Grace’s huff was indignant. ‘Are you trying to tell me I usually look miserable?’
‘No...’ Helena was smiling but she still had a puzzled frown. ‘You never look miserable. You just don’t usually look...I don’t know...this happy. Not at this time of the morning, anyway.’
Grace shrugged but found herself averting her gaze in case her friend might actually see more than she was ready to share.
She’d already seen too much.
This happiness was seeping out of every cell in her body and it was no surprise it was visible to someone who knew her well. It felt like she was glowing. As if she could still feel the touch of Charles’s hands—and lips—on her body.
On more than her body, in fact. It felt like her soul was glowing this morning.
Reborn.
Oh, help... She wasn’t going to be as focused on her work today as she needed to be if she let herself get pulled back into memories of last night. That was a pleasure that needed to wait until later. With a huge effort, Grace closed the mental door on that compelling space.
‘I have a clown in Curtain Three,’ she told Helena.
Helena shook her head with a grimace. ‘We get a lot of clowns in here. They’re usually drunk.’
‘No...this is a real clown. He was trying to do a cartwheel and I’ve just finished relocating his shoulder that couldn’t cope. I want to check his X-ray before I discharge him. He has a clown friend with him, too. Didn’t you see them come in? Spotty suits, squeaky horns, bright red wigs—the whole works.’
But Helena didn’t seem to be listening. She was staring at an ambulance gurney that was being wheeled past the desk. The person lying on the gurney seemed to be a life-sized tin soldier.
‘Oh...of course...’ she sighed. ‘It’s the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade today, isn’t it?’
‘Chest pain,’ one of the paramedics announced. ‘Query ST elevation in the inferior leads.’
‘Straight into Resus, thanks.’ Grace shared a glance with Helena. This tin soldier was probably having a heart attack. ‘I can take this.’
Helena nodded. ‘I’ll follow up on your clown, if you like.’ She glanced over her shoulder as if she was expecting more gurneys to be rolling up. ‘We’re in for a crazy day,’ she murmured. ‘It always is, with the parade.’
Crazy was probably good, Grace decided as she followed her tin soldier into Resus.
‘Let’s get him onto the bed. On my count. One, two...three.’ She smiled at the middle-aged man. ‘My name’s Grace and I’m one of the doctors here at Manhattan Mercy. Don’t worry, we’re going to take good care of you. What’s your name?’
‘Tom.’
‘How old are you, Tom?’
‘Fifty-three.’
‘Do you have any medical history of heart problems? Hypertension? Diabetes?’
Tom was shaking his head to every query.
‘Have you ever had chest pain like this before?’
Another shake. ‘I get a bit out of puff sometimes. But playing the trumpet is hard, you know?’
‘And you got out of breath this morning?’
‘Yeah. And then I felt sick and got real sweaty. And the pain...’
‘He’s had six milligrams of morphine.’ A paramedic was busy helping the nursing staff to change the leads that clipped to the electrodes dotting Tom’s chest so that he was attached to the hospital’s monitor. His oxygen tubing came off the portable cylinder to be linked to the overhead supply and a different blood pressure cuff was being wrapped around his arm.
‘How’s the pain now, Tom?’ Grace asked. ‘On a scale of zero to ten, with ten being the worst?’
‘About six, I guess.’
‘It was ten when we got to him.’
‘Let’s give you a bit more pain relief, then,’ Grace said. ‘And I want some bloods off for cardiac enzymes, please. I want a twelve-lead ECG, stat. And can someone call the cath lab and check availability?’
Yes. Crazy was definitely good. From the moment Tom had arrived in her care to nearly an hour later, when she accompanied him to the cardiac catheter laboratory so that he could receive angioplasty to open his blocked artery, she didn’t have a spare second where her thoughts could travel to where they wanted to go so much.
Heading back to the ER was a different matter.
Her route that took her back to bypass the main waiting area was familiar now. The medical staff all used it because if you went through the waiting area at busy times, you ran the risk of being confronted by angry people who didn’t like the fact that they had to wait while more urgent cases were prioritised. If Helena was right, this was going to be a very busy day. Which made sense, because they were the closest hospital to where the parade was happening and the participants and spectators would number in the tens of thousands.
Had Charles taken the boys to see the parade?
Was that why he hadn’t had the time to answer her text message yet?
Grace’s hand touched the phone that was clipped to the waistband of her scrub trousers but she resisted the urge to bring the screen to life and check that she hadn’t missed a message.
She wasn’t some love-crazed teenager who was holding her breath to hear from a boy.
She’d never been that girl. Had never dated a boy that had had that much of an impact on her. She’d been confident in her life choices and her focus on her study and the career she wanted more than anything.
But she’d turned into that girl, hadn’t she? After that first night with Charles Davenport. The waiting for that message or call. The excitement that had morphed into anxiety and then crushing disappointment and heartbreak.
And humiliation...
Grace dropped her hand. They were a long way from being teenagers now. Charles was a busy man. Quite apart from his job, he was a hands-on father with two small boys. History was not about to repeat itself. Charles understood how badly he had treated her by ignoring her last time. He had apologised for it, even. There was no way he would do that again.
And she was stronger. He’d told her that. He’d made her believe it was true.
Walking past the cast room, Grace could see an elderly woman having a broken wrist plastered. There were people in the minor surgery area, too, with another elderly patient who looked like he was having a skin flap replaced. And then she was walking past the small rooms, their doors open and the interiors empty, but that couldn’t stop a memory of the first time she had walked past one of them. When she’d seen those two small faces peering out and she had met Cameron and Max.
It couldn’t stop the tight squeeze on her heart as she remembered falling in love with Max when he’d smiled at her and thanked her for fixing his truck and then cuddled up against her. He was more cuddly than his brother but she loved Cameron just as much now.
And their father?
Oh... Grace paused for a moment to grab a cup of water from the cooler before she pushed through the double doors into the coal face of the ER.
It hadn’t been love at first sight with Charles.
But it had been love at first night.
That was why she’d been so nervous about working with him again. He’d surprised her by calling her that night about the dog-sitting possibility by revealing that he’d been thinking about her.
And