St. Piran's: The Wedding!

by Alison Roberts

  He grunted an acknowledgement, still focused on the screen. Surely something had shown up on the MRI of his earlier patient to explain her acute neurological symptoms?

  ‘Status two.’ The nurse sounded oddly nervous but, then, she was new and had only just learned that flirting with him was likely to earn disfavour. ‘Sixty-year-old woman who looks like she’s having an infarct.’

  ‘Put her straight into Resus, then. Is Ben around?’

  ‘Yes...but...’

  The back of Josh’s neck prickled as he turned his head. ‘But what?’

  ‘The patient is your mother, Dr O’Hara.’

  The prickle ran down the entire length of his spine now, turning icy cold. Josh was on his feet and moving before he gave the action any conscious thought.

  ‘How far away?’

  ‘ETA five minutes. They’re coming from Penhally.’

  They? Were the children in the ambulance as well? This couldn’t be happening. Not now, when his life was exactly the way it was supposed to be. The children, the house, his job—none of it would have been possible without his mother’s help.

  An infarct? Claire O’Hara had never had a day’s illness in her life. She’d never smoked. She was as slim now as she’d been in her twenties. Her blood pressure was fine. She had energy to burn.

  Or did she? Had she been pushed too far by him taking up the amazing offer of her helping him to raise the twins?

  If this was yet another disaster in his life, could the blame be laid, yet again, at his feet?

  Ben Carter, another emergency medicine consultant at St Piran’s, was already in the resuscitation area. The defibrillator was being tested. A twelve-lead ECG machine was standing by. He glanced up and saw Josh.

  ‘Don’t panic,’ he said quietly. ‘We don’t know exactly what we’re dealing with yet.’

  ‘Status two infarct,’ Josh snapped. ‘Unstable. What the hell happened? Have you had any details? Where was she? Did she...arrest somewhere?’

  ‘No. That much I do know. She’s status two because she’s throwing off a few ectopics. She’s on oxygen and she’s had aspirin, GTN and morphine. Her breathing’s improving.’

  ‘Improving? My God, how bad was it?’

  ‘Josh...’ Ben stepped closer to put a hand on his colleague’s arm. ‘I’ve got this, OK? It’ll be good for Claire if you’re here but you need to stay calm.’

  ‘What about the children? Were they with her?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Ben was looking past Josh now. Towards the double doors sliding open to admit a stretcher and ambulance crew. A nurse was pointing them towards the resus room. He turned to a nurse. ‘Has the cardiology registrar been paged?’

  ‘Forget the registrar,’ Josh said. ‘Get Anna Davenport down here. This is my mother, for God’s sake.’

  Claire looked terrified as she was wheeled into the resus room.

  ‘Josh...’ she gasped, reaching out a hand. ‘Thank heavens you’re here.’

  ‘Of course I’m here.’ Josh took hold of the hand. He knew he was getting in the way as the ambulance crew transferred Claire to the bed and gave Ben a handover but, for the first time in years, his mother needed him instead of the other way round. He kept his eyes on her face as the staff stripped away the clothing from her upper body and started adding extra dots so they could take a more comprehensive recording of the electrical activity in her heart. Ben was drawing off bloods for urgent analysis.

  ‘Let’s sit you up a little bit, Mrs O’Hara,’ a nurse said, slipping another pillow behind Claire. ‘And I’m just switching the oxygen over to this plug on the ceiling so we can get rid of the portable tank. No, don’t take your mask off.’

  Claire ignored the nurse, pushing the mask clear of her mouth. ‘The twins, Josh...they’re...’

  ‘Please keep your mask on.’ The nurse gently moved Claire’s hand. ‘It’s important that you get some oxygen at the moment.’

  ‘I can hear you.’ Josh leaned closer. ‘What about the twins?’

  ‘They’re fine.’ The paramedic was loading the portable oxygen cylinder back onto the stretcher. ‘The doctor who called the ambulance for Mrs O’Hara said she’d be bringing them straight here. She can’t be far behind us.’

