The Nurse's Reunion Wish (HQR Medical Romancel)

by Carol Marinelli

  ‘Why don’t you speak to her when you’re a bit more comfortable?’ Rachel suggested. ‘For now, let’s focus on getting you out of the car.’

  ‘I’m sorry about all this,’ Jordan said. ‘I’ve had a bit too much to drink...’

  ‘It’s fine.’

  ‘Heather’s going to freak.’

  ‘Hey,’ Rachel said, ‘she’s only going to freak because she’ll be worried about you. Let’s get you into the department.’ She looked over to Dominic. ‘Go into the driver’s seat—you can support him from there when he turns.’

  Zaima, the night sister on duty, joined them with a porter, and then Ross, the ED registrar on for the night shift, came out armed with a green whistle, which Jordan sucked on as they attempted extraction.

  But every move proved agonising for him.

  ‘Why didn’t you call an ambulance?’ Zaima said to Dominic when they failed the second time they’d tried.

  ‘Because we’d still be waiting for it to arrive!’ Dominic replied tartly, though he was beginning to wish he had. ‘I’m sure the paramedics have got plenty to do on a Saturday night.’

  ‘So have I!’ Zaima retorted, in an equally tart tone.

  Then Rachel asked Jordan to lean forward, and with Dominic assisting from the rear, she and Zaima lifted his feet. Soon they had him turned, and his feet on the ground, and then he was in the wheelchair and finally inside the ED.

  Dominic went and moved his car.

  * * *

  ‘I’ll get the receptionist to come and take your details,’ Rachel said as she wheeled Jordan into a cubicle. ‘Let’s get you into a gown.’

  It was indeed a nasty fracture, and he was given an IV and analgesics before they even tried to get him up onto a trolley.

  When Jordan was finally comfortable Ross came in and examined him. ‘How soon can we get him up for an X-ray?’ he asked.

  ‘We’ve got two portable chests waiting, and an urgent C-spine,’ Zaima responded.

  And whatever else had come in in the meantime.

  ‘I can take him,’ Dominic offered, as he came in and took a seat on a stool at the nurses’ station.

  Rachel shook her head. ‘He needs a nurse with him, given he’s had analgesics.’

  ‘I’m sure I can manage—and, no, before you ask, I haven’t been drinking.’

  ‘It’s policy,’ Zaima said.

  And policy would be adhered to—even if sitting on the hard chairs outside X-Ray an hour later with Dominic was the last place she wanted to be.

  ‘How long will we be here?’ Dominic asked.

  ‘As long as it takes,’ Rachel said.

  He looked over to Jordan, who, thanks to the analgesics, was comfortable and fast asleep. She went over and checked the pulse in the arm affected by the fracture.

  Jordan stirred and opened his eyes. ‘I’m really sorry.’

  ‘Jordan, it’s fine,’ Rachel said, and gave him the latest update. ‘Heather’s sorting out a babysitter and is on her way.’

  But that only served to distress him.

  ‘No, no...’ Jordan said.

  ‘They couldn’t get a babysitter for tonight.’ Dominic didn’t exactly whisper, but he said it in low tones for Rachel’s ears and then addressed Jordan. ‘I’ll call Heather now and tell her that I’ll stay with you.’

  ‘Will you tell her that you’ll drive me home?’

  ‘Let’s see what the X-rays show,’ Dominic answered carefully, because he was already certain that Jordan was going to be headed for Theatre, rather than home. ‘I’ll call her now.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Jordan said. ‘He’s a good friend,’ he told Rachel, and then tried to focus on her. His eyes, thanks to all the morphine, were little pinpoints. ‘He made a terrible husband, I’ll bet, but he’s a good friend.’

  ‘Try and get some sleep,’ Rachel said gently, impressing herself with how calm and gentle she kept her voice.

  She gave him a nice smile as he closed his eyes and fell asleep.

