NIKKI MAC... NIKKI MAC... The words pounded in Izzy’s head as she ran the coast path.
Stupid really when only yesterday—was it yesterday?—the refrain had been, ‘He’s a good man...’
But maybe she was wrong, maybe she should have asked him when he was in Bali, although the sums all added up in her head. She knew his age, and could work back to when he’d got his degree and, anyway, she knew she wasn’t wrong.
Nikki Mac. Her sister had texted almost daily about the glory of this Nikki Mac—and of the holiday romance that had no future, although why, she’d never said. She’d been well when she’d gone, had been through a detox programme in Sydney, then given herself the holiday as a reward.
And she’d come back clean, they’d known that, and had stayed clean for months, or so they’d thought because she’d returned straight to Sydney, at first staying with Stephen, then finding a flat and working for a web designer, her dream job.
Until the sleaze bag, as Stephen called her on-again off-again boyfriend, had come back into the picture, tempting their fragile sister with promises of fame—singing in a night club where drugs were plentiful...
Izzy sighed, remembering the lost soul they’d all loved so much. As well as drugs, there’d been a brush with anorexia, and episodes of cutting, so no one had been surprised that Liane, their lovely Liane, hadn’t realised she was pregnant.
And hooked again on drugs!
Hallie had flown to Sydney, Stephen had tried to step in, and everyone had forgotten Nikki Mac until the baby came, and with her a grubby piece of paper on which she’d asked Izzy to look after her baby, Nikki.
Izzy’s even stride faltered and she brushed tears from her eyes.
Now she knew, it was so obvious—Nikki’s blue eyes, the same dark, clear blue...
She shook away the useless thoughts and ran on. She had to think, to work out what to do.
Did she tell?
She had to tell?
But who first?
Nikki?
Izzy’s usual easy stride faltered again.
What if Nikki chose her father...?
What if Mac wanted her?
Mac didn’t do for ever...
What if Mac didn’t want her?
Wouldn’t that be worse for Nikki?
Worse than not knowing?
Squelching down the howl of agony the thought of losing Nikki caused, Izzy pounded on.
She wouldn’t think about it now!
She’d think about it tomorrow...
And having decided that, she turned and headed back towards town, forcing herself to blank out the turmoil in her head, looking at the ocean, drinking in the beauty of her surroundings, smelling the salt in the air, the faint scent of eucalyptus from the scrub, thinking nothing, nothing, nothing...
She heard the ambulance before she saw it, and as she came over the last headland, realised it was heading down to the beach.
A crowd of surfers, boards slung across the sand in a far too haphazard way—Nikki and Shan’s project—sharks!
Her feet flew towards the now stationary ambulance, although she knew they’d do everything she’d be able to. She pushed through the gathering crowd, saw the anonymous figure in a full black wetsuit, one leg showing torn, lacerated fabric, skin, blood—
‘It’s Ahmed,’ someone told her. ‘Luckily the jet ski had been taking surfers out to the big point break and the rider saw it happen and headed straight over, frightening off the shark and bringing Ahmed in to the beach.’
As she left the beach, Izzy took out her phone to call his family, then saw Hamid heading down from the esplanade—someone else had already called.
So she went to the hospital instead, showered and pulled on some scrubs, coming out of the staffroom as Mac was asking the ambos to take the trolley through to the resus room.
‘Shark bite,’ he said to Izzy, as if this was just another day, another crisis, fully expecting her to be there to lend a hand. ‘Could you cut off his wetsuit? The pressure of it could be worsening the blood loss. Start with the arms so we can get a drip in. Abby, you set up a cannula as soon as you can.’
They worked in silence except when Mac requested help, stripped the fit young man then laid warmed blankets over his body to help fend off shock. Mac handed tweezers to Izzy.
‘Just pick out any neoprene you can see, or anything else that shouldn’t be there. Abby, can you flush the wound as Izzy works, flush it hard. I want to X-ray the foot to make sure there are no broken bones, because if there aren’t I think we can put him back together again without sending him to Braxton.’
