LAKEVIEW HOSPITAL’S small emergency department was back to normal.
Only a couple of the cubicle beds were occupied and the treatment room Fiona and Shane were pushing the stretcher towards was empty apart from the staff members who had been alerted to their incoming patient via radio communication.
Just what she would have expected on a quiet Tuesday afternoon.
Having Nick Stewart among the waiting team had not been expected but Fiona knew Hugh had been planning to give him a guided tour of the hospital today. They’d been talking about it last night when she had taken Nick to dinner at the Pattersons’. She also knew it was something she would have to get used to. Lakeview’s medical director was the doctor most likely to be available in a department where patient numbers were not sufficient to justify a full-time consultant.
‘This is Ricky Bennett,’ she announced, as they drew the stretcher to a halt beside the bed. ‘Twenty-one years old. He’s sustained superficial and partial thickness burns to his right leg and foot, with some splash burns to his arms.’
A look passed between the two doctors.
‘Go for it,’ Hugh invited. ‘This is going to be your department soon enough.’
The idea seemed far less strange than it had only a few days ago when Fiona had received the startling news of who was going to be the locum medical director.
‘Hey, Ricky.’ Nick leaned towards the frightened young man who was pale and shivering violently beneath his covering of blankets. ‘I’m Nick Stewart, one of Lakeview’s doctors, and we’re going to take good care of you.’
His voice was calm. Confident and reassuring. Yes. She could get used to this.
‘I hear you’ve had a run-in with a pot of boiling oil,’ Nick continued sympathetically. ‘How’s the pain at the moment?’
‘I’m c-c-cold…’
‘He’s had fifteen milligrams of morphine with reasonable effect,’ Fiona told Nick. ‘The head chef at the restaurant was quick to get him under running cold water and the area had been cooled for a good fifteen minutes by the time we got there.’
‘Megan?’ Hugh turned to the younger of the two nurses present. ‘Could you get some cuddlies, please?’
‘Sure.’ Eager to respond, Megan brushed past Nick to leave the treatment room. Fiona knew she would be heading for the warming cupboard where the folded, fluffy sheets were kept hot enough to be a real help in warming cold patients. And Ricky was cold, which had been an unavoidable complication of treatment thanks to the necessity of cooling the burnt areas of skin for long enough to stop continuing tissue damage. The best that Fiona and Shane had been able to do en route had been to cover him with a foil sheet under the blankets to prevent any further loss of body heat.
‘Estimation of area?’
‘Maybe eight to ten per cent,’ Fiona said. ‘No airway involvement. He’s been tachycardic at 120, respiratory rate of 30. Blood pressure’s been stable at 115 on 75.’
‘Let’s get another set of vitals as soon as we’ve transferred him,’ Nick said to Lizzie, the nurse manager. Then he turned back to Ricky. ‘On a pain scale of one to ten, with one being no pain and ten being the worst you can imagine, what score would you give your pain right now?’
‘A…a…f-f-four, I g-guess.’
‘We’ll do something more about that in just a minute. Hang in there, buddy. You’re doing really well.’
It was impossible not to be impressed with Nick’s manner. Fiona had seen a lot of doctors in professional settings and she knew that this kind of genuine confidence and warmth could only come from a combination of experience and skill. Even though he was in a totally new hospital with staff and equipment he was not yet familiar with, Nick knew exactly what he was doing and he expected to do it well.
Megan was back with the cuddlies and they put one on the bed before they transferred their patient. Fiona unhooked the oxygen tubing from the portable cylinder and attached it to the overhead supply as the three men in the room lifted Ricky from the stretcher.
Lizzie wrapped a blood-pressure cuff around his arm and put an oxygen saturation monitor probe on his finger. Megan got shears to cut the wet denim from the remains of Ricky’s jeans still covering his uninjured leg and pelvic area. Fiona swapped the electrode leads monitoring heart rate and rhythm and then covered the top of Ricky’s body with another warmed sheet, but he was still shivering.
‘You’re still feeling cold, aren’t you, Ricky?’
‘Y-yes. F-f-freezing…’
Nick looked at the IV cannula Fiona had inserted in Ricky’s forearm.
‘Still patent?’ he queried.
‘Should be.’
‘Let’s start some warmed saline. Megan, could you get that, please?’
