The Nurse's Reunion Wish

‘Well, he’s in the right place now,’ Rachel said, doing her level best to keep Haylee as calm as she could.

‘Have you worked here long?’ Haylee asked.

‘I’ve only been here a week,’ Rachel admitted. ‘Before that I worked in a paediatric emergency department in Sheffield.’

‘I thought I heard a northern accent.’ Haylee nodded and looked up at Rachel. ‘Do you have any children?’

‘No,’ Rachel said.

To her utter, aching regret, the answer was no, even if it wasn’t strictly true. But it was much easier just to say no and deny her son’s existence than to walk along a corridor with someone she didn’t know and admit to the agony.

‘No, I don’t.’

The porters were holding the lift for them, and as the group got in, Rachel gave them a nod of thanks, relieved that attention could be diverted from her answer to Haylee’s question.

The lift doors closed and Haylee looked up at Jordan. ‘So, you’ve got three children?’

‘I do,’ Jordan said. ‘All boys.’

Rachel held her breath as Haylee asked Dominic the same question. ‘What about you, Doctor?’

How would Dominic respond?

For Rachel, worse than having him reveal their past would be hearing about his present. Was she about to learn that he was married with two little ones or one on the way?

As she awaited his response, Rachel found she was holding her breath. Was she going to have to hide her reaction to hearing about a Mrs Hadley? Or a soon-to-be Mrs Hadley? And how would she react to that?

Dominic wasn’t about to enlighten anyone.

He would rather be anywhere than in this lift right now. And this morning, of all mornings, it was imperative that he keep his private and professional worlds firmly separated.

‘I try not to bring my personal life to work, Haylee,’ he said, and let out a steadying breath. ‘It makes it easier for me to focus.’

Haylee nodded and gave a small smile, not offended in the least at the slight rebuff, and he saw Rachel let go of the breath she’d been holding.

The lift swished them to the second floor, and they were soon gliding along the highly polished corridor and into the controlled world of the operating theatre, where more medical staff awaited them.

‘Stay with him,’ Dominic ordered Rachel. ‘A familiar face might help.’

But Rachel’s familiar face most certainly wasn’t helping Dominic, so it was Thomas Jennings he kept on his mind as he went off to change into scrubs.

As the theatre nurses checked Thomas’s ID, and ran through questions with his mum, Richard Lewis came in and introduced himself.

Jordan was ordering an IV and drugs, but the efficient theatre staff were taking care of that, and Rachel again found that she felt a little giddy.

Not in an about-to-faint way. Just giddy from the heat of Theatre, she tried to convince herself. Of course she was worried about Thomas, but mostly she was overwhelmed by seeing Dominic again—but she never let it show, not even for a second. Even when Dominic returned, dressed in scrubs and a theatre cap, she gave him as banal a look as she could muster.

‘Let’s get a line in,’ Dominic said, and then added to Rachel, ‘Can you try to distract him?’

The numbing gel had only recently been applied, but she hoped it would take the edge off the cannula going in. More important, Thomas was increasingly cyanosed and becoming rather listless, so it was imperative they moved quickly.

Haylee cuddled her son while Dominic eased a cannula into his little vein.

‘Good boy,’ Dominic said when it was all done and hooked up.

Now that IV access had been secured, it was time for Rachel to escort Thomas’s mum out of the operating theatre. But before she left, Dominic caught the tearful woman’s eye. ‘I won’t leave his side,’ he said.

‘Thank you,’ Haylee said.

She turned and waved as her son let out a raspy cry, but allowed Rachel to lead her out.

‘They’ll take the very best care of him,’ Rachel said.

‘That anaesthetist—he seems to know what he’s doing,’ Haylee said as Rachel led her to the relatives’ room. ‘Thomas will be safe with him.’

‘Yes,’ Rachel said. ‘Dr Hadley will take the very best care.’

It was a difficult intubation. Thomas’s throat was swollen, and the vocal cords were hard to visualise, but with Richard’s quiet and reassuring presence, Dominic got the tube in and thankfully a tracheostomy wasn’t necessary. Swabs and bloods were taken, and antibiotics and IV fluids were started.

