Hot Docs On Call: One Night To Forever?
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Victoria had helped Lorna from the stretcher and the anxious couple were gently led away, but at the last moment Jamie turned and came back.
‘Dominic, he looks fine now, but—’
‘I get that he’s unwell,’ Dominic said. ‘Jamie...’ His voice was firm. ‘You need to hold it together right now. You need to keep your head.’
‘I know but—’
‘Come on,’ Karen said, and he was again led away.
Victoria guessed that it wasn’t the first time Dominic had had to tell his brother that.
The baby was listless again—even crying seemed to exhaust him—and while he lay quietly, Dominic had a very long listen to his heart.
And still she stood there.
Glen made up the stretcher and replaced the used equipment, and still she watched as Dominic took blood. Victoria stood outside as a portable chest X-ray was taken.
But then, instead of heading for the ambulance, she went back in.
‘Can we get the on-call cardiologist down here,’ Dominic instructed.
‘Victoria,’ Glen called out to her. ‘We’ve got another job to go to.’
She knew that they had to leave.
They were extremely busy, but Victoria found herself wanting to linger and to know more.
She admired how calm Dominic was. Oh, she knew it was his job to be, but no one could even guess what he was going through right now.
There was a sense of agency to him that Victoria liked.
And then he looked up and caught her eyes and she gave a thin smile, one of support, one that said she knew how hard this was.
And he gave back a grim smile of thanks.
‘We’d better go,’ Glen said.
Only she didn’t want to go.
For the first time she wanted to linger—unfortunately, there was no choice but to leave.
It was a long day.
An incredibly long one, and there wasn’t a patient aged under sixty in sight, which meant that they didn’t get back to Paddington’s once.
Oh, how badly Victoria wanted to go to the hospital to find out how William was, but instead they were in and out of Riverside and nursing homes. And in a quick coffee break, where Glen rang Hayley, Victoria thought not just about little William and how he was, and not just about Dominic and how he was coping.
But about Lorna.
Victoria had had neither the time nor the inclination to think about it when they had been dealing with the baby, but now, pausing for the first time since it had happened, she reflected on the woman that Dominic had once loved.
Perhaps he still did.
In her head Victoria had painted Lorna as some sort of vixen; in fact, she was softly spoken and pretty.
Dominic and Jamie were very similar in appearance.
Jamie, though, was expressive, not just with his emotions but with the information he shared. Oh, she knew the circumstances had been dire today and that people’s reactions were often extreme when under pressure, but she just could not imagine Dominic opening up in front of someone else the way that Jamie had.
By Dominic’s own admission, even when he had found out the baby wasn’t his, he had stayed quiet as a doctor was present.
They were similar, yet different.
And it was the more stoic MacBride brother that Victoria very possibly loved.
It was a scary thought and one she did not want to pursue, but at the end of a very long shift she could take it no more.
‘Could we stop by the Castle on the way back to the station?’
‘Sure,’ Glen said. He could see her tense face and was wise enough not to probe.
* * *
It had been a long day for Dominic too.
A new cardiologist had started at Paddington’s and Dominic had felt a wash of relief to hand little William over, especially as Dr Thomas Wolfe seemed very thorough, if rather stern.
‘He’s my nephew.’ Dominic had given his findings and then started to explain the relationship he had with the patient but had immediately been interrupted.
‘Then you need to step back,’ Thomas had said. ‘I’ll be in to speak with the family shortly.’
Dominic relayed that information to Jamie and Lorna and though they had communicated throughout the day it had all been about the baby.
Lorna contacted her parents, who were holidaying in Greece, and Dominic was the one who rang his and Jamie’s.
They had been very upset by the news and the call had been brief. They had soon rallied though and had called back to say that they were flying down to London and could Dominic meet them at the airport.
The underground would be far easier but their plane came in near the end of his workday and so Dominic agreed. Though he warned that he might be half an hour or so late, depending on traffic.
Then he rang his cleaner and asked her to stop by and give his apartment a quick once-over.
