Tamed By The Renegade

‘You’ve quit?’

Jake laughed. ‘In case you haven’t noticed, I’m about to become a husband and a father. I think my nights spent working in a strip club have been numbered for a while. It’s time to move on to the more responsible stage of my life. I start my internship in three weeks. Quitting The Coop now was supposed to give us time for a honeymoon. So I am at your service. Anything you need, just ask.’

Ruby appreciated the offer. She had come to think of Jake as the brother she wished she had.

Jake was a good man. It was lucky for Scarlett that when Ruby had met Jake it had been clear he’d only had eyes for Scarlett, otherwise who knew what would have happened? Only Ruby did know, Jake was cute and smart but far too conventional for her. She smiled to herself, not quite believing she would ever describe someone who worked as stripper in a male revue club called The Coop as conventional! In fact, his gig as a stripper was far more in keeping with the type of man she usually looked for. Her men were always a little bit edgy. She needed the excitement. But despite his old job Jake was basically a good person. He wouldn’t be able to handle someone like her.

Scarlett was perfect for him. As he was for her. Jake was cute and smart. Scarlett was clever and sensible and they made a good match. Plus it was obvious that he adored her and, most importantly, he allowed Scarlett to be herself instead of the person Scarlett thought she should be or the one she thought people wanted her to be. That had always been Scarlett’s undoing. She always wanted to please everybody.

The same thing could definitely not be said about her.

Jake pulled to a stop in front of Scarlett’s renovated cottage. Ruby grabbed her duffel bag from the boot of his dark green MG and followed him through the gate in the high brick wall and into the tiny front garden. She was travelling light, and hadn’t had time to do more than throw a change of clothes into her bag before racing to the airport. She had known that the phone call in the early hours of the morning would only be bad news. A phone call in the blackest part of the night was only ever bad news.

Now that she was here, she had no recollection of what she’d actually packed. She hoped she had at least one change of clothes, although if she’d forgotten anything she’d borrow it from Scarlett. She had none of Scarlett’s curves but, being summer, she’d get away with wearing her sister’s clothes. It didn’t matter if they were loose on her and in desperate times she knew Scarlett had several tops that could be worn as dresses.

Jake slid his key into the lock on the front door. A Christmas wreath decorated the door, jolting Ruby back to the present. Christmas was less than two weeks away but she had never felt in less of a festive mood.

‘You know where everything is,’ he said, as he held the door open for her. ‘Make yourself at home.’

Ruby always stayed with Scarlett when she visited. It worked best if she and Lucy had their own space, but she hadn’t thought about the ramifications of her earlier arrival. She’d originally planned to arrive two days before the wedding, timing her arrival with Jake’s temporary move back to his parents’ home, but now that she was here early she hadn’t considered that a change of plan might be needed.

‘Does it still suit you for me to stay? I’m not crowding you?’ she asked.

‘It’s fine,’ he assured her. ‘The spare bedroom is still yours to use.’

‘Are you sure? I can stay at Mum’s.’ She could manage a few days there if necessary.

‘Ruby, don’t worry about it. Have a shower and I’ll be back to pick you up in about forty minutes, okay?’

She nodded and stopped arguing and pushed open the door to the spare bedroom. She upended her bag on the bed and rifled through the contents. There were a few T-shirts, a couple of skirts and a dress in various shades of the rainbow, plus an old pair of cut-off denim shorts. She’d make do for a few days. She turned to the wardrobe to grab a clothes hanger. Tucked in the corner beside the wardrobe was a white wooden baby’s bassinette and hanging on the wardrobe doors were two long dresses in pale green silk. The bridesmaids’ dresses, one for her and one for Rose.

She wondered what Scarlett and Jake would do about their wedding. So much had changed in just twenty-four hours. It was more than just Ruby’s expectations of herself. Yesterday Scarlett and Jake had been counting down the days to their wedding and the birth of their first child. Now they were sitting at Rose’s bedside, waiting and hoping for some good news.

A wedding and a baby. Ruby knew one could be postponed but not the other. She hoped the baby didn’t decide to come early. They had enough going on at present.

