Can the doc who’s saving her child...

...help her love again?

ER and rescue doctor Tom Chapman knows what it’s like to lose everything. So when his colleague and friend, single mom Laura McKenzie, brings her sick son to the ER, Tom leaps into action. Caring for little Harry brings Tom and Laura a lot closer. But they’ve both been through so much, can they risk their hearts again?

ALISON ROBERTS is a New Zealander, currently lucky enough to be living in the South of France. She is also lucky enough to write for the Mills & Boon Medical Romance line. A primary school teacher in a former life, she is now a qualified paramedic. She loves to travel and dance, drink champagne, and spend time with her daughter and her friends.

Also by Alison Roberts

The Shy Nurse’s Rebel Doc

Rescued by Her Mr Right

Their Newborn Baby Gift

Twins on Her Doorstep

Rescued Hearts miniseries

The Doctor’s Wife for Keeps

Twin Surprise for the Italian Doc

Rescue Docs miniseries

Resisting Her Rescue Doc

Pregnant with Her Best Friend’s Baby

Dr Right for the Single Mum

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Dr. Right for the Single Mum

Alison Roberts

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09009-4

DR. RIGHT FOR THE SINGLE MUM

© 2019 Alison Roberts

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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Version: 2020-03-02

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For every mother (and father),

in recognition of the amazing bonds we have

with our children xx

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

EPILOGUE

Extract

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

‘HAS ANYONE HEARD what’s happening?’ Laura McKenzie slowed down as she pushed an IV trolley past the central desk of Wellington’s Royal Hospital’s emergency department and then she stopped. ‘Has the baby arrived yet?’

One of the department’s consultants, Fizz Wilson, was in front of a computer screen, studying the lab results on blood samples. ‘Last I heard, it’s not far away. Maggie was almost fully dilated. When Cooper brings Harley in for his feed later, I’m hoping we can use my break to go and meet the new arrival.’

‘Yes... I’m due for my break at the same time.’ Laura nodded. ‘I’ll come with you.’ Maggie was a close friend and ex-flatmate and Laura couldn’t wait to meet her baby.

‘Where are you off to?’ Tom Chapman, the senior consultant in this emergency department, dropped a patient file on the desk.

‘To see Joe and Maggie’s baby.’

Tom’s eyebrows rose. ‘Maggie’s in labour?’ He was already scanning the board that provided the update of all the patients currently in the department, whose care they were under and at what stage of their assessment or treatment they were. ‘I was working with Joe at the rescue base yesterday and he thought it was still a week or two away.’

‘Nope. Today’s the day. They headed into Maternity at about four this morning.’

But Tom didn’t seem to be remotely excited and Laura could feel a slightly puzzled frown line appearing between her eyebrows as she let her gaze rest on his profile for a moment longer. She’d worked with this man for more than two years now but sometimes she had absolutely no idea what was going on in his head. He was a brilliant doctor, was warm and kind and completely trustworthy but, at the same time, he could be oddly reserved. Like now, when you might expect him to share at least some of the excitement of imminent parenthood to people he knew well.

Maybe he just had other things on his mind. Like how his emergency department was coping with the patient numbers and the levels of attention they needed. Laura brushed off an urge to reassure him in some way that, as always, he had everything as under control as it was possible to have it but a couple of seconds later she thought that it had been just as well that she hadn’t said anything because someone would have blamed her for tempting fate as potential chaos broke out. An ambulance crew was rushing through the automatic doors leading to the vehicle bay, someone was calling for assistance from one of the cubicles and a cardiac arrest alarm was sounding.

Tom was the first person to put his hands on the trolley that contained a lifepack, airway and IV equipment and the drugs that could be needed to manage a major cardiac event.

‘Where’s the arrest?’ he demanded.

‘Waiting room,’ someone responded.

Tom started moving. ‘Fizz, take over here for a minute. Laura? Come with me. We can get there before the arrest team arrives.’

Abandoning the IV trolley, Laura was almost running to keep up with Tom’s long stride. Expecting to see an elderly patient who had collapsed in the waiting room, it was a shock to find that the cardiac arrest button had been pushed for someone who looked like a child.

‘Help...please...she’s not breathing...’ The distraught woman who had her arms around the young girl had to be her mother and Laura’s heart immediately went out to her. She’d be this terrified, as well, if she was holding her son, Harrison, and he’d just stopped breathing.

‘What’s happened?’ Tom eased the girl from her mother’s arms to lay her flat on the floor and then he tilted her head back to open the airway. He put his fingers on the side of her neck as he leaned closer.

Laura was peeling open the pack that contained the defibrillator pads. She cut the neck of the girl’s T-shirt and ripped it open to give her access to the point below her right collarbone and then lifted the hem to press the second pad on her left side. She noted the dramatic rash on the child’s skin and caught Tom’s gaze to make sure he was aware of it, as well. He was. Of course he was.

‘She’s allergic,’ the mother was saying. ‘To dairy. She was eating chips in the car and I thought they were the plain ones and they were safe but they weren’t...someone had given her some flavoured ones. Ketchup. She thought that was fine but we could already see the hives starting to come up.’

‘We’ve got a pulse,’ Tom told Laura. ‘But she’s bradycardic. Not breathing.’

He reached for a bag mask, fitted the mask over the girl’s face and delivered a breath. And then another. But he was frowning and Laura knew why. This had to be an anaphylactic reaction to an allergen and the child’s airways were swelling up and making it harder to deliver oxygen. They needed to move fast or it could become impossible to intubate and secure the airway. The fact that the heart rate was already too slow meant that they could be dealing with a cardiac arrest as well as a respiratory arrest in a very short time.

