by Joanna Neil
‘I think she might have broken the leg,’ he said with a frown. ‘I’ll use some card as a splint and bind it up. Then we’ll take her along to the vet.’ He looked around. ‘It’s hard to see how she’s managed to hurt herself—unless she was panicked in some way and fell against the timbers.’
‘Perhaps we should keep her separate from the others for a while?’
He nodded. ‘I’ll sort out something for her. I think there’s an old rabbit cage in the shed. I’ll scrub it out and make it as good as new and it should make a good place for her to rest up.’
‘Okay. Thanks.’ She smoothed Mitzi’s feathers. ‘You’ll be all right,’ she said soothingly. ‘We’ll look after you.’
The vet prescribed antibiotics, a painkiller and splinted the leg properly. ‘Keep her quiet for a few days, away from the other hens. She should heal up in a few weeks. Bring her back to me next week so that I can see if the leg’s mending okay.’
‘We will, thank you.’ They went back to the house and settled her down in her new home.
‘Maybe we could let her out on the grass on her own when she’s feeling a bit more up to it?’ Saffi suggested. She went over to the garden table and poured juice into a tumbler.
‘Yes, we can do that. If it looks as though she’s going to flap about too much, we’ll pop her back in the cage.’
He sat down on one of the redwood chairs and she slid a glass towards him. He stared into space for a while, unseeing, and she guessed his thoughts were far away.
‘Are you all right? Are you thinking about your sister? Have they operated on her? You said they were deciding on the best course of treatment.’
‘That’s right. They had to find out how far the disease had gone…whether it had spread beyond the pancreas and duodenum, but it seems she’s in luck as far as that goes. They’re bringing in a specialist surgeon to perform the Whipple procedure.’
She stood at the side of him and reached for his hand, wanting to comfort him as best she could. It was major surgery, a complicated procedure where part of the pancreas and the small intestine were removed, along with the gall bladder and part of the bile duct. After that had been done, the remaining organs would be reattached.
‘When will they do it?’
‘Next week. She’s having a course of chemotherapy first to try and make sure it goes no further than it already has. They’re going to do minimally invasive surgery, through laparoscopy, so there should be less chance of complications.’
Saffi bent down and put her arms around him. ‘If you hadn’t insisted on taking her to hospital, things could have been much worse. You’ve done everything you can for her, Matt.’
‘Yeah.’ He sighed. ‘It just doesn’t seem like nearly enough.’
‘You’re looking after Ben again, aren’t you? Has his father gone back to work?’
He nodded. ‘James is worried sick about Gemma and about the effect it’s having on Ben. He was at the hospital all the time, but now he has to go away on an urgent callout. He’s going to make sure he’s back here when she has the surgery. I think this illness has really shaken him up.’
‘I don’t suppose Ben’s reacting too well to all the changes going on in his life. Perhaps he can help me with the honey—not the collecting of it but afterwards, when I put it into jars?’
‘I think he would enjoy that. When are you planning on doing it?’
‘At the weekend.’ She made a wry face. ‘I thought I would open up the hives on Saturday, around lunchtime, when, like you said, most of the bees would be out and about.’
‘Good idea. I’ll give you a hand.’
She smiled at him. ‘Thanks. I wasn’t looking forward to doing it on my own for the first time.’ Jason had said he had to be somewhere else on that particular morning, and she wondered if he had a problem with bees, or was worried about being stung. He still maintained she ought to sell up and leave everything behind.
Matt shot her a quick glance. ‘How do you feel about going into work next week?’
Her mouth made a brief downward turn. ‘I’m a bit apprehensive, to be honest. I’m worried that being able to help Josh might have been a once-only thing, and that I was working purely on instinct. I feel pretty sure I know what I’m doing, but I’d hate to come across something that I couldn’t handle.’
