His Very Own Wife and Child

by Caroline Anderson

  ‘Only till nine, it’s not the red-eye.’

  ‘Oz is working Saturday—you’ll probably end up side by side again.’

  Her heart kicked against her ribs. ‘What, just for a change?’ she said lightly, but maybe not lightly enough, because Patrick stopped her with a hand on her arm and looked down at her with worried eyes.

  ‘Are you OK working with him?’ he asked softly. ‘Because if not, I’m sure Tom can manage without him.’

  She found a smile. ‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘He’s easy to work with. We make a good team.’

  ‘You talking about me again?’

  Patrick rolled his eyes. ‘Oz, your ego is phenomenal.’

  ‘But warranted.’ He flashed a cheeky grin at his friend and winked at Sally, turning her stomach upside down. ‘Or am I wrong?’

  ‘Not on this occasion,’ Patrick conceded with a tolerant grin. ‘Actually, we were talking about the walk on Sunday.’

  ‘Oh, yeah. I’m looking forward to that,’ he said.

  ‘You’re coming?’ Sally asked, startled, and he threw her a smile that sent her heart all over the place again.

  ‘Oh, yes—wouldn’t miss it for the world. I love country rambles.’

  He was coming on the walk?

  ‘Good. You can carry the backpack with the picnic in it,’ she retorted. ‘I’ll leave you two to your fractures,’ she added, and took herself off, because she suddenly had something much more significant to worry about…

  ‘So, we make a good team, eh?’

  His grin was cheeky and his eyes were glinting with mischief. She passed him the printout from the ECG and tried to suppress her answering smile. ‘One day you’ll overhear something you won’t like if you keep eavesdropping,’ she told him briskly, and he chuckled.

  ‘That’ll make a change.’

  He frowned at the printout, nodded and went into the cubicle.

  ‘Right, Mr Gray, it looks like you’ve had a bit of a heart attack, so let’s see if we can’t get you more comfortable and then we’ll move you down to CCU so they can keep an eye on you for a few days. Can I have ten of morphine, Sal, and we’d better give you something to stop you feeling sick.’ He slid a cannula home with ridiculous ease, taped it in place and straightened up.

  ‘I thought it was a heart attack,’ Mr Gray said quietly.

  ‘People usually do if it comes on when they’re exerting themselves. I think if it happens when you’re sitting down you might be more likely to think it was indigestion.’

  ‘My wife said it could be that, but I don’t think she really believed it. She’ll be worried sick when she finds out. She’s such a worrier.’

  ‘Well, she was right to worry this time and call the ambulance, but you’re in safe hands now,’ Jack said, his voice firm and reassuring, and Mr Gray relaxed visibly, even though he was still in pain.

  Sally handed him the drugs to check and gave them to Mr Gray, then once he was more comfortable she called a porter and escorted him down to CCU and left him there. She was tempted to sneak a coffee while she was out, but it was nearly time for her evening break and she was hungry. She’d wait a little and have coffee with her meal in a while. Always assuming she had time for it.

  Perhaps she should just grab her break now while the going was good and have a sandwich or something quick.

  ‘Skiving off?’

  She jumped, her hand flying up to her chest, and she slapped his arm in mock annoyance. ‘Do you creep out of the walls or what?’

  He chuckled and fell into step beside her. ‘I was just coming to look for you. It’s quiet—I thought we could sneak a quick break while the going’s good.’

  No wonder they made such a good team—she was sure he could read her mind! Either that or they thought alike.

  ‘It’ll have to be very quick,’ she said repressively, as much to herself as him, and he nodded.

  ‘I only had in mind a coffee and a sandwich. I thought I’d get something more later.’

  Alike indeed.

  They fell into step, sat down with their snacks and ate quickly in silence, but it was a companionable silence, and if he hadn’t stretched out his leg and brushed against hers, it might have been quite innocent.

  As it was, her breath caught, she pulled her leg away as he muttered an apology, and the heat was back as if it had never been gone. She looked at her watch and drained her coffee.

