Nell’s pen flew across her notebook for a few seconds, then she glanced up. ‘Lynne thinks Baby Marshall’s tummy is a little tense. It could just be after-birth stress, but…’
Quickly Gabriel extracted Baby Marshall’s file from the pile in front of him, and flicked it open.
‘Weight 1,500 grams,’ he murmured. ‘It could simply be after-birth stress, but it could also be necrotising enterocolitis—damage to his intestines due to an infection or poor blood flow. Set him up for an X-ray and let me know when the technician arrives.’
‘Will do,’ Nell said.
‘Oh, and could you re-emphasise to Mr and Mrs Marshall that touching can be extremely stressful for some very premature infants,’ Gabriel continued. ‘I explained that to them this morning, but they looked so shell-shocked by the sudden arrival of their son that I don’t think they took it in.’
Nell nodded. ‘I’ll repeat the warning.’
‘The trouble is it’s an instinctive reaction to want to touch your child,’ Gabriel observed, ‘but parents forget that a baby has next to no tactile stimulation in the womb so if we can make sure that the Marshalls limit themselves to talking to their son for the next few days, that would be best.’
‘I’ll do that,’ Nell said, and as she continued to make notes Gabriel sat back wearily in his seat.
Lord, but he was so tired. He couldn’t remember when he’d last felt so tired, and he couldn’t blame the weather. The hot spell had ended at the weekend with spectacular thunderstorms and torrential rain, bringing much cooler, fresher weather, but still he couldn’t sleep. Night after night he tossed and turned, and always his mind kept returning to Maddie despite the fact that he knew he’d done the right thing—the only thing—he could have done.
Let it go, Gabriel, he told himself. It’s the best thing for her, you know it is, so let it go, move on.
‘You must be getting really excited about this afternoon,’ Nell said as she closed her notebook. ‘To meet a living legend like Professor Larson in the flesh…It’s a real honour, isn’t it?’
He nodded, but in truth he didn’t feel like a man who was about to be given one of the biggest accolades of his medical career. Who would he share it with—who would really care? His staff were obviously thrilled to bits, and his parents would have been, too, if he’d still been on speaking terms with them, but there should have been someone special he could share it with, and there wasn’t. Not now.
‘Gabriel…’
He straightened in his seat guiltily. How long had he been sitting there in silence? Now he came to look at Nell properly he could see she looked edgy and uncomfortable, and his heart sank. The only reason she could look edgy was if she’d changed her mind about the ward manager’s job, and he didn’t want her to change her mind. Jonah had been right. She was efficient, capable and completely on the ball, and if she didn’t take the ward manager’s job he’d have to advertise, and he didn’t need that. Not right now.
‘Nell, I know the ward manager’s job must seem very daunting to you at the moment,’ he said quickly, ‘but Lynne is going to be here for another seven weeks, and I’m sure she’ll go through everything with you—’
‘I’m not worried about the ward manager’s job—well, I am, but I’m sure I’ll cope,’ Nell interrupted, and to his surprise the colour on her cheeks darkened to crimson. ‘It’s…It’s about Maddie. I know your relationship with her is none of my business—’
‘Nell, I suggest you stop right there,’ he interrupted, his voice positively glacial.
‘Believe me, there is nothing I’d like better than not to continue with this conversation,’ Nell said, her voice trembling slightly, ‘but Maddie isn’t just my cousin, she’s my best friend, and she’s miserable as hell, and I think you are, too.’
‘She’s miserable?’ Gabriel said, wanting to believe her, realising to his dismay that he’d give anything to believe her.
‘Of course she’s miserable,’ Nell said. ‘She thought you were The One, and then you upped and told her you didn’t want to see her any more. Wouldn’t you be miserable if you were in her shoes?’
Gabriel thrust his fingers through his hair impotently. ‘Nell, it wasn’t a question of not wanting to see her any more. I can’t…I can’t give her what she needs. I can’t be a surrogate father to Charlie and Susie. I’ll screw it up, scar them for life.’
‘Do you love Maddie, Gabriel?’
He did. He didn’t know how it had happened, when his longing for her had changed into him loving her, but it had, and his face tightened.
