‘More than the first step,’ he conceded. ‘Balancing’s hard.’
‘It is, isn’t it?’ she said, and gave a huge, happy sigh and dragged her board back out a little so she could try again. ‘Was I standing too far forward? If I go a bit back will I be more stable?’
There it was—the personal moment was over, and they were back to student-teacher.
Impersonal?
He thought of those mornings when he handed Bonnie over, of this girl snuggled in her bathrobe, about to go to bed, and he thought...he thought...
He thought it was just as well she was treating him as a teacher and Bonnie’s master and nothing else, because if she made one tentative suggestion that it could be anything more...
Then he’d stand firm, he told himself. He had no choice. He’d been thrown into the chaos of caring once in his life and he had no intention of going there again.
They were colleagues, he thought, with the added dimension that she’d saved his dog and he was teaching her to surf. There was nothing more to it.
Excellent.
But then, two days later, he met her on the wards and things got a bit more complicated.
* * *
Ryan Tobin was ten years old and Sam had been worried about him for months now.
He’d first presented with a worsening of what had, until then, seemed mild asthma. Callie had started him on methylprednisone and albuterol but four days later he was back in Emergency, struggling to breathe.
At that stage Callie had called in Sam. A chest radiograph showed an enlarged heart and pulmonary oedema, and from there things had gone from bad to worse.
The diagnosis was dilated cardiomyopathy with non-specific inflammation.
Ryan had spent weeks in and out of hospital, needing oxygen, needing diuretic therapy to ease the oedema. Sam had done everything he could to improve cardiac function, but now...
Sam worked with him for most of the afternoon and into the night, as he finally conceded what he’d worked for months to avoid. The only way for Ryan to live was if he had a transplant.
He’d need to be moved to a hospital where such transplants were performed. They had time; they could get Ryan stable, but Sam couldn’t sugar-coat it for his desperate parents. The next few weeks would be touch and go.
At midnight he finally left Ryan’s bedside. His parents weren’t moving. Ryan’s mother was asleep with her head resting on her son’s bed, and his father was staring rigidly at the ceiling while he lay on the stretcher bed provided. The hospital encouraged one parent to stay, and while there was no room for two, neither parent intended to leave.
‘Tell Mum what’s happening. Tell her to take Luke home,’ Ryan’s father said, and Sam thought of the elderly woman he’d seen day after day in the waiting room, keeping Ryan’s eight-year-old brother company.
They’d both seemed stoic. The old lady must be exhausted, Sam thought. If he’d known she was still out there he’d have asked a nurse to see to her hours ago.
But someone was already caring. He walked out of the cardiac care ward, and Ryan’s grandma was fast asleep in the waiting room. Someone had hauled out a care chair for her—usually used for patients in terminal care, it was a chair that became a bed and encased its user in a cloud of comfort.
Someone? Zoe. She was sitting beside the chair, and she had her arm around the little boy Sam recognised as Luke.
Zoe smiled as she saw Sam, and her grip on Luke tightened. Luke’s face was bleary with exhaustion and distress, and Sam thought, He’s only eight years old, he shouldn’t be facing this.
‘I tried to get Lorna to take Luke home,’ Zoe said softly. ‘But she won’t. Everyone’s so worried about Ryan that maybe...they can’t see there’s another need. Luckily our ward’s quiet so I’ve had a little time to stay with Luke. He’s been telling me all about things to do here. He says Sea World’s awesome. I’ve been thinking I should go.’
Lorna woke up then, and demanded answers. Sam sat and explained things to all of them—that Ryan’s heart was failing to such an extent that a transplant was the only option, that Gold Coast City didn’t have the facilities to perform transplants, so he’d be moved the next day to start the process of assessment, and his parents would go with him.
‘Is he going to die?’ Luke whispered, and Sam sent an urgent mental signal to his grandma to reach out and hug him, but Lorna started to cry so it was Zoe who did the hugging.
‘Why has Grandma been crying and crying?’ Luke asked in a scared whisper.
