Healed by His Secret Baby Read online

  * * *

  He was right about the caramel slices. They had the perfect amount of rich, buttery pastry and a thick, creamy layer of salted caramel on top that was moreish and went perfectly with their cups of tea. And if it had been any other situation, and any other gorgeous man sitting across from her, she would have enjoyed it. Maybe even flirted a bit if Simon hadn’t ruined things so terribly for her.

  Instead, she sat opposite Cole, nervous and on edge. Wary of trusting anyone.

  ‘So what made you become a HCA?’ he asked her.

  ‘My mum was a nurse and she loved what she did. I used to listen to her tell tales of what had happened at work each day and most of it sounded wonderful.’

  He frowned. ‘Most of it?’

  ‘She didn’t like the long hours. Or how sometimes she’d work past the end of her shift to make sure her patients were okay and then come home to find my dad was disgruntled. He didn’t like playing second fiddle to her patients. He left,’ she added, realising that she was oversharing. But she did that when she was nervous. She talked. Filled the silences.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s not your fault. And my mum never let the end of her marriage define her. She just does whatever she wants now—without having to ask anyone else’s permission.’

  She smiled at the memory of her mum doing a sponsored cycle ride to raise awareness of strokes. The day her mum had cooked just short of a hundred cupcakes to raise money for charity. How she still knitted and sewed.

  ‘I grew up wanting to have patients, but without the stress or long hours of nursing. Being an HCA fitted that requirement perfectly.’ She leaned forward over the table to turn the focus back on him. To take this opportunity to learn more about Tori’s father. ‘What about you? What made you become a doctor?’

  ‘Something similar. My mum was a nurse, like yours, and my father was a GP and his father, before him. But it wasn’t just because of them, or family tradition. I looked into other career paths, but nothing drew me the way medicine did. It was a calling and I loved every moment.’

  Loved. Past tense. She frowned. Curious. ‘Loved?’ she repeated.

  He laughed. ‘I still love it. I do. But there have been times when I’ve felt dreadfully inadequate and useless and I’ve been angry that I couldn’t do more when I needed to.’

  He spoke vehemently, and she saw darkness in his eyes as he seemed to look back into his past. Lane knew the feeling well. She’d felt the same, watching Skye slowly die. There were medical advancements being made all the time! Why had none been made in time to help her? Skye had been so bright. So full of life! She’d deserved a long life, but it had been cruelly snatched away by a vicious disease that showed no mercy.

  Cole looked sad himself, and she had to fight the urge to reach out and lay her hand on his. She wanted to. But she still felt that this man was the enemy.

  She looked at Tori, happily sitting in the highchair provided by the café, her face smeared with yoghurt.

  ‘We all have those moments,’ she said. ‘When we wish we could do more.’

  He met her gaze and she saw hurt there, and an understanding that she knew all too well. Had she misjudged him? Thinking his life was carefree? That he was a charming Lothario who bedded women left, right and centre, with the only thing to worry about was whether or not he had enough condoms in his wallet?

  Ashamed, she broke the eye contact and looked down, grabbing her cup of tea to take a quick sip. It was still hot and burnt her tongue. But she took another sip anyway.

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up anything difficult.’ She pushed the rest of her caramel slice away, having lost her appetite.

  ‘You didn’t. I just forget that you don’t know.’

  Don’t know what? She wanted to know, but she also didn’t want to push him. Not if it hurt him to bring up memories. He wasn’t a charmer of women—he was human. He was real. Not the caricature she had made him in her mind before she’d met him. And why would he choose to tell her anything? He didn’t know her. She was a stranger to him. A new colleague at work.

  ‘My wife died.’

  Oh.

  ‘You were married? I didn’t know that.’

  He smiled and pulled his phone from his pocket, tapped at the screen a few times and brought up a picture of a him and a woman on a ski lift together, laughing and happy in what looked like a blizzard of snow.

  ‘This is the last photo we had taken together before the accident.’

  His wife was beautiful. And they looked happy. She quickly glanced at his face and saw love and wistfulness there. He still missed her.

  ‘Where was it taken?’

  They were the only words she could squeeze out. She wanted to say, You look amazing together, because they did. She wanted to say, I’m so sorry for your loss, but it just wouldn’t come out, because if it did then she would speak of her own loss and that was too close to home.

  ‘The Alps. We used to go every year, on our wedding anniversary. It was our fourth year there together and we took that ski lift up to the top of a mountain to come down on a Black Run.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It’s a ski run for advanced skiers. We’d done it before once or twice, but that day a storm was coming in and we thought we’d make it down one last time before it hit.’ He sipped at his own drink, pausing for just a moment as if reliving it. ‘We misjudged and the storm caused an avalanche.’

  ‘Oh, my God!’

  ‘We tried to outrun it. To get out of its way. And we were succeeding. Side by side, we raced down that piste as fast as we could. But Andrea must have hit something, because the next thing I knew she wasn’t there, and I couldn’t stop to look for her or I would have been buried alive.’

  Lane’s mouth felt dry. Her heart was pounding. ‘What happened?’

  ‘She was buried by snow. It took three days to find her and dig her out. The worst three days of my life.’

