‘The thing I want to ask you is...’ Hetti shifted awkwardly. Then, as the doors banged at the other end of the corridor, she grinned, exhaled heavily and shook her head and began to hurry the other way. ‘Never mind. It’ll keep.’
Effie turned away, bemused. And slammed into a solid wall. A warm, human solid wall.
She didn’t need to see his face to know who it was. A tremor ran through her body like the after-effects of an earthquake.
‘Tak.’
‘Effie.’
‘I’ve...just been talking with Hetti.’
‘So I saw.’
She pursed her lips. ‘Did you ask her to stall me?’
If only she wasn’t willing him to say yes. Instead he offered a wry smile, and that long, slow ache started up inside her all over again.
‘I did not. But I did just receive a call from her saying that she needed me down on this floor.’
So Tak hadn’t actually been looking for her. They’d merely been set up. Then again, Tak had come anyway. Was that a good thing or a bad one?
Effie was sure her stomach had no business vaulting and somersaulting the way it was.
‘You didn’t leave a patient?’ she asked feebly.
He eyed her disdainfully. ‘Of course not.’
‘No,’ she cut in hastily. ‘Foolish question.’
They stood, the silence stretching uncomfortably between them, whilst Effie tried, and failed, to find something—anything—to say.
‘What about the boiler?’ He finally broke the silence. ‘Did your landlord send someone round the next morning?’
She hesitated as a hundred different thoughts raced through her head. It was barely a beat but it seemed to hang between them for an age, and when she finally spoke her voice was strangled. ‘It’s in hand.’
‘It isn’t fixed?’ he said sharply.
Another beat.
‘It’s being fixed.’
‘Effie—’
‘Actually...’ she cut him off hastily ‘...since you’re here, I do owe you a thank-you.’
For a moment, she thought he was going to argue.
‘What for?’ he ground out instead.
‘For Nell. We went to the shop together this morning. You were right—they took one look at her white face, heard her shaky confession and apology, and were more than prepared to let her pay and let her off with a warning because it was her first—and only—time. But they were clear that if they see her in there again with those girls stealing then she won’t get off so lightly.’
‘And she understood that?’
‘I made sure of it.’
She had made sure Nell understood. She’d spelled it out in no uncertain terms. But she’d also chatted to her daughter, just as Tak had suggested, and just as she’d known she needed to do all along. And she was confident in her own mind that it had been a stupid, ill-judged, one-time mistake. It wasn’t the start of Nell going off the rails.
Not the way she herself had, anyway.
‘Am I the first man you’ve ever taken home, Effie?’
The question came out of nowhere, pulling the proverbial rug out from under her.
‘I... Sorry...what does that mean?’
‘Exactly what it sounds like.’ He sounded amused. ‘Am I the first man you’ve ever taken home?’
‘Does it matter?’ Not an ideal way to buy herself some time, but it would have to do.
‘Only your daughter seemed more curious about me than perturbed. I wondered if she thought you never dated at all.’
She didn’t know whether to be impressed or irritated that he was so astute. ‘I date,’ she lied, pretending she couldn’t hear the defensive note running through her tone.
Because he was right. From the moment she’d lifted her forehead from that cool wooden door that night, to see the sharp gleam in her daughter’s eyes, Effie had known something was different. There had been a shift in their mother-daughter relationship, although she couldn’t have articulated what that shift was.
Possibly she was hindered by the fact she was still finding it difficult enough trying to process that kiss with Tak—and the fact that even now her body seemed to be aching for it to continue—without dealing with a frowning thirteen-year-old to boot.
‘Glad to hear it.’
His reply was so smooth that it took Effie a moment to recall that they’d been talking about whether or not she dated.
‘Well...’ she declared. ‘Um...good.’
It was getting more awkward, more painful by the moment. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to move. Which made it all the more humiliating when Tak strode away with apparent ease, talking to her over his shoulder.
‘Okay, then, if that’s all you wanted me for I should get back to work.’
‘I didn’t want you. Hetti wanted you,’ Effie managed at last.
But it was too late. He was already gone and she was left to make her way back to the helicopter, her head now full of memories of Nell’s none too subtle interrogation the night of the ball.
‘Who was the guy?’ her daughter had demanded without preamble.
She might have known Nell wouldn’t easily let it go. ‘No one,’ she’d ventured.
Her daughter had scoffed in the way that only teens could. ‘Is he your boyfriend?’
Effie remembered opening her mouth to answer, but then catching herself. What kind of example was it to set for her thirteen-year-old daughter? She had been kissing someone who had, when it came down to it, been more of a ride to the gala than anything else. Or at least he was supposed to have been.
So she’d fibbed. ‘He was my date but... I don’t know if we’ll be seeing each other again.’
For a long moment her daughter had eyed her without answering, whilst Effie had tried to pretend to herself that she didn’t secretly wish it really had been a date. Her first one in years.
When Nell had finally spoken, it hadn’t been at all what Effie had been expecting.