‘Sure.’ But Megan’s doubtful expression didn’t match her tone.
‘Put a bag of saline in the microwave,’ Lizzie told her. ‘Give it about two minutes.’
‘I’ll show you,’ Hugh offered. ‘I should go and check on Wally and see if we’ve got his angina properly sorted. You happy here, Nick?’
‘Absolutely.’
Fiona moved the blankets to cover Ricky’s uninjured leg and tucked more around his shoulders. Part of the shivering was due to the shock of the injury and the pain caused but, in a way, Ricky was lucky the injury was so painful. The reassurance Nick was dispensing as he gave their patient a secondary survey to exclude any other injuries was not misplaced.
The only dressing Fiona had applied after cooling the area had been cling film so they could all see the red and blistered skin. If the burns had been full thickness the wounds would have been much darker, even black, and they would have been painless because of nerve destruction. They would also have had no chance of healing without surgery and grafts. He was also lucky there had been no involvement of his face, hands or genital area. Given the depth of the burns, his age and general health, this injury would not be deemed major.
Megan came in with the warmed saline and a dazzling smile for Nick that made Fiona blink. Good grief. Megan was a close friend. They had spent a lot of time together in the last few years but Fiona had never seen her being quite this obvious about being attracted to someone.
‘Thanks, Megan. Can you hang that, please?’
‘Of course.’
‘And, Lizzie, could you draw up some more morphine, please? Let’s get Ricky’s pain sorted before we think about dressings.’
Hugh returned to the treatment room as Shane left, pushing the stretcher clear with the intention of getting the ambulance tidied and ready for another call. Megan was still busy closing off the IV tubing and then transferring the spike of the giving set to the bag of warmer fluid. Fiona should have been concentrating on completing her paperwork but she was distracted.
Having noticed that smile and then Megan’s heightened colour as she attended to the task Nick had requested, she couldn’t help watching to find out if she might be reading too much into the non-verbal communication from her friend. Consequently, she was only half listening to the doctors as they discussed a treatment plan for Ricky.
Transfer to a burns unit was not necessary but they would admit him for at least twenty-four hours for observation, pain relief and wound dressing. A tetanus booster would be needed and they were talking about whether prophylactic antibiotics were indicated as Fiona made a new effort to attend to the gaps on her patient report form.
Was Nick as aware as she was of how attracted Megan was to their new staff member? Maybe he was totally oblivious to women that smiled all the time and stole such frequent glances in his direction because it was something that happened all the time.
Fiona had to swallow hard to try and suppress a rather bitter taste in her mouth. Not that she could blame Megan for her reaction to Nick but she had seen it all before, hadn’t she? With Al. Women had always thrown themselves in his direction.
‘It comes with the territory, babe. It means nothing. Deal with it. And for God’s sake, stop taking any notice of the rubbish they put in those tabloids.’
She’d been so naïve. It had taken such a long time to finally lose her trust and she hadn’t dealt with it very well at all in the end. Reminders of that miserable period of her life were not exactly something she wanted to have to deal with now either. Not when she had been so confident it was so far behind her it didn’t matter any more.
Signing off the increments of morphine she had administered to Ricky, Fiona turned the page to document the trauma area on the body diagrams supplied on the back of the form. A task that would have taken only seconds if she wasn’t still distracted.
Megan was seeing Nick fully dressed. Groomed and clean-shaven, although his colouring was dark enough to always have that kind of designer stubble shadow. What would she have thought if she’d run into him early that morning, as she had done when their routes to the bathroom had coincided? With his hair rumpled, his face roughened with definite stubble and an overwhelmingly male body covered only with the boxer shorts and singlet he must have slept in, he had made the size of the villa’s wide hallway appear to shrink dramatically.
Megan would probably have simply melted into a puddle on the carpet, given that the encounter had been enough to give Fiona a very odd internal prickle. Fortunately, it had been easy to dismiss the strange flutter as just an indication that she and Nick needed more time to get used to each other again. To find their way back to the comfortable friendship they’d once had.
Nick had smiled at her this morning.
He had also smiled at Megan when she’d given him the bag of fluids.
Not that she was jealous or anything. That would be ludicrous. Megan was a good few years younger than she was. Probably about Nick’s age. She was single and pretty with her auburn hair and green eyes, and she was great company. Ideal girlfriend material, in fact.
