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‘Will do.’
Megan tried to let go of Claire’s hand but the grip tightened. She leaned closer to hear the words that were being muffled by the oxygen mask.
‘But who’s going to … look after the children?’
Megan felt a cold chill run down her spine. No. She couldn’t offer to do that. It would be too hard. The scars were still too fresh. Best not to go near anything that might pick at them. Her life was taking a new direction now. Having it derailed would be a disaster.
The paramedic was busy with her other hand. ‘Sharp scratch coming, Mrs O’Hara.’ She slid a cannula into a vein. ‘There. All done.’
Claire lifted the hand that Megan was still holding, trying to pull the oxygen mask away from her face. ‘I can’t do this … the children …’
Her partner was leaning over Megan. ‘Chew up this aspirin for me,’ he instructed Claire. ‘I’ll give you a sip of water to wash it down.’
Megan was in the way. She tried to pull her hand free but Claire’s grip tightened.
‘Please …’ Claire’s face looked alarmingly grey. Getting stressed was making her condition rapidly worse. ‘Can’t you help?’
‘Yeah …’ The paramedic gave Claire a very direct glance. ‘Can you drive?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘You could follow behind the ambulance, then. I’m sure there’d be someone else to look after Doc O’Hara’s kids once you got there.’
Claire was nodding. ‘Please, Megan.’
‘Otherwise we’ll have to bring them in the ambulance. Or wait for back-up.’ The paramedic was sounding impatient now. ‘And we really need to get going.’ The look he gave Megan was a direct warning. Hold this process up any further and if anything goes wrong between here and the emergency department of St Piran’s, she would have contributed.
Megan was caught. She couldn’t walk away. There were two crew members in the ambulance and one of them had to drive. If the other had to care for two toddlers, there would be nobody left to care for Claire. And she could get worse. Go into a cardiac arrest, even.
Her nod was jerky. ‘I’ll do it,’ she said tightly. ‘Are the keys in the car?’
‘Yes … oh … thank you, lovie.’ Claire finally let go of her hand but her eyes filled and tears rolled down her cheeks.
Megan closed her eyes for a heartbeat. There was no help for this, so all she could was do her best to cope with it. At least she had a kind of advantage here. She knew there was a high likelihood that she would have to see Josh and she would have a few minutes to at least try and prepare herself emotionally for that.
No doubt Josh would prefer to avoid this encounter as much as she would. And he probably wouldn’t have the luxury of any warning.
Megan opened her eyes and smiled at Claire. ‘Try not to worry,’ she told her. ‘I’ll be right behind the ambulance. I won’t let anything happen to the children. You’ll see them again very soon, I promise.’
The back door of the ambulance slammed behind her after Megan had climbed out.
The vehicle was pulling out onto the road as Megan checked the fastenings on the car seats, fastened her own safety belt and started the car, surprised to see how shaky her hands were.
The beacons on the ambulance were flashing and the siren began to wail as the vehicle picked up speed. Megan wasn’t going to try and keep up with it. Not on a wet road when she was feeling shaky. Certainly not with two precious children in the car.
She didn’t need to follow that closely anyway.
The route to St Piran’s was written on her heart, like everything else about this place.
CHAPTER TWO
‘INCOMING, DR O’HARA.’ The nurse’s voice came from just behind Josh’s shoulder as he scrolled through the images on the computer screen.
He grunted an acknowledgement, still focused on the screen. Surely something had shown up on the MRI of his earlier patient to explain her acute neurological symptoms?
‘Status two.’ The nurse sounded oddly nervous but, then, she was new and had only just learned that flirting with him was likely to earn disfavour. ‘Sixty-year-old woman who looks like she’s having an infarct.’
‘Put her straight into Resus, then. Is Ben around?’
‘Yes … but …’
The back of Josh’s neck prickled as he turned his head. ‘But what?’
‘The patient is your mother, Dr O’Hara.’
The prickle ran down the entire length of his spine now, turning icy cold. Josh was on his feet and moving before he gave the action any conscious thought.
‘How far away?’
