Dr. Dark and Far-Too Delicious

by Carol Marinelli

  Jed wasn’t stepping away now.

  Instead, he was stepping forward.

  He rang ahead to his favourite restaurant and ordered a meal for two, but despite confidence in his decision there was more than a touch of nerves as he paid for his takeaway and headed back to the car, as he built himself up to do what he said had sworn he would never do—share what had happened, not just with someone he was starting to get close to...but with someone he was starting to get close to from work.

  ‘Hi.’

  Jasmine opened the door and let him in, still unsure what she should say, how best to broach it. Did she really want to know that he was with her sister? Did she really want Jed to find out the truth?

  Surely it would better to end it neatly?

  To get out before they got in too deep?

  Except she was in too deep already.

  ‘I bought Italian,’ Jed said, moving in for a kiss, ‘but to tell the truth I’m not actually that hungry.’

  She’d meant to carry on normally, to sit down and discuss things like adults while they were eating, but as he moved in to kiss her, just the thought that he might have been with Penny had Jasmine move her head away.

  ‘Jasmine?’ She saw him frown, heard the question in his voice about her less-than-effusive greeting, but she didn’t know how to answer him. Despite three hours trying to work out what she might say to him, how best to approach this, she still didn’t know how and in the end settled for the first thing that came into her head.

  ‘I’m not sure that you ought to be here.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I don’t think this is working, Jed.’

  ‘It would seem not.’

  Of all the things he had been expecting tonight, this wasn’t one of them. Sideswiped, Jed walked through to the lounge and put the takeaway down on her coffee table, completely taken aback by the change in Jasmine. They’d made love that morning, he’d left her smiling and happy, with no hint of what was to come. ‘Can I ask what has changed between this morning and tonight?’

  ‘I just think things have moved too fast.’

  ‘And could you not have decided this before you introduced me to Simon?’ He didn’t get it and he knew she was lying when he saw her blush. ‘What’s going on, Jasmine?’

  ‘I heard something at work today,’ Jasmine admitted. ‘Something about you.’

  ‘So it’s gospel, then?’ was Jed’s sarcastic response. ‘And while you were listening to this gossip, did you not consider running it by me first, before deciding we that weren’t working?’

  ‘Of course I did,’ Jasmine attempted. ‘That’s what I’m doing now.’

  ‘Is it even worth asking?’ Jed said. ‘Because it sounds to me as if the jury is already in. So, what is it that I’m supposed to have done?’

  ‘I heard...’ Jasmine swallowed because it sounded so pathetic, especially with how good he had been with her secret last night, but still she had to find out for sure. ‘I heard that you and Penny...’

  ‘Penny?’

  ‘Someone told me that you and Penny...’ She couldn’t even bring herself to say it, but the implication was clear and Jed stood there and shook his head.

  ‘Jasmine, we agreed from the start that as erratic as things may be for us you and I wouldn’t see anybody else so, no, I’m not seeing Penny.’

  ‘But have you?’ Jasmine asked. ‘Have you dated Penny in the past?’

  ‘What on earth...?’ He just looked at her, looked at her as if he’d suddenly put glasses on and was seeing her for the first time and not particularly liking the view. ‘I’m being dumped because the hospital grapevine states that I might be or in the past might have slept with a colleague?’ He shook his head. ‘I never took you for the jealous kind, Jasmine.’

  ‘I just need to know.’

  But Jed wasn’t about to explain himself. ‘Look, I don’t need this.’ He didn’t confirm it and he didn’t deny it and she honestly didn’t know what to do. She could feel tears pouring down her cheek.

  ‘Jed, please,’ she said. ‘Just tell me. I need to know if there’s ever been anything between you and Penny.’ She was starting to cry and she knew she had to tell him, no matter how awkward it made things for them, no matter the hurt to Penny, she just had to come right out and say it, and she was about to, except Jed didn’t give her a chance.

  ‘You want a complete itinerary of my past?’ Jed said. ‘What do you want, a full list of anyone I’ve ever dated so you can check them out online?’

