‘Why not? I’ve never set foot in it. It means nothing to me, I only ever saw it on plan, but the tenants have wanted to buy it since the word go, and it’s risen hugely in value. I could sell it to them.’
His voice was still emotionless, so she could only presume that it really did mean nothing to him. Either that or he was better than she thought at hiding his feelings.
‘You still don’t have a permanent job, though, so you don’t even know how long you’ll be in Yoxburgh.’
‘No, but I’m here for a year, Annie’s told James that much, and I don’t suppose their house would be hard to sell, not with that view. And he was dangling the carrot of a pretty decent job firmly in front of my nose. He wouldn’t do that if he didn’t think it was possible. So—should I see if the tenants still want it?’
Kate let out a long, slow breath. ‘Sam, it’s a huge thing to do, to give up your house like that—’
‘No. It’s not huge, Kate, it’s just a house, and I don’t even have a mortgage on it. The life insurance covered it, so it was paid off in full. It’s just an investment, nothing more.’
She wasn’t convinced, but then nothing about their relationship was without drawbacks or compromise on both sides.
‘Don’t you think we should find out if we can actually live together without killing each other before you do anything radical?’ she asked, trying hard to be sensible in the face of his overconfidence and her own self-doubts, but he just laughed softly and reached out a hand and found hers.
‘We’ll be fine,’ he said, threading his fingers through hers and giving them a little squeeze, and she felt a little of his confidence seep into her along with the warmth.
He pulled up outside her house, and she took off her seat belt and turned to him, searching his face in the dim light from the streetlamps.
‘Fancy a coffee?’
He hesitated, then shook his head, the engine still running. ‘No, better not, we’ve both got an early start.’
She nodded, then leant across and touched her lips to his.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow, then,’ she said, moving away, but before she could go far his hand reached out and eased her back towards him. He met her halfway, his lips grazing hers, questioning, tasting, sipping, until on a slow, soft outbreath he moved in closer, deepening the kiss, exploring her mouth until she whimpered.
The needy sound was enough to make him go still and pull away, to her regret, but he didn’t go far—just enough to rest his forehead against hers and let out a ragged sigh.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to do that. You’d better go in while I’ll still let you,’ he said gruffly after a long pause, and she nodded, pulled away reluctantly and opened the door.
‘Goodnight, Sam. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘Yeah. Sleep well.’
‘And you.’ She shut the car door, ran up to her flat and waved to him from the window. He lifted a hand, then drove away, and she rested her head against the cool glass and swallowed hard.
OK, so maybe they wouldn’t kill each other if they lived together, but hands off? Not a chance. Not while her body was burning up from that brief but thorough kiss, and she had a feeling he wasn’t doing any better.
* * *
He contacted the letting agent in the morning, then rang the boatyard—just in case.
‘Any joy?’
‘Do you usually eavesdrop on people’s conversations?’ he asked mildly, and James just chuckled.
‘You’re talking on the phone in the middle of the ED in a very unnerving quiet spell, and you’re worried about me eavesdropping?’
He slid his phone back into his pocket and ignored that. ‘In answer to your first question, not yet. They certainly can’t move the boat today, but I’m serious about the house.’
James frowned in surprise. ‘Really? I thought you were just being silly.’
‘No. I’d love it. It’s got everything we need. Why wouldn’t I want it?’
‘I don’t know. Come on, let’s move this into my office and we can have a proper conversation about it.’
They’d taken two steps when the red phone rang, and James rolled his eyes.
‘I thought it was too quiet. We’ll catch up later.’
The trauma call went out on the loudspeakers as he was talking.
‘Adult trauma call, five minutes. Paediatric trauma call, five minutes. Adult trauma call, ten minutes.’
James pulled out his phone. ‘I’ve got to make a quick call and then I’ll meet you in Resus. Can you pull together a couple of teams?’
‘Sure.’ He turned on his heel and nearly ran into Kate. He hadn’t seen her all morning, she’d been in Minors, but the kiss was fresh in his mind and he’d had to force himself to focus.
