Dear Reader

This is my 90th book, so I wanted it to be special—a little bit different. I’ve never shied away from tricky issues, and I love to read stories about relationships that have been dragged back from the brink, but this one proved challenging to write for many reasons.

It’s so easy to take each other for granted, just to assume you’re all going in the same direction, but what if you’re not? And what if, just when you tackle that issue, something far, far bigger intrudes and puts everything into perspective?

This is the story of Andy and Lucy Gallagher: a couple with three children, a marriage in meltdown and a potentially life-changing disease that strikes when they’re at their lowest ebb. Andy survives, but will he ever be the same? And can their love cope with the changes that follow?

I hope you find their journey as thought-provoking, moving and emotional to read about as I found it to write, and that you come out at the end believing, as I do, that love can conquer everything life throws at it if you want it to. And that, for me, is the key to the universe.

Love

Caroline

Praise for Caroline Anderson:

‘From one of category romance’s most accomplished voices comes a beautifully told, intensely emotional and wonderfully uplifting tale of second chances, new beginnings, hope, triumph and everlasting love. Caroline Anderson’s THE WEDDING OF THE YEAR is an engrossing, enthralling and highly enjoyable tale that will move you to tears and keep you riveted from the first page until the very last sentence. Moving, heartbreaking and absolutely fantastic, with THE WEDDING OF THE YEAR Caroline Anderson is at her mesmerising best!’

—www.cataromance.com on ST PIRAN’S: THE WEDDING OF THE YEAR

‘Photojournalist Maisie Douglas and businessman Robert Mackenzie have been more or less amicably divorced for almost two decades, but the upcoming marriage of their daughter, Jenni, stirs up old emotions on both sides. Very young when she married him, Maisie—pregnant and disowned by her family—was miserable living in Scotland with Rob’s judgmental parents, and left after little more than a year. Maisie hasn’t found another partner and neither has Rob. Can they find a way to trust each other again, after all this time? This lovely reunion romance is rich with emotion and humour, and all of the characters are exquisitely rendered.’

—RT Book Reviews on MOTHER OF THE BRIDE

About the Author

CAROLINE ANDERSON has the mind of a butterfly. She’s been a nurse, a secretary, a teacher, run her own soft furnishing business and now she’s settled on writing. She says, ‘I was looking for that elusive something. I finally realised it was variety, and now I have it in abundance. Every book brings new horizons and new friends, and in between books I have learned to be a juggler. My teacher husband John and I have two beautiful and talented daughters, Sarah and Hannah, umpteen pets, and several acres of Suffolk that nature tries to reclaim every time we turn our backs!’ Caroline also writes for the Mills & Boon® Cherish™ series.

LAURA IDING loved reading as a child, and when she ran out of books she readily made up her own, completing a little detective miniseries when she was twelve. But, despite her aspirations for being an author, her parents insisted she look into a ‘real’ career. So the summer after she turned thirteen she volunteered as a Candy Striper, and fell in love with nursing. Now, after twenty years of experience in trauma/critical care, she’s thrilled to combine her career and her hobby into one—writing Medical Romances™ for Mills & Boon. Laura lives in the northern part of the United States, and spends all her spare time with her two teenage kids (help!)—a daughter and a son—and her husband. Enjoy!

From Christmas
to Eternity

Caroline Anderson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Grateful thanks to Dr Jonathan Messenger for his help with the neurological issues, to James Woledge for pointing me in his direction, and to my editor, Sheila Hodgson, who over the years has tolerated with good grace my terminal inability to deliver on time. Thank you, all.

CHAPTER ONE

‘HI, THIS is the Gallaghers’ phone, leave a message and we’ll get back to you.’

Andy glanced at the clock and frowned. Six o’clock? When did that happen? And of course she wasn’t answering, she’d be feeding and bathing the children. Just as well, perhaps. He knew she’d go off the deep end but there was nothing he could do about it. No doubt she’d add it to the ever-growing list of his failings, he thought tiredly, and scrubbed a hand through his hair.

‘Luce, don’t bother to cook for me, the locum’s bailed so I’m covering the late shift. I’ll grab something here and I’ll see you at midnight.’

He slid the phone back into his pocket and shut his eyes for a moment.

He didn’t need this. He had an assignment to finish writing by tomorrow for a course he’d stupidly undertaken, but they were a doctor down and it was Friday night. And Friday night in A&E was best friends with hell on earth, so there was no way he could leave it to a junior doctor.

For the hundredth time he wished he hadn’t taken on the course. Why had he thought it was a good idea? Goodness knows, except it would give him another skill that would benefit his patients—assuming he was still alive by the end of it and Lucy hadn’t killed him.

He heard the doors swish open, and knew it was kicking off already.

‘Right, what have we got?’ he asked, turning towards the trolley that was being wheeled in.

‘Twenty-year-old male driver of a stolen car versus brick wall.’ The paramedic rattled off the stats while Andy did a quick visual check.

Not good. Hoping it wasn’t an omen for the coming night, he gave a short sigh and started work. Again.

‘Noooooooo! Oh, Andy, no, you can’t do this to me!’ Lucy wailed, and sat down with a plop on the bottom step.

A little bottom wriggled onto the step beside her, Emily’s hip nudging hers as she cuddled in close. ‘What’s wrong, Mummy? Has Daddy been naughty?’

She gritted her teeth. Only her staunch belief in presenting a united front stopped her from throwing him to the wolves, but she was so tempted. He absolutely deserved it this time.

‘Not naughty, exactly. He’s forgotten he’s babysitting you while I go out, and he’s working another shift.’

‘Well, he can’t,’ Em said with the straightforward logic of the very young. ‘Not if he promised. That’s what he tells us. “You can’t break a promise.” So he has to do it. Ring him and tell him.’

If only it were that easy. She stared at Em, her hair scraped into messy bunches that sprouted from her head at different heights. She’d tied them in ribbons and Lucy knew it would take an age to get the knots out, but she didn’t care. Just looking at her little daughter made her heart squeeze with love.

‘Go on, Mummy. Ring him.’

Could it be that straightforward?

Maybe.

She called him back, and it went straight to voice-mail. No surprises there, then. She sucked in a breath and left a blunt message.

‘Andy, you promised to babysit tonight. I’ve got book club at seven thirty. You’ll have to get someone else to cover.’

She hung up, and smiled down at Emily. ‘There.’

‘See?’ Em said, grinning back. ‘Now he’ll have to come home.’

Lucy had her doubts. Where work was concerned, everything—everybody—else came second. She fed the children, ran the bath and dunked Lottie in it, then left the girls playing in the water while she gave the baby her night-time feed, and still he hadn’t called.

She wasn’t surprised. Not by that. What surprised her was that even now he still had the power to disappoint her …

It took an hour to assess and stabilise the driver, and just five seconds to check his phone and realise he was in nearly as much trouble as the young man was.

He phoned Lucy again, and she answered on the first ring.

‘Luce, I’m sorry—’

‘Never mind being sorry. Just get home quickly.’

‘I can’t. I told you. I’m needed to cover the department.’

‘No. Somebody’s needed to cover the department. It doesn’t have to be you.’

‘It does if I’m the only senior person available. Just get another babysitter. It can’t be that hard.’

‘At this short notice? You’re kidding. Why can’t you get another doctor? It can’t be that hard,’ she parroted back at him.