‘ETA five minutes. They’re coming from Penhally.’
They? Were the children in the ambulance as well? This couldn’t be happening. Not now, when his life was exactly the way it was supposed to be. The children, the house, his job—none of it would have been possible without his mother’s help.
An infarct? Claire O’Hara had never had a day’s illness in her life. She’d never smoked. She was as slim now as she’d been in her twenties. Her blood pressure was fine. She had energy to burn.
Or did she? Had she been pushed too far by him taking up the amazing offer of her helping him to raise the twins?
If this was yet another disaster in his life, could the blame be laid, yet again, at his feet?
Ben Carter, another emergency medicine consultant at St Piran’s, was already in the resuscitation area. The defibrillator was being tested. A twelve-lead ECG machine was standing by. He glanced up and saw Josh.
‘Don’t panic,’ he said quietly. ‘We don’t know exactly what we’re dealing with yet.’
‘Status two infarct,’ Josh snapped. ‘Unstable. What the hell happened? Have you had any details? Where was she? Did she … arrest somewhere?’
‘No. That much I do know. She’s status two because she’s throwing off a few ectopics. She’s on oxygen and she’s had aspirin, GTN and morphine. Her breathing’s improving.’
‘Improving? My God, how bad was it?’
‘Josh …’ Ben stepped closer to put a hand on his colleague’s arm. ‘I’ve got this, OK? It’ll be good for Claire if you’re here but you need to stay calm.’
‘What about the children? Were they with her?’
‘I don’t know.’ Ben was looking past Josh now. Towards the double doors sliding open to admit a stretcher and ambulance crew. A nurse was pointing them towards the resus room. He turned to a nurse. ‘Has the cardiology registrar been paged?’
‘Forget the registrar,’ Josh said. ‘Get Anna Davenport down here. This is my mother, for God’s sake.’
Claire looked terrified as she was wheeled into the resus room.
‘Josh …’ she gasped, reaching out a hand. ‘Thank heavens you’re here.’
‘Of course I’m here.’ Josh took hold of the hand. He knew he was getting in the way as the ambulance crew transferred Claire to the bed and gave Ben a handover but, for the first time in years, his mother needed him instead of the other way round. He kept his eyes on her face as the staff stripped away the clothing from her upper body and started adding extra dots so they could take a more comprehensive recording of the electrical activity in her heart. Ben was drawing off bloods for urgent analysis.
‘Let’s sit you up a little bit, Mrs O’Hara,’ a nurse said, slipping another pillow behind Claire. ‘And I’m just switching the oxygen over to this plug on the ceiling so we can get rid of the portable tank. No, don’t take your mask off.’
Claire ignored the nurse, pushing the mask clear of her mouth. ‘The twins, Josh … they’re …’
‘Please keep your mask on.’ The nurse gently moved Claire’s hand. ‘It’s important that you get some oxygen at the moment.’
‘I can hear you.’ Josh leaned closer. ‘What about the twins?’
‘They’re fine.’ The paramedic was loading the portable oxygen cylinder back onto the stretcher. ‘The doctor who called the ambulance for Mrs O’Hara said she’d be bringing them straight here. She can’t be far behind us.’
‘A doctor?’ Josh was confused. ‘Was she at the medical centre?’ Getting treatment, even, for some condition she’d never let him know she had?
‘No. She was at the beach. With the children and a big dog.’
‘Crash. Oh, no …’ The woman coming swiftly into the resus room sounded as though she was starting a conversation with an old friend. ‘What’s he been up to now, Claire?’ She was smiling down at her patient. ‘More importantly, what on earth have you been up to?’
The smile was reassuring but Josh could see the concern in the face of the head of the cardiology department. Concern that increased as a technician handed her the sheet of paper from the twelve-lead ECG machine. Ben was also reading the ECG over her shoulder.
‘What is it?’ Josh forgot his confusion about a doctor being on scene when Claire had become ill. He hadn’t missed the significant glance passing between Anna and Ben.
