when she visited tomorrow.
‘Of course I will,’ Steele said.
Then he had a meeting to sit through, which really had nothing to do with him, given that he’d be gone in a few weeks. Not that it stopped him putting his point across about the lengthy waits in Emergency. Oh, and a few other things too.
By nine he should be more than ready for home but for once Steele was tentative.
There was no bread waiting for him in the toaster.
Steele walked through his apartment and put Candy’s case, which he had bought in from the car, down in the hallway. He knew she was here and he knew where she probably was.
He walked through to the bedroom and, sure enough, there was Candy, fast asleep in bed with the light still on. He looked at her black curls all splayed out on the pillow and he looked at the dark circles under her eyes and he stood there for a full two minutes, watching her sleep deeply.
Steele made his own toast and then had a shower and tried to watch a film. It was a film that he had been meaning to watch for ages but, unusually for him, he couldn’t concentrate.
There was something else, far deeper, on his mind.
He turned off the television and lights and got into bed next to Candy, and she rolled into him.
‘Sorry,’ she said sleepily. ‘I saw the bed and couldn’t resist. When did you get back?’
‘Just now,’ he said, though it had been a good hour.
‘I changed the lock on my front door.’ Her voice was groggy with sleep.
‘Good for you,’ Steele said. ‘Go back to sleep.’
She did.
He didn’t.
Instead, he lay staring at the ceiling.
Yes, there was a lot on his mind.
Macey’s words had now seriously rattled him too.
After
CANDY WOKE IN Steele’s arms and listened to the sound of his breathing.
She wanted him to wake and roll over and make love to her. She wanted the pregnancy thought in her head to be obliterated by his kiss.
Then she didn’t want his kiss because she felt sick.
Candy’s mind flicked over the past few weeks.
Yes, she’d been sick last month, but it had been one of those bugs.
Surely?
She really felt sick now and she crept to the bathroom and tried to throw up as quietly as she could.
It was exhaustion, Candy told herself, brushing her teeth and then showering, but when she glanced in the mirror she could see the fear in her eyes.
Steele lay there listening to Candy flush the toilet to drown out her gags and he blew out a breath.
‘Morning,’ he said a few moments later, when he came in and she was already in the shower.
‘Morning.’ Candy smiled but she couldn’t quite meet his eyes.
There was an elephant in the room that they both chose to ignore and they dashed around, getting dressed, finding keys, exclaiming they were running late when really they were actually doing quite well for time.
There was the first uncomfortable silence between them as Steele drove Candy and the massive elephant in the car to work.
There was no frantic kissing and they walked through the car park in silence, Candy making the decision to do a pregnancy test as soon as she got there, Steele wondering what the hell he should say.
If anything.
The sound of an ambulance siren had her look up and she saw Lydia standing in the forecourt, frantically gesturing for her to run. Clearly there was something big coming in.
‘I’ve got to go,’ she said.
‘Go!’ Steele said, and he watched her run through the car park and to the forecourt, where not one but three flashing-light ambulances were now pulling up. Kelly ran past him too and as Steele walked up the corridor the anaesthetists and trauma teams were running down it towards Emergency.
Candy, Steele thought, was in for one helluva morning.
She was.
She raced into the changing rooms and stripped off her jeans and T-shirt and got into scrubs as Kelly did the same.
‘What is it?’ Kelly asked.
‘Multi-traumas.’ Candy passed on the little Lydia had told her as she’d dashed past. ‘Four of them.’
‘Four are coming here?’
It was rare to get four all at once but apparently there were several more critically injured patients going to different emergency departments. A high-speed collision, involving several vehicles, meant there would be nothing to think about other than the patients any time soon.
It was on this morning that Candy fell back in love with Emergency.
Yes, it was busy and stressful but it was what she loved to do. Helping out with a little girl who had looked dire when she’d first arrived but who was now coughing as Rory, the anaesthetist, extubated her was an amazing feeling indeed.
‘It’s okay, Bethany,’ Candy said as the girl opened her eyes and started to cry. ‘I’m Candy. You’re in hospital but you’re going to be okay.’
Thank God! She looked up at Rory, who gave her a wide-eyed look back because it had been touch and go. Bethany had had a chest tube inserted as her lung had collapsed in the accident and her heart hadn’t been beating when she’d arrived in the department.
To see her coughing and crying and alive, Candy knew why she’d fought so hard to do a job she loved.
Rory and the thoracic surgeon started talking about sedation and getting Bethany up to ICU, and it all happened seamlessly.
‘Busy morning?’ Patrick, the head nurse in ICU, smiled when Candy came up with her patient.
‘Just a bit.’
‘You look exhausted,’ Patrick commented. ‘So this is Bethany?’ He looked down at the little girl, who was sedated but breathing on her own. He nudged Candy away for a moment. ‘I’m going to put her in a side room. I thought about putting her next to Mum but I think it’s going to scare her more for now.’
‘How is her mum doing?’ Candy asked, because she had been so busy working on Bethany that she didn’t really know what was going on with the rest of her family.
‘Won’t know for a while,’ Patrick said. ‘They’ll keep her in an induced coma for at least forty-eight hours. Is it settling down in Emergency now?’
‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘I haven’t looked up yet.’
‘Go and grab a drink,’ Patrick said.
He was nice like that and Candy headed round to the little staffroom and had a quick drink from the fridge, pinched a few biscuits and then headed back to the unit.
It was quiet. One elderly man was being wheeled in on a stretcher and Candy rolled her eyes at Kelly as she walked into Resus to start the massive tidy up.
It was going to be a big job.
‘Let’s get one bed completely stocked and done,’ Kelly said, ‘just in case something comes in, then we can deal with the rest.’
They got one area cleared and restocked and were just about to commence with the rest when Lydia came in.