Twins for Christmas (4 page)

I
F ANYONE COULD
 
save this child, it was this man. Rory McCulloch.

And Kate was there. Right beside him.

There were lots of other people as well, of course. Other doctors and nurses, technicians and a surgeon with his registrar, but it was Rory who took over trying to make sure this boy could breathe—because if he couldn’t he was going to die, very, very quickly.

Rory had fresh gloves on by the time he reached the head of the bed. So did Kate. She unrolled a kit onto the top of a trolley, containing what she knew Rory would need.

‘Fold a towel and slip it under his shoulders,’ Rory directed another nurse. ‘Kate, can you prep the skin, please?’

Wordlessly, Kate picked up a swab in some forceps and dipped it into the anti sep tic solution someone was tipping into a kidney dish for her. She swabbed the front of the boy’s neck, swallowing hard herself as she thought of what had to be done.

She watched Rory feel for the anatomical land marks and then stab il ise the small Adam’s apple with one hand. His other hand reached out to Kate and she placed a scalpel into it.

Their hands touched for only an instant in time, but Kate could feel Rory’s tension. She held her breath. Everyone else seemed to do the same and movement stilled, the atmosphere so tense it felt as if the world might shatter at any moment.

Rory didn’t hesitate. His movements were smooth and sure, despite the grim necessity of actually cutting into the little boy’s throat. The tube was slipped into place and suction used to clear it. Then the bag mask unit was attached.

And finally the small chest rose as air entered the lungs. Everybody breathed out in a collective sigh of relief in time with the boy’s outward breath, but Rory wasn’t finished. He was watching the respiratory efforts intently.

Braden handed Rory his own stethoscope and Kate allowed herself to watch his face, because he was too intent on his patient to notice her scrutiny. It was ridiculous to feel so proud of him, but there it was. Kate had to blink the threat of tears away.

Rory turned his attention to the monitors next, and then to his colleagues. A theatre was on standby, but they had to make sure that their patient was stable enough to transfer and find out the extent of the trauma they would need to deal with. Kate left the room for a minute or two while a series of X-rays was being taken. She returned as the images were coming through on the computer, but she still stood back.

This felt so right. As if Rory had never been away. If it wasn’t for the huge bump of her belly it would have been easy to dismiss the gap in time. He was here again,
 
now
, doing the job he did so brilliantly, and another life had just been saved.

How could he have walked away from doing this? From being able to make such a difference?

The little boy, Michael, was now breathing well on a ventilator, and his vital signs were stable and within acceptable limits. His care was passed to the paediatric surgeon who led the team transferring him to Theatre. Braden was going to accompany the entourage.

‘I’ll be back directly,’ he said as they left the resuscitation area. ‘We’ve dealt with the worst here, but there are still a lot of patients that need attention. Rory, I hate to ask, but—’

Rory’s smile was lopsided. ‘I’m here,’ he said. ‘I’ll help if I can.’

‘You already have,’ Braden told him quietly. ‘Thanks, mate.’

R
ORY WAS STRIPPING
 
off his gloves as Kate reached his side. Other staff had dispersed to urgent tasks. Only a nurse aide was left, and she was busy cleaning up. Kate couldn’t help her wide smile.

‘I knew you could do it.’

He didn’t return the smile. ‘You knew more than I did, then.’

Kate held his gaze. Maybe he wasn’t relaxed enough to smile, but that unbearable level of tension was gone. And there was something else in both his look and those words. Something that recognised the link between them. An acknowledge ment that Kate knew more than anyone else because she’d been there that night. She had seen him in a space no one else here would dream he could ever be in.

He’d let her share that space then. Would he let her in again?

‘What I don’t know,’ Kate said cautiously, ‘is why you stopped doing this. Why you had to leave.’ She swallowed hard. ‘Was it because of me?’

That shocked him. He was holding his gloves over the rubbish bin, but he forgot to let them go. ‘Good God, Katie! Why on earth would you think that?’

He’d called her Katie again. It was a struggle to keep her tone light. To give a shrug that belied her history of painful agonising over this.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she said quietly. ‘You’d never taken any notice of me. Not in—um—
that
 
way. And then we had that amazing night. But you creep out of my room hoping that I’m still asleep and—’

The flush of colour would have been welcome on his pale face if it hadn’t been due to embarrassment. ‘
Weren’t
 
you?’