On top of that there were patients, of course, and near the end of a long and difficult day he looked up and there was Victoria walking towards him.
‘Do you need me to come out?’ he checked, assuming that she wanted him to come and assess a patient in the ambulance, as happened at times.
‘No, no,’ Victoria said. ‘I just stopped by to see how William was doing.’
And he knew from experience that she chose not to get involved with patients, so it touched him that, for his nephew, she had made an exception.
‘He’s in the catheter lab at the moment. He’s had a day of tests and they think he’s going to need surgery.’
‘Cardiac?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘How are his parents?’
‘Exhausted. They’re going to be staying with him overnight, of course.’
And tomorrow? she wanted to ask.
Would he be opening his home to them?
But it was not her place to ask such personal questions; Victoria had made very sure of that, so she was vague in her questioning.
‘Do your parents know?’
‘Of course. They’ll be landing in an hour or so,’ Dominic said. ‘I’ll be heading to the airport soon to pick them up.’
‘I thought you weren’t speaking.’
‘We’ve always spoken,’ Dominic said. ‘We just didn’t know what to talk about for a while.’
And she just looked at him as if he was speaking in a foreign language, and then she gave her smile.
‘I’ve got to go,’ Victoria said. ‘Glen’s waiting.’
‘Okay.’
‘I hope things go well.’
He watched her walk off, somehow elegant in boots and green overalls, and he did not want it left there. ‘Victoria...’ he called out, but she carried on walking.
She was, Dominic decided, a complicated lady.
And he wanted to understand her.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
DOMINIC RAN DEEP.
His thoughts he did not readily share and his emotions he kept under wraps.
And it took all that he had within him to keep it like that today.
He was on the phone when Jamie knocked on his office door.
‘How is William doing?’ Dominic asked.
‘A lot better than he was this morning,’ Jamie said. ‘He’s got a hole in his heart and he’s going to be reviewed tomorrow by a cardiac surgeon to see if they’ll repair it or wait.’
‘Well, he’s certainly in the right place,’ Dominic said.
It was a phrase used often here but it was a heartfelt one and Dominic better understood it now. There was something very special about this place and he could see why Victoria and the others were fighting so hard to save it.
Little William really would get the very best care.
‘Lorna can see that now. She didn’t want to come down to London given...’ Jamie gave a tense shrug. ‘I insisted though. I wanted you to take a look at him rather than wait.’
‘You did the right thing.’ Dominic nodded.
‘Look, about—’ Jamie said, but Dominic interrupted him.
‘Let’s just leave it for now.’
‘I don’t want to leave it though!’ Jamie said, his voice becoming distressed as he started to get upset. ‘I’m beside myself, Dominic.’
‘Listen,’ Dominic said. ‘For now, you’re to focus on Lorna and William. That’s it.’
‘I need to know that you’ve got my back.’
‘I’ve always had your back,’ Dominic answered. ‘You know that I do or you wouldn’t have come down to London to have me take a look at William.’
Jamie nodded but he was impatient and wanted resolution. But Dominic would not discuss it today. ‘All of that can wait,’ Dominic said. ‘You need to take care of your wife and son and let nothing else get in the way of that.’
‘I know.’
He wanted to tell Jamie that it was time to grow up, but that took things too close to personal and it was everything Dominic knew they had to avoid for now.
‘What time do they get in?’ Jamie asked.
‘Soon,’ Dominic said. ‘In fact, I need to get to the airport.’
* * *
He brought his parents back to the hospital where they fretted for a while, and then somehow the MacBrides did what families do in an emergency—they put differences aside and dealt as best they could with the new hand they had rapidly been dealt.
Most families.
He understood that look now from Victoria.
That brief look where she clearly hadn’t understood what he was saying, but he wanted her to understand.
More than that, he wanted to see her.
It was late, he was tired and, yes, he had been told by her to stay back, but instead he found himself at her door.
