‘Where is Bradley now?’
Janessa shrugged. ‘In Tasmania. We exchanged Christmas cards for about ten years but then it drifted off. We’re both very different people now from who we were back then.’
‘It was an amicable divorce?’
Janessa thought about the pain and heartbreak they’d both suffered when their son had died. Poor Connor. So little. Too premature to survive, and medical science hadn’t been as great back then as it was today. It was because of her son and the amazing team of specialists that had treated him that she’d entered this speciality, as though to honour his memory and to help mothers who were praying for their babies’ lives. Both she and Bradley had been stunned at Connor’s death and things had never been the same between them after that. She’d put her hope and trust in their marriage, that together, as husband and wife, they would find a way through their pain, but he simply hadn’t been able to cope.
‘I guess you could say that,’ she finally answered. ‘I certainly don’t hold any malice towards him. He wasn’t to blame for what happened to us and neither was I.’
He sensed there was probably far more to it than she was admitting. No divorce, however amicable, was ever easy. Besides, he’d pried enough for one night and finding out more about her didn’t help the way she made him feel. He still had to work alongside her, the sweet, summery scent she wore winding itself around him, drawing him in, enticing him to know more.
Living next door to her in the residential wing, knowing she was so close yet so far, sitting reading a book, overcoming the plumbing problems as she showered, sleeping peacefully in her bed … was also starting to become something of a problem and he’d started to wonder whether perhaps he should look around for a place to rent, outside the hospital grounds but close enough that he was readily available.
He would continue to tell himself that Janessa Austen was just another colleague, in another hospital, in another city that he would soon be leaving. The fact that she was the first woman who had piqued his interest since Wendy was a miracle within itself. She’d built a family for herself here and it appeared she had no intention of leaving. He needed to move, needed to be challenged with his work because that way he didn’t have to consider what might happen should he choose to, once more, spend his life alongside someone permanent … and Janessa was just the sort of woman who would fit that job description.
He’d tried the happy family road before and it had ended in loneliness. Moving around, shifting every three to six months to a different location, a different country, going where the work took him, was the life he’d chosen and one he wasn’t giving up simply because he was attracted to the intelligent and incredibly beautiful woman sitting opposite him.
‘I’m sorry if you felt I was prying into your past. I most certainly didn’t mean any offence by it,’ Miles remarked after a moment, attempting to bring their thoughts back to the here and now.
‘You were curious about me.’
He shrugged, feigning nonchalance. ‘It’s not uncommon for me to be curious about those I work with.’
‘But I’m guessing you rarely follow through on that curiosity. You’d rather keep yourself to yourself, do your job and then leave. Which piques my own curiosity. Why? Why do you move around so much, Miles? What is it that you’re running away from?’
‘Who says I’m running away from anything?’
It was her turn to shrug. The man had just told her his wife had died and perhaps that had been enough to keep him on the move. ‘I guess it appears that way when facts show that for the past six or seven years, you’ve never stayed in any one place longer than twelve months.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Oh, come on, Miles. You’re the man that everyone wants when it comes to conjoined twins. I can look you up on the internet and find a dozen or so different photographs of you and your team celebrating another successful spate of operations to separate conjoined twins, and most of them are at different hospitals around the world.’
‘Maybe I just go where the work is.’
‘Yes, but why? I’m guessing you’re not bored with the work you’re doing so if you’re not running away, are you looking for greener pastures? A place where you fit? Where you feel comfortable? At home?’
‘Why do you want to know?’ he asked after a moment. She was getting close. She was asking him questions that he hadn’t been asked by anyone in a very long time. He’d suggested that she expand her horizons, that she learn more, perhaps even travel with him so he could teach her more about the complicated and challenging world of conjoined twins. It shouldn’t be such a stretch that as a homebody she would be curious as to why he didn’t seem able to settle in one place. He couldn’t blame her. He’d pried into her life and asked questions, so it was only fair.
