The Nurse's Reunion Wish (HQR Medical Romancel)

by Carol Marinelli

  Haylee looked down at the picture and then to her son, who was working very hard to breathe.

  Dominic was deeply concerned and he would feel a lot better if they were in Theatre. ‘Thomas really needs antibiotics and IV fluids,’ he said. ‘But putting in a cannula is only going to upset him, so the very best thing we can do is get him up to Theatre and take care of everything there.’

  ‘I understand that,’ said Haylee Jennings as she cuddled her son.

  ‘Have you got anyone here with you?’

  ‘My husband’s on his way.’

  ‘Good,’ Dominic said. ‘I’m just going to let my senior know what’s happening and...’

  He glanced up to let the nurse know they’d be heading up to Theatre imminently, and it was then that Dominic realised he hadn’t been wrong at all.

  The nurse was Rachel.

  It helped, as an anaesthetist, to have nerves of steel. For Dominic, it was an acquired trait. Some called him arrogant, but those nerves of steel were invaluable now that he was faced with this unlikely situation.

  Dominic looked through Rachel, rather than at her.

  In fact, Dominic barely blinked.

  ‘We’ll head up shortly,’ he informed her. ‘I’m going to make a quick call first.’

  ‘Ready when you are,’ Rachel replied, in a voice that was both measured and calm.

  * * *

  Yes, a superpower indeed!

  As Dominic Hadley selected some drugs and syringes from the cart and stalked off, there was a moment when Rachel wondered if he’d even recognised her.

  After all, she’d barely recognised him!

  There was little about this polished, suave man who commanded the room that compared with the awkward physics geek she had fallen in love with.

  Although his thick black hair was the same, still damp from his morning shower, and the soapy male scent of him was familiar. His dark eyes were the same gorgeous velvet brown as they had always been too. He had always towered above her, but he seemed taller now, if that were possible. And he had definitely broadened out, and looked immaculate in his sharp navy suit, pale blue shirt and lilac tie.

  Her dad, if he were here, would probably say it was pink...

  What sort of man wears a pink tie? Rachel could almost hear her father’s thick Yorkshire accent.

  * * *

  With the phone pressed between his ear and his shoulder, Dominic pulled up the drugs he might need, should there be an emergency en route, as he let his boss know the situation.

  ‘Any history?’ asked Richard Lewis, the consultant anaesthetist.

  ‘Unvaccinated.’ Dominic clipped back his response. But his voice faltered as he glanced over to Resus, where Rachel still stood. There was a whole lot of history right there...

  ‘Healthy little boy until this morning, nil allergies...’ He went through the case, and it was agreed that Richard, who was currently on ITU, would meet him up in Theatre.

  ‘We’re heading straight up,’ Dominic told May as he replaced the phone.

  ‘They’re ready for you. Rachel will come up to Theatre with you.’

  Dominic felt as if his heart might pump its way up to his throat and wondered if it would be better to object to Rachel escorting him.

  ‘She’s new. I need someone who knows what they’re doing.’

  ‘Which is why I’m sending Rachel. She might be new but she’s worked in Paediatric Emergency up in Sheffield and is very competent.’

  ‘Fine.’ He walked over to the cooler and filled a little plastic cup with water, drained it, filled it again, drained it again, and told himself to remove Rachel from his mind entirely. He headed back in, determined to ignore the fact that Rachel had just dropped back into his life.

  For now.

  ‘We’re going to get Thomas up to Theatre now,’ Dominic informed Haylee. ‘We’ll put you in a wheelchair, with Thomas on your knee, but if there’s an emergency on the way, then we’ve got everything we need to deal with it.’

  Rachel—or rather, he told himself, the nurse—helped mother and child into the wheelchair as he ran a knowing eye along the equipment she had prepared for the journey.

  ‘Ready?’ Dominic checked as Rachel wrapped a blanket around Thomas and his mum.

  ‘Ready,’ the nurse agreed and gave the mother a smile...

