‘Will he regain full use of his arm?’ Alison asked worriedly.
‘If I don’t need to remove too much more of the muscle. He’ll need good physio, though, plus a lot of determination.’
‘There’s no problem on the physiotherapy score,’ she assured him. ‘Lauren Nightingale will soon get him sorted out.’
‘Lauren’s still here? Great! She’s the best person I know when it comes to motivating a patient.’
Alison felt a little stab of jealousy assail her when she heard the warmth in his voice. She took a sip of her coffee, not wanting Jack to suspect that she harboured such feelings. Lauren was a first-rate physiotherapist, and the fact that she just happened to be extremely beautiful was of no consequence. She had no right to censor the people whom Jack liked.
The thought was so ridiculous that she gasped, and some of her coffee shot down the wrong way.
Jack looked at her in concern when she coughed. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Some coffee went down the wrong way,’ she spluttered, trying to catch her breath.
Jack stood up and came over to her. ‘I’ll pat you on the back. It might help.’
Before Alison could protest, he started patting her back, and the rest of the air suddenly whooshed from her lungs. The feel of his strong hand between her shoulder blades was doing horrendous things to her, making her feel both hot and dizzy, and she choked. ‘You really are in a bad way.’
There was real concern on Jack’s face now as he bent over her. This close she could see the laughter lines fanning from the corners of his eyes, smell the clean scent of his skin and taste the coffee-scented warmth of his breath on her lips. It felt as though she was being immersed in sensations and she shuddered deeply.
‘Here—let’s give it another go.’
He started rubbing her back then, his strong hand caressing the length of her spine in a way that made Alison want to purr with pleasure, if only she’d had enough breath to spare. She could feel the heat of his palm seeping into her flesh, and for the first time in ages she felt desire rise up inside her. She stared up at him without saying a word and saw the exact moment when concern changed to something else, something hotter and wilder that couldn’t be contained any longer.
When his head dipped, she closed her eyes, anticipating the moment when his mouth would claim hers. She could feel the feather-light brush of his lips as they hovered over hers and her heart over flowed with need. She wanted this kiss so much, needed it more than she had needed anything in such a long time…
He drew back abruptly, and her eyes flew open as she stared at him in confusion. He gave her a tight little smile as he straightened up.
‘That seems to have done the trick. Now I think it’s time we left. Thank you for everything you’ve done today, Alison. I really appreciate it.’
‘It was my pleasure,’ she said stiffly, standing up.
She went over to the boys and quietly explained that it was time for Freddie to go home, and all the time she was doing so her heart was racing. Jack had been going to kiss her. She had no idea why he had changed his mind, but she knew it was what he had been going to do.
That fact should have been shocking enough, but what made it worse was knowing that she wouldn’t have stopped him. Panic gripped her. If Jack had kissed her then she would have kissed him back, and to hell with the consequences.
CHAPTER EIGHT
WHAT on earth was wrong with him? He’d not only embarrassed himself by making a pass at Alison, but he’d embarrassed her as well.
Jack could barely contain his chagrin as he helped Freddie into his coat. He fixed a smile to his mouth as he turned to Alison, desperate to salvage some shred of his dignity. ‘Thanks again for everything.’
‘You’re welcome.’
She saw him to the door, her own smile fixed just as firmly into place, but Jack could tell that she was upset. Although he was terrified of making the situation worse, he knew that he had to say something. He certainly didn’t want her to think that he might come on to her again at the slightest excuse.
‘About what happened just now—well, I’m sorry.’ He shrugged, doing his best to hide how mortified he felt. He had always prided himself on being in control of his actions, yet he had come within a hair’s breadth of ruining everything. ‘I don’t know what came over me. Put it down to the long night I had—obviously I’m not thinking clearly.’
‘Don’t worry about it. I shan’t.’
Her smile held fast but the chill in her eyes cut him to the quick. Bearing in mind the rather unflattering picture she had formed of him initially, she probably thought he was a serial philanderer now, someone who couldn’t keep his hands off a woman if she came within a ten-mile radius of him.
