HE RAN TO HER, doctor’s bag in hand, the echo of his fast-beating heart drumming in his ears. She was standing at the top of the trailer steps, chest heaving as she smothered a sob. And he wanted to scoop her up, to kiss those cheeks pink again. But she held her hand up, keeping him at a distance, as if touching him would break her.
There was blood on her palms.
‘What the hell...? Lola, what’s happened?’
‘Cameron...’ She shook her head but motioned for him to come inside. There, on the floor, was the actress lying in a heap. She was moaning, pale. Blood on her forehead.
And her skirt.
The baby.
Head injury and threatened miscarriage. Potential brain bleed. Loss of blood.
The dogs were yelping around her, licking her face, running in circles.
Jake focused. ‘Lola, get them out of here. They’re going to get in the way. And call the clinic. Now. Get them to send the helicopter. Immediately.’
‘Absolutely.’ She took the dogs outside and he heard her on her cell phone. Her voice was surprisingly calm, compared to the chalk white panic of her face.
He knelt at Cameron’s side and felt her pulse as he spoke gently. ‘Cameron? Cameron. Hey...’ Her eyelids flickered open and she opened her mouth to speak, but her face crumpled. ‘It’s okay...it’s okay. Just lie here, it’s okay. I’m going to ask you some questions. I’m going to need you to tell me a few things.’
She nodded, then closed her eyes again. Her hand was on her abdomen. But the blood loss appeared worse on her head, so he dealt with that first. He rummaged in his bag for his blood-pressure monitor. ‘How did you end up down here?’
‘Fell. Dogs.’
‘You fell over the dogs?’ No surprise there.
She nodded weakly. Her trembling hand went to the bump on her head. At first glance it looked superficial. Just a gash that was bleeding heavily. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t deeper damage. He cradled her head in his hands, keeping it still, and checked the depth of the wound, the size of the lump. Clearly no neck or spinal damage as she was moving all limbs. ‘You took a nasty knock there. What did you hit it on, can you remember?’
‘Table.’
‘You fell over the dogs and hit your head on the table?’ He assumed it had been the corner judging by the jagged edge of the laceration. But she was showing no memory loss. ‘Did you black out?’
‘No. I don’t think so.’
‘You know where you are?’
‘On the floor, honey, and it’s sticky.’
At least her sense of humour was intact. ‘In? Location?’
‘West LA. Film set.’ She sounded groggy, her limbs heavy as he tested her reflexes and her pupil reactions. All normal. He’d do a full concussion check once they were at the clinic. Signs of concussion or something worse might not show for a few hours.
‘And now here?’ He placed his hand softly against the tiny pregnancy bump. The blood on her skirt didn’t appear to be getting any worse. ‘How does this feel?’
A single tear edged down her cheek. ‘Hurts.’
Lola tiptoed back into the trailer. ‘ETA five minutes. They can land over in the far car lot. I’ve okayed that with security. But you need to know something, Jake... She’s...’ Lola worried her bottom lip with her teeth, then sighed. ‘I’m sorry, Cameron, I’m going to have to tell him—’
‘Pregnant.’ He held Lola’s gaze and she gave him a faint smile of acknowledgement. ‘I know. I’ve known for a while.’
‘Of course you have.’ She knelt and took her boss’s hand. ‘Cameron, it’s going to be okay. Jake will take care of you.’
Blood pressure low, but not dangerous. Yet. At least that was something, but her pulse was racing. He looked at Lola and they both looked at the spotting on Cameron’s white skirt. He needed to assess just how much blood she was losing. ‘Cameron, I need to examine your abdomen to check on the baby. Is that okay? And I need to know how much blood loss there is. Do you want to lie on a couch?’
‘No. Here.’ The actress shuddered on a sob, but nodded. Lola fetched some towels, then held Cameron’s hand while he assessed the size of the uterus and checked for tenderness and further blood loss. ‘This isn’t exactly a great place for doing this. We need to get you to the clinic and get you checked out.’
‘But...the film.’
