‘I think I’ll order a scan to be on the safe side,’ she said. ‘Then we’ll take it from there.’
Jake came out of Cubicle Eight after seeing a patient with a gall bladder attack as Kitty came past. ‘How’s my brother doing?’ he asked. ‘Have you convinced him to check in to rehab?’
She stood before him, her expression sombre. ‘I’m sending him for a CT scan.’
‘You’re wasting your time,’ he said. ‘I sent him for one a few months back. Nothing showed up.’
‘He didn’t have it done,’ she said. ‘There’s no scan in the system. I checked. I even rang the clinic to talk to his GP. But he’s not been seen by the same GP twice in the last couple of years.’
He frowned. ‘He told me his GP gave him the all-clear. Why would he lie to me about that?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I guess he didn’t think the scan was warranted. You know what young guys are like. They think they’re bulletproof.’
Jake exhaled a breath in self-recrimination. ‘I should’ve followed it up. I should have called the clinic myself.’ He shoved his hand through his hair. ‘What was so hard about telling me he didn’t get it done, for God’s sake?’
‘You’re his brother, Jake, not his doctor,’ she said. ‘Anyway, I thought I’d better scan him just to be on the safe side. He’s got slightly irregular pupils.’
‘He’s probably stoned, that’s why.’
‘I don’t think he’s stoned or drunk.’
Jake curled his lip. ‘Would you even recognise stoned and drunk if you saw it?’
Her grey eyes narrowed. ‘What is that supposed to mean?’
‘Maybe the circles you mix in do it with a little more class than my brother does,’ he said. ‘But I can tell you when someone is off his face and I don’t need a bloody CT scan to confirm it. Every time I’ve seen Robbie lately he’s been hungover.’
‘You’re letting your personal issues cloud your clinical judgement,’ she said. ‘That’s why you should never treat your own family. You can miss things.’
‘Let me tell you what I’ve missed, Dr Cargill,’ Jake said through clenched teeth as fury and frustration threatened his ironclad control. ‘I’ve missed having my kid brother around. In his place I’ve got some weird wacko who changes mood at the blink of an eye. I miss the way he used to come and talk to me about stuff. He looked up to me. I liked that I was his go-to person. It meant I was doing an all right job in my mother’s place. I miss having a normal life, without spending hours worrying myself sick over what my brother’s getting up, to or who else’s brother or sister he’s dragging into whatever sleazy little hellhole he chooses to live in. That’s what I miss.’
The air rang with the echo of his harshly delivered words.
Her rounded grey eyes blinked at him a couple of times. ‘It must be a nightmare for you,’ she said.
Jake let out a ragged sigh and shoved his hand through his hair again. ‘Sorry for shouting,’ he said gruffly. ‘None of this is your fault.’
‘I’ll let you know as soon as I get the results,’ she said.
‘Yeah,’ he said with another weary sigh. ‘You do that.’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
‘ARE you sure?’ Kitty asked the radiographer on duty a couple of hours later.
‘Yes,’ Peter Craven said. ‘It’s a meningioma.’
Kitty looked at the scans illuminated on the wall. ‘How long do you think it’s been there?’ she asked.
‘Quite some time, by the look of it.’ He pointed to the wraparound features of the benign tumour. ‘See how it’s taken over the frontal lobe here and here?’
Kitty chewed at her lip. ‘So that would account for some of the symptoms …’
‘Personality change, moodiness, focal paralysis, hearing loss,’ Peter said. He pushed back his chair. ‘You’d better get Lewis Beck to have a look at it. He’d be the best neurosurgeon on staff to handle this sort of growth. Have you told Jake?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Want me to do it?’
Kitty shook her head. ‘No, I’ll tell him.’
Kitty found Jake in the A&E office writing up some patient notes. ‘Jake?’ she said. ‘Can I have a word with you?’
He looked up from the notes, every muscle on his face slowly coming to a standstill as he read her grave expression. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.
‘Robbie has a meningioma,’ she said. ‘It looks like he’s had it a while—maybe several years.’
His dark blue eyes flickered with shock, his throat moving up and down as he swallowed. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked.
