by Kate Hardy
‘Stroke?’ Rob asked when they’d left the relatives’ room.
‘Or a bleed on the brain from his fall,’ she said. ‘I’ll be happier when we’ve seen the scan.’
Mr Walker had just been brought back to the department, and the initial blood tests—pending the full cross-match—meant they were able to start the blood transfusion.
But he was agitated and wouldn’t settle.
‘Mr Walker, I need you to lie on your back for me and keep your arm still so I can treat you,’ Florence said gently. If he kept moving, they wouldn’t be able to get the blood into him and the risk of organ failure was growing by the minute.
‘My neck hurts,’ he said again.
Rob sat next to him and held his hand. ‘I know, and we’re going to do something about that. But for now we need you to lie still, just for a little while, so we can help you. Florence is going to get you some pain relief, and then we’ll bring your wife and your daughter to see you.’
‘I can’t let them see me covered in blood.’ Mr Walker twisted on the bed. ‘Not like this.’
‘Lie still for us,’ she said gently, ‘and I’ll wash your face so they won’t be worried when they see you.’
‘Neither of us is going anywhere,’ Rob said. ‘You’re safe. I’m hanging onto you, and Florence will clean you up. So you’re perfectly safe to lie still and let us help you. Deal?’
For a moment, Florence thought Mr Walker was going to refuse, but then the fight went out of him. ‘All right.’
She and Rob exchanged a glance. Agitation and sudden changes in mood could suggest a stroke or something affecting the patient’s ability to process information. Or maybe he was just horribly scared. Until they’d seen the results of that scan, she couldn’t be sure.
* * *
Florence gently washed Mr Walker’s face, getting rid of all the blood, talking to him all the while. Rob thought how nice she was, how gentle and kind. And he’d noticed that she was calm under pressure; he liked that, too.
He liked his new colleague a lot.
Though he needed to be sensible about it and not act on that attraction. He wasn’t great at relationships; plus he was only here for the next three months. As soon as he was fit enough to climb again, he’d be back in his old job in Manchester—the other side of the country. So it’d be better not to start anything in the first place.
Once the scans were back, Florence reviewed them with him. ‘I’m glad to see there’s no sign of a bleed on the brain or a fracture to the skull,’ she said.
They’d done a scan from the top of his head to his hip, to check for other injuries. ‘No sign of internal damage or any other fractures either,’ Rob said. ‘With luck, he’ll just have some bruising and that wound on the back of his head.’
‘I’m still admitting him so we keep him in overnight for observation,’ Florence said. ‘I’ve got a funny feeling. Yes, that confusion could be from the shock of the fall and hitting his head; but, given that his daughter was concerned about memory loss, we need to keep an eye on him.’
‘I agree,’ Rob said.
Once they’d settled Mr Walker with his family and organised admitting him, they were called to deal with a patient who’d collapsed with a suspected heart attack. He arrested in the middle of Resus, but thankfully they were able to save him and send him up to the cardiac ward.
‘I think we’re both overdue a break,’ Florence said to Rob. ‘Would you like to come with me and I’ll show you where the canteen is?’
‘That’d be nice. Thank you. Coffee is on me,’ he added.
‘It’s your first day, so it’s my shout,’ she corrected.
‘Tell you what—you buy the coffee, I’ll buy the cake,’ he said.
She smiled. ‘That’s a deal.’
‘Any particular cake you prefer?’
‘Cake is cake,’ she said.
‘Got you.’
In the cafeteria, she bought them both a cappuccino, and he bought two slices of a rich-looking chocolate brownie. ‘Ollie—my brother—is a cheese fiend. He doesn’t understand what a joy chocolate cake is,’ Rob said as they sat down.
‘You’re right: it is a joy—and not just because of the sugar rush,’ she said with a smile.
All of a sudden Rob’s chest felt too tight. It was nothing to do with his kidney transplant and everything to do with the way that smile transformed her face, changing her from the quiet, capable and serious doctor into someone who was lit up from the inside.
