A Pup to Rescue Their Hearts

by Alison Roberts

  ‘He went home after we met and accused his mother of giving away his twin brother and demanded to know why. It sounds like it ended up being the most enormous row. She said she had no idea he was one of twins but, even if she’d known, she wouldn’t have wanted two babies. She didn’t even want one and she’d only agreed to the adoption to save her marriage. Lachlan said it made sense of a lot of stuff but it still did his head in. I think he found it a bit cathartic to talk about it, to be honest. We were up pretty much all night and there might have been a bit of whisky involved.’

  Stevie blinked as Josh paused to eat a few more mouthfuls. The chance meeting between twin brothers who’d been separated as babies was astonishing enough. That they’d both had less than loving upbringings was not so much of a coincidence as a tragedy but it sounded as if a bonding process was well underway.

  ‘She lives locally,’ Josh added. ‘The mother. Jocelyn or Josephine? I can’t remember. Anyway, she’s not actually that far from me. In one of those estates I was telling you about—with a huge mansion and its own forest? The McKendrys have family money from way back, which was why Lachlan’s father was desperate for an heir, I guess, but he was also a cardiothoracic surgeon in some exclusive private hospital in London—famous enough to have been given a knighthood. Lachlan said there was never any choice about the career he was going to have, right from when he got sent off to boarding school when he was only about six years old.’

  Stevie shook her head. ‘Unbelievable.’

  ‘He kind of rebelled, by going into plastic surgery instead of cardiac or neurosurgery. And then he took off as soon as he could to do postgrad training and work in the States.’

  ‘What’s brought him back here?’

  ‘He’d been headhunted by a children’s hospital in London and came back last year because he said he was, finally, a bit homesick. He’s been in demand for lecture tours and specialist training and so on since he got back but the Gloucester area is the first one he accepted and that was because he can still travel to London if he needs to and he’s got some major family stuff he needs to sort out.’

  ‘I guess his parents are getting older?’

  ‘His father died more than a decade ago. It’s his mother who’s causing the problems and she sounds like a very difficult woman.’

  ‘She sounds horrible. How could you adopt a baby like it was some kind of sticking plaster to hold a marriage together?’

  Josh shrugged and his expression reminded Stevie of why he’d turned his back on the concept of marriage and family long ago. That those kinds of relationships couldn’t be trusted. That they could do more harm than good, even.

  ‘Seems like her carers don’t like her much, either. They keep resigning.’

  ‘She needs carers?’

  ‘Full time.’ Josh nodded. ‘With medical training. I think he said she’s got brittle diabetes. Or asthma. Maybe both—I’ve forgotten everything we said. It wasn’t just Lachlan spilling an outline of his entire history—I was doing the same. It was like we had to catch up with as much as possible, as soon as possible.’

  He reached for his wine glass and took a long sip, his gaze holding Stevie’s over the rim.

  ‘You’re the only person I’ve ever said anything to about my background but... I don’t know, it just felt so easy to talk to Lachlan. We’d only just met but I felt like I’d known him for ever.’

  ‘You kind of have,’ Stevie said softly. ‘You shared a womb for nine months.’

  But Josh shook his head. ‘I don’t think I buy into that “twin” stuff. Or even an automatic genetic connection.’ He shook his head again, as if he didn’t want to even think about it, turning his attention to his meal again.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said a minute or two later, ‘Mrs McKendry’s housekeeper threatened to walk out recently so Lachlan decided to kill two birds with one stone. He’s basing himself at the family mansion while he divides his time between hospitals here and his work in London and he’s planning to use the three-month stint to get some kind of permanent arrangement in place for his mother. Or his “ex” mother, as he was calling her by the time we talked.’

  ‘So he’s here for a while longer, then?’

  ‘Yes. Another couple of months, at least. I think that day that Ruby clocked him was his first day at Cheltenham Central. He’s going to start with us next week, to line up Toby’s surgery and some lectures and demonstrations he’s going to present on new suture techniques amongst other stuff. What gets done in Emergency or even elective surgery can have major repercussions down the track for anyone, but especially for paediatrics. I’m looking forward to learning the latest myself.’

  Stevie ate the last forkful of her salad. ‘No wonder you were both up all night. Sounds like you talked about everything.’

  Josh nodded slowly. ‘Seemed like that at the time. Now it feels like we’ve barely started.’

  ‘I’d like to meet him again.’

  Stevie tried not to advertise just how intrigued she was to discover more. And to see what changes it might mean for Josh’s view of the world—and family?

  Oh, no...she couldn’t go there. Poor Josh had quite enough to deal with, without adding any hint of pressure from her for something that wasn’t even on an agenda. She offered him a smile. ‘I mean, if he’s your twin I’m sure he’s a nice guy.’

  To her relief, Josh smiled back. He had a bit more colour in his cheeks as well so maybe he was feeling better after eating.

  ‘I told him about you,’ he said. ‘After he asked if I’d ever been married. Or if I have a girlfriend.’

