By My Side Page 8

  Turning a corner, she almost crashed straight into Mr Elliott. She was flushed and her skin moist from running the length of the hospital at pace. She realised she must have looked a state. Adam met her gaze momentarily and then walked on, nothing further passing between them.

  Kate felt the full force of his disapproval in that one brief look and her pace slowed perceptibly. By the time she got back to A&E, the vascular surgeon had arrived and was preparing to take the lad to Theatre and Mr Cobham thanked Kate for her presence of mind and her speed.

  “Are you all right, love?” Gloria asked later that day. “You don’t seem yourself.”

  “I’m fine,” Kate said. “I’ve just got a lot on my mind at the moment, that’s all.”

  Gloria tilted her head.

  “You know, my mum,” Kate fibbed.

  “Oh, yes. How is she doing? I should have asked.”

  “Not bad,” Kate told her, glad of the diversion. “Frustrated because she can’t do much, but I’m going round later, so I’ll be able to help out a bit.”

  When Kate arrived at her parents’ house later that afternoon, she found her mother being waited on hand, foot and finger, by her weary father. The house was very different. The dining room had been made over into a temporary bedroom while her mother was tied to a wheelchair. Unable to use crutches because of her broken wrist and not yet allowed to walk on her broken ankle, for everyday chores she was pretty much useless. Getting to the toilet was a mammoth task in itself and her parents had discovered a few shortcuts in the time since she’d been out of hospital, which her mum talked her through as and when they were needed.

  Kate tried to give her dad a bit of a rest and took over the fetching and carrying for a while, releasing him to go and spend some time with his friend, and Kate decided a take-away was in order.

  Auntie Ann called by and enquired after her sister’s treatment.

  “Such a lovely man,” her mother repeated. “Spoke very highly of you as well,” she said, turning to Kate.

  Kate was immediately alert, although she tried hard not to look it. “Really? Why? What did he say?”

  “He said you were very capable and that you cared a lot about your patients. ‘Very intuitive’, I think were the words he used.”

  Kate was confused. She had been convinced the man hated her. Perhaps it was all just part of his bedside manner. He might not actually think these things.

  “I told you he was a nice man,” her auntie said. “So sad his mother’s not going to pull through.”

  Lost in regret, Kate’s heart wept. The man who was all on his own and looking after a dying mother, was the man she was - surely it was time to admit it? - falling for. He, who was patient, kind and dedicated, had been inadvertently slandered by her own lips, even questioning his sense of compassion. She had guarded against all his attempts at conversation and yet was unable to get him out of her mind. What had she done? At last she had found a decent guy, a man of compassion and integrity, and she had driven him away.

  “Are you all right, Kate?” her auntie asked. “You’ve gone quite pale.”

  “No, I’m fine, really. I’ve just remembered something I was meant to do, that’s all. It’s no big deal. I’ll get off home in a minute and sort it out.” She wasn’t about to confess to anything yet. There was far too much still to feel and to fathom for words.

  ~

  Adam felt shattered at the end of a busy day but he knew his mother was fading and she needed him.

  He pulled up outside the hospice and walked the lonely walk into hell. Alone with his fear, he moved quietly through the corridors to his mother’s room. She was sleeping. Adam crept inside and sat down by her bed. After a minute or two she was disturbed by the pain and he took hold of her hand and soothed her.

  “Adam, you’re here.” Her face tried to smile.

  “How are you, Mum?” he asked softly.

  “Can’t complain.”

  Of course, she never did, even when she had reason to. She was a brave woman and had struggled too much for one lifetime. He had hoped that by becoming a doctor he could have kept her in a manner that would have eased things for her, but fate had stripped him of that and now his hands were tied and he was helpless but to hold her as she fell.

  “You look weary,” she said. “You need to take better care of yourself.”

  “I’m all right, Mum. It’s just been a busy day, that’s all.”