Thomas was moved over to the ITU, where, sedated and ventilated, his little body could finally start to fight the infection, and it wasn’t long before Haylee was allowed to return to her son’s side. Only then did Dominic leave him.

‘Well done,’ Richard said as Dominic took a seat at the nurses’ station that looked out over the whole of ITU and pulled up Thomas’s incoming blood work on the computer.

‘Thanks.’

Richard turned his head at this rather muted response from Dominic. He noted the pallor on his colleague’s face, and saw that his usually suave registrar was suddenly anything but.

‘Is everything okay?’ Richard checked.

‘Not really,’ he admitted, and ran a hand over his forehead now that the surprising turn of events had begun to sink in. ‘There’s a nurse down in Emergency...’

Richard rolled his eyes. This happened all too often where Dominic was concerned. ‘You need to learn to let them down more gently,’ Richard suggested.

But Dominic was silent.

He knew it would be far more sensible to say nothing. To just let it go.

After all, what had happened between him and Rachel had been more than a decade ago.

Way more than a decade.

It had been thirteen years, in fact.

Yes, better to stay silent, Dominic decided.

Except the shock of the morning had been so great—or maybe it was just that he couldn’t hold it in any longer—that he told his senior the truth.

‘It’s not like that,’ Dominic said, for it wasn’t a little glitch with an ex or some disgruntled lover that was troubling him.

Rachel had been way more than that.

‘I just ran into my ex-wife.’

CHAPTER TWO

‘EX-WIFE?’ RICHARD did a double-take, perhaps thinking he had misheard or that Dominic was joking.

‘Yes.’

‘Your ex-wife is working in Emergency? You never said you’d been married. I had no idea.’

How could he have? Dominic thought to himself. Apart from a fleeting conversation with Jordan and his wife, a couple of years ago, he’d never discussed his brief marriage with anyone. To Dominic’s colleagues, friends—and lovers—he was the personification of an eternal playboy bachelor.

‘It was a long time ago,’ Dominic clipped, already regretting saying anything. ‘It didn’t last for long.’

‘What happened?’ Richard persisted.

‘We were young.’ Dominic shrugged and turned back to the computer. ‘We got married for all the wrong reasons.’

‘Such as?’

But Dominic wasn’t going to answer that one.

‘We both agreed it was a mistake. I haven’t seen her in...’ He blew out a sigh. ‘Years.’

‘And how does it feel to see her now?’

Dominic thought for a moment. How did it feel to see Rachel again?

Challenging.

It felt as if every mistake he had ever made in life was suddenly being paraded in front of him, but he played it down to his boss.

‘Surprised. I never thought she’d leave Sheffield,’ Dominic admitted, but he deliberately didn’t offer her name, nor let on that it was Rachel. There were always staff coming and going at The Primary, and he was quietly relieved Richard hadn’t picked up on the tension between them this morning. ‘She’s all about her family.’

‘What are they like?’ Richard asked.

‘Her mum died, so there’s just her dad—and she’s ever so protective of him. Oh, and there are four hulking brothers. They’re all very parochial...’ His voice trailed off. He didn’t mean it in a derogatory way, but as an outsider it had been impossible to break in to their clique. ‘They considered me weak.’

‘Weak?’ Richard frowned, clearly nonplussed, because Dominic, as well as being tall and broad-shouldered, was incredibly confident and assured.

‘A bit of a pansy,’ Dominic elaborated. ‘And I guess I was back then.’

Richard laughed, but it faded when he saw the serious expression on his colleague’s face.

‘What was your wife like?’

‘Tricky,’ Dominic said—which was the understatement of the year.

But he really didn’t want to discuss it, so when his pager buzzed he pounced on it and saw that it was Maternity.

‘Your wife is paging me,’ Dominic said, and gave a wry smile. Richard’s wife, Freya, was a midwife, and had just started back at work after the birth of their son William. ‘I’m needed over in Maternity for an epidural.’