Victoria opened it and she was wearing the same short white robe that she had been wearing the last time he was here.
She rolled her eyes when she saw him. ‘It didn’t go well, then?’
‘What?’ Dominic frowned.
‘The family reunion.’
‘It went very well, Victoria. I’m just here to see you.’
‘Why?’ she asked, and then she laughed. ‘Stupid question.’
Sex was the last thing on his mind. Well, not quite, but with those three words he knew her a little bit more.
She didn’t get relationships.
Not in the least.
‘I’m actually here because I’ve had a crap day and I wanted to see you at the end of it. Are you going to let me in?’
Her flat was dark; clearly she had been about to go to bed but she let him in and turned on a side light.
He took a seat on the sofa and she sat on a chair as if they were in a waiting room.
‘How are your parents?’ she asked.
‘Worried, but they feel better now that they’ve seen him. They’re back at mine.’
‘How’s the baby?’
‘He’s on the cardiac unit and he’s settled for the night. Lorna’s staying with him.’
‘Is Jamie back at the hotel?’
‘No, he’s staying at mine too.’ He saw her eyes widen a fraction and chose to explain how it had come about. ‘Jamie didn’t know the way to the underground, nor about Oyster cards and things, so I offered to drop him off at the hotel. In the end I said to just check out and to come and stay at mine.’
‘Are you two talking, then?’
‘A bit,’ he said, and then admitted more. ‘Not really.’
‘Then how come he’s staying at yours?’
‘Because he’s my brother and his baby is sick, and right now the baby is the priority. The rest will have to wait.’
His voice was brusque, though he hadn’t meant it to be. ‘Sorry.’
‘No, no...’ Victoria said.
It really had been a difficult day.
‘Thomas seems to think he might need surgery.’
‘Thomas?’ Victoria checked.
‘Thomas Wolfe. He’s a new cardiologist.’
‘He’s not new,’ Victoria said, and shook her head.
‘Yes, he is. He only just started at Paddington’s the other day.’
‘No, he used to work there years ago when I first started. He’s a lovely guy.’
Dominic didn’t comment; lovely wasn’t how he’d describe any guy, but certainly it was not a word he’d expect to hear to describe Thomas, who he had found rather stand-offish.
Still, he didn’t dwell on it.
He took in a breath and closed his eyes. It was the first time he had properly paused since he had looked up and seen Victoria walking towards him with Jamie by her side and Lorna and William on the stretcher.
‘Jamie was going to call and ask me to take a look at him this afternoon...’
‘I know that.’
And it was then she knew for certain that she loved him.
She didn’t even have to ask what his response to that phone call would have been.
And yes, while she wanted happy reunions and for him to say that his family was fine, she was starting to understand that Dominic did not say what you wanted him to. He spoke the truth.
Having seen Lorna and Jamie for herself, she was starting to comprehend the magnitude of the betrayal.
It was a miracle, really, that Dominic had followed her into the underground that night when she had first told him she was pregnant, and that he kept coming back when so many men would have turned away.
She wanted to ask him about Lorna, how it had felt to see her today after all this time, but she knew that wasn’t needed now.
‘Jamie tried to talk about it,’ Dominic admitted. ‘But I told him that for now he has to focus on the baby. I am trying to work on things with my family, Victoria,’ he said. ‘But I need to do it at my own pace, not theirs.’
‘I know that,’ she said. ‘But how can you sort it out living so far apart?’
‘Because I couldn’t work on it from there. Victoria, families fall out. You yourself said you’ve had words with your father...’
‘Your family wants you to be in their lives though.’
‘Doesn’t he?’
‘He wants me there to attend functions when he’s between wives.’
‘What was the row about between you?’
‘I told you,’ she said, but she knew she hadn’t properly. ‘I said I could see why my mother left him.’
‘And what did he say to that?’
She shrugged.
Victoria simply wasn’t ready to go there.
‘Do you want a drink?’ she offered.
‘I do, but I have to drive.’
‘I meant tea.’
‘No thanks, then.’
