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He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to. It hung there, in the silence between them.
She could stay with Sol...as she had been going to do before the explosion had happened.
Only it wasn’t twenty-odd hours ago and things had shifted since that reckless moment in the coffee shop. That moment had gone. They could pretend it was just exhaustion from the chaotic shift; she would be happy with that.
‘Thanks, but I don’t think it’s a good idea.’
They both knew what she meant by it. But her objection was drowned out by her friend who, Anouk was sure, cast Sol a grateful look.
‘That’s a great idea.’
What was going on here?
‘I’m sorry, I do have to go,’ Saskia muttered, squeezing her hand again.
‘I don’t understand, Sask?’
‘It’s complicated. I’ll explain everything when I can.’
Then Saskia hurried out of the room, leaving Anouk staring as the door closed behind her friend. The flashback to her teenage years was as sudden as it was unexpected. The moment she’d first realised that people were moving on whilst she was standing still. Too caught up in her mother’s dramas to have time for a life of her own.
Was it possible she’d been standing still ever since?
‘Do you know what that was about?’ she asked Sol before she could stop herself.
He shoved his hands into his pockets and leaned back against the wall. He looked ridiculously model-like. And dammit if a thrilling shiver didn’t dance down her spine.
‘Possibly.’
‘But you aren’t going to tell me?’
‘I don’t know anything for sure.’ He shrugged. ‘When they want us to know, they’ll tell us.’
‘There’s a they?’
She wasn’t surprised when he didn’t elaborate.
‘I don’t believe it’s my business,’ he said calmly. ‘Now, do you want a place to stay or not?’
He just waited calmly, as though offering her a place to stay when there was nowhere else was no big deal. Yet she wouldn’t take it, not because she was afraid of what might happen between them, but because she was afraid that she wanted it too much.
And if it did, what was the worst that could happen? They’d enjoy a night, maybe a few nights, of intimacy. Even the memory of that night at the gala was enough to have her... aching. Just as she’d been ever since.
And hadn’t she already considered that maybe it was a good thing she hadn’t ended up at his house twenty-four hours ago? That maybe it was fate?
Maybe that argument had worked when her mind had been preoccupied by her patients. Her job. Only now the ready-made excuse was gone, it seemed that she wasn’t as eager to head somewhere alone, after all. Not when Sol was standing, in all his six-three, honed glory in front of her.
Not when he’d acted as a dashing knight in blue scrubs on several occasions for her patients tonight.
‘What happened to Jocelyn?’ she demanded abruptly.
‘Two hours in surgery. We’ll keep her in an induced coma for the next few days and see what happens when she wakes up.’
‘And then you take it from there?’
He lifted a shoulder in acknowledgement.
Nothing was certain in this life. But if it had been a test as to whether he cared enough about his patients to know their names, he had passed. With flying colours.