  ‘A doctor?’ Josh was confused. ‘Was she at the medical centre?’ Getting treatment, even, for some condition she’d never let him know she had?

  ‘No. She was at the beach. With the children and a big dog.’

  ‘Crash. Oh, no...’ The woman coming swiftly into the resus room sounded as though she was starting a conversation with an old friend. ‘What’s he been up to now, Claire?’ She was smiling down at her patient. ‘More importantly, what on earth have you been up to?’

  The smile was reassuring but Josh could see the concern in the face of the head of the cardiology department. Concern that increased as a technician handed her the sheet of paper from the twelve-lead ECG machine. Ben was also reading the ECG over her shoulder.

  ‘What is it?’ Josh forgot his confusion about a doctor being on scene when Claire had become ill. He hadn’t missed the significant glance passing between Anna and Ben.

  ‘Left anterior,’ Anna said calmly. ‘ST elevation of up to three millimetres. Have we got anything back on the bloods yet? Cardiac enzymes? TNT?’

  Josh had to take a deep breath as he heard Ben relay the earliest results. He didn’t want to let Claire know how serious this could be. An infarct that knocked out part of the left ventricle was more likely to have serious consequences. Every minute counted now so that they could save as much cardiac function as possible.

  Anna had turned to Claire. ‘You’re having a heart attack, Claire,’ she said gently. ‘But there are things we can do to minimise the damage it might be doing to your heart. I’m going to take you up to the catheter laboratory and we can see exactly where the blockage is in your coronary arteries. We’ll clear it if we can and might put something called a stent in to keep the artery open.’

  ‘You’re going to...operate on me?’ Claire’s face was as white as the pillow behind her.

  ‘Not exactly. You’ll be awake. We put a tiny tube inside an artery and that goes into your heart. It’s very clever.’

  ‘And Anna’s very good at it,’ Ben put in. ‘You’ll be in the best hands, Claire.’

  ‘We’ll give you a sedative,’ Anna added. ‘You’ll be awake but it won’t hurt and we won’t let you get too anxious.’

  ‘No.’ Claire shook her head. She tried to peer past the medical team crowded around her bed. ‘I can’t go. Not yet. She said I’d see the children again. Very soon.’

  ‘Who said?’ Josh could feel the tension of this whole situation spiralling upwards. They couldn’t let Claire get any more upset because there was still a definite risk of her rhythm degenerating into a fatal arrhythmia. Who had his children? Where were they?

  ‘She does.’ Claire’s lips were trembling. ‘The doctor.’

  ‘What doctor?’

  ‘The one who...looked after them...when they were born.’

  ‘Megan Phillips? But that’s impossible. She’s in Africa.’

  ‘Not any more.’

  Josh froze as he heard the voice coming from behind Ben and Anna on the other side of the bed. Everybody turned to see who was at the entrance to the room. Holding the handles of the double stroller that contained the twins.

  ‘Daddy.’ Both Max and Brenna’s faces lit up with smiles as they spotted their father. They held up four little arms.

  But Josh didn’t even see the plea. His gaze was locked on the woman behind the stroller.

  Oh, my God...

  Megan.

  * * *

  For just a heartbeat, the world stood absolutely still.

  Nothing else mattered.

  That his mother was dangerously unwell. That he had two tiny, defenceless children calling for him. That he was the head of a department of St Piran’s Hospital that was gaining widespread recognition as a centre of excellence
in emergency medicine.

  None of those things could even exist in the space Josh was sucked into for just a second.

  A space of such intensity, it pulled the oxygen from the air around him and made it feel impossible for him to breathe.

  The space he’d been in on that New Year’s Eve party when he’d met Megan properly for the first time. When he’d sensed the power of truly falling in love. The power that had held his mother captive and broken her life.

  He’d been there again in the trauma of that emergency when it had looked as though Megan might die. When he’d sensed the power of what a parent’s love for a child could be as well, and had vowed never to let that power control him either.

  During the course of that one, incredible night when he’d shared her bed for only the second time—just before he’d found out he was going to become a father.

