Maddie frowned. If that was so—and she didn’t for one second think Jonah would lie to her—then she would have thought Gabriel would have praised Charlie lavishly for his efforts, rather than mirroring what his parents had done to him. But he hadn’t.
‘Jonah, do you suppose Gabriel—?’
‘And do you suppose that we could talk about somebody other than our boss tonight?’ He grinned, and she coloured slightly.
‘Sorry. You’re absolutely right. No more talk of Gabriel.’
And they didn’t. Instead, Jonah told her about his numerous nieces and nephews whom he seemed to adore, and Maddie regaled him with stories of some of the things she and Nell had done when they’d been student nurses, which had him laughing uproariously.
‘I’ve really enjoyed myself,’ Maddie said when he eventually drove her home.
‘Me, too.’ He nodded.
‘I won’t ask you in, if you don’t mind,’ she continued as they stood on her doorstep. ‘Charlie will use any excuse not to go to bed, and it’s a school day tomorrow.’
‘Not a problem.’ He smiled, and as she half turned to open the door she suddenly realised with dismay that he was going to kiss her.
Well, of course he was. This was a date, and you didn’t shake hands with somebody at the end of a date. Don’t panic, Maddie, she told herself. All you have to do is close your eyes and relax. So she closed her eyes, and tried to relax, and he kissed her, but apart from his lips being warm and gentle she felt absolutely nothing at all. Which was fine by her—she was quite happy with warm and gentle—but it obviously wasn’t fine for Jonah.
Faintly she heard him sigh, and when he released her she opened her eyes to see him gazing down at her, half regretful, half quizzical.
‘No zing, huh? No, please, don’t apologise,’ he added as she opened her mouth to do just that. ‘I may not have much ego but even I would much rather you didn’t apologise.’
‘Jonah…’
‘I’ve had a lovely evening. Thank you very much for your company.’
She’d had a lovely evening, too, she thought as she watched him drive away, but it was the kind of evening you’d have with a friend. Jonah was a nice man, a kind man, but he was right about the zing.
I bet there would have been zing if Gabriel had kissed you, her mind whispered.
No, there wouldn’t. He was cold and arrogant, and treated people as though they were idiots.
Yes, but he has hot grey eyes, and a smile that does crazy things to your pulse rate.
‘Which are two of the very best reasons in the world to keep as far away from him as possible,’ she said to nobody in particular as she opened her front door and went in.
CHAPTER FIVE
‘ARE you and that man an item now?’
Maddie put the last of the breakfast dishes she’d been drying into the cupboard and turned to face her niece. ‘That man has a name, Susie.’
‘Jonah Washington.’ Susie snorted. ‘Sounds like some kind of old-time American Civil War general to me.’
‘He’s a very nice man,’ Maddie declared tightly. A fact you would have discovered yourself if you’d talked to him last night, instead of disappearing off to your bedroom the minute he arrived.’
‘So you will be going out with him again?’
‘No,’ Maddie said, lifting the laundry basket so she didn’t have to meet her niece’s eyes.
‘But if he’s so nice and everything,’ Susie protested, ‘why not?’
Nell had said the same thing last night. In fact, her cousin had gone on and on at such length about Jonah that Maddie had eventually lost her temper and pointed out that it was a bit rich for Nell to protest when she clearly hadn’t wanted her to go out with Jonah in the first place, and Nell had gone home in a snit.
‘Susie, sometimes…’ Oh, heck, but this was so hard to explain. ‘Sometimes niceness just isn’t enough.’
‘You mean he’s boring?’
‘No, he’s not boring,’ Maddie said. ‘He’s funny and kind, and interesting—’
‘If it had been that other man—the dweeb who was so snarky about Charlie’s story—I could have understood it, but if this Jonah is so wonderful then what’s the problem?’
Good question. An even better question would have been why she’d gone to bed last night and dreamt not of a kind man with soft brown eyes, but of the dweeb with the attitude problem.
‘Susie—’
‘It’s Charlie and me, isn’t it?’ her niece said suddenly. ‘Jonah found out you were stuck with us and he’s legged it, like Andrew did.’
