‘We want you to go home, pack a bag and take Trent straight up to the children’s hospital. I’ll ring ahead and let them know you’re coming,’ she said. ‘You’ll be seen by an oncologist and treatment will commence immediately.’
‘Chemotherapy?’ Jenny asked.
Madeline nodded. Poor little Trent, he was going to be put through hell in the next few months, trying to force his body into remission.
Jenny shook her head. ‘This is all happening too fast.’
‘Have you told Trent’s father?’ Marcus asked.
‘We’ve been separated since just after he was born,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t have anything to do with him.’
Marcus shut his eyes briefly. Oh, no. Poor Trent. He remembered how much it sucked not having a dad around and felt overwhelmingly protective of this sick little boy. Poor Jenny. She was going to have to shoulder a huge burden.
‘Do you have someone in Brisbane to support you?’ asked Madeline, stepping in for Marcus. She could feel his distress and knew that he wouldn’t be able to walk away from this fatherless boy either.
‘My mother,’ said Jenny absently. ‘She’s away for five days in the back of beyond, visiting my grandmother. I’ve tried a couple of times to ring but they’re not in and mobile coverage is pretty patchy out that way.’
‘Give me the numbers. I’ll keep trying for you,’ said Marcus. ‘Just get Trent to the hospital. That’s the most important thing. I’ll call in later.’
Jenny’s hand shook as she wrote on the pad Madeline provided. She stood, hugging Trent to her for dear life, and Madeline swallowed a lump. Jenny was like so many mothers she had seen in the past in the same situation. Shocked and worried but holding it all together so their child wouldn’t get upset. Madeline knew that the minute Jenny had a spare moment alone or her mother walked through the door, she was going to completely lose it.
When Jenny had left they both stared after her, lost in their own thoughts. Days like this were all part and parcel of their jobs but giving horrible news was never a pleasant task. There were many highs in this line of work but the lows really took the shine out of a day.
She moved closer to where Marcus was sitting on the edge of her desk and hugged him around the shoulders from behind. He laid his head back into her shoulder and Madeline kissed his forehead.
‘Want to go out and eat somewhere tonight?’ he turned to her and asked after a while.
She smiled at him. It would be the first time in six weeks they’d actually eaten first. She understood. ‘Sure, sounds good. South Bank?’
He nodded and gave her a slow, sad smile, pushing up off the desk. ‘I’ll see you after work.’
She nodded and watched him leave the room. The situation with Jenny and Trent had obviously left him as dispirited as it had her.
‘Did you get hold of Jenny’s mum?’ Madeline asked as they strolled to South Bank, holding hands.
‘Yes, not long ago. She’s flying back to Brisbane early tomorrow morning. I called in and saw Jenny, too.’
‘How’s she holding up?’
‘Barely,’ he said. ‘They’re hoping to start his first round of chemo in the morning.’
‘Poor kid,’ she murmured, and Marcus squeezed her hand. When she looked at him she knew he was feeling even more wretched.
They walked the rest of the way in silence and without any consultation they ended up at the pub where it had all started only a few weeks ago. They sat at the same table and he ordered them the same drinks and they whiled away the evening eating and talking, trying to keep their minds off Trent and his mother and what they were about to go through.
But when they ended up back at his apartment, it wasn’t the same as the first time. Their joining wasn’t the fast, furious, get-your-clothes-off exercise it had been last time. It wasn’t flirty or funny. It was one hundred per cent more intimate than any time before. Madeline felt as if her soul had been stripped bare and Marcus had given her a rare insight into his.
Her orgasm was more intense than it had ever been and afterwards he held her to him, not moving away. His weight grew heavy and eventually she stirred and he reluctantly shifted. But he pulled her in tight, her back against his chest, spoon fashion, and he dusted her shoulders and neck and back with feather-light kisses as she fell asleep.
Madeline woke a couple of hours later, Marcus’s arm still around her, his breathing deep and steady. She shifted his arm gently, needing to use the bathroom. He stirred a little then rolled on his stomach and drifted back to sleep.
She took care of business then stood in the en suite doorway for a few moments, just watching him. Ordinarily she would have gone back to bed and woken him for more sex but his face was free of the frown he’d been wearing all day and she decided to leave him alone.
Feeling restless, she pulled on her knickers and her shirt, fastening one button at the front, and wandered into the kitchen. She put the percolator on and fixed herself a cup of coffee and took it onto the deck, sitting in a chair and putting her feet up on the railing. It was a beautiful night. A three-quarter moon hung large in the sky and bathed the river below in its milky glow.
A soft breeze blew, lifting her heavy curls off her neck, and she shut her eyes, enjoying the kiss of the wind on her heated skin and the sounds of the river below and the background hum of the city all around her. Her thoughts drifted to Marcus’s love-making and her stomach flopped over, thinking about how he had made her cry out for mercy from the power of her orgasm.
Six weeks down the track she still couldn’t believe how he
