by Sarah Morgan
She walked briskly across to the door but Nicky's voice stopped her in her tracks.
'Keely, wait.' Nicky caught up with her and put a hand on her shoulder, her eyes searching. 'I suppose it's Zach?'
Was it that obvious?
Keely opened her mouth to deny it but then decided that she may as well be honest.
'Yes,' she mumbled. 'It's Zach.'
Nicky groaned. 'Oh, Keely, I warned you.'
'I know that,' Keely said, bravely dredging up a smile. 'I should have listened harder.'
'I'll kill Zach,' Nicky muttered, and Keely shook her head and ran a hand through her hair.
'It isn't his fault, Nicky,' she said wearily. 'It's my fault. All my fault. He warned me that he'd never get involved with another woman and I wouldn't listen. I was so crazy about him I just wanted to help him. I thought I could do that without getting hurt myself. But then he—we—' She broke off and Nicky gave a groan.
'You don't have to tell me. I can guess.' There was a slight pause while Nicky digested what she'd just heard. 'And is it over? Are you sure?'
'Yes.' Keely nodded and managed a wan smile. 'You were right. He just won't ever get involved with another woman after his wife.'
Nicky frowned. 'Has he told you he's not interested?'
'Yes.' Keely paused. 'Well, not lately, I suppose. But after we actually... To be honest, he didn't say anything at all, but it didn't take a genius to work out that he wasn't interested.'
'Why? What did he do?'
Keely frowned and shook her head, still puzzled by it herself. 'He was so cold and distant. I couldn't believe it. We'd been so close, Nicky...' Her eyes filled and she cleared her throat. 'Damn. Sorry. When I woke up he was already downstairs and he was like a different person.'
'Right.' Nicky was looking at her thoughtfully. 'So something happened between him leaving your bed and you coming down for breakfast.'
'Nothing happened.' Keely gave a shrug. 'What could have happened? He got Phoebe up, gave her breakfast and took a phone call from my father. Nothing earth-shattering, I can assure you.'
'A phone call from your father?'
'Yes.' Keely rubbed her aching temples with her fingers. 'He rang to tell me I've got an interview in London in a few weeks.'
'And what did Zach say about that?'
Keely gave a humourless laugh, unable to hide the hurt. 'He said congratulations and reminded me to ask Sean for the time off.'
Nicky stared at her. 'That was it?'
'Yes,' Keely mumbled with a watery smile. 'He wasn't bothered, Nicky. In fact, he's probably pleased. It gets him out of having to tell me he'll never love me as much as his wife.'
'You don't know that.'
'Yes, I do.' Keely's voice was flat. 'Zach isn't interested in making a commitment to another woman. You know that as well as I do.'
Nicky let out a long breath. 'So what happens now?'
'I'm going to have to move out.' Keely made the decision on the spot. 'I can't carry on living there. Not now. It would be too difficult. I'm sure that Barbara will help with Phoebe until he can find someone else.'
Just thinking of little Phoebe made her heart twist. She'd got so used to the wonderful evening routine of bathing the little girl and giving her cuddles while she read a story. Giving that up would be almost as bad as giving up Zach.
Nicky gave her a quick hug. 'If it's any consolation, he's let you closer to Phoebe—and to him—than any other woman.'
'Well, it doesn't feel like a consolation at the moment,' Keely muttered, swallowing down an enormous lump in her throat.
Oh, for goodness' sake!
She was being totally pathetic. He'd been totally straight with her right from the beginning. She had no right to drip around, feeling sorry for herself.
Nicky shrugged helplessly, her expression sympathetic. 'Keely, I don't know what to say...'
'There's nothing you can say,' Keely said stoutly, glancing at her watch and deciding that the sooner she buried herself in work the better. 'Just hope I find somewhere to live fast. Before I make a fool of myself in front of him.'
'Well, that's easily solved. You can move in with me if you like,' Nicky said quickly. 'Our cottage isn't large but we've got a nice spare room which you're very welcome to.'
'That's really kind of you...' the lump in her throat grew bigger '...and if I get desperate I might take you up on it but, frankly, I think I'd be better off on my own.'