She threw her clothes onto a couple of hangers and headed for the shower. She showered quickly and turned her back to the bathroom mirror as she dried herself. She hated looking at her reflection in the mirror. She disliked any form of self-examination or introspection.

She knew she wasn’t particularly brilliant, like Scarlett. She was smart enough but didn’t love studying and she wasn’t pretty like Rose. Her face was too round, her nose was too small and she felt that her features still looked babyish despite the fact that she had just turned twenty-seven. At five feet nine inches she was tallish and model thin with no boobs to speak of. Her shoulder-length strawberry-blond locks were currently died platinum blonde, but despite regularly changing the colour of her hair she was yet to find a colour that she thought suited her. Her eyes were her best feature, large and an unusual shade of green. The colour of an emu’s egg. The colour of the bridesmaids’ dresses.

She wasn’t dark and curvaceous like Scarlett or blonde, petite and beautiful like Rose. She didn’t have Scarlett’s lustrous mane of raven hair or accompanying thick dark eyelashes neither did she have Rose’s perfectly proportioned heart-shaped face or dimples. She and Scarlett had their mother’s long, lean legs but that was where the similarities ended.

Scarlett was the clever sister, Rose was the pretty one and Ruby was never really sure which sister she was. She knew others described her as the fun one but she also knew that she’d worked hard to cultivate that image. She wanted to be seen as the fun one, the extrovert, and she knew it was because she was scared that if she stopped and stood still she would disappear. In her mind, if people thought she was fun they would gravitate towards her and then she would know she existed and she wouldn’t be lonely.

Ruby returned to her room and swapped the bath towel for a fresh singlet top and a long skirt made of a multitude of patchwork squares. It had been hot outside, the dry Adelaide summer heat was making the day almost unpleasant, and it had been warm in the ICU too.

Scarlett had left a pile of books stacked beside the bed. Ruby flicked through them as she waited for Jake. At the bottom of the pile was a Jane Austen novel, which Ruby recognised as one of Rose’s favourites. She stashed it in her bag, deciding she’d take it to the hospital to read to Rose. It would help to pass the time.

As she followed Jake back into the ICU she couldn’t help but notice that the new guy, the motorbike accident, had been put into the cubicle next to Rose. The nurses had removed his blankets—she obviously wasn’t the only one who found ICU uncomfortably warm—and she ran her eyes over him appreciatively. His torso was bare but partly covered by his right arm, which was fixed across his chest in a blue orthopaedic sling. She could see the definition of his pectoral muscles above the sling and the ridges of his lower abdominal muscles below it. His chest was smooth and hairless and wonderfully masculine. She could feel her steps slowing as she gave herself time to appreciate his sculpted chest and arms. She couldn’t blame the nurses for exposing him—something so gorgeous shouldn’t be covered up.

His smooth, tanned skin was unmarked by any tattoos as far as she could see, but his youth, physique and the injuries she suspected he had still suggested a motorbike accident. Her eyes drifted up over the curve of his deltoid muscle to where his hair brushed his shoulder. His hair was long and brushed back from a strong forehead. The oxygen mask over his face had been replaced with tubing, exposing a square jaw and full lips. He reminded her of a fair-haired Greek god—dark blond and tanned and perfectly formed—but surely he had to be mortal. He’d been injured after all.

Too late she realised he was awake.

CHAPTER TWO

HE WAS AWAKE and he was watching her.

His eyes were bright blue and she could see him follow her path as she continued slowly past. Knowing she was in his sights made her blush but she managed to smile at him. There was nothing else to do. She’d been sprung admiring him. She knew it and so did he.

He grinned back, his smile full of mischief, and Ruby felt a warm glow suffuse her body and lift her spirits. She knew he’d only been in the ICU for an hour or two but already he looked far too healthy and vital for this room. Which made her wonder about his smile. She had probably imagined a connection—most likely he was still delirious and drugged and would smile at anyone.

She kept walking. Each bed was separated by a thin partition wall and at the foot of each bed was a curtain that could be pulled across for privacy. The cubicles were arranged around the outside of the room with a raised central station for the medical team. Ruby stepped into Rose’s cubicle and her neighbour disappeared from view.