But Richard had more to say on the topic of Dominic’s ex-wife. ‘I can go and give the epidural. Why don’t you go and speak with...?’

Richard was waiting, Dominic guessed, for him to offer a name, but he would not be revealing that.

‘It must have been a big shock for your ex-wife too,’ Richard said.

‘She seemed fine with it.’ Dominic shrugged.

Only, he knew that couldn’t be true. Rachel buried her emotions deep, and he had been denied access to them right from the start. When they’d first got together he had asked about her mother, wondering how her loss at such an early age had affected Rachel, but she had shut him down. And then, in those final painful days when he’d tried to speak to her about their son, Rachel had made it very clear she did not want him to get close.

Well, she’d got her wish, and although it appeared they might be working together for the foreseeable future, they had never been further apart.

‘I’ll head up to Maternity,’ he said.

‘No, no.’ Richard stood and pulled rank. ‘I’m going. There’s a patient with COPD down in Emergency. He needs a pre-op assessment. Could you go and take care of that, please?’

Dominic’s jaw gritted.

‘And while you’re there perhaps you could manage a conversation with your ex-wife, to ensure that you’re both okay with the situation?’

‘We’ll be fine.’

‘Good. Then you’ll have no issue heading down to Emergency.’

‘Of course I won’t. But as for having a conversation with my ex-wife, there’s nothing left to talk about,’ Dominic said. ‘It was all said and done with years ago.’

Not really.

There had been an awful lot left unsaid.

Rachel had walked back down towards the Emergency Department in somewhat of a daze. She had been completely unprepared to see him and felt utterly sideswiped.

Her move to London was still so new. Of course she knew that Dominic was from here, so she’d been braced to run into him on the street, or in a shop or café, even while telling herself she was being ridiculous—after all, there were more than eight million people living in London.

Not for a second had she expected to see him at work.

A doctor?

An anaesthetist!

When?

He wasn’t exactly a people person. In fact, the Dominic she’d known had been rather socially awkward. The Dominic she’d known had had one interest—physics—and had been determined that one day he’d be a research scientist. He’d been heading off to university for just that purpose.

Okay, he’d had two interests, Rachel amended as she opened the large double doors to Emergency: physics and sex.

She dared not allow herself to think of the latter, though!

‘How’s Thomas?’ May pounced the second Rachel returned to the department.

‘I’m not sure,’ Rachel said. ‘I took Mum over to the ITU relatives’ room, but Thomas was still in Theatre when I left.’

‘I’ll call them in a little while,’ May said.

Rachel looked over to May, who was writing on the whiteboard as she chatted, and oddly found that she wanted to confide in her.

May, she wanted to say, how long has Dominic Hadley worked here? Or, May, that registrar anaesthetist—well, he just happens to be my ex-husband and I don’t know quite what to do.

But Rachel said nothing.

‘Are you okay to go back to work in Minor Injuries?’ May asked, taking her glasses off and smiling at Rachel.

‘Sure.’

‘Would you mind restocking Resus first?’ May directed a slight eye-roll at Tara. ‘You know what you used.’

Restocking was tedious, but essential—especially in Resus. It was imperative that all the equipment was exactly where it should be when it was needed the most.

A lot of the packs had been opened, though not necessarily used, so there was a lot of replacing and reordering to do. Rachel did so methodically, glad of the chance to get better acquainted with the area.

Tara was taking care of an elderly patient who’d had a seizure. He was currently sleeping while they awaited his transfer to a ward. She joined Rachel in Resus.

‘How long did you work in Emergency in Sheffield?’ she asked as Rachel replaced the oxygen tubing and mask and checked the suction.

‘Three years in Emergency all up. I did hairdressing before I went into nursing.’

They chatted lightly as Rachel worked, though Rachel’s heart wasn’t really in the conversation. She was still reeling from seeing Dominic that morning, and wondering how on earth they would be with each other when they eventually spoke.