  ‘Good God!’ she said to Dominic as he returned from calling Heather. ‘Did you go into the doctors’ mess with a megaphone and tell them all your ex-wife was working in the Emergency Department?’

  Dominic had the audacity to laugh. ‘People talk, Rachel.’

  ‘Well, I don’t.’

  ‘Normal people, then. Look, Jordan’s the most discreet person—honestly, Rachel. He knows me from way back. We went to med school together.’

  ‘Well, when he’s sobered up, would you please remind your friend that I don’t want this getting out?’

  She was cross, but Dominic’s laughter was infectious, and she found that she was smiling and feeling just a little bit warm on the inside. Their marriage had mattered enough to Dominic that he’d had to share it with his friend.

  ‘I’ll remind him,’ Dominic said as the radiographer came out.

  Jordan was wheeled in and Rachel went with him.

  ‘Busy?’ the radiographer asked her in a dry tone.

  ‘Just a bit.’

  Jordan was lovely and co-operative, and didn’t need to be told to hold his breath when the chest films were taken, but he did whimper at some of the positions required for other images.

  ‘Stay nice and still,’ the radiographer said as she and Rachel stood behind the lead screen. ‘As still as you can...’

  Rachel frowned, because Jordan was suddenly restless and pulling the film from under his arm.

  ‘Jordan?’ Rachel came out from behind the screen. ‘Jordan!’

  He was struggling to breathe. She took his pulse and found it was irregular, and saw he was starting to turn blue. The radiographer hit the emergency button that would turn on a strobe light above the room and also in the ED, to indicate that urgent help was required.

  ‘Get Dominic!’ Rachel called to the radiographer as she laid Jordan flat.

  * * *

  Dominic glanced up and saw the flashing light. It must have been set off by accident, he told himself as he looked to its source.

  Jordan had a fractured clavicle, for God’s sake.

  But years of experience had Dominic standing, ready to dash in.

  He strode into X-Ray and was met with the precariousness of life.

  Jordan was blue and Rachel was using an Ambu bag to attempt to breathe life into him. The radiographer was attaching the defibrillator and also an oxygen saturation probe to his finger.

  ‘What happened?’ Dominic asked as he took the stethoscope from Rachel’s neck.

  ‘He became agitated,’ Rachel said. ‘Sudden collapse. Should we get him round to Resus?’

  Jordan’s oxygen saturations were dire, and as Dominic listened to his breath sounds he figured out what had happened. ‘Tension pneumothorax,’ he said, taking a ten-mil syringe from the emergency trolley. ‘I’m going to do a needle thoracostomy here.’

  He really must have nerves of steel, he thought, because he shut out the fact that it was probably his closest friend he was stabbing with a syringe. But when there was a popping sound, and the hiss of trapped air being released, he let out a breath of relief of his own.

  ‘What the hell—?’ Zaima said as she ran in. ‘Oh, Jordan...’

  It was horrible—horrible for everyone. But soon they had him back in Resus, though he was flailing and conscious by the time they got there.

  ‘Stay still, Jordan,’ Dominic ordered, his eyes like a hawk’s, taking it all in as he attempted to stay back and let the team work on his friend.

  Soon they had him stabilised, and Dominic took on the less-than-pleasant task of calling Heather to update her.

  Dominic didn’t look forward to that call one bit.

  But Jordan was a lot more comfortable now, with heavy-duty pain relief and a chest tube in, and he would be headed for Theatre as soon as a slot opened up—althoug
h they were seriously backed up.

  ‘We might try and get him onto the ward,’ Zaima had said. ‘At least then he can wait in a comfortable bed.’

  Rachel was checking Jordan’s blood pressure when Dominic came back from calling Heather. Jordan’s face was the colour of putty.

  ‘How is she?’ Jordan asked groggily.

  ‘She’s okay,’ Dominic said. ‘Her mother’s on her way to look after the children, and then Heather will be here. I said I’d stay with you till she comes.’

  ‘Is she very upset?’

