Dani checked his mobile number with Judy. ‘I’ll call him while you’re getting settled on the ward, and maybe he can bring you some things from home.’
‘Thank you.’ Judy’s eyes filled with tears. ‘I feel so stupid, making such a fuss.’
‘You’re not making a fuss,’ Dani said. ‘You have a medical condition that’s making you feel awful, and my job’s to help you feel better. You did exactly the right thing, calling your midwife—and your midwife did the right thing, telling you to come here.’ She opened the door of the consulting room and went over to the first midwife she could see. ‘Jas, I’ve got a mum with hyperemesis and I want her admitted to the ward and put on a drip. Would you be able to settle her in for me, please?’
‘Sure,’ Jas said with a smile.
‘Thanks.’
Back in the consulting room, Dani introduced Jas to Judy. ‘Judy, this is Jasminder Lund, one of our midwives. Jas, this is Judy Hamilton. Judy, Jas is going to look after you, and I’ll pop in and see you after my clinic.’
‘Thank you so much,’ Judy said, and let Jas lead her out to the ward.
Dani called Judy’s husband and explained what was happening, and then checked Judy’s file to see who her consultant was. Hopefully it would be Anton Powell; he was always really good with worried mums.
The file said otherwise and she sighed inwardly. Oh, great. It would have to be Alex Morgan. But Dani would just have to sideline her impatience with him, because Judy and the baby’s welfare came first.
She saw the rest of the mums on her list, then went to find Alex in his office.
‘Do you have a moment, please?’ she asked. ‘I need to talk to you about one of your patients.’
‘Sure.’ His voice was carefully neutral, and so was his expression.
‘Judy Hamilton. She’s dehydrated, losing weight, her urine showed ketones, and I’m waiting for her bloods to come back.’ Dani swiftly ran through the case with him. ‘I’ve admitted her with hyperemesis, and asked Jas to settle her in and put her on a drip.’
‘Good call,’ he said.
‘I told her I’d talk to you at the end of my clinic, then go and see her.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ he said.
On the way to Judy’s room, he collected a cup of ice chips.
When they walked in, Judy was retching miserably into a bowl. Without a word—and before Dani could do it herself—Alex found a cloth and moistened it. When Judy had finished being sick, he wiped her face gently, and handed her the cup of ice chips. ‘I know right now you can’t keep anything down, but you might find that sucking on an ice chip will make your mouth feel a little better,’ he said. ‘Hello, Mrs Hamilton. I’m Alex Morgan, your consultant, and Dani here’s told me how terrible you’re feeling.’
‘I’m sor—’ she began.
‘There’s nothing to apologise for,’ he cut in, ‘so please don’t worry. Hyperemesis is a medical condition that unfortunately affects some women, and right now I’m guessing you’re really tired, really unhappy and feeling absolutely terrible.’
She nodded, and brushed away a tear.
He smiled at her. ‘The good news is that we can help you. I know Dani’s already explained that we’ve put you on a drip to rehydrate you, and we can give you some medication to help with the sickness. It won’t hurt the baby and we’ll keep a very close eye on you so we can make you more comfortable.’
Dani was stunned by that smile. It lit up his face, and Alex’s blue-green eyes were amazing. When he smiled, he was probably the most gorgeous man in the entire hospital. But she damped down the attraction as soon as it flared. This was so inappropriate, it was untrue. Apart from the fact that he was her senior on the ward, she was pretty sure he didn’t like her, and she wasn’t wasting any more of her emotions on men who couldn’t or wouldn’t love her back.
But if Alex could be as charming as this with their mums, why couldn’t he be like this with the rest of the staff? He’d have everyone eating out of his hand instead of feeling as if they were treading on eggshells around him. Though he had at least agreed to meet her tomorrow and discuss the ward’s Christmas meal. Maybe she could turn that planned coffee after work into dinner, and get him to be a little more receptive to changing his attitude at work.
‘If you’re worried about anything at all, we’re all here to help,’ Alex continued. ‘The midwives here are a great bunch and really know their stuff, and the doctors are all really approachable.’
Dani stored that one away to tell them, because she was pretty sure Alex hadn’t told them that himself.
‘And remember, no question is ever silly. You won’t be the first to ask it and you won’t be the last. We’d all much rather you asked than sat there worrying,’ Dani said, and squeezed Judy’s hand briefly in reassurance. ‘I called your husband, and he’s going to bring in some clothes and toiletries for you straight after work.’
‘Thank you,’ Judy said, a tear leaking down her face.
* * *
It wasn’t the first time Alex had worked with Dani, but he’d forgotten how lovely she was with their mums—patient, kind and reassuring.
Though it wasn’t just her manner at work that attracted him. It was her energy, the brightness of her dark eyes and her smile. In another life, he would have asked her out on the first day he’d met her.
But he wasn’t in a position where he could consider starting a relationship, or even having a simple friendship with someone. Not until he’d sorted his head out.
He was going to have to be very careful. Because he had a nasty feeling that Danielle Owens could be very dangerous to his peace of mind.
‘DARLING? SAD NEWS, I’m afraid. Stephen died last night.’
Alex replayed his mother’s message on his voicemail for the tenth time. It still hadn’t quite sunk in. Stephen was dead. His father was dead. At the rather less than ripe old age of fifty-seven.
So if Alex had inherited the faulty gene and he followed Stephen’s pattern, that meant he had twenty-two years of life left—the last five years of which really wouldn’t be worth living.
He swallowed hard. It was an ‘if’, admittedly, but there was still a fifty per cent chance that he had the gene. Scary odds. The simple toss of a coin.
He picked up the phone to call his parents, but then put it down again. What could he say? How could you really be sorry for the death of someone you barely knew, had met twice and who had never really acknowledged you as his child? It’d be just a platitude. Meaningless. And his relationship with his parents had been seriously strained since his mother had dropped the bombshell eight months ago that his father wasn’t actually his father, and his biological father had advanced Huntington’s disease. Right now Alex wasn’t in the mood for polite awkwardness, and he didn’t want to make the situation worse by accidentally saying something wrong.
And there was nobody—absolutely nobody—he could talk to about this. He was an only child; and he’d distanced himself from everyone in his life since learning the news. He’d broken his engagement to Lara, and avoided all his friends, even his best friend Tom, until they’d got the message and stopped calling him. So being alone now was completely his own fault: but, on the other hand, how could he have been unfair enough to dump his worries on any of them?
My dad isn’t actually my dad, and my ‘real’ dad—who I’ve never met—might