‘Was it a bad date?’ she’d asked, her voice softer than anything Effie had heard from her in a long while. Sympathetic. ‘Did he flirt with another girl? I was on a date with Adam Furnisson, but all he did was flirt with Greta Matthews the whole time. It was...humiliating.’
A date? Nell? When the hell had that happened?
Effie had bitten her tongue so hard that she was sure, even now, she could still taste blood. But demanding the details would have only made her daughter shut her out again.
She’d never even heard those names before. How was it that an unexpected kiss with Tak—the kind that had probably meant nothing to him but which had shaken her so—had put her back into a position where her daughter suddenly wanted to confide in her again?
She’d had to choose her words carefully when she’d warned Nell that, ‘If a boy treats you like that then he simply isn’t worth it.’
Nell had twisted her mouth in a way which had suggested she knew that in her head but her innocent neo-teen heart was having some difficulty with the concept.
‘I know...’ She’d blown out a deep breath. ‘But it’s Adam Furnisson, Mum. He’s, like...the hottest guy in school, and it’s a big deal to even be part of his squad.’
Oh, to love a child and yet simultaneously want to strangle them.
Tak’s words had come back to her unexpectedly and for a moment they had helped to take some of the heat out of Effie’s instinctive response. What else had Tak said...? That maybe she should try talking to her daughter? Well, it was worth a try.
Hesitantly, she’d taken her daughter’s hand and led her to the sofa, promising to make them a hot drink and have a chat. Like grown-ups.
Nell’s eyes had begun to narrow suspiciously, but then she’d offered a surprised, pleased, but wary nod, before following her mother across the room.
To
Effie it had felt like the kind of victory she couldn’t even have dreamed of a few hours before. Before Tak. Before his advice.
Yet with his words resounding in her head—his assurance that she was doing a good job and his instruction to give herself a break—she’d felt a renewed confidence to tackle Nell. And the rest of her conversation with her daughter, including about the shoplifting, had followed from there.
None of it had been ground-breaking. It had just been everything she should have known for herself. Probably did know, deep down. But somehow, somewhere along the line, she’d lost confidence in herself and begun second-guessing the way she was with her own daughter.
It made her wonder exactly how Tak had understood the situation so well.
And what was it that made Hetti so very protective and fiercely proud of her brother? Because it was more than just the fact that he was a renowned neurosurgeon.
Suddenly Effie was more than keen to find out.
* * *
It had taken Tak hours of ward rounds, surgery and ultimately hated paperwork for Tak to finally push Effie out of his head. Even when he was focussed on his job she still lurked there. Somewhere in the back of his subconscious.
He was sure she had been lying about the repair to the boiler in her flat being in hand.
Taking the stairs two at a time—always faster than waiting for the hospital elevators at this time of day—Tak thrust all thoughts from his head. It shouldn’t matter to him. They weren’t his business. Not Effie. Not her daughter. Not their boiler.
Effie had been a means to an end—as he had been for her—a mutually convenient arrangement for one night only. There was absolutely no reason for him to think about her any more. No reason for him to tell himself he needed to find something to douse this thing that was simmering dangerously inside him.
It had almost been a relief when he’d managed to walk away back there in the hospital corridor. He’d managed to break the spell Effie had unknowingly woven around him.
Yet he couldn’t shake the memory of the way she’d watched him. With a look approaching disappointment in her eyes. And something else, too. Something altogether too much like hurt.
Consequently, the last thing he expected was to get an emergency call from Resus, patching through a familiar, if crackly voice from the air ambulance.
‘Effie?’
Had she called just to talk to him?
‘Tak?’
The shocked tone was too palpable to miss. Clearly she hadn’t asked for him by name.
And then she shook off her shock and plunged in. ‘I’m with a casualty—forty-year-old female. Road traffic accident. GCS six. Pupils uneven with left pupil dilated and fixed. Infrascanner showed a subdural haematoma.’
‘So get her in to me,’ he barked.
‘We can’t,’ she replied simply. ‘We’re not cleared to fly. There’s been an explosion and there’s thick, black smoke around us so we can’t see to fly out and no one can see to get to us right now.’
He processed the scenario in moments. This patient needed surgery to alleviate the pressure on her brain. A delay of mere hours could result in permanent brain injury. Which meant someone needed to do it out in the field. Now.
A tiny part of him was relieved that it was Effie on the other end of the phone rather than anyone else. But he could process that bit of information later. In his own time.
‘You’re going to need to perform an emergency burr hole evacuation.’
‘Yes.’
That quiet, calm affirmation was like the final puzzle piece slotting in. Any residual doubts Tak had dissipated quietly.
‘Okay—the patient is intubated?’
‘Yes, and in a C-spine.’
‘You’re going to need a knife, a drill, swabs, a self-retainer... Saline should ideally be hypertonic...’
‘Tak, we’re not an emergency department or an operating room. We’ve got some kit on board, but the rest is mix and match and DIY stuff. I really need you to talk me through it.’
