by Sarah Morgan
‘You’re worried too, I can tell. You’re treating a borderline blood pressure.’
He gave a faint smile. ‘I am. I’m sure my colleagues would frown with disapproval.’
‘You think her condition is worse than it appears.’
‘Yes, I do,’ he said frankly. ‘I think her blood pressure is going to rocket.’ He heard her sigh with relief at his response and then she stood on tiptoe and impulsively kissed him on the cheek.
‘I was afraid you might not take it seriously. That’s what I love about you—I mean like,’ she amended hastily. ‘Obviously I mean like, not love. What I like is that you follow your instincts and don’t just rely on tests and machines.’ She was delightfully flustered by her slip and Patrick wondered what she’d say if she knew that his instincts were prompting him to behave in a deeply unprofessional way. In fact, if he followed his instincts at the moment there was a strong chance he’d be arrested and struck off simultaneously.
Obstetrician interrupts busy clinic to have steamy session with midwife.
‘We’ll watch her for the next hour and see how she goes, but I’m ready to deliver that baby if it becomes necessary.’ His eyes lingered on her face for a moment. ‘You did well. It could easily have been a virus at first glance. What made you suspicious?’
‘I’m hyper-sensitive to it. I’ve looked after a woman with eclampsia before.’ Her eyes misted. ‘We lost her, Patrick. The only time I’ve ever lost a patient. And she wasn’t our patient—it was similar to this situation. She was visiting her sister in Chicago and she had a fit. It was awful. Truly awful. That poor father, the baby…’
Patrick reached out and touched her shoulder and then wished he hadn’t because the chemistry was instantaneous. He stepped back from her at exactly the same moment she stepped back from him. ‘Take her upstairs and get her on a monitor,’ he said roughly. ‘I’m going to start my clinic and once the results are back I’ll come and see her. But if there is any change, call me.’
Patrick arranged the tests immediately. While they were waiting for the results, Hayley settled Charlotte into the room, trying to make her comfortable.
‘I wish Patrick Buchannan was my consultant,’ Charlotte said as she flicked through a magazine that Hayley had given her. ‘He’s very approachable, isn’t he? And gorgeous to look at—not that I’m interested in that, of course.’
Hayley smiled as she checked the woman’s blood pressure once more. ‘I should think you have other things on your mind at this point.’
‘Is he married?’
Hayley felt her heart miss a beat. ‘No,’ she said carefully, ‘he isn’t.’ And that meant he was free to marry her. And no matter how hard she tried to rein in her mind, she had an average of a million fantasies an hour, all of which involved her walking down the aisle towards him. He’d be stunned by her beauty, of course, and for once she was going to manage not to fall over—
‘Hayley?’
‘Sorry? What did you say?’ Blushing, Hayley pulled the CTG machine closer to the bed. ‘I’m going to monitor you for a while, Charlotte, is that all right?’ She must stop thinking about marriage! Technically she’d known him for about a week. And that one night, of course. But that probably didn’t count because they hadn’t done much talking. Either way, it had been a short time. They needed to get to know each other slowly, and maybe then—
‘I asked you whether he’s the sort of doctor who can’t wait to do a Caesarean section.’
‘No.’ Hayley frowned. ‘None of the doctors here are like that.’
Charlotte sighed. ‘Back home I never see my actual consultant anyway. Every time I go it’s someone else.’
‘That happens sometimes.’ Hayley didn’t add that the ‘someone else’ who had seen her last time hadn’t done their job properly.
‘I wouldn’t mind being one of Dr Buchannan’s patients.’
‘Mr Buchannan.’ Silencing the wedding bells in her head, Hayley adjusted the machine. ‘He’s a surgeon, and we call surgeons Mr.’
‘Oh—yes, of course. I knew that. I think.’ Charlotte shifted slightly on the bed, looking at Hayley anxiously as the sound of the foetal heart pulsed around the room. ‘Does that sound all right?’
‘Sounds good.’ Hayley checked the trace and then Charlotte’s blood pressure.
‘So how long have you worked here?’
