DAN was still seething when he finally took half an hour to race home for a shower and a change of clothes.
‘Those parents of hers are unbelievable!’ he growled as he leaned wearily against his front door, almost too tired to make his way to the bathroom.
He was sure his mouth must have gaped when there hadn’t been any evidence of sympathy at the shocking extent of Sara’s injuries, not a single word of concern that she must have escaped death by the merest whisker, to say nothing of the possible loss of their grandchild … grand-children, he corrected himself and felt that crazy grin creep over his face again, banishing his bad mood at a stroke.
He reached for his wallet and extracted the precious image printed from Sara’s first scan and awe joined his feeling of delight. Not one but two tiny beings were still growing safely inside her womb, in spite of their close brush with death. He could still feel that first surge of emotion when he’d seen the image of their minuscule hearts, the beats so rapid that they’d almost seemed to flicker on the screen.
‘My babies,’ he whispered as he outlined their precious images with a visibly trembling fingertip and was shocked to feel the hot press of tears behind his eyes.
This … these … were the one good thing that had happened in such a very long time. These two tiny beings made everything worthwhile.
Even the knowledge that your wife is lying dangerously ill in ICU? asked a disapproving voice inside his head. That brought him up short for a moment and guilt struck him hard that he was feeling such delight while Zara’s health—her very life—hung in the balance.
His shoulders slumped still further when he realised that even though her situation was serious, with no guarantee for a happy outcome, he found it strangely hard to care any more than he would if Zara were just another patient brought into A and E in the course of his working day.
‘That certainly took the smile off your face,’ he muttered as he strode across the lounge towards the bathroom with the weight of a very long day pressing down on his shoulders again. At the last moment he veered towards the mantelpiece to prop the precious image in full view, torn between the desire to replace it in his wallet to keep it close to him and the equally strong need to keep it safe.
His first step inside the bedroom was like a punch to the gut. He and Zara were both reasonably tidy people so it was a real shock to be confronted with the shambles that remained from his efforts to keep her body functioning until the paramedics arrived.
The bedclothes straggling onto the floor were mute testimony to the way he’d hastily pulled her down onto the firmer surface, and there certainly hadn’t been time to straighten anything up before he’d leapt in his car to follow the ambulance to the hospital.
He stepped forward and reached out to gather up the bedding then let it fall again, unable to find the energy to care that the bed needed making or, more to the point, the inclination to sleep in it at all when he thought about what had so nearly happened there.
He needed sleep. In fact, if he was honest with himself, he was nearly out on his feet with exhaustion, both with the stresses of a long hard shift and then the double shocks of first Sara’s and then Zara’s admission to hospital. Even so, he couldn’t face the thought of climbing into that bed, not when he didn’t know whether its last occupant was going to survive.
He nearly fell asleep standing under the shower, the fierce pummelling of the water jets on the back of his neck and across his shoulders almost as blissful as a massage.
Not that he’d had the time or inclination for massages recently. In fact, not since the last time Sara had taken pity on him in the very early days of their fledgling relationship.
‘Don’t go there!’ he groaned aloud, but that did nothing to stop the images playing through his head.
It had been a rough shift, not unlike the last twelve hours, and he’d made the mistake of sitting down at the table in the staffroom rather than going straight home. The next thing he’d known had been Sara’s voice in his ear, calling his name and waking him to the realisation that he could barely move his neck for the crick in it.
‘Can I see if I can get rid of that stiffness for you?’ she’d offered, and for a moment he hadn’t been certain which stiffness she’d been talking about. Waking up with her soft voice and the warmth of her breath in his ear had matched perfectly with the dream he’d been having, and both had had a predictable effect on his body.
Her fingers on his neck and shoulders, alternately stroking then firmly kneading only helped his neck and shoulders. His other reaction he’d had to keep to himself until he’d returned to his bachelor digs with images of persuading Sara to join him there as soon as possible playing in his head.
Had there been a hormonal overload in his system at the time, because it had been just days later that he’d met Zara and been completely bowled over by her blatant interest in him … so different to Sara’s more reserved manner and so flattering to the male ego.
The steam followed him out of the shower as he padded through to the wardrobe with nothing more than a towel wrapped around the back of his neck.
He was operating on auto pilot now, knowing that he needed clean clothes and to put something in his stomach and knowing that his duty was to support his in-laws while they waited impatiently for the scant five minutes in each hour that they were allowed to spend at their daughter’s bedside. It was so wearing to sit with them knowing that they were pinning their hopes on finding a dramatic improvement each time they went in.
He was already running on his reserves and knew he needed to sleep, and sleep soon, but somehow … somehow he couldn’t think about sleeping while Zara’s condition was unresolved and especially while Sara was valiantly sitting with her parents, waiting for better news. She had worked just the same killer hours as he had and had then suffered the trauma of being run over.
The clean shirt made him feel a bit less ragged and he was just reaching for some bread to toast to fill the gaping hole where his stomach should be when his pager shrilled.
‘Daniel Lomax,’ he said, his heart in his mouth by the time the phone was answered in ICU and he was switched through to the consultant’s office. He wasn’t on duty but had told the ICU staff he was taking his pager home with him if they needed to contact him.
‘Daniel, I thought you’d like to know that we’ve had another set of results back from the lab and—’
‘I’m on my way, sir,’ Dan interrupted, when he heard the strange note in the consultant’s voice. Suddenly he knew that something was wrong, and a surge of adrenaline instantly banished his exhaustion. ‘I’ll be there in about eight minutes,’ he promised, already halfway out of the door as he ended the conversation.
By the time he reached the street he’d fought his way into his jacket and had his keys and phone safely in his pocket. The rain was still lashing down and for a moment he considered going round the back of the flats for his car, then shook his head. The flat had been chosen because of its proximity to the hospital but the security system protecting the cars from opportunist thieves would take longer to get through than if he ran. Nothing was going to interfere with getting to ICU as quickly as possible.
He was soaked to the skin and so wound up that he was shaking by the time he made it up the last flight of stairs.
‘What’s happened?’ he gasped as he reached the interview room, one of the nurses having pointed the way as soon as she’d seen him.
‘It’s good news!’ Audrey exclaimed with tears in her eyes. ‘They’ve found out that Zara hadn’t taken an overdose of barbiturates after all. I told you she wouldn’t. She’s not into all that drugs nonsense.’
‘Not barbiturates?’ Dan said with a frown,