Miracle Times Two

‘Good idea,’ Daniel agreed. ‘And then, could we find her a comfortable place to rest until we know what’s going on?’

‘You think I need to stay in hospital?’ The idea clearly horrified her. ‘You think it’s something so serious that I can’t go home?’

‘I’ve no idea at the moment,’ he said and Jenny registered that, although she hadn’t known Daniel for very long, in that time he’d never been anything less than absolutely honest with a patient. ‘But it would be a good idea if you tried to stay as calm as possible until we get all the results, if only for the sake of your blood pressure. It would be better for the babies, too.’

‘And for me,’ her harried husband added.

Jenny stayed until Aliyah was as settled as she was going to be in one of the side rooms closest to Daniel’s office, adding her voice to the young woman’s when she urged her husband to go back to the important business meeting he’d been called out of.

‘Your wife and baby are safe here,’ she pointed out logically. ‘They’re surrounded by doctors and nurses, and if it’s a problem caused by some sort of infection, the antibiotics we’ve given her will already be starting to do their job.’

‘I have this mask to hand if the pains return,’ Aliyah added as she held up the clear plastic face mask attached to the Entonox. ‘And anyway, this is a room where I can have my mobile switched on, so I can call you or receive your calls whenever you wish.’

It took several minutes of reassurance and then several more supplying the suddenly tearful woman with tissues after her husband left before Jenny was free to set off in search of Daniel.

She found him just as he was reaching for a piece of paper being spat out by the printer.

‘Please, tell me that’s the preliminary report from the lab and it’s just a simple waterworks infection; bladder or kidney, I don’t mind which, just as long as there’s nothing wrong with the pregnancy,’ she demanded and was rewarded with a broad grin.

‘Your every wish is my command,’ he said with a flourishing bow, then handed her the paper to add to Aliyah’s file. ‘Obviously, there hasn’t been time to isolate the particular bug causing the problem, but as we put her on trimethoprim in the interim …’

‘She could have relief from her symptoms within an hour,’ Jenny finished for him.

‘Within one to four hours,’ he temporised. ‘It would probably be quicker relief with ciprofloxacin, but that’s not so good for the pregnancy.’

He went on to run through the progress on several other cases, but Jenny suddenly knew that he was feeling every bit as relieved and delighted with the prospects for Aliyah’s pregnancy as she was.

The realisation was so unexpected that, for a moment, she completely lost track of what Daniel was saying.

Was she just imagining that she could read his feelings, or was she actually beginning to be able to see beyond the cheerfully professional persona he showed the world?

It was always unlikely that one person could be that unfailingly even-tempered and still be human, and that opened up a whole new world of possibilities in the mystery of the gorgeous specimen of masculinity that was Daniel Carterton. Possibilities such as, if his smiles were a camouflage for other, deeper thoughts, was he hiding secrets … and if so, what sort of secrets?

Not that it would ever be something dark—such as Colin’s underhanded ploy to get her alone when he obviously cared very little for her other than the fact of who her father was.

No. If Daniel had secrets they would be … what?

‘What?’ the man in question echoed, snapping her out of her crazy thoughts and into the real world and the recognition that she had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.

‘What?’ she repeated, feeling stupid and horribly afraid that she was going to blush.

‘That’s what I asked you,’ he said with a puzzled frown. ‘You were just standing there, staring at me as if you were trying to unravel the secrets of the universe on the end of my nose.’

She closed her eyes for a second, grateful that at least he hadn’t realised it was those gorgeous deep blue eyes and their unfairly long lashes she’d been gazing at, or the rogue curl of dark hair curving forward onto his forehead as he worked his way through the basket of correspondence waiting for his attention.

One envelope contained a photograph of a perfect set of twins, obviously identical, even down to the slightly cross expression on their faces, and she couldn’t help chuckling.

‘Anybody you know?’ she asked.

‘Their mother was one of the earliest patients I saw when I came to work here—before you joined the unit,’ he said and reached for a manila folder standing beside his computer to slip the photo inside with what looked like quite a few others.

‘Are they all your babies in there?’ she demanded, holding out a hand for the folder before she thought how intrusive he might find it.

