Oops! Jean-Luc certainly hadn’t known about Joe when he’d made his statement to Rosemary.
But now?
‘He has a son,’ Lauren said, glad she was able to answer honestly.
‘Oh, that’s good. And is his wife out in Australia with him?’
The question was so obvious Lauren thought back to the first time she’d met Rosemary Willis. Had there been a Mr Willis present? And even if there had been, did it mean they were still married?
‘I don’t know,’ she answered honestly, and suddenly the enormity of what she’d said struck her like a physical blow. She’d been so caught up in sorting out Jean-Luc and Joe she’d forgotten all about Jean-Luc’s private life.
In fact, perhaps because he was here on his own for six months, she’d just assumed he wasn’t married, but why wouldn’t he be? The two point four children she’d originally imagined were probably at school and six months in a foreign country would prove too disruptive.
But he’d kissed her.
‘Ah, Mrs Willis! How are you today?’
The man who’d suddenly cast Lauren’s thoughts into total confusion eased into the room.
‘Sister!’ he said politely, nodding at Lauren as if she were a casual acquaintance, not someone who’d cooked damper for him the previous evening.
Not that cooking damper was an intimate kind of thing, especially with Joe helping.
‘Jeremy prepped?’
Lauren thrust all extraneous thoughts from her mind and turned to meet the blue eyes she now knew so well.
‘The anaesthetist has just left, she said she’d meet you in theatre.’
‘Good.’
Jean-Luc moved closer to the bed, and took Jeremy’s hand.
‘You know we’re going to fix that bothersome hole of yours,’ he said gently. ‘You’ll go to sleep and when you wake up you’ll still feel tired, but in a day or two you’ll be running around and not getting breathless at all. Is that good for you?’
Jeremy nodded sleepily, and Jean-Luc left the room, Rosemary following him out, asking questions that Lauren felt weren’t really relevant.
Or was that just bitchiness?
The thought surprised her. If asked to honestly describe herself she wouldn’t have included bitchy as one of her negative qualities.
But there was no time to take the thought further for the orderlies arrived to take Jeremy to theatre where the procedure would be done so as many of the team as possible could watch.
Inside the theatre Lauren stayed well back from the operating table, but extra screens had been set up so the people not close to the main screen of the echocardiogram and ultrasound machines could see what was happening and follow the path of the catheter up the vein and into the heart, where the tiny occluder would be put into position to close the hole.
She watched, enthralled, although she’d often seen cardiac catheterisations done, as the tiny wire threaded its way towards Jeremy’s heart. Maggie was reciting pulse and blood-pressure readings, oxygen levels, letting Jean-Luc know the child was doing well, so the alarm, when it came, shocked everyone. A loud beep and one glance at the monitor above the operating table told the story—Jeremy’s heart had stopped beating.
Jean-Luc reacted first, ordering drugs from Maggie, his voice crisp, not panicked. Alex, standing near the head of the table, hit Jeremy’s chest with his fist, hoping to shock the heart back to life. Nothing changed and Alex began cardiac massage, pushing down on the small chest, counting. Maggie had administered the drugs, while Jean-Luc withdrew the catheter, as yet only part way towards the heart.
‘Some kind of insult? A chemical imbalance? Damn, we tested him and tested him, he was right to go!’ Alex muttered, while Phil asked the question no one wanted to hear. Did they open Jeremy’s chest and manually get his heart beating?
Alex made the decision and the cut, but less than an hour later they had to admit that they’d lost their little patient.
Lauren slumped against the wall, totally exhausted as the tension that had held her immobile during all the drama slowly drained away.
‘I’ll go and speak to Mrs Willis,’ Alex said.
‘And I,’ Jean-Luc offered, his voice hoarse with emotion, his face so white his scars stood out like whip marks against his skin.
He was shattered. Lauren could see it in the way he breathed—slowly and carefully, as if each inhalation hurt—and the way he walked, back straight and chest up, trying to minimise his limp, but more like an automaton than a human being.
