His words touched her deeply, and she nearly started to cry again, but she dragged in a deep breath and found a smile. ‘I’ll keep you in touch with any developments,’ she promised.
He nodded, then sat down at the desk he’d used for years and pulled out the file of important personal documents. ‘Come on, we’d better sort this out—there’s a lot to go through.’
They talked it all through before filling out the divorce papers—access, custody and all the legal intricacies of ending a marriage with children. By the time they’d done that, she just wanted to crawl into a corner and howl for weeks, but instead she tucked the boys up and kissed them goodnight, just feather-light kisses on their cheeks so as not to wake them, and in the morning she took them to school and met David at the court to hand in the petition.
And then, with the systematic dismantling of her life set in train, she went to work.
‘Sally! Just the woman. Can you do majors for me today? I’ve hurt my ankle and I’d be happier on cubicles—I can hobble slowly.’
She frowned at Angie’s foot and shook her head. ‘Silly you—how did you do that?’
‘Oh, I fell off the kerb. Stupid. Are you all right with that?’
‘Sure. Have you had it looked at?’
She nodded. ‘Jack’s checked it for me and says it isn’t broken.’
‘I bet he also told you to go home and rest it,’ Sally said bluntly, and Angie looked evasive. ‘I knew it. Well, just don’t compromise your recovery. This department’s getting all too accident-prone for my liking.’
‘If you’re talking about Al and his hand, he’s going to be back on Monday, and Matt Jordan’s back from his holiday then, too.’
‘So we won’t need Jack any more,’ she said, feeling a surge of relief that she’d get at least the respite of work time to herself, but Angie didn’t look so pleased.
‘Sadly, no,’ she said. ‘He’s a brilliant doctor. We’ve been so lucky to get him. It’s a shame he can’t stay on anyway.’
Oh, no it wasn’t, she thought. There were only a few more days to go. She could cope with that, just about, but now what she craved from him was space to marshal her see-sawing emotions. Not that she’d get it yet.
‘Is he on majors?’ she asked, knowing before she’d finished the sentence what the answer would be. And she wouldn’t have been the slightest bit surprised if he’d wangled it.
It was a long day. She felt as if she’d been through the wringer what with the weekend’s revelations and going through all the divorce papers with David, writing down in black and white the arrangements for the children, but in fact that had been straightforward.
Shared custody, equal access, no hassle or wrangling, and because neither of them had an axe to grind and both of them wanted the best for the boys, it was easy.
On paper.
The practicalities would be difficult, and there would be disappointments and regrets along the line, but David was so happy, so deeply content and a totally different person now, that she couldn’t wish it any other way.
And, besides, there was Jack.
Jack, and his assertion that he was there for the long haul, and she’d better get used to it. Easier said than done. Her heart still went into overdrive every time she saw him, and she knew she’d be dead before she was used to him.
They were in one of the trolley cubicles together working on a patient with chest pain, when they heard a commotion in cubicles. She stuck her head round the corner and saw a youth running towards the exit doors, barging them open with his shoulder, and as he turned, she caught a glimpse of his face, a line of steristrips down the side.
‘Darren?’ she called, setting off after him, but as she drew level with the cubicles, Tom staggered out into the corridor, his eyes wide with disbelief.
‘Sally? Help me,’ he said, his voice a thread.
She looked down to where his hand was splayed over his shirt, a dark red stain spreading on the pale blue, and there was a blade sticking out between his fingers.
‘Jack!’ she yelled. ‘Trolley, someone, quick!’
Angie appeared, hobbling, with a trolley. Sally rolled Tom onto it as Jack appeared and they ran for the trauma theatre.
‘You’re OK, mate,’ Jack was saying, his Aussie accent coming through. ‘We’ve got you. Someone get an anaesthetist down here now!’
‘I’m on it,’ a voice said, and Ben Maguire appeared beside them, checking Tom’s pulse, yelling at him to hang on as Tom’s face drained of all colour.
