And then he was pulling the scrubs back on and it took only seconds.
‘What is it?’ Layla had to ask, because Alex wasn’t telling her. She felt like she was suddenly on another planet and the contrast to where they’d been such a short time ago was brutal.
This felt … like she didn’t exist for Alex right now. Like she was back in that scary place right before Jamie’s surgery. When she couldn’t go back to her past life but the future she’d been dreaming of seemed to have been suddenly taken away.
No. She could cope with this. She could see the bigger picture. She could make allowances for this intense focus that had nothing to do with her.
‘It’s Tommy, isn’t it?’
A terse nod from Alex. ‘He’s had a seizure.’ The words were heavy. ‘Intracranial pressure has spiked.’
There was nothing more to say. A headline proclaiming potential disaster and they were both too far away to gather any more information.
Layla heard her front door closing. She even heard Alex’s shout seconds later as he demanded an urgent response from a cab driver.
The shivering started then. Hunched on her bed, Layla pulled the covers up to her shoulders but the chill wouldn’t go away. A short time later she pushed them aside and went to find her clothes. There was no point trying to sleep so she may as well go into Angel’s and find out for herself what was happening.
And it was then that the curious way Alex had said her name in that most unguarded moment came back to haunt her.
Maybe the undertone hadn’t been indefinable at all.
As it echoed in her mind now, she could hear the clear notes of something that sounded horribly like despair.
Alex fought harder than he’d ever fought before.
He juggled drugs and ventilator settings and didn’t leave Tommy’s side until the rise in pressure that had caused the seizure was under control. It took a long time and there were more seizures before he was happy that Tommy’s condition was stable.
Happy wasn’t the word, of course. This was a major setback and he could see the fear in Mike’s face. In Gina’s, too, because she was there by his side, clinging to his hand. Sharing this horrible vigil.
A vigil that stretched and stretched. When things had been stable for thirty-six hours, Alex decided it was time to lighten the sedation and get Tommy off the ventilator.
The drugs were tailed off and the breathing tube finally removed and everyone breathed a sigh of relief when the monitors showed that Tommy was managing to breathe on his own and his condition didn’t deteriorate. Mike and Gina couldn’t be prised away from his bedside now because he might wake up at any moment.
Except he didn’t. Hour after hour went by and there was no flicker of returning consciousness. Tommy wasn’t in an induced coma now. He was in a genuine coma and things were starting to look bleak. They looked even bleaker two days later when Tommy still lay still on his bed, totally unresponsive.
‘Is he going to wake up?’
Why had Layla chosen the moment that Mike voiced his worst fear to visit the intensive care unit?
Alex shook his head slowly. ‘We just don’t know what’s really going on. We know that the cerebral blood flow is fine now but we don’t know what it was like when he was so unstable. The intracranial pressure is the same deal. His level of oxygenation is good. So are his electrolytes and fluid balance. The EEG to look for brain activity was inconclusive. There’s some activity. We just don’t know if it’s enough. Or whether the readings were accurate. We’ll run the tests again tomorrow.’
‘But you must have an opinion,’ Mike pressed. ‘You’ve had so many cases like this. You’re the best there is and you must have a gut feeling for how this is going to go.’
Alex had to shake his head again. ‘I’m sorry, Mike, but all I can say is that I really don’t know. I wish I could say something else, I really do.’
‘But it’s not looking good, is it?’
‘No.’ He had a responsibility to prepare parents for the worst possible scenario when it was looking more and more likely, didn’t he? ‘I’m so sorry, Mike. We have to wait and see but …’ It was too hard to finish the sentence. Alex’s throat felt like it was closing up.
‘But don’t get my hopes up?’ There were tears in Mike’s eyes but he was trying so hard to hold it together. He knew Alex had done and was doing the best he possibly could and there was no blame in his gaze. Just despair.
Alex could only give a terse nod. He gripped Mike’s arm in a gesture of sympathy but then he had to look away.
And Layla was there, dammit. With those big, blue eyes swimming with tears.
Looking as scared and grief-stricken as Mike.
He couldn’t help remembering what she’d looked like just before Tommy’s surgery. When she’d told him that she believed in him.
Where was that belief now?
Gone.
She was scared. Under emotional pressure. What would happen if Tommy died? Would she snap? Had she lost her belief in a future with him along with her belief in his abilities? There was no getting away from how she’d tried to take control the last time she’d been scared like this.
Would she dump him? Again?
No. He wouldn’t let that happen. Couldn’t afford to, if he was going to survive.
Alex excused himself from the unit. He really, really needed some time to himself.
Why did Layla choose to follow him?
Was it fate? Giving him the chance to take at least some control of this horrible situation? A way to jump before he got pushed?
‘Alex …’
‘Not now, Layla.’ Even now he was fighting it. Postponing the inevitable despite the fact that they were out of the unit now and there was no one else around. It might be the only opportunity to have a private conversation all day.
Layla ignored his warning. How typical was that?
‘I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I … feel awful that you were with me when things started to go wrong. And … and I wanted to say … don’t give up on Tommy yet. There’s—’
‘Don’t say there’s still hope.’ Alex kept his voice low to control his sudden anger. ‘You and I both know what the likely outcome is.’