  ‘Jed, please,’ Jasmine attempted, but he wasn’t listening to her now.

  ‘You’re the one with the past, Jasmine. You’re the one who’s just had her divorce certificate stamped and has a baby sleeping in the bedroom and an ex who stole from patients. Did I ask for a written statement, did I ask for facts and details?’ He turned to go and then changed his mind, but he didn’t walk back to her. He picked up his takeaway and took it. ‘I’m hungry all of a sudden.’

  He headed out to his car and drove off, but only as far as the next street, and it was there that Jed pulled over and buried his head in his hands.

  He couldn’t believe it.

  Could not believe the change in her—the second they’d started to get serious, the moment he’d actually thought this might work, he’d been greeted with a list of questions and accusations and for Jed it all felt terribly familiar.

  After all, he’d been through it before.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THE WEEK HAD been awful.

  Jed was back to being aloof, not just with her but with everyone, and on the occasions they had to work together he said as little as he could to her.

  And now, when she’d rather be anywhere else, she sat at her mother’s, eating Sunday lunch with Penny and wondering how on earth she could ever tell her and if it would simply be better if Penny never found out.

  Which sounded to Jasmine an awful lot like lying.

  ‘You wanted to talk to me.’

  ‘I just wanted a chat,’ Jasmine said. ‘We haven’t caught up lately.’

  ‘Well, there’s not really much to catch up on,’ Penny said. ‘It’s just work, work, work.’

  ‘It’s your interview soon,’ Louise reminded her.

  ‘You haven’t mentioned it to anyone?’ Penny frowned at Jasmine. ‘I told you about that in confidence. I shouldn’t have said anything.’

  ‘I haven’t,’ Jasmine said, but her face burnt as she lied.

  ‘Well, I’ve heard that there are rumours going around, and if I find out that it’s you...’ Penny gave a tight shrug. ‘Sorry, that was uncalled for. I just hate how gossip spreads in that place.’

  ‘Are you going to the A and E ball?’ Jasmine tried to change the subject, attempting to find out what she simply had to know.

  Not that it would change anything between her and Jed.

  Not just because of the possibility that he and Penny had once been an item, more the way he had been when they’d had a row. He hadn’t given her a chance to explain, had just thrown everything she had confided to him back in her face and then walked out.

  She didn’t need someone like that in her life and certainly not in Simon’s—still, she did want to know if the rumours were true, which was why she pushed on with Penny, dancing around the subject of the A and E ball in the hope it might lead to something more revealing.

  ‘I’ve been asked to put in an appearance,’ Penny said, helping herself to another piece of lamb. ‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Are you thinking of going?’

  ‘Not at that price,’ Jasmine said. ‘I just wondered if you were, that’s all.’

  ‘I have to, really. Jed and I will probably take it in turns—someone has to hold the fort and all the consultants will want to be there.’

 
‘Jed?’ Louise asked.

  ‘The other senior reg,’ Penny explained.

  ‘The one who’s going for the same position?’ Louise checked, and Penny gave a curt nod.

  ‘You and Jed...’ The lovely moist lamb was like burnt toast in Jasmine’s mouth and she swallowed it down with a long drink of water. ‘Are you two...?’ Her voice trailed off as Penny frowned.

  ‘What?’

  She should just ask her really, Jasmine reasoned. It was her sister after all—any normal sisters would have this conversation.

  Except they weren’t like normal sisters.

  Still, Jasmine pushed on.

  She simply had to know.

  ‘Is there anything between you and Jed?’

  ‘If you’re hoping for some gossip, you won’t get it from me. I don’t feed the grapevine,’ Penny said, mopping the last of her gravy from her plate. ‘So, what did you want to talk about?’

  And really the answer didn’t matter.

  She and Jed were over. If he had slept with Penny she just wanted to be as far away from them both as possible when the truth came out. ‘I’m thinking of taking the job in the fracture clinic.’