Tom glanced up and this time it was him who was catching Laura’s gaze. It was another moment of silent communication and something they were both so used to now it took only a split second to have a question asked and answered. This was a critical situation and every second counted. They would be losing quite a few of those seconds to take the girl into one of the resuscitation areas on the other side of the swing doors but it was entirely possible that they would need more equipment than they had in this trolley—like a surgical kit to perform a cricothyroidotomy if a tracheal intubation proved impossible.

With no more than a subtle nod, Tom broke the glance, scooped the child into his arms and took off.

‘Follow us,’ Laura told the mother. She had picked up the lifepack as Tom had started moving and she really was running this time to keep up with him and not break the connection between the pads and the defibrillator.

People in the emergency department stepped hurriedly out of their way. Laura saw the startled expression on Fizz’s face and the way she signalled junior doctors to take over what she was doing. She was right on their heels by the time Tom put the girl down on the bed.

‘Respiratory arrest,’ he told Fizz. ‘Anaphylaxis. Known allergy to dairy.’

‘Has she had any adrenaline?’

‘Yes...’ The girl’s mother was near the foot of the bed, her arms held tightly across her body as if she needed physical support. ‘We used her auto-injector but...but it didn’t seem to be working. When she started getting wheezy I just drove straight here.’

She was used to coping, Laura thought. Used to providing her own support. Was she a single parent, like herself?

‘Laura? Draw up some adrenaline, please.’

‘Onto it.’ The personal connection Laura was feeling to this patient and her mother had to be put firmly aside as she focused on what she needed to do.

Other staff members were arriving now, including the two medic arrest team. Laura was pleased to see a new nurse beside their patient’s mother, easing her to one side of the room, out of the way, but staying with her as she endured the terrifying sight of a medical team fighting to save the life of her daughter.

There was so much happening. Tom was intubating the girl, using a video laryngoscope so that he could actually see what he was doing amongst the swelling tissues. An anaesthetist who’d been on call for the arrest team was setting up the ventilator that would be attached as soon as the intubation had been successfully completed. He had a kit on standby for creating a surgical airway if the intubation was not possible due to the amount of swelling.

Fizz was working to gain IV access and someone else was setting up the bags of saline and the giving sets that they would need for a fluid challenge to combat anaphylactic shock. Laura administered the first dose of intramuscular adrenaline and then began sorting the other drugs that she knew would be needed. More adrenaline, to set up as an infusion if there wasn’t enough response to the first doses, along with an antihistamine and steroids. She filled syringes and taped the ampoules to the barrel of the syringes to identify them. She was keeping an eye on the screen above the bed, too, so that she could warn Tom of any changes that could be significant, like a further drop in blood pressure or heart rate. This would become even more of a challenge if the heart stopped in the wake of the lack of oxygen from the respiratory arrest.

The tension was palpable and, at one point, Laura heard the stifled sob of the girl’s mother behind her. She could feel a lump in her own throat. This was every parent’s nightmare, wasn’t it? She was going to hug Harry so hard when she went to pick him up after work today that she knew he would squeak and wriggle free, probably giggling or groaning at the same time, the way six-year-old boys did. In the meantime, she was going to do everything she could to help save this young life in front of them. The alternative was simply unimaginable.

‘We’re in...’ Tom gave a satisfied nod as he hooked his stethoscope back around his neck after checking the placement of the airway. ‘Now, let’s get this oxygen saturation looking a bit better.’

‘Heart rate’s picking up.’ Like Laura, Fizz was watching the screen above them. ‘And I’ve got wide-bore access on both sides.’

‘Let’s start the fluid challenge.’ Tom turned his head to where the child’s mother was standing. ‘How much does she weigh?’

‘Um...she was about twenty-six kilos the last time it was checked.’

‘And how old is she?’

‘Nine. Nearly ten...she’s always been small...’

Like Harry, Laura thought. He’d always been small for his age and a bit underweight, as well. It made them seem younger than they were. More vulnerable. She wanted to give this young mother a hug. To try and reassure her. She could actually sense the same empathy coming from Tom, whose face creased in an almost smile.

‘What’s her name?’

‘Elizabeth. We call her Lizzie...’

* * *

‘She’s going to be fine. The immediate danger is over.’

‘But she’s in Intensive Care...’

‘This is the best place to monitor Lizzie for a few hours. Just to make sure that everything’s under control and the medications are doing their job.’

The woman closed her eyes as she nodded slowly. ‘I can’t thank you enough, Dr Chapman.’ She pressed her fingers against her mouth. ‘I feel like it was my fault. How could I not have noticed that the auto-injector was past its expiry date?’

‘I’m sure that’s something that will never happen again. And you did exactly the right thing, bringing her straight to Emergency.’

‘I could have lost her. I... I thought I had...’ She had her hand over her eyes now.

The urge to touch this woman’s shoulder, or hug her even, to provide comfort was so strong that Tom had to curl his fingers into a fist.

He didn’t get personally involved with his patients. Or their families. If he did, he’d never be able to do his job well enough and doing his job to the very best of his ability was the most important thing in Tom Chapman’s world.

The only thing, pretty much...

‘Go and sit with her now,’ he told Lizzie’s mother. ‘Or take a break? You probably need one after all that drama.’

‘I won’t be leaving her side for a while yet. It’s you that needs a break, I reckon. You worked so hard to save my little girl.’

‘It’s my job. And my privilege.’ Tom glanced at his watch. ‘I am on a late lunch break now. That’s why I popped up to see that Lizzie was settled well.’