‘Number one, I am not stuck with you,’ Maddie said emphatically. ‘I love you and Charlie to bits and if your mother and father hadn’t died I would have been the aunty from hell, driving you crazy with visits. And number two…Jonah likes children, and if I could go out with him again as a friend I would, but he…he…’
‘He wants sex and you don’t—or at least not with him?’
It was television and the movies, Maddie decided. That, or the fact that kids started sex education classes much younger these days, otherwise why else were her cheeks scarlet whereas her niece didn’t seem even one bit embarrassed by the conversation?
‘Something like that,’ she muttered.
‘But, Aunt Maddie—’
‘If you don’t hurry up, you’ll be late for school.’
‘But—’
‘We’ll talk about this later, OK?’
Much later, Maddie thought as her niece clattered belligerently out of the kitchen. A lot later. In fact, hopefully never.
A deep sigh came from her as she leant against the sink and gazed out of the kitchen window. Why, oh, why, had she ever agreed to go out with Jonah? Yesterday they’d been friends as well as colleagues, but now everything was going to be so awkward, so difficult, and the thought of seeing him again today…
Maybe she could call in sick. It was Saturday tomorrow and she didn’t work Saturdays, so she’d have a whole three days to prepare herself. Except three days wouldn’t be enough. Three months wouldn’t be enough, and resignation wasn’t an option. She needed this job. The bill from the garage had been horrendous, and there was the electricity bill due soon and a telephone bill, so she had to stay no matter how uncomfortable it might be.
‘You’re not leaving us, are you, Aunt Maddie?’
She turned to see Charlie standing in the kitchen doorway, and her heart sank. How much had he heard—how much had he understood?
‘Of course I’m not leaving you,’ she said firmly. ‘Now, I’ve got your gym kit all washed and ironed—’
‘I heard what Susie said,’ Charlie interrupted, ‘and I don’t want you to go away with that man. I know I sometimes mess things up, do things wrong, but…’
‘Sweetheart, I will never leave you,’ she said, getting down on her knees to look him straight in the eye. ‘You, me, Susie—we’re a team.’
‘But Susie said—’
‘Your sister got it wrong. Nothing and no one is ever going to split us up.’
‘Promise?’ Charlie said, his bottom lip trembling, and she drew him close to her.
‘I promise,’ she said huskily, ‘and now I have to go to work and you have to go to school.’
‘Why?’
Another good question, she thought, putting her fingers to her forehead where she could feel the beginnings of a headache starting to form. Jonah would probably spend the entire day avoiding her, Nell would be frosty, and everyone at the Belfield would somehow know she’d been out with Jonah. In fact, the only person who wouldn’t give a damn would be Gabriel, which wasn’t nearly as comforting as it should have been.
‘Because I need the money and you need an education,’ she said as she helped Charlie into his coat.
‘BP normal, heart rate a little slow, but not worryingly so,’ Barry, the anaesthetist, declared as Gabriel stood waiting in the operating theatre beside tiny Diana Scott. ‘Ready to roll whenever you are, Gabriel.’
‘I’ve sterilised both a two-centimetre and a three-centimetre catheter,’ Sharon, the theatre sister, said, moving her trolley of surgical instruments closer. ‘Which would you like?’
What I want is to know how Jonah and Maddie’s date went last night, Gabriel thought grimly. I want to hear it was a complete disaster but the chances of that are slim. Jonah’s personable, good company and has dozens of nieces and nephews so he knows exactly what to say to children. Damn him.
‘Gabriel, I said which size do—?’
‘The smallest,’ Gabriel replied quickly, feeling his cheeks heat up behind his mask and seeing Sharon exchange a curious glance with Barry. Concentrate, Gabriel. Your mind doesn’t wander when you’re working. Not ever, so concentrate.
‘Do you want the smallest reservoir, too?’ the theatre sister said, and he nodded.
‘With the catheter and reservoir in place, I’m hoping we’ll be able to drain the excess fluid using a 23-gauge butterfly needle,’ he told them. ‘If we can’t, I’ll have to insert a shunt, and I really don’t want to do that until Diana’s both older and heavier.’
