THEY caught snatched moments together over the next few days, but time only to hold each other, not to talk. Well, not to talk much, though Luca had scolded her for coming, and called her a fool and idiot, but in a voice so filled with love Rachel knew he didn’t mean it.
He was exhausted, and Martin, who was now nominally in charge of the hospital, had ordered him to bed soon after the arrival of the reinforcements.
Then Rachel was asleep while Luca woke up and returned to work, and it seemed as if their schedule would never allow them the time they needed together.
But apart from that frustration, which Rachel was too busy to let bother her, there was so much to be thankful for.
She was close to Luca for a start, and she could feel his love whenever he was near. On top of that, the baby was doing well, already off the ventilator, and surprisingly healthy in spite of lack of the personal care and attention he’d have received in a PICU. A young aide, following orders from Luca, was with him a lot of the time, nursing not only the post-op patient but other babies in the small ward.
Rachel learned her way around the single-storied building, built as a hollow square around a garden, spending time in Theatre when she was needed, helping out on the wards when no operations were under way. She learned a few words of the local language, and became friends with the local staff, finding them all gentle people, as bemused and distressed by what was happening in their country as people in any war-torn place must be.
Luca found her in the garden with the little boy who’d lost his legs, teaching him nursery rhymes from her own childhood. For a long time he just looked at her, taking in the dusty jeans and grubby T-shirt, the once shiny hair dulled by dust and lack of time to wash it, her face alight with pleasure as the little boy repeated words he didn’t understand after her.
That she had come to find him still seemed unbelievable, and, though his initial reaction had been anger that she’d put herself in danger, now his heart was so full of happiness he didn’t think he’d ever be able to express it.
He walked towards her, to tell her some news Martin had just imparted. The airfield had been cleared and more medical people were flying in the following day. They could fly out on the plane bringing in the relief later tomorrow.
He knew he must be frowning and tried to wipe the expression off his face, knowing Rachel would pick up on it.
‘Luca!’
She looked up at him and breathed his name. Nothing more, just that, but the word was so full of love he thought his heart would burst.
‘I love you,’ he said, knowing the words had to be in English this time. Then he knelt beside her and took her hand. ‘Always and for ever.’
She looked at him, her amber eyes as serious as he had ever seen them, then a sad little smile tilted up the left side of her lips.
‘That sounds a lot like the little speech you made back in the lounge at Jimmie’s when I yelled at you and then you headed off to be captured by rebels in a foreign country.’
‘I meant it then and I mean it now. Yes, I had thought of you coming to work for me, with me—of the two of us working together—but that was an added attraction quite apart from my love, because first and always it was you.’
Then his mouth dried up and no more words would come. She looked at him, eyes wide, the little boy on her knee also watching him.
‘There’s more, isn’t there?’ she whispered, the sad smile back in place.
He took her hands and nodded.
‘A relief team is flying in tomorrow and the Red Cross has promised more medical staff to follow. Martin has suggested we fly out on tomorrow’s plane when it leaves. He says we’ll no longer be needed here.’
He hesitated, then said, ‘I would like you on that plane. Away from this place.’
‘But you said we’ll no longer be needed—that means both of us, Luca.’
‘I would go, but I cannot leave the baby. I know I haven’t been able to spend much time with him, neither can I do anything any competent nurse couldn’t do, but his drug regimen is still too important to his survival to leave him unsupervised.’ He met her eyes and she knew he was begging her to understand.
‘I can’t leave so fragile a patient without specialist care.’
Rachel heard the words, and deep inside she felt them as well. This was part of what she loved about this man—his commitment to the infants he served.
Although…
‘But he is one baby, Luca. Back in Italy there are dozens of babies who would benefit from your skills. Don’t they need you, too?’
‘There are other specialists back there,’ he reminded her. ‘And I don’t intend staying for ever—just until we know the little boy is stable, and the hospital is operating efficiently enough for me to know he will get proper treatment. You understand?’
Understanding was one thing, but to leave this place without Luca?
It was unthinkable.
‘We could take him with us,’ Rachel suggested. ‘He’s off the ventilator, but even if he needed oxygen, there’d be some way we could hook him up to the plane’s supply.’
‘Take him with us?’
He looked so startled Rachel had to smile.
