Page 10 of Gideon (Finding Home #3)

Chapter

Four

If you’re that keen to live so close to the edge I could always do a few wheelies

Eli

The next morning I knock on the door of Gideon’s room and stick my head around it, inhaling the spicy vanilla scent that seems to permeate the room. “Rise and shine,” I say cheerfully.

The figure on the bed buried under a mass of blankets stirs. “Fuck off,” he grumbles and burrows under the pillow.

“Tsk tsk.” I wander over to the window and press the button to raise the blinds. Light floods into the room and Gideon jerks like I’ve tasered him.

“What the fuck?” he says, sitting upright.

The covers fall to his waist and I know I’m looking at a sight that people would pay to see in the flesh.

Gideon Ramsay half naked, the white covers showing off the swarthy tones of his skin and his sleek chest. His grey eyes are blazing and his hair is sticking up as if he’s stuck his finger in a light socket and kept it there for a few days. My lip twitches and he scowls.

“It’s not funny.”

“Maybe a little,” I say cheerfully and wander over to the wardrobe and fling back the doors. I blink at the meagre contents. “You have no clothes.”

He huffs and throws himself back on the bed, scrubbing his hands down his face. “I left them in the hotel.”

“Do you want me to arrange to have them shipped?” I say instantly.

I feel antsy this morning. Gideon isn’t so ill that he needs me all the time.

He was up in the night coughing and I made him a hot lemon drink and sat until his cough calmed, but I’m not on the brink of action all the time the way I’ve been with other clients.

Gideon doesn’t seem at the risk of dying from a drug overdose or old age, which are my usual parameters.

He’s just perennially grumpy. I smile as I look back at him.

He opens his eyes and shakes his head. “No. I’ll just buy more.” He shrugs. “It’s what I normally do.”

“You leave your clothes behind when you move hotels and buy more at your next stop?” At his nod I whistle incredulously. “That’s a bit Marie Antoinette, isn’t it? Only with stubble and a head,” I finish hesitantly as he looks like he’s brewing for a temper tantrum. To my astonishment he laughs.

“I suppose so. I never understood the cake business myself. I’d have suggested a cheese board.”

I laugh. “They’d have rioted a lot sooner if you were in charge and gave them Boursin.”

He grins. “That’s an absolutely horrendous French accent. Okay, you have my attention. Why are you waking me up at this ungodly hour?”

“It’s eight o’clock,” I say. “Sun’s been up for ages.”

“Oh God, you’re one of those disgusting people who loves the morning, aren’t you?”

“Yep,” I say unrepentantly. “And you’re going to turn into one as well.” He shoots me a disbelieving look and I nod confidently. “I’ve woken you up so we can have breakfast and then we’re due on deck at nine.”

“Are we walking the plank?” he asks hopefully.

“Only you would think that was an improvement on a luxury cruise,” I say tartly. “No, we have to attend the safety lecture.”

“Can’t you go and take notes for me?”

“No. The captain requires all passengers.” I look at his wardrobe again. “And then I think we’d better see what clothes shops there are on the ship because I’m pretty sure this isn’t a clothing-optional cruise.”

Gideon folds his arms, looking entertained. “They have those?”

I nod. “One of my patients went on one a couple of years ago.”

He grins. “And did you?”

“ No ,” I say, scandalised. “I’m a very relaxed person normally, but I can’t be a nurse naked.

How can I administer medicine with my penis swinging in the air?

That would be terrible.” He looks like he might argue but I shake my head.

“It was a very stressful trip. My patient was ninety. I spent the entire time terrified he was going to have a heart attack.”

He throws his head back and laughs merrily, and I look at him surreptitiously as I move to pick up his robe. He looks a different man when he laughs. All the discontent and moodiness vanishes and his whole face lights up with a huge smile.

I dismiss the thought and chuck his robe at him. “Come on. What do you want for breakfast? We’ll eat in the suite this morning, but I think once you start to feel better we should eat at one of the restaurants.”

“It’s like being with Gillian McKeith, but bossier,” he says.

I laugh. “Shower and meet me in the lounge. I’ll listen to your chest then. I’ve got your medicine all set up.”

An hour later I wheel him down the corridor, the expensive carpet muffling the sound of my footsteps but not his whinging.

“I am perfectly capable of walking to the deck.”

“I don’t think so,” I say in a singsong voice. “The fact that you were swaying by the time you reached the door makes that a big old fib.”

“That was just my muscles gearing up for exercise,” he says glibly and I snort.