‘Actually, I arrived just before Christmas. Before that I was working in the States.’
‘Oh. Are you here for good?’
Was she?
She hadn’t actually given any thought to the future. Technically her job as their housekeeper was going to come to an end in a few days but no one had mentioned her moving out. And she couldn’t imagine living anywhere other than High Fell Barn.
Perhaps the children would slowly just get used to the idea that she lived with them and from there it would be a natural progression for her and Patrick to get together.
Hayley was about to indulge in another brief wedding fantasy when Charlotte suddenly went rigid and started to fit.
‘Oh, God, no, don’t do this to me,’ Hayley muttered, slamming her hand onto the crash button while supporting Charlotte to make sure she didn’t fall off the bed.
The door swung open and Maggie ran in. ‘What’s happened?’
‘She’s fitting,’ Hayley gritted, turning Charlotte onto her left side and reaching for the oxygen. ‘Call Patrick and the anaesthetist and I need some mag sulphate.’
‘I’ll get the trolley.’
Maggie ran out of the room but she was back moments later and Patrick was with her.
Attaching Charlotte to a pulse oximeter, Hayley didn’t even question how he’d arrived so fast. ‘Her sats are 96.’
‘How long has she been fitting?’
‘Two minutes.’
‘Let’s give her a loading dose of 4 grams of mag sulphate. Have we got an infusion pump?’
They worked as a team, slick and professional as they tried to control the seizure.
‘Foetal bradychardia,’ Maggie said, watching the trace, and Patrick nodded.
‘As soon as she’s stable I’m going to do a Caesarean section. Gary?’
‘Yes.’ The anaesthetist was monitoring Charlotte’s airway and breathing. ‘Let’s do it. Who is the next of kin?’
‘Her husband, Andrew,’ Hayley said. ‘But he’s just gone to phone his sister. They were staying with her over Christmas.’
‘I’ll go and sort out consent,’ Patrick said, and Gary glanced at him.
‘Didn’t she show any early signs?’
Patrick checked Charlotte’s patellar reflexes. ‘Yes, although some of her readings were borderline. Her blood pressure was never quite high enough to ring alarm bells. But they ignored mild proteinurea, which wouldn’t have happened in my unit.’
Gary lifted an eyebrow. ‘Are you going to call them?’
‘Yes.’
Surprised by Patrick’s unusually terse tone, Hayley glanced at him and realised that he was really angry.
‘Hayley is the hero of the hour,’ he said quietly. ‘She spotted it in clinic.’
Embarrassed to suddenly be the focus of attention, Hayley blushed and the anaesthetist smiled.
‘Can we offer you a permanent job?’
‘Oh—Well…’ Hayley gave an embarrassed laugh, aware of Patrick’s swift glance, but she was spared the trouble of answering by the arrival of Patrick’s registrar and the rest of the team.
It was only later—hours after Patrick had safely delivered a baby girl and Charlotte was stable—that she had time to think about that remark.
A permanent job? Stay here—permanently?
With Patrick. And his gorgeous children…
‘Hayley?’ One of the other midwives put her head round the staffroom door. ‘Mr Buchannan wants you in his office. I don’t know what you’ve done, but you’d better start thinking up your excuses. He looked serious.’
‘OK, thanks.’ Sure that sh
e’d handed over Charlotte’s care without missing anything out, Hayley walked to Patrick’s office. Oddly nervous, she tapped on the door and walked in.
‘You want me?’ Oh, help, why did everything always come out wrong? ‘I mean—I was told you wanted to see me?’ Her cheeks were hot and he stood up in a fluid movement and strode towards her, slamming the door shut behind her with the flat of his hand.
‘You were right the first time. I want you.’ His mouth came down on hers and he kissed her with erotic purpose, his lips as skilled as ever as he aroused her to a state of screaming ecstasy in less time than it took her to gasp his name.
Desperate after several days when she hadn’t been allowed to touch him, Hayley melted against him, his kiss muffling her gasp of shocked pleasure as his hands slid to her thighs.
‘Patrick—’ She tried to say that they probably shouldn’t be doing this here but her mouth refused to do anything except kiss him back.
