‘Thank you. I’ll let the hospital know that you’re taking that job.’
He left it there, afraid that if he lingered he would do something stupid like break down and weep. He needed to be strong for Zoë’s sake, for their baby’s sake, for…
Tears were suddenly streaming down his face as he walked along the corridor to the lift. He knew how devastated he would feel if anything happened to her.
CHAPTER SIX
‘THIS is Jo Morris, senior sister on ED, and Adam Sanders, our senior house officer.’
Zoë said hello, replying politely to the friendly greetings. She remembered seeing the pair when she and Ben had rescued that child from the hills. It seemed an age ago now, although in truth it must be only a matter of months. She’d had no idea then that her life would take such a dramatic turn.
She pushed the thought to the back of her mind as she followed Ben into Resus. He was giving her the grand tour, making sure she knew where everything was kept. Although she’d worked there before, it was easy to forget where vital pieces of equipment were kept. The last thing Ben needed in an emergency was her bumbling around the place.
‘That just about covers it. Most things are where they used to be, although there’s been a few changes since your time, mainly to the staff. We’ve lost a lot of good folk, I’m sorry to say.’
Ben grimaced, his handsome face looking unusually stern in the bright glare of the lights. She knew that he was deliberately keeping everything on a professional footing and she was grateful for that. It would help to alleviate the strain if they could stick to their roles as colleagues while they were in the hospital.
Her heart jerked as she thought about what would happen away from there. She had already moved into Ben’s flat. She’d flown back from Paris the previous day and he had met her at the airport. She’d lived in rented accommodation in Paris so at least she hadn’t had any furniture to ship back to England, but there’d still been an awful lot of stuff. Fortunately, Ben had hired a van but she had managed to fill it with her belongings and now they were littered about his flat. She couldn’t help feeling guilty for invading his space.
‘Keeping hold of good staff is a major undertaking,’ she said quietly, sticking to their current remit. ‘We had the same problem in Paris—you no sooner hired someone decent than someone else left.’
‘It seems to be a universal problem,’ he agreed, opening the door for her. ‘We have a number of staff from overseas working here while others have left to take up positions abroad.’
‘They say the grass is always greener on the other side,’ she replied lightly, heading back to the cubicles.
‘So they do.’ Ben put a hand on her arm. ‘What’s happening about your chemo? Have you been given a start date yet? The oncology department did promise to get in touch with you.’
‘They did, and I start my treatment the Monday after next.’ Zoë took a deep breath to control the fear that made her stomach churn each time she thought about what she had to face. ‘Deborah Gaston is my consultant. She has a particular interest in cases like mine, apparently. She will be liaising with the obstetrics consultant, although I don’t know his name.’
‘Daniel Walker,’ Ben supplied helpfully. ‘He took over at the beginning of the year and he’s very good, too. You’ll be in safe hands from what I’ve heard.’
‘Good.’
Zoë smiled to allay the impression that she was concerned, although she doubted if Ben was fooled. She sighed as she collected the next patient’s admission notes. Ben knew her too well and there was very little she would be able to keep from him. It was worrying to know how vulnerable she was going to be in the next few months but she had to deal with it the best way she could. So long as she didn’t allow him to take over her life, she should be fine.
There was the usual run of minor injuries—sprains, cuts, a sore throat that should have been dealt with by the patient’s GP—and the morning flew by. She was about to go for lunch when the outer doors opened and a young man staggered in, clutching his chest and groaning loudly. Zoë hurried forward and reached him just as he keeled over. Moving his hand out of the way, she gasped in dismay when she saw the handle of a knife sticking out of his chest.
‘Can I have some help over here?’ she shouted. ‘I need a trolley as well, stat!’
Everybody whizzed into action and a trolley appeared along with Jo and Adam and a male nurse whose name Zoë couldn’t remember. Zoë stood up, glancing at the others as she took hold of the young man’s left arm and shoulder. ‘On my count…’
‘I’ll do that.’
