From best friend...

...to future bride?

In this The Good Luck Hospital story, when surgeon Duc asks best friend and midwife Viv for help at his late parents’ Hanoi hospital, she doesn’t hesitate. Duc is the closest thing nomadic Viv has to family, but her platonic feelings for him are changing...into attraction! The clock is ticking on Viv’s time in Vietnam. Will she finally stay in the only place she’s ever felt at home—by Duc’s side?

SCARLET WILSON wrote her first story aged eight and has never stopped. She’s worked in the health service for twenty years, having trained as a nurse and a health visitor. Scarlet now works in public health and lives on the West Coast of Scotland with her fiancé and their two sons. Writing medical romances and contemporary romances is a dream come true for her.

Also by Scarlet Wilson

Locked Down with the Army Doc

Cinderella’s New York Christmas

Island Doctor to Royal Bride?

Tempted by the Hot Highland Doc

The Good Luck Hospital miniseries

Healing the Single Dad’s Heart

Just Friends to Just Married?

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Just Friends to Just Married?

Scarlet Wilson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09018-6

JUST FRIENDS TO JUST MARRIED?

© 2019 Scarlet Wilson

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.

® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

MILLS & BOON

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

Note to Readers

This ebook contains the following accessibility features which, if supported by your device, can be accessed via your ereader/accessibility settings:

 Change of font size and line height

 Change of background and font colours

 Change of font

 Change justification

 Text to speech

This book is dedicated to all my best boys:

Noah Dickson, Lleyton Hyndman and Luca Dickson.

Love you guys!

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

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Extract

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

THE SHRILL OF the phone cut through the dark night.

Vivienne Kerr fought her way free of the tangled sheets, her brain desperately trying to make sense of the noise. Was she on call? Was this a home delivery?

By the time she reached for the phone she was shaking her head. No. Definitely not on call. Not tonight. She’d been on call for the last three nights in a row. This was her first night off.

Or maybe it was morning. Maybe she’d slept for more than twenty-four hours and was late for her next shift...

Her eyes glanced at the green lights of her clock. Three thirty-seven. Her heart sank. Nope. She definitely wasn’t late, and no normal person would phone at this time of night—not unless it was bad news.

She picked up the phone, sucking in a breath as if, in some way, it would protect her from what would come next.

She was practically praying that this would be a wrong number. Someone looking for a taxi, or someone with crazy middle-of-the-night hunger pangs that could only be filled with some kind of takeaway food, or even a drunken call from some guy she’d previously given her number to. She’d take any of the above.

‘Hello?’

For a few seconds there wasn’t really a reply.

Every tiny hair on her bare arms stood on end. She swung her legs from the bed and sat bolt upright. All her instincts were on edge. Her stomach clenched.

‘Hello?’ she tried again.

There was a noise at the end of the phone. She couldn’t quite work out if it was a sob or a choke. ‘Viv.’

The voice stopped, as if it had taken all their effort just to say her name. She’d recognise that voice anywhere.

‘Duc?’ Panic gripped her. Her best friend. Where was he working now—Washington? Philadelphia? She moved into work mode. The way she acted when everything that could go wrong at a delivery did go wrong.

Take charge.

‘Duc? What’s wrong? Where are you? Are you okay?’

Every tiny fragment of patience that she’d ever had had just flown out of the window. Duc. As she squeezed her eyes shut, she could see his floppy brown hair and soft brown eyes in her head. Duc. They’d met at a teaching hospital in London while she’d been a midwifery student and he’d been a medical student. No one could have predicted how much the crazy, rootless Scottish girl would click with the ever cheerful, laughing Vietnamese boy.

It was fate. It was...kind of magic.

A clinical emergency had floored them both. A young mother with an undiagnosed placenta praevia. Both had only been in the room to observe. Both had had no experience of a situation like this before. The mother had haemorrhaged rapidly, leading to the delivery of a very blue baby. Both Vivienne and Duc had ended up at either side of the bed, squeezing in emergency units of blood at almost the same rate as it appeared to be coming back out of the poor mother. It seemed that every rule in the book had gone out of the window in the attempt to save both baby and mum.