  Lane heard raw pain in his voice.

  ‘Her injuries were extensive. Even if we had found her in time she wouldn’t have survived.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Dr Branagh.’

  ‘Cole. Please.’

  She gave a single nod in acknowledgement.

  ‘At the autopsy they discovered that she’d been in the early stages of pregnancy. About six weeks. Neither of us had known.’

  Lane closed her eyes and instinctively reached out to touch Tori’s chubby little hand as she banged her toy down on her tray. To lose not just his wife, but his unborn child...

  ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  He sighed. ‘What can you say? These things happen? We should have been more careful?’

  She shook her head. ‘You weren’t to know.’

  ‘I often wonder about that. Whether we should have paid more attention to the weather report. Whether we even should have been up there. It goes around and around in my head all the time. The fact that we took that chance with our lives just so we could have the thrill of conquering a mountain. For the adrenaline rush of showing how good we were? How arrogant is that?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. You can’t blame yourself.’

  ‘Who do I blame?’

  At that moment Tori began to get agitated, so Lane stood to undo the harness of the highchair and pulled Tori onto her lap, wiping her face with a paper napkin and passing her a beaker of water.

  ‘We all do things we second-guess later.’

  He nodded. ‘Have you? Did it cost someone their life?’

  She flushed and stood, swaying gently with Tori in her arms. She couldn’t tell him about the conversations she’d not had with Skye, because she’d been too afraid to tell her friend to abort the baby she’d so longed for. But should she have been braver? Should she have spoken her mind and told Skye that her life was more important? />
  No. She could never have done it. It had been impossible.

  This conversation was becoming too uncomfortable!

  Tori dropped her beaker just as a woman was passing by with her children.

  She bent to pick it up and handed it to Cole. ‘Bless her. She looks just like you. Got her daddy’s eyes!’ The woman smiled, gave Tori’s fingers a little shake and then went on her merry way.

  Lane stared at Cole in absolute horror, waiting for the realisation to appear in his eyes, but thankfully it didn’t. He simply smiled at the woman as she left and then looked at Lane and laughed. ‘They think we’re a family. Well, I guess we look like one. A mum. A dad. A baby... What do you think to that Tori, hey?’

  Lane wanted out of that café there and then! No hanging around—she needed to go! ‘You must be needed back soon? To take photos?’

  He glanced at his watch. ‘You’re right. Thanks for the tea and the chat. It was nice to catch up.’

  Nice? It had been the most terrifying thing she’d experienced in months! ‘Yes, it was...nice.’

  ‘I’ll see you at work on Monday.’

  ‘You will.’

  ‘Would you mind if I took a picture of the three of us? It’s a new thing of mine. Trying to record good times. You never know when things could change. And when you’re no longer with us, I’ll have this memory to remind me.’

  When you’re no longer with us.

  She knew he meant at work. The short contract she had to cover Shelby whilst she was away. But all she could think of was returning to her old life without Tori and that his with us, meant him and his daughter. But surely he couldn’t do that? He couldn’t take her. ‘Sure.’

  He activated the camera on his phone, came to stand alongside her, then draped his arm around her shoulder as she carried Tori and squeezed her in tight.

  Lane looked up at the image on his phone. She could see the way they fitted together—her, Cole and Tori. Like a little family. Just as that woman had thought they were. Tori was smiling, as was he, so she forced a smile too, hoping it reached her eyes and looked genuine.

  He pressed the button and saved the image. ‘Give me your email address and I’ll send you a copy.’

  She wrote it on a napkin and handed it over. Then waved him goodbye as he left the café.

  She sat there feeling sick and awful. Knowing she had to tell him about his daughter.

  He wasn’t a Lothario.

  He was a widower. And he seemed compassionate and generous and authentic.

  ‘Skye?’ she muttered quietly. ‘This is too hard.’

  * * *

  He’d not meant to say so much to Lane. She was a work colleague. New. Temporary. But she’d just been so easy to talk to, and it had been nice to sit there with someone—as if they were a little family. Even that woman had thought they were! It had been a long time since he’d been able to sit with someone and enjoy a cup of tea, just chat about life with someone who felt like a friend.

  The memory made him smile and he brought up the picture of them on his phone and looked at it again. He’d been looking at it a lot over the weekend. He knew that woman had only made an offhand comment, but if Andrea hadn’t died then he might very well have been sitting there with his own wife and child. Maybe even a daughter, like Tori. The woman had said she’d got his eyes, and now he looked at her image he had to agree. They did look incredibly similar. How odd! Just one of life’s strange coincidences...

  His gaze went to Lane. She was smiling, but he remembered how tense she had been when he’d draped his arm around her shoulder. Had he overstepped the mark there? He had no idea of her past, he had no idea if she was in a relationship or not, but she certainly seemed uncomfortable with displays of affection.

  Or maybe it was just his affection? Perhaps she’d felt awkward about it after he’d told her about his dead wife? Or maybe it was nothing to do with that. There could be all manner of reasons why a woman wouldn’t want a man to drape his arm around her shoulders. There was so much you had to be aware of as a man, and rightfully so, as far as he was concerned. But he’d done it anyway—without thinking.

