Healing Her Emergency Doc

by Caroline Anderson

  She hesitated, then gave him a rueful little smile. ‘OK. Thank you.’

  ‘My pleasure. Come on, let’s go.’

  * * *

  He used his phone as a torch and they walked along the quiet dimly lit streets, turning left, then right, then left again, and she stopped outside a bungalow with a pretty front garden.

  ‘This is me,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll see you in,’ he said firmly, and she laughed.

  ‘Just like Grumps.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ he murmured, and she smiled up at him.

  ‘Yeah. I guess in a way it is.’

  She slid her key in the lock and opened the door, then turned off the burglar alarm as it started beeping.

  ‘Thank you for feeding me, I was really hungry.’

  ‘It was the least I could do to thank you for babysitting me all day.’

  She smiled. ‘Well, it was a good choice, then. I’d forgotten how good your pasta bakes are.’

  He threw her a wry grin. ‘Another compliment. Wonders will never cease.’ He frowned slightly and hesitated before he spoke again. ‘We are going to be all right at work, aren’t we?’ he asked, and she pulled a rueful face and smiled at him.

  ‘I think so. I’m glad we cleared the air.’

  ‘Yeah, me too.’

  He took a step closer and cradled her cheek in his hand, and she tilted her face up to meet his eyes.

  ‘Goodnight, Laura. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  He touched his lips to hers in a fleeting kiss and then stepped back before he could give in to the urge to kiss her properly, because he knew it wouldn’t end there. Tonight wasn’t the time for that, and maybe it never would be.

  She smiled a little sadly, as if she was echoing his thoughts. ‘Goodnight, Tom. And thanks again.’

  She called Millie inside, stepped back and closed the door, and he walked home, still burning with anger after her revelations about her mother. He’d known she wasn’t great, but—wow. She’d been spectacularly bad.

  No kid should have to put up with that. No wonder Laura had been so hard on him. He just hoped she would give him a chance to prove that he wasn’t like that, that he was different to her mother, very different, because suddenly, for some reason, her opinion of him mattered more than it ever had and closure was the last thing on his mind.

  He reached his drive, and as he put his phone away and reached for his keys, he tripped over the front doorstep and slammed against the door. It was the second time he’d stumbled on the way home, and he felt a flicker of dread.

  He found the keyhole, turned the key in the door, pushed it open with a shove and used his foot to squeeze it shut. He’d have to sort it out tomorrow, otherwise he’d trash the door completely and probably break the old stained glass. And then he could return her tools, and maybe she’d return the favour and invite him in for a meal, and then...

  No. Bad idea—especially until he knew what was going on with his eyes. Tomorrow. He’d find out tomorrow, and until then he wasn’t going to think about it. It was probably nothing. He went through to the kitchen, loaded the elderly dishwasher, switched it on and went to bed, only to wake with a pounding heart in a tangle of bedding, the remnants of the nightmare still vivid in his mind.

  What’s wrong with my eyes?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  IT GALLED HER, but he’d been absolutely right.

  They’d needed that conversation, and it had made a huge difference to them working together. Gone was the tension—or at least, that tension—and the elephant was back in the jungle where it belonged.

  Yes, she still found him ridiculously sexy and appealing, yes, she still wanted him, but more than that she wanted his friendship. He knew more about her now than anyone else ever had apart from Grumps, and she knew more about him than she had, which had made her look at him in a new and rather kinder light.

  He’d been a good friend, a better friend perhaps than she’d deserved, and she’d forgotten that. And shortly into their shift, she was reminded of something else she’d forgotten: he had a wicked sense of fun and wasn’t beyond using it on her.

  Her patient was a man in his late seventies with vague symptoms that he seemed unwilling to clarify but which could have indicated a prostate problem, so she needed to examine him and he refused to let her.

  ‘I don’t need to be inspected by a nurse,’ he growled. ‘I want a doctor.’