‘I don’t think that’s going to happen, because the way you were with Josh everything you did seemed skilful and automatic, as though it was part of you. And after talking to you the hospital chiefs are confident that you’ll be fine. But if you’re worried, you could come to the hospital with me tomorrow, just to observe and help out…if you want to. There’s no pressure.’
‘That’s probably a good idea. I might get to know one way or the other if it’s going to work out.’
‘Okay. That’s a date.’ He grinned. ‘Not the sort I’d prefer, but I guess it’ll have to do for the time being.’
He picked her up in the morning after breakfast and drove her to the hospital. ‘I’ll introduce you to everyone, and after that you can just watch what’s going on, or you can work alongside me,’ he said as they walked into A and E. ‘If you feel uncomfortable at any time, just let me know.’
She looked around. Everything seemed familiar to her, and perhaps that was because she’d been here before with the little boy, Charlie, who had broken his leg and pelvis in the road accident. He was doing well now, by all accounts. She hadn’t taken it all in then, but now she saw the familiar layout of an emergency unit.
‘I think I’d like to work with you,’ she said. ‘If you’ll show me where everything is kept.’
He put an arm around her shoulder and gave her a quick hug. ‘Brilliant. I know you can do it, Saffi. It’ll be as though you’ve never been away, you’ll see.’
She wasn’t so sure about that to begin with, but gradually, as the morning wore on, she gained in confidence, standing by his side as he examined his patients and talking to him about the problems that showed up on X-ray films and CT scans. It was a busy morning, and they finally managed to take a break several hours after they had started work.
‘It’s finally calmed down out there,’ she said, sipping her coffee. ‘It’s been hectic.’
He nodded. ‘You seem to be getting on well with Jake, our registrar, and the nurses on duty.’
‘They’ve been really good to me, very helpful and kind.’ Except that Gina Raines had come on duty a short time ago, and straight away Saffi had become tense. She wasn’t sure why, but she had a bad feeling about her. Maybe it was because she knew she and Matt had been involved at one time, but that was over now, wasn’t it? So why should that bother her now? As soon as she had seen her, though, a band of pain had clamped her head and her chest muscles had tightened.
She frowned. ‘They all know about my head injury. I know we talked about telling them, but it feels odd.’
‘I thought it best to be straight with everyone from the start, to explain what we’re doing and why you’re here. They’re a good bunch of people. You’ll be fine with them.’
‘Yes. I think it will work out.’ She took another sip of coffee and all of a sudden her pager went off. Matt checked his at the same time, and stood up, already heading towards the door. Saffi hurried after him.
‘A five-year-old is coming in with her mother,’ the triage nurse said. ‘The little girl had just finished eating a biscuit at a friend’s house when she felt dizzy and fainted. Now she can’t get her breath.’
Matt and Saffi went to meet the mother in the ambulance bay, and quickly transferred the child to a trolley. It was clear to see that she was struggling to get air into her lungs, and a nurse started to give her oxygen through a mask.
‘She’s been saying her tummy hurts,’ the distressed mother said, ‘and she’s been sick a couple of times in the car. She’s getting a rash as well.’
They rushed her to the resuscitation room and the child’s mother hurried alongside the trolley, talking to her daughter t
he whole time, trying to soothe her.
‘Has Sarah had any problems with fainting before, or with similar symptoms?’ Matt asked.
‘She’s never fainted, but she does have asthma, and she had a bit of a reaction to peanuts once.’
‘Did she see her GP about the reaction?’
The woman shook her head. ‘It was quite mild, so we didn’t bother.’
‘All right, thanks,’ Matt said. ‘You can stay with us in Resus. The nurse will look after you—if you have any questions, anything at all, just ask her.’ He indicated Gina, who went to stand with the mother as they arrived in the resuscitation room.
It looked very much as though Sarah was having a reaction to something she’d eaten. Her face was swollen, along with her hands and feet. Saffi handed Matt an EpiPen, an automatic injector of adrenaline, and he smiled briefly, knowing she had intercepted his thoughts.
