Healed by a Mistletoe Kiss
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Alison Roberts
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CHAPTER ONE
SHE DIDN’T WANT to go inside.
But she had to.
Nikita Wallace pulled her coat around her as the cold fog turned into more of a wintry drizzle that was verging on sleet. She stayed exactly where she was, however, well away from the shelter of the main entrance to Bristol’s Central Infirmary—the hospital that she’d once believed she would be happy working in for the rest of her life as a trauma surgeon.
But she hadn’t set foot through those doors in over a year.
Somebody’s phone started ringing as they walked past her. They’d probably set the ringtone to a classic Christmas carol on the first day of December. Surely they were totally over it by now when they were almost halfway through the month?
A lyric from the carol sneaked into the back of Nikita’s head and it was almost a taunt.
’Tis the season to be jolly...
Yeah...right... Nikita took a deep breath, feeling the chill of the air against the back of her throat. She’d thought she was more than ready to do this. She should have done it last week, in fact, when the approved duration of her leave of absence had expired. She knew she had to do it, if only to prove to herself that she had recovered enough to genuinely move on with her life. She just needed a moment, that was all. A moment to gather her courage to face something that was apparently going to be a little more difficult than she had anticipated.
It wasn’t simply that she didn’t want to be within the walls of this hospital. Or any hospital at all, for that matter. Or that it would be full of people—staff and patients, adults and children and probably babies as well—who would have no idea how much she didn’t want to be too close to them. It wasn’t that it was getting so close to Christmas Day either, and there would be decorations everywhere and people would be wearing silly headbands and jumpers and flashing jewellery, like the earrings of that woman she’d seen in the car park. There might even be carol singers gathered in the foyer or wandering through the corridors of the hospital to make sure that nobody missed out on a bit of seasonal jolliness.
It was all of those things.
Too many things that, even on their own, let alone when they coalesced, had been capable of triggering a flashback in the early days of this year. Nikita was confident that she had made a good recovery but...
...but that fear had never quite gone away, had it?
She took another slow, deep breath. In through her nose and out through her mouth, her breath making a puff of steam in the icy air. A shiver ran down her spine as well, but Nikita knew that was due to the cold, not fear.
She could do this.
It wouldn’t take long.
And then she’d never have to do it again because that was why she was here.
To resign permanently from the job that had been held open for her for more than a year.
If there was a place Pedro Garcia loved to be in, other than an operating theatre, it was here—in the emergency department. And, as an orthopaedic surgeon with advanced qualifications in trauma, he got to spend as much time as he wanted in both places.
Right now, he was in the emergency department of Bristol’s Central Infirmary in response to a call to a trauma case. A fourteen-year-old boy had come off his skateboard on the way home from school and had a dislocated shoulder. Pedro had ordered an initial X-ray to rule out any significant fracture and he was showing the image to his patient.
‘See that, Thomas? That round bit there is the top of your humerus, which is the bone in your upper arm. It’s what we call a ball and socket type of joint and that’s the ball. The socket part, where it’s supposed to be sitting, is that bit there...’ Pedro pointed to the slightly blurred bony structure to one side of where it should have been. ‘The good news is I can’t see anything nasty in there so you probably won’t need an operation to fix it. I just need to put the round bit back where it belongs. Is that okay with you, buddy?’
‘It’s going to hurt, isn’t it?’ Thomas increased the pressure he was using to hold his injured arm immobile against his body, even though it was already in a sling.
‘We’re going to make sure it doesn’t hurt,’ Pedro reassured him. He glanced up at the nurse standing beside the bed. ‘Any idea of how far away Thomas’s mother is?’ It was certainly in the teen’s best interest to have this dislocation reduced as quickly as possible but it was also preferable to have parental consent if possible.
As if in answer to his query, the curtain to the cubicle was pulled back and a stressed-looking woman was ushered in.
‘Tommy, what on earth did you think you were doing? You knew that skateboard wasn’t safe. You could have killed yourself.’
Pedro raised an eyebrow at Thomas, who avoided his gaze.
‘It’s got a dodgy wheel,’ he muttered.
‘And I promised him a new one for Christmas,’ his mother sighed. ‘Oh, Tommy...this is all we need at this time of the year. They tell me you might need an operation. I can’t even stay here very long—my boss was less than happy I walked out and there’s no one else to pick your sisters up from after-school care.’
Pedro caught the woman’s gaze and held it. ‘It’s okay, Mamá,’ he said. ‘We’ve got this. I was just checking with Thomas that he was okay for me to try and put things back into place.’
‘Of course it is. Please...just do whatever you need to do. I’ll be ever so grateful if I can take Tommy home with me.’ She wiped a tear streak from her face and smiled at her son. ‘He’s been the man of the house since his dad walked out on us a couple of years ago. I couldn’t manage without him.’