He sighed and rammed his hand through his hair again, ready to tear it out. ‘I think a babysitter might be a little easier to find than an ED consultant,’ he said crisply, nodding at the SHO who was waving frantically at him. ‘Sorry, got to go. I’ll see you later.’

Lucy put the phone down and looked into her baby’s startlingly blue eyes. ‘Oh, Lottie, what are we going to do with him?’ she asked with a slightly shaky sigh.

The baby giggled and reached up a chubby fist to grab her hair.

‘Don’t you laugh at me,’ she said, prising the sticky little fingers off and smiling despite herself. ‘You’re supposed to be asleep, young lady, and your daddy’s supposed to be at home and I’m supposed to be going out to my book club. But that doesn’t matter, does it? It doesn’t matter what I want to do, because I’m at the bottom of the heap, somewhere underneath Stanley.’

The young black Lab, sitting by her leg doing a passable imitation of a starving rescue case, wagged his tail hopefully when he heard his name.

No wonder! Guilt washed over her, and she swallowed down the suddenly threatening tears.

‘Sorry, boy,’ she crooned, scratching his ears. ‘I’m a rotten mum. Five minutes, I promise.’

She settled the yawning baby in her cot, fed the poor forgotten dog and then headed upstairs again to herd Emily and Megan out of the bath and into bed. She’d try ringing round a few friends. There must be someone who wasn’t doing anything this evening who owed her a favour.

Apparently not.

So she phoned and apologised to Judith, and then changed into her pyjamas and settled down in front of the television with a glass of wine, a bar of chocolate and a book.

She might not be going out tonight, but she was blowed if she was working. Stuff the ironing. Stuff the washing up. Stuff all of it. As far as she was concerned, she was out, and it would all still be there in the morning.

Angry, defiant and underneath it all feeling a little sad for everything they’d lost, she rested her head back against the snuggly chenille sofa cushion and let out a long, unsteady sigh.

They’d had a good marriage once; a really good marriage.

It seemed like a lifetime ago …

The house was in darkness.

Well, of course it was. Even if she’d managed to get a babysitter, she’d have been back long ago. He pressed the remote control and the garage door slid open and slid shut again behind him as he switched off the engine and let himself into the house through the connecting door.

There was a bottle of wine on the side, a third of it gone, and the remains of a chocolate wrapper. The kitchen was a mess, the dishwasher hanging open, half loaded, the plates licked clean by Stanley.

The dog ambled out of his bed and came wagging up, smiling his ridiculous smile of greeting, and Andy bent down and rubbed his head.

‘Hello, old son. Am I sleeping with you tonight?’ he asked softly, and Stanley thumped his tail against the cupboard doors, as if the idea was a good one.

Not for the future of their marriage, Andy thought with a sigh, and eyed the bottle of wine.

It was after midnight. Quite a lot after. And he still had to finish the assignment. God, he was tired. Too tired to do it, too wired to sleep.

He took a glass out of the cupboard, sloshed some wine into it and headed for the study. There was a relevant paper he’d been reading, but he’d given up on it. He’d just read it through again, see if it was any less impenetrable now than it had been last night.

Not much, he realised a while later. He was too tired to concentrate, and the grammar was so convoluted it didn’t make sense, no matter how many times he read it.

He needed to go to bed—but that meant facing Lucy, and the last thing he needed tonight was to have his head ripped off. Even if it was deserved. Dammit, there was a note on his phone, and it was in his diary. How could he have overlooked it?

And would it have made any difference, in the end? There’d been no one to cover the shift when the locum booked for it had rung in sick, and he’d had to twist his own registrar’s arm to get him to come in at midnight and take over.

He let out a heavy sigh, gave the dog a biscuit in his bed and headed up the stairs with all the enthusiasm of a French nobleman heading for the guillotine.

∗ ∗ ∗

She’d heard the crunch of gravel under tyres, heard the garage door slide open and closed, heard the murmur of his voice as he talked to the dog. And then silence.

He’d gone into the study, she realised, peering out of the bedroom window and seeing the spill of light across the drive.

Why hadn’t he come to bed?

Guilt?

Indifference?

It could have been either, because he surely wasn’t still working. She felt the crushing weight of sadness overwhelm her. She didn’t know him any more. It was like living with a stranger. He hardly spoke, all his utterances monosyllabic, and the dry wit which had been his trademark seemed to have been wiped away since Lottie’s birth.

And she couldn’t do it any more.

She heard the stairs creak, and turned on her side away from him. She heard the bathroom door close, water running, the click of the light switch as he came out then felt the mattress dip slightly.

‘Luce?’

His voice came softly to her in the darkness, deep and gruff, the word slightly slurred with tiredness.

She bit her lip. She wasn’t going to do this, wasn’t going to let him try and win her round. She knew what would happen if she spoke. He’d apologise, nuzzle her neck, kiss her, and then her traitorous body would forgive him everything and the moment would be lost, swept under the carpet as usual.

Well, not this time. This time they were going to talk about it.

Tomorrow. Without fail.

He lay beside her in the silence of the night, listening to the quiet, slightly uneven sound of her breathing.

She wasn’t asleep. He knew that, but he wasn’t going to push it. He was too tired to be reasonable, and they’d end up having an almighty row and flaying each other to shreds.

Except they hadn’t even done that recently.

They hadn’t done anything much together recently, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d made love to her.

Weeks ago?

Months?

No. Surely not months.

He was too tired to work it out, but the hollow ache of regret in his chest was preventing him from sleeping, and he lay there, staring at the ghostly white moonlight filtering round the edge of the curtains, until exhaustion won and he finally fell asleep.

‘Did he come home?’

‘Not until very, very late,’ she told Emily. ‘Here, eat your toast. Megan’s had hers.’

She painstakingly spread butter onto the toast, then stuck the buttery knife into the chocolate spread and smeared it on the toast, precisely edge to edge, her tongue sticking slightly out of the side of her mouth in concentration. When it was all done to her satisfaction, she looked up and said, ‘So didn’t you go at all? Even later?’

‘No. It doesn’t matter.’

‘Yes, it does, Mummy. He broke a promise!’

She blinked away the tears and hugged her daughter. Their daughter. So like her father—the floppy dark hair, the slate blue eyes, the tilt of her lips—everything. Megan with her light brown curls and clear green eyes was the image of her mother, but Emily and Lottie were little clones of Andy, and just looking at them broke her heart.

Em was so straightforward, so honest and kind and loving, everything she’d fallen for in Andy. But now …

‘Where is he? Is he still sleeping?’

‘I think so. He came to bed very late, so I left him. What do you want to do today?’

‘Something with Daddy.’

‘Can we feed the ducks?’ Megan asked, glancing up from the dog’s bed where she was curled up with Stanley gently pulling his ears up into points. The patient dog loved Megan, and tolerated almost anything. ‘Stanley likes to feed the ducks.’

‘Only because you give him the bread,’ she said drily. ‘Yes, we can feed the ducks.’

‘I’ll go and wake Daddy up,’ Emily said, jumping down off her chair and sprinting for the stairs.

‘Em, no! Leave him to sleep—’

But it was too late. She heard voices on the landing, and realised Andy must already be up. The stairs creaked, and her heart began to thump a little harder, the impending confrontation that had been eating at her all night rearing its ugly head over the breakfast table.