‘I hope you’ve already had your lunch?’

‘Not yet. That’s next.’

But he wasn’t really hungry at all, Tom decided as he walked towards the café in the Royal’s entrance foyer. It was often like that, in the aftermath of the adrenaline rush that came from treating someone so critically ill—even more so when that fight for life was on behalf of a child. All life was precious, of course, but children and especially babies were so vulnerable you couldn’t help becoming emotionally involved to some extent. For some reason, the feeling of connection was harder to shake off after this case. Maybe that was why Tom gave in to the impulse to turn into the gift shop beside the café.

Ten minutes later he was standing in front of a door in the maternity suite of the Royal.

Hesitating...

He didn’t actually have to go in, did he? He could leave his gifts with one of the nurses. He didn’t have to prod that no-go area of his heart any more than it had already been prodded today.

But visiting Joe and Maggie as they basked in the glow of new parenthood was a friendly thing to do. A polite thing, and Tom Chapman was always polite. Manners that had been developed as a form of self-protection had evolved to be useful under even the most extreme circumstances and he’d learned that there was truth in the old adage to “fake it till you make it”. Tom had faked it for long enough to have made it long ago.

So, with the string of the pink “It’s a girl!” balloon in one hand and the softest baby toy the gift shop had had available, Tom tapped on the door and poked his head through the gap.

‘I can come back later,’ he offered. ‘If you’ve had too many visitors already.’

‘No, come in, Tom.’

‘Just for a minute, then.’ Tom shook the outstretched hand of the paramedic who had become a trusted colleague in recent months. ‘Congratulations, Joe. And there you were telling me only yesterday that you thought this was a week or two away.’

‘Bella had other ideas.’ It was Maggie who spoke. ‘I have a feeling we’re going to be scrambling to keep up with this little one.’

Tom smiled at Maggie, another paramedic who worked at the Aratika Rescue Base. Her blonde curls looked a little tangled and she looked exhausted but the glow of joy in her eyes nearly blinded Tom.

He’d seen that look before.

He’d worn it on his own face, once.

And yes...it was hard to drop his gaze to the bundle in Maggie’s arms. To the tiny, slightly scrunched-up face of a baby who’d been born within the last few hours. The pain never really went away, did it? You’d think it had faded or been safely locked away somewhere but sometimes all it took was something like seeing that tiny starfish hand poking up from out of the blanket folds and there it was again. So sharp, it could have been yesterday.

So poignant, it could have brought the sting of tears if he’d allowed it. But, of course, that was never going to happen.

‘Would you like to hold her?’ Maggie offered.

‘Ah...no...’ Tom actually took a step backwards. ‘I really can’t stay. We’re pretty busy in Emergency.’

He knew Joe was watching him. He also realised that Joe had respected the confidence of a personal discussion they’d had a while back now. That he hadn’t even told Maggie that he’d learned something about Tom that he never told others. And Tom could feel the understanding in that gaze he was under. Joe knew that this was tough. That being with a couple who were so much in love and welcoming their first child had to be a painfully sharp reminder that he’d lost his own wife and son.

He didn’t want that understanding. Or rather, he didn’t want anybody feeling sorry for him because he had no desire to start feeling sorry for himself.

But Joe was nodding as he spoke. ‘We heard about the anaphylactic shock you guys had to deal with. Fizz said it was touch and go for a while there.’

‘It was. I’ve left her in charge, too, and it’s about time she went home.’

‘Did Laura come back? With Harry?’

Tom had his hand on the door already, but he turned back. ‘Harry? Her little boy?’ He was frowning. ‘I didn’t realise she’d gone anywhere.’

‘She got a call from Harry’s school and she had to go and pick him up because he was feeling sick. It’s been happening quite a bit lately. If you see her, tell her to text me? She said she’d take him to the GP but if she was really worried, she said she might bring him in to see you.’

‘Oh?’ Tom shook his head. ‘I’m not a paediatrician. I’m sure her GP can handle it. Or refer her. Laura knows that Emergency is just for emergencies.’

* * *

Laura knew she was bending the rules.

Okay, so a lot of people came to the emergency department when they had problems that could—and should—be dealt with by a general practitioner. And the fact that people did turn up when they had a minor injury or illness could mean that the department could get overloaded and the patients that really needed the attention of the staff might have to wait too long or even miss getting a critical treatment in time.

But this was Harrison—Laura’s precious little boy.

And something wasn’t right.

He’d had tummy aches before. He’d been sick at school more than once in recent months but there’d been something about him, when Laura had arrived at the sick bay to collect Harry today, that had sent a chill trickling down her spine. Maybe it was his skin colour. Or the air of listlessness about him. Or perhaps it was just the expression in those dark brown eyes he’d inherited from her. A sad look, as if he couldn’t understand why life was so miserable right now.

Anyway, it was done. Laura was back at the Royal and had Harry in her arms, balanced on her hip. She was still in her scrubs with her official lanyard on so nobody would question her presence in the department and, technically, she was still on duty so she could tell people she’d come back to finish her shift and Harry was just going to wait quietly for her in the staffroom.

But the first person she encountered was Tom and the way he held her gaze for a moment or two longer than you would with a normal acquaintance provided one of those lightning-fast, telepathic conversations.

You’re worried about your boy, aren’t you?

Yes.

Too worried to go to your GP?

Yes.

Okay, then...that’s fine...you’ve done the right thing bringing him in.

The lines around Tom’s eyes softened and Laura felt herself relax just a little thanks to that understanding and trust in her judgement she could see in Tom’s face.

