THIS WAS WHAT had been missing from her life for so long.
Being held when she felt so sad.
Knowing that someone else understood how she felt.
Rebecca closed her eyes and fell into that kiss. There was no way she was going to question the wisdom of what was happening or what the consequences might be.
She’d been waiting for this moment for ever. She just hadn’t realised it.
That touch of lips on hers was so heartbreakingly tender it should have made her want to cry but, instead, it covered the source of the tears that had already been falling and smothered them like sand on the embers of a fire.
It was the feeling that someone genuinely cared about her.
Loved her, even...
No. Not someone. There was only one person who had ever made her feel quite like this. Only one person who could really understand exactly how she felt, because he had been there and he felt the same way.
Tom...
The name escaped her lips on a sigh but Rebecca didn’t realise it was audible until she felt the change in the way she was being held. The tension in the muscles of his arms was instant—preparation for being taken away?
Yes. Thomas was letting her go as she opened her eyes. He was turning his head, too, but not before she’d seen the glint of tears in his eyes and something that looked a lot like...regret?
And then he ran his fingers through his hair, raising his face to the streetlamp above them. His eyes were tightly shut.
‘Sorry,’ he muttered. ‘I shouldn’t have done that.’
Why not?
Because it meant that he was throwing away the rule book about keeping so much distance between them?
Because he had another partner that he’d just cheated on? The lines of pain on his face suggested that that was the more likely explanation.
The chill that ran down Rebecca’s spine actually made her shiver. But she was still aware of the warmth that kiss had delivered. The comfort of feeling that he still cared.
Did she still care? Judging by the urge to erase those lines of pain around his eyes and mouth, apparently she did.
‘It’s okay, Tom.’ Rebecca touched his arm. ‘We were both upset. It’s my fault. I... I shouldn’t have asked you to dance. Dragged us both back into the past like that.’
He opened his eyes and looked down at her and she could see nothing but sadness in his eyes.
‘It never goes away, does it?’
‘No.’ But Rebecca pulled in a deeper breath. ‘It does change, though. It gets less painful. There are good things to remember, too.’
His nod was slow. One corner of his mouth lifted a little.
‘Yeah...like how much she loved to dance. She was such a happy little thing, wasn’t she?’
Rebecca nodded. Gwen had been the happiest of children. She would wake up with a smile on her face and her arms outstretched to greet the people she loved and the new day that would always bring excitement. And she spread that happiness around her with such abundance that anybody nearby would catch it and then give it back and it would get bigger every time.
The world without Gwen had lost so much light. It was still dark in places and Rebecca knew it wouldn’t help to step any closer to those corners. It wouldn’t help her and it might well drive Thomas back to where he’d been—unable to find any way out.
‘It’s okay,’ she said again. ‘It didn’t mean anything more than sharing a memory. It...it wasn’t cheating or anything.’
‘Cheating?’ Had Thomas taken a step back or did it just feel like he had? ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
Rebecca bit her lip. This was really overstepping boundaries. A shared past was something they couldn’t avoid but Thomas had been very clear that his current personal life was out of bounds. They were just beginning to feel their way into what could become a friendship. Making a reference to his sex life was more than awkward.
It was excruciating.
He was still waiting for a response. Frowning, now, as if he was fitting pieces of a difficult puzzle together.
‘Did you feel like you were cheating?’ he asked quietly. ‘Are you...with someone, Becca?’
‘No!’ The word came out more vehemently than she had intended. As if the idea of being with someone was shocking. She followed it with a huff that sounded incredulous. ‘Not me, I thought you might be...’
There was a long moment of silence. Rebecca shivered again and wrapped her arms around her body. She didn’t dare meet his gaze. Instead, she turned her head to look along the footpath. In the direction she needed to take to go home.
To escape?
Thomas cleared his throat. ‘I’m not,’ he said. ‘Are you?’
Rebecca raised her gaze. ‘No.’
Their gazes held. The question they both wanted to ask hung like a cartoon bubble over their heads. Until they both spoke at the same time.
‘Has there been...?’
‘Have you...?’
Another pause. And then it happened again.
‘No,’ they said in unison.
The silence had a stunned echo to it this time.
It was Rebecca who broke it.
‘Why not?’ she whispered.
‘Why?’ he countered.
‘Because...because it’s been five years. And I know... I know how lonely it can get.’
Thomas looked away. ‘Guess I haven’t been ready,’ he said. ‘I focused on work enough for that to be all that mattered.’
‘Me, too,’ Rebecca admitted. ‘And the time just kept going past. I’d forgotten how long it was until...until you came back to Paddington’s. I guess I’ve just taken things day by day for so long, it’s become engrained. I never look too far into the future.’
