‘Has my biological clock suddenly started ticking?’ she wondered, only realising that she’d voiced the question aloud when Jenna answered her.
‘Working with Zayed Khalil is enough to get anyone’s biological clock ticking.’ She laughed. ‘Isn’t he just the sexiest man you’ve ever met?’
‘Sexier than Colin Firth in Pride and Prejudice?’ Emily challenged, knowing from a previous conversation that he was one of Jenna’s all-time favourite actors and hoping desperately that she wasn’t blushing.
‘Ah! Now you’re talking!’ the staff nurse sighed then looked thoughtful. ‘Actually, they both have that same dark brooding quality to them, and the feeling that, once they fall in love, there’s nothing they wouldn’t do for the woman in their life.’
‘And does your Steve know you feel like this?’ Emily teased. ‘Doesn’t he feel jealous?’
‘Nah!’ Jenna laughed. ‘He knows that I might go starry-eyed over some actor—or our illustrious consultant—but Steve’s the one I go to bed with.’
‘So he’s confident you’re not pining for the unobtainable?’ Unlike me, she added silently.
‘Definitely not pining,’ Jenna said with a saucy wink. ‘How about you?’
Could the woman read her mind? Was it obvious to everyone that she’d fallen in love with Zayed? Would the gossip be all around the hospital by lunchtime?
‘Colin Firth’s OK, I suppose. He’s a pretty good actor,
and he was just right as Mr Darcy, but he doesn’t really ring any bells for me,’ she invented hastily, knowing that any slight of her hero would distract Jenna from pursuing the topic in Zayed’s direction.
‘
OK?
He’s far more than OK,’ she said as she sniffed in disgust and sailed out of the room. ‘Some people just don’t have any taste’ was her parting shot as the door swung shut behind her.
‘Oh, but they do,’ Emily murmured softly as she forced her eyes back to the open file in front of her, in spite of the image of Zayed imprinted in her brain. ‘Impeccable taste.’
‘Is there a problem?’ the man in question asked, and Emily found herself fighting a blush again. Rather than turning towards him and have him question the heat in her face, she focused on the information she was adding to Abir’s file.
‘It’s not a problem yet, but it’s something that will need to be checked in about nine months’ time,’ she said as she completed her notes.
‘Nine months? That is very specific,’ he commented as he hitched one hip on the corner of the table. ‘So, what is it that will need investigation?’
‘Read for yourself,’ she said, and handed him the file with a smile, looking forward to seeing his delight.
Except it wasn’t delight that crossed his face when he read the fact that Meera Hanani was pregnant again. It looked far more like…pain.
And then the expression was gone, wiped away as if it had never appeared, leaving the stoic, apparently emotionless man behind.
‘I will make sure that the baby can be checked after it
is born,’ he said flatly, without any evidence of pleasure in the young couple’s news, and Emily couldn’t help staring at him in consternation. This wasn’t the same man who had smiled down at Abir that first morning, or the one who had allowed the children to swarm all over him as soon as he’d set foot inside his house.
What on earth had happened since then to change him so much? And how could she ever ask him?
Once again, the answer came down to friendship, she decided as she swiftly stripped off her clothes to don theatre scrubs a little later. If she could show him that being friends wasn’t a threat—could even be enjoyable—then perhaps he would relax enough to tell her about the demons that beset him.
‘Our patient is Raquia Khan,’ Zayed said to the assembled staff as soon as she joined him at the table, and despite the fact that he was all professional detachment, just the sound of his voice was enough to send a shiver up her spine. ‘Raquia is a twin. The delivery of her brother was straightforward but Raquia suffered considerable trauma due to malpresentation, receiving a broken clavicle…’ He stroked the slightly misshapen collar-bone with a gloved finger and Emily couldn’t take her eyes off the gentle movement ‘…and a broken radius and ulna.’
It was obvious that both bones in the little forearm were considerably deformed, as though they had simply been left to heal without being positioned correctly.