She trusted him just as much and it was a trust that was rock solid because it had grown slowly to begin with when Tom had begun working in this emergency department. On both sides.

Laura was always wary around men she didn’t know, especially when they were single and as good looking as Tom Chapman was. She had to make sure they got very clear signals that she wasn’t interested in being anything more than a colleague. That she didn’t want anyone trying to get close. It hadn’t taken long to realise that the new consultant was giving off exactly the same signals but that hadn’t stopped almost every other single woman she’d seen him interact with trying to catch his attention. A sympathetic glance on one occasion had cemented the unspoken knowledge that, for whatever reason, they had both built solid barriers to protect themselves.

Maybe that was what had given the level of trust between them such a solid foundation—that they both recognised those barriers and knew that neither was going to attempt breaking through them. They were workmates. Not quite friends, because they didn’t choose to spend any time away from work together, like Laura did with Maggie and Joe and Fizz and Cooper, but they were more than simply workmates because there was that trust on both sides. That confidence that it was totally safe to be near each other. And that meant they didn’t have to be on their guard on any level, which was probably why it was so easy to communicate, even without any words.

‘Let’s find him a cubicle,’ Tom said. ‘You fill in the paperwork and I’ll come and check on him as soon as I can.’

He smiled at Harry before he turned away. ‘Hey, buddy...who have you got there? T Rex?’

Harry clutched his plastic dinosaur more tightly to his chest and curled closer to his mother. Laura could feel the sudden tension in his small body from being too close for comfort to a man he didn’t know. But her heart squeezed hard when her son was brave enough to say something back to Tom.

‘His real name is Tyrannosaurus Rex,’ Harry whispered.

‘It is,’ Tom agreed. ‘Did you know that he had sixty teeth? And they were all razor sharp and could be this big?’ He held his hands with a large gap between them.

Harry’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped. Laura grinned at Tom. Way to go, she told him silently. He had just won the heart of a six-year-old who was passionate about dinosaurs and he might have even erased much of the fear that this small boy had of men he didn’t know well.

She headed towards the central desk, to pick up the forms she needed to fill in and to check the board to see what cubicle might be free.

Fizz was on her way out of the department. ‘Oh, no... Harry... Are you still feeling sick, sweetheart?’

Harry nodded.

Fizz caught Laura’s gaze. ‘Want me to stay? Cooper’s just gone with Harley to get the car but we could come back.’

‘No...we’re good.’

Fizz raised an eyebrow. She knew that Harry was shy with men he didn’t know. She also knew that her husband had won Harry’s trust very early on, when he’d been one of Laura’s flatmates.

‘You remember Cooper, don’t you, Harry? He helped you when you broke your arm last year.’

Harry nodded.

‘It’s all better now, isn’t it? Your arm?’

Harry nodded again.

‘Well, Doctor Tom will help make whatever it is that’s making you feel sick all better, too.’

‘He will,’ Laura agreed. ‘And who knew that he knew so much about dinosaurs?’

Fizz chuckled. ‘There you go. A match made in heaven.’ But her smile faded as she looked back at Laura. ‘Text me,’ she said, ‘if there’s anything I can do to help.’

‘I’m sure we’ll be fine,’ Laura told her. ‘You go and enjoy the rest of your day with your boys. I’m probably overreacting.’

‘I’d be exactly the same with Harley. And we both know that you need to listen when a mum’s feeling worried. Instinct should never be ignored.’

‘Mmm...’ But Laura didn’t want to think about a mother’s instinct. Because hers was trying to send messages that were too scary.

She just knew too much. She’d seen too much in this department. People that came in, occasionally, with symptoms that should be of no great significance but turned out to be something really awful.

Laura collected the paperwork and settled Harry onto the bed in a spare cubicle. She left the curtain open enough to be able to see what was happening in the department because she wanted to see the moment Tom started heading in their direction.

She wanted him to come and make her feel safe.

More than anything, she needed the reassurance that Harry was safe.

* * *

Tom collected the new patient file from the central desk and was reading through the information Laura had provided about Harry as he walked to their cubicle. Perhaps that was why it came as a bit of a shock to look up and see Laura and Harry through the gap in the curtains.

He saw Laura McKenzie almost every day he was at work but he’d never seen her looking like this. She was normally on her feet and always busy, caring for her patients or fully involved in an assessment or resuscitation scene. Even if she was taking a break, she’d be reading while she ate a sandwich, or chatting to one of her friends like Fizz.

Right now, however, she was half on the bed with her son, perched on one side and lying across the pillows so that Harry was tucked under the shelter of her arm. She was gently smoothing the dark spikes of his hair, quietly watching as Harry made his plastic dinosaur hop slowly across the blanket she had tucked around him.

Tom had never seen Laura staying this still, her body language shouting its focus on only one thing—her precious son. Or with an expression like that on her face. That mix of tenderness and concern—the picture of a mother’s love—hit him like a punch in the gut and Tom found himself swallowing hard. To get a flashback twice in one day was more than a little disturbing when he’d been so sure he was well past that part of his life. Or perhaps this was simply an aftershock of how he’d felt seeing Maggie and Joe with their newborn baby and getting dragged back into the past like that.

It felt like longing, this sharp twinge of discomfort.

Or a renewed flash of grief for a future that was never going to happen.

Whatever it was, he knew he could handle it but it was certainly giving him a new perspective on this woman he’d worked with for so long. Someone he had learned to trust because she’d never attempted to get past the guardrails he had in place in his personal life. And, in this moment, he felt closer to her than he ever allowed himself to get to a colleague or a member of a patient’s family, for that matter. It was already under his skin. That note of tenderness. The knowledge that Laura was very vulnerable right now. All he could do was try and contain it. To make sure it didn’t grow any stronger.