The thought stung because it wasn’t true. It wasn’t the fact that Alison was a woman that had affected him… Well, not only that, he amended truthfully. It was Alison herself, the person she was, that had made him want to kiss her.
It was impossible to explain that to her without digging himself an even deeper hole. Jack took the line of least resistance and beat a hasty retreat.
He took Freddie home and spent the rest of the day worrying about what he’d done. Whichever way he looked at it, it hadn’t been a wise move at the moment. In a year or so’s time it might have been a different story, of course. Once Freddie was more settled, and his own life had taken on some kind of proper structure, maybe he would have time for a spot of romance.
He frowned, because the thought of a little light romance didn’t appeal to him. It might have been enough for him in the past, but it wasn’t enough for him now. Not with Alison. He wanted to do more than just sleep with her. He wanted to sleep with her and wake up with her lying beside him in the morning. He wanted to know that he could do the same thing the next day and the day after that, too. In fact, there was a word for what he wanted, one he had steadfastly avoided: commitment.
Jack groaned as he got up and switched on the stereo, hoping the music would drown out any more dangerous ideas. He couldn’t afford to waver at this point. He had to concentrate on Freddie and how he was going to help him. No matter how he felt about Alison, his son was his number-one concern.
Alison found it difficult to sleep that night. Every time she closed her eyes, she kept having flash backs to the moment when Jack had been on the verge of kissing her. Consequently, she felt completely drained when she got up the next day, and it was an effort to get herself and Sam ready.
She dropped Sam off at the nursery earlier than usual so she wouldn’t run into Jack, and went into work. Dragan Lovak, one of the doctors in the practice, was in the office when she arrived and he greeted her with a smile. Dragan had moved to England as a teenager to escape the war in Croatia. Alison had always found him to be very sympathetic towards his patients, and suspected that his past experiences had given him an insight into other people’s suffering.
‘Ah, Alison, just the person I wanted to see. I have a patient who has been diagnosed with diabetes. At the moment she’s very unsure about giving herself daily injections of insulin and I feel that she needs some reassurance if she is going to be able to cope. I was wondering if you could teach her the best way to administer the injections.’
‘Of course. Who is it?’
‘Sophie Banks.’ Dragan handed her the patient’s file. ‘She’s just fifteen and it’s a lot for her to deal with. I know it’s short notice, but could you see her today? The sooner she accepts what has to be done, the better.’
‘Let me check my list.’ Alison brought up her list of appointments on the computer. ‘I could squeeze her in at four o’clock, after the antenatal clinic finishes. Shall I get Sue to set up an appointment for her?’
‘That would be wonderful. Thank you.’
Alison went through to Reception and had a word with Sue, who promised to phone Sophie’s mother and make the arrangements. ‘Are you going on Maggie’s hen night?’ Sue asked after she’d logged the appointment int
o the computer.
‘I’m not sure.’ Alison frowned. ‘When is it?’
‘Two weeks on Friday. Maggie says there is no way that she’s having a hen party the night before her wedding, so she’s booked it early.’
‘I don’t blame her!’ Alison agreed with a laugh.
There’d been a lot of excitement when Adam Donnelly and Maggie Pascoe had announced that they were getting married at the end of the month. All the surgery staff had been invited to the wedding, as well as Maggie’s friends and colleagues from St Piran Hospital. Would Jack be going? Alison wondered, then quickly erased the thought. She wasn’t going to spend the whole day thinking about Jack!
‘I’ll have to wait and see if I can get a babysitter,’ she explained, then glanced round when Gemma Johnson, the young nurse who had recently joined the practice, came in. ‘How about you, Gemma? Are you going to Maggie’s hen night?’
‘I most certainly am! In fact, I have something special planned to make the night go with a bit of a buzz,’ the irrepressible Gemma confessed.
Alison groaned. ‘I don’t think I want to hear this. I’ll wait until the night and worry about it then!’