  His mother looked at him. “I wish you’d find yourself someone new,” she said. “Someone who could take care of you and make you happy. I worry about you, after I’m gone.”

  “Don’t, Mum. Don’t… I’m all right, really. Can I get you anything?”

  She shook her head. “Ali’s gone, my darling boy. It’s time to move on. She would understand, you know? She would.”

  Adam blinked back the tears and looked out of the window. “I’m not sure I can, Mum. I’ve tried, but…”

  “No one said it would be easy.” She squeezed his hand. “The best things rarely are,” and she winced again as the pain gripped her.

  “Is it getting worse, Mum?” he asked.

  “Perhaps just a little.”

  Adam wandered into his apartment and sifted through the mail, letting it flop down onto the sideboard to be dealt with another day. He rubbed his face with his hands and then, letting out a deep sigh, he sank down onto the settee. The remote was to hand and soon mellow music was mingling with the sandalwood scent of his living room and he allowed it to soothe him for a while.

  He tried to think about something else. Kate. He smiled to himself remembering the way she had looked as she ran into him in the corridor earlier that day, so wild and free. But then his smile slipped away and he rose to his feet. He walked purposefully into his bedroom and picked up the photograph from beside his bed. The gold band shone up from the bedside table as he brushed the fine features of the woman in the frame. He smiled sadly. “Help me out here, Ali,” he said. “I don’t know what to do.” Then he studied the picture for a minute longer, searching for the answers he needed, before putting it back down in its spot and walking out to the kitchen.

  This job at St Stevens was not forever. It was the sleepy backwater he’d needed to disappear in for a while and take care of his mum. But something had been brewing inside him. Ali had always wanted to go to Italy and his heart had been set on a job in Milan. He picked up his laptop and went back to the living room. He would find that job and he would make it happen, for her.

  ~

  Kate’s conscience was far from easy over the days that followed. She decided to speak to Adam and own up to her mistakes. She was doubtful that she would find the forgiveness she craved, but she had to try. She wanted him. Kate was determined to find an opportunity to get herself not only alone with Adam but also with time to talk. Even then, it was by no means a given that he would understand. But the alternative of living with the daily fear of seeing him despise her very existence was far, far worse.

  ~~~

  “So what did she do?” Lena asked.

  The woman seemed pleased that Lena was following the story. She had been so quiet and still, there had been little evidence that she was even listening. “What could she do?” she said. “She could hardly tell him how she felt without owning up to everything he’d heard.”

  Lena chewed at a ragged nail. “And Ali?”

  “Kate had no idea.”

  ~~~

  Kate decided she would probably have to settle in for the long haul, but in fact it was only three days later that she got her chance.

  Chapter 5

  Kate opened the clinic room door to start setting up for Mr Cobham’s clinic and walked right in on Adam. He was perched on the radiator with his back to the window, one arm laid across his chest, talking into a Dictaphone. He paused mid-sentence and looked up. Kate saw the notes of a patient lying open on the desk and realised he was still finishing off his own clinic from the morning.

  At first Kate tho
ught she would excuse herself and hurry back out. But indecision made her pause and she hovered for a moment, uncertain.

  “I’m sorry. Am I in your way?” he asked. “I won’t be long.”

  Kate tried to speak, but her mouth was suddenly useless and nothing would come out.

  He continued dictating his notes, still looking at Kate off and on and then, when he had finished, he put his hand down and looked at her. “Kate-”

  “Mr Elliott. I’m so sorry about what you overheard at the ball. All the rumours flying around. I never meant any of it to happen,” she blabbered, unable to meet his gaze as he took in the sight of her.

  Adam’s eyebrows rose.

  “It’s just… I was so angry. I’d had a really bad day and… I never said you were gay. I mean…”

  His eyebrows rose further.

  “You know what it’s like when you’re angry and you’ve had a few too many to drink… well maybe you don’t.” She took a deep breath. “I might have implied that you… Well that… That you never… God, I’m just really sorry.” Kate turned to leave, wanting to be anywhere but there. What had she been thinking? It had to have been the stupidest plan ever.

