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‘Dr Wilkins, I take it this is your first PAU?’ Kit asked.
On an intellectual level, she knew the formality was the right way to go—keeping a professional distance between them would be a good thing—but, oh, it stung. Had they really been reduced to this, to titles and surnames, after everything they’d shared? ‘Correct, Dr Rodgers,’ she responded, equally coolly.
‘Do you want to do this as a teaching session, or would you like to lead and I’ll back you up?’
He was giving her the choice. Not much of one. Either way, they had to work together. Closely. And she was finding it harder than she’d expected. Every time she glanced up at him she remembered other places, other times, when she’d caught his eye and seen a different expression there. Blue eyes filled with love and laughter. A lazy smile that had promised her some very personal attention once they were alone.
And now he was this cool, remote stranger. Just like he’d been at the end of their marriage. Reacting to nothing and nobody. Closed off.
‘PAU’s where we get the urgent referrals, isn’t it?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
Where her diagnoses really could mean life or death. She took a deep breath. ‘Right.’ Was she ready for this?
‘Or we could lead on alternate cases. Do it together,’ Kit added.
His tone of voice on the last word made her look at him. The expression in his eyes was quickly masked, but she’d seen something there. Something that surprised her. Regret, wishing things could have been different?
She pushed it to the back of her mind. Of course not. She was just wishing for something that wasn’t there. Kit had shut her out six years ago, and he wasn’t about to invite her back into his life now.
They’d both moved on.
Well, he had.
‘OK.’
‘Want me to take the first one?’ he asked.
‘Whatever you think best, Dr Rodgers,’ she said, her voice completely without expression.
‘In that case,’ Kit said, ‘I’m throwing you in at the deep end. You go first.’
Oh, Lord. She hadn’t been expecting that. But if that was the way he wanted to play it, she’d show him she could do it—that she didn’t need his help.
Their first case was a two-year-old with a fever and a rash. Ross Morley’s eyes were red, as if he had conjunctivitis, although there didn’t appear to be any discharge. ‘He’s had a temperature for a couple of days but he seems to be getting worse,’ Mrs Morley said, twisting her hands together. ‘His hands and feet look a bit red and I’m sure they’re not normally as puffy as this. And then I saw this rash…’
‘And you’re worried that it’s meningitis?’ Natalie guessed.
Mrs Morley dragged in a breath. ‘Don’t let it be that. He’s my only one. Please, don’t let it be that.’
‘Rashes can be scary,’ Natalie said gently, ‘but there are lots of things that can cause a rash like this.’ Gently, she stretched the little boy’s skin over the spotty area. ‘The spots have faded, see? So it’s unlikely to be meningitis— though you’ve done absolutely the right thing to bring him here,’ she reassured Mrs Morley. ‘If it had been meningitis, he could have become seriously ill extremely quickly. Has he been immunised against measles?’
‘Yes. He had the MMR at fifteen months.’
‘It’s unlikely to be rubella or measles, then.’ Natalie swiftly took the little boy’s temperature with the ear thermometer—definitely raised. She continued examining him and noted that the lymph nodes in his neck were swollen. ‘It could be glandular fever—what we call infectious mononucleosis—or this could be his body’s reaction to a virus, most likely an echovirus.’ She swallowed hard. ‘Or Coxsackie virus.’
She couldn’t help glancing at Kit. Saw her own pain echoed in his eyes. And she had to look away and clamp her teeth together so the sob would stay back. Coxsackie B. The tiny, invisible virus that had smashed her life into equally tiny pieces.
She turned back to the little boy and finished her examination. ‘His skin’s starting to peel at the fingertips.’
‘He doesn’t suck his thumb or anything,’ Mrs Morley said. ‘Never has.’
‘I think Ross has Kawasaki disease,’ Natalie said. ‘Peeling skin’s one of the signs, plus he has the rash, the redness and slight swelling in his hands, his eyes are red, his lips are dry and cracked, and he has a fever.’ Kawasaki disease tended to be diagnosed clinically rather than through blood tests, and Ross Morley’s case ticked all the boxes. She glanced at Kit for confirmation.
He nodded, and mouthed, ‘Good call.’
She damped down the feeling of pleasure. She was doing this to help people, not to prove something to Kit.
