The Temptation Test Page 9

  ‘He gave me the gun, an old air-rifle, and the knife was a small fruit-paring knife, hardly a deadly weapon.’

  ‘It was still a quixotic decision!’ Jena snapped. ‘What are you? One of those angels who’s only halfway to heaven, doing good deeds to wipe the slate clean of the bad you did before you died?’ She glanced his way before adding, ‘Must have been really bad!’

  He shrugged uncomfortably, mainly because he didn’t fully understand this new rash and impulsive person he’d become.

  Quixotic was a kinder description than insane, which was what Lucy had called him when he’d made his first momentous decision towards lifestyle changes. And to be thought a halfway angel was infinitely better than to be considered a total fruitcake.

  But Lucy wasn’t the issue here. Greg and Rose were.

  ‘Would you have sent them back to the camping ground after what happened? Imagine how embarrassed they’d feel. They’d pack up and go home for sure. And don’t you think maybe they need a bit of a break before they have to face the realities that lie ahead of them?’

  Noah followed her down the steps as he spoke, but knew from the set of her shoulders that, while she might agree, she still wasn’t happy.

  ‘You could have stayed with them,’ she repeated, although the words lacked conviction this time. ‘Why’s a doctor living so far from work anyway?’

  ‘You should be glad I am, or you’d be walking into town now!’

  He snapped the words at her because getting into the car with her, smelling the faint fragrance which might simply be the soap she used, had made him realise just how stupid this idea really was.

  It was going to put him into even closer contact with Jena Carpenter than the job would entail, and if sitting in a car with her brought his hormones into play, what would living with her do to them?

  She’s Matt’s, he reminded himself, but somehow it didn’t help. After all, Matt had stolen Bridget Somerton!

  Funny! He could remember how he’d felt, remember vowing revenge, but couldn’t remember the girl’s face—or anything more about her, other than her name.

  Couldn’t even remember seeing Matt going about with her.

  He’d probably been aggravated because Matt had always aggravated him—right from when they’d first met as youngsters and his mother had begun to hold Matt up as an example to him. ‘Matt doesn’t come home from fishing with his shorts all torn. Matt helps his mother with the dishes. Matt doesn’t answer back.’

  Matt the perfect!

  The comments had seemed endless and had fuelled a natural antagonism between the two of them, so they’d alternately fought or avoided each other through six weeks of summer holidays every year of their childhood and adolescence.

  ‘Well?’ Jena demanded, as they drove towards the village. ‘Why are you living out there? I’d like to know.’

  ‘I lent my house in town to friends,’ he said, actually pleased to have a way to introduce his ‘friends’ into the conversation. Talking about Carla and co. would keep his mind off the scent of soap.

  But a hoot of laughter from his passenger made him forget this aim, and he turned towards her.

  ‘What’s so damned funny about that?’ He growled his irritation at her reaction.

  ‘How many houses do you have?’ she managed to ask, although laughter still hovered on her lips. ‘How many more have you given away?’

  She peered at him suspiciously, but the smile hovered on her lips and the tiny dimple flirted in her cheek. ‘You’re sure you’re not an angel?’

  Noah ignored the angel thing.

  ‘I haven’t given any away!’ The words were just out when he realised they weren’t entirely true. He had, in fact, given an old city house to the drug rehabilitation organisation. But it had only been a small house, an investment he’d bought while still a student and paid off by renting space to other students.

  It had been in terrible condition—

  ‘There is another one—isn’t there?’ his irritating passenger crowed. ‘I can see from the look on your face.’

  ‘That was different,’ he protested. ‘It didn’t count and the house in Kareela and the lake house are both only lent on a temporary basis. My friends in town will be shifting into their own house as soon as some repairs are done. I came out here because I didn’t want them to feel I was breathing down their necks—they’re young, you see. And Greg and Rose are simply finishing their holidays at the lake.’

  To his surprise, Jena seemed to accept this explanation, for her chuckling stopped.

