Christmas With Her Daredevil Doc

HAYLEY DID A double take as her best friend hobbled into the hospital canteen on crutches, with a full-length walking cast up to her right knee.

‘What happened, Dani?’ she asked as Danielle heaved herself into the seat opposite hers and rested the crutches against the wall so they wouldn’t be in the way of anyone else in the canteen. ‘Did you break your ankle?’

‘It’s not quite that bad—it’s a second and third metatarsal stress fracture,’ Danielle said, grimacing.

Hayley frowned. They’d been out to their usual dance aerobics class, two nights ago, and Danielle had seemed fine then. ‘When did it happen?’

‘According to the orthopods, three or four weeks ago, because the fracture shows up on the X-ray and looks as if it’s been trying to heal for some time—but the actual diagnosis was this morning.’ Danielle sighed. ‘I suppose my foot had been aching for a bit.’

And Dani, being Dani, had no doubt ignored it because she was too busy. ‘Why didn’t you say something, the other night?’ Hayley asked. ‘We could’ve missed class to let you rest your foot.’

Danielle flapped a dismissive hand. ‘It was fine.’

Hayley raised an eyebrow. ‘Fine enough for you to be wearing a walking cast right now?’

Danielle sighed. ‘OK, OK. I thought it wasn’t anything major and resting it for a day or two would be enough to sort it out, but it felt a bit worse yesterday so I thought I’d better get it checked out. I was pretty sure my doctor was going to roll his eyes at me and say it was just because I still needed to get used to my new running shoes. Except he sent me for an X-ray instead. And apparently almost everyone with a metatarsal stress fracture says the same thing as I did—they don’t remember doing anything different or they’ve just got new shoes.’

‘Ouch. So how long are you going to have the cast?’ Hayley asked.

‘They said it’ll take between one and three months to heal,’ Danielle said. ‘So it’s crutches this week and then I have to wear the cast and rest my foot as much as possible.’

‘Rest’ wasn’t in Danielle’s vocabulary, Hayley knew. It would drive her best friend crazy to have to sit with her foot up.

‘And they said if I don’t rest it properly and for long enough, I’ll risk making it worse and then I’ll end up needing surgery to fix it—which will take even longer to heal, so obviously I’d rather avoid that.’ Danielle pulled a face. ‘Bang goes finishing my training for that charity run in October. I won’t even be able to walk the course, let alone run it. I’ll have to return all the sponsor money.’

And the run was close to Dani’s heart because she was raising money to buy an MRI scanner for newborns on the maternity unit. ‘Unless the organisers will let me run in your place,’ Hayley said thoughtfully.

Danielle stared at her in surprise. ‘I can’t ask you to do that. You hate running.’

‘Yes, but it’s for a good cause. I can run it for you. Remember, we agreed, this is the Year of Saying Yes. We’ve both had a horrible year.’ Hayley’s own life had imploded just over a year ago, when Evan, her fiancé, had been killed while trying to rescue someone from an industrial fire; and Danielle’s husband Leo had left her unexpectedly for someone else, nine months ago. They’d supported each other through the wreckage of their lives and, the previous month, when Danielle’s decree nisi had come through and the anniversary of Evan’s death had passed, they’d agreed that they’d spend the next year saying yes to every opportunity that came their way. The theory was, it would help them both to move on and live life to the full. Or, as Dani had put it, living well was the best revenge and she wasn’t going to spend the rest of her life crying over someone who didn’t love her any more.

‘We agreed we’d make the most out of life and say yes to every opportunity,’ Haley reminded her. ‘So you have to say yes to me taking your place, and we’ll talk the organisers into bending the rules slightly if they have to. They can’t expect you to run with a broken foot—and surely it’s better to have a substitute so the hospital can keep the sponsor money towards the scanner?’

‘If you’re really sure,’ Danielle said, ‘then thank you.’ She bit her lip. ‘But that’s not the worst bit.’ She dragged in a breath. ‘I’m so sorry, but I’m not going to be able to go to Iceland with you next week. The orthopods tried to sign me off work. I said I can do a lot of my job sitting down—which I can, so don’t argue,’ she said, holding up one hand to stop Hayley protesting. ‘They’ve agreed to let me have the walking cast, provided I agreed to rest my foot as much as possible. But they said that hiking round Iceland for a week is totally out of the question. And, with the kind of walks we were planning to do, there’s no way you could push me round in a chair—not when there’s loads of rough ground, volcanic sand, and a fair bit of clambering about on slippery boulders. It’s just not doable.’

‘Then we’ll talk to the travel agent and reschedule,’ Hayley said.

Danielle shook her head. ‘You wanted to go in the summer so you’d get to see the midnight sun. If we reschedule, then it’ll be another year before we can go away—and you really, really need a break. Especially as you’re taking up your new job in a couple of weeks.’