‘Daddy, you have to say sorry to Mummy because you broke a promise,’ Em said, towing him into the kitchen, and Lucy looked up and met his stony gaze and her heart sank.

‘I had no choice. Didn’t Mummy explain that to you? She should have done. I can’t leave people to die, Em, promise or not. That’s my biggest promise, and it has to come first.’

‘Then you shouldn’t have promised Mummy.’

‘I would have thought our marriage vows were your biggest promise,’ Lucy said softly, and he felt a knife twist in his heart.

‘Don’t go there, Luce. That isn’t fair.’

‘Isn’t it?’

His glance flicked over the children warningly, and she nodded. ‘Girls, go and get washed and dressed.’

‘Are we feeding the ducks?’

‘Yes,’ Lucy said, and they pelted for the door.

‘I want to carry the bread—’

‘No, you give it all to Stanley—’

‘Are we feeding the ducks?’ he asked when their thundering footsteps had receded, and she shrugged.

‘I don’t know. I am, and they are. Are you going to deign to join us?’

‘Luce, that’s bloody unfair—

‘No, it’s not. You’re bloody unfair. And don’t swear in front of Lottie.’

He clamped his teeth together on the retort and turned to the kettle.

‘For heaven’s sake, Lucy, you’re being totally unreasonable. I didn’t have a choice, I let you know, I apologised—’

‘So that’s all right, is it? You apologised, so it makes it all OK? What about our marriage vows, Andy? Don’t they mean anything to you any more? Don’t I mean anything? Don’t we? Us, you and me, and the children we’ve had together? Because right now it doesn’t feel like it. It feels like we no longer have a marriage.’

He turned and stared at her as if she was mad. ‘Of course we do,’ he said, his voice slightly impatient as if her faculties were impaired. ‘It’s just a rough time. We’re ridiculously understaffed at work till James gets back, and I’m trying to get this assignment done, but it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with our marriage.’

‘Doesn’t it? Just sleeping here for a few hours a night doesn’t qualify as marriage, Andy. Being here, wanting to be here—that’s a marriage, not taking every shift that’s going and filling your life with one academic exercise after another just so you can avoid us!’

‘Now you’re really being ridiculous! I don’t have time for this—’

‘No, of course you don’t, that would involve talking to me, having a conversation! And we all know you won’t do that!’

He stalked off, shut the study door firmly and left her there fuming, the subject once again brushed aside.

He watched them go, listened to the girls’ excited chatter, the dog whining until the door was opened, then trotting beside Lucy and the buggy while the girls dashed ahead, pausing obediently on the edge of the pavement.

They went out of the gate and turned right, and Lucy glanced back over her shoulder. She couldn’t see him, he was standing at the back of the study with Emily’s words ringing in his ears, but he could read the disappointment and condemnation in her eyes.

He’d been about to go out into the hall, to say he’d go with them, but then he’d heard Em ask if he was coming.

‘No,’ Lucy had replied. ‘He’s too busy.’

‘He’s always too busy,’ Emily had said, her voice sad and resigned, and he’d felt it slice right through him.

He should have gone out into the hall there and then and said he was joining them. It wasn’t too late even now, he could pull his boots on and catch up, they wouldn’t have got far.

But he didn’t. He really, really had to finish this assignment today, so he watched them out of sight, and then he went into the kitchen, put some toast in, switched the kettle on again and made a pot of coffee. His hand shook slightly as he poured the water onto the grounds, and he set the kettle down abruptly.

Stress. It must be stress. And no wonder.

He tipped his head back and let out a long, shaky sigh. God, he’d got some work to do to make up for this. Em’s voice echoed in his head. Daddy, you broke a promise. After all he’d said to them, everything he believed in, and he’d let them down. Lucy should have explained to them, but frankly it didn’t sound as if she herself understood.

Well, she ought to. She was a doctor, too, a GP—or she had been until they’d had Lottie. She was still on maternity leave, debating going back again part time as she had before, just a couple of sessions a week.

He didn’t want her to go back, thought the children needed her more than they needed the money, and it was yet another bone of contention. They seemed to be falling over them all the time, these bones.

The skeleton of their marriage?

He pressed the plunger and poured the coffee, buttered his toast with Emily’s knife and then pulled a face at the streak of chocolate spread smeared in with the butter. He drowned it out with bitter marmalade, and sat staring out at the bedraggled and windswept garden.

He couldn’t remember when they’d last been out there doing anything together. June, maybe, when Lottie was three months old? He’d mowed the lawn from time to time, but they hadn’t cut the perennials down yet for the winter, or trimmed back the evergreens, or cleared the summer pots and tubs. Lucy had been preoccupied with Lottie, and he’d been too busy to do anything other than go to work, come home to eat and then shut himself in the study until he was too tired to work any longer. If he’d made it into the sitting room so he could be with Lucy, he’d had the laptop so he could carry on working until he fell into bed.

He must have been mad taking on the course, but it was nearly done now, this one last assignment the finish of it. That, and the exam he had to sit in a fortnight. Lord knows when he’d find time to revise for that. Lucy was taking the kids away to her parents for half term to give him some time to concentrate, but he knew it wouldn’t be enough, not if he was at work all day. And there was still this blasted assignment to knock on the head.

Refilling his mug, he took his coffee back into the study, shut the door and had another go at making sense of that overly wordy and meaningless paper.

Or maybe he should just ignore it and press on without referring to it. Then he could finish the assignment off this morning, and tonight he could take Lucy out and try and make it up to her.

Good idea.

∗ ∗ ∗

‘Don’t cook for us, I’m taking you out for dinner.’

Lucy looked at him as if he was mad. ‘Have you got a babysitter?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Well, good luck with that. Anyway, I don’t want to go out for dinner.’

He stared at her, stunned. He’d bust a gut finishing off the assignment so he could spare the time, and now this? ‘Why ever not? You like going out for dinner.’

‘Not when we’re hardly speaking! It’s not my idea of fun to sit opposite you while you’re lost in thought on some stupid assignment or other for a course you’ve taken on without consulting me—’

‘Well, what do you want to do?’

‘I don’t want to do anything! I want you to talk to me! I want you to share decisions, not just steam ahead and do your own thing and leave us all behind! I want you to put the kids to bed, read them a story, give me a hug, bring me a cup of tea. I don’t need extravagant gestures, Andy, I just need you back.’

He sighed shortly, ramming his hand through his hair. ‘I haven’t gone anywhere, Lucy. I’m doing this for all of us.’

‘Are you? Well, it doesn’t feel like it. It feels like you’re just shutting us out, as if we don’t matter as much as your blasted career—’

‘That’s unfair.’

‘No, it isn’t! You’re unfair. Neglecting your children is unfair. When did you last put Lottie to bed?’

He swallowed hard and turned away. ‘Luce, it’s been chaos—’

‘Don’t give me excuses!’

‘It’s not an excuse, it’s a reason,’ he said tautly. ‘Anyway, I’m around tomorrow. We’ll do something then, all of us.’

‘Are you sure? You aren’t going to find something else to do?’

‘No! I’m here. All day. I promise.’

‘And I’m supposed to believe that?’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, I haven’t got time for this. I’ve got work to do—’

‘Of course you have. You always have work to do, and it’s always more important than us. I don’t know what the hell’s wrong with you.’