All of a sudden Ben was there, moving her aside as he took her place. Zoë didn’t have time to protest as the team lifted the young man onto the trolley and rushed him through to Resus. Ben glanced at her as she hurried after them, his face set.
‘You shouldn’t be lifting anything heavy at the moment. If you need help, you’re to ask. Got it?’
Zoë knew he was right, but it was galling to have restrictions imposed on her. ‘I don’t need people fussing over me.’
‘Nobody’s fussing, Zoë. It’s common sense—that’s all.’
They’d reached Resus by then and he didn’t say anything else as they wheeled the trolley through the doors. Zoë tagged along in its wake, feeling like a spare part. If she was only to be allowed to treat the minor injuries—the cuts and bruises—it wasn’t on. Either she was good enough to do her job, or she wasn’t.
There was a light of battle in her eyes as she stepped forward. Ben looked at her, his eyes meeting hers across the trolley, and there was a firmness about his expression that she had rarely seen there before. Zoë realised there was no point arguing when he was determined to have his own way.
‘As soon as we get him onto the bed, I want you to monitor his breathing, Zoë. From the position that knife has entered his chest, we could be dealing with a haemothorax and I want it sorted out sooner rather than later.’ He turned to the others. ‘OK, let’s get a move on.’
The patient was transferred to the bed and everyone sprang into action. Jo started to cut off his clothes, Adam began setting up the monitoring equipment and the male nurse—Jason, Zoë suddenly remembered—grabbed a handful of plastic aprons and distributed them to everyone present. Zoë put on her apron then unwound her stethoscope from around her neck. The patient’s breathing was very laboured and when she checked his lung sounds, she realised that Ben was right. There was blood in the pleural cavity and it would need to be removed.
She told him her findings, unsurprised when he merely nodded. He didn’t look for kudos for having made such an excellent diagnosis. That wasn’t his way. He never sought compliments, never tried to bolster his ego in any way, shape or form. It was one of the things she had admired about him and she admired it still—his confidence, his certainty, his humanity. He was a good man, a kind man, a dedicated doctor and a person people instinctively relied on.
She could so easily rely on him too, and she was going to have to do so to a certain extent for the sake of their child. What she mustn’t do was let herself rely on him to get through the next few difficult months. In her heart she knew that if she let herself lean on Ben, she wouldn’t be able to stop, wouldn’t be able to prevent her heart being broken when he grew tired of the responsibility, as he was bound to do.
It was different with their child. Ben adored children and she knew that he would never grow tired of looking after their son or their daughter, unlike her own father. But she could become a burden to him because of her illness and she didn’t want to be that. No, she either kept her distance or she gave him her all and she knew which it had to be. There could be no in-between where Ben was concerned.
The young man’s name was Ryan Andrews. He was nineteen years old and a student at the local college. Jo discovered all that from what the boy had on him—a wallet containing his driver’s licence, a student card and a letter from his parents who lived in Dorset. Ben nodded when the sister told him w
hat she’d found.
‘You need to tell the police. I take it that someone has phoned them?’
‘Ruth said she’d do it,’ Jo confirmed, referring to their receptionist.
‘Good. Can you check if there’s a police officer in Reception? The sooner they get in touch with his parents the better.’
Jo didn’t ask why. She didn’t need to. With an injury as serious as this, it was always touch and go. Ben turned his attention back to the young man, feeling his concern deepen when he glanced at the monitor.
‘BP’s dropping,’ Adam told him, his eyes scanning the lines and numbers that formed a visual record of their fight to save the patient’s life.
‘He’s lost a lot of blood,’ Ben said flatly. ‘Get on to the lab and see how long it’s going to be before they cross-match it. It needs to be done before he goes up to Theatre if he’s to stand any chance at all.’
‘I’ll set up a chest drain.’
Zoë’s voice, so cool, so calm, cut in then and he glanced at her. She looked perfectly composed and he was relieved to see that she no longer looked annoyed at the way he had summarily taken over. Maybe he should have allowed her to carry on but—hell!—she was pregnant and had recently undergone surgery. No one in his right mind would have allowed her to start lifting a patient in those circumstances.
