Healed By The Single Dad Doc

CHAPTER TWO

ETHAN WOKE EARLY. There was something wrong about today and right from the start he felt off-balance.

His first thought wasn’t for Jeff, sleeping peacefully in the dog basket in the conservatory. Nor was it for his son, Sam, who he could hear playing upstairs, driving his toy cars up and down the wall. It was for Kate.

She’d told him she was all right so many times, but he was pretty sure she wasn’t. Perhaps she’d feel better this morning, but Ethan doubted it.

He picked up his phone and put it down again. If Kate had managed to get some sleep last night, she wouldn’t welcome him waking her just to ask how she was. And Ethan doubted that he’d get any kind of meaningful answer. She’d just repeat the mantra she’d been using last night.

I’m okay.

For about fifteen minutes she had seemed okay. Ethan had let her examine Jeff and she’d suddenly snapped out of her shocked misery and into an easy, professional manner. For one moment, he’d envied Jeff her smile and then decided that whatever worked, worked.

Ethan could understand wanting to get on with life. When his wife had died eighteen months ago, his work had given him some relief. It was something that occupied his mind fully, temporarily driving away the pain and guilt.

Kate’s not your responsibility.

That ought to be his mantra. Jenna’s death had brought Ethan’s own responsibilities into sharp focus. He’d let his wife down, too busy and too tired to notice that she was more than just a little under the weather, as she’d claimed. And now he had to concentrate all his energies on giving Sam the love he needed. If Kate’s smile tempted him to forget that, then he had to turn away from it.

‘Dad?’

Ethan turned to see Sam in the kitchen doorway. ‘Hey, Sammy. Got my hug for me?’

Sam ran into his arms and Ethan hugged him tight. He’d promised his son this, during the dark days after Jenna had died. A hug every morning and one at night. Last night, he’d driven home as fast as he could, afraid that he wouldn’t make it, but Sam had stayed awake, falling asleep in Ethan’s arms almost as soon as he’d made good on his promise.

‘Grandma said a lady was hurt by bad men. And you saved her.’

Ethan resisted the impulse to tell Sam that Grandma was exaggerating again. Didn’t every kid need to know that his Dad was capable of chasing away the shadows?

‘It was just one bad man. I shouted and he ran away.’

‘But you saved her?’ Sam gave him a deflated look.

‘Yes, I saved her. What would you like for breakfast?’ At the weekend, breakfast was their time, and Sam got to choose whatever he wanted.

‘Bangers and mash!’

Ethan raised his eyebrows, and Sam cackled with laughter. It seemed his son was turning into a practical joker, and the ache of having no one to share this with tugged at his heart.

‘Waffles!’

‘Okay, waffles it is.’ Ethan set Sam down on his feet before he could change his mind again. His phone rang and he glanced at it. An unrecognised number ruled out Kate, the hospital and his parents, and anyone else could leave a message.

* * *

Two hours later, Ethan presented himself at the police station. He was half an hour early for the appointment he’d made with the police officer who’d called him and he intended to use that time wisely. The officer at the desk didn’t recognise him, and he supposed that his absence had seen some changes here.

‘I’m Dr Conway. Inspector Graham is expecting me.’

‘You’re the duty doctor?’ The officer at the desk shot him a look that wasn’t wholly welcoming.

‘No, worse luck.’

Ethan heard Mags Graham’s voice coming from behind the partition that divided the waiting area from the officers working behind the desk. Then the entrance door opened and Mags beckoned him through, closing the door behind him and shaking his hand warmly.

‘Waiting for the duty doctor, are you?’ Ethan looked around him. There were a few familiar faces who nodded a greeting in his direction.

Mags rolled her eyes. ‘This guy’s not as quick as you used to be.’

‘Brave man. I was always far too afraid of you to keep you waiting.’

‘Like hell you were.’ Mags chuckled, leading him upstairs to her office and gesturing towards a group of chairs which were arranged around a small table to one side of her desk.

‘So, what can I do for you, Ethan?’

‘I witnessed an attempted mugging last night.’

Mags nodded. ‘Yes, I pulled the file. Kate Foster. You dashed to the rescue.’

Ethan ignored the part about rescuing. He’d feel happier if everyone would stop saying that. ‘I’m a little concerned.’ Ethan frowned. He’d spent most of the morning telling himself that he shouldn’t be concerned about Kate.

‘On the record? Or off?’ Mags was giving him that look—the one that told Ethan she knew full well that there was something he wasn’t planning to say.

‘Off the record. I think that this isn’t the first time that Kate’s been attacked. She wouldn’t talk about it last night and she seemed very intent on telling everyone that she was all right. I’m not so sure she is, though.’

