Dr. Dark and Far-Too Delicious (11 page)

After all, he’d been through it before.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

T
HE
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?’

Oh, God.

Jasmine felt sick. Lisa must have heard her say she was thinking of handing her notice in. She should never have said anything to Vanessa; she should have at least spoken to Lisa first.

Pouring her coffee down the sink, Jasmine was torn.

She didn’t want to leave, except she felt she had to, and, she told herself, it would be easier all round, but she loved working in Emergency.

Would Lisa want a decision this morning? Surely this could wait.

She turned into the offices, ready for a brusque lecture or even a telling-off, ready for anything, except what she saw.

The registrar’s office door was open and there was Penny.

Or rather there was Penny, with Jed’s arms around her, oblivious that they had been seen.

He was holding her so tenderly, his arms wrapped tightly around her, both unaware that Jasmine was standing there. Blinded with tears, she headed for Lisa’s office.

Her mind made up.

She had to leave.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

‘I’
M
SORRY
!’ L
ISA
walked in just as Jasmine was blowing her nose and doing her best to stave off tears. ‘I really tried to speak to you first before you found out.’

So Lisa knew too?

‘How are you feeling?’ Lisa asked gently. ‘I know it’s a huge shock, but things are a lot more stable now...’ She paused as Jasmine frowned.

‘Stable?’

‘Critical, but stable,’ Lisa said, and Jasmine felt her stomach turn, started to realise that she and Lisa were having two entirely separate conversations.

‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,’ Jasmine admitted. ‘Lisa, what am I here for?

‘You don’t know?’ Lisa checked. ‘You seemed upset...just then, when I came in.’

‘Because...’ Because I just saw my sister in Jed’s arms, Jasmine thought, and then she wasn’t thinking anymore, she was panicking, this horrible internal panic that was building as she realised that something was terribly wrong, that maybe what she had seen with Penny and Jed hadn’t been a passionate clinch after all. ‘What’s going on, Lisa?’ Jasmine stood up, more in panic, ready to rush to the door.

‘Sit down, Jasmine.’ Lisa was firm.

‘Is it Simon?’ Her mind raced to the childcare centre. Had something happened and she hadn’t been informed? Was he out there now, being worked on?

‘Simon’s fine,’ Lisa said, and without stopping for breath, realising the panic that not knowing the situation was causing, she told Jasmine, ‘Your mum’s been brought into the department.’

Jasmine shook her head.

‘She’s very sick, Jasmine, but at the moment she’s stable. She was brought in in full cardiac arrest.’

‘When?’ She stood to rush out there.

‘Just hold on a minute, Jasmine. You need to be calm before you speak to your mum. We’re stabilising her, but she needs to go up to the cath lab urgently and will most likely need a stent or bypass.’

‘When?’ Jasmine couldn’t take it in. She’d only been gone twenty minutes, and then she remembered the patient being whizzed in, Lisa taking over and calling Mr Dean, Penny calling for Jed’s assistance.

‘Penny?’ Her mind flew to her sister. ‘Did Penny see her when she came in?’

‘She had to work on your mum.’ Lisa explained what had happened as gently as she could. ‘Jed was caught up with the meningococcal child and I didn’t want you finding out that way either—unfortunately, I needed you to be working.’

Jasmine nodded. That much she understood. The last thing she would have needed at that critical time in Resus was a doctor and a nurse breaking down before help had been summoned.

‘And Penny told me to get you out of the way.’ Jasmine looked up. ‘She told me you were her younger sister and that you were not to find out the same way she had... She was amazing,’ Lisa said. ‘Once she got over the initial shock, she just...’ Lisa gave a wide-eyed look of admiration. ‘She worked on your mother the same way she would any patient—she gave her the very best of care. Your mum was in VF and she was defibrillated twice. By the time Mr Dean took over, your mum was back with us.’

‘Oh, God,’ Jasmine moaned and this time when she stood, nothing would have stopped her. It wasn’t to her mother she raced but to next door, where Penny sat slumped in a chair. Jed was holding a drink of water for her. And to think she’d begrudged her sister that embrace. No wonder Jed had been holding her, and Jasmine rushed to do the same.

‘I’m so sorry, Penny.’

She cuddled her sister, who just sat there, clearly still in shock. ‘It must have been a nightmare.’

Penny nodded. ‘I didn’t want you to see her like that.’

She had always been in awe of Penny, always felt slightly less, but she looked at her sister through different eyes, saw the brave, strong woman she was, who had shielded the more sensitive one from their parents’ rows, had always told her things would be okay.

That she’d deal with it.

And she had. Again.

‘It’s my fault,’ Penny grimaced. ‘Yesterday she was ever so quiet and she said she had indigestion. It must have been chest pain.’