Izzy picked at bits of black material from the tattered skin and flesh and wondered at Mac’s confidence.
But he’d no doubt seen worse, the results of bombs or IEDs and had learned to put body parts back together again.
So if anyone could save Ahmed’s foot, Mac could.
The X-ray showed no bone damage, and Mac sent for Roger to handle the anaesthesia before giving instructions to the nurses about the instruments and sutures he’d need.
It took three hours, but eventually the young man had what looked like a patchwork but recognisable foot.
‘I’d like to keep him here for his parents’ sake,’ Mac said, turning his attention to Izzy, one professional to another. ‘He’ll need strong IV antibiotics and at least twenty-four hours of intensive care to monitor him. Can we handle that?’
She knew he’d asked because it was a nursing question and as nurse manager it would be her decision.
‘Yes,’ she said, no hesitation. ‘We’ll have to juggle rosters but we can have someone with him for twenty-four hours, and you can review things after that.’
‘Good,’ he said, nodding at her, although a little frown that she knew had nothing to do with Ahmed now creased his brow.
‘I’ll sort out the rosters,’ she said. ‘Abby, will you take the first shift?’
She left the room, not needing a reply, and not wanting to spend any more time with Mac now the emergency situation was easing and it would be harder to pretend they were nothing more than colleagues.
Though perhaps after her behaviour last night, he’d be pleased to return to just being colleagues, perhaps thinking he’d had a lucky escape...
Izzy covered Abby’s shift, knowing it was Sod’s Law that they had an unusual number of ED visitors, a small boy with a fish hook in his foot, needing Mac to cut it out and stitch it up; a pregnant woman complaining of feeling sick, her blood pressure far too high, protein in her urine test, all signs of pre-eclampsia.
‘Do you usually admit a pre-eclampsia patient for bed rest?’ Mac asked Izzy.
‘When the blood pressure is this high, we do,’ she said. ‘We can monitor the baby’s well-being as well as hers.’
‘I’ll give her a series of magnesium sulphate injections—latest studies seem to indicate it can stop it developing to full-blown eclampsia.’
Izzy sent an aide to organise a bed, and prepared the first of the injections Mac wanted while he talked quietly to the patient, explaining what was happening in her body, why it sometimes happened, and how resting and the medication could help her through the pregnancy.
‘But the other kids?’ she wailed, as Mac gave her the injection.
He looked helplessly at Izzy.
‘Three,’ she said, ‘one at school, two still at home with Mum.’
She turned her attention to their patient.
‘Where are the children now?’ she asked.
‘Their dad’s with them but he’s back to work tomorrow.’
Izzy touched her lightly on the shoulder.
‘Don’t worry. I’ll talk to Hallie, she’ll organise something then go and see your husband and explain it all to him.’
The woman looked relieved, but Mac was obviously puzzled.
‘Does Hallie run the entire town?’ he asked, and their patient smiled.
‘Just about,’ she said, ‘and if it comes to organising things she’s the best so I know whatever she does for the kids, they’ll be okay.’
‘What does she do in cases like this?’ Mac asked Izzy as the patient was wheeled away.
Unable to look directly at him, Izzy busied herself cleaning up the room.
‘There are a lot of groups—Country Women’s Association, church groups, Girl Guides—they all have people who love to volunteer. You’ll find she’ll soon have a roster of babysitters and probably a cook and a gardener as well, making sure the family is well cared for.’
Mac nodded slowly.
‘I suppose to some extent the army is the same, only there it would be a welfare officer organising it all. And possibly not as efficiently. She’d have made general in the army, your Hallie.’
And Izzy couldn’t help but smile at the compliment, but smiling at Mac reminded her of all the reasons she shouldn’t, reminded her of all the stuff she had to sort out before she could talk to him—or Nikki for that matter.
Just the thought of it made her feel ill.
‘I’d better get on to the general, then,’ she said, and slipped away, the ED suddenly quiet, and therefore a dangerous place to be with Mac...
* * *
Mac drifted through the hospital, physically there and doing his job, but a part of his mind still struggled with the truly weird experience he’d had the previous evening, when Izzy had gone from a lively and generous lover to a—
Madwoman?