Oh, man... Pedro knew a family’s expectations could take a heavy toll. The kind of sacrifices that had to be made to meet them, like putting their needs so far above your own that you learned it was better not to want anything too much.
‘Is it okay with you, Thomas?’ he asked.
The teenager nodded but Pedro knew how scared the lad was. How brave he was trying to be. How determined he was to step up to responsibilities that, in an ideal world, should never be placed on the shoulders of someone this young.
‘We got some good stuff to help,’ he told Thomas in a confidential tone. ‘I’m going to get you to suck on some Entonox, which is a mixture of nitrous oxide and oxygen. Some people call it laughing gas.’
Thomas was certainly not avoiding Pedro’s gaze now. He was looking shocked. ‘But that’s NOS, isn’t it? It’s illegal. There are boys at my school who got into big trouble when they got busted behind the bike sheds using that.’
‘It’s not illegal in hospital,’ Pedro told him. ‘It’s really good to stop things hurting, and that’s when you’re supposed to use it.’
The shock was turning into interest. ‘Am I really allowed to have it?’
‘As much as you need,’ Pedro promised. ‘Nurse Anna here is going to show you how to use it, but first, I’m going to put the back of your bed right up and I want you to sit on the side with your good arm against the end of the bed and your legs dangling over the edge.’
‘Hold the plastic mouthpiece with your teeth and seal your lips around it,’ Anna told Thomas a minute or two later. ‘Just breathe normally through your mouth. You might feel a bit dizzy or get some tingling in your fingers but don’t worry—that will disappear very fast once you stop breathing it.’
Pedro positioned himself behind Thomas as he was getting used to the Entonox. He undid the knot of the sling and supported the arm with one hand. When Thomas started giggling, he caught Anna’s gaze.
‘I think the Entonox is working,’ he said. ‘Can you take this arm, please? I’ll let you know when to apply some gentle traction.’
He palpated Thomas’s back and shoulder to locate the scapula and other anatomical landmarks he needed. Then he used his thumbs to push and rotate the bones, having given Anna the nod to apply traction. He could feel the moment the ball of the joint slid back into its correct position.
Thomas hadn’t felt a thing.
‘You can stop using this now.’ Anna took the mouthpiece from his hand.
‘Aww...’ Thomas made a very comically sad face but then grinned up at Pedro.
‘It’s all done,’ Pedro told him as he retied the knot of the sling. ‘You were a champion. All that needs to happen now is another X-ray to make sure everything’s as good as it can be and, if it is, you’ll be able to go home.’ He looked at Thomas’s mother. ‘He’ll only need the sling for a week or two, and he can start some physiotherapy about the same time.’ Turning back to his young patient, Pedro spoke seriously. ‘The more effort you can put into strengthening the muscles around your shoulder, the less likely this is to happen again, okay?’
Thomas nodded. ‘Okay.’
‘Why does he need another X-ray?’ his mother asked.
‘Sometimes there are fractures that are hidden by the dislocation and, if they’re not stable, they may need surgical intervention. I don’t think we’ll find any but we have to be sure, especially with someone of Thomas’s age. We want to avoid any complications down the road with recurrent dislocations.’
He glanced at his watch and his tone was apologetic now.
‘I have to run, I’m sorry. I’ve got a meeting I urgently need to be at, but I’ll be available to check the X-ray if there’s any problem. The radiologist will be able to give you an all-clear otherwise and Anna here will sort you out with a set of instructions of how to take care of that shoulder and an outpatient appointment for follow-up.’
Pedro walked from the emergency department to the nearest bank of lifts, which were in the main entranceway foyer. As usual, at this time of day, it was a busy place. Even busier at the moment, because there were people on ladders decorating a huge Christmas tree near the huge sliding glass doors. The gift shop was crowded and there was a queue in front of the café counter. Even the receptionists had more people than usual waiting for attention and the whole scene made Pedro smile.
He’d always loved Christmas. He loved the colour and brightness of the lights and decorations and the way people smiled at each other more often. He loved the excitement that hovered over the heads of children with increasing strength as the month progressed. He didn’t even mind that he had to wait longer in queues at the supermarket or post office. He was relieved, however, that there didn’t seem to be anyone else waiting for a lift right now. Pedro knew he should take the stairs but his meeting was on the fourth floor and he really didn’t want to be late. He punched a button for the lift and watched the light start moving towards the ground floor.
Pedro was hoping, very much, that the rumour he’d heard was correct and that he was about to be offered a permanent position here at Bristol Central instead of losing the locum position he’d held for almost a year now.