Fiona’s only vested interest was that she cared about Nick. The way a big sister should care. A potential girlfriend would have to be rather special to be good enough. And Megan was that special, she told herself firmly. It would be great if the two of them hit it off. Nick might even decide to settle in Queenstown and that way Sam would have his uncle around for years to come.
She should be feeling delighted.
Only she wasn’t. Was it just that she felt somehow possessive because Nick qualified as part of her family? She had no right to. It was also nothing to be proud of when she couldn’t deny being pleased that there didn’t seem to be any return of the sparks Megan was emitting. As arrangements were made to leave Ricky in Lizzie and Megan’s capable care for the moment, both Hugh and Nick moved towards the corner bench Fiona was leaning against.
‘Nick’s pretty well up to speed on our layout and timetables for clinics and visiting consultants,’ Hugh said. ‘I dragged him through the ward rounds and then I had him on a telephone for half an hour, chasing up progress reports on all the patients we evacuated on Saturday.’
‘Oh, good!’ Fiona’s attention swung to Nick. ‘I couldn’t see anything much in the papers this morning. What did you find out? Did they end up operating on Claire?’
‘The woman with the head injury? No. They’ve still got her in an induced coma but the intracranial pressure is responding to drug therapy. They’re planning another scan and they might lighten sedation later today.’
‘And that man you took care of? The one with the chest injury?’
‘His name’s Ken. He had some pretty major surgery and is still on assisted ventilation in ICU, but it sounds like he’s improving as well.’
Fiona liked it that Nick had found out the names of these patients. They were people, not just cases to him and he seemed as pleased to be reporting good news as she was to hear it.
‘Your guy with the fractured pelvis, John, is doing really well. He’s gone to the orthopaedic ward.’
‘And we’ve discharged the last of the people we kept in for observation,’ Hugh added. ‘Pretty lucky, really, that there were no fatalities.’
‘There could have been, if your emergency services weren’t so impressive.’
‘Hey, thanks!’ Fiona grinned at Nick. ‘We like to show off to newcomers, you know.’
‘That’s good.’ Hugh winked at Nick. ‘Because my replacement here is free for the rest of the afternoon and he’d like a guided tour of the ambulance facilities at Lakeview.’
‘Wouldn’t you rather go sightseeing? In that lovely new car you got only yesterday?’
‘Sightseeing can wait. I prefer company for that. Someone with lots of local knowledge.’
The sound of laughter drew Fiona’s gaze to where Lizzie and Megan were bandaging Ricky’s dressings in place. Their patient looked much happier now. He had stopped shivering and must have said something that had made his nurses laugh. Was Megan in contention as a guide? She’d certainly jump at the chance of a ride in the cute little MG sports car Nick had decided to lease despite Fiona’s laughing suggestion of a genetic influence.
A firmer mental slap was in order here. Megan was her friend. Nick hadn’t really even stepped that close again yet. If he and Megan chose to have a relationship with each other, it was none of her business.
‘There’s not much to see,’ she said. ‘You could stay in here and just look out the window.’
‘Show me anyway?’ Nick’s engaging smile would have been enough to persuade anyone. Fiona could almost imagine a sigh coming from Megan’s direction. She gave in. Maybe she could drop a hint or two on Megan’s behalf.
‘Right this way, sir.’ She ripped off the top copy of her paperwork and handed it to Hugh. ‘You’re about to see one of Lakeview Hospital’s best-kept secrets.’
‘So why is it a secret?’
‘Look at it,’ Fiona instructed. ‘It’s old and shabby, cramped and disorganised. If people knew what our base was like, they’d hardly be expecting state-of-the-art pre-hospital medical care, would they?’
Nick was following her from the ambulance bay outside the emergency department across a wide, asphalted area towards what resembled a large garage that was partially enclosed.
‘Does the funding for the ambulance service come out of the hospital’s budget?’
‘It tops things up if they get too dire. We rely on public donations for the most part, which are, luckily, fairly generous. We’re counting on that to continue when we launch a big new campaign later this year for a replacement, purpose-built station. Hugh and Maggie and I have been working on plans and they’re really exciting.’ Fiona pointed towards the nearby airfield where a bright yellow helicopter stood. ‘We managed to acquire that last year, thanks to donations.’