‘Sometimes parents send me a picture to let me know their babies have arrived safely,’ he said, upending the folder in the middle of his desk to reveal dozens of babies, from the smallest, wrinkliest preemie to some that looked to be at least three months old when they were born.

‘Why have you got all these hidden away?’ she demanded as she spread them out across his paperwork. ‘These should all be on display somewhere.’

‘On display?’ He looked as if the idea had never crossed his mind. ‘Why?’

‘For reassurance,’ she said impatiently. ‘You deal with at-risk mums and babies, so you have a far higher mortality rate than an ordinary Obs and Gynae department. Most parents–to-be come here expecting the worst and it would be so good if the first thing they saw when they came into your room is a whole array of photos of the healthy happy babies you’ve helped on their way … far more babies than the number that don’t survive,’ she pointed out.

His attempt at a response was cut short by the strident ring of the telephone and she’d only taken a couple of steps towards the door to afford him some privacy for the call when the sudden tension in his voice stopped her in her tracks.

‘When? Where? How long ago?’ he snapped out in short order. ‘Well, find out and ring me back as soon as you do. Have you notified Josh Weatherby?’

With the mention of the senior consultant a shiver of dread ran up Jenny’s spine, every hair standing up on end in its wake.

Whatever it was, this did not sound good; not if it involved the man who took charge of all the seriously premature babies or those with peri-natal problems.

‘What’s happened?’ she asked as soon as he took the phone away from his ear.

Her words collided with his as he rapped out, ‘There’s been an accident, right outside the hospital.’

‘Not one of our mums,’ she pleaded, but the grim expression on his face was enough to confirm the bad news.

‘Sheelagh Griffin,’ he said, already tapping to access the young woman’s file on the computer. ‘Apparently, she started spotting heavily and cramping this morning, so her husband insisted on driving her in. He hit a pedestrian as he was turning in through the gates and smashed their car into one of the granite pillars.’

‘Do you need me to come down with you?’ It was a given that he would be going down to A and E to speed the young woman’s admission to the unit, otherwise she could be caught up in the nightmare of paperwork until it was too late to do anything for the precious babies.

‘Stay up here, for now,’ he said after only a moment’s hesitation. ‘I can call you down if I need to, but you’ll be my eyes and ears up here while I’m away.’

Jenny was immensely flattered that he would already think her competent for such a responsibility. She had done extra training for this new position but she was a nurse rather than a doctor—much to her parents’ enduring disappointment.

‘Let me know if you want me to get anything organised,’ she said, startled to realise that what she’d really wanted to say was Hurry back.

And how stupid is that? she berated herself before he was even out of sight. She and Daniel didn’t have that sort of relationship, and there was very little chance that they ever would. After all, no matter what her parents’ narrow-minded view was of people who had risen to the top in spite of starting off at one of the less elite medical schools, Daniel was something of a high-flier, and as such, was stratospherically beyond the reach of a humble nurse, no matter how well trained and good at her job.

Anyway, hadn’t Daniel categorised their relationship just a short while ago when he’d invited her to ‘tell big brother’ about her troubles?

Colleague … little sister … friend, perhaps? She might slot into several niches in Daniel’s life, but there was very little chance that he would be interested in seeing her in a role that she was only now beginning to realise might be the one she really wanted.

The phone rang stridently at her elbow, snapping her out of her pointless reflections and doubling her pulse rate with the expectation that she would hear Daniel’s voice when she answered it. It was a complete letdown to realise that the caller had simply been connected to the wrong department.

‘Jenny?’ Daniel’s voice behind her had her whirling to face him, the first of at least a dozen questions on the tip of her tongue until she saw his face.

‘Daniel? What’s happened?’ she demanded, automatically reaching out to take his arm. ‘Are you ill?’ He looked positively grim, and in the short time he’d been away from the department, his face had somehow become hollow-looking, his eyes filled with shadows.

‘I was too late to do anything to slow down Sheelagh’s labour,’ he said bluntly, and she could hear the same defeated tone that always emerged in his voice whenever something happened to one of their special babies, but this time there was something more, something infinitely darker.