Was she bipolar?
Had some other personality disorder?
But why would his name have triggered such an extreme reaction—so extreme she’d momentarily forgotten they were in her house, not his?
His heart felt heavy with...
What?
Love unspoken?
Despair that whatever it had been between them was now over?
No, there had to be a rational explanation. It was just a matter of getting some time alone with her, and the two of them talking.
Sensibly, rationally.
But he remembered the feel of her skin against his, heard the little noises she’d made as she’d writhed on the bed beneath him.
Could he really be rational about this when just thinking of the previous night had him hard?
At work?
What had happened to common sense?
Professionalism?
He grabbed a roomy white coat from the laundry, although he rarely wore one on the wards, and did a round, not seeing her, but checking all their patients.
He had notes to write up about the district meeting, figures to get ready for the district director, plenty of work to keep him in his office and to block a certain red-haired nurse completely from his mind.
Not easy when Hallie arrived, wanting a bit of information about how long he expected the woman with pre-eclampsia to be in hospital.
‘Just so I have some idea of how long she’ll need help, although she’ll still need someone to lend a hand when she gets out, won’t she?’
Mac told her what he thought, agreed she’d need help even when he let her go.
‘It will depend on whether her blood pressure comes down and stays down,’ he explained. ‘If not, I’ll keep her in until the baby’s due. If it goes into full eclampsia—’
‘She’ll need a Caesar,’ Hallie finished for him. ‘I started nursing here in the days when the doctors did the lot—well, doctors and nurses—we had a great midwife.’
Mac had to smile. This woman took everything in her stride—much like Izzy, he supposed, although he didn’t really know, Izzy, did he?
Had it all been just too sudden?
Was that what lay behind the panic?
‘Are you settling in?’ Hallie asked, and he hoped she couldn’t read what he’d been thinking on his face.
‘Yes, fine, thank you.’
She laughed!
‘That’s far too polite given you’ve had one crisis after another from the moment you arrived. I hope Izzy’s been some help. She’s got a good head on her shoulders, that one. I sometimes think of all the children I’ve had over the years, she’s—well, parents shouldn’t have favourites—but Izzy’s close. Lila, of course, is Pop’s little gift from God. He saved her, you know, from a burning car and she’s clung to him ever since.’
And, having delivered these scraps of information, Hallie departed, off to organise her army of volunteers, small-town spirit at its best.
Which was when he realised he was settling in, beginning to see how small towns worked...
Feeling at home here?
Well, he had been...
* * *
Izzy shuffled the nursing rosters, phoned around to see who was available, then drew up a list of those who’d special Ahmed, checking for symptoms of delayed shock or infection, looking after his parents who were taking turns beside his bed.
She put herself down for Ahmed duty for the night shift—doing double shifts had never worried her—but now she’d sneak off home and have a sleep before she began her regular shift at two.
Sneak off?
Well, not exactly, although she crossed her fingers that she wouldn’t see Mac as she made her escape.
Crossing fingers—what a childish thing to do—but somehow that was how she felt: as bewildered as she’d sometimes been as a child, having to make a decision that seemed far too complex for her brain.
More than one decision...
Of course she could ignore it—say nothing?
Not to Nikki—
Not to Mac—
And be haunted for the rest of her life?
Once safely home she showered again, feeling new sensitivity in her body, thinking of Mac’s hands, his kisses, the joy she’d been feeling.
But she had to sleep, so in the end put all thoughts and memories resolutely from her mind and did sleep, waking just in time to change into a uniform, make a sandwich to eat on the walk down the hill, and arrive at work on time.
She’d just grabbed a sticky bun from the kitchen and was heading for the nurses’ station for handover when she ran into Mac.
Inevitably ran into Mac!
‘I saw you’ve put yourself down for the night shift, specialling Ahmed,’ he said, very colleague-to-colleague, pure professional.
Well, she could do professional—or would have been able to if she couldn’t feel the bit of pink icing from the bun on her cheek.
