‘Thanks, love. Can’t go out looking like something the cat dragged in.’
Fraser picked up the thick robe and began to gently slip a sleeve up Mavis’s arm. ‘You’re going to wow those doctors in ED by the time I’ve finished with you.’
Nikki strode outside for the stretcher and gasped. She’d been smiling. At Fraser, and how he handled Mavis so well. For a very brief moment she’d forgotten the past. Dang.
Thirty minutes later their patient had been delivered into the kind care of the ED nurses and Nikki pulled away from Wairau Hospital’s ambulance bay. ‘You were good with Mavis.’
Fraser picked up the handset. ‘Why do you sound surprised?’
Gulp. Yeah, why did she? ‘I’m not, really. You were always brilliant with patients.’ She’d observed it first hand when he’d been training and she’d dropped by the hospital to see him. Changing the subject away from anything close and personal, she said quickly, ‘Some old folk are so lonely. I wonder how they get that way. Mavis’s daughter doesn’t exactly seem overly caring and loving.’
‘Maybe they’ve had a bust-up in the past. Life doesn’t always pan out how you expect it to.’ Fraser pressed the button and spoke to the call centre in Christchurch where all 111 calls in the South Island were dealt with.
Was she talking about his father? Or their relationship? Her life had certainly gone off course because of Fraser. But his voice had been harsh with knowledge, with deep understanding of things going wrong. Had he faced something terrible since before he’d left her? Or had it been the prospect of getting married that had distressed him so much? Not for the first time she wondered if he’d got cold feet at the thought of being tied to her for ever. Or had he thought her unattractive? Overweight? Not good in bed? Found another woman? All the insecurities she’d learned to deal with now flashed up in her head, but she quickly shoved them away. She was at work, not the place to be thinking about the past.
‘Blenheim One departing Wairau ED, en route to Base.’ His tone was measured, professional as he relayed details to Coms. It was the voice he used to calm distraught patients before he started gently teasing them and making them smile. The times she’d seen him on the wards he’d been completely at ease with patients and their families, making them feel they’d had his undivided attention for as long as they’d needed it.
‘Did you finish your medical degree?’ The words were out before she could stop them.
‘No.’ His fingers whitened as they pushed the handset back onto its hook.
‘Why not? All you ever wanted to be was a doctor. Even when we were kids you’d tell everyone that’s what you were going to be when you grew up.’
‘I changed my mind.’
Stunned, she again spoke without thinking, ‘You changed your mind after four years of study? Why?’
‘I wasn’t ready.’
‘Not ready? For what? You loved medicine. I remember all those endless nights you put in studying and not begrudging a single second. You couldn’t wait to get to university or the hospital every morning to learn more. You loved it all. There was the day you came home shouting with excitement, saying you wanted to be a surgeon, that surgery was amazing. Then months later you decided paediatrics was the greatest, all those little kids needing your care. Then—’
‘Drop it,’ Fraser snapped at her. ‘Just leave it, will you?’ The eyes he turned to her glittered angrily. His fists pounded his thighs. ‘I had a change of heart, Nik. That’s all.’
Perversely her heart swelled. He’d called her Nik, his pet name for her. No one else dared call her Nik. Until Fraser she’d hated it. Had he used it to drive his point home? Or because he still cared a little about her?
Idiot. Even if he does, it means nothing. You’re not interested in getting back with him, only in finding out why he took off in such a flaming hurry without a word of explanation.
Nothing had changed in that respect. He’d made it very clear he had no intention of telling her anything about what he’d been up to in the intervening years. She needed to mind her own business, even with Fraser. But she’d like some closure, even after all this time.
The radio squawked to life. ‘Blenheim One, stand by.’
Snatching up the handset, Fraser acknowledged, ‘Roger, Blenheim One standing by.’ His relief at the diversion throbbed between them.
Nikki pulled the ambulance over to the side of the road to wait until they found out where they were needed next. Her fingers drummed on the steering-wheel as she waited for the details. Her stomach cramped as it squeezed around yet more disappointment about Fraser. The silence between them was heavy with all the things they’d left unsaid.
Had he ever really loved her? Had he got caught up in the excitement of their relationship and popped the question without thinking the ramifications through? Unlike her. She’d always loved Fraser, had always wanted to marry him and have his babies. She shot a quick glance in his direction, saw his face in profile as he glared outside, his chin pushed forward, the corner of his mouth white with tension.
‘Blenheim One, male, nineteen years old, severe abdo pain,’ the dispatcher intoned over the radio, her voice sharp in the frosty air of the cab.
Thank goodness. With a patient to deal with they could forget everything else for a while. Forget? Or postpone?
‘Roger, Coms.’ Fraser tapped the screen to bring up the patient details.
Nikki noted the address and made a U-turn, making a mental list of the obs she’d do for a patient with abdominal pain.
Fraser appeared fascinated with the passing houses. Then he surprised her further. ‘I’m not the only one to change careers. You always talked of being a chef, and had a goal to work in a top-class restaurant. What happened to that, Nikki?’
He’d turned the tables on her. She turned them back. ‘I never went back to Dunedin after you dumped me. I quit my job and stayed at home on the farm.’ She’d never have survived returning to the city where they’d lived. ‘You must’ve noticed that much.’
His mouth tightened. Regretting asking about her past now? ‘Who do you think packed up all your gear from our flat and sent it up to your parents’ farm?’
She deflated like a balloon suddenly let go. ‘I never knew it was you. I just thought it would’ve been one of our friends.’ So it had been Fraser who’d put into one of the boxes her favourite photo of them together at St Kilda beach. It now lay at the back of the wardrobe in her old room at the farm. ‘Did you leave university then? Or later?’
He ducked that one. ‘What made you choose the ambulance service?’
She sighed. ‘Dad had an accident, rolled the tractor at the back of the farm. Luckily he was thrown clear but still copped a broken femur and a punctured lung.’ Nikki paused, reliving the scene she’d come across when her dad hadn’t come in for lunch on time. ‘At first I thought he was dying, he looked so still and pale. I freaked.’ She’d wished Fraser had been there because he’d have known what to do.
Fraser had turned to look at her. ‘A frightening situation.’
‘Terrifying. The ambulance crew were fantastic and I began to see something else I might consider doing for a job. I volunteered the next week and gave them every hour I had free.’ It had also made her feel closer to him—for a while.
‘But you always hated the sight of blood.’ Fraser shook his head.
‘I got over that really fast.’
‘But you gave up your passion. I remember those fantastic meals you created. There was never a time when there wasn’t something tasty in our fridge. Our friends used to draw straws to see who came to dinner in