It was hot, desperate and frantic. When he stripped off the flimsy trousers of her scrub suit Hayley didn’t protest, and when she felt him hard and ready against her, she gave a low moan and dropped her hands to his zip.
He entered her with no preliminaries but she was so ready for him it was as if they’d spent hours indulging in foreplay. And perhaps they had, she thought as her vision blurred. They’d been stepping around each other, trying not to do anything that would unsettle the children—trying not to touch.
But they were touching now. Hungrily. Ravenously seeking their fill of each other, their bodies joining in almost animal desperation. Overtaken by sensations so intense they were almost painful, Hayley felt her body reach its peak and he joined her in the same place, his strong fingers digging hard into her thighs, his mouth silencing her cries.
Breathless, her mind blank, Hayley dropped her head against his shoulder, and suddenly became aware of their surroundings. His computer screen flickered on the desk and somewhere in the distance she heard the wail of an ambulance siren.
‘I’ve been wanting to do that all week.’ Patrick’s voice was low and rough and he scooped her face into his hands and kissed her gently. ‘Sorry. It was a bit fast.’
‘No problem,’ she muttered faintly, her eyes on his mouth. ‘Perhaps we can do it slowly, er, next time. When that midwife said you wanted to see me I thought I’d done something.’
‘You have done something.’ He kissed her again, his mouth lingering on hers. ‘You’ve driven me wild. Living with you and not being able to touch you is starting to have an adverse effect on my mental health. What are the chances of you being able to sneak into my bedroom without the children finding out?
‘Sneaking isn’t something I do well,’ Hayley confessed as she adjusted her clothing. ‘I have a habit of banging into things and falling over, remember? To sneak you have to be stealthy and graceful, and that isn’t me.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘Patrick you do care,’ she said gently, glancing towards the door, relieved that no one had needed the consultant in the past fifteen minutes. ‘You don’t want to hurt or unsettle your children and neither do I.’
‘No.’ Patrick raked his fingers through his hair. ‘So we’ll do this slowly. Tomorrow I’m taking you out to dinner. You can wear a dress that I’m not going to remove and we’ll have a conversation. I’ll book a babysitter for the kids—’
‘Can’t we have dinner at home? Alfie hates Vampire Lips. I’ll cook us something special and you can open a nice bottle of something from your cellar.’
Patrick shook his head. ‘No. I want to spend some time with you without the children.’
‘I love the children,’ Hayley protested, and Patrick lifted his eyebrow.
‘You don’t want to be alone with me?’
‘Of course I do.’ She blushed. ‘It’s just that Posy looked as though she was starting a cold this morning so I don’t want to leave her.’
He held her gaze for a long time. ‘All right, this is what we’ll do. If she’s ill, we won’t go out. But if she’s fine, then I have a surprise for you. And you’ll need to dress up.’
Hayley brightened. ‘Dress up as in lipstick and heels? That sounds fun.’ Happiness bubbled inside her as she reached for the door. It was going to be a lovely evening. He wanted time with her. He liked her. Life was perfect.
As she went back to the staffroom to change, she couldn’t hold back her excitement. He hadn’t mentioned that her contract was almost up. He hadn’t suggested that she look for alternative accommodation. Far from it. He was as desperate for her as she was for him. And now he’d asked her to dinner.
Perhaps he was going to suggest that she just carry on living with them. They’d make plans for the future…
‘Fabulous restaurant,’ Hayley breathed. ‘How on earth did you manage to get a seat right by the window? Don’t tell me—you delivered the chef’s baby.’
‘Actually, yes. Have you met the waiter before?’ Patrick watched as the blushing member of staff retreated to the kitchen.
‘No. Never. But he was very friendly, wasn’t he?’ Hayley took a sip of champagne and gave a low moan of pleasure. ‘Oh, that tastes delicious. What a great idea to get a taxi so that we can have champagne.’
‘Given that you’re so intimate with our local taxi drivers, I’m surprised you didn’t invite him to join us.’
