The Consultant's Adopted Son

by Jennifer Taylor

  ‘Check her BP,’ he told Sharon, who was working with him. ‘We need to stop this bleeding and stabilise her.’

  He attended to the woman and sent her off with the paramedics to the holding centre from where she would be transferred to hospital. Rob was standing nearby, taking notes, but Owen ignored him. They would have an in-depth discussion about how they’d fared after the exercise was over. He had just asked Sharon to splint a broken wrist when a policeman came hurrying over to him.

  ‘Can you take a look at someone for me, Doc? I don’t like the look of her at all.’

  ‘You mean she’s really ill?’ Owen clarified as he followed the officer away from the scene. ‘She’s not one of our casualties?’

  ‘Not from what I can tell.’

  The policeman led him away from the training ground, ducking under a length of yellow tape which marked the boundary line. Owen hurried forward when he saw a figure lying on the ground near to some bushes. It was a young girl—not much older than Daniel, in fact—and she was bleeding heavily, although it wasn’t until he rolled her over that he realised why.

  ‘She’s in labour and haemorrhaging badly from the look of her.’ He checked her pulse and frowned when he felt how rapid and faint it was. ‘Heaven knows how long she’s been here, but she needs help.’

  He broke off when the girl moaned. His heart sank when he lifted the hem of her blood-sodden dress. ‘The baby’s head has crowned. I’m going to need help to deliver it. Can you fetch one of the nurses over here, pronto?’

  The policeman hurried away as Owen rapidly assessed the situation. Fortunately it was a mild night, so there was less risk of hypothermia, but the baby would need to be kept warm once it was born. His main concern was the amount of blood the mother had lost. She would need to be put on a drip…

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  Owen’s whole body jerked when he recognised Rose’s voice. He could hardly believe his eyes when he looked up and saw her standing beside him. All he could think of was how much he had missed her and how wonderful it was to see her again. In that moment he realised something he’d tried desperately to deny: he loved her. So what did he do now?

  Rose could feel the force of the emotions that were swirling around them and was afraid of what it might mean. Owen was staring at her as though he was in shock, and she knew that she had to do something to relieve the tension. She knelt down beside him, adopting her most professional tone in the hope that it would help.

  ‘Shall I see to the baby while you attend to her?’

  ‘Check that the cord isn’t wrapped around the baby’s neck.’ The question seemed to have galvanised him into action and he quickly stood up. ‘She’s lost a lot of blood,’ he said crisply. ‘We’ll need to set up a drip, so I’ll fetch what we need.’

  ‘Fine.’ Rose took a steadying breath as he hurried away. She’d managed to overcome the first hurdle and now she had to get on and do her job. She carefully inserted her finger into the birth canal and checked that the umbilical cord wasn’t looped around the baby’s neck and in danger of strangling it. Owen came back with the fluid but she didn’t look at him because she didn’t want anything to distract her.

  ‘There’s no sign of the cord,’ she told him when he crouched down beside her.

  ‘Good. That’s one less thing to worry about. Put this under her, will you? It will help to protect the baby when he’s born.’

  He handed her a blanket, then bent over and swabbed the back of the girl’s hand. She was semiconscious and didn’t seem to know what was happening as he inserted a cannula. He attached it to a bag of saline and looped the handle over the branch of a nearby bush.

  Rose quickly spread the blanket on the ground, sliding it under the girl’s hips. She was having a contraction, and Rose placed her hand on her belly, feeling her muscles straining.

  ‘How’s the baby doing?’

  Rose felt her heart lurch when Owen leant over her so that he could see what was happening. She could feel the warmth of his breath on the back of her neck and shivered. ‘It’s difficult to tell without a foetal monitor,’ she said flatly, because she couldn’t risk any hint of emotion creeping into her voice.

  ‘Not something we brought along on this little jaunt, unfortunately,’ he observed dryly. He knelt down beside her, using his stethoscope to listen to the baby’s heartbeat, and shook his head. ‘I’m not happy with either of them. The child’s heartbeat is way too fast, which means it’s in distress, and the mum’s lost an awful lot of blood. We need to deliver this child sooner rather than later.’