  ‘We need to get back.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  He stood up, gulping down the last mouthful of his coffee and heading for the door, eating the last half of his second sandwich as he went. She hurried after him, wondering where the fire was, and then noticed the muscle working in his jaw.

  So much for relaxed!

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  DAMN, this was so much harder than he’d expected.

  One touch! Just one lousy touch of her leg against his and he was burning up. Friends, hell. He didn’t want to be friends with her. He want to touch her, hold her, kiss her all over, plunder all that wonderful soft womanliness, bury himself inside her…

  He waved his tag in front of the sensor, slapped the door out of the way and strode up to the whiteboard. ‘OK, who wants me first?’he asked, and there was a chorus of cheeky remarks from the nurses.

  He found a grin, grabbed the first set of notes he was handed and went into the cubicle. There was a little girl with a cut on her head, and she was burrowing into her mother’s lap and sobbing while the blood oozed steadily from the wound.

  Good. A nice, quiet little case that would calm and soothe him as effectively as it would his young patient.

  ‘Hello, Megan. I’m Jack,’ he said, dropping down onto his haunches and smiling at the little mite. She looked at him briefly, turned her head back into her mother’s chest and wailed. Oops. Do something about that smile, Jack, my boy. He tried again, this time on Megan’s mother. ‘I’m going to have to work on my technique with women,’ he said, and she gave a ragged laugh and relaxed.

  ‘Want to tell me what happened?’ he asked, and she sighed.

  ‘One of those stupid things. They were arguing about bedtime, and whose turn it was to go first, and she ran away from her brother and tripped and hit her head on the door catch. It was just so quick.’

  ‘It always is with kids. One minute it’s fine, the next it’s World War Three. Right, Megan, sweetheart, how about letting me have a look at that head? I bet your brother’s never had a cut as good as that one.’

  The little face emerged from the safety of her mother’s chest for a moment and regarded him seriously. ‘He broke his arm.’

  Clearly a major scoop. ‘Did he? Bet it didn’t bleed.’

  She shook her head and sat up a little straighter. Good. He was getting somewhere. ‘Mind if I have a look?’

  She tipped her head towards him a little, but he could still hardly see. He parted her hair really gently, but it was too much and her lip wobbled and she turned back to her mother.

  ‘Can you hold her head for me?’he asked softly, but her mother suddenly started to shake, and he put a hand on hers over Megan’s knee, and gave her a smile.

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll get someone to hold her for you.’

  ‘I can hold her,’ the nurse with him said, but he shook his head. The nurse was sweet, but she was young, inexperienced and almost certainly didn’t have children. And he wanted someone who knew how to hold a fractious, frightened child.

  ‘It’s OK, I’ll get Sally to do it this time,’he said. ‘Maybe you could find her for me—and tell her we’ll need glue.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Glue?’ Megan’s head emerged from her mother again. ‘Are we doing sticking?’

  ‘Sort of,’ he said, sitting back on his haunches so he wasn’t quite so close. ‘It’s like superglue.’

  ‘Toby got it on his fingers once and had to come and be ‘solved off.’

  He nodded, trying not to chuckle. ‘Sounds about right.’

  ‘Want me?’r />
  He turned his head and looked up at Sally, her tunic touching her lush curves in all the right places, and he felt heat rip through him again. Want her? With bells on.

  ‘I need you to help me with Megan. Her mum needs to stretch her legs for a minute, and we need to stick the little cut on her head back together, but I want someone to help me hold that beautiful hair out of the way so I don’t get glue in it and ruin it.’

  ‘Oh, no, you don’t want to do that. It would be such a shame, it’s such pretty hair.’ She dropped down beside Megan and smiled softly. ‘I tell you what, if you sit on my lap like you are on your mum’s while she goes for a walk just up and down out here, then I can hold your hair very, very still, and you can lean on me so you don’t move at all, and Jack can stick the little cut.’

  She shook her head. ‘It’s a big cut,’ she insisted, and Sally smiled.

  ‘Actually, it is quite a big cut,’ she agreed, and Megan looked just a tiny bit victorious.