This time she was the one who walked off. She shouldered past him, went into the utility room, shut the door firmly and started to tackle the ironing while Lottie was napping.

His phone rang just before eleven that night, while he was printing off the hated assignment. HR? Really?

Really.

‘Oh, you’re kidding, Steve! Not again.’

‘Sorry, Andy. There isn’t anyone else. James isn’t back in the country until tomorrow, or I’d ask him. It’s just one of those things. I’ll sort a new locum first thing on Monday, I promise.’

He gave a heavy sigh and surrendered. ‘All right—but this is the last time, Steve. And you owe me, with bells on.’

He hung up, and sat there for a while wondering how on earth he was going to tell Lucy. She’d skin him alive.

And deservedly so.

He swore softly but succinctly under his breath, stacked the papers together, clipped them into a binder and put the assignment into an envelope without even glancing at it. It was too late to worry. It had to be there on Monday, and it was already too late to post it. He’d email it, but the hard copy would have to be couriered.

He’d do that on Monday morning, but now he was working all day tomorrow there was no time for any meaningful read-through before he sent it on its way. He’d only find some howler and, frankly, at this moment in time it seemed insignificant compared to telling Lucy that yet again he wasn’t going to be there for any quality time with her and the kids.

It was not a conversation he was looking forward to.

She was asleep by the time he went upstairs, and he got into bed beside her and contemplated pulling her into his arms and making love to her.

Probably not a good idea. He didn’t have the energy to do her justice and he had to be at work in seven hours. Cursing Steve and the sick locum and life in general, he shut his eyes, covered them with his arm and crashed into sleep.

The alarm on his phone woke him long before he was ready for it, and he silenced it and got straight out of bed before he could fall asleep again. Hell, he was tired. He stumbled into the bathroom, turned on the shower and got in without waiting for it to heat up.

The cold shocked him awake, and he soaped himself fast, towelled his body briskly and then ran the razor over his jaw. His hand was trembling again, he noticed, and he nicked himself.

Damn. It was the last thing he needed. He dried his face, leaving a bright streak of blood on the towel, and pressed a scrap of tissue over the cut to stem the bleeding while he cleaned his teeth.

He went back into the bedroom, leaving the bathroom door open so he could see to get his clothes out without putting on the bedroom light. He didn’t want to disturb Lucy—because he was hoping to sneak out without waking her? Probably, but it was too late for that, apparently.

‘Andy?’ she murmured, her voice soft with sleep. ‘Are you OK?’

Was he? Frankly, he had no idea. He pulled clothes out of the cupboard and started putting them on, and she propped herself up on one elbow and stared at him.

‘What are you doing, Andy? It’s Sunday morning. We don’t need to get up yet.’

‘I have to work. Steve rang last night, and I promised to do another shift—’

‘No! Why?’ She shoved herself up in the bed, dishevelled and sleepy and so beautiful she made his heart ache, her eyes filled with recrimination and disappointment. ‘Andy, you promised me! Why on earth did you agree? We don’t need the money, but we need you. The kids need you. I need you.’

‘And the hospital needs me—’

‘So put it first. Again. As always. Go on, go ahead—if that’s more important to you than us.’

‘Of course it’s not more important!’

‘Then don’t go!’

‘I have to! There’s nobody to cover the department.’

‘So they’ll have to shut it.’

‘They can’t. They can’t close the ED, Lucy, you’re being totally unreasonable.’

‘Well, you know what you can do, then. Go, by all means, but don’t bother coming home tonight, or any other night, because I can’t do this any more.’

He stared at her, slightly stunned. ‘Is that an ultimatum?’

‘Sounds like it to me.’

‘Oh, Lucy, for heaven’s sake, that’s ridiculous! You can’t make me choose!’

‘I don’t need to. Strikes me you already have. You come home after the children are asleep, you leave before they’re up—and when you’re here in the evening, you’re shut in your study or sitting behind your laptop screen totally ignoring me! What exactly do you think you’re bringing to this relationship?’

‘The money?’ he said sarcastically, and her face drained of colour.

‘You arrogant bastard,’ she spat softly. ‘We don’t need your money, and we certainly don’t need your attitude. I can go back to work for more days. I’m going back anyway next month for three sessions a week. They’ve asked me to, and I’ve said yes, and Lottie’s going to nursery. I’ll just do more hours, more sessions. They want as much time as I can give them, so I’ll give them more, if that’s what it takes.’

He stared at her, shocked. ‘When did they ask you? You didn’t tell me.’

‘When exactly was I supposed to tell you?’ she asked, her voice tinged with bitterness and disappointment. ‘You’re never here.’

‘That’s not true. I was here all day yesterday—’

‘Shut in your study doing something more important!’

‘Don’t be silly. This is important. You should have told me. You don’t need to go back to work.’

‘Yes, I do! I need to because if I don’t, I never get to have a sensible conversation with another adult, because you certainly aren’t around! You have no idea what it’s like talking to a seven month old baby all day, every day, with no relief from it except for the conversation of her seven and five year old sisters! I love her to bits, I love them all to bits, but I’m not just a mother, I’m a doctor, I’m a woman, and those parts of me need recognition. And they’re sure as hell not getting them from you!’

He sucked in his breath, stung by the bitterness in her voice. ‘Luce, that’s not fair. I’m doing it for us—’

‘No, you’re not! You’re doing it for you, for your precious ego that demands you never say no, always play the hero, always step up to the plate and never let your patients down. But you’re a husband and a father as well as a doctor, and you’re just sweeping all that under the mat. Well, newsflash, Gallagher, I’m not going to be swept under the mat any more. I don’t need the scraps of you left over from your “real” life, and nor do your children. We can manage without you. We do most of the time anyway. I doubt we’ll even notice the difference.’

He felt sick. ‘You don’t mean that. Where will you live?’

‘Here?’ she shrugged. ‘I can take over the mortgage.’

‘What, on a part-time salary? Dream on, Lucy.’

‘So we’ll move. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that we’re happy, and we’re not at the moment, so go. Go to your precious hospital if you really must, but you have to realise that if you do, you won’t have a marriage to come back to, not even a lousy one.’

He stared at her, at the distress and anger and challenge in her eyes, and, for the briefest moment, he hesitated. Then, because he really had no choice, he turned on his heel and walked out of their bedroom and down the stairs.

She’d cool off. He’d give her time to think about it, time to consider all they’d be losing, and after he finished work, he’d come home and apologise, bring her some flowers and chocolates and a bottle of wine. Maybe a takeaway so she didn’t have to cook.

And he’d make love to her, long and slow, and she’d forgive him.

Two more weeks, he told himself grimly. Just two more weeks until the course was finished and the exam was over, and then they could sort this out.

They’d be fine. It was just a rocky patch, everyone had them. They’d deal with it.

He scooped up his keys, shrugged on his jacket and left.

CHAPTER TWO

HE’D gone. Turned on his heel and walked out.

She’d heard the utility room door close, the garage door slide up, the car start. Slightly open-mouthed with shock, she’d sat there in their bed, the quilt fisted in her hands, and listened to the shreds of their marriage disappearing off the drive in a slew of gravel.

The silence that followed was deafening.