‘No. I pretended to be, because it was obvious you didn’t want to talk to me.’

‘I—’

‘And then,’ Kate rushed on, ‘I get to work to find you’ve gone. Resigned. Vanished. Can you blame a girl for thinking that you’d gone to rather extraordinary lengths so that you didn’t have to see her again?’

The quiet sound he made was almost a groan. Rory dropped the gloves into the bin and caught Kate’s shoulders.

‘Don’t ever think that,’ he said softly. ‘You have no idea how important it was. How often I thought about that night.’

‘As often as
 
I
 
thought about it?’ Kate’s voice caught. ‘I don’t think so, Rory.’

There was a moment’s silence as they stared at each other. There were too many questions hanging in the air between them. So much that was a mystery. But one thing was clearer now.

He hadn’t been avoiding
 
her.
 
Kate knew with a certainty that gave her a new sense of peace that she had had nothing to do with his decision to leave. That the decision had been made well before she’d met Rory that night.

And he remembered their time together.

It had been important.

A glimmer of something like joy flickered within Kate, but then Rory’s gaze dropped. To her belly.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘I’m not,’ Kate responded steadily.

His gaze flicked up. ‘Really?’

She drew in a deep breath. How could she tell him she already loved these babies because of the way they had been conceived? Because she’d known for a very long time that she would never love another man the way she loved their father?

She couldn’t tell him. Not when he was ‘sorry’. Sorry that he’d made a mistake in allowing it to happen.

The faint glow of joy was snuffed out. Perfect timing for someone to come close enough for them both to be distracted.

‘Could I ask you both to help mop up in the cubicles?’ Judy asked. ‘There’s a woman next door to your mother, Dr McCulloch, who needs a head wound sutured. There’s nobody available from Plastics, and if anyone could do a job that won’t leave too much of a scar it would be you.’

Rory didn’t seem to notice the compliment. ‘Is my mother still asleep?’

‘Yes. Quite peacefully, and her temperature’s still dropping.’ Judy’s smile was openly admiring as she turned to hurry away again. ‘Fabulous job there with Michael. Just like the old days.’

Rory said nothing, but Kate kept pace with him as he headed in Judy’s wake.

‘She’s right, you know.’

‘Is she?’

‘You stepped back just the way you left. In a blaze of glory.’

Rory stopped just in front of the double doors that led from the resuscitation area back to the main department. The halt was so sudden Kate almost bumped into him. Her belly brushed his hand.

‘What on earth are you talking about?’

‘The last case that day. Don’t you remember? The toddler with meningitis?’

‘I remember.’

‘He’d been discharged,’ Kate continued, speaking fast because she knew they were needed elsewhere, but this was somehow important. ‘The houseman had filled him up with paracetamol to get his fever down and decided his rash was due to fleabites. You ran after them. Stopped them driving out of the car park. Made the parents bring him back.’

‘I remember,’ Rory repeated, grimly enough to let Kate know she wasn’t wrong in assuming the importance she was assigning to this part of their history. ‘It was why I had to leave.’ He was moving again, his hand on the doors. He didn’t want to talk about this.

‘But you
 
saved
 
him.’

Her words were quiet. A thought that was spoken aloud unintentionally. But Rory turned his head.

‘It wasn’t enough,’ he growled. ‘Not that day. Come on, Katie.’ He pushed open the swing door. ‘We’ve got work to do. There’ll be plenty of time to talk later.’

T
HE CASUALTY DEPARTMENT
 
of St Bethel’s Hospital had gone from being ‘restful’ to completely chaotic.

A nurse was walking up and down in front of the central desk, holding the toddler who’d come in with the first wave of patients. Danni was still crying.

‘Someone needs to check that child again,’ Rory said.

Other patients had come in while they’d been involved in the resuscitation area drama. Cubicles were full and staff were flat out. An ECG machine was being wheeled to one bedside. Someone was having a seizure in Cubicle 6 and a very inebriated person in a Santa costume was yelling for attention in Cubicle 5.

And there seemed to be children everywhere they looked. Cubicle 1, beside the woman they were assigned to see, had a thin, worried-looking girl peering out.

‘Rhys?’ she called nervously. ‘Alex? Come back here!’

A small girl, maybe four or five years old, was tugging on an older child’s arm.

‘Lucy? Why is Father Christmas shouting? I want to go
 
home
!’