  ‘Her brother’s had a broken arm, but it didn’t bleed,’ Jack offered, helping her out—not that he thought she needed it. Her eyes were like saucers. Talk about the art of coarse acting!

  ‘Didn’t it?’ she said incredulously, and Megan giggled and shook her head.

  ‘Mine’s better,’ she said, but Jack wondered how much that would help once her mother disappeared and Sally had to hold her still for his gluing.

  ‘I tell you what, let’s get you all fixed, and then I can find some other stickers and we can put them on you—would you like that?’

  Megan wriggled up straighter, her attention well and truly caught. ‘Can I choose?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘OK.’ She nodded, and held out her arms, and Jack watched with a lump in his throat as Sal scooped the youngster up, kissed her cheek and settled down on the chair as if she was going to read a story.

  ‘Right, now, while Jack does that, why don’t you tell me how you did it, because I bet it was really exciting.’

  ‘I was running away,’ she said, ‘and Toby chased me, and then I tripped up and hit my head on the door.’

  ‘Oh. What colour is it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The door.’

  ‘Um—white,’ she said, sounding puzzled. Jack could understand that. He was puzzled, too, but it was keeping Megan still and focussed while he got the hair out of the way, so he didn’t care.

  All became clear, though, when Sally sucked in her breath and said in a conspiratorial tone, ‘Ooh. Did you bleed on it?’

  ‘Yes—lots—and the carpet.’

  ‘Oh, dear. My son Alex got a bump on the nose from his little brother and he bled all over the carpet, too.’

  Jack remembered it well. He remembered the look on Sally’s face when he’d handed her the tissues. He remembered how beautiful she’d looked in the dark red dress. And he remembered the dance…

  He swabbed the cut carefully, blotted it dry, laid the strands of hair over Sally’s fingers where she was holding Megan’s head firmly against that soft, pillowy chest and tried not to think about what was under her tunic.

  He leant a little closer, but he couldn’t see the cut clearly enough to glue it, so he dropped onto one knee and propped his other leg up with his foot flat on the floor and shifted closer. Still not close enough. He shifted again, and froze. Bad move, that. Her knee was pressed firmly against his groin, but there was nothing he could do, because he had the glue in his hand and the child was still and it was now or never…

  She felt the heat flow through her body like a river.

  Her knee was jammed firmly—grief, just there, of all places!—and she couldn’t move. If it hadn’t been for the intense look of concentration on his face and the muscle jumping in his jaw, she would have thought he’d set it up, but it was just one of those things.

  ‘All done, sweetheart. Brave girl,’ he said, and stroked her hair. His fingers curled around her head, and the backs of them brushed against Sally’s breast, and they both jerked as if they’d been shot.

  Megan slid off her lap and ran to her mother, burying her face in her mother’s front again, and Sally stood up hastily and moved away, her legs burning. Jack was getting to his feet, brushing off his trousers, fussing with the gloves and sitting at the desk to write up the notes.

  He didn’t thank her, didn’t look at her, didn’t say a word to the child, so she smiled at Megan and her mother, excused herself to get the stickers and slipped out, dragging in the first lungful of air for what seemed like hours.

  ‘Here,’ she said to Megan when she returned, letting her choose which ones she wanted and pressing them firmly onto the back of her hand. ‘That’s really pretty,’ she said, and stroked her hair out of her eyes. ‘And Jack didn’t get any glue in your hair. Isn’t he clever?’

  ‘He’s funny,’ Megan said, and Sally found a smile.

  ‘Yes—but he knows it, so it doesn’t count,’ she said, and left them to it.

  The waiting room was heaving, but the next few cases were slow, routine and didn’t occupy her mind at all. Oh, for Resus, she thought, but she’d been rostered on cubicles. Lousy move.

  Too much contact with Jack—way too much! He kept popping up like a bad penny, sticking his head round the curtain every other minute, and every time she came out of a cubicle, she could feel his eyes on her.

  However long could one shift be?

  She went out the front again, broke up a fight and pulled out the next set of notes. It was a drunk, with a nasty gash down his cheek from what was probably a bottle.