  Cole, you really need to think about your actions! Isn’t that what got you into trouble in the first place?

  He put his phone away, then jumped when a red alert box buzzed onto his screen.

  Help needed immediately in Reception!

  Mary had pressed the alert button. All staff had it on their phone screen, in case they needed help, and it sent out an alarm to every screen in the practice.

  He raced from his room and almost bumped into Lane on the way out of hers. He saw the issue immediately. Oscar Jameson was collapsed on the floor of the waiting room.

  ‘Somebody fetch the Resus bag!’

  ‘I’ll get it!’ Lane replied, turning back to the stock room, where the Resus bag was kept for emergencies such as this.

  Mr Jameson was one of his patients. An elderly gent, in his eighties, who lived alone. If he remembered correctly, the medication he was taking included a statin, a blood pressure tablet and some glycerol trinitrate spray for angina.

  Cole checked to make sure it was safe to approach the patient and asked the other people in the waiting room to stand back and give them space. He knelt by Mr Jameson and gave him a gentle shake of the shoulders.

  ‘Mr Jameson! Can you open your eyes for me?’

  Lane arrived then, with the Resus bag. ‘What do you need me to do?’

  He knelt to listen for breathing. To watch for the rise and fall of Mr Jameson’s chest. Neither happened.

  ‘Get the defibrillator ready. And the bag valve and mask.’ He immediately began compressions of Mr Jameson’s chest and shouted out an order to Mary. ‘Phone for an ambulance!’

  Within seconds Lane was cutting away Mr Jameson’s clothing to expose his chest. It wasn’t hairy, so she was able to place the pads in the correct place quickly. He had no pacemaker. No jewellery to move.

  The machine spoke: ‘Stop compressions. Analysing heart rhythm.’

  There was a moment of intense silence when Cole had to fight the urge to do something, but he knew he had to wait for the machine to tell him what to do.

  ‘Shock required. Stand clear of the patient.’

  Cole made sure everyone was clear of Mr Jameson.

  ‘Shocking.’

  He pressed the button on the machine and the shock was delivered. He immediately continued with compressions as Lane smoothly hooked up the bag, valve and mask to the oxygen tank that was carried in the Resus bag. When thirty compressions were up, she performed a head-tilt, chin-lift, and sealed the mask around Mr Jameson’s nose and mouth and delivered two breaths before Cole continued.

  He was just thinking about which drug to administer when Mr Jameson made a moaning noise and his eyes began to open.

  ‘We’ve got him. Keep the oxygen on high flow.’ He leant down to speak to Mr Jameson. ‘You’re all right, Oscar. We’ve got you. You’ve had a bit of an episode. You’re in the doctors’ surgery.’

  Oscar Jameson nodded and blinked, clearly exhausted by what had just happened.

  Cole felt intense relief go through him at getting the man back, but he was very aware that things could still go the other way. He would need to monitor him until the paramedics got there, in case his heart stopped again. He looked at Lane, and her relief was palpable and they smiled at each other. They’d saved this man’s life, hopefully.

  ‘You okay?’ he asked her, aware that situations like this could be frightening.

  She nodded and smiled, her eyes bright with adrenaline. The way she was looking at him right there and then, he might almost have sensed that... No. He was being ridiculous. It was just the heat of the moment, that was all. They were colleagues. Nothing more.

  When the paramedics arrived, he handed over the resus details, wish
ing he could go with them to see his patient all the way through, but knowing there were patients here who still needed him. Especially any that might have witnessed all this and be feeling a bit frightened.

  ‘Maybe I should offer everyone here a drink or something?’ asked Lane. ‘We have juice in the kitchen.’

  He liked it that she was thinking that way. He nodded. ‘That would be a nice thing to do. Thanks.’

  ‘And I’ll bring you a strong tea. You deserve it.’

  ‘So do you. Thanks, Lane. You were brilliant. I couldn’t have asked for more.’

  She looked into his eyes and he felt it again. A single moment of such pure attraction that it startled him to his very core. Along with the knowledge that they could be something more if he let it happen. That he could care for this woman if he were brave enough.

  But he was afraid. He’d never been in a relationship with anyone since his wife had died. He’d gone out once and got drunk—had slept with a woman who’d run out on him in the morning—but...

  Lane wasn’t staying here long. She was a stand-in for Shelby who could be back any time. He had no idea how long he would have with her. Best to keep things on a friendship level.

  The realisation was a let-down, after the euphoria of saving a man’s life, but he had to be realistic. If life had taught him anything, it had taught him that.

  When Lane brought him his tea, she set it down on his desk and then sat in the seat that his patients usually sat in.

  He looked up at her. ‘You okay?’

  She nodded hurriedly. Then looked away. As if she felt awkward about something. ‘I wonder if we could talk...?’

  ‘Of course! But I have patients waiting right now—and so do you, probably.’

  She smiled and nodded again. ‘I do. But we need to talk. Sooner rather than later.’

  He couldn’t imagine what it was about, but clearly she was upset about something. Was it the resuscitation? Did she want to chat through it, make sure she’d done everything okay?