He hadn’t expected to be knocked sideways by her smile. And he didn’t have the faintest clue what to do about this. Stick to being sensible—being more like his twin, in accordance with the pact they’d made—or follow his impulses?
Of course he should hold back. He and Florence barely knew each other. But being aware of that didn’t stop the longing.
‘You were good with Mr Walker’s wife and daughter,’ she said.
He shrugged off the compliment. ‘Families worry, and that makes a patient even more anxious. I’ve always thought one of the best things you can do for a patient is to keep their families calm.’
‘Good point,’ she said.
‘When he started getting agitated, I was beginning to think we’d have to sedate him—which would have been horrible for him and his family.’
‘Luckily it didn’t come to that. And you were really good with him,’ she said. She looked at him over the rim of her mug. ‘So where were you before you came here?’
This was where Rob knew he needed to be careful about how much information he gave. He didn’t want his past getting in the way. Didn’t want to seem weak. ‘Manchester,’ he said. Which was true, up to a point. Just he’d been in the middle of taking a sabbatical to work abroad. ‘You?’
‘I trained in Leeds, then moved here just over a year ago,’ she said, ‘to be near my family.’
‘Me, too. My parents retired near here,’ he said. It was the truth; just not the whole truth, because if the appendicitis and blood poisoning hadn’t happened he would still have been working for the humanitarian organisation, or by now he would’ve been back in Manchester and spending his spare time with the local mountain rescue team, really making a difference and using his skills. But he was glad Florence had mentioned her family. He needed to head her off. Since she’d moved back here to be close to them, it followed that she was likely to be happy to talk about them. It would be the perfect distraction. ‘So your family’s local?’
‘My parents live in the next village—I grew up here,’ she said. ‘My older sister moved back here two years ago when she retired.’
Hang on. Florence looked as if she was around the same age as he was, thirty. Even if there was a ten-year gap between her and her sister, that didn’t quite stack up. ‘Retired?’
‘Lexy’s a ballerina,’ Florence explained. ‘She’s thirty-six—a lot of ballerinas retire in their thirties, because dancing takes such a toll on their hips and knees—and anyway she doesn’t want to tour with the company any more now her oldest has started school. So she’s done her teaching qualification, and she’s set up her own ballet school. All three of her daughters dance with her—even Darcey, the two-year-old.’
Rob noticed a hint of wistfulness along with the pride in her face when she spoke about her nieces, and wondered what was behind that.
And he noticed that Florence hadn’t said anything about a husband. He couldn’t help a swift glance at her left hand. There was no ring, though that didn’t mean anything; she could still be in a committed relationship.
He needed to damp down that zing of attraction towards her, fast. Those huge brown eyes. The generous curve of her mouth. The way everything suddenly felt a little bit brighter when she was in the room.
‘Darcey? It’s an unusual name.’
‘After Darcey Bussell. Lexy called her girls after
famous ballerinas. Margot—the oldest—is named after Margot Fonteyn, and Anna, who’s four, is named after Anna Pavlova.’
Even Rob had heard of the ballerinas. ‘Got you.’
He managed to keep the conversation work-based for the rest of their break, then walked with Florence back to the department.
It was a busy afternoon and, although he hated to admit it, he was tired by the time he got home. There was a note in his letterbox saying that a parcel had been delivered next door; even before he picked it up, he had a pretty good idea who’d sent it. The person he’d done exactly the same thing for, a couple of months back; the person whose thoughts so often chimed with his.
There was a note attached:
You are only allowed to open this if you DIDN’T overdo things on your first day.
‘Yeah, yeah, Olls,’ he said with a grin, and opened it. The parcel contained a bottle of good red wine and some seriously good chocolate.
Perfect for his first evening after work.
Rob texted his twin. Thank you for the parcel. I so deserve this.
His phone rang seconds later. ‘So how was your first day?’ Oliver asked.
