The first person she saw when she arrived at work was Jake Blackwell, the obstetrician.
‘Babe! I heard you were back.’ He strolled towards her and dragged her into his arms for a hug.
Christy closed her eyes and held onto him. He was their oldest friend and suddenly she wondered exactly what Alessandro had told him. ‘It’s good to see you.’
Jake gently disengaged himself and looked down at her with a searching gaze. ‘That bad, huh?’
‘Oh, no, everything is fine,’ she lied with a forced smile, and Jake gave a soft laugh.
‘If everything is fine, my angel, then why is Alessandro taking everyone’s heads off and walking round like a volcano on the brink of eruption?’
‘He’s angry with me because I took the children away,’ Christy muttered, and Jake looked at her thoughtfully.
‘You think so?’
Christy stepped back and ran a hand through her hair to check it was still in place. ‘What other reason would there be?’
Jake’s eyes narrowed. ‘Well, I can think of another one but this probably isn’t the time or the place to go into that. Are you going to offer to cook me dinner some time? Don’t forget I’m just a poor, starving bachelor and I haven’t had one of your meals for weeks.’
Christy smiled. It was so good to have friends, she reflected. ‘Of course.’ It would make eating with Alessandro less tense. ‘Are you dating someone special at the moment?’
Jake gave her a wicked smile. ‘You know me, still auditioning for Miss Right.’
Christy sighed. She did know him. Knew his fearsome reputation with women. ‘You should settle down, Jake.’
‘When I find the love of my life, I’ll settle down,’ he drawled, ‘and not a moment before. I have you and Alessandro as an example.’
‘Us?’ She looked at him, startled. ‘What sort of an example are we?’
‘The very best,’ Jake said softly, lifting a hand to her cheek. ‘And don’t you forget that. You’re crazy about each other.’
‘We’re separated.’
‘So?’ Jake gave a dismissive shrug. ‘You’re both passionate, fiery people. You’ve lost your way for a while but you’ll find it again.’
No, they wouldn’t.
She’d lost hope.
Suddenly Christy wanted to blurt everything out. She wanted to tell Jake that Alessandro had put her in the spare room and that he wasn’t interested in her any more, but she couldn’t do that standing in a draughty, hospital corridor.
As if to confirm that point, Jake’s bleeper suddenly sounded and he lifted it from his pocket and read the number with a rueful smile. ‘Here we go again. Women just can’t do without me.’
Christy couldn’t help the smile. ‘You haven’t changed.’
‘And neither have you and Alessandro.’ He put the bleeper back in his pocket and gave her a thoughtful look. ‘Remember that, Christy. I’ll see you later.’
She watched him go, knowing that he was wrong. She
had
changed. Probably more than she’d realised.
‘Christy?’ Nicky appeared in the corridor. ‘I’ve got a woman coming in by ambulance who collapsed on the tennis court. Can you deal with her?’
Christy hurried towards her. ‘Tennis? There’s snow on the ground.’
‘Indoor court.’ Nicky grinned and pushed her into Resus. ‘She’s on her way now. Billy can help you to start with and he can call Alessandro if he needs to. We don’t really know how serious it is. Her sister is following by car. I’ll put her in the relatives’ room with a cup of tea but don’t forget to update her when you have some news.’
The woman arrived still dressed in her white tennis gear and clutching a vomit bowl.
‘This is Susan Wilde. She was very sick in the ambulance,’ the paramedic said as they lifted her from their stretcher onto the trolley. ‘She was playing tennis when she suddenly complained of a headache and collapsed.’
Christy covered the woman with a blanket while she listened to the handover and then Billy arrived and started his examination.
‘Mrs Wilde? Can you remember what happened?’
The woman turned her head slowly and looked at him blankly, as if she was having trouble focusing and concentrating. ‘Don’t know… Pain…’ She groaned. ‘Neck, head.’ Her eyes drifted shut again and Christy checked her observations quickly.
‘Her pulse is down and her BP is up,’ she said quietly. ‘I’ll get you a venflon so that you can put a line in and we’ll give her some oxygen straight away.’
Billy stared at her and then nodded. ‘OK. Yes. Good idea.’ He ran a hand through his hair and let out a breath. ‘I might just give Mr Garcia a call. Ask him to take a look at her.’
‘You get a line in and I’ll call him for you,’ Christy advised, handing him the necessary gear and then attaching ECG electrodes to the patient’s chest. ‘He’s going to want
you to have obtained venous access. It looks as though she might have had a subarachnoid haemorrhage.’