‘I’m … intrigued by you,’ she remarked honestly, holding his gaze for a long moment. The atmosphere between them began to intensify and after a second she breathed out slowly and walked towards the door. She opened it and leaned against it, looking out into her unit. Some babies were crying, others were sleeping and some were being fed. They didn’t understand time—they didn’t care if it was the middle of the night or the busiest part of the day. They all had needs, special needs, and she and her staff were on hand to provide them.
‘We’re a pair, Miles. Both determined to stay in control of our lives. Both wanting to focus on our careers and not risk even the slightest bit of compromise … and yet, whenever we’re in a room like this, together, intimate, quiet, the tension is so tight it would take more than the sharpest scalpel to slice through it.’
Janessa looked over at him, tipping her head back against the door, revealing her smooth long neck, her hands behind her back giving her a relaxed and open posture. Her guard was down and the look in her big, mesmerising eyes was one of complete honesty. ‘Do you think there’s any real hope for people like us, Miles?’ Her tone was free and soft and tired. ‘People who are always trying to control the world around them?’
Miles swallowed, his heart beating wildly as he drank his fill of the vision she made. He wanted to go to her, wanted to close the remaining distance between them, wanted to take her into his arms and to press his mouth firmly to hers. Didn’t she have any idea just how alluring she was right now?
He shook his head, more to steady the burning need inside him to go to her than to answer her question.
She sighed again and looked away. ‘I didn’t think so.’
Another four days passed with, both of them confused by the emotions they felt for the other hiding behind their professional personae. The special clothes that had been ordered for the twins arrived and both Janessa and Sheena had a wonderful time looking at the gorgeous little outfits. There had been meetings every day, Miles going over the finer points of what to expect once the twins were delivered.
‘The actual C-section is straightforward, but once the twins are out we’ll need to be focused on stabilising them as soon as possible,’ he’d said to Kaycee, Ray and Janessa who, along with Miles, would make up the initial postnatal care team. As far as planning for Ellie and Sarah’s arrival, things seemed to be well on track.
Tonight, though, Janessa sat in her office and looked at the mound of paperwork before her. She had planned to spend most of today out at the airfield, up in her glorious Tiger Moth biplane, whisking away the cobwebs and setting her world to rights. Instead, she’d been in the unit for almost twenty-four hours straight, desperately concerned about a little baby, Philip, who had made his appearance in this world far too early at twenty-three weeks. Now, two weeks later and after a couple of doses of indomethocin to close the hole in his heart, it appeared surgical intervention may be necessary.
‘Twenty-five weeks is not good,’ she’d murmured to Kaycee as she monitored Philip’s oxygen intake. ‘Plus he’s developed necrosis of the bowel.’
Still, the NICU staff would monitor him closely in the hope that the struggling baby would continue to fight for his life. For now, though, they’d managed to stabilise him as best they could but Janessa knew that if tiny, tiny Philip was going to survive, he would have a long and hard fight ahead of him. If he did require surgery, though, Miles, as the most experienced neonate surgeon they had, would perform it and Janessa was relieved to have him here at such a time.
While they were in the hospital things seemed to be under control, but in the evening, when she returned to her apartment in the residential wing, Janessa needed to call on all of her self-control
not
to think about him. Whether it be in her dreams or trying to guess what he was doing on the other side of the paper-thin walls that separated them.
She’d even taken to putting on headphones and listening to soothing music in order to help shut out images of Miles, next door … preparing food in the little kitchenette, sitting reading on the second-hand furniture, fighting with the taps to get the plumbing to work properly, lying in his bed at night … half-naked … hands behind his head, his muscles flexing, the blankets only partially covering his firm torso …
‘Nessa?’
‘Hmm? What?’ She looked up from the work at her desk and met Ray’s worried gaze. She shoved aside the ridiculous fantasies of Miles and focused her thoughts. ‘Philip?’
Ray nodded. ‘He’s not improving. His oxygen requirement is thirty-five per cent and slowly increasing.’
Janessa sighed with sad resignation. ‘I’ll call Miles. It looks as though he’ll have to operate on Philip after all.’
