The Doctor's Mistress. Lilian Darcy

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      Her heart did a familiar, uncomfortable flip. Chris had been his usual difficult self during her visit. He’d hinted at the possibility that the two of them might get back together. His wistfulness on the issue was a vindication of the way she’d suffered when he’d left, but beyond that... It didn’t seem to have occurred to him that perhaps she’d moved on.

      ‘You’re my best friend, Hayley,’ he had whispered to her. ‘Maybe that’s what really counts.’

      Her reply had been stiff. ‘I’ll always be your friend, Chris.’

      He’d been her first and only lover. He’d been her husband for seven years, and he was the father of her child. Aware of all his faults, she still cared for him. It wasn’t a particularly rewarding feeling but, with Max’s needs to consider, was she just being selfish to want more?

      She had driven the eight hours back to Arden in a state of unsettled questioning and hadn’t given a further thought to that trivial yet oddly pleasant piece of news, a few weeks earlier, about Byron Black’s imminent return.

      And now, here she was, on her second shift back, sitting in the back of Car Seven with Byron’s injured daughter. Dear God, he would be racked over this.

      The driver’s door of the car slammed shut and Jim started the engine. ‘How is she?’ he asked.

      ‘Pretty shocked.’

      ‘And the other patient?’

      ‘Bruce didn’t have chance to give me much of a report. He’s pretty sure it’s a stroke. They’ll just have to see how it resolves once she’s admitted. She must be in her sixties.’ She would have liked to have said more, to tell Jim, She must be either Byron Black’s mother or his mother-in-law. How’s he going to feel?

      But Tori needed her attention. It wasn’t the time for gossip and conjecture with Jim.

      ‘We’re on our way now, sweetheart,’ she said, taking the child’s soft little hand. ‘It won’t be long. I’m going to get Mr Sheldon to talk to the hospital and tell your daddy that you’re coming.’

      But Tori didn’t speak. She had her eyes closed now. Hayley left her hand where it was.

      ‘Jim, I’ve worked out who she is,’ Hayley told him briefly and quietly, twisting towards the front of the vehicle. ‘Can you contact the hospital and make sure Dr Black is available in A and E?’

      Jim whistled. ‘His daughter? The new guy? I handed over to him last week, another CVA. He seemed good—thorough, focused, not too arrogant—but he’s going to be a mess today.’

      He was.

      Hayley glimpsed him standing in the ambulance bay as they pulled in. He hadn’t changed much since the last time she’d seen him. He still had the broad shoulders of a swimmer, still wore his thick, soft hair short so that it would stand up in dark spikes when he towelled it dry...or when he ran his fingers through it in agitation, as he was doing now.

      He had brown eyes. They weren’t puppy brown like Chris’s, however, but tiger brown with a glint of gold, an altogether more dangerous colour. He had a long straight nose, a wide, serious mouth and a broad forehead. Each of those features was stiff with tension now. They appeared to be etched more strongly than usual, as if the sculptor who’d made him—and any sculptor would be proud to have made a human form like Byron Black’s—had dug his tools in extra deep, manipulating them with force.

      There had always been an aura around Byron, something that hinted at the capacity for deep-running passion and the capacity to contain that passion carefully inside him. Today it looked as if the passion was threatening to break free.

      A nurse and an orderly appeared with a stretcher and a drip stand. Hayley opened the back of the car, unlocked the ambulance stretcher from its metal track and slid it out, extending the wheels down to ground level as she did so. Tori was light and little and easy to shift from one stretcher to the other.

      ‘Tori! Victoria!’ Byron said hoarsely, curving his long body over her.

      He was in the way of the drip line, but Hayley managed to snake it around him. As she did so, the sensitive inner skin of her forearm brushed across the top of that dark, spiky head and his hair was as silky and clean as she remembered. With the hairs of her arm still standing on end, she passed the plastic bag of fluid across to the nurse, who hung it on her stand.

      An orderly began to wheel the stretcher inside. Byron was still leaning over it, his long, strong legs working instinctively to keep up as they rumbled from concrete slab to vinyl flooring, through a set of automatic doors.

      ‘Daddy...’ came a little voice, fuzzy from the effect of the morphine. ‘Grandma wouldn’t wake up from her sleep.’

      He went white, straightened like a released catapult and turned to Hayley, blind and helpless. Didn’t even recognise her. She wasn’t surprised. ‘What happened?’ he said. ‘What on earth happened?’

      ‘She has a partial thickness burn over twelve to fifteen per cent of her body.’ Hayley kept her voice calm and impersonal. He needed a clear report, not a lot of words wasted in sympathy. Not yet. ‘No facial or genital involvement. The other patient in the house with her appears to have had a CVA and she’s coming in a second vehicle. The other crew will be able to give you a better report on her status...’

      ‘A CVA? That’s my mother...’ Byron was paler than ever now. ‘Dear God, and the two of them were alone!’

      They could all hear the sirens of the second ambulance now. Byron clearly didn’t know which way to turn next, his usual control and authority momentarily deserting him. His eyes looked wild, his lips were white, his fists were balled hard. Hayley ached with sympathy for him.

      ‘Tori must have been terrified,’ he whispered.

      ‘I think she wasn’t, Byron, not until she burned herself,’ she reassured him, using his first name without even thinking about it. ‘She was trying to make boiled eggs for lunch. She thought your mother was just having a little sleep on the couch.’

      ‘All right, yes. I guess that’s how she would intepret it, yes.’ His vision cleared suddenly, emphasising the golden glints in the depths of his eyes. ‘Hayley! Hayley Kennett! I’m sorry, I’ve only just...’ He gripped her arm.

      ‘It’s OK.’

      She returned his gesture, squeezing the muscular forearm she’d seen so many times, tanned and dripping wet, at swim practice. With an arm like that, it felt as if he should be the strong one but, of course, he wasn’t today, not after what had happened. She didn’t waste time reminding him that she was Hayley Morris now. She hadn’t gone back to her maiden name after the divorce.

      ‘We don’t know how long she spent trying to rouse her grandmother,’ she said instead, as they covered the final few metres before entering the paediatric section of the emergency department. ‘Perhaps no time at all. She does seem to have taken the ‘‘nap’’ at face value. Her dress was wet all down the front, and there are burns on her thighs and feet, suggesting that she tipped boiling water over herself when she was trying to get the eggs out of the saucepan. We found the eggs broken on the floor.’

      ‘Mum’s all right?’

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