Finding Their Forever Family
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Caroline Anderson
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CHAPTER ONE
SHE WAS LATE. Again.
She hurried in, racked with guilt and frustration as usual, and bumped straight into James Slater—clinical lead, department cheerleader and stickler for punctuality...
He quirked a brow and smiled wryly. ‘Morning, Emily. What is it today?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Billy. I’m so sorry. He wouldn’t put his shoes on.’
James chuckled. ‘Take him to school without them. They only do it once. Anyway, I’m glad you’re here. I’m putting you in Resus. I’m a bit tied up with meetings, and I need you to look after our new consultant.’
She felt her eyes widen. ‘He needs babysitting?’
James laughed again. ‘Hardly. He just needs to get to know the department. We were really lucky to get him. He’s ex-LMTS.’
That surprised her. The London Major Trauma System was world-class, and for a moment she wondered why on earth he’d chosen to come to Yoxburgh. Not that it wasn’t a great hospital, but even so... Still, at least he’d be competent, unlike their last locum.
‘OK. Give me a second to change. What’s his name?’
‘Oliver. Oliver Cavendish.’
She felt the shock all the way down to her toes, but there wasn’t time to stop and think. Not that she knew what to think...
She nodded and walked away to the locker room, heart racing, her mind in turmoil.
Why’s he here?
It might not be him. There had to be more than one doctor called Oliver Cavendish. She changed into scrubs, scraped back her hair into a messy bun and headed to Resus. The red phone was ringing as she opened the door, and she picked it up and tried to focus.
‘Yoxburgh Park Resus.’
‘Code Red, eighteen-year-old male, motorbike versus car, open book pelvis and lower limb fractures, right-sided chest, possible clavicle, query head injury...’
The list went on, and as she wrote it down, her heart started to race. If they got the young man in alive, it would be a miracle. Code Red was as bad as it got, and Oliver went clean out of her mind.
‘ETA?’
‘Five minutes. He’s in the air.’
‘OK.’
She hung up, put the message out on the Tannoy and fast bleeped the anaesthetist, orthopaedics, radiography, interventional radiology, and then booked a CT slot and checked the fridge for blood. Four units. Hopefully it’d be enough until they could cross-match.
She could hear the sound of the helicopter overhead as it came in to land, just as the door swished open behind her.
‘OK, what’ve we got?’
She turned at the familiar voice, her heart racing, and over her mask she met striking blue eyes she hadn’t seen for nearly twenty years. Eyes that widened in shock.
‘Emily?’ His voice was incredulous, and for a second they stared at each other, and then the door swung open again as more people came in, and she gave herself a mental shake and snapped back into doctor mode.
‘Right, we have a Code Red, eighteen-year-old male, motorbike versus car...’ She reeled off the list of injuries as the other members of the team poured into the room, and Oliver stood there, his focus absolute.
His eyes met hers. ‘OK, this is a complicated polytrauma by the sound of it. Do you mind if I lead? I’ve done a lot of these.’
‘No, not at all. Do you want me to go and meet them and you can brief?’
‘Sure.’
She ran out to meet the casualty, and as they wheeled him into the now crowded Resus, she was wondering how on earth he was still alive. Not only alive, but conscious enough to moan and mumble something she couldn’t understand.
‘It’s OK, Jack. We’ve got you,’ she told him gently, and grabbed a corner of the sheet. ‘On three. One, two, slide—’
‘Right, what do we know?’ Oliver asked, taking over.
The air ambulance doctor rattled off the list of injuries from top to toe, detailed the treatment he’d received so far, including a pelvic binder, and then told them the family were on the way. As she finished, he nodded and moved straight to the patient’s head and bent over him.
‘Hi, Jack. I’m Oliver. I’m one of the doctors here. Can you tell me where you hurt?’
The boy’s eyes rolled a little, and he mumbled something incoherent.
‘Jack, can you squeeze my hand?’ he asked, then shook his head. ‘He’s not obeying commands. We need to send him off to sleep so we can get a proper look at him. Do we have an anaesthetist here?’
