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‘Results are through.’
‘And?’
He moved up behind her, so close she could feel the warmth coming off him. She forced herself to focus on the screen.
‘Well, according to the report he’s got no obvious brain injury and there certainly doesn’t seem to be any sign of it, but he’s got a fracture of the right orbit.’
Ed was looking over her shoulder at the MRI scan images, his head just in her line of sight, and he winced. ‘Must have been quite a whack. I wonder if he’ll end up with any loss of vision. The swelling could put a lot of pressure on that eye.’ He leaned in closer, bringing him right up against her. ‘Am I imagining it, or is the orbit slightly compressed?’
She shifted sideways a fraction. ‘Possibly. What a shame. Poor little Cody.’
She turned but Ed was still right there, studying the images on the screen, his chest just inches from her nose. She sucked in a breath, but that was a mistake, because with the air came a faint trace of soap and red-blooded man.
‘Want me to talk to the parents?’ he asked, the tingle of chilli in that low, melting-chocolate voice setting fire to her nerve endings again.
‘No, I’ll do it,’ she said briskly.
She ducked past him, and he followed her back to the child’s side where Cody’s parents were waiting anxiously for the verdict, his mother’s eyes brimming with fear as she watched them approach.
It wasn’t surprising. Cody’s father had arrived shortly after the ambulance, and although they’d eliminated any other injuries in the last hour, this was the thing that was worrying them all the most and frankly this family needed some good news. Annie smiled at them reassuringly.
‘OK, we’ve had a look at the report now and although he’s got a facial fracture Cody doesn’t have an obvious brain injury, which is great news—’
‘So—he’s all right?’ his mother asked, hope replacing the fear.
‘Well, nothing obvious has been detected in his brain,’ she cautioned, ‘but that doesn’t mean he’s out of the woods yet. He’ll be a bit concussed and have a horrible headache anyway, but sometimes the brain swells after a bump like this so he’ll need constant monitoring for the next few hours just in case, but they should be able to manage it if it happens. However, the fracture extends to his eye socket where his cheekbone’s taken the impact, so he’s certainly not unscathed. It’s going to be sore and because of where it is, it might have implications for his sight.’
Her eyes widened, the fear back. A new fear this time, and she pressed her fingers to her mouth.
‘He could go blind?’ the father asked, his voice rough with emotion.
‘I think that’s unlikely, but it might alter his vision in that eye. They’ll get the ophthalmic and maxillo-facial teams to have a really good look at it while he’s in here, but it might take time for the swelling to go down before they can assess it fully. As soon as they have a bed he’ll be transferred up to the paediatric intensive care unit, PICU, for monitoring and pain relief until they’re happy with him, and then he’ll be moved to a ward. They’ll talk to you up there about his progress and what they’re going to do, if anything. He’ll probably be in here a couple of days, all being well, but so far we’re cautiously optimistic that he’ll make a full recovery. Children are very resilient.’
His mother’s shoulders slumped—with relief? Worry? Guilt?
All of it. She knew all about a mother’s guilt. She lived with it every working day, but needs must and so far the girls seemed well adjusted.
Which was more than she could say for herself at the moment. She’d just caught another whiff of Ed Shackleton’s special blend of soap and pheromones, and she had to force herself to concentrate on talking to Cody’s parents.
‘I’ll chase up PICU,’ Kate was saying, and she nodded.
‘Thanks. Right, I’m just going to update the notes, and as soon as they’ve got a bed free, we’ll be moving him. You’ll be able to stay with him overnight.’
His mother nodded, and Annie stepped away from them, grabbed the notes and moved to the side to write them up.
Behind her she could hear Ed’s voice murmuring to the parents, answering their endless questions with sensibly noncommittal answers.
He’d been amazing. Calm, steady, gentle, soothing the distressed child with a competence that usually came with years of practice.
He was probably a father. Almost inevitably. Someone was bound to have snapped him up, he was far too good to be on the shelf.
Unless he was a player, but he didn’t seem the type. Far too wholesome and straightforward. Until the lights went out?
It was none of her business, she reminded herself crossly. And in any case she wasn’t interested.
At all!