  He glanced towards her and caught a puzzled expression on her face and blue eyes scanning his face as if trying to read the answer to some mystery in it.

  ‘What now?’ he demanded, when the scrutiny began to unnerve him.

  Her frown deepened and when she spoke it was slowly, as if she needed to test every word before it came out.

  ‘You don’t seem to be enjoying it. Getting any pleasure from this philanthropy. You’re kind and generous and far more impulsive than anyone first meeting you would believe, but it doesn’t seem to be fun.’

  ‘Fun?’ Noah echoed the word as if it was foreign to him and frowned right back at her. ‘Why should it be fun?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘Perhaps not fun, but fulfilling in some way—pleasurable.’

  ‘I think there’s more to life than fun and pleasure,’ he growled, then he turned his attention back to the road. ‘Though perhaps in the make-believe world of television, that’s a hard concept to master.’

  The silence eventually made him glance her way again, but she was staring out of the window, although by now they were on the highway and the view was uninspiring.

  ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ he heard her say. The words were little louder than a sigh.

  She sounded so unlike the teasing passenger he’d had earlier that he wondered if he’d been too harsh, but it was too late to try to make amends. He had to slow as they came into Kareela, and keep more of his attention on the road and the schoolchildren riding bikes and scooters along the verge.

  Jena was thinking of the words ‘make-believe’ and the condemnation Noah had fired at her yesterday—about Matt’s challenges being entertainment, not reality. Yesterday she hadn’t wanted to think about it because yesterday being the first female to undertake one of Matt’s challenges had been terribly important to her. She knew most of the impetus behind this desire arose from not getting the job she’d really wanted, but life had been empty lately and lacking spark and she needed the new personal ‘challenge’ to prove something to herself.

  So she didn’t particularly want to consider the ‘make-believe’ aspect of television today either, because if she did she might have to rethink the new career path she’d chosen. Which would make the entire exercise of staying out at Matt’s place pointless.

  Although, with Noah there, it was pretty pointless anyway.

  Except Matt didn’t—and hopefully wouldn’t—know.

  But wouldn’t that be cheating?

  Not when living with a schizophrenic, funless almost-angel might prove more of a challenge than any animal or insect infestation at the shack…

  She sighed again just as Noah turned off the engine, so the sound hung in the air.

  ‘Problems, Blondie?’ Noah murmured, and the sympathy in his voice atoned for his use of the dreadful nickname.

  ‘Just confused,’ she confessed. ‘So damn confused!’ She spoke the truth, then added more truth. ‘And it’s all your fault!’

  ‘My fault? What the hell have I done? Anyway, where confusion’s concerned, you can join the club.’ All sympathy was gone. He delivered the words then got out of the car and walked away, his long strides and erect carriage suggesting he was as anxious to escape from her presence as she was to be rid of him.

  Because he’d made her reconsider the goals she’d so recently set for herself?

  She thought about this, searching for an honest answer.

  Not rea
lly, she decided, then refused to consider any alternatives. There were days when one could have too much honesty.

  She’d begin the day again—first with a visit to Kate who would surely be released from hospital this morning.

  Though later she’d have to see Noah again, and get acquainted with his schedule.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  KATE was sitting on a chair by Mrs Nevins’s bed, her hands full of the bright knitting Jena had seen but not examined.

  ‘Look at it, Jena! It’s more art than knitting—look at the colours and swirls of pattern.’

  Kate, restricted by the lack of movement in her injured shoulder, pushed the bundle at Jena and instructed her to hold it up.

  ‘It’s just as beautiful on the back—or is there no back and front?’ another voice remarked, and Jena turned to find a very thin young girl standing right behind her.

  ‘I’m Carla,’ the newcomer continued. ‘I met Kate last night and we’ve been talking. She said she’d introduce us and I didn’t want her to forget.’

  Jena took the hand Carla offered, feeling bones as fragile as a bird’s just beneath the skin.

  ‘She’s one of the kids living in Noah’s house,’ Mrs Nevins added, ‘and there’s a couple more girls there. She thought you might like to teach them modelling.’