‘Yup, I’m on it,’ Peter said, and while he put Jack under and intubated him, the rest of the team were assembling the equipment they’d need, putting up drips, warming blood, cutting off the rest of his clothes to reveal his injuries to Oliver.
‘OK, he’s got reduced air entry on the right, so let’s get a chest drain in. Emily, can you do that, please? And there’s something very wrong with that pelvis. We need to scan him as soon as we can, but we need to get him stable and I don’t think we’re quite there yet. Let’s get the chest drain in and a catheter to check his bladder and see where we are then. Can you start rapid transfusion, please, and take bloods for group and save? And that left foot’s very pale.’
The orthopaedic consultant was already looking at it. ‘Yeah, it’s the ankle. I’ll reduce the fracture now,’ Dan said, and while he and a nurse did that, Emily prepped for the chest drain, aware of Oliver’s every move, every breath, every word, not sure if the surge in her heart rate was because of him or because of their patient or both. Either would have been enough, but Oliver Cavendish could wait. Had to wait. It had been almost twenty years. Another hour or two wouldn’t matter.
Jack was their priority, and until he was stable, scanned and shipped off to whoever was going to tackle his complicated injuries first, her feelings were on the back burner. As for Oliver’s feelings—well, she had no idea what they were. Her own were enough to deal with and she wasn’t sure what they were, either.
She shut her eyes for a moment, took a steadying breath and inserted the chest drain...
It took nearly an hour, but finally Oliver felt confident that Jack was reasonably stable, or at least for now. ‘Right, I think we need to get him to CT. Are they ready for us?’
‘Yes. I’ve asked them to hold it.’
‘Good.’ He looked up, catching Emily’s eyes briefly before he dragged his own away and scanned the team. ‘Do we all think he’s stable enough to go? Anyone got any concerns?’
‘Well, he’s not great, but I think he’s as good as we can get him without more information,’ Peter said quietly, echoing all their thoughts.
‘OK, I’ll go with him. Peter, can you come, too, please? And, Emily, could you talk to the family?’
‘Sure.’
And heaven help them if Jack died.
He’s only a year older than Charlie...
They wheeled him down to CT, then stood side by side, watching the images appear. They weren’t pretty, and not for the first time he wondered if his first case was going to survive.
He had multiple fractures—his pelvis, the right side of his ribcage, his left ankle and right wrist were all fractured, but there were no spinal or skull fractures, and at least his aorta was intact. That had been a worry from the start.
As had the quality of the team. Because the last thing he’d needed was an unskilled crew on a case like this, but to his immense relief they seemed to work well together and know what they were doing. And Emily—so calm and competent, she’d quietly got on with it, and he was pretty sure if he hadn’t been there, she would have coped fine alone. Impressive. And disturbing.
Why’s she here?
He refocused on the screen and frowned. ‘Wait—can we have another look at his heart, please?’
And there it was.
‘Pericardial effusion. Damn. Right, can you get Dan Wheeler to look at the images immediately, please, and let’s get him back. He might need that drained. Thank you.’
They got back to Resus and found the orthopaedic surgeon studying the images with Joe Baker, the interventional radiologist, while Emily was on the phone trying to book a theatre.
‘He’s a mess,’ Dan told him, and he dragged his eyes off Emily and concentrated on Dan’s words. ‘We need to sort this before he bleeds out. I’m going to need IR to deal with that, so Joe’s coming in if the crossover surgical suite’s available.’
‘It’s on standby for you,’ Emily said, hanging up the phone. ‘What are we doing about the pericardial effusion?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Oliver told them, glad to see that Emily had spotted it. ‘How’s he doing, Peter? Is he stable?’
‘No,’ Peter said, shaking his head. ‘BP’s dropped to eighty over fifty, heart rate’s up to one thirty, and his jugulars are distended.’
‘Tamponade,’ he said, and looked around. ‘Right, let’s get some imaging of this. I’m going to do a pericardial tap.’
‘The trolley’s ready,’ Emily said, moving it into position with everything laid out for him, and he picked up the long needle and took a steadying breath, grateful that she was on the ball.
Under image guidance he advanced the long needle up through Jack’s diaphragm and into the blood-filled space between his heart and the pericardial membrane, slid a fine tube up through the needle and withdrew it, then took off thirty-five mils of blood.
