Claimed: One Wife

by Meredith Webber

  But although she usually found it easier to think under the shower—in water, by water, or underwater, for that matter— today the water failed to work its magic and she eventually turned it off, and emerged shrivelled, but no less confused.

  Was Grant Hudson so attracted to her that he'd kissed her?

  Probably not, if the way he'd yelled at her later was any guide.

  Did she want him attracted to her?

  Definitely not at the moment. She was having enough trouble concentrating on her books without the distraction of a love affair to make matters worse.

  Did she want a love affair with Grant Hudson?

  This question made her shiver so she wrapped her towelling robe tightly around her body and padded out of the steamy room.

  Sleep on it, her mother had always said.

  But would sleep come when her hormones were all a-twitter and her body ached for something it had never truly known?

  She woke refreshed but no wiser five hours later, and decided to tackle the books. Again clad in the familiar comfort of her old towelling robe, and armed with a pot of coffee and a sandwich, she made her way to the study.

  But reading about aneurysms reminded her of Grant Hudson's special skill, and images of his face, his blue eyes darting fury, came between her and the words.

  When movement in the house told her the boys were stirring, she gave up. She'd get a lift to the hospital, and check on the survivors of last night's accident. Had the two they hadn't operated on stabilised?

  She wandered back to her bedroom to pull on jeans and a silky knit shirt that was casual enough to feel like a day off but respectable enough to visit patients. As she was going to the hospital anyway, she might as well do a quick round.

  Brad, the brother nearest to her in age, was in the kitchen, filling the kettle.

  'I didn't realise you were home,' he told her. 'Where's your car?'

  'In the hospital car park. It went on strike. I'm sorry about having to leave so suddenly last night.'

  He leant towards her and gave her a brotherly peck on the cheek.

  'No problem. We understand that when you've got to go you've got to go, but if you could fill in again next week, Meggie swears she'll be back the week after.'

  Sally smiled at him.

  'She'd better be! I should be able to do it, although it will mean juggling duty hours. And in exchange for the favour, would you drive me over to collect my car when you've had your coffee?'

  She picked up the paper Brad had dropped on the table, but a photo of the shattered remnants of two smashed cars made her set it quickly aside.

  'Your emergency?' Brad asked, pushing a mug of coffee across the table to her.

  'We lost one of them. Operated on one—he's touch and go—and we're watching the other two.'

  'Stupid fools,' her brother said. As a policeman he probably saw worse sights than she did, but at least it helped him understand how she was feeling.

  'How did you get home?'

  Sally sipped the coffee, giving herself time for the spasm of reaction in her body to ease. It was typical of Brad, who had appointed himself in charge of her welfare, to ask this question.

  'The boss gave me a lift.' She nodded to where the tall building sat on the hill across the railway line. 'He lives over there.'

  'Getting on OK with him?'

  Sally nodded again. As far as she was concerned, 'OK' covered a lot of ground.

  'How's the study?'

  She put down her coffee mug and looked up at her brother who was slouched against the kitchen bench.

  'Why the questions?'

  He grinned at her.

  'Brotherly love?'

  'I don't think so,' Sally told him.

  Brad hesitated, then rubbed his unshaven chin, and turned to look out the window to where another mango tree grew in the back yard.

  Sally knew he'd be looking at the old swing, and the tangle of ropes she and her three brothers had used to get up into their secret world among the branches.

  'We got to talking last night. Eddie, Phil and I. In the breaks after you left.'

  He swung back and faced her.

  'Seems to us you got the fuzzy end of the lollipop right from the start. When Dad died you were the one who helped Mum through. You not only followed Dad's dream for you to be a doctor, but you insisted we all get a proper education and bullied us into studying. You worked your own way through university, and got scholarships to pay for books, and all the time you were still there for Mum.'

  Sally felt her eyes mist, but she rallied, although she had to swallow hard to do it.