Layla had tears in her eyes again. Her bottom lip trembled. That fear was back in her eyes again, too, and Alex couldn’t cope with that.
‘Will I see you later?’ The words were a whisper.
‘No.’ Somehow Alex found the strength he needed. And the words. ‘It’s over, Layla.’
She went very, very still.
‘You mean … us?’
A single nod but Alex couldn’t meet her eyes. ‘You were right.’ How on earth did he manage to keep his tone so light? Conversational almost. ‘All it needed was to use up the fuel.’ He risked a lightning-fast touch of eye contact. ‘It was a pretty good fire the other night. Unfortunate that I’d decided to take a break from my professional responsibilities but there you go. It happened. And that was when I threw the last bits of fuel on.’
He managed a longer glance this time. ‘I’m sorry if it’s not what you want but it’s all gone as far as I’m concerned, Layla. It’s over.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
IT WASN’T OVER.
It couldn’t be.
Alex might think it was but he was having a knee-jerk reaction to an emotional situation and he was taking it out on her.
Taking it out on himself, too, but he probably didn’t realise that.
It was Halloween today and Angel’s was buzzing with the kind of excitement that came with a special day. It was always a bonus when you could distract sick and hurting children from the frightening circumstances they found themselves in and occasions like Halloween or Christmas were gold.
There were decorations to distract a child with when something painful or scary was about to happen to them. Treats to promise for when it was over. The anticipation of the staff parade that would build all day and would not only break the normal rou
tine for longer-term patients but make being in hospital a special place to be.
Normally, Layla would have become enthusiastically involved. She would have found herself a great costume to wear all day and had a bag of treats she could distribute to small, excited children. She’d thought about it. Tossed up between turning herself into a cowgirl to amuse the children or a witch to amuse the staff, but any incentive to play had been lost in the awful tension of Tommy’s case.
And it had gone out the window completely in the wake of getting dumped by Alex four days ago.
Her secretary had been busy adding the spirit of Halloween to her office. Layla had to brush past a soft, fabric spider web hanging from her doorframe that had a very cheerful-looking plastic spider attached to its centre. A large, bright orange Jack-o’-lantern sticker on her window obscured a good percentage of the view. Not that Layla was going to be distracted by gazing at Central Park any more than by the invitations to share the fun of Halloween.
She had been so afraid that something like this might happen to destroy what she’d found with Alex. That Tommy’s case was too like Jamie’s not to bring the ghosts of the past out to haunt and sabotage the present. Somewhere in Alex’s mind, maybe Tommy was Jamie. And he was bailing because he could see nothing but the rocks their relationship was doomed to flounder on.
A mirthless snort of laughter escaped Layla. It was Halloween. How appropriate that it was ghosts that were responsible for this new low point in her life.
But how unfair.
It shouldn’t be happening because Tommy’s case was different. Nothing had gone wrong in the surgery. There was no obvious explanation for why he wasn’t waking up now. Nobody could say that Alex hadn’t done everything possible. Much more than anyone else might have even attempted.
And what she and Alex had together was just as different from what they’d had in the days of that illicit affair.
They hadn’t thrown fuel onto the smouldering ashes of what they’d had together back then. They’d started a new fire the night they’d gone out together and talked. They’d revealed things to each other that made them real people. People with difficult, hurtful things in their histories. They’d found a connection that went far, far deeper than anything physical could have achieved.
She’d learned things about Alex that had shocked her but it had also shown her how good he was at hiding things like that. Yes, she’d been aware of the shadows but she could never have guessed how dark they really were. He’d had a lifetime of practice at hiding. At protecting himself from getting hurt again.
And that was what he was doing now.
Protecting himself by pushing her away, as hard and as far as he could.
Because he didn’t trust her?
Did he really think she was going to end things between them? Ever?
She’d done it once, hadn’t she?
Had it ever occurred to her to wonder how much that might have hurt him? What had happened so soon afterwards, with the horrible publicity and the shame of the malpractice suit had been enough of an explanation for everybody else for why Alex had been so miserable. Why he’d quit and gone to the other side of the world, but … but what if there’d been more to it than that? If the way she’d treated him had contributed to more than potentially affecting his concentration the day of Jamie’s surgery?
Oh, God … Layla didn’t think she could feel any worse than she had been feeling for the last two days but she’d been wrong.
Sitting down at her desk, she ignored the pile of memos that would remind her of what she had to fit into today’s routine. Instead, she rubbed her forehead with the base of the palms of her hands.
She’d had a premonition of precisely this, hadn’t she? When Alex had walked out of Tommy’s room that time and it had felt like he was walking away from her? That despairing note in his voice as he’d cried out her name at the climax of that extraordinary time together in the wake of the successful surgery?
She’d been so afraid of losing him.
Standing there beside Tommy’s bed when Alex had been warning Mike not to hold out too much hope, Layla had seen more than the heartbreak of losing a small child. She’d seen what it would be like to lose Alex from her life and she’d been so afraid.
