Never had she seen so many takeaway menus. Indian, Thai, Chinese, Mexican—a cultural melting pot right there on his fridge. ‘Or,’ he said seductively, ‘we could skip the main and head straight for dessert.’
‘What is there?’ Licking her lips, Meg suddenly realised she was really hungry. Her appetite was eternally whetted, though, when Flynn reached over and pulled open the fridge door. Taking out a can of instant whipped cream, he pulled off the lid with his teeth, shaking the can vigorously as Meg let out a gurgle of excited laughter.
‘It’s anything you want it to be,’ he said in a seductive drawl. ‘The possibilities are endless.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
WAKING up next to Flynn was, Meg decided, enough of an incentive to turn her into a morning person. Instead of slamming her hand on the snooze button and burying her head further under the pillow, she lay for a somnolent moment, revelling in the warmth of his body, the bliss of feeling his arm around her, recalling the tender, sweet love they had made.
‘Hey, sleepy head.’
Meg opened her eyes, the delicious sight of Flynn better than any dream. ‘I wasn’t asleep.’
‘Fooled me.’
It was the tiny glimpses of domesticity Meg adored, like listening to him in the shower as she prepared breakfast. Not exactly a feast of culinary delights—all Flynn’s larder stretched to was bread, some dubious-looking jam and a scraping of butter— but taking it back to bed and sharing it with a newly showered Flynn, Meg might just as well have been eating at a five-star hotel, it tasted so divine.
But the real world was out there, waiting, and as the clock edged past seven Flynn reluctantly got up from the crumpled bed and started to dress. ‘I’d better step on it.’
‘Can’t you be late?’
‘Charge Nurse O’Sullivan!’ Flynn mimicked Jess’s strong Irish accent. ‘Is that any example to set the students?’ Reverting to his own gorgeous deep voice, he removed the breakfast tray from beside her on the bed. ‘I’ll see you for your late shift. Don’t lift a finger. I reckon you’ve earned a rest—and anyway the cleaner comes in this morning.’
‘You’ve got a cleaner?’
‘Best money I’ve ever spent.’ He laughed. ‘She’s an old sourpuss, so don’t bother with small talk.’
‘So why do you keep her on if she’s so miserable?’
‘She can be as miserable as she likes,’ Flynn said glibly, knotting his tie with ease. ‘She’s brilliant at housework, and it’s not as if I see her much. The perfect woman, really.’
He gave a wink to show he was joking before leaning over and kissing her goodbye unhurriedly. She could smell the sharp citrus of his shampoo, the musky undertones of his aftershave, and she thought her insides would melt.
‘How am I going to keep my hands off you?’ he murmured. Resting back on the pillow, Meg half dozed as he filled up his pockets with pagers, a wallet and the usual collection of pens and loose change. ‘Just let the answer-machine get the phone.’
‘Mmm,’ Meg murmured.
‘And, Meg, maybe don’t say anything to anyone about us just yet.’ Her eyes flicked open as he spoke. ‘At work, I mean.’
‘I wasn’t exactly going to walk in with a megaphone.’ Sitting up, Meg wrapped the sheet around her breasts, trying and failing to read the expression on his face. In truth she had already decided the same thing—it was just too early and too soon to be the focus of the hospital gossip columns—but hearing Flynn suddenly so cagey was all too painfully reminiscent of Vince.
‘I know you weren’t,’ Flynn replied reasonably. ‘There’s just a couple of things going on—I haven’t time to go into it now.’ He glanced at his watch and grimaced. ‘I’m seriously behind already. I’ll explain tonight. You do understand, don’t you?’
Meg nodded, attempting a bright smile, but she didn’t understand. How could she? Hadn’t Vince always told her to ring his mobile, not to blab too much about them, only allowed a select few friends to see them together? With the benefit of hindsight it was so easy to see why. To see how easily she had been lied to, to see exactly where she had been a fool.
And it wasn’t going to happen again.
It was almost a relief when the front door closed. When she could wipe the fake smile off and attempt to gain control of her jumbled thoughts.
Flynn was nothing like Vince.
Nothing.