‘Left anterior,’ Anna said calmly. ‘ST elevation of up to three millimetres. Have we got anything back on the bloods yet? Cardiac enzymes? TNT?’
Josh had to take a deep breath as he heard Ben relay the earliest results. He didn’t want to let Claire know how serious this could be. An infarct that knocked out part of the left ventricle was more likely to have serious consequences. Every minute counted now so that they could save as much cardiac function as possible.
Anna had turned to Claire. ‘You’re having a heart attack, Claire,’ she said gently. ‘But there are things we can do to minimise the damage it might be doing to your heart. I’m going to take you up to the catheter laboratory and we can see exactly where the blockage is in your coronary arteries. We’ll clear it if we can and might put something called a stent in to keep the artery open.’
‘You’re going to … operate on me?’ Claire’s face was as white as the pillow behind her.
‘Not exactly. You’ll be awake. We put a tiny tube inside an artery and that goes into your heart. It’s very clever.’
‘And Anna’s very good at it,’ Ben put in. ‘You’ll be in the best hands, Claire.’
‘We’ll give you a sedative,’ Anna added. ‘You’ll be awake but it won’t hurt and we won’t let you get too anxious.’
‘No.’ Claire shook her head. She tried to peer past the medical team crowded around her bed. ‘I can’t go. Not yet. She said I’d see the children again. Very soon.’
‘Who said?’ Josh could feel the tension of this whole situation spiralling upwards. They couldn’t let Claire get any more upset because there was still a definite risk of her rhythm degenerating into a fatal arrhythmia. Who had his children? Where were they?
‘She does.’ Claire’s lips were trembling. ‘The doctor.’
‘What doctor?’
‘The one who … looked after them … when they were born.’
‘Megan Phillips? But that’s impossible. She’s in Africa.’
‘Not any more.’
Josh froze as he heard the voice coming from behind Ben and Anna on the other side of the bed. Everybody turned to see who was at the entrance to the room. Holding the handles of the double stroller that contained the twins.
‘Daddy.’ Both Max and Brenna’s faces lit up with smiles as they spotted their father. They held up four little arms.
But Josh didn’t even see the plea. His gaze was locked on the woman behind the stroller.
Oh, my God.
Megan.
For just a heartbeat, the world stood absolutely still.
Nothing else mattered.
That his mother was dangerously unwell. That he had two tiny, defenceless children calling for him. That he was the head of a department of St Piran’s Hospital that was gaining widespread recognition as a centre of excellence in emergency medicine.
None of those things could even exist in the space Josh was sucked into for just a second.
A space of such intensity, it pulled the oxygen from the air around him and made it feel impossible for him to breathe.
The space he’d been in on that New Year’s Eve party when he’d met Megan properly for the first time. When he’d sensed the power of truly falling in love. The power that had held his mother captive and broken her life.
He’d been there again in the trauma of that emergency when it had looked as though Megan might die. When he’d sensed the power of what a parent’s love for a child could be as well, and had vowed never to let that power control him either.
During the course of that one, incredible night when he’d shared her bed for only the second time—just before he’d found out he was going to become a father.
On the day he’d had to do the hardest thing in his life, and tell her it was all over.
In that moment when he’d had to beg her to do her best to save the lives of Rebecca’s and his children.
Daddy.
The echo of the word penetrated the space. Grounded Josh instantly. He was where he needed to be. Living his life the way it had to be lived.
The way he wanted to live it.
Nothing could be allowed to change that. Somehow, he had to resist the incredible pull that that space could exert. It felt like his life was depending on it. It was almost ironic to have his mother in the same room. The example he’d grown up with of the damage that that kind of love could inflict.
Stepping towards the newcomers, Josh was aware of the tension around him. The kind that came from a collective holding of breath, waiting to see what was going to happen.
Their story was hardly a secret, was it? Not that Anna or Ben knew that he’d slept with Megan while he’d still been married. While his wife had been in the early stages of pregnancy with the twins. But everybody knew their early history by now. And if anybody had missed the way they’d been drawn back to each other when he’d first come to St Piran’s, the hospital grapevine would have filled them in. Maybe everybody did know about that night in the on-call room.