  The elderly woman looked Jena up and down, as if sizing up her aptitude for modelling—or the teaching of it—while Carla and Kate both looked embarrassed.

  ‘I was going to tell you—’ Kate began, while Carla also hastened into words.

  ‘It’s not modelling, but I was going to ask—’

  Jena patted her shoulder.

  ‘We’ll talk about it later. First I’d better see the crew, shoot any trouble, as trouble-shooting’s in my job description, then I’ll come back. You’ll be here?’ she added to Carla.

  ‘I’m getting out as soon as I’ve seen Noah, but he’ll tell you where I live—well, where I’m staying for the moment. Or I could wait…’

  ‘I’ll be upstairs shortly,’ Kate told her. ‘I’ve stayed the night, which is all the doctor wanted. I’ll be careful of my shoulder, but I want to work.’

  So you can stay in Kareela with John, Jena guessed, but she said nothing, understanding how poor Kate must feel.

  As she walked away, she wondered about the advisability of keeping the injured woman on location—about workplace health and safety, not to mention compensation ramifications. She knew if Matt was there, Kate would be on her way home the moment she was released.

  But Matt wasn’t there.

  Or likely to be. It wouldn’t occur to him to check up on her out at the shack—he trusted her.

  Wasn’t she betraying that trust by letting Noah stay?

  ‘Of course, but only briefly!’ She said the words aloud, to reassure herself, but her conscience wasn’t entirely eased.

  Noah was also thinking about Matt Ryan. Gossip had it that Matt was the perennial bachelor—a man determined to live life to the full, but on his own terms, unhindered by the demands of a wife or family. He might be seen with beautiful women everywhere he went, but marriage? As far as Noah knew, it was so far down Matt’s list it was off the planet.

  Yet Jena must think he was serious about her, or having Noah sharing the house wouldn’t have sent her into such a tizz.

  He signed the pile of letters Peta had left on his desk, checked his diary and groaned. Meeting day! Though he had time to go around the wards first. Carla would be waiting to go home.

  Home?

  Would she, or any of them, ever think of Kareela as home?

  He amended the thought to ‘Carla will be waiting to be discharged’ and walked out of his office, crossing the foyer in time to see long slim legs, fast becoming familiar, disappearing up the stairs.

  He was mad to even consider living at Matt’s place.

  But if he shifted back to town, knowing she was alone out there…Or the McDonalds might need help…

  ‘Happy meeting day!’ Rhoda teased him, when he entered the women’s ward first. As the senior nursing sister she was the official DON, Director of Nursing, although in a small hospital where financial considerations meant she had to do the same hands-on nursing hours as the rest of the staff, it simply meant more paperwork.

  And the added irritation of meeting days.

  He flicked through a pile of notes on the desk and was about to begin when Jena appeared.

  ‘I’m following you around for a few days, remember?’ she said, and although she spoke lightly, he fancied he heard strain in her voice, though why he should be giving her problems, he couldn’t fathom.

  ‘Mrs Burns isn’t responding to the antibiotics the pathology lab suggested.’ Rhoda had smiled at Jena then got down to business, handing Noah a file and pointing to the relevant entry.

  ‘Is the infection still only in her throat? No sign of it in her knee?’

  ‘Yes and no, but she’s feeling so ill she doesn’t want to continue the exercise she should be doing. It’s knocking her about, Noah.’

  ‘And could still go to her knee,’ Noah muttered as he read the pathology report on the latest throat swab he’d taken from Mrs Burns. ‘Let’s see her first.’

  He left the ward, heading for the private rooms. Not wanting to spread contamination through the hospital, he’d isolated this patient and ordered extra precautions be put in place to prevent the spread of bacteria.

  But as he moved, although his mind was fixed firmly on work, his back tingled with an awareness of Jena’s presence.

  Something he’d have to get over if he was to survive the next few weeks!

  ‘Why aren’t the antibiotics working?’ Mrs Burns asked, as Noah entered, giving him no time to introduce the visitor. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jena prop herself against the wall, keeping tactfully out of the way as Rhoda joined him by the bed.