The patient Tara was caring for was soon transferred, so she came and gave Rachel a hand, both of them checking the intubation tray’s contents before sealing it up.

‘Keep an eye on Dominic,’ Tara said suddenly.

‘Sorry?’ Rachel blinked.

‘Dominic Hadley—the registrar anaesthetist. I saw him looking at you when he was on the phone.’

Rachel decided it was best to act vague. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m just trying to give you a heads-up. Dominic might best be described as “nice while it lasts”—but, believe me, it never does.’

Rachel could hear the bitterness in Tara’s voice. It was clear there was history between her and Dominic, and from the sound of things, he had become a bit of a player. It was all just so at odds with the man she had once known.

She wondered what Tara’s reaction would be if she told her she had once been married to him, and decided there and then that her and Dominic’s past would not be joining them at The Primary.

There was no way she wanted the fact they’d been married to get out. And aside from that...

‘I’m engaged,’ Rachel said, ‘and even if I weren’t...’

She left it there, because it felt safer to do so than to let her imagination wander down that track.

No way!

Her heart had been placed under lock and key after she and Dominic had broken up. It had taken years for her to forge another relationship. There had been a couple of cursory attempts at dating, but they hadn’t worked out. And then, when she’d first started working in Emergency, she’d met Gordon, a friend of her flatmate, who was kind and made her feel safe.

When the accounting firm he worked for had offered him a promotion that had required him to move to London, Gordon had asked her to join him. It had felt like a big leap to agree to live with him, on top of moving cities and jobs for him, but the night before they’d left for London Gordon had, at the leaving party her dad had thrown for them, asked her to marry him. And now they were engaged.

Not that she wore her ring to work.

With the restock done, Rachel signed off and headed back to the minor injuries section. But an hour or so later, unable to concentrate and desperate for a moment’s peace, she said she was going to find her cardigan and made her way to the changing rooms. Without even bothering to switch on the light, Rachel sat on the bench in semi-darkness, the sounds of the Emergency Department muffled behind the thick door, and put her head in her hands, trying to process things.

Dominic was a doctor.

That nerdy teenager she had known was now a sharp-suited anaesthetist with something of a reputation with women, given it had taken all of one moment in his presence to be warned of his ways.

Despite keeping her head down, the giddy feeling refused to abate—and then Rachel suddenly recognised what the feeling was: it was how she had always felt when she was with him.

Yes, Dominic Hadley made her giddy—and had done so from the very first day they had met.

It had been September, and both had been starting their last year of senior school. His father, a professor, had accepted a role at the university in Sheffield, and the family had moved up there and enrolled Dominic in a top school.

Rachel had been there on a hard-won scholarship, and had never really fitted in, while Dominic had been sent there as a matter of course.

Not that he’d wanted to be there.

He had missed London and his old school friends.

Despite being from very different backgrounds, they had struck up a friendship. They had both been complete geeks.

She’d had braces, and Dominic had just had his ceramic ones taken off, so on the very first day of their final school year their first conversation had been about the importance of retainers.

‘Get two sets made,’ Dominic had advised her, ‘and wear them every night.’ He’d told her about a friend in London who hadn’t worn his and now was having to start all over again.

‘Oh, I’ll wear them.’ Rachel had nodded and smiled her silver-and-elastic-band NHS smile. ‘I won’t be able to afford them once I turn eighteen.’

They had both been very serious about their schoolwork and the conversation had turned to chemistry, which she had found impossible but he’d handled with ease.

‘Do you want me to help you?’ he’d offered when, halfway through the first term, she’d found herself falling behind. ‘We could go through some things after school?’

He had written his address down on her exercise book and that same afternoon she had made her way to his house.

His mother’s smile had been tight when she’d greeted Rachel. Professor Hadley hadn’t even attempted one, and had made it clear he was less than impressed by his son’s choice of friend.

‘You have homework of your own to do, Dominic.’

It had been obvious to Rachel that she wasn’t particularly welcome in the Hadley household, so he had started to come to her little terraced home after school.

