‘I never heard what happened in the end,’ Pam’s account continued. ‘Andy got suspended as soon as the police investigation got underway and then it just fizzled out. The coroner’s report was accidental death and no charges ever got laid but he never came back to work.’
Why would he? Alice knew better than anyone what it was like to be suspected of something you hadn’t done. How impossible it could be to prove innocence and completely clear your name. How the taint of suspicion poisoned everything.
She’d come all the way back to New Zealand to start again, but Andrew’s move was braver because he was coming somewhere he’d never been before. As a single father with a young child and no support network of friends and family to help. Alice knew why. He wouldn’t want to live with that poison. Imagine if Emmy grew up to hear rumours that her father might have somehow contributed to the death of her mother.
It would be worse than an allegation of stealing drugs, wouldn’t it?
Alice sat back, the rest of Pam’s chatty email, about the new HoD and who was dating whom, turning into a blur.
Andrew Barrett had more to lose than she did. Someone who knew his history was a threat that could affect his entire life—professional and personal.
A huff of something like laughter escaped her lips. Not only had the poor guy found her working in his new department, he’d come to his new home and found her living on the property.
Unfair.
Ironic.
And, despite the worry about her own situation and the hurt that Andrew’s lack of trust still generated, Alice’s overriding reaction was to want to reach out to him.
To comfort him.
To tell him that she didn’t believe any of it.
She had to try and curb the impulse. Giving him any indication that she cared about him or his daughter to that extent would only make herself more vulnerable. And why should she step out on that limb when Andrew wasn’t even prepared to give her the benefit of any doubt?
It was impossible to squash her reaction completely, however, and maybe that was a good thing. Alice was too shocked to be able to think clearly right now but surely, if Andrew knew that there was someone on his side—a friend—it couldn’t hurt, could it? It might even make him reconsider his decision about her lease.
‘Things happen for a reason,’ she told Jake, as he slumped to the floor beside her bed. Alice flicked off the light and stared up at the ceiling. ‘This might sound crazy but there’s a remote possibility that all this could turn out to be the best thing that’s ever happened to me.’
CHAPTER FOUR
‘GOOD morning, Dr Barrett.’
‘Ah…good morning, Alice.’
Her cheerful smile had clearly unsettled Andrew. He wasn’t expecting her to be happy to see him arrive for work. In fact, the sideways glance he sent her, before checking the pile of notes that had just been delivered to the central desk area, had a distinctly suspicious tinge.
But Alice was feeling cheerful. Confident, even. So much better than she’d been feeling yesterday, before receiving that astonishing email from Pam. Being friendly was the safest and easiest course to follow for the moment and it might even work. She knew that Andrew was a good man. He wouldn’t set out to make life unbearable for anyone and he would probably do a great deal to help a friend.
‘Glorious sunrise this morning, wasn’t it?’ She’d driven into it on her way to a 7:00 a.m. start. Andrew would have been in a much better position to admire the silhouette of craggy hills against the amazing red glow.
‘Mmm.’ He’d selected a set of notes. He looked up at the white board to find the location of the patient he was intending to see.
‘April’s the best month in Canterbury.’ For some reason, Alice couldn’t let it go at such a brief, professional kind of exchange. ‘Bit of a nip in the mornings but then we get these lovely sunny, still days.’
She was looking at the back of Andrew’s head, wondering if he would continue to ignore her. It was quite unfair for a man to have natural streaks of gold that so many women were prepared to pay a fortune to have a hairdresser emulate. He must have been quite blond as a child. Maybe that was where Emmy got the genes from, because, if her memory served her correctly, it hadn’t been the shade Melissa had been born with.
‘Cold at night, though.’ Carrying on this one-sided conversation was a kind of disguise for what she was really thinking about. Alice made it seem even more casual by turning back to her own task of searching for a GP’s referral letter that had been faxed through prior to a patient’s arrival. ‘You must be noticing it in that big house.’