She felt so utterly miserable about Zach and Phoebe that she knew she'd be lousy company and she didn't want to have to keep putting on a brave face.
Nicky looked concerned. 'Are you sure you'll be all right staying with Zach until you find somewhere?'
'Oh, yes. We're on different shifts this week,' Keely said glumly. 'We overlap at work in the afternoons but we won't be seeing each other at home. I should survive.'
Or at least she hoped she would.
Thankfully they were incredibly busy over the next week, which helped Keely survive the trauma of seeing Zach every day and not being able to touch him.
It was still difficult.
She tried not to look at his familiar dark features, tried not to torture herself with memories of what they'd shared.
As for Zach, he seemed tired. Which didn't really make sense, she mused. To her knowledge he hadn't had any late nights and he hadn't been on call. So why did he have fine lines around his blue eyes and. why was he so uncharacteristically impatient with people?
'Ouch,' said Nicky one morning after all of them had been on the receiving end of his biting sarcasm. 'I'm going for a cup of coffee to get out of the line of fire.'
'He's never normally like that,' Adam grumbled, looking quite white after the dressing-down he'd just received from the consultant. 'I don't know what's the matter with him.'
'I do,' Nicky said softly, glancing at Keely and giving her a knowing look. She waited until Adam left the room and then lowered her voice. 'I think you'll find that our handsome consultant isn't finding it as easy to give you up as he thought he might. Hang in there, kiddo, you might just find that this has a happy ending.'
But Keely knew there was no chance of that. If he wanted to have a relationship with her, why didn't he just say so? He must have guessed how she felt about him.
No. The only reasonable explanation was that he really didn't want to pursue anything between them.
At home they were like polite strangers—behaving as if their night of incredible passion had never happened.
If only she didn't have to see him every day, Keely thought glumly. It just reminded her of all the reasons why she'd fallen for him in the first place. He was such a brilliant doctor that watching him in action was enough to make anyone fall for him. And they did. She could hardly fail to notice that most of the nurses cast covert glances in his direction all the time—and some of the female doctors, too!
His skill and intuition as a doctor was brought home to her later that afternoon when a young woman was admitted having fainted in the shops.
'She just collapsed on me,' her husband said, the anxiety showing in his face. 'She's never fainted before to my knowledge. Never.'
'Right, well, let's get her on a trolley and examine her,' Keely said, frowning slightly as she looked at the woman. She was ashen and slightly sweaty and Keely didn't like the look of her at all.
'Nicky, let's get Zach in here, please,' she said in a calm voice and the A and E sister left the room quickly, obviously picking up just how worried Keely was.
Zach was by her side in a matter of minutes, his handsome face serious as he questioned the husband.
The woman moaned softly, opened her eyes and then gave a little shriek and clutched her stomach.
'Oh, help me...'
'Is that where it hurts?' Instantly Zach's eyes flickered to the husband. 'Could I ask you to wait outside, please, while I examine your wife?'
The husband frowned and clutched his wife's hand. 'I'd rather stay.'
'I'll call you back in straight away,' Zach said gently, 'but I just need to take a look at her. I'm sure you understand.'
Nicky took the husband by the arm and led him out of Resus, and Zach immediately turned back to the woman.
'Does it hurt anywhere else?'
'My shoulder,' the woman gasped, and Keely stared at her, baffled. Zach's questioning was obviously aiming in a certain direction but at the moment she couldn't see what it was.
'Is there any possibility that you could be pregnant, Mrs Blythe?' Zach asked quietly, and the woman shook her head vigorously.
'No!' She gave a whimper and clutched her stomach again. 'Ow, it hurts!'
Zach was watching her closely. 'And when was your last period?'
'I don't know.' She avoided his eyes. 'I'm never regular.'
'Can you give me a rough date?'
Keely stepped forward and gave the frightened woman a gentle smile. 'Don't be scared, Mrs Blythe. We have to ask these questions to find out what's wrong with you. Everything you say to us is confidential.'
The woman started to sob. 'I don't know what's wrong. I haven't had a period for eight weeks, but I can't be pregnant.'
