Doctor On Her Doorstep

‘What do you want, Julie?’ Jenna’s voice cut across the space between them. ‘Dr Sinclair can lie to you if you like. Give you a time and a date when everything will be back as it was. Or he can respect you enough to tell you the truth.’

The warrior was back. The woman who took life by the shoulders and shook hard until she got what she wanted. Adam grinned and took Jenna’s cue. ‘I could lie. Do you want me to?’

‘Of course not.’ Julie shot an imploring look at Jenna. ‘But it’s all so much talk, isn’t it?’

Adam saw Jenna’s knuckles whiten as she gripped the rail at the end of the bed. She’d done a good job with Julie. She’d gained her trust, and she’d used it to help Iain and the other doctors do their work. But she’d hit a brick wall here.

Unless … Adam hadn’t planned on this, but the agonised look in Jenna’s eyes spurred him on. ‘That’s what I thought when the doctors said that to me. So they sent me to a counsellor and I didn’t believe her either. In the end you have to find out for yourself.’

He had Julie’s attention. Jenna’s too, only she was trying not to look at him with such overt interest as Julie. ‘What do you know about it?’

‘I’ve been there. Not in the same way as you, but I think I understand part of what you’re feeling. I was shot, and ended up in hospital in Florida.’

Julie’s eyes were as round as saucers. ‘Like on TV?’

Jenna huffed quietly. ‘No, it’s not the same as on TV, Julie …’ Adam waved her to silence. Now wasn’t the time for her to spring to his defence, however much it pleased him to hear her do it.

‘The thing is that being shot changed my view of the world. Before, I’d thought that I was pretty much unbreakable, but I realised that I wasn’t. I had to relearn how to do the smallest things without panicking. But I did, which is how I know that you can. And that you will.’

Julie stared at him, and then gave him a curt nod. Slowly, her eyes left his face and focussed on Jenna. ‘Did you bring me some chocolate?’

Jenna reached into her pocket and held up a pound coin. ‘It’s in the machine if you want it. Dr Sinclair will come with us, it’s right outside the doors of the ward.’

Julie fingered the blanket that lay over her legs. ‘I don’t want to disturb my skin grafts.’

‘You won’t.’ Adam tapped the thick file that he had brought with him. ‘I’ve read all of your notes and the skin grafts have taken nicely. You can get up and move around gently now. In fact, it’ll be good for you, stimulate the circulation.’

Julie wrinkled her nose. ‘They look horrible. I’ve seen them when they do the dressings.’

‘I know.’ He fingered the envelope he had tucked inside the file, wondering whether now was the time to bring it out. ‘They’ll look better. You know that, don’t you?’

‘Yeah. S’pose so.’ Julie huffed a sigh. ‘Every day, in every way it just gets better and better, is that it?’

Adam suppressed a grin. He could see why Jenna had taken to Julie. Underneath all that teenage petulance the kid had spirit. ‘Well, yeah. Some days are always going to be better than others, but if you look at it in the long term, things do get better.’ He was getting there. He got a grin in return. ‘You look better when you smile, you know.’

‘Yeah, I’ve heard that one before too.’

Adam came to a decision and pulled the envelope he had brought out of the file. ‘I brought you a picture. One of my patients, I treated her for burns.’

Julie focussed on the envelope. ‘So I’m supposed to look at this and see how much progress she’s made, am I?’ Petulant and bright. Adam could see why Julie was such a handful.

‘I had a lot of fears when I was hurt. A lot of feelings that I couldn’t come to terms with.’ The look on Julie’s face told Adam that she did, too. ‘So did the girl in the picture. It’s a tough road, but sometimes knowing that you’re not walking it alone makes it a bit easier.’

He was delving much deeper into his own pain than he’d expected to. But somehow, with Jenna sitting quietly beside him, and Julie, whose need was so much greater than his own, it felt okay. Almost a relief.

‘Okay. I’ll look.’ Julie reached for the photograph, struggling to get it out of the envelope with just one hand. Jenna didn’t move to help her. Tough love. But it was love, all the same, the kind that was going to haul Julie through this, kicking and screaming if necessary.

Jenna craned over to see the photograph. ‘Who’s the boy that she’s with?’

‘That’s Rick. They’re married now.’

Jenna exchanged looks with Julie. ‘He’s nice. I think he’s more of a Ricky than a Rick, don’t you?’

Julie giggled. ‘Yeah. Pretty neat guy.’

It wasn’t exactly textbook stuff, but it was working. The last thing that Julie was seeing were the faint scars on Claudia’s leg. She was seeing a young woman, happy and in love, her handsome boyfriend at her side. Jenna worked round to the scars, but only after she’d made her point about Rick not caring about them. Adam’s hand strayed absently to his shoulder. She was almost making him feel better.

‘Can you make me a copy of this?’ Julie regarded Adam, obviously assessing his age and likely technical competence. ‘Do you know how to do that?’

‘I’ve got a copy. Take this.’

‘So you like the younger man, do you?’ All the way down to the canteen, Adam had been smiling at something, and that was obviously it.

‘Oh, go boil your head.’ Jenna stuffed her take-away sandwich into his hand while she rummaged in her bag for her purse, then grabbed the sandwich back again. She wasn’t best pleased with him, but tact prevented Jenna from challenging him here and now on the matter.

He shot her a puzzled look and her exasperation began to cool. Not before he’d noticed it, though. ‘Want to talk about it?’ Before she could stop him, he’d taken her sandwich back, showing it to the cashier and then walking away with it to a quiet spot in the far corner of the canteen.

As soon as she reached the table where he was sitting, she made a lunge for the sandwich, but he was too quick for her, holding it out of her reach. ‘So you’re going to starve me into submission now, are you?’

‘If necessary.’

‘I do have money, you know. I can go and get another one.’ Jenna plumped herself down on the chair opposite.

‘You’re not going to, though.’

She probably shouldn’t have shown her hand by sitting down. ‘No. I’m not.’ He pushed her sandwich across the table towards her with one finger, and Jenna took possession of it. ‘You might have told me about being shot. That you know about trauma first hand.’ She lowered her voice, hissing the words across the table at him.

‘I might have done.’ He rubbed thoughtfully at his shoulder. ‘I would have done, if I’d known that I was going to tell Julie.’

‘That’s not the point. Do you really think that you’re best placed to help her if you’ve still got issues of your own to deal with?’

‘Who says that I do?’

The look in his eyes, for a start. And Jenna was sure that she’d not been mistaken when she’d thought she’d heard his stifled cry last night. Even though she hadn’t seen him, she’d sensed his presence out on the patio. ‘Well, do you?’

‘Not where Julie’s concerned. I have it under control.’ Maybe he saw the disbelief in her eyes. ‘If you want to know, you should just ask. Rob drives me crazy, tiptoeing around what happened as if it’s some guilty secret.’

‘Well, tact never was Rob’s strong point.’ She got a grin in response. ‘I would like to know, but the canteen’s probably not the best place in the world to have this conversation.’ Jenna looked around awkwardly.

‘It’s okay. My fiancée and I were both shot eighteen months ago in Guatemala, in a roadside ambush that went bad. Elena died, and I pulled through. I struggled with it, for a long time.’

The mixed emotions jostling in her chest drained away, leaving only horror and shock. ‘Adam, I’m so sorry.’

He slid his hand across the table towards hers, as if he should be the one to comfort her. ‘It happened and I won’t say that it hasn’t changed me. But I’d never let it compromise the welfare of any patient.’

‘No.’ Her fingers were trembling, and she pressed them down onto the tabletop to steady them. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have insinuated that.’

‘But I still should have told you?’