How long would it last?
How much longer would her name pepper the department? She’d worked a few shifts and it was as if she’d left a flurry of glitter wherever she’d been.
And he didn’t want it to diminish.
Didn’t want to take down the Christmas tree, even though Jean kept telling him to.
Didn’t want to forget, even though it hurt to remember.
‘Go on, have a piece—you know you want to.’
Oh, he did want to. Wanted to ring her up and tell her to get the hell away from Brad. That he didn’t deserve her, had hurt her once and would do it again. But what right did he have to do that?
Except that he loved her.
Right there and then Angus admitted to himself what he didn’t want to. Didn’t want to love her, because he knew he was going to lose her.
They’d both known from the start that it could never go anywhere, that circumstances, geography would keep them apart but, apart or not, Angus knew he didn’t need her name to be mentioned to remember the morning they’d found each other. In fact, kneed in the groin with longing, Angus knew that he’d never look at another morning without remembering her.
‘Hi, guys!’
Her voice was just utterly unexpected, like some auditory hallucination as he bit into the pavlova.
‘Imogen—thank heavens!’ Heather practically fell on her as she walked in the staffroom just as the team headed out for handover. ‘I begged the agency to send you—I had two of my senior staff ring in sick for this shift just before I went home this morning. I was desperate.’
‘The agency said—the third time they called!’ He watched as she smiled, as she deposited a vast tray on the coffee-table, kebab sticks spiked with pineapples, strawberries, kiwi fruits and mango—bringing summer into the room in so many ways. As she gave him a tight smile, blinking rapidly a few times, he knew that this was hard for her too.
Knew she didn’t want to be here—but he was so glad that she was.
‘Grab a drink and bring it round,’ Heather ordered. ‘We’ll be having our coffee breaks at the nurses’ station tonight. And I am sorry,’ she added, ‘for pestering you.’
‘It worked.’ Imogen smiled.
‘Still, I shouldn’t have asked them to ring you at the hostel when you wouldn’t answer your mobile.’
And for a minute it was just the two of them. Imogen dunking a tea bag in her cup and heaping in sugar as Angus fiddled with his stethoscope.
‘How have things been?’
‘Good,’ came her noncommittal answer.
‘I didn’t expect to see you tonight.’
‘I didn’t expect to be here, but the agency kept ringing…’
‘You’re staying at the youth hostel?’
‘Where else would I be?’ Imogen started, and then paused, two little spots of red burning in her cheek, not from embarrassment but anger. ‘You think I’m back with Brad?’
‘Well, you did go to him.’ All the anger, all the hurt and the bitterness was there in his sentence.
‘To talk…’ Her words were as laced with anger and bitterness as his. ‘I told you that we had things to discuss. Do you really think I’m so available that he could just snap his fingers and I’d run back?’
‘Of course not.’
‘That I’m so lucky to have him want me—’
‘Imogen…’ Angus broke in, but she didn’t want to hear it.
‘I told you it was over with him. I don’t change my mind about things Angus…’ She gave a twisted smile. ‘Except when the blasted agency keep ringing and I end up doing a shift in the last place I want to be.’
‘I’m sorry things are so awkward between us.’
‘It’s actually not all about you, Angus…’ She gave a pale smile as Angus frowned. ‘I’d better get round there.’
The department was fairly quiet, as it often was early on New Year’s Eve, almost as if everyone saved their dramas for later. Heather made sure that her staff took themselves off for extended breaks and filled themselves up on the mountain of food they had brought, while they still had the chance. Imogen wished they were busy, wished the lull would end so the night would be over more quickly.
Wished she knew what Angus was thinking when she caught him looking at her.
‘We’ve got a paediatric arrest coming in!’ Angus’s face was grim. ‘Drowning.’
‘Now?’ It was a stupid comment. People didn’t plan their dramas, didn’t know that they were supposed to be quiet till midnight, and it certainly wouldn’t enter the family’s head that their desperately ill child was the very last thing Imogen wanted to deal with right now.