‘Peter Craven just confirmed it,’ she said.
The pen he’d been using fell out of his grasp and rolled across the desk. ‘So …’ he said. ‘It wasn’t a hangover.’
‘No.’
He gave her an agonised look. ‘I thought he was just being a rebellious kid. For all these months—the last two years—I’ve been at him to sort himself out, but it wasn’t his fault.’
‘Anyone would have assumed the same,’ Kitty said. ‘You weren’t to know.’
He shook his head as if he couldn’t quite believe it. ‘If only I’d chased him up about that scan,’ he said. ‘Two years ago he started acting a bit weird. Do you think …?’
She nodded. ‘Peter Craven thinks it must have only started causing symptoms fairly recently. It would have been easy to put them down to other things initially.’
‘Have you told Robbie yet?’ he asked.
‘Not yet,’ she said. ‘I thought you might like to do it with me after you’ve seen the scans. He might cope better hearing it from you.’
He met her gaze with his hollowed one. ‘You’d better show me the scans.’
Jake looked at the scans of his brother’s brain and felt a tsunami of remorse and regret smash into him. Every word of criticism and correction came back to haunt him. Robbie had been sick for two years, maybe even longer. Even though he had done his best to rule out other causes, a part of him had too quickly assumed Robbie was running amok like so many of his peers. How much precious time had been wasted? Why hadn’t he physically taken him for the scan? He should have followed his brother through every step to make sure every base had been covered.
It was his fault Robbie had been sick for so long.
The truth stuck like a coat hanger in his throat.
He had done a lousy job of looking after his brother.
He had failed.
Kitty put a hand on his arm. ‘It’s not your fault, Jake,’ she said, as if she had been reading his mind. ‘His symptoms were mostly vague and intermittent up until now.’
‘Of course it’s my fault,’ he said. ‘How can it not be my fault?’
‘It’s always tricky diagnosing your own family,’ she said. ‘We can’t even do a good job of diagnosing ourselves. We can’t get the clinical objectivity.’
Jake pushed a hand through his hair. ‘I should’ve picked this up.’
‘How could you?’ she asked. ‘You’re not his doctor.’
‘I’m his brother, for God’s sake,’ he said. ‘I should’ve seen the signs.’
‘It’s easy to see the signs in hindsight,’ she said. ‘But who’s to know if some of his behaviour was simply like any other young guy kicking back against authority? You can’t know for sure.’
He dragged a hand over his face. ‘How am I going to make it up to him?’
‘By being there for him now,’ she said. ‘That’s all you can do. It’s all he will want you to do.’
He expelled a long breath. ‘I owe you an apology.’
‘It’s fine.’
‘It’s not fine,’ he said. ‘You’re a damn good doctor, Kitty. I shouldn’t have criticised you the way I did.’
‘I still have a lot to learn,’ she said. ‘I think I do rely on testing too much. I don’t have the confidence to trust my clinical judgement just yet.’
‘It paid off this time,’ he said. ‘I dread to thi
nk how long Robbie would have gone on untreated if it hadn’t been for you.’
‘I’m sure you would have sorted it out eventually.’
Jake wasn’t so sure about that. How long would it have taken him to see past his own prejudice? He didn’t like to think of how long Robbie had suffered. And the fight wasn’t even over—not by a long shot. The biggest battle lay ahead. Would his kid brother survive such complex surgery?
‘Have you heard how Jake’s brother’s getting on?’ Cathy asked at the end of the day in the locker room.
‘He’s got an appointment to see Lewis Beck tomorrow,’ Kitty said. ‘I guess he’ll operate as soon as there’s room on one of his lists.’
‘How’s Jake handling it?’
‘It’s been a terrible shock,’ Kitty said. ‘He blames himself.’
‘Understandable, given the circumstances,’ Cathy said.
Kitty chewed at her lip. ‘I know, but it’s not as if he could have done any different. Robbie admitted himself that he was struggling to cope. I automatically assumed he was depressed. If I hadn’t noticed his other symptoms I might have sent him home with an appointment to see a counsellor, which he probably wouldn’t have kept. He would have slipped through the cracks again.’
