Whatever. He’d deal with it. He’d dealt with all of this before, and he would do it this time too.
A noise at the doorway jerked him out of his reverie. Sam was dressed in comfort clothes, a pair of faded jeans and an oversized cardigan wrapped around her as if there was some need to keep warm. Her hair was sleek and still damp, spilling around her shoulders like a cascade of tears.
‘Hey.’ Somehow the grinding sadness, the guilt that was so old he could hardly name it any more, lifted. Sam needed him, and Euan knew how to respond to need. He felt himself smile at her, and before he knew it, he believed in the smile.
‘Hi.’ She sat down in the chair that he’d pushed towards her with his foot.
‘Feeling better?’
‘Yes, I’m fine. Things are going to be all right, aren’t they?’
Euan had no idea whether things were going to be all right, but there were times when reassurance had to take precedence over the truth. ‘Everyone’s in one piece. And tomorrow’s another day.’
The endless redemptive properties that tomorrow seemed to hold finally made her smile back at him. She hesitated and then her grey eyes met his gaze. ‘Will you tell me what happened? With Carrie?’
‘I can’t tell you everything without breaking a confidence. Let’s just say that a friend of a friend knew that she was in bad shape.’
She nodded. ‘I meant what happened while I was there.’
She’d been so capable, so cool that Euan had almost forgotten that this was probably the first time she’d been in a situation like this. It was likely that she didn’t even know what had been wrong with Carrie, although he’d recognised her symptoms straight away.
‘Carrie had been taking cocaine. Her blood pressure was very high and her heartbeat was fast and irregular.’
‘And you gave her something to counteract the drug?’
‘No. There’s no reliable antidote for cocaine, and by itself it’s not fatal. It’s the side effects of its use that are dangerous, and we treat them as and when they present themselves. I gave her a shot of diazepam, which is a sedative.’
‘And that got her heart rate under control?’
‘Yeah.’ He smiled at her. ‘And talking to her, reassuring her, didn’t do any harm at all.’
She flushed pink, but shook her head as if it was nothing. ‘And she’ll be all right now?’
‘She’s not out of the woods yet. But she’ll be closely monitored at the hospital, and they can keep her stable until the drug’s worked its way out of her system.’
Sam nodded. ‘What would have happened if we hadn’t turned up?’
‘It’s difficult to say. Her body might have coped with the effects of the cocaine, and she’d have woken up tomorrow morning feeling pretty grim but otherwise none the worse for it. Or she could have died.’
She was looking at him intently, as if everything that he was saying was being fitted into a giant jigsaw puzzle in her head. ‘How much do you think she took?’
‘Impossible to say. Illegal drugs aren’t regulated, and they vary enormously in purity and composition, so it’s impossible to predict their effects. And with cocaine, even small amounts can produce the kind of effects we saw tonight.’
Her brow was creased, as if with some gargantuan effort. ‘Is that what you wanted to know?’ Euan asked the question as gently as he knew how.
She nodded, clearly not quite trusting herself to speak.
Euan had a question of his own. ‘I’m glad Carrie’s friend went with her to the hospital.’
She didn’t take the bait, and he tried again.
‘I saw you talking to her...’
‘Yes. She was feeling pretty guilty that she’d been there in the house and hadn’t realised that Carrie needed help.’
‘It happens.’ His observation prompted a downward twitch of her mouth. ‘What did you say to her?’
‘That she had another chance to be there for her friend and that she should grab it with both hands.’ She lifted her face towards him and Euan almost choked. So much pain there.
‘You did really well tonight, Sam. I was glad that you were there.’ The words seemed pretty inadequate in the face of whatever it was that was going on behind those beautiful, agonised eyes, but she smiled anyway.
‘Thanks.’ She waved her hand in front of her face, as if to bat away the bad thoughts. ‘Are we going to have some coffee, then?’