  Except it was Rachel’s smile, and to Dominic it felt like a punch in the guts. It was summer and spring all rolled into one. It was the memory of Saturday nights watching a movie while eating a curry in bed. It was a forgotten ten-pound note found in her jeans that she’d waved over her head before taking him for breakfast in the café across the street.

  But he was determined that her smile would not be his undoing.

  ‘Ready,’ Jordan said.

  There was a blast of cold air as they left the department and he tried not to notice Rachel briefly rub her bare arms.

  It was a reminder for Dominic that Rachel was always cold—and not just in body temperature. He’d never been allowed inside that head of hers, so he did all he could to put her out of his now.

  * * *

  It was a very long walk up the corridor. Rachel’s eyes never left Thomas’s face as Haylee nervously chatted away. ‘I thought he had croup,’ she admitted. ‘But he was blue when I went to him...’

  ‘Well, he’s in the right place now,’ Rachel said, doing her level best to keep Haylee as calm as she could.

  ‘Have you worked here long?’ Haylee asked.

  ‘I’ve only been here a week,’ Rachel admitted. ‘Before that I worked in a paediatric emergency department in Sheffield.’

  ‘I thought I heard a northern accent.’ Haylee nodded and looked up at Rachel. ‘Do you have any children?’

  ‘No,’ Rachel said.

  To her utter, aching regret, the answer was no, even if it wasn’t strictly true. But it was much easier just to say no and deny her son’s existence than to walk along a corridor with someone she didn’t know and admit to the agony.

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  The porters were holding the lift for them, and as the group got in, Rachel gave them a nod of thanks, relieved that attention could be diverted from her answer to Haylee’s question.

  The lift doors closed and Haylee looked up at Jordan. ‘So, you’ve got three children?’

  ‘I do,’ Jordan said. ‘All boys.’

  Rachel held her breath as Haylee asked Dominic the same question. ‘What about you, Doctor?’

  How would Dominic respond?

  For Rachel, worse than having him reveal their past would be hearing about his present. Was she about to learn that he was married with two little ones or one on the way?

  As she awaited his response, Rachel found she was holding her breath. Was she going to have to hide her reaction to hearing about a Mrs Hadley? Or a soon-to-be Mrs Hadley? And how would she react to that?

  * * *

  Dominic wasn’t about to enlighten anyone.

  He would rather be anywhere than in this lift right now. And this morning, of all mornings, it was imperative that he keep his private and professional worlds firmly separated.

  ‘I try not to bring my personal life to work, Haylee,’ he said, and let out a steadying breath. ‘It makes it easier for me to focus.’

  Haylee nodded and gave a small smile, not offended in the least at the slight rebuff, and he saw Rachel let go of the breath she’d been holding.

  The lift swished them to the second floor, and they were soon gliding along the highly polished corridor and into the controlled world of the operating theatre, where more medical staff awaited them.

  ‘Stay with him,’ Dominic ordered Rachel. ‘A familiar face might help.’

  But Rachel’s familiar face most certainly wasn’t helping Dominic, so it was Thomas Jennings he kept on his mind
as he went off to change into scrubs.

  * * *

  As the theatre nurses checked Thomas’s ID, and ran through questions with his mum, Richard Lewis came in and introduced himself.

  Jordan was ordering an IV and drugs, but the efficient theatre staff were taking care of that, and Rachel again found that she felt a little giddy.

  Not in an about-to-faint way. Just giddy from the heat of Theatre, she tried to convince herself. Of course she was worried about Thomas, but mostly she was overwhelmed by seeing Dominic again—but she never let it show, not even for a second. Even when Dominic returned, dressed in scrubs and a theatre cap, she gave him as banal a look as she could muster.

  ‘Let’s get a line in,’ Dominic said, and then added to Rachel, ‘Can you try to distract him?’

  The numbing gel had only recently been applied, but she hoped it would take the edge off the cannula going in. More important, Thomas was increasingly cyanosed and becoming rather listless, so it was imperative they moved quickly.