'All right.' Zach's blue eyes narrowed slightly. 'I'm just going to examine your stomach, Mrs Blythe. Try and relax for me. What method of contraception do you use?'
'The eoil,' she answered, and Keely watched while Zach examined her and then glanced at Nicky, his expression calm.
'Get me two large cannulae—12 or 14 gauge—get her cross-matched for six units of blood and request rhesus status. Nicky, I want a pregnancy test, please, and fast-bleep the gynae team.'
Keely listened to his list of instructions, her eyes fixed on his calm features. Despite his totally cool manner, he was obviously worried. Very worried. He was getting ready to resuscitate a potentially shocked patient—he obviously thought that Mrs Blythe was seriously ill.
Nicky and one of the staff nurses swung into action while Keely gave the woman some oxygen and prepared to take some bloods.
Suzy Blythe stared at them with frightened eyes. 'What's wrong with me?'
'You have a ruptured ectopic pregnancy,' Zach said gently, 'which basically means that the fertilised egg has implanted somewhere other than your uterus—usually one of the tubes that carry it to the uterus. That's what's causing the pain, and that's why you fainted.'
Keely stared at him.
How did he know that? There was no doubt or uncertainty in his voice at all. He was completely confident in his diagnosis.
'I can't be pregnant!'
Zach's gaze rested on the young woman's frightened face. 'Why?'
'Because my husband's been away for the last six months,' she sobbed, her whole body trembling. 'I can't be pregnant. I just can't be.'
Keely held her breath. Was Zach wrong?
'Suzy...' Zach took a deep breath and his voice was incredibly patient. 'Believe me, we're not here to judge you. We just want to make you well. You have a very serious condition, which I'm sure is an ectopic pregnancy.'
Suzy's cried harder. 'I don't know what to do.'
Zach's voice was gentle. 'But you could be pregnant?'
There was a long silence, broken only by Suzy's sobs. 'Yes. It was just the once,' she admitted jerkily, her tear-stained face contorting as another pain hit her. 'Oh, heavens, what am I going to do? What will Rob say?'
'Don't worry about that now.' Keely gave her shoulder a squeeze, feeling desperately sorry for her.
Zach quickly finished his physical examination. 'Have you had any vaginal bleeding, Suzy?'
'No. Nothing.'
'The pregnancy test is positive, Mr Jordan,' the staff nurse said quietly, her eyes fixed adoringly on Zach's face.
Keely gritted her teeth and felt a powerful surge of jealousy, which shocked her. Why should she be jealous? She had no right to be jealous. He wasn't hers. And she could hardly blame the nurse for drooling over him. If she found the man irresistible, why shouldn't everyone else?
'Keely, take bloods for FBC, U and Es, blood sugar and G and S,' Zach ordered, 'and call the gynae team and tell them she's going to need to go to Theatre.'
'Will they tell Rob?' the woman whispered, and Zach gave a sigh.
'I'll have a word with the consultant who'll do the operation. The answer is, I don't know. It depends on what happens in Theatre.'
Keely helped prepare the woman for transfer to Theatre for a laparoscopy—an operation which would allow the surgeons to look inside her abdomen.
When she returned, Zach was making himself a cup of coffee in the staffroom.
Bother. She'd been hoping to have five minutes by herself. But, still, she could use it as an opportunity to pick Zach's brains. She was still stunned and impressed that he'd known instinctively what the matter was with the woman.
'How did you know it was an ectopic pregnancy?'
Maybe if she kept it professional they'd be able to have a conversation without her wanting to throw herself into his arms.
'I've seen it before,' Zach told her, adding milk to his coffee and stirring it slowly. 'Several times, in fact. She was lucky. She had a stable form. In the unstable form it's often touch and go.'
Keely still didn't understand how he'd reached his diagnosis so quickly. 'But it could have been any number of other things.' She ticked them off on her fingers. 'Appendicitis, a gastrointestinal bleed—'
'True. But the first thing you exclude in a woman of childbearing age suffering from abdominal pain is ectopic pregnancy,' Zach told her, taking a sip of coffee and dropping into one of the armchairs. 'It's important to assess risk factors to see how likely it is.'