It was a clear invitation to drop the subject before they got too close to the mysterious personal reasons. He could do that. Euan could wait.
CHAPTER FIVE
THEY’D TALKED FOR a long time last night. As if something important had happened and neither wanted to let go of it, even though it remained unspoken.
Unspoken maybe, but it was important. Sally had died alone, from what had been described as a cocaine overdose, but at the time no one had bothered to explain to Sam what that actually meant. And now Carrie had lived. That had to mean something, although Sam had been too tired by the time Euan had left to work out what.
She’d slept deeply, and woken up late on Sunday morning. When she moved her head, pain splintered through her right temple.
Sam groaned, rolling onto her back, holding her head between her hands as if somehow that would lessen the pain. Fat chance. She wondered whether she was going to be sick or not, and whether it would be prudent to get herself to the bathroom first, before hunting down the migraine tablets in her handbag.
She managed to get to her feet and the world lurched sickeningly. Bathroom first.
* * *
Euan hadn’t meant to go to the office on Sunday morning, but he was vaguely aware of unfinished business from last night. Perhaps if he bumped into Sam, he’d be able to work out the nature of the business, and quite why it was unfinished.
The place was quiet when he arrived, and he settled down in David’s office to do some paperwork. She was probably asleep.
It was ten o’ clock before he heard the sound of running water from upstairs. Euan forced his attention back to the report in front of him. She’d make an appearance in her own good time.
A moment later a crash and the sound of breaking glass brought him to his feet. He hurried to the closed door of the flat and knocked on it. ‘Sam...? Are you okay?’
No answer.
‘Sam!’
He wasn’t sure whether she could hear him or not, or whether he would hear her if she called for help. Finding the spare key for the flat in David’s desk drawer, he unlocked the door, stopping at the bottom of the stairs.
‘Sam, I’m coming upstairs.’ He heard her voice slurring something that might have been an answer, or might not, and he didn’t wait to work it out.
She was leaning against the tiny kitchen sink, dressed in a white cotton nightdress, shards of broken glass and rivulets of water around her bare feet. He spoke her name and she hardly seemed to notice he was there.
For a moment everything that he was sloughed away like a discarded skin, leaving just a creature of instinct behind. All he could think about was a primitive urge to gather her up in his arms and make everything all right.
‘Don’t move...’ He crunched across the fragments of glass on the floor, and she tried to bat him away.
‘It’s okay...’ She was groggy, shading her eyes from the light. At the back of his mind the doctor was scrolling through all of the substances that could produce those particular symptoms, and Euan pushed those thoughts away.
‘Here. Careful now.’ He lifted her up gently, clear of the broken glass, and she moaned, clutching her head. Carrying her through to the tiny sitting room, he put her down in the chair.
‘Migraine...’ She seemed to be struggling to put a cogent sentence together. ‘My tablets are in my handbag...’
Of course. Euan wondered wryly whether he’d been doing this job too long. Not everything was the result of illegal drugs. ‘Okay. I’ll get them for you.’
He covered her with a throw that lay folded over the back of the chair, and made for the kitchen. Euan found her bag, sitting on top of the refrigerator. He wondered briefly whether he should be looking inside it, and reminded himself that he usually had little compunction in turning a woman’s handbag upside down in the name of effective treatment. Gingerly he nudged her purse and a bunch of keys to one side, and saw the top of a bottle of tablets. Pulling them out, he checked the label.
‘Here.’ He knelt down beside her chair, put two of the tablets into her hand and held the glass of water steady as she curled her shaking fingers around it. ‘Careful...’ A dribble of water ran down from the side of her mouth as she drank, and he caught it with one finger, brushing it away.
‘Let me see your feet.’ The request seemed somehow improper, although Sam had hardly reacted to it.
She ignored him, seeming ready to curl up in the chair and sleep right there. Euan bent down, examining her feet for any signs of glass or blood, and found nothing. Carefully he covered them up again with the throw, tucking it around her.
