she’d been terrified that Ben would do the same. She had tried to explain that to him, but it had been too difficult for him to understand and in the end she’d had no choice but to leave him rather than run the risk of being hurt again. However, as he stripped off his clothes and came to lie beside her under the canopy of muslin clouds, Zoë knew that he was the only man she would ever love. She had given Ben her heart even if he didn’t know it. And if she couldn’t have Ben, she didn’t want anyone else.
CHAPTER FOUR
March
‘THIS guy’s got a ruptured spleen. Get on to the surgical team and tell them we need someone down here now, not in an hour’s time!’
Ben rapped out the order, ignoring the look his staff exchanged. His temper had been on a knife edge for weeks and he didn’t need a psychologist to tell him why. He’d been deluding himself by thinking he could draw a line under the past by sleeping with Zoë. What it had done had been to arouse a lot of emotions he’d thought he had buried. If only he’d had the sense to realise the risk he’d been taking.
He gritted his teeth because he refused to go down the if- only route again. He’d made a mistake and that was that. Now he had to get on with his life. Turning to Jo Morris, the senior staff nurse on duty that day, he deliberately moderated his tone.
‘Can you check how the passenger in that car is doing, Jo? She was complaining of chest pains when she was brought in. If they haven’t settled down, she’s going to need an ECG.’
‘Will do.’
Jo gave him a smile before she hurried out of Resus, leaving him feeling guiltier than ever. Although there may have been a few funny looks exchanged, everyone had put up with his bad temper with remarkably good grace. It made him realise how lucky he was to have such a tolerant group of people around him.
Unlooping his stethoscope from around his neck, he bent over the patient again. Brian Roberts had been cycling to work when he had been hit by a car. According to an eyewitness, the vehicle had rammed straight into him. Brian had suffered a range of injuries, the most serious being a ruptured spleen. He was losing a lot of blood and Ben was anxious to get him to Theatre as quickly as possible.
‘What did Surgical have to say?’ he asked when Adam Sanders, their senior house officer, came hurrying back.
‘They’ve promised that s-someone will be here in the next five minutes,’ Adam informed him, stammering a little in case Ben thought that wasn’t soon enough. He’d been on the receiving end of Ben’s tongue for most of the day, a fact that Ben now bitterly regretted.
‘Excellent. Obviously, you’ve managed to gee them up where others have failed,’ he said heartily, pleased to see that Adam immediately perked up. He nodded to the patient, wanting to continue smoothing the young doctor’s ruffled feathers. ‘Have a listen to his chest. I think the right lung sounds a bit dodgy—what do you think?’
Adam turned bright pink at having his opinion canvassed and listened intently to the patient’s chest. ‘It sounds a bit rough to me, too. Maybe there’s a build-up of fluid,’ he suggested, emboldened by Ben’s more reasonable attitude.
‘I agree.’ Ben nodded. ‘He took a real knock when he came off his bike, which accounts for the ruptured spleen. If a rib was fractured as well, it could have caused bleeding into the pleural cavity.’ He turned toAbby Blake, another of their nurses, who was standing off to one side. ‘I’d like a chest drain set, please, Abby.’
It didn’t take long to draw off the excess fluid that had collected in the pleural cavity. Ben had just finished when the surgical reg arrived and whisked the patient away, tutting his displeasure as though it was ED’s fault that there’d been a delay. Ben stripped off his gloves and tossed them into the bin.
‘That was a good job, folks. Thank you.’
‘Oh, so we’re out of the doghouse now, are we?’ Abby piped up. She grinned at him. ‘About time too. We were this close to mutiny.’
She held her first finger and thumb a scant quarter inch apart and Ben laughed.
‘Am I supposed to be worried? Now, if you were this close.’ He pressed his thumb and finger tightly together. ‘I might be really concerned, but not when I have so much leeway!’
Everyone laughed and it went a long way to restoring the harmony that was such an important part of them working as a team. Ben made himself a promise that he would stop behaving like a jerk from now on as he left Resus. There was no point regretting what had happened with Zoë. He’d taken a chance and it hadn’t paid off. He’d coped with worse and survived to tell the tale, too. One thing was certain: Zoë wasn’t wasting her time thinking about him.
It took Zoë almost three hours to drive from the airport to Dalverston and she was exhausted by the time she got there. An accident on the M6 motorway had caused a huge tailback of traffic and it was a relief when she reached her exit. She parked in the hotel’s car park and hurried inside, filling in the registration card the receptionist gave her with a hand that trembled from a mixture of tiredness and emotion. So much had happened since the night she’d stayed here with Ben.
Fear ran coldly through her and she hastily took the key off the receptionist, shaking her head when the girl asked if she needed a porter to deal with her luggage. All she’d brought with her was an overnight case and she could manage that herself. She took the lift to the third floor and let herself into the room, barely glancing around to check that everything was as it should be. She was here and that was the main thing, although what happened from here on was a question she couldn’t answer. It all depended on Ben and how he reacted to what she had to tell him. It was a lot to expect of him, probably too much bearing in mind what had gone on before. But he was the only person she could ask for help. If he refused, she had no idea what she was going to do.
Ben was stepping out of the shower the following morning when the phone rang and for a moment he was tempted to ignore it. It was his day off, the first one he’d had for weeks, and he really didn’t want to have to go in to work. He sighed as he snatched a towel off the rail. If he didn’t answer it, he’d spend the day wondering how the department was coping. Talk about being trapped between a rock and a hard place!
‘Ben Nicholls.’ He hunched his shoulder to keep the receiver against his ear while he rubbed himself dry. If it was the hospital, he would need to get there asap. The kind of injuries they dealt with weren’t the sort that could wait for any length of time.
‘Ben, it’s Zoë.’
The receiver slid off his shoulder and landed with a crash on the floor. Ben cursed as he picked it up. He must be hallucinating. He could have sworn the caller had said she was Zoë.
‘Sorry about that. I dropped the receiver,’ he said briskly, dismissing the idea. No way would Zoë be phoning him at this hour of the morning… Correction: no way would Zoë be phoning him at any hour of the day.
‘It’s OK. Look, Ben, if I’ve caught you at a bad time I can phone back later, but I really need to speak to you. Is there any chance that we can meet up sometime today?’
Ben’s breath caught because there was no mistaking Zoë’s voice this time. ‘It really is you, Zoë?’
‘Of course it is. So when can we meet? I wouldn’t pester you, Ben, but it’s imperative that I talk to you.’
Ben frowned when he heard how uptight she sounded. It was obvious that something must have happened to bring her back to Dalverston, although he had no idea what it could be. ‘Of course we can meet. I’ve got today off as it happens so name the time and the place and I’ll be there.’
‘Ten o’clock in the lounge of the hotel,’ she said quickly and he knew that she must have rehearsed her answer in advance.
‘Fine. Can you tell me what this is all about? I mean, it’s a bit sudden, you turning up like this…’