‘Yes, sure,’ he agreed, and hoped that nothing would occur that would make it a promise impossible to keep, as a crisis could appear out of nowhere on the orthopaedic unit, and without Leonie there as back-up when it was over, there would be even more to concern himself about.
* * *
The day was quiet enough in Orthopaedics until the late afternoon when it took on a less calm atmosphere as A and E was suddenly filled with children who had been on a coach trip from their school when the driver had collapsed at the wheel and the vehicle had ended up in a ditch.
Most of them were unhurt but some had sustained fractures and cuts that needed attention, and as the clock climbed up to six Callum took a moment to phone Leonie with the news that he was going to be late, probably an hour or so.
‘That’s all right,’ she told him. ‘I will see to Rhianna and Martha being fed and will have my meal with you when you arrive.’
No one knew better than she did the ups and downs of orthopaedics when it came to children, unless it was Callum, and there must have been some cases he wanted to deal with himself or he would have left them to other members of the theatre staff to treat.
It was two hours later, not one, when his car pulled up in front of the yurt. The girls were asleep once more in her bed and the meal was going to be just about edible, but at least Callum was here now.
‘So it was worse than you expected?’ she said as she met him in the open doorway.
He shrugged wearily. ‘It often is, as we both know, don’t we? But at least all the young victims are alive and their injuries sorted, and the coach driver is coming round at another hospital from what seems to be a minor stroke. I am sorry to be so late, Leonie, can you forgive me?’
‘Of course I can,’ she told him softly, and thought she could forgive him anything.
She poured him a drink.
‘The food is past its best but is edible if you want to chance it.’
‘Of course I want to chance it!’ he exclaimed. ‘For one thing I’m starving, and for another you have taken the trouble to cook for me again.’
They ate quickly, then went and sat outside so they could talk without disturbing the girls as much.
‘I almost forgot, I have news from the hospital that might surprise you,’ said Callum suddenly. ‘Candace and Julian are engaged. She was wearing a large solitaire diamond ring this morning.’
‘Really!’ Leonie exclaimed. ‘That didn’t take long. When and where is the wedding to take place?’
‘Here in Heatherdale, some time soon, so I’m told.’
‘That will be two weddings on the calendar, then,’ she exclaimed. ‘Julie’s and Brendan’s in June, and theirs.’
‘Now, how about us making it a threesome?’ he teased lightly.
‘No!’ she said tightly. ‘I have no intention of doing any such thing, and if that was a proposal it was insulting.’
‘It wasn’t meant to be,’ he said levelly. ‘I just had to find out how little you think of me and marriage, and now I know.’
‘No, you don’t,’ she said in a low voice so as not to waken the children. ‘You only know what you see, Callum, and it can be misleading.’
The night was turning sour once again, but he had one more thing to say. ‘Why can’t you let me be the judge of that?’
As he drove away after thanking her for the meal Leonie did nothing to stop him. What was the point? Callum probably thought that she was some sort of drama queen out to make a mystery out of nothing, not aware that his arrival in her life had come too soon.
* * *
Melissa and Ryan came home the early evening of the following day and when Callum called by to collect the children he saw that Leonie wasn’t showing any signs of accompanying them.
‘I expected that you would be coming with us, as I’m sure Ryan and Melissa will want to thank you for looking after the children.’
They’d been cool with each other when he’d called to take Rhianna to school that morning, but now he was crossing the barriers that they’d put up for each other again and the ache inside her increased.
‘I wasn’t intending intruding into Melissa and Ryan’s first night home,’ she told him stiffly.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Leonie, stop playing the martyr,’ he chided. ‘I’m not leaving without you, so get in the car.’
Callum was right. She ought to be there to welcome Ryan and Melissa on their return, so she obeyed, with the word ‘martyr’ hanging in the air. He was wrong about that. ‘Fool’ was a better word to describe her.
She was being given a second chance of happiness and was too afraid to take it.
* * *
There were tears and lots of kisses when Melissa and Ryan held their children close and thanked the two people they had been able to rely on to look after them.
‘We nearly lost our little Liam,’ Melissa said tearfully, ‘but the fates were kind and he’s still tucked up inside me, waiting for the big day.’
Callum watched Leonie’s expression and it was raw grief that he saw there in spite of the smile she was bestowing upon her friend, and then the moment passed and it was time for the two of them to leave the happily reunited family to themselves.
On the way back to the yurt there was tense silence between them, on his part because every time he said something it was wrong, and on her part because if he touched her, or even looked at her, she would want to collapse into his arms and weep out her misery and the grief she’d bottled up for so long.
She’d called the baby boy that she’d delivered Benedict, Ben for short, and his memory was sacred. It was something she would love to be able to talk to Callum about, but the reason why she’d been pregnant in the first place was why the words would stick in her throat, so she let him drop her off at home after bidding her a curt goodbye.
* * *
There was an invitation to Julian and Candace’s engagement party behind the door when Callum arrived at the apartment. It was to take place at the riverside hotel on Saturday night. He couldn’t think of anything he fancied less, except for the fact that Leonie might be there, but he would wait and see regarding that.