She stood up to get him a Scotch or whatever she had to hand. ‘Have a drink. I can drive you home.’
‘No thanks,’ he said. ‘I need the car in case something happens overnight.’
She stood still. There were other solutions and both of them mentally explored them. Dominic wanted her to come back to his—he needed her tonight—but his family were all there and so he could not suggest that.
And though he wanted to stay here a while, both knew where that could lead.
Would lead.
He could see her nipples protruding through the dressing gown—life would be far less complicated if they did not so completely turn each other on.
But no, he could not stay here for the night.
‘I really do need to get back home. I just wanted to stop by and tell you what was happening.’
It was nice that he had stopped by, Victoria thought, for she had been fretting about it all evening. It didn’t really make sense to Victoria—after all, she had been to the hospital to see how the baby was, but she had just felt a bit sick about little William since the moment she had realised that the baby they had been called out to was Dominic’s nephew.
‘Will your parents worry if I keep you out late?’ Victoria teased, and he rolled his eyes.
‘My mother asked where I was going at this time of the night. They’re driving me crazy already.’
And she smiled because it was said without malice. He put out his hand and when she took it he pulled her onto his lap.
‘How are they driving you crazy?’
‘Because in the twenty years that I haven’t lived at home, nothing has changed. They hadn’t had dinner and I suggested that we get a takeaway, as you do. But no, she wanted us all to sit down and have a proper dinner, as she calls it.’
Victoria found that her smile widened.
Oh, she loved glimpses of family life.
‘Well,’ Dominic continued, ‘I don’t really have the ingredients for a proper dinner in my kitchen, so I said I’d go shopping and of course that meant she had to come with me...’
And he was smiling now as he told her about the little shopping trip. ‘Do you know how many different types of potatoes there are? Well, I do now. And for all the potatoes in the supermarket they didn’t have the ones she preferred.’
‘Of course they didn’t.’
He let out a soft laugh and then looked to the woman on his lap and Victoria looked back at him.
She felt his hand around her waist and the warmth of his palm through the fabric. ‘I’m sorry it’s been such a bad day,’ Victoria said.
‘It’s not now.’
The world and its problems were outside and waiting and he would give them all the attention that was needed. But right here, right now, the night felt kinder than the day.
‘I do have to go...’ he told her.
‘I know that you do,’ Victoria said, but she did not move from his lap and he made no move to stand.
He looked at her hair which tumbled down over her shoulders and he knew that she wore nothing beneath the robe. He looked at her mouth and then back to her eyes.
A train rattled past which told her the time. She actually liked the sound—it was like having an erratic cuckoo clock in her home but, Victoria knew, this train was the last of the night and she would not hear that sound again until just after five.
And what would her life be like then?
More complicated, Victoria was sure, because it was she who moved in for his mouth.
She tasted resistance—oh, yes, she did—for Dominic had not come here for that and did not want to muddy the waters...while, of course, also desperately wanting to.
For muddied waters became crystal clear as he tasted her kiss and it was all terribly simple after that. It had been a day of holding back and he could sustain it no more, for today had been hellish and now the night was not just kind, it was inviting.
Escape beckoned and he drew her in closer, hitching her up on his lap while his hands went into her hair. But Victoria pulled them down, for this was her kiss to him. And so she turned in his lap and straddled him so his hands were free to roam her.
And then he kissed her lazily as she rose on her knees to him, a kiss that simply let her lead and gladly she did. Victoria explored his mouth at her leisure as he ran his hands over her bottom and then released the tie on her robe so that it fell open.
Now his mouth was more urgent as they explored with their tongues and she knew she had never enjoyed kissing more than she did with him.
It was hungry and teasing and they shared moans of pleasure, and as his hands toyed with her breasts she was raw with need for him.
The kiss went deeper and he pulled her higher on his thighs so that she could feel him hard at her centre. She was holding his face in her hands as she kissed him and he ground her down on him.