‘Pretty impressive. It’s a BK711, isn’t it? Nice.’
‘You know your choppers, then?’
‘Yeah. Winch training was one of the first skills I had to get with MSF.’
‘Really? Fantastic! That will double the number of winch-trained rescue medics we have available locally at present.’
‘Who’s the other one?’
‘Me.’
‘You’re kidding!’ Nick stopped walking and stared at Fiona.
She raised her chin. ‘And why is that so surprising?’
Nick grinned. ‘Because you used to get nervous just watching car rallies, and you weren’t anywhere near the driver’s seat.’
‘Maybe that was why,’ Fiona countered. ‘It can be harder watching someone you love do something dangerous than doing it yourself.’
Nick opened his mouth but then closed it again. Any hint of amusement drained from his face.
‘Sorry, Fi. You still miss Al, don’t you?’
Fiona swallowed. Should she tell him just how unhappy the marriage had been in the end? That Sam’s conception had been a fluke—the result of an attempted reconciliation they had both known couldn’t stand a chance?
‘I…I’ve built a new life,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m happy, Nick. Very happy.’
But Nick clearly wasn’t satisfied. His gaze was curiously intense and the soft touch on her arm underlined the importance of what was on his mind.
‘Were you happy with Al?’ The question was tentative. Nick must know it might be too soon to step onto such personal ground. ‘Was it a good marriage?’
He could see too much. Fiona had to look away and the canary yellow helicopter was as good as anything to focus on. She could see the pilot, Graham Burgess, walking around his beloved machine. He had recognised her from a distance and was waving. Fiona waved back.
‘It was a different lifetime,’ she said evasively.
Alistair had been Nick’s childhood hero. He had told her as much the first time they’d really talked, after that discussion about diabetes. He was now Sam’s hero and she wanted her son to grow up being proud of who his father was. To get self-esteem and strength from his family roots.
It had been easy enough to keep an estrangement out of reach of the media because of Al’s travel commitments on the international racing circuit and Fiona’s career, which had kept her in London for long stretches of time. What would be the point of tarnishing a hero’s reputation when it couldn’t make any difference other than to hurt people she cared about?
It certainly wouldn’t do anything to restore her friendship with Nick and give Sam more time with the only male relative he had. One that he had fallen firmly in love with the moment they had lain on the floor, playing cars together.
‘My marriage was wonderful,’ she said eventually. Carefully. ‘It wasn’t real life but it gave me Sam, didn’t it? Come on.’ She wasn’t about to give Nick the opportunity to try and see through the cavernous cracks in her response. ‘Let me introduce you to our pilot over there. Graham. He’s going to be thrilled to hear you’re into winching.’
‘I wouldn’t say it’s my favourite pastime.’ Nick took the hint and dropped the personal topic as he followed Fiona. ‘More like a necessary evil.’
‘Speaking of which…’ It was Fiona who stopped their progress this time. She pulled her pager from her belt and read the message. ‘Priority one callout,’ she relayed. ‘To Arrowtown. I’ll have to desert you. Sorry, Nick.’
‘How come?’ Nick was still right beside her as Fiona did an about-turn and quickened her pace. ‘I’m having a tour of the ambulance service here, remember? Do you not have room for an observer on board?’
‘You want to come for a ride-along?’
‘Why not? You seem keen enough for me to dangle out of a chopper to assist you guys. Why not on the ground as well?’
Fiona was heading straight towards the ambulance parked outside the garage. Shane was dragging clear the heavy hose he’d been using to clean the vehicle.
‘We good to go?’ Fiona queried.
‘All set.’
‘Cool. We’ve got a third crew.’ Fiona nodded at Nick. ‘Jump in, then. There’s an extra seat in the back. Put your safety belt on.’
Nick was glad he had followed the instruction.
Fiona drove like a fiend. With the siren wailing, she was belting along the open road, overtaking cars and tourist buses and barely slowing for curves on the road.
A lightning-fast glance at their extra passenger must have revealed how nervous he was feeling because Fiona laughed.
‘Maggie taught me high-speed driving,’ she shouted over the noise of the siren. ‘Plus, I must have picked up a bit by osmosis from Al.’
Shane certainly seemed astonishingly relaxed. His body leaned with the roll of the speeding vehicle and he was managing to consult a map at the same time.