* * *
She was back on the unit the following morning now that Rhianna and Martha were home with their parents and Callum overheard one of the nurses ask Leonie if she’d had an invitation to the party.
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘I can’t remember when last I went to something like that.’ That made two of them, then.
His comment to her the other night about theirs making it three weddings had been said as a prod in the direction of their snail’s-pace relationship, and also jokingly at the thought of a trio of weddings of such different kinds of people so near each other.
He was going to go to the party on Saturday night for two reasons, firstly because Leonie was going to be there, and secondly because Candace had asked him to walk her down the aisle on her wedding day for lack of any close relation being present. Once married the newlyweds would cross the Atlantic to start a new life together, which would be wedding number one completed.
His position at wedding number two would be less prestigious if his offer to DJ at the reception was accepted, but he knew which wedding he was going to enjoy the most, and as to wedding number three it would seem that it was to be a non-event and it served him right for pushing it.
* * *
When Saturday night came he was ready to walk the short distance to the hotel, immaculate in the evening dress requested on the invitation, when the phone rang, and he frowned. It was either going to be Leonie warning him in advance that she wasn’t going to the party or an emergency on the unit, and as he lifted the receiver he was hoping that it would be neither.
It was not to be. He was needed at the hospital. The voice on the phone was that of a junior doctor on the night staff who needed his help desperately, and without taking time to change out of his evening wear Callum headed into work. Time with Leonie was denied him, no matter wha
t he did.
* * *
Leonie had dressed carefully for tonight’s party. She was wearing a long evening dress of pale green silk that set off the red-gold of her hair. Her eyes a brighter green than the dress sparkled with the promise of the night ahead, as she begged silently of the unseen fates that it should not be another let down.
Callum’s apartment was in darkness as she passed it, which wasn’t surprising as he lived only a short distance away from the party venue, so had probably been one of the first to arrive, and when Leonie stepped into the hotel foyer one of the reception staff pointed her in the direction of the suite where the guests were gathered.
As she shook hands with the engaged couple Julian said, ‘So do we take it that Callum has another engagement for tonight? Only he did give us to understand that he would be here.’
‘And he isn’t?’ she exclaimed.
‘Er, no,’ said Julian. ‘He was seen driving in the opposite direction to this place, dressed for socialising somewhere special and wearing all the right clothes for it.’
Disappointment was like a bad taste in Leonie’s mouth as she listened to what he had to say. Candace commented that she hoped that Callum’s timekeeping and reliability would have been restored to their usual excellence before the wedding, or they might have to bring someone in off the street to walk her down the aisle.
So where was he? His absence had to mean that either he’d heard her say she was attending the party and had gone elsewhere to avoid any more uncomfortable discussions about the two of them, or else had gone living it up somewhere just for the pleasure of it.
Whatever the reason, she hadn’t the right to question it. The party was filling up with new arrivals and not wanting to appear rude she decided that she would hang on for a couple of hours and then make a polite exit with some sort of excuse.
In the middle of the evening she was amazed to see Melissa arrive alone, walking slowly and carefully as her bruised state still demanded.
Where was Ryan? It was strange to see her friend arriving without him. She got to her feet and went to greet her.
‘How is it that you’re alone?’
‘I’ve come for Julian’s sake to represent Ryan. He’s been called into A and E, along with Callum, and I’ve left the girls with Mollie, our wonderful housekeeper.’
‘Callum is at the hospital!’ Leonie exclaimed as her world righted itself. ‘Julian doesn’t know that. Everyone here thinks that he’s giving it a miss as he was seen driving off in the opposite direction.’
‘Then they should know better,’ Melissa said. ‘You can imagine how little Ryan and I want to be separated after what the last few days have been like, but the two men are the same—if there is a child in need they put everything to one side to sort it.’
‘Do we know what’s wrong?’ Leonie asked.
‘A young boy who’s been sent to Heatherdale from a hospital in Cheshire where they don’t have the equipment to deal with the problem of a serious spinal fracture. He broke it in a fall from a tree that he’d been climbing.
‘Callum had been hoping that he wouldn’t need to disturb Ryan but there was a head injury that didn’t look too good. However, Ryan phoned me just a few moments ago to say that has been sorted and he’s on his way here, but Callum is going to stay with his young patient for the time being, so I can’t see him making the party tonight.’
‘No, of course not,’ Leonie agreed. ‘I’ll explain to Julian what is going on back at the hospital and then go to see if I can help in any way.’
Melissa smiled. ‘I’m sure that Callum will be pleased to see you.’
As Leonie waited in the hotel foyer for her taxi she wasn’t so sure that Callum would be pleased to see her. Their relationship seemed to go up and down like a see-saw, but she was filled with tenderness and regret for imagining him being anywhere else but at the hospital in his absence. It was one of the things she loved about him, his devotion to his occupation, and his clear-cut approach to all the important things of life, and now she was eager to be near him, to let him see that she cared enough to seek him out. The party had been pointless with him not there and when the taxi arrived she was on her way in seconds.