‘New Year’s Eve party…’ Heather came off the phone from a further update from Ambulance Control. ‘The bath was filled with ice for the drinks, and he fell in. Dad found him—it was his party. They can’t get hold of his mum—apparently she’s working tonight. We don’t know how long he’s been down.’
‘How old?’ Imogen croaked.
‘Three or four,’ Heather answered, ‘I can’t get a clear answer, it sounds pretty chaotic.’
‘It’s not Heath.’ He could see her hands shaking as she pulled out the leads for the cardiac monitor and opened the pads for the defibrillator, knew exactly what she was thinking.
‘You don’t know that.’
And he put his arm around her and gave her a squeeze, because now he could, Imogen realised, because now she’d been there a little while longer, now she was considered one of them, it was deemed appropriate.
Only it wasn’t.
A friendly cuddle from him was the last thing she needed tonight.
‘I’m going to wait for the ambulance,’ she said, slipping his arm off and heading outside, shivering as she heard the sirens draw closer, trying to make small talk with a chatty security guard as the nine hours left of her shift stretched on endlessly.
It wasn’t Heath.
The second the ambulance doors opened, her mind was put at ease, but the dread stayed with her as she took over the cardiac massage as the paramedics unclipped the stretcher and ran in. Drowning she was more familiar with than burns—nearly every garden in Australia had a pool, and sadly, and all too often, this type of patient presented.
‘He’s in VF…’ The paramedics reeled off the list of treatment and drugs that had been given at the scene and en route, and even though it looked dire, the news was actually as good as it could be.
He was two, not three or four, Imogen heard as she pressed the palm of her hand on his sternum, and an ice-filled bath a far better option for an unsupervised toddler to tumble into than a hot one. He’d have been plunged into hypothermia, which meant the demand for oxygen to his brain would have been rapidly diminished, which gave him a better chance of being left without brain damage. He was still in VF, which meant there was some activity happening in his little heart too.
All of this went through her head as she continued the massage, stepping back every now and then as Angus shocked the little body…blocking out the cries and shouts of his family from the other side of the doors and focussing on the little boy who was clinging to life.
‘Do you want to swap?’ Barb offered to take over the massage, but she was getting a good rhythm on the monitor and Imogen shook her head.
‘I’m fine.’
‘Let’s go again…’ The defibrillator was whirring and Imogen felt as if she were watching from above, could see the warmed fluids dripping into his veins, could see herself going through the painful motions, and later saw the relief on everyone’s face when they got him back. And, yes, she had said the right thing when she comforted the parents as Angus gave them the tentative good news and, yes, she did all the right things as she took the little boy up to the Intensive Care and handed him over. But as she walked out of the paediatric section and past the adults, she could see the bed where Maria had been, only with another person in it. And as she walked down the corridor and back to Emergency, all she knew was that
she didn’t want to make that walk again.
‘You look exhausted!’ Heather grinned as she came back. ‘The night hasn’t even started!’
‘Fifteen minutes till lift-off!’ Imogen glanced at her watch and smiled back.
‘Why don’t you have a break?’ Heather suggested kindly. ‘Take the lift and go out on the fire escape…’
‘The fire escape?’
‘You’ll get a good view of the fireworks—if anyone deserves to see London at its best tonight, it’s you.’
‘This is my last shift in Emergency.’ She didn’t turn her head when Angus walked out onto the fire escape to join her, had seen him look up when Heather had been talking, had known that he would come.
‘Your last?’ The cold air caught in his throat, making it hard to keep his voice light. ‘So you’re ready for home, then?’
‘I meant…’ Her face was pale, her eyes like glass in the darkness as she turned to him. ‘It’s my last ever shift in Emergency. I can’t do it any more. I’m going back to midwifery. I know you can’t always guarantee the outcome, but I’m going to work with the lowest-risk mums and hopefully spend the rest of my nursing time bringing in lives instead of watching them end. I just can’t do it any more. I can’t go home and cry myself to sleep, I can’t stand all the violence and the death, I just…’ She shook her head. ‘I just haven’t got it in me any more.’
