Mending the Single Dad's Heart

by Susanne Hampton

  ‘I want to help you while the medical team in the bay opposite help the young woman who came in with you. Her injuries clearly appear more serious but we will be undertaking a medical examination of you to ensure that yours are in fact only superficial. In motor vehicle accidents you can sustain internal injuries that are not instantly apparent. Before I begin, can I have please have your full name and age?’

  ‘Cody Smith, and that’s my girlfriend over there,’ he said as he raised his hand and pointed to the other bay.

  ‘Can you please give me her name and age?’ the young nurse asked. ‘So I can pass that information onto the ER team looking after her.’

  ‘Let me tell them,’ he said, trying to pull away from the nurses again. ‘I just want to say I’m sorry to her.’

  ‘That won’t be happening. Please remain still; I need to check your eyes.’ Jessica’s words were firm and to the point as she held his chin and shone the light into the young man’s left eye and then the right one.

  ‘My eyes are fine. They’re not bleedin’ or nothing.’

  ‘Cody, as I said before, some injuries are not obvious so there won’t necessarily be bleeding, but a mild head injury can still be sustained from a car accident. You may have suffered whiplash and it can result in impaired vision or other problems and symptoms are varied. Do you have trouble focusing your eyes when switching your gaze between near and far objects?’

  ‘Nah, I’m good,’ he replied. ‘I can read the exit sign and her name thing.’ He pointed to the nurse’s identification tag.

  ‘Do you feel nauseous, as if you are going to vomit when you look around?’

  ‘Nah, I’m all good, I told you already. It’s me girlfriend I’m worried about.’

  ‘No, Cody. That is not an option,’ she continued. ‘Even if you are fine, you need to understand that if you were to rush over there to help her, you would in fact be doing just the opposite. You could get in the way of the medical team and put your girlfriend at risk.’

  ‘I don’t wanna do nothing but help her.’

  ‘Then, as the nurse said, you can help her by giving us her name and age.’

  ‘Ginny Randolf. She’s seventeen.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Jessica said as she continued the examination and noted his response to the light stimulation was within normal limits.

  ‘I’ll pass on her details and come right back,’ the younger nurse said as she headed over to the other patient.

  ‘And how old are you?’ Jessica enquired while checking the young man’s pupils for dilation.

  ‘I’m sixteen.’

  ‘Okay, Cody, we are going to have to take some blood samples and check your alcohol level. Have you been drinking?’

  ‘No. I’m on my probationary licence. That’s not why we crashed. Is that what you think happened? Do you think I was drink-driving?’ His voice was shrill and once again Jessica needed to placate him.

  ‘I’m not assuming anything.’ Her voice was low and calm as she met his eyes. ‘This is routine and not because I suspect anything, Cody. It’s just that with any motor vehicle accident a blood test for alcohol and other drugs is mandatory.’

  ‘I can’t drink on a probationary licence. I’m an apprentice chippy. I’m not looking to lose my job with a baby on the way. Ginny’s nine weeks pregnant.’

  Jessica and the nurse immediately looked at each other and, without a word exchanged, the second nurse disappeared to pass on the crucial information. Pregnancy would certainly complicate the situation if there were suspected internal injuries and the chance of miscarriage was a concern.

  ‘We found out a few weeks ago.’

  He rested back down on his elbows, not taking his eyes off the opposite bay but seemingly finally accepting the need to comply—and the fact a towering male nurse had just approached to assist would not allow him to do otherwise.

  ‘We were arguing about when she would tell her parents. They don’t like me. I wanted her to hold off a bit longer so they didn’t try to force her to get rid of the baby. She told me she was gonna tell them tonight and I got scared and distracted and I didn’t see the merging lane. We went off the road and hit the fence.’

  A nurse suddenly pulled a curtain around the young man’s girlfriend.

  ‘What’s happening? Why are they doing that? Is she okay?’ Cody’s questions came flying at Jessica and the nurse as he sat bolt upright again.

  ‘Your girlfriend is in good hands,’ Jessica told him. ‘And, thanks to you, the team know there’s another tiny life growing inside of her so they will be doing everything possible to treat them both.’

  ‘Please can you go and check? I need to know what’s happening. I’m freaking out here. She’s gotta be okay.’

  Jessica reluctantly agreed. She wasn’t even officially on staff yet so not keen to overstep protocols further than she already had but she knew Cody’s anxious state was escalating by the minute with the curtain obscuring his view and it wouldn’t end well if he raced over there. The young man was physically fine and the other nurses had returned to monitor his observations so she headed over to enquire about the status of his partner—the mother of his unborn child.

  With each step she took, she prayed fate would not change the course of their young lives.

  She quietly and tentatively parted the curtain and peered inside the bay to see the back of the doctor undertaking an ultrasound examination of the young woman. He had been informed of her pregnancy and was obviously prioritising the baby. It all seemed calm so she didn’t feel the need to interrupt.