  Haylee cuddled her son while Dominic eased a cannula into his little vein.

  ‘Good boy,’ Dominic said when it was all done and hooked up.

  Now that IV access had been secured, it was time for Rachel to escort Thomas’s mum out of the operating theatre. But before she left, Dominic caught the tearful woman’s eye. ‘I won’t leave his side,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you,’ Haylee said.

  She turned and waved as her son let out a raspy cry, but allowed Rachel to lead her out.

  ‘They’ll take the very best care of him,’ Rachel said.

  ‘That anaesthetist—he seems to know what he’s doing,’ Haylee said as Rachel led her to the relatives’ room. ‘Thomas will be safe with him.’

  ‘Yes,’ Rachel said. ‘Dr Hadley will take the very best care.’

  * * *

  It was a difficult intubation. Thomas’s throat was swollen, and the vocal cords were hard to visualise, but with Richard’s quiet and reassuring presence, Dominic got the tube in and thankfully a tracheostomy wasn’t necessary. Swabs and bloods were taken, and antibiotics and IV fluids were started.

  Thomas was moved over to the ITU, where, sedated and ventilated, his little body could finally start to fight the infection, and it wasn’t long before Haylee was allowed to return to her son’s side. Only then did Dominic leave him.

  ‘Well done,’ Richard said as Dominic took a seat at the nurses’ station that looked out over the whole of ITU and pulled up Thomas’s incoming blood work on the computer.

  ‘Thanks.’

  Richard turned his head at this rather muted response from Dominic. He noted the pallor on his colleague’s face, and saw that his usually suave registrar was suddenly anything but.

  ‘Is everything okay?’ Richard checked.

  ‘Not really,’ he admitted, and ran a hand over his forehead now that the surprising turn of events had begun to sink in. ‘There’s a nurse down in Emergency...’

  Richard rolled his eyes. This happened all too often where Dominic was concerned. ‘You need to learn to let them down more gently,’ Richard suggested.

  But Dominic was silent.

  He knew it would be far more sensible to say nothing. To just let it go.

  After all, what had happened between him and Rachel had been more than a decade ago.

  Way more than a decade.

  It had been thirteen years, in fact.

  Yes, better to stay silent, Dominic decided.

  Except the shock of the morning had been so great—or maybe it was just that he couldn’t hold it in any longer—that he told his senior the truth.

  ‘It’s not like that,’ Dominic said, for it wasn’t a little glitch with an ex or some disgruntled lover that was troubling him.

  Rachel had been way more than that.

  ‘I just ran into my ex-wife.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘EX-WIFE?’ RICHARD did a double-take, perhaps thinking he had misheard or that Dominic was joking.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Your ex-wife is working in Emergency? You never said you’d been married. I had no idea.’

  How could he have? Dominic thought to himself. Apart from a fleeting conversation with Jordan and his wife, a couple of years ago, he’d never discussed his brief marriage with anyone. To Dominic’s colleagues, friends—and lovers—he was the personification of an eternal playboy bachelor.

  ‘It was a long time ago,’ Dominic clipped, already regretting saying anything. ‘It didn’t last for long.’

  ‘What happened?’ Richard persisted.

  ‘We were young.’ Dominic shrugged and turned back to the computer. ‘We got married for all the wrong reasons.’

  ‘Such as?’

  But Dominic wasn’t going to answer that one.

  ‘We both agreed it was a mistake. I haven’t seen her in...’ He blew out a sigh. ‘Years.’

  ‘And how does it feel to see her now?’

  Dominic thought for a moment. How did it feel to see Rachel again?

  Challenging.

  It felt as if every mistake he had ever made in life was suddenly being paraded in front of him, but he played it down to his boss.

  ‘Surprised. I never thought she’d leave Sheffield,’ Dominic admitted, but he deliberately didn’t offer her name, nor let on that it was Rachel. There were always staff coming and going at The Primary, and he was quietly relieved Richard hadn’t picked up on the tension between them this morning. ‘She’s all about her family.’