‘This is more important. I’ll talk to Alfredo.’
Lola nodded. ‘I just have. He’s fine. He wants me to let him know how you are. Later.’ She stroked her employer’s hair back away from the cut and then held the gauze Jake gave her over it to stem the bleeding.
He watched her as she chatted away, gently soothing. He imagined if the tables were turned and it were Lola lying on the floor. Cameron would be a mess.
Lola caught his gaze and held it for a few seconds. Underneath the reassuring noises she was pale and spooked, he could see that, but she was strong and holding everything together. As she looked at him her eyes softened and she bit her wobbling lip.
Pain ripped through him. After this he wouldn’t see Lola again. He couldn’t imagine that. Didn’t want to think about it. Didn’t want to acknowledge the emotion that was lodged in his throat as he watched her. So he turned away and focused on his patient. ‘I’m just going to take your blood pressure again, Cameron.’
Her hand grasped his. ‘Please. Don’t let me lose this baby. Please. I—I wasn’t ready, but I am now. I’m ready for this. Don’t let me lose it. So precious...’
‘He won’t,’ Lola whispered to her boss, but she stared right at Jake—her eyes boring into him with such belief and hope that he didn’t deserve. ‘He won’t let you lose this baby.’
Cameron’s fingers gripped white on his as she finally realised what she had and what she was at risk of losing. But their faith in him was too damned high. He closed his eyes. Because, really, it was out of his hands. He could monitor her blood pressure and give her IV fluids when the paramedics arrived. He could treat her as best he could in the helicopter, but he couldn’t promise anything, not where a baby was concerned. He was a neurosurgeon, not a gynaecologist.
Then the air was filled with the sound of chopper blades and he told Lola to go out and bring the paramedics over. And he tried to keep his patient as reassured as best he possibly could.
When the team had safely got Cameron onto a stretcher with an IV line in situ and she was haemodynamically stable for now, he helped them down the steps and over the tarmac.
Lola stood, arms wrapped around her chest as she watched them load the stretcher into the helicopter. Her face was bleak, haunted. Sad. It took everything he had not to bundle her to him, but she’d drawn a line and he had to respect that. One stolen kiss was probably a step too far already. ‘She’ll be okay, Lola.’
She looked at him with black-rimmed eyes. ‘How can you be sure?’
‘She’ll be fine. Go with her. In the chopper. Go.’
The trembling from earlier was back. ‘No. You go. You’re the doctor, you’ll know what to do. I’ll be useless.’
He took hold of her hands. ‘She needs you.’
‘No, she doesn’t.’ Her head shook. ‘Go, Jake. I’ll drop the dogs at home with the housekeeper. I shouldn’t have brought them here in the first place but she went on and on about wanting her babies with her. I knew it was a stupid idea. I shouldn’t have left her with them.’
‘Lola. Stop it. None of this is your fault.’
‘How can you say that?’
‘Because accidents happen. Don’t beat yourself up about this. You did not cause this.’ The irony of the words haunted him and for the first time he realised that he was not responsible for his father’s illness. There could have been many reasons why he’d got so sick and why he hadn’t asked for help in the early stages—and only some of them were about his son. The rest were about his father’s stubbornness, about the arbitrary nature of life. How some people could bounce back from infection and others needed adjunct therapy. How some people survived surgery and others didn’t. How you met someone who had a profound effect on your life and because...because they’re made like you, it seemed impossible that either of you could find space to make it work.
Wide eyes peered up at him beneath a frown. ‘If we hadn’t been outside... If I’d come back in as soon as I heard the dogs... Jake, what if she loses the baby?’
‘You can’t live your life on ifs, Lola. We’ll do everything we can to make sure that doesn’t happen. Now, go. Do what you need to do with the dogs and meet me at the clinic.’
‘Save her, Jake.’
‘I’ll try.’
She gave him the first smile he’d seen from her in hours. ‘Oh, I have faith in you.’
‘Do you?’ He couldn’t help but feel pain at that laughable statement. ‘In my skills, yes. But nothing else.’
