THE next morning, Jodie woke, stretched languidly and turned over with her eyes still closed, half expecting to curl across a warm body. But the space next to her in the bed was empty.
Frowning, she opened her eyes and sat up. She couldn’t hear any noises from downstairs, so Sam obviously wasn’t making coffee. And the sheet was cold enough for him to have been gone for well over an hour.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed and clambered out. She grabbed her dressing-gown from the back of the door, belted it tightly round her and checked the bathroom. Empty. She almost ran down the stairs. The kitchen was empty, too…and so was the living room.
He’d gone.
She looked round frantically, sure she’d missed something. Surely Sam wouldn’t have left without a note—not after the night they’d shared? She went back upstairs. Maybe it had fallen down under a pillow, or underneath the bed…She searched frantically, but she didn’t see the sticky note that had slipped down between the bed and her bedside cabinet and stuck to the wood.
He’d tidied up, she noticed—her clothes were stacked in a neat pile on the chair, instead of being the crumpled heap they’d left the night before when he’d made love to her. The two undrunk mugs of coffee had been washed up and dried, and were sitting neatly on the worktop next to the kettle. He’d drained the bath; he’d put the lid back on the bubble bath; he’d hung the towels they hadn’t bothered using on the pine towel rail…
How could he have shared a night like that with her and then just tidied up and left—without a word?
Then she caught a glimpse of the clock on her microwave. It was one of the few reliable timekeepers in her house and it said half past eight. Maybe he was on duty. Maybe he’d thought she was on a late, had decided not to wake her and was going to ring her from the hospital. But she hadn’t told him she was off duty, or that she was spending the next three days in Yorkshire, a five-hour drive from Melbury.
Given that it was eight-thirty now, even if she left in the next half-hour she was going to be late for lunch. Late enough for her mother to start worrying big time. She was half tempted to ring and say she’d be down tomorrow instead, but she knew everyone was expecting her. Maybe she should ring Sam and tell him where she was going. But if he was at work, he’d be right in the middle of the early rounds—and who was to say he wanted to see her anyway? Maybe he hadn’t left a note because he hadn’t known what to say to her. Maybe he was embarrassed about what had happened between them and regretted it.
She was certainly beginning to regret it.
Oh, what a mess. What a horrible, horrible mess. Pulling a face, she showered quickly, breakfasted and packed, then rang home to explain she’d be late before loading the boot of her elderly VW with a suitcase and a pile of presents. Finally, she checked she’d switched off all the lights, set the alarm and locked the door.
Just as Jodie drove off, the phone indoors began to ring. It continued to ring for three minutes, and then there was silence.
It was only when she was taking a break at a motorway service station, halfway between Norfolk and Yorkshire, that the thought hit her. She and Sam had been so absorbed in each other they hadn’t even considered protection. And they’d made love more than once.
‘Oh, my God!’ She nearly dropped her cup of indifferent coffee. Rapidly, she did a mental calculation. Her last period had been…when?
A few days ago.
Her cycle was a bit erratic at the moment, but usually it was thirty days. Her most fertile time wouldn’t be for over a week. Thank God, she wouldn’t have to slope off to the chemist and buy some morning-after pills—particularly as they were at their most effective in the first twenty-four hours after unprotected sex. Today was Boxing Day and finding a chemist that was open wouldn’t be easy.
Though that would be a damn sight easier than facing Sam at work. How could she talk normally to him now, remembering how his skin had felt against hers? How could she look into the eyes that she’d seen gleaming with passion and talk about observation charts and clinical symptoms and diagnoses?
Well, she’d just have to. Just like she’d spend three days with her family, as planned, and pretend nothing was wrong.
Sam was in briefly over the New Year, but somehow his path never crossed Jodie’s. When he finally spoke to her, a few days later, no one would ever have known how close they’d been on Christmas Day. He’d gone back into his shell, nodding acknowledgements when he was spoken to but keeping every conversation focused solely on work. He didn’t even ask anyone about their Christmas; personal details were clearly not wanted.
Mr Frosty was back with a vengeance.
Give up, Jodie told herself. He’s a lost cause. And yet she couldn’t help wondering why he’d suddenly withdrawn again. She’d thought before that someone must have hurt him really badly in the past, but he’d started to come out of his shell, trust people. OK, so maybe he thought he’d made a huge mistake, making love with her—but why drag everyone else into it? Unless something had happened while she’d been away. Maybe something from his past had resurfaced to haunt him. But what? And why?
There was no point in torturing herself with questions. He’d made it pretty clear that it wasn’t any of her business any more—if it ever had been. From now on, it was strictly colleagues. Eventually, she’d stop wishing for something that couldn’t be. She’d stop, knowing the instant he set foot in the room, even if her back was turned. She wouldn’t hang around in corridors just to hear his voice.