  ‘She’s fine. Just annoyed that you didn’t bring home her curry...’

  He was trying to keep things light, but the truth was it had taken a lot to calm Heather down. He didn’t want to stress out Jordan with all that.

  The second he’d mentioned the curry, Dominic had glanced over at Rachel and caught her eyes. The porcelain skin that never flushed suddenly had, and Dominic knew that Rachel was remembering that long-ago night before it had all gone so wrong for them.

  Of course, neither Jordan nor Zaima had the slightest clue of the history that danced between them...

  As Dominic waited for Heather to arrive, he sat by Jordan and watched Rachel work.

  Not in an obvious way—more he just sat by Jordan, who was dozing, and she appeared now and then to check his obs, or he caught sight of her wheeling a patient past. She looked ever more tired and pale as the night progressed, and the band holding her ponytail slipped lower.

  He wondered why, with all the painted beauty available to him tonight, it was still her.

  Had always been her, really.

  There had never been another woman who absorbed him as much, and he pondered how her bland expression as she steered a huge singing drunk man in a wheelchair through the department could make him smile.

  The queen of deadpan, he’d once called her.

  She never fully revealed her thoughts and it had driven him crazy at times.

  At other times, though, he had relished the game of guessing what was going on in her mind. The thrill of the chase and the flirtation had never been better with anyone else than it had been between them.

  And now it had started again.

  She stopped by the trolley where Jordan lay, still sleeping. ‘He’s first on the list for the morning,’ she told Dominic. ‘You might as well head home.’

  ‘I said I’d stay till Heather gets here—though it won’t be for a while, as her mother lives a good few hours away.’

  ‘Well, I’m going on my break,’ she told him. ‘Do you want to share my roll?’

  ‘I would love to share your roll, Rachel.’

  It was just a cheese-and-salad roll, with a generous layer of Henderson’s Relish, and she sliced it into two in the unit’s kitchen.

  They had shared many such rolls in the past.

  On the day he had started at Rachel’s school, instead of heading to the dining room, he had sat with her under a vast oak and she had shared her homemade lunch with him.

  Now she made two mugs of builder’s tea—dark and strong and exactly how he had come to like it. And as he watched her squeeze the teabags and flick them into the bin, he knew not a single person watching would even guess they were flirting. Even if cameras were trained on them and their moves were being analysed, no one would be able to tell.

  But they were.

  She carried the plates and he carried the mugs, and they went into the large, deserted staff room and sat down opposite each other.

  ‘Still like the relish, I see,’ he said in his fake northern accent, after he’d taken a bite and tasted the spicy fruity tang that was a staple in the Walker household—well, everywhere in Sheffield, really.

  ‘Aye!’ Rachel said.

  ‘Reminds me of the lunch breaks I’d take when I worked with your dad.’

  ‘I am sorry about that.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About my family. They gave you a hard time.’

  ‘Not really,’ he dismissed, but then he laughed mirthlessly, because the Walkers weren’t exactly sensitive New Age guys and it had been one hell of a time when he’d worked with them. ‘Yeah, it was pretty rough—but that said, they were just being protective. I did get you pregnant; they were never going to go easy on me.’

  And this time he didn’t shrug, but told her a truth instead.

  ‘That year of working with them did me a lot of favours. For all his blundering ways, your dad’s actually very good at small talk.’ He gave a soft laugh of recall. ‘He could chat to anyone,’ Dominic said. ‘I mean, moving house is one of the most stressful times of people’s lives, yet your dad would nail it each and every time, and some of it rubbed off on me.’

  ‘Really?’

  Dominic nodded, then watched as she lay back in her seat and closed her eyes—not to sleep, but to sigh. ‘What a night...’

  ‘I know,’ Dominic agreed.

  In the scheme of things, a tension pneumothorax on a Saturday night was something they were well used to, but it felt very different when it was a colleague and friend.

  ‘How was Heather?’