And his pain transferred itself to her—as if she needed more for she, too, must speak to Rosemary Willis. But that, she realised, must be the price you paid for love—feeling someone else’s pain so intensely.
The day dragged on, emotional scene after emotional scene, discussions and investigations, the mood in the PICU so strained Lauren was relieved to finally go off duty.
But once Joe was settled into bed she knew she had to see Jean-Luc, the thought of him bearing his sadness all alone too much for her to think about.
He didn’t answer when she pressed the bell for his flat but she wasn’t going to be put off. She pressed the bell for Grace’s flat and gave a little wave to the security camera so Grace could see it was her.
The door clicked open and Lauren walked into the lobby, looking up as Grace came down the stairs.
‘He’s in his flat,’ she said, when Lauren explained she wanted to see Jean-Luc. ‘I’ve tried to talk to him but he, very politely, told me to mind my own business. He never locks his front door if you want to go in.’
Lauren hesitated and Grace gave her an exasperated look.
‘Go on in,’ she said. ‘He needs someone!’
Lauren tapped on the door, then called Jean-Luc’s name as she entered the flat, glancing first into the living room.
He was sitting by the window.
‘I saw you come,’ he said, his voice devoid of all emotion, his head still half-turned towards the window. ‘One more person ready to tell me it wasn’t my fault!’
The goad was just what Lauren needed to get her over the threshold. She stepped into the room, anger settling where sympathy had been earlier.
‘Of course I’m not going to tell you that—you’re an intelligent man, a specialist. If you don’t know that then you shouldn’t be doing the job you’re doing.’
He turned to face her and she saw the ravished agony on his face and stepped closer, drawn to him—wanting to do something, anything, to ease his pain.
‘Actually,’ she said, trying for a smile but aware it was probably a terrible effort as she was feeling decidedly shaky, ‘I came to give you a hug. I figured even if you are married and somehow we’ve never got around to discussing that, but if you were, given you are here so far from home, no wife would object to you getting a hug from an old friend in these circumstances.’
Now she was standing right beside him and she could see a slight smile curling his lips. It made her uneasy, that smile. Not a particularly nice smile.
‘Did you think about the wife back home the times we’ve kissed?’ he asked, confirming the not-niceness of the smile.
But she guessed this was his way of pushing her away—of not accepting her offer of sympathy—so she persevered.
‘No, but in retrospect you were kissing the old Lauren then,’ she reminded him. ‘The one you kissed before you were married so I think that’s kind of all right, but before the hug, and you’re getting it no matter how hard you try to put me off, perhaps we could establish the marriage thing.’
He sighed then he stood up and put his arms around her, tucking her close to his body.
‘You’re right. I probably do need a hug—some human contact to remind me life goes on. And, no, sweet Lauren, I am not married, although once I was.’
She felt put out, although why on earth she should have expected him to remain true to some young girl with whom he’d spent six weeks she didn’t know. But the peevish feeling didn’t last long as stan
ding like this, so close to Jean-Luc’s body, was igniting all the fires of attraction.
She put her arms around him and hugged him hard.
‘It was terrible, but babies die, Jean-Luc, children die. You and Alex and all the surgeons like you can only do so much. I know you know that, and that me saying it won’t make the shock and pain of losing that little boy go away, but I don’t have anything else to offer—just words and a hug.’
He said nothing, but his arms tightened around her and they stood together in the dim room, lit only by a streetlight on the footpath outside the house.
Then the hug changed. Jean-Luc’s body shifted, and he moved his head so he could look into Lauren’s face.
‘Just so you know, this is not the old Lauren I’m about to kiss,’ he said, then his lips met hers, and he caught her gasp in his mouth as his body, hard and hot, pressed against hers.
