Читать книгу The Legendary Playboy Surgeon - Алисон Робертс - Страница 8

‘CONNOR! What are you doing here?’

Good question.

Connor wasn’t quite sure of the answer, mind you. He should be playing squash with Mike the anaesthetist. Having a beer after the game and chewing the fat with the lads. He should, at least, be having his dinner.

But here he was in the emergency department of St Pat’s. In a cubicle where Bella was lounging on the bed and Kate was sitting beside her, ramrod straight against the back of the chair.

No. This was Dr Graham sitting here. Connor sighed inwardly, knowing that this was largely why he had found himself drawn in this direction.

It was nearly an hour and a half since he’d left Bella sitting on the kitchen bench and he’d been out on the motorway, with the night air rushing past, while he’d tried to sort out the puzzle in his head.

The puzzle that Kate Graham represented.

The split personality.

Dr Graham. Prim and buttoned up at work. Closed off.

The house fitted with that image of her. Tasteful and perfect and so damned tidy. Like she was now, with her hair scraped back again and her glasses back in place and wearing a skirt and jacket that looked like the female equivalent of a business suit.

But he’d seen Kate and she’d been in frayed jeans and … and bare feet, for God’s sake. And she’d had cute toes. With red nails.

Connor loved red toenails. He couldn’t look at this woman now without remembering those toenails. He knew he wouldn’t be able to pass her in the corridor of St Pat’s from now on without remembering them, and it was messing with his head.

Two women in one body.

Connor was intrigued.

Not that he was attracted to her or anything. Hell, no. It was simply a conundrum.

A challenge.

He’d only come back to St Pat’s because it was too late to jack up a game of squash and, if he was going to eat a microwaved dinner by himself, he wanted the distraction of the new journal he’d left on his desk. So why had he veered into the emergency department on his way out?

‘I just wanted to hear the verdict on the foot,’ he said aloud. ‘If something’s broken, I’ll have a mountain of paperwork on the way. The theatre was booked under my name, you know.’

The foot was propped up on pillows, with an ice pack on the top of it.

‘Look at this.’ Bella leaned forward and lifted the ice pack.

The bruise was starting to look really impressive now. The colour was much darker and the internal bleeding was tracking down the side of the foot to pool in the hollow beneath the ankle bone.

‘Hmm …’ Connor said in his most professional voice.

Bella giggled.

Kate’s voice was clipped. Clearly this was nothing to joke about. ‘We’ve only just got back from X-Ray,’ she said. ‘We’re waiting for the radiologist’s report to come through.’

‘I could pull up the X-ray and have a look myself if you like.’ Connor was surprised they hadn’t been fast-tracked in the first place. Staff were always given preferential treatment and that was fine by him. It was one of the only perks of a job that required far more commitment than any other career.

‘Bella’s a patient here,’ Kate said. ‘And I’m a relative. The department’s busy.’

She wasn’t about to bend any rules herself and didn’t want them bent for her.

Fine.

Connor smiled. He hitched one hip onto the end of Bella’s bed. ‘No worries,’ he said. ‘I’ve got nothing better to do. I’ll wait, too.’

The discomfort on Kate’s face was worth waiting a bit longer for some food. Man, she was regretting not bending a rule or two now.

Her voice sounded tight when she spoke. ‘I might go and give Jackie a call. She’ll want an update.’

Connor raised an eyebrow when Kate pulled a mobile phone from the pocket of her jacket. She gave him the kind of look only women seemed to be capable of. The one that made you feel about two inches shorter or something.

‘I’ll go outside,’ she told Bella. ‘I wouldn’t want to interfere with any electronic equipment being used in here.’

Connor grinned at Bella as Kate swept past. ‘She does know that doctors have their phones on all the time in here as back-up for their pagers, doesn’t she?’

Bella’s eyes widened. ‘Do they?’

