One Night to Wed

by Alison Roberts

  Angus was ripping open packages. 'I've got a 14-gauge cannula, a three-way stopcock and a 50-mil syringe.'

  'It'll be a good start, anyway.'

  Angus picked up an alcohol wipe and the torch. He held the wipe out to Fliss but she didn't move. 'I thought you were going to do this.'

  Angus was astonished. Fliss was the more highly qualified medical professional present. 'Do you want me to?'

  Fliss nodded swiftly. 'You've got the advantage in experience. I'm more au fait with inserting tubes and connecting them to underwater seal drains.'

  'Fine.' Angus didn't want to waste even another second. He swabbed at the area on Callum's chest just under his collarbone, where the needle needed to be inserted. Second intercostal space, midclavicular line. As the needle touched the skin, Angus was pleased to notice that his hand was rock steady.

  He wanted to do this perfectly. Fliss trusted him. He would do anything she asked him to, he thought fleetingly, and he would always do it to the utmost best of his ability.

  No. The faint cry from somewhere in his head was there for only a heartbeat. Not true, it prodded. You weren't prepared to change your career, were you?

  That was different. Such a ridiculous rebuttal that Angus found it easy to squash it into oblivion and concentrate totally on the job at hand. The job that Fliss had asked him to do.

  Callum's level of consciousness had slipped enough for him to barely notice the needle penetrating the skin and scraping past a rib. Angus was being very careful not to puncture the nerves and vessels that lay so close. Leaving the plastic cannula in place, Angus withdrew the needle and breathed an audible sigh of relief as they heard the hiss of escaping air.

  Attaching the stopcock to the end of the cannula, Angus then pushed the end of the large syringe into one of the ports and the plunger moved back by itself under the pressure of air coming from the child's chest cavity. He turned off the port, emptied the syringe and repeated the procedure. This time the plunger stopped halfway up the barrel of the syringe and Callum's small chest heaved as he coughed.

  Angus grunted with satisfaction. 'I think we've got it for now, Fliss.'

  'I reckon.' Fliss was watching as Callum breathed rapidly with both sides of his chest moving. She listened again with her stethoscope and nodded approval but she still looked worried as she pulled the earpieces clear. 'How long will it last?' she wondered aloud. 'I wish we could X-ray him and get some proper drainage in place.'

  'Yeah.. .and do an ultrasound and have a paediatric surgeon on the way?'

  Fliss nodded and Angus could see the shine in her eyes that suggested tears of pure frustration were not far away.

  Angus ached to take her in his arms. To tell her what an amazing job she was doing. How amazing she was. 'We'll get there, lass,' he said softly. 'We're doing OK so far, aren't we?'

  Fliss nodded again, blinking hard as she handed Angus some tape to secure the cannula and stopcock.

  'We'll keep a close eye on him and aspirate again if we need to. Unless you've got a urinary catheter set somewhere?'

  'I hadn't thought of that.' The relief was evident as Fliss realised there was something more useful they could do than simply watching. 'You're right. If we can attach the tubing to the stopcock, it could provide enough suction to draw out any new air.'

  'Should keep the level down enough to prevent the lung collapsing anyway. Have you got one?'

  'I think I might have. One of my elderly patients has a permanent catheter and there should be some spare supplies. I'll go and have a look in a minute.'

  Callum was waking up slowly and he was too distressed for Fliss to move away just yet.

  'Where's Cody?' he begged miserably.

  'It's OK,' Fliss soothed. 'We'll find him soon. How's your tummy feeling?'

  'It hurts.'

  Despite what was obviously a very gentle touch, her examination of the child's abdomen increased his pain and he moaned.

  'I want Mummy,' he sobbed. 'And Cody.'

  'Abdo's not as soft as it was,' Fliss informed Angus.

  He took the information on board and shared the level of concern Fliss was feeling. If the abdomen was still so painful and getting more tense, it probably meant an accumulation of blood from Callum's internal injuries. The boy was definitely the most critically ill patient they had right now.