He’d seen that fear in her face, surely?
And yet he’d chosen that moment to run. To wall himself off emotionally so convincingly that Layla had done her best to stay out of his way. Knowing that another blow like that and what was left of her strength might desert her completely.
What would her colleagues think of their new chief of Paediatrics if they saw her sliding down the wall somewhere, to crouch in a sobbing heap, overcome by grief?
Layla raised her head. Her eyes were still closed but she took a deep, deep breath.
Not going to happen.
What was going to happen was that she would come up with a plan to take control of her own life again.
Somehow.
As soon as she could catch whatever it was that was swirling elusively around in the back of her mind.
Something that wasn’t ringing true about any of this. That was adding a note of confusion.
Shining a tiny light that might feel like hope if she could just catch hold of the danged thing.
Alex was running on autopilot. There were surgeries to perform. Ward rounds to conduct. Patients to treat and parents to talk to. Any free moments he had between his duties were spent in the intensive care unit.
Checking Tommy. Going through every note that had been made. Analysing every reading any of the monitors produced. Calling experts from anywhere in the world that he could discuss the case with as he desperately tried to find an answer. A way out of this dreadful dead end.
Ryan had come into the ICU to check on one of his patients, a head trauma from a car accident earlier that day. Alex knew that underneath the theatre gown his second-in-command was wearing a pirate costume. He’d probably left his hat in his office and when he was finished here he would be heading off like everybody else to go to the ball. Halloween didn’t make it into any of the intensive care units. Or into any of the operating theatres, and that suited Alex just fine.
He’d never felt less like being part of a party.
He didn’t deserve to be having fun. Not when Mike and Gina were sitting here beside Tommy’s bed, as pale and still as Tommy was himself. There was nothing to even talk about any more. They just had to wait. Tommy was breathing perfectly well. All his organs were functioning normally. The pressure inside his skull was back to what it should be.
He just wouldn’t wake up.
And maybe he never would.
Like part of him never would again either. A big part.
He’d told Layla that the fire was out and there was no more fuel to put on it. What a lie. How could you put out a fire that was actually burning in every cell of your body? If you did put it out, something vital would die.
Right now that part of him was in a coma. Like Tommy. And what he didn’t know was what would happen if it did die. Was it a part of himself he couldn’t live without?
Would he be on autopilot for the rest of his life?
The thought was unbearably bleak. It was a relief to feel a tap on his shoulder and Alex turned, expecting to see Ryan.
But it wasn’t. Cade had come into the ICU at some point as he’d sat here at the nurses’ station, poring over Tommy’s case notes.
‘You need to get out of here for a while, man.’
Alex shrugged. There was nowhere to go. He wasn’t on call and the day’s duties were long finished with. He didn’t want to go home because he’d be faced with an apartment that was filled with memories of Layla’s company. A bed that tortured him with its emptiness.
‘Come with me,’ Cade suggested.
To shoot hoops? Alex shook his head. He wasn’t angry or wired enough for that to be an attractive diversion. He’d never felt so tired in his life. So … sad.
‘I’ve got yo
ur costume. Come and be someone else for an hour or two.’
Now that was an attractive option. But a costume wasn’t going to make it happen. Heading off to a new job or a new country, like Cade was about to, wasn’t going to fix this either. Alex had already been there and done that. He had several T-shirts, come to think of it. And look at him now. Back to square one. Trying to figure out how he was going to get through the aftermath of a case going horribly wrong.
Of getting involved with Layla Woods.
‘You have to come,’ Cade said. ‘It’s my last night here. Might be the last time we get to have some time together for a while.’ His hand gripped Alex’s shoulder. ‘There’s nothing more you can do here for now and it’d mean a lot to me, bro.’
Alex closed the case notes. He looked over at Tommy’s cubicle. A nurse was hovering, probably moistening the little boy’s lips or adjusting his pillow or something. Gina had her head on Mike’s shoulder and he had his arm wrapped tightly around her. His other arm was outstretched, his hand completely enclosing one of Tommy’s. Cade was right. There was nothing more he could do here. Was he getting too emotionally involved with one of his patients? Like he’d accused Layla of being so often?
And then Alex looked up and caught the expression in his brother’s face. Cade was leaving a lot behind him here as he gave up his position at Angel’s to head for new horizons in Australia. Bad stuff, for sure, but he was also giving up the only family he had. For a moment he looked like the kid brother Alex had let down so badly in the past.
Stiffly, Alex pushed himself to his feet.
‘OK. Just for an hour or two. And I’m not saying yes to the costume if it turns out to be the back end of a cow.’
‘No.’ Cade’s face lit up. ‘Jack Carter helped me choose. You’ll love it, man. Come on, we can get changed in your office.’
New York Children’s Hospital was so quiet tonight.
Everybody who possibly could go had gone to the huge fundraising ball in the nearby venue.
Not Layla, however.
She’d come to the intensive care unit to share the vigil that Mike and Gina were keeping at Tommy’s bedside. Just for a while. To let them know they weren’t alone. That other people cared.
NYC Angels: An Explosive Reunion Page 14