HLA. Human leukocyte antigens? Lachlan needed to do a bit of reading himself and refresh everything he knew about haematology.
‘A bone marrow/stem cell transplant, with or without chemotherapy, certainly offers the potential of a complete cure,’ David nodded. ‘But we’re a wee way away from talking about that yet. What we need to focus on right now is some more tests to collect as much information as we can about the subtype and staging and then we’ll be able to plan your chemotherapy regime, Lachlan. I’d like to start as soon as possible. Tomorrow, even.’
So, there it was.
This was real. And urgent. This wasn’t just yet another revelation to add to the ones that had turned Lachlan’s life inside out in recent weeks. They had merely been warning shots and now his life was actually imploding. Josh clearly wanted to believe he was going to have a positive outcome like the case he’d read about but there was also a distinct possibility that he was facing the end of his life.
And it was scaring the hell out of him.
And...he couldn’t help looking at Flick now. He wanted nothing more than to be alone with her. For her to put her arms around him and hold him so tightly he could think about nothing more than how much he needed her.
How much he loved her... If he’d had any doubts at all about how he felt about this woman, the thought that he might not live much longer had just wiped them out completely. It was strange how it could focus the mind like a laser beam on what was actually important in life.
And that was people.
Love.
He’d learned to live without it. Avoid it. How ironic was it that he’d found two people who represented the best of what people and love could offer, just in the last few weeks? Which meant this was going to affect them as well.
Hurt them.
Neither of them deserved that but it was especially awful for Flick when she’d been through this before. If he’d been unsure of whether he would see how much she cared when he caught her gaze, those doubts had also evaporated completely. She looked easily as pale and sick as he was feeling himself. As if she was already hurting past the point of it being bearable—because she really did care about him.
Loved him, even—as much as he loved her?
He couldn’t do this to her. Or to Josh. He could sense how much his brother wanted to be involved—how connected he was—but maybe the only way Lachlan could show how much he cared was to spare him the kind of pain that could well be on the way. The kind they all knew about, that came with either losing or not receiving the love they needed so much.
Lachlan deliberately shuttered his gaze as he held eye contact with Flick. An unspoken denial of how he felt about her. A non-verbal shove that was intended to tell her the opposite, in fact. That he didn’t need her. Or want her.
And the message seemed to have got through because Flick appeared to shrink back. To gather herself in some way that made her seem smaller and more vulnerable. Her voice sounded different, too. As though it was someone else that was speaking.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘But I can’t do this again...’
Lachlan had already broken the eye contact but he could see her in his peripheral vision. And he could see the shock on Josh’s face when she turned and walked out of the room.
He didn’t feel shocked.
He felt...relieved... Surely it would be far better for her in the long run to be angry with him and get as far away as possible. He couldn’t blame her for running. He’d do it himself, if he could.
* * *
History was not supposed to repeat itself. Not this kind of history, anyway, and especially not when you’d done everything possible to make absolutely sure it couldn’t repeat itself.
Flick actually felt so physically sick she went into the nearest toilets and ran cold water to cup in her hands and splash onto her face.
Leukaemia.
Cancer.
Watching someone that you loved this much slip away from you and being unable to help. Having your heart break, again and again, into tiny shards that she now knew could make you bleed inside for years and years.
She couldn’t do this again because she wouldn’t survive.
Even now, as Flick left the shelter of the bathroom and made her way to the front door of Cheltenham Central Hospital, she could feel the cracks widening in her heart already and the pain was enough to make her feel unsteady on her feet. She stopped again, beside a kiosk in the main entrance that sold magazines and newspapers.
‘Are you all right, love?’ The woman in the kiosk was leaning over the counter to peer at Flick.
‘I’m...fine...’
Flick reached out towards a tall, rotating stand of magazines in the hope that it would provide support. But even as she touched it, she could feel it falling away and taking her with it.
And then everything went dark.
* * *
‘Ah...there you are. Welcome back.’
‘Where am I?’
‘In the emergency department of Cheltenham Central. You passed out in our foyer and someone carried you in here a few minutes ago. What’s your name?’
‘Flick...’
‘Pardon?’ The young doctor was looking bemused.
‘Officially, it’s Felicity. Felicity Stephens.’ The lights above her were very bright so Flick screwed up her eyes. Was that why she could suddenly see Lachlan in her mind? And hear his voice as he used her proper name?
‘I’m so sorry, Felicity... I’ve had a rather difficult day and I suspect you might very well be the answer to my prayers.’
More than that. She could see that first glimpse of who Lachlan McKendry really was under that polished and sophisticated exterior. The real man who was upstairs in this hospital and...and she couldn’t afford to start thinking about him. Not if she was going to survive.
‘But you prefer to be called Flick?’ The junior ED medic was on top of things now. ‘How old are you, Flick? And do you have any underlying medical conditions I should know about?’