‘Of course they do.’ Connor suppressed a sigh. Maybe it was just him. Maybe every other person on the St Pat’s planet went around obeying every little rule and regulation. ‘How’s your foot feeling?’

‘Fine. I had some painkiller when I got here. It doesn’t even hurt to wiggle my toes now, see?’

Toes wiggled. Bella had a French polish thing going on. Classy. The sort of look he would have expected Kate to go for. If he’d ever bothered to spare a thought for her toenails.

Which he hadn’t. Of course.

‘Who’s Jackie?’ he asked abruptly.

‘My mum. Kind of Kate’s mum, too.’

‘Oh?’ Connor was bemused. Surely her niece’s mother would be more in the category of a sister? ‘How’s that?’

‘Kate came to live with us when she was fifteen. My dad’s her older brother. I was six so it was like getting a big sister for a surprise present. A huge surprise, cos I didn’t even know I had an aunt.’

‘How come?’

Bella lowered her voice. ‘Dad didn’t have anything to do with his family. He left home when he was seventeen.’

‘How old would Kate have been then?’

‘About five? He’s never talked about it. He doesn’t talk about his family at all, really. Neither does Kate. It’s like they’re orphans or they’ve got a secret pact or something. Anyway, it was kind of cool to have a teenage aunt. Especially as I’ve got four younger brothers and sisters and if Kate hadn’t come to live with us I would have been the oldest and had to help look after them all and that would have been a bit of a fun-buster, wouldn’t it?’

Connor knew he shouldn’t be encouraging this kind of personal gossip about a colleague but it was irresistible. There was clearly a mystery here. One that might explain why Kate was the way she was. Why had she gone to live with her older brother and his young family at an age when most girls needed their mothers? Why had her brother turned his back on his family when he hadn’t been much older himself? What kind of parents had these young people had?

Connor wasn’t going to try and analyse why he was so fascinated. He’d probably do that later, when he wasn’t in the company of the irrepressible—and very open—Bella.

‘So you’ve never met your grandparents?’ he found himself asking quietly.

Bella shook her head. She bit her bottom lip as she sucked in a quick breath. ‘Grandma died not that long after Kate came to live with us. She and Dad went off to her funeral and that was that. Except …’

‘Except what?’ OK, Connor was dead curious now. Riveted, even.

‘I shouldn’t say … Kate doesn’t even know I know.’

Connor leaned closer. ‘I won’t breathe a word,’ he promised.

Bella was still hesitating. She looked over his shoulder as though fearful of Kate’s return. Then she looked back at Connor, biting her lip. She wanted to tell him.

And, damn, he wanted to hear.

‘You can trust me,’ he murmured. ‘So can Kate.’

‘I found a letter,’ Bella whispered. ‘About a parole hearing.’

Connor’s jaw dropped. ‘Who was in prison?’

‘I think he still is,’ Bella said.

‘Who?’

‘My grandfather.’

‘What’s he in prison for?’

‘I have no idea.’ Bella shook her head. ‘But I think he went in there the same year that Grandma died and that’s … God, about seventeen years ago so it must have been something really bad—’

‘What’s really bad?’

They both jumped as Kate walked in.

‘My foot,’ Bella said promptly. ‘If it’s broken it would be a really bad way to be starting a new job.’

Connor had to admire the way Bella had extricated herself from a tricky moment but something in Kate’s face made him think that she knew there had been more to the conversation. The glance she flicked at Connor was wary. She would not be at all happy if she knew the kind of private details Bella had been sharing about her aunt, that was for sure. He shouldn’t have encouraged it. He shouldn’t even be here, come to that.

‘I’ve just spoken to the consultant,’ Kate said. ‘He’s had a good look at the X-ray and talked to the radiologist. Nothing’s broken. He’s going to come and talk to you before we go but they’re going to put a compression bandage on and give you a sick note for work for a couple of days. You’ll need to keep it elevated and rested. You might get a set of crutches if it’s too painful to put weight on.’