“Okay. You’re the expert.” I pause. “I’m sorry that I had to stop you fainting. If you’re that keen to live so close to the edge I could always do a few wheelies.”

“The only edge I want to be close to is the deck when I throw myself off this bloody cruise ship,” he grumbles. He cranes his head to look at me. “You can do wheelies?”

I nod. “I’m a professional. I can do anything.”

“Well, we’ll let your natural arrogance light the way forward,” he says somewhat snippily.

I wheel him into the waiting lift and hum happily as the door closes and it goes up.

He shoots me a glare. “Are you doing that on purpose?”

“What?”

He gestures. “Being all cheerful and stuff.”

“It’s my natural state of being,” I say solemnly, enjoying the way he hides a smile.

I’m coming to know him a little. Gideon is bored.

He’s surrounded by people who do as he says.

He needs clapback to keep him entertained.

I’ve heard him being described in the press as a complete bastard, but I’ve had the real thing as patients in the past. Gideon isn’t a bastard. He’s clever and quick-witted and bored.

Once we’re outside, I lift my face to the breeze and inhale. “What are you doing?” he asks curiously.

“I love mornings at sea. The sunshine and the sea wind. Makes everything fresh like the world’s been through the washer overnight.”

I flush slightly as I open my eyes and find him staring at me, but he nods. “That’s a nice way to look at it,” he says somewhat grudgingly.

I bite my lip and push him quickly towards the back of the small crowd that has gathered around the staff member a few feet away who is talking earnestly about lifeboats and lifejackets.

I park the wheelchair and push the brake down next to an old lady in a wheelchair.

She’s staring at the steward doing the talk with a slightly jaundiced air while a young man who’s obviously her nurse leans on the back of the wheelchair and gazes around.

When we come up next to them he shoots me a quick glance and then stands up straight. At first I think he’s recognised Gideon and my heart sinks, but then I notice the way he’s looking at me like I’m breakfast.

“Hello,” he says breathily. “I haven’t seen you before.”

Gideon snorts, but when I look down, he’s facing forward and my old baseball cap is hiding his distinctive features.

“We just got in last night,” I mumble, and the steward doing the talk sighs loudly.

“For the benefit of those who have just joined us, I’ll go through that bit again. In the very unlikely occasion of the ship running into trouble, these lifeboats here will be yours. You will assemble here ready for us to disembark in an orderly fashion.”

The old people around us nod eagerly, apart from the lady next to Gideon who sighs loudly as if she’s dying of boredom. Dressed in pink trousers and a bright pink and blue kaftan and with her white hair coiled in a bun, she looks flamboyantly expensive. Like a flamingo.

“But darling, that’s just not true,” she drawls in a cut-glass accent. “If we get in a lifeboat and the ship goes down, it’s highly likely that the lifeboats will all be sucked down with it in the vortex that it creates.”

Several old ladies shriek and the group’s noise level rings with worry as everyone turns back to shout questions at the steward, who immediately looks rather hunted. Everyone apart from Gideon. I sigh as he looks in fascination at the old lady as if he’s found his soulmate.

“What an interesting perspective,” he says happily.

“It’s the truth,” she says, waving her arms about cavalierly. “It’s just designed to keep the surface appearances of normality working. Underneath is just chaos and death.” I stare at her open-mouthed as she rummages in her bag and produces a hip flask. “Drink, darling?” she says brightly.

Gideon opens his mouth but I lean forward into her vision. “No, he won’t, thank you,” I say politely. “He’s on medication.”

“I’m sure it won’t hurt,” Gideon says, eyeing the hip flask like it’s made of gold.

“I’m sure it will,” I say firmly. I grin at the old lady. “It was a nice gesture.”

“Oh, you’re Welsh,” she says happily, her voice carrying in that way that very posh people have. “I had a Welsh man once. Divine man,” she says thoughtfully. “But he had an absolutely humungous penis. Far too big. Like he got his own ration and another couple of people’s too.”

The sharp intake of breath from everyone around is drowned out by Gideon’s laughter. “I need to discuss this further,” he says happily and she grins.

They start to talk and her nurse nudges closer to me.

“I’m Oliver,” he says throatily. I smile and introduce myself.

He’s a very pretty man. Small and slender, with tanned skin and dark hair that’s been brushed until it lies sleekly against his skull.

However, there’s something off-puttingly perfect looking about him compared to my own scruffiness.

“She’s quite batty,” he says, looking over at his patient.

“But not really any trouble.” He looks at her hip flask. “Yet,” he finishes somewhat doubtfully.