It felt like it had taken her several minutes to cross the room when in reality it had probably been seconds, but even though he was now out of sight his image was burnt on her retina—bright blue eyes, a tanned and ripped torso and a roguish smile. She knew the memory of his smile would get her through the rest of the day.

‘How did the lumbar puncture go?’ Jake asked, as he greeted Scarlett with a kiss.

‘Fine, apparently. We’re just waiting for the results.’

Ruby sighed. More waiting. Being impatient wasn’t going to speed up the process but she didn’t care, she wanted answers.

She offered to sit with Rose. She would read to her to pass the time while the others stretched their legs. As they left Ruby saw the swish of the curtain in the next cubicle as the nurse pulled it closed. Voices carried to her from the other side of the partition as she pulled the novel from her handbag.

‘Is your pain relief working?’ the nurse asked. ‘You can top it up if you need to by pushing this button.’

‘I can handle the pain,’ he replied. ‘What’s the damage?’

His voice was deep and sent an unusual tremble through her chest. It reminded her of distant thunder as it rumbled through her. His voice matched his rugged, muscular and masculine physique perfectly.

‘I need to know what injuries I sustained.’

‘You have a broken collarbone, a fractured elbow and a couple of busted ribs.’

‘No serious chest injuries?’

‘No, but the list does go on. You also have a fractured femur.’

‘Dammit.’

Ruby almost burst out laughing. She wasn’t even pretending to read as she smiled to herself and continued to eavesdrop on the conversation.

‘What have they done with that?’ he asked.

‘It’s been screwed and plated.’

‘How long will I be in ICU?’

‘You’ve only just got here. What’s your hurry?’

Ruby caught herself frowning as she listened to the nurse’s flirty tones.

‘It will give me an idea how severe my injuries are.’

‘I take it you’re no stranger to hospitals?’

‘I’ve been patched up a few times.’

Ruby would swear she could hear the smile in his voice and she could imagine his bright blue eyes sparkling with just a hint of recklessness.

‘You lost a lot of blood and you’ve just undergone major surgery. Protocol dictates that we need to keep a close eye on you for the next twenty-four hours.’

‘Whose protocol?’ he challenged.

‘The hospital’s insurance company and your team’s.’

‘I thought as much.’

‘ICU is not such a bad place to recuperate for a few days. It’s much more secure than any of the other beds, including the private rooms on the general wards. I’m guessing there may be quite a bit of interest in your story and at least we can keep journalists at bay while you’re with us.’

Ruby’s curiosity was piqued. She had always been a sucker for anything with a hint of difference, be it a job, a situation or, more often than not, a man. She listened with interest, waiting for further details but was left disappointed.

‘Fair enough. I won’t make a fuss for a day or two but I’m not a great one for standing still.’

‘I think you’ve managed to solve that problem for a while at least. You won’t be going too far at all on that broken leg.’

It went quiet in the cubicle next door and Ruby saw the nurse move on to the patient on the other side. She opened the novel and started to read but she could hear her words weren’t flowing. Her mind was distracted, fixated on the motorbike man. Who was he? And why would the media be interested in him?

She forced herself to keep reading. She couldn’t worry about a stranger in the bed next door. She tried choosing some of her favourite scenes, ones that showed the heroine’s sense of humour, but she found herself constantly looking at Rose, waiting for a response from her, expecting to see a smile or a hint of laughter but, of course, there was nothing. Unrealistically, she’d been hoping for a miracle, hoping the story would trigger a response, and it was difficult to continue without even a flicker of encouragement from Rose.

Ruby closed the book.

‘Hello? Are you still there?’

Ruby frowned. She recognised the voice. Deep and quiet, it was the motorbike man. ‘Are you talking to me?’ she asked.

‘Yes. Do you think you could keep reading?’

Her frown deepened. ‘You want to listen to a romance novel written in the nineteenth century?’

‘Romance? I thought it was a comedy.’

His comment made her smile. She’d always enjoyed the unexpected humour in this book too.

‘But it’s not the content … I like the sound of your voice,’ he said simply. ‘I could listen to you read the phone book.’

Ruby laughed and opened the book again. If the motorbike man could make her laugh when she really didn’t feel like it, she figured he deserved a favour. ‘If it’s all the same, I’ll stick with Jane Austen,’ she said.