‘Penny.’ Jasmine had been thinking the same, but hearing her sister say it made her realise there and then what a pointless route that was. ‘I had indigestion yesterday. We all did. You know what Mum’s Sunday dinners are like.’

‘I know.’

Jasmine looked up at Jed. His face was pale and he gave her a very thin smile. ‘I’m sorry to hear about your mum,’ he said, and then he looked from Jasmine to Penny and then back again. ‘I had no idea.’

‘Well, how could you have?’ Penny said, and then turned to Jasmine. ‘Can you go and see Mum? I can’t face it just yet, but one of us should be there.’

‘Of course.’

‘She’ll be scared,’ Penny warned. ‘Not that she’ll show it.’

‘Come on,’ Jed said. ‘I’ll take you round to her.’

Once they walked out of the door he asked what he had to. ‘Jasmine, why didn’t you say?’

‘She’d made me promise not to.’

‘But even so...’

‘I can’t think about that now, Jed.’

‘Come on.’ He put his arm round her and led her into her mum’s room, and even if it was what he would do with any colleague, even if she no longer wanted him, she was glad to have him there strong and firm beside her as she saw her mum, the strongest, most independent person she knew, with possibly the exception of her elder sister, strapped to machines and looking very small and fragile under a white sheet.

‘Hey, Mum.’

Jasmine took her hand.

‘I’m sorry,’ Louise said, but for once her voice was very weak and thin.

‘It’s hardly your fault. Don’t be daft.’

‘No.’ She was impatient, despite the morphine, desperate to get everything in order before she went to surgery. ‘I haven’t been much support.’

‘Mum!’ Jasmine shook her head. ‘You’ve been wonderful.’

‘No.’ She could see tears in her mum’s eyes. ‘Most grandmothers drop everything to help with their grandchildren.’

‘Mum,’ Jasmine interrupted. ‘You can stop right there. I’m glad you’re not like most mums, I’m glad Penny is the way that she is, because otherwise I’d be living at home even now. I’d be dumping everything onto you and not sorting my own stuff out, which I have,’ Jasmine said firmly, and then wavered. ‘Well, almost.’ She smiled at her mum. ‘And that’s thanks to you. I don’t want a mum who fixes everything. I want a mum who helps me fix myself.’

‘Can I see Simon?’ She felt her mum squeeze her hand. ‘Or will I scare him?’

‘I’ll go now and get him.’ Before she left, Jasmine looked at Jed.

‘I’ll stay.’

And it meant a lot that he was with her.

Oh, she knew Mr Dean was around and Vanessa was watching her mother like a hawk, but it wasn’t just for medical reasons it helped to have Jed there.

She couldn’t think of that now.

The childcare staff were wonderful when Jasmine told them what was going on. ‘Bring him back when you’re ready.’

‘Thanks.’

Jasmine really didn’t know if it would terrify Simon or how he’d react when he saw his nanny, but she knew that the calmer she was the better it would be for Simon. ‘Nanny’s tired,’ Jasmine said as they walked back to the department. ‘She’s having a rest, so we’ll go and give her a kiss.’

He seemed delighted at the prospect.

Especially when he saw Penny standing at the bed. Then he turned and saw Jed there and a smile lit up his face.

‘Jed!’

He said it so clearly, there was absolutely no mistake, and Penny’s eyes were wide for a second as she looked at Jed, who stood, and then back at Penny.

‘I’ll have to put in a complaint,’ Penny said. ‘The hospital grapevine is getting terribly slack.’

‘Tell me about it,’ Jed said, but whatever was going on, whatever questions needed answers, it was all put aside as Simon gave his nanny a kiss and a cuddle. He was amazing, not bothered at all by the tubes and machines, more fascinated by them, if anything, pointing to the cardiac monitor and turning as every drip bleeped. But of course after a few moments he grew restless.

‘We’re going to take your mum up to the catheter lab soon,’ Vanessa said. The cardiac surgeon had spoken to them in more detail and her mum had signed the consent form, and it was all too quick and too soon. Jasmine had just got used to the idea that she was terribly ill and now there was surgery to face.

‘Can I just take Simon back?’

‘Of course.’ And in the few weeks she’d been here, Jasmine found out just how many friends she had made, just how well she was actually doing, thanks to her mum. ‘Tell the crèche that I’ll pick up Simon tonight. He can stay at my place.’

‘You’re sure?’ Jasmine checked. ‘I can ring Ruby.’

‘It’s fine tonight. You’ll probably be needing Ruby a lot over the next few days. Let me help when I can.’

The crèche was marvellous too and told Jasmine that she could put Simon in full time for the next couple of weeks, and somehow,
somehow
Jasmine knew she was coping with a family emergency and single motherhood and work combined.