‘Are you all right?’ Kate asked as they got closer.

The girl nodded. Then shook her head. ‘I can’t see the boys and I’m supposed to be looking after them.’

‘What’s your name, sweetheart?’

‘Lucy.’

‘And how old are you?’

‘I’m eleven.’ Lucy was looking past Kate now. ‘Are you a doctor?’ she asked Rory.

‘Yes, I am.’

‘Did you…? Is…?’ Lucy’s inward breath was a gulp. ‘We saw Michael being taken away and…’

Her face crumpled. The face of the smaller girl, who had been staring upwards, was like a mirror. Both girls burst into tears simultaneously.

Kate’s gaze flicked automatically to Rory. Would she see the man she’d fallen in love with so long ago?

Yes.
 
Her breath escaped in a sigh of what felt like relief as she saw the softening in his face. The compassion that had always made him go the extra mile for any young patient.

He bent down and scooped up the smaller girl. He put his free arm around Lucy.

‘Come with me,’ he directed, drawing them back into the cubicle. He sat on the bed and patted the space beside him, and without hesitation Lucy climbed up to sit beside him.

‘Michael got hurt in the crash,’ he said quietly. ‘And he was very sick for a while.’

Lucy nodded, tears streaming down her face. ‘I know. He…he couldn’t breathe properly. I saw them with the football thing.’

‘That’s called a bag mask,’ Rory said in the same calm tone. ‘It’s scary, but it’s very useful. All it does is collect air inside the football bit, and when you squeeze it, it helps people to breathe when they can’t manage very well on their own.’

‘Did it help Michael?’ Lucy had inched closer, her gaze glued on Rory’s face.

‘Yes, it did. But then we had to do some more to help him. He needed a little tube inside his throat to make sure the air could get where it was supposed to be.’

A glance towards Kate included her in this inter change. Gave them that link again of knowing things no one around them could know. Kate could feel her own gaze softening this time. Acknowledging the simplification of what had been a major intervention. That tiny gap between life and death and the battle that had been fought. And won.

Lucy accepted the explanation. It was almost all she needed. ‘Why?’ she asked quietly.

‘Sometimes when things get bumped they can break or bleed, and if that’s happening in the spaces where air is supposed to be, it makes people very sick.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘He’s gone to have an operation. To fix any broken bits and to make sure nothing’s bleeding inside.’

‘Will he be all right?’

Rory was as focussed on Lucy as the girl was on him. His arms were still around the smaller girl, who had put her thumb into her mouth and was leaning back, looking up, as though she was also listening and finding reassurance in his words.

Kate was watching, too. So captured by this scene she hadn’t even thought of moving. It was no surprise when she found a small boy by her side. And then another on the other side. Rory had always drawn people towards him. Especially children. Her hands seemed to find their hands without any conscious effort and they stood in a little row. Hand in hand.

Watching. Listening. Holding their breath as they waited for the verdict on Michael to be delivered.

The children on either side of her wouldn’t be seeing what Kate saw. A man who respected children enough to be as honest as their level of understanding allowed. Someone so sincere they instinctively trusted him. Did he know he won that trust so easily? Was that why he’d always been so honest with them?

This was the man Kate had come to love so much. Not the brilliant physician or the fun-loving party animal. Not even the gorgeous poster boy with the perfect look for a model young doctor. He could have been short and dumpy and bald and she would still have loved him for the way he cared so much.

‘Michael’s still very sick,’ he told his small audience gravely. ‘But there are lots of people who are working very hard to try and make him better. Our job is to be brave while we wait and to look after each other. Can you do that?’

Lucy nodded slowly. ‘But what about Aunty Mary?’

‘I’ll go and find out for you.’

‘She had a sore nose,’ one of the boys beside Kate piped up. ‘I saw
 
lots
 
of blood.’

‘I saw more than you did, Alex,’ the other boy said. ‘I got some on my shirt—see?’

The small girl pulled her thumb from her mouth. ‘I want to go home,’ she informed Rory.

‘What’s your name, poppet?’

‘Nicola.’

‘And you don’t have anything that’s sore?’

A small blonde head shook vigorously. ‘We have to go home,’ she said with considerable urgency. ‘Josie’s having her baby.’

Rory’s eyebrows rose and his tone evinced surprise. ‘
Is
 
she?’

