up and lighting his eyes. ‘Great. I can see I’ll fit right in. A woman who demands a lot from her men…’
She blushed bright pink at that. Good grief! Get the conversation back to medicine, she told herself. That way was safest.
‘I…I thought you’d be spending the night with Anna.’
That put a damper on the conversation. Jonas’s face looked shuttered. ‘Maybe I should be,’ he told her. ‘But I’m not wanted.’
‘Is she OK?’
‘Yes.’ He bit into his steak and concentrated on his food, but Em knew it was just a ruse to get his thoughts into order. ‘She is,’ he said finally. ‘She’s under control. She’s home with her kids, packing and being as normal as possible, while she waits to go into hospital tomorrow.’
‘Are you happy to use Patrick?’ Em asked.
‘He’s an excellent surgeon,’ Jonas told her, still absently concentrating on his steak. ‘When I met him I realised I know him a bit. He’s older than me, but we trained in the same hospital. Yeah, I’m happy for Patrick to operate and, what’s more important, so is Anna.’
‘And he was reassuring?’
‘The margins all look clear. The lump itself is less than a centimetre across. He wants to do a lumpectomy and node clearance, but he’s pretty confident that nothing’s spread.’
‘And how does that make you feel?’ Em asked.
‘Better.’ He lifted a potato, examined it-then laid it down on his plate again. ‘No,’ he told her honestly. ‘It doesn’t. It makes me feel lousy-I feel so damned out of control.’
There was a long silence, broken only by Bernard’s inevitable snoring. They finished eating before either spoke again. Em knew that Jonas needed time to come to terms with today’s events. The last thing he needed was idle chatter.
So she finished eating, then cleared and stacked the dishwasher while he sat and stared at the table. And stared some more. But she found she didn’t mind the silence. She and Grandpa had never needed to make small talk, and somehow, with Jonas, it felt the same.
Like all the little stuff had already been said…
‘Thank you for making dinner,’ she said at last, the kitchen cleared and the evening closing in on them. She was bone weary, and he still needed space. She touched his shoulder lightly as she passed. ‘Bernard and I are going to bed. Is there anything else you need?’
He looked blindly up at her. ‘No.’
‘It’ll be fine,’ she told him. And then she looked across at the phone. ‘Ring Anna.’
‘What?’ He glanced at his watch. ‘It’s after ten o’clock.’
‘You think she’ll be sleeping?’
‘No, but-’
‘Ring her, Jonas,’ she said softly. ‘I haven’t had so much wine that I can’t cope here. If she wants you to go, then you go.’
‘I told you-I’m on call.’
‘If Anna needs you, consider it a call. But ring her.’
He looked at her strangely, his eyes blankly inscrutable. ‘I guess you’re right,’ he said at last.
‘I think I am.’
He caught her hand and held it, for a whole fraction of a second. It was a short enough time, but it was enough. Em froze at his touch, and could only draw back in relief when he let her go. If he knew what he did to her…
But for Jonas, the sexual tension simply didn’t seem to be there. All his thoughts were on his sister. ‘Thank you,’ he told her, and gave her a weary smile. ‘You’re right, of course.’
‘I have to be,’ Em said, and if her voice dragged a little at the thought, who could blame her? ‘I don’t have much choice.’
Because, choice or not, the invincible Dr Mainwaring wasn’t feeling very invincible at all!
She picked up Bernard, hitched him over her shoulder in a fireman’s hold as she’d done every night for ten years, and took her pyjama-bag to bed.
CHAPTER FIVE
EM HEARD him telephone.
She lay in bed and listened to his muted tones, and then she heard the receiver being softly replaced. She half expected him to take his car and leave, but he didn’t. Anna must have rejected his offer to come and spend some time with her.
Instead, Em listened to the sounds of him going to bed, in the room right beside hers.
The sensation was so strange it seemed surreal. Jonas Lunn, sleeping in her house!
She’d have to get used to it, she told herself. She might have three months of it.
Whew!
And then came the thought, slipping in when least expected.
Maybe she
The thought was like lightning, forking at her out of the darkness. It had been Lori’s suggestion.
Lighten up and have an affair? She let the thought drift through her tired mind. Let her sexless, overworked life become, for these short few months, just a little more exciting?
Could she do it?
She wasn’t an affair sort of girl.
And Jonas wasn’t an affair kind of guy, she told herself crossly into the dark. Especially with the likes of her. Anyone could see he could have just about any woman he wanted.
And as for her… She was plain and unadorned, she thought crossly, and that was the way she liked it. She was built for service rather than decoration.
She was destined to sleep with snoring dogs rather than attractive men.
But today he’d kissed her.
As anyone would have, she told herself even more crossly. He’d been under incredible strain while Anna had had her tests, and he was grateful. So he’d kissed her.
End of story. There was therefore no earthly reason why she should be lying here in the dark, touching her lips and remembering what the feel of Jonas’s mouth was like against hers…
Boy, she needed a cold shower. And the man was here for three months!
So get a hold on yourself, she told herself furiously. You’re behaving like an idiot. Leave the man alone. Use him professionally but nothing more. Now, shut up, stop thinking crazy thoughts and go to sleep.
Her mind didn’t obey orders.
It didn’t stop thinking crazy thoughts-and it didn’t go to sleep.
It couldn’t.
In the next bedroom, Jonas was working overtime in the thinking department as well.
First there was Anna.
Tomorrow she faced the surgeon, and his gut wrenched at the thought of it. Hell, she still felt like a kid to him-his baby sister-and all the reassurance in the world couldn’t stop him wanting this to be happening to be anyone else-even to him. He’d want anyone to be facing this rather than Anna.
She wasn’t a kid, though, he told himself. Her voice on the telephone tonight had been calm and sure.
‘It’s OK, Jonas. I’ve told the children what’s happening. I’ve packed a suitcase for each of them and one for me. No, I don’t want you to come back tonight. There’s nothing more you can do, so leave me be.’
Leave her be…
He couldn’t. He felt sick, doing such a thing, and it felt like his mother’s rejection all over again. His mother had walked out on them, and now Anna was pushing him away as hard as she could as well.