She was in his house, for goodness’ sake, and she would see him at work. Maybe he wanted to be the one to tell his boss—wanted to let the land lie a while so it didn’t sound like a brief fling. Dr Campbell was a stickler for the old school ways, and Flynn might be an independent professional, but he still had to toe the line and be seen to do the right thing.
Meg had almost convinced herself, almost assured herself that she was overreacting, reading far too much into a harmless few words. Flynn loved her— he had told her so, and Meg believed him.
Then the telephone rang.
Even if she’d wanted to answer it she couldn’t have as the answer-machine picked it up on the second ring. She lay there smiling as she listened to Flynn’s rather flip, short message, but her smile vanished as she heard the young, slightly breathless but completely unmistakable voice of Carla on the line.
‘Flynn—only me. Pick up if you’re home.’ So Carla didn’t even need to introduce herself. Meg lay there gripping the sheet with clenched fists as Carla paused before continuing. ‘I must’ve just missed you. No worries, I’ll see you at work.’ She gave a throaty laugh, then lowered her voice, but despite her apparent casual chatter Meg could hear the note of tension in her voice. ‘Hey, Flynn, are we ever going to get around to that meal? I’m off next Saturday and so are you. I’ve checked your roster, so no excuses.’
The beeping of the machine ended the message, but for Meg the agony had just started.
Carla.
Carla leaning over the bonnet of her car. Carla blushing when she spoke, calling Flynn by his first name. Carla the ‘family friend’. Who thought nothing of ringing him at seven-thirty on a Monday morning.
And there, Meg realised with a spasm of pain that defied description, was the reason for Flynn’s reluctance to go public.
Her instinct was to ring him, to confront him there and then and ask just what the hell was going on, but Meg knew it was pointless. She had to wait—wait until she had calmed down and give Flynn a chance to explain before she judged him. But at the pit of her stomach Meg had already returned her verdict. The result was a foregone conclusion.
* * *
Somehow she got through the morning—showering quickly before dressing and heading for home. Not quickly enough, though, to avoid colliding head on with Flynn’s cleaner.
‘Oh, good morning,’ Meg said nervously as she came down the stairs.
The cleaner looked Meg up and down slowly.
‘I’m a friend—a friend of Flynn’s.’ Well, that was one way of putting it she thought wryly.
With a rather curt nod the woman headed off for the kitchen, leaving Meg standing there with her cheeks flaming. Everything, it seemed, had been turned on its head. From her joyous awakening she had been reduced to feeling like some cheap two-minute fling.
All through the day Meg swung erratically between hope and despair. Hope that the love she had discovered in his arms was as true and good as it had felt, and despair that yet again she had allowed herself to be conned.
Any hope of an early answer or resolution was quickly dashed as she entered the department. Trolleys were everywhere, the waiting room humming, and from the frazzled look of the staff as Meg approached for the hand-over she knew there wouldn’t be a chance of grabbing Flynn for a coffee.
He was there, though, in the thick of it, listening to a patient’s chest in resus. Standing at the white board, Meg tried to concentrate on the hand-over, but her eyes kept dragging back to Flynn, watching as he even managed to make the unwell-looking patient laugh. He must have felt her watching, sensed the weight of her sta
re, for he looked up, the laugh turning into a small intimate smile as he stilled for a moment. Meg smiled back, a stiff forced smile, and she saw the question in his eyes, the slight furrowing of his eyebrows.
‘All right?’ he mouthed, and Meg nodded briefly, glad of the excuse to turn away and concentrate on the hand-over.
‘I’ll hand over cubicle four here.’ Jess’s attempt at a whisper was fairly fruitless; she could call cows from the top field at the best of times. ‘I don’t want her husband to hear. Her name is Sonia Chisolm and she came in with facial bruising—the story was that she caught the side of her face on the top bunk, while she was making the children’s beds this morning.’ Jess paused for effect, her china blue eyes widening, but Meg didn’t rise. She really wasn’t up to manufactured drama this afternoon; the facts would do nicely.
‘Anyway,’ Jess continued when it was obvious her audience wasn’t going to play, ‘unless she was making the bed at ten last night her story doesn’t add up. The bruises are at least twelve hours old.’