  She hung onto her temper and smiled reassuringly. ‘I am a doctor, Mr Jones. I’ve told you that.’

  He glanced at her lanyard, unimpressed. ‘Well, I want a proper doctor, someone with a bit of experience. Someone like him,’ he said, and pointed.

  She turned, and Tom appeared at her side, his mouth twitching just the teeniest bit.

  ‘Did you want me, sir?’

  ‘Yes, you can take over from this young woman.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I’m rather tied up,’ he said smoothly. ‘What is the problem, exactly?’

  ‘It’s not right,’ he muttered. ‘I’m sure she’s a lovely girl, but I’ve got grandchildren older than her.’

  Tom sucked in a slow breath and smiled in a way that made Laura want to laugh out loud. She bit her lip and waited.

  ‘That’s nice for you,’ Tom murmured. ‘However, Dr Kemp is a senior registrar. She’s highly qualified and extremely competent, but if it’s a case of preferring to be examined by a man rather than a woman, that can be arranged. There’s a more junior male doctor but he’s tied up right now. He should be free in about half an hour? Or you can let Dr Kemp do it to save you time.’

  ‘Well, what about you? You don’t look that tied up,’ the man growled, but Tom just smiled that smile again.

  ‘On the contrary, I have a very sick patient whose life I’m in the middle of saving, so I really don’t have time. Dr Kemp does, or you could wait for the more junior doctor to see you, but he might well ask her for her opinion anyway. It’s up to you.’

  And he strode briskly away, leaving Mr Jones to wrestle with his pride, while Laura bit her lip and waited patiently for him to make up his mind.

  * * *

  ‘So how’s the patient whose life you were saving?’ she asked when she next caught up with Tom.

  His mouth quirked. ‘What patient? I was coming to see if you had time for a coffee.’

  ‘What? You just abandoned me with him!’

  His grin didn’t have a scrap of contrition about it. ‘Yes, because I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction and I knew you were perfectly capable of dealing with him.’

  ‘Well, cheers for that. You could have spared us both the humiliation.’

  ‘So what happened in the end? Did he let you look at him?’

  ‘Oh, yes, after he’d swallowed his pride. He was just hideously embarrassed. Apparently he’s taken up internet dating and was having unprotected sex. It looked like classic gonorrhoea, so I took some swabs for confirmation, gave him an antibiotic injection, a prescription for a follow-up tablet and a stern lecture about safe sex, and referred him to Sexual Health for contact tracing. Oh, and eye drops. He’d managed to give himself conjunctivitis from it.’

  ‘I’m glad you picked up on that. I did wonder if you would.’

  She stared at him, light dawning, and punched his arm not all that gently. ‘You knew! You knew all along what was wrong with him! You are such a rat!’

  But Tom was chuckling and looking totally unrepentant. ‘Why? I thought he deserved you.’

  ‘Did you now? And what did I do to deserve him? Well, I’m glad you think it’s so funny,’ she added, trying to sound cross because he was cracking up by then, but his laughter was too infectious and she ended up in a fit of the giggles.

  ‘Oh, well, it makes a change from doom and gloom, I suppose, and I think he’s probably learned his lesson,’ s
he said eventually, straightening up and wiping her eyes. ‘I suppose we ought to go back to work. What time do you finish?’

  He looked away, glancing down at the notes in his hand, all trace of laughter gone. ‘Four. I’ve got an appointment.’

  ‘An appointment?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m having my eyes tested. I’ve been meaning to do it for a while but I haven’t got round to it. I think I need glasses.’

  He was avoiding her eye, and for no good reason her heart gave a little thud. What wasn’t he telling her?

  ‘Oh. OK,’ she said lightly. ‘I just wondered if you wanted to pop round this evening for supper?’

  ‘I haven’t done the door yet.’

  ‘That OK, I don’t need the tools. Come anyway.’