By the time things had come to a conclusion with mum rushed to emergency surgery, and baby rushed to the NICU, Duc and Vivienne had been left in the remnants of the room, with almost every surface, them included, splattered with blood.

Vivienne had done her best to hold it together. And she’d managed it. Almost.

Right until she’d reached the sluice room to dispose of aprons and gloves. Then she’d started to shake and cry. When the slim but strong arms had slid around her waist without a word, and Duc had rested his head on her shoulder, she’d realised that he had been shaking too. He’d known not to try and speak to her. He’d known not to ask her if she wanted a hug. He’d just acted, and they’d stood there, undisturbed, for nearly five minutes, cementing their friendship for ever.

But now? Fear gripped her chest. Duc hadn’t answered.

Worst-case scenarios started shooting through her brain. He was sick. He was injured. Something terrible had happened to him.

‘Duc? Talk to me, please. I need to know how you are. I need to know that you’re okay.’

‘I...I...I need you.’

She was on her feet in an instant, looking frantically around her room. She clenched the phone between the crook of her neck and her ear as she fell to her knees and pulled a bag from the bottom of her cupboard.

‘I’ll be there.’ She’d never been surer of anything in her life. ‘Where are you? What’s wrong?’

‘It’s...mẹ va cha.’

She recognised the Vietnamese words instantly. ‘Your mum and dad? Duc, what’s happened? Are they hurt?’

Her stomach clenched. She’d met Khiem and Hoa on a few occasions. They were a charming couple, completely devoted to the hospitals they ran in Hanoi and two other outlying areas in Vietnam.

Silence filled her ears and an ache spread across her chest. Experience told her that silence usually meant the worst possible case.

‘Duc,’ she stumbled. ‘No.’

She couldn’t keep the emotion out of her voice or the tears from pooling in her eyes.

She heard him suck in a deep breath, it was almost like he’d flicked a switch somehow. ‘I need you,’ he repeated. ‘There was a car accident. I’ve had to fly back to Hanoi. We don’t have another obstetrician, and I don’t have any midwives. I can’t do this, Viv. I can’t do any of this. I need someone with me. I need someone to help me. Can you come?’

So many questions crowded her brain. She knew there were good, reliable medics who worked at the hospitals. Khiem and Hoa were meticulous about who they hired. But she also knew that, right now, that wasn’t what Duc needed to hear.

Officially, she should give notice to her current employer. She hated to be thought of as unreliable. But this was an emergency. A family emergency, because Duc felt like family to her.

‘I’ll sort it. I’ll get there.’ As she started pushing random clothes into a bag her heart ached for him. Last time they’d spoken, a few weeks ago, he’d been full of enthusiasm. He’d started a new job a month before—a surgical and teaching fellowship in one of big cities in the US. She’d almost been a tiny bit jealous about how happy he’d sounded. Duc had a charm about him, he was friendly and good at his job. No matter where they’d worked together in the past, she’d always ridden a little on his coattails. Duc was the one who made friends and got them invites to dinner and parties. Viv was just his plus one. It was like he’d realised early on that she struggled with forming relationships, and he would do that part for her.

‘Thank you,’ his voice croaked.

It halted her in her tracks and she dropped back down onto her knees.

‘Of course,’ she said without question. ‘I’ll go to the airport. I’ll find a flight. I’ll text you once I have the details.’

She wanted to wrap her hands around his neck right now and give him the biggest bear hug. She wanted to breathe in the, oh, so familiar aftershave that always drifted into her senses when they were close. She hated to think of her friend in pain.

‘Duc?’ she whispered, before she hung up. She looked at the crooked little finger on her right hand. Years ago they’d adopted a quirky move from a kids movie where they intertwined their pinkies and said the phrase, ‘Friends for life.’ It had become a long-standing joke between them. She licked her lips. ‘Friends for life,’ she said huskily, then her voice broke.

