Silence hung in the air between them. Her temper had dissipated as quickly as it had arisen.
He was making sense. Inside she knew he was making sense. But to admit it made her seem so petty.
The waiter appeared at their side again. ‘Are you ready to order?’
Cassidy didn’t even glance at the menu, she just thrust it back at the waiter. ‘I’ll have the chilli prawns and the Cajun salmon,’ she said as she looked Brad square in the eye.
She could see the pulse at the side of his neck flickering furiously. How long had he been holding all this in? Chances were he’d been waiting to say this to her for the last few weeks. And he was right.
Although there was no way she was going to admit it right now.
Tiny little thoughts of Australia had started to penetrate her brain. Little sparks, curiosity and wonder had been creeping in over the last few weeks. Would she like it there? What would it be like to be in a different country for more than a two-week holiday?
It wasn’t as if she’d never left the sunny shores of Scotland. She’d been all over the world—Spain, Italy, the US, even the Bahamas. But only for two weeks at a time. And by the time the plane had hit the tarmac back at Glasgow Airport, she’d always been glad to get back home.
But she had lots of friends who’d gone to other countries to work. The most popular place lately had been Dubai. Five of the nurses she’d worked with in Glasgow City Hospital had all upped sticks and gone to work there. All of them loved it and most had no intention of coming back to Glasgow. Two other members of staff had gone to work for aid organisations—one to Africa and one to Médecins Sans Frontières.
Why was she so different? Why had she never wanted to go and work somewhere else? Why did she feel as if her roots were firmly planted in Scottish soil?
Brad lifted the wine bottle and topped up her glass. She hadn’t even heard what he’d ordered. She only hoped it was chicken so she could swap her salmon for it.
He lifted his glass to her. ‘So, what do you say, Cassidy? Can we raise a toast to trying new things?’
She swallowed hard, her fingers brushing the tiny pockets of the advent calendar on the table in front of her. This couldn’t be too hard. She could try this, couldn’t she?
He was staring across the table at her, with those big blue eyes, tanned skin and perfect smile. Everything about him made her stomach still lurch. She’d never felt like this before. Could she honestly just walk away?
This had to be worth fighting for.
CHAPTER EIGHT
4 December
CASSIDY woke up with a smile on her face. She glanced at the calendar hanging on her wall. Maybe embracing new change wasn’t such a bad thing.
Brad’s gifts had proved personal and thoughtful. She’d found an orange Belgian chocolate in the first pocket—one that she’d remarked on that night at the George Square market. For once she hadn’t been instantly offended by the thought of a chocolate-filled calendar.
Next had been a tiny green sequin Christmas tree complete with red string, and in the third pocket she’d found a sprig of mistletoe.
It only took her seconds to push her feet into her red slippers and wrap her dressing gown around her shoulders. Brad had been on call again last night, so she hadn’t seen him.
Her brow wrinkled. Pocket number four looked distinctly flat—maybe he hadn’t had time to put something in there yet? She flicked the switch on the kettle and pulled a cup from the cupboard, before finally touching the pocket. There was a faint rustling noise. She pulled a piece of paper from the pocket and unfolded it.
It said, ‘Look under the tree—not everything can fit in these tiny pockets!’
She left the kettle boiling and walked through to her living room. There, under the tree he’d helped her decorate a few days before, was a red, glistening parcel. She couldn’t wipe the smile from her face as she unwrapped the paper. It was a book. But not just any book. It was the latest thriller from her favourite Glasgow author—one she’d been meaning to buy herself.
Cassidy sagged back against the cushions on her sofa. Yet another thoughtful gift. One that meant something to her. Picked up from a chance conversation they’d had in the middle of the night on one shift.
She looked out at the overcast sky. It was going to be another miserable day. Time to wrap up warmly and head up the frosty hill to the hospital. She heard a noise at her door—a key turning in the lock and a whoosh of cold air blasting across the room.