‘Hey,’ Zoe said, still hugging. ‘No drama. I’m sure your grandma’s crying because she’s relieved. Ryan might need to wait a while until he gets a donor heart, but once that happens he’ll be brilliant. Back to the old Ryan.
‘But transplants don’t work,’ Lorna sobbed. ‘Or if they do they only last a few months.’
Luke’s face bleached white—and Sam saw the moment when Zoe decided to stop being gentle and tell it like it was.
‘That’s nonsense,’ she snapped. ‘I’m sorry, Lorna, but your information’s way out of date. Look at me.’
‘You?’
‘Me,’ Zoe said, and lifted the hem of her baggy uniform tunic and the soft T-shirt underneath. She turned side on so they could all see the long, distorted scar that spelled renal transplant.
‘I was the same as Ryan,’ she told them. ‘I had an infection as a kid, only instead of messing with my heart it messed with my kidneys so I needed a transplant. I was given a new kidney three years ago, and it’s working fine. My doctors tell me I’m going to live for ever and I’m even learning to surf. I have so many plans now—plans for the rest of my life. Who says transplants always fail?’
And Lorna’s sobs stopped, just like that, and she stared at Zoe as if she was some sort of mirage.
Zoe stayed with her shirt pulled up, as if she knew they needed time to examine the scar.
‘Wow,’ Luke breathed, and put out a finger to touch it. ‘Did it hurt?’
‘Nah,’ Zoe said with insouciance. ‘I’m brave. Isn’t that right, Mr Webster?’
‘She’s so brave she surfs in four feet of water, on eighteen inch waves,’ Sam said, and the tension was broken. Even Lorna was smiling as Zoe pulled her shirt back down and got to her feet.
‘I need to get back to the ward,’ she told them, but then she hesitated. ‘Lorna, you said Luke’s staying with you. Will he keep staying with you while his parents are with Ryan?’
‘Yes,’ Lorna said, and Sam watched Luke’s face tighten. He could guess what sort of strains this small boy was facing—he’d seen those pressures a lot in the siblings of dangerously-ill children. All attention had been on Ryan for months. Luke would be fitted in around the edges, and now he was being asked to stay indefinitely with an elderly grandmother who looked like she wept more than she kept a child entertained.
‘Will you take me to Sea World on Sunday, then?’ Zoe asked, and he blinked. What?
‘Will I take you?’ the little boy said cautiously, and Zoe looked a question at Lorna.
‘If it’s okay with your grandma. Luke, you’ve lived on the Gold Coast all your life, but I’ve never been here before. I need a guide—someone to tell me what to see and the cool rides to go on. Is there a Ferris wheel? I love Ferris wheels.’
‘But you’ll miss your surfing lesson,’ Sam said before he could help himself, and copped a reproving look from Zoe for his pains.
‘Some things are more important than surfing lessons. I’m on night duty this week, which means I need to sleep on Saturday, so Sunday’s the only time I have free. I’m dying to go. Will you take me, Luke?’
‘Yes,’ Luke said. ‘There are cool rides. The Ferris wheel’s not at Sea World, though, but there’s one near it.’
‘Excellent,’ Zoe said, and beamed.
&nb
sp; ‘That would be lovely,’ Lorna said, and Sam looked at Zoe and thought...lovely?
He knew how much she loved surfing. He knew how much she was aching for next Sunday to come. He’d only offered two hours every Sunday, and he knew she’d love more, yet here she was, putting it aside to take a child to an amusement park, to give some fun to a kid who was desperate for time out.
She’d pulled up her top and shown her renal scar and he knew how much she hated doing that, and now she was giving up her Sunday...
‘Can I come, too?’ he asked, before he even realised he was about to offer, and he found everyone looking at him.
‘You?’ Zoe said in astonishment.
‘They have great water slides,’ he said weakly. ‘Almost as good as surfing. And I like Ferris wheels. Callie will look after Bonnie.’