There was a muted pause for a few seconds. This time he sounded a little stronger. ‘Friends for life,’ he repeated, before she hung up the phone.

CHAPTER TWO

DESPITE LEAVING LONDON three days ago, Vivienne still wasn’t here.

It could only happen to her. There had been no direct flights available, so she’d taken a whole host of journeys that had bounced her halfway around the globe in order to reach him. She’d had delays, cancellations, engine failure and then an air traffic control strike to contend with. Duc stared at his watch, his eyes flicking back to the arrivals doors at Hanoi airport. Each text had seemed just a little more frantic than the one before.

His stomach was clenched in an uncomfortable knot. It had been this way since he’d got the initial news about his mother and father. He could barely remember packing up his rented apartment, or his flight from Philadelphia to Hanoi. By the time he’d reached the May Mắn Hospital and Lien and her new husband had rushed out to meet him, he had been numb.

There had been a string of traditions and rites around the funeral to take care of. So many people had visited that Duc felt as if he’d worn his white funeral clothes for three days straight. He knew it was because people wanted to pay their respects but keeping his expression in place had been hard.

In the meantime, the hospital had to be kept running. The staff were distraught. The leaders and motivators that they’d worked with for years were gone, and he could see everyone look at him with wariness in their eyes.

By the time he’d buried his mother and father he’d been exhausted. What he really wanted to do was climb back onto a plane and forget anything like this had ever happened. He’d spent the last week hoping someone would pinch him in an on-call room and this whole thing would just have been some kind of monumental nightmare.

Something flickered at the side of his vision. Then a sound. It started as a tinkling laugh that grew into something much deeper and heartier.

His heart gave a little leap. There was only one person who had a laugh like that.

Even though he was tall, he stood on tiptoe to try and catch his first glimpse of her in amongst the exiting crowds.

There. Vivienne was talking animatedly to a rather frail, elderly gentleman, her arm interlinked through his. Her red curls were tumbling down her back in loose waves, a white shirt knotted at her waist and a pair of cut-off denim shorts showing off her long legs.

The original pretty woman. It was what everyone said as soon as they looked at her. Only her Scottish accent betrayed her similarities to the famous actress.

He could see heads turn as she sauntered past. Her casual grace was always noticeable. There weren’t too many people here who looked like Viv.

Duc watched as she guided the man over towards his family, walking easily with him as if she had known him all her life. She was in nurse mode. He could tell. People watching would think it was a grandfather and granddaughter, not just some random Scots girl who’d befriended the elderly man on the flight to make sure he was okay. Duc couldn’t help the smile that tugged at the edges of his lips—the first time he’d smiled in days. Only Vivienne. He watched as she brought the man safely to his family, shaking hands with them all, before turning around and scanning the crowd until finally catching Duc’s gaze.

She didn’t hesitate. Her face lit up. She dropped her bags at her feet and ran over to him, jumping up and winding her legs around him. She didn’t even say a word. She just buried her face deep into his neck and held on tight.

He could see the amused glances from people close by—as if they were witnessing a pair of lovers reunited. But somehow Duc didn’t feel the urge to explain. Just the press of her body against his felt good.

He closed his eyes for a second too and just held her there, letting the heat from her body sink into his. His senses were flooded as the familiar aroma of orange blossom from her shampoo drifted around him.

For an instant in time he was in an entirely different place. One where he hadn’t received the call about his parents when he was about to walk into surgery. One where he hadn’t had to come here and bury the mother and father he’d unrealistically thought would probably live for ever. One where his current career plans weren’t up in the air as he was left with a number of hospitals to run.

Nope. He was in a bubble. A Vivienne-sized bubble. The things he’d craved in the last few days swept over him. Reassurance. Safety. The ability to just be Duc, instead of the bereaved son putting on a brave face—that was the range of feelings that overwhelmed him. Viv was here. She would help him. She would help him sort all this out and get back to the life he truly wanted.