‘Are you free?’
‘Yes. Do you want me?’
He gave a wry, frustrated chuckle. ‘Can we talk about that after we’ve taken the trauma call?’
She coloured slightly, bit her lips and tried not to laugh. ‘I’ll take that as a yes, then,’ she said, and he picked up the information from the desk and followed her into Resus where the teams were already waiting.
‘OK, we’ve got two adults and a baby all from the same car,’ he told them. ‘Dad’s still being cut out, mum and baby will be here in a minute. I’ll do the primary surveys while we wait for James, and we’ll go from there. Is someone coming down from Paeds?’
‘Not sure. Ed Shackleton’s gone off,’ someone said, ‘so they’re trying to find his registrar.’
‘OK. Right, we’re on. Let’s go and meet them.’
The paramedics wheeled the mother in, the screaming baby strapped safely in an infant carrier.
‘Mother and five month old infant, vehicle in collision with a van which swerved across the road out of control. We’ve secured the spine, but she’s complaining of abdominal pain and there’s evidence of seat belt injuries. BP one-thirty over eighty, pulse one-twenty, GCS fifteen at the scene. The baby’s stable but we haven’t taken her out of the carrier. Father on his way in with leg injuries.’
Sam nodded, and then turned to Kate. ‘Can you get her on a monitor, please, and we need to get some pictures of that spine. I just want to make sure the baby’s OK.’
He checked it quickly, one ear on Kate’s reassuring voice as she talked to the mother. She was on a spinal board with a neck brace and she was coherent, but he needed to check her over, too, and the baby seemed fine and was moving normally and the cry was one of distress rather than pain.
‘OK, little one, let’s see how Mum is, shall we?’ he murmured, and went over to her bed, leaving the baby still in her carrier in the care of a nurse until Ed’s registrar came down.
Agitated, was the simple answer. ‘I need to be with Evie!’ she said, trying to get off the trolley, but Kate restrained her gently.
‘She’s in good hands, Jenny, and so are you. This is Sam. He’s one of our consultants and he’s going to be looking after you so let’s get you checked over quickly and we’ll do our best to get you back with her.’
‘Hi, Jenny,’ Sam chipped in, running his eyes over her carefully after scanning the monitor. ‘Evie’s fine, from what I can see, but I need to have a look at you now. Can you tell me where you hurt?’
‘Uh—my shoulder? My hip—where the seat belt was. And sort of under my ribs?’
‘OK, can we cut these clothes off, please, so I can get a proper look, and can we have portable X-rays, please?’
Kate cut them away and he palpated her carefully, but even so she gasped as he touched the area over her liver, and he looked up at Kate.
‘Can we do a FAST scan and get a line in, please?’ he said softly. ‘I just want to check for free fluids. And we’d better get four units of O-neg down here and cross-match for four more. Sh
e might have an encapsulated bleed, or it could just be bruising from the seat belt or maybe a fractured rib.’
‘I’m on it,’ Kate said, and Sam took charge of the ultrasound while she dealt with the bloods.
They moved quickly, and by the time her husband was wheeled in, Sam had established that she had a broken rib, but there was no free fluid, the monitor was tracking a steady blood pressure and her spine and pelvis were uninjured, so Kate could remove the brace.
But in the meantime the baby was still crying, and Sam looked up at Kate and made a decision he hoped he wouldn’t regret.
‘Can you help me with the baby? I don’t know where Paeds are, but I want to get her out and check her over properly.’
She nodded and bent over the mother. ‘Jenny, we’re just going to look at Evie again. We’ll do it right here, next to you, OK, so you can see her?’
Jenny nodded, and he undid the straps on the baby carrier and slid his hands round under the baby. ‘You take her head, and we’ll lift her on your count,’ he said, and they laid her gently down on the bed so he could examine her.
‘I want to roll her to check her back. Can you try and keep her head still and in line, please, while we do it? That’s lovely.’
