Read Online Dead Romantic by Ruth Saberton - Free Book Online

am.” I nod like a creature deranged, which I suppose I am – deranged by everyone fussing over me, that is – and cross my fingers under the duvet. “I’ll watch a bit of telly then have an early night.”
    “OK.” Susie checks the thermostat and then blows me a kiss. “Everything’s warm and toasty here, I’ve made you a flask of tea and the phone’s on the arm of the chair. If you don’t feel well call me straight away. Understood?”
    “Yes, boss,” I laugh.
    “If anything,” she pauses awkwardly, “if anything strange happens then call me at once. Promise?”
    I roll my eyes. “Susie, we’ve been through this a hundred times. Nothing strange happened at the hospital. When I was floating in and out of consciousness I must have overheard the night staff telling ghost stories and chatting about their patients. That’s all. I got all muddled.”
    “But you knew all that stuff about Mrs Collins!”
    Poor Susie. She’s so desperate to believe in the paranormal that she’ll clutch any straw, however feeble. I’ve had a lot of time to mull over my strange experiences and to talk to the doctors about the side effects of head injuries, and of course there’s a logical explanation for what I’d thought I’d seen. I just hadn’t realised how bad my injuries were, that’s all.
    “I was concussed, Suse. You said I wasn’t well enough to be discharged that day and you were right. It was all nonsense.”
    “Mmm,” mutters Susie, still looking worried. “I guess so.”
    “I know so.” I’ve got to be firm here or she’ll be swinging crystals and dialling the telephone psychics before I know it. Thank goodness I didn’t tell her about seeing a mystery man called Alex Thorne! She’d be trawling the hospital records at once and buying me a crystal ball. “Now get to work, Nurse Maxwell, or you’ll be late.”
    Once I hear the door slam, followed by the thump, thump, thump of Susie thundering down the stairs, I count to twenty before slowly exhaling.
    “Right, Freddie,” I say to Freddie, Susie’s fat white Birman cat. “Time for me to have some fun!”
    I spend the next hour wallowing in a delicious milk-and-honey bath that wouldn’t have been out of place in my namesake’s palace. I slap on a face pack, deep condition my hair and shave my legs until they squeak. I’m going to go into work tomorrow and I’ll probably see Simon, so it won’t hurt to look my best. I need to try and make up for that last excruciating time he clapped eyes on me.
    Feeling weak with mortification I try to distract myself by summoning up all the things I like so much about Simon – but for some reason every time I try to picture his face I see instead the face of my long-ago Christmas stranger, the young guy with the guitar who’d held me close, whose kisses had promised so much, and who’d vanished without a trace.
    I must have hit my head extremely hard to be brooding over him . For years I’ve succeeded in blocking him out . I haven’t wanted to think about him; I didn’t want to remember how my limbs melted when I kissed him or how the hard contours of his body felt as he pulled me close. It sounds foolish, but in spite of all the time that’s passed since that chance encounter my pulse still quickens at the memory and I can almost feel the coldness of the snowflakes on my upturned face. How can one stranger, one stranger who never got in touch, still have this effect on me? Why on earth am I thinking about him again after all this time, when I’m going to see Simon tomorrow?
    I screw my eyes shut and try to focus on Simon, but no matter how hard I try to conjure it up his face just dissolves away like the snowfall in my memory and I see instead the wide violet eyes and sharp cheekbones of my Christmas stranger. All I can feel is the croissant softness of his mouth on mine and the way his hands cupped my face so tenderly…
    I’m not dwelling on him. It’s ancient history. Where have all these