He blinked back the tears that flooded into his eyes. He’d waited days to do this. To feel his friend in his arms and know that someone would have his back. Part of him wished they could teleport out of this airport and straight back to his room so he could crumple on the sofa.

His back was stiff and every muscle in his body ached from keeping it together. He’d nodded his head so many times it was now almost on autopilot. He’d shaken hands with so many old and familiar faces. But for some reason it hadn’t brought the comfort he’d thought it would.

This was what he needed. That was what he’d craved.

She pulled her head up, her pale blue eyes just inches from his. ‘I stink,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve been wearing the same clothes for three days.’ She jumped down.

Instantly, his bubble was gone.

‘I’ve smelled worse.’ He smiled as he grabbed one of her cases and she slid her arm through his.

As soon as they stepped outside into the warm humid air of Hanoi, Viv started fanning herself. Her brow creased. ‘Was it this hot the last time we came here?’

‘Hotter,’ he replied. He had a car waiting for them outside the airport building and he opened the door for her and waited until she slid inside. He bent his head inside. ‘And we need to discuss your clothing.’ He winked and pointed at her long bare legs. ‘Those? They’re a banquet for the mosquitos around here.’

He closed the door and walked around to the other side, climbing in, closing the door and letting her lean back against the cool leather seats. The air-conditioning was on full blast.

‘Wait until you get to the hospital. There’s a new guy. He was a GP from Scotland. You two will be able to cackle away to each other in Glaswegian, and no one else will have a clue what you’re saying.’

She turned her head and raised one eyebrow—a move Viv had perfected years before. ‘Cackle?’

He laughed, something that came from deep inside him. But the release of the laugh made his shoulders shake in a way he couldn’t quite work out, then his arms and his hands.

It was almost as if a switch had been flicked somewhere deep down inside. By the time the tears started to fall down his cheeks, Viv had slid across the leather and wrapped her arms around his neck. ‘Oh, Duc,’ she said quietly, ‘what am I going to do with you?’

It wasn’t really a question. And he knew that—and was glad, because he couldn’t possibly answer it. All the emotions he’d bottled up from the last few days just seemed to come tumbling out.

The frustration. The anger. The grief. All while Vivienne held him and the city sped past outside.

This wasn’t what he’d wanted. It had been years since she’d visited Hanoi. He’d expected to point out some of the sights to her, and then talk to her about the current issues at the hospital. He couldn’t do that when he was struggling to even breathe.

It was like she read his mind.

‘Count to ten,’ she whispered in his ear. ‘We’ll do it together.’

Her voice was slow and steady. ‘One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.’

She did it again. Then again.

Each time she slowed her speech down more, making his breaths longer and smoother. One of her hands rubbed his back while the other intertwined her fingers with his.

By the time he realised that the car had stopped outside the May Mắn Hospital he felt as if he was back to normal—or as normal as he could feel.

He ran one hand through his hair and shook his head, almost embarrassed to look Viv in the eye. This was the last thing he wanted to do.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said hoarsely.

‘Why?’ she said simply, as she moved back over to the other side of the car and picked up her bag. ‘I’m your best friend. If you can’t be like this with me, then who can you be like this with?’

She opened the door before he had a chance to say anything else, stretching out her back and facing the pale yellow hospital. ‘Now,’ she said loudly in her no-nonsense Scottish accent, ‘before anything else—can you show me where the shower is?’

And for the first time in days things finally felt as if they might be a bit better.

CHAPTER THREE

SHE’D SPENT THE last three nights sleeping on chairs or airport floors. Every bone and muscle in her body ached.

The hospital was eerily quiet. The staff she’d met had shaken hands with her politely and looked at Duc with wary eyes. She could sense everyone tiptoeing around him.

She’d always loved this place on the times they’d visited. Even the name May Mắn, which translated to ‘good luck’ in English and that was what she always called it in her head. The Good Luck Hospital. The place had an upbeat vibe and served one of the poorest populations in Hanoi. But somehow now, as they passed through the corridors, the vibe felt very different.