‘And I discovered that it’s better never to look too far into the past.’
Rebecca felt herself become very still. This was a huge admission, wasn’t it?
She hadn’t felt this close to Thomas since...well, maybe since the very early days of their relationship. When it had been so easy to say anything and trust that it would be accepted and understood. When anything seemed possible and glowed with the prospect of real happiness.
It had been a very different kind of closeness at the end—during those awful days when they’d sat in the intensive care unit beside Gwen’s bed. Holding each other’s hands so tightly that it could become painful—but never as painful as what was happening around them. That connection had been more powerful, perhaps, but far less happy.
With the embrace of that dance still lingering on her skin, Rebecca chose to tap into that first memory of the connection they’d discovered with each other. It made it feel so natural to say more.
‘We’re both stuck, aren’t we?’ she suggested softly. ‘Living in the present.’
‘It’s not a bad place to be.’
‘But we’re still young. There’s a lot more to life than work...’
Thomas moved his head in another one of those slow, thoughtful nods. He even offered her the ghost of another smile.
‘Like dancing?’
Rebecca smiled back and mirrored his nod.
‘I’ll keep that in mind.’ His faint smile vanished. ‘It’s getting late. I’ll walk you home.’
‘No need. It’s out of your way. I can get a cab.’
‘At this time on a Friday night? You’ll be lucky.’
Rebecca wanted to agree. She wanted to walk with Thomas and keep talking. If they did, maybe she could find that connection that seemed to have vanished again.
Or had she imagined it?
Fate intervened in any case. A black cab was heading towards them, with its yellow light glowing to advertise its availability. Thomas raised his arm and it pulled into the curb.
‘There you go. I was wrong...’ His smile was tight. Relieved? He wanted to get away, didn’t he? So that he didn’t have to revisit any more painful memories? Or to admit he might have been wrong about anything else—like the way he’d abandoned her when she’d needed him more than ever?
Rebecca opened the back door of the cab. ‘Want to share?’
She could feel his hesitation. She saw him open his mouth as if he was about to accept the invitation. And then his expression changed—as though he’d just walked into a mental brick wall.
One of those well-built barriers?
‘I’ll walk.’ His voice had a gruff edge. ‘I need the exercise after those Yorkshire puddings.’
She turned her head as the cab pulled away. She could see Thomas through the back window, already heading in the opposite direction.
Alone.
Going back to his apartment where he would still be alone.
As she would when she got back to hers.
It felt wrong.
A lot more wrong than it would have felt last week. Or even yesterday.
She hadn’t been wrong about finding that connection again, had she? It was bigger than simply the fact that they’d kissed each other. Or admitted that there’d been no one else in their lives since their marriage ended.
Something had shifted in the layers that had been used to bury what had been their marriage. Had Thomas seen the same glint of what had been uncovered?
Did he realise that the connection they’d had was still there?
That it was possible that it might actually be even stronger?
That wasn’t the real question, though, was it?
Rebecca felt suddenly weary enough to rest her head on the back of the seat and close her eyes.
The real question was whether he would want to uncover any more of what had been buried for so long. Whether she wanted that herself.
‘And I discovered that it’s better never to look too far into the past.’
You wouldn’t find anything if you chose not to look. And you could make it easy not to see by kicking the layers back into place.
She hadn’t intended to force either of them to look tonight. Asking him to dance had been impulsive and the shared memories that it had provoked had been inevitable.
Had it made things harder?
Judging by the ache in her own heart, Rebecca suspected that it had.
That ache suggested that she’d never really stopped loving Thomas. Getting closer to him again could mean that she was setting herself up for a whole new heartbreak—one that could mean she would be stuck for even longer.
Alone. With no partner in her current life or dreams of a family in her future.
Something like a groan escaped along with her sigh.
‘You all right, love?’
Rebecca opened her eyes to see the cab driver watching her in his rear-view mirror.
‘Almost there,’ he added cheerfully. ‘You’ll be home before you know it.’
She summoned a smile and turned her head in time to see the signpost of her street flash past.
This was where she lived.
But it wasn’t a home any more. Not really.
* * *
Work was failing to provide the complete distraction that Thomas Wolfe had come to depend on.
He’d spent most of his weekend at the hospital and most of that in his office, writing an article for a paediatric cardiology journal on the relationship between the diagnosis of asthma and dilated cardiomyopathy. He took his time over ward rounds on both Saturday and Sunday mornings but his visits to the intensive care unit were very brief.