‘Unfortunately, the injuries were apparently completely overlooked by the midwife, who was more concerned with the survival of the mother and her son.’ There was an edge to his voice as he recounted the details and Emily was glad to hear it—it was proof that he wasn’t as
detached as he would have them think. But was it enough to allow herself to hope that she might be able to get through to him?
‘This has left Raquia without the full range of rotational movement in her arm as the bones cannot slide properly past each other,’ he continued after a moment, once more the cool, calm professional. ‘Today we will re-break both bones in her arm and position them correctly, using titanium screws and plates where necessary. Because this arm is considerably shorter than the other, we may have to use bone grafts to fill in and speed up the repair process, but this should not be difficult.’
‘Won’t there be a problem with her skin?’ asked one of the newer trainee theatre staff, her face almost purple with embarrassment as everyone looked across at her. ‘Will it stretch enough for you to lengthen it that far?’
‘That is a good question,’ Zayed said with a smile that was evident even behind the camouflaging mask, immediately putting her at ease. ‘In some cases—for example, a little boy we had in the unit a couple of months ago—we would have to attach the two ends of the bone to a frame and wind them apart day by day to lengthen the bone gradually to the right length. With Raquia that will not be necessary because, although the difference looks great, it is not too far for her skin to accommodate.’
‘How do you know?’ Emily was beginning to suspect that the young trainee was deliberately attracting Zayed’s attention to herself…or was that her own jealousy talking?
‘Obviously, I wasn’t given green eyes without a reason,’ she muttered under her breath, glad that her mask disguised the fact that she was speaking…except when she glanced up it was to see a pair of dark eyes watching
her intently, with a hint of a smile in their glittering depths.
‘Years of experience tell me so,’ Zayed answered. ‘But that does not mean that sometimes we do not have to change what we intend to do when we start the operation. So, if we need to use a fixator, we will do so, but I do not expect it will be necessary today.’
And he was right in his assessment. Raquia’s surgery went as smoothly as anyone could have wished, and although her arm looked badly bruised by the end of the operation and would look even worse during the next couple of days, that would be largely hidden from view by the dressings. Then, once the stitches were ready for removal, any residual discolouration would have time to disappear by the time the full cast was removed.
‘If you would like to close, Emily, I will go to talk to the parents of Raquia.’
Emily was becoming quite accustomed to being left to complete the process and took it as a mark of his confidence in her growing skills that he would sometimes even leave the room for a short while. In this case, she could understand that he would want to put Raquia’s parents’ minds at rest. They had been feeling so guilty that their daughter hadn’t received the care she’d needed, even though they had a ready-made excuse in the fact that they lived so many miles from the nearest hospital.
Zayed left the room on silent feet and as Emily bent to her task, she wondered if she was the only one who had noticed that he had performed more than half of the surgery without his clogs on. He certainly seemed to be less uncomfortable during the more lengthy procedures these days, but whether that was due to her suggestion
that he go barefoot or proof that his injuries were finally improving was something else she couldn’t ask him—at least, not unless they were friends rather than professional colleagues.
‘Have you been to see your grandmother this evening?’
Zayed’s husky voice reached Emily over the rhythmic flow and hiss of the waves across the silvery sand but she wasn’t surprised to hear him speak. She seemed to have developed some sort of sixth sense that told her whenever he was nearby, and even though she hadn’t seen him come onto the beach, she’d somehow known he was there. She wasn’t even surprised that he’d learned how to find her secret thinking place among the jumbled rocks.
‘I went as soon as I got to Penhally,’ she confirmed with a brief glance in his direction, her spirits the lowest they’d ever been. ‘She was asleep when I got there and only woke up for a few minutes before she dropped off again.’
‘Is this not what you would want?’ he asked softly, perching on a nearby rock as though prepared to stay for a while. ‘Would you prefer that she was awake and in pain?’
‘No! No, of course I wouldn’t,’ she protested, then flung up her hands. ‘Oh, just ignore me. I’m feeling disgustingly sorry for myself. I should be glad that she’s not in any discomfort and all I can do is complain that she’s not alert enough to talk to me.’
‘But this is understandable, too,’ he said, his soft words eddying around the two of them in the fitful breeze. ‘You have the feeling of time running out and the need to hear any last words of wisdom, the need to hear once more that you are loved and to say that you love in return.’
