by Kate Hardy
She looked pained. ‘A man of few words? How very disappointing.’
‘If you meant the hospital, you work there yourself so you know what it’s like. If you meant the area, I haven’t been here for long enough to really explore it,’ he said. ‘But what I’ve seen is pretty, and I like the park. It’s about a twenty-minute walk from the hospital, isn’t it?’
‘Uphill all the way, so it’s a good warm-up for a run,’ Danielle said. ‘What made you move to London from Manchester?’
That wasn’t something he was ready to open up about, at least not yet. He’d given Hayley the very bare bones; given that she was effectively his senior, he probably ought to fill in some of the gaps reasonably soon. ‘It was time for a change,’ he said lightly.
‘Fair comment,’ Danielle said. ‘Haze said you spent the whole summer in Iceland, working with your brother.’
‘It was kind of a sabbatical,’ he said.
‘Doing stuff like glacier walking? And I’ve seen all the photographs, by the way.’
‘Yes, glacier walking’s part of it. I did tours for very small groups in a four-wheel drive car, so our clients got to see some of the sights off the beaten track as well as the tourist hotspots—all of which are actually worth seeing,’ he added, ‘as you’ll know since you’ve seen the pictures.’
‘Don’t you need training to do glacier walking?’ Danielle asked.
He nodded. ‘I was part of the mountain rescue team when I was back in Manchester, so it was an extension of the training I’d done in climbing.’
‘Rock and ice,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Does that mean you’re into extreme sports?’
He looked at her, intrigued. ‘Does that mean you are, too?’
‘Please don’t encourage her,’ Hayley said. ‘Remember, she’s in a walking cast.’
‘I don’t do extreme stuff,’ Danielle said, looking wistful, ‘but I really did want to touch a glacier—I’d hoped to persuade Haze into doing the walking tour on it while we were there. That and the whales were the two things I was really looking forward to most.’
‘Go to Iceland next summer, when your foot’s healed properly and it will cope with the demands of ice walking, which in my professional opinion won’t be for at least two months after that cast comes off,’ Sam said. ‘I’ll get Martin, my brother, to take you out on the glacier.’
‘Thank you. I accept. I have to admit, I was hideously jealous with every picture Haze texted me.’ She reached over to squeeze Hayley’s hand. ‘And that proves I was right to make her go. She needed a break.’
‘Before I started my new job,’ Hayley said swiftly.
Sam intercepted the glance between them and could guess what Dani had really meant: space to move on from her partner’s death.
‘Iceland’s a good place for thinking,’ he said. ‘It’s something to do with the quality of the light out there.’
‘You’re hardly going to do glacier walking in London,’ Danielle said, ‘so what do you plan to do here?’
‘Actually, you can do ice climbing in London, which is the next best thing.’ He’d looked it up and planned to book a slot on the ice wall for his next day off. ‘And, as there isn’t exactly a need for a mountain rescue team in London, I’ve signed up for the MERIT roster.’
MERIT—the Medical Emergency Response Incident Team—was a small team of doctors and nurses who could be called out to the site of an accident to see casualties who had life-threatening injuries but might be trapped for another hour or more, or to do triage at the scene of major incidents such as a bus crash or an industrial fire.
There was a shared glance between Hayley and Danielle that he didn’t quite understand. Now didn’t feel like the right time to ask for an explanation, so he added, ‘But what I really want to try is rap jumping.’
Hayley blinked. ‘I’ve never heard of it. What is it?’
‘Like abseiling,’ he said. ‘Except you go forwards instead of backwards.’
‘Hang on. You’re telling me you stand at the top of a building and then you just jump off?’ Danielle asked.
‘A very tall building or a cliff,’ he agreed. ‘But you’re belayed the whole time, and you have a brakeman who slows you down—so you don’t just hit the ground from a hundred and eighty feet up and break most of your bones. It’s a gentle landing. Let me show you.’ He found a video on the internet and handed his phone to her. ‘Here.’