‘I’m thirty-two. And, no... I’m perfectly healthy. I’m just a bit stressed, that’s all. And I skipped breakfast.’
‘As a rule, perfectly healthy people don’t faint and remain unconscious for a while. We’d like to run a few tests before we let you go, okay?’
‘I need to get home. I’m a nurse. I have someone to look after.’ Flick tried to sit up only to find her head was still spinning a little. And she didn’t need to rush back to Lady Josephine. In fact, she’d been ordered not to.
‘I can look after myself, for heaven’s sake. I should have been doing it years ago. Go and find what’s happening with my...with Lachlan. Please... I need to know he’s all right.’
‘As a nurse, you’ll know we have a protocol to try and identify the cause of unconsciousness.’ The doctor was wrapping a tourniquet around her arm. ‘We’ll take some bloods, do a finger prick for your BGL and do an ECG. Any chance you could be pregnant?’
A huff of something like laughter came from Flick’s throat. That would be the straw that broke the camel’s back, wouldn’t it?
‘No chance,’ she said. But there was a tiny voice at the back of her head, reminding her of that first time she and Lachlan had made love. When emotions had been running so high that night in the wake of Lachlan learning not only that he’d been adopted but that his mother had never wanted him, protection hadn’t crossed their minds. But it had only been the once and...and how long ago had that been?
The doctor must have seen the flash of alarm in her eyes.
‘We’ll do a urine dipstick as well, just to cover all the bases. It’ll be quicker than the blood test.’
Quick was a relative term, of course. It was well over an hour before her doctor had the chance to come and talk to her again. By then, Flick had been given a sandwich and a cup of tea.
�
�I’m feeling absolutely fine now,’ she told the doctor. ‘It was just because I skipped breakfast. I won’t do that again.’
‘Have you noticed any other symptoms in the last couple of weeks? Nausea? Sore breasts? Can you remember when the first day of your last period was?’
The last time Flick could remember even thinking about her period had been when she’d taken her toiletries from her suitcase to put with what she was packing to bring to the Cotswolds and the trickle of fear that ran down her spine arrived at the same moment she realised that her last period had been while she’d still been in Australia.
That tiny alarm bell was there again but this time it was ringing loudly enough to drown out everything else. Flick could feel herself going pale—the way she had only last night, when she’d knelt beside Lachlan, not knowing whether he was still breathing or not. That same reaction was an echo in her head as well, even as she could feel a welcome numbness sweeping in to protect her from trying to cope all at once with something that could have catastrophic repercussions in her life. Something she’d never thought she’d have to think about again.
No...
She didn’t need this doctor to confirm the news she was warning her was coming but it was probably something that had to be done.
‘I’m sorry if it’s a shock for you,’ the doctor said gently. ‘But there’s no mistake. You’re definitely pregnant.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘YOU DON’T HAVE to be here.’ Lachlan avoided making any direct eye contact with Josh, who’d been sitting quietly beside his bed for some time now. ‘I know I’m not exactly good company.’
It had been a hell of a day with so much happening as his specialists launched him into remission induction with the intention of killing all the AML cells in his blood. He’d started the first day of this frightening twist in his life with a surgical procedure to insert a central venous line just under his collarbone and, this afternoon, Lachlan had spent a couple of hours hooked up to a machine to undergo leukapheresis—a procedure that could rapidly reduce white blood cells counts to provide a head start to chemotherapy designed to achieve remission.
He had never felt this exhausted in his life. The intense medical procedures he’d undergone had been confronting on more than a physical level because he was being forced to face up to the reality of his situation and...it was terrifying.
As a form of escape that he hadn’t been able to resist today, Lachlan’s thoughts had drifted frequently to catching something far more pleasant to focus on. Like his beloved woodland, with its current carpet of bluebells, or the kitchen of his childhood with its warmth and the lingering aromas of comfort food. The problem with that, however, was that he couldn’t think of anything pleasant that didn’t include Flick and he was missing her so badly today, it was another level of pain all on its own.
He wanted her to be sitting where Josh was. He wanted her to know that he hadn’t meant to hurt her when he’d sent her away. When he’d hurt her by telling her that he didn’t need her. Had he really been so dismissive that he’d told her she’d only been employed to care for his mother? But he couldn’t give in to the desire to see her again. Not when protecting her from this was perhaps the only way he could show how much he cared about her, even if she would never know.
He cared about Josh, too. More than it should be possible to care about someone he’d only met a matter of weeks ago. But then, he’d had that feeling that half of his life had been stolen—more than that—that he’d been missing half of himself. No wonder it felt so right to have Josh here. And so wrong, for the same reasons it would be wrong to ask Flick to go through this by his side. He knew, without anything being said, that Josh felt the same way about being reunited with his twin. He shouldn’t have to go through this, either.
But Josh had other ideas.
‘I want to be here.’ His tone was a warning not to argue but Lachlan also had other ideas.