‘Right.’ Taking the tourniquet from the tray she’d handed him, Billy slid it onto the patient’s arm and pulled it tight. As he searched for a vein and slid the venflon into place, Alessandro walked into the room.
‘Everything all right in here?’
‘I was just going to come and ask your advice,’ Billy confessed, releasing the tourniquet and raising his eyebrows as Christy handed him a selection of bottles. ‘What are those for?’
‘BMG, FBC, clotting screen and U and Es,’ Christy said calmly, reaching for the forms to go with the bottles and filling out all of them except the doctor’s signature. ‘I’ll just go and arrange for a chest X-ray because it’s obvious that you’re going to need one of those.’
She thought she saw a flicker of amusement and admiration in Alessandro’s eyes as she walked towards the phone.
By the time she’d finished, Alessandro was examining the patient, who by now was so drowsy she could barely answer and was making little sense at all.
Christy was just wondering whether the woman had actually lapsed into unconsciousness when she gave another groan, rolled onto her side and vomited weakly.
Christy got the bowl there in time and Alessandro frowned.
‘We need to give her some morphine and an anti-emetic. Christy, I want you to arrange an urgent CT scan and contact the neurosurgeons.’
‘I’ve already arranged the scan and the neurosurgeons are on their way down.’ Christy drew up the drugs that he’d requested and gave them to him to check while Billy stared in amazement.
‘You called the scanning department already? When did you arrange that?’
‘At the same time that I arranged the chest X-ray. It seemed sensible.’ Christy checked the woman’s observations on the monitor. ‘She’s showing signs of raised intracranial pressure, do you want to give her some IV mannitol?’
‘We’ll do the scan straight away and discuss it with the neurosurgeons,’ Alessandro said, a strange light in his eyes as he looked at her. ‘I’d forgotten what it was like to work with you.’
She gave him a cool look. ‘Had you?’ He thought of her as the mother of his children, she realised suddenly. He didn’t really see her as an individual any more.
Didn’t think she was a capable nurse.
‘Is there anything else you need?’ she asked. ‘Because her sister is in the waiting room and she needs an update. I can send Donna through to help you here and go with her to the scanner.’
‘Go and talk to the sister,’ Alessandro said immediately, ‘and tell her I’ll be able to tell her more once we’ve done the scan and talked to the neurosurgeons.’
Christy pulled off her apron, washed her hands and then walked towards the relatives’ room.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘S
O WHAT’S
it like having your wife under your nose in the department,’ Jake asked cheerfully as he piled butter onto a baked potato and dropped two bars of chocolate on his tray.
‘Surprisingly good. At least she knows what she’s doing, which is more than can be said for half the people I’m expected to work with at the moment.’ Alessandro eyed Jake’s tray with disbelief as they stood in the queue, waiting to pay. ‘Blackwell, you do realise that the contents of your tray are likely to give you a heart attack before morning?’
Jake shrugged. ‘Chocolate and baked potatoes are the only edible objects in this restaurant. And I don’t see why you’re surprised about Christy. She was always a brilliant nurse. The brightest I ever worked with.’
‘I forgot you worked with her.’
‘She did an obstetrics module. All the doctors were crazy about her.’
Alessandro scowled. ‘I didn’t need to hear that.’
‘Why not? It’s the truth.’ Jake studied a cake loaded with cream. ‘Christy is gorgeous.’
‘You’re talking about the mother of my children,’ Alessandro said coldly, and Jake shrugged and walked past the cake.
‘So? That doesn’t stop her being gorgeous. And, anyway, I thought you didn’t want her any more.’
Alessandro inhaled sharply. ‘Who said I didn’t want her any more?’
‘You didn’t follow her to London.’
‘She left to get away from me,’ Alessandro said grittily. ‘I assumed that following her would inflame the situation.’
‘Did you?’ Jake shot him a curious look. ‘You really don’t understand women at all, do you?’
Alessandro stared at his friend with mounting irritation. ‘And you do?’
‘Of course. I’m an obstetrician. I’m paid to understand women.’ They arrived at the till and Jake beamed at the plump, smiling woman who looked at his tray and clucked with disapproval.
‘Where’s the nutrition in that lunch, Dr Blackwell?’