‘Hey...’ Tom pasted a smile on his face as he pulled the curtain shut behind him. ‘How’s it going in here? Is Tyrannosaurus Rex finding enough to eat?’

Harry hid his toy under the blanket. ‘He’s not hungry.’

‘Oh...’ Tom pulled out a chair and perched on the edge of it, so that he wasn’t looming over the bed. ‘How ’bout you, Harry? Are you hungry?’

Harry shook his head. ‘I was sick,’ he told Tom. ‘At school. I was sick on the mat at story time.’

‘Oh, no...’ Tom could feel Laura’s gaze on his face but he kept his gaze on his young patient. ‘And you’ve got a sore tummy, too, I hear.’

Harry was silent. His chin was going down and his head tilting further into the crook of Laura’s elbow.

Tom raised his glance. ‘How long has the cream been on his arm?’

Laura touched the clear plastic cover that was keeping the generous blob of anaesthetic cream in place over the easiest vein to get a blood sample from. ‘Needs another ten minutes or so.’

‘Okay. So, tell me about what’s been happening. This isn’t the first time for a sore tummy, is it?’

Laura shook her head. ‘It’s been happening off and on for a long time. Almost since he started school, which made me think it was an anxiety thing, you know? Not wanting to go to school? The vomiting is more recent, though.’

‘What’s vomiting?’

‘Being sick, sweetheart. It’s what we call it here.’

Tom was watching closely as Harry looked up at his mother when he asked the question. Was that a tinge of yellow he could see in the whites of Harry’s eyes?

‘Can I have a look at your tummy, Harry? Is that okay?’

He could see the visible shrinking back further into his mother’s arms but, with Laura’s encouragement and reassurance, Harry let the blanket get pushed back and his tummy exposed.

‘I won’t hurt you,’ Tom promised. ‘If it’s really sore, you tell me and I’ll stop.’ He eyed the dinosaur in Harry’s hand. ‘Or T Rex can bite me on my arm, okay?’

Big, brown eyes looked up at him. Exactly like his mother’s eyes, Tom thought. Harry hadn’t inherited Laura’s auburn hair, though. The ruffled spikes of Harry’s hair were very dark, almost black, which could be contributing to how pale that little face was. There was a hint of a smile there now, however.

‘’Kay.’ He lay back but kept the toy dinosaur in a raised hand, ready to strike if it became necessary.

Tom was as gentle as possible. His hand looked so large against Harry’s abdomen as he carefully palpated each quadrant. He left the upper right quadrant till last, probably because he had that suspicion of possible jaundice at the back of his mind.

‘Can you take a big breath in for me, Harry? Like this?’ Tom demonstrated and Harry complied.

And there it was...

A firm, irregular edge to this little boy’s liver as he could feel it coming down with the lungs filling.

‘Ow...’ The plastic dinosaur tapped against Tom’s arm.

‘Sorry, buddy.’ Tom lifted his hand but his heart was sinking. That prickle at the back of his neck was something he recognised all too easily and it came from the instinct that there was something significantly wrong here. That Harry could be in trouble and it might be impossible to protect him from painful things to come. Pain that would be felt by his mother, as well.

Tom didn’t dare catch Laura’s gaze just then. He didn’t want to scare her. Not until he was sure about what his instincts were telling him. Maybe he just wanted to put that moment off for as long as possible because he knew, all too well, how it could turn your world inside out and upside down.

Destroy it even...

Or maybe it was because he was suddenly aware of a desire to protect Laura McKenzie.

Where on earth had that come from...?

CHAPTER TWO

THE REST OF that day became a blur.

A desperate attempt for Laura to hang onto something solid enough to not allow herself to get swamped by a terror that was becoming more and more real as the minutes and then hours ticked past.

Blood tests came next for Harry and they were still distressing despite the anaesthetic cream and how brave her little boy was being. Maybe it was so distressing for Laura because of how brave Harry was being. Her love for him was so huge, it was filling her chest to an extent that made it seem very hard to breathe.

There was an ultrasound after that and even though Laura was not trained to interpret the blobby images on the screen, she could see that there was something in Harry’s liver that shouldn’t be there. That was when the real fear kicked in. Fear that had to be hidden from Harry because Laura knew how sensitive he was to how his mother felt. He had been right from when he was a tiny baby and Laura still felt guilty that his fear of strange men had been instilled in that part of his life due to the aftermath of the trauma from the abusive relationship she had escaped.

Thank goodness Tom was there, at least until Harry was admitted for the raft of other tests he was going to need. It was Tom who introduced Laura and Harry to Suzie, a paediatric surgeon who was absolutely lovely, and he was there when the paediatric oncologist was also called in for a consultation. As Laura’s world was being tipped upside down, Tom’s presence felt like an anchor. Something safe when almost nothing else could be trusted any more. That something solid that she could hang onto.

‘Can I call someone for you?’ he asked when an orderly came to wheel Harry’s bed up to the paediatric ward. ‘Have you got family?’

Laura shook her head, stepping far enough away from Harry not to be overheard. ‘No one close. It’s just me and Harry.’

Tom was frowning. ‘What about his father?’

‘Not in the picture. Never has been.’ Laura wanted to shut down this line of conversation. She’d been alone for a very long time, apart from Harry, and she preferred it that way. More than preferred it, actually. Changing it had never even been an option to consider.