‘Did you ask her how she got them away from her husband?’ Meg said wearily.
‘I was just getting to that. The husband had to go to a meeting at work—and I mean had to. It was obvious he didn’t want to leave. So I had a bit of a gentle chat while I got her undressed.’ Jess missed Meg rolling her eyes. ‘There are bruises everywhere and every colour of the rainbow. Anyway, Flynn had a long talk with her. Apparently this is her second marriage—her first husband did the same to her and she left him, but she’s sticking by this one. Apparently he didn’t mean it—the usual: pressure at work, if she’d only had the house a bit tidier, the kids in bed—all that type of thing.’
‘So what are we doing for her now?’
Jess shrugged dramatically. ‘I’ve offered her a social worker and spoken at length about the women’s refuge, the police—even Flynn’s tried until he’s hoarse. But she’s simply not budging. Her husband’s back now, and he wants to know when she can go home.’
‘What does Flynn say?’ It was like getting blood from a stone, getting Jess to wrap up a story when she was on a roll.
‘Well, what do you know? He wants to admit her to the obs ward for neuro obs. I’ve told him that we can’t. We haven’t got enough staff at the best of times, without using it as a women’s refuge. There’s no medical reason she should stay and she clearly doesn’t want any help.’
‘So that’s it?’ Meg felt a flash of anger. ‘We just leave it there?’
‘What can we do, Meg?
‘We could buy her a bit of time. Arrange a social worker to at least attempt a chat.’
‘She doesn’t want it,’ Jess pointed out. ‘And at the end of the day she’s a grown woman.’
‘So it’s her fault?’
‘I didn’t say that. Nobody deserves to be treated like that, but if she doesn’t want to be helped there’s not a lot we can do. You can only take the horse to water, Meg.’
‘Oh, spare me the proverbs.’
‘Are we talking about Sonia Chisholm here?’
Meg deliberately didn’t look up as Flynn came over.
‘Yes,’ Jess replied crisply. ‘I was just explaining that we haven’t got enough staff on to open up the obs ward this evening. If you want to admit her she’ll have to come in under Trauma.’
Flynn pushed Sonia’s X-rays onto the viewfinder and searched them without answering.
‘You can look all you like, Flynn, there’s no fracture.’
Emergency was one of the few places in a hospital where a nurse could get away with challenging a consultant to this extent. Here the nurses were more aggressive and more forthright than on the wards. And with good reason. Huge volumes of patients came through the department and it was a constant juggling game to balance policy with patient care. Technically Jess was right, but Meg had a feeling Flynn was about to pull rank.
‘Open up the obs ward,’ Meg said, handing the keys to Carla, who was obviously enjoying the power struggle. ‘I’ll do all the admission notes and you can stay round and watch her.’ With a sigh Meg ran her fingers through her long dark curls before daring to look up at the livid face of her colleague. ‘Jess, you know as well as I do it will be hours before Trauma come down, and by then he’ll have persuaded her to discharge herself.’
‘And how are we supposed to cover the obs ward? We’re two staff down as it is.’
‘Suppose it was a genuine head injury?’ Meg asked. ‘What would we do then?’
‘We’d have to ring the agency,’ Jess replied, flustered. ‘But this isn’t a genuine admission.’
‘It doesn’t mean she doesn’t need our help. Look, Jess, if there’s any flak for this I’ll take it.’
‘Doctor!’
Meg didn’t need an introduction to realise that the impatient tones were coming from Mr Chisholm. ‘My wife’s been here for five hours now. Has anyone reviewed her X-rays?’
‘I’m just doing that now, sir.’
There wasn’t even the tiniest hint of derision in Flynn’s voice; there couldn’t be. One hint that the staff thought this more than a simple accident and the discussion would be over there and then, with Sonia the only loser.
‘Good, so can she go home now?’
Meg watched as Flynn shrugged slightly. ‘Look Mr…er…’ He looked down at the casualty card he was holding. Meg could only admire him. No one would have guessed they had only just finished discussing Mr Chisolm. ‘I don’t want to worry you unduly, but I am a touch concerned.’