Oh … Lord … Tash knew everything. How much did his mother know?
Josh pulled the barriers of his professional image around him like a force field.
‘Megan … What a stroke of luck you were there for my mother when she got sick. And thank you so much for taking care of my children.’
He stooped to release the safety straps around the twins. Not that he squatted down fast enough to miss the change of expression on Megan’s face. Had she been holding her breath like everyone else in here? Hurt by his deliberate focus on his own family? Himself?
He hadn’t even asked her how she was despite some alarm bell ringing faintly in the back of his head. As he stood up, with a twin under each arm, he couldn’t help taking another look at her. That warning bell hadn’t been a false alarm. She looked … terrible.
So thin. So pale. Something was wrong. Her emerald-green eyes looked dull enough to be frightening.
Except that Josh had no right to have an emotional stake in Megan’s wellbeing any more.
And even if he did, this wasn’t the time. Or place.
He held her gaze for the briefest moment, however. He couldn’t help it. He knew his concern would be transparent but that didn’t matter either. He tried to send a silent message.
We’ll talk. Soon.
‘The babies …’ Claire’s voice wobbled. ‘Let me give them a kiss before I have to go.’
Megan’s heart was hammering in her chest.
How ironic would it be if she provided another cardiac emergency for Josh to deal with?
What had she expected to happen here? A moment of pure fantasy where the existence of anyone else—including his mother and children and colleagues—simply evaporated? And Josh’s face changing as though he was witnessing a miracle? That he would come towards her in slow motion and sweep her into his arms? Kiss her again just like he had that last time.?
Maybe some tiny, secret part of her had hoped exactly that.
It didn’t mean that she’d wanted it to happen, though. Or that she could have coped with going down that track. It was the last thing she wanted when she’d fought so hard to find her new direction. A completely different track.
Josh had done exactly the right thing. Been professional. Cold, almost. But then, when she’d been trying to process that, feeling dizzy and bewildered, he’d looked at her again. Really looked at her. And she’d known that this wasn’t it. This moment couldn’t count as their first meeting after a long absence.
That had been postponed due to unforeseen circumstances.
Circumstances that were slightly chaotic right now, as staff bustled around, taking care of Claire and preparing to move her to the catheter laboratory even as Josh gave her the chance to kiss and cuddle each of the children. Max grabbed one of the wires attaching an electrode to the cardiac monitor and pulled it free, which set off an alarm. The sound frightened Brenna, who clung to her father and had to be persuaded to give her grandmother a quick kiss.
Meanwhile, Megan simply stood there, clutching the handles of the stroller. She could hardly walk out, could she? Not when these people were old friends. How rude would it seem to Ben and Anna if she just left?
Besides, she felt frozen. Watching Josh. Seeing the easy way he held his small children and talked to them. Knowing that his light tone and smile was an act. That the way those lines had deepened around his eyes advertised how much stress he was under right now.
And … he looked as gorgeous as he ever had. His palpable charm hadn’t changed either and it was being directed towards the twins right now and they looked as if they were being won over by that lazy smile as easily as she always had. He must have raked his fingers through his hair a fair few times to get it looking so rumpled, and to her horror Megan could feel the urge to smooth it with her own hands. To push that wayward lock back from his forehead and cup his face with both her hands so that she could really look and discover every tiny change that time had wrought.
She gripped the moulded plastic handles of the stroller more tightly. Forced herself to smile in response to Ben’s greeting.
‘We’ll have to catch up. I’d love to hear about Africa. You here for a while?’
No. She needed to escape as fast as she could.
‘I … I’m not sure yet.’
Ben’s pager sounded and he excused himself hurriedly. Megan wished she had one clipped to her own belt. A reason to disappear.
But she couldn’t leave quite yet. Anna needed to know that her dog was locked in the back of Claire’s car out in the car park and the cardiac surgeon had been busy on the phone for the last few minutes, juggling her responsibilities so that she could join the cardiologists and be involved in this emergency angioplasty case.
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