‘That’s exactly the way it is. How did you know?’ she demanded.
‘I lost my grandmother, too, and I can remember.’ There was a slightly hollow sound to his voice, as though part of him was lost in thoughts and memories.
‘It is the ones you lose without warning that are worst,’ he added suddenly, almost as though the words had been torn out of him against his will. ‘Then there is no chance to apologise for the things you failed to do, no time for a final declaration of love.’
He shook himself, as though suddenly realising where he was and who he was speaking to, and stood up.
‘I came to deliver an invitation,’ he said formally. ‘It is the birthday of Jasmine Mohatar and she has asked if you will come to take a piece of birthday cake with us. And Reza has said that
I
will get no cake if I do not bring you.’
Emily laughed aloud. She could just imagine Reza delivering that sort of ultimatum, despite the fact that Zayed was her employer.
‘I would be delighted to have some of Jasmine’s cake. How is her spine progressing?’ It was the first time Emily had ever seen TB in a spine, outside pictures in medical textbooks, and she’d quickly realised just how vital it was to support the weakened structure during the treatment phase so that it wouldn’t collapse before new bone could be laid down.
‘There will be no miracles in one night,’ he said as the two of them set off across the sand towards the steps that led to the car park at the top of the cliff. ‘As you know, the treatment of the tuberculosis will take a year or more, and it will take at least that long for her body to grow new bone.’
‘How much longer will she stay in Penhally? Does she need to be over here the whole time she’s in treatment and recovery?’ She could only imagine how disruptive that would be to the rest of the Mohatar family. So far, every member who’d been tested to see if they, too, had TB, had been negative, but all their lives must have been thrown into disorder when Jasmine had needed to come to Penhally for the treatment she’d needed.
On a purely practical level, it was much more difficult to deal with Jasmine than most of the other patients due to the infectious nature of the disease she’d contracted. And barrier nursing was time-consuming and could end up being costly…although she knew that Zayed wouldn’t let that be a consideration. As far as he was concerned, the only criterion would be that none of the other patients should be put at risk while he completed Jasmine’s treatment.
‘I have been in contact with an old colleague in Xandar,’ Zayed said, and she noticed that his accent became just a little stronger when he spoke of his own country.
Was there also a hint of longing in his voice?
Did he miss the familiar heat and the sights and sounds he’d grown up with?
Were there people he was longing to see?
Would he eventually leave Cornwall to return there, leaving others to continue his work at St Piran’s and at his house on the outskirts of Penhally, leaving her to mourn the man she’d never forget?
‘If I can set everything up, he will supervise the continuing treatment of Jasmine when she returns to Xandar, and will send me reports of her progress. That way, she will be close to her family and will be able to see her brothers so she does not become a stranger to them.’
‘How soon will she be able to go?’ Emily asked eagerly. ‘She was in tears today because her baby brother has learned to walk while she’s been away and she missed seeing it, and now it’s her birthday and she can’t share her cake with them.’
‘She will probably be able to leave by the end of the week, if all goes well, but her parents must be willing to take her for her treatment without fail, or the TB may become resistant.’
‘Well, if you speak to the father while I take the mother to one side, we should be able to impress on each of them how deadly that could be…for the whole family.’
She stood aside while he unlocked his car then slid onto the supple leather seat, slightly disappointed that there would be no leisurely walk along Harbour Road to get to his usual parking place. Making the journey by car left her with far too little time to spend with him, especially if she was going to try to find ways to build a friendship between the two of them.
‘How is your own back these days?’ she asked, as a tentative idea began to form.
‘A little better, thank you,’ he said, politeness itself.
‘Good enough to go surfing?’ she suggested, as she hid her superstitiously crossed fingers under the folds of her skirt.
‘
Surfing?
I do not think so,’ he said, clearly appalled by the idea.
‘You make it sound as if I’d invited you to parade along Harbour Road naked!’ she teased. ‘What’s wrong with surfing? It’s done all around the world by everyone from little children to their grandparents.
I
do it, too.’