  ‘Oh?’ Stevie’s heart skipped a beat. Had their friendship been promoted to the status of a relationship? She caught her bottom lip between her teeth at the same moment her breath caught in her chest. The longing to hear Josh say that he considered her to be his girlfriend was powerful enough to override anything else.

  But Josh’s smile was fading. ‘Turns out we both have the same aversion to permanence in that department,’ he said. ‘Weird, huh?’

  One side of Stevie’s mouth quirked into a wry smile but she had no words to find. The stab of something a lot deeper than disappointment was definitely sharp enough to remind her of what heartbreak was like. Enough to make it very clear that she had let herself get into a dangerous place where she could end up getting badly hurt. Was that why it was called ‘falling’ in love?

  ‘So, what do you think?’

  ‘Sorry, what?’ Stevie had been so lost in her own thoughts she’d missed what Josh had been saying as he pushed his empty plate away.

  ‘I was saying that Lachlan suggested a night out. Apparently there’s a locum nurse who’s living in and looking after his mother and Lachlan would like to take her out to a nice restaurant somewhere to give her an evening off. He wants us to come as well. I think he’s as glad as I am that we didn’t have to come face to face with each other for the first time in front of other people so he’d like to thank you properly.’

  Josh was reaching across the table as he spoke to cover Stevie’s hand with his own and she could feel the warmth of that touch spread from her fingers to her arm and then wash into every cell in her body to pool, deep in her belly.

  ‘Sounds fun.’ Somehow she managed to keep her tone light. ‘Let me know when so I can sort a babysitter.’

  ‘Next week, maybe? Or the week after that? We need to get Toby’s surgery out of the way first, I think, but it would be better if it was before your settlement on the cottage, wouldn’t it? You’ll be busy getting things sorted and then moving and I guess it might be harder to find a babysitter until you know people in the village.’

  Life was certainly about to change in the near future but Stevie’s excitement about the move was suddenly tinged with apprehension about other changes that might be coming—for both herself and Josh. That stab of more than disappointment was still there, deepe
ning into a kind of chill that was more than enough to smother that delicious heat. It felt cold enough to be something very like fear. She couldn’t leave Mattie out of the equation, either. Josh might have promised never to hurt her son but who knew what was going to happen in the future, when such major changes had been triggered in Josh’s own life?

  ‘Speaking of babysitting...’ Stevie scrunched up her napkin as she got to her feet. ‘I’d better get back and let Mrs Johnston get home.’

  * * *

  It took another couple of weeks before Lachlan McKendry was ready to do the nerve transfer surgery that would hopefully restore shoulder and arm function to two-year-old Toby. More tests had been necessary, including a repeat electrical study of nerve function right before the surgery was scheduled.

  The gallery of the operating theatre was full but nobody had queried why Josh had someone from the paediatric nursing staff sitting right beside him in the front row. Perhaps because it was now common knowledge that it was Josh’s brother who was the star performer in this intricate surgery?

  There were screens that allowed them a close-up look at what was happening below and Josh had been watching in fascination from when the first felt pen marks had been made on the child’s back to mark anatomical points for the meticulous dissection Lachlan was making to expose the nerves he was targeting.

  ‘So, we’re going to use distal branches of the spinal accessory nerve to neurotise the suprascapular nerve, which is the classic approach to repairing a damaged brachial plexus network. I’m working slowly here, because there are a lot of small vessels and I don’t want to have to cauterise them when I’m this close to the nerve. I hope none of you are expecting an early lunch today.’

  The ripple of sound was too muted to be labelled as laughter. It was more like an acknowledgement that what they were witnessing was of far more interest than lunch but it did make Josh glance sideways, because anytime he thought about lunch there was always a background thought of mousetraps. And of Stevie.

  As if she could feel the touch of his gaze, she shifted her head so that she could glance at Josh for a moment, instead of the screen. There was a hint of a smile tugging at one corner of her mouth and her eyes were glowing. She was loving this opportunity to get so close to the action that she turned back to watch again almost instantly but Josh let his gaze linger on her profile for a heartbeat longer.

  He’d been right in thinking that Stevie was his safe haven. If anything, over the last few weeks she’d become such a rock he couldn’t imagine not having her in his life. So many things had changed and what had helped him more than anything in coping with it all was talking to Stevie about it. He’d told her things he would never dream about saying to anyone else and her responses often made him feel not only understood but could give him a new perspective. Like that late-night phone conversation last week...

  ‘I felt kind of jealous for a while, you know? Lachlan had everything money could buy. He never had to take a job in a bar or delivering pizzas to get through med school. He had a home where he was wanted. A father who was proud of every prize he got at school.’

  ‘But was he any happier than you were, do you think?’

  ‘No. I don’t think he was...’

  Lachlan was certainly in his element right now. His voice was calm and confident as he kept up a commentary for his audience.

  ‘I’m going for the donor nerve first, because finding the suprascapular notch and nerve is a bit more challenging.’ There was almost a smile to be heard in his voice now. ‘But success is always sweeter after a challenge, isn’t it?’

  It wasn’t the first time that Lachlan turned his head, signalling that he needed perspiration swabbed from his forehead and it made Josh frown. Was Lachlan under more stress than it seemed? Could the challenges that had intruded on his personal life be having a background effect on his professional performance?