‘Yes. Yes, I do.’
‘Then everything else will work itself out,’ Nell insisted.
Gabriel shook his head. ‘Love conquers all? Only in books and in the movies, not in real life.’
‘Is this because Charlie and Susie aren’t Maddie’s kids?’ Nell demanded. ‘Is that what you can’t cope with?’
‘No, of course it’s not!’ he exclaimed. ‘If they’d been babies, I think I might have been able to cope, learned how to relate to them, but I don’t know how to talk to kids of their age, how to be on their wavelength.’
‘Gabriel, you’re not auditioning here for the part of super-surrogate father,’ Nell protested. ‘All Charlie and Susie want is somebody who will love their aunt. Somebody to be there for her—and for them—if they need it.’
A reluctant smile curved his lips. ‘You make it sound so simple.’
‘It’s not, I know it isn’t,’ she admitted. ‘But if you love Maddie, you can work through this.’
‘And if I fail?’ he said. ‘If Charlie and Susie come to hate me, think I’ve failed them?’
‘Gabriel, if you keep thinking you’ll fail, then you’re setting yourself up to fail. You have to believe, Gabriel. You have to think that everything’s possible instead of thinking…thinking…’
‘That a cow is a ruminating quadruped.’
‘A cow is a what?’ Nell said in confusion, and he smiled, but it was a strained smile.
‘It’s a quotation from a book somebody once suggested I read. What it basically says is you mustn’t let facts and logic rule your head and heart. You have to allow dreams, and fantasy, and hopes in there, too, or you’re not really living.’
‘Can’t say I’ve read it myself, but the writer sounds like he knows what he’s talking about,’ Nell said.
‘Yes, but—’
‘Gabriel, a logical person would say that with your lack of experience in dealing with kids, you’re going to screw this up big time, but a person with heart would say that sometimes you just have to fly blind. Sometimes you just have to throw all caution to the wind and go for it.’
‘Maybe.’
‘No, not maybe, Gabriel,’ Nell said. ‘Definitely. You have the dreams, and the hopes, and the craziness inside you. You just need to let them out, set them free.’
Was she right? Gabriel wondered as Nell left. He wanted her to be right because he knew, despite all of his attempts to convince himself otherwise, that he wanted Maddie back, and it wasn’t simply to make love to her. He missed her more than he would ever have thought possible. He missed seeing her smile, missed spending time with her, missed funny little things like watching her run her fingers through her hair or seeing her stick her tongue out at Susie.
‘I love her,’ he said out loud to the empty room. ‘I love her so much. Why the hell didn’t I realise that before? How the hell have I been so stupid?’
And he had been stupid, because now he knew that he was going to have a marathon task to get her to believe him.
‘What I need is a plan,’ he told the clock on his desk, but it simply ticked on regardless, and he smiled a little ruefully. ‘Fresh out of plans, huh? Well, me, too.’
‘We have the results of the ultrasound scans Gabriel ordered for Baby MacDonald and Baby Marshall,’ Lynne said as she stood beside Jonah and Nell in IC. ‘Both show no abnormalities at the moment, but we’re monitoring the situation.’
; ‘Good, good,’ Jonah said. ‘Do you have a copy of the results?’ Lynne nodded and, as she hurried away, Jonah glanced quickly over his shoulder to make sure none of the nursing staff were within earshot, then muttered, ‘How did it go with Gabriel?’
Nell made a face. ‘His main fear is he’ll let Charlie and Susie down, fail them in some way.’
‘Typical Gabriel,’ Jonah said. ‘Always wants to be the best at everything. But he definitely wants Maddie back?’
‘The man’s head over heels in love with her.’
‘So all we have to do is convince him that he doesn’t have to be super-duper surrogate dad, and that being an OK-he’s-not-too-bad dad would be good enough,’ Jonah said, and Nell sighed.
‘Jonah, we can’t convince him of that. He has to realise it himself, and if Maddie’s not talking to him…’
‘She’ll talk to him by the time I’ve finished speaking to her,’ he said, and Nell gave him an amused stare.