She held the baby rock-steady, talking soothingly all the time as he felt carefully for anything untoward, but there was nothing and as he rolled her back and refastened her nappy, Evie lifted her arms and wailed pathetically.
‘Can I?’ Kate pleaded, and he nodded.
‘She’s fine. Go for it.’
He watched her stoop and lift the little girl tenderly into her arms, and had to swallow a lump in his throat.
‘There, there, sweet thing, it’s all right,’ she crooned, ‘you’re OK. Come on, now—there, that’s better.’ She was rocking gently from foot to foot, cradling little Evie against her shoulder as if she’d done it a million times before, and the baby’s wails faded to hiccupping little sobs as she snuggled into the comfort of Kate’s shoulder.
He eased his breath out on a sigh and met her eyes. ‘There you go,’ he said, his voice a little gruff. ‘You’re a natural. She just needed a little cuddle.’
Kate bent her head and pressed her lips gently to the baby’s soft, downy curls and smiled at him, and he felt something he hadn’t known was tight release inside his chest.
* * *
An hour later all three of them were out of Resus, the father to Theatre, the little girl to Paediatric ICU for monitoring, her mother in a wheelchair by her side after a clear CT scan, and Sam flashed Kate a smile that made her heart beat faster.
‘Good job. Thank you,’ he said, and she felt a little rush of warmth.
‘You’re welcome. Have we got time for a coffee?’
‘I hope so. I haven’t had lunch yet, either, and it’s nearly two. Grab a sandwich together?’
She nodded, and they headed for the canteen, just as Sam’s phone buzzed.
‘Ah, text from the letting agent. The tenants still want the house.’ He shot her a quick glance. ‘I am serious, Kate,’ he said softly. ‘I do want this, but only if you do, too.’
She felt the usual rush of conflicting emotions—hope, excitement even, and the dreaded ‘what-ifs’.
What if we can’t live together? What if he can’t stand the sight of me by the time the baby’s born? What if something goes wrong with the pregnancy and I lose it—?
She gave a little gasp, her hand flying to her tiny bump, and Sam stopped.
‘What? What is it?’
She shook her head. ‘Nothing. I was just thinking—Sam, if you buy the house and I lose the baby—’
‘You won’t lose it.’
‘You can’t say that! I might! It happens. And then what?’
He let go of her elbow and turned back towards the canteen. ‘You won’t,’ he said again, as if he was trying to convince himself.
‘You sound like King Canute. Fight the battles you can win, Sam. That isn’t one of them. If it happens, it happens, and then you’ll have another house you won’t want to live in.’
‘It’s still a good house,’ he said, when they’d paid for their drinks and sandwiches, and she let out a little sigh and headed for the benches outside.
‘Yes. Yes, it is still a good house. It’s a lovely house, you’re right, and you wouldn’t have any trouble selling it on.’
‘Have you ever looked round it?’
‘No. That was the first time I’d been inside. I’m not really friends with them, Sam, but I don’t need to see any more to know it’s wonderful.’
‘Why don’t I ask James if you can have a look round tonight?’
‘Because they’ve got someone else viewing it,’ she reminded him.
‘Even better, it’ll be tidy. And talk of the devil,’ he said with a grin as James came over to them. ‘We want to look at the house tonight.’
James perched on the arm of the bench and shook his head slowly. ‘Sam, I can’t promise you a job yet—’
‘You don’t need to. I’ve got one for a year—’
‘No. You’ve got one until Annie comes back. If anything goes wrong she’s still entitled to her full maternity leave, but she might not want to take it. And safe pregnancy isn’t a certainty.’
‘You two are full of gloom and doom today. Kate was just talking about that with our baby.’
Our baby.
The words seem to trip off his tongue so easily, and she found them so hard to say. So hard to believe, to comprehend the full implications of those two little words, but her arms had felt so empty when she handed Evie over to the paediatric team and she could only imagine how Jenny had felt while she’d lain there helpless with Evie crying.