‘He wouldn’t have wanted to. Jack’s popping over to his daughter’s for a few hours because she lives near here, but he’ll be back to pick us up when we call.’ She smiled at the waiter who was back with a basket of warm, freshly baked bread. ‘Mmm. They smell good. I’ll have the one with poppy seeds, please. Yum.’
The smitten waiter gave her two and Patrick managed not to smile until the man was safely back in the kitchen. ‘Jack needs to watch out. I think he has competition. Maybe you shouldn’t have worn that dress.’
There was a flash of insecurity in her eyes. ‘You don’t like the dress?’
‘I love the dress,’ he drawled. ‘And so does every other man in the room.’
Her cheeks dimpled. ‘Really?’ She glanced down at herself self-consciously. ‘Alfie liked it.’
‘Alfie likes everything about you.’ Patrick reached for his glass. ‘To us.’
Hayley tapped her glass against his. ‘To us.’
‘Thank you for cooking us the best turkey we’ve eaten in years…’ he kept his eyes on hers, unable to look away ‘…and for giving us such a happy Christmas.’
‘I had a happy Christmas, too.’
‘You didn’t miss being with your family?’
Hayley took a sip of champagne and put her glass down. ‘Families aren’t always idyllic, are they? I used to hope that things would change as we all grew older but nothing ever did. I even tried changing myself to be more the way they wanted me to be, but it didn’t work.’
‘Why would you want to change?’
‘Because I irritate them.’ Hayley sat back as the waiter placed her starter on the table with a flourish. ‘That looks delicious, thank you.’ She beamed at him and Patrick watched as she picked up her fork.
‘How could you possibly irritate them?’
‘Just by being me.’ She speared a prawn. ‘I’m so different from them. They see me as a clumsy idiot who laughs too much and talks too much. And they’re probably right. But it’s impossible for me to be silent and academic. I’ve tried. It doesn’t work. And it’s exhausting trying to be something you’re not.’
‘Don’t put yourself down. The things you tried to change about yourself are the things that make you special.’ He studied her across the table and found himself noticing new things about her—like the fact her eyelashes were long and dense and her lower lip was slightly fuller than her top lip. ‘Aren’t they proud of what you’ve achieved professionally?’
‘They don’t think I’ve achieved anything professionally.’ Her voice was matter-of-fact. ‘That’s the point. They think I’ve wasted my life. They’re always asking me whe
n I’m going to get a “proper” job.’
Patrick felt a rush of anger towards her family. ‘I think you’ve achieved tremendous success in your professional life.’
‘It depends on how you define success, doesn’t it?’ She ate another prawn. ‘Is success about making a difference to people’s lives, or is it about how much money you accumulate?’
‘Money isn’t a measure of success so much as an indication of career choice.’ Patrick discovered that he’d finished his starter without even noticing that he was eating. ‘If you pick a career like nursing or teaching you’re never going to be rich, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t successful.’
She smiled at him. ‘And that’s why I’m eating dinner with you and not them,’ she said lightly. ‘Because you don’t make me feel as though my entire life has been wasted.’
‘Families can be tough.’
‘Well, that’s true. And from what you’ve told me, yours was no picnic either.’
They ate and talked and, by the time midnight arrived and the New Year had been toasted, Patrick discovered that he’d told her more about himself than he’d ever told anyone before. Certainly more than Carly.
Studying Hayley’s smiling face as she told him a ridiculous story about one of her friends, he realised that comparisons with Carly were inappropriate.
There was no comparison.
When had Carly made him laugh like this? Had Carly ever asked if he should check his mobile phone in case there was a message from the hospital?
Aware that the restaurant had emptied and they were the last couple still talking, Patrick retrieved his phone from the pocket of his jacket and called the taxi, feeling nothing but regret that the evening had to end.
He wanted her to keep talking. He wanted to know everything about her.
It was the champagne, he told himself as he watched Hayley engage in conversation with the man who fetched them their coats.
She was a beautiful woman and good company.
It was natural to enjoy being with her.
What man wouldn’t?
Chapter Eight
I’M IN love, I’m in love, I’m in love.