She couldn’t believe he’d gone. She’d thought—

What? That he’d stay? That he’d phone the hospital and tell them he couldn’t go in, his wife had thrown a strop and threatened to kick him out? Hardly. It wasn’t Andy’s style. If he didn’t talk to her, he sure as eggs didn’t talk to anyone else.

And he’d told Steve he’d do it, so it was set in stone. It seemed that everything except them was set in stone.

She felt a sob rising in her throat, but she crushed it ruthlessly. This wasn’t the time for tears. She had the children to think about. Later, maybe, after they were in bed again, she’d cry. For now, she could hear Lottie chatting in her cot, and she pushed the covers aside and swung her legs over the edge of the bed, heading for her baby on autopilot.

She’d pack him some clothes—just enough to tide him over, give him time to think about things—and drop them off at work. Maybe that would shock him to his senses, because something surely had to.

She walked into Lottie’s room, into the sunshine of her smile, and felt grief slam into her chest. What had their baby done to deserve this?

‘Hello, my precious,’ she crooned softly. ‘Oh, you’re so gorgeous—come here.’ She scooped the beaming baby up against her heart and hugged her tight. Delicious, darling child, she thought, aching for what was to come. The fallout from this didn’t bear thinking about.

But Lottie didn’t know and she didn’t care. She was beginning to whine now, pulling at Lucy’s top, and she took her back to bed and fed her.

She was still breastfeeding her night and morning, but she might not be able to keep it going, she realised with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, not if she had to get the girls ready for school and out of the door in time to get to work. She stared down, watching her daughter suckle, treasuring every second of this fleeting, precious moment.

The baby flung her little arm out, turning her head at a sound from the window, endlessly curious and distracted now her thirst was slaked, and Lucy sat her up in the middle of the bed and handed her a toy to play with while she packed a bag for Andy.

It seemed so wrong—so unnecessary! Why couldn’t he see? Why couldn’t he give them the time they surely deserved?

Damn. She swallowed the tears down, threw his razor and deodorant and toothbrush into a washbag, tucked it into the holdall and zipped it up. There. Done. She’d drop it in later, on their way out somewhere.

The zoo?

No. It was cold and rainy. Maybe she’d take them swimming to the leisure centre, to take their minds off Andy’s absence.

Oh, help. She’d have to tell the girls something—but what?

That he was working? So busy working he didn’t have time to come home, so he was going to stay at the hospital?

That was a good point. She had no idea where he’d stay, and she told herself she didn’t care, but he might need to wear something at night. She unzipped the bag again, put in the emergency pyjamas which never saw the light of day and a clean dressing gown and the slippers his aunt had sent him for Christmas last year, and tugged the zip closed with a sinking feeling.

Christmas. It was only a little over two months away.

Would he be there with them for Christmas? What if he never came to his senses?

What if they simply didn’t matter that much to him?

She choked down the sob and scooped Lottie up, carrying her and the holdall downstairs and putting her in the high chair with some toys while she put the bag into her car. He’d need his laptop, she realised, and went into his study to get it. She wasn’t giving him an excuse to come back here tonight and try to win her round. They’d been married ten years now and she knew how his mind worked. No. He had to take this seriously.

There was a large brown envelope lying on the lid of his laptop, the address written in his bold, slashing script. His assignment, she realised. She frowned at it. His writing was untidier than usual—because he was so tired? Probably. His fault, she told herself, crushing the little flicker of sympathy.

She put the envelope into the case with the computer, threw in the power lead and his flash drive, then remembered his mobile phone charger, as well, and took the case out to the garage.

By the time she got back into the kitchen, the girls were coming down the stairs, giggling and chasing each other into the kitchen.

Oh, lord, how to tell them?

‘Morning, darlings.’

‘Morning!’ Emily reached up as she bent down and kissed her, then went and sat at the table, legs swinging. ‘Mummy, what are we doing today?’

Megan’s arms were round her hips hugging her, and she stroked her hair automatically and tried to smile at her daughters. ‘I don’t know. What would you like to do?’

‘Can we feed the ducks with Daddy?’ Megan asked, tipping her head back, her eyes pleading.

She hauled in a breath, her smile faltering. ‘No, sorry, he’s had to go to work.’

‘But he said he wasn’t working today!’ Emily said, looking appalled. ‘He promised us!’

‘I know. He didn’t want to go but they didn’t have anyone else. And he can’t let people suffer.’

The words had a hollow ring of truth, but she brushed them aside. He could have said no. They would have found someone, or if necessary closed the unit. Or he could at least have talked to her about it, instead of presenting it as a fait accompli.

‘Actually, he’s going to be so busy he’s going to stay at the hospital for a few nights,’ she said, the lie sticking in her throat. ‘So, anyway, I thought maybe we could go swimming after breakfast. What do you think? And then maybe we can get pizza for lunch.’

Their replies sounded fairly enthusiastic, but there was something missing, some extra sparkle and fizz, another dimension that should have been there.

Andy. Their father, her husband, the man who broke promises.

Don’t go there!

‘Right. Who wants what for breakfast?’

It was tedious and chaotic and half the people didn’t need to be there.

Realistically, they could have got anyone to cover him, he thought grimly as he worked his way through the sprains and strains and fractures that yesterday’s sporting fixtures had left in their wake. It was all basic stuff, the sort of thing that any half-decent doctor could deal with, and the thought made him angry.

‘Right, you’ll need to come to the Fracture Clinic tomorrow morning between eight and nine for assessment and a proper cast. Here’s a prescription for pain relief.’

He scrawled his signature on the bottom, handed it over and walked out, shaking his head and rolling it on his neck. It ached, and he couldn’t think clearly. He was so, so tired. Maybe Lucy was right. Maybe he should have just said no, and they would have had to close the unit. That might have made them sit up and take notice and get a bit better organised.

In the meantime, he needed a coffee. A strong one.

‘Oh, Mr Gallagher, your wife dropped your case and laptop off. They’re behind here,’ the receptionist said as he passed her.

He stared at her for a shocked half-second, then nodded. ‘Yes—of course. Sorry, miles away. Could you stick them in my office?’

‘Sure.’ She eyed him thoughtfully. ‘Mr Gallagher, are you OK?’

‘I’m fine, Jane. I’m just tired,’ he muttered, and then went behind reception. ‘Actually I’ll take them myself,’ he said, and hoisting the bag and laptop case up, he headed for his office.

He could feel her eyes boring into him all the way, hear the speculation starting. Damn Lucy! Damn her for making it all so much worse than it had to be.

He shut the door, dumped the bags on the floor behind his desk and slammed his fist down on it.

How dare she! How dare she bring his things in like that and make a public spectacle of their dirty laundry?

He pulled his phone out of his pocket and speed-dialled her number. It went straight to answerphone. Screening his call?

‘I’ve just been accosted by a curious receptionist who handed me an overnight bag,’ he said shortly. ‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at? Call me!’

He cut the connection and threw the phone down on the desk in disgust.

She’d meant it. She’d really, really meant it.

He felt numb, and slightly sick. And homeless? Where was he going to stay?

Stupid. He should just go home, have it out with her, make a few promises—and keep them, his conscience prodded—and deal with it. Except he was angry—angry with Steve for asking him to cover again, angry with the whole locum situation, angry with Lucy for not being reasonable, but most of all angry with himself for letting it all get out of hand by not saying no. Not to mention taking on the course, which was the just the last straw on the back of this failing camel that was their marriage.