‘Someone say my name?’ Miles asked as he headed towards Janessa’s open office door. His eyes met hers and for a fraction of a second they gazed at each other, veiled acknowledgement of the repressed awareness still coursing between them, before shifting their focus away and back to more important matters.
‘It’s Philip.’ Janessa’s face twisted as though little Philip’s pain was her own, and in some ways it was. Philip’s mother, Violet, was a seventeen-year-old girl who hadn’t even known she was pregnant until two weeks ago. The fact that Janessa had been a young teenage mother herself meant she could empathise with poor Violet.
Miles nodded, already aware of the seriousness of Philip’s case, and slowly exhaled, feeling the weight of the situation.
‘Let’s go and review him again,’ Janessa replied. Philip was too young, too premature, too sick, and yet she wanted to do whatever they could in order to give him the best chance at fighting. They headed over to where Kaycee was closely monitoring Philip.
‘We have to try,’ she implored, looking directly into Miles’s blue eyes, almost pleading with him to make things better. ‘We have to try.’ This time her voice broke on the words. Miles nodded and placed a hand on her shoulder. The touch wasn’t romantic or sensual. While the warmth from his hand seeped into her body, she understood the show of support and solidarity his touch evoked.
‘You’re right, even if that means surgical intervention.’ Thoughts of being unable to help his own little baby, the eight-month-old dying in his mother’s arms during the horrific train crash, came back to haunt him. Miles knew he would do everything he could in order to give Philip the best chance possible. ‘We owe Philip that much.’
With his words and his touch, Janessa felt a certain level of relief from her exhausted and frazzled nerves. Miles understood. Miles was also concerned about Philip and he knew they had to try.
Swallowing over the dryness of her throat, she breathed in a cleansing, calming breath and nodded. ‘Thank you, Miles.’ There was another beat where the two of them just stood, just stared, just absorbed, before he quickly dropped his hand and turned away.
‘I’ll go and speak to the mother.’
‘Violet,’ Janessa said.
‘Pardon?’
‘The mother. Her name is Violet and … Do you mind if I come, too?’
‘No. Not at all.’ Miles was pleased she wanted to join him as it only proved once again just how much Janessa cared about her patients, not only the babies but the mothers as well. Miles turned to Ray. ‘You’re trained in neonate theatre procedures, aren’t you, Ray?’
‘Most certainly, sir,’ Ray replied, rolling his ‘r’s. ‘I’ll go and prepare the theatre and contact the anaesthetist.’
‘Excellent.’ Miles returned his attention to Janessa and swept his arm across his body. ‘Shall we, Dr Austen?’
Janessa nodded and together they headed to Maternity where the young mother was lying in a bed, staring unseeingly out the window. Janessa drew the curtain around the bed, giving them some privacy from the other mothers in the ward.
‘Hi, Violet.’ Janessa smiled at her. ‘How are you feeling? Any pain?’
‘I’m fine.’ She tossed the words out carelessly as though she didn’t care about herself but sat up in the bed, gripping the sheets with both hands. ‘Philip? What’s happened? Is he all right? Has something gone wrong?’ Her words tumbled out too quickly and Janessa instantly went over and put her hand reassuringly on the young mother’s white knuckles.
She hated giving people bad news but she’d learned over the years that the best way was the direct way, combined with heart-felt compassion.
‘Philip isn’t doing too well at the moment. The hole in his heart is causing him more problems than his little body can deal with,’ she began.
‘We need your permission, should surgical intervention be necessary,’ Miles continued, and went on to explain to Violet why Philip might need this surgical procedure. Throughout the entire discussion Miles was intrigued by Janessa, watching the way she seemed to relate on a personal level to Violet. There was vehemence in her words and repressed pain in her eyes. It wasn’t only that she was being considerate to her patient, there was something deeper in her words, in the way she was making sure that Violet understood everything, in not talking down to the teenage mother. The compassion Janessa offered was complete to the point of perfect and it made him wonder whether something had happened to Janessa.
After they’d obtained Violet’s permission, they headed back to the NICU, Miles still curious about his colleague. Janessa was quieter now, subdued but still direct in her actions and steadfast in her determination to do everything possible for Philip.