LITMIR.BIZ

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well, I’ve changed my mind.’

      ‘Janey …’ Nina was struggling to keep exasperation out of her voice. ‘Let’s just leave things as they are. We can have a nice night, just the two of us, and sort things out, talk things out …’

      Jack glanced in the mirror again and saw that Janey was back to looking out of the window, realising then that the last thing Janey wanted was another night alone with Nina.

      Why?

      He said nothing, just kept driving, but his mind was working overtime.

      Why wouldn’t Janey want a night alone with her big sister? He went through things just as he would with a patient, doing his best to take all the emotion out—except it was impossible to extract emotion from this equation.

      Janey was back to scowling and as they approached Manhattan Blake started to cry.

      ‘I’ll see you in a couple of weeks.’ Nina daren’t say it might be sooner, not until she had spoken with his social worker. There was an appointment next week for them to come and see her flat—the wheels tended to move really slowly when a child wasn’t in danger. Jack said nothing. He really didn’t know how to deal with the situation. He could see Janey’s angry expression in the rear-view mirror, could almost feel the daggers she was hurling at him embedding in his back.

      ‘Just here,’ Nina said as they approached the house where Blake lived, and Jack wondered how she did this every fortnight. Saying goodbye once was bad enough, but having to do it week in and week out must kill her. He helped her to get Blake’s case out of the boot and saw her pale face as she did her best to stay calm for Blake, who was really crying now and clinging to her.

      ‘Of course you can show me your poster.’ She glanced up at Jack. ‘I might be a while.’

      ‘Take your time.’

      ‘Can Jack come and see it?’ Blake asked hopefully, but Jack shook his head.

      ‘I’m going to wait in the car.’

      Nina didn’t blame him. He wasn’t trying to impress Blake, or be his best friend, or proxy father, but she felt the sting of his rejection and it compounded her thoughts that she must end this soon, because after just one weekend Blake already hero-worshipped him. He’d already had enough loss in his life and she didn’t want him falling in love with Jack, only to lose him too.

      In fact, Jack would’ve loved to have made this transition easier for Blake, would have happily gone in and looked at his hockey posters, but he had a feeling that there was a rather more difficult conversation to be had and that it was about to take place.

      Jack’s instincts were rarely wrong.

      ‘Happy now?’ Janey demanded as soon as he got into the car. ‘You give him the best weekend, driving around in your flash Jag, and then drop him back …’ She was going ballistic and Jack just sat there. ‘Mr Nice Guy!’ Janey sneered, and Jack sat there as she told him how he thought he was better than them, better looking than them and that he was messing around with her sister.

      Jack anticipated what would come next, warned Janey that if she spoke like that again, he would get out of the car and go and get Nina, which was when Janey burst into tears. In the end there was no need for a long talk—all Jack really had to do was listen.

      ‘Can you tell Nina this?’ Jack asked.

      ‘No,’ Janey sobbed. ‘Because she panics about everything, she feels guilty about everything. I know you think she’s good at her job, and calm about things, but she loses her temper when it comes to us and she’ll go crazy when she finds out …’

      And Jack smiled an invisible smile, because Nina would do that. ‘I’m scared she’ll get into trouble and lose her job or something.’

      ‘Your sister is not going to get into trouble,’ Jack assured her, ‘and neither are you—you’ve done nothing wrong.’ He was very certain on that. ‘Can I speak with Nina about it?’ he asked. ‘I can come back to the apartment and we can talk about it tonight …’

      ‘No!’ Janey begged, her hand moving to open the door.

      ‘Don’t run off, Janey.’ Jack was stern and she shrank back in the seat. He would have spoken some more but all too soon Nina was coming out of the house, doing her best not to cry, waving to a tearful Blake, and somehow Jack had to sort this, would sort this, but he wondered how best to go about it. Nina was going to freak, he knew that, which meant Janey was likely to run again …

      ‘Please don’t say anything,’ Janey begged as Nina got into the car, all falsely bright and cheerful.

      ‘Right.’ She smiled at Janey. ‘Let’s get back to the flat.’

      Except there was no way Jack was going to drop the two of them off at Nina’s flat.

      ‘We could go back to my place,’ he suggested.

      ‘No.’ Nina was adamant. ‘I want to have some time with Janey before we go to the social worker in the morning.’

      Jack drove through the wet streets, his mind working overtime, but as they drove past Central Park he knew what to do and Jack indicated and turned into the hospital.

      ‘Do you need to check on someone?’ Nina asked as Jack slid into his reserved parking spot.

      ‘No,’ Jack said. ‘I want to get Janey’s elbow examined.’

      ‘It’s just a bruise,’ Nina said. ‘I know I made a fuss, but I was just worried about having to face the social worker tomorrow with Janey covered in bruises. I was being ridiculous. She’s fifteen, she fell, ice skating …’

      ‘Still, it’s better to get it all documented,’ Jack said, getting out of the car and holding the door open for Janey.

      Nina frowned, surprised that Jack thought it necessary, but more surprised that Janey so willingly got out of the car.

      They walked into Emergency and Jack had a word with one of the nurses to ask which doctors were on.

      ‘She doesn’t need to see the Head of Emergency,’ Nina said, when she heard Jack asking for Lewis to examine Janey.

      ‘He’s a great guy,’ Jack said. ‘I trust him implicitly.’ He gave Janey a thin smile. ‘I’ll just go and have a word with him. Nina, why don’t you get Janey into a gown? He’ll need to examine her for range of movement …’

      He wanted Lewis to see Janey, and with good reason. Not only was Lewis an excellent doctor and trusted colleague, but he would understand more than most the complexities of dealing with a very troubled young girl.

      ‘I’d rather you hear it from Janey.’ Jack spoke briefly with Lewis. ‘Assuming, that is, that she talks, but basically we’re not here about her elbow.’

      ‘Right.’ Lewis nodded.

      ‘And if she doesn’t talk to you,’ Jack said, ‘then maybe she might need a night of observation waiting for the orthos to have a look.’

      ‘Let’s just see how it goes,’ Lewis suggested. ‘She’s here with her sister?’

      ‘Nina Wilson, the social worker.’ Jack nodded. ‘She thinks that I’ve brought Janey here just to get her arm examined, but whatever happens I’m going to have to step in. I’m just hoping that Janey will talk to you.’

      ‘Sure.’ Lewis nodded. ‘How about you introduce me?’ Lewis called for one of the senior nurses to go in with him and smiled and introduced himself to an anxious-looking Janey.

      ‘Okay,’ Jack said. ‘Nina and I are going to go and get a coffee. As I said, Lewis is a friend of mine, you’re in very good hands.’

      It was only then that it dawned on Nina what was happening, or maybe it had started to a couple of moments before. She was about to say no, to insist she was staying with Janey, but she realised

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