‘Brad, what are you doing here?’
Brad was barely recognisable among the layers of clothing he was wearing. All she could really see clearly were his blue eyes peering out from the balaclava-type headwear he’d started wearing to protect himself from the cold. He was brandishing some cups. ‘A skinny caramel latte for my favourite woman.’
She smiled. ‘I’d hug you, but you’re too cold.’
He sat down next to her, hands clenched around his cup. ‘I’d take off my jacket but let me heat up first. It’s Baltic out there.’
She laughed. ‘So, you’re finally connecting with our language. That’s something I would normally say—not you.’
He nudged her. ‘You must be rubbing off on me.’ He bent over, his cold nose brushing against her, and she let out a squeal.
‘Get away, ice man!’ He wrapped his arms around her, trapping her on the sofa.
‘This is an emergency. I need some body heat. I can’t take these cold winters!’
She pretended to squirm as he held her tight. ‘Drink your coffee. That will heat you up.’
‘I can think of a better way to heat up,’ he whispered as he grabbed her hand and led her back through to her warm bed.
10 December
Today she had a magic wand. Pocket ten had held another little note that had led her to find it wrapped in silver paper, balanced on the branches of the tree.
He’d asked her favourite film character the other night and she’d declared she’d always wanted to be Glinda, the good witch of the north, from The Wizard of Oz. So he’d bought her a magic wand. And right now she really wanted to wave it above her medical receiving unit.
In the last twenty-four hours every single one of the thirty beds in the unit had been emptied and refilled. Patients were never supposed to stay in the medical receiving unit. Patients were supposed to be assessed and transferred to one of the other wards, but the current rate of transfer was ridiculous, for both the staff and the patients.
She replaced the phone receiver. Her staff was run ragged. The bed manager was getting snarky—she had patients in A and E waiting to be admitted. The normally pristine ward looked chaotic. There were a few random patient belonging bags sitting at the nurses’ station, obviously misplaced or forgotten in the preceding few hours. And as for the ward clerk—she’d disappeared in tears five minutes ago.
Cassidy took a deep breath. This was the story of Scottish hospitals in the middle of an icy winter. It was only eight o’clock in the morning. She had to take control of this situation. Something was going to give. And she didn’t want it to be her—or her staff.
She lifted her hands above her head. ‘Everyone, stop!’
For a second there was silence. Cassidy never raised her voice on the ward and her staff looked startled. A few heads stuck out from doors down the corridor.
‘Everyone...’ she gestured her hands towards the desk ‘...come here. This will take five minutes.’
Her bewildered staff walked towards the nursing station. Some were carrying electronic nursing notes, some bed linen and towels.
Cassidy waited until they’d all assembled. One of the phlebotomists and ECG technicians appeared, too. She took another deep breath.
‘Everyone, let’s calm down. I want you all to take a deep breath and tell me calmly what help you ne
ed.’ She laid one hand on the desk. ‘I can tell you that right now, no matter what the bed manager says, we will not move another patient until after lunchtime today. We need time to assess these patients properly.’
She gestured to the bags on the floor. ‘We need to make sure that patients’ belongings don’t go astray.’ She lowered her voice. ‘More importantly, I need my team to know that they do a good job.’
She could see the visible calm descending on the ward as the rumble of the meal trolley could be heard approaching. ‘What about the patients in A and E?’ asked one of the younger staff nurses.
Cassidy shook her head. ‘A and E is full of competent nursing staff. They are more than capable of starting the assessments for their patients. I’m going to phone them now and tell them to arrange breakfast and lunch for those patients. They won’t be moving any more up here until after lunchtime.’
A number of shoulders relaxed around her.
‘What about the bed manager?’
Cassidy smiled. ‘Let me deal with her. Now...’ she looked over at the staff surrounding her ‘...Fiona and Claire, go for your tea break. Michael...’ she nodded to the tall, dark-haired nurse beside her ‘...you start the drug round. Linda and Ann, you help Joanne, the domestic, with the breakfasts.’ The two auxiliaries scurried off, glad to have a simple task to perform.
