by Jax Burrows
‘So, I kept rubbing in the hand-cream. On her forearms, her feet, her legs. Over and over. Her body gradually relaxed and I wasn’t even aware that she had died until I realized how cold she had become.’
Lexi couldn’t speak, so let the tears fall down her cheek. Casey didn’t notice, however; he was back there in that hospital with the old lady, reliving the memories.
‘I learnt two things that day; one, that patients deserve a good death as much as they do a good life and two, the power of human touch. So, you see, Lexi, essential oils, massage, visualization and relaxation techniques are as much a part of treating our patients as medication and surgery.’
Lexi was wiping her face and blowing her nose when Casey walked over and kissed her on the top of the head. ‘Sorry, didn’t mean to upset you, I get carried away sometimes.’
The feel of his hands on her face suddenly and his mouth moving towards hers made her forget where she was until a little voice said, ‘Daddy? Are you kissing Mummy?’
They both jumped as Jade came into the kitchen for her milk, but Casey recovered well and said, ‘Yes, that’s okay, isn’t it?’
‘You must kiss me too. And Bluebell.’
‘Okeydokey. If you two ladies would like to step this way…’ Jade dissolved into fits of giggles as Casey puckered up and scooped her up in his arms.
*
To be able to tuck Jade up in her bed and read her a bedtime story was something Casey had yearned to do ever since he had found out that she was his daughter. He read to Tom on occasion; stories out of the Marvel Universe, Doctor Who and Harry Potter. Three-year-old girls were different. Or so he had thought. Judging by the books that she wanted him to read, they weren’t that much different at all. Caterpillars, bears and dragons seemed to feature quite heavily.
He must rid himself of his gender stereotyping and take his cue from his little girl. Maybe he should ask Lexi about it. Jade was obviously very feminine with her pretty face and long blonde hair but that didn’t mean she would grow up to be a model. She could just as easily become a politician or an astronaut.
‘Daddy, you’re not reading.’
‘Sorry chick, just drifted off for a minute.’
‘Are you tired?’
‘No, sweetie, just lost concentration there for a second. Now, where were we?’ Jade snuggled down in the bed and hugged Bluebell to her.
It took three books; one that she wanted to hear twice, before she finally fell asleep. He kissed her gently on the forehead and crept down the stairs.
Lexi was sitting on the sofa on her own sipping a glass of wine. On the coffee table in front of her sat three large photo albums. His heart jumped when he saw them. Hopefully, these were photos of Jade as a baby. Now he could fill in the gaps and picture her first three years.
Lexi poured him a glass of wine and he took it from her, their hands just touching briefly, which sent a shiver through him. He sat close to her on the sofa.
‘Thought you might like to see these. They’re just happy snaps but some of them are quite good.’
‘Thanks. I’d love that. I want to thank you for tonight; it’s been wonderful. Jade’s a beautiful little girl and you’ve done a great job of bringing her up.’
Lexi put her head down and blushed. ‘Well, you are her father, and I feel bad about not being able to find you…’
‘We’re both to blame. I should have tried harder too.’ When she looked up at him with her eyes the colour of Bluebell’s dress, he wanted to take her in his arms and kiss away the frown lines but that would be a bad idea. A very bad idea. They were Jade’s parents, nothing more. Whatever remnants of the attraction they had felt for each other remained, it had to be squashed. It was in the past. They had been strangers then. Now, they needed to behave like responsible adults and get to know each other as friends and colleagues.
‘Where’s Jess?’ He took a sip of his wine.
‘Having a soak in the tub.’
Good. Then they wouldn’t be disturbed. They could talk freely and discuss Jade’s future, but first, he was longing to look at his daughter as a baby. He opened the first album and was quickly engrossed in the photos. Lexi talked him through them, explaining where they were and how old Jade was in each photo.
‘Does she look like you as a baby?’
Lexi went quiet and looked down. ‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘Don’t you have any pictures of your childhood?’
‘No. Some of my foster families took pictures but they kept them for themselves. The home didn’t bother with things like that.’
Casey put his glass down and closed the album putting it on the coffee table to look at later. He moved closer to Lexi and placed his arm along the back of the sofa but didn’t touch her.
‘That must have been tough. Do you want to talk about it?’ He wanted her to talk to him, but Lexi was still putting barriers up against him and he wasn’t sure why. Maybe she thought he wanted to rekindle the fire they had experienced at Jade’s conception and was trying to send him signals that she didn’t approve. He would have to extend the hand of friendship to her and let her know that he wasn’t interested in her in that way. Even though it wasn’t strictly true. He still wanted her in his bed but could never trust a woman enough to let her into his heart.
‘Not really. There’s nothing much to say.’ Her voice was sad, and he desperately wanted her to feel better about herself.
‘It sometimes helps to talk. But only if you want to.’
‘People always assume that others have had the same experiences they have had. They take things for granted. Growing up without parents is isolating. You’re different. You stand out from the crowd because you’re not like everyone else. It’s okay as an adult, but a constant source of pain as a child.’
