Sue MacKay – The Gift of a Child (страница 3)
A tired smile lifted one corner of her mouth. Even now her mother would be hooked into the internet, reading the stocks and shares figures from the other side of the world, impervious to anything else. Another workaholic who hadn’t learned to stop or even just slow down and, as the saying had it, smell the roses.
She took a right turn to head back to the grotty, dank motel room. Back to another night tossing and turning as she argued and pleaded with Mitch inside her head, as she argued with herself. Back to check up on her darling little boy, her horrendously ill little boy, who’d been dealt a black card in the stakes of life.
A car zoomed past in the opposite direction, headlights on full, and temporarily blinded her. Her foot lifted off the accelerator as she twisted the steering wheel sideways. ‘Idiot,’ she yelled at the unseen driver whizzing past, narrowly missing her rental vehicle.
‘Delinquent. Look where you’re going.’ She vented some of her pent-up anger and fear. ‘You could’ve killed me.’
Then who would talk to Mitchell about Jamie? Maybe leaving this until tomorrow wasn’t such a great idea. Who knew what might happen in the intervening hours? She hadn’t tried to find him anywhere else but at home. Which was fairly silly. The Mitch she’d known would always be at the hospital. Which meant he’d be very busy. Saturday night in ED was never a picnic. She had to wait until the morning.
‘No.’ Her fist crunched down on her thigh. ‘No. I’m done with waiting. Done with planning the arguments for and against my case. Done, done, done.’ Her palm slapped the steering wheel. She had to see Mitch. Now. The time had come. No more avoidance. No more lying to herself, saying she’d done the right thing. Because being right or wrong wasn’t going to change a thing. It wasn’t going to alter the fact she should’ve told Mitch about Jamie a long time ago.
The hurt she’d known of waiting up for Dad to come home and read her a story, or to say she was his princess, had been behind her decision in not telling Mitch about Jamie. Yes, Mitch, love him or not, would act the same as her father had. He’d never be there for his child because there’d always be one more patient to help, one more urgent case to deal wtih before hanging up his white coat and heading home.
If Mitch kicked her butt hard and fast when she told him why she was here, and why she hadn’t come knocking three years ago, so be it. If he sent her packing, refusing to believe her—which was her expectation—she’d deal with that too. She’d argue till she was all out of breath. If he refused categorically to meet Jamie, to help him … then she’d tie him up and pour boiling oil over his beautiful body.
Doing a U-turn, she headed into the city centre and Auckland General, the hospital with New Zealand’s best renal specialists and the most modern equipment available for what ailed Jamie. The hospital where Mitch was head of the emergency department. Where he looked out for patients, including other people’s little boys and girls. Would he look out for her boy? Of course he would. He wasn’t an ogre.
Over the coming days she would ask him to consider doing something he’d never, ever have contemplated. Who would, unless faced with it?
She was also about to grovel before the man she’d once loved, the man she’d never shown a moment of weakness to in the months they’d lived together.
She was about to give away her soul.
It was far too easy to find a parking space outside the ED. But despite the pounding in her chest Jodi didn’t linger anymore. The time had come. Having once worked briefly in the ED, she knew the ropes and within moments she was inside the emergency department asking for Dr Maitland.
‘I think he took a break.’ A young nurse answered her enquiries. ‘Though he was talking about going to a party tonight so you might be out of luck.’
She’d been out of luck for years. Just not tonight, please. ‘Where’s the staff kitchen?’ she asked the next person. ‘I’m looking for Mitch Maitland.’
‘Mitch headed towards his office,’ a harried junior doctor told her as he raced past.
‘Which is where?’ Jodi asked the disappearing back of the doctor.
‘Down the corridor, turn right, left, left, and then try the third door on your right,’ another nurse told her.
Okey-dokey. Showtime. Jodi’s footsteps slowed as she took the last left. They stopped entirely outside the third door on the right. Her knuckles rapped on the door. No reply. Her hand shook as her fingers gripped the doorknob. Shoving the door wide, she stepped into hell.
‘Hello, Mitchell. Long time no see.’
The reply was a snore.
She felt like a balloon that’d just been pricked. ‘Oh, great. Wonderful to see you, too.’ All her over-tightened muscles cramped further. Her tongue licked her dry lips. And once again her legs threatened to drop her in a heap on the floor.
Another snore.
Jodi closed the door quietly, leaned back against it, desperate for support. Her breasts rose on a slow intake of air, and she studied the view. Definitely still hunky. Those hands she remembered so well were hidden behind his head as he sprawled in his chair with his feet crossed neatly at the ankles on his desk. But those muscular thighs under the fabric of his trousers cranked up some hot memories. Dragging her gaze upwards, she studied his face.
His head was tipped back slightly, the sparkling blue eyes invisible behind closed eyelids. But his long black eyelashes lay softly on his upper cheeks, twisting her heart. Oh so sexy stubble darkened his chin, his jaw.
The air whooshed out of her lungs.
How had she ever found the strength to leave him?
Worse, where was the strength to break his world into a million little pieces?
Think of Jamie. That was the only thing she could do. Anything else and she’d fall apart at the seams.
Clearing her throat she pitched her voice higher. ‘Mitch. Wake up.’
CHAPTER TWO
MITCH KNEW HE was hallucinating. Too many strong coffees. Had to be. Nothing else would explain why he thought he saw Jodi Hawke standing here in his office. He shut his eyes tight, concentrated on removing that unnerving image from his brain. Slowly raised his eyelids. There. Leaning against his door. Jodi Hawke. No, not leaning. More like melting into the door, becoming a part of it. As in an attempt to remain upright.
A Jodi lookalike, then. The Jodi he’d known had had more confidence than a one-hundred-metre sprinter. Through narrowed eyes, he studied this apparition. Worn jeans hung loosely off her hips. A shapeless, faded cotton jersey bagged from her breasts and over her tummy, while scuffed trainers on her feet completed the strange picture.
The Jodi he remembered had been a fashionista. She’d certainly never gone for the ragdoll effect. And she’d definitely never been quiet, let alone silent.
God, what had been in those coffees? Definitely something weird and potent. His eyes drooped shut as the need to continue sleeping washed over him. It had been a big day made huge after a multi-car pile-up on the motorway. He’d attended to five seriously injured people, not to mention the usual number of patients continuously filing through the department. No wonder he was exhausted and seeing things. Then a nag set up in his skull. Wasn’t he supposed to be going somewhere?
‘Mitchell,’ squeaked the lookalike.
Jodi never squeaked. Through sheer willpower he did not move, not even an eyelid. Until his mouth let him down, demanding, ‘Tell me this is a joke.’ A very sick joke. But there’d be no reply. He
‘Mitch, damn you. Look at me.’
He snapped forward so fast his neck clicked and his eyes opened into a wide stare. His feet hit the floor with a thump. ‘You’re real.’ He knew
‘What else would I be?’ Her eyes bored into him, unrelenting in their determination to get his attention.
She certainly had that in spades. What was she doing here? Should he be worried? Nah, couldn’t see any reason for that. But after three years she just waltzes in through his door and tells him what to do? No way, sunshine. ‘A bad dream.’
She winced, and a whole ton of emotions blinked out at him from those unnerving eyes. Anger, hurt, shock, caution. But the overriding one appeared to be fear. Jodi was afraid of him? That had him standing upright faster than a bullet train. Nothing was making any sense. They hadn’t seen or spoken to each other for so long there was nothing between them now; not good or bad. Yet now she looked as though she wanted to be anywhere but here with him. Odd since she had been the one to walk in unannounced.
Even in the deep quiet of night, when nothing stirred except his memory, he’d never believed Jodi would want him back.