‘I don’t mind doing a double shift. And if he’s restless, it’s better for him to have someone he knows with him rather than one of the agency nurses we have available. He’s been trying to teach me to surf—not having much success, but we have a laugh together.’
She wanted to swipe her finger across her cheek, but didn’t want to draw attention to the icing.
Some hope! It was Mac’s finger that did the swiping, Mac’s finger that held up the tell-tale smear before licking it, smiling, and saying, ‘Delicious,’ in a tone that made her cheeks burn.
Mac saw the colour rise beneath her skin, waited, hoping she’d say something, hoping—
Well, he didn’t know what he hoped, except that he’d been keeping an eye on the back entrance to the hospital for the last ten minutes, wanting to catch her, hoping perhaps they could talk.
But when he saw her, iced bun half-eaten in her hand, a smear of pink icing on her cheek, he’d had no words.
He’d lost the questions he wanted to ask—couldn’t remember even the basic one—what had happened last night—
Now she whisked away, into the bathroom, no doubt to clean her sticky fingers and check for icing on her face.
How could she think of such mundane things when he burned to know what was going on between them?
When he wanted to know if there was anything between them?
Oh, for Pete’s sake, what was he doing, maundering around like this?
He didn’t do love, he reminded himself, he dallied, and if the initial meeting in a dalliance didn’t work, he moved on.
So move on now!
Right now!
Phone Frances to apologise for leaving the barn dance early, find out whether he was keeping a three-legged goat fed for a year, maybe ask her over to try his Moroccan tagine, which he hadn’t actually made just yet, still surviving on toast and packet soup, and a nourishing lunch the kitchen supervisor insisted he eat.
But he didn’t phone Frances, instead he checked on Ahmed, talking to his gentle mother, calming down.
* * *
Ahmed’s condition remained stable through the night, although Izzy was worried about the swelling in his foot. Had they missed a bit of foreign matter, or had infection set in? His temperature was a little raised, but otherwise he seemed to be sleeping peacefully, still dopey from the anaesthetic.
Her relief came in—it would be up to Mac or Roger, whoever was on duty later this morning, to decide if he still needed someone with him.
Weariness descended like a cloud, but aware the arguments going on in her head would keep her from sleep, she changed from her uniform to jogging clothes and set off along the path.
The physical exertion might help her sleep later, but it did little for the muddle in her mind. She tried to narrow it down, to decide what was the worst thing that could possibly happen, and knew the answer—losing Nikki—either Nikki’s choice or Mac’s, which brought her back to not telling...
Finally realising that after a double shift nothing was making any sense, she turned her attention to the world around her, seeing what looked like someone sitting by the fresh-water tap.
A walker coming from the other direction?
Another jogger, although now the mornings were getting colder not many were out this early.
By the time she was close enough to realise it was Mac, she was too close to him to suddenly turn tail and run.
Besides which, she had to talk to him sometime, if only to apologise for her behaviour the other night.
‘Thought I might see you here,’ he said, and she tried desperately to hear something in his voice, or to see a clue as to what he was thinking in his eyes, his face.
‘I need to apologise,’ she said. ‘I behaved stupidly. I’m sorry.’
‘More panic than stupidity, I’d have thought.’
Still no hint of thoughts or feelings, while her own body was alive with sensation just being close to him.
Although maybe his coolness made things easier?
Perhaps he’d met to tell her it was all a mistake and they could forget what had happened and just be colleagues.
Except she couldn’t forget—couldn’t not tell—
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Really sorry. You must have thought I was mad.’
He didn’t answer, studying her instead, then a hint of a smile quirked one corner of his lips and her heart flipped in her chest.
‘Not mad but definitely upset about something. Can you talk about it?’
If only he hadn’t smiled. She sighed, and shook her head.
‘Not just yet,’ she said miserably. ‘I really want to but I need to think it through, need to get my head around it before I can discuss it rationally.’
He reached out and took her hand, drew her closer, almost close enough to kiss, but no kiss, just his hand with a firm grip on hers.
‘Maybe I can help,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m not a total idiot. I knew something I’d said, however inadvertently, had completely thrown you.’