  'Could you draw up some more morphine, please, Angus? I'll check his blood pressure and we could top up his pain relief if it's not too low.'

  Seth arrived beside them with the fresh oxygen cylinder and a plastic bag containing a mask. 'Sorry. It took me a while to find these. This was the smallest mask I could see. Is it what you want?'

  'Yes, that's the paediatric one.' Angus took the package and ripped it open. 'Thanks, mate.'

  He and Fliss worked together over the boy for several more minutes before the whimpering and calling for his brother trickled to a murmur and then stopped. With more pain relief administered and careful positioning to help his breathing, the exhausted child closed his eyes and slept.

  Fliss sat back on her heels and her breath escaped in a long sigh. Angus couldn't resist touching her but he couldn't give her the comforting hug he wanted to. He simply touched her arm so that she would know he was close.

  'You know that idea you had a while ago about making us all a hot drink?'

  'Yes.' The response was dull. Looking after themselves had to be way down any list of priorities Fliss had at the moment.

  'I think now might be a good time.'

  'I could do with a cuppa myself.' Jack sounded suspiciously gruff and he was scrubbing beneath his eyes with the back of his hand as he stared at Callum. 'He is going to make it, isn't he?'

  'He certainly will if we have anything to do with it,' Angus said firmly.

  Jack nodded, his gaze now fixed on Angus. 'A wee dram might do us more good than a cup of tea,' he suggested.

  Angus grinned. 'Aye. But not right now, I think. Tell you what, I'll buy you a dram when this is all over. Only when your doctor says you're well enough, mind you.'

  'She's a bossy one,' Jack warned. He winked at Angus. 'There are some things a man should be able to decide for himself.'

  'Aye.' Angus liked this old man.

  Fliss snorted but she was checking Callum again and didn't bother joining the conversation.

  'What part of Scotland are ye from, lad?'

  'Edinburgh,' Angus told him, 'but I left when I was a wee lad.'

  'I'm from Glasgow,' Jack said. 'And I didn't leave until I was nearly thirty which is still a damn sight longer ago than you did.'

  Fliss looked up. 'And you still haven't lost your accent, Jack.'

  'I'm working on it.'

  'Don't.' Fliss was smiling now. 'I love hearing it.'

  Did she love his accent because it was different? Angus wondered. Or had hearing Jack possibly reminded her of himself? Fliss looked away from the old man and her gaze slipped past Angus. She looked disconcerted, as though she had just realised that she might have revealed more than she had intended.

  'It's good to hear you talking properly, Jack,' Fliss said briskly. 'I think we've got your breathlessness under control for the moment.' She seemed to be avoiding looking at Angus. 'And Callum seems comfortable. I'll go and look for the catheter set and then I think I might go and make that cup of tea.'

  While it was odd trying to work with only the small beam of light from the torch, it was strangely normal to be in her kitchen, filling the kettle and setting mugs and milk and a sugar bowl on a tray. It could have been just a power cut that was making the difference, rather than a full-scale emergency happening around her. Funny how quickly you could get used to things. Even while part of her brain was on full alert, waiting for more gunshots to break a now eerie silence outside, Fliss thought to unearth a packet of chocolate biscuits from her pantry and arrange them on a plate.

  Not that Maria could be offered anything to eat but a comforting, hot mug of tea probably wouldn't hurt. It could we
ll be more than four hours before she got anywhere near the doors of an operating theatre.

  Jack was highly unlikely to need an anaesthetic. He had picked up enough to make Fliss suspect that the cause of his current episode of acute heart failure was something other than a major heart attack.

  Poor little Callum was in the worst shape by far and would need to be the first to be evacuated when that became possible. Fliss could only hope there weren't any others out there who might also be in dire need of medical intervention. Callum's brother Cody was the one who sprang to mind instantly. Where was he? Was it possible he had been hurt as badly as his twin? Or worse?

  'Oh, God,' Fliss muttered aloud, 'I hope not.'

  'What are you not hoping for?'

  Fliss almost dropped the plate of biscuits. 'What are you doing in here?'