  Rose frowned as she watched him open his case. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Get things along a bit. The perineum hasn’t stretched enough and that’s what is holding up the proceedings. If I make a small cut—an episiotomy—in the perineum, that should help speed up the birth.’

  He drew up an injection of anaesthetic and quickly administered it, then used sterile scissors to make a cut in the perineum—the tissue between the vagina and the anus. Rose sighed in relief when the baby’s head immediately moved further down the birth canal.

  ‘That seems to have done the trick!’

  ‘It does.’ Owen placed his hand under the infant’s head to support it, his touch so gentle and so tender that Rose felt a lump come to her throat. He cared so much about the people he treated that it was a truly moving experience to work with him.

  The girl’s contractions were coming faster now, her body heaving as she struggled to deliver her child. Rose squeezed her hand, willing her to find the strength to make that final effort. The baby suddenly slithered out into Owen’s hands and immediately began to cry. It was a little boy, and he seemed remarkably healthy despite his inauspicious start in life.

  ‘My baby?’ the girl whispered, rousing herself when she heard her child’s cries.

  ‘It’s a little boy,’ Rose told her. ‘And he sounds absolutely fine to me.’

  ‘Thank you…’ Tears suddenly poured down the girl’s cheeks and she couldn’t say anything else, but Rose understood. She remembered only too clearly how she’d felt when Daniel had been born.

  She looked up, and she could tell immediately that Owen knew what she was thinking. There was a connection between them still and it hadn’t gone away. In that moment she knew that she had to tell him why she hadn’t kept her appointment with Daniel that day. Maybe it wouldn’t change his opinion of her, but she couldn’t bear it if he never knew the truth.

  She cleaned the baby and wrapped him in a blanket once the cord had been cut. The policeman was despatched to fetch an ambulance and mother and baby were loaded on board. Rose took a final look at the infant, her emotions see-sawing when she recalled the moment when she’d held Daniel in her arms for the very first time. Her love for him had been instantaneous and it had never faded. He was her son and she loved him with all her heart. If she achieved nothing else that night, she would make Owen believe that.

  ‘Take care of yourself,’ she told the girl in a voice that was husky with emotion. ‘And take care of that gorgeous little boy, too.’

  ‘I shall.’ The girl gave her a radiant smile as the paramedics closed the doors. ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen to us but I’m going to look after him the very best way I can!’

  Rose couldn’t answer, she was too choked up. She’d made that same promise herself eighteen years ago, but she hadn’t kept it. She should have tried harder, should have found a way to work through her problems and not had Daniel adopted…

  ‘Don’t!’

  She looked round in surprise when she heard the anguish in Owen’s voice. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘You’re torturing yourself with the thought that you should have done things differently when Daniel was born, and I can’t bear it, Rose. I can’t bear to see you suffering like that!’

  He swung round and strode back to where he’d left his case, but she couldn’t let him leave without explaining that comment. Why should it matter
to him if she suffered? Why did he care?

  It felt as though her heart was going to burst right out of her chest as she ran after him, but it was imperative that he answer her questions. ‘I don’t understand, Owen. Why do you care how I feel? You made it perfectly clear what you thought of me the last time we spoke.’

  ‘Yes, I did,’ he ground out, and the anger in his voice almost made her back down. But from somewhere deep inside herself she found the courage to carry on.

  ‘You still believe that I let Daniel down, don’t you?’

  ‘Do you blame me?’

  He tried to step around her but she wouldn’t let him pass. ‘No, I don’t blame you for that. I blame you for not listening to what I wanted to tell you. I blame you for not trusting me and for always doubting my sincerity.’ Her voice caught but she made herself continue. ‘And I blame myself even more for caring what you think when I shouldn’t give a damn about your feelings!’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  OWEN knew there were many points in that statement which he should have homed in on, but it was just one point he was interested in, the last one: Rose cared how he felt?