‘Not really.’ Andrew made it sound a strain to be polite. ‘I’m having the chimneys swept today and a load of firewood being delivered.’
‘But you’ve got any amount of firewood for free! There’s dozens of dead tree branches all over the place. All you need is a chainsaw.’
‘Good point.’ Andrew’s smile was tight. ‘Thanks for the tip. I’ll put it on the list of equipment I need.’
He was moving away now, the notes clutched in one hand. Alice couldn’t help the sudden vision of a chainsaw hanging there instead. Of Andrew transformed into a good Kiwi bloke, wearing ripped old blue jeans and a black singlet. With the muscles in his shoulders rippling as he pulled the cord to start the motor of the heavy tool.
Her mouth felt curiously dry all of a sudden.
‘Pine cones,’ she heard herself say in a kind of croak.
Andrew turned his head. ‘Sorry?’
‘You’ll want pine cones.’ Her voice sounded more normal now. She could even add a friendly smile. ‘Best thing to start fires with. That stand of trees where I park the horse float has heaps of them. Emmy would enjoy collecting them.’
Andrew said nothing. His face suggested that she had no business suggesting what his daughter might enjoy doing. Or giving him advice about power tools or how to start fires. It was just as well he had no idea of the way her stomach had done that peculiar little flip, imagining him with that particular power tool.
Confidence was one thing. Stepping into a space where she was aware of Andrew Barrett’s personal attributes was something entirely different.
Don’t do it, Alice warned herself sternly. Don’t even think of going there again.
It would be nothing less than self-sabotage. The notion of a relationship within the safe boundaries of friendship was giving her a way forward. Confidence. Hope that she could keep what she really wanted, which was to keep living exactly where she was. Contemplating making herself vulnerable all over again by going back to finding this man irresistibly attractive was simply not an option.
Peter saved her from having to dwell on such a disturbing option.
‘We’re short in the observation area, Alice. You wouldn’t fancy a stint in there today, would you?’
‘Sure.’ It wasn’t normally her favourite place to work, being well away from the acute management or resuscitation of major cases that came in, but, right now, it was perfect. It would also be well away from their newest consultant.
Except it wasn’t.
Eight-year-old Luke had responded well to the management of his asthma when he’d been brought in by ambulance shortly after Alice had started her shift. He’d been resting quietly in one of the cubicles in the observation area ever since but his condition was deteriorating again. Alice could hear the increase in the wheezing sound he was making as she walked past the end of his bed. When she went closer, it was all too easy to see his small ribs protruding with the effort the boy was making to breathe.
‘Has Mum gone to get your little sister from kindergarten?’
Luke nodded. His eyes were suspiciously bright and Alice wondered if he’d been more upset than he’d let on at being temporarily abandoned by his mother. Something had certainly triggered his asthma again.
‘I’m going to put some more Salbutamol in your nebuliser,’ she told him. ‘And we’ll put this clip back on your finger.’ She attached
the oxygen saturation monitor. ‘And now I’m going to get your doctor to come and check you again.’
The doctor who’d seen Luke early this morning had been off duty for hours. The doctor that came in response to her message to the front desk was Andrew.
‘Hey, Luke. How’s it going, buddy?’ He picked up the chart from the end of Luke’s bed.
‘Initial attack was moderate to mild,’ Alice informed him quietly. ‘Pulse ox ninety-four per cent. He responded well to nebulised Salbutamol.’
He wasn’t responding well now. Luke’s heart and respiration rates were soaring and the oxygen level in his blood was dropping steadily. The little boy was looking tired as well and fatigue could be a major contributing factor to a respiratory arrest which could turn this asthma attack into a life-threatening emergency within minutes.
‘Let’s add some Ipratropium to that nebuliser,’ Andrew said calmly. He perched on the bed with one hip as he picked up Luke’s hand. ‘You’re doing great,’ he told the boy. His thumb rubbed over the plaster on the small hand and Andrew raised an eyebrow at Alice. ‘IV access?’
