Dear Doctor, page 13
Great! Had she broken some rule she didn’t know about, coming in to see a patient on a Saturday?
Still frowning, he said something to Mrs Webster who turned and waved, then, as Kirsten held up a polystyrene coffee cup, the woman beamed and started towards the door, stripping off the gown and mask she was wearing and leaving them on a hook inside the door.
‘Real coffee? For me? Bless you, Kirsten!’ Then she saw the array of sweet treats in the box, and her delight grew even more apparent.
‘You darling!’ she said, giving Kirsten a one-armed hug and falling on a doughnut with great enthusiasm.
‘I brought enough for your husband—he’s not here?’
Mrs Webster shook her head.
‘Although we’ve got fantastic friends and family to help out, one of us likes to be with the other kids, especially with Linda who knows she has to come to hospital soon but doesn’t fully understand about the bone-marrow harvest. I put them to bed last night and slept until about one, then came up here and he went home. He’ll do the getting-up things and come back later to relieve me.’
She’d chosen the latte and was sugaring it when Josh came out of the room.
He looked terrible—as if he’d had even less sleep than Mrs Webster.
‘Coffee? I’ve black or cappuccino,’ Kirsten told him. ‘And cake for a quick carbohydrate boost.’
‘I thought bananas were the best quick carbohydrate boost,’ he said, declaring combat with his first utterance.
‘But so boring,’ Kirsten countered. ‘Go on, be a devil, have a cake.’
He took the black coffee, sugared it, then carefully studied the selection. Mrs Webster stole a chocolate doughnut from under his hovering fingers.
‘Too slow,’ she told him, peering through the glass to make sure Jack was still sleeping.
‘How is he?’ Kirsten asked, as Josh weakened and picked up a still warm blueberry muffin.
‘Not good,’ Mrs Webster said. ‘If I’d known how sick he’d be…’ She glanced apologetically at Josh. ‘I know you told me, but it doesn’t always sink in. And I know he has to be this sick if you’re to have any chance at all of curing him, but the poor darling is nauseated and vomiting and in obvious pain. Josh is doing what he can to control it, but it’s still terrible.’
It sounded terrible, so much so that Kirsten turned anxiously to Josh.
‘He hasn’t picked up an infection already, has he?’
He shook his head but didn’t speak, and while that might have had something to do with a mouthful of blueberry muffin, the look in his eyes suggested otherwise.
Suggested he didn’t want to speak—at least not to her.
And if he did speak, the look also conveyed that it wouldn’t be to say thanks for the coffee, or anything else either pleasant or polite. Oh, no, the look was so severe she actually checked her body to make sure she was wearing clothes—after all, at this hour who could be sure? Then she tried to remember if there was another rule about staff not wearing parrot-emblazoned T-shirts in the hospital even if they were off duty.
Mrs Webster was talking, explaining the various symptoms the little boy was showing as a result of his treatment. ‘But worst of all is the boredom. He’s too sick to sleep a lot of the time, and when he’s awake he’s not sure what he wants. I tell him stories and we’ve been changing the pictures outside his window, and he’s allowed some toys which have been treated before coming into the room, but I think it’s because he’s so sick he’s easily distracted, so he’s easily bored.’
‘We’ll have him in one of the new rooms soon,’ Josh promised her. ‘And if everything works out as we hope it will, he’ll have things to do and see.’
He turned to Kirsten and said, with ultra-cool reserve, ‘Have you seen the walls? The painters have incorporated Matt’s design, but I guess you knew that.’
Kirsten bit back an urge to snap, ‘No, I didn’t.’ Mainly because it might upset Mrs Webster. Besides that, the man’s mood was so black that arguing with him might provoke violence.
She finished her coffee, explaining at the same time the theory behind painting the walls.
‘We’re also setting up individual videos for each child so if he’s got a favourite book we can scan that in, then show it on part of the wall. I’ve a heap of pictures of heavy machinery already scanned, and I’ve emailed them to Josh’s cousin Matt, who’s programming all of this for us.’