  He tried to deal with the idea rationally but it was impossible. It wasn’t the kind of thought he could take his time to consider. It was big and bold, and it needed his immediate attention.

  ‘What do you mean, you care how I feel?’ he shot back. ‘If you’d taken any account of my feelings, we wouldn’t be in this mess!’

  ‘And whose fault is that? If you’d let me explain what had happened we could have sorted this out.’

  ‘You mean if I’d been stupid enough to listen to a pack of lies,’ he scoffed.

  ‘I have never lied to you. And I have never lied to Daniel either,’ she said quietly. ‘I have told you the truth right from the beginning, but obviously you don’t believe me. I just hope that you won’t try to turn Daniel against me. I agreed to play fair, Owen, and I hope you will, too.’

  She turned and walked away, but there was no way that he was prepared to let her claim the moral high ground. She was the one at fault—not him!

  He raced after her, but he’d only gone a couple of steps when there was a loud explosion from one of the buildings. Owen stopped dead when he saw a stream of ‘casualties’ staggering out of the doors. It looked as though the next round in the proceedings had begun. He glanced at Rose, who had stopped as well.

  ‘I need to get back to my team, but at some point we’re going to have to talk about this.’

  ‘What for? You never believe a word I say, Owen, so why bother?’

  ‘Because this situation is driving me mad—that’s why!’

  He hurried away before she could ask him to explain what he meant. He’d already said more than he’d intended to, and definitely more than was wise. Letting Rose know that she had the power to hurt him could be a mistake when she might use it to her advantage.

  He frowned, because that idea simply didn’t gel with what he knew about her. He had never seen her behave cruelly towards anyone. She was gentle and kind and really cared about people, so why should he imagine that she would try to hurt him?

  Owen’s head began to spin, because he was no longer sure about anything any more. He had immediately assumed the worst when Rose hadn’t showed up for her meeting with Daniel, but what if there had been a genuine reason why she hadn’t been able to get there—circumstances he knew nothing about? The thought that he might have done her a huge disservice was more than he could bear, and he knew that he had to find out what had really happened. He owed it to all of them to do that—Rose, Daniel and himself.

  Rose made her way back to where her team was working, feeling her heart beating in heavy, jerky thuds. She knew it would be foolish to read too much into what Owen had said to her but she couldn’t help it. Was he having second thoughts about her, perhaps?

  The thought was just too much to deal with right then. She knew that she had to put it out of her mind while she got on with her job. When her section leader asked her to help with the new group of casualties who were being treated, she immediately agreed. It was absolute mayhem when she got there, with bodies lying around all over the place. The make-up artists had done a brilliant job, too, and the injuries were horribly realistic.

  Rose made her way to the edge of the group where a young man was lying on the ground, groaning. He’d been made up to appear as though he had massive abdominal injuries, right down to the fake intestines spilling out of his abdominal cavity. Abdominal injuries were always the worst kind of injury because so many vital organs could be damaged, so she ran a mental checklist as she knelt beside him.

  She had to control the bleeding and minimise the risk of infection. The intestine would also need to be protected to avoid it being perforated…

  Her mind seized up when the casualty rolled over and she suddenly realised it was Daniel. She couldn’t seem to move as she stared at him in horror. There was a buzzing in her ears and the ground seemed to be rushing up towards her…

  ‘It’s OK. He isn’t really hurt, Rose. Look at him.’

  All of a sudden Owen was there and she turned to him with all the horror she felt clearly visible on her face. ‘It’s Daniel,’ she whispered.

  ‘I know, but he’s not really hurt, Rose. This isn’t real, sweetheart, it’s make-believe. Trust me. I wouldn’t lie to you about this, would I? It’s too important.’

  He knelt down beside her and gripped her hand tightly in his, and that was what finally got through to her. Rose took a shuddering breath as she looked at her son and saw the alarm on his face.