‘It’s one of those little streets off the main drag. We turn right just after that restaurant in the old post office building.’
‘What are we going to?’ Nick called.
‘Unconscious person. Could be anything.’
Much to Nick’s relief, Fiona slowed the vehicle markedly as they entered the small historic settlement of Arrowtown, several miles north of Queenstown. She also turned the siren off but the glow of the beacons in the fading afternoon light was enough to clear their path of any traffic or dawdling pedestrians.
‘Pretty place,’ Fiona said unnecessarily. ‘You’ll have to come and explore it properly some time, Nick. Down here, Shane?’
‘Yeah. Look, there’s someone waving.’
The ‘someone’ turned out to be a neighbour.
‘I heard this huge crash,’ he told the ambulance crew as they pulled a stretcher from the back of the truck and loaded it with gear. ‘Breaking glass and stuff. I called out but when I got no answer I went to have a look and I found him just lying out there by his rubbish bin.’
Fiona dropped to a crouch in a sea of rubbish and broken glass as they reached the crumpled figure. She shook his shoulder.
‘Hello, can you hear me? Hullo!’
There was no response. Shane moved in to help her roll the man over.
‘Careful with his neck,’ Fiona cautioned. ‘And watch out for the broken glass.’
‘Hey, I know this guy,’ Nick said in surprise, as the man’s face came into view. ‘It’s Jeff, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah,’ the neighbour confirmed. ‘Jeff Smythe.’
Fiona had her fingers on the man’s neck, checking for a pulse. She raised her eyebrows at Nick.
‘That cast on his hand,’ he explained. ‘He’s one of the people we treated on Saturday. He lost a finger and broke another one.’
‘I remember.’ Fiona nodded. ‘His camera got caught on the car and the strap must have been wound around his fingers.’
‘Looks like he might have broken the cast as well.’ Shane shifted his gaze having checked their patient’s airway.
‘Good pulse,’ Fiona commented. Her nose wrinkled as she straightened to look around her.
Nick had noticed more than the smell of old rubbish as well. ‘Could be those broken bottles,’ he suggested.
‘Hmmm.’ Fiona rubbed her knuckles on the man’s sternum. ‘Jeff? Open your eyes,’ she said loudly. ‘Wake up!’
The man groaned and tried to roll over again, beginning to vomit as he did so. The smell of alcohol increased sharply.
‘He’s drunk,’ the neighbour noted in disgust. ‘Sorry. I wouldn’t have called you if I didn’t think there was something really wrong with him.’
‘He still needs help,’ Fiona said mildly. She supported Jeff on his side until he stopped vomiting. ‘Does he live alone?’
Jeff rolled onto his back again. His eyes opened briefly and he mumbled incoherently. Fiona slipped an oxygen mask onto his face.
‘He had a girlfriend but I got the impression she took off a couple of days ago.’
Right after his injury? Nick frowned. ‘He was really upset at losing his finger,’ he remembered. ‘He reckoned his career was over.’ Had he missed something important in his patient contact that day? It had been pressured and exhausting but that was no excuse. He’d known that Jeff needed support. He’d just assumed that the girlfriend who was coming to collect him would provide it. Maybe he should have spent more time talking to this man.
‘I don’t think this cast was broken by his fall.’ Shane was examining Jeff’s lower arm. ‘It’s dented and cracked all over the place, like he was hitting something.’
‘I’ll check his limb baselines,’ Fiona decided aloud, as she pulled the leads from the side pocket of the life pack. ‘Have a quick look inside, Shane. We’d better make sure we’re not dealing something more than an ETOH overdose.’
Nick had a look at Jeff’s hand while Fiona was attaching the electrodes that would enable them to monitor heart rhythm and rate.
‘Capillary refill isn’t great on the broken finger,’ he reported. ‘And the hand’s really cold. And dirty.’
Shane returned with two bottles of tablets in his hand.
‘They’re the antibiotics and painkillers we discharged him with,’ Nick said. He opened the bottles as Shane helped Fiona with a quick set of baseline recordings. ‘Painkillers are gone,’ he told them. ‘But he hasn’t taken any of the ABs.’
‘Let’s get him on the stretcher. It’s too cold to hang around out here.’ Fiona smiled at the neighbour. ‘Thanks for your help,’ she said. ‘Would you be able to lock the house up and keep an eye on things for Jeff?’