‘Isn’t that wonderful?’ Mrs Webster said. ‘He must be a very special man.’
Inside the room, Jack was stirring, so his mother finished her coffee quickly, left the cup on the tray, washed her hands, then headed back into the isolation room, pausing in the doorway to smile fondly at Josh and add, ‘You’re a very special family.’
Josh at least waited until she was out of earshot before he muttered a grating, and very cynical, ‘Tell me about it!’
Not wanting to antagonise him even more, Kirsten finished her coffee and went through to the far end of the ward to see the painted walls. She was squinting at the pattern, trying to work out the different images that could be made from the shapes and colours, when someone else walked in.
The someone else she’d come this way to avoid.
‘Is this what you wanted?’ he asked, though his tone was verging on demand.
‘I think it’s great!’ she said. ‘Even squinting you can see some of the animals and objects. Look, if you stand here and squint, there’s a birthday cake, and up in that corner—’
‘I’m not talking about the wall.’ The words grated down her spine. ‘I meant, is this what you wanted as far as you and I are concerned? Passionate kisses, a promise for the future, pleas to get unengaged first—and now? A limbo state, with nothing happening? Is that it?’
When she didn’t reply he reached out and lifted her left hand, which suddenly seemed conspicuously bare.
‘No fiancé?’
‘No fiancé,’ she confirmed, the words practically stuttering off her lips—no doubt the result of hand-to-hand contact. ‘I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.’
She gathered all her reserves of strength and looked into the blueness of his eyes.
‘I said I’d go ahead—have an affair with you—and I’m OK with that.’ Had it been physically possible, she’d have patted herself on the back for sounding so together. ‘But I think we should establish some ground rules first.’
Good, she’d managed to startle him, by the look of things—without fainting or stammering or even going more than slightly pink.
‘Ground rules?’ The words growled into the air between them.
‘Yes,’ Kirsten told him, standing straighter as her confidence rose. ‘Parameters—that kind of thing. For a start, I’d like to know how long your affairs usually last. Are we talking a month? Six weeks?’
Startled didn’t begin to describe his expression now. Stunned came close but didn’t quite make it either.
‘Is this the same woman who walked out of my bedroom less than twelve months ago because I didn’t want to make a long-term commitment? The same woman who talked about bonsai trees and stunted growth, though where the horticultural theme fitted I was never quite sure?’
Heat, which was probably making her cheeks more than slightly pink, rose in Kirsten but she stood her ground.
‘That was different. As far as I was concerned, going to bed with you back then would have been the beginning of a relationship that might have had somewhere to go. But now I know your rules, and now we’re only doing it to get the lust problem out of our systems, I thought we should put some kind of time limit on it. I’m not up on flings, but you must know how long your affairs usually last.’
Josh began to wonder if maybe he was asleep and this was all a very peculiar dream. But though he often dreamt in colour—and there was plenty of colour here—he rarely smelt perfume in his dreams, and there was definitely perfume in this one.
A sultry, smoky kind of perfume that aroused images of deserted cabins in the bush and a russet-haired woman naked by a fire—
He shook his head to clear the image away, checked the redhead had clothes on, winced slightly at the vibrancy of the parrot on said clothes, then battled his way back into her weird conversation.
‘I haven’t actually, consciously, timed my past affairs,’ he said, attempting, with difficulty, to keep the growl out of his voice. Then, the moment the words were out of his mouth, he regretted them. He’d made it sound as if his life was one long string of short associations with temporary lovers, whereas, in truth, he was so involved with his work most of the women who’d passed through his life hadn’t been willing to put up with his erratic working hours for longer than a couple of months.
Though he’d never admitted the bit about the women usually leaving him to anyone. He was content to be seen as the proverbial playboy, moving on from one woman to another, because it suited his own plan to avoid commitment until much later in his life.
In that way, Kirsten had been different right from the start. For some unknown reason, and later to his great regret, he’d felt obliged to talk to her about the commitment thing—to be honest about the relationship not having a future.