‘Gwen was telling me how tough Jake has it with his family,’ Cathy said.
‘Yes …’
‘Kind of makes you wonder if he’s not quite as selfish and shallow as you first thought.’
‘Yes,’ Kitty said. ‘There’s certainly more to Jake Chandler than meets the eye.’ She thought of how Robbie told her he’d been supposed to meet Jake last night but Robbie had decided against going at the last minute. Jake had probably spent hours looking for him out on the streets, as he had apparently done many times before.
‘Well, I’m off home,’ Cathy said. ‘Do you need a lift? I can make a detour. It’s not too far out of my way.’
‘No, it’s all right,’ Kitty said. ‘I want to check in on Robbie now he’s been admitted to the ward. I’ll make my way home after that.’
When Kitty got to Robbie’s room Jake was sitting beside the bed looking even more haggard than he had earlier. He stood up as she came in.
‘He’s just drifted off to sleep,’ he said. ‘My sisters have been in to see him.’
‘How is he?’ she asked.
‘A bit overwhelmed by it all,’ he said, running a hand through his hair. ‘We all are.’
‘Is there anything I can do?’ Kitty asked.
‘No, we’re fine,’ he said. ‘The girls would like to meet you some time. They want to thank you.’
‘It was a lucky pick-up. I might have missed it on another day.’
‘Don’t be so humble,’ he said. ‘You taught me a valuable lesson. I’ve always prided myself on seeing the big picture. But I can see how attention to detail is just as important in some circumstances.’
‘I guess it’s all a matter of balance,’ Kitty said. ‘It would be foolish to waste time on a detailed history if a patient was bleeding internally.’
‘Do you need a lift home?’ he asked.
‘I can catch a cab,’ she said. ‘I just wanted to make sure Robbie was settled in.’
‘I’m heading off now, so I’ll take you,’ he said.
It was a mostly silent trip home. Kitty could tell Jake was still coming to terms with his brother’s condition. She could only imagine how annoyed and frustrated he would be feeling with himself. Most men didn’t like being in the wrong, but she suspected it would hit Jake harder than most. His family depended on him to look out for them. He had taken on that role from a young age. He had made sacrifices that she could only guess at in order to do the right thing by his family.
‘Are you doing anything for dinner?’ he suddenly asked.
Kitty glanced at him. ‘Not really …’
‘My place in an hour?’
She pulled at her lip with her teeth. ‘I’m not sure …’
‘Just dinner, OK?’
‘Can I bring something?’ she asked.
He gave her a smile that was worn about the edges. ‘Just yourself.’
Kitty pulled yet another outfit out of her wardrobe. Everything was either too conservative or too casual. She had never felt so ill-prepared for a date. Not that it was a date.
It was just dinner.
At his place.
Just the two of them.
Alone.
Her stomach gave a nervous flutter. She didn’t trust herself alone with Jake Chandler. He was too attractive, too masculine, and way too tempting. Her self-control completely disappeared when he touched her. Even worse was that she wanted him to touch her. She wanted him to make her forget about her principles and her neat and orderly plans for the future. She wanted him to make her feel something other than the lukewarm emotions she had settled for in the past. He made her feel vibrantly alive in every cell of her being. He made her heart race and her pulse pound. He made her body ache with longing—an intense ache she could feel every time he so much as looked at her with those dark blue eyes of his. Those eyes saw what she tried so hard to hide. He saw the need she shied away from. He saw the hunger. He saw how he made her feel.
Kitty took a steadying breath and tapped on his door. She heard Jake’s firm tread and then the door opened. Her heart tripped and her breath caught somewhere in the middle of her chest. He had shaved, but his hair was still damp from his shower and it looked as if he had recently combed it with his fingers. He was wearing jeans and a black cotton casual shirt; the sleeves were rolled up halfway along his forearms, revealing his strong wrists. She smelt of the sharp citrus scent of sun-warmed lemons.
‘Hi …’ she said, thrusting a bottle of wine at his mid-section. ‘I’m not sure if it’s any good. I’m not really an expert or anything.’
‘I’m sure it’ll be fine,’ he said. ‘Come in.’
