NO-O-O…
For just a heartbeat, Luke was frozen the spot with disbelief.
He’d seen Kate waiting at the corner for the lights to change and he’d wondered why it had taken her so long to follow the other pedestrians. She’d clearly been lost in thought so the contrast, when she’d spotted him, had been revealing.
Even from this distance, he could see how happy she had been to see him. That smile…
It had made him feel so…special. To be able to give someone pleasure simply by existing. By waiting to give them your company. He might be getting rather wet by standing outside like this but he wasn’t cold. How could he be when such an astonishing warmth was being created inside him? And he wasn’t going to go inside either. Not until Kate was here.
He was actually smiling himself as he saw her start to run across the road. He could see that the signal was flashing, which meant that you weren’t supposed to start crossing at that point. He’d have to tease her about breaking rules like this. Except that she was breaking those rules because she wanted to be with him and Luke couldn’t think of anybody else who had ever done that.
He heard the SUV toot its warning. And he saw the moment the car in the next lane took off, so fast its wheels skidded slightly on the wet road. Kate was running and, for a split second, it seemed that she was going to make it. It would be a near miss that would probably give her nothing more than a fright.
Except she didn’t quite make it. He saw her falling. Saw her umbrella float away from her in a graceful arc, tumbling over itself before it hit the ground. More vehicles were sounding their horns now because few people could see why the traffic had stalled in front of a green light. The cacophony of sound seemed an appropriate background to the sense of panic that kicked in after Luke’s momentary freeze.
Katy…
People were getting out of their vehicles by the time he sprinted into the middle of the road. Horns were still blaring and people were shouting.
‘What the hell happened?’
‘Call an ambulance.’
‘The hospital’s just down the road.’
‘Call the police.’
Someone picked up Kate’s umbrella and moved to hold it over the crumpled figure on the tarmac.
‘I’m a doctor… Let me through…’ Luke had to push past the gathering huddle of strangers. He dropped to his knees beside Kate, oblivious to the puddle he was kneeling in or the cold rain trickling down his face.
The light was flickering, with the shapes of people moving in front of headlights and the traffic lights changing, but he could see that Kate’s eyes were closed.
Was she breathing?
Luke cradled the top of her head with his hand, not simply because he needed to stop any movement in case she had injured her neck, but because he needed to touch her for way more than medical reasons. He put his other hand gently on her abdomen. He’d be able to feel the movements of breathing more easily than see them in this light.
‘Kate? Can you hear me?’
Luke could feel the muscles beneath his hand lurch as a deep breath was dragged in. And then Kate’s eyelids flickered.
‘Stay still, hon… Don’t move…’
He heard the blast of a nearby siren.
‘Move out of the way,’ someone yelled.
A police car edged its way through the traffic that had now stopped in both directions. And behind that were the flashing beacons of an ambulance that had probably already been in the queue of traffic leaving the hospital.
Kate was blinking up at Luke now and her mouth opened. The distressed sound was only quiet but Luke would have heard it no matter how loud the background was. It cut through him like a knife.
‘It’s okay, Katy… Everything’s going to be okay…’
Was it?
How badly was she hurt?
Maybe nothing was going to be okay. For either of them…
The fear that kicked in then was crippling. Unprofessional. It didn’t matter that he could see that Kate was conscious and therefore had an open airway and was breathing. He needed to check for any major injuries. Blood loss…
It was just as well the paramedics were here now. Luke simply had to hold Kate’s head still and he could lean close enough to try and give her reassurance.
Give himself reassurance, too?
‘It’s okay,’ he kept repeating. ‘Everything’s going to be okay.’
‘Did anyone see exactly what happened?’ the paramedics asked. ‘How fast was the car going? Was she knocked out?
‘Yes,’ Luke told them. ‘She was unconscious when I got here.’
‘Let’s get a collar on and scoop her. We need to get her off the road.’
‘No…’ Kate was trying to move. ‘I’m all right.’
‘I think she fell,’ someone spoke up from the huddle of onlookers. ‘I’m not sure that the car actually touched her but it was a bit of a blur what with the rain and everything. It all happened so fast.’
‘Stay still, Katy,’ Luke said. ‘We’ll get you into A and E so we can check you out properly.’ Right now, it didn’t make a difference whether she had fallen or been hit by a car. She had hit her head hard enough to knock her unconscious and that could well indicate a serious injury.