  Penny looked up.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because...’ Jasmine shrugged ‘...it’s not working, is it?’

  ‘Actually, I thought it was,’ Penny said. ‘I was worried at first, thought you’d be rushing to my defence every five minutes or calling me out, but apart from that morning with the baby...’ She thought for a moment before she spoke. ‘Well, seeing you work, you’d have said the same to any doctor.’ She gave her sister a brief smile. ‘You don’t have to leave on my account. So long as you can keep your mouth shut.’

  Her mum had made trifle—a vast mango one with piles of cream—and normally Jasmine would have dived into it, but she’d lost her appetite of late and Penny ate like a bird at the best of times. Louise took one spoonful and then changed her mind.

  ‘I must have eaten too fast,’ Louise said. ‘I’ve got terrible indigestion.’

  ‘I’ll put it back in the fridge,’ Jasmine said, clearing the table.

  ‘Take some home,’ her mum suggested. ‘I don’t fancy it.’ She smiled to Simon, who was the only one tucking in. ‘He can have some for breakfast.’

  * * *

  ‘Jasmine.’ Penny caught her as she was heading out of the front door. ‘Look, I know I kicked up when I found out you were going to be working in Emergency.’ Penny actually went a bit pink. ‘I think that I went a bit far. I just didn’t think we could keep things separate, but things seem to be working out fine.’

  ‘What if you get the consultant’s position?’ Jasmine checked. ‘Wouldn’t that just make things more difficult?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Penny said. ‘But I don’t think it’s fair that you have to change your career just because of me. You’re good at what you do.’

  It was the closest she had ever come to a compliment from her sister.

  ‘Look,’ Penny said, ‘I do want to talk to you if that’s okay—not here...not yet.’ She closed her eyes. ‘It’s...’ She blew out a breath. ‘Look, you know how I bang on about work and keeping things separate? Well, maybe I’ve being a bit of a hypocrite.’

  ‘Are you seeing someone?’

  ‘It’s a bit more complicated than that.’ Penny shook her head. ‘Let me just get the interview over with. I mustn’t lose focus now.’ She let out a wry laugh. ‘Who knows, I might not even get the job and then there won’t be a problem.’

  ‘Sorry?’ Jasmine didn’t get it. ‘I thought you were desperate to be a consultant.’

  ‘Yes, well, maybe someone else might want the role more than I do,’ Penny said. ‘Forget I said anything. We’ll catch up soon.’

  And as Jasmine lay in bed that night, she was quite sure she knew what the problem was.

  Penny was worried that if she got the position it might hurt Jed.

  For the first time in a long time Penny was actually putting another person before herself. She actually cared about another person.

  The same person her younger sister had been sleeping with.

  * * *

  Monday morning was busy—it always was, with patients left over from a busy weekend still waiting for beds to clear on the ward, and all the patients who had left things till the weekend had passed seemed to arrive on Emergency’s doorstep all the worse for the wait. Jed didn’t arrive in the department till eleven and was wearing a suit that was, for once, not crumpled. He was very clean-shaven and she knew he wasn’t making any effort on her behalf, especially when Penny came back from a meeting in Admin and her always immaculately turned-out sister was looking just that touch more so.

  Clearly it was interview day.

  She had to leave.

  It really was a no-brainer—she could hardly even bear to look at Penny. She made the mistake of telling Vanessa on their coffee break that she was going to apply for the fracture clinic job.

  ‘You’d be bored senseless in the fracture clinic.’ Vanessa laughed as they shifted trolleys to try to make space for a new patient that was being brought over. Unfortunately, though, Vanessa said it at a time when Lisa and Jed were moving a two-year-old who had had a febrile convulsion from a cubicle into Resus.

  ‘I’d be glad of the peace,’ Jasmine said, and she would be, she told herself, because she couldn’t go on like this. It wasn’t about the workload, more about having to face Jed and Penny every day and waiting for the bomb to drop when he found out that she and Penny were sisters.