‘So, shall we say four weeks?’
Her voice interrupted these depressing thoughts, but the words didn’t make much sense.
‘Four weeks for what?’
‘For our fling—our affair,’ Kirsten said gently, then she leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. ‘In Michael’s glade, remember? I agreed we should get it out of the way. It’s what we started talking about when you came in here just now. The end of the limbo. I’m free from tomorrow morning. No, make that tomorrow afternoon—I might sleep in tomorrow morning.’
Josh closed his eyes and prayed for patience.
It didn’t come but he hadn’t strangled her yet so that was good.
But how did you handle a woman who was making an appointment to start an affair in much the same way as normal people made an appointment to see their doctor?
Go with the flow, you idiot, part of him said, while another part rebelled at her coldly clinical attitude.
Then she kissed him again—to seal the deal, she whispered—and he thought, To hell with the clinical attitude, I’ll go with the flow.
Kissed her back, and when it seemed that any moment they’d be stripping off each other’s clothes right there in a partly finished hospital isolation room, he pulled away.
‘Why wait until tomorrow? Have dinner with me tonight and you can sleep in, in my bed. I’ll even cook you breakfast, or brunch, or whatever seems appropriate.’
He was still holding her so was close enough to see the spark of excitement dim in her eyes, to be replaced by a look that he could only describe as guilty.
‘Well…the thing is…ah…it’s like this…’
‘You can’t make tonight?’
Red-brown hair flicked from side to side as she shook her head.
‘No. Sorry. I’ve got a—meeting.’
He didn’t believe her—not for one minute. She had a date tonight!
Tonight! The night before she was coolly and calmly planning to begin her affair with him!
Well, to hell with her, Josh thought as he spun away. There were plenty of available women out there who’d be only too glad to enjoy his company—in and out of bed.
But before he reached the door, parts of his body reminded him of why those available women had failed to attract him lately, and why, if he didn’t get Kirsten Collins out of his system once and for all, they would continue to not attract him.
However, he wouldn’t give in yet. He wouldn’t let her know he was willing to toe whatever line she happened to draw in the sand. He’d let her sweat.
He checked on Jack one more time, then decided he should get some sleep. A lot of sleep if this weekend was going to prove ‘The One’.
CHAPTER TEN
THE tall blonde woman in the lift seemed vaguely familiar, bringing Kirsten to mind.
‘Alana Wright,’ she said, holding out her hand as she reminded him of her name. ‘I live in Near West near Gabi and Alex Graham, and the Frosts and, of course, Kirsten.’
Josh managed to stay close to her as more people got in. If she lived near Kirsten…
He was wondering how to start the conversation— ‘Do you know much about Kirsten’s social life?’ seemed a trifle obvious—when she spoke again.
‘So, The Blue Room tonight? That should be fun. The food’s divine.’
‘The Blue Room?’ he echoed, totally at sea with this strange conversational twist. He knew the restaurant, of course, but why would Alana bring it up?
‘You and Kirsten,’ she said, as if his thoughts had prodded her into explaining. ‘Oh, don’t worry, she doesn’t prattle on about her dates, but she was so excited when she told me she was going, I guessed it had to be you.’
The lift doors opened, and Alana stepped out, and before Josh could follow to demand more explanations, the doors slid shut.
‘Why is my life so beset with infuriating women?’ he demanded, not quite under his breath from the strange looks the other passengers gave him.
He got out of the lift at the next floor, and went back up to six, not wanting to see Kirsten—he might just strangle her if he did—but to reach the safety of his office where he hoped to be able to think.
If his brain was still capable of such a basic process.
He phoned his mother.
‘Dinner tonight? At The Blue Room? Darling, I haven’t been there for years. I’d love it. But don’t come all the way out here to pick me up. I’ll come to you. Is it OK if I stay the night, or are there more than two of us on this date?’
‘No, just us,’ he assured her.