‘Thanks.’ He injected the little girl in the thigh, and Saffi handed him a syringe containing antihistamine, which he injected into the other leg. Then he began his examination, while a nurse worked quickly to connect the child to the monitors that gave readings of heart rate, blood pressure and blood oxygen. Everyone was worried about this little girl who was fighting for her life.
‘Blood pressure’s falling, heart rate rising. Blood oxygen is ninety per cent.’
‘Okay, let’s get a couple of lines in to bring her blood pressure up. I’ll intubate her before the swelling in her throat gets any worse. And we need to get her legs up to improve her circulation—but be careful, we don’t want to cause more breathing problems.’
After five minutes the child was still struggling with the anaphylactic shock. ‘I’ll give her another shot of adrenaline,’ Matt said, ‘along with a dose of steroid.’
The medication was already in Saffi’s hand and she quickly passed it to him. They had to work fast. This was a life-threatening condition and they had to do everything they could to bring down the swelling and restore her life signs to a safe level.
Matt looked concerned, anxious for this small child, but he followed the treatment protocol to the letter.
‘Her breathing’s still compromised,’ Saffi murmured. ‘Should we give her nebulised salbutamol via the ventilator circuit?’
‘Yes, go ahead. It should open up the air passages.’
A short while later they could finally relax and say that the child was out of immediate danger. They were all relieved, and Matt took time out to talk to the girl’s mother and explain the awful reaction that the girl had experienced.
‘We’ll send her to a specialist who will do tests,’ he said. ‘We need to know what caused this to happen. In the meantime, we’ll keep her here overnight and possibly a bit longer, to make sure that she’s all right. We’ll give you an EpiPen and show you how to use it so that you can inject Sarah yourself if anything like this happens again. You’ll need to bring her straight to Emergency.’
He took the woman to his office so that he could talk to her a bit more and answer any of her questions.
Saffi went home later that day, satisfied that she had managed a successful day at work. She felt elated, thrilled that she was back on form, workwise at least.
Matt came to find her in the garden the next day when she was getting ready to open up the beehives. She’d brought out the protective clothing and laid it down on the table in preparation.
‘Two new skills in one week,’ he said with a smile. ‘You’re really up for a challenge, aren’t you? You did really well yesterday. How did it feel to you, being back in a hospital?’
‘It was so good,’ she said, returning the smile. ‘Like you said, it felt as though I’d never been away. I remembered everything about medicine, and how much I love being a doctor, the way Jason said I did.’
His brows drew together at the mention of Jason. ‘How are you getting on with him?’ he asked cautiously. ‘Have you remembered how it was with you two before the accident?’
She shook her head. ‘From time to time I get flashbacks, of places we’ve been, or brief moments we’ve shared, the same as I do with You and me, when we were once together, but they’re so fleeting that I can’t hold onto them.’ Her glance met his. ‘You still don’t like him being here, do you?’
He winced. ‘It shows? I thought I was doing a pretty good job of hiding it.’ He moved his shoulders as though he was uncomfortable with the situation. ‘Of course, he’s been quite open about the fact that he wants you back, and I can scarcely blame him for that. You’re a special kind of woman, and who wouldn’t want to be with you? But I wish he’d stayed back in Hampshire.’
She studied him for a moment or two, frowning. ‘It’s more than that, isn’t it? You really don’t like him.’
‘I think it’s odd that he hasn’t come to find you before this. I would have moved heaven and earth to find you if I was in his shoes.’
His brow furrowed. ‘He’s putting pressure on you— subtle pressure, but it’s there all the same. He says you were practically engaged, but “practically” isn’t the same as having a ring actually on your finger, is it? I can’t help wondering if he’s exaggerating.’
‘Does that matter? Wouldn’t you do the same if you really cared about someone?’
‘I do care about someone—I care very deeply for you, Saffi. I’ve never felt this way before—you can’t imagine how badly it hurts to see you with someone else.’