Keely was confused. 'But she told you she couldn't be pregnant so it didn't seem likely. Why didn't you believe her? I think I would have just taken her at her word, and then what would have happened? How did you know, Zach?'
'How did I know?' He gave a sigh and stretched long muscular legs out in front of him. 'Firstly, because she was of childbearing age and her symptoms suggested it. Secondly, because her body language suggested that she wasn't telling the truth—'
'But how did you know that?'
She would have missed it, she knew she would.
He shrugged. 'Experience.'
Keely's shoulders sagged. 'But I wouldn't have pushed her like you did. I don't think I would have had the nerve to do a pregnancy test when she'd told me that she couldn't be pregnant.'
'On the contrary, you handled it very well,' Zach said quietly. 'You spotted instantly that her condition could be serious and you called a senior doctor, which was absolutely the right decision. You were kind and approachable and I suspect that if I hadn't forced her to tell me, she would have eventually confided in you.'
'But you knew what was wrong with her,' Keely said gloomily, 'and I didn't have a clue. I haven't got your instincts.'
'You haven't got my experience,' he corrected her gently. 'There's nothing wrong with your instincts. Your instincts are fine. Stop beating yourself up.'
Their eyes locked and awareness sizzled between them.
With a muttered curse Zach thumped his mug down on the table and stood up abruptly. His broad shoulders tensed and his blue eyes were suddenly wary. 'Keely, we need to talk.'
'Yes.' Her voice was little more than a whisper. 'I suppose we do.'
'At home. It's more private.'
'I thought you were working late tonight?'
'Sean swapped with me,' he said smoothly, 'so that I can be home in time to put Phoebe to bed.'
'But I could have done that,' she protested as he walked over to the sink and put his mug on the draining-board.
'Thanks.' He kept his back to her. 'But I'd rather do it myself. It's one of the things I need to talk to you about.'
In other words, he didn't want her near his daughter.
Keely watched him go and felt more miserable than she ever had in her life. If he was going to those lengths to keep her away from his daughter then it was definitely
time that she moved out.
* * *
Zach was in the kitchen when she arrived home, and he got straight to the point.
'I'm sorry, but this isn't working out any more Keely.' His eyes were steady on hers. 'You'll be off to London in no time at all. It's time Phoebe got used to not having you around.'
'You want me to move out?'
She'd planned to do just that, so why did it feel so painful when he suggested it?
'She's getting too attached to you.' He ran a hand through his sleek, dark hair, obviously finding the conversation difficult. 'I don't want to see her hurt.'
'Neither do I, Zach.' Did he really think she wanted to hurt his daughter?
'I know you don't, but nevertheless that's what's going to happen when you leave. And it's just going to get harder the longer you stay.'
'Yes. I see that.' Her voice sounded strangely flat. Totally unlike her own. 'I'll start looking for somewhere else to live.'
He rubbed his fingers over his clenched jaw, visibly tense.
'Listen, Keely...' He hesitated, obviously struggling to find the right words. 'We haven't talked about what happened between us but—'
'No.' She held up a hand and interrupted him before he could say any more. 'Don't say it. There isn't anything that needs to be said.'
It was true. What could he say that wouldn't make her feel a million times worse?
She didn't need him to spell out the way he felt.
He looked at her warily. 'I'm really grateful for your help with Phoebe.'
Keely ignored the hurt and gave him a brave smile. 'You're very welcome, Zach. I hope it works out for you both. I'll start looking or somewhere else to live tomorrow. Can I stay here until I find somewhere?'
He frowned. 'Of course, but—'
'Thanks.' She stroked her blonde hair behind her ears and walked towards the door, anxious to put as much distance between them as possible. 'Well, I've got to prepare for my interview so if you'll excuse me I'll go upstairs.'
With that she turned on her heel and took refuge in the sanctuary of her bedroom.
The next two days were frantic and Keely barely had time to breathe, let alone make phone calls about flats.
She arrived at Zach's house at the end of the second day in time for Phoebe's bath and wondered what she was meant to do.