A Night to Remember

by Jennifer Taylor

  The kettle came to the boil so she made herself a cup of coffee and curled up in a chair. The coffee was far too hot to drink so she put the cup on the floor and closed her eyes. She would stay at the hospital until Seb had finished then go home with him and sort everything out. There really was no point prolonging their agony.

  ‘Take him straight through to Theatre. We’ve done all we can and now it’s up to the surgical team.’

  Seb stripped off his gloves and tossed them into the bin. The X-rays had shown extensive solid organ injury. Although the right kidney had escaped damage, the head of the pancreas and duodenum had been penetrated. Add that to tissue and nerve damage and he didn’t rate the pilot’s chances very highly.

  For some reason, the thought depressed him more than it normally would have done, and he sighed because he understood why. Every setback he encountered from now on would seem so much worse now that there was nothing to counterbalance it. Whenever he’d felt downhearted about his job in the past, he’d thought about Libby and that had always lifted his spirits, but he wouldn’t have that in the future, would he?

  ‘It looks as though you’ve lost the proverbial pound.’

  He glanced round when Marilyn came over to him, unable to raise enough energy even to pretend he was fine. ‘I wish it was just money I’d lost.’

  ‘Are you and Libby going through a rough patch?’ Marilyn asked, lowering her voice so that the rest of the team wouldn’t hear her.

  ‘We’ve been through the rough patch and now we’re on the other side…the place that leads in just one direction.’

  ‘Surely things aren’t that bad?’ Marilyn exclaimed.

  ‘Trust me—they are.’

  He didn’t say anything else. Although he knew he could trust Marilyn to be discreet, it felt wrong to discuss his marital problems with someone else—although maybe that had been his biggest mistake. Maybe he should have sought help instead of hoping that the problems would somehow magically disappear?

  He frowned as he left Resus. It was something he hadn’t considered doing before, but he should have done. If he and Libby had had counselling, they might have been able to work through their problems. Maybe he should suggest it to her now and see how she felt about the idea?

  It was worth a try, he decided as he went in search of her. There was no sign of her in the treatment room or the cubicles so he went to the front desk to see if the reception staff had seen her recently. He drew another blank, which was rather a mixed blessing—at least she hadn’t left, although he still had no idea where she’d gone.

  He checked the office next but it was empty. He was just about to head up to the canteen to check there too when he realised that he hadn’t looked in the rest room. He muttered a silent prayer as he opened the door, and was rewarded when he found her curled up, fast asleep in a chair.

  Seb crept into the room and sat down, feeling a whole range of emotions wash over him. It was a long time since he’d seen her like this. The last time he’d driven down to Sussex they had ended up arguing and he had driven home again the same night. They hadn’t spent a night together for almost a year, in fact, and that had been another major mistake, of course.

  How could a marriage survive when there was no physical contact between a couple? It wasn’t just sex—important though that was—but the small intimacies which were so vital to a healthy relationship: a hug, a loving glance, a gentle touch.

  There’d been times early on in their marriage when they hadn’t had the time to make love. Working the kind of impossible hours expected of a newly qualified doctor had left them little room for a private life, but they had got through that period by showing in small ways how much they had cared for each other.

  When had they stopped doing that? he wondered sadly. When had they stopped making the effort? It didn’t make any real difference now but he wished he could remember exactly when the intimacy had ceased. Reaching out, he stroked her cheek, feeling his heart aching with regret. He should have made sure that she knew how much he loved her!

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he whispered. ‘So very, very sorry for letting you down.’

  ‘Seb, have you got a minute?’

  He looked round when the door suddenly opened and Cathy appeared. ‘Problems?’ he said, standing up. Libby hadn’t moved and he doubted if she was aware that he was there, which probably wasn’t a bad thing. He was feeling far too emotional at the moment and he couldn’t afford to feel this way if he hoped to convince her that their marriage could work if she’d only give him a second chance.