Hayley and Danielle watched the video together, both looking more and more shocked as the seconds ticked by.
‘That’s horrific,’ Hayley said. ‘Why would anyone want to take such a risk of something going wrong and put themselves in danger like that?’
‘The adrenaline rush,’ he said. ‘And there are plenty of safeguards. It’s probably less of a risk than cycling to work in London, and I do that every day.’
‘You obviously didn’t deal with many cyclist casualties in Manchester,’ Hayley said feelingly. ‘My first week’s placement in the emergency department put me off cycling in London for good.’
‘Everything carries a risk,’ he said.
‘But some things are riskier than others. Some things are...’ She grimaced and looked away. ‘Oh, just ignore me. I’m ranting.’
Why would she be so antsy about people taking risks? She’d said her fiancé had been killed in an industrial accident. But those were so rare. Was there more to this than she’d told him? Had her fiancé taken some extra kind of risk? What kind of accident had it been? Not that he could ask any of this without being intrusive. He could hardly ask her best friend either. So he’d just have to wait until Hayley was prepared to confide in him.
He switched the conversation to a safer topic, and discovered during dinner that he really liked Hayley’s best friend: there was absolutely no sexual chemistry between them, but he liked Danielle’s energy and sense of humour a great deal.
And he didn’t let himself think about the chemistry between himself and Hayley. The way his skin felt super-sensitive when it accidentally brushed against hers. The way his pulse rate speeded up when he caught her eye. The way he really, really wanted to kiss her again.
‘Can we give you a lift home in our taxi?’ Danielle asked. ‘I say “our”—Haze and I live in neighbouring streets.’
‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘It’s a downhill walk from here to the hospital, and anyway I need to collect my bike for tomorrow morning.’
‘OK.’ Danielle reached out to shake his hand, and then said, ‘Oh, come here,’ and gave him a hug. ‘It was nice to meet you, Sam. And we’ll see you for training on Friday.’
‘We can’t train on Friday night. We’ve got the pub quiz,’ Hayley said.
‘Sorry—I was so focused on the race that I forgot it was this Friday. And our department is so going to beat you this time. I’ve had the team mugging up on literature and art. We know our stuff.’ Danielle turned to Sam. ‘How about Saturday for training?’
‘It’d have to be the morning,’ he said. ‘I’m working a late shift on Saturday.’
‘That’s fine by me. Shall we meet here at nine?’ Danielle suggested.
‘One condition,’ he said, ‘you let me buy pastries and coffee afterwards.’
‘I love pastries and coffee,’ she said, her face full of enthusiasm. ‘You’re on. See you Saturday.’
‘See you Saturday.’ He looked at Hayley. ‘See you in the department tomorrow.’
And he tried not to mind that she didn’t hug him, the way Danielle had.
* * *
‘Right, madam. So when exactly were you going to tell me that your new registrar was the gorgeous guy from Iceland?’ Danielle asked, once they were in the taxi and out of Sam’s hearing. ‘Come on. You must’ve known that I’d recognise him from the photographs.’
‘Um... Sor
ry.’
‘So what happens now? Do you carry on where you left off in Iceland?’
Hayley shook her head. ‘We’re colleagues.’
Danielle raised an eyebrow. ‘And why is that a problem? Half the couples I know first met at work. And he’s lovely. I don’t just mean the way he looks. He’s a really nice guy. Not my type, but absolutely yours.’
‘He cycles to work. He likes extreme sports.’ Hayley sucked in a breath. ‘And now I know he’s signed up for MERIT. You and I both know how dangerous it can be out there. No, there are way too many risks in his life for me.’
‘You need a little risk in life to keep you moving,’ Danielle said gently. ‘Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.’
‘I can’t do it, Dani,’ Hayley said. ‘I can’t take that risk. What if something goes wrong?’