‘It wasn’t used and tissued an hour or so ago. The paediatric registrar said it was okay to remove.’
The tiny frown was a sympathetic flicker and Alice could see the small hand being given a squeeze. ‘Luke?’ Andrew’s tone was gentle. ‘I need to pop another wee needle in your arm.’
‘No-ooo!’ The word was a gasp.
‘Sorry, buddy, but we need to give you some more medicine to help your breathing.’
Alice stepped closer, lifting the nebuliser mask to add the requested new drug to the attached chamber. She also squeezed in a new ampoule of Salbutamol and then she eased the mask back over Luke’s face and gave his hair a ruffle.
‘Dr Barrett is really, really good at this,’ she told Luke. ‘Better than anybody.’
She gave the boy’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze as the tourniquet was snapped into place, noting the way Andrew kept all the other supplies he needed out of sight. All he showed Luke was a small can.
‘This stuff is fantastic,’ he said. ‘It’s like spray ice so it stops things hurting too much.’ He sprayed the back of Luke’s hand.
And then he seemed to forget what he was doing. He stared at one of the bright posters decorating this cubicle that was kept for paediatric cases. ‘Look at that poster over there,’ he said, sounding astonished. ‘Is that elephant really doing what I think he’s doing?’
The elephant in the picture wasn’t doing anything extraordinary, but by the time Luke had looked at the wall and then back again, the cannula was in his vein.
Andrew smiled. ‘All done. Wasn’t so bad, was it?’
Luke shook his head, too breathless to speak.
Alice felt rather breathless herself. It had been one of those smiles. The crinkly-eyed, glowing kind. And it touched a spot on her heart that she had been so sure had healed over completely. It was bad enough being aware of how attractive Andrew was again. It was far, far worse to recognise the kind of connection that only came from being in love with someone.
She held Luke’s arm steady to avoid any sudden jerks that might dislodge the cannula, watching as Andrew taped it into place, aware of a growing sense of dismay.
So it was still there. In spades. That awareness of how deft his movements were. How familiar the sight of those hands was because she’d watched them too often in the past. She knew about that tiny scar on his forefinger and how neatly cut his nails always were. She also knew, only too well, what it was like to imagine those fingers touching her own skin. This was no glow from stirred up ashes. Flames were flickering as though they’d never been doused.
‘I want some oral Prednisolone,’ Andrew was saying as he looked up.
And then he blinked, stopping for just a heartbeat with his lips still parted, and Alice had the truly horrible thought that he could see into her head.
Into her heart.
‘Two milligrams per kilogram.’ Andrew cleared his throat. ‘Get some hydrocortisone drawn up as backup, too, please. Keep up the continuous nebulised Salbutamol and I’d like some IV Salbutamol drawn up as well. I’m going to give Paeds a quick call.’
Alice nodded briskly. This was good. She had plenty to do and a patient to focus on. Andrew would forget about whatever fleeting impression he’d got from her expression and she would make sure he didn’t get so much as a sniff of anything less than purely professional interaction from now on.
She knew the worst. She was prepared. If possible, she would avoid any interaction at all. She might even revisit the idea of working in another department for a while. It was probably just the surprise of having this man in her life again that was triggering such an unwelcome reaction. She would get over it. Again.
Luke’s asthma attack came under control with satisfying speed but he was admitted to the paediatric ward for close monitoring. For the rest of her shift, Alice put her hand up for every task that took her away from the department. Accompanying patients to specialist test areas, sitting in with social workers making an assessment, even taking on some sluice room duties everyone else was avoiding.
The strategy worked. She didn’t even see Andrew again until she was ready to leave at three p.m. She would have avoided him then, too, as she walked down the corridor to the outside doors, but he stepped right into her path.
‘Have you got a minute, Alice?’
‘Not really. I’m heading home.’