‘Fine,’ Ben agreed, feeling a little better now that he had salved his conscience. ‘I daren’t remove the knife. It’s the only thing that’s stopping him bleeding out, so you’ll have to work around it. You should be able to tell from the X-ray where to make the incision.’
‘It isn’t a problem,’ she told him, swabbing an area on Ryan’s side where she planned to make the incision.
Ben watched her cut through the flesh and underlying tissue with a steady hand. The intercostal muscle—the sheets of muscle between the ribs which helped expand and contract the chest during breathing—was tough but she zipped through it without any difficulty. Her actions were deft and sure and he was impressed. Zoë had honed her skills while she’d been in Paris and had turned into a fine doctor.
‘The police are outside. They’re going to contact Ryan’s parents and the head of the college as well.’
‘Good.’ Jo came back and Ben returned his attention to what he was doing. It shouldn’t have strayed in the first place but he was only human and having Zoë there, working alongside him, was bound to affect him.
Knowing that put him on his mettle. Using every skill he possessed, he fought to keep the young man alive. When Ryan’s heart suddenly stopped beating, it was Ben who began to resuscitate him, Ben who decided which drugs were needed and Ben who applied the paddles of the defibrillator to Ryan’s chest. It was a relief when the monitor once again showed a steady rhythm, the blips running in an orderly sequence across the screen. Although the knife was still in situ, Ryan was alive and had a better chance of staying that way as he was wheeled to Theatre. As the doors slapped shut behind the departing trolley, everyone broke into a round of applause and Ben grinned when he discovered the ovation was for him.
‘Thank you kindly, folks. I’d offer to do an encore but I don’t think we could go through a repeat at this moment.’ He looked down at his bloodied apron and the pool of blood around his feet, and grimaced. ‘Any more blood and guts in here and we’ll be awash!’
Everyone laughed as they began to clear up. Jason summoned the cleaning team, who grumbled loudly when they saw the mess. Ben binned his apron and gloves then dipped his feet into a bucket of disinfectant to clean the soles of his shoes before he tramped through the department. The nursing staff all wore rubber-soled clogs but Zoë was wearing a smart pair of leather shoes. He smiled sympathetically when she gingerly dipped each foot into the water.
‘Sorry about your footwear. Hazard of the job. I keep meaning to buy myself a pair of those rubber-soled thingummies but I never seem to get round to it. I must put it on my “to do” list.’
‘They’re very handy,’ she agreed, using a wad of paper towels to dry her shoes. ‘They’re also the height of fashion so you will be very trendy if you do get round to buying yourself a pair.’
Ben chuckled as he elbowed his way out of Resus. ‘I’m glad you took this job. Not only are you proving to be a superb doctor, but you can give us all fashion tips!’
She laughed, her pretty face lighting up in a way that made his heart surge. She looked like the Zoë of old, he realised, then realised a second later just how much recent events had taken out of her. She was still incredibly beautiful but there was no denying that she looked very fragile and no wonder either. Who wouldn’t be showing the effects of what she must be going through?
The urge to give her a hug was very strong. Ben’s hands clenched because it was the last thing she would want him to do. While they were at work, she expected him to treat her the same as he treated everyone else, but it was going to be hard—very hard—once her pregnancy and the effects of her chemotherapy kicked in.
The thought of how he was going to manage to restrain his natural inclinations to protect her gave him hot and cold chills. Ben hid them the best way he could, smiling at her as though he hadn’t a care in the world. ‘I think we’ve earned a break, don’t you? Come on, I’ll treat you to a decent cup of coffee instead of that disgusting brew on offer in the staff room. Dalverston General has taken a major step into the modern world. We now have a café in the foyer that serves lattes!’