He didn’t want to do it at all. Once they’d inserted a shunt there was every likelihood Diana would have it for the rest of her life, and no child should have to live like that.
‘I hear Jonah’s dating your new secretary, Gabriel,’ Barry observed as Gabriel made a tiny incision into Diana’s head. ‘The girl with the odd-sounding first name. Portland…Waldorf…’
‘Madison,’ Gabriel said tightly through his face mask. Damn it, one date last night and already the entire Belfield staff knew about it.
‘Is that the girl who’s Nell Sutherland’s cousin?’ Sharon asked. ‘Smiley face, auburn hair, brown eyes?’
Tawny eyes, Gabriel thought. Eyes that glow when she laughs, and hair that isn’ t just auburn but has tiny flecks of gold in it, which you don’t notice until you’re standing really close to her. The girl who thinks I have all the sensitivity of a pig, and I’d give anything to correct that impression.
‘That’s the one.’ Barry nodded. ‘She used to be a nurse, but gave it up to look after her niece and nephew when their parents were killed in a car crash three years ago.’
Two years ago, Gabriel corrected the anaesthetist mentally, and I’ve bought a game to give to Charlie. A game I could take round this weekend but I don’t want to take it round. Not if Jonah is going to be there, as he probably will.
‘I hope it works out for Jonah,’ Sharon said as Gabriel carefully began inserting the catheter under Diana’s cranial skin. ‘He’s one of the good guys, and he’s not had much luck with his girlfriends so I hope he and Madison make a go of it.’
‘Look, could we have a little less discussion of my specialist registrar’s love life and a lot more concentration on the job in hand?’ Gabriel snapped, which silenced Sharon and Barry immediately. But it wouldn’t stop them thinking, and it was all Maddie’s fault that he now knew what they’d be thinking.
‘Put yourself in their shoes,’ she’d said. ‘Imagine what you would be thinking if you were in their situation.’
Miserable old bastard is what I’d be thinking, he thought bitterly, or—even worse—jealous old bastard. And the trouble was, he was jealous. Jealous of a man who’d been his best friend for years. Jealous because Jonah would have kissed her, touched her, might even have…No, he wouldn’t have made love to Maddie, not on a first date, not with her kids in the house.
But he might have.
‘Are you ready for the reservoir?’ Sharon said, hesitantly holding it out to him, and he took it without a word.
Three weeks ago he’d been happy with his life. His one concern had been the efficient running of his department, and then an auburn-haired girl had asked him to stare at her and his heart rate had kicked up in a most unexpected way. He’d tried to tell himself it was nothing. He’d tried to convince himself that he’d simply been very tired, but when the same girl had said she was working on forgiving him, and then smiled at him with lips that had looked soft and moist and, oh, so kissable, all of his resolve to stay celibate had suddenly gone right out the window.
‘Are you going to be much longer, Gabriel?’ Barry asked. ‘Only Diana’s BP’s starting to fall and I don’t want to keep her under longer than I have to.’
‘A couple more minutes, and I’m finished,’ Gabriel replied.
In more ways than one, he thought with a deep sigh. Even if Jonah hadn’t asked Maddie out, he knew she would never have wanted to go out with him. Not with the man who’d hurt her nephew, the man her niece considered a dipwad.
‘OK, that’s it,’ he said, stepping back from the operating table, rolling his neck to ease the tension knot he could feel there. ‘I’ll wait with you in Recovery, Barry, and then go back with Diana to NICU.’
Where, irrespective of how he felt, he was going to have to ask Maddie when it would be convenient for him to bring round Charlie’s present, because he could just imagine her reaction if he posted it.
‘It’s a shame you won’t be going out with Jonah again,’ Lynne said, her normally smiling face pensive. ‘He’s a really nice man and he adores kids.’
‘It wasn’t a proper date,’ Maddie said through gritted teeth, wishing the ward manager would just go away. ‘More a thank you for some work I did for him.’
‘You don’t think you could have been a bit hasty?’ Lynne continued as though she hadn’t spoken. ‘Calling it a day after just one date?’