A cervical collar was strapped around Kate’s neck and the scoop stretcher that separated into two pieces to be eased in from either side of her body meant that she could be moved without interfering with the alignment of her spine. There were warm blankets to cover her with and the heating in the ambulance was turned up high but the trip back to the hospital only a block away was slowed because of the traffic jam and both Kate and Luke were shivering by the time they were under the bright lights of the emergency department.
‘You’re soaked,’ Kate said. ‘I’m s-so sorry, Luke. This was m-my fault…’
‘Shh…it doesn’t matter. Is anything hurting?’
‘Let’s get her onto the bed.’ A consultant was waiting to lead the team in the resuscitation area Kate’s stretcher was wheeled into. ‘On my count. One, two…three…’ The doctor’s eyes widened as he looked down at his patient. ‘Kate?’
‘Car versus pedestrian,’ the paramedic said. ‘She was KO’d.’
‘It was my fault,’ Kate whispered. ‘The lights were changing and I made a run for it.’
The scoop stretcher was being unclipped and removed. The consultant was keeping Kate’s head still.
‘Any trouble breathing?’
‘No.’
‘Any pain?’
People were removing Kate’s clothing. Someone was sticking ECG electrodes to her skin.
‘I… No, I don’t think so. Maybe my head, a bit…’
Her hair was wet, dark against the white sheet on the bed. To his horror, Luke could see a faint pink stain appearing.
‘She’s bleeding,’ he snapped. ‘From a head injury.’
The consultant glanced up. ‘And you are…?
‘Luke Anderson. I’m Kate’s…’ The hesitation was involuntary. What could he say?
I’m Kate’s friend?
I’m the father of Kate’s baby?
He was much more than either of those things, though, wasn’t he?
He was Kate’s person.
The person who loved her enough to want to spend the rest of his life with her.
So much so that in that awful moment of standing there, frozen, on the side of the road, he’d known that he couldn’t live without her.
He was…oh, God…he was in love with her, wasn’t he?
And it felt like he always had been. The truth of it had just been hiding but something had shifted in the shock of seeing Kate hit by that car and now wave after wave of this extraordinary feeling was washing over him, threatening to knock him off his feet.
‘Luke’s a surgeon.’ Kate was filling the gap his hesitation had left. ‘Over at Edinburgh’s Royal Children’s Hospital. And he’s…he’s my fiancé.’
Fiancé?
But Kate had brushed off the idea of a registry office wedding as being unnecessary. Undesirable, even. On top of his stunning epiphany, the ground was still moving beneath his feet. What on earth was going on here?
‘No way…’ one of the nurses in the room gasped, looking up from her task of wrapping a blood-pressure cuff around an arm. ‘You kept that quiet, Kate.’
‘Let’s celebrate the engagement later, shall we?’ But the consultant was smiling. ‘Right now, I want to see what damage you’ve done to yourself. What’s the BP?’
‘Ninety-five over sixty.’
‘I’m usually on the low side.’ Kate’s voice sounded steadier now. ‘Look… I can wiggle my fingers and toes. Nothing hurts.’
‘We’ll get an X-ray of your C-spine before we take that collar off. You hit your head hard enough to get knocked out, even if it wasn’t for long. And I don’t like the look of that bruise on your hip. Could have been where the car clipped you. We should check for a pelvic fracture, too.’
‘No…no X-rays…’
Another tiny, surprised silence fell.
‘I’m…’ Kate’s glance locked with Luke’s, her eyes dark with something that looked like fear. ‘I’m pregnant.’
The fear was contagious. Maybe he was less anxious about Kate now that he could see how alert she was and that she was claiming to feel all right, but there was someone else to worry about, too, wasn’t there?
He took hold of her hand and squeezed it. Kate squeezed back but didn’t release the pressure. She was clinging to his hand and that was fine by him. He didn’t want her to let go. The pressure felt like an anchor, holding him steady in a space where he still felt like he was spinning out of control.
He had fallen in love with her. The one thing he had sworn never to do. The one thing that he couldn’t trust. And Kate felt the same way. She’d said it herself only days ago. That she wasn’t in love with him. That that was the only reason that the pact was working out so perfectly. He could hear very clear echoes of her voice.
If that changed, it wouldn’t work, would it?’
You’ve persuaded me to buy into the pact and give up on my lifelong dream of being swept off my feet by a grand passion…
‘Right.’ The consultant had taken the new information in his stride. ‘Let’s do a thorough secondary survey, then. We’ll hold off on the X-rays until we know what we’re dealing with. Now…let’s have a good look at your head. What day is it today, Kate?’
