‘Yes. And if I can’t have Josh, I hope you win, Felipe. In fact, you have my word that I shall do everything in my power to make sure that you get custody of him.’ She brushed a gentle kiss over the top of the baby’s head then looked him straight in the eye.
‘I won’t run away with Josh. I won’t try to hide him. I did think about it but I realise that it would be the wrong thing to do. However, I shall do everything in my power to ensure that Tara never gets him back.’
She gave a husky laugh and he felt his eyes burn with sudden tears when he heard the sadness it held, the pain. ‘I know that you will love and care for Antonio’s precious son every bit as much as I would have done. It will be some consolation.’
Felipe didn’t know what to say. He’d never dreamt that she would want to entrust Josh into his care if the child couldn’t stay with her.
Once again his emotions shifted, swirling like sand in a desert storm. Had he been wrong? Should he have let her explain why she hadn’t told him the truth about Josh? Did it really need explaining or could he work it out for himself? Had Rebecca not told him purely and simply because she’d been afraid of losing the baby?
Questions raced through his mind and he jumped when she suddenly bent and picked up her case.
‘The taxi’s arrived. I’ll have to go.’ He heard her swallow, heard the thickness of her voice as she added, ‘Don’t hate me too much, Felipe. I only did what I thought was right for Josh.’
She went to the door, murmuring her thanks when he opened it for her, and it was the fact that she could thank him after everything he’d said to her that moved him unbearably.
He watched her climb into the cab, saw how carefully she settled Josh on her lap, how tenderly she held the little boy in her arms, and saw nothing else. Tears filled his eyes and he couldn’t see the taxi as it drove away. Maybe that was a good thing. Maybe it would stop his heart breaking if he didn’t have to watch her leaving.
Maybe.
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘IT’S great to have you back! At least we’ll have someone here who knows what she’s doing!’
Becky laughed. It was her first day back at St Leonard’s and the first person she’d met on her arrival had been Karen. As they travelled up to the IC unit together in the lift, she made a determined effort to be cheerful.
Simon had assured her that nobody knew the real reason why she’d come back to England and she knew that she could trust him. He had been a wonderful support, letting her and Josh stay at his flat then helping her find a place of her own and lending her the money for the deposit.
She’d managed to find a tiny one bedroom flat close to where she’d lived before, so Josh had gone back to the same child-minder. He had settled in straight away and it was a relief to know that he was happy.
As Simon had predicted, the hospital had been only too eager to take her back. They had even waived the usual interview and had simply asked her when she could start. Now all she had to do was convince everyone that she’d returned to London because she’d been homesick and she could start putting her life back together, or as together as it was possible to be in the circumstances.
‘I’m sure it can’t have been that bad,’ she said, trying not to think about what might happen in the coming weeks. Felipe hadn’t made any attempt to contact her even though she had written to tell him her new address. However, she intended to keep her word and do everything in her power to help him gain custody of Josh if it came to a court case.
‘Simon told me that you’d had agency nurses covering my post.’
‘If and when they could find any.’ Karen sighed as the lift came to a stop. ‘It’s easier finding gold in the Thames than it is to find qualified IC nurses, especially paediatric ones. I can’t count the number of double shifts I’ve worked since you left.’
‘Really? I suppose that explains why the powers that be welcomed me back with open arms,’ she suggested wryly.
‘That, plus the fact that you’re one of the best IC nurses we’ve ever had in the unit,’ Karen said generously. ‘I was really sorry that it didn’t work out for you in Mallorca, but their loss is our gain. I only hope that Josh’s uncle didn’t give you too hard a time.’
‘What do you mean?’ she asked, her heart sinking. Had something leaked out after all about what had gone on?
‘Well, I don’t suppose he was very pleased about you leaving after he’d made all the arrangements for you to move over there,’ Karen replied, leading the way along the corridor. ‘He didn’t strike me as the sort of man who would take kindly to having his plans disrupted.’
‘No, he isn’t,’ Becky agreed hollowly. She tried not to think about Felipe too often, but it wasn’t easy to shut him out. Now, she sighed as an image of his handsome face swam before her eyes.
She missed him so much! Every day that passed just made it harder to cope. If only he’d let her explain why she hadn’t told him the truth about Josh. If she could believe that he didn’t hate her, it would help to ease the pain just a little.
‘You OK? I didn’t say something I shouldn’t, did I?’ Karen grimaced when she looked blankly at her. ‘Simon has been rather evasive whenever I’ve asked about you. I did wonder if there was more to your return than he told us.’
‘Hardly!’ Becky summoned a smile, not wanting Karen to start asking any awkward questions. ‘I got homesick for good old London. End of story. Anyway, what’s been going on here? What happened at the inquest into Rosie Stokes’s death?’ she asked, briskly changing the subject.
‘Oh, it was all St Ada’s fault, as we knew it was. Turned out that they’d run out of blood and borrowed some from St Leonard’s until their own supplies arrived. That accounted for the discrepancy in the bar-code.’
Karen was successfully distracted and Becky breathed a sigh of relief as she followed her into the staffroom. ‘And how about the mix-up with the blood groups?’