‘What do you mean? Of course I have faith in your skills. You’re an amazing doctor.’
He wanted her. Wanted to hear more than that from her, because she was deluding herself if she thought they could put some kind of halt to the way they felt about each other. Love wasn’t something you could put on hold until you decided you wanted it—it burned into you like a brand.
Love.
Yeah. So there it was. He loved her.
At this revelation his heart skipped a couple of beats, and he felt the space in his chest implode, then it thudded back to a sorta, kinda sinus rhythm. The same but different—just like he was, having met Lola. The same guy with the same goals, but changed. Irrevocably.
It was a fine time to realise this as the chopper’s blades began to whir and his work called to him—and she was walking away. It was the second time in two days he’d thought about how much he loved someone—and thought about telling them. This time, though, he’d keep it to himself. She didn’t need to know how he felt.
He didn’t want to admit it, but the thought of loving and losing Lola was just too damned hard. ‘And there I was thinking that we make a great team. You know what’s better than being on your own? Someone who can work with you, like we just did. A champion. Someone who believes in you more than you believe in yourself. Who’s there to pick you up when you need it. Like you did with me and my dad. Like I did when you were sick. We make a good team, Lola—we could be brilliant together. I would never stand in the way of your dreams but, hell, I’d cheer you on. Anywhere. Everywhere. I’d support you, I’d carry you when you needed it and I’d stand back to let you shine in your own way too.’
‘I know you would.’ Her lip began to tremble. ‘I know.’
‘So here’s what I don’t get about this—you say you trust me enough to look after the life of your employer and her unborn child. You trust that I will make things right with my parents—that I will strive to look after them, whatever happens. You trust me to keep everyone safe. Except you.’ He could see the pain in his heart mirrored on her face, but he didn’t have time to make things right with her, or to convince her that he even could. He started to walk towards the chopper, the rush from the rotating blades blasting his words away as he turned around to look at her one last time. ‘Why can’t you trust me with your heart too?’
* * *
Lola drove way faster than the speed limit—and she didn’t really care—along the narrow, winding roads towards The Hollywood Hills Clinic, heaving the car to the side every few minutes to allow yet another tourist bus to scrape past. Hundreds of people trying to catch a glimpse of a celebrity in the big houses flanking the road. No wonder the tarmac was in such a bad condition. She bumped in and out of potholes, each pause adding time to her journey. None of this mattered, of course. Only Cameron and the baby’s safety.
And Jake.
His words resonated in her the whole trip. Had she been fooling herself that all this time she had been hiding behind her own dreams, when the real reason she’d held him off had been because she’d just been too scared to trust him?
Did she love him, truly? And what would that mean for her? For him? Could they make it work?
Bill and Deanna Lewis had found time for each other despite a child to care for, conflicting shifts and working all hours. The love between them had been right there, almost tangible. And her father had made a sacrifice for love; even though he’d chosen to move to London, she had no doubt he had made that choice willingly. Because there was a better thing than blindly following a career. A better thing than being totally alone just to prove a point, just to be able to say, I am an independent person. There was that thing called love that made everything just that little bit better.
What was the point in carving out a life for yourself if you had no one to share it? She’d be damned lonely in that studio apartment with just a script for company.
What if she lost Jake? That was just too much to contemplate.
She all but threw her car keys at the valet and ran into the impressive white building, and was greeted by soothing music, a water feature in the lobby and a smartly dressed, smiling receptionist at the front desk, with ‘Stephanie’ on her name badge. They’d bypassed this when she’d come here the other day to see Bill Lewis.
The calm that Jake usually emanated was right here in this place under the Hollywood sign, up in the hills. A far cry from the turbulent darkness in his eyes, the harsh anger as he’d spoken those last words to her. And her heart pounded even more. Not for Cameron this time, but for herself. Was it too late?
‘Hi! I’m looking for Dr Lewis. Jake. And...’ Lola leant forward so that the conversation would be private. Not that there were many people around, but confidentiality was king for Cameron. ‘Cameron Fontaine?’