He got into the lift as soon as the doors were open wide enough. He pushed the button for the fourth floor and then pushed it again, even though he knew perfectly well that it wouldn’t make the doors shut any faster.
The hospital’s foyer was more crowded than Nikita had expected.
There was a group of people wearing Santa hats, who were busy hanging lights and bright baubles on an oversized Christmas tree. Someone was singing ‘Jingle Bells’ and they all looked delighted to be doing such a happy task.
Nikita tried not to look at the tree directly. She had to keep scanning the whole area, anyway, to be alert to anything that might be out of the ordinary.
Dangerous...
She could feel her adrenaline level rise as she processed the sounds of a child crying, a telephone ringing and laughter from a couple gossiping in front of the gift shop. Her senses were heightened enough that she could smell coffee and toasted cheese wafting from the café, but she was coping with a scenario that would have been unthinkable to go near not that long ago.
The noise of a glass decoration being dropped and shattering on the hard floor threatened to tip the balance, but Nikita simply increased the speed with which she was walking towards the lifts. She almost ran the last few steps, in fact, because she could see the doors of one of them starting to close and she didn’t want to have to wait for another or try and get up four flights of stairs in a hurry. Mind you, she was already inexcusably late for her meeting with the Head of Surgery, John Barlow. He would probably be delighted to hear that she was planning to never come back to work here.
Nikita ducked through the gap in time for it not to sense an obstacle and slide open again. A glance at the control panel showed her that her destination button had already been pushed so there was nothing she needed to do. She didn’t turn to acknowledge the only other person in this small space. Instead, she focused on the door in front of her and willed it to climb quickly and not stop at any other floors. She hadn’t been in a confined space like this for months and, while claustrophobia wasn’t one of her demons, it did feel like the steel walls had the potential to magnify unwanted thoughts by bouncing them back at her.
The lift gathered speed when there was no summons to stop at either the first or second floors. But then, with no warning whatsoever, there was a grinding crunch of machinery and the lift shuddered to a halt so violently that Nikita lost her balance. She would have fallen hard if the man behind her hadn’t caught her arm but she didn’t stay upright and that was by choice.
Something bad was happening and she needed to shelter. Without thinking, Nikita sat down in the corner of the lift, bringing her knees up to her chest and putting her head on top of them. She barely heard the man’s voice assuring her that they were quite safe and the lift wasn’t about to start falling, and his words became muffled anyway, as she crossed her arms over her head and waited for the worst to happen.
She knew it would. She felt the instant that it began to happen and could hear the agonised note in the breath that escaped her as the lift juddered again. The solid embrace of the man’s arms around her could—should, even?—have made everything so much worse but, oddly, Nikita found it comforting. Like the rumble of his deep voice so close to her ear now.
‘It’s okay, Nikki. You’re safe. Whatever went wrong has stopped and we’re moving again, that’s all. Look...we’re stopping. The doors will open any second.’
Nikki?
He knew her name? Not just her name but the nickname that only people who had known her well, years ago, used?
The lift doors were still shut as Nikita dropped her arms and looked up at the man who was holding her.
‘Pedro?’
He was smiling at her. A face from the past. Ten years in the past, when they’d both been in the same year at the same medical school. Pedro Garcia was someone who had known her when the world was a very different place for Nikita. Someone who had no idea what had happened since. She could see that he was only too aware that something had changed, however. The intense gaze from eyes that were so dark you couldn’t see the pupils was disconcerting.
‘Are you okay, Nikki?’
‘I’m fine.’ Nikita moved to scramble to her feet and Pedro let go of her immediately. The doors had begun sliding open as she stood up.
She wasn’t fine, of course, but Nikita wasn’t about to start explaining what must seem like a ridiculous overreaction to a minor incident. She didn’t want the reminder of how much her life had changed.
How much she’d lost...
Or that she had just failed in what she’d seen as a test of how far she’d come in her recovery. That felt like the worst aspect of this horrible situation and Nikita needed to get out of it as soon as possible.
‘I’m fine,’ she said again—as if she needed to convince herself as much as Pedro.
And then she escaped through the half-open doors of the lift and immediately turned to push open the swing door that led to the stairwell. She kept her hand on the banister rail for balance so she could run down those stairs as quickly as she could, given that she was wearing heels that she hadn’t worn for a very long time and a skirt that was hampering her movement.
She was focusing hard to make sure she didn’t fall, but that didn’t stop her remembering the look of shock in Pedro’s eyes.
Even after Nikita was out of the building—that Christmas tree no more than a blur in her peripheral vision as she raced through the main door—and she was heading for where she’d parked her car, she found herself looking over her shoulder, towards the hundreds of windows in the enormous hospital building.
It felt as if Pedro was still watching her.