  'Hey! You all helped,' she reminded him. 'We stuck together. We're a family, that's what we do. Although if some of you came unstuck soon, I wouldn't care. Shopping for the lot of you is like shopping for the army.'

  'I knew you'd say that, about us all helping, the family stuff, but you did the most. Then last year, instead of taking your exams, you stopped work to nurse Mum. And even now, Meggie's away so you immediately rearrange your life to help us out in the band. When did you ever do anything for Sally? For yourself? What about your life?'

  He paused, then added, 'Haven't you put it on hold long enough, Sister Sal?'

  No one had called her that for so long—it had been her father's pet name for her— she had to blink and swallow again. '

  'My life's just fine,' she told her brother. 'Once I'm through these exams, and properly qualified, the world will be my oyster.'

  But Brad couldn't have been convinced, for he leant forward and took her hand.

  'But is that all you want of life? Work? A career? To be the best darned neurosurgeon in the world? What about fun, Sally? And love? Marriage and kids?'

  She stared at her brother. Why had he brought up these things today of all days? Could he read her new vulnerability? Her confusion over whether a career wax the be-all and end-all of life? Of her life?

  Finding she couldn't handle the subject sitting down, she stood up and walked to the window.

  'Funny questions for a Sunday morning, Brad,' she said lightly, and was surprised to see a shadow cross his face.

  Then he smiled.

  'Not when I was talking to Meggie most of last night,' he admitted, a shy smile hovering around his lips. 'Well, it was more like all the early hours of the morning, really.'

  He took Sally's hand and held it as he explained. 'I hadn't realised until she went away how much I miss her. We're going to get married. As soon as she gets back, we'll start to organise things.'

  He grinned at his sister, 'So one of us will be coming unstuck.'

  'And Phil's been thinking of moving in with Francie,' Sally remembered, picking up on his last remark first The three of you were talking about me because you're worried I'll fall to pieces if you all suddenly leave home. Poor old spinster Sally, pining away beneath the mangoes.'

  Brad chuckled, and put his arms around her.

  'Forget about Phil! You're supposed to be congratulating me,' he said, and she did, telling him how happy she was for both of them. She gave him a hug, and assured him of her delight.

  Her very genuine delight, for Meggie was a lovely young woman and Sally wanted nothing more than for her brothers to be happy.

  So why should she feel glum?

  'Come on, finish your coffee and do whatever girl things you need to do then I'll drop you at the hospital.' Brad eased out of her embrace and patted her on the bottom to hurry her along. 'I want to call in and see Meggie's mother. Tell her what we've decided.'

  Sally took her coffee and went, but her heart was full of so many conflicting emotions she wasn't sure how to handle them. She was still trying to sort through them as she made her way across the car park into the hospital a little later. Which might explain why she didn't see the figure step out from behind a van in the dimly lit underground section.

  'And what, might I ask, are you doing here?' the figure queried as he deftly untangled her from his body and settled her on her feet.
'Shouldn't you still be sleeping?'

  'Shouldn't you?' she retorted, pulling away from her boss's steadying hands. It would be him she'd trodden all over! Then, as he rubbed his calf where she'd undoubtedly clipped him with the toe of her shoe, she added, 'I'm sorry. I wasn't looking where I was going.'

  'Lost in thought?' Grant asked.

  She shook her head, then realised she had been, so she nodded. Which wasn't really an adequate explanation.

  'My brother's getting married.' She forgot she was angry with Grant and the words, needing release, tumbled out.

  'And that bothers you?' Grant asked, taking her arm and steering her towards the lift.

  'Not really,' she admitted. 'In fact, I'm very happy for him and Meggie.'

  'Sure! You sound quite overcome with joy!'

  Sally frowned at him.

  'Well, I am,' she snapped. 'It's all the other things I'm having problems with.'

  'Would food help?' he asked. 'I came in to check on our patients, but as I still haven't shopped, I thought I'd grab a late breakfast or an early lunch in the cafeteria.'