She pressed her lips together. She didn’t want to hurt him. It grieved her to see the pain in his eyes, but she was torn. She loved Matt, deeply, intensely, but didn’t she owe Jason something, too?
To turn her back on him would be a betrayal. He would feel she hadn’t even given him a chance. She didn’t want to hurt anyone, but she desperately wanted Matt.
She lifted her arms to him, running her palms lightly over his chest. ‘Isn’t that a kind of pressure you’re using, too? I don’t want to see you hurting, Matt. That’s the last thing I want.’
He gave a ragged sigh, the last of his willpower disintegrating as her hands trailed a path over his chest and moved up to caress the line from his neck to his shoulders.
He pulled her to him and kissed her fiercely, all his pent-up desire burning in that passionate embrace. His hands smoothed over her, tracing every feminine curve, filling her with aching need.
She clung to him, her fingers tangling in the silk of his hair, loving the way his body merged with hers, the way his strong thighs moved against her, and longing for him to say to her the one thing she wanted to hear.
She wanted his love, needed it more than anything in the world, but would it ever be hers?
‘Saffi, I’m lost without you…What am I to do?’ His voice was rough around the edges and she could feel his heart thundering in his chest.
The sun beat down on them and she felt heady with longing, fever running through her as his hand cupped her breast and his thumb gently stroked the burgeoning nub. A quivery sigh escaped her, and she looked up at him, her gaze meshing with his. More than anything, she wanted to give in to her deepest desires, to have him make love to her without any thought for the consequences.
But she couldn’t do that. Not until she knew the truth about her past, about what had happened to spoil their relationship and send her headlong into Jason’s arms.
Slowly, she came down to earth, and began to gently ease herself away from him.
Even as she did so, a small voice called in the distance, ‘Uncle Matt, I finished my picture. Come and see.’
Matt gave a soft groan, releasing her and gazing at her with smoke-dark eyes full of regret.
‘We have to sort out this thing with Jason,’ he said huskily. ‘I’m not going to share you with any man, in body or in spirit.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘HEY, YOU’VE BEEN out and bought yourself a new car!’ Matt looked admiringly at Saffi’s gleaming silver MPV. ‘It looks great, doesn’t it?’
‘I’m pleased with it,’ Saffi said, glad
that he liked her choice. ‘I need one so that I can get to and from work, so I went ahead and took the plunge yesterday.’
‘I wonder how I managed to miss that? You must have put it straight in the garage while I was busy with something else.’
‘Yes, I did. I was a bit overwhelmed by the time I ar- rived home—getting back behind the wheel and so on.’
Frowning, he put an arm around her. ‘I would have gone with you if you’d said. Did you have any problems finding what you wanted?’
She shook her head. ‘Actually, Jason went with me to the showroom.’
She felt Matt stiffen, and added hastily, ‘I didn’t have much choice in the matter. He came to see me and in- sisted on going along with me.’
‘How can he insist on anything? He’s not your keeper.’
She winced. ‘True. But I feel so guilty about forgetting him…I’m finding it hard to make him understand that I need some space.’
‘He’s playing on your emotions.’
‘Maybe. Anyway, he wasn’t too happy with my choice of car. He thought I should have gone for something smaller, but I like the flexibility of this one. You can fold down the seats to create more storage space. That might come in useful if I ever have to carry medical equipment around with me.’
He smiled. ‘Do you think you might want to try your hand at being an immediate care doctor?’
She chuckled. ‘Perhaps I’d better not try to run before I can walk. But you never know.’
‘Hmm.’ He sobered. ‘How does it feel to drive? I mean, you said you were a bit worried about it.’
‘It’s okay, I think. I didn’t actually have a problem bringing it home, anyway.’
‘That’s good. One more hurdle out of the way.’
‘Let’s hope so. I thought I could drive us to the vet’s with Mitzi after work today, if that’s all right with you? Unless you’d like me to go on my own?’