‘Wednesday.’
‘Time?’
‘Um…it was after five when I left work. I was running late to meet Luke at the pub. Ow…!’
‘Sore?’
‘Bit tender.’
‘You’ve got a good lump. And it’s grazed a bit but I can’t feel anything boggy. I don’t think you’ve fractured your skull.’
‘The bruising’s superficial,’ a registrar added. ‘More consistent with hitting the road than contact with a vehicle. Abdo’s soft. Pelvis is stable.’
‘I think I tripped,’ Kate said. ‘I remember seeing the lights of the car really close and thinking that I had to get out of the way.’
The consultant undid the straps of the neck collar. ‘Don’t move yet.’ He was palpating the back of her neck. ‘Any pain?’
‘No.’
‘Try moving your neck very gently. Chin down…and up…’
‘It’s fine, honestly.’
‘To the right…and left… No pain?’
‘None. I’ve just got a bit of a headache. It’s nothing that a paracetamol won’t fix. Can I sit up now? Please?’
She was still holding Luke’s hand as pillows were found and she was helped to sit up a short time later, when everyone was satisfied that she hadn’t suffered a serious injury.
That was how he could feel her wince.
‘What is it? What’s hurting?’
‘It’s nothing.’ But Kate’s hand had gone to her abdomen. ‘Just a bit of a cramp.’
She looked up in time to catch the swift glance between Luke and the consultant. ‘What? It wasn’t enough of a bump to have hurt the baby…’ Her voice wobbled. ‘Was it…?’
‘Let’s do an ultrasound. How many weeks are you, Kate?’
‘We only found out a few weeks ago. Around seven weeks, I guess.’
‘Try not to worry. Let’s move you out of Resus to somewhere a bit quieter. We’ll do the ultrasound. I want you to stay under observation for a bit, anyway, to make sure it’s only a mild concussion.’ He smiled at Kate as they prepared to move her bed. ‘You’ve been lucky, haven’t you?’
Lucky?
Kate didn’t bother trying to wipe away the tears rolling down her face. She didn’t open her eyes either.
‘It could have been worse.’ Luke’s voice sounded raw. ‘You could have been killed, Katy.’
She started to nod but it made her headache worse. Instead, she dragged her hand over her face, taking a deep breath that went in as a sniff and came out as a sigh.
‘It’s okay, Luke. You don’t have to stay here all night.’
‘I’m not going anywhere.’
With an effort, Kate opened her eyes. ‘Don’t be daft. Your clothes are still damp. My grandma would have said you’ll catch your death if you sit around like that.’
‘Urban myth. Like breakfast being the most important meal of the day.’
‘Which is another thing. When did you last have something to eat?’
‘I can’t remember. Probably about the same time you did.’
The lopsided tilt of Luke’s mouth showed his appreciation of her attempt to show concern for his well-being but was that really what she was trying to do?
Maybe she needed him to go away and leave her alone to deal with this.
Because it was huge.
Heartbreaking…
‘I’m okay, Luke.’ Kate swallowed hard. She needed him to believe that. Just like she needed him to believe that she wasn’t in love with him. If he knew just how badly she needed him to hold her right now and keep telling her that everything would be okay—like he had when she’d been lying on that road—he might guess how she really felt.
How afraid she was of losing him, as well as their baby.
Was the perfect pact starting to unravel?
‘It’s not as if it was…real.’ Kate had to squeeze her eyes shut. Her last word came out as no more than a whisper.
‘What do you mean?’ Luke sounded bewildered. ‘Of course it was real.’
He was right. The baby had been very real. Knowing they were going to be parents had been very real. They’d been scouring the globe for the perfect place to raise a family, for heaven’s sake.
She had loved this baby already…
Maybe what she was actually saying was that their partnership wasn’t real? That there was something clinical about implementing that pact? That she didn’t think that Luke could feel this loss as much as her because he wasn’t as invested as she was in either the relationship or their future family?
But when the silence had continued long enough to make her open her eyes, what she could see in Luke’s face was confusing. He looked so tired.
Sad…
As if he was hurting as much as she was?
It wasn’t really fair to think she was the only one to feel devastated by this unexpected turn of events. He’d been delighted that she’d become pregnant so easily. As if it was confirmation that they were doing the right thing by basing their entire future on what was, as far as Luke was concerned, a kind of arranged marriage.
Or was it something else that was bothering him so much?
A flash of fear cut through her own grief. Was Luke realising that they couldn’t control everything by being so pragmatic about how they made their choices? That maybe the pact wasn’t worth the metaphorical paper it had been written on?