Maddie counted to ten but it didn’t help. Why did everyone assume she’d dumped Jonah? Nell last night, Susie this morning, and now Lynne. By the end of the day she probably wouldn’t be able to find anybody in the Belfield who didn’t think she’d dumped Jonah, and it was so unfair. She hadn’t dumped him. They’d just sort of come to a mutual agreement not to go out together again.
Oh, get out of here, a little voice whispered in the back of her head. What mutual agreement? He kissed you, got zilch response for his efforts, so why in the world would he ever want to go out with you again? He’s dumped you, but he’s too much of a gentleman to tell everybody that.
‘Lynne, about Jonah—’
‘I have to run,’ the ward manager interrupted. ‘Diana’s due back from OR any minute, and Gabriel wants to put a cast on the baby who came in last night—Toby Merton, the full-termer with the clubfoot?’
Maddie nodded, but she doubted if Lynne even noticed. The ward manager was already walking away, leaving her with nothing to do but remember last night and cringe.
Work, she decided as she booted up her computer. If she worked she wouldn’t think about Jonah, but whoever said databases were engrossing had clearly never tried to work on one with a headache. By half past twelve her head was pounding, and she was just about to concede defeat and go to lunch when she noticed a young woman in a dressing-gown go past her office. There was nothing unusual about that—she often saw new mothers bringing their expressed milk down to NICU—but when the woman had passed her office for the third time Maddie got to her feet and went out into the corridor.
‘Can I help you at all?’ she said, seeing the young woman jump nervously at her approach.
‘My son was born last night,’ the girl replied. ‘He was transferred down to Special Care, and the nurses in Maternity said…They said I could come down, visit him—feed him.’
‘Of course you can.’ Maddie smiled. ‘Did they forget to give you the security code?’
The girl shook her head. ‘I have the code, but…’
‘But?’ Maddie prompted.
‘I just…’ The woman looked at her helplessly. ‘I just never imagined when I was pregnant that there’d be something wrong with my baby.’
‘Are you Toby Merton’s mother?’ Maddie asked, and when the woman nodded she said quickly, ‘Please, don’t be worried or upset about his clubfoot. All that’s happened is the bones in his foot haven’t formed properly. It’s actually quite a common birth defect, with boys being aff
ected almost twice as often as girls.’
‘But why?’ the girl protested. ‘I took folic acid before I got pregnant. I took all the vitamins and supplements I was supposed to take. I don’t smoke and I didn’t drink, and neither did my husband, so why did this happen—what did I do wrong?’
‘You didn’t do anything wrong,’ Maddie said gently. ‘We don’t know why some children are born with a clubfoot, but Mr Dalgleish—the neonatologist in charge of our unit—is going to put a cast on Toby’s foot today, and hopefully that will straighten it out.’
‘What if it doesn’t?’ the girl said tremulously.
‘In 50 per cent of cases it cures it completely, but if it doesn’t then your son will have surgery when he’s a little older.’
‘Then he’s not…he won’t be…?’
‘Left with a clubfoot for the rest of his life?’ Maddie shook her head. ‘No, of course he won’t, so why don’t you go along to the unit now and say hi to him?’
The new mother managed a smile and Maddie waited until she’d gone safely through the security door, but when she turned to go back into her office her heart sank. Gabriel was leaning against his consulting-room door, watching her.
Here we go again, she thought. He’d probably heard every word she’d said and was going to launch into yet another of his ‘You’re wasted as a secretary’ speeches. But to her surprise he didn’t.
‘Thanks for reassuring Mrs Merton,’ he said instead. ‘Maternity should have explained it all to her but obviously they didn’t.’
‘They’ve probably been rushed off their feet this morning,’ she said. ‘I just happened to see her passing my office and guessed she must be worried about something.’
‘I’m glad you did.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I’ve bought a game for Charlie and, as I’m not working tomorrow, I wondered if I might come round and give it to him.’
He wanted to come round tomorrow? But that meant she’d only have this evening to prepare Charlie and she’d hoped to get him used to the idea gradually.
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