  On the day he’d had to do the hardest thing in his life, and tell her it was all over.

  In that moment when he’d had to beg her to do her best to save the lives of Rebecca’s and his children.

  Daddy.

  The echo of the word penetrated the space. Grounded Josh instantly. He was where he needed to be. Living his life the way it had to be lived.

  The way he wanted to live it.

  Nothing could be allowed to change that. Somehow, he had to resist the incredible pull that that space could exert. It felt like his life was depending on it. It was almost ironic to have his mother in the same room. The example he’d grown up with of the damage that that kind of love could inflict.

  Stepping towards the newcomers, Josh was aware of the tension around him. The kind that came from a collective holding of breath, waiting to see what was going to happen.

  Their story was hardly a secret, was it? Not that Anna or Ben knew that he’d slept with Megan while he’d still been married. While his wife had been in the early stages of pregnancy with the twins. But everybody knew their early history by now. And if anybody had missed the way they’d been drawn back to each other when he’d first come to St Piran’s, the hospital grapevine would have filled them in. Maybe everybody did know about that night in the on-call room.

  Oh...Lord...Tash knew everything. How much did his mother know?

  Josh pulled the barriers of his professional image around him like a force field.

  ‘Megan... What a stroke of luck you were there for my mother when she got sick. And thank you so much for taking care of my children.’

  He stooped to release the safety straps around the twins. Not that he squatted down fast enough to miss the change of expression on Megan’s face. Had she been holding her breath like everyone else in here? Hurt by his deliberate focus on his own family? Himself?

  He hadn’t even asked her how she was despite some alarm bell ringing faintly in the back of his head. As he stood up, with a twin under each arm, he couldn’t help taking another look at her. That warning bell hadn’t been a false alarm. She looked...terrible.

  So thin. So pale. Something was wrong. Her emerald-green eyes looked dull enough to be frightening.

  Except that Josh had no right to have an emotional stake in Megan’s wellbeing any more.

  And even if he did, this wasn’t the time. Or place.

  He held her gaze for the briefest moment, however. He couldn’t help it. He knew his concern would be transparent but that didn’t matter either. He tried to send a silent message.

  We’ll talk. Soon.

  ‘The babies...’ Claire’s voice wobbled. ‘Let me give them a kiss before I have to go.’

  * * *

  Megan’s heart was hammering in her chest.

  How ironic would it be if she provided another cardiac emergency for Josh to deal with?

  What had she expected to happen here? A moment of pure fantasy where the existence of anyone else—including his mother and children and colleagues—simply evaporated? And Josh’s face changing as though he was witnessing a miracle? That he would come towards her in slow motion and sweep her into his arms? Kiss her again just like he had that last time...?

  Maybe some tiny, secret part of her had hoped exactly that.

  It didn’t mean that she’d wanted it to happen, though. Or that she could have coped with going down that track. It was the last thing she wanted when she’d fought so hard to find her new direction. A completely different track.

  Josh had done exactly the right thing. Been professional. Cold, almost. But then, when she’d been trying to process that, feeling dizzy and bewildered, he’d looked at her again. Really looked at her. And she’d known that this wasn’t it. This moment couldn’t count as their first meeting after a long absence.

  That had been postponed due to unforeseen circumstances.

  * * *

  Circumstances that were slightly chaotic right now, as staff bustled around, taking care of Claire and preparing to move her to the catheter laboratory even as Josh gave her the chance to kiss and cuddle each of the children. Max grabbed one of the wires attaching an electrode to the cardiac monitor and pulled it free, which set off an alarm. The sound frightened Brenna, who clung to her father and had to be persuaded to give her grandmother a quick kiss.

  Meanwhile, Megan simply stood there, clutching the handles of the stroller. She could hardly walk out, could she? Not when these people were old friends. How rude would it seem to Ben and Anna if she just left?

  Besides, she felt frozen. Watching Josh. Seeing the easy way he held his small children and talked to them. Knowing that his light tone and smile was an act. That the way those lines had deepened around his eyes advertised how much stress he was under right now.