‘I need energy, not nutrition, Delia,’ Jake said cheerfully. ‘We’re busy on the labour ward and I’m going to need more than carrots to see me through until midnight. That’s a nice jumper. The colour suits you. Is it new?’
‘You always notice the little things.’ Delia beamed and handed him his change. ‘Early Christmas present from my daughter who lives in Canada.’
‘Is that Gillian? The one with the two-year-old?’
Delia blushed with delight. ‘Is there anything you don’t remember, Jake?’
‘I’m programmed to remember the details of everyone’s labour and delivery,’ Jake responded with a cheerful wink as he pocketed the change and lifted his tray.
Alessandro rolled his eyes as they walked to the nearest vacant table. ‘Do you have to flirt with every woman you meet?’
‘Yes, I think I probably do.’ Jake sat down and picked up his fork. ‘Believe it or not, Garcia, women like it when you notice them. You ought to drop your intimidating Mediterranean macho act and try it some time. Having a guy who behaves like a caveman might be a woman’s fantasy, but when it comes to reality they want a man to talk to them.’
Alessandro bit into his sandwich with more savagery than was strictly necessary. ‘What are you implying?’
‘Nothing.’
Alessandro put the sandwich down on his plate. ‘You’re suggesting that I don’t talk to Christy, but she was in London before I realised anything was wrong and now she’s back I can’t seem to reach her.’
‘No.’ Jake dug his fork into the potato and gave him a bland smile. ‘Of course you can’t.’
‘Did you think Christy was happy being a practice nurse?’
Jake chewed thoughtfully. ‘Well, she liked the hours, of course, because it meant that she could always be there for the children.’ He waved his fork. ‘But she missed the pace of A and E. Hardly surprising, really. I think she quite liked things like the asthma clinic because she could make quite a difference to the patients’ lives, but syringing ears and doing dressings drove her nuts.’
Alessandro stared at him. ‘When did she tell you all that?’
‘I don’t know.’ Jake pushed his plate away and reached for his first bar of chocolate. ‘We’ve chatted about it over the years. Christy was quite a high-powered nurse. She invariably knew more than the doctors when she worked in A and E. It’s hardly surprising that she was frustrated, working
in a village practice. A bit like putting a racehorse in a riding school, I suppose.’
Had she been frustrated? Alessandro abandoned the sandwich and ran a hand over the back of his neck, suddenly realising that it hadn’t ever occurred to him that she was anything less than happy in her work. And he didn’t like the fact that she’d confided in Jake.
Since when had Christy confided in Jake?
They were friends, that was true, but he didn’t like the idea that his friend knew more about his wife than he did.
Checking that her mother was safely occupied in the kitchen, Katy slunk into the living room where her brother was orchestrating a battle between dinosaurs and toy soldiers.
‘Ben, here’s a really, really large glass of blackcurrant squash.’
Ben stared at it. ‘I’m not thirsty.’
‘Good,’ Katy said sweetly, ‘because I don’t want you to drink it. I want you to spill it on the sofa.’
Ben’s eyes widened. ‘No way! You spill it on the sofa.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Katy’s tone was condescending. ‘I’m eleven. I’m
way
past spilling drinks on the sofa. You’ll have to do it.’
‘But that will make the sofa wet and purple.’
‘That’s the general idea.’
‘Why?’
‘Because despite our efforts, our parents are still not sharing a bed,’ Katy said with an impatient sigh. ‘And they’re never going to get back together if they don’t share a bed. Everyone knows that adults should share a bed if they’re married. It’s how they mate.’
Ben picked up another dinosaur. ‘What’s mate?’
‘You’re far too young to understand,’ Katy said disdainfully. ‘You’re just going to have to trust me.’
‘I don’t see how spilling blackcurrant squash will help,’ Ben muttered, and Katy rolled her eyes.
‘Because it will make the sofa sticky and wet you stupid, idiot baby.’
‘I’m not a stupid, idiot baby!!’
‘Then trust me and spill the squash!’
‘Mum will be mad.’
Katy glared. ‘Do you want to go back and live in smelly old London? Do you want Mum and Dad to live together again or not?’
Ben’s face crumpled. ‘Of course, I do, but—’
‘Then spill it, Ben! Just spill it and stop asking questions!’
‘But—’
‘Ben, you spill things all the time.’ Her tone was exasperated. ‘You spilt your milk at breakfast. You dropped your pasta at supper.
Spill the blackcurrant before I strangle you!’