‘So what happens now?’ Mrs Morley asked.
‘We’re going to admit him to the ward,’ Natalie said. ‘The good news is we can treat the disease. We’ll give him aspirin and a drip with immunoglobulin drugs to fight the disease. Over the next few days, the fever and the swollen glands in his neck will go down and the rash will disappear, but Ross’s eyes will still look a bit red and sore and the skin’s going to continue peeling around his fingers, toes and the nappy area. He might feel some pain in his joints and you’ll probably find he’s a bit irritable, but the good news is that you’ll be able to take him home next week and all the symptoms will gradually disappear. It’ll take him another three weeks or so after that before he’s completely over it, though.’
‘Will there be any complications?’
Possibly myocarditis—inflammation of the heart muscle—but although Natalie’s mouth opened, the words just wouldn’t come out. Couldn’t. The lump in her throat was too big.
‘There can be complications with Kawasaki disease,’ Kit said softly. ‘Some children have arthritis afterwards, and some develop heart problems, but we’ll send him for a follow-up echo to make sure—that’s an ultrasound scan of the heart and it won’t hurt at all, plus you can be with him while it’s being done.’
Mrs Morley swallowed hard. ‘Could he die?’ she whispered.
‘Most children make a full recovery,’ Kit reassured her.
Most children. But myocarditis could be deadly. Sometimes there weren’t even any symptoms. In very small children it was difficult to tell the problem—they couldn’t tell you if they had chest pain, were tired or had palpitations. You just noticed the difficulty in breathing, which could be caused by just about any of the viruses causing a cough or cold in a little one. The over-fast heartbeat could only be picked up by monitoring. And the average person in the street wouldn’t even know what S1 and S4 were, let alone that S1—the first heart sound, when the mitral and tricuspid valves closed—was soft if there was myocarditis, and S4— the fourth heart sound—made a galloping noise, like ‘Tennessee’, when tachycardia was involved. And then the heart stopped pumping efficiently. Failed. And finally stopped.
Just as Ethan’s had. And all she’d been able to do had been to hold her little boy in her arms as his heart had finally given out and the life had seeped from his body. Natalie clenched her fists hard, willing herself to stay strong.
Though she was sure that Kit was thinking of Ethan, too. Especially because she noticed the tiniest wobble in his voice when he added, ‘We’ll get Ross booked onto the ward, Mrs Morley, and one of the nurses will take you up and help you settle him in.’
‘Can I—can I ring my husband? He’s at work. I was just so worried about Ross this morning, I couldn’t wait for him to get home.’
Oh, yes. Natalie had been there, too. So sure that something was wrong, she hadn’t waited for Kit. She’d left a message for him at work and taken Ethan to the emergency department. A mother’s instinct was usually right: it was one of the things she’d been taught at med school. Parents knew when something was wrong with their children—they couldn’t always put their finger on it, and the words ‘he’s just not right’ were usually justified, on examining the child.
‘No problem,’ Kit said. ‘I’ll get our nurse to show you where the phone is. There’s a special phone on our ward, too, which we keep as the parents’ phone—you can give the number out if people want to ring you for an update, and you don’t have to worry about blocking the ward’s main line.’
When they handed Mrs Morley and Ross over to the liaison nurse, Kit turned to Natalie. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Sure,’ she lied. ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’ Though she could hear the cracks in her own voice. Ha. At least he wasn’t bawling her out for not doing her job properly. He could have picked her up on the fact that she hadn’t told Mrs Morley what the complications were. But he clearly understood how hard she found it to say the words. How she could barely breathe—it felt as if someone had put her whole body in a vice and was slowly, slowly squeezing it.
‘If you want to take five minutes, have a glass of water or what have you, that’s fine,’ Kit said.
But that would be showing weakness. As good as saying that she couldn’t cope with her job. And she could. It had just caught her unawares this time. Next time she’d handle it better. ‘No, I’m fine,’ she said tightly. ‘I’m doing my job. I don’t need mollycoddling.’
Perhaps she was being a little bloody-minded. But it jarred that Kit was trying to soften things for her now. When she’d needed his support, six years ago, he hadn’t been there.
‘If you’re sure.’
She couldn’t stand him being so nice to her. Kindness wasn’t what she wanted from Kit.