  He had to be focussed, centred, he thought as he followed Cathy out of the door. He had to present the idea of them trying again to her with confidence and assurance so that she would believe it was worth taking the risk. He knew it was a lot to ask and that he didn’t deserve another chance after the mess he’d made of things, but he couldn’t just let her go without a struggle. He needed her, wanted her, loved her, and, by heaven, he was going to tell her that before this night was over. He wanted his wife back for keeps!

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Saturday: 2 a.m.

  LIBBY opened her eyes as the door closed. Her heart was racing as she sat up. What had Seb meant, that he was sorry for letting her down? Could it mean that he had been having an affair?

  Pain ripped through her and she put her hand over her mouth to stifle her sob. Her legs were trembling as she stood up, but she couldn’t stay there in case someone else came in and found her in this state. Picking up her cup, she took it over to the sink and emptied the cold coffee down the drain. She had just finished when the door opened again and Gary appeared.

  ‘Having a quick cuppa?’ he said cheerfully, heading for the kettle.

  ‘Yes.’ Libby dredged up a smile. She didn’t want to believe that Seb had been seeing someone else, but what other explanation could there be for that apology? Pain ripped through her again and she hurried on, terrified that she was going to break down. ‘How’s it going out there? Have things settled down now?’

  ‘They had—until the coastguard phoned to say that the lifeboat has just picked up some more members of the tanker’s crew.’ The young registrar grimaced. ‘Apparently, they’d been ordered to abandon ship before it hit the rig but their dinghy was swept away. That’s why they weren’t found until now.’

  ‘Are they badly injured?’ she asked, because it was easier to think about someone else rather than worry about herself and Seb all the time.

  ‘Two of them are in a pretty bad way, from all accounts. The rest have minor cuts and burns supposedly, although we can’t be sure exactly what we’re dealing with until they get here.’ He groaned when the wail of a siren heralded the arrival of an ambulance. ‘That was quick! Bang goes that cuppa I promised myself.’

  ‘You have your tea and I’ll cover for you.’ She hurried on when he started to protest. ‘While I can’t claim to possess your level of expertise, I did a stint in A and E a few years back so I should be able to manage until you’ve finished.’

  ‘If you’re sure you don’t mind?’ Gary beamed when she shook her head. ‘Then thanks. Tell Seb I’ll be along in a few minutes, though, won’t you? I wouldn’t want him to think I’m shirking!’

  Libby assured him that she would pass on the message and left. The first ambulance had drawn up outside by the time she reached Reception so she waited by the desk to see where she could be most usefully employed. Seb came hurrying out of Resus and he frowned when he saw her standing there.

  ‘Don’t feel that you have to help, Libby. You’ve done more than your fair share tonight.’

  ‘I’m covering for Gary while he has a break,’ she explained, hoping he couldn’t tell how painful it was to wonder if he’d found someone to replace her. Was it someone from work, like Cathy for instance? Or someone from outside the field of medicine? She wanted to know, yet at the same time didn’t want to hear anything about the woman who had supplanted her in his affections.

  ‘Oh, right. Well, th
anks.’ He looked round when the doors opened and the patient was rushed in. ‘Resus,’ he ordered, after just one glimpse of the man’s injuries. He turned to her. ‘If you could cover the treatment room, it would be a big help.’

  ‘Of course,’ she agreed, moving away.

  ‘Libby.’

  She stopped when he called her back and a shiver ran through her when she saw how serious he looked.

  ‘Maybe we can talk after the rush is over? There’s a lot of things we need to sort out.’

  He hurried away before she could say anything. Another ambulance arrived just then so she tried not to think about what she and Seb had to say to each other as she went to meet it. The patient had cuts on both his hands, although he appeared otherwise unharmed, so she told the paramedics to take him straight to the treatment room. He didn’t speak any English, which made communicating with him rather difficult, but she managed to make him understand that she was going to treat his injuries.

