by Amy Andrews
She could see her reticence confused Paul. He’d obviously thought she was just going to say all was forgotten and fall back into his arms. And if she was honest with herself, she’d admit his assumption rankled. Yes, he’d been hurt, he’d been grieving, but, then, so had she.
He had discarded her. Trampled all over her love. Finding him in bed with his ex had cut her so deeply that she’d doubted she could ever love again. Did he expect her to just wipe that under the carpet?
Callum checked his mobile message bank all day. He hoped desperately one of the messages that were flashing on his machine when he got home in the evening would be from her. One was from Tom. Two were from his secretary. And one was a hang-up. He lasted an hour before he dialled her number.
‘Hi, this is Hailey’s voicemail, I’m busy right now so leave a message.’
Busy? Busy doing what? Callum’s heart thudded in his chest while he waited for the beep. He thought of several things to say and discarded them all. He’d give anything to hear her voice. Her real voice. To be with her, lying beside her as he had done last night. Why did it seem such an age ago now?
He replaced the phone as several scenarios of what she was doing right now popped into his head.
Stop it!
The apartment was quiet and he found himself wishing Tom was there. At least there was never a silent moment or time to indulge in his own thoughts with an energetic six-year-old around. At least Tom kept his mind off things and caring for his son took up all his energy. There was usually nothing left of him at the end of the day and right now it seemed exceedingly inviting.
He channel-surfed for a while, glancing at the wall clock every couple of minutes. It hit seven-thirty and the evening alone with his thoughts stretched interminably ahead. He stood. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t wait around. He had to know. Callum was at her door in under a minute, banging loud enough to announce his presence to the entire floor.
Hailey hurried to the door—had Paul lost the key? She blinked at Callum’s glowering presence. His shirt was untucked and dark stubble shadowed his jaw. He obviously hadn’t shaved after he’d left that morning. He looked big and mad and handsome and she realised after an exhausting day of reflection and analysis with Paul how much she’d missed him. ‘Hi.’
Callum stood on the doorstep, his eyes greedily roving over her face and body, her presence momentarily striking him dumb. It was a few moments before he recovered. ‘We need to talk.’
‘Callum.’ Hailey shut her eyes. It was so good to see him, to hear his voice. Had it only been last night they’d made love?
‘Can I come in?’
She sighed. ‘Callum.’
‘Please?’
His voice was husky and full of yearning and she wanted to do more than just invite him in. She wanted to take him into her bed, put her head on his shoulder and listen to the steady thud of his heart. She stood aside.
Callum braced himself to be polite to Paul as he brushed past her and stepped into her apartment. ‘Where’s Paul?’ he asked, looking around the empty lounge room.
‘He’s gone to the bottle shop,’ Hailey murmured, skirting Callum to stand nervously beside the lounge.
How cosy. ‘So, what’s been happening today?’
‘We’ve talked. A lot. It’s been…cathartic.’
Callum frowned. He heard the weariness in her voice. ‘He hasn’t been upsetting you has he?’
‘No. Of course not.’
‘So where does this leave us?’
‘Callum, please. I need some closure. I need this time with Paul, please…’
Callum clenched his fists. ‘So was I just a substitute lover? Until the real thing came back into your life?’
Hailey reached for the lounge as she staggered from his insult. ‘It wasn’t like that, and you know it. What happened between you and I was…’ Hailey sighed wearily. She’d talked so much today her voice hurt.
‘Was?’ he demanded.
‘Something I can’t think about right now. How was I to know that he was going to show up on my doorstep?’
‘Isn’t that what you’d been hoping for?’
Today had been a day for honesty and Hailey didn’t see the point in stopping now. ‘Yes. Deep down, yes. In the beginning I did hope he would,’ she admitted. ‘But I never expected it.’
Callum felt her slipping away. ‘So you’ve always been holding out a little for him?’
‘No. Yes…I don’t know. All I know is that my life changed irrevocably over a year ago—’
‘And it didn’t change irrevocably on Sunday night?’
