Twins for Christmas

G
OOD GRIEF
! I
T CAN’T BE
—’

Kate Simpson glanced up from the computer screen in time to see the back of a tall man who must have climbed out from the back of the ambulance in the bay to give the crew space to unload their patient.

‘Of course it isn’t,’ she told Judy.

Her colleague’s eyebrows rose at her tone. ‘Looked like him for a sec, though, didn’t it?’

Kate shrugged, pretending interest in the screensaver that had just kicked in on the screen in front of her. Santa’s sleigh, being pulled by ridiculously happy-looking reindeer, emerged from one side of the screen and then took a circuitous route to the other side amidst snowflakes and the soft jingle of bells. A clock in the bottom right corner of the screen ticked off the countdown until Christmas Day. Five hours and fifty-nine minutes to go.

Of course it wasn’t
 
him
.

How many times, she reminded herself, had she caught a glimpse of a masculine figure with some feature familiar enough to make her heart miss a beat? Broad shoulders, perhaps, or dark hair. Even a hand with elegantly long fingers or a way of moving with quiet confidence.

How many times had she taken a second glance and felt the weight of disappointment? An echo of the loss she’d never really had the right to feel in the first place.

‘You OK, Kate?’

‘I’m fine. Why?’

‘I dunno. You look kind of…sad.’

‘Bored, more like. I’m not cut out to be a receptionist, and it’s so qu—’

‘Don’t!’ Judy held up her hand in a stop signal and the quick movement of her head made her festive bell earrings jingle. ‘Don’t you dare say the Q word! I’m off duty in an hour and I’ve still got Christmas shopping to finish.’

Kate smiled. ‘OK. So far I’ve logged in one broken ankle, a kid with tonsillitis and a septic finger. It’s…shall we say…restful?’

‘Restful is exactly what you need. You should be at home with your feet up.’

‘I’d rather be doing the job I’m trained for, thanks.’

‘You can’t get close enough to a bed to take a pulse unless you turn sideways. Anyone would think you were carrying triplets instead of just twins.’ Judy turned to look out through the double doors ringed with bright red and green tinsel that led to the ambulance bay. ‘They’re taking their time.’

‘Probably finishing their patient report form or something. Can’t be urgent.’ Kate had been resisting taking that second glance. The one that was such an ingrained habit after so many months. Her soft sigh was an admission of defeat. It was too compelling to resist. What
was
 
it about the man still standing out there as the paramedics finally lifted a stretcher from the back of the vehicle? The sense of him
listening
, for want of a better word, she decided. Standing so patiently when it had to be freezing, with the sleet that now appeared to be thickening into real snow falling heavily just beyond the overhang. He gave the impression of waiting but still being active. Absorbing everything happening around him. Ready to act on information instantly if necessary. A sense of control. That was what it was. He might be wearing civvies, but you’d pick him as the person in charge.

No. Kate gave herself a mental shake. It couldn’t be him. She didn’t want it to be. Not now. Not when she finally felt in control of her life enough to be looking forward to the future. She transferred her gaze to the patient propped up on the stretcher as the double doors slid open to admit the new arrivals to the emergency department of St Bethel’s Hospital—a choice made easy by the fact that the paramedics were now blocking the figure of the man accompanying the frail-looking, elderly female patient.

Judy moved to the other side of the reception desk to do her assigned task of triage, which meant that she would greet the patient, listen to the hand-over and decide where the patient should be taken first.

Kate’s job was to collect the copy of the patient report form that had the patient details, input them into the computer program, then order sticky labels and request notes from previous admissions if appropriate.

Except that the small entourage had moved enough to reveal the man again, and she couldn’t stop staring because it
 
was
 
him.

Rory.

He was staring back at her, his expression unreadable. He couldn’t be as shocked as she was because he’d had the advantage of being prepared for the possibility of this encounter, hadn’t he? No surprises there. He’d always had the advantage over her.