‘Wonderful. It was so good to be back, Olls. To save lives—we had an arrest and we got him back. And even if it’s only three days a week, it’s so much better to know I’m making a difference again instead of being stuck at home.’ Stuck feeling too ill even to pace about. It had been Rob’s worst nightmare.
‘Glad you enjoyed it. Are your colleagues nice?’
Rob thought of Florence Jacobs. ‘Very.’ Though he wasn’t going to admit to his twin that he’d been drawn to one new colleague in particular.
‘And you paced yourself?’ Oliver checked.
‘Stop nagging. Of course I did. I’m a bit tired, now,’ Rob admitted, ‘but I’ve got tomorrow off to recover. Working every other day is going to ease me back into things. I know it’ll be a while yet before I’m ready to go full time again, but working part time is way, way better than doing nothing.’
‘That all sounds a bit sensible for you. So you actually meant it about being more Ollie?’ his twin teased.
‘Yes.’ Mostly. He wasn’t sure if he was actually capable of putting down roots.
Though he was very aware of how impersonal his rented flat was. The one thing that Rob did envy Ollie was the way his twin always seemed able to make a place feel like a home, even on the same day he moved in. Rob was never in a place for long enough to make it feel properly like home; he was too busy chasing the next adventure, making the next difference. And even his flat in Manchester—currently rented out to a colleague—was just a place to stay between the emergency department, climbing and his overseas work.
Maybe he should try taking a few more leaves out of Ollie’s book.
Tomorrow, he decided, he’d print out some of the photos on his phone and stick them in frames on the mantelpiece. That might make his flat feel less anonymous and soulless.
‘I’m starving, so I’m going to say goodbye now and cook dinner,’ he said.
‘You mean, you’re going to stick something in the microwave,’ Oliver teased.
‘It’s perfectly nutritious. There are two portions of my five a day, and I’m having an apple afterwards.’ Unlike his twin, Rob never had been big on cooking. It always felt like a waste of time where he could be doing something more active and more interesting. His rule was that if it took more than five minutes, it was off the menu. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Give Gemma my love. And thank you for the care package.’
‘You’re welcome. And you can always come here for dinner after work, if you’re tired. I don’t mind cooking for you.’
‘That’s kind,’ Rob said. Though Ollie was newly loved up; given that the kidney transplant had been the thing to break his brother’s engagement, the last thing Rob wanted now was to put pressure on Ollie’s new relationship. Even though Rob liked Gemma very much and thought she was a million times better for Ollie than Tabby had been, and also wasn’t likely to behave in the same way, he still didn’t want to make things difficult. ‘Oh, by the way. How’s your patient with chickenpox pneumonia doing?’
‘She’s completely recovered,’ Oliver said. ‘But I don’t remember telling you about that. Why do you ask?’
‘One of my new colleagues remembered you bringing her in. She thought I was you.’
‘Oh?’ Oliver sounded intrigued.
‘And I’m hungry,’ Rob said, ‘so I’m going.’ Before he said anything about Florence Jacobs that his twin might misinterpret.
* * *
Florence walked into the kitchen, her footsteps echoing.
It was more than a year now since she’d moved back to Northumbria. More than a year since her divorce. More than two years since her world had collapsed.
And, although she’d grown up only a few miles away in the next village, this place still didn’t feel like home. A single person’s flat. Empty. This wasn’t the life she’d planned for herself; she’d thought by now she’d have children at preschool—children who’d grow up close to their cousins, the way Florence had been close to her sister.
Instead, she was on her own. And she just didn’t have the strength to try again.
She didn’t regret moving back from Leeds. Being close to the family she loved, being able to see her nieces grow up—that meant the world to her. And it was nice not having anyone at work pitying her, or the whispered conversations that stopped abruptly when she walked into the staff kitchen.
