* * *
Aaron was still there late that evening. He wasn’t officially on duty for a couple of days, which would have given him time to relax before going back to Barnaby’s, but all that had changed and Annabel thought that, jetlagged or not, this man was staying put until he was happy about his daughter’s condition.
A junior doctor and a relief surgeon from the General Hospital were due to come on duty at ten o’clock and that would be the routine until the other two regulars came back.
Aaron had been by Lucy’s side while further scans had been done to check on the success of the operation, and soon they would know whether the man who was seeing the other face of medicine, from the position of anxious parent, could relax.
Annabel didn’t know why but she felt an affinity with him. Maybe it was because she’d recently suffered a great loss herself and had known the aching grief that had come with the knowledge that her baby would never see the light of day.
She’d dealt with grieving and frantic parents since then but had never felt like this, and she told herself it must be because they were both doctors seeing life from the opposite side of the fence.
The results came through just as she was due to go off duty at ten o’clock and as they studied them the two doctors were smiling. The skull was as back to normal in shape and size as it could be so soon after surgery. There was no bleeding and the bone fragments were still in place where she’d repaired them.
When he turned to her there was warmth in his eyes for the first time and he said abruptly, ‘I think some thanks are overdue, Dr Swain. Charles Drury, who I hold in high esteem, couldn’t have done better.’
She smiled and he thought that with a bit more life in her and some natural colour in her cheeks this hazel-eyed doctor would be quite something. His glance went to her hands. There was no wedding ring on view. But that didn’t mean anything these days. She could have a partner. Though that wasn’t likely if she was living in the soulless block in the hospital grounds.
There was a solitariness about her. The air of a loner. Curiosity was stirring in him, but he wasn’t going to let her see it. He would find out soon enough what was going on in her life if they were going to be teaming up on the wards.
She was ready to leave and Aaron was still sitting beside a sleeping Lucy.
‘I’m finished for the day, Dr Lewis,’ she said quietly. ‘But if you need me at all during the night, call me. A junior doctor and a surgeon on loan from the General are taking over now, but Lucy is my patient and I want it to stay that way.’
He nodded, almost asleep himself as jet-lag was beginning to take over.
‘Why don’t you go home for a couple of hours?’ she suggested. ‘It must be quite some time since you slept. I believe you’ve been on a tour of paediatric hospitals in America and were met at the airport with news of Lucy’s accident.’
‘I suppose I could pop home for an hour,’ he was saying. ‘I need a shower and a change of clothes, and at the moment all is quiet with Lucy so, yes, Dr Swain, I’ll take your advice.’
‘The name is Annabel,’ she told him.
Again he was aware of her in a strange sort of way.
‘Suits you,’ he commented briefly. ‘At least it would if...’
His voice had trailed away and with a wry smile she finished the sentence for him, ‘I wasn’t such a washed-out mess?’
For the first time in ages she was bothered about what someone thought of her.
It was Aaron’s turn to smile.
‘That isn’t how I would describe you. It would be more along the lines of someone who looks as if they need plenty of rest and vitamins. Have you been ill recently?’
‘No,’ she said, not sure if a painful miscarriage came into that category.
‘So it must just be due to the strains and stresses of health care that get to us all at one time or another,’ he commented, and with nothing further to say she nodded.
* * *
When Annabel had gone, Aaron did as she’d suggested and drove the short distance to the house that he and Eloise had bought when they’d married. She’d loved the rambling red-brick place and coming back to it without her after that disastrous holiday had been dreadful, but, as his mother had said, life had to go on and, as Lucy was growing older, his mother’s stoic calm and his daughter’s laughter had made it into a home again.
The luxury in which he lived was a far cry from Annabel Swain’s living quarters, he thought as he put his key in the lock. What was a woman like her doing in hospital accommodation, for heaven’s sake?
His mother was in bed but not asleep, and the moment she heard his step on the landing she came out to ask about Lucy.
‘So far so good,’ he told her. ‘She’s rational, as you saw when she awoke, and the surgery that Annabel Swain performed was spot on from the looks of it.’
Mary nodded.
‘We owe that lady a lot, Aaron. I know that she was only doing the job she’s paid to do, but I liked her the moment I saw her. She’d barely had time to get her foot over the doorstep at Barnaby’s and she was operating on our precious girl. When Lucy comes home, why don’t we invite her over for a meal?’
‘I agree with all you say,’ he told her, ‘but she might think an invitation to dinner a bit over the top.’
‘Nonsense!’ his mother exclaimed. ‘Annabel Swain looks as if she could do with some tender loving care herself. She’s too thin and pale.’
Aaron was smiling. ‘And you’d like to turn her into a buxom wench?’
‘Not exactly. I wouldn’t have thought that ‘‘buxom wenches’’ were quite your type.’
‘What has it got to do with me?’ he asked with dark brows rising. ‘You’re not going to try and marry me off again, are you? Because it won’t work.’
‘You can’t mourn Eloise for ever,’ she said gently.
‘It has nothing to do with that. I accepted long ago that she’s gone and won’t be coming back. But if and when I decide to marry again, I’ll do the choosing.’
She laughed. ‘All right. I get the message, but I’m not getting any younger, you know. Lucy needs a younger woman in her life.’
‘Yes, I know,’ he agreed, ‘and when the time is right I’ll do something about it.’
He felt vaguely irritated that his mother was taking such an interest in a woman that he’d only just met. Yet he had to admit that he’d been drawn to her for some reason and there hadn’t been many women he could say that about since he’d lost Eloise.
But reason said it was because she’d saved his daughter’s life. It certainly wasn’t because he’d been bowled over by her looks. Like a lot of other overworked doctors he’d met, she was white-faced, with dark smudges beneath those striking hazel eyes, and weary.
After he’d showered and changed Aaron unloaded his luggage from his mother’s car and took out the gift he’d brought for Lucy. Mary was on the verge of sleep again, so he crept in and put the box that held a gold bracelet from one of New York’s top stores on the bedside table.
He’d brought his daughter a doll, a miniature version of a pretty cheer-leader, and hoped that it might help to take her mind off the aches and pains that were the aftermath of surgery. Patti-Faye, she was