She left Gemma and Sue discussing the arrangements and went upstairs. The morning flew past with the usual mix of people who needed to be seen. She was just about to put on her coat to fetch Sam from the nursery when she heard a commotion down stairs and hurried down to see what had happened.
Hazel was sitting on the floor outside the office, looking very shaken, and there was blood pouring from a cut on her right thigh. Alison was about to kneel down beside her when Nick arrived. He took one look at Hazel and turned to Alison.
‘Fetch some bandages. We need to stop this bleeding.’
Alison flew into the supply room and grabbed a handful of bandages out of a box. Ripping open one of the packets, she ran back and handed it to Nick, who was trying to stem the bleeding.
‘Thanks. Let’s lie her down first, and then I want you to continue applying pressure to the wound.’
They helped Hazel lie down on the floor, then Alison grasped her thigh, pressing firmly either side of the wound. Direct pressure flattened the blood vessels and slowed the rate of bleeding so that clots could form. However, continuous pressure needed to be maintained for up to fifteen minutes for it to be effective.
She also raised Hazel’s leg and supported it on her knees, knowing it would help to control the flow of blood if she raised the limb above heart level, but the wound continued bleeding heavily. Nick shook his head as he wound a second bandage over the first one and bound it in place.
‘It’s going to need stitching and we can’t do it here. It’s far too deep.’ He raised his voice and shouted to Sue. ‘Can you phone for an ambulance, please? Hazel needs to go to St Piran.’
It took just ten minutes for the ambulance to arrive, and in the meantime they had to add another couple of bandages as the original ones became soaked through with blood. They also put a drip into Hazel’s arm to compensate for the loss of fluid, because she was complaining of feeling cold and dizzy. However, Alison was relieved when the paramedics lifted her onto a stretcher. She turned to Nick as the crew wheeled Hazel to the door.
‘I’d like to go with her, if it’s OK with you. Gemma can cover the antenatal clinic this afternoon. She’s sat in with me a couple of times so she knows what to do. It will be good practice for her.’
‘Fine,’ Nick agreed. ‘I’d go myself but I have to stay here in case anything else crops up. Take a taxi back when you’ve finished and charge it to the surgery.’
Alison hurriedly asked Sue to phone Carol, the childminder, and ask her to collect Sam from nursery, then grabbed her coat. She climbed into the back of the ambulance and held Hazel’s hand as they drove to the hospital.
‘I feel such a fool,’ Hazel said weakly. ‘I was only opening a new carton of stationery and the knife slipped…’ She gulped back a sob. ‘Dr Tremayne must think I’m useless for causing such a fuss.’
‘Don’t be silly. It could have happened to anyone,’ Alison assured her.
They drew up outside A and E and she followed as Hazel was wheeled through to the treatment area. Fortunately, she was deemed a priority case, so it didn’t take very long before she was seen. It was the same registrar Alison had met when she’d accompanied Becca, and he grinned when he recognised her.
‘Doing another good deed, I see.’
Alison laughed. ‘Something like that.’
He let her stay while he examined Hazel. As Nick had said, the cut was deep, and Alison could tell the registrar wasn’t happy with it. He got one of the nurses to clean it up, frowning when he took another look at it through a high-powered magnifying lens.
‘The vein’s been nicked—that’s why there’s so much blood. I’ll have to get one of the surgical team down here because it’s too fiddly for us to repair.’
Alison nodded, too busy trying to control the lump that was rapidly forming in her throat to reply. She had a horrible feeling that she knew who would respond to the call, and her heart sank as she considered how it might look. Would Jack think that she had offered to accompany Hazel so she could see him?
It was immaterial what he thought, of course. She couldn’t abandon Hazel now. However, her heart started racing when she heard footsteps in the corridor. Was it anticipation or fear that made it pound so hard? she wondered. Or a bit of both? She wanted to see Jack again, and there was no point pretending otherwise, yet she knew that she was getting in way over her head. All she could hope was that her natural caution would stand her in good stead. But when the curtain swished back she knew that all the caution in the world wasn’t going to protect her. Just seeing Jack again made all thoughts of being sensible fly right out of her head.