And she didn’t want to lose her job, no matter how hard it would be, working alongside Jed.

Except she couldn’t think about it now.

Right now, her heart was with her mum, who was being wheeled out of Emergency, a brusque and efficient Penny beside her, telling the porter to go ahead and hold the lifts, snapping at Vanessa for not securing the IV pole properly, barking at everyone and giving out orders as she did each and every day, while still managing to hold her mum’s hand as she did so.

And her heart wasn’t just with her mum.

It was with her big sister too.

The time sitting in the Theatre waiting room brought them possibly the closest they had ever been.

‘Is that why you were asking about Jed and I?’

They were two hours into waiting for the surgery to finish, an hour of panic, ringing around friends and family, and then an hour of angst-filled silence, and then, because you could only sit on a knife edge for so long, because sometimes you needed distracting, Penny asked the question that was starting to filter into both their minds.

‘For all the good it did me.’ Jasmine smiled. ‘How come we don’t gossip?’

‘I never gossip,’ Penny said. ‘I don’t do the girly thing and...’ Her voice trailed off and she thought for a moment, realising perhaps how impossible for her sister this had been. ‘You could have asked me, Jasmine.’

‘What if I didn’t like the answer?’ Jasmine’s eyes filled with tears and she couldn’t start crying again. She’d shed more tears since her mother had gone to Theatre than she had in a long time.

‘You’re still not asking me.’

Jasmine shook her head, because if the truth were known she was scared to. Not just for what it would do to her but what the truth might mean for her sister.

‘Nothing has ever happened between Jed and I.’

Jasmine felt as if a chest drain had been inserted, or what she imagined it must feel like, because it felt as if for the first time in days, for the first time since Vanessa had inadvertently dropped the bomb, her lungs expanded fully, the shallow breaths of guilt and fear replaced by a deep breath in.

‘Nothing,’ Penny said. ‘Not a single kiss, I promise you.’ And Jasmine could now breathe out. ‘Who said that there was something going on between us?’

‘It’s common knowledge apparently, though I only heard this week. My friend couldn’t believe that I hadn’t notice the tension between you two.’

‘The only tension between us,’ Penny continued, ‘is who might get the promotion.’

‘I thought you were worried about getting it and upsetting Jed.’

Penny just laughed. ‘Worrying about upsetting or upstaging Jed Devlin is the furthest thing from my mind—believe me. Do I look like someone who would step aside from a promotion for a man?’ She actually laughed at the very thought.

‘No,’ Jasmine admitted. ‘But you did say you weren’t sure if you wanted the job...’

‘Right now I’m not even thinking about work, I just want Mum to get well, that’s as far as I can think today. You have nothing to worry about with Jed and I.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘It clearly did.’

But Jasmine shook her head. ‘I’m just glad I haven’t hurt you—Jed and I are finished.’

‘Jasmine!’

But Jasmine was through worrying about Jed. She didn’t have the head space to even think about him right now. ‘Let’s just worry about Mum for now, huh?’

* * *

‘How is she?’ Lisa asked when an extremely weary Jasmine made her way down to Emergency the next morning.

‘She’s had a really good night,’ Jasmine said. ‘They’re going to get her out of bed for a little while this morning, can you believe?’

‘They don’t waste any time these days.’ Lisa smiled. ‘How are you?’

‘Tired,’ Jasmine admitted. ‘I’m sorry to mess you around with the roster.’

‘Well, you can hardly help what happened. Have you got time to go through it now—did you want the rest of the week off?’

Jasmine shook her head. ‘I was actually hoping to come in to work tomorrow—Penny’s going to stay with her today and I’ll come back this evening, but I’d rather start back at work as soon as possible. I might need some time off when she comes out, though.’

‘We’ll sort something out,’ Lisa said. ‘We’re very accommodating here, not like the fracture clinic.’ Lisa winked.

‘Sorry about that.’

‘Don’t worry about it for now. We’ll have a chat when you’re up to it.’

‘Actually,’ Jasmine said, ‘do you have time for a chat now?’

She sat in Lisa’s office and, because she’d got a lot of her crying out when she’d told Jed, Jasmine managed to tell Lisa what had happened with her ex-husband without too many tears, and was actually incredibly relieved when she had.

‘You didn’t need to tell me this,’ Lisa said. ‘But I’m very glad that you did. I’d rather hear it from you first and it’s a good lesson to us all about being less careless with patients’ property. I can see why you panicked now. Anyway...’ she smiled, ‘...you can stop worrying about it now.’

Finally she could, and only then did Jasmine fully realise how much it had been eating at her, how much energy she had put towards worrying about it, running from it.