And waited.
‘Come on, Jack, you can do this,’ Oliver muttered, and then after a few heart-stopping seconds, he started to respond.
‘BP’s up to one ten over sixty, heart rate’s down to eighty-six,’ Peter said, and he felt the tension in the room ease a fraction.
Not his. Not yet.
‘So far so good,’ he murmured, and checked the images again. Better. He withdrew the fine tube, watched the monitor for a few more moments, then turned to Peter.
‘How’s he looking now?’
‘Good. Better. The jugulars are back to normal.’
He nodded, relieved, and turned to Dan.
‘Happy to take over?’ he said, and Dan nodded.
‘Absolutely. I want to get him sorted asap.’
Oliver thanked them as they wheeled him out, Peter going with them, then looked around at the rest of the team, feeling the tension drain out of them all as the responsibility for young Jack was passed on up the line.
‘Thank you. That was great teamwork. He’s not out of the woods yet, but we’ve given him a fighting chance, so thank you all for that. It’s good to know I’ve got a strong team with me.’
And then he turned his head and met the soft, beautiful but very guarded grey eyes that he knew so well. ‘We need to talk to the parents. What have you told them?’
‘Only what we knew before the CT. They’re in the family room.’
‘Come with me?’
‘Sure.’
They were distraught, but sobbed with relief when they were told he was still alive, stable and on his way to Theatre.
‘We’ll keep you in the loop,’ he promised. ‘When he comes out of Theatre, they’ll give you a call and update you on his condition, but he’ll be going to ICU while they monitor his progress, probably for a few days, and then it’ll be a long, slow job, I’m afraid. He’s still not out of the woods by any means, but he’s very lucky to be alive and at least now he stands a chance.’
‘How long will the operation take?’ his father asked.
‘I don’t know. It could be several hours. It’s tricky surgery.’
‘And will it work? Will he walk again? And what about his heart?’ his mother asked, her eyes wide with fear and worry. He could understand that. If this had happened to Charlie...
‘I would very much hope so, but his pelvis is quite badly broken and it’ll take a lot of skill to sort it out. In the meantime his heart seems to have recovered from the bleed, so that’s one hurdle crossed.’
‘Is the surgeon any good?’ his father asked, and before Oliver could open his mouth, Emily jumped in.
‘He’s excellent. If that was my son, I’d want Mr Wheeler working on him. He really is in very good hands.’
He saw the tension drain out of them, and after answering a few more questions, they showed them the way out to the main café where they could wait for news.
Oliver watched them go, her words echoing in his head.
If that was my son... Did she have a son, too?
‘Emily, have you got time for a debrief?’
Had she? She didn’t know. Maybe, maybe not, but now the clinical pressure was off, the emotional pressure was well and truly on, and her heart kicked behind her ribs.
‘Sure.’ Damn, why did her voice sound breathy and ridiculous? ‘Of course,’ she said, injecting a bit more oomph into it. Better...
‘Right. First stop, coffee.’
She stared at him, stunned. ‘Seriously?’
‘Absolutely dead seriously. I’ve been here since six and I haven’t had breakfast, and if I’m not going to fall over, I need something fast and filling right now. So where do we go?’
She was about to say the staff-room, but the coffee was vile, the biscuit tin would be empty, and anyway, it wouldn’t tick the ‘fast and filling’ box.
‘Park Café. We can go round the side.’
She turned on her heel and headed out through a staff door, and he followed her, before reaching past her to push the door open, bringing his body so close to her that the remembered scent of him filled her nostrils and made her ache with longing.
He fell into step beside her. ‘Thanks for your help this morning. You’re good,’ he said, and she shot him a look, desperately trying to ignore the leap in her pulse at his nearness.
‘You don’t have to sound surprised.’
The low chuckle rippled all the way down her spine. ‘I’m not. I’m just being honest. I was glad to have you in there. They’re a sound team. I was very relieved about that.’
She found a smile from somewhere. ‘Yes, it wasn’t exactly finding your feet gently, was it?’
That chuckle again. ‘Not exactly. And there I thought I might get bored doing a nice quiet little job, in a pretty seaside town where nothing much happens...’