  ‘The baby is fine; there’s a strong heartbeat and no obvious signs of distress, Ginny,’ she heard him say. ‘I’m sorry you can’t see the screen that I am looking at right now. I can share those images later with you. But for the time being we need to keep you flat until we can properly assess the damage to your neck and back. I believe it is muscular as you do not have any of the symptoms I would expect to see with a spinal injury. I need to send you for an MRI—it’s not an X-ray so it’s perfectly safe for your baby and it will allow us to assess any neck, spinal or ankle injuries. You and your baby are both paramount to anything we do.’

  Jessica agreed with his treatment plan and she thought he had a lovely bedside manner and comforting voice. Deep, masculine but still warm. It sounded familiar but she knew that couldn’t be the case. She didn’t know anyone in town.

  She raised her hand to close the curtain and caught sight of his profile and all but gasped. Her heart took a leap as she recognised him. She did know him. But the last time she’d seen him he wasn’t wearing a white consultant’s coat. Instead he was wearing the wet imprint of her carry-on luggage on his shoe.

  CHAPTER THREE

  JESSICA WAS MOMENTARILY SPEECHLESS.

  Harrison Wainwright had been on the plane with her, so was he the doctor she had been told had just flown in on the long-haul flight from LA with the romance writers? She imagined the odds were weighted in favour of him being the one, particularly in a country city of this size. But, wherever he had flown in from, he was the one she had managed to run over. The one who’d captured her attention and piqued her curiosity. And the one she had not been able to erase from her mind.

  As she closed the curtain there was a stirring in the pit of her stomach. But this stirring was not nerves. It was as if she had been reunited with someone she knew. There was a familiarity with the man that was inexplicable. As if they had a connection. Not from the incident at the airport; it was something more. Something they had once shared...or were about to share. Something that had kept her awake the previous night, thinking about him. But they hadn’t shared anything more than a fleeting uncomfortable meeting and they wouldn’t share anything more than that, she reminded herself. She didn’t know the man, let alone have a connection. Nor did she want one with Dr Harrison Wainwright or any man.

  Of that fac
t Jessica was resolute, but she was also scared and confused by her reaction. She hadn’t been able to forget him since their chance meeting the day before and that was something she was trying to ignore. She wished his face hadn’t been etched on her mind but she suddenly realised it had subconsciously, or not so subconsciously, been there for almost twenty-four hours.

  Taking a deep breath, she tried to exhale feelings that were beginning to stir with him so near to her again. She hadn’t felt anything close to what she was feeling at that moment in longer than she could remember and that was by design. She had controlled her emotions, kept them in check without too much effort. It had been safe for her to be around men of her age, or even ten years either side, because she felt nothing but indifference. She didn’t trust them in the slightest. In her mind, few had anything other than a desire to get what they wanted at any cost.

  Tom had destroyed her trust in men, and love, and the whole damned thing and she was angry. Angry because Tom had taken her innocent view of the world and twisted it into a level of bitterness she had never wanted or expected to ever feel. Never imagined she could feel. He had robbed her of her belief in happily ever after. She wished it wasn’t the case but nothing and no one had or would be able to give her reason to change her outlook. Jessica was starting to believe the moulds were broken after her father’s generation of men. Those men had treated women with respect and love. And commitment had meant something. But the new generation of men were shallow and insincere and she felt sorry for women who fell in love. She would never do so again.

  * * *

  Jessica was relieved that Harrison hadn’t seen her as he was too distracted with his patient but she quickly realised that she could not avoid the inevitable. Professor Langridge was about to introduce them so she had no choice but to meet him. She couldn’t avoid it. They would be working together. To what extent she wasn’t sure, but there would be mutual patients during the course of her short tenure.

  Her forehead wrinkled slightly with concern at the thought and her heart began to race a little faster than usual. And it had nothing to do with embarrassment over the silly incident. She wasn’t sure if he would even remember that. It was more how her body was reacting to being near him. And the feelings were bringing a warmth to her body. Almost a dizzy rush. It was not like her. She hadn’t experienced so many conflicting emotions in such a short space of time. Ever. Pre, post or even during her time with the man she’d thought she was going to marry.

  The new mysterious man had been consuming her thoughts for no good reason. And with that came an overwhelming concern about her appearance. Her clothes were completely unsuitable for ER. Why had she not travelled in something nicer? Ordinarily Jessica would have prioritised her wardrobe and asked the cab driver to wait, but that morning she had been running a little late and was anxious he might drive off, causing her to miss her flight. She hadn’t wanted to risk it, so she’d raced out of the door in an outfit more befitting walking a trail.

  It was out of character for the old Jessica, who always made sure that she was well groomed and elegantly dressed. Even if her skirt and blouse were hidden by a consulting coat. At least she knew she was wearing something smart, and her shoes and earrings were in plain sight even if they were very conservative. Some days Jessica would look in the mirror and think that perhaps her clothing was more befitting someone twenty or thirty years older, but it suited the new her. The Jessica who avoided anything overtly feminine. Since discovering she had unwittingly become someone’s mistress she had spent many sleepless nights wondering if she had attracted her lover by the way she dressed. Her choice in clothing had never been overly revealing but she couldn’t help but question whether he would have looked twice if she had chosen a different look. Perhaps that had nothing to do with it, perhaps it did, but her new wardrobe sent a clear message to everyone.

