Alison Roberts - Undressed by the Rebel

Max sighed. ‘If you thought the worst-case scenario was going to happen you’d never do anything in life.’ He wanted to change the subject. ‘Like that kid in there. Stephen. He wouldn’t have even started playing ice-hockey if he’d thought about getting tripped up and head-slammed into a wall.’

Rick gave a huff of laughter. ‘Your logic’s flawed. You’re supporting my side of the argument, here.’

Max ignored him. He looked at the technician who was still sending anxious glances towards the windows he and Rick stood behind. He pressed the microphone button. ‘Good to go in there?’

She nodded and started the scanner. The bed began to move slowly into the mouth of the huge machine.

‘We’ll be right here, Steve,’ Max heard her say reassuringly. ‘Keep as still as you possibly can.’

A nurse ushered Stephen’s frightened mother away. ‘He’ll be fine,’ she was saying. ‘It won’t take long and his doctor’s right here to watch him. He’s got an expert from Neurosurgery to check the results as well. Try not to worry.’

The scanner whirred and clicked as it set itself into the programmed position to begin the scan. Rick’s attention was on the patient file in front of him.

‘Knocked out cold for approximately thirty seconds,’ he read aloud. ‘Retrograde amnesia, headache, repetitive speech and nausea. Sounds like a good going concussion.’

‘Let’s hope that’s all it is,’ Max said quietly.

‘You’ve ruled out a C-spine injury?’

‘X-ray looked OK. I wanted something a bit more definitive. Same with the brain injury. Watch and wait didn’t feel right.’

‘Gut feeling, huh?’

‘Yeah.’

Just like his gut feeling that doing something extra was needed to protect Ellie and the baby. He knew it was crazy, dammit. He didn’t need Rick chewing his ear off about it and heaven help him when Jet found out. He’d had second thoughts himself but if he’d learned anything in all his years of dealing with emergencies it was to listen to that gut instinct.

Sometimes, it saved lives.

Images began appearing slowly. Black and white maps of the interior of Stephen’s body. So far, things were looking good. Maybe, this time, his gut feeling had been wrong.

‘C-spine looks fine,’ Rick pronounced.

‘Mmm.’ Just the brain to check now.

‘Isn’t Ellie due for discharge soon?’ Rick asked as they waited for new images to appear.

The technician was seated at the far end of this bench under the windows and Rick was talking quietly enough.

‘Yeah,’ Max confirmed. ‘Probably tomorrow.’

‘Where’s she going to go?’

The scanner was making enough noise to cover his response. ‘It would look a bit weird if she didn’t come home with me,’ Max muttered. ‘I’ve trumpeted the fact I’m involved, here. Anyway—’ he knew he sounded defensive now ‘—I’ve got a spare room. It’s no big deal.’

‘You’ll be living with her. She might find she likes it.’

Max said nothing. He thought about having company in his apartment. About coming home from work and finding Ellie and the mouse there. It wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility that he might quite like it himself. For a while, anyway. Wasn’t a change supposed to be as good as a holiday?

‘What if…?’ Rick leaned closer. ‘She decides she might like to be a real wife?’

‘Not going to happen.’

‘You mean you could live in the same house as an attractive woman and not take advantage of the situation?’

Max tried to shut down the mental picture of Ellie sitting on the bed that day, naked to the waist. He’d known the gut feeling he’d experienced then had been highly inappropriate. It was worse now. For God’s sake, Ellie had just had a baby. Maybe the last time she’d been with a man had been when she’d been raped. This was sick.

And yet it hit him with all the force of a kick from a small mule. Suddenly Max was angry. With himself. With the situation he found himself in. Most of all, with the bastard who’d done this to someone like Ellie in the first place.

‘Of course I can,’ he hissed at Rick. Couldn’t his friend see how far he was going in order to protect her? Suggesting he might try something that had the potential to hurt her was an insult.

‘Hmm.’ Rick was staring at the screens again. ‘Good luck with that, mate.’ His tone was distracted and Max focused on what his colleague was seeing. He knew the significance even before another one of Rick’s silent whistles. ‘Look at that. Your gut’s on the money again. Subdural bleed…right there, see?’

Max could indeed. ‘And another one there. Look. It’s a coup-contrecoup injury.’ The brain had bounced in the skull on impact and created an area of damage at both the front and back. ‘Guess I’ll be handing him over to your team, then.’

Rick nodded, still studying the images, any personal exchanges forgotten. ‘Could well be heading for surgery. Good call, Max.’

Yes. Sometimes listening to that gut instinct could save lives.

What was Ellie’s instinct telling her in regard to whether or not to take up his offer?

Would she say yes?

As crazy as it was, Max hoped she would. He just knew—for the same kind of inexplicable reasons that had made him insist on further investigations for his patient—that it was the right thing to do.

For everybody.

Had he been serious?

Marriage?

Ellie had no reason to think Max hadn’t been serious given that he’d already claimed paternity of her daughter and given her the pretence of being his wife for the last week.

But this was huge. This would mean going through at least some form of a wedding ceremony with him to make it legal.

And that was wrong. Just so wrong.

She would say no, of course. He might be hugely relieved but he might ask her why not and what could she say to that?

That the offer was too over the top? Amazing?

Perfect?

Except it wasn’t and that was the problem. He wasn’t talking about anything like a real marriage here. He was offering her the gift of his name so that she would be legally entitled to use it. It was an abuse of what marriage was and that cut too deeply to be acceptable to Ellie.

She’d grown up with a single mother and had dreamed of being part of a ‘real’ family for her entire life. It wasn’t that she’d had an unhappy childhood, it was just that she had seen what others had had and had known there was something missing. And then she’d been given a stepfather when she’d been ten years old. He’d been willing enough to take on someone else’s child but the truth that there was never any real connection there had become blindingly obvious when they’d had their own child a couple of years later. Despite her mother doing her best to ensure she was an integral part of the household, Ellie had always felt she was on the outside, looking in on a real family.

At some point in her teenage years, childish fantasies of her real father turning up in her life had been abandoned in favour of her making her own family one day. Finding a man she could love with all her heart who loved her just as much. Having their own children. A home that was a family home. Full of laughter and love and the occasional smell of baking. A dog and maybe some hens out the back so she could collect her own eggs for that baking.

OK, so she’d messed up on part of it and the man who was the father of her baby was totally wrong but that didn’t mean it had to be completely over, did it? She could make a home for her child. She could have the dog and even the hens, dammit. And one day she might find a man who would love her and her child. He would offer marriage and become a part of her family. Having to explain that she’d become pregnant by a man she didn’t love would be bad enough. Telling him that she’d married the first time in name only would be even more shameful.