Emily laughed at that. ‘Quiet? I wish. You do realize this is a major hospital?’
‘It’s beginning to dawn on me,’ he said, his grin wry and achingly familiar.
‘So how come you’re here?’ she asked, partly because she was desperately curious and partly to fill the silence. ‘Why on earth would you leave an LMTS hospital to come to Yoxburgh? Because it doesn’t sound like you were looking for a quiet life.’
‘Family reasons,’ he said, without elaborating, and then added, ‘and I could ask why you’re here.’
‘You probably could,’ she said, and deliberately didn’t answer it, just walked into the café and joined the queue. Better the silence than getting into that one...
He ordered a large cappuccino, picked up an egg and cress sandwich and a banana, and watched while she dithered over the pastries, then chose a chicken salad sandwich, a yogurt and a fruit tea.
‘That’s not like you.’
‘Actually it is—well, it is now. I have a bit more respect for my body than I did twenty years ago, and it looks like you have, too.’
‘Touché,’ he murmured, then his mouth kicked up in a smile, and her world tilted sideways. This was such a bad idea...
‘In or out?’ she asked, looking hastily away.
‘Out. It’s a gorgeous day.’
He picked up the tray and headed through the doors, and she followed him to an empty table for two. It was set against the wall in the sun, and there was no alternative but to sit opposite each other.
He ripped open his sandwich and took a huge bite, and for a moment neither of them said anything. He, she guessed, because he couldn’t talk with his mouth full, and she because she was too busy searching for all the changes the last however long had etched on his face.
That and wondering what the ‘family reasons’ were...
He glanced up, and she peeled open her yogurt, stuck the spoon in it and looked up again, finally meeting his eyes. Thoughtful, questioning eyes.
‘I can’t believe you’re here,’ he said softly after a pause that stopped the breath in her throat, and she looked down again and fiddled with the yogurt, stirring it mindlessly.
‘Ditto.’ She looked up again, studying him as he took another huge bite. The new lines around the eyes, the creases at each side of his mouth, the touch of grey threaded through his dark hair at the temples.
And then her curiosity got the better of her. ‘So what have you been up to for the last—what is it? Eighteen years?’
‘Something like that.’ He gave a rueful huff of laughter and turned his attention to his coffee, avoiding her eyes, as she’d just avoided his, then when she’d given up expecting him to answer, he gave a shrug and smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
‘Working too hard, trying to decide what I wanted to do—you know how it goes, but the move back to a major London hospital was the decider.’
‘I’m surprised it took you so long to work out. You always were an adrenaline junkie.’
‘And you weren’t, so why are you here doing this?’
She looked away from those suddenly searching eyes. ‘I’ve changed. I guess we both have. We’ve been doctors almost half our lives, seen all manner of things that most people never get exposed to. It would be weird if it hadn’t changed us.’
He nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I guess it would. Are you going to eat that yogurt or just play with it, because we really need to get back.’
And just like that, he shut it down.
He swallowed the last bite of his sandwich as she scraped out the pot, then finished his coffee and looked at her. ‘Ready?’
‘Sure.’
She drained her cup and stood up, stuffing her sandwich into her scrubs pocket. ‘Lunch,’ she said, and he rolled his eyes.
‘If we get that lucky.’
They didn’t. So much for his nice quiet little job...
The rest of the day was chaos, with ambulances queueing up outside, waiting to offload as they dealt with a deluge of patients with chest or abdominal pain, head injuries, nasty fractures and all the rest, not to mention the never-ending supply of walking wounded, most of whom could have been seen by their family doctors.
As for lunch, that was never going to happen. Still, at least he wasn’t bored, and it was a good introduction to the efficiency of the department, the skill sets of the various team members and the lack of ego amongst the doctors in particular.
He’d met some egos in his time, especially in the early days, and it was a relief to see that everyone here was treated with respect regardless of their grade or position. He was all for that. He knew just how hard it was to forge a career in medicine, knew the toll that working in trauma and emergency medicine took on you, the drain on your reserves, the destruction of your personal life brick by brick until there was nothing left.