* * *
So this was Annie Brooks.
He glanced across at her, writing up the notes while Kate kept an eye on Cody’s monitor and pottered quietly in the background.
Her back was to him, which meant he could study her without detection. She wasn’t short, but she certainly wasn’t tall. Her head would tuck easily under his chin. And her body was—well, just a body. Nothing out of the ordinary. She wasn’t fat, she wasn’t thin, she was just...womanly, he thought with interest. Feminine. Her curves were in all the right places, and she moved with grace.
Except when she was rattled. Then she moved awkwardly, self-consciously. He found that interesting, too.
Her mid-brown hair was twisted up in a clip at the back, out of the way. A strand had escaped, and she was fiddling with it, one finger twirling the little curl round and round.
It was a curiously innocent gesture, utterly unconscious, the sort of thing people did when they were concentrating hard, and he found it strangely touching.
James had told him about her. He’d said she was competent, kind and easy to work with, but he was sure that underneath the surface there was much, much more to her than that.
Unlike Kate.
There were hundreds of girls like Kate, nice girls, pretty girls, girls who made it clear with every glance that they were available, but Annie...
Annie intrigued him. For a moment there, right at the beginning, he’d had his doubts about her. She’d seemed ruffled by his arrival, somehow, distracted and unfocused, but then the ambulance had arrived and she’d changed.
It was as if she’d engaged a different gear, and it had all settled down. She’d become everything that James had told him she was, and he began to think he’d imagined that sizzle of awareness.
Until their glances had met again. For a fleeting moment the forget-me-not blue of her eyes had locked with his, and then it had been back, whatever ‘it’ was. Some crazy pull between them, like kissing dolls, the magnetic attraction drawing them inexorably together.
And she seemed to resent it, to pull back from it as if it was unwelcome, turning her head and carrying on as if nothing had happened, but it had, and she’d dismissed it.
He felt a twinge of regret. A little light relief to take his mind off the coming months of family trauma and upheaval might have been welcome, but it probably wasn’t sensible. He had nothing to offer, he wasn’t here for long and anyway it was never a good idea to muddy the waters with someone you worked with.
Kate, for instance. She’d made it blindingly obvious she was up for anything he might suggest, but anyway, even if he found her attractive, which he didn’t except in the most superficial and basic way, the same principle applied—
‘PICU are ready for him.’
He nodded at Kate and switched his eyes to Annie.
‘Annie?’
‘All done. Kate, will you go with him, please?’
She slapped the notes shut, put them on the trolley, shook hands with the parents and the two of them watched as Cody was whisked away.
‘Poor little boy. He’s going to have a cracking headache for a few days,’ he said softly.
Annie nodded. ‘Let’s hope that’s all. Good teamwork, by the way. Thank you.’
‘My pleasure. Thank you for letting me join you.’
Annie flashed him a quick acknowledging glance, the first time she’d met his eyes for a while now. Well, since that time, when he’d felt that sizzle of awareness again.
But there was no awareness now that he could see, and her voice was brisk and businesslike.
‘You’re welcome. It’s nice to know we’ve got someone on the team with Paeds training. You can never have too many. Right, I need to go and chase up some tests,’ she said, and he could have sworn she was running away.
From him? Surely not. He hadn’t given her any reason to feel threatened or harassed in any way.
So why was he so much of a threat to her?
* * *
‘Hello, my darlings! How are you?’
‘Mummy!’
The girls ran to her, hugging her in stereo, dragging her to the table to see what they were doing.
‘We’ve made you a picture!’
‘I did this bit, and Chloe did that bit—’
‘And Grace put the ears on the bunny, and MamaJo let us eat the last chocolate bunny!’
‘Did she?’ Annie laughed at her mother and shook her head. ‘I thought we didn’t eat chocolate between meals?’
‘But we had it for pudding!’ Grace told her solemnly. ‘MamaJo didn’t cheat.’
Annie bit the inside of her cheek to stop herself laughing. ‘I’m glad to hear it. And it’s a lovely picture. Thank you. As soon as it’s dry, we’ll put it up on the wall. Now, how about your bath, and then I’ll read you a story.’
