now, not just for this morning’s terrible events but for the weeks of confusion, for the man who could be nice one minute and cool and distant the next, and she wanted to know which one she was dealing with.
‘Am I being lectured to by Dr Devlin, or am I being spoken to by Jed?’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. You’re distressed.’ He knew exactly what she was talking about, knew exactly what she meant, yet of course he could not tell her that. Jed also knew he was handling this terribly, that fifteen minutes sitting in the staffroom being debriefed by him wasn’t going to help either of them.
‘I’m not distressed.’
‘Perhaps not, but I think it would be very silly to leave like this. It would be extremely irresponsible to get into a car and drive home right now, so I’m suggesting that you go to the staffroom and sit down for fifteen minutes.’ She stood there furious as she was being told what to do, not asked, she knew that.
‘Fine.’ She gave a terse smile. ‘I will have a coffee and then I’ll go home, but first I have to put this back on the crash trolley and order some more from pharmacy.’
‘Do that, and then I’ll be around shortly to talk to you.’ Jed said, ‘Look, I know it’s hard, especially with one so young. It affects all of us in different ways. I know that I’m upset …’
She didn’t say it, but the roll of her eyes as he spoke told him he couldn’t possibly know, couldn’t possibly understand how she felt.
‘Oh, I get it,’ Jed said. ‘I can’t be upset, I don’t really get it, do I? Because I don’t have a child, I couldn’t possibly be as devastated as you.’ His voice was rising, his own well-restrained anger at this morning’s events starting to build. ‘I’m just the machine that walks in and tells the parents that their baby’s dead. What the hell would I know?’
‘I didn’t mean that.’ She knew then that she was being selfish in her upset, but grief was a selfish place and one not easy to share.
‘Oh, but I think you did,’ Jed said. ‘I think you meant exactly that.’
And he was right, she had, except that wasn’t fair on either of them, because she had cried many times over a lost baby, it just felt different somehow when you had one at home. There was a mixture of guilt and pain tempered with shameful relief that it hadn’t happened to her, because, yes, she’d taken Simon into bed with her, despite what the guidelines might say, and it wasn’t fair on anyone.
It simply wasn’t fair.
Jasmine had no idea how the next part happened. Later she would be tempted to ring Security and ask if she could review the security footage in treatment room two between seven twenty and seven twenty-five, because she’d finally located the sodium bicarbonate and stepped down from the stool and stood facing him, ready to row, both of them ready to argue their point, and the next moment she was being kissed to within an inch of her life.
Or was it the other way around?
She had no way of knowing who had initiated it, all she was certain of was that neither tried to stop it.
It was an angry, out-of-control kiss.
His chin was rough and dragged on her skin, and his tongue was fierce and probing. He tasted of a mixture of peppermint and coffee and she probably tasted of instant tomato soup or salty tears, but it was like no other kiss she had known.
It was violent.
She heard the clatter of a trolley that moved as they did.
It was a kiss that came with no warning and rapidly escalated.
It was a kiss that was completely out of bounds and out of hand.
She was pressed into the wall and Jed was pressing into her; his hands were everywhere and so too were hers; she could feel his erection pressing into her. More than that she too was pushing herself up against him, her hands just as urgent as his, pulling his face into hers, and never had she lost control so quickly, never had she been more unaware of her surroundings because only the crackle of the intercom above reminded them of their location—only that, or shamefully she knew it could have gone further. Somehow they stopped themselves, somehow they halted it, except they were still holding each other’s heads.
‘And you thought driving would be careless and irresponsible,’ Jasmine said.
He sort of blew out his breath. ‘Jasmine …’ He was right on the edge here, Jed realised, shocked at himself. ‘I apologise.’
‘No need to apologise,’ Jasmine said. ‘Or should I?’
‘Of course not.’ His mouth was there, right there, they were holding each other, restraining the other, and both still dangerously close to resuming what they mustn’t. She could hear their breathing, fast and ragged and fighting to slow, and slowly too they let go of each other.
Her blouse was undone, just one button, and she didn’t really know how, but he looked away as she did it up and moved away from him to pick up the flask she had dropped. She left him setting up his IV and went to head back out, but she could still taste him, was still not thinking straight. And then Lisa came in.
‘Shouldn’t you be heading home?’
‘I couldn’t find the paediatric sodium bicarb,’ Jasmine said. ‘There’s only one left after this.’
‘Thanks,’ Lisa said. ‘I’ll get Joan to add it to the pharmacy order. Thanks for everything, Jasmine. I know that can’t have been an easy shift.’
‘How are the parents?’
‘They’re spending some time with him. The hospital chaplain is in with them and the police have been lovely.’ Lisa looked at Jasmine. ‘Maybe go and get a coffee before you go home.’
‘I think I just want my bed,’ Jasmine admitted. ‘I just need to finish the crash trolley off and order some more of this.’
‘I’ll do that.’ Lisa took the flask from her and they stepped aside as Jed walked past with his IV trolley. Very deliberately, neither met the other’s eye.
‘You go to bed and get a well-earned rest,’ Lisa said.
Fat chance of that.
Jasmine did have a cup of coffee before she drove home.
Except she certainly wasn’t hanging around to see Jed. Instead, she chose to head to the kiosk and get a takeaway.
And, of course, on the way to her car, she rang her mum.
‘How was Simon last night?’ Jasmine asked the second her mum answered.
‘Fantastic. I haven’t heard a peep out of him.’
‘He’s not up yet?’
‘No, but he didn’t go down to sleep till quite late.’
‘You’ve checked him, though?’ Jasmine could hear the anxiety in her voice
‘I checked him before I went to