‘Cool,’ Luke said cautiously, and Lorna pulled herself together, thanked them, set a time for them to pick Luke up, and the thing was done. Grandma and grandchild left, and Sam was left in the empty waiting room with Zoe.
‘Thank you,’ she said, and it needed only that. It was Zoe who was generous. He’d grudgingly given her two hours’ surfing a week, and she gave so much more.
‘For offering to have fun on Sunday?’
‘You like your own company. It’ll be more than two hours.’
‘Yeah, but I don’t have to talk to you all the time,’ he told her, and she smiled, and then her smile faded.
‘What are Ryan’s chances?’
‘Good, as long as a transplant’s found soon. Thank you for showing your scar. You realise Lorna will tell Ryan’s parents and you’ve just reassured everyone in a way no one else could.’
‘My pleasure.’
‘It’s not your pleasure. You don’t like telling people.’
‘It’s different,’ she said. ‘I choose to no longer be a renal transplant patient. I choose also to use my experience to reassure others that there is life on the other side.’
‘So I can use you for show and tell whenever I need you?’
‘I say who, I say when,’ she retorted, and he grinned. And then he couldn’t help himself, he had to reach out and touch her.
He touched her face, just touched. There was no way in the world he should touch this woman, and yet how could he not? She stood there in her plain hospital greens, she looked tired and a little bit worried, she still had hours of her shift to go, and he was a consultant cardiologist and he had no business at all touching a nurse.
But this wasn’t just a nurse. This was Zoe.
Her skin was amazing. Soft, clear, almost luminescent. Her gorgeous, clear eyes were looking up at him, asking a question.
He wasn’t sure what the question was.
Or actually...
He did know.
Are you going to kiss me? That’s what her eyes were asking, and that’s exactly what he did.
And the kiss was like quicksilver. Light, hot, fast... As fast as the feeling that burned right through him as his mouth claimed hers.
She was yielding to him. Her lips were parting. She was leaning forward so he could kiss her...as he wanted to kiss her.
He wanted to kiss her. Every sense in his body wanted to kiss her. She was soft and warm and yielding, and brave and true and gorgeous.
He’d sworn never to touch another woman. He’d sworn never to fall...
That had been before he’d met Zoe, he thought in the tiny section of his brain that was still capable of holding thought. That part was getting smaller by the moment.
He was entirely centred, entirely focussed, on kissing Zoe.
He was holding her, tugging her into him, and she was rising on her toes to come closer. Her arms were around him, and he felt her heat, felt a response from her body that made him tug her closer still.
He was plundering her mouth, tasting her, wanting her, and nothing was more important, nothing could get in the way of here, now, this woman.
Except there was a nurse at the door who was coughing politely, and then coughing a little louder, and trying to hide a grin a mile wide.
‘Um, Zoe, we need to do medication rounds,’ she said as they broke apart in confusion. ‘I’d give ’em myself but hospital protocol says double-check unless it’s a Code Blue emergency or State of General Chaos, and I can’t quite see what you two are doing as fitting either category.’
And Zoe blushed, adorably, seemingly from the toes up. But then, instead of looking disconcerted or nonplussed or anything he might have expected, she chuckled.
‘I was having trouble breathing,’ she said. ‘Does that count as Code Blue?’
‘You want oxygen?’ the other nurse said, grinning back, and the situation eased from the potential to be mortifying to something that was...fun? ‘Shall I hit the bells? I can have a crash cart here in seconds. Paddles to restart the heart? A bit of defibrillation?’
‘I think,’ Zoe said serenely, still grinning at Sam, ‘that there’s quite enough electricity in here already. Thank you, Dr Webster, for what was a very nice kiss. I’m looking forward to going on the roller-coaster with you on Sunday—it should be a wild ride.’
And she swept out with her nursing colleague, and Sam heard them chuckling again as they headed back to the wards and he thought...
He thought maybe he was taking this far too seriously.