And it wasn’t going to get any better until the course was over, until he’d sat the exam and could put the whole damn thing to bed. Then he could go back to Lucy and talk about this.

And in the meantime, they could have a cooling off period. Lucy could calm down a bit, so could he, and he could shut himself away somewhere and work so he had the slightest chance of passing the course, to make the whole thing worthwhile.

It was half term next week and Lucy had already arranged to take the children to her parents so he could revise in peace. So he’d check into a hotel, get the exam out of the way and then they could all get back to normal.

But first, they needed to agree on what they were telling the children, because the last thing he wanted was them thinking that their marriage was coming to an end when it wasn’t—or at least, not if he had anything to say about it.

He pulled the telephone directory out of his drawer, looked up the number of a decent hotel chain which had a motel nearby and booked himself a room.

And then he went back to work, asked one of the nurses to bring him back a coffee when she came back from her break and took the next set of notes out of the rack.

∗ ∗ ∗

The receptionist gave him a wide berth for the rest of the day.

He wasn’t surprised. Gossip travelled like wildfire through hospitals, and even though there was nothing to know, really, he could sense the speculation.

He hated it. Hated that they were talking about him behind his back, hated that when he walked out at the end of the day carrying his bag and laptop case, he could feel eyes following him.

You’re imagining it, he told himself, throwing the cases in the car and slamming the boot, still furious with Lucy. The motel was just a couple of minutes away, on the road into town, and he checked in and went straight to his room.

Clean, functional, with a kingsize bed, a sofa, a desk with a work light and a bathroom with a decent power shower, it was the generic hotel room. Everything he needed, but soulless and empty, because the only thing he really needed was his family.

His throat felt tight, and he swallowed hard and dumped the bags on the bed. She still hadn’t called him. Why not? It was six o’clock. She’d be dealing with the children.

Fine. He’d go over to the indifferent restaurant, get himself something to eat and then come back here and work, otherwise this whole damn fiasco would be pointless.

She stared at the phone, her lip caught between her teeth, and psyched herself up to call him.

He was right. She shouldn’t have dumped his stuff in reception. She’d been steaming mad with him, but she could as easily have put it in the boot of his car and sent him a text.

She owed him an apology for that, and he was right, they needed to talk about the children, to arrange a time for him to see them so they didn’t feel cut off from him. That was the last thing she wanted.

Sucking in a deep breath, she dialled his number, and he answered on the first ring.

‘This better be good, Lucy.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, before he could get another word in. ‘I didn’t think. I was just cross. Andy, we need to talk.’

‘Yes, we do. You don’t just kick me out like a damn cat and then publicly humiliate me in front of the entire department. You owe me more than that, whatever beef you might have with me. And you owe the kids more. They’re at school with other staff members’ children, and you know what hospitals are like, so what story are we coming up with so they don’t end up being screwed over by this nonsense?’

‘It isn’t nonsense, Andy. Our marriage is foundering, and you have to start taking that seriously.’

‘Oh, I take it seriously. Very seriously. I also take my job seriously, but the kids come first, even if it doesn’t seem like it, and right now, I’m being pulled in so many directions I can’t be reasonable about this. Of all the times to pick—’

‘It’s because of this time!’ she interrupted. ‘Precisely because of what’s been going on! And that blasted course—’

‘I don’t want the children thinking there’s a rift in our marriage, not until we’ve tried and failed to work it out, and I don’t want that to happen under any circumstances, but I can’t deal with this now. I’ll do what you say, I’ll keep out of the way, get this exam over and the course finished, and then we’ll talk, but play fair and cut me some slack, Luce, because I’m so tired I’m at breaking point.’

His voice cracked, and she swallowed a sob. She nearly told him to come home, but what he said made sense.

‘OK. We’ll do that. I’ve told the children you’re so busy at the hospital that you’re going to stay there for a few days. We’ll stick with that. I’m away with them next week anyway, so you can work undisturbed. And then after the exam, we’ll talk about this. OK?’

He gave a ragged sigh. ‘OK. I’ll come round tomorrow night and see them for a few minutes.’

Her heart hitched, but she had no choice, and he was right. ‘OK. Want supper?’

‘No. And don’t tell them, just in case I get held up. I don’t want to break any more promises to anyone, so it’s easier if I don’t make them.’

Her eyes filled, and she nodded. ‘All right. Well—get here if you can.’

‘I will. And—oh, nothing. Doesn’t matter. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

The phone went dead, and she stared at it. What had he been going to say?

I love you?

Unlikely. He hadn’t said it for ages. A year, maybe? She couldn’t remember, it was so long ago.

She pressed her hand to her mouth, but the sob wouldn’t stay down, so she buried her face in a cushion to stifle the sound and wept for the man she loved and might have lost …

∗ ∗ ∗

He finished on time on Monday, by a miracle, so he could get home in time to see the children. He needed some things from the study and a few more clothes, as well, and he wanted to see the children so much it made him ache inside. They hadn’t asked for any of this, and he didn’t see why they should suffer.

Lucy’s car was still on the drive, and he pulled up beside it and headed for the front door. As he slid his key into the keyhole he wondered fleetingly if she would have changed the locks.

No. The key turned, the door swung quietly open and Stanley was there to greet him, tail lashing, tongue lolling in delight.

‘Hello, boy,’ he said gruffly, and then Emily was in the hall, looking pleased to see him but a bit wary, and it nearly broke his heart.

‘Mummy said you weren’t coming home this week,’ she said, hanging back a little. ‘She said you were too busy and you were going to stay at the hospital.’

Oh, Em. He ushered her back into the kitchen where Lucy was wiping supper off Lottie’s face and hair and arms.

‘Well, they finally got a locum so I finished early,’ he said truthfully, ‘so I thought I’d come and see you all for a few minutes and pick up some stuff. And I’m really sorry about yesterday.’

‘Are you staying here tonight now, then?’ Megan asked innocently, and he glanced up and met Lucy’s guarded but feisty eyes and smiled grimly.

‘No, darling, I’m sorry, I’ve got to go back to work. So, what did you guys do yesterday?’ he asked, suddenly desperately sorry that he’d missed it. ‘Did you have fun?’

‘Mummy took us swimming, and Florence was there,’ Megan said, ‘and we all went swimming together.’

‘Florence?’ he asked.

‘Ben Walker’s daughter. She’s in Megan’s class,’ Lucy filled in, and he nodded. He knew Ben. He was an obstetrician, and he’d met little Florence when she’d dislocated her elbow a couple of years ago. He’d married his registrar, Daisy, and they’d had a baby since. They were a nice family. Happy. Stable. Unlike them …

‘And Daisy was there, and Thomas, and Daisy’s going to have a new baby soon!’ Emily said. ‘And then we went for pizza, because Florence’s Daddy was at the hospital, too, and Mummy and Daisy are going for coffee tomorrow after we go to school. And it’s not fair, ‘cos they’ll have cake, and I want cake,’ she added mournfully.

He found himself smiling, despite the ache lodged solidly behind his sternum. ‘Sounds like you had a good day,’ he said, but Megan was hugging his legs and tugging at him for attention.

‘Please can you read us a story?’ she asked, her pleading eyes shredding him.

He shook his head, wishing he could but there just wasn’t time, not if he was going to get any work done. ‘No. Sorry. I have to sort some things out and then get back, but I will one night soon.’