  ‘Are you sure? I can probably do the door before I come. It shouldn’t take me long after I get back, it only needs a bit off the bottom.’

  ‘Whatever. Come over as soon as you’re ready,’ she said without letting herself over-analyse it, and he nodded.

  ‘That would be great. Maybe around seven, if I get done in time?’

  ‘Seven’s fine, but whenever. I’ll make something quick.’

  * * *

  He left at four, walked down to the opticians and spent a few minutes pretending to look at the frames they had on offer.

  What would they find? Anything? Nothing? Maybe he was worrying for no reason—

  ‘Dr Stryker? I’m Julia Wilde, the optometrist. Would you like to come through?’

  ‘Sure. Thank you.’ His heart thumped, and he followed her into her room, sat down and told himself to relax. Ha-ha.

  ‘So, I understand you’ve been having problems with your eyes recently? Can you tell me a bit more about that?’

  ‘Well, it’s nothing much, just a little difficulty with night vision,’ he said, trying to keep a lid on his overactive imagination. ‘It’s probably just a vitamin deficiency or eye strain or too much time looking at screens...’

  ‘Well, let’s have a look, shall we?’ she said, and started with a standard sight test which was no problem to him, tested his peripheral vision amongst other things, peered at his eyes with an ophthalmoscope, scanned and photographed the back of each eye in turn, and finally sat back.

  ‘So what’s the verdict? Do I need glasses?’

  ‘No, your visual acuity is excellent, but your peripheral vision is a little restricted in places, and I think you might have a slight problem with your retinas. I can’t be sure, so I’d like to refer you for further investigations, if that’s OK,’ she told him, her face carefully blank, and he felt his heart thud against his ribs.

  ‘What kind of problem?’ he asked, and as she turned the screen so he could see the images she’d taken, his blood ran cold.

  ‘These are the retinal photographs, and as you can see there are a few tiny dots around the edges in both eyes, here and here, for example,’ she said, pointing with her finger at the screen.

  He shut his eyes for a second, then looked again, but the dots were still there, and his heart started to pound.

  ‘That’s... That’s RP. Retinitis pigmentosa.’

  ‘Let’s not jump to conclusions. There are all sorts of things it could be and there are very few dots. They could be tiny bleeds, I don’t know, which is why I want to refer you to the retina clinic at the hospital, because they have access to much better equipment than I do. They can do many more sophisticated tests that may be able to give you a more definitive diagnosis. Is there any history of night blindness in your family? Any parents or grandparents, uncles, aunts—anyone like that?’

  He shook his head, his mind numb. ‘No. No, I don’t think so. I’m not sure. I’d have to ask.’

  ‘Well, I don’t want you to worry because it could be nothing serious, but you do need a referral to get a proper diagnosis. I’ll send it through now and you should hear within a few days. In the meantime keep a note of any times you find it harder to see, so we can work out if there’s a pattern there. Do you have sunglasses?’

  ‘Uh—yes. Yes, I do. They’re polarised.’

  ‘Good. Wear them whenever you’re outside, preferably with orange filters to cut out blue light, just to protect your retinas as much as possible until we know what’s going on.’

  ‘Orange filters. OK. So, how long will it take before I’m seen?’

  ‘It should be within a couple of weeks, but there’s a bit of a backlog at the moment so it may take longer. But don’t worry. As I say, it may not be anything serious at all.’

  Don’t worry? She must be dreaming.

  He thanked her, walked out on autopilot, stumbled down to the sea front and sat on a bench and stared out across the water.

  If it was RP, there was a good chance—or a very bad chance, to be more precise—that his vision would continue to deteriorate until at some time in the future he could be blind.

  Blind! Unable to see his way around, unable to drive, to work—unable to have children for fear of passing it on because RP was hereditary?

  And—when? Two years? Ten? Twenty?

  He couldn’t breathe properly because his chest felt so tight, and his heart was racing. He felt sick, sweat breaking out all over his body, and everything started to go black.

