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Funnily enough, her awake brain didn’t disagree, even if it was sceptical about the existence of fire-breathing dragons. They had a doctor here now. And replacement drugs. Someone who would give clear leadership and hopefully set the clinic back on the right path.
And if that someone was Jaye, then it looked as if they were both going to have to handle that as if he’d never kissed her, and she hadn’t liked it so much.
‘Right. That’s not the problem.’ She muttered the words, trying to get the disobedient haze of well-being to face facts. Kissing him wasn’t the issue. Wanting to do it again—dreaming about doing it again, no less—that was the problem.
‘Not going to happen.’ Megan rolled over in bed, burying her face in the pillow. She’d work up a little healthy disbelief in the idea that today was going to be a walk in the park before she got up. That way, she couldn’t be disappointed.
A tap sounded on the sliding doors of her bedroom. The small bungalows each had a sitting room at the front and a bedroom at the back, which gave out onto a veranda. Megan had never set foot on hers, since all her time in the past month had been spent working, and if anyone wanted her they knocked at the front.
‘Megan...?’ Jaye’s voice.
Get that smile off your face, Megan. It was bad enough that she didn’t mind that he’d decided to come round to the back and knock, instead of banging on the front door the way everyone else did. Liking it was beyond unacceptable.
‘What?’ At least she could sound unwelcoming, even if she didn’t feel that way.
‘You’re awake?’ From his cheerful tone, he clearly wasn’t put off by her lukewarm welcome.
‘No, I talk in my sleep. What do you want?’
‘Have you got the stocktaking chart we were using last night? I can’t find it anywhere.’
So he was up already and had gone across to the stockroom to start work. Megan looked at her watch, and realised that it was well past the time she’d said she would meet him there.
‘Sorry. I overslept. I have it here.’ Untangling herself from the sheet and drawing back the mosquito net, she grabbed the chart from the top drawer of the chest beside her bed. Megan wrapped herself up in her dressing gown and opened the sliding doors a crack, trying not to disturb the curtains as she did so.
When she posted the chart through the crack, she felt someone on the other side of the door take hold of it. Jaye was just inches away, and the everything’s all right feeling suddenly kicked in again, this time with a vengeance.
‘Don’t lose it. This is my only copy.’ Megan struggled with a smile, failing to keep it out of her voice.
‘I’ll guard it with my life.’
‘Don’t do that. Just don’t lose it.’
She heard Jaye’s quiet chuckle from behind the drapes and let go of the chart. It was about time she did something to dispel this early morning haze and got ready for the realities of the day.
Chapter Eight
THE REALITIES OF the day were almost as good as the pink, scented haze that Megan had woken up in. Someone to help with the lonely task of sorting through boxes and noting down the expiry dates on each batch of drugs. Jaye’s height and strength, the way he mucked in and lifted the heavier boxes, made the work a lot less physically demanding, and his quiet humour made it a lot more pleasant. When he left to make his rounds of the clinic in-patients, the feeling that she finally had some support persisted.
‘Dr Jayananda would like to see you on the ward.’ Jaye had sent one of the ward helpers to relay the message.
‘What does he need me for?’
The young girl shrugged. She hadn’t asked and Megan probably shouldn’t either. Jaye knew what she was doing and his decision was that her presence on the ward was more important. That was what a man in charge did.
He was in the small room where the young boy with dengue fever was being treated. Jaye was on one side of the bed, talking quietly to the boy’s mother in Sinhalese. Megan caught the gist of the conversation, a report on how the boy was doing, but from the mother’s face and Jaye’s body language there was clearly a good deal of reassurance going on that her Sinhalese wasn’t up to yet.
‘How is he?’ Megan had waited for Jaye to finish talking with the boy’s mother before she advanced into the room.
‘Better. He still has a fever, but the bleeding’s stopped now. He’s getting stronger.’ The boy moved restively in the bed, and Jaye soothed him, his fingers caressing his brow. Whatever bad dreams he was having seemed to fade at Jaye’s touch.
‘You wanted me?’ The circle of warmth that Jaye created so effortlessly wasn’t what she was there for.
‘You haven’t had an opportunity to see him yet. After all your efforts yesterday...’ He smiled. ‘Or are you one of those nurses who doesn’t much like finding out how her patients are doing?’
‘Are there any nurses like that?’ Jaye was just being a good boss. He wanted her there to give her the reward of seeing that little Ashan was better now.
‘I haven’t met any yet. Maybe you’re one of a kind?’ He moved away from the bed, letting Megan take his place at Ashan’s bedside.