That should do it. Keep a professional distance, report what you know and leave it at that.

‘Right.’ Mags frowned. ‘I see from the notes that you insisted she be driven home last night.’

‘I thought that was sensible.’

‘Yes, it was. We would do that normally anyway, and I imagine you haven’t forgotten that. Is there anything we don’t know about the scope of the attack last night? Something you’re keeping quiet about?’

‘No, I’m just concerned for her.’ There it was again. Concern. Ethan knew that Mags was justifiably proud of the station’s record for supporting victims of crime. Kate had needed him last night, but this morning he should back off.

Mags leaned back in her chair, her brow furrowed in thought. ‘I’m going to say this as a friend...’

‘Sure.’ The signs were clear. He was in for a dose of Mags’s straight talking.

‘It’s not unusual for witnesses of a crime to feel very protective towards people they’ve seen attacked. It’s a perfectly natural reaction.’

‘I’m aware of that.’ Ethan’s words sounded sharper than he’d meant them to. Mags was only trying to help, and the truth was that he did feel protective towards Kate. Perhaps Mags was right, and it was all down to the sudden rush of emotion he’d felt when he’d heard her scream.

Mags leaned forward in her chair. ‘Look, Ethan. If someone I cared about was in the hospital, I’d be the first one sitting in your office, looking for a bit of...clarity. And you’d be telling me what I’m about to tell you.’

‘To butt out and let you do your job?’

Mags laughed. ‘I was thinking of putting it much more nicely than that. We’re expecting Ms Foster any minute now, and she’ll be seeing Laura, who’s one of our best officers. My suggestion is that you wait and see her afterwards.’

Mags’s perceptive gaze scanned his face for a moment, seeking out any clue that there was more to this than he’d told her already. Ethan was beginning to feel a little foolish.

‘Thanks, I appreciate it. And I’m sorry if I’m overreacting.’ He was overreacting. He’d seen senseless loss before and felt the tragedy of it. And somehow, when he’d least expected it, Kate’s predicament had pushed all the wrong buttons.

‘Nonsense. If everyone cared as much as you do, I’d be out of a job.’ Mags smiled, seeming to consider the matter closed. ‘Now, let’s see the latest photo of Sam. I know there’s one on your phone.’

And there were photos of Mags’s two daughters in her desk drawer which Ethan wanted to see too. He should stop worrying about Kate and come to terms with the fact that what he felt was just a result of the circumstances they’d found themselves in last night.

* * *

The VIPER system meant that witnesses were protected from any contact with the person they were being asked to identify, using computer images instead of a traditional identification parade. Ethan had listened carefully to the instructions, as if this were the first time he was hearing them, and was sure of his choice. The young police officer who had been through the process with him left him in the interview room to wait, bringing him a cup of tea and the morning paper.

He drank the tea and pretended to read the paper. After ten minutes, the door of the interview room opened and Kate appeared, Mags standing behind her in the doorway.

She just hadn’t been able to resist it. Mags had asked a couple of oblique questions about his love life over the photos of Sam, and Ethan had ignored the suggestion that it might be time to consider dating. Then she’d seen Kate, put two and two together and come up with five.

It was a perfectly reasonable mistake to make. If things had been different Ethan might well have asked Kate out for a coffee and seen where that led. But, if time had softened his grief over losing Jenna, it hadn’t softened the feeling that he’d let her down. Or the resolve that his first and only priority had to be Sam now.

‘They said you were waiting.’ Kate’s smile seemed brittle. And, even though the day was warm, she was wearing a thick sweater and jacket, as if to ward off some nameless chill. Ethan’s heart bumped in his chest. Maybe his worries hadn’t been so illogical after all.

‘Yes. I wondered if you’d like a coffee. From somewhere other than the police canteen.’

Kate shrugged. ‘Don’t you have something to do?’

Mags’s thoughtful gaze was fixed on Kate. ‘I’m afraid maybe he does. I won’t keep him too long.’

Ethan swallowed down the impulse to tell Mags that he could think of nothing more important right now than taking Kate by the arm and marching her outside into the fresh air.

‘What, Mags?’

‘I’m sorry about this, but the duty doctor hasn’t come yet, and I have a man in the cells who was looking a little under the weather when he came in and is getting worse by the minute. He’s just shown the custody sergeant a bite on his leg.’

‘Bite?’ Kate turned to her suddenly.

‘Yes. It’s not a human bite. We don’t know what it is; it looks a few days old. Ethan, I wouldn’t ask, but...’