‘You’re a sad case, Jodie Price,’ she told herself crossly, and armed herself with her clipboard, ready to do her rounds.
Sam stared out of his office window, barely seeing what was out there. All he could think about was Jodie. Remembering her Christmas tree, how its lights had cast reflections on every surface. Including her skin.
He sighed. Jodie Price had got under his skin from the moment he’d first met her. His junior reg, who did things her way and to hell with the rules. He’d been exasperated by her—but he’d also been charmed by her impulsive kindness. The way she always stopped to talk to parents, not caring how long she spent with them, until she’d reassured them. The way she’d even tried including him in the departmental outings. And the way she’d opened herself to him on Christmas Day…
The next morning, he’d found it almost impossible to leave. All he’d wanted to do had been to curl protectively round her, hold her close to him, go back to sleep and wake her up later with a kiss. But he’d been on duty and he’d needed to check on his cat Sooty first. When he’d called her from the ward, there had been no answer. She hadn’t called him. And she’d been cool and polite with him since then.
She was a bit of a scatterbrain, so she might not have seen his note—even though he’d put it on her pillow, where she’d see it when she woke—but…Oh, who was he trying to kid? Angela had told him the truth, all those years ago. He just wasn’t the kind of man women wanted. Too serious, too dedicated to his work—and, worst of all, not able to give a woman the one thing she really, really wanted.
At Mario’s, Jodie had been emphatic that not all women wanted children. And yet when Mick had announced he was going to be a dad and had teased her about how she’d be with her own children, she said she’d be just like any other mum. He’d seen the softness in her face as she’d talked about her future children. She wanted a boy and a girl. One of each would be nice.
And he couldn’t even give her one child, let alone two.
He leaned his elbows on his desk and rested his forehead against his clenched hands. How could he go on like this, wanting her and knowing he couldn’t have her? And why was he getting so obsessed with her, anyway? He’d spent just one night with her. Plenty of people had one-night stands. Hell, his profession was even renowned for it!
But Jodie wasn’t ‘plenty of people’.
What a mess. There was no future in a relationship with her, but on the other hand a short fling wouldn’t be fair to either of them. True, the affair between them might blow over anyway, for a hundred and one different reasons—but he was beginning to have a nasty feeling that it wouldn’t. Jodie reached him in a way no other woman ever had, even Angela in the early days of their marriage.
Which was why he had to do the decent thing and leave. Maybe he could go back to Liverpool, where he’d trained—it was a good five hours’ drive from Melbury. Even better, back home to Cornwall, eight hours away. Or maybe he should consider working in the States. Or for a medical charity in some far-flung country, where his skills would be desperately needed and his time would be so filled that he wouldn’t even have the chance to think about Jodie Price…
Until he found another job, he’d just avoid her. Then the torture would be over at last and he’d never hear so much as her name again.
A week later Sam’s avoidance policy failed because he was forced to talk to Jodie about one of her patients.
‘Caitlin Truman.’ He sighed and looked at his watch. ‘I’m due in clinic at twelve.’
‘This won’t take long.’
‘My office?’
No way did she want to be alone with him in his office. She wanted lots of people round them to remind her to keep cool and professional instead of leaping into his arms and begging him to love her. ‘I haven’t had breakfast yet.’
He raised an eyebrow; it was just gone half past eleven.
‘I overslept and it’s been hectic on the ward,’ she said, narrowing her eyes. ‘My blood sugar’s low.’ She hadn’t even had time to grab a biscuit or a cup of tea. ‘I’m sure you don’t want me dropping my sandwich all over your desk.’
All over his desk. A tiny tremor ran through him. He could just imagine Jodie spread over his desk, her hair loose and—No. He wasn’t going to let himself remember the feel of her skin, the scent of her hair. Do that and he’d be lost. ‘Canteen, then?’
‘Canteen,’ she agreed.
They walked down in silence—not a companionable one either. She bought a cheese salad sandwich and a bottle of fizzy water, while he stuck to a single cup of black coffee.
‘Health kick?’ he asked, nodding at her tray, before he could stop himself.
‘Something like that.’ Actually, she just didn’t fancy it. ‘So. Caitlin.’
He inclined his head.
‘I’ve come across only a couple of cases of scoliosis before,’ she said. ‘One of them was awful—the little boy caught pneumonia and died, and there was nothing we could do about it.’ She took a sip of water. ‘I wanted to talk to you about the different options for Caitlin before I discussed them with her parents.’
‘What have you told them so far?’
‘That she has curvature of the spine—infantile idiopathic scoliosis—and nobody knows what causes the condition at the moment, though it’s thought there may be some genetic involvement.’ She took another sip of water and looked back at her notes. ‘Some early onset curves resolve spontaneously, but Caitlin’s had a second X-ray to measure the angles of the ribs to the vertebrae at the centre of the curve, and it’s definitely progressive.’
