‘You mean that you’re going back to work?’ she exclaimed. ‘Is that really necessary? Martin’s on duty this weekend and he’s more than capable of arranging for any tests to be done without you being there.’
‘I’m sure Martin is perfectly capable,’ he said shortly. ‘However, he might not have any experience of dealing with this type of situation. I’d just feel happier if I sorted it out myself.’
‘I understand,’ she said, knowing there was no point trying to dissuade him once he had made up his mind. However, the fact that he was prepared to go into work after what had happened only seemed to prove how foolish it would be to hope that anything would ever come before his job—including Izzy.
Lucy was surprised by how much that thought upset her. Having her biggest fear confirmed like this should have eased her conscience, yet she couldn’t help feeling sad that Connor was reverting to form. As she followed him across the road, she found herself thinking how empty his life was going to be if he continued to drive himself so hard. Surely he could see that he needed more than his job to make him happy?
He stopped beside his car and turned to her. ‘Thanks again for everything, Lucy. Despite the way it’s ended, this has been one of the best days of my entire life.’
Lucy could hear the emotion in his voice and, in spite of her concerns, she couldn’t help being moved by it. ‘Izzy enjoyed it, too.’
‘Did she?’
‘Yes. I could tell that she did.’ She took a quick breath but there was no way that she could lie to him. ‘It isn’t usual for her to take to anyone as quickly as she took to you.’
‘Maybe she realised there was a special bond between us,’ he said huskily.
Lucy shrugged, neither confirming nor denying the suggestion. Maybe there was a bond between him and Izzy but it wouldn’t survive unless he was prepared to make a real commitment to her. And at the moment everything pointed towards the fact that he was never going to be able to do that.
Connor got into the car and rolled down the window. ‘I’ll see you at work tomorrow, will I?’
‘Yes. I’m due in at eight.’
‘Right. I’ll see you then.’
He gave her a quick smile then drove away. Lucy took Izzy home. The little girl was dozing so she left her in the buggy while she made her tea. In some respects the day had gone better than she’d feared it would. Connor genuinely seemed to care about Izzy but she wasn’t convinced that he would put his daughter’s interests first if it came to a choice between her and his job.
It might not matter so much while Izzy was a baby but what about when she grew up? How would she feel if her father constantly let her down because he put his job first? If Connor wanted to be a proper father to Izzy then he had to be prepared to put her first every single time and not just when it suited him.
Lucy squared her shoulders. She might have accepted that she’d come second to his job while they had been together, but she would never accept that position for their daughter!
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘DID the parents say how long she might have been like this? It would help if we had some kind of a timescale to work to.’
It was Monday morning and the day had got off to a flying start. No sooner had Connor arrived at work than he’d been called down to A and E to see a twelve-year-old girl called Amy Marshall who had been found unconscious in her bedroom. The paramedics who had attended the call had discovered a can of deodorant lying on the bed beside her so it looked as though she might have been inhaling the gas from it.
‘The parents aren’t here,’ the young A and E registrar explained. ‘It was the au pair who phoned for an ambulance and she came in with her.’
‘So does she have any idea how long the child has been unconscious?’ Connor demanded, rolling back the girl’s eyelids so he could check her response to light.
‘We don’t know.’ The younger doctor shrugged when Connor looked at him. ‘She doesn’t speak much English so we haven’t been able to get any information out of her apart from the kid’s name and age.’
‘Yet the parents saw fit to leave her in charge of their daughter?’
Connor found it difficult to hide his annoyance as he shone the light into Amy’s eyes. He couldn’t believe the cavalier attitude some parents displayed even after all the years he’d been working in paediatrics. ‘Both pupils are responding evenly to light so that’s something to be grateful for,’ he said, tilting her chin so that he could shine the light up her nose and examine her nasal passages. ‘No sign of erosion of the nasal membranes so it doesn’t look as though it’s chronic inhalant abuse we’re dealing with.’ He opened her mouth and checked her throat. ‘Nothing there either, although you don’t need to be addicted to do yourself a great deal of harm. One whiff of that gas is all it takes sometimes to stop the heart.’
‘You wonder why these kids do it,’ the young registrar said sadly. ‘Especially a kid like this who has everything she could possibly want. The address the paramedics gave us is in one of the best parts of the town. You have to be seriously rich to live there.’
‘Sometimes it’s peer pressure and other times it’s just the thrill of doing something they know is wrong. Money really doesn’t come into it.’
He checked Amy’s reflexes and was pleased when he got a slightly better response than he’d feared. Inhaling the propellants found in common household aerosols like deodorants and hairsprays could cause severe damage to the central nervous system amongst other things.
He made a note on her chart then checked her sats, which had improved since she’d been admitted. Inhalant abuse created an effect similar to that of anaesthetics, which acted by slowing down the body’s functions. If enough gas was inhaled directly into the lungs then death by suffocation could occur. The toxic effects of the gas could also induce heart failure, so Amy had been extremely lucky this time. However, Connor knew enough about the long-term dangers not to become complacent. Repeated inhalant abuse caused kidney and liver damage, so she would need to be admitted while tests were done.