‘I just meant that it was so early,’ she said quietly. ‘There’s always a risk in the first trimester. And it happened so much faster than we expected, too. We’d hardly had time to get used to the idea, had we?’
‘Mmm.’ Luke didn’t sound convinced. His gaze was searching. ‘Are you sure you’re okay, Katy?
With the biggest effort ever, Kate summoned a smile. ‘I will be. I’ve got a thumping headache and all I want to do is sleep for a bit.’
‘You’ll stay here until they’re happy to let you go, though?’
‘Yeah…’
‘And you can’t be at home by yourself. You’ll need someone who can spot any signs of a change in the signs or symptoms of a head injury.’
‘Georgie’s more than capable. She’s coming in later with some clean clothes for me and she said that she’s juggled her shifts so that she can stay home tomorrow.’
Kate didn’t add that it hadn’t been a problem because Georgia had confessed her pregnancy at work and was restricted to lighter duties now. She didn’t want to think about how obvious Georgia’s bump had become in the last few weeks.
The kind of bump that Kate was no longer going to experience in the near future.
More tears were not far away. That she wanted Luke to stay so badly was a warning sign that things could unravel even more than they had already. If she wanted to keep at least their relationship intact, he needed to go. Now.
‘Go home, Luke. I just want to go to sleep for a bit so there’s no point in you sitting here.’
‘But…’ Luke had an odd expression on his face. As if he was debating whether or not to say something that she might not want to hear.
She could help him decide. Make it clear that she didn’t want to hear it.
‘Go. Please.’ Kate closed her eyes again to signal an end to the conversation. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow.’
* * *
‘Are you sure you’re up to this?’
Kate didn’t pause in her progress up the steep hill. ‘Stop trying to wrap me in cotton wool, Luke. I’m fine.’
‘No headache today?’
‘I haven’t had a headache in more than a week. I’m fine. It was a mild concussion and it was nearly two weeks ago. I only needed a day or two off work and this is the first day off that we’ve both had since then.’ Kate’s smile was bright. ‘Normal service has resumed. And I’m really looking forward to finally getting to see the inside of Edinburgh Castle.’
‘Me, too.’ But Luke could feel himself frowning as he stared straight ahead. It didn’t feel as if ‘normal service’ had been resumed. There had been something different about Kate ever since the devastating news about the baby.
Something that seemed…off-key.
He’d tried to talk to her about it, more than once, but she’d brushed it off as being no big deal.
It was all too easy and perfect anyway, she’d said. Fairy-tales don’t happen in real life. We both know that.
And that had been that, apparently. She had thrown herself back into work as soon as she’d been given the all-clear from her concussion and bruising and she seemed to be coping perfectly well.
Too well?
Like the way she’d agreed to this outing today, to visit Edinburgh Castle, as a fabulous idea—something she’d been intending to do for ages. Her smile had been bright when they’d met at the bottom of the hill and the quick hug and kiss on the cheek had told him how pleased she was to see him.
It was Kate who was keeping the conversation going, too, every time a silence fell.
Like it had in the last couple of minutes.
‘Oh, look at that. Another specialist whisky shop.’
‘It’s a popular drop in these parts. There’s a kilt-maker. Do you want to go and try one on?’
Kate laughed. ‘No, thanks. Do you?’
Luke grinned. ‘I’d be too worried about a windy day, wearing one of those.’ He resisted another urge to take hold of her hand as they kept climbing towards the iconic castle on the top of the hill.
He hadn’t held her hand since that awful night in the emergency department.
They hadn’t made love since then either.
And it was killing him that Kate didn’t seem bothered. That it felt as if she had taken a step back. Because the intimacy that had been created by knowing that they had a baby on the way had been extinguished?
He wanted to tell her that they could try again. That, this time, everything would be all right.
But he couldn’t make promises like that, could he? She was right. Fairy-tales rarely happened in real life. Look at the mess his marriage to Nadia had turned into. Not believing in fairy-tales had been the very reason he’d decided that resurrecting ‘the pact’ had been such a brilliant idea and that it had a much better chance of working long term.
And it had worked.
Until the moment he’d realised that he was in love with Kate.
That should have been enough to make him back off. To—figuratively—tear up that pact because it was no longer valid.
He could never be simply her friend any more.
But the last thing Luke wanted to do was back off. He couldn’t, even if it meant he was headed for the same kind of heartbreak that he’d experienced before. He was too far gone.