She knew her colleagues in Leeds had speculated about the break-up of her marriage, and it was obvious they’d all guessed Dan’s affair had been at the root of it because Florence had adored her husband. But telling them the whole truth would’ve been so much harder. That she and Dan had tried for a baby for three years, the tests had shown that he was the one with the fertility problem, and he’d refused flatly to adopt, foster or to go through IVF with a sperm donor. He’d refused to go to counselling, too, and he’d given her an ultimatum of a baby or him.
How ironic that now she had neither. And Dan had ended up marrying a single mum who’d given him the children he hadn’t been able to have himself but had refused to give Florence: the woman he’d had an affair with. The more she thought about it, the more she realised that maybe Dan’s issues hadn’t been with having children; it had been having children with her. And just what was so wrong with her that the love of her life hadn’t wanted to make a family with her?
She shook herself. ‘Enough of the pity party,’ she told herself crossly. Time to look on the bright side. Focus on what she did have, not what she didn’t. She loved her family and lived close enough to see a lot of them; she had a job she adored; and she had good friends who looked out for her. She was lucky.
Though she knew exactly what had unsettled her today.
Robert Langley.
Her new colleague was charming, great with patients, and he treated all staff as equally important—whatever their position on the ward. He thought on his feet, so he was good to work with. He was more than easy on the eye.
And maybe that was the problem.
Because in some ways he reminded her of Dan, when they’d first got together. Dan, who was urbane and charming and got on well with everyone. Dan, who she’d thought she’d be with for ever: until he’d changed the goalposts and broken her heart in the process.
Rob hadn’t mentioned having a partner or children, and she’d got the impression that there was something a little remote about him. As if that charm was a barrier to stop people seeing who he really was, behind it.
‘Or maybe you’re overthinking things and being incredibly unfair to your new colleague, Florence Jacobs,’ she said out loud.
To get her balance back, she needed to go for a run and get the endorphins flowing, and have dinner. And until then she wasn’t going
to allow herself to think about Robert Langley.
CHAPTER TWO
TWO DAYS LATER, Rob was in Minors. In the middle of the morning, a man came in after a car accident where he’d been rear-ended while waiting in a queue of traffic. He rolled his eyes at his wife. ‘I’m sorry we’re wasting your time, Doctor. I’m only here because my wife won’t stop fussing.’
‘Actually,’ Rob said, ‘your wife has a point. Even though modern cars have good crumple zones, the impact might have affected you more than you think.’
‘And he was slurring his words earlier,’ his wife said. ‘When he rang me I couldn’t understand a word he said.’
‘Because I was standing on the side of the road waiting for the tow truck and I was cold,’ her husband said crossly, ‘not because I had an undiagnosed bleed to my brain or something. You watch too many hospital dramas, Mags. They’re not going to need to airlift me somewhere.’
Rob had to hide a smile. ‘OK. Did the airbag go off?’
‘No. I was sitting in a queue of traffic waiting to turn right when the guy rammed into me. I had my lights on and my indicator going, but he said he didn’t see me. Idiot. He wasn’t looking where he was going.’
‘The car’s likely to be written off,’ his wife said, ‘so it was quite an impact.’
‘Let me check you over,’ Rob said. He checked his patient’s neck and head, got him to follow a moving finger with his eye, then checked his back. ‘Your muscles are pretty tight from the impact, so you’re going to be sore for a week or so. You need good painkillers and rest—and I mean rest. Plus it’ll help you to do some gentle stretching.’
‘See? You made a fuss about nothing,’ the man said to his wife.
‘No, it was a good call,’ Rob said. ‘Until the beginning of this year, I would’ve been on your side. Now I know better.’
The man looked curious. ‘What made you change your mind?’
‘A burst appendix,’ Rob said. ‘I was working abroad and I assumed my stomach pains were just because I wasn’t used to the food or water. And me a doctor. You’d think I’d know better.’ He gave a rueful smile. ‘So I’ve learned not to ignore things any more. The quicker you get something checked out, the easier it is to pick up a problem and get it sorted before it turns into something serious.’