‘I’m going to admit her to Paeds,’ he told the younger doctor. ‘Is the au pair still here? I’d really like to get a patient history from her.’
‘She’s waiting outside although I doubt if she’ll be able to tell you very much.’ The younger man shrugged. ‘Her English seems to be limited to “yes” and “no” with the odd “please” thrown in for good measure.’
Connor sighed. ‘I don’t suppose you know what nationality she is?’
‘One of the nurses thought she was Polish.’
‘So do we have any Polish-speaking staff working here?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ the younger man replied cheerfully. ‘I rarely get out of A and E so I haven’t a clue about the rest of the staff.’
Connor thanked him anyway and went to find the au pair. She was extremely upset and almost incoherent because of it. He explained as clearly as he could that Amy would be taken to the paediatric unit, although he wasn’t sure if the poor woman understood what he was saying. As he went back upstairs, he tried to work out how they could solve the problem of communicating with her. The girl’s parents needed to be informed about what had happened and they had no way of getting in contact with them unless they could make the au pair understand what they wanted her to do.
Lucy was helping Sandra prepare a bed for the girl when he arrived so he drew her aside, thinking about what had happened the day before. It had been wonderful to spend all that time with Izzy, but the best thing of all was that it felt as though he’d made a breakthrough with Lucy as well. She had seemed far more approachable after they had worked together by the river, saving that child’s life, and he couldn’t help hoping that it might mark an improvement in their relationship.
‘We have a problem with the patient who’s coming up from A and E,’ he explained, confining his thoughts to work. It wasn’t like him to let personal issues interfere with his job but he seemed to be finding it increasingly difficu
lt of late to separate the two. He sighed. At one time he hadn’t even had a private life let alone had to worry about it, and it just proved once again how much his life had changed.
‘What sort of problem?’
‘It looks like a classic case of inhalant abuse but I really need a patient history, and the au pair, who came in with the girl, doesn’t speak much English.’
‘What about her parents?’ Lucy asked, frowning. ‘Surely they’re the ones to ask?’
‘They would be if I knew how to get in touch with them.’ He shrugged. ‘Nobody knows where they are—that’s what I need to ask the au pair. One of the nurses thinks she might be Polish—do we have any Polish-speaking staff working at the hospital?’
‘I’m not sure. There’s been a lot of changes in past few months and I’ve lost track. Maybe Sandra will know.’ She beckoned Sandra over. ‘Do you know of any staff who speak Polish? We need someone to translate for us.’
‘Dee, of course. Her mum is Polish and she learned it from her,’ Sandra informed them, giving Connor a funny look as though he should have known that fact himself.
‘Thanks. I’ll give Dee a call and see if she can help us out.’ Connor forbore to say anything in his defence. It was far too complicated to explain that he knew nothing about Dee’s background. He turned to Lucy and immediately wished that he had taken the opportunity to clear things up when he saw the hurt in her eyes. She obviously believed those stupid rumours about him and Dee, and he hated to think that they were creating a problem between them. However, with Sandra standing there, there was very little he could do.
‘Can you get Amy settled in? I’m going to run some tests to see what damage she’s done to herself as soon as I’ve spoken to her parents and got their permission.’
‘Of course.’
She gave him a cool smile then went back to finish preparing the bed. Connor groaned to himself. The longer he let the situation continue, the more problems it was going to cause and it was so frustrating. Surely Lucy must know that he wasn’t interested in another woman?
His heart contracted in sudden panic but there was no point lying to himself. Lucy was the only woman he had ever wanted to spend his life with. It was the reason why he had gone off to Boston, and it was the reason why he knew there would never be anyone to replace her. It was ironic that he would never be able to tell her that.
She might have been hurt by those rumours, but he mustn’t make the mistake of thinking that she still cared about him. It was only natural that she should feel resentful. He had left her when she’d been having his child and it made no difference that he’d been ignorant of the fact at the time. It didn’t excuse what he’d done but it did explain why she hadn’t wanted to tell him about Izzy. Why should she have told him when he had made it plain that he’d wanted nothing more to do with her?
All of a sudden, he could see the situation from her side and he went cold when he realised what an uphill struggle it was going to be to gain her trust. He’d kept banging on about the fact that he had never misled her but that wasn’t the point. He had abandoned her at the worst possible time, and he couldn’t blame her if she wanted nothing more to do with him.
‘She says that Amy’s parents left her a mobile phone number but the phone was switched off when she tried to call them.’
Lucy nodded as Dee finished translating what the au pair had said. They had discovered very little about Amy Marshall so far, apart from the fact that she suffered from asthma. The au pair, Lydia Godycka, hadn’t been able to tell them the name or the address of the family’s GP because she had only been working for them for a week. However, it was a help to know that Amy was asthmatic and Lucy knew that Connor would be pleased to have that information. Dee would probably earn herself some extra brownie points for finding it out.
‘Does Lydia know where the parents work?’ she said, hurriedly squashing that unworthy thought. It had been kind of Dee to come into the hospital and she didn’t deserve to be accused of having ulterior motives when she was trying to help them.