Hailey shut her eyes. Of course it had. ‘You know what I mean, Callum. Paul dumping me, Eric’s death…it tore my life to pieces and only Paul can help me put it back together.’
‘No, you’re wrong, Hailey.’
Hailey felt a lump rise in her throat. ‘You don’t understand,’ she said, choking on a sob.
‘I don’t understand?’ Callum growled, ignoring the anguish evident in her voice. He closed the distance between them and reached for her. ‘I don’t understand? Let me tell you, Hailey, I know about pieces. Little tiny pieces of your life that are torn from you and shredded and strewn everywhere and there’s nothing you can do about it and nothing’s the same ever again and you have to go on even though you’re bleeding and injured and all you want to do is curl up and die. I know about irrevocable changes. Trust me on this. I. Can. Help. You.’
A tear escaped and trekked down her cheek. Poor Callum, how much he had suffered. But this was about her survival, her closure. She knew what she needed for that. For the first time, thanks to him, she knew.
‘No, Callum. I need to do this. I need to see this through to the end. Alone.’
Callum shook his head and released her. How had he picked another woman who was so hell bent on rejecting his help? ‘God, what is it with women? You’re just like Annie.’
‘No Callum. I’m not. I’m nothing like Annie. I didn’t stay and fight tooth and nail like she did. I wasn’t strong like she was. I fell apart. I left with my tail between my legs. I ran away. But not any more. I have to face this now. I can’t run from it any more.’
‘But she never let me help her either.’
Hailey heard the anguish in his voice and her heart went out to him. She lifted her hand to his cheek. ‘Because Annie knew something I’ve only just realised. Some things you just have to do on your own.’ She dropped her hand. ‘Just give me this time with him. Please, Callum. If you feel anything for me at all, you’ll let me do this my way.’
Callum ran his hand through his hair. If he felt anything for her? Damn it, he loved her! It killed him to think he couldn’t help her.
He sighed. ‘OK.’
Hailey shut her eyes briefly. She reached for his hand and was grateful he didn’t reject the gesture. She gazed down at their interlocked fingers. ‘Thank you, Callum.’
He squeezed her hand. ‘I’ll see you at work? When are you back on?’
‘Day after tomorrow,’ she murmured.
He gave her hand another squeeze before dropping it. ‘The day after tomorrow, then.’
‘Sure.’
CHAPTER TEN
HAILEY’S STOMACH fluttered uneasily, feeling like a herd of elephant butterflies had taken up residence when she returned to work. She knew she’d see Callum at some stage today. Hell, she’d be lying if she didn’t admit that a large part of her was looking forward to it. But mostly she felt nervous. She knew he wanted answers. But the truth was she didn’t have any—just more questions. It should have been clear cut but it wasn’t.
The day was busy, for which she was grateful. No time to glance at the swing door every time it opened. No time to worry about who was on the other end of the constantly ringing phone. No time to wonder why he hadn’t appeared yet or speculate about to when he would.
Morning tea came and went, so did lunch. Home time was only an hour away and Hailey couldn’t figure out if she was relieved
or annoyed. Was he trying to punish her, give her a dose of her own medicine? Or had he just got caught up with his private patients or down in Emergency? They’d already had several admissions from them that day as it was.
Soon though, Callum’s presence, or lack of it, quickly faded as Hailey became worried about the two-month-old that had been admitted a couple of hours ago. The little girl, Sarah, had come up via Emergency for investigation of a febrile illness, query viral in origin. She had a two-day history of lethargy, poor feeding and vomiting. All the usual tests had been run in Emergency—blood and urine—and she had a peripheral drip running. Prophylactic antibiotics had been commenced until the cause of the infection had been isolated.
In the two hours she’d been on the ward she’d been stable but her condition in the last ten minutes had worsened. Her fever had just spiked to forty-one and her extremities were now mottled, with very poor perfusion. Worst of all she was becoming less and less responsive.
Rosemary smiled at her as she ducked into the bay, looking for one of the ward’s tympanic thermometers. ‘Do you know where Yvonne is?’ Hailey asked.