Her phone jiggled in her pocket, and she pulled it out and felt her heart sink. ‘They must have heard us talking. Annie’s been admitted. Her blood pressure went up and they’re doing her C-section today. Oh, lord, I hope she’s all right. That must be where Ed was. I wondered.’
‘How many weeks is she now?’ Sam asked.
‘Thirty-four? Not enough.’
‘That should be OK, though.’
‘Whatever, I’m crossing my fingers, just in case,’ Kate said, tapping in a reply. ‘Poor Annie. She so badly wanted to get to thirty-five weeks, if not more, but when I saw her yesterday she seemed tired.’
‘Not as tired as she’s going to be,’ James said with a wry laugh. ‘I couldn’t believe how tired we were with just one baby. Right, back to work. Keep us posted.’
* * *
It was hard to concentrate for the rest of her shift, and by the time she went off at four she was really twitchy.
She’d been checking her phone all afternoon, and she was halfway home when it pinged and she pulled it out of her pocket to see a text from Ed, a picture of a smiling Annie cradling two tiny, perfect babies in her arms. She turned round, went back to the hospital, showed it to Sam and James and burst into tears.
‘Hey, come on, they’re all OK, that’s good news,’ Sam said, hugging her, and she nodded furiously and sniffed.
‘I know, but they lost a baby before they got married and it’s just so lovely for them...’
She welled up again, and Sam put his arm round her shoulders and hugged her again, then tilted her chin up so she met his eyes. ‘Go and see her,’ he said.
‘She won’t want me. She’ll be tired, and the girls will want to see her, and her mum, and Ed’s grandmother—she won’t want me.’
‘Of course she will. Just pop up—five minutes, that’s all, not even that. Just to give her a hug. It’ll mean a lot.’
Trust Sam to understand. Apart from when he was trying unsuccessfully to stick to their hands-off rule, he was a very tactile person, and so was Annie. She nodded and headed for Maternity.
Annie was alone when she got there, and for a second Kate thought she was asleep, but then she stirred and opened her eyes and her face lit up. ‘Kate—you came! Did you get Ed’s text?’
‘I did—they look gorgeous,’ she said, stooping to hug her and blinking back tears. ‘You must be so happy. Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine—still numb at the moment so everything’s peachy! The babies are in SCBU for the night, just to make sure everything’s OK, but they’re looking great, really strong and feisty, and I’m feeling better already now I know the babies are OK.’
She caught hold of Kate’s hand. ‘Sit down, talk to me.’
‘No, you need to rest. You don’t need me here, I just came to hug you.’
‘Oh, please stay!’ she protested. ‘I feel tired but my mind’s whirling and I’m too wired to sleep, so some nice friendly company would be lovely. You can tell me more about Sam.’
‘OK, if you’re sure?’ She perched on the edge of the chair, still holding Annie’s hand, and told her about Sam wanting to buy James and Connie’s house. ‘I’ve told him he’s crazy, because he hasn’t even got a proper job—’
‘He can have my job,’ Annie said instantly.
‘He’s got your job,’ she pointed out, but Annie shook her head.
‘No—permanently. I’m not coming back.’
Kate felt her eyes widen. ‘Seriously? You’re not coming back at all?’
Annie shook her head again.
‘I missed so much of the girls when they were tiny because I had to work, and I really, really want to be there for them all this time, so I’m going to stop. I’ll be a full-time mum for the first time ever, and I can’t wait. Tell James. I’ll let him know officially later, but he ought to know, especially as it affects you and Sam.’
Kate nodded. It could mean that they’d stay in Yoxburgh near their friends—living in James and Connie’s house? She didn’t get that lucky...
‘Sure. I’ll tell him later, we’re seeing them this evening,’ she said. ‘And I’m really pleased for you, because I know how worried you were about relying on your mother so much, but—oh, I am going to miss working with you.’
Their Meant-to-Be Baby Page 11