‘I want to choose—’
‘No, it’s my turn—’
‘I’m choosing,’ she said firmly. ‘I think it’s my turn. How about Peter Rabbit?’
‘Yes!’
They ran for the bathroom, and she rolled her eyes at her mother. ‘Don’t worry about the mess, I’ll clear it up,’ she promised, and followed them.
Chloe, always the one in trouble, was diving headfirst over the side of the bath, trying to put the plug in, and she fished her back out, put the plug in and turned on the taps.
‘So what else have you done today?’ she asked, quickly stripping their clothes off and throwing them at the laundry basket.
She bathed them while they chattered, washing their hair—Grace’s angelic pale blonde curls, Chloe’s wildly tangled chocolate-brown mop—and then combed it through with conditioner, rinsed and blotted and fished them out of the bath to finish drying while the water drained out.
And all the time they were talking, telling her about their day, their friends, the helpers at the nursery, and amidst the lively chatter Annie felt herself starting to relax.
‘Gosh, we’ve all had a busy day. Come on, let’s go and snuggle up and have a story, and then it’s time for bed.’
She settled them down, tidied up the bathroom and went back to the kitchen.
‘Oh, Mum, I said I’d clear up.’
‘You’ve done enough, you’ve been at work. Here, I’ve made you tea. Come and sit down and tell me about your day.’
Annie flopped into the corner of the sofa and sighed. ‘It was exhausting. We’ve had one thing after another. I don’t think I’ve sat down for more than a few minutes all day. How were the girls? They seem lively enough.’
‘Fine. No problem. They really seem to like the hospital nursery. They were full of everything they’d done today.’
‘I noticed,’ she said drily. ‘They didn’t stop telling me about it all through their bath, but at least it’s a good sign.’
It was good. More than good. It was essential. Her mother was wonderful, and she couldn’t possibly have managed without her since the twins had been born, but she felt so guilty asking, so guilty burdening her with the girls. Although she’d said a million times that having her granddaughters wasn’t a burden, she knew it was. It had to be. They were a burden on her, and she was their mother, although if she had her time over again she’d change nothing. Well, except their father, who’d had the fastest pair of running shoes she’d ever seen, but that wasn’t their fault.
Chloe and Grace were the most wonderful things that had ever happened to her, and the fact that they were happy at the nursery was important for all of them. If the girls weren’t happy, none of them would be happy.
‘How’s Grannie?’ she asked, and her mother shrugged.
‘Oh, much the same. Stubborn, independent, won’t take any painkillers and then wonders why everything hurts.’
Annie smiled ruefully at her mother. ‘Are you OK, Mum? I know you say we aren’t a burden, but between my girls and your mother, you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place.’
‘No, I’m not.’ Her mother brushed it aside with a dismissive flap of her hand. ‘What else would I be doing with my time? Arranging flowers in the church? Working in a charity shop?’
She got to her feet, the subject closed. ‘Are you ready for your supper? It’s Thai curry. I’ll just heat it up and we can eat it in here in front of the television, with your feet up.’
Annie smiled gratefully at her. ‘That sounds lovely. I’m starving. I haven’t eaten all day. Well, only chocolate biscuits.’
Her mother tutted and walked off in the direction of the kitchen, and she watched her go and felt guilt. Always guilt.
She should have got up, gone to help, but she was exhausted. It had been a killer shift, not made any easier by trying to dodge Ed Shackleton. Impossible. They’d seemed to end up working together all day.
Which was fine. Working with him was fine. He was great to work with. It was those little moments in between, when the pressure was off and he’d strip off his gloves and apron and fold his arms and slouch back against the wall with that casual grace...
She rested her head back, gave a little sigh and closed her eyes, but there he was, welded on to her retinas—laughing at something silly, sprinting to the ambulance bay, snapping into action when someone had arrested in Resus—images of him tormented her and she sat forward and dropped her head into her hands.
‘What’s up?’
‘Oh, nothing. New colleague. He’s a bit...’
‘Useless?’
‘Oh, no, he’s not useless. Far from it. He’s excellent. He’s just—I don’t know. There. All the time.’