‘She was in her office a minute ago,’ Rosemary said.
‘Can you, please, get her for me?’ Hailey asked, trying to keep the feeling of dread from rising in her chest and escaping in her voice.
Still, she must have looked pretty serious because Rosemary left immediately, returning with Yvonne.
‘What’s wrong?’ Yvonne asked, cutting to the chase.
Hailey breathed a sigh of relief. ‘I don’t like the look of her.’ She rattled off her concerns to Yvonne. ‘Can you page the reg, please?’
Yvonne left immediately and Hailey placed some flow by oxygen near the baby’s face. She noted that Sarah’s pulse displayed on the saturation monitor seemed to have plateaued at about one hundred and ninety. The fever was no doubt responsible for some of the alarming figure, but she checked it herself to make sure it was right. The brachial pulse bounded beneath her touch so rapidly it was hard to count. In fact, Sarah’s entire abdomen pulsed with the pounding of her heart.
‘Do you know where her mum went?’ Hailey asked Rosemary.
‘She said she was going home to sort out the other kids. She said she’d only be an hour.’
‘OK, thanks.’ Hailey nodded as she hit the button to take another blood pressure measurement and checked the baby’s pupils while she waited. Still briskly reactive but Sarah wasn’t responding to any of Hailey’s interventions.
Callum entered 2B quickly. Yvonne had left him in no doubt that it was urgent and he hadn’t wasted any time getting here. He strode to the bay, faltering when he saw Hailey at the bedside. He’d known it was her first shift back, had been trying his damnedest to get here all day, but things had been crazy and everything had conspired against him. And one look at the baby told him now wasn’t the time for chatting.
‘What have we got?’
Hailey looked up from her tiny patient, startled to find Callum here. She’d been expecting his registrar, Adele Nolan, who was an excellent doctor, more than capable of handling the situation.
Anyway, it didn’t matter. Not even this moment that she’d been dreading and anticipating all day mattered. Seeing him again after their tête-à-tête the other night was strange, and she felt her pulse leap at his sheer masculinity, but she paid it no heed. There was enough adrenaline charging around her system at the moment to kick-start a generator. And all their issues had to take a back seat to the grimness of Sarah’s situation.
Hailey filled Callum in on her recent deterioration as if they’d been doing this together for ever. ‘I think she’s septic.’
Callum nodded, his concern for the very unwell-looking baby also overriding the million things he wanted to say to Hailey. ‘BP?’ he asked as he took his stethoscope out and listened to the baby’s chest.
‘Fifty-five systolic.’
He nodded, listening over the entire lung field. He palpated the abdomen. ‘Let’s give her some extra fluid. What’s her access like?’
‘Good cubital fossa,’ Hailey said, indicating the drip at the crook of the baby’s elbow.
‘Twenty per kilo. Let’s fill her up and get her to ICU.’
Hailey and Callum worked on reversing the shocked infant while Yvonne did some ringing around. First she rang ICU to organise a consult and a bed and then she rang Sarah’s mother on her mobile to tell her to come back to the hospital immediately.
The ICU team arrived, consisting of a nurse and a doctor, and they all worked together to stabilise the baby. Twenty minutes later Sarah was intubated and hooked up to a portable ventilator and monitor. The extra fluid had also gone in and her heart rate and blood pressure had both improved slightly.
‘We’ll get a central line and an arterial line in when we get back to the unit,’ Glenda Collins, the ICU doctor, told Callum. ‘We might need to start some inotropes too if the blood pressure remains too saggy. Are we ready to go, Kyle?’ she asked the nurse who had accompanied her.
Yvonne paged an orderly and a few minutes later the cot, loaded with portable machines, was wheeled out of the ward, flanked by two wardsmen, Glenda and Kyle. Sarah looked very, very tiny, dwarfed by all the medical personnel and equipment.
Yvonne, Hailey and Callum watched them leave.
‘Will she be all right, do you think?’ Rosemary asked, standing back in the corridor to allow the cot to pass.
Hailey looked at the junior nurse. ‘I hope so.’ She smiled. ‘Fingers crossed.’