‘Oh, wow! That’s an offer I can’t refuse.’ She followed him through the waiting area and along the corridor that led to the front of the building. The newly built atrium looked particularly stunning with the sun shining through the glass roof and she stopped to admire it. ‘It’s really lovely. I had no idea that so much work had been done to the place. It must have cost a fortune.’
‘It did, and they’re still building.’ Ben stopped and pointed out of the window. ‘They’re going to start knocking down the old bit of the hospital next month. The plan is to build a new radiology unit on the site—new scanners as well as X-ray equipment. Although we’ve had a CT scanner for ages, we’ve had to send patients to Manchester for an MRI scan, but that is about to change.’
‘That’s wonderful.’
Zoë leant forward so she could see better and Ben sucked in his breath when he felt her shoulder brush against his. However, it did little to control the fizz of excitement that coursed through his veins. It had always been the same: the moment Zoë had touched him he’d gone off with a bang and he was doing it again. Big time.
‘So what do you fancy?’ he asked, feeling deeply ashamed of himself. Zoë was pregnant and facing weeks of gruelling treatment, and here he was thinking about his physical needs! ‘They have lattes, skinny lattes, moccachinos, cappuccinos, espresso…’
‘Stop!’ Zoë held up her hand, her grey eyes dancing with laughter. ‘There’s just too much choice. You choose for me and then it will be a nice surprise.’
‘Sure? I might choose something you hate.’
‘You know what I like, Ben. I trust you.’
‘Do you?’
The question came out before he could stop it. Ben knew he shouldn’t have asked her that, well, not in that tone at any rate. He looked into her eyes, oblivious to the fact that they were standing in the entrance to the café and that there were people milling around them. He didn’t see them, didn’t see anything except Zoë. He knew it was pointless even to think about it, but it would mean an awful lot to him if at least he had her trust.
‘Do you trust me, Zoë? Do you know in your heart that I shall do my very best to help you?’
There was a moment when she didn’t speak, when she just looked at him with sadness in her eyes before her head lowered. Ben leant forward, afraid that he wouldn’t hear her reply but, oddly, her voice was surprisingly strong when she spoke.
‘Yes, I trust you, Ben. I would never have asked you to take care of our baby if anything happens to me if I didn’t trust you.’
C
HAPTER SEVEN
ZOË knew that her answer was only partly true but she was afraid to say anything more. She couldn’t tell Ben the whole truth, that she trusted him more than she had ever trusted anyone else, when it would make her so vulnerable. When he excused himself to fetch their drinks, she breathed a sigh of relief. She wasn’t sure if she could have held out if he’d pressed her.
She found them a table, watching the flow of people as they came and went. The café was popular with staff as well as visitors, although, surprisingly, she didn’t recognise anyone in there that day. Ben had told her that there’d been a lot of staff changes recently and obviously it was true.
She sighed because why wouldn’t it be true? Ben wouldn’t have lied to her. He had always been completely honest with her. If he’d told her he’d been working late that was what he’d been doing, and if he’d arranged to meet her, he had never let her down. So why had she found it so hard to believe him when he’d told her that he would always love her?
Zoë felt her heart begin to race. All of a sudden she could see how foolish she’d been. Ben had told her the truth about that too and she hadn’t believed him. She understood why, of course—she’d been afraid. Afraid that she would have her heart broken when he left her as everyone else had done. But Ben was different: he would never have left her. He wouldn’t have stopped loving her either when he had given her his word. She’d been the one at fault. She hadn’t trusted him to keep his promise despite the fact that he had never once let her down.
‘I got you a latte in the end. I thought it best to play safe. I also got you a cherry slice, although you don’t have to eat it if you don’t want to.’
Ben put the tray on the table. Zoë felt her heart shrivel up as she realised how stupid she’d been. She and Ben could have spent the past two years together and they would have been happy too. It wouldn’t have made any difference to the fact that she would still have had cancer, but then she could have turned to him without a qualm and let him help her. If there’d been a baby as well, they would have shared the joy and the fear for its future after her diagnosis, and it would have been so much easier because they would have done it together.
The Doctor's Baby Bombshell Page 6