He knew all about that one from bitter experience. And if you felt unsupported at work, that was the last straw, and it was the reason so many good doctors and nurses walked away.
But not Emily.
Emily was still there, working alongside him on the more complex cases, independently the rest of the time but always in the background—and it was getting to him.
He’d never in a million years imagined he’d end up working with her, not least because eighteen years ago she was aiming for surgery, and now she was working in the ED. Why had she changed her mind? And where had she been? What had she done with her life? Was she married? Did she have children? Was she happy?
That most of all. He hoped so. He was, but it was a qualified happiness, underpinned by a lot of regret and remorse. Not to mention failure.
He looked across the central desk and saw her, her face lit up with laughter as she shared a joke with a colleague, and it hit him like a punch to the gut.
No. He wasn’t going there. Not again. His heart had been broken enough times without him throwing it under the bus for the hell of it, and that particular bus had run him over before.
‘You OK? Has Emily been looking after you?’
He turned his head and conjured up a smile for James.
‘Yes, thanks. She’s been great.’
His new boss smiled wryly. ‘She is great. It’s a pity she can’t work full time, but her children come first and it’s a bit of a juggling act. She’s a very good doctor, though, and we’re glad to have her. She’s an asset to the department.’
So she was a mother, working part-time, presumably with a husband and family around her. He told himself he was happy for her, and he was, but it just underlined how much he’d lost over the years.
Starting with her...
He walked round to the other side of the desk just as she reached it.
‘I’ve had some news about Jack,’ he told her. ‘His pelvis came together better than expected, and they’ve taken him up to ICU. They’ll keep him under for a day or so, sort out some of his other issues, and then slowly ease off on the drugs and see where we are, but it’s looking good and his heart seems OK now, so that’s a relief. I thought you’d like to know.’
Her smile was genuine and heartfelt. ‘Absolutely. I’ve been really worried about him. His parents will be so relieved.’
‘They are, apparently. They sent their thanks to the team and said everyone’s been brilliant.’
‘Oh, that’s nice. It’s good to feel appreciated. Right, I’m off. See you tomorrow,’ she murmured, and he dug out a smile.
‘Yeah. Thanks for holding my hand today.’
‘You’re welcome. Sorry, I have to go.’
Presumably to pick up her children from school. Interesting—and none of his business. She hurried away, and he turned back to James. ‘So, what’s next?’
She couldn’t believe he was back in her life.
And why, oh, why did he still have to be so ridiculously gorgeous? Why couldn’t he have got saggy and paunchy and lost his hair or something? Instead he was slimmer, more toned, and age had done his insanely good looks no harm at all. If anything it had honed them—that and his charismatic manner, the way he made a point of thanking his team, the quirk of his lips when he smiled...
He was just too darned perfect.
And she needed to stop torturing herself. She wasn’t in the market for a relationship, particularly not one which had already failed nearly two decades ago.
No, not failed. Just been put on hold when he’d gone to Chicago, and then crashed and burned, taking her heart and her trust with it. Should she have gone? She’d kicked herself for not going at the time, and maybe she’d been wrong to let him go without a fight. How different would their lives have been?
Too late to worry about that now...
She parked the car, walked to the school gate and waited for the children to come out. There were a couple of older women there, standing chatting, and one looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place her. An ex-patient? Maybe, although she didn’t think so. She hadn’t seen her here before, certainly, but then she was often a bit late.
The children ran out, Phoebe straight for her, Billy detouring to chase another boy, then eventually ambling over to her before being sent back for his jumper.
‘So what did you do today?’ she asked Phoebe, scooping her up for a cuddle. It was an unnecessary question, as she was splattered with paint from her hair to her shoes, but Phoebe told her, moment by moment, and she nodded and smiled and felt relieved that her little daughter was so happy in school.
By the time Billy re-emerged, his jumper trailing on the ground behind him, almost everyone had gone, and she took them home, sent them out to the garden with a drink and opened the fridge.
‘Can we have pasta?’ Billy asked, sticking his head back into the kitchen, and she rolled her eyes.
‘Again?’
‘I like pasta.’
‘I’ll see.’