‘St Ada’s again. They only went and left their most junior trainee to change poor little Rosie’s drip.’ Karen’s face mirrored her disgust. ‘She mixed up the blood with some intended for another patient and nobody double-checked. Fortunately, another nurse realised there had been a mistake, so the other poor soul didn’t get the wrong transfusion. But nobody followed it up to see what had gone wrong.’
‘Incredible!’ Becky exclaimed. ‘I don’t know why people can’t just follow the rules. Someone should have checked the trainee’s work. Imagine how awful it would have been if Debbie had been blamed for what happened.’
‘She was completely exonerated before the inquiry. Danny Epstein—remember him, the boy with endocarditis?’ Karen carried on when she nodded. ‘Well, Danny’s mum saw Debbie settling Rosie in and was able to testify that she hadn’t changed the transfusion. She’s a lawyer, as it happens, so she was very precise about what she said.’
‘How wonderful! I was afraid it would be the last straw and Debbie would ask for a transfer,’ she admitted.
Karen laughed. ‘Funnily enough, it’s done just the opposite. She’s far more confident than she used to be. Odd how adversity sometimes brings out the best in folk, isn’t it?’
Becky nodded, but her heart felt heavy all of a sudden. Would it bring out the best in her if Felipe took her to court to claim custody of Josh? How would she cope if she didn’t have Josh to give meaning to her life? She could never have Felipe now, of course, and the thought of how empty her life might be in the future was almost more than she could bear.
Felipe had taken some time off work because he was more of a hindrance than a help. He knew that his colleagues were starting to wonder what was wrong with him, but he didn’t care. Where once the affairs of the Clinica Valdez had been his sole reason for getting up of a morning, he now found himself unable to take any interest in what was going on there.
He appointed one of his senior colleagues as director in his absence and left it at that. If…and it was a very big if at this stage…he managed to get his life back on t
rack, he would resume his duties. Maybe one day the clinic would take centre stage in his life again, but at the moment it was Rebecca who had claimed that role.
He missed her so much! Missed the sound of her laughter, the comfort of her silence. He missed just knowing that she was there in the villa. He missed her more than he’d believed it possible to miss another human being, and it was slowly but surely driving him to the edge of despair.
He knew that he would have to do something to resolve the situation before he drove himself completely crazy, but it wasn’t until he heard a bulletin on the midday news three weeks after Rebecca had returned to London that he was shocked into action.
He sat on the edge of his chair as the reporter told of a fire which had swept through St Leonard’s Hospital in London. There were pictures of the burning building, along with scenes of staff ferrying patients outside. It was hard to take it all in, especially when the reporter mentioned that several members of the hospital’s staff had been injured in the blaze.
Was Rebecca one of them? Was she even now lying in another hospital’s bed, in pain, maybe dying?
He felt sick at the thought of losing her. He couldn’t bear it if he had to live out the rest of his days without the comfort of knowing that she was alive and well somewhere in the world. All of a sudden, it was that thought which drove the confusion from his head.
Yes, she had lied to him about being Josh’s mother, but she had done it purely out of fear for the child. She had wanted to protect Josh, make sure that no harm came to him.
Everything she’d done, from promising Antonio to always take care of his son to visiting the clinic that day to ask him for money, had been done for Josh. She had put the child’s welfare before her own, been prepared to suffer any kind of hardship so long as the child was happy. Even the fact that she’d promised to support him if he sued for custody had been typical of her commitment to the boy. Right from the beginning, Rebecca had put Josh’s needs before her own.
It was a huge relief to have realised the truth at last, but terrifying that he might have arrived at it too late. If Rebecca had been gravely injured, he might never have the chance to beg her forgiveness and tell her how much he loved her.
He phoned the airport and tried to book a seat to London, barely able to curb his impatience when he was told there weren’t any available that day. When the ticket agent suggested making a detour via Madrid he immediately agreed, not caring how long it took him or how many changes he would need to make. So long as he got to London and could be with Rebecca, that was all that mattered.
He could only pray that she was unharmed.
The fire had started in the laundry and had swept through two floors of the hospital before it had been brought under control. The accident and emergency department had been gutted as well as Women’s Surgical. It had been a terrifying ordeal for everyone concerned.
The fact that all the patients had needed to be evacuated had put everyone under a great deal of pressure. Wheeling seriously injured people through the billowing clouds of smoke had been a nightmare. Several of the nursing staff had been overcome by fumes and one of the A and E doctors had been seriously injured. A section of the ceiling had fallen on him when he’d gone back to rescue an old lady who’d been trapped in the toilets. He’d been transferred to a specialist spinal unit and the prognosis wasn’t good.
The children in the IC unit were transferred to St Ada’s, which was rather ironic after recent events. Becky and the rest of the team from the unit did their best to make the transfer as smooth as possible, but it was a worrying time for them all. Moving gravely injured children across London was an ordeal, and she was glad when it was time to go off duty. Sister Reece had told them to report to St Ada’s the following day, although whether they would continue to run the department from there was still being discussed.