‘You managed without me in your life for thirty-six years, Josh. It won’t be that hard to get used to it again.’
‘I don’t want to get used to it. You’re my brother. The only family I’ve got.’
‘You might have to get used to it.’ Lachlan tried a wry laugh but it came out embarrassingly close to a kind of strangled sob. ‘Take a leaf out of Flick’s book. She’s managed to walk away, no problem.’
‘Has she? Has she actually gone?’
‘Well...she’s still here—in the district, at least. Only until we can find another locum nurse. My housekeeper, Mrs Tillman, is sorting that mess out for me.’
Tilly had come to see him late this afternoon. Just a very brief visit, for no more than a minute or two, because she could see how tired Lachlan was and he could see how upset she was.
‘You’re not going to believe this,’ he told Josh, ‘but she says Josephine is upset about me. Crocodile tears, huh?’
‘I doubt that. Sometimes it takes a shock for people to wake up and see what really matters.’
‘Well... I’ve had a shock and...guess what? Nothing really matters.’ Because it was never real, was it? He’d come as close as he ever had in the last few weeks to believing that he could trust the most important things in life, like family—and love—only to find he was about to lose them. Right now, that seemed worse than never having found them at all.
He’d managed alone for his whole life and he could manage this alone too. Especially because anyone else who was too close would only suffer along with him. He knew that Josh was finding the discovery of family connection and the love it represented as significant as he was so he had to persuade his brother to back off and protect himself, even if he had to be cruel to be kind—like he had with Flick.
‘Go away, Josh.’ This time, Lachlan did make eye contact with his brother. ‘Get on with your own life. Get over yourself and marry that nice girl with that astonishing hair.’ He managed to find a smile although he couldn’t hang on to it because he didn’t want Josh to see his lips tremble. ‘Go. Be happy for both of us...’
Lachlan desperately needed to sleep. Not simply because exhaustion demanded it but because it was the best way to escape, at least for a little while. But sleep wouldn’t come, even long after Josh had gone.
He found himself going over and over their conversation. Had he been right, in suggesting that his mother had been shocked into realising that she did actually care about the adopted son she’d never thought she wanted? Had she pushed him away in the same way as he was pushing both Josh and Flick away from himself now, because he was afraid of the pain that could be experienced on both sides by leaning into having people caring about him? About how much worse it would be to know he had no future when he had people he cared deeply about?
He could almost begin to understand.
Begin to forgive...
But still the peace that sleep could bring eluded him. His thoughts drifted from his mother to Josh. From Josh to Flick. Disjointed thoughts, flashes of emotion and—despite everything—a persistent longing, hope even, that refused to be dismissed. They were impressions and images, memories and feelings that all felt like pieces of a puzzle that had been tipped, haphazardly, all over a tabletop and were lying, completely jumbled up, in front of him.
Lachlan had no idea where to start to try and put them together but, in the moments as sleep finally stilled those thoughts, he had the feeling that the picture that puzzle would make might be just out of sight but it was imperative that he find out what it was.
Because it could be the most important thing he would ever see in his life and there was pressure building because he could be running out of time...
* * *
It was funny that you could be so numb you couldn’t feel anything at all but you could still function well enough that nobody else could tell that your life had fallen apart. But, then, the people around her had enough on their minds already, didn’t they?
/>
Mrs Tillman overheard the tail end of a conversation with Julia at London Locums the next day when Flick said it might be necessary to line up some candidates to take over Lady Josephine’s medical care, but if she disapproved of Flick abandoning the family in a time of crisis she didn’t let it show.
‘I’ve got some lovely cheese scones just out of the oven,’ was all she said. ‘Make sure you have one, won’t you, with a cup of tea?’
‘I’m really not hungry, thank you.’
‘I’m not sure if Lady J. wants to come down for her dinner tonight but it’s in the oven for later. I’m off up to Cheltenham to see how our Lachlan’s getting on. When we rang earlier, they said he was starting treatment already, poor lad. But that’s a good thing, isn’t it? Starting treatment early?’
Flick nodded. ‘The sooner the better.’
Lady Josephine hadn’t wanted to go downstairs for dinner.
‘Unless you’re eating something, Felicity?’
‘I’m not really hungry.’
‘Neither am I. But I can’t really miss a meal, can I? Not if I’m taking proper care of myself.’
‘You’re doing very well,’ Flick told her. ‘Even with all this new upset, you haven’t had an asthma attack or any chest pain and your blood glucose levels are a lot more stable than I would have expected.’
‘I want to be able to take care of myself.’ Lady Josephine took in a quick breath. ‘I want to be able to take care of Lachlan, if he’ll let me. I didn’t do a very good job of that when he was a child, did I? Maybe I can make up for it, at least a little.’ She wasn’t looking at Flick as she spoke, she was staring out of her window at that view across the gardens towards the woods. ‘I’m feeling older today,’ she added softly. So softly Flick barely heard. ‘And I’m lonely...’
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