Page 31 of Falling for His Best Friend

Jess shrugged. ‘I’m not sleeping that well. This cough is bugging me.’

Cam’s concern spiked again. He knew Jess’s cough woke her during the night—it woke them both—but he’d thought she always managed to get back to sleep.

‘How long have you had it?’

‘I’m not sure. A few weeks?’ Jess said, as she looked at Cam for confirmation.

He nodded but then stopped to think. ‘Maybe longer,’ he suggested. He’d got used to it, they both had, and he couldn’t really remember exactly when it had started. With all the excitement over the pregnancy they’d probably both ignored it but the expression on the doctor’s face was bothering him. They’d ignored the cough but the doctor looked like she didn’t think it was nothing.

‘Hop on the scales for me,’ Dr Tennant instructed.

‘You’ve lost weight,’ she said, as Jess got off the scales and slipped her shoes back on. And Cam felt the first real flicker of alarm building in his chest.

CHAPTER SIX

JESS KNEW SHE’D lost weight recently. She’d tried to increase her portion sizes to counteract it but her appetite hadn’t been great and she rarely finished a meal.

‘Any other changes?’ the doctor continued. ‘Headaches? Chest pain? Unusual bleeding? Shortness of breath?’

‘Headaches,’ she admitted.

‘Headaches?’ Cam repeated. It was no wonder he sounded surprised. She hadn’t said anything to him about the headaches, presumably because she hadn’t wanted him to worry.

‘Just a few,’ she said, trying to wipe out the worry in Cam’s eyes, although if she was honest it was more like one, constant, dull headache in the background of her life, which occasionally got worse before settling again.

Dr Tennant popped a stethoscope into her ears and listened to Jess’s chest. ‘Deep breaths,’ she instructed. ‘No temperature?’ she queried as she packed the stethoscope away.

Jess shook her head.

‘Is your cough productive?’

Jess nodded.

‘OK. I’d like to send off a sputum sample and I’m also going to send you for a CT scan of your chest.’

‘What are you looking for?’

‘What do you think it is?’ Jess and Cam spoke in unison. Jess was worried now and she slipped her hand into Cam’s, needing the security of his touch, even though it wasn’t going to affect the oncologist’s answer.

‘I’m not going to hazard a guess without more information. We’ll run some tests and then I’ll discuss the results with you when I get them.’

She drew some blood and took a sputum sample before printing out a referral for the CT scan. Jess’s hand was shaking as she took the piece of paper.

Cam kept hold of her hand as they left the doctor’s office. Jess didn’t think she would have made it out of there without his support.

‘Do you want to grab something to eat before we collect Kitty?’ Cam asked.

Jess shook her head. ‘No, I’m not hungry. And please don’t say anything to Kitty about the tests,’ she said as they took the lift to Kitty’s floor. ‘She’s still recovering from the attack and I don’t want her to worry about something that will hopefully be nothing.’

But that didn’t stop her palms from sweating and her heart from racing. She tried to keep calm, tried to keep her composure. She didn’t want to upset Cam or Kitty, but she was worried. She’d been worried for a while but had been trying to ignore her symptoms by focussing on Kitty’s pregnancy, on their baby, but the truth was she hadn’t been feeling well and had been pretending everything was fine. That was why she’d been edgier than normal today—she knew Cam had noticed—because she’d been expecting bad news. She hadn’t got it yet but she certainly hadn’t been reassured by anything the oncologist had said. Dr Tennant hadn’t needed to spell it out for her. She knew she was on borrowed time.

* * *

Kitty stepped out of Cam’s car as he pulled to a stop in front of Joe’s building. She had spent one night at her sister’s house after she’d been discharged from hospital but now she had convinced Joe to let her nurse him. She hovered over him as he gingerly unfolded himself from the back seat. The hospital was only a ten-minute drive from his house but the whole process of discharge appeared to have taken its toll. Kitty could see the little tell-tale lines of pain gathering at the corners of his mouth. She needed to get him upstairs and get some painkillers into him.

She was pleased he had accepted her offer of help. She was pleased, too, that things were over between him and Victoria, although she didn’t want to think about the sort of friend that made her—taking pleasure in the fact that Joe had just ended a relationship. But she didn’t feel too mean-spirited. Their break-up suited her—now she could have him to herself.

---