  Once she had cleaned and sutured the cuts, she took him to a side room and left him there to wait. Accommodation had been found for the tanker’s crew and he would be taken there as soon as the mini-bus came back from delivering the last group of men. In the meantime, she gave him a cup of coffee then went to see her next patient, a young boy of sixteen who had suffered extensive burns to his forearms. Jayne had been delegated to help her and she sighed when she saw the extent of the teenager’s injuries.

  ‘Do you want me to call the burns unit?’

  ‘Please.’ Libby sighed. The paramedics had covered the boy’s arms with gel packs to cool and protect the flesh from infection, but they were full-thickness burns and far too severe for her to treat. ‘This is beyond my capabilities, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Always best to know when you’re beaten,’ Jayne replied cheerfully, picking up the phone.

  Libby didn’t reply. The nurse couldn’t have known that her comment would touch a nerve, but it had. Although she and Seb had tried to make their marriage work, they’d been beaten, too. Now it was time to let go of the past and move on. However, knowing that Seb might have found her successor was extremely painful. It made her see that moving on was going to be a long and difficult process, and that there was no guarantee that she would succeed.

  All of a sudden she found herself wishing that she’d done something to stop what had been happening. Instead of waiting for Seb to come to her, she should have gone to him! She should have fought to save her marriage and not let her stupid pride get in the way. Now it was far too late to change things—unless a miracle happened.

  ‘If we’re all agreed, I’ll call a halt.’

  Seb looked at the people who were gathered around the bed but there was no sign of dissent. They all knew that it was pointless to carry on trying to resuscitate the patient. With third-degree burns covering almost seventy per cent of his body, it was a miracle that he had survived this long.

  Cathy switched off the monitoring equipment as Seb moved away from the bed. Gary joined him at the sink, looking as downcast as Seb himself felt. Losing a patient—even one as badly injured as this one—took its toll on them all. It was the downside of working in trauma care, the part of the job he hated most. No wonder Libby had decided to switch to general practice. It took a particular type of mentality to deal with the highs and lows of working in emergency care, and she was far too sensitive.

  The thought made him feel worse than ever. He hated to think that he had trampled over her feelings when he should have done more to protect her. It took a massive effort to pretend that everything was fine as he turned to Gary, but it was his job to keep up his team’s spirits.

  ‘What’s the score now? How many patents have we seen?’

  ‘Fifty-nine and holding.’ Gary scooped a handful of soap from the dispenser and grinned at him, successfully distracted by the question. ‘Looks as though I’m in line to win the bet, doesn’t it?’

  ‘It certainly does.’ Seb drummed up a laugh. ‘So the coffee’s on you tomorrow in the canteen, I take it?’

  ‘Coffee and cakes,’ Gary replied breezily, as Marilyn came to join them. ‘It’s not often I get the chance to prove my superiority so I intend to celebrate the occasion in style!’

  ‘We’ll never hear the end of this,’ Marilyn grumbled, nudging Seb aside so she could reach the taps. ‘OK, I admit it—you were right and I was wrong. Happy now, junior?’

  ‘Yes.’ Gary laughed. ‘And I’ll be happier still when you cough up that fiver you owe me.’

  Seb left them still bickering and went to check that everything was in order. Cathy had called in the porters to take the dead man to the mortuary. The police would need to be informed of his death so that his family could be told, so Seb left Resus and went to find the officer on duty. The policeman was just leaving the side room that had been set aside for the use of the tanker’s crew; he came hurrying over when he spotted Seb.

  ‘Do you know where the chap who was waiting for the mini-bus has gone, Dr Bridges? I was told he was waiting in there but there’s no sign of him.’

  ‘Sorry. I’ve no idea where he is.’ Seb looked around but there were very few people left in the waiting room. ‘Have you tried the lavatories?’

  ‘No, not yet. Where are they?’

  ‘I’ll show you.’