He looked…as gorgeous as ever. A little thinner, perhaps. Different. But that could be because he was wearing clothes he would never have come to work in. Black jeans. A leather jacket over a black fisherman’s jersey. His hair was longer than she remembered, and there were beads of moisture caught in the dark waves. Melting snowflakes? No wonder they were melting. Had something gone wrong with the heating in here?

The voice of the paramedic telling Judy about the patient was a background blur of sound, only partially com pre hen sible.

‘…seventy-two-year-old woman…. Parkside Rest Home… Advanced Alzheimer’s…’

Kate hadn’t set eyes on this man for six months. No one had. Rory McCulloch had simply vanished. One minute he’d been the senior consultant of this very department and the next he had been…gone.

The day after she’d… After they’d…

‘Query urinary tract infection,’ the paramedic was telling Judy now. ‘She’s tachycardic with a heart rate of one twenty. Pyrexic—temperature’s thirty-nine.’

The woman being discussed made an alarmed cry, and Rory looked away from Kate. He stepped forward to touch the woman. A gentle touch on her forehead, smoothing long strands of nearly white hair from her face. It was an action that spoke of familiarity and deep affection.

‘She’s more confused than usual,’ he said to Judy. ‘And she’s had quite severe abdominal pain. She had five milligrams of morphine, but I’m not convinced it’s reduced the pain scale significantly.’

Judy’s jaw had dropped as she turned her gaze to the speaker.

‘Dr McCulloch! It
 
is
 
you! Oh…my goodness. You’re back!’

‘Briefly,’ he conceded. ‘This is my mother—Marcella.’

‘Oh…’ Judy was looking around the department now, as though searching for a suitably senior staff member to take charge of this case. ‘Let’s put Mrs McCulloch in Resus 2,’ she told the paramedics. ‘We’re quiet enough for the moment.’

The triage nurse was so flustered she didn’t even notice she’d uttered the banned Q word. The stretcher lurched into movement, but then stopped as the woman cried out again in fright.

‘
Jamie!
 
Where are you?’ Then her tone changed to one of terror. The language also changed and became a frantic babble. What was she speaking? Was Rory’s mother Italian?

That might explain why Rory had never looked as Scottish as his name and the slight lilt of his voice suggested. Why his hair was so dark and his skin so olive and his eyes that amazing chocolate-brown.

Rory took a stride to catch up with the stretcher, his face set in lines so grim it took Kate straight back to that night. The night before he’d disappeared. Her heart gave the same kind of squeeze it had then. A kind of pain. Wanting to know what was so wrong.

Wanting to make it better.

He took his mother’s hand, saying something soothing in the same language, but she clung to him, tears coursing down a face so lined it made her look much older than she apparently was.

‘Jamie,’
 
she sobbed. ‘
Dio mio…
 
Don’t leave me!’

‘I won’t,’ he said. ‘Shh, now, Mamma. It’s all right.’

Judy frowned. ‘Why—?’

A quick glance from Rory coupled with a tiny shake of his head was enough to stop the obvious question. The triage nurse regrouped.

‘Kate, have you got all the information you need?’

Kate finally looked at the copy of the paperwork the ambulance crew had left on the desk in front of her. She scanned the details.

‘Is the Parkside Rest Home her permanent address?’

‘Yes.’ The word was clipped and gave nothing away about whether Rory was happy with where his mother resided.

‘Has she had any recent admissions to hospital?’

‘Not that I’ve been informed about. I’ve been out of the country for six months.’

‘Yes.’ Kate’s mouth felt dry. ‘So you have.’

She couldn’t help looking up to catch his gaze, and then she couldn’t look away. Was there a message there? Remorse? An apology?

No. But there was something. An intensity that made her feel as flustered as poor Judy had been when she’d tempted fate by uttering the Q word.

‘I’ll come and talk to you if I find I need anything else,’ she said, dropping her gaze.