Then she lifted higher so that he could taste her breast with warm licks, and when he pulled his mouth away, the sudden loss made her crave more.
Victoria had never wanted anyone as badly as she wanted him.
She had missed his touch and now, when there was so much to sort out, they sought the one thing that was already clear—a mutual and very deep want.
‘Please...’ she said while making room for his hands to free himself. Victoria could feel his breath on her breast as she held on to his shoulders. But when she could simply have lowered herself onto him, instead he ran his hand up her inner thigh and then played with her for a moment, sliding his fingers inside till she was quivering. But she did not have to ask twice for him to take her.
He eased himself inside her as she lowered herself down, and he swore with the bliss of her tight grip and told himself to hold on.
Victoria now wanted his skin pressed to hers. It seemed cruel that he was dressed, but she was so hot in his arms that all she could manage was a couple of buttons on his shirt before she gave up trying to open it.
He thrust upwards while pulling her down and the feel of him so deep inside her almost shot her into orbit.
It was raw and fast and there were hungry kisses in between, and then he turned his head to halt their kiss and slid his hips forward in the chair, taking her with him and allowing him to watch their union.
Victoria still held his shoulders and she, too, looked down. He lifted her hips and held her at his tip, then thrust just a little and the pleasure drove them both wild. She could not sustain it as she was starting to come so he pulled her hard down. She tightened and pulsed around him as Dominic came to her body’s command. Relishing the heat of release, she rested on his shoulder, gathering her breath, while he moved her pliant body to extract every drop of pleasure.
Victoria closed her eyes at the bliss, while knowing she did not need to wait for morning to find out how she was feeling.
She wanted him to stay.
Victoria wanted to hole them up in her bedroom and never leave because it felt as if there were too many obstacles out there.
This love felt as though it might burst from her chest if she let it; it was just too vast to handle.
There were too many feelings that must be kept in check.
For how would he react to her barrage of questions?
Her feelings were in complete disarray.
‘You need to go,’ Victoria said.
She went to climb off but he did not let her. ‘So you can say I got what I came for?’
He felt her short, reluctant laugh as he held her in his arms.
He was starting to know her a little too well and so she lifted her head up and looked at him.
‘You do have to go.’
‘I can call and tell them that if there’s a problem...’ And then he hesitated because family came first, especially at times such as this, yet she had edged her way up that list. ‘Come back with me.’
It was possibly the most stupid thing to say, but he was still inside her and that allowed a person to say the occasional reckless thing.
‘Isn’t it a bit early to be meeting the family?’ Victoria said, and got off him.
‘Exceptional circumstances,’ Dominic retorted as he sorted out his clothes. He was annoyed at himself for pushing things, and annoyed at the contrariness of her. ‘Victoria, like it or not, we’re going to be parents, and trying to sort things out from a distance isn’t working out too well, is it?’
‘I’m on nights tomorrow,’ Victoria said. ‘I just want to go to bed and have a long lie-in.’
‘So when will I see you?’
‘At work, I guess.’
‘I meant away from work. I’m not going to have our relationship dictated by how often your ambulance is dispatched to the Castle, and you kicking me out isn’t exactly helping us—’
‘I’m hardly kicking you out,’ Victoria interrupted. ‘You have a family that you need to get back to and I need to get some sleep.’
She needed him gone because she was on the edge of telling him she was crazy about him.
On the edge of asking about Lorna and how it had felt to see her again.
If he knew her—the real, insecure her—Victoria was positive that he would not want her any more.
She had never cared about anyone else in the way she cared for him, and it terrified her. She did not want to add a failed relationship between them to the mix.
‘You keep asking if there’s anything you can do for me,’ Victoria said. ‘Well, there is. Just stay back.’
‘You mean that?’ he checked.
‘I do.’
She even held the door open for him.
So much for wanting a long sleep, because Victoria was still awake when she heard the first train of the morning clack past.
Dominic, she decided, could be as involved in their baby’s life as he chose to be but she would not allow him to get closer to her.
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