* * *
When she arrived at her destination there was just one nurse seated at the desk in the centre of the main ward beneath the subdued lighting that was in use during the night hours.
‘I’ve just heard about the accident and the spinal problems,’ Leonie said in a low voice so as not to disturb any of the young patients in various cots and beds dotted about the ward.
‘Dr Warrender is still down in Theatre,’ she was told. ‘He arrived looking a million dollars and within seconds had stripped off and was in his working clothes. Is he expecting you?’
‘No, not at all. It is just that we were going to the same party and when he wasn’t there everyone was presuming that he was off enjoying himself somewhere else when we should have all known better. I’ve come to give him moral support and to see if there’s anything I can do to help so I’ll go and see what is happening down there.’
They were clearing up after the surgery when she went into Theatre. There was no sign of Callum.
One of the nurses said, ‘If you’re looking for Dr Ferguson, he went a while ago, but Dr Warrender has gone out into the gardens for some fresh air. It has been a stressful night for all concerned, but he’ll tell you all about it himself, I’m sure.’
As she went to find him Leonie sighed. Everyone seemed to know how Callum was going to react when he saw her except her. When she found him in the hospital gardens, gazing up thoughtfully at a star-filled sky, she said his name hesitantly.
He swung round and observed her in amazement. She looked so beautiful in that long green dress and bathed in starlight that it took his breath away.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asked huskily.
‘Melissa told me where you were and I came to find you.’
‘You left the party because of me!’
‘It wasn’t a party without you. I was on the point of going home when she arrived and explained what had happened. How bad is it for the boy, Callum?’
‘Not good, but better than when he was brought in. The young scamp nearly killed himself. It was no wonder that the junior doctor on night duty was panicking. I asked Ryan to stop by for his opinion about a blow to the head, but a scan showed that there was no bleeding.’
‘And are you finished now?’
‘Yes, I’d just come out for a breath of air before getting dressed and driving back home. How did you get here?’ he asked whimsically, his glance on the dress. ‘Not on your bike, I hope?’
She was laughing. ‘No. I came by taxi.’
‘Do you want to go back to the party?’
‘Not particularly, but I think we should as it is your friend who is getting engaged—just as long as you aren’t too exhausted after what has been happening here.’
‘I’m used to the strains and stresses of this place,’ he said dryly, ‘and as long as I can make life happier and healthier for the children who are brought here, I’m fine. I used to dream of having a child of my own to cherish but so far it is the offspring of others that I spend my time with.’
They were back in the hospital corridor beneath bright lighting and he saw that the colour had drained from her face once again. Surely he hadn’t said the wrong thing this time?
As he drove them back to the party Leonie was silent. What he’d said had triggered off the feeling of loss that was always there when they talked of anything personal. Their feelings were exactly the same with regard to what he’d said about having a child of one’s own but it took two to create a new small being.
The party was almost over when they got there, but for the time that was left Leonie was content just to be by his side, with the future back into the far corners of her mind where it belonged.
She wasn’t aware that her leaving the party to seek him out had been responsible for Ca
llum actually seeing that third wedding on the horizon, a long way off maybe, but it was as if church bells were ringing in the distance.
‘By the way, have Julie and Brendan accepted my offer to DJ at their wedding?’ he enquired.
‘Absolutely,’ she told him laughingly. ‘Julie and Brendan are delighted and wonder if you would mind being called the Disco Doc.’
‘I don’t mind what they call me as long as the chief bridesmaid is not far away,’ he told her, and with his voice deepening, ‘I’ve never met a woman like you before, so beautiful, kind and decent.’
‘Don’t!’ she protested. ‘You think you know me, Callum, but you don’t.’
‘All right,’ he soothed, ‘so I don’t know you, but one day I will.’
She shook her head.
‘Oh, yes, I will!’ As they were about to seat themselves with their friends he said, ‘Big smiles, Leonie. Melissa and Ryan are just recovering from what could have been a tragic loss.’
‘I am not likely to forget that!’ she told him.
As the four of them chatted Callum worried that he’d lost her again, as the barriers were up once more. Thankfully she didn’t stay behind them all the time, but there was always the thought that the day might come when she did.
‘I’ll take you home once the party is over, Leonie,’ he told her, when someone stopped at their table to chat with Ryan and Melissa. ‘So don’t get any ideas about walking across the bridge on your own if I take my glance off you for a moment, or I’m called away to discuss the wedding with the bridal pair. I have a plus one invite and am hoping that it will be you, so what’s the answer?’
It was a moment to let common sense take over, to avoid the chance to be with Callum on a special occasion, but she didn’t want to be sensible. It would be an event that she could look back on nostalgically in later years when he’d tired of her evasiveness and found someone else, or gone back to the single life that he’d promised himself.
‘Yes, I’d love to be your guest at the wedding,’ she told him, ‘as long as when it is Julie and Brendan’s turn you’re still willing to partner me.’
Heatherdale's Shy Nurse (Mills & Boon Medical) Page 8