  'I thought you might need a hand carrying stuff.' Angus stepped closer.

  'You're a bit too good at sneaking up on people, Angus McBride.'

  'Yeah?' Another step and Angus was very close to her. Close enough to touch. He smiled and Fliss felt a very familiar twist happen deep in her abdomen.

  She had loved this man's smile from the first time she had seen it. It was kind of slow growing but it got very wide, with a cute upwards curl at the corners. It made her feel like the sun had come out from behind a cloud. Warm and.. .happy.

  Which seemed an inappropriate way to feel, given the current circumstances. If only Angus wasn't standing close enough for her to feel his warmth, it might be easier to dampen that odd internal glow.

  'I'm highly trained, you know,' Angus said quietly. 'I came top of the sneaking class.'

  'Hmph.' Fliss took a step away and put the plate down on the tray. 'I hope you were top of the tray-carrying class as well. Why don't you take this? I'll bring the kettle as soon as it's come to the boil.'

  Angus picked up the tray. 'You didn't answer my question.'

  'What question?'

  'What it was that you were not hoping for so fervently when I sneaked up on you.'

  'Oh...' Fliss sighed. 'I was thinking about Callum's twin brother. Hoping that he isn't lying out there somewhere...' She didn't need to voice the rest of her fears for Cody. The sympathetic grunt from Angus let her know he understood her concern perfectly.

  He was silent for a moment and seemed to be waiting for Fliss, who was watching the curl of steam starting to come from the spout of the kettle.

  'You're really close to this community already, aren't you, Fliss?'

  'They're good people,' Fliss answered simply. 'It's easy to get close, especially in such a small community.'

  'Don't you find it a bit stifling?'

  'In what way?'

  'There must be things about the city that you miss, surely?'

  Was Angus asking if she missed him? This wasn't the time to start telling him just how badly she had missed him. His company, his conversation, his caring....his touch. Fliss swallowed hard.

  'I miss some things.'

  'Like?'

  Oh, help. She had to get away from personal ground before she threw herself into his arms and burst into tears and poured out her grief. Where would that get them? Back together, probably, and back to square one. In a relationship that would eventually destroy her. She'd suffered enough already. It would be too stupid to go back for another helping. Self-destructive.

  'Like not having all the facilities of a well-equipped emergency department when I need them badly,' Fliss said shortly. 'Like right now.'

  'But what about the social life?' Angus persisted. 'The shopping and theatres and.. .and good coffee?'

  The whistling sound advertised that the water was hot enough and Fliss pulled the cord free and picked up the kettle.

  'I love this place,' she told Angus. 'When I was a kid we had a holiday house in a place just like this, up north. A river mouth and a beach and just a couple of shops. Miles from anywhere. We used to go for long summer holidays and Dad would take me fishing or beachcombing or walking in the forest or up the hills. It was the best place in the world.'

  'Is that why you came here, Fliss?' Angus cleared his throat. 'Were things so bad that you wanted to run away to somewhere that was special when you were a kid?'

  Fliss shook her head to try and deny that she had been cowardly enough to simply run away from a situation she didn't like. But that was precisely what she'd done, wasn't it? The head shake slowed and then morphed into the ghost of a nod. 'When I came here to check out the locum position I'd heard about, I knew I had to take it. I felt like I'd stepped back in time. To the best place ever. The safest place. And...' Fliss couldn't help the wobble in her voice. 'And I did need a safe place.'

  'Was I so dangerous, Fliss?'

  She couldn't answer. Couldn't tell him that it wasn't Angus himself who had been so dangerous but the way she felt about him. Being so close to losing herself heart and soul to someone who might walk out to go to work one day and never come back.

  Like her father.

  She avoided the question. 'This is a wonderful place,' she said with forced brightness. 'Ask Maria. It's the perfect place to raise a family.'

  'You said you didn't want children.'

  'No.' Fliss needed to push Angus away. To stop him scratching those sore patches on her soul. 'If you remember, I said I didn't want you to be the father of any children I had.'