Becky was exhausted by the time she collected Josh from the childminder. She took him home and put him in his playpen while she changed out of her smoke-tainted clothes. She filled the bath and then to Josh’s delight got in it with him, washing them both then playing a game of splash in which she came off worst.
It reminded her poignantly of the time Felipe had helped her bath Josh and had told her about his experiences with the doll, Esmeralda. She could recall the surprise in his eyes when he’d admitted that he’d told nobody else the story.
All of a sudden she was crying. Maybe it was the stress of the past few weeks, combined with the events of that day, but she couldn’t seem to stop the tears from pouring down her cheeks. Josh looked at her uncertainly, his small face puckering, and it was that which helped her compose herself. The last thing she wanted was Josh being upset.
‘It’s OK, darling. Mummy’s fine,’ she told him, but he still looked unsure.
She climbed out of the bath and put on her old towelling robe then lifted him out and dried him, singing his favourite nursery rhymes to distract him. He looked a little happier by the time she went to fetch his bedtime milk and soon settled down once he’d drunk it. He was drifting off to sleep when she heard the doorbell ringing. She hurried to answer it, not wanting it to wake him.
Becky slipped the chain on the door because she wasn’t sure who it would be. Simon had been her only visitor so far, so maybe he’d come to update her about what was happening. She knew that there were concerns about the IC unit remaining at St Ada’s so they might have decided to relocate it somewhere else.
All that was whizzing through her head as she opened the door so the last thing she’d expected was to find Felipe standing outside. Just for a moment she stared at him with her heart in her eyes before she dragged her gaze away.
‘What do you want?’ she asked hoarsely.
‘To see if you were all right. I heard the report on the news about the fire. It said there were people injured…nursing staff…’
She heard him take a deep breath, heard the raw note of fear in his voice when he continued, and it was that which made her heart start to thunder inside her. To hear him sounding so scared shook her to the depths of her being because she didn’t understand what it meant.
‘I was worried about you, Rebecca. I had to come.’
Felipe held his breath, praying that she would believe him. Knowing that she was safe was such a relief.
He had been so scared on the flight from Madrid, terrified of what he might find when he arrived. He’d taken a taxi from Heathrow, his mind whirling this way and that yet always coming back to the thought of what he would do if Rebecca had been killed in the fire. He couldn’t even contemplate living out the rest of his life without her…
‘Worried about me? You really expect me to believe that?’
He flinched when she gave a bitter little laugh, felt his stomach roil with sickness when he saw the disbelief in her eyes. He could barely contain his pain when he realised that he was responsible for it.
‘Yes. I know you must find it hard to believe, Rebecca, and I understand why you feel that way. I behaved abominably. All I can do now is apologise and hope that you will forgive me.’
‘What is the point?’ she said in a tone that made him ache because it held so much anguish. ‘You hate me because I didn’t tell you the truth about not being Josh’s real mother. Nothing is going to change that fact, is it?’
‘I don’t hate you, Rebecca. I never could!’ He felt his heart swell with tenderness when he saw the sudden uncertainty in her eyes. He sensed that she desperately wanted to believe him and it was that which suddenly made it easy to tell her the truth.
‘I love you, Rebecca. I love you with my whole heart and if you feel anything at all for me, please, let me come in. We can work this out if it’s what we both want, I promise you.’
‘You love me?’ She closed her eyes and he saw the lines of strain that were etched on her beautiful face. ‘If this is a trick, Felipe…’
‘Dios! Do you think I would lie about such a thing?’ he demanded. ‘I love you. My life is empty witho
ut you. I cannot work, cannot sleep, cannot even think! That is why I had to come and see if you were all right. I…I couldn’t go on if anything had happened to you.’
His voice broke and he turned away, unable to stand there while she refused to believe him. Maybe he deserved to be treated like this after everything he’d done, but it hurt. It hurt so much!
‘Wait!’
He paused, one hand gripping the banister when he heard her call out to him. He couldn’t turn, couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything except wait and, maybe, hope.
‘Don’t go. Please. Not yet.’
He heard her footsteps coming along the landing, heard them stop, and still he couldn’t move. He seemed to be frozen, waiting for her to say or do something, hoping—praying—that it would be what he wanted so much.
‘Did you mean it, Felipe? Do…do you really love me?’
The hope in her voice was the catalyst that unlocked his mind and body, and he turned towards her. He knew that she could see the truth in his eyes even before he answered her question.
‘Yes, Rebecca. I meant it. I love you. Really.’
‘Oh, I never dreamt…never thought…’
Suddenly she was laughing and crying at the same time but more importantly she was walking towards him. Felipe opened his arms and as she stepped into them he knew he would never let her go again.
She tipped back her head and he could see the love in her eyes as he heard her say the words, ‘I love you, Felipe.’
He kissed her then, gently, tenderly, and the moment he felt her lips under his he was filled with certainty. Rebecca loved him. He loved her. They were two constants upon which they could build their future, no matter what happened.
Becky wasn’t sure how long they stood there with their arms wrapped around one another. It was only when she heard the front door slam and footsteps coming up the stairs that she realised how public a place they had chosen to declare their love for each other. She stepped out of Felipe’s arms, smiling tenderly when she saw the bemusement on his face.
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