Her promotion to senior registrar, which was bittersweet because Evan wasn’t here to be pleased that her hard work had paid off. ‘I’m fine,’ Hayley said.

‘This is supposed to be the Year of Saying Yes, remember,’ Danielle said. ‘We said we’d do it so we’d have fun instead of being miserable.’

‘I’m not so sure it’ll be much fun, going to Iceland on my own,’ Hayley said.

‘But you’ll still get to see the whales and the geyser and the glacier—tick all those things off your bucket list. You need a break, Haze. Go and have a wonderful time. And I’ll talk to the travel agent to sort everything out this end.’

‘It’s not fair that you’re missing out,’ Hayley said.

‘We can plan something else when my foot’s healed,’ Danielle said. ‘We could maybe go to Vienna in November for the Christmas markets. We can eat lots of gingerbread and drink the best hot chocolate in the world.’

‘Maybe,’ Hayley said.

‘Definitely,’ Danielle insisted. ‘And you can send me a ton of photos from Iceland.’ She smiled. ‘If I were you, I’d stock up on the fun now—if you were serious about running that charity race for me, you’ll be in strict training for the next two months.’

‘Two and a half months, less my week in Iceland,’ Hayley pointed out.

‘The couch to 10K running programme is supposed to take about twelve weeks,’ Danielle said thoughtfully, ‘but you do dance aerobics twice a week, so you’re not really starting from couch level.’

Hayley did dance aerobics simply because Dani had pushed her into it two weeks after Evan’s funeral, making her leave her flat instead of hiding within the four walls and wishing that her fiancé had never, ever become a firefighter. And Hayley had to admit that the combination of the music and the movement had made her feel better, if only for a little while. For the same reason, she’d forced Dani to keep coming to the class with her after Leo had walked out on her.

‘OK. You sort out the training programme and I’ll do it.’

‘You,’ Danielle said, reaching over to squeeze her hand, ‘are the best friend ever.’

‘No, that would be you,’ Hayley said. ‘And you can sit still while I sort out some lunch for you. Even you can’t juggle a tray and hot coffee with crutches.’

‘Try me?’ Danielle said.

‘Behave,’ Hayley ordered with a grin.

‘Yes, ma’am. And you’re right—I can’t hold coffee with crutches,’ Danielle admitted, and fished in her purse for some money. ‘Thanks, Haze. Just grab the first sandwich you come to—I don’t mind what it is.’ She paused. ‘So you promise me you won’t cancel the trip?’

‘It’s the Year of Saying Yes,’ Hayley said. ‘So I’ll go.’ Even though a solo trip felt daunting, Hayley knew that her best friend was right. She did need a break. And maybe ticking some things off her bucket list would help her move on.

She’d always miss Evan, but she knew he wouldn’t have wanted her to spend the rest of her life on her own. So she was going to say yes. And, in accordance with their agreement, she was going to date the next man who asked her out.

CHAPTER ONE (#u774e7069-05ba-50bb-9c66-e67f952f7057)

THE LAND OF the Midnight Sun. Hayley had been stunned by the sheer quality of the light from the moment she’d arrived at the airport; everything seemed brighter in Reykjavik.

Evan would’ve loved this, she thought with a pang. Especially the whale-watching trip she’d chosen to do this morning. Now the boat was out in the middle of the open sea, the temperature had dropped quite sharply, but the sun was bright and she leaned against the railing at the side of the boat, listening to the guide and trying to spot the tiny puffins with their bright orange beaks.

‘There are lots of birds just above the water ahead of us, and that often indicates cetacean activity—they’ll be picking up bits of fish the whales have left behind,’ the guide said. And then, a couple of minutes later, she called, ‘Spout at nine o’clock!’

Hayley could actually see the spout of warm, moist air blown up by the whale; to her amazement, it really was like you saw in TV documentaries. A perfect misty funnel.

‘And here’s our minke!’ the guide said.

The ship drew to a standstill, and Hayley could see just the dark back of the whale, like a slight hump above the surface of the sea. And then a fin appeared, bright white against the sea and the sky, almost as if the whale was waving to them.

This was magical.

She took a few shots on her camera, hoping they’d come out. And then, to her sheer joy, the whale breached, its snout coming up out of the water and then its body performing a perfect arc, revealing its white belly before the whale splashed back into the sea.

She’d never seen anything so awe-inspiring. The whale’s snout came up again, and then a fin; then she saw the divided end of the tail as the whale dived down again.

‘I’m sure you could all see the flukes then—that’s the whale’s tail—and this usually indicates that the whale’s diving more deeply,’ the guide said. ‘So we’re going to move on.’