He went, not looking convinced, and she stared at the fridge again. There was a chicken, which wouldn’t keep, so she pressure-cooked it, stripped some of the meat off and threw it in with a bowl of pasta and pesto, added some peas and sweet corn, and called the children in.
‘Yay, pasta!’ Billy said, and Phoebe pulled a face.
‘We always have pasta,’ she grumbled, but frankly putting anything on the table that was edible was a miracle, the way she felt today.
Confused didn’t even scrape the surface.
‘We’ll have something else tomorrow,’ she promised, and gave the ever-hungry Billy another dollop.
‘So how was your first day?’
He straightened up from fussing the dog and gave his mother a wry smile.
‘Interesting. Pretty full-on, really, but good. We had a boy just a year older than Charlie—his motorbike hit a car head-on. It was pretty messy, and I had no idea how everyone there would cope. Back in London I wouldn’t have worried, everyone knew what to do, but actually it was brilliant. They’re a good team, and he’s doing OK, so that’s good.’
She eyed him thoughtfully. ‘And?’
‘Well, it was touch and go and just a bit close to home.’
‘I’m sure, but it’s not what I’m talking about.’
He laughed. He’d never been able to hide anything from his mother, and he gave up trying. ‘Emily’s there. She was one of the team.’
Her brows creased in a thoughtful frown. ‘Emily Harrison?’
‘She’s Emily West now. She’s a senior specialty registrar—what? Why are you looking at me like that?’
‘Does she have children?’
‘I think so, maybe.’
‘A boy and a girl?’
He raised his hands, confused. ‘I don’t know. I have no idea. Why?’
‘Because I saw someone today after school who looked rather like her, but I thought I must be imagining it. She had a little girl with blonde hair—about four, I suppose, and a boy of about five or six called Billy, with grubby knees and the cheekiest smile you’ve ever seen.’
That made him laugh, but his breath caught and deep inside there was a tiny pang of regret for what might have been. If they’d stayed together, those could have been their children, his and hers. He stamped on that before it had time to take root, and made his voice deliberately light. ‘I have no idea. I don’t know how old they are or what they’re called. More to the point, how was Amelie’s first day? She seems to have enjoyed it, from what she said just now when I went up.’
‘I think she’s fine. She certainly didn’t seem unhappy, but it’s early days. But you know her, Oliver. She makes friends really easily.’
‘She loses them again pretty quickly, as well,’ he reminded her with a wry smile, and she nodded.
‘She’ll learn,’ his mother said soothingly, and slid a cup of tea across the island to him. ‘Are you hungry?’
He gave a slightly hollow laugh. ‘You could say that. I had a sandwich about eleven thirty, and a banana at some point, and probably way too much coffee. What are you offering? Because I could eat a horse.’
‘Sorry, no horses, but I made a fish pie.’
His stomach growled, and he smiled wearily. ‘That sounds amazing. Bring it on...’
She didn’t let it rest, of course.
She wanted every last detail of his day, every last detail of how Emily looked, how she’d sounded, how he felt about her being there.
That was the tough one to answer, because he really didn’t know. It had certainly made it harder to settle in and focus, because she’d been all he could think about, all he could hear, all he could see. Everywhere he turned, she was there, or there was the echo of her laugh, the soft murmur of her voice soothing a patient, talking to a relative, comforting a frightened child.
And then, as if the day itself hadn’t been enough to contend with, that night he dreamt about her and woke up with a racing heart and a body that was more than ready to welcome her back into his bed.
This was going to be impossible to ignore. She was going to be impossible to ignore. And seeing her again had brought a whole lot of memories flooding back. Memories of her in his arms. Memories of them laughing together at something ridiculous, laughing at each other and themselves. Fighting about silly things, and then making up...
Damn. He rolled onto his back, stared up at the ceiling and wondered if moving here had been the biggest mistake of his life.
No. That prize had to go to his decision to go to America, and then to try and forget her in the arms of another woman, and look how well that had turned out.
Except it had given him Charlie, and for that he’d always be grateful. He looked at his watch. Two fifteen. It would be nine fifteen in Boston. He’d still be up.
He sat up, dragged a hand through his hair, reached for his phone and called his son.