Stephanie smiled. ‘Oh...er...I’ll page Dr Lewis. Is he expecting you?’
‘Yes. Tell him Lola’s here.’ She didn’t press the point about Cameron...she’d hear soon enough from either the actress herself or Jake. The worse part was waiting, being the one who was excluded. The one who’d have to pick up the pieces. If...
She didn’t want to think about it. ‘I’m ready...’ Cameron had said. She’d taken a huge step and for the first time in her life wanted something more than herself. Cameron knew just how much would change, it would have to—but she was going to do it. She was embracing it—and even though it would be a struggle, Lola hoped that Cameron would successfully manage thinking for two people.
Her boss was a whole lot braver than she herself was. Because right up until he’d mentioned trust, she hadn’t been brave enough to let someone have a piece of her heart, or to allow herself to think about sharing her life.
But now...
It took him less than five minutes to appear in the lobby, but in that time she’d managed to control her heartbeat and take in some of the beautiful artworks on the wall, tried to allow the sound of the tinkling water to calm her nerves. She couldn’t gauge his emotion as he walked towards her.
She couldn’t gauge her own. Because, damn it, despite the words she’d said to him she was still not feeling the sentiment of them. Every part of her body ached to touch him, to feel his touch. She couldn’t walk away. It made no sense. Being with Jake was the only thing that was clear.
But would he still want her after everything she had said?
He was wearing a white coat with the requisite stethoscope around his neck, and looked every inch like the dashing doctor in a starring role. ‘Lola.’
‘Hey, Jake.’ And she felt like the villain. She didn’t want to be anything other than herself, and right now she didn’t feel the bright optimistic front she usually wore. She felt sad. Deflated. Anxious. Lost. Beaten. ‘How’s Cameron doing?’
He reached a hand to her arm and squeezed. His heat rushed through her and she saw kindness in his eyes. And...she dared to hope...something else. ‘Cameron’s being assessed by our obstetric team. She’s in good hands.’
‘And her head?’
‘In the scheme of things it’s not serious. Head wounds bleed. A lot. But she doesn’t appear to have done any major damage. She’s going to have a headache for a few days, but we’ll keep an eye on all that along with the baby. One good thing, they were scanning as I left and I heard a heartbeat...’
‘Thank God for that.’ Lola closed her eyes and breathed out heavily, her hand on her chest. When she opened her eyes he was still there, his expression still unreadable. ‘No, actually, thank you. Thank you.’
He shrugged. ‘So. I’ll take you to the family room and you can wait there. I have things to do.’
‘Actually, wait. Can I talk to you? Maybe outside? I need some air.’ She had no idea what she was going to say, or how to say it. Or even if he’d listen. But she wanted to tell him that she wanted to try. To be two. To be together.
‘Sure. Whatever you want, Lola.’ He started to lead her through the automatic doors and into the afternoon sunshine. ‘If it’s about your script again, I’m still sorry. I shouldn’t have done it. I’ve learnt my lesson, I won’t be looking to help again. You’re on your own from now on. That’s what you want, right?’
No. She wanted him. ‘I don’t know what Cameron will want to do with the script now. I have to bide my time, but she’ll do right by me, I’m sure.’
‘Good. It needs a home. It’ll make a damn fine movie.’ His eyebrows rose. ‘So, what do you want to talk about?’
‘Us.’
He came to halt. ‘You made it very clear that—’
‘I love you.’ It wasn’t exactly finessed, but it got the point over. It certainly shut him up.
‘Oh.’ He blinked, looking momentarily as lost as she was. ‘I see.’
‘And I want to share my life with you. At least, commit to each other. Something. Something important. Something mind-blowingly amazing. I don’t know why I was so determined not to make a go of things, why I ended it so quickly. I think... You were right. I was scared by how much you mean to me. You grew on me pretty quickly and I was rattled by that. I didn’t expect that it could feel so good...so, yes, I’m scared. Scared of throwing away everything I’ve worked so hard for. Scared that part of me would get lost a little in the concept of us, but scared even more about what I’ll miss out on if I don’t take that chance. I didn’t mean to hurt you, Jake. I just couldn’t figure out how we could love each other and keep that love alive in the midst of two very busy careers.’