‘I’ll ask her.’ Dee turned to the young woman again and Lucy waited while they had a brief conversation.
‘Lydia says that the parents own a factory that makes electrical equipment,’ Dee explained at last. She paused when Lydia said something else, and sighed. ‘I don’t think they spend very much time at home from what Lydia has just told me.’
‘Does she know the name or the address of the factory?’ Lucy asked. ‘Maybe we could send someone round there to speak to them, or find another phone number so we can contact them.’
‘I’ll see.’ Once again there was a brief pause while the two women conferred. ‘She doesn’t know the address, but she thinks the factory is called C&J Technology—does that help you?’
‘Yes. I’ll check with directory enquiries and see if they can find a phone number.’ Lucy smiled at the au pair. ‘Can you thank Lydia for me? She’s been a great help.’
Dee thanked the woman then stood up. ‘I’ll have to go now,’ she told Lucy as they left the relatives’ room together. ‘I’ve got an appointment at the hairdresser’s and I don’t want to be late.’
‘Are you going somewhere special tonight?’ Lucy asked, trying her best to be friendly towards the other woman.
‘I don’t know yet. It’s a surprise. He wouldn’t tell me where we’re going so I could end up in a burger bar, and then my very expensive hair-do will have been a complete waste of money!’
Lucy summoned a smile when Dee laughed. However, the thought of Dee and Connor spending the evening together was very hard to swallow. ‘So long as you enjoy each other’s company, that’s all that matters, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, I love being with him—there’s no doubt about that,’ Dee said wistfully.
‘But?’ Lucy prompted, knowing in her heart that she shouldn’t be asking questions like that. Connor’s relationship with Dee had nothing to do with her yet she wouldn’t have been human if she hadn’t been interested.
‘But there’s a lot of things we need to sort out before we ride off into the sunset—if we ever get that far, of course. There’s no guarantee that it’s ever going to happen now.’
She didn’t say anything else so Lucy had no idea what she’d meant. She went into the office after Dee left, thinking about what she had just learned. Dee had seemed to imply that she and Connor were considering making a permanent commitment to each other so did that mean they were thinking of getting married?
Lucy’s heart spasmed with pain even though she knew that she didn’t have any right to feel this way. Connor hadn’t made her any promises, so he was free to do whatever he wanted to. If he chose to marry Dee then that was his business yet the thought brought a lump to her throat.
Once upon a time she had dreamed that he would want to marry her but she’d been fooling herself. He had never cared enough about her to marry her otherwise he wouldn’t have gone to Boston. She had been just someone he had met along the way, a stopgap until he’d found the woman he wanted to spend his life with. Maybe he and Dee did have issues that they needed to resolve, but Connor must have been confident that they could work through them if he had asked her to come back to England with him.
Her heart sank because the biggest issue she could think of had to be Izzy. A lot of women wouldn’t be happy at the thought of their partner having a child from a previous relationship, and Dee might be finding it hard to accept. There had been nothing in Dee’s manner to suggest that she knew Lucy was Izzy’s mother, so maybe Connor hadn’t told her that yet. That could be the reason why he had arranged to take her out that night—so he could tell her all the facts.
Quite frankly, Lucy didn’t know how she felt about the idea, but the last thing she wanted was Dee telling everyone else. She couldn’t bear to think that everyone would be gossiping about her so she would have to make it clear to Connor that he must swear Dee to secrecy. Maybe people would have to know in time but not just yet. She wanted to protect her priv
acy a while longer, although it might be even worse if the information became common knowledge in the future. She could just imagine the furore it would cause if Connor and Dee were married when the news broke!
She sighed wearily. Whichever way she looked at it, this situation was going to cause a great deal of heartache for everyone concerned.
Lucy managed to get the phone number of the factory from directory enquiries and telephoned Amy’s parents. The receptionist put her through to Mrs Marshall’s office after she explained why she was calling. She knew what a shock it would be for the woman so she tried to break the news to her as gently as possible, but Mrs Marshall’s reaction wasn’t what she had expected. As she put down the phone after a decidedly frosty conversation, Lucy found it hard to hide her dismay.
‘What’s wrong? Has something happened to Izzy?’
She looked up when she realised that Connor must have come into the office while she’d been on the phone. ‘No, Izzy’s fine. That was Amy Marshall’s mother on the phone—I managed to get the phone number of where she works from directory enquiries.’
‘Oh, I see. For a horrible moment I thought Izzy might have had an accident in the crèche.’
‘Izzy’s fine,’ she repeated, so there would be no mistake. There could be no mistake about the fact that Connor was concerned either, but would his interest in Izzy last if Dee was opposed to him seeing her? Dee might come to resent the time he spent with Izzy and try to stop him visiting her, and if that happened, it could have a disastrous effect on the little girl. The thought that Izzy might become the innocent victim in any future dispute made her feel more anxious than ever, although she had no intention of sharing her concerns with Connor. There was no way that she was going to give him the opportunity to accuse her of being jealous!
‘That’s a relief. So what did the mother have to say?’ He frowned as he came over and sat on the edge of the desk. ‘Did Mrs Marshall know that her daughter has been abusing inhalants?’
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