Her face fell, tearing another strip off his heart, and she gazed sadly up at him. ‘When, Daddy?’

Always questions. Questions that demanded answers that nearly always seemed to be promises destined to be broken.

‘Soon,’ he said again, knowing it was meaningless but unwilling to make another promise that fate could so easily break, and he hugged her, pressing a kiss to her toffee-coloured curls and letting go. Emily trailed him into the study and stood watching while he searched for a memory stick with some information on it he needed, and in the background he could hear Lottie crying tiredly and Megan crooning to her while Lucy cleared up the kitchen.

‘Why can’t you stay here and work?’ Em asked, squiggling one toe on the floor, her leg swinging from side to side rhythmically as she watched him. ‘You always do.’

‘It’s not that sort of work,’ he lied, and felt a wave of resentment that Lucy was bringing them all to this. His fingers closed around the memory stick and he pulled it out and shut the drawer. ‘Got it. Right, sweetheart, I need to head off. You be good for Mummy, OK?’

‘I’m always good,’ she said reproachfully, and he hugged her, because it was true, she was a good girl and he loved her more than he could ever find the words.

‘It’s not for long,’ he said, mentally crossing his fingers as he bent to kiss her goodnight. ‘I’ll see you again in a day or two.’

‘Ring first,’ Lucy said from the doorway. She was standing there with Lottie, and the baby was leaning out towards him and grizzling, so he took her and hugged her tight, crushing the lump in his throat and gritting his teeth.

‘I’d better go,’ he said, handing Lottie back and ruffling Megan’s hair. ‘I’ll see you soon, guys.’

He let himself out, shutting the door behind him without collecting any of the clothes he’d meant to get, and all the way back to the motel he wrestled with the lump in his throat.

‘Right, where are we going for coffee?’

Coffee?

Lucy stared at Daisy, then shut her eyes. ‘Sorry, I’d forgotten. It’s been a bit …’

She bit her lip and looked away, and Daisy tutted and started to walk. ‘Come on, we’ll go back to mine. Ben bought some really nice coffee, and I made chocolate brownies yesterday. Sometimes a girl just needs chocolate.’

Lucy hesitated for a split second, then went with her. Ben and Daisy had moved recently to a lovely Victorian house a couple of streets away. She’d been itching to see it, but now, suddenly, it didn’t seem important any more. Nothing did, apart from Andy, but Daisy’s kindness called out to her, and she knew instinctively that anything she said would stay right there and she so needed a friend to talk to.

‘What about the buggy?’ she asked as Daisy opened the battered but beautiful old front door. ‘The wheels are a bit muddy but Lottie’s asleep.’

‘Oh, you’re fine. The floor’s tiled. Bring her in.’

Daisy let Thomas out of his buggy and headed for the kitchen, and Lucy left Lottie sleeping and followed her, staring around at the shabby, tatty grandeur of the lovely old house.

‘Excuse the mess, we’ve got quite a lot to do here,’ Daisy said with a grin, reaching for the kettle, then her smile softened. ‘Sit down and relax. You look shattered, Lucy.’

She sat, unwilling to talk about the mess her marriage was in and yet so desperate to pour it all out, to share the craziness that was her life right now.

Daisy put a cake tin on the table, plonked the cafetière down beside it with a couple of mugs and a jug of foamed hot milk, then sat Thomas in his high chair with a drink and a chunk of squidgy, gooey chocolate cake that Lucy just knew would go everywhere, but Daisy didn’t seem to care in the least.

‘Right,’ she said, settling down and smiling at Lucy. ‘Coffee?’

She let her breath out on a little huff and smiled. ‘Please. That would be lovely. And some of that. It looks really good.’

Daisy put the coffee down in front of her, handed her chocolate sprinkles and a massive chunk of brownie and then stirred her coffee thoughtfully.

‘Lucy, I don’t want to invade your privacy,’ she said gently after a pregnant silence, ‘but—if you want to unload, it won’t go any further, and I can see something’s wrong. Is there anything I can do to help?’

‘Do?’ she asked, staring at Daisy and seeing concern in her eyes. They swam out of focus, and she looked quickly away. ‘I wish. We’re just—Andy’s really busy, and he’s been working stupid hours, and …’

‘And?’ Daisy prompted gently, and the floodgates opened.

‘They asked him to work on Sunday and he said yes, but he’d promised the kids he’d do something with them and I just flipped.’

‘Everyone needs a good row now and then,’ Daisy said pragmatically.

‘But it wasn’t a good row,’ she said, remembering the bitterness, the acrimony, the stubborn thrust of his jaw. ‘That would have been fine. This—this was an awful row, and I told him to go. I thought—I was just calling his bluff, but he went. He just—went. And I let him go, Daisy,’ she said, swiping at her nose because it was suddenly running and her eyes were welling and there was a sob just itching to get out if she’d only let it.

‘Oh, Lucy …’

Daisy wrapped her hand in hers and squeezed, and the simple gesture pushed Lucy over the brink. She felt the tears well over and splash down her cheeks, but she couldn’t stop them, and with a muffled murmur Daisy hugged her gently and let her cry, then shoved a tissue in her hand and let her talk.

‘He just doesn’t seem the same. I know it sounds crazy, but I feel as if I don’t know him any more. He’s not who he was—and it’s since Lottie. I thought he wanted another baby, but ever since she was born he’s been really strange—distant, distracted, as if we aren’t really there half the time. And he’s got the most amazing sense of humour normally. He’s so funny, so sharp, and that’s just gone. It’s like living with a stranger.’

‘Ben said the ED’s been bedlam since James went on holiday, and I gather the maternity leave locum’s been a bit flaky.’

‘Flaky? Try downright skiving. She’s never there. That’s why I wasn’t at book club on Friday night. And instead of saying they should shut the department and send everyone to another ED, Andy just takes another shift, and then another one, and they walk all over him, because he can’t just let people down, but the kids—’

She broke off, biting her lip, and Daisy sighed and topped up her coffee. ‘Tough choices.’

‘Impossible,’ she went on. ‘The nearest ED is miles away, and time is so important, but so is family. You’re a doctor, you know what it’s like, the hypocritical oath that tells you to put everyone before your own, so we always seem to come last.’

‘Oh, tell me about it. I’ve threatened to kill Ben before now, but I’m just as bad. We were in Theatre delivering some twins the night before our wedding, and I really wonder what would have happened if they’d needed us on our wedding night.’

Lucy smiled wryly. ‘I do understand what it’s like for him. I know how it is, but—I just feel, if I don’t fight for our marriage, then who will? Not him, he didn’t even realise it’s going down the pan. And this stupid, stupid course he’s taken on—really, I could kill him for that, because of all the unnecessary things …’

‘What’s it on?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Something to do with stabilising patients with massive trauma—juggling acts, really. He gave me an assignment to proof-read the other week and I couldn’t understand a word of it. And I’m a doctor.’

Daisy tipped her head on one side thoughtfully. ‘Is he depressed?’

‘Daisy, I have no idea. I don’t think he’s got time to be depressed, but he’s exhausted, I know that, and Lottie’s not going through the night properly yet, and I’m starting work again in two weeks, and I …’

‘You’re at your wits’ end,’ Daisy filled in gently. ‘I can understand that. When’s the course finish?’