‘Bleeding out,’ he whispered, grabbing Ben’s hand weakly. ‘Need Theatre.’
Jack shook his head. ‘No time. We’ve got you, Tom, just hang in there. Ben, get him under. Sal, just double-glove, we haven’t got time to scrub. Get some lines into him, somebody, let’s get some fluids going—and someone call the CT team! I want the thoracotomy tray now!’
She’d never seen so many people appear from nowhere. Within seconds Tom was under, intubated and Jack was opening him up, going down between his ribs, following the line of the blade down to its tip, finding the bleeding vessel with his fingers and clamping it off so that the spurting blood slowed to a fast trickle.
Jack straightened up, took a deep breath and closed his eyes. ‘OK, how’s his blood pressure?’
‘Eighty over fifty and stable,’ Ben said, his voice apparently calm.
He nodded. ‘Sal, can I have some suction? And can someone get some blood for cross-match—eight units initially, please, and we’d better have two of O-neg to start. Ah, the cavalry,’ he added as a surgeon came running.
‘Can you let go of that?’
‘Not unless you want him to die,’ Jack said candidly, and the man blew out his cheeks, scrubbed and moved in to help, and within a little while all the bleeding had been arrested, the wound was closed, Tom’s drain was working and he was on his way to ICU.
Jack ripped off his gloves, closed his eyes and said, ‘Has anybody phoned Fliss yet?’
‘I’ll do it,’ Sally said, realising that she was shaking all over with reaction. It was bad enough working on a stranger. A friend and a colleague was much, much tougher. She wondered how Ben was holding up. He and Tom were very close, had been for years, and he’d gone with him up to ICU.
‘No, let me do it. You call Meg—she’ll need some support.’
‘Meg’s very pregnant,’ she said worriedly.
‘She’ll still want to know. She’ll be fine, but Fliss won’t.’
So she called Meg, and got her on her mobile. ‘Where are you?’ she asked without preamble.
‘With Fliss—we’re waiting for the men but they’re late as usual. She’s just gone to answer the phone and left me putting the kids to bed. Why?’
‘Meg, go to her,’ she said urgently. ‘That’s Jack on the phone—Tom’s been stabbed. Jack operated on him and he’s stable—he’s gone up to ICU, but she needs to be here. It was a close call. And Ben’s with him.’
‘Oh, dear God,’ Meg whispered. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll bring her. I’ll see you later.’
Sally put the phone down, her hands shaking violently, and Jack’s arm came round her shoulders and drew her up against him. ‘OK?’
‘No.’
‘Me neither. Let’s let someone else clear up this mess and go and see him and then we’ll have a coffee. That was too close for comfort.’
‘I think we need to change,’ she said, eyeing their blood-splattered clothes, and he gave a tiny, humourless laugh.
‘You might be right.’ He dragged off his scrub top, took another from the pile in the corner and pulled it on over his head, then threw her one. For once she didn’t even notice his body or care about her own. Fear was good like that.
They went up to ICU, and found Ben standing by Tom’s bed, arms folded, glaring at the monitor as if defying it to falter.
‘We’ve called Fliss and Meg, they’re coming,’ she told him, and he nodded.
‘Thanks.’
‘How is he?’
/>
‘Hanging on. I can’t say any more than that.’
‘Any idea who did it?’ Jack asked.
‘I know exactly,’ Sally said, and looked up at him. ‘Darren Wright—our friend with the slash on his face from the other day. Saturday night.’ The night they’d gone back to her house and made love all night…
Jack frowned. ‘I thought the police were picking him up.’
She shrugged. ‘Maybe they didn’t have enough to make it stick.’
‘Well, they have this time,’ Ben said. ‘Angie’s talking to them now, showing them where it happened, and the nurse who was with him saw it all. Apparently he was looking for you two.’
Jack’s frown deepened to a scowl, and with a muttered curse he dragged her into his arms. ‘Bastard,’ he growled, and pressed his lips against her head.
