It had only been when she’d started looking at him with the new awareness of a teenager’s eyes that everything had changed.
At first, she’d been frightened by the way her feelings towards her adored big brother had altered. There had been security in being his little Dani…the name he and his mother had compromised on in memory of the baby brother he’d wanted to call Daniel. The trouble was, each time he’d come home from medical school she’d seen how much he had changed while he’d been away, and even though a part of her had longed for the security of their old relationship, it had been impossible to go back.
It was only after the disaster of her eighteenth birthday that she’d realised that the changes had all been on her side. The look of horror on his face when she’d kissed him had proved that he’d been completely oblivious to the fact that she’d been growing up, that she didn’t see him as just a brother any more, and that expression was something she’d never been able to forget.
So, what on earth was she doing working with the man? Was she completely mad to put herself through six months of…of what?
She forced herself to think about the situation, calmly and rationally.
For a start, there wasn’t a post anywhere in the country where she would get a better grounding in her chosen field than in Josh’s department. In spite of his comparative youth, there were few who could equal his knowledge or his dedication. And if that came with six months of butterflies in her stomach whenever she heard his voice, or fighting down the urge to leap on him every time she saw him and beg him to kiss her senseless? Well, that was a price she was willing to pay.
Anyway, she’d never given up hoping. If she was lucky, her protective big brother might finally come to realise that she wasn’t his baby sister any more but an attractive woman who was as dedicated to her profession as he was.
‘But that won’t happen if I stand around with a besotted expression on my face when there are tests to perform and results to chase up,’ she muttered under her breath, and had to stifle a shriek when she saw the time. She’d come in early that morning to give herself some leeway, but now there was less than an hour left before Josh started the morning’s staff meeting, and the last thing she needed was to arrive late with half of the files incomplete.
Josh bent over the frail little figure in the isolette and had to work hard not to let his thoughts show on his face.
He couldn’t think of anything more that any of them could have done to help this precious little boy in his fight for survival, but with every passing minute it was becoming increasingly obvious that their efforts had been in vain.
Unlike the progress James Prentiss was making, at twenty-three weeks gestation, it had already been unlikely that Max would escape unscathed if he did win the battle. A series of bleeds deep inside his brain had almost guaranteed that he would be severely disabled, but his parents had been so desperate that their last hope of a family should have a chance that he hadn’t been able to shut their hollow-eyed expressions out of his mind long enough to sleep for more than an hour or two at a time. He hadn’t even been able to force himself to go home last night and now had the stiff neck that often came as the result of dozing off in a chair.
As if standing beside him and watching as Max fought for every breath would make any difference, he berated himself silently, especially with that deadly infection rampaging through his lungs unchecked by everything they’d thrown at it.
‘Max is going to get better, isn’t he?’ Letty Montgomery pleaded, but it was painfully obvious how hard she was having to work to try to sound optimistic.
‘Is your husband here, Letty?’ he asked, sidestepping her question with one of his own. ‘He usually comes here on his way to work, doesn’t he?’
‘He should be here any minute,’ she confirmed shakily, suddenly looking every one of her thirty-nine years as she collapsed onto the nearby chair as if her legs wouldn’t hold her any more.
Josh knew that, in spite of her hopeful question, he almost didn’t need to spell out the bad news. The look of misery in her eyes was mute evidence that she knew what he wanted to talk about, and that it wasn’t good.
‘When he arrives, would you get Dr Dixon to give me a buzz? I just need to chase up some of Max’s lab results.’ And take a couple of minutes to work out exactly how he was going to break the bad news.
The fact that he worked in an area of medicine where his patients often existed right on the very knife edge of survival meant that a higher proportion of them weren’t going to survive. As a depressing consequence of that, he had to go through this conversation far more often than most, but it didn’t matter how many times he’d had to do it, it never seemed to get any easier. In fact, he’d found out early on in his training that somehow it was always worse when it was a child involved rather than someone who had lived a long and fruitful life.
‘Mr Weatherby, I think Dani went up to the lab to chase up the results,’ Letty volunteered tentatively. ‘She took more tests when she came in this morning.’
‘Good,’ Josh said with a reassuring smile even as he wondered just what time Dani had arrived that morning.
Had she even gone home last night? he pondered when he saw the dark circles under her eyes a few minutes later when she arrived in his room with a small sheaf of paperwork in her hand. It was all very well, wanting to do a good job in a new post, but she wouldn’t succeed if she exhausted herself in the first few days.
‘Well?’ he prompted as he held out his hand for the printout of Max’s results, hoping against hope that the figures would give at least some grounds for hope.
There weren’t any.
‘Damn,’ he muttered when he saw the readings that confirmed the fact that Max’s infections were growing worse instead of better. And there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. That tiny body just didn’t have any spare resources to battle the invader. It had never been intended to take on such a foe at a time when it should still have been safely inside the shelter of a cosy womb.
‘Josh, you are going to speak to them…to warn them that…?’ He heard her swallow as she allowed the sentence to die away but they both knew how it would have ended. He had to warn the parents that their baby had very little time left. That it could be a matter of hours before the battle was lost.
Before he could speak there was a tentative knock at the door and Letty’s pale face appeared when he called an invitation to enter.
‘James has arrived,’ she said. ‘And Sister told me that Dr Dixon was already in here with you, so…’
‘Come in, please, both of you.’ He gestured towards the group of chairs in front of the window. ‘Would you like a drink? Tea, coffee or…?’
‘N-nothing, thank you,’ Letty stammered, her eyes wide with dread. She was visibly trembling as her husband tried to guide her towards one of the chairs.
Josh couldn’t help but be impressed that, even though she looked as though she would fall over at any moment, she stood her ground and forced herself to stare straight at him.
‘You’re going to tell us that Max is dying, aren’t you?’ she said in accusing tones, the very picture of a lioness defending her cub. ‘You’ve brought us in here to tell us that you’re not going to bother to do anything more to save our little boy…our precious little…’
‘Shh, love. Shh,’ her husband soothed as he wrapped an arm tightly around her shoulders and pressed her into the nearest chair. ‘Let the man speak.’
There was something in his eyes as they met Josh’s that let him know that he understood what was coming; that he’d already