  ‘Because the strain of staph infection you picked up is a persistent little beastie and we might have to try three or four antibiotics or a combination of more than one to knock him out.’

  ‘Soon?’ his patient said hopefully.

  ‘Soon!’ he promised, but he wasn’t nearly as sure as he sounded.

  He examined Mrs Burns, checking her heart particularly as endocarditis, a condition affecting the lining and valves of the heart, was one of the complications of staph infections. Then he checked her lungs, as she’d originally been hospitalised this time for pneumonia—the throat infection having been a later discovery.

  ‘Well, apart from your throat, you seem to be doing well,’ he told her when he’d finished.

  ‘Apart from my throat, I’d be able to eat,’ she retorted. ‘You’ve no idea what it’s like—this awful taste, and the smell in my nostrils.’

  Noah offered genuine sympathy. He’d seen enough infected wounds for the smell to be all too familiar.

  ‘Well, we’ve tried the vancomycin and it didn’t work, so we’ll move on to rifampicin and possibly gentamicin. The problem is that your staphylococcal infection is different to the more common hospital staph, so it’s a matter of trying all the things which have worked before on other people, knowing we’ll eventually find a combination to knock it on the head.’

  ‘Being in hospital, we can keep you on fluids and special drinks with enough nutritional content to keep your body healthy, so not eating shouldn’t be a problem,’ Rhoda added. ‘Although you should keep trying to eat what you can.’

  ‘And you have to exercise,’ Noah reminded their patient. ‘The physio will be here tomorrow and she’ll tear strips off us if she thinks we’ve been letting you lie around all day.’

  Mrs Burns frowned at him, but promised to try to do more.

  ‘I’ll send one of aides in to walk with you as soon as they finish on the wards,’ Rhoda promised.

  As they walked away, Jena falling in quietly behind them, Rhoda turned to Noah.

  ‘Will we beat it?’ she asked. ‘Or have some of these strains become so resistant t
o antibiotics there’s nothing strong enough to combat them?’

  He grinned at her.

  ‘Defeatist! Of course we’ll beat it. We’ll start on the new drugs today and if they don’t work we’ll take another swab and ask for more suggestions. The bacteria the lab has isolated is more common on the site of central IV catheters or as a skin infection. In those cases the infected tissue can often be cut out—’

  ‘But you can hardly cut out her throat!’ Jena murmured, although he hadn’t needed the reminder of her presence. ‘How do you think it occurred?’

  ‘Most likely from the tube inserted during the operation. It invariably causes irritation to the lining of the throat and provides an ideal place for the bacteria to thrive.’

  ‘And the eating thing?’ Rhoda asked. ‘I’ve been giving her special protein-laden drinks and she seems able to tolerate them, but should we be watching her weight to make sure she’s not becoming anorexic?’

  ‘Good idea,’ Noah agreed, pausing in the hall as he mentally listed alternatives for Mrs Burns.

  They reached the men’s ward and Rhoda walked him around the public patients. Once again, he was aware of Jena in their little group—even acutely aware of her—but that was his fault, not hers. Apart from one remark and a question, she’d been as unobtrusive as five-ten of beautiful shapely blonde could possibly be!

  Colin Craig first. He was recovering from a car accident which had resulted in multiple injuries to his legs and ankles.

  ‘So, how’s the bionic man?’ Noah asked him.

  Colin was sitting up in bed, both legs in plaster—the left from below the knee, the right from above it.

  ‘Cranky!’ Colin told him, though failing to make eye contact as he watched Jena over Noah’s shoulder. ‘I thought the specialist said I could walk after a fortnight.’

  ‘That’s if everything looked good on the X-ray,’ Noah reminded him. ‘The screws and pins holding most of your shattered bones together allow new bone growth, and it’s this, not the pins and screws, that will eventually mend everything. If you put weight on your ankles and legs too soon, this new bone is put under stress and anything under stress can break.’