week or so.
The EEG had encouragingly shown brain activity. There was something going on in Jason’s head, but it wasn’t getting out, a possible case of ‘locked-in syndrome’. But what was locked in was still an unknown. Just how much loss of brain function had resulted from the surgery was anyone’s guess at this stage.
Matt Bishop was alone in the central ICU office when I came in from checking on Jason. All the nurses, including Gracie, were occupied with patients. Jill was on an errand to another ward and the registrars were with one of the other consultants with a patient in Bay Five.
‘Good news so far on Jason,’ I said, by way of greeting. I was going to stick to my plan of keeping things professional and distant.
Matt was less optimistic. ‘He’s not responding to any stimuli.’
‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘But his CT shows reasonable blood flow in most of the brain, and his EEG shows activity.’
He put the file he was holding down on the counter desk and momentarily leaned forward and rested his hands on top of it. There was a deep frown line between his eyes, his olive-toned skin looked even paler than usual and he had a pinched looked about his features.
If a zombie movie director had been looking for walk-on extras, I thought Matt and I would make a great pair.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked.
He drew in a breath and straightened, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. ‘Fine.’
‘You don’t look fine.’
‘Thanks.’
I peered at him up close. ‘Your eyes are bloodshot. Have you been on the turps?’
He gave me a look. ‘No. I was up all night. And, no, I wasn’t on night shift.’
‘At least on night shift you get paid to feel like crap.’
He managed a quarter-smile and then it faded as he dragged his hand down his face this time, wincing as if the movement caused him pain. ‘You have no idea of the mess this place is in. Jeff Hooper might win a popularity contest over me any day but he had no idea how to balance a budget. We’re four months from the end of the financial year and the budget is blown. The CEO says there is no more money. How the hell can we pay staff and provide a service with an empty bank account? I’ve been told to come up with a solution.’
I stepped back and folded my arms across my chest before I was tempted to smooth that canyon-deep furrow off his brow. ‘Is there anything I can do?’
He looked at me then. Really looked at me. His eyes went to mine, holding them in a lock that contained the sensual heat of everything we had experienced together in private—the kisses, the touches, the mutual arousal of primal desire. It went back and forth between our gazes like a fizzing current of electricity. I swear it was almost audible.
Lust unfolded deep inside my body like a lithe cat stretching its limbs. I could feel my body heating and beating with want, the little tingle of nerves, the flutter of my belly, the rush of my blood and the pounding of my heartbeat.
His gaze went to my mouth, stayed there for a pulsing moment, as if he was wondering if he could steal a kiss and get away with it. The thought thrilled me. The illicitness of it spoke to the wild woman in me I tried so desperately to keep contained.
I found myself stepping up on tippy-toes, leaning towards him, my mouth slightly parted in anticipation of the press of my lips to his.
‘Oh, um, er, sorry,’ Gracie said from the door.
I sprang back from Matt as if someone had fired a cannonball between us. Gracie was looking at me as if she had never seen me before. But then her eyes took on a wounded look, her pretty freckled face drooping in disappointment.
‘It’s not what you think—’
‘I don’t want to hear about it,’ Gracie said crisply.
Matt straightened his tie, cleared his throat and moved past us both. ‘I have patients to see,’ he said, and left.
I closed my eyes for a second. My life was such a farce.
‘Bertie, how could you?’ Gracie said in a shocked voice.
‘Nothing happened,’ I said. ‘We were just … talking.’
‘I saw you lean towards him,’ she said. ‘What’s wrong with you? You’ve just come back from your honeymoon, for God’s sake. I never would’ve taken you for a player.’
‘Who’s being a player?’ Jill asked, as she came breezing in with a stack of paperwork. She looked between Gracie and me and raised her artfully pencilled brows. ‘You’re not talking about Matt Bishop, are you? The man’s entitled to have a private life, you know. Mind you, I’d give my back teeth to know whom he’s seeing. No one seems to know but I’m sure it’s someone from the hospital.’
I mentally rolled my eyes. Could this get any more ridiculously entangled?
‘I believe he has a thing for married women,’ Gracie said, shooting me a hard look.
Jill gave a disbelieving cough of laughter as she rolled back her chair to sit down. ‘Can’t see him following in his old man’s footsteps.’
‘What do you know about his father?’ I asked.
Jill swivelled her chair to face me. ‘Richard Bishop’s a well-known womaniser, the younger the better, apparently. His wife Alexis turns a blind eye, has been doing so ever since their other son died.’
My insides lurched. ‘What other son?’
‘Matt’s brother.’
I could feel my eyes popping. ‘He has … had a brother?’
Jill gave me an odd look. ‘Lots of people have siblings, Bertie.’
I brushed her comment aside with an impatient wave of my hand. ‘I know that, it’s just he told me he was an only child.’
‘Well, he is now,’ Jill said flatly. ‘Tim died when Matt was fifteen. Tim was two years older. He had a rock-climbing accident. He was in a coma for over a year before they finally turned off the ventilator.’
‘How did you find out all this?’ I asked.
‘My sister-in-law went to school with Alexis,’ Jill said. ‘They’d lost touch over the years but recently reconnected on Facebook. I mentioned we had a new boss and when my sister-in-law heard Matt’s name she gave me the background.’
Gracie was still eyeing me as if I were Jezebel incarnate but I was beyond caring about that right now. I was still trying to get my head around Matt’s tragic background. The loss of his older brother, the long stint in ICU before Tim was finally allowed to die. Was that why Matt was so adamant patients’ relatives should be told the truth straight up? Had his parents clung to hope for months and months on end because they hadn’t been told—or hadn’t taken in—the reality of their eldest son’s irretrievable condition?
Gracie