‘You reckon? Jonah, I know Maddie better than you do, and if she’s decided—as she has—that Gabriel’s a complete waste of space, you’re not going to get her to change her mind.’
‘Nonsense,’ he said bracingly, and Nell shook her head as Lynne came hurrying back.
‘I’ll remind you of that later, Jonah.’
‘Jonah, I do not want to discuss Gabriel with you now or at any time in the future,’ Maddie said, her brown eyes furious as she banged a pile of files into her out-tray. ‘So if that’s all you want to talk to me about, I suggest you turn right around and head out the door.’
‘Maddie, you’re throwing away something special here—’
‘I prefer to regard what I’m doing as moving on,’ she interrupted. ‘Gabriel and I had a nice time while it lasted, but now I’m looking to the future, working out what I should do next.’
‘Even if that means leaving behind the man you love?’
‘Jonah, it wasn’t me who wanted out. It was Gabriel, and he got out. End of story.’
Jonah shook his head. ‘You know, I used to think Gabriel was the most stubborn individual I’d ever met, but you take the prize. Maddie, do you love him—want him back?’
‘No,’ she snapped, and he smiled.
‘Liar.’
‘I am not lying,’ she protested, and the smile on Jonah’s face widened.
‘Maddie, this is me you’re talking to. Whatever you say will go no further, so tell me the truth. Do you love him?’
For a second she said nothing, then she sat down wearily behind her desk. ‘Jonah, it doesn’t matter how I feel. It’s over—done with. He doesn’t want me and, though I’m a patsy where men are concerned, even I know when to call it a day.’
‘Maddie, I think he knows he’s made a mistake.’
She wanted to believe him, she so wanted to believe him, but she couldn’t allow herself to. She’d spent too many nights tossing and turning, berating herself for being so stupid, for putting her heart on the line yet again, to be prepared to allow herself even a glimmer of hope.
‘Psychic now, are you?’ she said, not bothering to hide her sarcasm.
‘I think if you were to give him an opening—meet him halfway—you might be surprised at what you hear.’
Why couldn’t people leave her alone? she wondered as she stared at Jonah’s earnest, concerned face. She felt stupid enough as it was, without people trying to convince her that somehow she could have a fairy-tale ending. There was no fairy-tale ending, and there never would be, not for her.
‘Jonah, this conversation is closed,’ she said. ‘This conversation is never under any circumstances to be resurrected. Understand?’
‘But, Maddie—’
‘No, Jonah,’ she said fiercely, and for a moment he hesitated, then he nodded in defeat.
‘OK,’ he said as he left, ‘but I think you’re making a big mistake.’
I’ve already made one, she thought. I already let down my defences once, and I’m not about to do it again.
She had an interview for another job next week. It was in a GP’s surgery and, no matter how boring the work was or how obnoxious the GP turned out to be, if she was offered the position she was going to take it. OK, so it was further away from home, and when she’d spoken on the phone to the other medical secretary employed at the surgery her heart had sunk, but it didn’t matter how nit-picking her co-worker was, she had to get out of the Belfield.
‘Maddie…’
Oh, hell’s bells, but she might just as well put a sign on her door saying, ‘Maddie Bryce: feel free to harass her’, she thought as she looked up to see Gabriel hovering uncertainly in her doorway.
‘I’d like to talk to you,’ he continued as she deliberately switched on her printer and began printing out the letters she’d typed that morning.
‘I’m afraid I’m pretty snowed under, as you can see,’ she said shortly, and out of the corner of her eye she saw him bite his lip.
Lord, but he looked so tired. Tired and stressed and unhappy. But she seemed to have spent most of her adult lifetime propping up men who looked tired and stressed and unhappy, and this time she was going to be tough, strong.
‘But it’s lunchtime,’ he said, glancing at his watch. ‘You have to eat, so I was wondering if we could perhaps go down to the canteen, talk there?’
Damn, he was right. It was lunchtime, and desperately she tried to think of some reason why she couldn’t join him, only to let out an inward sigh of relief when Lynne appeared.
‘Gabriel, we’ve another preemie on its way down from Maternity. Male child, weight two kilos, with breathing difficulties. Gabriel, did you hear what I said?’ she continued curiously when he didn’t move, didn’t even indicate that he’d heard her.
