The Single Dad's Marriage Wish (Bachelor Dads) (6 page)

‘He might have brain damage?’

‘That’s one of our main concerns,’ Hamish responded.

‘I worked on him straight away, Doc. I was telling Charlotte here that I’d done the instructor’s course for first aid.’ Pleading eyes jerked to Charlotte. ‘I know how to do CPR.’

‘You did an amazing job,’ Charlotte responded, and it was appropriate that she did so. Bonds were quickly established in the most dire of circumstances and the fleeting interview had clearly forged these. Hamish didn’t intervene, realising that, for whatever reason, Vince clearly needed to hear Charlotte’s take on things. ‘There was absolutely nothing more you could have done for your son—you’ve given him the best possible chance in the most dire of circumstances. However, the resuscitation was extremely prolonged and as Dr Adams said, brain damage is a very real possibility.’

‘What’s the other major concern the doctor was talking about?’ Vince still stared at Charlotte, but this yorker was one Hamish was ready to bat and taking a deep breath he was about to face it, only Charlotte was already there, answering Vince’s most difficult question with the most direct of answers.

‘That he may well die.’ Her voice was clear as she delivered brutal words that even the most experienced, most senior of staff struggled with. Suddenly Hamish was back in the intensive care unit, sitting in a room so similar to this one, clinging to the words Ned, his friend and colleague, had gently delivered.

‘Hold her hand and talk to her, Hamish.’

‘Can she hear me?’

‘I hope so.’

‘Is there any chance…?’

‘Of course there’s a chance.’ After the longest of pauses, Ned had nodded. ‘Where there’s life there’s hope, Hamish.’

God, how he’d clung to that—clung to the old adage as he’d clung to Emma’s pale hand, willing her to live with kisses, words and tears, because if a neurosurgeon had said there was hope, then surely he’d meant it.

But there had been
no
hope.

The second her CT scan had appeared on the screen, Ned would have known that, known that the only thing keeping this beautiful vital woman breathing had been the machine pushing air into her lungs—that behind her still perfect features her brain had been putty. How Hamish had wanted to ram all his anger at Ned when the truth had hit—payback for those wretched, tortured hours where he’d dared to believe that Emma might come back to him, that Bailey might grow up with a mother, and all because it had seemed better at the time than telling him the stark truth.

Whether he realised it or not, Vince was a lucky man.

‘Is there any hope?’

For a full minute the room had been silent, only it hadn’t been uncomfortable, the two men lost in their thoughts as Charlotte had patiently sat. It was Vince who had, in his own time, broken it.

‘We’ll know more soon,’ Hamish answered
carefully. Ronan, even in this most fragile state, had more hope than Emma had ever had, but realistically his heart could stop again at any time. ‘We haven’t given up on him by any means.’

‘Can I see him?’

‘Of course,’ Hamish said gently, standing up to take Vince to see his son. ‘If we ask you to step aside…’

‘I won’t get in the way, Doctor—I know he needs you lot more than me right now.’

And then Hamish did the strangest thing—something he’d never done, even before Emma’s death had frozen him on the inside. As they reached Ronan, Hamish reached out and gripped the other man’s arm to support him as he surveyed the shell of his son, offered him a little piece of himself that wasn’t just a doctor. ‘I’m so sorry for all you’re going through.’

‘Thanks.’ Vince gulped. ‘That means a lot.’

‘As I’ve said, these wounds are just the tip of the iceberg,’ Hamish explained to the gathered group of doctors and nurses, pointing to the two black burns on Vince’s feet. ‘The electricity entered his body here.’ Hamish held up a limp hand. ‘And his feet are where the electricity exited the body.’ Leaning under the trolley, he pulled out Ronan’s gumboots and showed them to the gathered crowd—the two holes clearly visible. ‘If it can do this to boots, then you can imagine the damage it’s wreaked inside to nerves, veins and arteries on its journey. Did you want to join us?’ Hamish asked as Charlotte popped her head around the door and interrupted his impromptu lecture.

‘ICU just called—they’re ready for Ronan.’

‘Fine…’ Hamish nodded as the crowd dispersed, stepping back as she ran a final set of obs on Ronan, and for the second time his arm caught Charlotte’s—waiting till she was finished with the patient before discreetly drawing her aside.

‘I think you make a very good teacher!’