Though she wasn’t going to think about what she did want from him.
‘Tally. Natalie,’ he corrected himself quickly, ‘paediatrics is a tough option. Especially at this time of year. You’re going to come across cases that remind you. Cases that have parallels. And some days you’ll find it harder to deal with than others.’
Meaning that he did, too? She’d noticed that he hadn’t actually said Ethan’s name aloud. Would the word choke him, too?
Kit laid his hand on her shoulder. Squeezed it, giving the lightest of pressure. ‘Natalie, if you need—’
No. She didn’t need anything from Kit. ‘We have a full list. Let’s move on,’ she cut in quickly. If he offered her a shoulder to cry on now, nearly six years too late, she couldn’t bear it. She shrugged his hand off her shoulder, too—a white coat and her sweater weren’t enough of a barrier between them. Right now she couldn’t cope with feeling the warmth of his touch.
His voice cooled noticeably. ‘Of course, Dr Wilkins.’
Somehow she got through the rest of the afternoon. But the more she saw of Kit working—the way he was able to soothe the most fretful child—the more she realised how good he was with kids. They responded to him, to his strength and calmness, someone who was clearly going to take the pain away and make them feel better.
He didn’t rush through diagnoses either. He’d read a story if it was needed, or start telling a series of truly terrible jokes—jokes she’d had no idea he even knew—and made a game out of examinations. Let children listen to his heartbeat through his stethoscope. Took time to calm the worries of parents. Explained exactly what he was doing in terms the parents would understand, without frightening the child.
And she couldn’t help thinking what a great dad he would have made. How he would have been with his own children, dealing with tantrums and tears without letting them fray his temper. He’d still have kept his fun side, too, flying kites and racing round on a bicycle and playing boisterous games with them.
What a waste. What a bloody, bloody waste.
Or was it? Did Kit have another family now? Another son to replace the one he’d lost? A daughter, perhaps, one who looked like his new wife?
Natalie wasn’t sure what was worse: thinking about the dad he might have been, or thinking about the dad he might be now—to another woman’s children, not hers.
It broke her up inside, though she managed to keep a cool front. Even had coffee with him after their PAU stint, although neither of them spoke much and they kept the topics strictly neutral. Work. Safe areas.
And then she had two blessed days off. Two days when she wasn’t going to think of Kit at all. And by Monday, when she was on duty again, she’d be back in full control of her feelings.
‘What a waste,’ Fran sighed as she filled the kettle in the staffroom. ‘He’s so gorgeous, too.’
‘Waste?’ Natalie asked, frowning. What was Fran on about?
Ruth, the other nurse in the room, sighed dramatically. ‘Tall, dark and handsome. Drop-dead gorgeous, in fact— the sort who makes your knees go wobbly every time he smiles. And he’s a thoroughly nice bloke, too—not one of these who knows how gorgeous he is and expects every female he meets to worship him. He’s lovely. He takes the time to explain things to parents—and to students. He’s not one of these know-it-all doctors who think they’re God and nurses don’t have a brain cell to rub between them. He actually shows respect for the nursing staff. And he’s gay,’ she explained, looking equally disgruntled.
Natalie really wasn’t following the conversation. ‘Who is?’
Fran rolled her eyes. ‘Kit, of course. Our new registrar. He’s been here a week now. And you’ve been working with him in clinics and on ward rounds, so don’t say you haven’t noticed.’
Natalie blinked. ‘That he’s gay?’
‘No, that he’s gorgeous. I mean—tall, dark and handsome doesn’t even begin to describe him. He’s beautiful. And those eyes! Oh-h-h.’ Ruth shook her head. ‘You’re too focused on your work, Natalie. You really need to chill out. Get out more.’
‘Get a life. Yeah, I know,’ Natalie said, forcing a smile to her face. There had been a time when she’d partied with the best of them. Before her marriage had crumbled into dust. Since then, she’d preferred a quiet life.
‘It’s such a waste,’ Fran said again. ‘You know, I can just imagine what it’d be like to be kissed by him. That beautiful mouth, doing all sorts of lovely things…’ She gave a blissful shiver. ‘Ooh.’
Natalie didn’t need to imagine. She knew exactly what it was like to be kissed by him. How Kit’s lips could elicit a response from hers. How his mouth could move from teasing to passion within a second, as heat flared between them. How his mouth had taken her to paradise and back.