  A panic attack. He was having a panic attack.

  Breathe...

  He cupped his hands over his mouth so he rebreathed his air, slowing down the intake of oxygen, telling himself to relax, to be calm, it was all right. It could be nothing. Maybe he was wrong. And gradually his heart slowed, his breathing sorted itself out and he felt the tension drain out of him and leave him trembling with exhaustion.

  Why? Why would that happen?

  Because this was different.

  Everything else in life he’d had some control over, but not this. Not the possibility of going blind. He was totally unprepared for it, even though RP had been on his list of maybes. He’d dismissed it, though. It was so unlikely and there was no family history that he could think of. Surely, if it was RP, there would be.

  So maybe it was something else? Something temporary, transient. Something treatable. Something less sinister.

  Although nobody died of RP. It just slowly robbed you of your sight, over months and years and maybe decades, the edges of your vision creeping in until, if you were unlucky, almost nothing was left.

  I don’t want to go blind!

  He got stiffly to his feet and walked home, went in through his sticking front door, shut it behind him and slid down it as if his strings were cut, his mind numb.

  His phone rang, and he stared at the screen. Laura—and he’d had a missed call from her as well.

  How could he talk to her? He couldn’t tell her. He’d have to brush her off with some excuse. Heaven knows what, but he couldn’t ignore her so he took a deep breath and answered.

  ‘Hi. Sorry I missed your call, I was a bit tied up earlier.’

  ‘That’s OK. How did you get on? Are you going to have to wear sexy glasses?’

  He laughed, but it came out like a strangled croak. ‘No glasses,’ he said. Nothing that simple. What on earth could he say? It was just a possibility, one of a host of things that could be wrong, and the last thing he wanted to do was to worry her. And no way could he cope with sympathy.

  So he lied.

  ‘Look, I’m in the middle of something—I’m doing some research for a paper and I really need to finish it. Do you mind if we give tonight a miss?’

  ‘Oh—no, that’s fine. Sure.’

  Damn. She sounded wounded, but there was nothing he could do about it because he just wasn’t ready to face her. Not ready to face anyone except maybe his parents, and possibly not even them.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said gently, and she murmured something and hung up, and he dropped the phone onto the floor and stared blankly at
the wall opposite.

  Oh, Laura... He wanted nothing more than to go round to her house and blurt it all out, but he couldn’t. It wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t time. It wasn’t as if he knew anything concrete yet. It was just a possibility. And anyway, even if it wasn’t, how could he put all that on her when their relationship, if you could call it that, was so new and so fresh?

  Emotion swamped him, and he buried his head in his hands and choked down a sob.

  No! He was not going to do this! He wasn’t going to give in to self-pity, not at this point. He didn’t even know for sure, yet.

  There’d be plenty of time to wallow in it later if it came to that, and then, once he’d had his referral appointment and been diagnosed and actually knew what was going on, then he’d talk to her. Maybe.

  In the meantime he’d keep it to himself, and maybe find out a little bit more about his family history. And hopefully he’d draw a blank.

  But he was twitchy, restless, and right now he needed to do something physical. He got out Laura’s tools, yanked the door open and started work.

  * * *

  Something was wrong.

  He didn’t sound like himself at all. Had the optometrist found something sinister?

  It could be any one of all sorts of things, but it was too much of a coincidence that he was suddenly weird immediately after the appointment, and it worried her.

  She’d already made a salad and baked some tandoori chicken breasts and a part-baked garlic bread baton that she found in the freezer. She left them in the oven to keep warm, put the salad back in the fridge, gave Millie a biscuit and drove round to his house.

  He was working on the door—not a paper at all, but the door, attacking it with the rasp as if his life depended on it.

  Or his sanity?

  He glanced up at her as she shut the car door, his face taut and unforgiving.

  ‘I said I was busy.’

  ‘You said you were doing research for a paper. I didn’t realise it was for a DIY magazine.’