‘Thanks.’ She shaded her eyes with one hand, opening them a crack. ‘I’ll be okay in a minute.’
‘You should lie down.’
‘I’m all right. Don’t fuss.’
‘You’d be more comfortable.’ Euan broke off, realising what the problem was. ‘Stay here for a minute.’
‘Yeah. I’ll stay...’ Her words tailed off into nothing as he stood and made his way to the bedroom.
The bed was rumpled, the morning sun shining through the skylight above it. A perfect way to wake up, bathed in warm sunlight. Unless, of course, every shard of light seared its way through your head. Euan moved the bed out of the way, got a stool from the kitchenette, and reached up to the window.
It took a shove to get it open, but once he had a breeze started to circulate in the room. That done, he pinned a couple of tea-towels across the frame, blocking the light.
‘Okay.’ He tapped her hand to rouse her. ‘I’ve covered the skylight...’
‘Uh?’ She stared blearily at him.
‘Come with me.’ He gently tried to guide her to her feet, but she wasn’t going anywhere. So he lifted her in his arms again, catching his breath as he felt her snuggle against him.
All he could think about as he carefully manoeuvred her through to the bedroom was her scent. The feel of her warm skin. The tumble of her hair, caressing his arm.
‘Euan...’ When she murmured his name he felt his legs tremble, and he held her closer. ‘It’s too hot...’
‘I’ve opened the window.’ She gave a little sigh as he laid her down carefully on the bed and covered her with a sheet. All he wanted was to lie down beside her, feel the curl of her body against his again. ‘Sleep now.’
‘Mmm. I’ll be okay in a minute... When the tablets kick in.’ She was half-asleep already.
‘Sure. Is there anything you want?’ Euan looked around the room. One of the chairs from downstairs would fit in the corner, and he could watch over her while she slept. Just in case she woke up and needed him.
‘Will you go away, please?’
* * *
She was still pale, and she looked somehow small and frail in the light summer dress she wore, but at least she was back on her feet. Euan had cleared up the broken glass from the kitchen floor, checked that she was sleeping, and gone back downstairs, leaving the door to the flat open so that he could hear if she called for him. He was almost disappointed that she hadn’t. Two hours later he’d heard the sound of the shower and then the pad of her bare feet on the stairs.
‘Feeling better?’
‘Yes. Thanks.’ She sat down beside David’s desk, the filmy printed material of her dress moulding itself to the shape of her legs. ‘I’m...sorry, I was feeling pretty rough this morning. I didn’t mean to be rude.’
If she had been, he hadn’t noticed. Probably too busy drinking in the pleasures of having her close. Which was wrong, on almost every level that he could think of. ‘It never occurred to me you were.’
She seemed to be weighing the statement up. ‘Thanks.’
‘You get migraines often?’
‘Once every couple of months maybe. I take the pills and sleep a bit and then I feel better.’
He nodded. ‘Do you always use the tablets you had in your bag?’
‘Yeah. For years.’
‘They might not be the best thing...’
Stop. Right now. Euan’s sense of self-preservation snapped into action. It was inadvisable to throw attraction into the mix with someone who could end up supplying one of the charity’s most important organisational tools. It was wrong to want to hold onto someone when the two emotions that most readily sprang to mind when he imagined himself in a relationship were guilt and betrayal. And now he was thinking about getting involved with her medical treatment? That was professional suicide.
‘Might be an idea to go back to your own doctor and get him to review your medication. There are new drugs coming out all the time. Migraine’s one of those things that we’re still in the process of understanding,’ he said instead.
Her laugh was cut short, and she pressed her fingers to her temple. ‘My doctor doesn’t understand it at all. Most of what I know about managing it came from other sufferers on discussion boards on the web. He’s just good for the drugs...’ She flushed. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean...’
Euan smiled. ‘It’s a fair point. A lot of people who suffer from chronic illness know more about their treatment than doctors do.’