  The 'no' she should have said failed to find its way out of her throat and she ended up accompanying him to the cafeteria where, fearing the effects of too much caffeine, she bought an orange juice and a fresh-baked blueberry muffin.

  'So tell me about this brother. You have more than one, don't you? Will his getting married leave you with problems keeping your house? Is that what's worrying you?'

  She sipped her juice, and crumbled the muffin in her fingers. Scanned her inner uneasiness and felt worse.

  'It's nothing to do with the house,' she managed to say, but the lump that had been there earlier was growing in her throat again, and when Grant reached out and took her hand, capturing the restless fingers and dusting the crumbs off them, she felt the prickle of tears and knew she should leave.

  Right now!

  Before she made a fool of herself.

  But the need to talk to someone was stronger and she lifted her head and looked at this man who was still a stranger.

  'It's Mum! Her not being there to see her eldest son married. To miss their happiness, and the boys' successes. They're all growing up and will move away, and where it always used to be me worrying about them, now they're worried about me. Worried I'll moulder away, a lonely old spinster under the mango trees.'

  Grant held her fingers tighter. He couldn't make sense of much of what Sally had said, but he'd sensed a real despair in her earlier when she'd ran into him, and had guessed she'd needed to get things off her chest.

  So, despite his good intentions to steer clear of her as much as possible, at least until he'd got over whatever it was he'd caught from Tom, here he was, holding her hand over the laminated table in the hospital cafeteria.

  Which, given his antipathy to hospital gossip, was the one place he shouldn't be holding anyone's hand!

  'What-ho? Something happening here I don't know about?'

  The cheery greeting made him turn, and he felt the slim fingers he'd been holding snatched from his grasp.

  David Phillips, the transplant surgeon, dropped his tray on the table and slumped into the chair beside Grant.

  'We're just out of Theatre,' he added. 'I did the heart, but they've used other organs as well. It's hell to lose a patient on the table, as you guys did, but my young woman has a little girl and she'll be able to push her on a swing in a month or so.'

  Grant saw Sally smile wanly at the man, and realised she was beyond carrying her share of the conversation. So, much as he wished the man had chosen any table but this, it was up to him to smooth things over.

  'Good job,' he said. 'Are you eating while she's in Recovery? Staying on to see her when she goes to ICU?'

  David nodded.

  'Don't know about you, but I can't bear to leave things at the recovery stage. I like to see a patient tucked up in bed, even if it is in the nude with pipes and tubes and leads all over them.'

  Grant nodded.

  'The "job's not done till it's done" syndrome,' he agreed.

  Perhaps it was the agreement when he'd expected argument that caught David's attention, for he turned to Grant, and with a faint inclination of his head towards Sally raised an eyebrow.

  'I saw that,' she snapped. 'There's nothing wrong with me and, no, you didn't interrupt anything.'

  She looked at Grant.

  'I'm going up to the ICU,' she said, 'then home. It's my day off and I've study to do.'

  She matched action to the words, marching out of the room with a determined stride.

  'Phew! What's bothering Sally?' David remarked.

  'Her brother's getting married.'

  Grant wasn't sure why he'd said this, but as it was the only firm information he'd got from his resident he passed it on. Maybe David could throw some light on why she was so upset.

  'Brad? That's great. I'd have thought Sally would be pleased. She's been nagging him to do the right thing by that young woman of his for ages.'

  'Something to do with her mother missing the wedding?' Grant recalled. 'Is her mother away?'

  David raised his shaggy head.

  'Ah!' he said, as if light now shone on the entire situation.

  'Well, you might explain to me,' Grant told him, and the other man smiled.

  'Sally's mother died last year. Found she had a fast growing cancer, too bad for treatment. Sally should have sat her finals but took time off to stay at home and care for her. I guess she's thinking of how her mother would have loved to see Brad married. There must be a lot of times when her grief threatens to overcome her, but she's a stubborn little thing—always has been—so she won't give in to it.'