Penny was the patient in most need of frequent monitoring but, theoretically, she was under the care of her surgical team at the moment and wouldn’t be transferred back to the cardiology ward until Rebecca was happy with her condition. He was on call, of course, if any consultation was needed but, so far, everything was going very smoothly. They’d kept her asleep a little longer than planned but her sedation was now being gradually lifted and it was hoped that she would be awake and ready to move to the ward first thing on Monday morning.
His visits to the unit hadn’t coincided with any that Rebecca might be making and that was probably a good thing because Thomas wasn’t sure he was ready to see her again just yet.
What had happened on Friday night was still doing his head in. Thoughts kept intruding, even when he should have been completely engrossed in his writing.
A diagnosis of moderate persistent bronchial asthma was made in the four-year-old girl. A year later she was admitted with features of an acute exacerbation, including breathlessness, cough, sleep disturbances and poor response to nebulised salbutamol...
His gaze drifted to the series of chest X-rays he was planning to include in the next section, but he wasn’t looking at the evidence of fluid build-up in the lungs.
It was that kiss that was the problem.
Or maybe it had been the dancing.
Then again, he kept remembering—with a slight sense of shock—that Rebecca had told him she was single. That she hadn’t been with anyone else in the last five years.
Why not?
It couldn’t have been because of any lack of interest on the part of the men she must have encountered. She was gorgeous. Clever. Funny. Such a positive person, too. That was where Gwen’s sunny nature had come from. Rebecca had a smile that could light up a room and she automatically looked for the bright side of anything, no matter how bad it was.
Even when it was the worst thing imaginable. She’d been the one to bring up the awful subject of organ donation, when they’d been sitting so helplessly, day after day, beside the bedside of their critically injured daughter.
‘If there’s even the shadow of something good that could come out of this,’ she’d said, ‘maybe it’s the fact that the lives of other people’s precious children could be saved.’
She’d been the one who had arranged Gwen’s funeral. The tiny pink casket with bright flowers painted all over it. The pink and white balloons that were released that contained little packets of wildflower seeds. The songs that had come from beloved television shows and Disney movies.
‘It’s the last party I can ever give her,’ she’d said. ‘I want it to be what would have made her happy.’
Oh, God...
So many memories were coming out of the woodwork. He tried to shake them off before that lump in his throat made it too hard to breathe. Before he had to fight back tears, the way he had when he’d made the mistake of kissing Rebecca and could feel the grief of losing her—and Gwen—doing its best to wrap his heart in those vicious tentacles all over again.
But why was she still alone?
She hadn’t blamed herself for the accident. She certainly hadn’t blamed him. She hadn’t even blamed the nursery school who had been responsible for Gwen’s safety that day.
She’d moved on. She’d been able to keep working with children. More than that, she’d become involved with the whole transplant side of medicine and even changed the direction of her own career to become as involved as it was possible to get.
If she could handle the emotional side of that, why hadn’t she moved on enough to find a new partner? To start a new family, even, which had always been her dream of the perfect future.
There was only one answer that Thomas could come up with.
He’d hurt her so badly, she simply didn’t want to risk it again.
And yet, here she was trying to establish a friendship with him. She seemed to want to spend time with him and it had definitely been her idea to have that dance.
It didn’t make sense.
She’d accused him of running away. Of leaving their marriage even while they’d still been together.
Did this mean that she was prepared to forgive him?
That it was possible there was more than friendship to be salvaged from the wreck of their lives together?
It had felt like that, when he’d been holding her in his arms while she cried.
When he’d kissed her and felt her kissing him back.
But it was doing his head in.
Part of him wanted nothing more than a second chance.
Part of him wanted to keep well clear of all those memories to protect himself.
But another part still cared enough to be determined not to hurt Rebecca again. He’d failed her once before and it certainly hadn’t been intentional. How could he be sure that it wouldn’t happen again?
It would be better for everybody if he dismissed the possibility.
He carried on writing.
Respiratory distress worsened to the point that mechanical ventilation was required. The most likely diagnosis considered at this stage included complicated severe asthma, infection, fluid overload and underlying cardiac disease...
His hands stilled again as he lost the thread of his next sentence. Shutting his eyes for a moment, Thomas tried to force himself to focus. This article was taking a lot longer than usual to pull together but he would get it done; he just needed more time.
And that was the answer to a lot of things, wasn’t it?
More time.
He could step back from the confusion that a friendship with his ex-wife was causing. Given time, he would be able to think more clearly and decide what the best course of action might be. It seemed that trying to set her free by ending their marriage hadn’t worked but something needed to happen so that they could both move on in their personal lives.
By finding new partners?