  “What don’t I ever do, Kate?” he asked, halting her retreat.

  This was torture. Was he actually going to make her stand there and say the words? If he’d have had half a heart he would have just accepted her apology and been done with it. She turned back, still clutching the notes to her chest, her eyes searching around the room for distraction.

  “What don’t I do?” he asked again, standing up from his perch on the other side of the room.

  She was dying here. Adam started to walk toward her, his expression dark and unreadable. Kate was flustered. Her thoughts were scrambling inside her brain and she was desperate to be out of there, to be anywhere else but there.

  “Look, it was the day you had a go at me.”

  “I had a go at you? From what I remember it was the other way around.” He was still walking towards her, slowly, very slowly.

  “Well it didn’t feel that way to me and I… My housemate took me out that night, to let off steam and… well I might have implied that you…”

  “Yes?”

  Beginning to shake, she took a deep breath again. Blood was rising rapidly in her cheeks. She hugged the notes against her as if by doing so they might afford her some protection. “Wouldn’t be at all… very… passionate.”

  His brow quirked. For a moment he seemed to think about this. “And what lead you to that particular conclusion?” he asked.

  Oh, why was nobody walking in? Any other day and half a dozen people would have come and gone in the time she had been standing there. Kate desperately needed it to end.

  “Should I have been flirting with all the nursing staff?” He picked up his last set of notes from the desk. “Would I have scored more points with you if I’d slept with half the women in the hospital and flirted shamelessly with the rest?” His tone was cutting now. Angry even. She was a foolish child being reprimanded by the headmaster.

  “No!” Kate exclaimed.

  “Really?”

  “Of course not.”

  Adam approached her. He leaned down and put his head right next to hers. His lips were millimetres away from her ear. She could feel the warmth of his breath on the side of her neck. Her heart was hammering inside her chest.

  “Good,” he said. He pulled back, looked her in the eyes for a second, letting her know he had the upper hand and walked out, and Kate was left shaken and reeling and falling apart.

  There was no way now, no way in hell that this man would ever look at her the way he had done before, just for the briefest of moments, at the ball. She had ruined herself in his eyes and he had never been more magnificent in hers.

  Unfortunately, Kate still had the better part of her shift to go and the rest of her time staggered slowly on.

  She was desperate to be out of there that day and lived in dread of anything happening that might cause her to have to collide with Adam again.

  At last it was time to go home and she was gone. She was first out of the car park and she didn’t look back.

  Sophie was buzzing when Kate walked in that evening. Rich appeared at the kitchen door.

  “Hello, Kate. Can I get you a drink?” he said.

  Kate slumped down into a chair and let out a large sigh. “No thanks, Rich. I’m not really in the mood.”

  “Something wrong?” Sophie asked, her face suddenly serious again.

  “I owned up to Elliott today.”

  “You did what?!” Rich walked in, rolled his eyes and sat down next to Sophie, passing her a glass of wine.

  “What on earth made you do something like that?” Sophie asked. “Had he heard?”

  “He must have,” Kate told her.

  “Did he say so,” Rich asked.

  “Not in so many words, but-”

  Rich held his head in his hands and then looked up again. “What did I tell you about making assumptions?” he said. “I thought we agreed you were going to stop trying to do things all the time?”

  “I know, but-”

  “But you thought you’d do it anyway.”

  “And how did it go?” Sophie asked.

  “Excruciating,” Kate told her.

  They sat there for a minute as Kate told them about her day and finally Rich said to her, “Next time, save us all the agony and just kiss the bloody man, will you?”

  Kate laughed a hopeless kind of laugh and grabbed a cushion to her chest, squeezing it tightly. “Yeah, right,” she sighed. “Like I’d be brave enough to do something like that.”

  The pair of them looked over at her as she sat there, feeling sorry for herself and then it began to percolate through Kate’s crowded mind that Sophie was looking sickeningly happy. She studied the pair of them. They were grinning inanely. “What is it?” she asked.