‘You’re keen to get away, then?’
‘You bet. It’s a gorgeous day and I want to get home in time to ride Ben before it’s dark.’
Andrew had the oddest expression on his face by the time she had finished speaking. He seemed to shrink away from her.
‘Ben?’
Alice nodded slowly. ‘My horse. You met him, remember? The monster?’
Andrew gave his head a tiny shake, as though trying to clear it. ‘Emmy said your horse was called Clock.’
Alice grinned. ‘He’s Big Ben. Named after the clock.’
‘Ohh…’
A smile was tugging at the corners of Andrew’s mouth but didn’t quite succeed. He looked as if he was trying hard not to look pleased. Alice mentally played back the snippet of conversation they’d just had and found herself staring even more intently than she had been. He’d been pleased to discover Ben was a horse.
Why?
The warmth that flickered into life deep inside Alice told her it was because he was feeling some degree of the attraction she was struggling with. If he was, however, it had to be purely a physical reaction. He didn’t trust her so it was a no-brainer that it could never be anything more.
Which made it far more dangerous for her because, at the end of the day, if she allowed herself to care again she stood to lose far more than Andrew did.
And that was way too much.
Emmy sat inside the big orange wheelbarrow, gripping each side and bouncing as Andrew propelled it forward over the uneven ground.
‘Go faster, Daddy!’
‘No. You might fall out.’
‘I won’t!’
‘You might. Besides, we’re here already. Look at all these pine cones just waiting for us to pick up.’
‘Oooh!’ Emmy was climbing out of the wheelbarrow even before it came to a complete halt. ‘Are we going to have a fire?’
‘We sure are. We bought marshmallows on the way home, remember?’
‘I like the pink ones.’ Emmy picked up one large pine cone and held it between both hands. She walked importantly back to the barrow and dropped her prize with a flourish.
Andrew hid his grin, swooping to pick up two cones in each hand. This wouldn’t take long, despite Emmy’s efforts being so laboured, and that was just as well because it was nearly 6:00 p.m. and daylight was fading fast. The chimneys had been swept and the huge mound of split firewood waiting to be stacked was nice and dry. With the help of the cones, he would have a roaring fire going to ward off the chill of the a
utumn evening before he turned his attention to preparing their dinner.
Dropping another armload of cones into the barrow, Andrew straightened, taking a moment to soak in the sight of Emmy’s golden head shining against the dark backdrop of tree trunks. She was squatting and poking at the ground with a stick, clearly absorbed with a new discovery, the task of collecting kindling forgotten. It didn’t matter. This kind of time with his daughter and the new adventures waiting for them both were exactly why he’d come here. Emmy was loving it.
Just as Alice had suggested she would.
Thinking about Alice was an unwelcome intrusion but it was hard not to when her horse float was parked not far from where he stood. Turning his head, Andrew could see the cottage. He could see Alice, in fact, hanging some washing on a line strung between two trees.
‘Em?’
‘I found a bug, Daddy. A big, shiny black one.’
‘Can you find some more pine cones? We need to get a move on.’
‘Soon.’
‘Do it now, sweetheart, or we might not be able to toast marshmallows for supper.’
‘Oh. Okay.’ Emmy jumped up and ran towards him with a cone. ‘Oooh, look, Daddy! There’s Alice!’
‘So it is.’
‘Can I go and ask if I can pat the horse?’
‘Not today.’
‘When?’
‘Alice is busy. See? She’s hanging out her washing.’
‘You could ask her, Daddy. Ask her when she won’t be too busy and when I could have another ride. She said I could if you said I could. Please, Daddy. Please?’
The small face was turned up to his and the desperate desire he could see written all over it was irresistible.
‘I’ll ask.’
‘Now?’
‘Not now. We’re busy collecting our pine cones.’
‘I’ll get lots of cones. You go and talk to Alice.’ Emmy took a huge breath and held it. ‘Please?’
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