  Another moment of silence. A much heavier one.

  'So...' Angus cleared his throat again. 'You're happy here, then, Fliss?'

  'I was.' Forced brightness wouldn't work any more. What was the point in being less than honest with Angus, anyway? He would see through anything less than the truth. 'Tonight changes everything, though, doesn't it? Morriston is never going to feel quite so safe after this. Maybe it was all just an illusion.'

  'Maybe the degree of danger you perceive is the illusion.'

  'What?' Fliss was scathing. 'There are people on the other side of that door who are full of bullet holes, Angus. That's hardly an illusion.'

  She could feel the intensity of the look she was receiving even though it was too dark to see it properly.

  'I wasn't talking about Morriston.'

  Fliss had turned away and was already in the laundry by the time the soft words were spoken.

  It was easy to pretend she hadn't heard.

  CHAPTER SIX

  She wasn't going to get away with it.

  Angus was practically stomping as he carried the tray through the waiting area towards the surgery and Fliss couldn't blame him. It had been a nasty dig, that comment about not having wanted him to be the father of her children.

  It wasn't true. Of course it wasn't true. Angus had all the qualities she would have picked to be the father of her children. Strong but gentle, funny and kind. Capable of being stern but always fair. The kind of qualities her own father had had. The things that had added a much more meaningful layer to that initial physical attraction she had felt for Angus McBride.

  It wasn't that she didn't want him to father her children. It was because if he did—with the kind of career he had, Fliss could see history repeating itself.

  She would be in real danger of turning into her own mother.

  And that was a path Fliss could never bring herself to take even a single step onto. She hadn't really wanted to hurt Angus—it had been self-protection. This was just so hard, having him so close and feeling that magnetic pull all over again. A pull towards a future that had an impenetrable barrier. A wall that hid a terrible secret. A wall that was so thick and so menacing Fliss couldn't even go near it.

  In fact, she hadn't actually recognised how good she was at staying away from that wall. Maybe it was the tension of the night. Or the reminders she'd had of her past when she'd been in the cemetery earlier. Or seeing Angus again after such a long break. Or a combination of everything that was creating a very peculiar chemistry. She was suddenly closer to that wall than she had ever been in her adult life, and it was still too hard to touch.


  That wall had blood on it.

  It was so much less painful to create a diversion. The kind of petty things that had been so readily available when she had lived with Angus—like meals being ruined because he hadn't got home on time, or dishes not being done, or beds not being made—couldn't be used in the current circumstances so Fliss had pulled something far more personal out of her defence armaments. One of the big guns that had been used only once before, in the final showdown before she had moved out of Angus McBride's life. At a time when she had believed what she had been feeling and saying, and hadn't been able to see it for the diversion tactic it had really been.

  She couldn't afford to let herself get pushed up against that wall again. When she had time to sit down and think about it, she would be able to come up with a dozen reasons why that would be a very bad idea. Too many years had been spent creating the hard-won distance. Taking that mental journey would be impossible right now in any case, and the angry vibes coming from Angus were a huge help in creating a diversion all by themselves.

  If only Fliss didn't feel guilty for the undeserved rejection that had instigated the vibes. Angus was right behind her. Fortunately, his heavy tread had not disturbed either Callum or Jack, who were both dozing comfortably.

  'Where are you going to run away to next time, Fliss?'

  The soft query was almost a hiss. Its tone and content were both startling enough to make Fliss pause just before they entered the surgery.

  'What makes you assume I'm going to run away anywhere?'

  'It's what you do, isn't it? Run away from anything dangerous? A relationship that's getting serious. A place that isn't as safe as you thought it was?' Angus was glaring at her in the dim glow of the torch. 'I never thought you were a coward, Fliss.'

  That stung. If she was a coward, she'd be in Jack's cellar right now. Hiding until it was safe to come out. If Fliss needed a diversion from the real issue, that would do just fine.

  'How dare you?' she muttered back. 'I put myself in as much danger as you did to try and help Maria. More, in fact. I didn't have a bodyguard with a gun watching out for me.'