‘What time does your mum get home?’ Dominic had asked that first time, as they’d made tea and found biscuits in the kitchen.

‘There’s just my dad and my brothers, and they usually get in around seven.’

‘Where’s your mum?’ Dominic asked.

‘She’s dead.’

‘Rachel!’

He sounded stunned, and waited for her to elaborate, but she knew that if she explained further she would break down, and her tears had long since been removed from this house.

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘It’s fine,’ she said, picking up her mug and heading up the stairs to her room, hoping he would leave things there.

Except he did not.

‘How?’ Dominic asked as he followed her up. ‘When?’

But Rachel reminded him that he had come over so they could study together. There should be no more to it than that.

Except those walks to her home through the park started to stretch for longer. The same park where she’d been spun and swung as a child. Sometimes they’d take a seat on the park bench, or lie on the grass and talk as they gazed up at the sky.

About the clouds.

About other kids in their class.

About their studies and how he liked coming to her home. He told her that his parents fought a lot.

‘Badly?’ Rachel asked, and turned to look at his tense expression as he nodded.

‘We moved up here so they could have a fresh start,’ Dominic told her. ‘He had an affair.’

‘Oh.’ Rachel was unused to such candour.

‘But it sounds as if it’s still going on,’ Dominic said. ‘I don’t know why she stays with him when he makes her so miserable.’ He looked over to her then. ‘Do you think your dad will ever get a girlfriend?’

‘No!’ Rachel gave a soft laugh at the very thought. ‘He says he’s got enough going on with the five of us.’

Dominic turned and looked at her. ‘How did your mother die?’

There was gentleness in his enquiry. He rolled from his back onto his side, and then, leaning on his elbow, he looked down at her, and she looked up into dark eyes that wanted to know her better.

And, given what he’d just shared about his parents, she told him the little she could without crying. ‘Something ruptured in her brain.’

‘Was it sudden?’

‘Very.’

‘Do you miss her?’

Every day, she wanted to say, but she was so scared at the depth of her feelings that she didn’t know how to share them.

‘I don’t really remember her,’ Rachel said instead, because that was sort of true as well.

She remembered some things—like her smile and her kiss, and lying in bed listening to a story; the soft lilt of her Irish voice and the sparkle of her ring as she turned the page, her pretty red nails as she pointed to words, how safe she had felt when wrapped in her perfumed arms.

But she knew she’d cry if she told him that.

And so she didn’t.

Sometimes Rachel would turn her head just for a quiet gaze at Dominic. The more time she spent with him, the more aware of him she became, all the while telling herself it could never be.

So she hid how she felt, because that was the only way she knew how to live.

‘I never know what you’re thinking,’ Dominic said late one afternoon as he met her cool green gaze.

She was about to respond that she was thinking about the equation he’d just put in front of her, but that wouldn’t be true. She could feel the warmth from his thigh next to hers, and when their heads bent forward over a book she ached with the effort of not turning her face to his.

So now she did.

His gaze was intense, with an expression she had never seen before. For once it felt as if he could see her hidden desire, and yet she did not look away.

‘Perhaps I don’t want you to know,’ she said.

‘Can I at least try and guess?’

‘You can try.’

‘And if I’m wrong?’ Dominic checked. ‘Will we still be friends?’

‘We’ll still be—’

Her voice had been halted by the softness of his lips against hers. Dominic’s guess had been absolutely right. Because of course she’d been dreaming of his kiss since the first day they’d met.

In her bedroom, sitting at her desk, he kissed her soft and slow, and she forgot about her braces, and she forgot about her inexperience, because he was new to this too.

And they were no longer shy.

No longer awkward.

At least not when it was just the two of them.

Together they revised for their looming exams, and together they learned about themselves and each other. And Rachel’s braces came off, but thanks to Dominic, she felt beautiful way before then.

It wasn’t all plain sailing, though.

His parents didn’t approve of their friendship, so they worked hard to hide their blossoming romance.

And her father, who usually got on with everyone, took an instant dislike to the awkward, polite, private school boy who, to top it all off, was from down south.