She picked up from where she’d stopped but this time the words flowed far more smoothly. She lost track of time as she turned the pages, only stopping when the nurse interrupted to do Rose’s obs.

Ruby took a moment to stretch her legs. At least, that was what she told herself she was doing when she stood and wandered into the cubicle next door. She wanted to know why the motorbike man was in the ICU and she was going to ask him. He’d been very quiet while she’d been reading—she’d half expected some interruptions but she’d heard nothing from him—but now she saw why.

He was asleep.

Her eyes swept over his face. His cheekbones were wide and his nose was perfectly straight and narrow, flaring ever so slightly where it ended just above full lips. His eyebrows and lashes were a shade darker than his hair and she could see the beginnings of a darker beard on his jaw. A couple of little scars marked his face, one below his eye, another on his lip, but they did nothing to detract from his looks. His dark blond hair framed his face but one stray strand lay across his cheek. Ruby was tempted to reach out and brush it away but she was afraid of waking him. He looked like he was sleeping comfortably and she didn’t want to disturb him.

He had a face she suspected she could look at for hours but she could hear the nurse’s footsteps moving around Rose’s bed. Ruby ducked out of the cubicle before she was caught being somewhere she had no business to be.

Monday, 15th December

Sitting by Rose’s bed wasn’t achieving anything. Ruby had spent the whole day in ICU and nothing had changed for the better.

The doctors had confirmed that Rose had pneumococcal meningitis but if anyone expected a diagnosis to make a difference they were disappointed. Rose’s condition hadn’t improved and the doctors were now worried about her declining kidney function as a result of the blood poisoning. Her condition and treatment remained the same and the family just sat and waited for a sign, for anything, to indicate that she was recovering.

Ruby had chatted to Scarlett, Jake and her mother when they’d all been at Rose’s bedside and when she and Rose had been alone she’d read to her and kept one ear peeled for the sound of the voice of the motorbike man next door, the man with the devilish grin and the voice like distant thunder, but it seemed he wasn’t in a talkative mood today.

There was a lot more activity in the ICU and Ruby knew that there wasn’t a moment when they were alone but she was disappointed he hadn’t even tried to strike up a conversation with her. By the end of the day she had learned nothing further about him. She still didn’t know who he was and he’d had no visitors, not a single one. He’d had no one to talk to other than the doctors and nurses and Ruby hadn’t learnt anything interesting from them.

Where was his family? Where were the people who cared about him?

She supposed she could have asked him, should have asked him, but whenever she had gone in or out of Rose’s cubicle there had been one of the medical staff with him and she hadn’t been able to do more than smile at him.

She should have tried harder. She should have worked on her timing but she was nervous, which was something quite out of character for her. Holding back was not in her nature. Normally, if she wanted something, whether it was information or an introduction, she would make it happen. But the butterflies that took flight in her stomach whenever they made eye contact were enough to make her hesitate.

If they’d been in a social setting she would have walked straight up to him so perhaps it was the fact that he was at a disadvantage physically that made her hesitant. He didn’t know that she’d stood at his bedside the night before and watched him sleep. She thought that might freak him out so she was keeping her distance. He had no way of getting away from her if she encroached on his personal space. He wouldn’t be able to avoid her and she hated to think that she wouldn’t know if he was pleased with her attention or not. She didn’t want him to feel obligated to be nice to her just because he was confined to a bed.

She didn’t consider that he could easily be blunt and tell her to leave him alone—something about the way he smiled at her made her think he wouldn’t be rude, but she didn’t want to put him in an awkward position. So she said nothing.

* * *

By late afternoon she was tired of staring at the same four walls. Tired of pretending everything would be fine. Rose had made it through another twenty-four hours but that was all that had happened. She supposed that was better than the alternative but she had reached her limit of being cooped up. She knew she wasn’t doing a very good job of being supportive but she couldn’t stay inside the hospital for a minute longer.

Lucy was coming to take over the bedside vigil from her so Ruby arranged to meet her friend Candice for dinner. The last time she’d been back to Adelaide several months earlier had been for Candice’s wedding. It was strange to think that had been when Jake had been persistently pursuing Scarlett and she’d been trying to fend off his advances but not doing so very successfully. Now, months later, it was hard to imagine them not together.