‘She has a very good chance,’ Callum butted in. ‘Thanks to Hailey’s quick intervention.’
Hailey blushed at his compliment. She’d handled it well. She knew that. She’d felt calm and confident. Sure, her heart was beating a little fast, but that was only to be expected when a baby’s life was on the line. Even the most hardened professionals succumbed to the effects of adrenaline, they just knew how to channel it to their advantage.
A year ago something like this would have really thrown her. But she’d come a long way since then. Callum made her feel like she could do anything.
‘Are you OK?’ he asked her, his hand on her shoulder.
She smiled at him. ‘I’m fine. Thanks for coming so promptly.’
He shrugged. ‘Yvonne said it was urgent.’
She nodded. ‘Thanks anyway.’
He looked at her, saw the dark smudges under her eyes. ‘How are things…?’
Hailey hesitated for a moment. ‘OK.’
‘Do you need to talk?’ She looked like she needed to talk.
Hailey looked at her watch. Her shift was nearly over. It was surprisingly tempting. He looked so good and she had missed him. ‘I can come to your office in half an hour?’
Callum gave her shoulder a squeeze. ‘Thirty minutes. That would be great.’
Hailey felt more nervous standing in front of Callum’s office door than she had when Sarah had gone bradycardic, her heart rate having plummeted right down to forty during intubation. But she’d known why that had happened. She knew about the vagal nerve and how stimulating it could cause a drop in the pulse rate. And she’d known a dose of atropine would fix it.
But there wasn’t a drug to fix the twisted triangle she found herself in. Paul wanting her. Callum wanting her. Paul, who had come back into her life like she’d once hoped he would. Paul, who was finally past what had happened with Eric and was prepared to forgive her and move on. Paul, who had betrayed her trust and sent her away.
Callum wanting her. Callum, who she’d been wildly attracted to from the beginning. Callum, whose past was littered with tragedy but who had gone on, refusing to be cowed. Callum, who was still in love with his dead wife.
She summoned her nerve and knocked on the door.
Callum looked up from the computer screen he was feigning interest in. He closed the application with a click of the mouse. ‘Come in.’
Hailey entered as Callum was rising from his chair. ‘Hi,’ she said, shutting the
door after her.
‘Hi.’ They looked at each other for a few moments. He’d missed her. His arms had ached and his heart had felt heavy and he hated how the space beside him in bed that had been empty for six years suddenly seemed so cold. ‘Sit,’ he said, pulling out a chair for her, remembering his manners.
Hailey sat. She was conscious of him looming over her and she didn’t breathe easily until he resumed his seat. He looked tired, his tie, sporting frogs in tiaras, had been loosened, his top button undone.
‘So. What’s happening with you? You look tired,’ he said tentatively.
‘So do you.’
‘Guess neither of us is getting much sleep.’
Hailey nodded. ‘He wants me to go back with him,’ she blurted out.
Callum felt his heart stop in his chest before it resumed at a more rapid pace. ‘And what do you want?’ he asked, breathing carefully, concentrating on staying calm and using logic and reason instead of petty, macho jealousy.
Hailey massaged her forehead. ‘I should want it, too.’
‘Should?’
‘It’s what I’d hoped for when I left the UK.’ She looked at him beseechingly, trying to make him understand how big this was for her.
‘And lately?’
Hailey shook her head and smiled sadly. ‘No. Not lately. Lately I’d started to forget…to feel good about my life. About being here.’ About you. ‘But…Oh, heavens, Callum, I didn’t think he was ever really going to show up like this. I mean, I’d hoped…back in the beginning but…I’m so confused.’
Callum counted five even breaths. ‘Well, I wish I could help you with that, Hailey, but I’m a little confused myself.’
‘He says he forgives me. That he doesn’t blame me. Do you know how long I’ve waited to hear that?’
‘Forgive you?’ Callum frowned. ‘What for?’
Hailey looked at him. ‘Oh, for Pete’s sake, Callum,’ she muttered. ‘Don’t be so bloody obtuse. For Eric, of course.’