Free The Honourable Maverick / The Unsung Hero by Alison Roberts / Kate Hardy Page B

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 beyondthe 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