‘She fixed the truck,’ Max added, clearly impressed with the skills Grace had demonstrated. ‘The wheels came off.’
‘Oh...’ Charles scooped Cameron up with one arm. Max was next and the ease with which two small boys were positioned on each hip with their arms wrapped around their father’s neck suggested that this was a very well-practised manoeuvre. ‘That’s all right, then...’
Charles was smiling, first at one twin and then the other, and Grace felt her heart melt a little more.
She could feel the intense bond between this man and his children. The power of an infinite amount of love.
She’d been wrong about that moment of doubt earlier, hadn’t she? Charles did have the perfect life.
‘Can we go home now? Is Maria all better?’
Grace was on her feet now. She should excuse herself and get back to where she was supposed to be but something made her hesitate. To stand there and stare at Charles as she remembered hearing the concern in his voice when he’d recognised the new patient in ER.
He was shaking his head now. ‘Maria’s got a sore back after falling down the stairs. She’s going to be fine but she needs to have a rest for a few days.’
He looked up, as if he could feel the questions buzzing in Grace’s head.
‘Maria is the boys’ nanny,’ he said. ‘I’ll be taking a few days’ leave to look after them until she’s back on her feet. Fortunately, it was only a sprain and not a fracture.’
That didn’t stop the questions but Grace couldn’t ask why the head of her new department would automatically take time away to care for his children. Where was their mother? Maybe she was another high-achieving medic who was away—presenting at some international conference or something?
Whatever. It was none of her business. And anyway, Jackie the nurse had come back and there was no reason for her to take any more time away from the job she was employed to be doing.
‘I’d better get back,’ she said. ‘Do you still want me to cover Trauma One?’
‘Thanks.’ Charles nodded. ‘I’ll come with you. Jackie, I just came to give you some money. The cafeteria should be up and running again now and I thought you could take the boys up for some lunch.’
Planting a kiss on each small, dark head, he deposited the twins back on the floor.
‘Be good,’ he instructed. ‘And if it’s not still raining when we go home, we’ll stop in the park for a swing.’
He led Grace back towards the main area of the ER.
‘It’s still crazy in here,’ he said. ‘But we’ve got extra staff and it’s under control now that we’ve got power back on.’
‘I’m sorry I took so long. I probably shouldn’t have stopped to help Jackie out.’
‘It’s not a problem.’
‘They’re gorgeous children,’ Grace added. ‘You’re a very lucky man, Charles.’
The look he gave her was almost astonished. Then a wash of something poignant crossed his face and he smiled.
A slow kind of smile that took her back through time instantly. To when the brilliant young man who’d been like royalty in their year at med school had suddenly been interested in her as more than the only barrier he had to be a star academically and not just socially. He had cared about what she had to say. About who she was...
‘Yes,’ he said slowly. ‘I am.’
He held open one of the double doors in front of them. ‘How ’bout you, Grace? You got kids?’
She shook her head.
‘Too busy with that exciting career I was reading about in your CV? Working with the flying doctors in the remotest parts of the outback?’
Her throat felt tight. ‘Something like that.’
She could feel his gaze on her back. A beat of silence—curiosity, even, as if he knew there was a lot being left unspoken.
And then he caught up with her in a single, long stride. Turned his head and, yes...she could see the flicker of curiosity.
‘It’s been a long time, Grace.’
‘It has.’
‘Be nice to catch up sometime...’
People were coming towards them. There were obviously matters that required the attention of the chief and Grace had her own work to do. She could see paramedics and junior staff clustered around a new gurney in Trauma One but she took a moment before she broke that eye contact.
A moment when she remembered that smile from a few moments ago. And so much more, from a very long time ago.
‘Yes,’ she said quietly. ‘It would...’
* * *
The rest of that first shift in Manhattan Mercy’s emergency department passed in something of a blur for Grace. Trauma related to the storm and power outage continued to roll in. A kitchen worker had been badly burned when a huge pot of soup had been tipped over in the confusion of a crowded restaurant kitchen plunged into darkness. A man had suffered a heart attack while trapped in an elevator and had been close to the end of the time window for curtailing the damage to his cardiac muscle by the time he’d been rescued. A pedestrian had been badly injured when they’d made a dash to get across a busy road in the pouring rain and a woman who relied on her home oxygen supply had been brought to the ER in severe respiratory distress after it had been cut off.
Grace was completely focused on each patient that spent time in Trauma One but Charles seemed to be everywhere, suddenly appearing where and when he was most needed. How did he do that?
Sometimes it had to be obvious, of course. Like when the young kitchen worker arrived and his screams from the pain of his severe burns would have been heard all over the department and the general level of tension rocketed skywards. He was so distressed he was in danger of injuring himself further by fighting off staff as they attempted to restrain him enough to gain IV access and administer adequate pain relief and Grace was almost knocked off her feet by a flying fist that caught her hip.
It was Charles who was suddenly there to steady her before she fell. Charles who positioned security personnel to restrain their patient safely. And it was Charles who spoke calmly enough to capture a terrified youth’s attention and stop the agonised cries for long enough for him to hear what was being said.
‘We’re going to help you,’ he said. ‘Try and hold still for just a minute. It will stop hurting very soon...’
He stayed where he was and took over the task of sedating and intubating the young man. Like everyone else in the department, Grace breathed a sigh of relief as the terrible sounds of agony were silenced. She could assess this patient properly now, start dressing the burns that covered the lower half of his body and arrange his transfer to the specialist unit that could take over his care.
She heard Charles on the phone as she passed the unit desk later, clearly making arrangements for a patient who’d been under someone else’s initial care.
‘It’s a full thickness inferior infarct. He’s been trapped in an elevator for at least four hours. I’m sending him up to the catheter laboratory, stat.’
The hours passed swiftly and it was Charles who reminded Grace that it was time she went home.
‘We’re under control and the new shift is taking over. Go home and have a well-deserved rest, Grace. And thanks,’ he added, as he turned away. ‘I knew you would be an asset to this department.’
The smile was a reward for an extraordinarily testing first day and the words of praise stayed with Grace as she made her way to the locker room