‘Now?’ She sat back against the sofa. It was every bit as comfortable as it looked. ‘Now, Dave, we wait.’
THERE WAS AN angel floating around in his vision. An angel with blonde curls, bright blue eyes and a matching jacket. She also had a weird matching hat on her head that made the curls look as if they were suspended in mid-air. Strange. His dreams didn’t normally look like this.
The angel kept patting his hand and talking to him quietly. Those weren’t the normal actions of a woman this hot in his dreams either. Maybe he was turning over a new leaf?
He smiled to himself. Maybe he could take his dream in another more Mitch-like direction?
There was another voice in the background. It was annoying him. Eating into the little space in his head that was cloudy and comfortable. But something else wasn’t comfortable. His back ached. And for some odd reason he felt cold.
His hands touched his bare chest. Why was he half-dressed?
He sat up, trying to unload the fuzzy feeling around him. Ahh. He recognised that voice. The background noise was Dave. He was talking the way he did when he was nervous, too fast, his words all joined up and practically rolling into one.
The blue angel was still misting around. She was talking to him again. ‘Hi, there, Mitchell. Are you back with us?’ She didn’t wait for a reply—just as well really, as his mouth felt a bit thick—as if someone had just punched him and given him a split lip. He stuck his tongue out and licked. No, no blood. But there was definitely something else, something familiar. Strawberries. When had he eaten those?
His brain was starting to function again. Tiny little jigsaw pieces slotting into place to give a bigger picture.
But one thing was still standing out a mile. The unfamiliar.
She touched him again. Only on his arm, but it was enough to make his senses spark. Contrary to public belief, Mitchell Brody didn’t like people touching him, pawing at him. It made him feel as if he were for sale. Like a cashmere scarf or leather shoe being stroked in a women’s department store. Yuck.
He shrugged her off and sat up. ‘Who are you?’ He shook his head, it felt like jelly was in his brain.
She smiled. A beaming white, perfect-teeth kind of smile. Who was her dentist?
She held her hand out towards him. ‘You’ve been expecting me. I’m Samantha Lewis, your nurse. The agency sent me to help you manage your diabetes.’ The smile disappeared from her face. ‘And not a moment too soon. Why did they discharge you from hospital before I got here?’
A frown creased her forehead, ruining the smooth skin and showing little creases around her eyes. He’d liked her better before.
He moved in the chair, turning around to see the mumbling Dave.
‘Dave, what’s going on here?’ His voice sounded a little funny. A little slow. His eyes took in the chaos in the kitchen, which looked as if food had exploded all around it. He stood up and pointed. ‘And what on earth happened in my kitchen?’
The last thing he could remember was looking at the clock and wondering when his nurse would arrive. He hadn’t even decided what room to put her in.
His shirt was flapping around and he did up a few of the buttons haphazardly. Not that he was embarrassed by his body. The amount of calendars he sold every year put paid to that idea. But it was hardly an ideal meeting with his new nurse. When had she got here?
New nurse. Now his brain was kicking back into gear he was more than a little surprised. He had kind of expected some older matron-type who’d bark orders at him for the next three weeks.
He certainly hadn’t expected some cute, slim, blonde-haired, blue-eyed chocolate-box-type cheerleader. In lots of ways he should be pleased.
But he wasn’t. Not really. Something wasn’t right. Was this what the doctor had warned him about? How sometimes with diabetes you could be unwell?
After tonight’s display he needed someone to get his condition under control so he could start on his tour. People were counting on him. Kids were counting on him—not to mention their families. The last thing he needed was some bright-eyed, bushy-tailed young girl hanging around him, distracting him.
She tapped him on the arm. The expression on her face had changed. She wasn’t all smiles now. She was deadly serious. ‘Mitchell, can you tell me where your blood-glucose meter is? You need to check your levels then we’ll have a chat about what just happened.’
She spoke to him as if he was a child. Her tone and stance had changed completely.
So Mitchell did what he always did. He completely ignored her and walked over to the kitchen, crunching on some broken glass on the tiled floor. ‘Who broke a glass?’ he yelled, spinning around to accuse Dave and the strange new nurse.
He held his hands out. ‘What happened, Dave? Who did it? Who’s been in my kitchen?’ He didn’t like disorder. That’s why it was so much easier staying by himself—there was no one else around to make a mess.
Dave was pushing things back into cupboards. He turned around and rested his hands behind him on the countertop, hesitating before he spoke.
‘Well, actually, I wasn’t here. I went to pick up Samantha at the airport. And when we got back … His voice tailed off as if he didn’t want to finish.
Mitchell could feel his exasperation reach breaking point. He had no idea what was going on in his own home. ‘When you got back, what?’ He glanced at the clock and blinked, then looked again. The last two hours of his life seemed to have vanished without him knowing where they’d gone.
Dave laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘You were raking about the cupboards and the fridge. We weren’t quite sure what you were doing.’
It was as if the final piece of the jigsaw puzzle fell into place. Except it didn’t slot in quietly, it slammed in, as if banged by a hammer. Realisation dawned on his face and he looked around again. ‘I did this?’
Samantha appeared at his side. ‘Mitchell, it’s time you and I had a talk.’
This time he erupted. ‘I don’t want to talk! I want to know what the hell happened here!’
But his nurse didn’t jump at his outburst. She didn’t seem at all surprised. She just folded her arms across her chest as if she were some kind of immovable force. ‘From this point onwards you do exactly what I tell you. If I tell you we’re going to talk then …’ she paused ‘… we’re going to talk.’ She pointed over towards the sofa. ‘So get your butt over there, Mr Brody, and sit down!’
The heat in the kitchen was stifling. Samantha yanked off her goose-down jacket and flung it over a chair. If she kept this on much longer she would be roasted like a chicken. Her face must be scarlet by now.
This was definitely a baptism of fire. She looked at the clock—it was almost midnight and Dave had already told her he didn’t stay in the house. ‘Dave, why don’t you go on home to bed? I’ll be fine. I’ll need to talk to you in the morning though, it’s important you understand how to deal with things.’
Dave gave a grateful nod and disappeared out of the door as if he were being chased by a herd of zombies. All of this was definitely new to him.
Mitchell hadn’t moved—probably from the shock of someone talking to him like that. What was she thinking? But she was his nurse. It was her job to take charge. ‘Mitchell, your blood-glucose meter, where is it?’ He was in shock, she could tell. It looked like he’d just experienced his first full-blown hypoglycaemic attack and was totally confused.
After a few seconds he turned to face her.
Wow.