And Angus realised then, that no matter how much he might love her, he didn’t really know her. That as close as they had been, there hadn’t been time to get close enough, because this beautiful, talented, consummate professional actually bled inside every day she came to work.
‘You’re burnt out,’ Angus said softly. ‘It happens. Maybe take a break, do something else for a while.’
‘I was hoping to do that here, only once they find out you’re emergency trained…’ she gave a tight smile ‘…well, you’ve seen first hand what happens.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be,’ Imogen answered. ‘It’s helped in a way. I know I’ve had enough of it. I know the money’s going to be less—I’m at the bottom rung in midwifery and at the top in Emergency, but some things are just more important. I’m going to apply for a full-time job in maternity.’
‘You might change your mind.’
‘I already told you, Angus, I don’t change my mind.’
She was telling him something and it hurt to hear it—any relief he’d felt earlier that she wasn’t with Brad countered by the agony of the future she was mapping out without him.
‘Look Imogen…’ It was Angus’s turn now to open up. ‘I haven’t been completely honest with you.’
‘Did you sleep with Gemma?’ There, she had been brave enough to say it, a few years older and brave enough to confront what she hadn’t been able to a few years ago.
‘Why do you always do that, Imogen?’ Angus asked. ‘Why do you have to dash to the worst-case scenario all the time?’
‘Because it usually is.’
‘Was,’ Angus said gently. ‘Imogen, it’s over between me and Gemma. Even my mum’s starting to believe it. We went out for lunch last week, but that was more to see if we could handle the divorce without lawyers.’
‘Can you?’
‘Nope!’ Angus gave a half-grin.
‘So when weren’t you honest?’
‘When I said why I didn’t want anyone at work to know.’ He blew out a breath, and she knew it was a long one because the freezing night made it white and it went on for ever. ‘Everything I said, I meant—I mean, I did feel uncomfortable about people knowing, especially given how soon after Gemma it happened and how long you’d be here, especially that you were leaving…But that wasn’t entirely the reason…’
‘Just say it Angus.’ Her eyes brimmed with tears that she hoped he couldn’t see.
‘I didn’t want Heather to know. I felt it would be unfair to her.’
‘Heather?’ Imogen did a double-take.
‘I’m trusting you with this…’
‘You and Heather?’ She saw him frown. ‘I’m sorry—of course you can trust me not to say anything.’
‘She’s got a bit of a thing for me…’ He said it only with kindness. ‘She had too much to drink at one of the work Christmas parties a couple of years ago and out it came. Nothing happened, of course,’ Angus said, and she was grateful she had bitten her tongue to refrain from asking. ‘And I told her nothing ever would happen, you know, that I was flattered and everything, but that I was happily married…She was mortified the next day—rang me in tears, even offered to resign, but look…’ He gave an uncomfortable shrug. ‘I sort of pretended that I’d had too much to drink and couldn’t really remember all she’d said. It made it easier for her…’ And that he would do that for Heather made her eyes fill with tears for entirely different reasons.
This, one of the many reasons she loved about him.
Loved him.
Which was why she’d shown him all of her—or most of her.
‘I just think it would be a bit of a kick in the teeth for her,’ Angus explained further. ‘She’s rung a couple of times, I’ve tried to put her off.’
‘Maybe she just wants to be friends now.’
‘She is a friend.’ Angus nodded. ‘Which is why I don’t want to hurt her.
‘Imogen…’ She knew what was coming, knew what he was going to ask, knew he wanted the rest of her that she was so very scared to give. ‘Why do you think I don’t want people to know?’
‘Because it’s too soon…’ she attempted.
