and unstoppable.
I thought of the way Matt had criticised my research project. I couldn’t bear to have him mock my personal life as well.
Besides, I wanted to keep my distance from him. He was far too potent for me to handle. He was clearly a man of the world. The world in which his father moved, one where women were prizes to be collected, toys to be played with and then discarded when they lost their appeal. He might have given the impression he didn’t approve of his father’s treatment of his mother, but wasn’t he doing the very same thing with me? He knew I was off limits and yet he’d kissed me. He’d made the first move … hadn’t he? Or even if he hadn’t he had been the one who had come and stood right in front of me, looking at me in that intensely mesmerising way until I’d had no choice but to meet him halfway.
I wasn’t used to feeling such wild, out-of-control feelings of lust and longing. I needed time to get my self-control reconditioned.
We came to my door and I took Freddy’s lead from Matt’s hand. Even though we were both wearing gloves I felt the jolt of his touch. It travelled through my body like a hot wire firing up my core so it was thrumming like a tuning fork.
‘Erm, thanks for helping me find Freddy,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what I would’ve done if we hadn’t found him. He might’ve frozen to death.’
He looked at me for a long moment. ‘It’s a big responsibility, minding someone’s pet for them. Did you offer or did your neighbour pressure you?’
How had he guessed that? I wondered. I shifted my weight from foot to foot, suddenly uncomfortable he was sensing more about me than I cared to have on show. ‘I was just trying to help.’
He gave a nod as if that made sense. ‘I’d better get going before I freeze to death. Good night.’
I watched him walk down my street from my front door. It was bitterly cold standing there on the doorstep but I couldn’t take my eyes off his tall, rangy figure as he walked along the snow-covered footpath. I let out a long, foggy breath as he disappeared around the corner.
Oh, boy, was I in trouble.
I was in the female change room, putting my bag in the locker, the next morning when Gracie McCurcher came bursting in. ‘Guess what?’ she said, her eyes bright with conspiratorial excitement.
‘What?’
‘Matt Bishop has a girlfriend.’
I hoped my face hadn’t shown my surprise. If he had a girlfriend then why the heck had he kissed me last night? I felt a rumble of anger roll through me. What was it about me that attracted two-timing guys? Did I have a sign on my head that said ‘Exploit me’?
I shoved my bag in the locker and turned the key. ‘How do you know?’
‘He’s got a hickey on his neck,’ Gracie said. ‘I saw it when he took off his scarf when he came in this morning.’
I was glad I was facing the locker bay instead of Gracie. I was so hot in the face I was sure the lockers would melt and drool, like Salvador Dali’s clock. ‘Are you sure it’s a hickey?’ I said in a vaguely interested way. ‘He might have scratched himself shaving.’
‘I know a hickey when I see one,’ Gracie said. ‘I wonder who it is? Do you reckon it’s someone from the hospital?’
‘I have no idea.’ I was scaring myself at how easy it was to lie.
Gracie was watching me in the mirror, where I was attempting to put my hair in some sort of order. ‘I heard he went to the US after he broke up with a long-term girlfriend. She was a speech pathologist.’
‘How long term?’ I asked.
‘Not sure.’ Gracie gave me a speaking glance. ‘For some men a couple of weeks is long term.’
I turned around and gave her arm a squeeze. She hadn’t had much luck with boyfriends. Her first one left her for her best friend and her last one cheated on her the whole time they were together. She was a lot like me, she wanted the fairytale but so far it had eluded her. ‘Don’t give up hope, Gracie,’ I said. ‘You’ll find your handsome prince one day.’
She gave me a thoughtful look. ‘Is it better once you’re married?’
I disguised a gulping swallow. ‘Better?’
‘Your relationship,’ she said. ‘More stable. Secure. Happier. My cousin told me she felt really let down after she got married. She said there’s all that build-up to the big day. Months and months of planning and then it’s all over. Was it like that for you?’
‘A little, I guess,’ I said, which at least was the truth. I was let down. Massively. Everything I had planned and dreamed for myself had been blown away as soon as I’d opened that bedroom door and seen Andy in bed with another woman. Someone younger and far more beautiful than I could ever be. And taller and thinner. She looked like one of those bikini models on a billboard. I’d felt short and dowdy and fat ever since.
‘When can I see the photos?’ Gracie asked. ‘Have you got time now?’
‘Sorry.’ I glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘I have to get going. I have to check on a patient before Theatre.’
I came back from Theatre and Jill Carter, the ward clerk, looked up from some filing she was doing. ‘Have you heard the latest gossip?’ She shut the filing-cabinet drawer and gave the same conspiratorial gleam Gracie had shown earlier.
I prided myself on my indifferent expression. I’d been practising behind my surgical mask in Theatre. ‘No.’
‘Apparently Dr Bishop is—’
‘Right behind you,’ Matt said from the office doorway.
Jill and I both turned around like schoolgirls caught out smoking behind the toilets. Jill recovered quicker than I did but, then, she probably hadn’t spent half the night lying awake fantasising about his mouth kissing her.
‘Oh, hello, Dr Bishop,’ she said, smiling brightly. ‘How did your heads of department meeting go?’
Matt’s expression had the high wall with barbed wire at the top look about it. ‘Fine. Dr Clark?’ His gaze nailed mine. ‘My office in ten minutes.’
I couldn’t stop my gaze drifting to his neck. His shirt collar covered half of it but anyone with a history of necking as a teenager would have recognised it for what it was. I could feel the slow, hot crawl of colour spread over my cheeks as my eyes came back to his. ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘I’ll just check on a couple of patients first.’
I was longer than ten minutes as I wanted to talk to Jason Ryder’s parents about a new type of therapy I was keen to use with him. Childhood awakening therapy was still in its experimental stage but there was some anecdotal evidence of people in comas responding to stimuli from their childhoods. Playing music, favourite movies or reading well-loved childhood stories had produced responses in some patients. I felt sure it wouldn’t compromise the care Jason was already receiving, and I was quietly confident it might be the key to getting him to wake. From what I’d gathered from his parents, he’d had a happy and contented childhood, which made him a perfect candidate.
Jason’s