Once they’d walked through to the grounds at the back, he took her to one of the three white cottages built on the land the hospital owned. It had a pale yellow door. Khiem and Hoa’s house.

For some strange reason she hadn’t thought he would be staying in his parents’ home and it made her catch her breath.

She blinked. Unexpected tears formed in her eyes. She’d met Khiem and Hoa on a few occasions. They had been lovely, warm people, dedicated to their work, and to the people they’d served.

She’d been able to tell from a few glances just how proud they had been of their son. But more than that, they’d been welcoming, interested in the lonely Scottish girl that Duc had invited into their home. They’d never made her feel as if she’d outstayed her welcome, or that she couldn’t come back whenever she wanted. Hoa had emailed on a few occasions when vacancies had arisen at the hospital—almost giving Viv first refusal. It had been considerate, and kind, and she’d appreciated the gesture, even though she’d only ever visited with Duc.

Now she was back in their home, without really having had time to mourn the passing of her friends. She’d missed the funeral and just walking through the front door sent her senses into overload.

She glanced nervously at Duc, wondering what this must be doing to him. Today was the first time in their friendship that she’d ever seen him break down.

Of course he would. He’d just lost his mum and dad in some random crazy car accident. And deep inside she knew that it had killed him to do that in front of her. But this was why she’d come. This was why she hadn’t hesitated to jump on a plane to get here.

Duc had played this role in her life over and over again. By the time they’d met, her adoptive parents had already died. He’d supported her when she’d searched for her birth parents—and had been there when both of them had turned out to be less than she’d hoped for. He’d wrapped her in his arms when she’d had her heart broken twice. And when she’d had a cruel diagnosis a few years ago that had messed with her head.

Of course she would be here for him. Her heart was breaking for him—but she wouldn’t let him see that. Here, she had to be the strong one. Duc had played the role for her time and time again, and this time she would do it for him.

Even if everything in this quaint house reminded her in every way of both his parents.

She breathed deeply. She could even smell them here—the jasmine tea they always drank, the sandalwood cologne his father always wore, and the rose-scented spray his mother used in the rooms. Vivienne blinked. The truth was that she expected them to walk through the door at any moment. And if she felt like that, she could only imagine how Duc was feeling.

She reached over and grabbed his hand. ‘Duc, are you sure about staying here? About being here?’

On a table was a framed picture of Duc and his parents together. In another corner was a pile of books that one of his parents must have been reading. A popular fiction novel, a historical romance, a book about alternative therapies and a research journal about obstetrics.

He turned around to look at her, leaving her case in the middle of the sitting room. For the first time she realised just how tired he looked. ‘Where else can I go? I’ve have to cover shifts at the hospital.’ He looked almost apologetic. ‘And so do you.’

She nodded. ‘Of course. I’m ready to start tomorrow. Just tell me what you need me to do.’ She gave him a careful stare. ‘There isn’t anywhere else you can stay but here?’

He looked around and held out his hands. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘It’s home. It’s not my home,’ he said quickly, ‘but it’s theirs. And I can’t stay anywhere else.’

He stepped forward and tugged her case. ‘I’ve put you in here. I changed the beds...’ He pulled a face. ‘Actually, that’s not true. Mai Ahn, our interpreter, came in and did everything. I think she just wanted to help and, to be honest, I’m really glad she did.’

He was accepting help. Good. Duc could be stubborn sometimes, his intense pride getting in the way of things. She wasn’t sure quite what kind of relationship he had with the people who worked here, but at least he wasn’t shutting everyone out.

Viv moved towards the room. It only took an instant to realise the room had belonged to Khiem and Hoa. Their belongings were still scattered at various points around the place. A pair of shoes neatly tucked under a chair. Another book on the bedside table. A notepad with some scribbles next to the phone in the room. She gulped, feeling a little overwhelmed. Of course she could object—but Duc was obviously using the other room. Objecting would just make things more difficult for him.