He didn’t have any choice. Ethan opened his mouth to ask whether Kate might wait somewhere for him but she spoke first.

‘I’m a vet. I’ve seen practically every kind of bite there is. Had quite a few of them.’

‘I’m sure that Ethan can deal with it.’ Mags hadn’t seemed to notice that some of the colour had suddenly returned to Kate’s cheeks and she stood a little straighter.

‘I’d appreciate Kate’s opinion.’ He was rewarded by a smile that didn’t seem quite as strained as the last one.

‘Fair enough.’ Mags shot Ethan a questioning look but didn’t argue. ‘I’ll get the medical kit brought down.’

* * *

This morning had been horrible. Before the taxi had arrived to take her to the police station, Kate had walked around her cottage checking everything. Locks. Dripping taps. She’d pulled all the plugs out of their sockets and then walked around the cottage a second time. She hated herself for doing it, but she couldn’t help it.

The identification hadn’t been much better. All she’d really wanted to do was to put this behind her, but the gentle voice of the woman police officer who’d showed her a set of short videos on a computer screen had screamed victim. She’d assured Kate that she wouldn’t come face to face with her assailant, and Kate had wanted to scream back that she wasn’t afraid.

She wasn’t afraid, at least not of the man last night. She was afraid of herself. That she’d allow the bad dreams, the routines repeated over and over again, to take over her life the way they had last time. She’d been able to hide that from everyone but herself, but being unable to step out of her own flat had almost ruined her career and shown her that Mark’s promises about sticking with her had been just empty words.

But, somehow, seeing Ethan had calmed her. Maybe because his final words to her last night were that he had to go in order to see his son before he went to sleep. A son meant a partner. And a partner meant that Ethan was unavailable. She could count him as a friend without any fear that she’d be tempted to step over the line.

‘You’ve done this before?’ Ethan seemed to know his way around the police station, walking ahead of the two police officers who were accompanying them.

‘Yes, I used to be on the police surgeon’s call roster. I gave it up a couple of years ago, to spend more time with my son.’

‘And you worked here?’

‘Mostly.’ He looked behind him, smiling at the woman police officer who’d popped her head around the door after Kate had finished her identification. ‘Inspector Graham was so impressed by my abilities that she had me assigned here most of the time.’

‘In your dreams. As a police officer, I have a duty to protect the public, and keeping you from bothering anyone else seemed like the way to go.’

Ethan chuckled. The easy respect between the two was clear. He must be good at his job, and perhaps Kate would get the opportunity to watch and learn a little.

* * *

The man was lying on the platform bed in his cell, a couple of blankets covering him, the custody sergeant standing at his side. Ethan glanced at the name on the custody record and leaned over him.

‘Gary, I’m Dr Conway. I hear you’re not feeling well.’

Gary opened his eyes, shading them from the light with his hand. ‘My head’s splitting.’

Probably a hangover—he stank of alcohol—but it was as well to make sure.

‘You were drinking last night?’

‘Yeah. It’s what got me in here.’

He glanced up at Mags and she nodded. It probably wasn’t entirely the drink that had got Gary locked up for the night, but whatever else he’d done wasn’t Ethan’s business. He preferred to be the cog in the system that didn’t have to make judgements about others.

‘All right. Have you hit your head at all, or fallen?’

‘Dunno. Don’t remember. My leg hurts.’

‘I’ll take a look then. Is that okay?’

‘Knock yourself out, mate.’ Gary closed his eyes again, and warning bells began to ring at the back of Ethan’s head. He would have preferred it if Gary had been screaming for attention, because this lacklustre disinterest in what was happening around him didn’t bode well.

A glance over his shoulder told him that the custody sergeant was ready to step in if Gary started to kick. Kate was out of range, standing quietly in the corner of the cell. Taking the blankets from Gary’s legs, Ethan carefully rolled up the leg of his sweat pants.

Underneath was a haphazardly applied dressing of plaster and a bandage. Ethan cut off the dressings and saw the deep gash on the man’s leg.

‘This is a bite?’

He felt, rather than saw, Kate move closer, looking at the wound carefully. ‘I think that’s from a lizard. Lizard bites sometimes bleed very freely.’

‘This is deep.’ Ethan gently felt the skin around the wound. It was swollen and hot to the touch.

Kate turned her attention to Gary, poking his shoulder. He opened his eyes and kept them open, clearly liking Kate’s smile a little better than he did Ethan’s. Who could blame him?

‘Was it a lizard that bit you?’

‘Great, big ugly thing with sharp teeth.’

‘About this long?’ She held out her hands to indicate something of about three and a half feet in length. ‘Brownish colour with a light belly? Scales?’