‘Okay, give me your mobile number and I’ll call you back on it. And I’ll send you an image showing the standard position of burr holes, which you’re going to need to modify depending on what the Infrascanner shows.’
He grabbed a pen and jotted down the number she gave him, replaced the department phone and headed for a quiet room as he sent her the image.
He called her back.
‘Tak?’
She picked up on the first ring, her nerves controlled but nonetheless evident. He didn’t blame her.
‘You’ll be fine.’ He kept his tone as brisk as he could. ‘I’ll talk you through it as we go, but here’s a summary. You’re going to need to shave about a five-centimetre strip of hair. Then you’ll mark a three-centimetre incision and clean the area, preferably with chlorhexidine. You’ll make an incision right down to the bone, controlling any bleeding with direct pressure.’
‘Understood.’
She had to be nervous but she was mastering it, which boded well for the casualty. His respect for Effie hitched up yet another notch.
‘You’re going to need to use either the knife or a swab to push the periosteum off the bone, and ideally this is when you’d insert the self-retaining retractor. Or whatever it is you’ve got.’
‘Right,’ she confirmed.
‘Now comes the hard part. The drill must be perpendicular to the skull, and you’re going to need one of your paramedics to hold the casualty’s head and apply saline as you drill. Effie, you’re going to have to push down hard, and once you’ve started drilling keep drilling until the drill bit stops spinning. If you stop too soon it’s going to disengage the mechanism and make it that much harder to start again.’
‘Understood,’ she said again.
Her grim tone crackled over the connection, and he could imagine she had swallowed. Pretending she didn’t feel sick with adrenalin as it coursed wildly around her veins. She needed it to. There was no way she was going to get through this unless she was fired up enough.
But still, as he outlined the rest of the procedure and then waited for her to ensure everything was in place before beginning to talk her through it step by step, it occurred to Tak that there was no other doctor he would rather have on the end of the line right now. No one else he would trust to perform such a procedure whilst they waited for either a road ambulance to get to them or for clearance to fly the heli out with the patient.
This was so much worse than just a physical attraction. It seemed he liked and admired Effie, too. When had anyone ever got to him like this? When had this constant awareness ever shot through him? It was an awareness which flared into something infinitely more palpable—more forceful—every time he saw her. Even spoke to her.
The woman’s nature was as fiery and captivating as her glorious red hair.
Just like that, an image locked itself in his mind. So detailed that she might as well have been standing right in front of him. Her lilting voice, her delicate fragrance, the way her skin felt so soft and yet so electric beneath his fingers. And as for the way she’d tasted when his mouth had plundered hers...the way she had given herself up to him as though they had been the only two people to ever to kiss that way in the history of the world...
It made no sense.
Neither did the way his whole body combusted at the mere memory. As though he was the untried, untested boy of his youth rather than a man who had enjoyed his fair share of sexual encounters.
It was bizarre. But not altogether unpleasant.
Although it was inconvenient.
Which could mean only one thing. He really was in deep trouble.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘WHAT ARE YOU doing here?’ she asked testily, thirteen hours later, as he found himself hammering on her apartment door.
His gaze swept down, taking in her multip
le layers of jumpers, and the expression in his eyes hardened.
‘The boiler hasn’t been repaired at all. You lied to me.’
She bristled instantly. ‘I did not lie.’
‘You told me it was repaired.’
‘No, I told you it was in hand. Which it is.’
‘I hardly see how,’ he remarked dryly. ‘Unless you’re trying to recreate the Arctic Tundra in there.’
Effie wasn’t sure what took her aback the most. The fact that they were sparring about this, on her doorstep, or the fact that they were sparring at all. Surely it didn’t matter to him one way or another whether one of his colleagues had heating in their home or not?
More than that, there was the fact that something had changed between them. So subtle that she couldn’t exactly put her finger on what it was, but there seemed to be a deeper affinity there now.
Then again, he had very recently talked her through drilling a burr hole into a brain at the roadside. Surely that had to alter any relationship?
Still, she couldn’t stop her eyes from flickering over his shoulder and along the corridor beyond. If Mrs Appleby saw him—again—the rumour mill would really start cranking up.
‘If that’s what you came for, perhaps you should now go.’
There was no justification for the way her mouth fought against her uttering the words. Or for the way her heart skipped so merrily when he didn’t move. If anything, he seemed to root his feet to the cracked hallway floor all the more.
‘It isn’t what I came for.’
‘Then what?’
It was almost indiscernible, his hesitation, as if he was trying to think quickly of something to say. But then he continued and Effie realised she must have imagined it.
‘I thought you might like to know how your first brain surgery patient is.’
She was torn. A sense of self-preservation warred with the professional side of her, which ached to know that she hadn’t caused any harm to her RTA casualty.
‘She’s okay? I did okay?’
His mouth curved softly at one corner. ‘You did okay,’ he confirmed. ‘Better than okay. You saved her life.’
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