‘Friends, then.’ Tom’s frown had deepened. ‘Maggie? I know she wants to know what’s happening. She asked me to tell you to text her when I went up to visit her earlier.’

‘She doesn’t need to know right now. For heaven’s sake, Tom. She’s probably just arrived home with her brand new baby. It’s okay, I can cope.’

She could. She’d coped before. Because, when you had to, you just did. You took things one step at a time and did your absolute best. But...it was kind of nice to have someone who wanted to help and the expression in Tom’s eyes suggested there was something more than purely professional concern for her as a colleague. As she held his gaze for a moment longer, Laura almost had the impression that he was struggling with something. He felt compelled to offer assistance but he wasn’t actually that comfortable about it, was he? Because they’d never stepped out of that “colleague” zone into a “friend” zone?

She needed to let him off the hook.

‘As soon as Harry’s settled, I’ll pop home and get everything we’ll need. And I’m sure it won’t take long for him to feel happy there.’ Laura pasted a smile onto her face. ‘It’ll probably be an adventure for him with all the toys and games they’ve got available and with other kids to play with and we both know how wonderful the staff are up there.’

Tom’s smile only caught one half of his mouth. He knew how hard she was trying to make the best of this situation. He also knew how difficult it was and he wanted to be able to help. More than wanted, in fact. He looked as though he wasn’t about to give up until he could do something. And, suddenly, Laura knew what that could be.

‘I’ve got a day off tomorrow,’ she told him. ‘But, if you really want to help, could you look at my roster for the next few days?’

‘Of course. Take all the time you need. Just let me know how I can make things easier.’

‘Thanks.’ Laura simply nodded. She couldn’t spare any head space to think about how much paid sick leave she might have available. Or how much she had in her savings account to cover unpaid time off work. She did know that it was unlikely to be enough but that was an added level of fear that couldn’t be allowed to matter at this point.

The only thing that mattered was Harry. Finding out exactly what was going on and how they were going to deal with it.

‘I’ll know more in a day or two and I’ll come and have a chat about work then. It could be tomorrow, even. Suzie said something about the possibility of a biopsy straight after the CT scans.’

Even saying the words made the terror of this too real. For an awful moment, Laura felt an urge to throw herself into Tom’s arms and just burst into tears. She didn’t dare catch his gaze again now. He was feeling uncomfortable enough just offering personal assistance. Forcing him to offer comfort would be doing more than crossing interpersonal boundaries—it would probably irreparably damage the trust they had between them.

Those unspoken rules that had never, ever been broken.

No flirting.

No really personal conversation.

Physical proximity and touching only if unavoidable in professional circumstances.

Laura needed those rules to be in place just as much as Tom did because they were the perimeters that created the safe space she had needed for so long. It was a good thing that Harry’s bed was on the move beside her. Even if she hadn’t been able to control that urge to seek comfort from the touch of another human, there was no chance to do so right now.

‘Mummy?’ The anxiety in Harry’s voice was more than enough to ensure that Laura took instant control of any emotional weakness that might be trying to persuade her to beg for comfort.

‘I’m coming, sweetheart. Just wait until you see what they’ve got painted on the walls where we’re going. I think there’s even going to be some dinosaurs somewhere.’

* * *

Three days later, Tom emerged from one of the resuscitation rooms in ED to see Laura at the central desk. Fizz appeared to be hugging her friend fiercely.

He’d been expecting this.

He hadn’t expected to feel a wash of something that felt oddly like relief at seeing her again, mind you. Had he been missing seeing Laura around the department more than he’d realised? Or was he feeling guilty that he hadn’t been up to the paediatric ward to visit them? He’d felt a bit awkward, actually. Caught somewhere in the space between being simply a colleague or someone more like a friend who had good reason to demonstrate the kind of concern he was feeling. He had excused himself by keeping very busy and reassured himself that Laura was getting all the support she needed from her group of very good friends.

It was Fizz that Tom had been relying on for updates about what was happening in the paediatric ward and he always checked to see whether any extra help was needed. He knew that Harry had had all the relevant tests, including a biopsy. He had also been told that Laura was coping amazingly well, all things considered, and that she would be coming to talk to Tom, as head of department, regarding any time off she was going to need.

And here she was.

And, as Tom walked towards her, he wanted nothing more than to do exactly what Fizz was doing. To take Laura into his arms and give her a hug that could convey his empathy and encouragement and offer support all at the same time.

The urge to do so was disturbingly out of character for Tom. So much so that it was probably the reason he found it difficult to find a smile as Laura turned away from her friend. He might have even been frowning, he realised, as he saw the way Laura was collecting under his gaze as he came towards the desk. She was trying to hide any show of emotion that could be considered inappropriate in a work setting, wasn’t she? Straightening her back and brushing both her forefingers beneath her eyes as if erasing any evidence of tears being shed.

She looked pale. So pale that Tom could see freckles on her nose and he’d never noticed them before. He could see stray wisps of hair escaping from the loose plait her long hair was in, as well, which was a far cry from the normally sleek way she tied up her hair, but what struck Tom the most were her eyes. Maybe she’d lost a bit of weight in the last few days, which made them look larger. Or perhaps it was the light she was standing beneath that made him notice the subtle variations in colour that made them a really golden brown.

No...in the moment Tom broke the eye contact before it became long enough to seem far more significant than it actually was, he realised it was neither of those things. It was the pain he could see in them that touched a part of his own heart.

He knew that pain.

He needed to straighten his own back now. To remind himself that just because he recognised how tough things were for Laura, it didn’t mean he had to go back to that part of his own life and relive something he had finally moved on from. His heart sank a little, however. Even a professional chat with Laura was quite likely to be a lot more difficult than he had anticipated.