He wanted the fairy-tale, dammit.
All the ‘crazy stuff’ as he’d called it back when he’d had that conversation with Kate on their first dinner date. When he’d set out to persuade her that friendship was the way to go. That the pact had merit.
How ironic was that?
She’d accepted the invitation and now she was the one who thought that it could only work if the ground rules were respected. And he was the one who wanted more. Who wanted the crazy stuff of not being able to keep their hands off each other. Of drowning in eye contact that felt like you’d discovered the meaning of life. That kind of telepathy where you could say so much through no more than a touch or a glance.
Could it happen one day? If they could stay together and build on what they already had?
If it didn’t, could he live with that? Being in love with someone who didn’t feel the same way about him?
He didn’t really have a choice. Not if he didn’t want to risk losing her.
He’d lapsed into silence again and the quick glance from Kate told him that it had gone on for a heartbeat too long.
‘I haven’t even talked to you properly for a few days,’ she said. ‘How’s work been?’
‘Busy. Had a hell of case yesterday. A ten-year-old kid who had a DVD in his hand when the car crashed. It sliced his neck like a knife and nicked his carotid artery.’
‘Good grief. He could have bled to death in no time at all.’
‘I know. The ambulance crew did a brilliant job. Didn’t Georgia tell you about it? She was on the crew.’
‘I’ve barely seen her in the last couple of days. Sometimes our hours make us like ships passing in the night. I worked late last night so she was in bed by the time I got home and I slept in this morning, with it being my first day off for a while, so she was gone by the time I got up.’ Kate raised her eyebrows. ‘I thought she was on lighter duties now. What was she doing out on the road?’
‘I asked her about that. She’s been given one of those cars apparently. The ones that get sent out first—or as backup for a major incident? It means she can assess a scene for what’s needed and give urgent treatment but has to call for backup for any lifting or transfer.’
‘Oh, yeah.’ Kate was smiling again. ‘She told me that was in the pipeline a while back. I got the impression she had been whinging so much about the prospect of being stuck in an office and bored stiff, they bowed under pressure.’
The smile seemed to fade more quickly than it usually did. It had to be hard for Kate to be living with someone who was so far along in her pregnancy that it was the first thing everyone noticed about her. It had given Luke a jolt when he’d seen Georgia yesterday. Just for a split second, before he’d focused on the critically injured young boy being brought into his care, he’d felt the loss all over again.
The loss of their baby. His baby. The start of the family he wanted to have with Kate.
That wasn’t what Kate wanted to talk about right now, though. And if he steered the conversation in that direction, this easy communication between them would dry up completely because Kate probably wouldn’t make the effort to break that silence.
‘She certainly got a good dose of excitement this time.’ Luke abandoned any desire to change the direction of their conversation. ‘She came back in the helicopter with the boy and got someone else to take her car back, I guess. Anyway, she was keeping pressure on the bleed and she wasn’t going to let go of the padding until he was in Theatre, if necessary.’
‘And was it?’
‘He was in decompensating hypovolaemic shock. I wasn’t going to risk her letting go and getting any further blood loss until we could stabilise him. We started fluid resuscitation in Emergency and then I put a clamp on the artery the instant Georgia let go, and we rushed him up to Theatre as fast as possible. All very dramatic—it was like we were in an episode of some TV medical show.’
Talking shop was the last thing Luke wanted to be doing right now but at least Kate seemed genuinely interested. More engaged than she had been, in fact, ever since the accident.
‘Georgia wanted to watch so I let her gown up and come into Theatre with us.’
‘She must have been thrilled. I’m sure I’ll hear all about it when I get home tonight. If we’re not too late with our dinner, that is.’
Luke’s heart sank. Did that mean Kate had no intention of coming back to his apartment this evening?
No desire to share his bed, even for an hour or two?
He’d done his research. He knew that it was safe to have sex again as soon as you and your partner felt physically and emotionally ready but that it was best to wait until any miscarriage-related bleeding had stopped. That usually happened within two weeks.
Kate had said that ‘normal service’ had resumed but she wouldn’t refer to making love in such pragmatic terms, would she?
His heart sank even further.
Why not?
It wasn’t ‘making love’ as far as she was concerned, was it? It was just an unexpectedly good physical connection.
A friendship…with benefits.
Had he really believed he’d found the answer when he’d been so blown away by how amazing the sex had been with Kate? That a friendship with benefits was nothing short of perfect?
This didn’t feel perfect any more.
It felt…wrong…