As he injected more antibiotics into Jamie’s Luer, Max dredged up a smile for Jodi. ‘How’s Mitch doing?’
‘He’s fine. He was wheeled in for a few minutes to say good-night to Jamie, but he was wiped out after his operation so he went to sleep. He says to say thanks, mate.’
Mate? Since when was he his brother’s mate? Maybe they were finally getting somewhere. Such a shame it had taken something so drastic to get them talking again. Max huffed out a breath.
Jodi managed a tired smile in return and he felt a strange pang of regret. Not of losing her—because she had been so wrong for him and so right for Mitch—but because he’d never seen anyone have that love-filled, misty-eyed look over him.
Must be getting soft.
‘You look bushed. Why don’t you have a lie-down?’ He dragged over a foldaway bed, grabbed some pillows and covers, and made her sit down. ‘Get some sleep. I’ll stay right here with him.’
‘But what about his temperature? Or if he cries?’ She was terrified and exhausted and what she needed was a rest, away from the eternal twilight of the hospital ward. A foldaway bed was the closest he could come to providing that.
Not for the first time he wished he could do something, anything, to prevent his estranged family from suffering through this.
‘Then I’ll wake you up. Trust me. We’ll be fine.’ Resisting an urge to drop a kiss on his cute cheek, he scruffed the boy’s hair instead. Keeping a lid on his emotions at work was his mojo—and he intended to keep it that way.
The boy murmured a little but finally went back to sleep, leaving Max in the cold silence with too many thoughts.
Too many worries about the fate of this little chap.
Too many guilty stabs about where he’d been and what he’d been doing instead of keeping watch over his family.
Too many memories of a pool of thick black curls, a sarcastic mouth.
And a very sexy smile.
CHAPTER THREE
‘HE’S HAD A LONG and difficult few hours, so don’t wake him.’ The night charge nurse finished her handover by parading the whole of the day staff in front of cubicle four.
Gabby’s chest did a funny little hitch at the sight of a sleeping Max. Slumped half on a chair and half on Jamie’s bed, he was completely and utterly comatose. And with stubble on his proud jaw he was completely and devastatingly gorgeous.
God. She glanced round at the rest of the crew. Could they all tell? Did she have ‘Guilty’ written all over her face? Did her smile scream I’ve just had fabulous sex with Mr I’m Sexy here?
She tried to make the smile more interested in the handover than the subject, as the unfamiliar ache of bedtime gymnastics thrummed through her body.
Bad, bad girl. Maybe her nonna had been right all along. She waited for the thunderbolt her grandmother had promised. The dark satanic music as she was dragged away to the bowels of hell.
Nothing happened. Gee—what a surprise.
If sex was so bad, why had it felt so good?
Her palm found its way to her throat. She tugged on the necklace she refused to take off. She knew exactly why.
Concentrate.
How would she ever concentrate with Max there?
‘Where’s Jamie’s mum?’ she whispered to the night nurse, dragging her eyes away from Max. God, he’d been amazing. She’d been amazing—and that threw her even more. She didn’t know she could be like that.
‘Mr Maitland sent Jodi home at five-thirty, once he’d got Jamie’s fever under control. Said she needed a good rest and a hot shower. He’s been here ever since. Wouldn’t leave him. Wouldn’t even let go of his hand.’
Gabby’s heart constricted as she noticed the tiny hand wrapped in Max’s fist. No. Harden up, Gabby. Don’t get involved. Don’t let a little boy tug at your heart. Or a grown man snag a piece of it.
Hurriedly closing the curtain and shushing the staff away, she took a moment to compose herself. Tried to think through the thud of her alcohol-induced headache and the wave of lust fizzing all the way down to her knees. She’d allocate Jamie to someone else. That way she wouldn’t have to spend any more time with Max or his family. No looking into too-blue eyes that made her feel weak. Then she’d avoid him, for the rest of her life.
The sluice was looking pretty attractive right now. The treatment room. Cleaner’s cupboard. Africa …
Coward.
Sure, sleeping with him had been epic. Fan-bloody-tas-tic. The best and most wild thing she’d done in a decade. Liberating. Affirming. Crazy. But now?
Not so much.
She didn’t regret it, though. It had been one amazing night that she’d always treasure. But focusing on him took her brain power away from the things that mattered—her new job, her future. Putting the cloistered past behind her. And that included Max and his far-side-of-minimal apartment. She refused to let everything go to hell again because of a man. Especially a man like Max Maitland.
She found one of the house officers loitering too near the biscuit tin at the nurses’ station. ‘Hey! Hands out. Are they clean?’
The HO snatched his hand away from the chocolate digestives and looked down at his fingers. ‘Er … yes.’
‘Makes a nice change.’ She refused to smile. She would start as she meant to go on. Her reputation as efficient and no-nonsense had preceded her. Give them a smile and before she knew it there’d be chaos … and no biscuits left. Every hospital ward was the same—the doctors always devoured the biscuits. ‘And you’re waiting here for.?’
‘Mr Maitland’s ward round. It started five minutes ago but he’s not arrived. That’s not like him. Should I call him?’
Cripes, and it was her job to accompany the ward round too.
So much for her well-constructed avoidance plan. ‘I’m sure he’s very busy and has just been held up. He’ll be along in a few minutes. Why don’t you chase up those blood results for Peter Brooks in the meantime?’
It was no sin to fall asleep when off duty but no doctor would want to be found sleeping on duty, even if he’d been up most of the night.
Scanning round for someone to go wake him up, she saw a very organised ward—her new staff all working under her strict instructions, getting patients up and washed, doing pre-op checks, dressing changes, no idle chit-chat. A hive of activity that left no one, no one else she could ask to stop their work and go and wake Mr Maitland.
That was the first time her efficiency had been back to bite her in the backside.
One steaming mug of coffee and a round of toast and jam later she dragged open the cubicle curtain. ‘Max? Mr Maitland?’
Placing the tray on the over-bed table, she bent to his ear. Resolutely did not breathe in that delicious smell that had driven her wild and that she’d been reluctant to shower off only hours ago.
Did not look at the stubbled cheek she’d dropped a kiss on as she’d left.
Did not allow herself any spare emotions other than that she was very busy and he was taking up her time. ‘Oi! Maitland, wake the hell up.’
‘Lovely to see you again, too.’ He lifted his head from the sheets, creases streaking down his cheek. The sweet curl of his lips made her heart hiccup in a peculiarly uncomfortable way. She’d kissed