‘Then I’m not your man,’ he said, his expression stony, his voice even harder. ‘I’m happy to have a bit of fun, but don’t expect anything else from me.’
Kitty held that steely blue gaze. ‘I feel sorry for men like you, Jake. You have plenty of fun now, but what about later? What about when you’re old and sick and no one wants you any more?’
A muscle flexed in his jaw. ‘I’ll take my chances.’
‘You’ll end up lonely and alone,’ she said. ‘You’ll have no shared memories of the phases of life you’ve journeyed through. No children to share your genes. No grandchild—’
‘Look,’ he said, cutting her short. ‘I get what you’re saying. Do you think I haven’t thought through all of that? Of course I have. I just can’t make promises I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep.’
Kitty nailed him with a flinty look. ‘You don’t want to make promises.’
He held her gaze for a second or two before he blew out a breath on a long exhale. He tipped up her chin using two fingers, while his thumb moved back and forth over the cushion of her bottom lip. ‘It wouldn’t work, you know,’ he said. ‘You. Me. Us. You’re too innocent for someone as hard-boiled as me. I’d end up walking all over you.’
‘I know how to take care of myself.’
‘Do you, Kitty?’ he asked looking at her intently. ‘Do you really?’
Her heart tripped as his gaze centred on her mouth. Heat pooled in her belly and her legs felt that betraying tremble again. ‘Of course I do,’ she said. ‘I’m a big girl now.’
He brushed an imaginary hair away from her face. ‘Even big girls can get their hearts broken.’
‘So can big boys.’
He gave her a twisted smile as he reached for the door. ‘Not this big boy.’
‘You’re not truly alive if you don’t allow yourself to be open to happiness and to hurt,’ she said. ‘It’s what makes life so rich and rewarding—the highs and the lows and all the bits in between.’
‘Goodnight, Dr Cargill,’ he said. ‘Sweet dreams.’
Kitty blew out a breath when the door clicked shut behind him. ‘Watch it, my girl,’ she said in an undertone. ‘Just watch it, OK?’
* * *
‘Where’s Kitty?’ Gwen asked, looking past Jake’s shoulders when he arrived at the new staff welcome drinks on Friday night. ‘I thought she might be coming with you.’
Jake took one of the light beers off a tray that was being handed around by one of the interns. ‘Then you thought wrong,’ he said.
Gwen angled her head at him. ‘What’s going on with you two?’
‘Nothing.’ He took a sip of froth off the top of his beer.
‘You had dinner with her,’ Gwen said. ‘Brad told me when I had lunch with my daughter at the grill yesterday.’
He shrugged. ‘So?’
‘Don’t break her heart, Jake.’
‘I have no intention of doing any such thing.’
‘She’s not your type.’
Jake frowned as he put his beer on the chest-high drinks stand beside him. ‘That’s surely up to her to decide, isn’t it?’
Gwen lifted her brows. ‘I’m just saying.’
‘Then don’t,’ he said, shooting her a look.
‘How is Robbie?’
He shifted his gaze, his left hand tightening to a fist inside his trouser pocket. ‘I’d rather not talk about my brother right now.’
‘You never want to talk about him, Jake,’ Gwen said. ‘You used to chat about him all the time. How well he was doing. How nice it was to have him drop by with his friends. What’s going on? Is he in some sort of trouble?’
Jake glared at her. ‘Leave it, Gwen, OK? I don’t want everyone talking about what a crap job I’ve done of watching out for my brother. He’s an adult. I can’t control him any more.’
‘No one could possibly criticise you for what you’ve done for your family, Jake,’ she said gently.
He let out a weary breath. ‘Sorry, Gwen,’ he said. ‘I know you mean well. It’s just that things are pretty tough right now. Robbie’s being so irresponsible. I don’t know how to handle him any more. It’s like I’m dealing with someone else entirely.’
‘Jim and I had a rough trot with one of our boys a few years back,’ Gwen said. ‘Matt gave us a couple of years of hell but he eventually grew out of it. Maybe Robbie’s just going through a similar thing.’
Jake looked at her. ‘When he first started acting up I thought he was sick or something,’ he said. ‘It was so out of character for him to be partying hard and neglecting his studies.’
‘Did he see a doctor?’
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I sent him to his GP for a battery of tests.’
‘All clear?’
‘Apparently,’ he said. ‘He didn’t show me the scans. He said the GP told him there was nothing wrong. It was a long shot in any case. I’ve met stacks of parents of wayward kids who’ve insisted there must be something clinically wrong. It’s the first thing you think of. No one wants to think their kid or brother or sister wilfully chooses to go and stuff up their life.’
‘It’s a stage a lot of young people seem to go through these days,’ Gwen said. ‘They like to kick up their heels before they settle down. Robbie’s a good lad. You’ve always done the right thing by him. Hopefully he’ll sort himself out before too much longer.’
‘Yeah,’ Jake said on another sigh. ‘That what I’m hoping.’
* * *
‘Aren’t you supposed to be at the drinks thing tonight?’ Cathy Oxley asked in A&E.
Kitty leafed through the blood results she had been waiting for. ‘Yes, but I got held up with a patient.’
‘All work and no play,’ Cathy said in a singsong voice.
Kitty’s gaze narrowed in concentration as she looked at the white cell count in front of her.
‘Is something wrong?’ Cathy asked.
Kitty lowered the sheaf of papers. ‘Lara Fletcher,’ she said. ‘The twenty-four-year-old in Bay Four with breathlessness and swollen ankles. She’s been back and forth to her GP for months with a host of vague symptoms. Not once has he or anyone else ordered a blood test. She’s been fobbed off by two other medical clinics. One of them even gave her antidepressants, telling her she was depressed.’
‘You found something?’ Cathy asked, looking over her shoulder.
‘Aplastic anaemia,’ Kitty said heavily. ‘How could that have been missed for all this time?’
‘Not everyone is as meticulous as you.’
‘All it took was a blood test.’
‘Tell that to Jake Chandler next time he bawls you out for over-testing the patients,’ Cathy said with a little wink.
‘I will,’ Kitty said.
*