‘I guess.’ But the man sounded dubious. ‘It’s not his house, though. He just rents it.’
Fiona continued talking to the neighbour as Shane and Nick moved the stretcher closer.
‘Jeff’s been through a fair bit in the last few days,’ she said. ‘Not everybody copes that well when things get too much.’
The neighbour nodded. ‘I didn’t know he was that badly hurt. I thought he’d just broken his wrist or something.’
Fiona stood up and moved the life pack and oxygen cylinder to allow the men to lift Jeff onto the stretcher. She was watching their patient carefully, Nick noted, and the frown on her face suggested focus, not judgment of any kind. She seemed oblivious to the unpleasant setting and smell around them and certainly wasn’t compromising her standard of care because this crisis had been self-inflicted.
Nick could feel a kind of inward nod. Of both approval and confirmation. He’d always suspected she’d be like this in a professional environment and it didn’t seem that long ago that he had wished he could see it. Back when he’d been envious that that had been how Al had met Fiona in the first place—when he’d been injured in a rally crash and she’d been on duty in the ED he’d been taken to.
Now he could not only observe this woman at work, he could work alongside her.
As an unexpected bonus of a new job, this one would sure take some beating.
It was three days before Jeff was allowed to go back to his home in Arrowtown.
The day after that was Saturday and Nick and Fiona had also come back to Arrowtown, this time with Sam.
They had walked down the main street, admiring the old buildings and galleries and the abundant reminders that this had been a gold-mining settlement.
‘My legs are tired, Mummy,’ Sam announced as they reached the end of their route beside the old post office restaurant.
‘Lunch?’ Nick suggested.
‘Let’s get some sandwiches and drinks at one of the cafés. I’ve got somewhere else I really want to show you today while the weather’s this good. You’re going to be busy moving into the Patterson place tomorrow. And, besides, I have a sneaking suspicion this might be where Bernie is taking Mum for lunch. I wouldn’t want her to think I was checking up on them.’
Nick ruffled Sam’s hair. ‘Would those tired legs like a piggyback?’
‘Yes!’
Nick lifted the small boy onto the top of the stone wall beside the footpath and then turned and bent down so that Sam could wrap his arms around his neck and his legs around his waist. Fiona was looking at the nearby street.
‘I wonder how Jeff’s getting on?’
‘He was in much better shape when I talked to him on the ward yesterday. Brilliant idea of yours, asking him to work on the publicity for the new fundraising campaign. He’s going to give it a good shot, I think.’
‘We were looking for someone. Seemed like a win-win situation.’
‘There’s not many people that would go out of their way for a patient like that. I’m impressed.’
Fiona just smiled. It would have been worth doing just to get an appreciative glance like that from Nick.
‘He’s got a few issues going on,’ Nick continued more cautiously. ‘Don’t let him get too dependent on you, Fi.’
‘I won’t.’
‘Good. Now, where’s this place you’re taking me next?’
‘It’s a surprise.’
‘It’s more than a surprise. It’s magic, that’s what it is.’
‘Gorgeous, isn’t it?’
‘It’s real!’
‘Sure is.’ But Fiona wasn’t looking at the spectacular scenery in front of them. Or even at Sam, who was running from tree to tree in the forest, pretending to hide but unable to stay put for more than thirty seconds at a time.
She was watching Nick as he turned an incredulous gaze back to the towering, snow-capped peaks behind them, to the glimpse of the river and the sweep of the untouched wilderness bordering the forest.
The expression on his face was compelling. A grownup version of the kind of wonder Sam displayed whenever the boundaries of his small world suddenly expanded. Nick was right. It was magic and knowing that she had been the one to bestow this gift gave Fiona the warmest glow.
Not that it had been difficult. All she had done had been to drive Nick less than an hour away from Queenstown, not counting the stop for a picnic lunch, to the Glenorchy region at the head of Lake Wakatipu. An area now famous for its role in providing beautiful fantasy settings for movies. The kind of excursion it was easy to offer any guest. His rapt appreciation of their destination meant that it had been exactly the right thing to do, however, and the mutual pleasure was bringing them closer together again.
Unravelling the final kinks in that knot that had lain between them over the last week.
‘This was why I came to New Zealand,’ he said solemnly.
‘For a fantasy set tour? You’re a movie buff?’