‘Why else?’ Holding her hands, even if he wasn’t looking at her, Imogen knew that he’d seen her, not just here and now and not just naked, but that he could see inside her very soul, see the bits she thought she had long ago dealt with and never wanted to show again. And the bits she’d sworn she’d never let another man see.
‘Brad was embarrassed to be seen with me.’
‘Then he’s a fool.’
‘Look at Gemma and look at me…’
‘I’m not comparing.’
‘Of course you are.’ Imogen snapped. ‘I do! I look at Brad and I look at you and you’re both good-looking, all the women adore you, you’re both on television—’
‘How’s this for a comparison, then,’ Angus broke in. ‘We’re both crazy about you and while Brad, I’m sure, is regretting losing you, I know that I’m about to face the same…’
‘Then do something about it.’
‘Like what?’ Angus asked, only there wasn’t an answer. ‘I hated geography at school,’ Angus said. ‘Now I know why.’
She didn’t smile at his joke and neither did he—just stood in endless silence, wanting the agony over but never wanting it to end. ‘A couple more minutes…’ he glanced at his watch and tried to lighten things up. ‘Hey, it’s already New Year’s Day for you! What’s the time difference in Australia?’
‘No, it’s New Year’s Eve for me too,’ Imogen corrected him, her voice utterly steady, her eyes holding his as she conveyed the seriousness of her words, ‘because everything I love most in the world is here, right now, in London.’
It could never be wrong to kiss her.
Even if it could never last, never work, even if in a few days she’d be gone, it could never be wrong to kiss her, and it would never be pointless to prolong it.
Because pulling her into his arms, feeling the sweet taste of her as he parted her lips with his tongue, every second, every minute that he kissed her, held her, adored her was another minute he could remember for ever.
‘Hey…’ Ever the chameleon, she pulled back just a fraction, their warm breaths mingling. ‘If you make love to me here, at least we won’t have to say we haven’t had sex this year…’
‘As much as I might want to…’ Angus grinned even though his eyes were glassy ‘…I am not going to have sex on the fire escape at work!’
‘Spoilsport,’ she teased.
‘Imogen…’ He kissed her again
, but was adamant. ‘It’s a measure of how much I love you that I’m not going to.’ He stopped then, stopped because he’d never meant to say it, had never really let himself feel it. Love wasn’t supposed to come along just yet.
Love was something in the distance, something that would maybe happen in his life later, much later, but love was what it was, right here, right now, and he was holding it in his arms.
‘I love you, Imogen.’
Only she didn’t say it back. Instead, she stared back at him for the longest time, then blinked a few times before she gave her strange answer and turned to go.
‘Then you’d really better do something about it.’
‘How were the fireworks?’ Heather asked as they returned to the still quiet department.
‘Spectacular.’ Imogen grinned, picking up a fruit kebab and making Angus’s stomach fold over on itself as she licked the tip of a strawberry. Then she added for Angus’s benefit, ‘But they fizzled out at the end—not quite the big bang I was hoping for!’
‘Could you hurry up and see her, please?’ Heather said as she handed Angus a chart. ‘The husband’s getting a bit worked up.’
‘Sorry?’ Angus frowned.
‘Louise Williams, the abdo pain in cubicle four. Oh, sorry.’ She gave an apologetic smile. ‘It was Gus I spoke to about her—she’s twenty weeks pregnant, had a miscarriage earlier in the year, oh, it’s last year now…’
And Imogen saw it then.
Saw how often Heather called for Angus if there was a problem, how Heather arranged her breaks around his and probably her shifts too—and saw how hard it would be, not just for Angus but for Heather too, if the truth came out.
Not that she had time to dwell on it, not when at fifteen minutes past midnight on New Years Day the fireworks went off again.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
‘WE’VE GOT multiple stabbings coming in.’ Heather had to practically shout as a group of young men spilled out of the waiting room, security men quickly onto them as the waiting room started to fill. ‘Gus is onto it and the surgeons are coming. Imogen,’ she called out, ‘can you take the abdo pain?’
One Magical Christmas Page 12