  She was not interested in anything other than being the best doctor she could be and even thinking about a man did not factor into her day.

  Until that moment when she’d felt very self-conscious and almost like a giddy teenager, unable to control her emotions. She was so confused. It was so out of character with the reinvented Jessica of late. Perhaps, she thought, it was because she was tired and that made her anxious and unsettled. Not that the bed hadn’t been comfortable the night before; it was and she had slept well, all things considered.

  No, Jessica’s version of tired was different. She was tired of running. Tired of new beginnings that never changed how she felt about herself. And so tired of the unrelenting late-night thoughts of how she should have done things differently. How she could have managed everything better. But she hadn’t and she was living with the consequences. Trying to find peace and forget her time as the other woman. Focus on her career and forget about love. There was no room for it in her life or her heart. She was all about work. Her sole focus was to live her life as a single professional woman, respected for her work ethic.

  But the next step in her professional journey had been thwarted by delayed luggage. Professionalism had flown out of the window and soccer mum had flown in and there was not a damned thing she could do about it.

  She made her way back to check on Cody and reassure him that the baby and his partner were both fine.

  ‘Ginny is being taken for an MRI—’

  ‘What’s that? Will it hurt her or the baby?’

  ‘MRI is an abbreviation of magnetic resonance imaging. It’s a safe alternative to an X-ray and presents no danger to the baby during the first trimester, which is the first twelve weeks of the pregnancy.’

  ‘Why’s she having it?’

  ‘The doctor wants to check that Ginny hasn’t sustained any neck or spinal injuries as a result of the accident. He can also check the damage to her ankle.’

  Just then another doctor appeared and introduced himself. ‘I’m John Steele, the ER Resident.’

  ‘Hi, I’m Jessica Ayers, the Paediatric locum.’

  ‘I know—the nurses filled me in,’ he replied with a smile that showed he had orthodontic braces in place. ‘Welcome aboard and thanks for stepping in. I heard it’s your first day and you’re already part of the team.’

  ‘Happy to help.’

  ‘You’re going to fit right in; we can all tell,’ he told her and then picked up Cody’s notes. ‘The nurses think you’re awesome already and they’re a pretty tough lot to impress. So, you’re off to a flying start if you can manage that in the first five minutes. Have you met Dr Wainwright yet? He’s our ER Consultant.’

  Jessica shook her head and swallowed. She didn’t know what to say. While she hadn’t been formally introduced, she had met him in an unconventional way.

  ‘Anyway, we’ve held you up long enough. I can take over here if you want to head up to Paediatrics?’

  ‘Okay. Great...and it’s lovely to meet you, John.’

  ‘Likewise.’

  Jessica turned back to find the Professor still waiting for her. He had a warm expression on his face. Ordinarily that, combined with John Steele’s welcoming demeanour, would have put her at ease but Jessica felt anything but relaxed. She wished she had gone straight to Paediatrics and not stopped in the ER and she could have delayed the awkward meeting that she knew was about to take place unless there was another rush of patients through the Emergency Room doors. And by the lack of sirens it was clear that wasn’t about to happen.

  As Jessica pulled free her gown and gloves and dropped them in the bin, she watched Harrison Wainwright walking towards them. She knew she had to simply accept the situation and move on, as she had been doing for the best part of a year.

  * * *

  ‘Errol, what brings you to the ER?’ Harrison asked.

  ‘This young lady, actually,’ the Professor replied. ‘May I introduce you to...’

  ‘Jessica Ayers—Dr Jessica Ayers.’ Jessica couldn’t believe that her nerves had caused h
er to interrupt a professional introduction and repeat her name, adding her title. So now she was both rude and badly dressed. She was mortified by her behaviour and dying a little inside by her own actions. What had happened to the cool medical professional who’d just stepped into the ER and helped out without making a fool of herself? Where was she now? What was going on in her head to make her behave so strangely? She knew the answer. He was standing right in front of her.

  The Professor shot a quizzical smile in Jessica’s direction, coughed to clear his throat and continued. ‘Dr Ayers is our new Paediatric Consultant and very enthusiastic to meet everyone, it would appear.’

  Jessica wanted to jump into a non-existent hole in the linoleum floor of the ER but there was no such hole, no saviour of the awkward beyond belief moment, so she did what she had been doing for the past twelve months—she saved herself. She drew in a deep breath and extended her hand to Harrison. He met her handshake but she couldn’t help but notice that his eyes left hers momentarily and travelled to her feet. She was under no illusion as to what he was thinking, more than likely silently questioning why she had fronted up on her first day dressed as if she was going on a hike. She braced herself for the mention of her inappropriate attire. While Errol had not mentioned it, she felt sure that someone, perhaps Harrison, would say something.

  ‘Welcome aboard, Dr Ayers,’ he replied. ‘However, this isn’t the first time we’ve met.’

  Jessica stiffened. Of course he would remember that the enthusiastic locum had also run over his foot the day before. Terrible first impression followed by an unprofessional second impression. She could hardly wait to see how she could trump either. Throwing up from nerves and embarrassment was a possible contender.

  ‘So, you know each other?’ Errol asked with his eyes widening.