‘No.’ Nick took a deep breath that was released in a sigh. ‘It goes a lot deeper than that.’
‘A lot deeper,’ he repeated a minute later as they started walking again, by tacit consent, following Sam’s erratic path through the forest.
It seemed an invitation to talk about something more personal but Sam was running back towards them right now, his face alight with excitement.
‘Mummy! I’m going on a bear hunt!’
‘Are you, sweetheart?’
‘Yes. I’m in the forest!’
‘I didn’t think New Zealand had any bears,’ Nick said.
‘We don’t. Sam’s just acting out one of his favourite stories.’
‘It doesn’t involve his dad, does it? Hunting bears?’
Fiona laughed. ‘No, this one comes from a book. Didn’t you notice the books Sam has in his room? Some of them are falling apart because we read them so often.’
‘I was like that. Only I had to wait until I was old enough to start reading for myself.’
‘Really?’ Fiona was shocked. ‘Didn’t your mother ever read to you in bed?’
Nick shook his head. ‘I think she used up whatever maternal urges she had on Al. They called me an afterthought but I always knew they really meant a mistake. Al was old enough to look after himself by the time I came along and Mum’s life was full of far more exciting things by then than staying home with a baby.’
‘That’s really sad.’ Again, Fiona was struck by how little she knew of Nick’s childhood, but this was worse than not knowing he’d had asthma. How could any mother let their child grow up feeling ‘invisible’? She had to resist the urge to touch Nick. To let him know that she sympathised.
More than sympathised. This was a side of Nick that touched something deep in her. Vulnerable was too pathetic a word for a man who exuded the kind of inner strength Nick did. It was more that he was prepared to reveal something so personal. Al had been like that at the beginning. When he had been injured. Had that been reason she had fallen in love with him? The thought was startling. It took a moment to refocus on what Nick was saying.
‘I didn’t miss what I never had, I guess. But when I learned to read I found that there really was magic in the world.’ Nick’s step slowed after his sidelong glance at Fiona. ‘Why are you smiling?’
‘It’s the second time you’ve mentioned magic.’
‘You find that strange?’
‘Well, you’re a doctor. A scientist. Most doctors I know wouldn’t admit to believing in magic.’
‘Maybe they didn’t read fantasy books when they were ten.’ Nick’s laugh was self-effacing. ‘A few more times after that, in fact. It was like a security blanket. A place to escape that worked well enough to feel like magic.’
Fiona grinned. ‘Magic?’
‘Amazing, anyway. Too good to be true. A bit like finding you and discovering I have a real-life nephew. Family…’
‘Speaking of which…’ Fiona’s head turned swiftly. ‘Sam? Where are you?’
The silence was unnerving. For a horrible moment Fiona thought she might have been so caught up in listening to Nick and enjoying the feeling that they’d reconnected that she’d allowed her only child to get lost.
Nick touched her arm. A gentle grip that gave a surprising sensation of strength. He tilted his head and rolled his eyes. The movement was subtle but enough for Fiona to spot the toe of a small shoe protruding from the mossy base of a treetrunk.
‘Boo!’
Sam hurtled into his mother’s arms. ‘You didn’t see me, did you, Mummy? I gave you a fright, didn’t I?’
‘You sure did,’ Fiona said with conviction. She caught Nick’s gaze over the top of Sam’s head. His face was solemn but his dark eyes were smiling and she could swear she still felt the touch of his hand.
It was a feeling of reassurance.
Of safety.
Of being with someone who had understood completely.
Someone who cared.
And it felt so good.
Fiona needed to find a way of sharing how good it felt—preferably one that didn’t involve pulling Nick into some kind of cheesy group hug.
‘Do you think it’s too cold to go and find an ice cream somewhere?’
‘No!’ Sam said.
‘Definitely not,’ Nick agreed.
‘Come on, then.’ Fiona put Sam down but kept hold of his hand. The little boy casually held out his other hand and just as casually, Nick took hold of it.
The three of them walked out of the forest and Fiona had the weirdest feeling that Sam was like an extension of both herself and Nick. He was their link. A son and a nephew.
That might explain why the connection was strong enough to make her feel like she was actually holding hands with Nick. And why it felt like the most natural thing in the world to be doing.
He may not realise it yet but Nick Stewart belonged there.