Thomas could feel himself scowling at a computer screen covered with words that were no more than a blur.
He didn’t want a new partner.
Worse than that, the thought of Rebecca with someone else was...unacceptable?
Oh, man, his head really was a mess. And it was starting to interfere with his work.
How had he managed to keep his personal head space successfully separated from anything professional for the last five years?
Because he had been a long way away from Rebecca, that was why. He hadn’t had to see her every day. To talk to her and watch her work. He hadn’t spent any time with her alone.
And he hadn’t even thought about dancing with her, let alone kissing her.
Okay, so that wasn’t completely true.
With a sigh, Thomas saved his file and closed the programme. He needed some fresh air. A brisk walk or maybe a run that would not only distract him, it might tire him out enough to sleep properly tonight.
A long run. All the way around Regent’s Park and Primrose Hill, perhaps.
No. Too many memories, including some very recent ones.
Hyde Park, then. It was closer, bigger and far less familiar.
Safer. For both himself and the woman he had loved so totally.
It was exactly what he had always vowed to do. To put Rebecca’s needs above his own.
To keep her safe.
* * *
Any working week in a field of medicine that included critically unwell patients was a roller-coaster of good moments, worrying moments and—at the bottom of one of those loops—the really heartbreaking moments that made you wonder if you were up to the kind of stress this job could entail.
Rebecca was about to face one of those low swoops and she had to gather every ounce of her courage to do it.
Walking away from one of the good moments was making it harder. She had just come from the paediatric cardiology ward where her visit to Penelope Craig had coincided with Thomas doing his ward round.
The smile with which he had greeted her had been a relief. She’d barely seen him all week and had convinced herself that she’d wrecked any chance of friendship between them after that night at the Frog and Peach.
Dancing with him, for heaven’s sake.
Crying on his shoulder. Was it really so surprising that he’d tried to comfort her by kissing her? It hadn’t meant anything but it could well have been enough to have him raise those barriers between them again.
But he’d smiled at her as she entered Penny’s room and it hadn’t just been a polite greeting. There was a warmth in his eyes that said he was happy to see her. Had he noticed that their paths hadn’t crossed in so many days?
Perhaps he thought she’d been deliberately avoiding him and he was relieved, as well. The truth was that Rebecca had been flat out. The Teddy Bears’ Picnic was happening this coming weekend and the last minute organisation had taken up every spare second she’d had, and then some, including several very late nights.
So she was weary, and that always accentuated any emotional components of her job.
Everybody was smiling in Penny’s room this morning.
‘So she can come home next week?’ Julia asked. ‘And she doesn’t need to be on oxygen all the time?’
‘Not unless she’s getting breathless or becomes unwell,’ Thomas told her. ‘And that’s looking less likely every day.’
‘And we can let her do whatever she wants? Go back to school?’
‘Not just yet. We’ll keep her in until after the weekend and see how she’s doing and then we’ll talk about school. Let her walk around as much as she wants to and you could take her to the playground.’
‘I can dance,’ Penny told Rebecca. ‘Just like Sapphire Ballerina Bear. Want to see?’ She scrambled off her mother’s lap, put her arms in the air and turned herself in a slightly wobbly circle. She didn’t seem to be in any significant pain as she bounced back from her major surgery. The grin on her face made everybody smile all over again.
‘That’s fantastic,’ Rebecca said. She held out the object in her hand to Julia. ‘This is for you. Keep it with you at all times from now on.’
‘Oh...’ Julia’s gaze sought that of her husband and her glance was fearful.
‘It’s the pager,’ Peter said.
‘Yes. Penny’s on the top of the transplant list now and a new heart could become available at any time. If it does, even if it’s somewhere else in the country, you’ll get paged and you’ll need to come back to the hospital immediately. That doesn’t mean that the transplant will definitely go ahead because sometimes unexpected things happen but you’ll need to be here and be prepared. We repeat a lot of tests to make sure nothing’s changed.’
Julia and Peter both nodded solemnly.
‘In the meantime...’ Rebecca smiled at Penny who was twirling again. ‘Enjoy everything that you haven’t been able to do for so long. I’ll come back again before you go home in case you have any questions but you’ve got my phone number, too. Don’t hesitate to call.’
‘Thank you so much, Dr Scott,’ Peter said. ‘You have no idea how much this means to us all.’
‘Oh, I think I do.’ The glance in Thomas’s direction happened without thinking and the look in his eyes was better than any smile. They both knew how precious for Julia and Peter this time with their daughter would be. They both knew they were providing a gift they’d never been able to receive themselves.
The connection was most definitely still there.