Jack was surprised when he saw Alison sitting beside the bed, but he was determined that he wasn’t going to let her know how he felt. He smiled at her as he drew the curtain shut behind him.
‘Been drumming up more business for us, have you?’
‘It’s all my fault,’ Hazel said before Alison could reply. ‘I’m really sorry, Jack. You have enough to do without me being so stupid.’
‘There’s nothing to apologise for, Hazel,’ he said firmly. ‘These things happen, so don’t beat yourself up about it. Now, let’s have a look and see what you’ve done.’
He took a fresh pair of gloves out of the box, nodding his thanks when Alison moved out of his way. Bending down, he carefully examined the wound on Hazel’s thigh, determined to blot out everything else so he could focus on what needed to be done. He wasn’t going to let the fact that he could smell the fresh apple scent of Alison’s shampoo affect him. No, siree! Neither was he going to pay any heed to the fact that he could hear her breathing. And as for the fact that her face seemed to be dancing before his eyes, well, he would sort that out PDQ! He’d spent the night torturing himself for his sins and he deserved a reprieve.
Jack made himself breathe slowly, in and out, and gradually his concentration returned. On closer examination he could see that the iliac vein—the large vein in the leg which ran parallel to the femoral artery—had been nicked. It would need to be repaired by microsurgery or it would continue to bleed. Peeling off the gloves, he set about explaining it all to Hazel.
‘I’m going to whiz you up to Theatre, Hazel. The vein’s been nicked, and although it’s not been completely severed it needs sewing up to stop it bleeding. I’ll also need to put a few stitches in your leg—roughly ten should suffice, but don’t hold me to that, will you?’
‘Will I have to have an anaesthetic?’ Hazel asked, obviously shocked by the thought of having an operation.
‘Yes. You’ll be given a general anaesthetic so you won’t know what’s going on.’ He grinned at her. ‘It also means you’ll be spared the headache if I decide to sing.’
‘Sing?’ Hazel repeated blankly.
‘Oh, yes. There’s nothing like the acoustics in an operating theatre to b
ring out the performer in me.’ Jack winked at her and she laughed.
‘Get away with you! You always were a torment, even when you were a little boy.’
‘Don’t tell anyone or you’ll ruin my image,’ he implored her, hamming it up for all he was worth. It seemed his efforts to cheer her up had worked, however. She looked a lot more relaxed and that was what he’d been aiming for. He smiled at her again as he opened the curtain. ‘I’ll just go and check if there’s a theatre free.’
He left the cubicle, feeling rather pleased with himself. Not only had he cheered up Hazel but he’d more or less managed to ignore Alison after that initial hiccup. If he could keep it up, he would soon be back on track.
A quick phone call soon elicited the information that Theatre two would be available in approximately twenty minutes’ time. Jack booked Hazel in, then went back and explained what was happening. Once he’d arranged for a porter to take her to be prepped, he was free until he was needed in Theatre.
He decided that he had time to grab a cup of coffee so long as he was quick about it. He headed for the coffee-shop in the foyer, because it was quicker than trailing all the way to the staff canteen, and bought himself a large cappuccino complete with chocolate sprinkles on the top and a biscotti on the side.
He had just sat down to drink it when he spotted Alison coming into the café and he groaned because it left him in rather a quandary. If he ignored her, it could send out the completely wrong signals. He didn’t want there to be an atmosphere whenever they ran into each other, as they were bound to do. However, neither did he want her to think that he was coming onto her after yesterday. The question now was should he or shouldn’t he invite her to sit with him?
Alison would never have gone into the coffee-shop if she’d had any idea that Jack would be there. When she spotted him sitting at a table in the corner her first instinct was to leave, only it appeared he had seen her. Her heart sank when she saw him beckon to her. She really didn’t want to sit with him, but neither did she want him to know how much that near kiss had affected her.
The Surgeon's Fatherhood Surprise Page 9