  He shouldn't have let her go, Grant thought as he assimilated this information. He should have taken her into his arms and held her close until the storm of emotion had passed.

  The thought shocked him and he had to remind himself he didn't want to get involved with a colleague.

  Particularly not with Sally Cochrane, who had the ability to muddle his usually ordered thoughts and tie his own emotions into knots. It had to be Tom's influence. Like when he, Grant, had had his appendix out and Tom had had to be sedated because his pain had been so intense.

  Sally went first to the ICU, knowing Grant would probably be heading that way as soon as soon as he'd demolished his very substantial breakfast.

  Which had undoubtedly grown cold while he'd let her rattle on about her brothers' concerns.

  But if she checked on the young man with the depressed skull fracture—Nick, she thought his name was—then did a quick visit to the ward, she should be far enough ahead of Grant to avoid further conversation.

  Given the embarrassment she was likely to feel, this was an excellent idea.

  And would have worked if Craig Greenway hadn't greeted her with the news that he could now move his toes. He was demonstrating this miraculous feat when Grant arrived.

  'So, Dr Cochrane, are you pleased we operated on him now?'

  Craig looked from her to Grant, then back to her again.

  'I argued for a scan first,' she admitted to the patient. 'But Dr Hudson was right. Time was the important factor.'

  'You mean if you hadn't ripped that huge hole in my back when you did, I'd have been paralysed for life?' the patient asked her.

  Sally nodded.

  'Scanning first might have meant a slightly smaller hole, but every minute the clot was there, it was doing more damage.' She nodded towards her boss. 'Good thing you had an expert handy.'

  Craig reached out, something he couldn't have done last week, and touched her hand.

  'But you did it for me. I won't forget that.'

  Sally stayed a little longer, then excused herself, leaving Craig to demonstrate his limited movement to Grant.

  She was about to leave the ward when, one of the nurses called her back to check a medication order on a patient file. She took the file and walked through to the office, wanting to look up the drug prescribed
before OK'ing it.

  'Do you need a lift home or is the clunker running?'

  Grant appeared at the door as she was shutting the fat volume. He was smiling, perhaps to lessen the insult to her car, and it was only her determination not to give in to her internal reactions to the man that stopped her smiling back.

  'The clunker, as you call it, is generally a most reliable car,' she told him, frosting the words so he wouldn't think she was exchanging pleasantries.

  'The clunker, as you called it,' he reminded her, 'let you down when you badly needed it.'

  She watched the way his lips moved, remembered how they'd felt -

  No! It was dangerous to even think about that moment!

  'Oh, go away!' Sally told him, although she knew she shouldn't speak to her department head that way. But he shouldn't have kissed her either. 'After the way you behaved this morning, I'd rather walk home than accept a lift from you.'

  'I'll remember that,' he said, his lips still smiling slightly, though his eyes were...

  Wary?

  Watchful?

  Sally opened the drug book again so she didn't have to look at him. He obviously had no idea of the effect he was having on her hormones, and she had to keep it that way. Apart from the futility of falling for a man who didn't want a relationship with a colleague, she had no time for dalliance right now.

  No way was she throwing six years of medical studies and another four, actually close to five, years of specialty work down the drain to satisfy her sexual urges.

  There's no way you want to get involved with her, Grant told himself as he obeyed her grouchy order and departed. Firstly, she's a colleague, and you know the problems that can cause. Secondly, she has exams looming and shouldn't be distracted, and thirdly.

  He couldn't find a thirdly, remembering instead how soft her lips had felt, how sweet they'd tasted.

  How she'd looked in the gold dress...

  He shook his head to clear it and went down to his office. A few hours of paperwork should prove sufficient distraction. And he'd leave a memo for Miss Flintock to make another appointment with the mighty Flo.

  The mixed-sex changing rooms had to go!

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The week started as frantically as weeks usually did. Nonurgent cases were lined up over the weekend to be treated on Monday, so Mondays were always extraordinarily busy.