave now anyway.’
‘I’d rather walk.’
He gave her one of his don’t-push-me-too-far looks as he scooped up his keys.
‘Want to have a rethink on that, Becky?’
She pushed past him in the doorway, her colour high and her temper even higher.
‘I should have hit you harder when I had the chance,’ she snapped at him spitefully.
‘Just try it, sweetheart, and see how far it gets you.’
Becky didn’t answer. That funny flickering pulse had settled between her thighs once more, making her feel as if he had reached out and touched her intimately. She swung away and stalked out of the room, but even twenty minutes later as they drove in to the hospital in a mutually agreed stiff silence, she could still feel it beating within her.
A Surgeon Worth Waiting For Page 10