Alana, meanwhile, had managed to bump into Kirsten, though it was a wonder someone hadn’t called Security, the way she’d been lurking around the corridors and lift foyers up on six. She’d realised the previous evening that Josh Phillips would be bound to do a Saturday morning ward round and, determined to catch him, had been there for what seemed like hours. Catching Kirsten there as well had been a bonus.
‘Did you ever buy that slinky black dress we saw at El Centro a few weeks ago?’ she asked, hoping clothes-conscious Kirsten would accept this as a reasonably normal remark.
‘The one with the deep V-neck? No!’ The regret in Kirsten’s voice was enough to give Alana hope.
‘OK, then if you’ve nothing else to do, let’s go and get it now. I didn’t give you anything for Christmas, so I’ll put in. And Gabi gave you a voucher that can be spent in any store in the centre, so you can put that towards it as well.’
Kirsten turned to her, frowning now.
‘Why do I need a new black dress?’ she demanded, then she weakened and added, ‘Though it was divine, wasn’t it?’
‘You could wear it out with Matt tonight,’ Kirsten pointed out. ‘After all, The Blue Room is very special.’
‘But Matt isn’t.’ Kirsten heaved a deep sigh. ‘It’s business, not a date.’
‘Well, I’ve never known that make any difference to you. It’s not as if it’s a formal ball gown, just a drop-dead gorgeous dress that happens to suit you so beautifully it’s actually a shame it’s still sitting in the shop.’
‘It might not be,’ Kirsten said, but she knew she was weakening. The dress had looked great on her, and surely she and Josh wouldn’t spend the entire four weeks in bed. Or had they settled on six weeks? Surely they’d go out to eat occasionally…
‘OK,’ she said, thinking of the way Josh’s eyes would gleam when he saw her in it.
‘Great! Then, if you’re finished here, let’s go!’ Alana said, which was when Kirsten wondered what Alana was doing at the hospital that morning.
And fast on the heels of that thought came the realisation that Alana would also expect to see her in the dress tonight!
Oh, well, what the heck. And at least if she felt great, it would help her get through the evening with Matt. As long as he didn’t think she was dressing specially for him…
‘Why is life so complicated?’ she moaned, following Alana out of the building.
But complicated didn’t begin to cover the mess that developed later. First of all, a low-cut dress was not the kind of thing to encourage Matt to keep his hands to himself, and when he wasn’t touching her he was ogling her chest where, considering the depth of the V, it was perfectly obvious she wasn’t wearing a bra.
‘OK,’ she said, when twenty minutes in his company on the drive to the restaurant had convinced her they needed to talk. ‘Let’s just get a few things straight.’
They’d pulled into the parking area so she had most of his attention, though his eyes kept straying downwards.
‘We are out together on business,’ she reminded him sternly. ‘And, yes, I probably made a mistake wearing this dress, but you’re a grown man and surely mature enough to be able to control your baser instincts.’
She tilted his chin up with a forefinger so she could see where he was looking.
‘For the duration of this meal, you will sit opposite me, and we will talk about videos and scanning stuff, and machinery and computerised images, and you will not touch me or drop your eyes below my chin. And so you don’t feel you’re being cheated in any way, I’ll pay for dinner.’
He saluted, gave her a smart ‘Yes, ma’am’ then grinned at her, and for a split second she wondered why she’d ended up so hopelessly hooked on his cousin. Going out with Matt might have been fun.
‘But don’t imagine you’ll always have the last word,’ he warned. ‘I’m not a man who gives up easily.’
So they were laughing when they walked in, and still relaxed with each other as they were shown to a discreet corner table.
‘I asked for it because we’d be working,’ Matt said, when she turned and raised her eyebrows at him. He lifted a small case which she hadn’t noticed he’d been carrying. ‘I’ve some new ideas to show you.’
She was surprised enough to give him a light kiss on the cheek.
‘You are wonderful,’ she said. ‘I was visiting one of the patients today and he’s so fractious. Most of it is because he’s so sick, but it’s also boredom. I need whatever you can give me to get his mind off feeling so bad.’