‘What if it doesn’t?’ Danielle countered. ‘And you know as well as I do, between the Medical Incident Officer and whoever’s in charge of the inner zone at an incident, the MERIT team is only allowed in if it’s safe for them to be there. I think you should give him a chance.’
‘I can’t. Losing Evan was like having a black hole punched into the middle of my life. I can’t go through that again.’ She dragged in a breath. ‘Yes, I like Sam. I more than like him. He’s good to work with, he’s great with the patients and whoever comes in with them, and he’s... Well, you’ve met him.’ Physically, he was just her type and she was finding it hard to resist him. Every time his hand had accidentally brushed against hers in the park, she’d been tempted to let her fingers catch his and hold on. She’d really had to hold herself back.
‘I think he more than likes you, too,’ Danielle said. ‘The way he looks at you is pretty obvious.’
‘We agreed to be just friends. It’s too complicated for anything else. We work together.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with working with your partner.’
Hayley looked at her and narrowed her eyes. ‘Danielle Owens, is there something you’d like to tell me?’
‘No.’ Danielle flapped a dismissive hand. ‘I’m not seeing anyone—and anyway, we’re not talking about me. This is about you and Sam. Just give the man a chance.’
‘I can’t,’ Hayley said. ‘I just can’t take the risk.’
* * *
Though she thought about it all the next day. And the next.
She was definitely aware of Sam. Every time their hands accidentally touched at work, it made her tingle all over. And she kept catching herself looking at his mouth and remembering exactly how good that mouth had made her feel. Remembering what it had felt like to make love with him. Remembering what it had felt like to wake up in his arms.
But how could she let anything happen between them again, knowing that he would voluntarily put himself at risk? That he was more than prepared to step into a disaster zone to help, regardless of the risk to his own life? She’d been there before and she’d lost. Badly. How could she put herself back in that position?
‘Hey,’ Sam said, when they broke for lunch. ‘The pub quiz this evening doesn’t start until seven, right?’
‘Right.’
‘Do you want to go for a coffee first?’
She ought to say no. But somehow she found herself agreeing. And so they sat in a café a couple of doors down from the pub, drinking lattes and eating pastries.
‘There’s something I wanted to talk to you about,’ he said. ‘The reason why I spent the summer in Iceland. Why I nearly left medicine.’
‘You don’t need to explain anything. Apart from the fact that I have nothing to do with the decision on employing staff in the department, I already know you’re perfectly competent,’ she said. ‘We worked together on that boat to help Milton Adams with his asthma attack, and I’ve worked with you for a week here. I’ve seen more than enough to know you’re good at what you do.’
He inclined his head. ‘Thank you. I appreciate that. But things tend to leak out, so I’d rather you heard this from me. I took a sabbatical because I was suspended.’
It was the last thing she’d expected. She stared at him. ‘You were suspended? But... Why?’ She didn’t understand.
‘We lost a patient. He came in saying he’d been feeling fluey for about a week—his GP had told him to rest, but he wasn’t feeling any better and his wife had nagged him to get another appointment. He couldn’t get an appointment with his GP, so he decided to come in to us to stop his wife having a go at him. He said he’d had a bit of indigestion, but nothing serious.’ He frowned. ‘Something didn’t seem right to me, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Not until I asked him about his medical history and he told me he was diabetic.’
‘He’d had a silent heart attack?’ she asked. Diabetes could cause nerve damage, which made it less likely that the patient would feel any pains in the chest during a heart attack.
He nodded. ‘I said I wanted to give him an ECG because that was the only way of checking if he’d had a silent heart attack, and if the ECG showed that was the case we’d start him on treatment immediately. We checked his sugar levels and they were off the scale. Halfway through the ECG he arrested again. Except we didn’t manage to get him back.’ He sighed. ‘His family were distraught. I guess they couldn’t accept that it had happened, and they were looking for someone to blame because that was the only way they could make sense of it. They made a negligence claim. Obviously the hospital had to investigate the case properly, so my team was suspended, pending enquiries.’