And as his lips seared hers she tried to think—had the beach kisses been like this?—then her mind gave up to sensation and she was swamped with a feverish desire. And as Jean-Luc’s hands began a slow and tantalising exploration of her body, sliding down to cup her buttocks and pull her closer, so her own hands explored, her fingers seeking his head, threading into his hair, holding his head to hers so the kiss would never end.
But end it did and she gave a little moan of regret that turned to another gasp, for now he was kissing her neck and the hollow in her shoulder, his tongue teasing at her skin, his warm breath adding fuel to the flames already licking through her body.
His hands brushed across her breasts and she gasped again, this time against his ear, where she’d been nibbling at a lobe.
Someone was moaning now and she was pretty sure it wasn’t Jean-Luc, but as she pressed her body harder against his, feeling his arousal, hot and taut against her stomach, Jean-Luc moved, lifting her into his arms and striding through to his bedroom to toss her onto the bed.
He knelt beside her, then eased one knee across her lower body so he was astride her without resting his weight on her body.
‘Let us get some things straight,’ he said, ‘before we proceed.’
He sounded so formal Lauren would have smiled, only she was too confused, her body longing for his touch, for whatever he could give her, while her mind—well, it had gone AWOL as far as she could tell. She was unable to think at all—or think of anything other than sex right now!
‘This is not a pity—I do not know a word that isn’t rude—but you know what I mean. If we make love now, it is not because you are sorry for me, non?’
Lauren nodded, then wondered if that was the right response. Apparently it was, for her about-to-be lover continued in the same strained voice.
‘And you are Lauren, my colleague and, I think, my friend, not the ghost of the past—d’accord?’
Another nod—Jean-Luc said ‘d’accord’ so often she’d looked it up in her recently acquired French-English dictionary and found out it was used much the same as she used the word ‘OK.’
‘And we will not be having another mistake like Joe for although he is a delightful child, he was a mistake—we took precautions back then, although you don’t remember, but maybe the condoms I bought in India were not reliable. But condoms I have now because I am a man and I will be responsible for you.’
Did she have to nod again? She’d never had a conversation about condoms with a would-be lover before—well, not that she could remember—so she didn’t know how to react, and before she could decide he was talking again.
‘And you should also know that making love is not a prelude to marriage. I have, in your English saying, been there and done that. It didn’t work for me but as well as that, we do not know each other well, not yet, not the people we are now, so marriage might not suit us.’
First condoms now this! Lauren had had enough!
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Jean-Luc, are we going to have sex or are you going to keep talking all night? I know I haven’t had a lot of experience but I’m damned sure most people don’t go through all this ridiculous preamble. We have a child between us, and that hasn’t been sorted out but, believe me, I’m not about to go rushing into marriage with you or anyone else, thank you very much! Marrying you is the very last thing on my mind—particularly right now!’
He looked so shocked Lauren had to laugh, then she reached out and drew his head towards her and kissed him gently on the lips.
‘I’m all grown up now—I understand about attraction and sex. In fact, Jasmine keeps telling me it will make my skin glow so, please, can we keep going?’
And now he smiled and she realised most of his talk had been nerves, as most of her head-nodding had been.
‘Then we should see if we can make your skin glow,’ he said softly.
He moved so he could kiss her again, this time on the inside of her arm, the last part of her body she would have imagined would be an erogenous zone. But the feelings he was generating were definitely erotic, and as his lips moved up her arm, then across to her breasts, covered well in bra and T-shirt, she shivered, realising that what was about to happen would be like making love for the very first time.
Excitement grew within her, charging through her body so her fingers trembled as she helped Jean-Luc remove her clothing, and shook even worse as she helped him with his.
Was this how it was before between them? She wanted to ask but knew asking would take them out of the magic that was now, but with every move she wondered if maybe this would trigger her memory and the blank six weeks would finally return.
‘Oh!’ she whispered quietly as once again his lips took possession of her breast, but at the same time his hand was exploring further down, brushing across her nest of wiry hair, delving into the moist lips, touching and withdrawing, teasing her until she shuddered with what could only be desire, but desire for what? How would it feel?