‘Yeah, scales. Quick on its feet as well. My mate bought it from somewhere.’ The man closed his eyes again.

‘It could be a monitor lizard. Their bites often don’t hurt much at first, but give it twenty-four hours and they can become infected very quickly. If he’s been drinking he probably didn’t register the pain.’ She turned to Ethan. It was a relief, but no particular surprise, to see that she was calm and collected. Almost welcoming the opportunity to do something which didn’t revolve around last night.

‘It’s certainly infected.’ Ethan took a surgical marker pen from the first-aid kit, drawing around the edge of the hard red lump that surrounded the bite, and noting the time so that any increase in the swelling could be monitored.

‘You think we should call an ambulance?’ Mags anticipated his next request.

‘Yeah, this definitely needs to be looked at. I’ll clean it and dress it to stop the bleeding.’ He looked up as a young man appeared in the doorway, holding a medical bag.

‘Sorry I’m late. If I could take a look at the patient now—’

‘This is Dr Conway,’ Mags broke in. ‘He’s worked with us before.’

‘Oh.’ The young doctor looked flustered and more than a little put out. Ethan stood, holding out his hand.

‘If I can fill you in on the details, maybe you can take things from here.’

* * *

‘His face... If looks could kill.’ Kate smiled up at him as they walked out of the police station.

Ethan shrugged. ‘If he’d got to the patient first, I don’t imagine he could have done any better. I personally thought my diagnosis of a lizard bite was quite inspired. And I made it so quickly!’

The look of smiling outrage that Kate shot at him was exactly what he’d been aiming for. ‘Your diagnosis?’

‘Yeah. It was me that said lizard first, wasn’t it?’

‘I don’t think so. What kind of lizard was it you had in mind again?’

Ethan chuckled. ‘Oh, you know. One of the ones with teeth.’

‘They’re the ones you really don’t want to bite you.’

‘My thoughts exactly. And whoever did say lizard did a very fine job.’

He hadn’t planned on this. Before he’d seen Kate this morning Ethan had managed to convince himself that Mags was right and that the urge to see Kate, which had escalated into need, was just a result of his having witnessed the attack on her last night. But now laughter was buzzing between them and all he wanted to do was put his arm around her. To try and make her forget the things that had made her so hollow-eyed when he’d first set eyes on her this morning. It was confusing.

She looked up and down the high street as if she wasn’t quite sure which way to go. Then she smiled up at him. ‘I’m just looking for the bus stop. The police still have my car. Apparently there are some fingerprints and fibres on it.’

‘Can I give you a lift home?’ Somehow, making the decision to stay rather than go made him feel better. Sam was occupied and with his grandparents. Why shouldn’t he spend some time with Kate?

‘Thanks, but I’m not going home.’

‘Where are you going, then?’

Kate hesitated, as if that wasn’t something she really wanted him to know. Ethan raised his eyebrows in a signal that he wasn’t going to accept silence for an answer.

‘Actually, I’m going to the hospital. My arm really hurts, and I thought I’d go to the minor injuries clinic.’

Ethan rejected the urge to ask her why on earth she hadn’t mentioned this last night. ‘I’ll give you a lift there, then. We can pick up a coffee on the way, if you like.’

‘They gave me some tea.’

‘Me too. I need something to wash the taste away.’ He grinned at her. ‘And coffee from the vending machine at the hospital isn’t going to do it.’

She laughed suddenly. ‘Yes, okay then. Thanks, coffee and a lift would be great.’

* * *

‘I can walk from here. It’s only down the road.’ Ethan had gone to fetch the coffee, and that had given Kate some time to think. It felt safe in his car, but that was only a temporary relief, and she had to get used to functioning on her own.

‘It’s Saturday, and there are bound to be queues at the minor injuries clinic. If they’re too long I can take a look at your arm myself.’ He settled back into the driver’s seat.

No. Feeling safe with Ethan was one thing. Relying on him was something very different. And she had the perfect excuse.

‘I’m sure your partner won’t thank me for keeping you away for so long. Didn’t you say that you gave up working at weekends to spend more time with your family?’

‘With my son. My wife died eighteen months ago and it’s just me and Sam now—’ He broke off as Kate’s hand flew to her mouth.

‘Oh. I’m so sorry.’

He nodded, seeming almost as lost for words as she was. ‘It’s... I didn’t intend to be so blunt. I just can’t think of a more tactful way of saying it.’

Kate swallowed hard, suddenly wanting to take a large swig of the coffee he still held in his hand. A sugar rush would be good right now.

‘It’s up to you to say it however you want. What you and your son are comfortable with is what matters.’