‘In what way?’ He spoke quietly to encourage her to keep talking.
‘In primary school, every Mother’s Day and Father’s Day we had to make cards for our parents and say how special they were. I remember one class where the teacher made us write a poem to our mothers telling them why we loved them. What could I say? She gave me up a few hours after I was born. When I told the teacher why I couldn’t write the poem she made me tidy the classroom instead. All the kids were scribbling away busily, and I was sweeping the floor.’
Casey felt anger at the insensitive teacher who hadn’t had the sense to tell Lexi to write a poem to someone else; a friend perhaps. Then she would have been doing the same as the other kids, but to a different person. Casey put his arm around Lexi’s shoulder and hugged her to him in an instinctive gesture of comfort. She put her head on his shoulder and he inhaled the clean smell of her shampoo.
‘Then there was Easter, Christmas, parents’ evenings. I was in a nativity play once but there was no one in the audience who had come to see me, amongst all the proud parents taking videos and smiling through their tears. I’m going to make damned sure I go to everything that Jade takes part in when she starts school.’
‘I’ll be there too,’ he said.
‘Thanks. Jade will be like all the other kids then. I don’t want her to feel different like I did.’
Casey felt deeply moved by her story which was the complete opposite to his childhood. ‘You must have felt desperately lonely.’ His voice croaked, and he surprised himself at the depth of protectiveness he felt towards her. She was his child’s mother and he wanted to look after them both.
Without stopping to think, he turned her face to his and gently kissed her on the lips. At first, she didn’t move but then she responded, and her mouth opened to him. He had forgotten how luscious she tasted, and his kiss grew more demanding. He held the back of her head, his fingers caressing the skin on the nape of her neck, then his hand slid down her front to stroke her breast through the fabric of her blouse.
She gasped but didn’t push him away, so he undid the buttons and cupped her breast, feeling her nipple grow hard at his touch.
Their kiss grew more frantic and he felt his
body react, pushing against the zip of his jeans. His breathing deepened, and she moaned softly as he caressed her.
A door opened upstairs, and Lexi put her hand on his arm to stop him.
‘Jess has finished her bath. Don’t worry she won’t come down; she’ll go straight to bed.’
The interruption had given him a chance to think. The sudden fire that had exploded in his belly had shown him that he still wanted her as much as ever. And her response proved that she felt the same way. But they couldn’t. It would bring too many complications into their fledgling friendship. They had to think of Jade and keep their hands off each other. He felt ashamed of his inappropriate behavior and wanted to reassure Lexi that she could trust him.
‘Things will be different for you now. You and Jade. I’ll look after you both. Jade will have two loving parents to be there for her at every school event in her life. And every other time she needs us. You’re not alone anymore.’
She stood up and glared at him, her hands on her hips, her blouse still undone.
‘Jade and I are fine, Casey, we don’t need looking after. We were fine before you turned up and we’ll be fine afterwards. I will always be there for her, no matter who else she has in her life. I’m glad you want a relationship with her, but don’t think anything has changed.’
Casey stood up too and held his hand out to her, but she ignored it. ‘I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to upset you. I was just trying to-’
‘Yes, I know what you were trying to do. Take charge. But this isn’t A&E and you’re not in charge of us. And, while we’re on the subject, I’d be grateful if you run any ideas you have by me before you get the kids all excited. We’ll go to the leisure centre on Saturday, but please ask me first before you start making arrangements for Jade.’
Chastened, Casey dropped his hand and nodded. ‘Right. Sorry. Got it. I’ll ask you first.’
‘Thanks, I’d appreciate that.’
They stood in the centre of the room, not touching, the magic of the kiss forgotten. Time to go. Lexi saw him to the door, and he thanked her politely for the evening and told her the time he would pick them up on Saturday.
As he drove away, he couldn’t help feeling admiration for Lexi. She was beautiful, soft and sweet, with a rod of iron running down her back. She had learned to look after herself and her daughter. She was a force to be reckoned with. Not the man-eater he had assumed she was when they had first met, but a strong woman who just wanted the best for her child. There was a depth to Lexi Grainger that he could only guess at.
If things had been different, and he thought he could risk his heart in the hands of another woman, she would be the one he’d choose. As it was, they could be close in different ways. Parents to their little girl, work colleagues and, hopefully, friends.
Chapter Nine
Lexi inhaled the scent of lime when she arrived in A&E to start her shift at six o’clock the following evening. It was the first night of a three-week stint and she braced herself for the usual ebb and flow of patients during a long and undoubtedly eventful stretch of night duty.
As she walked through the front doors and headed to the staff room to put her bag in her locker, she gazed at the people in the waiting area, some were in couples or on their own. Others seemed to have brought their entire family with them.
Was it her imagination, or did the patients looked slightly less stressed than usual? She wanted Casey’s experiment to be successful but suspected it would have more effect on the staff than the patients themselves. But even if that were the case, it would still be worth doing.