‘The exam’s on Friday week, and then it’s done. And James is back, and they had a new locum yesterday, Andy said, so maybe it’ll sort itself out, once the pressure’s off and we can all think straight. Well, that’s what I’m hoping,’ she added, and closed her eyes and sighed. ‘Oh, I feel so disloyal talking to you about this—’

‘Don’t be stupid. You’re just letting off steam. We all need to do it, and it won’t go any further. And if there’s anything I can do to help, just ask. Anything. The kids can stay over—whatever.’

‘Oh, Daisy—that’s so kind of you.’

‘Rubbish. That’s what friends are for. And since you’re here, you can give me a hand. What do you think of this curtain fabric for the sitting room?’

It was a fortnight he could have done without, but at least the staffing crisis seemed to have been resolved now it was too late, he thought bitterly.

He went to the hospital, worked his shifts and no more, and every other evening he popped in and saw the children. Then Lucy, the girls and the dog went away to her parents for half term, he checked out of the hotel and went home, and he put his head down and worked until he was ready to drop.

And on the Friday of half term he went down to London to sit the exam, and he was so tired he could hardly answer the paper. He knew exactly what he wanted to say, but he just couldn’t find the words, and he caught the train home kicking himself because it was all such a phenomenal waste of time. He’d have to resit it, he knew that, because he’d screwed up so badly on a couple of the questions, but in the meantime his marriage was on the rocks and he’d resorted to lying to his children.

And it looked as if it had all been for nothing.

CHAPTER THREE

THEY were due back from her parents’ at lunchtime on Sunday. He was working until three, having swapped Friday with James, and then he was going home to see the children and hopefully talk to Lucy.

He had Monday off, and he’d thought they could spend the day together while the children were at school, but she was starting work at the practice that morning, apparently, so it was tonight or who knew when.

But first he had to get through the day, and it was another of those days. Cold, windy and as unpromising outside as it was in the department, and he was too tired to deal with it all.

Amongst the sports injuries and nose bleeds and dog bites was the inevitable night owl who’d sobered up and realised she’d hurt herself after falling off that table last night, and another who’d fallen down the stairs of a nightclub and fractured her skull and had only realised something was wrong this morning when she couldn’t see straight.

They tried his patience, but it wasn’t really their fault. He knew that, and it wasn’t only them. There were the people who’d lain suffering all night and finally come in when the pain had become impossible to ignore. One was a query heart attack, another had an agonising kidney stone. He shunted them off to the appropriate departments, and then a gust of wind brought a tree down on a car, and an elderly woman with head injuries was brought in.

‘Jean Darby, front seat passenger,’ he was told. ‘GCS thirteen at the scene, now ten, she’s had oxygen and tramadol.’

‘Is the driver on his way in?’ he asked, trying not to worry about Lucy and the children out on the road in this weather, but the paramedic shook his head, his face filling in the details and ratcheting up the apprehension Andy was feeling.

He frowned and picked up her left hand. There were three rings on it—a wedding ring, an engagement ring and an eternity ring.

He stared at it. He still hadn’t got Lucy the eternity ring he’d promised her when she was pregnant with Emily. Three babies later, she still didn’t have it. Another item on that blasted list of ways in which he’d failed her. Failed all of them.

He put his family out of his mind and focused on the patient who’d very likely just lost her husband of many years. For now, she needed him. His family would be fine. They’d be home by now, and he’d see them later. Unlike this poor woman, who would never see her husband again, and might never see her family.

He knew how that would feel for them. He’d lost both his parents together in an accident, only a few years ago, and he’d felt reamed out inside.

He stroked her hand, squeezing it comfortingly.

‘Hello, Jean. Can you hear me? You’re in Yoxburgh Park Hospital. You’ve had an accident in the car.’

‘Dennis,’ she mumbled. ‘Where’s my husband? I need Dennis. Please find him …’

Her words were slurring worryingly. It might have been the drugs, but he didn’t think so. She wasn’t really responding, and he whipped out his pen light and shone it in her eyes. Sluggish pupils. Not good. His hand shook and he put the pen light back in his pocket.

‘OK, Jean, just try and rest, he’s in good hands. Will somebody contact CT and X-ray, please? We need a scan and a full head and neck series. And bloods. We’ll need group and save, and—’

He stumbled, the familiar list eluding him, and he just waved a hand. ‘Do a full set of bloods—all the usuals. And five minute obs, and get Neuro down here, Kazia. And someone contact the family, please. They need to be here now.’

Leaving the SHO in charge, he walked out, needing a break, a change of air—something. He had pins and needles in his hand now, and flashing lights.

A migraine? He’d had a few recently, although he hadn’t mentioned it to anyone. Nothing major, just a bit of tingling for a few minutes. Painkillers, he thought, and went to find the sister in charge.

‘Got a migraine. Any pills you can give me?’

‘Sure. We’ll have to write them up. What do you want?’

He tried to think of the drug names, and couldn’t. ‘Something strong,’ he mumbled, and took them from her hand, his fingers shaking.

‘Andy, are you OK?’

‘I’m fine. Just tired and I’ve got a headache. I had that exam on Friday—I’ve been overdoing it.’

She looked at him sceptically, and he tried to smile, but it was all too much effort, so the moment he’d swallowed the pills he turned on his heel and walked back to Resus to see the woman.

Joan? Jane? He picked up the notes.

‘Jean. How are you feeling?’ he asked, but she didn’t answer.

‘I think she’s got a bleed,’ Kazia said softly, and he nodded.

‘Um—Neuro on the way?’

‘I’m here,’ a familiar voice said from behind him, and he sighed with relief. He didn’t need to deal with a junior, and nor did Jean.

‘Raj, hi. Um—this is Jean—er—Darby—Kazia, would you fill us in?’

‘Sure,’ the SHO said, shooting him a strange look and taking over. He didn’t mind. The words were escaping him, slithering away into the corners, hiding in the dark.

He propped himself against the Resus trolley and watched and listened as Raj ran through a quick neurological screen and then nodded.

‘She needs to go to Theatre, but it’s not looking good.’

It wasn’t. In fact, it was considerably less than good, and that moment her pupils blew and she arrested. They worked on her, Andy doing chest compressions, Raj checking her pulse and haunting the monitor, but the odds were stacked hugely against her anyway, and after a few unsuccessful minutes Raj put his hands over Andy’s and stopped him.

‘This is pointless. She’s gone, Andy.’

Damn. He straightened up and looked around, knowing he was right but gutted nonetheless. ‘All agreed?’ he asked, and everyone nodded.

He stared at the clock for an age, but he couldn’t seem to get the words out. ‘Time of death twelve thirty two,’ he said after a long pause, and he stripped off his gloves, threw them in the bin and turned to the neurologist.

‘Thanks, Raj. Sorry—waste of your time,’ he said, his voice hitching slightly as if they were reluctant to come out, and Raj frowned and tipped his head on one side, searching his eyes.

‘No problem. Got a minute?’

‘Yeah, sure. Are the family here yet?’

‘They’re on their way.’

‘OK. Find me when they’re here. I want to see them.’

‘Andy, now,’ Raj said softly, and taking his elbow he steered him out of Resus, and then stopped in a quiet bit of the corridor. ‘OK, what’s going on? You’re not yourself.’

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