  ‘Darren Wright?’ she said, and turned to his companions when they shambled to their feet to follow him. ‘He doesn’t need an audience,’ she told them firmly, and shut the door in their faces. ‘Right, Darren, let’s get this sorted.’

  ‘I seen you before—last time,’ he slurred.

  She looked at him more closely, and nodded. ‘I remember. I had to call Security. Let’s not go through that again this time, eh?’

  She cleaned the cut up but, of course, it stung and he started throwing his weight around and yelling, so she stopped and moved towards the curtain. ‘Are you going to stop that and let me help you, or are you going down to the police station and letting the police surgeon sew you up down there?’

  He subsided, more or less, and she finished her cleaning up and reached for the steristrips. ‘It doesn’t need stitches. I’m going to stick it together with little bits of tape,’ she said, but he shook his head belligerently.

  ‘You’re only saying that so you can get rid of me quicker. I want stitches.’

  ‘It’ll scar,’ she warned him.

  ‘So?’

  ‘And I have to give you a local anaesthetic. It stings. A lot.’

  ‘That’s OK. I’m hard.’

  Right. Not that hard. The first prick of the needle had him screaming, and the curtain was whipped back out of the way just as he lunged at her.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Jack said, getting him firmly by the shoulder and pressing him back into the chair. ‘Now, you heard the lady, you don’t need stitches. All you need is tape, and either you sit there quietly while it’s done, or we can refuse to treat you.’

  ‘You can’t refuse.’

  ‘Watch me,’ he said, folding his arms and staring the youth down.

  Darren subsided, grumbling under his breath, and Jack took the steristrips out of her hand and stuck Darren’s face together, gave him a tetanus shot and sent him on his way, then ripped off his gloves, muttering something about drunks, and looked at his watch.

  ‘Come on, let’s get out of here. Your shift finished ages ago.’

  It had? She checked her watch and blinked in surprise. It was after half nine.

  ‘I was coping fine, you know,’ she told him conversationally, and he just arched a brow.

  ‘Yeah, right. I could see how well you were coping. He was about to beat you to death.’

  ‘Nonsense. He’s just an idiot.’

  ‘Id
iot or not, he’s trouble, and you shouldn’t have to put up with it. Now, come on, let’s get out of here before there’s a majax or something.’

  ‘They’d call us back,’ she pointed out, but he just snorted and headed for the staffroom, ditching his stethoscope and reaching for his jacket in his locker.

  ‘I’ll walk you to your car in case Darren and his mates are still hanging about, waiting for you,’ he said, and so her chance to slip away from him was gone. When they emerged from the building, however, she was grateful for his solid bulk beside her, because Darren and friends were still there, loitering about with trouble on their minds.

  Just then a police car rolled up and two officers that she recognised got out.

  ‘Move them on, John,’ she murmured to the older one. ‘We’ve stuck young Darren’s face up, but they’re still hanging around. Maybe waiting for whoever had a go at him to turn up.’

  ‘Most likely. Don’t worry, I’ll sort them out. I’ve got a feeling they’re just the lads we’re looking for. ’ Night, Sally.’

  ‘’ Night, John.’ She turned to Jack and forced a smile. ‘I’ll be fine now, you can head on home.’

  ‘I was going to ask you to drop me off at the take-away,’ he said. ‘Unless you want to join me?’

  ‘At Annie and Patrick’s?’ she said doubtfully.

  He shrugged. ‘Or we could go somewhere.’

  Somewhere loud and bright and busy, without a glimmer of romance.

  She wasn’t hugely hungry, even though she’d missed lunch and the sandwich had been all she’d had since breakfast, but the thought was tempting. Too tempting. ‘There’s an Italian,’ she suggested, without allowing herself to think about it too much, and he nodded.

  ‘Sounds good.’

  But it was heaving when they pulled up outside, and the next place they tried was the same.

  ‘Oh, give up. I’ll eat toast,’ he said.

  She hesitated, not ready to give up and not looking too closely at the reasons. ‘I could make you some pasta with pesto,’ she offered slowly, and he went very still.

  His eyes glittered in the darkness, searching her face, and she could hear her heart beating while she waited for his answer.