Casey had texted her that afternoon and asked if it was okay for him to supervise Jade’s bedtime that night and read her some more stories. He had some books that used to belong to Tom that he wanted to show her. How could she refuse? Jade never stopped talking about her father and it would take some of the pressure off Jess.
After listening to the handover from the day staff, she headed to minors with Sarala who was going to be working with her.
‘What do you think of my nails?’ the nurse asked, stretching out her long, slender brown fingers, tipped by short nails painted in coral pink polish. Both the backs of her hands and her palms were covered with exquisite henna designs. Sarala had spent the weekend at a Hindu wedding and was still buzzing from the excitement and romance of it all. Lexi wondered if she had slept before coming on duty.
‘They’re absolutely gorgeous, as are the Mehndi. Will you do some for me?’
‘Only when you get married, then I will.’ Sarala laughed and checked the cubicle they were in to make sure it was well stocked.
‘What about you? I bet you get married first.’
‘Not until I find the perfect man and that could take some time.’ She laughed again, the sound like wind chimes in a breeze. Lexi loved working with Sarala, she was always so upbeat.
‘I’ll never get married. Jade and I are fine as we are.’ She refused to think about Casey, but Sarala had no such qualms.
‘What about your daughter’s father, the scrumptious Dr O’Connor? I’ve seen the way he looks at you when you’re looking away. I bet he’d marry you. After all, he’s already sampled the goods so knows exactly what he’d be getting.’ All her colleagues now knew about her relationship with Casey.
‘Sarala! Inappropriate. Anyway, we had one night together. Neither of us had any intention of seeing the other one again. We’re civil to each other now for Jade’s sake.’
‘Babies change everything. Ask my sister, she’s pregnant with number four.’
It was time to change the subject and to start treating the patients, so Lexi gave Sarala a look which Sarala returned with a grin and a huge wink.
The first hour or so passed swiftly. She stitched the finger of an eighty-year-old man who had cut it open on a knife. She helped a little girl who was having an asthma attack and who had to be admitted for observation.
Then there was an elderly man who had fainted in the supermarket; he lived alone and hadn’t eaten for two days. On further questioning, the senior registrar, the most senior doctor on duty that night, decided that the man had early-onset Alzheimer’s and he was admitted to the geriatric ward.
After that, Lexi and the other nurses, including the more qualified and experienced nurse clinicians, ran Minors almost without doctors. They were needed in Majors and Resus. There’s always a shortage of senior doctors in A&E, especially at night.
The waiting time for patients to be seen had been two hours when Lexi had started her shift, but by midnight, with the arrival of drunks, drug addicts and domestic violence victims, it had increased to three. The triage nurses were busy. Ambulances arrived in steady succession bringing in more and more patients.
Lexi had been looking forward to not seeing Casey at work for a while, to get her thoughts together and to avoid the overwhelming distraction he caused when he was anywhere near her. But now, with the waiting area filling up, all the resus beds full and a constant stream of patients waiting to be seen, she longed for his familiar confidence, strength and charismatic leadership. There really was no one like Dr Casey O’Connor for making the patients and his team feel that they were in the hands of a competent leader.
And those hands! The magic they could bring about when they were engaged in more intimate activities. Lexi pushed that image out of her head and went to call the next patient.
By two o’clock in the morning, Lexi was tired and frustrated. One of the drunk patients had urinated on the floor and she decided to mop it up herself instead of waiting for the cleaner who had been called to another area.
All she wanted was a cup of tea and a sit down but knew that she wouldn’t get either for several hours. She passed Sarala as they rushed down the corridor in opposite directions. Her friend raised her eyes to heaven and muttered, ‘Why are we doing this to ourselves?’ But they both knew the answer to that. Because they loved nursing and couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.
At four o’clock, the p
aramedics brought in a familiar figure. It was Shelley who looked as if she had been beaten up. Her face was bruised and dirty, she had blood dripping from a scalp wound and she was either drunk or on drugs. As she had no life-threatening injuries and was fully conscious, she was put in a cubicle in Minors after being examined by the triage nurse. She needed to be monitored closely and Lexi was the only nurse available to do it.
‘Hi, Shelley. Remember me? I looked after you last time you came in.’
Shelley opened one bloodshot eye and glared at her. ‘Where’s that doctor?’
There was no use pretending she didn’t know who Shelley meant. ‘Do you mean Dr O’Connor? He will be back on duty tomorrow. It’s four o’clock in the morning, Shelley.’
Why do some patients think doctors should be on call twenty-four hours a day? Don’t they realise that they also need to eat, sleep, live a life… Oh, what was the point? She was tired, that was all. It had been a long, stressful night and it wasn’t over. She knew she wouldn’t get anywhere with Shelley who was already trying to clamber off the narrow bed. She’d need to put the sides up to keep her from falling and breaking something.
‘No, honey, don’t do that. Get back on the bed and I’ll treat that wound, it looks nasty.’
‘Want that doctor. Get him. Now!’ Lexi’s spirits sank at the belligerent tone of voice that Shelley used. She was not going to be pacified easily. Lexi may even have to call security if she got violent.