‘Scoliosis is actually more common than you’d think,’ Sam said. ‘It affects three or four children in a thousand, and one of them will need corrective surgery. If we don’t treat her, she may end up being deformed and disabled in middle age.’ He paused. ‘Single or double curve?’
‘Single—to the left, in the region of her chest.’
‘How big?’
‘Forty degrees.’ Jodie took a bite of her sandwich. ‘I know it’s borderline, but it’s definitely a progressive curve, so I thought surgery might be involved. If not, the curve could affect her lung function when it progresses further.’
‘And she’s how old?’
‘Nearly two.’
Sam looked thoughtful. ‘It’d be a big operation—a spinal fusion and possibly bone graft.’
‘That’s where you use stainless-steel rods to fix the spine and stop the curve, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, but the downside is having a solid spine in that area, so she won’t have the full range of movement in her vertebrae.’
‘What are the other options?’ Jodie asked.
‘Keeping a four-monthly check on her to see if it resolves. We could try physiotherapy, or we could try using a spinal brace, meaning that she’d be in plaster for a few months.’
‘What do—?’
Jodie was interrupted by the sound of a chair crashing to the floor. They both looked up and, as the only doctors in the almost empty room, rushed straight over to the woman kneeling on the floor beside a small boy.
‘It’s my Adam—he’s not breathing!’ the woman cried.
Sam took one look. ‘Jodie, we need adrenaline. Now!’
It would be as quick for her to run to A and E as it would be to ring them from the canteen and ask them to bring adrenaline, so Jodie took off at a rate of knots. ‘Dr Jodie Price, Paediatrics,’ she said, flashing her identity card at the startled receptionist. ‘I need adrenaline, a syringe and a space blanket now—we’ve a case of anaphylaxis in the canteen.’
By the time she returned to the canteen, Sam had changed the boy’s position on the floor, raising the child’s legs to improve the flow of blood to his heart and brain. Clearly his breathing had stopped, because Sam was performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation. He’d just given Adam two breaths, and then he was back to doing cardiac compressions, pressing on the lower end of the breastbone with the heel of one hand. Fifteen of those, and then he’d give another two breaths, Jodie thought, remembering the drill. All the while, Adam’s mother was looking on, her face white and her hands shaking. Slow, silent tears were rolling down her cheeks.
‘Sam. Adrenaline,’ Jodie said succinctly, kneeling opposite him. ‘Shall I take over while you inject?’
He nodded, counting the fifteenth compression under his breath, and Jodie took over the routine of giving two breaths and fifteen compressions, while Sam injected the adrenaline.
‘Come on, Adam. We’re not going to lose you!’ he muttered.
Jodie kept on with the CPR.
‘There are two of us now, so I’ll do the cardiac compressions while you do the breathing,’ Sam directed.
It seemed to take for ever, but it could only have been a couple of minutes at most before the little boy started breathing on his own again and Sam gave him a second injection of adrenaline.
The boy’s mother was weeping quietly. ‘Is he going to die, Doctor?’ she asked Sam.
‘Not if we can help it,’ Sam said.
‘What’s wrong with him? He—We were just sitting there and he…he just collapsed!’
‘It looks as if he’s had a very bad allergic reaction to something,’ Sam explained. ‘It’s called anaphylactic shock. Has he ever reacted to anything—say, food—before? Had eczema, hay fever, asthma?’
The woman bit her lip. ‘He’s had a bit of a rash and swollen eyes before.’
‘Do you know what caused it?’ Sam asked.
The woman shook her head. ‘It didn’t last that long and, to be honest, I didn’t really think anything of it once it had gone.’
‘What was he eating just now?’ Jodie asked.
‘Orange juice and a biscuit.’
‘May I?’ Jodie gestured to the table. At the woman’s nod, Jodie picked up the empty biscuit packet and glanced swiftly down the list of contents.
‘It could well be peanuts,’ she said, ‘though we’d need to do a blood test to check.’
‘Is he going to be all right?’ Adam’s mother asked.
The little boy’s breathing was less laboured and his colour was improving, though his face was still swollen. ‘I think so,’ said Sam. ‘We’ll need to take him upstairs to the ward to keep an eye on him for a while. We might need to give him some more drugs to help him recover—at least some antihistamines to reduce the swelling.’
‘We only came in to visit my mum. She’s had her hip replaced. And Adam went on and on about wanting a biscuit and a drink—I brought him down here to give my mum some peace.’ The woman’s lower lip trembled. ‘I never thought this would happen!’
Sam was busy checking the boy’s pulse and respiration. Jodie glanced at him, then decided to reassure Adam’s mother herself. ‘It’s fairly frightening to watch,’ she said, putting an arm round the woman’s shoulders. ‘Sorry, I haven’t asked you your name yet.’ She smiled. ‘I guess we were a bit preoccupied.’