‘Think about it, Luca. He’ll need a second op before too long and, no matter how long you stay, you don’t have the facilities to do it here. As things are, his parents aren’t seeing him at all, but if we could visit them, or get a message to them, and suggest we do this, then, when things settle down here and they’re free to travel—
‘ If they’re free to travel!’
Rachel shrugged off the interruption.
‘Whatever! They’ll either be reunited with him or they won’t, but at least the little boy will be OK. Don’t you think they’d choose life for him no matter what their fate? They made that choice, travelling to Australia with him for the operation.’
Luca still looked bemused, though now he was frowning.
‘But someone will have to care for him. He won’t be in hospital for ever.’
‘ I’ll care for him,’ Rachel said quietly, hugging the little boy on her lap a little closer. ‘I know he won’t be mine but that won’t stop me loving him, and I’ll go into it knowing it’s a foster-situation and one day I’ll have to give him back. But I could do it, Luca. I would do it.’
She swallowed the lump in her throat and looked at him, not wanting to beg for his agreement but silently beseeching him to see her point. Then he smiled and she knew everything would be all right.
‘ We could do it,’ he said softly, then he leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. ‘But you are sure? You would take on this child, knowing of his problems? Knowing you could grow to love him then lose him, one way or another?’
Rachel knew how important the question was, and she paused, thinking it through, before she answered.
‘I’m sure, Luca.’
He must have heard the certainty in her voice for he nodded.
‘I’ll go and see who I can sweet-talk into letting me contact the parents.’
Rachel caught his hand.
‘Go carefully,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t put yourself in danger again.’
Luca touched his palm to her cheek.
‘I won’t do that—but I’ve built up some credibility working here, and I think I know who to approach about this.’
Another kiss and he was gone, leaving Rachel half excited and half anxious. No matter how much work Luca had done for injured rebel soldiers in the hospital, if he was seen to be aligning himself with the old regime he could end up in trouble.
She didn’t see him again until late that night. She was sitting by the baby’s bed, wondering about his future, when she heard footsteps coming along the aisle between the beds.
Luca’s footsteps, she was sure, though if she’d been asked if she could recognise them she’d have said no.
She turned to see him, and even in the muted light of the ward, she could see the smile on his face.
Behind him, two other figures moved, but it wasn’t until Luca introduced them that Rachel realised his sweet-talking had achieved a miracle—the baby’s parents had been released and would fly to Switzerland with the departing aid workers.
‘So we shall all go,’ Luca whispered, drawing Rachel away so the parents could touch their son.
Luca’s arms closed around her and he held her for a minute, neither of them speaking—content just to be together.
‘Come, I’ll walk you to your room,’ he whispered, and the huskiness in his voice told her just where that walk would lead. But much as she wanted to lie in Luca’s arms and forget, for a little while, the horrors she had witnessed, she had to shake her head.
‘One last night—I promised Martin I’d stay on duty. I can sleep when we’re finally on the plane.’
Luca’s arms tightened around her and he kissed the top of her head—thank heavens she’d scrounged that bucket of water and washed her hair today!
‘And I promised Martin I’d see some of the new patients that were brought in from some outlying district where fighting continues,’ Luca admitted. ‘But once we’re home, my lovely Rachel, we will shut ourselves away in my apartment and make up for lost time.’
But Luca was wrong. Once home, he was claimed first by media people demanding interviews and information, then by government people demanding more information, then by his family, who clustered protectively around him, talking, hugging, touching him as if to make sure he was really there.
And through most of it, Rachel slept. They were staying at Paola’s as the paparazzi were camped outside Luca’s apartment building. Paola had taken one look at Rachel and led her to a bathroom, insisting she take as long as she like in the shower, handing her a towelling robe to put on after it, and showing her a bedroom near the bathroom where she could sleep.
‘You are still sleeping?’
Luca’s voice—the bed moving—Luca’s body sliding in beside hers, smelling fresh and clean and so masculine Rachel felt excitement stir within her.
‘Not now,’ she whispered, but though he put his arms around her and drew her close, he was asleep before the kiss he brushed against her lips was finished.
So now he slept, while she watched over him, content to have him near while she explored all the wondrous feelings that were tied up in her love for Luca.