Lucy scrubbed at her face. ‘She
 
might
 
be having her baby,’ she said, with all the authority of being the eldest. She gave Rory a look that put them on an equal footing in the authority stakes. ‘She’s late,’ she explained. ‘Aunty Mary says she can’t for the life of her understand why she hasn’t had her baby already, but maybe it’s because it’s Christmas and she wants it to be a present for us all.’

Rory nodded, but the glance he sent Kate held a distinct edge of concern. ‘And Josie’s at home? All by herself?’

‘In the stable,’ the boy called Alex confirmed.

‘That’s where she lives,’ the other boy added.

Kate could see Rory relax. She saw the beginnings of a smile that made her grip the small hands within hers a little more tightly.

‘And Josie is…?’

‘Our
 
donkey
,’ the children chorused.

‘Her real name’s Josephine,’ Lucy said. ‘Because of—you know—donkeys and Christmas and stuff. Mary was riding a donkey because—’

‘Not
 
Aunty
 
Mary,’ Alex interrupted. ‘The Mary in the story.’

‘Shut up, Alex,’ the other boy said.

‘No,
 
you
 
shut up, Rhys.’

Lucy glared at them. ‘Mary was riding a donkey because she was too fat to walk to the stable.’

‘She was having a
 
baby
!’ Rhys crowed triumphantly.

Alex leaned forward. He stared at Kate’s stomach and then up at her face.

‘You’re fat,’ he told her. ‘Are
 
you
 
having a baby?’

Kate smiled. ‘Yes, I am.’

‘Why?’

‘Ah…’ Kate caught Rory’s gaze, still smiling. How huge was
 
that
 
question?

She was having a baby because of one amazing night. A night when she’d been needed by the man she loved as much as she had ever wanted to be needed. It had been her gift and it could never be something she would regret.

Especially now, knowing that he’d remembered it. That it had been important.

To her amazement, Rory smiled back at her. A real smile. The kind she remembered, but hadn’t seen for so, so long. And something inside Kate melted.

Alex bounced up and down, trying to catch Rory’s attention. ‘Why?’ he demanded again.

Rory cleared his throat. He didn’t take his eyes off Kate. ‘Sometimes it just happens, mate,’ he said cautiously. ‘And it’s a surprise. A really big surprise.’

‘I like surprises,’ Alex nodded. ‘’Specially at Christmas.’

‘Are you having a baby because it’s Christmas?’ Rhys asked. ‘Like Josie?’

Nicola’s eyes were wide. ‘Is it a present?’

Kate’s smile wobbled. ‘Kind of,’ she said. She was holding Rory’s gaze, talking to him, her voice quiet and sure. ‘It’s certainly a gift as far as I’m concerned. Something very special.’

‘We’ve got presents,’ Alex told her.

‘Not any more,’ Rhys said sadly. ‘They’re in the bus, remember? They’ll be all mushed up.’

‘I want to go home,’ Nicola said in a small voice. ‘And I want to see the presents under our tree.’

‘We could ask that Santa.’ Alex was leaning around Kate so he could talk to Rhys. ‘Did you see him?’

‘I didn’t like him,’ Rhys said worriedly. ‘He sounds cross.’

Their anxiety level was increasing. Rory eased him self from the bed, gently disentangling the small arms that wound themselves around his neck.

‘He’s not the real Santa,’ he told the children. ‘He’s just dressing up like one. Kate and I are going to find out what’s happened to those presents,’ he promised. ‘And about Aunty Mary and everybody else. And then I’m going to find a nurse who can get you all something to eat. Who likes ice cream?’

‘Meee!’
 
The combination of several enthusiastic voices made the word into a verbal bomb.

Judy appeared as if by magic. ‘What’s going on in here?’

‘We need ice cream,’ Rory told her seriously. ‘It’s an emergency.’

Judy grinned. ‘I’ll see what I can find in the freezer. Are you going to see Florence?’

‘We’re almost there.’ Kate lifted the edge of the neighbouring curtain and was horrified to see the woman with the bandaged head sobbing silently.

‘What’s happened?’ she gasped, rushing to the head of the bed. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘I was listening…’ Florence caught her breath and gave an enormous sniff. Then a tremulous smile. ‘What a lovely man that doctor is.’

‘Yes.’ Kate knew perfectly well that Rory had left his following with Judy and was now standing right behind her. ‘I think so, too.’