‘Obviously they cleared you.’ Or he wouldn’t be working as a doctor now.
‘Yes. I was the one who’d made the correct diagnosis and we’d followed protocol exactly. And all our paperwork was in good order, because that’s how I was taught and what I expected from my juniors, too.’ He grimaced. ‘We did everything right. But it still didn’t save our patient.’
‘He’d already had at least one silent heart attack, from the sound of it,’ she said. ‘He could’ve had another one at any time—at home, on the way to the hospital or even in the waiting room. And, because he didn’t get the usual pain signals, he didn’t seek treatment in time and there was existing damage to his blood vessels and heart muscle, which meant his next heart attack was fatal. It wasn’t your fault.’
* * *
Her reaction stunned him. It was what he’d expected from Lynda—real belief in him, instead of asking if he might have missed one little thing.
Hayley believed in him.
And she’d known him only for a few days—he and Lynda had been together for three years. If anyone should have doubts about him, surely it should be Hayley?
Something felt as if it had cracked inside him.
‘I know you can’t save everyone who comes into the emergency department,’ he said. ‘But this one really hit home. We all felt as if we’d failed. I resigned from the mountain rescue team. How could I go out to rescue people if I wasn’t fit to practise medicine?’
‘It was a formality,’ she pointed out.
And if his own fiancée hadn’t doubted him, maybe Sam would’ve felt that way, too. But the combination of the suspension and Lynda’s lack of belief in him had knocked his belief in himself as a doctor.
‘I wasn’t the only one with doubts,’ he said. ‘One of my team has left medicine completely.’
‘That’s a shame.’ She paused. ‘And the timing was hard, too, being just after you broke up with your ex.’
This was his cue to tell her about Lynda. But the words stuck in his throat. In the end, he said, ‘Martin realised that I was sitting at home brooding, going over and over what had happened and trying to work out what I could’ve done differently so I could’ve actually saved my patient. He dragged me out to Iceland on the grounds that he needed help with his business. He didn’t actually need my help at all,’ S
am admitted, ‘but it was good to be kept too busy to think. And, as I said earlier, there’s something about the light out there that makes it a good place to let things marinate in the back of your head. And it made me realise I didn’t want to throw away thirteen years of training.’ Five years of studying for his degree, two years of post-graduate foundation training, three years of core training and three years of higher specialty training, as well as the expertise he’d gained since then.
‘I think,’ she said, ‘if medicine hadn’t been your calling, then you would’ve ignored the tour guide on the boat when she asked if there was a doctor on board. Especially as she must’ve told you I was already helping.’
‘An uncontrolled asthma attack can be pretty scary to witness,’ he said. ‘I thought I might be able to help you deal with whoever was accompanying the patient. And I guess it was a kind of test, to see if I’d done the right thing in accepting the job here.’
‘You did,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how good you’re going to be where our quiz team is concerned, but you’re definitely the right person for our team at the hospital.’
‘Thank you. I wasn’t fishing for compliments.’
‘I know. I was just telling you straight, like Dani would.’ She paused. ‘This won’t go any further than me, though I assume Mike knows.’
‘It was in my application form—and I told him about it at the interview,’ Sam said.
‘If he’d had any doubts about you, he wouldn’t have hired you,’ she pointed out. ‘And he did the right thing.’
‘Thanks. I have to admit, I had my doubts when I applied.’
‘That’s understandable. I’ve never been suspended or investigated, but it must really knock your belief in yourself.’
‘It did.’ But what had really destroyed him was Lynda’s lack of faith. The way she hadn’t stood by him. The fact she’d broken their engagement because she’d thought he’d hold her back in her career.
‘But from what I’ve seen you don’t cut corners,’ Hayley said. ‘Your boss in Manchester must have told you that.’
He smiled. ‘She did. I learnt a lot of Hindi swear words from her, the day she told me I was suspended.’