  She could not face her sister if she ever found out that she and Jed had been together, even if it had been over for ages.

  But then she looked over and saw that Lisa and Jed were there and, more, that they must have heard her talking about the fracture clinic job.

  She wasn’t so much worried about Jed’s reaction—no doubt he was privately relieved—but Lisa gave her a less-than-impressed look and inwardly Jasmine kicked herself.

  ‘Sorry,’ Vanessa winced. ‘Me and my mouth.’

  ‘It’s my fault for saying anything,’ Jasmine said, but there wasn’t time to worry about it now. Instead, she took over from Lisa.

  ‘Aiden Wilkins. His temp is forty point two,’ Lisa said. ‘He had a seizure while Jed was examining him. He’s never had one before. He’s already had rectal paracetamol.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘He’s seizing again.’ Just as Lisa got to the Resus door, Aidan started to have another convulsion. Jed gave him some diazepam and told Jasmine to ring the paediatrician, which she did, but as she came off the phone Jed gave another order. ‘Fast-page him now, also the anaesthetist.’

  ‘Everything okay?’ Penny stopped at the foot of the bed as Vanessa took the mum away because she was growing increasingly upset, understandably so.

  ‘Prolonged seizure,’ Jed said. ‘He’s just stopped, but I’ve just noticed a petechial rash on his abdomen.’ Penny looked closely as Jed bought her up to speed. ‘That wasn’t there fifteen minutes ago when I first examined him.’

  ‘Okay, let’s get some penicillin into him,’ Penny said, but Jed shook his head.

  ‘I want to do a spinal. Jasmine, can you hold him?’

  Speed really was of the essence. Aiden needed the antibiotics, but Jed needed to get some cultures so that the lab would be able to work out the best drugs to give the toddler in the coming days. Thankfully he was used to doing the delicate procedure and in no time had three vials of spinal fluid. Worryingly, Jed noted it was cloudy.

  Jasmine wheeled over the crash trolley and started to pull up the drugs when, as so often happened in Resus, Penny was called away as the paramedics sped another patient in.

  ‘Penny!’ came Lisa’s calm but urgent voice. ‘Can I have a hand now, please?’


  ‘Go,’ Jed said. ‘I’ve got this.’

  The place just exploded then. The paediatrician and anaesthetist arrived just as an emergency page for a cardiac arrest for the new patient was put out.

  ‘Jed!’ Penny’s voice was shrill from behind the curtain. ‘Can I have a hand here?’

  ‘I’m kind of busy now, Penny.’ Jed stated the obvious and Lisa dashed out, seeing that Jed was working on the small toddler and picked up the phone. ‘I’m fast-paging Mr Dean...’ She called out to the anaesthetist, whose pager was trilling. ‘We need you over here.’

  ‘Call the second on.’ Jed was very calm. ‘He’s stopped seizing, but I want him here just in case.’

  ‘You call the second on,’ Lisa uncharacteristically snapped and looked over at the anaesthetist. ‘We need you in here now.’

  It was incredibly busy. Jed took bloods and every cubicle in Resus seemed to be calling for a porter to rush bloods and gasses up to the lab. Jed was speaking with the paediatrician about transferring Aiden to the children’s hospital and calling for the helicopter when Lisa came in to check things were okay.

  ‘We’re going to transfer him,’ Jasmine explained.

  ‘I’ll sort that,’ Lisa said. ‘Jasmine, can you go on your break?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Jasmine said. After all, the place was steaming.

  ‘I don’t want the breaks left till midday this time. Let’s get the breaks started. I’m sending in Greg to take over from you.’

  Jasmine loathed being stuck in the staffroom when she knew how busy things were out there, but Lisa was a stickler for breaks and really did look after her staff. That didn’t stop her feeling guilty about sitting down and having a coffee when she knew the bedlam that was going on.

  ‘There you are.’ Lisa popped her head in at the same time her pager went off. ‘I just need to answer this and then, Jasmine, I need a word with you—can you go into my office?’