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 painkillers 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?’ Okay, 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.’