‘Thanks but, no, thanks!’ Hamish shook his head and smiled, but it faded, his voice more serious now. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Fine,’ Charlotte answered. ‘Well, dying for my coffee-break but I guess that will have to wait till I’ve taken him up and then cleared up the mess.’

‘You were very good with his father.’

‘Thanks.’

‘And you’re okay with everything that happened this morning?’ There was just a smudge of a frown on her face, as if she was curious as to why he’d even be checking. ‘I mean, it’s been a pretty intense morning.’

‘That’s Emergency for you.’ Charlotte shrugged. ‘Honestly, Hamish, I’m fine. Just doing my job like the rest of us.’

Only she wasn’t like the rest of them, Hamish thought as she breezed along the corridor, grabbing a blanket from the linen trolley and stopping for a quick chat and giggle with Mike the porter—watching with more than slight bemusement as the old boy wiggled his hips at a delighted Charlotte and did a strange little dance.

He couldn’t fault a single thing she’d done that morning—she’d been efficient and capable in resuscitation, incredibly intuitive and helpful in dealing with
relatives, all the staff liked her, every patient she came in contact with seemed to adore her, and yet…Hamish flicked through his mental thesaurus, trying to find the word he was looking for that summed up the vague uneasiness she generated in him at times.

Detached—that was the best he could come up with. Despite her warm demeanour, despite her engaging smile, there was this cool detachment to Charlotte that didn’t add up. The more he thought about it, nothing seemed to upset her, nothing seemed to really faze her, nothing really seemed to bother Charlotte at all. In fact, sometimes it was as if…

He didn’t like the conclusion he was inching towards to, felt guilty almost for even thinking it, given the way she was at home and with Bailey and her impressive skills at work…But still the nagging voice wouldn’t go away.

Sometimes it was if Charlotte had pushed her true emotions about
everything
so far down that she didn’t feel them at all.

Maybe it
was
Ronan’s lucky day! Transferring him from Accident and Emergency’s equipment to that of ICU’s, Charlotte watched in awe as the anaesthetist rolled his pen along Ronan’s arm and Ronan actually pulled his hand away.

‘Withdrawal to pain. Boy, this job never ceases to amaze me. I was about to tell your boss he was wasting everyone’s time. Looks like we might just have a happy ending here,’ the anaesthetist said.

Wandering parched back down the corridor and grabbing a bottle of diet cola from the machine, she saw
the sign for the paediatric ward and Charlotte decided she had more than earned a break. She was so glad she did when little Andy’s face lit up in delight at his most welcome visitor, delighted to see him playing a board game with another little boy who was sitting on his bed.

‘Are you
still
here?’ Feigning surprise, she gave him wide-eyed look.

‘I’m staying in for a while!’ Andy nodded proudly. ‘They’re giving me lots of treatment for my skin and they’ve put me on this disgusting diet—I have to go under the sun lamps and mum’s getting my new glasses this afternoon—this is Blake,’ he added without pausing for a single breath, ‘he’s got really bad eczema and it’s all infected!’

‘Bad luck, Blake,’ Charlotte gave a sympathetic smile. ‘I just popped in to say hi. I really can’t stop, but I’ll come and see you again as soon as I can.’

‘Promise?’ Andy checked.

‘I promise.’

It was a smiling Charlotte that walked back into Emergency, only to be greeted by a rather strained-looking Cameron. ‘I’m supposed to have a word with you,’ he said as she headed back to clear up Resus.

‘Supposed to?’ Charlotte checked.

‘Boss’s orders.’ Cameron let out a long sigh. ‘I really messed it up back there. Hamish said I should talk with some of the more experienced nursing staff—someone who was used to dealing with upset relatives. He suggested you, given how you’d spoken to the father as well and got him to make sense. Vince was just all over the place. I couldn’t make head or tail of what he was
saying. I’m going cold thinking that they might have stopped the resuscitation just—’

‘They wouldn’t have,’ Charlotte said kindly. ‘Just knowing the facts made it a lot easier to continue.’

‘Coffee-break, Charlotte,’ Helen called briskly as Charlotte entered the swing doors, every last shred of the morning’s chaos jut a memory now, the ever-efficient Helen wasting no time in getting the resuscitation area back into shape for the next visitor.

‘Do you want to talk now?’ Charlotte offered. ‘We could go to the interview room—it’s a bit more private than the staffroom.’

‘Don’t you need a coffee?’