‘This is good timing,’ he said to her, by way of a greeting. ‘Come into my office, Laura. Fizz? You’ll know where to find me if you need me.’

‘Sure thing.’ Fizz had no trouble finding a smile for Laura. ‘Come and find me again after you’ve had a chat with Tom. With a bit of luck, we can grab a coffee in the staffroom.’

Tom’s office was down a corridor, between the staffroom and the meeting room. It was a small space, lined with crowded bookshelves and a desk piled with paperwork that took up most of the rest of the space. There was a big office chair behind the desk and two smaller chairs on the other side, which were padded but not exactly inviting. He waved a hand towards the smaller chairs.

‘Please, have a seat, Laura.’

Closing the door behind him, Tom hesitated momentarily. Putting the barrier of that large desk between them didn’t feel right but sitting close beside her on the other small chair was going too far in the other direction—as if he was planning to offer a counselling session rather than the kind of professional discussion about rosters and leave that they needed to have. He solved the issue by shoving a pile of journals to one side and hooking his leg over the corner to perch on the edge of his desk. Then he took a deeper breath.

‘So... I heard that the biopsy results were going to be available today?’

Laura nodded. ‘It’s a hepatoblastoma. They thought it might be hepatic cancer because the age range for a hepatoblastoma is usually under three but...but apparently it’s a good thing because the stats are better. The survival rate is...is around eighty-six percent.’

Tom used his nod in response as a cover to close his eyes for a moment. He could actually feel the strength that Laura was hanging onto as she spoke. This was her own child she was talking about, not a patient they had in common. How hard was it to try and focus on the positive side of the equation?

‘And the MRI showed that there’s no sign of metastatic tumours so that’s really good news, too.’ The wobble in Laura’s voice signalled how hard it was for her to keep the lid on her emotions but she clearly wanted to give him all the information she could and Tom could only silently applaud her courage.

‘Have they done the pretext staging?’ The pre-treatment extent of disease was an important part of how the team would decide to tackle Harry’s treatment.

‘It’s Stage two, but only just big enough to be in more than one section of the liver. They want to give him a few cycles of chemo to try and shrink it so that it’s only in a single sector and then they’ll be able to remove it totally with the surgery.’

‘So surgery will be at least a few weeks away, then? Or more depending on how many cycles of chemo are needed?’ Tom reached for a notepad and pulled a pen from the pocket of his scrub suit. ‘Let me make a note of how long you’ll need to be away for.’

But Laura was shaking her head this time. ‘I don’t need to be off work the whole time. They’re going to keep Harry in for a few days to see how he tolerates the first dose of the chemo but the aim after that is to keep life as normal as possible for everyone and they tell me that if Harry tolerates it well enough, there’s no reason he can’t keep going to school at the moment. Apparently most children do tolerate it well and he’s desperate to get back to school and his friends and our normal routine. Hopefully I’ll just need days off to be with him when he comes in for the infusions and I should have a calendar for that later today.’

Tom’s eyebrows rose. ‘You really want to keep working?’

‘I realise that I will need a lot more time off when it’s time for the surgery and that it could be a problem in the next few weeks if I have to cut shifts short or something to collect him from school if he gets too tired or is feeling sick, but it’s not simply a matter of what I would prefer... I have to keep working, Tom. I can’t afford not to.’

For a split second, Tom thought he had found a way to help Laura and still keep a safe distance. How easy would it be to offer to help her financially through this rough patch? Catching her gaze, however, he just as instantly dismissed the idea. He could read the look in her eyes just as easily as the kind of silent communication they could have regarding a patient. She didn’t want financial help. She was fiercely proud of her independence and she intended to cope. Alone, thank you very much.

‘We’ll work around that, then,’ he found himself saying. ‘I know I won’t be the only person in the department who wants to support you as much as possible, Laura. And... I have to say I think your attitude is...commendable.’

More like amazing, Tom thought. He’d always known that Laura was capable. One of the best nurses he’d ever worked with, in fact. He also knew she was totally reliable and trustworthy and, although he never listened to gossip, he’d picked up that she was a single mother. But he’d never put the pieces of the puzzle together, had he? He’d never wondered how she managed her life or how hard it might have been over the years. He knew virtually nothing about her private life and hadn’t wanted to know. Until now...

‘You’re facing this head-on,’ he added. ‘I really admire your determination and how positive you’re being.’

Laura looked down at her hands, which were clasped in her lap. ‘It’s not the first time Harry and I have faced a challenge. He was born nearly nine weeks premature and it was a bit touch and go here and there.’ Her breath came out in a sigh. ‘Apparently a low birth weight is one of the risk factors for hepatoblastoma. I’m glad I didn’t know that at the time. I had rather a lot of other stuff to worry about.’

Tom was curious to know what that other stuff had been but stifling any questions was automatic. He hated people asking him personal questions so he’d always made a point of not intruding on the private lives of the people he worked with. Having this conversation with Laura was well out of his comfort zone and it wasn’t just the subject matter. She looked different, being in civvies rather than the scrubs he was used to seeing her in.

She actually sounded different, too. ‘I learned then that you just had to get on with it,’ she said, her voice soft enough to make Tom lift his gaze to catch hers. ‘You get to choose some of the cards you play with in the game of life but others just get dealt out, don’t they? There’s nothing you can do about that except to play the absolute best game you can. And you have to fight for the people you love. For yourself, too.’