  ‘Terrified,’ Dominic admitted. ‘I tried to play it down a bit, but she’s a doctor herself. She knows it was touch and go for a moment.’

  ‘Not with you there,’ she said, opening her eyes and looking right at him. ‘Your hand didn’t even shake.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t be much good if it did. I just had to shut it all out and focus on the task, and then panic afterwards...’ Then he admitted the truth. ‘He’d just told me that Heather’s pregnant again.’

  ‘God!’

  ‘I’d literally just told him what a lucky bastard he was...’

  ‘Really?’ Rachel said. ‘And there I was thinking you’d be giving him the name of your vasectomy surgeon.’

  It was a little dig, but it made both of them smile.

  He’d never expected her to smile about it...

  * * *

  In fact, Rachel was surprised to discover that what she felt was the oddest sensation of sweet relief. Perhaps, she told herself, it was because it took any future for them—even if it was only in her imaginings—right off the table. Because more than anything Rachel wanted to be a mother some day.

  Only that wasn’t quite it.

  She was looking right at him.

  Still.

  And the news that he’d had a vasectomy somehow made sex—well, just about sex.

  It was actually quite liberating.

  It all boiled down to desire.

  And that desire was there.

  Zaima came in then and broke the spell. She had come for a coffee, rather than her meal break, she said, though Rachel was sure it was actually to find out all the gossip from the Emergency team’s night out.

  ‘Who else was up on the tables?’ she asked Dominic. ‘Was May?’

  ‘No!’ Dominic grinned.

  ‘What about Louise from Maternity?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Dominic said.

  Usually that would have been something he’d notice, thought Rachel—because Louise, a midwife on Maternity, was stunning.

  Zaima pushed for more gossip by bribing him with salt-and-vinegar crisps. ‘What about Tara?’

  ‘She was there.’ He nodded.

  And Rachel was horrified to feel a slight twitch of her nose. Her superpower was fading... But then, it had never been put to the test against the thought of Dominic dancing with another woman before.

  Zaima didn’t pick up on the tension between Rachel and Dominic because there was nothing to see.

  The chemistry belonged entirely to them.

  Rachel’s internal radar was tuned with precision to him, and she knew, even though he chatted and ate crisps, that his little pauses before answering Zaima’s questions were do
wn to her presence.

  * * *

  Indeed, Dominic was having trouble focusing on the conversation—because it was killing him not to have Rachel again. And it was killing him to work alongside her.

  No, things could not continue as they were. The fault line was shifting. But he was more than happy to suffer any collision that might be ahead if it meant he got to be with Rachel again.

  He glanced over to where she sat, watching the television and sipping her tea, as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, but he was certain of the fire that was growing between them.

  * * *

  ‘I’d better get back,’ Zaima said.

  Rachel glanced up at the clock to see how much of her meal break she had left. ‘I’ll be back in ten.’

  She turned back to the television, but the image on it seemed blurry and she had no idea what else was being said, such was her awareness of Dominic in the room.

  ‘Do you ever think of us?’ Dominic asked suddenly.

  Rachel swallowed. She wanted to give a dismissive laugh, as if that might shut him down, except it would be a blatant lie. ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘Because I’ve been thinking about us a lot of late,’ Dominic pushed, ‘and I think you’ve been thinking about us too.’

  ‘What part of us?’ Rachel asked dryly, and continued staring ahead. ‘The arguments, the bills, the—?’

  ‘Not those parts.’

  She swallowed again. She was tempted to pick up her mug and walk out, but then she turned and looked at Dominic, thirteen years older and somehow all the sexier for it. Which was incredible, because there had not been a single thing she would have changed about him back then. Yet here he was, pale from lack of sleep, with dark shadows under his eyes and unshaven, and he still made her weak with wanting.

  ‘It would be a mistake,’ Rachel said, talking about the sex that now seemed inevitable.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Dominic conceded. ‘However, of all my regrets—and with you there are many—one of the biggest is that I can’t remember the last time we did it.’

  She was startled.