‘Mrs Kinnerton. Mandy Kinnerton.’
‘I’m Jodie Price and this is Sam Taylor,’ Jodie said. ‘What’s happened to Adam is that his body’s immune system has overreacted a bit. It’s as if his body thinks whatever he’s eaten is dangerous, so it releases all sorts of chemicals to repel the “invader” and protect the body. Those chemicals sometimes cause a rash and swollen eyes in a mild reaction; in a stronger reaction, like the one Adam’s just had, his throat and mouth swell up as well, so he has problems breathing, and his blood vessels widen and so his blood pressure drops. Did he say he felt dizzy, too?’
‘He just said he didn’t feel very well and…down he went.’ Mandy Kinnerton was still shaking.
‘When he ate whatever gave him the rash before, did he say his mouth tingled or itched?’ Jodie asked.
‘I—I can’t remember.’
‘It’s all right,’ Jodie soothed. ‘We’ll sort it all out. Dr Taylor—’ again, she avoided the Dr—Mr explanation ‘—gave Adam some adrenaline. It’s a hormone the body produces, too—it makes the heart beat faster. The adrenaline we’ve given him will make his blood vessels go back to normal, relax the muscles in his lungs again to help him breathe, and stop the swelling around his face and lips.’
‘And all this happened just because he’s eaten something with peanuts in?’ Mandy Kinnerton looked at Jodie in disbelief.
‘It’s just a guess,’ Jodie said, ‘but peanuts are one of the most common causes of allergies—around one in two hundred children react to peanuts, though not all of them react quite as strongly as this. Up on the ward, we’ll check him over thoroughly and ask you a few more questions, if you don’t mind, to find out a bit more about any problems Adam’s had in the past and whether he has asthma, hay fever, that sort of thing. Then we’ll take a blood test to check what caused his reaction. If I’m right and it is peanuts, you’ll need to make sure Adam doesn’t eat them again, in any form.’
‘Not ever?’
‘Not ever,’ Jodie repeated. ‘You’ll need to check the labels of everything for peanuts—even peanut oil, so you’ll have to be careful when you eat out, too, in case the food’s been cooked with peanut oil. In some cases, you might find he has a reaction if he even touches whatever he’s allergic to, let alone eats it—I’ve known cases where someone’s eaten peanuts and kissed someone who reacts to them, whose eyes swelled up immediately.’
‘It—Could this happen again?’
‘Hopefully not, though we can show you what to do if it does. We’ll be able to give you an adrenaline pen so you don’t have to worry about syringes—it’s really easy to use, and you can get practice pens so Adam can have a go on an orange and won’t waste the drugs. We’ll show both you and Adam how to use it, and you’ll need to tell everyone at school and his friends’ parents, so they know what to watch out for and can use the adrenaline pen straight away if he does have another reaction.’
‘But he is going to be all right?’
‘He’ll be fine,’ Sam said. ‘A bit scared after what’s happened and he’ll want a big cuddle from his mum, but he’ll be fine. We’ll just get him up to the children’s ward, and Dr Price will sit with you while we admit him.’
‘You saved his life,’ Mandy said. ‘I don’t know how I’m ever going to thank you.’
Sam shrugged. ‘It’s our job.’
She frowned for a moment and then her face cleared. ‘Do you work on the children’s ward?’
Jodie smiled. ‘We do, indeed. We’re probably the best people you could have sat near, except for someone from A and E.’
‘Thank you. From the bottom of my heart. And no more biscuits for you, my lad.’ The sternness of her last words was belied by the slight tremor in her voice.
‘Mum…’ The little boy reached out for his mother’s hand.
‘It’s all right, Adam. We’ll soon have you feeling well again,’ Jodie said comfortingly. ‘And your mum can stay with you as long as she likes.’
To her surprise, Sam accompanied them back to the ward. Just as he was about to leave again, Jodie excused herself from Adam and his mother for a moment.
‘We need to talk,’ she said quietly.
He nodded. ‘About Caitlin Truman.’
‘Not just Caitlin.’
‘I don’t think there’s anything to talk about.’
She flushed. ‘I disagree. What about…?’ She couldn’t quite bring herself to say the words. What about us?
Clearly, he guessed what she’d been about to say, because he sighed heavily. ‘All right. But not here. And I’m in clinic now.’
‘When, then?’
‘After clinic. Two?’
She nodded. ‘In the canteen?’
He shook his head. ‘Take a late lunch. I’ll meet you by the river.’
In public—and yet somewhere far more private than Melbury City General. Somewhere they wouldn’t be overheard and gossip wouldn’t start flying round. ‘Two.’ She nodded, and turned back to see to Adam and his mother.