Ruby and Candice had nursed together in Melbourne but had both grown up in Adelaide. In typical Adelaide fashion there were only ever three degrees of separation. Ruby and Candice had worked together, now Candice worked as a theatre nurse for emergency surgery in this hospital, where Scarlett was an anaesthetist and Jake was about to be an intern, and Candice and Jake had grown up together as family friends. If anyone understood what Ruby and her family were going through at the moment, it was Candice.

As they selected their dishes from the Thai menu Ruby filled her friend in on Rose’s status before Candice moved the conversation on to ‘other business’, as she called it.

‘So, are you bringing a plus one to Scarlett’s wedding?’

Ruby shook her head.

‘Why not? I know you have one, you always have one. I used to wonder how you found so many.’

‘You don’t wonder any more?’

‘Not now that I’m married.’ Candice laughed. ‘It doesn’t bother me any longer that you seem to have more than your fair share of men. Now that I’ve taken myself out of the marketplace you can have as many as you want, but I do like to meet one of them every now and again. Who’s the latest?’

Ruby paused. She didn’t think there was actually that much to say but it would be nice to talk about the things they always used to discuss. It would be nice to get her mind off Rose’s medical predicament for just a while.

‘I’m not sure that there is a latest,’ she admitted.

‘You’re between boyfriends?’

‘I’m not sure exactly.’

‘How can you not be sure? What’s going on?’

‘Mitch was asleep when Scarlett rang me about Rose in the middle of the night. The phone call didn’t wake him. I left him a note.’ Mitch was a musician, a drummer, and his band had been playing at one of the local pubs that night. He’d got home late and hadn’t been asleep long when Scarlett’s phone call had woken Ruby. But Mitch had slept through all of that and Ruby hadn’t thought it necessary to wake him. It wasn’t any of his business. She hadn’t thought about Mitch since she’d walked out.

‘You left him a note?’ Candice’s tone let Ruby know exactly what she thought about that. ‘Have you spoken to him?’

Ruby shook her head. ‘He hasn’t called me either,’ she said defensively. ‘We don’t, didn’t, have that sort of relationship.’ They hadn’t been like Scarlett and Jake. Or Candice and her husband, Ewan. They had both found the person they wanted to spend the rest of their life with. They had found the person who came first. Ruby had no idea what that was like.

‘Well, if neither of you are prepared to pick up the phone, you’re probably perfectly matched,’ Candice decided, ‘but it’s kind of ironic ‘cos now you’ll never know.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Ruby said with a shrug. ‘I’d never planned to bring him home to meet my family and certainly not for Scarlett’s wedding. We wouldn’t have lasted much longer anyway. I’d been seeing him for almost two months.’

Two months was her self-imposed time limit on relationships. Any longer than that and there was the chance that one of them could start to think the relationship was serious and that was something Ruby had always taken pains to avoid. A serious relationship meant sharing bits of your soul with another person. Letting them see deep inside you. It meant taking things a step further than sharing a bed and your body. Sharing your mind was a far scarier proposition and not one that Ruby was particularly keen on.

In her experience people started to expect more from a relationship as it started to edge towards three months. Boyfriends wanted to know more about her. They would expect to be invited to an event as her plus one. Three months meant it was serious. It meant it would hurt if she was abandoned.

‘Besides,’ she added, ‘worrying about a plus one to the wedding is irrelevant as I assume Scarlett and Jake will postpone it. I can’t imagine Scarlett will want to get married while Rose is in hospital. She’ll want to wait until Rose has recovered.’ Ruby couldn’t voice the alternative. That Rose might not get better.

‘They haven’t said what they’re planning on doing?’

Ruby shook her head. ‘No. It seems kind of an odd conversation to have in the ICU. We tend to talk about what the doctor’s latest update means and what treatment Rose should have. I think everyone is just avoiding the topic of anything to do with the future. I don’t think any of us can think more than a day ahead at this stage. So it means we sit there not really talking about much at all. It’s no wonder the days seem interminably long in Intensive Care, but it’s all we can do. Just be there for Rose.’