And, regardless of whether either of them would choose for it to happen or not, it seemed to be getting stronger.
So it was no wonder that her next appointment was a prospect that weighed down both her feet and her heart. She could feel both getting heavier as she slid away from the joy of Penny’s visit to the sadness that she knew she would find in the quiet space of the most private room of the paediatric intensive care unit, where six-year-old Ryan Walker had been declared brain-dead late yesterday afternoon.
Alistair North was waiting for her outside the unit.
‘Ryan’s parents are with him at the moment. They were present for the second round of tests last night and they’ve been here ever since. I paged you when they were ready to ask about what’s going to happen next.’
Rebecca nodded. As a doctor who worked in the field of organ transplants, she was not allowed to have anything to do with the range of tests conducted to confirm brain death. These were normally done twice, by two different doctors, spaced apart by at least twelve hours.
‘No inconclusive results, then?’
Alistair shook his head, his face sombre. ‘I think it was the angiography that hit them the hardest. The image is so clear when all you’ve got is a dark space inside the skull with absolutely no blood flow.’
Rebecca nodded. She knew exactly how devastating that kind of image could be.
‘His grandparents are in one of the relatives’ rooms, looking after his little sister, Gemma.’
Alistair introduced her to Louise and Colin Walker, Ryan’s parents, who were sitting, their hands linked and their faces pale with shock, beside his bed.
Wisps of red hair showed under the bandages on Ryan’s head and his freckles stood out on a pale little face. Only six years old, this was a tragedy that touched everybody’s hearts.
‘I’m so very, very sorry,’ she said quietly. ‘I haven’t been involved with Ryan’s care since his accident but I know that everything possible was done.’
They both nodded but Colin was frowning. He didn’t understand why she was here.
‘You asked about what happens next,’ Alistair said. ‘So there are decisions that need to be made. Difficult decisions.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I asked Dr Scott—Rebecca—to come because she’s had a lot of experience with supporting people to make these kinds of decisions.’
‘You mean about...about when we turn off the life support?’ Louise’s voice broke and she covered her eyes with her hands. ‘And what...what happens then?’
‘There’s no hurry,’ Rebecca said gently. ‘We can give you all the time you need. And all the support you—and the rest of your family—might find helpful.’
‘Rebecca is a surgeon,’ Alistair continued quietly. ‘There’s never a good time to introduce a subject like this, but she’s the head of our transplant team. She’s come to talk to you about the possibility of Ryan being an organ donor.’
Colin Walker’s face became even paler as he joined the dots. ‘No,’ he whispered. ‘How could you even ask?’
‘I understand,’ Rebecca said into the horrified silence. ‘I’m not here to do anything more than introduce myself at the moment. To leave you with some information and my phone number. You can call me anytime at all—day or night—if you have any questions or need to talk.’
Colin couldn’t look at her and Louise still had her hands over her face.
‘All I ask is that you think about it,’ she added softly. ‘And I can tell you that the gift of life can help—for both sides.’
She glanced at Alistair and he nodded. It was time for her to leave and not seem to be putting any pressure at all on these grieving parents. The subject had been raised and Alistair and the team in the intensive care unit would continue to care for Ryan until they were ready to make their decision.
Walking through the double doors to leave the unit, Rebecca could see a woman coming out of one of the relatives’ rooms, holding the hand of a small girl who had bright red curly hair and a freckled button nose. About two years old, she had to be Gemma—Ryan Walker’s little sister. Rebecca smiled at the grandmother but kept going. This wasn’t the time to introduce herself to the wider family.
It was good that Ryan wasn’t an only child. Not that that could change how devastating this whole situation was but Rebecca had thought more than once over the years she’d been involved in this specialty that it could make a real difference in the future. She’d seen it happen on the rare occasions when she’d become involved at this earlier stage of the process of organ donation. These parents were forced to carry on. To stay engaged with all aspects of life—including each other?
Every time, it made her wonder whether that would have made a difference to herself and Thomas and she would feel a beat of her own loss. Not just for Gwen, or for their marriage, but for the larger family that could have been.
She paused in front of the elevators, closing her eyes against the pain of it all.
Maybe Thomas hadn’t been so wrong, after all, to distance himself from having to experience it again and again.
She wanted to tell him that. To tell him that she understood. More than she had at the time.
That she could forgive him...
No. Right now she didn’t want to talk to him.
She just wanted him to hold her in his arms and comfort her. To remind her that they’d done the right thing when they hadn’t hesitated to agree to donate Gwen’s organs. When they’d known that they wouldn’t be able to hold their precious daughter when she took her last breath.
They would only be able to hold each other.