  ‘What are they like?’ Richard asked.

  ‘Her mum died, so there’s just her dad—and she’s ever so protective of him. Oh, and there are four hulking brothers. They’re all very parochial...’ His voice trailed off. He didn’t mean it in a derogatory way, but as an outsider it had been impossible to break in to their clique. ‘They considered me weak.’

  ‘Weak?’ Richard frowned, clearly nonplussed, because Dominic, as well as being tall and broad-shouldered, was incredibly confident and assured.

  ‘A bit of a pansy,’ Dominic elaborated. ‘And I guess I was back then.’

  Richard laughed, but it faded when he saw the serious expression on his colleague’s face.

  ‘What was your wife like?’

  ‘Tricky,’ Dominic said—which was the understatement of the year.

  But he really didn’t want to discuss it, so when his pager buzzed he pounced on it and saw that it was Maternity.

  ‘Your wife is paging me,’ Dominic said, and gave a wry smile. Richard’s wife, Freya, was a midwife, and had just started back at work after the birth of their son William. ‘I’m needed over in Maternity for an epidural.’

  But Richard had more to say on the topic of Dominic’s ex-wife. ‘I can go and give the epidural. Why don’t you go and speak with...?’

  Richard was waiting, Dominic guessed, for him to offer a name, but he would not be revealing that.

  ‘It must have been a big shock for your ex-wife too,’ Richard said.

  ‘She seemed fine with it.’ Dominic shrugged.

  Only, he knew that couldn’t be true. Rachel buried her emotions deep, and he had been denied access to them right from the start. When they’d first got together he had asked about her mother, wondering how her loss at such an early age had affected Rachel, but she had shut him down. And then, in those final painful days when he’d tried to speak to her about their son, Rachel had made it very clear she did not want him to get close.

  Well, she’d got her wish, and although it appeared they might be working together for the foreseeable future, they had never been further apart.

  ‘I’ll head up to Maternity,’ he said.

  ‘No, no.’ Richard stood and pulled rank. ‘I’m going. There’s a patient with COPD down in Emergency. He needs a pre-op assessment. Could you go and take
care of that, please?’

  Dominic’s jaw gritted.

  ‘And while you’re there perhaps you could manage a conversation with your ex-wife, to ensure that you’re both okay with the situation?’

  ‘We’ll be fine.’

  ‘Good. Then you’ll have no issue heading down to Emergency.’

  ‘Of course I won’t. But as for having a conversation with my ex-wife, there’s nothing left to talk about,’ Dominic said. ‘It was all said and done with years ago.’

  Not really.

  There had been an awful lot left unsaid.

  * * *

  Rachel had walked back down towards the Emergency Department in somewhat of a daze. She had been completely unprepared to see him and felt utterly sideswiped.

  Her move to London was still so new. Of course she knew that Dominic was from here, so she’d been braced to run into him on the street, or in a shop or café, even while telling herself she was being ridiculous—after all, there were more than eight million people living in London.

  Not for a second had she expected to see him at work.

  A doctor?

  An anaesthetist!

  When?

  He wasn’t exactly a people person. In fact, the Dominic she’d known had been rather socially awkward. The Dominic she’d known had had one interest—physics—and had been determined that one day he’d be a research scientist. He’d been heading off to university for just that purpose.

  Okay, he’d had two interests, Rachel amended as she opened the large double doors to Emergency: physics and sex.

  She dared not allow herself to think of the latter, though!

  ‘How’s Thomas?’ May pounced the second Rachel returned to the department.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Rachel said. ‘I took Mum over to the ITU relatives’ room, but Thomas was still in Theatre when I left.’

  ‘I’ll call them in a little while,’ May said.

  Rachel looked over to May, who was writing on the whiteboard as she chatted, and oddly found that she wanted to confide in her.