  Seb led him to the men’s lavatories but there was nobody in there. They also checked the ladies’ lavatories just in case but they, too, were empty. He frowned as he looked along the corridor. ‘I’ve no idea where he could have got to. Who treated him, do you know?’

  ‘That lady doctor…I think her name’s Libby.’

  Seb’s heart gave a little lurch at the mention of Libby. ‘I’ll see if she knows where he might have gone,’ he offered, doing his best to maintain an even tone.

  ‘Thanks.’ The policeman sighed. ‘The inspector isn’t going to be too happy if our chap’s gone AWOL. We’re under strict instructions to keep an eye on the crew until Immigration has interviewed them.’

  ‘He must be somewhere about,’ Seb assured him, although the policeman didn’t look convinced.

  He made his way to the treatment room and found Libby in the process of cleaning up a cut on a man’s arm. She glanced round when he appeared and he had to make a determined effort to rein in his emotions when he saw how tired she looked. ‘Sorry to interrupt, but could I have a word with you outside, please?’

  ‘Of course.’ She put down the plastic forceps she’d been using and smiled at the patient. ‘I’ll just be a few minutes.’

  Seb led the way to an empty cubicle and perched on the edge of the bed. Libby frowned as she followed him inside.

  ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘We seem to have lost a patient. That guy who was supposed to be waiting for the mini-bus has gone missing. I don’t suppose you know where he is, do you?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. I told him to wait until someone came to collect him, although he might not have understood me. He doesn’t speak any English, I’m afraid.’

  Seb sighed. ‘It could be a genuine mix-up, I suppose. Maybe he thought he should wait outside or something.’ He stood up. ‘I’ll go and see if I can find him before that policeman starts a full-scale alert.’

  ‘Shall I come with you?’

  ‘No. There’s no point us both getting soaked, plus you have a patient waiting, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course. Sorry. I should have thought of that myself,’ she said stiffly, pushing aside the curtain.

  ‘Hey, I wasn’t having a go at you!’ He turned her round to face him and sighed when he saw from her shuttered expression that it was precisely what she had thought he’d been doing. ‘I really appreciate everything you’ve done tonight, Libby. You’ve been a real help. Not many people would have mucked in and got on with the job like you’ve done.’

  He ran his hands lightly up her arms, trying to control the rush of emotions that hit him when he felt the softness of her flesh beneath his palms. All she had on was a thin bl
ue cotton blouse and he could feel the warmth of her skin flowing into his hands.

  All of a sudden the air seemed to be charged with tension. He knew that he should let her go, but his body had a very different agenda. His hands ran down her arms once more and he felt her shudder. When her eyes rose to his face, he could see the same uncertainty mirrored in them that he felt, too. She wasn’t sure if this was the right thing to do any more than he was…

  He drew her to him, feeling the shudder that travelled through him when their bodies came into intimate contact: breast to breast, thigh to thigh. It was a foregone conclusion after that what would happen and he was powerless to stop it. Lowering his head, he kissed her on the mouth, wondering if his own helplessness might ultimately save him. If he let her know how much he loved her, surely it would make a difference to how she felt?

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Saturday: 3 a.m.

  LIBBY knew that she should stop what was happening but she couldn’t seem to drag herself away from Seb. The kiss was so wonderfully potent that it seemed to have drawn all the strength from her body. She pressed her hands flat against his chest, feeling his heart thundering beneath her palms, and that was when the first doubt crept into her mind.

  Was it passion that made his heart beat so fast or shame?

  Her mind captured the thought and expanded on it. Seb had always possessed very strong principles and he wouldn’t find it easy to live with himself if he’d been having an affair. Maybe he hoped to atone for his actions by salvaging their marriage, but was that what she wanted? Did she really want a relationship that was founded on guilt?

  It was hard enough to make a marriage work when you loved each other, but if love had died, it didn’t stand a chance of surviving. Oh, they could pretend that everything was fine—go through the motions—but underneath would either of them be happy with second best? She certainly wouldn’t and she didn’t believe that he would either.