‘I hope you haven’t gone to too much trouble,’ she said.
‘No trouble at all,’ he said, closing the door. ‘You look nice. You smell nice too.’
Kitty wished she didn’t blush so easily. She was so damned transparent. No wonder his eyes were always glinting at her. ‘How long have you lived here?’ she asked to fill in the silence.
‘Four years,’ he said, leading the way to the kitchen. ‘I’ve thought about moving a few times but haven’t got around to it yet.’
‘Because of Robbie?’
He glanced at her before he reached for two wine glasses. ‘Not just Robbie,’ he said. ‘My sisters have needed a bit of support over the years. I’ve put a lot of stuff on hold. But I figure they would’ve done the same in my place.’
‘You’ve been a wonderful brother, Jake.’
He made a self-deprecating sound as he poured the wine. ‘Yeah, haven’t I just?’
‘I mean it,’ she said. ‘You have to stop blaming yourself about Robbie’s condition. You know the stats. People can have a meningioma for decades without symptoms.’
He passed her a glass of wine. ‘I should’ve ruled out everything else first before I started criticising him,’ he said. ‘I should’ve insisted on seeing the scans for myself. How could I have been so easily fobbed off? I’ll tell you why,’ he said, before she could answer. ‘I wanted to believe he was acting irresponsibly. Why? Because I resented his freedom to do so. Here was I, giving up years of my life to make sure he and the girls got the best chance in life, and I resented that he didn’t have to make a single sacrifice.’
Kitty reached out and touched him on the arm. ‘I know how you must feel.’
‘How can you possibly know?’ he asked with an embittered expression. ‘You’re an only child. You’ve never had to watch out for anyone but yourself. How can you possibly know?’
Kitty shifted her gaze from his hardened one. She put her glass down and slipped off the stool she had perched on. ‘Maybe I should leave you to wallow in your guilt,’ she said. ‘It’s obvious I’m not much help to you.’
He stoppe
d her at the door with a hand on her wrist. ‘No,’ he said, blowing out a long breath. ‘Don’t go. I’m sorry. Forgive me?’
She looked into his eyes and felt her heart give a stumble. ‘This is a difficult time for you … I don’t want to make things worse.’
‘You’re not making worse,’ he said, absently stroking her wrist with his thumb. ‘I want you here. I wouldn’t have asked you if I didn’t.’
Kitty felt herself drowning in the deep blue sea of his eyes. Her skin was tingling where he was stroking it. Her desire for him was unfurling inside her like the petals of an exotic flower. Her pulse quickened and her breath caught as his eyes slipped to her mouth. ‘I’m not used to doing this …’ she said.
‘It’s just dinner, Kitty.’
She moistened her lips. ‘Is it?’
His eyes locked on hers. ‘Do you want it to be something else?’
‘I’m not sure …’
He brushed her cheek with an idle finger. ‘I’m not going to deny that I want to make love to you,’ he said. ‘But whether I do or not is entirely up to you.’
Kitty looked at his mouth again. Was it possible to want a man so much you didn’t care about anything else but the physical sensation of being in his arms? What did emotions have to do with it anyway? It was a physical need. Their bodies were designed for pleasure. The chemistry she felt with him was surely enough for now.
‘The work thing …’ she said, frowning. ‘I hate the thought of everyone talking.’
‘We can keep this out of the corridors and locker rooms,’ he said. ‘This is between us. It’s no one else’s business.’
She looked into his eyes. ‘I don’t want to be a one-night stand.’
‘You won’t be.’
‘I don’t want to fall in love with you, either.’
‘Wise girl.’
‘I mean it, Jake,’ she said, putting her hands on his chest. ‘I want to keep things uncomplicated.’
‘No promises,’ he said as he drew her closer. ‘No strings.’
Kitty felt his body thicken against her. It was all she could do to stop from tearing his clothes from his body. She wanted to explore him with her hands and mouth. Ever since she had seen him naked this morning she had secretly fantasised about touching him, stroking him, holding him.
Medical Duo - Dr Chandler's Sleeping Beauty & Christmas with Dr Delicious Page 12