She knew what he was thinking. She was thinking it, too.
If Darren had found them, it might have been Jack lying there, not Tom—and he might not have been so lucky…
CHAPTER NINE
THEY didn’t speak again.
Not to each other, at least, but the realisation that either of them could have been the victims didn’t leave their minds. Sally couldn’t think about anything else, and every time she looked up, Jack was looking at her with his mouth taut.
They went back down to the department, changed into their street clothes and went to talk to the police who were waiting. When they finally let them go, they headed for her car in silence, and she drove home, let them in and led him straight up to her bedroom.
Wordlessly he reached for her, taking off her clothes with shaking fingers, running his hands over her ribcage as if to check that she was, indeed, unmarked.
She knew just what he was doing. She was doing it, too, picturing Tom’s chest held wide open by the spreaders, his blood pumping out all over the floor while Jack searched frantically for the leak. It could have been Jack’s blood, his ribs, his body torn apart in a frenzied attempt to save life—an attempt that, thank God, had succeeded.
And they were still alive. Still breathing, their hearts pounding, hands stroking now, reverently smoothing skin that had miraculously escaped the blade.
He carried her down onto the bed and kissed her, his lips trembling. His whole body was shaking, like hers, and he eased over her, hesitating for a moment, eyes locked with hers until he entered her with a ragged groan.
It was the only sound he made until he climaxed, his body arching over hers, a tortured sob wrenched from him as her body tightened around him, and she screamed and bit his shoulder, the scream turning into sobs as the tension freed.
He rolled to his side, taking her with him, cradling her against his heart. Still without a word, they fell asleep, waking again in the night to make love once more in silent desperation.
Then finally he drew her into his arms and held her close, and said softly, ‘I could have lost you.’ His voice was choked with tears.
‘I know. I could have lost you, too.’
His mouth found hers, stopping the words, kissing her tenderly before drawing her head down against his shoulder and covering them with the quilt, but she couldn’t sleep.
‘Ring the hospital,’ she said, and he sat up and used the bedside phone, ending the call after a short conversation.
‘No change. He’s still stable but critical. Fliss is with him.’
‘Poor Fliss.’
‘He’s alive, Sal. Right now, that’s all that matters.’
He snuggled her back against his chest, pressed his lips to her hair and stroked her shoulder rhythmically until she fell asleep again, waking only when her alarm went off at six.
He was already up, and he’d phoned the hospital again.
‘Still no change,’ he reported.
‘Do you need to go back to Patrick and Annie’s?’ she asked him, and he shook his head.
‘No. If I can just shower and shave here, I’ve got a clean shirt at work. That’ll do. I’ll ring them, tell them what’s happened to Tom. Let’s just get back to the hospital and see him.’
Tom looked awful.
Pale, unconscious, a mass of trailing tubes and wires, the machines bleeping and flashing, the hiss of the ventilator and the hum of the equipment the only sounds to break the silence.
But his heartbeat was steady, his blood pressure was good and he was still with them.
Fliss was at his side, her face drawn and her eyes only leaving his face for an instant to acknowledge their arrival. After reassuring themselves that he was still holding up, they went down to a subdued and unusually quiet department and carried on with life.
It was hard, but Sally made herself concentrate, and within a very short while she was only too glad.
A woman in her thirties was brought in and rushed to Resus, her young son with her, and Jack took her through while Sally held the boy back. The paramedic had shaken his head, and she knew it was bad news, but the boy was beside himself.
‘She’s not dead,’ he was saying. ‘She’s not! I know she’s not! She’s just sleeping. Why won’t you listen? I shouldn’t have rung you!’
It was something they heard all the time, grieving relatives unable to believe the terrible reality, but after a moment she realised that there was something different about this little one. A deep conviction, an absolute certainty.
And…sleeping? ‘Sweetheart, has this ever happened before?’ she asked, a suspicion forming at the back of her mind, and he nodded.
‘She’s got cat-something.’
‘Cataplexy?’