  And...he looked as gorgeous as he ever had. His palpable charm hadn’t changed either and it was being directed towards the twins right now and they looked as if they were being won over by that lazy smile as easily as she always had. He must have raked his fingers through his hair a fair few times to get it looking so rumpled, and to her horror Megan could feel the urge to smooth it with her own hands. To push that wayward lock back from his forehead and cup his face with both her hands so that she could really look and discover every tiny change that time had wrought.

  She gripped the moulded plastic handles of the stroller more tightly. Forced herself to smile in response to Ben’s greeting.

  ‘We’ll have to catch up. I’d love to hear about Africa. You here for a while?’

  No. She needed to escape as fast as she could.

  ‘I...I’m not sure yet.’

  Ben’s pager sounded and he excused himself hurriedly. Megan wished she had one clipped to her own belt. A reason to disappear.

  But she couldn’t leave quite yet. Anna needed to know that her dog was locked in the back of Claire’s car out in the car park and the cardiac surgeon had been busy on the phone for the last few minutes, juggling her responsibilities so that she could join the cardiologists and be involved in this emergency angioplasty case.

  Anna finished her call and nodded at someone. A loud clicking noise announced that they had disengaged the brake on Claire’s bed. It was time to move.

  ‘You coming up with us, Josh?’ Anna queried. ‘Not that you can stay in the cath lab, of course, but you’re welcome to come in while we set up.’

  Ben stuck his head back into the room.

  ‘You’re covered here, mate. Give me a call later and we’ll sort out what happens tomorrow.’ He smiled at Claire. ‘I’ll come up and see you in the ward later. You’ll be feeling a lot better by then.’

  Josh stood there, holding a twin on each hip.

  Megan stood there, holding the handles of the empty stroller.

  As Ben vanished, Josh’s gaze shifted to settle on Megan.

  So did Anna’s.

  The whole room seemed to pause and the atmosphere was electric. Josh couldn’t take the twins with him to go with his mother. Everybody was clearly waiting for her to make an offer to help out.

  It was too much to ask. Way too much. Josh had plenty of staff
here, didn’t he? Any number of nurses who would probably fight for the chance to earn his appreciation by babysitting.

  But Josh was looking at her and it was like that graze of a glance he’d given her when he’d picked the twins up. The one that recognised her.

  Not as a separate person.

  As part of what they had once been. Together.

  With a huge effort Megan broke the eye contact as she tried to marshal the wild tumble of thoughts and emotions in her head. She looked at Anna.

  ‘I’ve got Crash outside in Claire’s car,’ she said. ‘What would you like me to do with him?’

  ‘Oh...help...’ Anna caught her bottom lip with her teeth.

  ‘Sorry, love.’ The beeping of the monitor recording Claire’s heart rate increased its tempo noticeably. ‘It’s my fault. I took him to the big beach for a run with the twins and—’

  ‘It’s OK.’ Anna’s gaze flicked to the monitor. ‘Don’t you worry about anything, Claire. I can sort this. Oh, help...if only Luke hadn’t left already. I could have called him to take Crash and the twins home.’

  ‘Did Luke decide to go, then?’

  Josh had moved towards Megan. He put Max down and began fitting Brenna back into the stroller. Max turned around and headed back towards Claire’s bed.

  ‘Not so fast, cowboy.’ Anna scooped the toddler up and came towards the stroller as well. She was close to Megan again, but her gaze was on Josh. ‘Yes,’ she told him. ‘He’ll be halfway to New Zealand by now.’

  Megan blinked. New Zealand? This whole situation was starting to feel surreal. Anna noticed her expression.

  ‘Luke’s father has had a stroke. It doesn’t sound too bad but his mother is freaking out completely. When he checked flights late last night, he found he could get a ticket for a dawn flight leaving Heathrow. He drove to London at one a.m.’

  ‘Of course he wants to support his mother. I’ll think of something else.’ But the desperate note in Josh’s voice was so uncharacteristic it told Megan just how tightly he was hanging on here. Did he feel like his world was collapsing around him?