He squeezed her fingers almost as if he didn’t mind she’d been so weird.
‘It took a while to make sense of it—in fact, it wasn’t until last night I had time to actually sit down and go over the conversation we’d been having. And found no clues, until you asked my name.’
‘Nicholas!’ Izzy breathed the word.
‘Nicholas indeed, and that’s when I remembered! I’d been telling you about this girl—well, woman—I’d been seeing over in Bali, and when I remembered telling you my first name I also remembered what she used to call me—’
‘Nikki Mac?’
Izzy asked it as a question but she already knew the answer.
He nodded, face grave.
‘Nikki?’
Izzy shrugged helplessly.
‘I don’t know—it’s what I think. The whole time she was away her texts to me were of no one else—just Nikki Mac. I wanted details. Was it serious? “Not me, not ever!” she replied. It was just a lovely fling with a wonderful, intelligent man, and they both knew that was all it was. She went straight to Sydney to a job Steve had got for her—her dream job, she said.’
‘Art,’ Mac said, his voice dark, sober...
‘She was brilliant,’ Izzy remembered, brushing tears from her eyes. ‘Drawing, painting, photography, she could make three lines on a piece of paper look like a scene, a few more and it would be a person.’
Mac stood up and drew her close enough to put his arm around her shoulders, holding her, comforting her.
‘I saw her work,’ he said quietly. ‘And she had such plans, such dreams.’
He let her go, turned away, staring out to sea.
‘I killed them for her, didn’t I? Carelessness on my part, her getting pregnant.’
Now Izzy went to him, touched his shoulder, moved closer.
‘We don’t know for sure, Mac. Health issues meant she was never regular, so I doubt she knew or even suspected for quite a few months. She knew she’d have support from all of us, but I think the tortured memories of her own childhood came back to haunt her when she realised she was pregnant, and it never took very much to turn Liane back to drugs. It was the only escape she knew and the slightest blip in her life would have her reaching for their oblivion.’
‘I had to leave early. I should have found her, I should have checked she was okay.’ Mac’s own demons were now haunting him. ‘She’d talked of Wetherby—that’s where I heard the name—but had told me she was going back to Sydney. Told me she was sterile, but still I should have checked. My father was ill, and I’d been posted to Townsville to begin my intern year. I thought about her often, but—’
‘You weren’t to know. Liane had told the truth as she knew it. She had been told she’d never have a child—her body too damaged in childhood, and long-term drug use on top of that.’
Mac knew Izzy’s words were meant to comfort him, but the wound went too deep.
How could he not have found her?
How could he not have known he had a child?
How careless he had been back in those joyous holiday days, revelling in the magic that was Bali, and the beautiful woman who called him Nikki Mac?
He took a deep breath and turned back to Izzy.
‘Nikki?’ he said.
Izzy shook her head.
‘I’m not up to that yet. I haven’t worked it out. It frightens me, Mac—all the ifs and buts and maybes. I can’t talk about it yet.’
She hesitated, then added, ‘And in spite of the name and Nikki’s blue eyes, she might not be your child. Wouldn’t you want to be sure?
Mac knew the words made sense—of course they should make sure—but he also felt as if the night—and all his thinking—had given him something precious. A child...
Did he want to risk losing that?
‘I’d be happy to accept her as mine. We could get married,’ he said, trying hard to sound sensible and practical when inside he was a gibbering mess. ‘Wouldn’t that solve all the problems?’
‘Get married?’
She almost yelled the words at him. ‘You don’t want to get married, and I don’t want to marry someone who isn’t a for-ever-and-ever person, and how would Nikki feel? She’s not stupid. She’d know we were doing it for her and that would be a terrible burden for her to bear.’
‘It was just a thought,’ Mac said, slightly staggered that she’d been so adamant. He’d thought it quite a good idea. In fact, the more it moved around in his head now, the better it got.
Which just went to show how little he understood women, he supposed, although now the thought was there it wasn’t going to go away.
Marrying Izzy had become a very attractive proposition...
All he had to do was work out how to do it—how to persuade her...
Start with a kiss?