He hadn’t wanted to kiss her. He hadn’t wanted to take this anywhere at all, but Zoe’s attitude said it was fine.
Kiss and move on. Have fun.
Fun... The concept was so far from his mindset...
And that was his problem, he thought. Emily’s death had darkened his life. He’d been protecting himself ever since.
Zoe was a girl who’d had a transplant, a girl who simply wanted to embrace life.
She’d kissed him, she’d made him feel...like his life could change, and then she’d chuckled and walked away.
And maybe his life had changed.
He looked after her, at the empty corridor, at the echoes of her smile, her chuckle, the remembrance of her kiss, and he thought...
Fun.
Zoe.
He grinned.
Life was okay. He had his Bonnie. He had the best job in the world.
He was taking Zoe to Sea World on Sunday.
He headed back towards his apartment and met two colleagues on the way, both of whom beamed and made it totally clear the whole hospital knew what had just happened in the cardiac care waiting room.
Did he care? No. He was going to Sea World with Zoe.
* * *
Zoe had a very interesting week. She was now officially classified as Gold Coast Central’s Hottest Gossip Item, and if she was honest with herself, she was enjoying herself very much indeed.
Somewhere Zoe had read that the happiest people were those who had the most I’m a. I’m a daughter, I’m a mother, a teacher, a knitter, a rock climber, a surfer. But for years Zoe’s I’m a had been confined. I’m a daughter, I’m a renal patient, I’m a cosseted girlfriend.
Now...I’m a nurse and I’m a learner-surfer and I’m Bonnie’s daytime carer, and I’m half the equation in sizzling gossip that’s zooming around the hospital like wildfire, she told herself, and she liked it.
It was such a weird sensation. She was being seen as...sexy? Dean had never seen her as sexy, she thought, and neither had anyone else in her circle of friends back home. How could she be sexy? She’d been poor Zoe, who needed to be treated with care and kindness, but now... Sexy was delicious.
It wouldn’t last. She knew enough about hospital gossip to know it’d die down as something else took over. She and Sam would take Luke to Sea World then they’d resume their weekly surfing lessons. She wouldn’t need to care for Bonnie—the fast-recovering dog hardly needed comp
any any more anyway—and the universe would right itself.
She wanted to tell Sam to relax, chill, let it die in its own time, but he was avoiding her. They were having very brief exchanges when they met on the ward. She wanted to tell him that that made it worse—the fact that when he came into her ward he was curt with her rather than his normal friendly self. It raised eyebrows even more.
He was...embarrassed? Mortified?
Well, he’d kissed her, she told herself, so it was his problem. She wasn’t about to join him in the mortification department.
It had been a gorgeous kiss. It had made her feel like she’d never felt like in her life and it had added a fabulous I’m a to her repertoire.
I’m a hottie.
* * *
Sunday.
They were collecting Luke from his grandmother’s at ten.
Sam was awake at six, staring at the ceiling.
For once he had no patients in the wards—a situation that happened only a couple of times a year. He had no rounds to do. He could sleep in—or not.
Bonnie was sleeping soundly in her basket beside his bed. She’d taken to being an invalid with aplomb, even seeming to enjoy the extra fuss made of her. He’d had no fewer than three offers to look after her today while he and Zoe went to Sea World.
At ten.
He had four hours before ten.
He had time to go surfing, he decided. He had time to clear his head, to get back to being a loner for a while.
He tossed back the covers and Bonnie opened one eye and looked at him almost indulgently. Two weeks ago she’d have been hammering on the door to go with him, but she was a sensible dog and there were compensations to having a broken leg.
Compensations like spending time with Zoe?
See, that’s why he needed to surf. He needed to get his head in order before he spent the day with her.
He took Bonnie out for a quick dose of grass then settled her back to bed. He grabbed a muesli bar and a drink and headed to his car.
And stopped. His conscience was like an elastic band, stretched tight, and it wouldn’t let him get to the car.
Gold Coast Angels: A Doctor's Redemption Page 8