Cassidy noticed Janice, the ward clerk, sniffing at her side. ‘What’s wrong, Janice?’
‘It’s the off-duty. It was supposed to be in for yesterday. But there’s still a few shifts that need to be covered.’
Cassidy’s eyes swept over the blank spaces in the book. Her brain shifted into gear. One of her senior staff nurses had asked if she could start taking over the off-duty rota. And she’d made an absolute mess of it, something Cassidy would have to deal with at a later date.
Just what she would have expected. One short for the night shift on Christmas Eve. The same thing happened every year without fail.
Her mind drifted back to the night at smelly-cat-woman’s house. She almost cringed as she remembered she’d offered to do the night shift if she was a Christmas bride.
She could almost laugh out loud. Although the thought didn’t seem anything like as ridiculous as it had before.
Things between her and Brad were good—better than good. Her brain had started to rationalise things for her. Australia was one day away. All twenty-four hours of one day, but still only one day away from Scotland.
The more stories he told her about his life there, the more curious she became. But something else was becoming clearer to her. Just like it had when Brad had naturally came home to her flat the other day after his shift had finished.
She wanted to see him all the time. She wanted to be with him all the time. If he was on call and she didn’t see him one day, she missed him. Something that had hit her like a bolt out of the blue.
Cassidy had spent the last two years living life on her own. Her gran’s memory had deteriorated to the point she didn’t recognise Cassidy, and it had left her feeling even more alone than before. She rarely heard from her parents. But all of sudden it felt as if she had family again.
And having Brad around just felt so right.
She didn’t expect to be a Christmas bride, but she did expect to have Brad in her future.
She pointed. ‘Swap these two around. Lorna prefers her night shifts together. And I’ll cover the night shift on Christmas Eve. Okay?’
‘Are you sure?’ The clerk was looking at her through red-rimmed eyes.
She gave her shoulder a squeeze. ‘Yes, I’m sure. Now, just send it in and go make yourself a cup of tea.’
She went through to her office and made an uncomfortable call to the bed manager then walked quickly through the ward, helping the auxiliaries sit some patients up in bed for breakfast and helping another few patients into chairs. Luca appeared at her side and started reviewing some of the patients who had been admitted overnight. He gave her a smile. ‘I hear you’re leading a revolt up here this morning.’
She nodded. ‘Happy to join in?’
‘Absolutely. I feel as if I hardly got to see some of these patients in A and E.’
‘It was the same for my staff. We weren’t getting the chance to assess the patients properly before we sent them on.’ She looked up and down the length of the ward, which seemed much calmer. ‘I’m not allowing that to happen. We have a duty of care to these patients and I won’t compromise.’
‘Tell that to the bed manager.’
‘I just did.’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Although she hates me right now, first and foremost she is a nurse, so she does understand the issues.’
The phone started ringing again, and since she’d sent the ward clerk off for tea, Cassidy leaned forward and picked it up. ‘Medical receiving unit, Sister Rae speaking. Can I help you?’
The words she heard chilled her to the bone, and she gestured frantically to Luca for a piece of paper and then started scribbling furiously.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked as she replaced the phone.
‘It’s my grandmother. She’s had a fall at the nursing home—they think she might have broken her hip.’ She started to look around about her, searching for her bag. ‘I need to go. They’ve taken her to another hospital at the other side of the city.’
Luca stood up. ‘What can I do?’
Cassidy started pulling on the cardigan that was draped over her chair. She couldn’t think straight. She couldn’t think at all. The rational parts of her brain had stopped working. Gran was in her eighties and had chest problems. How often did an elderly person have problems with the anaesthetic? What if this was the last time she’d ever see her gran again?
She started to pace up the corridor. ‘Michael, are you there?’