  ‘I’m OK, Rose. Really, I am. It’s just some fake gore and guts. Look.’

  He picked up the loop of intestine and waggled it about to show her that it was just a bit of plastic tubing. Rose laughed at her own foolishness, only once she’d started laughing she couldn’t seem to stop. Owen put his arm around her and gently helped her to her feet.

  ‘You need to take some time out,’ he said firmly as he led her over to the rest area and helped her duck under the tape. The WVS had set up a tea-stall and he sat her down by a wall, then fetched her a piping hot cup of tea. ‘Drink this. I’ve put three spoons of sugar in it, so it will probably taste vile, but it will do you good.’

  She took a sip of the tea and shuddered. ‘You’re right—it does taste awful.’

  ‘It makes a change, then. It’s not often I’m right nowadays. I seem to have got an awful lot of things wrong recently, haven’t I?’

  ‘I never meant to hurt Daniel,’ she said urgently, the tears spilling over and trickling down her face because it was so important that he believe her this time.

  ‘I know.’ He bent and kissed her on her forehead, and his lips were so gentle that she closed her eyes as pain washed over her. She couldn’t bear to have him kiss her this way if he didn’t mean it. She loved him so much, and if he didn’t love her then she didn’t know what she was going to do.

  He drew back and looked at her. ‘So what really happened, Rose? Why didn’t you meet Daniel as you’d arranged?’

  She placed her hand on top of his, needing the contact more than anything at that moment. When she was touching him she could make herself believe that things would work out the way she wanted them to.

  ‘My father had a heart attack and I had to travel down to Cornwall. It was such a rush to get to the station that I didn’t have time to phone Daniel before I left. I intended to ring him once I was on the train, but the battery on my mobile was flat. I tried phoning your house that evening, but there was nobody in so I left that message. I didn’t want to say too much in case I upset him, so that’s why I didn’t say anything about my father.’

  ‘I see.’ He took a deep breath and let it out on a sigh. ‘Daniel had gone round to his friend’s house. He was really cut up when you didn’t turn up.’

  ‘I know, and I am so sorry, Owen. It’s the last thing I wanted to happen. But there was nothing I could do once I’d got on the train. An
d when I got to the nursing-home the doctor was there so I couldn’t ring him then—’

  ‘No. You don’t have to explain. I know how difficult it is when someone is seriously ill.’ He squeezed her hand. ‘I’m sorry, Rose. I should have listened when you tried to tell me what had happened. How is your father now? Is he any better?’

  She bit her lip when she felt the tears welling up again. ‘He…he died on the Sunday morning,’ she told him in a broken little voice.

  ‘Hell!’ He pulled her to him and held her close. ‘I am so sorry. It must have been a terrible ordeal for you, having to go through that on your own. And to think that I tore a strip off you, too—’ He broke off and she felt him shudder.

  ‘You did what you thought was right at the time, Owen.’

  ‘But that doesn’t excuse the way I behaved. I didn’t even tell Daniel that you’d phoned or left a message. I just took it upon myself to decide what was best for him.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t know how he’s going to feel when he finds out about your father. He’ll be really upset.’

  ‘He already knows,’ she said quietly. ‘I wrote to him and explained what had happened.’

  ‘Did you?’ He drew back and looked at her in surprise. ‘Daniel didn’t mention anything about a letter to me. How odd.’

  ‘Maybe he didn’t think it was worth telling you about it if he’d decided not to see me again.’ She had to stop because there was a lump in her throat and she couldn’t go on.

  ‘I can’t believe that. Are you sure he received it? We’ve had a lot of problems with our post recently.’

  ‘I’m sure he did.’ Rose shook her head. She refused to start clutching at straws. She had to accept that Daniel might never want to see her again, and if that was the case, it meant that she and Owen couldn’t see each other either. Even if he had accepted that she was telling him the truth now, there was no way they could be together if Daniel didn’t want anything more to do with her. It would put far too great a strain on his relationship with Owen.