It was impossible to look away from those warm, brown eyes. She totally believed in what she was saying. Laura McKenzie was quite prepared to fight to the death for someone she loved. There was real passion there, mixed with that courage and determination. He was seeing a whole new side to the person he was so comfortable to work with and it was more than a little disconcerting because it was making him curious. Apart from being an amazing nurse and clearly a ferociously protective single mother, just who was Laura McKenzie? No... It was none of his business, was it?

The half-smile that tugged at one corner of her mouth made it seem as if she could read his thoughts and sympathised with his small dilemma.

But she was just finishing off her surprisingly passionate little speech. ‘I guess that’s the same thing, isn’t it? If you’re fighting for yourself that means you can’t do anything other than to fight for the people you love.’

Okay... That did it. Tom had to back off fast before he got sucked into a space he had vowed never to enter again. He didn’t want to think about what it was like to live in a space where you could love other people so much they became more important than anything else in life. That space that was too dangerous because, when you lost those people, you were left with what felt like no life at all...

He had to break that eye contact. And he had to move. Making a noise that was somewhere between a sound of agreement and clearing his throat, Tom slid off the corner of his desk.

‘I’d better get back to the department.’ He opened the door and there was an instant sense of relief. Escape was within touching distance. ‘As I said, we’ll work around whatever you need. Send me a copy of the chemotherapy calendar and I’ll make sure Admin’s on board for when you’re rostered.’

Laura nodded as she got out of her chair. ‘Thank you very much.’

Her formality was just what Tom needed to make things seem a little more normal. ‘It’s the least I can do,’ he said. ‘The least we can do. You’re a valued member of this department, Laura. We’ll all do everything we can to support you.’

* * *

Oh...help...

Where had that all come from?

Laura was cringing more than a little as she made her way back to the paediatric ward, where she’d left Harry happily watching a movie with his new friend, Aroha—a little girl with Down’s syndrome who had been admitted to be reassessed and prepared for heart surgery.

Prattling on about playing the best game you could with cards being dealt in the game of life had made her sound like the kind of inspirational quotes that went around on social media.

And what about the way Tom had been looking at her while she’d been saying it all? She’d never seen an expression like that on his face. As if he understood. As if that whole conversation had been very, very personal. That had felt weird.

Okay, Laura was well aware of how attractive Tom Chapman was. She’d heard plenty of women—staff members and even patients—who’d sighed over that combination of height, wavy hair, dark eyes and that killer smile. It wasn’t just his looks, either. He had a way of focusing on people that made it obvious he was really listening. That what you thought or what you had to say was important.

That he cared.

Surely there wasn’t a woman on earth who wouldn’t have her heart touched by feeling that someone really cared. Maybe that was why she had stumbled into saying things that were too personal. Too emotional. For the first time, Laura had been affected by this man’s personality on a level she’d never encountered before. She’d never thought of Tom as anything but one of the best doctors she’d ever had the privilege of working with. And a man she could trust not to come too close.

She took the stairs rather than stand with the group of people waiting for a lift to arrive. It could have been worse, she reminded herself as she began the climb to the third floor. She could have broken even more personal barriers and told him why Harry’s premature birth and the months that had followed had been such a challenge—a fight for her own survival as much as her precious baby’s.

It had been a long time since Laura had allowed herself to remember the horror of what had happened but it was inevitable that being on a staircase right now would set off those flashbacks she’d thought she’d conquered long ago.

The fear of believing that she was about to be hurt. Again. That the baby she was carrying could be in danger from its own father. Stepping back to try and find safety, only to feel that there was nothing beneath her foot, that she was falling and knowing in that same moment that the accusation that would come—that this was all her own fault—would certainly be true this time. Brent’s voice when the paramedics had arrived.

‘She just missed the step somehow... I tried to catch her but I couldn’t... She fell all the way to the bottom of the stairs... Is she bleeding? Is she going to be okay? What about the baby?’

Laura’s breath hitched as she pushed herself up the last flight of stairs. “The baby”—her precious Harry—had survived the emergency Caesarean and those weeks in the paediatric intensive care unit. He would never know about the night, just before he’d been allowed to come home, when Laura had stood up to his father during one of his alcohol-fuelled rages and threatened to call the police, and told him that she would do whatever it took to make sure her baby was safe from him. He had vanished from her life by the time she took her baby home and that was the start of a whole new struggle where Laura had to try and ensure that they both not only survived but thrived.

The early years had been incredibly tough but when she’d chosen to live with flatmates so that she and Harry weren’t cooped up in a tiny flat and so isolated, life had settled into something that was as good as it could get, as far as Laura was concerned. Harry had been so happy at home, especially after he’d started at the nearby school. Laura had found great friends in her flatmates and then their partners, and had two jobs that she loved equally—being a senior nurse in the Royal’s Accident and Emergency department and being Harry’s mum.

Laura pushed open the firestop door in the stairwell and walked towards the brightly decorated entrance to the paediatric ward. Totally out of the blue, she had a new challenge that was every bit as terrifying as when she’d sat beside that incubator in Intensive Care, praying that her baby would make it. And yeah... Tom probably thought she was flaky, talking about playing the best game of life that you could with the cards you had been dealt and how you had no choice but to fight for the people you loved, but...those words of hers had been true, hadn’t they?

At least Laura knew how to fight and that it was possible to win in the end.

She’d never been more determined that she was going to win a battle, either. Previous experience was helpful in reassuring her that she did have the strength. That, even if it felt like an impossible ask and you were on the brink of losing absolutely everything, you just had to keep going somehow—one step at a time—and eventually you’d find yourself on the other side. And it was going to be the winning side. It had to be.

For Harry.

And for herself.

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