Now he kissed her inner thigh, his hand on her breast, his lips chasing where his fingers had been, in the intimate centre of her body. And as his tongue brushed against the most sensitive of places she gasped aloud then grabbed his head and held him there, although calling to him to stop, and then again to go on, while all the time tension built and built in her body, until with one brush of his tongue and a hard touch on her nipples her world exploded, her cries only muffled by the fist she thrust into her mouth—biting on her fingers as shame that Grace might hear came bearing down on her.
Then Jean-Luc was beside her, a smile on his face, his hard, insistent penis brushing against her moist opening.
‘Guide me in,’ he whispered, and without thought she did just that, touching and feeling him, lifting her hips and moving her body so he slid inside the warm wet sheath. Then together they moved. Was this remembered movement or something bred into a woman? She tried again to think but the tension she’d felt earlier was building again—a good tension, not a bad one—hard and tight and desperate until once again she burst apart, pins and needles rushing through her body, tingling in her toes.
‘My toes tingled,’ she said in wonder, as Jean-Luc, with a final gasp, collapsed on top of her.
She held his body, held him tight, enjoying the weight of him, the heat, the smooth, satiny feel of his skin, the smell of sex and man.
‘Your toes tingled ten years ago,’ he said against her neck, pressing little kisses there, not hot kisses, just friendly, gentle ones—like the hug she’d come to give him.
‘I wish I could remember,’ she whispered as he lifted his body off hers, but kept his arms around her so they lay side by side, legs entangled, bodies touching, heads far enough apart for them to look into each other’s eyes.
‘Maybe you will eventually,’ he said, and suddenly Lauren was sorry she’d brought up the past. Jean-Luc was right—this was now.
But where would now lead?
Not to marriage, he’d made that clear. And she’d been honest when she’d said marriage was the last thing on her mind.
Yet…
‘Why didn’t
your marriage work out?’ she asked, the intimacy they’d just shared making the question seem OK.
She heard him sigh, then he reached out and stroked the hair away from her face.
‘It was probably my fault in that I was too involved in my work. We had been childhood sweethearts and drifted into marriage too early. So!’ He paused and for a while she wondered if he would add more. Wondered what he was thinking about. Then finally he said, very quietly, ‘My work—it has been enough.’
Not it is enough, Lauren thought, but she didn’t say it, too saddened to think that Jean-Luc, who could show such joyousness when playing with Joe and Lucy, had locked away that part of him, and hidden in his work.
Not her business—he’d made that very plain…
CHAPTER EIGHT
LAUREN returned to work, hopefully not glowing, but the mood in the unit remained subdued. The autopsy had found no reason why Jeremy’s heart had stopped beating and although the specialists were still awaiting the results of toxicology tests, he had not been given any drugs that hadn’t been used on him before, so his death remained a mystery.
And a burden on the hearts of all who had known the little boy, or been involved in the operation. Lauren knew Jean-Luc was the most affected, so she wasn’t particularly worried to see him having lunch in the canteen with Rosemary Willis a couple of days after Jeremy’s death.
She herself had not seen much of Jean-Luc since that momentous night so she felt a little put out. But tonight was Cubs’ night and it had become his habit to collect Joe from the house, and drive him to his meeting, then wait and bring him back, joining the family for a late dinner.
She waited for him, tense and anxious, embarrassed as well, not sure how to meet and greet a new lover. Or were they lovers? Had it been nothing more than a one-night stand—a hug taken to the next step?
No, he’d denied it was that!
When he didn’t turn up she drove Joe to Cubs herself, telling him Jean-Luc was busy at the hospital, but her return trip took her past Scoozi’s and even if she hadn’t seen the tall dark-haired man with the slight hesitation in his stride, Joe, of course, wouldn’t miss him.
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