Rory gave a curt nod at the dismissal and followed the stretcher into one of the well-equipped resuscitation bays.

Hopefully she wouldn’t need anything else. If she had to get up from this chair and move beyond the screen of the counter he would realise why she wasn’t on active duty tonight. The bagginess of the tunic top of her uniform was no longer enough to disguise her impressive bump.

Her heart was racing as she considered the implications. This was no way to learn of impending fatherhood. What would he say? Would he be angry that she hadn’t told him earlier? A lot, lot earlier?

But how could she have when he’d simply vanished? Resigned from his job and walked away without leaving even a forwarding address. People had talked about it for weeks. Made jokes about interplanetary abductions. Asked, far more seriously, where Dr Rory McCulloch could possibly have needed to go in such a hurry. And
 
why
?

Maybe some of those questions would be answered tonight. Word was spreading fast. Kate saw the man who was now in charge of the department, Braden Foster, shaking Rory’s hand and greeting him like a long-lost friend. Nurses were flocking to the bay, vying for the privilege of caring for his mother. Somethings certainly hadn’t changed. Even Judy had gravitated in that direction, leaving Kate alone at the desk.

The prettiest nurses had always made themselves available to Rory McCulloch in the two years Kate had worked in St Bethel’s. She had always been in the background. A bit short and round and plain. Just like her name. Nondescript. Invisible.

Until that amazing night…

The radio behind the desk crackled into life and Kate reached for the microphone.

‘St Bethel’s—emergency department,’ she responded. ‘Receiving you loud and clear.’

‘How are you placed for multiple casualties?’

Kate didn’t need to look around to know how ‘restful’ the department was. ‘How many?’ she queried briskly. ‘And what status?’

‘We’ve got a mini-bus from the Castle that’s gone down a bank.’

‘Oh, my God!’ Kate couldn’t help the un professional response. The Castle was actually an old stone house just a few miles from St Bethel’s on the out skirts of London. Its owner, Mary Ballantyne, had been well-known in the district for many years, welcoming all the orphans and foster children she could manage into her home. It had been one of ‘her’ children, so impressed with his new accommodation, who had announced he was now living in a castle, and the name had stuck. The house—and Mary—were a local legend.

‘Ten children on board,’ the voice of the person from the emergency services continued. ‘And Mary was driving. Maybe half of them are injured, and a couple look serious, but we haven’t ex tri cated everybody yet. It would be preferable if we could bring them all to the same hospital, and St Bethel’s is closest.’

‘Of course.’ Kate took a deep breath. ‘Bring them here. We’ll be ready.’

They would be—but Kate’s first task was to alert the trauma team, who would clear the resuscitation bays, gather equipment and put the other staff on standby.

To do that she had to tell Braden Foster what was happening, and the department’s head consultant was still talking to Rory about his mother.

There was no time to consider the implications. Kate stood up and moved from behind the shelter of her desk. She walked into Resus 2.

‘Dr Foster? There’s a multiple casualty incident in progress on the motorway and we’re the closest casualty department.’

Both men in front of her were staring. Braden Foster was looking at her face.

‘How many?’

‘Possibly eleven. The mini-bus from the Castle has gone over a bank.’

Judy’s voice carried to the now silent staff around them, and it was an echo of Kate’s reaction to the news.

‘Oh, my God! On Christmas Eve? That’s awful!’

‘Put Mrs McCulloch in one of the cubicles,’ Dr Foster ordered. ‘Let’s get her bloods off and a urine specimen before we get too busy. Put out a call for everyone in the trauma team, would you, please, Kate?’

Kate nodded and turned—but not before she glanced at Rory. She was too aware that he was still staring at her. He seemed to sense her gaze and lifted his own. He might not have been shocked at seeing her on his arrival, but he certainly was now.

Kate held his gaze for just a heartbeat as she watched his mental calculations. Remembering dates. Counting weeks.