  At least they were working towards getting used to the bombshell of discovering each other. Getting to know each other. And having the news hit the hospital grapevine hadn’t been nearly as confronting as Josh had feared, because—apart from Stevie—nobody knew he was adopted and nobody could guess that he hadn’t even known himself that he had a brother. People assumed he’d just kept his personal life private and they respected that. So far, nobody had even tried to find out why they had different surnames. Perhaps they were still too intrigued by the similarities between Josh and Lachlan to move on to what was different.

  ‘Here we go...’ Lachlan’s voice was clear and confident. ‘I’m opening up the trapezius muscle now. You’d expect the nerve to be in the muscle but it isn’t. It’s below the muscle, in the fatty layer. Again, I’m going slowly.’

  He was being so careful—the way Josh was with any procedure he performed. There was no denying how similar he and Lachlan were. It seemed like every time they were together they discovered something else they shared, like a favourite colour or food or movie. And, sometimes, it was something on a physical level, like a gesture. Or the fact they both had the same, slightly crooked eye tooth. Things were adding up, that’s for sure, and Josh was beginning to wonder if Stevie was right about a genetic connection. A ‘twin’ thing? She’d said something else about it the other day.

  ‘You have family, Josh. It’s not a matter of choice. This is real. Genetic. You have more in common with each other than you’ll ever have with anyone else on earth. A bond that’s there whether you want it or not. And it can be a bond that’s more important than anything else—like the one I have with Mattie.’

  But Stevie had built that bond from the moment she’d chosen to go through with her pregnancy and it had been strengthened every day since. Josh had no history with his brother at all. Could that bond still be significant? The idea of whether nature or nurture was dominant in shaping personalities and lives was a topic that had just become very personal for Josh but there was no denying they both shared the same passion for medicine.

  Even as his thoughts strayed on one level, Josh was focused on the screen, watching every tiny, careful snip Lachlan was making to get through the muscle to find the nerve he needed.

  ‘Some of you might be interested in reading about new advances in nerve and tendon transfers.’ Lachlan seemed to have the same ability to be thinking on different levels because his hands never faltered in their task. ‘It’s an exciting field that’s offering a lot of promise in restoring function for people with tetraplegia, for example. Giving them enough movement to be able to gain independence in feeding themselves, or driving a car. Ah...there we go. There’s the suprascapular nerve. Can I have a vessel loop, please?’

  Josh watched as the nerve was identified by the soft loop and then cut to leave the end ready to be joined to the functioning nerve. Yes...he did have a lot in common with Lachlan but their connection had reached a totally new level just last night when they’d stayed late at the hospital as Lachlan had explained the detail of today’s surgery to Josh. As they’d stood outside, ready to go in their separate directions, Lachlan had paused.

  ‘Do you think it made it easier, knowing all along that you’d been adopted?’

  ‘I think it made it worse. I knew I was different. That I didn’t belong, somehow, but I didn’t know why until a “real” son came along and I wasn’t wanted any more.’

  But Lachlan had shaken his head. ‘I never knew and I think that was worse because I didn’t belong either but I never knew why. Until I met you.’

  Maybe it had been at that moment that Josh had begun to change his mind about the existence of a meaningful genetic connection between people. Something that would never change. That could be trusted, no matter what.

  And, if he’d been wrong about that, maybe there were other assumptions about relationships he needed to revisit.

  As he watched his brother perform the extraordinary task of joining tiny nerves together with sutures that were almost in
visible to the naked eye, Josh felt himself letting go of some nameless tension. Even his body relaxed, to the point where he could feel his thigh touching Stevie’s leg.

  Could she feel that heat? It was burning through layers of fabric for Josh.

  What would she say if she knew that his focus wasn’t completely on the end of Toby’s surgery now, he wondered, as his gaze drifted from the screen to Stevie’s profile again. What if she knew he was thinking that she might need to revisit some of her own assumptions—like the one about genetic connections being ‘real’ because you had no choice about them?

  Surely a chosen connection could be just as real? Like the one that had grown so strong between him and Stevie? It was more than he’d ever found with any other woman on earth.

  Again, it seemed that Stevie could feel his gaze, in the same way he was so aware of the subtle touching of their legs. She barely moved her head but her gaze managed to find his. And hold it. And it seemed as though she was answering a question that he hadn’t realised was showing in his eyes.

  Telling him that she agreed with him about the connection they’d found.

  Promising him that it could be trusted...

  CHAPTER NINE

  DESPITE BEING DETERMINED not to build any hopes high enough to mean her heart would shatter into many more pieces when things changed, it was impossible to ignore the significance of being invited out to dinner with Josh and his twin brother. By the time a date had been agreed on—at rather short notice, in the end—and a restaurant booked, the event suddenly took on an importance that was generating rather a lot of tension.

  It felt like a date...

  As if Josh was happy to go out in public with her as his partner. To introduce her properly to the only real family he had. To potentially be seen, in fact, by people who worked in at Gloucester General, in which case the grapevine would have a new rumour to disperse and embellish.