  Rich and Sophie looked at each other and Rich put a hand on Sophie’s knee. A smile split Sophie’s face and she held out her left hand. A ring shone from her finger and all at once Kate forgot her troubles and leapt across the room. “No! You’re engaged? Oh my God! Let me take a look at that ring. Wow, it’s beautiful.” She glanced up at her friend. “That’s really wonderful, both of you, but isn’t it a bit quick?”

  Sophie squeezed Rich’s hand and looked into his eyes. “Is it? I didn’t know there was a time frame for these things.”

  “I’ve had longer bouts of indigestion!” Kate told them.

  Rich smiled at Sophie. “It’s never too soon to start the rest of your life.”

  “Ah, that’s brilliant, you guys. Look at you. You’re so happy. I think I’m going to cry. So when’s the big day?”

  “Hopefully sometime next June,” Sophie said. “I definitely want to be married before I turn twenty-five.”

  “Absolutely,” Kate agreed. “Because that would be just ancient!”

  Sophie gave her a guilty smile and Kate laughed.

  “It’s all right; I know I’m left on the shelf, at least that’s what my mum keeps telling me anyway. I’m probably going to be one of those nurses who dedicates their life to their patients and then retires to a nursing home for old nurses and grumbles on about how much better the care was in their day.”

  Kate lay on her bed that night going over the events of the day in her head. Sophie was getting married. And although she really was the most sensible of Kate’s friends, Sophie was two whole years younger than she was and Kate had never been anywhere near a serious enough relationship to think about marriage. But they were good together, she couldn’t deny that. All she could do was pine for a love she had no chance of holding. And the more she came to understand the man, the more that reality hurt.

  Adam intrigued her. And as for passion? If the way he made her insides shake whenever she was near him was any indication of how things would be between them, he would definitely have no problem there. When he had leaned down right next to her ear, she had
barely been able to breathe.

  Kate groaned and rolled over and tried her best to get to sleep. Maybe he would come round. Perhaps. Given time. She had tried an apology. All she could do now was wait and see how it was when they saw each other again. Only then would she have some idea of the damage she had done.

  Naturally, because she now wanted to more than ever, Kate didn’t see Adam for days after that. Two weeks passed without so much as a glimpse of him. The weather changed for the worse and although A&E was busy, nothing major was coming in.

  She began to check every morning, to see if his name was on the trauma list, just in case anything came up. She desperately wanted something to happen, anything really. It didn’t have to be fatal. In fact it definitely shouldn’t be, because then they wouldn’t need to call the team. Just something reported as big that when it arrived was much less serious. How awful was that? She knew she should be ashamed of herself, but so much of her longed to see him that her conscience was forced to abide.

  Days dragged by as shift after shift passed without incident, and then at last they got a call. A car crash on a country road outside town had caused three to be seriously injured and a fourth dead at the scene. Kate leapt into action. Something was coming in and Adam Elliott was actually on duty. She informed Mr Cobham and the rest of the staff and then put the call out for the trauma team.

  Excited, but nervous, she started getting ready for the arrivals, clearing bays and freeing up as many nurses as possible. The doctors started arriving, congregating in Resus One, but there was no sign of Adam.

  Kate put out a fast bleep for him and Mr Crickland, the surgeon standing right beside the desk, was alerted. He looked around and Kate stared at him in confusion. “I was trying to get hold of Mr Elliott,” she said.

  “Oh, no. Mr Barker’s covering for him today. And his calls are being diverted to me at the moment because he’s in a meeting. But I’ve let him know. He won’t be long. Did you want anything in particular?”

  Kate’s heart sank. “Er, no.” Then she started to worry. “Is he ill?” she asked.

  Mr Crickland turned back again. “Who, Mr Elliott? No, family issues, I think. He’s got a few days compassionate leave. He should be back on Friday.”