He nodded, and Sally held his hand and opened the door of Resus.
‘Her son says she has cataplexy,’ she told Jack, and he turned to look at her, then the boy.
‘Put her on that monitor—see if there’s any heart activity,’ he snapped, and seconds later it was there, a faint trace, just a slow, slightly irregular and very weak heartbeat.
‘She can hear you,’ the boy said. ‘She just can’t answer. She’ll be scared, ’cos everyone said she was dead, and she’s not.’
‘Well, you’d better come and talk to her, then, hadn’t you?’ Jack said, lifting him up and holding him so he could kiss her face and touch her.
‘Hiya, Mummy,’ he said worriedly, his little voice wobbling. ‘It’s OK, they know now. You’re all right. I’m here.’
‘There,’ Jack said, putting him down and ruffling his hair gently. ‘She’ll be feeling much better now. Thanks for helping us. Can you go and wait with Sally? Maybe she’ll find you a drink and something to eat, and we’ll get the doctor in charge of this kind of thing down to see her, OK? And you can come back in a minute.’
Jack found them a short while later, took the boy back to see his mother, who’d now woken, and then stuck his head round the plaster-room door. Sally was just clearing up after taking a cast off a fractious toddler, and she smiled at him.
‘OK now?’
‘Yes—thanks to you.’
‘Well, thanks to her son, really. You hear such dreadful stories of people with cataplexy being taken to the mortuary because nobody’s put them on a monitor.’
He grinned. ‘If it’s any consolation, we were about to do that. There’s no danger she would have been carted off on my watch, but her GCS was incredibly low. She was utterly unresponsive, no pupil reaction, nothing. I got told off for pinching her too hard when she came to, and he’s absolutely right, she did know everything that was going on.’
‘Good job you weren’t chatting up the nurses, then,’ she teased, and he just grinned again.
‘How do you know I wasn’t?’
‘Were you?’
His eyes sobered and he shook his head. ‘No. I wasn’t. There’s only one nurse I’m interested in chatting up, and I think she knows who she is.’
Sally felt her cheeks warm and she looked away. ‘Any news of Tom?’
‘Same. It could be days.’
‘Poor Fliss. She looked dreadful. I’ll go and sit with her in my
lunch-break, see if I can make her eat before she fades away.’
She wouldn’t eat, but she gripped Sally’s hand and seemed grateful for her presence, and after half an hour Sally hugged her and left to go back down to the department, wondering why she was walking around and Tom was lying there. Darren had been her patient, and it was so unjust that it should have been Tom…
‘You OK?’
‘It should have been me,’ she said woodenly, and Jack took her into the staffroom and gave her a coffee and the remains of his sandwich.
‘It shouldn’t have been anyone,’ he corrected her. ‘The man’s mad. They’ve got him, though. I’ve just heard they picked him up in the night and charged him with attempted murder.’
So he was safely out of the way. Finally, Sally found she could relax at work and stop looking over her shoulder. Almost.
And at home she was too busy to think about it. Because Fliss didn’t move from Tom’s bedside, his parents took it in turns to look after the children and keep her company, and Sally did her share, having Michael and Abby for the night on Wednesday and Thursday as Fliss had done for her boys so many times before.
The babies stayed at home, and Catherine and Andrew helped their grandparents, but during that initial period it was hell for all of them.
And Jack was brilliant.
He did much of the fetching and carrying of the children, spending the evenings with her to take the catering off her hands, and making it all more normal, somehow. And he didn’t once mention Alex. He just got on with it, showing her another side of him she hadn’t known he had, and at the end of the week, when Tom was out of ICU and it all looked much better, instead of taking the easy way out, he moved over to Fliss and Tom’s house, into their little flat over the kitchen, and carried on helping Fliss with her children.
And, of course, he took over Tom’s role in the department in Matt Jordan’s absence, which meant that getting to know his son went onto the back burner, but he didn’t even mention it to Sally, and her respect for him soared.
His Very Own Wife and Child Page 13