And that sharp jab behind her eyes as Katie slipped past her to walk next to the gurney and take her sister’s hand in her own wasn’t tears, Anouk told herself fiercely.
Just as she wasn’t softening in her opinion of the Smoking Gun. She couldn’t afford to soften, because that would surely render him more perilous than ever.
‘WHAT’S THE STORY, BRATIK?’
Lost in his own thoughts, a plastic cup of cold, less than stellar vending-machine coffee cupped in his hands, Sol took a moment to regroup from the out-of-the-blue question from his big brother.
Then another to act as though he didn’t know what Malachi was getting at.
‘The scan revealed no evidence of any bleed on the brain and Izzy hadn’t damaged her neck or broken her jaw in the fall, which we’d suspected, hence why she’s been transferred to Paediatric Intensive Care. Maxillofacial are on their way to deal with the teeth in Izzy’s mouth that are still loose. We have the two that came out in a plastic lunchbox someone gave to Izzy, but I think they’re baby teeth so that shouldn’t be too much of an issue. We won’t know for sure until some of the swelling goes down.’
They had left Izzy with her mother and sister for some privacy, but, without having to exchange a word, both brothers had chosen to remain on hand. The girls’ mother was going to need help, if nothing else.
‘I know all that,’ Malachi cut in gruffly, as though it pained him to ask. ‘The paediatric doctor told me. I was asking what the story was with you, numb-nuts.’
An image of Anouk popped, unbidden, into Sol’s head, but he shoved it aside.
‘Don’t know what you’re talking about.’
It was only a partial lie.
He knew what his brother was getting at, which was surprising since they didn’t do that feelings stuff, but he didn’t know the answer to the question himself.
‘You know exactly what I mean.’ Malachi snorted. ‘You forget I’ve practically raised you since we were kids. You can’t fool me.’
Sol opened his mouth to jibe back, as he normally would. But tonight, for some inexplicable reason, the retort wouldn’t come. He told himself it was the situation with Izzy. Or perhaps the fact that sitting on hard, plastic chairs, in a low-lit, deserted hospital corridor in the middle of the night, played with the mind.
He had a feeling it was more like the five-foot-seven blonde doctor who was resurrecting ghosts he’d thought long since buried. He had no idea what it was about her that so enthralled him, but she had been doing so ever since the first moment he’d met her.
It had been an evening in a nightclub where Saskia, already a doctor at Moorlands General, had brought Anouk along so that she could meet her new colleagues. The night before, he’d seen Anouk as a focussed, driven, dedicated doctor. And she’d been so uncomfortable that it had been clear that clubs definitely weren’t her thing.
He’d seen her from across the room. She’d looked up and met his gaze and something unfamiliar and inexplicable had punched through him. Like a fist right to his chest. Or his gut.
If it had been any other woman he would have gone over, bought her a drink, probably spent the night with her. Uncomplicated, mutually satisfying sex between adults. What could be better? But as much as his body might have greedily wanted the pretty blonde across the room, possibly more than he’d wanted any woman, something had sounded a warning bell in his head, holding him back.
And then someone had spiked her drink—they must have done because he’d seen her go from responsible to disorientated in the space of half a drink—and he’d found himself swooping in to play some kind of knight in shining armour, before any of her colleagues could see her.
Sol couldn’t have said how he knew that would have mattered to her more than almost anything else. There was no plausible explanation for the...connection he’d felt with her.
So he’d alerted the manager to the situation before pushing his way across the room, grabbing the dazed Anouk’s bag and coat and putting his arm around her before anyone else could see her, and leading her out of the nightclub.
Only one person had challenged him on the way out, a belligerent, narrow-eyed, spotty kid he hadn’t known, who he suspected had been the one to spike Anouk’s drink. It hadn’t taken more than a scowl from Sol to send the kid slinking back to the shadows.
He’d got Anouk home and made sure she was settled and safely asleep in bed before he’d left her. The way he knew Saskia would have been doing if she hadn’t snuck away by that point. Along with his brother. Sol had seen them leave. Together. So wrapped up in each other that they hadn’t even noticed anyone else.
He’d headed back to the club to advise them of the situation, before calling it a night; there had been a handful of women all more than willing to persuade him to stay. None of them had enticed him that night.
Or since. If he was being honest.
Not that Malachi knew that he knew any of it, of course, and he wasn’t about to mention it to his big brother. Not here, anyway. Not now. Not when it included Saskia. If the pair of them had wanted him to know they’d ever got together then they wouldn’t have pretended they didn’t know each other back when Malachi had brought Izzy’s mum up to the ward and Saskia had explained to her what was going on with the little girl.
He’d tackle Malachi about it some other time, when he could wind him up a little more about it. The way the two of them usually did.
Sol glowered into his coffee rather than meet Malachi’s characteristically sharp gaze.
‘I haven’t forgotten anything.’ He spoke quietly. ‘I remember everything you went through to raise us, Mal. I know you sold your soul to the devil just to get enough money to buy food for our bellies.’
For a moment, he could feel his brother’s eyes boring into him, but still Sol couldn’t bring himself to look up.
‘Bit melodramatic, aren’t you, bratik?’ Malachi gritted out. ‘Is this about Izzy?’
‘I guess.’
His second lie of the night to his brother.
‘Yeah. Well,’ Malachi bit out at length. ‘No need to get soppy about it.’
‘Right.’
Downing the last of the cold coffee and grimacing, Sol crushed the plastic cup and lobbed it into the bin across the hallway. The perfect drop shot. Malachi grunted his approval.
‘You ever wondered what might have happened if we’d had a different life?’ The question was out before he could stop himself. ‘Not had a drug addict for a mother, or had to take care of her and keep her away from her dealer every spare minute?’
‘No,’ Malachi shut him down instantly. ‘I don’t. I don’t ever think about it. It’s in our past. Done. Gone.’
‘What the hell kind of childhood was that for us?’ Sol continued regardless. ‘Our biggest concern should have been whether we wanted an Action Man or Starship Lego for Christmas, not keeping her junkie dealer away from her.’
‘Well, it wasn’t. I wouldn’t have asked if I’d known you were going to get maudlin on me.’
‘You were eight, Mal. I was five.’
‘I know how old we were,’ Malachi