‘You’ll work it out.’ Vanessa said. ‘I’ve got a lovely babysitter: Ruby. She’s studying childcare, she goes to my church and she’s always looking for work. And if she can deal with Liam she can more than handle Simon. She’s got really strict parents so she loves spending evenings and sometimes nights at my place.’ She gave Jasmine a nudge. ‘Though I do believe her boyfriend might pop over at times. Just to study, of course …’
They both laughed.
It was nice to laugh, nice to be back at work and making friends.
Nice to sit down for dinner on the sofa, with a for-once-exhausted Simon. ‘Come on,’ Jasmine coaxed, but he wasn’t interested in the chicken and potatoes she was feeding him and in the end Jasmine gave in and warmed up his favourite ready meal in the microwave. ‘I’m not buying any more,’ Jasmine warned as he happily tucked in, but Simon just grinned.
And it was nice to turn on the news and to actually feel like you had a little finger on the pulse of the world.
She listened to the solemn voice of the newsreader telling the viewers about a celebrity who was ‘resting’ at the Peninsula after being found unconscious. She got a glimpse of Jed walking by the stretcher as it was wheeled in, holding a sheet over the unfortunate patient’s face. Then Jasmine watched as Mr Dean spoke, saying the patient was being transferred to ICU and there would be no further comment from the hospital.
It wasn’t exactly riveting, so why did she rewind the feature?
Why did she freeze the screen?
Not in the hope of a glimpse at the celebrity.
And certainly not so she could listen again to Mr Dean.
It was Jed’s face she paused on and then changed her mind.
She was finished with anything remotely male, Jasmine reminded herself, and then turned as Simon, having finished his meal and bored with the news, started bobbing up and down in front of the television.
‘Except you, little man.’
JED DID CONCENTRATE on work.
Absolutely.
He did his best to ignore Jasmine, or at least to speak to her as little as possible at work, and he even just nodded to her when they occasionally crossed paths at the local shop, or he would simply run past her and Simon the odd evening they were on the beach.
He was a funny little lad. He loved to toddle on the beach and build sandcastles, but Jed noticed that despite her best efforts, Jasmine could not get him into the water.
Even if he tried not to notice, Jed saw a lot as he ran along the stretch of sand—Jasmine would hold the little boy on her hip and walk slowly into the water, but Simon would climb like a cat higher up her hip until Jasmine would give in to his sobs and take him back to the dry sand.
‘You get too tense.’ He gave in after a couple of weeks of seeing this ritual repeated. He could see what Jasmine was doing wrong and even if he ignored her at work, it seemed rude just to run past and not stop and talk now and then.
‘Sorry?’ She’d given up trying to take Simon into the water a few moments ago and now they were patting a sandcastle into shape. She looked up when Jed stood over her and Jasmine frowned at his comment, but in a curious way rather than a cross one.
He concentrated on her frown, not because she was resting back on her heels to look up at him, not because she was wearing shorts and a bikini top, he just focused on her frown. ‘When you try to get him to go into the water. I’ve seen you.’ He grinned. ‘You get tense even before you pick him up to take him in there.’
‘Thanks for the tip.’ Jasmine looked not at Jed but at Simon. ‘I really want him to love the water. I was hoping by the end of summer he’d at least be paddling, but he starts screaming as soon as I even get close.’
‘He’ll soon get used to it just as soon as you relax.’ And then realising he was sounding like an authority when he didn’t have kids of his own, he clarified things a little. ‘I used to be a lifeguard, so I’ve watched a lot of parents trying to get reluctant toddlers into the water.’
‘A lifeguard!’ Jasmine grinned. ‘You’re making me blush.’
She was funny. She wasn’t pushy or flirty, just funny.
‘That was a long time ago,’ Jed said.
‘A volunteer?’
‘Nope, professional. I was paid—it put me through medical school.’
‘So how should I be doing it?’
‘I’ll show you.’ He offered her his hand and pulled her up and they walked towards the water’s edge. ‘Just sit here.’
‘He won’t come.’
‘I bet he does if you ignore him.’
So they sat and chatted for ten minutes or so. Simon grew bored, playing with his sandcastle alone, while the grown-ups didn’t care that they were sitting in the water in shorts, getting wet with each shallow wave that came in.
Jed told her about his job, the one he’d had before medical school. ‘It was actually that which made me want to work in emergency medicine,’ Jed explained. ‘I know you shouldn’t enjoy a drowning …’
She smiled because she knew what he meant. There was a high that came from emergencies, just knowing that you knew what to do in a fraught situation.
Of course not all the time; sometimes it was just miserable all around, but she could see how the thrill of a successful resuscitation could soon plant the seeds for a career in Emergency.
‘So if I drown, will you rescue me?’
‘Sure,’ Jed said, and her blue eyes turned to his and they smiled for a very brief moment. Unthinking, absolutely not thinking, he said it. ‘Why? Is that a fantasy of yours?’
And he could have kicked himself, should have kicked himself, except she was just smiling and so too was he. Thankfully, starved of attention, Simon toddled towards them and squealed with delight at the feeling of water rushing past his feet.
‘Yay!’ Jasmine was delighted, taking his hands and pulling him in for a hug. ‘It worked.’
‘Glad to have helped.’ Jed stood, because now he was kicking himself, now he was starting to wonder what might have happened had Simon not chosen that moment to take to the water.
Actually, he wasn’t wondering.
Jed knew.
‘Better get on.’ He gave her a thin smile, ruffled Simon’s hair and off down the beach he went, leaving Jasmine sitting there.
Jed confused her.
Cold one minute and not warm but hot the next.
And, no, being rescued by a sexy lifeguard wasn’t one of her fantasies, but a sexy Jed?
Well …
She blew out a breath. There was something happening between them, something like she had never known before. Except all he did was confuse her—because the next time she saw him at work he went back to ignoring her.
As well as confusing, Jed was also wrong about her getting right back into the swing of things at work. The department was busy and even a couple weeks later she still felt like the new girl at times. Even worse, her mum was less than pleased when Lisa asked, at short notice, if Jasmine could do two weeks of nights. She had staff sick and had already moved Vanessa onto the roster to do nights. Jasmine understood the need for her to cover, but she wasn’t