‘Why?’
‘Here.’ Flynn pointed to the X-ray. ‘There’s no visible fracture, but your wife is extremely tender—particularly over the temple, and that can be a dangerous spot.’
‘But you just said there’s no fracture.’
‘That doesn’t mean she mightn’t run into problems. I feel it would be better to err on the side of caution and admit her overnight.’
Mr Chisholm immediately shook his head. ‘Not possible. Look, she’ll rest at home—I can get my mother in to keep an eye on her. She’s just got a small bump on her head—and I thought the health service was stretched for beds?’
Flynn turned back to the X-rays and scratched his head thoughtfully.
‘You’re obviously a busy man, and admitting Sonia might cause you some inconvenience, but I’m sure you’ll agree that your wife’s safety is paramount. There is a question as to the length of her loss of consciousness, so I’m really not happy to send her home just yet. We’ll keep her in the obs ward, where the nurses will do her obs hourly, and all being well she’ll be ready for discharge in the morning.’
The way Flynn had put it Mr Chisholm really had no choice but to agree. He sucked air in between his teeth, and Meg found she was holding her breath as she awaited his verdict.
‘Okay, then. If it’s better for Sonia.’
Flynn nodded. ‘It is. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d better get on.’ And after briefly shaking Mr Chisholm’s hand he casually turned and walked off.
Sonia wore an apologetic, anxious-to-please smile while her husband was present, and Meg noted as she ran through her admission history how Sonia’s eyes would constantly dart to her husband’s before she answered even the most basic question about herself. It was only when his mother arrived and the crying children were obviously ready for an afternoon sleep that he finally left.
The change in Sonia was dramatic. You could almost feel the tension evaporate from the room when he finally left.
‘Okay.’ Meg smiled. ‘Carla will keep an eye on you now. I’ll leave you to get some sleep.’
‘Is that it?’ Sonia asked, a suspicious note in her voice. ‘I thought the second he’d gone there’d be a social worker at the end of the bed.’
Meg looked at her questioningly. ‘I thought you didn’t want one?’
‘I don’t.’
Meg nodded. ‘Then that’s your decision and we respect it. Try and sleep.’ Meg knew that pushing Sonia now would only put her on the defensive. I
t had to be Sonia taking the initiative.
* * *
‘Thanks for before.’ Flynn finally caught up with Meg a few hours later, while she was dressing some ulcers on Elsie, an elderly woman who chatted away happily as Meg set about her work. ‘Is Jess still upset with you?’
Meg shrugged. ‘She’ll get over it.’
‘How about you? How are you feeling?’
Meg concentrated on cleaning the ulcers. ‘I’m fine. Jess’s moods don’t bother me.’
‘I wasn’t talking about Jess.’
Meg knew he wasn’t, but a patient’s bedside wasn’t the place to say the things she wanted to. It was easier for now to dismiss him.
‘I’m fine.’
‘When’s your coffee break?’
‘I doubt I’ll be getting one,’ she answered honestly, but with a slight edge to her voice.
‘I’ll catch up with you later, then.’ He smiled at the patient, and after hovering just a moment finally left, when it was obvious the conversation was going nowhere.
‘Nice-looking man,’ Elsie commented when he had gone. ‘I bet he has to fight them off.’
Pulling a piece of Tubigrip over her dressing, Meg gave Elsie a tight, non-committal smile, which Elsie happily interpreted. ‘My George was a looker—real sharp in his day. The girls swarmed over him.’ Accepting Meg’s help, the old lady lowered herself from the trolley before straightening herself to all four feet eleven of her tiny frame, a wistful look creeping onto her face. ‘Only trouble with George was he didn’t try so hard to fight them off.’ Pulling a compact out of her handbag, Elsie reddened her lips with a sharply pointed lipstick before turning back to Meg. ‘How much do I owe you, my dear?’
‘Nothing,’ Meg said gently. ‘How are you going to get home?’
‘On the bus, of course.’
‘Would you like me to see if I can arrange a taxi?’ Meg offered. ‘Those ulcers must be very painful.’
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