His head ducked out from behind a set of curtains.
‘I’m really sorry but I need to go. It’s an emergency—my gran. They think she might have broken her hip.’
‘Of course, Cassidy. No problem.’
‘You’ve got the keys to the drug trolley, haven’t you? Here’s the controlled-drug key.’ She unpinned it from inside her uniform pocket. ‘Can you let Lucy, Sister Burns from next door, know that I’ve had to leave?’ She was babbling and she knew it.
‘Cassidy, we’ll be fine. I’ll get some help from next door if we need it. And I won’t start transferring any patients until after lunch.’ He gave her a quick hug, then placed a hand firmly at her back. ‘Now, go.’
* * *
His pager sounded again, and Brad growled and rolled over. ‘I’m sleeping. I’m not on call any more. Leave me alone,’ he groaned.
But the pager wasn’t listening. It sounded again. And again. And again.
Brad was mad. Last night had been ridiculous. He hadn’t stopped—not even for a minute. And on the way to work last night his Mini had made the strangest sound then phutted to a stop at the side of the road. And all he wanted to do this morning was lie in his bed and vegetate.
He flung back the covers, squinting at the light coming through the blinds, and lifted the pager to his scrunched-up eyes.
‘Call Joe immediately.’
All of a sudden he was wide awake, his heart thumping in his chest. Joe Scott was his very expensive, US private investigator. He emailed Brad every few weeks, telling him any leads he was following and how he was getting on.
They had an understanding. Joe knew that Brad was a doctor, frequently on call, and had agreed that Joe would only contact Brad via his pager if something significant turned up. It had seemed the easiest solution as messages to a busy hospital could be lost, and depending on his rota sometimes Brad could be away from his house and normal emails for a few days at a time.
He reached for his phone, pushing in the number that was ingrained there.
‘Joe, it’s Brad Donovan. What have you found?’
‘Haven’t you read the email I sent you? I sent you some photographs.’
It took a few seconds for Brad’s ears to adjust to the American accent. Email. He hadn’t looked at his emails for two days.
He moved automatically to his laptop, his bare feet padding across the floor. It took for ever to boot up.
‘I’m just opening the email now, Joe,’ he said. ‘Give me a few minutes.’ He wasn’t sure what was waking him up more quickly—the shock phone call or the cold air.
The email took for ever to open. He could sense Joe waiting impatiently at the other end of the phone. He didn’t even read the content, just clicked on one of the attached photographs.
There she was. Blonde ringlets framing her face, dressed in a green puffy coat, throwing back her head and laughing. It was a beautiful sight.
‘Is it her?’ The US voice cut into his thoughts.
For a moment he couldn’t speak. She’d grown so much. She looked like a proper little girl now—a little lady even, rather than a toddler. His eyes swept the surrounding area. Alison was standing in the background, holding a baby. She was laughing, too. Melody was positioned on the pebbled shoreline of a lake and was clutching stones in her hands.
He tried not to let the rage overwhelm him. He couldn’t let that get in the way right now. This was the first time he’d laid eyes on his little girl in nearly two years.
‘Brad? Are you there?’ The voice was strained now, obviously worried by his lack of response.
‘Yes,’ he croaked. ‘It’s Melody.’ There was an unfamiliar sensation overwhelming him right now. It was a mixture of relief, joy, bitterness and excitement.
‘Great. I was sure I’d found them, but needed you to confirm it.’
Brad’s mind started to race. His eyes couldn’t move from the photograph. They looked to be out in the middle of nowhere.
‘Where are they?’
‘North Woods, Wisconsin. Lots of hills and dense woods, terrible phone and internet reception. Took the photo two days ago. You were right about Alison, she got married. Her name is now Alison Johnson. Married to Blane Johnson—a paediatrician in Wisconsin—and they have a baby daughter, Temperance.’
Her Christmas Eve Diamond Page 14
