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Annabelle, who had begun sliding back towards the door, stopped when the new doctor slowly lifted his head, turning it in her direction. Familiar brown eyes she would recognise anywhere met hers and narrowed, staring for what seemed like an eternity but had to have been less than a second. There wasn’t the slightest flinch in his expression. She could have been a complete stranger.
But she wasn’t.
He knew very well who she was. And she knew him.
No. It couldn’t be.
For a soul-searing moment she wondered if she’d been mistaken, that he wasn’t Sienna’s replacement at all, but was here to say he’d finally signed the papers. Maybe he’d heard about Baby Hope’s case and had just popped in to take a look while they hunted for Annabelle.
Or...maybe he’d met someone else.
Her whole system threatened to shut down as she stood there staring.
‘Annabelle? Are you all right?’ Sienna’s voice startled her enough to force her to blink.
‘Oh, yes, I...um...’ What was she supposed to say?
Max evidently didn’t have that problem. He came away from Hope’s incubator, extending his hand. ‘I didn’t realise you’d moved from London.’
‘Yes. I did.’ She ignored his hand, tipping her chin just a fraction, instead. So he hadn’t come here to find her.
Sienna glanced from one to the other. ‘You two already know each other?’
One side of Max’s mouth turned up in a semblance of a smile as he allowed his hand to drop back by his side. ‘Quite well, actually.’
Yes, they knew each other. But ‘quite well’? She’d thought so at one time. But in the end... Well, he hadn’t stuck around.
Of course, she’d been the one to tell him to go. And he had. Without a single attempt to change her mind—or to fight for what they’d once had.
Sienna’s brows went up, obviously waiting for some kind of explanation. But what could she say, really?
She opened her mouth to try to save the situation, but a shrill noise suddenly filled the room.
An alarm! And this one wasn’t in her head.
All eyes swivelled back to Baby Hope, who lay still in her incubator.
It was the pulse oximeter. Hope wasn’t breathing!
‘Let’s get some help in here!’ Max was suddenly belting out orders in a tone that demanded immediate response.
Glancing again at the baby’s form, she noted that the tiny girl’s colour had gone from bad to worse, a dangerous mottling spreading over her nappy-clad form. Annabelle’s heart plummeted, her fingers beginning a familiar tingle that happened every time she went into crisis mode.
Come on, little love. Don’t do this. Not when we’re just getting to know each other.
Social services had asked Annabelle to keep a special eye on the infant, since she had no next of kin who were willing to take on her care. Poor little thing.
Annabelle knew what it was like to feel alone.
In Max’s defence, it had been her choice. But he had issued an ultimatum. One she hadn’t been prepared to accept.
Right now, though, all she needed to think about was this little one’s battle for life. Max shot Sienna a look. The other doctor nodded at him. Whatever the exchange was, Max took the lead.
‘We need to tube her.’
Annabelle went to the wall and grabbed a pair of gloves from the dispenser, shoving her hands into them and forcing herself to take things one step at a time. To get ahead of yourself was to make a mistake.
She hurried to get the trach tube items, tearing into sterile packages with a vengeance. Two more nurses rushed into the room, hearing the cries for help. Each went to work, knowing instinctively what needed to be done. They’d all been through this scenario many times before.
But not with Baby Hope.
Annabelle moved in next to Max and handed him each item as he asked for it, her mind fixed on helping the tiny infant come back from the precipice.
Trying not to count the seconds, she watched Max in motion, marvelling at the steadiness of his large hands as he intubated the baby, his face a mask of concentration. A look that was achingly familiar. She swallowed hard. She needed to think of him as a doctor. Not as someone she’d once loved.
And lost.
He connected the tubing to the ventilator as one of the other nurses set the machine up and switched it on.
Almost immediately, Baby Hope’s chest rose and fell in rhythmic strokes as the ventilator did the breathing for her. As if by magic, the pulse ox alarm switched off and the heart-rate monitor above the incubator began sounding a steadier blip-blip-blip as the heart reacted to the life-giving oxygen.
The organ was weak, but at least it was beating.
But for how much longer?
Thank God they hadn’t needed to use the paddles to shock it back into rhythm. Baby Hope was already receiving prostaglandin to prevent the ductus in her heart from closing and cutting off blood flow. And they had her on a nitrogen/oxygen mix in an attempt to help the oxygen move to the far reaches of her body. But even so, her hands and extremities were tinged blue, a sure sign of cyanosis. It would only get worse the longer she went without a transplant.
‘She’s back in rhythm.’
At least a semblance of rhythm, and she wasn’t out of the woods, not by a long shot. Her damaged heart—caused by her mum’s drug addiction—was failing quickly. Without a transplant, she would die. Whether that last crisis arrived in a week or two or three, the outcome would be the same.
Annabelle sent up a silent prayer that a donor heart would become available.
Even as she prayed it, though, she hated the fact that another family would have to lose their child so that Baby Hope might live.
They watched a few more minutes as things settled down. ‘We’ll leave her on the ventilator until we figure out exactly what happened. We can try adjusting the nitrogen rate or play with some of her other meds to see if we can buy her a little more time.’
Sienna nodded. ‘I was thinking the exact thing.’ She glanced at Annabelle. ‘Are you okay?’
It was the second time she’d asked her that question. And the second time she had trouble coming up with a response.
‘I will be.’
‘I know this one’s special to you.’
Of course. Sienna was talking about the baby. Not about Max and his sudden appearance back in her life.
‘I just want her to have a chance.’
‘As stubborn as you are, she has it.’ Sienna gave her a smile.
‘Annabelle is nothing, if not tenacious.’ Max’s voice came through, only there wasn’t a hint of amusement in the words. And she knew why. Because he wasn’t referring to Hope. He was referring to how she’d clung to what she’d thought was their dream only to find out it wasn’t.