‘As I said before, lots of people do it. They make it work. We could have.’
‘We still could. Make each other a priority. Really. I couldn’t think of anything I’d like more than to see you in every spare moment I have. And I’ll make more. Loads more. I’ll speak to Cameron and ensure we stick strictly to the contract. If everything works out with the baby, I’ll make her hire a nanny, two. Three. One each for the dogs... If everything works out with the screenplay I won’t have to work for her at all...’
‘Lola.’ He paced in front of her, his logical brain clearly dealing with how to say no, gently. His directness was lost. She loved that about him. That he was clear-headed about everything but her. ‘You made it clear that things were over. And now you come back here and hit me with this? What am I supposed to think now? Or to feel? It’s crazy. You’re crazy. I don’t want to hear any of this.’
‘Oh.’ Her throat stung. It was too late. She didn’t know what to do now. She’d been so sure he wanted her. That her love for him would convince him. That they’d make it work. She’d been so sure. She stood for a moment and let the reality seep into her bones, into her heart. She’d lost him. Had been too cautious and had treated him badly. She allowed herself one last look at his deep blue eyes and his impossibly beautiful mouth. Then she hauled up every bit of strength she had, dug deep for the optimistic Lola he seemed to like. ‘Okay! That’s okay! It’s fine! Really! I’ll just go and find Cameron, see if she needs anything...’ She turned and began to walk away.
She would not cry. She fought against the pain and a rising sob. Pressed a hand to her mouth. She would not cry.
‘I mean, Lola, I don’t want to hear another word because...’ He pulled her close and kissed her hard on the mouth. Kissed her until her bones began to melt and her legs turned a little to jelly—or Jell-O, or whatever. They were wobbly, and her heart began to race. In a good way. A very good way. He kissed her until she was in no doubt as to how he felt. When he pulled away he was as breathless as her. ‘I love you, Lola Bennett. And—strangely—I love your weird world of doggy danger and space-desert odysseys. And wildly demanding actresses and private planes and personal chefs. Of passion and dreams so beyond reach, and yet within grasp if you believe. Anything’s possible. It’s beyond bizarre. But I love it.’
‘Things may get worse...I have a wild idea for my next screenplay. You may not like it, but I want to diversify. Cameron says we all should.’
He frowned. ‘What could be worse than the princess-space-desert odyssey I’ve just lived through?’
‘Zombie apocalypse?’
‘Of course. That makes perfect sense.’ He tipped his head back and laughed. ‘Man, this is a crazy city. Bring it on. I love you, Lola Bennett, and your crazy life, and I want to share it. But mine might be a little dull in comparison.’
‘There is nothing dull about your life at all—look at all those people you save, with just chopsticks.’ She smiled, wondering how she’d ever thought she would have a complete life without him in it. ‘And the passion with which you love people—so much it hurts—but you try to hide it. I love the things you do for me. You give me hope, you give me love, you give me wings. I love you right back.’
He kissed the tip of her nose and looked up at the Hollywood sign way up on the hill. ‘Is this where we cue the soppy romantic music or the waves crashing on a beach?’
‘No.’ She took hold of the lapels of his white coat and tiptoed up to him. ‘This is where you kiss me all over again.’
‘Oh, I can do that. My pleasure. Over and over and over again.’ He lowered his voice and his mouth, ‘A-a-a-nd action!’
* * * * *
Look out for the next great story in THE HOLLYWOOD HILLS CLINIC 8 book series
PERFECT RIVALS... by Amy Ruttan
And if you missed where it all started, check out
SEDUCED BY THE HEART SURGEON
by Carol
Marinelli
FALLING FOR THE SINGLE DAD
by Emily Forbes
All available now!
And there are four more fabulous stories to come...
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