This time she thought before she spoke. ‘Yeah. I didn’t mean to imply that all doctors are useless.’
As there was no one else in the room, Euan took that as a compliment. ‘Never thought you did.’
A lazy smile spread across her face. A particularly beautiful smile, Euan thought.
* * *
Usually a migraine didn’t stop her from working for more than a couple of hours—as soon as the drugs kicked in, she’d be back at her computer screen, wearing dark glasses if necessary. It appeared that Euan had other ideas.
‘Do I have to confiscate that?’ Sam had picked up her laptop when she’d gone upstairs to find something to eat and he looked at it pointedly.
‘You could try...’ She smiled, as if somehow that might be a joke, but no one touched her laptop. Ask any software developer and you’d get the same answer. ‘I’m just going to do something while I eat...’
‘No. And no.’ He was smiling too, but this was rapidly turning into a battle of wills. ‘You’re not going to open that laptop today, and you’re not going to work while you eat. Doctor’s orders.’ He frowned, as if the last bit was somehow a problem.
‘I...’ Sam decided that telling him she did that all the time was only going to get her into more trouble. ‘It’s no big thing.’
‘Then don’t do it.’ He was purposely misunderstanding her. He opened one of the drawers of David’s desk and Sam saw a pile of files inside, neatly stacked. ‘Put it in there.’
Okay, if it was going to make him happy. She could always take it back out again. ‘There. Okay now?’
‘Yep.’ He smiled and turned the key in a lock set into the frame. The click of levers told Sam that the whole desk was now probably secure, and Euan put the key into his pocket.
‘You think that’s going to stop me?’ She picked up the paper knife on David’s desk and Euan looked at it warily, as if she was about to stab him. ‘I’ve opened enough locked drawers before.’ She tapped the point of the knife on the top of the desk.
‘Not with that, you won’t. David keeps all the sensitive stuff in his desk drawers and that’s a se
curity lock.’
One look at the lock told her that he wasn’t bluffing. Sam put the knife down with a clatter and plumped herself down on a chair, wincing when her head throbbed from the sudden movement.
‘You’re in no shape to work today. And I wouldn’t eat that if I were you either.’ He pointed towards the limp, pre-packaged salad that she’d fetched from upstairs. He might be right. On a second look it didn’t look all that appetising.
‘So what am I supposed to do? Sit around staring at the wall all day?’ The images that formed in her mind when faced with blank walls frightened her. ‘I’ll get a headache just from being bored.’
‘Is that a challenge?’
‘Maybe.’ Of course it was. Challenging Euan could turn into a regular pleasure if she wasn’t careful.
‘In that case, you’d better come with me.’
CHAPTER SIX
HE’D INSISTED THEY have lunch at his house, and she’d put on a panama hat and sunglasses for the ten-minute walk. A pair of plimsolls didn’t seem the first choice of footwear to go with the pretty summer dress she was wearing, but they were practical and she carried it off. Sam made everything she wore look stylish, irrespective of whether it was a designer suit or a pair of jeans.
When he turned into the quiet street where he lived and led her up his own front path she seemed surprised. ‘This is lovely, Euan!’
He stopped to look at the white rendered front of the house, which had pale blue-grey shutters and a shade darker for the door to match the roof slates. He hadn’t done that in a while, but the sense of satisfaction at what was almost all his own handiwork was still there.
‘Thanks.’ Her approval cut deep. Right down to the places that he tried so hard to defend. ‘The place was a bit of a wreck when I bought it.’
‘You did it up?’
‘Yep. A few years ago now. I moved here from London when I finished medical school.’ He’d left the flat that he’d shared with his wife, breaking his last ties with that life. Brought nothing with him, just his clothes and his medical books. If asked, Euan would have said that he regretted cutting Marie off so completely now, but since he didn’t generally bring the subject up, no one had ever asked.
A Doctor to Heal Her Heart Page 5