‘You said you know each other?’
When Annabelle came to work this morning, never in her wildest imaginings had she pictured this scene. Because she already knew how it was going to play out. She braced herself for impact.
‘We do.’
There was a pause as the other doctor waited to be enlightened.
Annabelle tried to head it off, even though she knew it was hopeless. ‘We’ve known each other for years.’
‘Yes,’ Max murmured. ‘You could say that. Your Annabelle Brookes is actually Annabelle Ainsley. My wife.’
* * *
‘Your...’ Sienna suddenly looked as if she’d rather be anywhere else but here. ‘It didn’t even dawn on me. Your names...’
‘Are not the same. I know.’ Max’s mouth turned down at the corners, a hard line that she recognised forming along the sides of his jaw. ‘I see you’ve gone back to your maiden name.’ He pinned her with a glance.
‘We’re separated. Getting a divorce.’ She explained as quickly as she could without adding that going back to her maiden name had been a way to survive the devastation that his leaving had caused.
Even though you’re the one who asked him to go.
They hadn’t spoken since the day he’d found her temperature journal and realised that, although she’d stopped doing the in-vitro procedures as he’d demanded, she hadn’t completely given up hope. Until that very minute.
When she’d seen the look on his face as he’d thumbed through the pages, she’d known it was over. She’d grabbed the book from his hands and told him to leave.
And just like that, he’d walked out of their front door and out of her life.
Just like Baby Hope’s mother.
And like that lost soul, Max had never come back.
Until now.
She frowned. ‘Did you know I was at Teddy’s when you accepted that contract to take Sienna’s position?’
Even as she asked it, she knew it made no sense for him to have come here. Not without a good reason.
Like those papers on her shelf?
‘No.’
That one curt word told her everything she needed to know. If he’d known she was working at the Royal Cheltenham, this was the last place he’d have chosen to come.
Sienna touched a gloved hand to the baby’s head. ‘If you two can finish getting her stabilised, I need to get off my feet for a few minutes.’ She eyed Max. ‘Why don’t you give me a call when you’re done here and I’ll finish showing you around the hospital?’
‘Sounds good. Thanks.’
Annabelle was halfway surprised that he hadn’t just said he was ready now. He had to be as eager to get away from her as she was to get away from him. But they had their patient to consider.
Their?
Oh, God. If he was Sienna’s replacement, that meant they would share this particular case. And others like it.
As soon as Sienna had left the room along with the other nurses, Max took a few moments to finish going over the baby’s chart, making notes in it while Annabelle squirmed. She couldn’t believe he was here. After all this time.
And for the tiniest second, when those intelligent eyes of his had swept over her, she’d entertained the thought that maybe he really had come here looking for her. But it was obvious from his behaviour that he hadn’t.
He hadn’t seemed all that pleased that she’d dumped his name. How could he expect otherwise, though? She’d wanted no reminders of their time together, not that a simple name change could ever erase all the pain and sadness over the way their marriage had ended.
‘Why don’t you fill me in on the details of her care? Miss McDonald seemed to indicate you know the baby better than anyone else on staff.’ The cool way he asked the question made heat rush to her face.
Here she was agonising over the past, while he was able, as always, to wall off his feelings and emotions. It had driven her crazy when they were together that he could behave as if their world weren’t imploding as she’d had miscarriage after miscarriage.
‘Social services needed someone who could report back to them on what was happening with her care. And since I’m head nurse, it kind of fell to me to do it.’
‘Somehow I didn’t think you would remain a neonatal nurse. Not after everything that happened.’
She shrugged. ‘I love my job. Just because I can’t...have children doesn’t mean I want to go into another line of nursing. I’m not one to throw in the towel.’
‘I think that depended on the situation.’ His words had a hard edge to them.
She decided to take a page from his book and at least try to feign indifference. ‘What do you want me to tell you about her?’
‘Do you know anything about her history? Her mother?’
Annabelle filled him in on everything she could, from the fact that Baby Hope’s mother had been hooked on heroin to the fact that she’d fled the hospital soon after giving birth, staff only discovering her absence when they went in to take her vitals. They’d found her bed empty, her hospital gown wadded up under the covers. They’d called the authorities, but in the two weeks since the baby’s birth no one had come forward with any information.
The drug use had caused the baby to go through withdrawals in addition to the in-utero damage her heart had sustained. It was getting weaker by the day. In fact, every ounce she gained put more strain on it. Normally in these children, Annabelle considered weight gain something to be celebrated. Not in Hope’s case. It just meant she had that much less time to live.
‘Does any of that help?’ she asked.
‘It does. I’m going to up her dose of furosemide and see if we can get a little of that fluid off her belly. I think that’s why she stopped breathing. If it’s not any better in an hour or two, I’m going to try to draw some of it off manually.’
‘We did that a few days ago. It seemed to help.’
‘Good.’
They looked at each other for a long moment, then Max said, ‘You’ve let your hair grow.’
The unexpectedness of the observation made her blink. ‘It makes it easier to get out of the way.’
Annabelle used to tame her waves rather than pulling them back. Between blowing them out and using a straightening iron, she’d spent a lot of time on her appearance. Once Max had left, though, there’d seemed little reason to go through those contortions any more. It was only when she stopped that she realised she’d been simply going through the motions for the last half of their marriage. Having a baby had become such a priority that her every waking moment had been consumed with it. It was no wonder he’d jumped at the chance to get out. She hadn’t liked who she’d become either.
She opened her mouth to say something more, before deciding the less personal they made their interactions, the better for both of them. They’d travelled down that road once before and it hadn’t ended well. And she definitely didn’t want to give him the impression that she’d been pining for him over the past three years. She hadn’t been. She’d got well and truly over him.