‘Caffeine’s caffeine.’ Charlotte grinned, holding up her half-drunk bottle of cola. ‘Whatever way it’s delivered. Come on.’

‘I just didn’t know how to calm him down,’ Cameron explained, after telling his side of the story and sounding more than a touch embarrassed. ‘Vince kept asking me how his son was doing, what was happening, if he’d done the right thing—only I couldn’t get him to explain
exactly
what he’d done, and it just seemed tactless to ignore his questions when he was so desperate for information.’

‘I find the best way is to explain the urgency of the situation,’ Charlotte offered. ‘That for now, to help their relative, answers will just have to wait—and even if you do appear tactless at the time, you can always go back and explain why afterwards. If they start to digress, just tell the family or whoever that for the moment you need some very direct answers to some very specific questions and don’t be afraid to ask them.’

‘It’s hard, though,’ Cameron sighed. ‘How long have you been doing this?’

‘I’ve been in Emergency for six years,’ Charlotte smiled, ‘and, honestly, talking to relatives does get easier. You should go and sit in as much as you can when someone else is trying to get a rapid history or break difficult news. Not only will you pick up some tips, you’ll see for yourself ways
not
to go about it.’

‘So how old does that make you?’ Cameron asked as they stood up to go.

‘Twenty-eight,’ Charlotte groaned. ‘Inching ever closer to the big three-oh!’

‘Thanks for your help.’ Cameron grinned. ‘I owe you a drink.’

‘You do,’ Charlotte responded.

‘How about Saturday?’

Hamish walking past at that very moment shouldn’t have mattered a jot—only somehow it did. And Cameron’s invitation had very little to do with her flushing and unbecoming shade of purple.

‘Sorry.’ Cameron grimaced. ‘I didn’t realise he was around.’

‘Who?’

‘Hamish,’ Cameron answered—and even if it was the correct answer, Charlotte had no idea how it should be the obvious one. ‘I heard you two were sharing a house—I guess I should have checked you were just housemates before asking you out!’

‘We are,’ Charlotte replied. ‘There’s absolutely nothing going on between us…’

‘You’re sure about that?’

‘Positive.’ Charlotte nodded.

‘So—there isn’t a problem if I pick you up on Saturday.’

‘Actually, there is one!’ In a fabulous impersonation of Cassie, Charlotte beat her blush and shook her head. ‘I’ve already got plans.’

She did have plans!

A serious lie-in, a few hours’ shopping and then some serious dancing!

Despite the rather ominous start, her first week at Adams farm had turned out well. Her day spent with Bailey had been invaluable: getting to know the little boy in his own surroundings had been the right move and when Hamish had knocked on her door at two in the morning with a grizzling Bailey, apologising that he had to go into work, Bailey hadn’t kicked up a fuss when his father had left—in fact by the time the first weekend came around Charlotte felt as if she had been there for months and Hamish was wondering when this woman ever slept!

‘What have you been doing?’

‘Getting the stables ready,’ Charlotte beamed, stomping into the kitchen and pulling open the pantry door at seven-thirty on Saturday morning dressed in nothing more than a flimsy white cotton nightdress and a pair of gumboots—as a rather untogether Hamish worked his way through a mug of coffee. ‘They arrive next Saturday—I might not get a chance during the week. I was just checking for any loose nails and putting down some straw. We’re out of bread.’

‘I think there’s some in the freezer.’

‘There isn’t.’ It only took a quick glance to answer him—no rummaging at the back or pulling out of food had been necessary to check that, apart from ice cubes and a rather tragic-looking apple pie, it was empty.

‘If we leave in the next half-hour it shouldn’t be too busy,’

‘What shouldn’t?’

‘The supermarket. We need to go shopping.’

‘Shopping?’

She smiled at his bemused frown. ‘Don’t tell me—Elsie did it for you.’

‘I shop.’

‘At the local take-away or garage! Hamish, there’s
no
food in the house.’

‘I’ll get some groceries in tomorrow.’

‘And what will we eat tonight?’

‘I’m sure there’s a can of beans at the back of the cupboard.’

‘Boring!’

‘I’ll grate some cheese on them.’ Hamish gave a tight smile. ‘Anyway, what does it matter to you? You’re going out.’

‘No, I’m not.’

‘With Cameron,’ Hamish said patiently. ‘I heard him asking you out—remember?’

It was the first time they’d raised the uncomfortable subject—the first time that living and working together, just as Hamish had predicted it would, had actually raised its head.