She gritted her teeth, trying to push the memories back where they belonged—in the past. She and Kit were over. Over. Remembering stuff like this was pointless.
‘I’ve got a friend who worked in his last hospital,’ Fran continued. ‘The nurses were falling over themselves to ask him out. He’d go on most of the staff nights out—he was always a good sport—but he never actually dated anyone. Turned down every single offer.’ She looked thoughtful. ‘Gina from the emergency department asked him out for a drink the other night. He turned her down—and considering Gina only has to click her fingers and men come running, panting…’
Kit didn’t date? But…Natalie damped down the little flicker of hope. No. Absolutely not. She didn’t want to start thinking about the reasons why Kit didn’t date. Or her own reaction to the news that maybe, just maybe, Kit was still single, too.
If she told them she knew he wasn’t gay, she’d have to explain. Which she didn’t want to do. But she didn’t want them getting the wrong idea about Kit either. ‘Maybe he’s just concentrating on his career.’
‘The way you do, you mean? No, I’m pretty sure it’s not that.’ Fran shook her head mournfully. ‘And it’s not because he’s an adoring husband because he’s not married, either.’
Ruth nodded. ‘I reckon he’s just not interested in women. I mean, he notices things like shoes.’
‘She’s right, you know,’ Fran said with a sigh. ‘Only gay men notice things like shoes, don’t they? Straight men don’t think about what you’re wearing, they think about how to get it off you.’
Natalie couldn’t help smiling, but inside she ached. Of course Kit noticed shoes: once upon a time, Natalie had been a major shoe fiend and hadn’t been able to pass a shoe shop without drooling over high heels in outrageous colours. Kit had bought them for her, even when they hadn’t really been able to afford it.
And the day she’d discovered she was pregnant, she’d bought a tiny pair of white satin pram shoes. Had wrapped them up and given them to him. And when he’d worked it out, he’d picked her up and spun her round and—
‘Hello? Earth to Natalie?’ Fran said, waving one hand in front of her face and proffering a mug of coffee with the other.
She took the coffee with a rueful smile. ‘Thanks, Fran. Sorry. I was miles away.’
‘Natalie’s definitely not your average woman,’ Ruth informed Fran with a grin. ‘She actually glazes over at the mention of shoes.’
Ah, but she understands chocolate,’ Fran said. ‘She’s one of us.’
Natalie didn’t mind the teasing. At least it got them off the subject of Kit.
But as if they’d read her mind, Fran asked, ‘He’s lovely, though—don’t you think?’
Uh-oh. This was going in a direction she really, really didn’t want to go in. Especially as she’d already learned that Fran and Ruth didn’t take no for an answer. They kept asking. If she said she didn’t think Kit was lovely, they’d want to know why. And she’d end up admitting that she used to be married to him. And why they’d split up. And Natalie really didn’t want her past dragged up and discussed on the hospital grapevine. ‘Handsome is as handsome does,’ she said with a shrug.
Kit had been about to walk into the staffroom and grab a coffee when he heard the subject of the conversation.
The nurses on the ward thought he was gay?
Some joke. He’d never been remotely attracted to another man, and he still appreciated pretty women. He just didn’t do relationships any more. There was no point, not since he’d lost the love of his life.
The woman who’d just walked back into his life—but had made it very clear that she didn’t want to resume where they’d left off. They were barely even friends now. Such a waste, when he remembered what they’d once been to each other.
Handsome is as handsome does.
The scorn that had gone into that remark. OK, so Natalie had good reason to feel that way. He’d let her down in the worst possible way, at the worst possible time. And he hadn’t tried hard enough to save the remnants of their marriage, because he’d been focusing on keeping himself together. Burying himself in work, keeping himself so busy that he hadn’t had time to hurt. Hadn’t gone under. And he hadn’t paid enough attention to what was happening to her.
But, oh, that comment rankled. Natalie thought he was shallow?
Maybe, just maybe, he shouldbe shallow. Accept all the offers thrown at him. Have wild sex with a different woman every night.
Except that wasn’t who he was. Wasn’t what he wanted.
As for what he did want…He was just beginning to work out what that was. And it simply wasn’t an option.