‘I’m coming,’ he said heavily, ‘and we’ll talk later, Maddie, OK?’
Not if I see you coming first, she thought, picking up her handbag as soon as he’d gone. If I see you coming first, you won’t see me for dust.
This had to be payback for something, Maddie decided as she sat in the canteen and Doris Turner beamed back at her from across the table. Whatever she’d done in a past life it must have been truly horrendous for the gods to have decided she’d have the only vacant seat in the canteen next to her, and for Doris to have seen it with her beady little eyes.
‘It’s been so long since I last saw you,’ Doris said, smiling at her with the smile Maddie knew only too well.
‘Pressure of work—you know how it is,’ Maddie replied. ‘How are things in Obs and Gynae?’
‘Of course, you won’t have heard,’ Doris said, all chummily confidential. ‘To be fair, I wouldn’t have known either if I hadn’t happened to be passing Mr Caldwell’s office, and his door hadn’t happened to be slightly ajar, when he was talking to his wife, Annie.’
When you had your ear at the keyhole, you mean, Maddie thought.
‘If this is something private between Mr Caldwell and his wife, then I really don’t think you should tell me,’ she said firmly, but Doris wasn’t so easily dissuaded.
‘Annie’s pregnant.’
‘Really?’ Maddie said, temporarily forgetting that she disliked Doris intensely. ‘Oh, I’m so pleased. So very pleased for both of them.’
‘I’ve hinted to Mr Caldwell that perhaps this time she should stop working rather than trying to continue on as she did the last time with such unfortunate results, and I think he agrees with me but…’ Doris sighed. ‘I’m afraid Annie can wrap him round her little finger when she wants to.’
‘I’m sure Annie will do what’s right for her and her baby, aren’t you?’ Maddie said as calmly as she could, and Doris smiled a smile that held no warmth at all.
‘Did you know that Dr Brooke and his wife are going on holiday next week?’ she said. ‘They’re a really lovely couple, though their marriage did get into the teeniest difficulty last year. We had a locum, you see, who was filling in for Dr Dunwoody, and Helen—Dr Brooke’s wife…Well, I’m not saying she was unfaithful bu
t…’
Maddie gritted her teeth. How much more of this was she going to have to listen to? Maybe she could make a run for the door but, knowing her luck, Doris would just come after her.
‘Doris—’
‘And, of course, you won’t have heard the latest about Mr Summers in Men’s Surgical,’ Doris continued. ‘Apparently, he—’
‘I’m afraid I have to interrupt you, Miss Turner,’ a familiar deep voice declared, and Maddie didn’t know whether to cheer or groan as she looked round to see Gabriel standing behind her. ‘But I need Miss Bryce back in NICU right away.’
There was a glimmer of a smile in his grey eyes and she knew he didn’t really need her back in the unit. He was rescuing her just like he had before, and she didn’t want to be rescued. Or rather she did, but not by him.
It’s the devil or the deep blue sea, Maddie, she realised, and got to her feet.
‘Sorry about this, Doris,’ she said with what she hoped was her best conciliatory smile, and before Doris could reply she was heading for the corridor, all too aware that Gabriel was following her.
‘I hope I did the right thing,’ he murmured when he caught up with her. ‘I thought you looked rather like a deer caught in the headlights of a car, but if I shouldn’t have butted in…’
‘I’m glad you did,’ she said, knowing she had to say it, and he smiled, a warm, wide smile that made her traitorous heart do a quick two-step in her chest.
‘My pleasure,’ he replied, his smile widening, and she quickened her step.
The unit. She had to get back to the unit. In the unit there’d be Nell, and Lynne, and she had a mass of work to do. In the unit she’d be safe.
Thank God there was the usual seething mass of humanity waiting at the lifts. Normally she hated getting far too up close and personal with people she didn’t know, but today…There was safety in numbers and she needed safety, but to her dismay the safety net didn’t last long. When they reached the second floor there was a sudden and noisy mass exodus.
‘They must be giving away free catheters in Men’s Surgical,’ Gabriel said as the doors closed and they were alone.
The Good Father Page 17