She pressed her lips together for a second then turned and gave him a bright smile. ‘Okay, let me get showered, then we can talk.’

There was the briefest of pauses. Talking was the last thing Duc clearly wanted to do. But she wasn’t going to be put off. She was here to help, and she couldn’t do that by not talking. Duc knew her better than that anyhow.

She walked back over and stood underneath his nose. ‘No, I’m not too tired. No, I don’t want to do anything else first. Find me some food, and I’m all yours.’ She nudged him with her elbow. ‘No excuses.’

He let out a sigh. It was clear she’d won this battle. ‘No excuses,’ he agreed as he strode through to the kitchen and started opening cupboards.

* * *

He hadn’t eaten properly in the last three days. He hadn’t been hungry, and it had been the last thing on his mind. But as he pulled some food from the cupboards and fridge, splashed some oil into the wok, his stomach let out an involuntary rumble.

He heard the sound of the running shower, closely followed by the blast of the hairdryer. Vivienne was quick, opening the door with her hair in a red cloud around her head and wearing a pair of soft white cotton pyjamas. She glanced towards the table and tiled floor, then moved across to the sofa and sagged down on the comfortable cushions, pulling her feet up. Duc was already serving up into two bowls. He handed her the chicken and noodle mixture then sat down next to her on the sofa.

She warily sniffed her dish. ‘Okay, is this edible?’

He smiled. ‘What are you trying to say about my cooking?’

‘I say that for as long as I’ve known you, your cooking has always involved a takeout menu.’

He pretended to look hurt. ‘Try it. It’s one of my mother’s recipes.’

The words came out of nowhere, quickly followed by the tumbleweed that seemed to blow across the room in front of him.

Viv’s hand reached over and gave his knee a quick squeeze. ‘I’m sure it’s fine,’ she said quietly, as she started to eat.

Every spoonful was an unconscious reminder. He’d used the spices and oils from his mother’s cupboards. The pangs of hunger he’d felt for a few moments instantly vanished. Now he understood why grieving friends lost weight. It was so easy to be distracted—to be put off.

Vivienne was different—she ate hungrily, emptying the bowl in five minutes. She stood up and walked over to the fridge, examining the contents before pulling out a bottle of spring water. ‘This wasn’t what I had in mind,’ she said as she held it up, ‘but I’ll make do.’

He watched as she rested one hand on the chair. Her white cotton pyjamas might cover every part of her, but they still highlighted every curve. Curves he’d never really paid any attention to before—and he was currently asking himself why.

The lines between him and Vivienne had been clear from the beginning. They were friends—best friends. He’d held her hair back while she’d been sick, she’d put him up when his roommate had wrecked their apartment and they’d been flung out. From the word go, they’d felt comfortable around each other. They’d had countless conversations over the years about Viv’s disastrous relationships. She was smart. She was gorgeous. She was sassy. And she had appalling taste in men.

Every no-good layabout, sob-story-carrying wastrel seemed to cross her path. Each one breaking her heart more than the one before.

Viv had also cast her eyes over Duc’s partners over the years. Some she’d been grudgingly approving of, others had been dismissed with a wave of a hand and a few perceptive words. Gold-digger. Stalker. Needs a backbone. Self-obsessed.

He, in turn, grudgingly admitted that on most occasions those few words had turned out to be uncannily accurate. He’d started to call her the fortune teller and tease her to pick their lottery numbers.

But she hadn’t seen this coming.

The door rattled behind them and Lien burst through the door. ‘Good, you’re here. I need you.’

Lien’s eyes went hastily to Vivienne and she gave a little start.

Duc stepped forward. ‘Lien, this is Vivienne Kerr, my friend, the midwife that I told you about.’

Lien gave a quick nod of her head. ‘Perfect timing.’ She didn’t ask why Vivienne was standing in Duc’s house in her pyjamas. Instead she turned back to the door. ‘Get changed quickly—you’re needed.’

* * *

Everything happened in the blink of an eye. One minute Viv was contemplating sitting down with her friend and finding out exactly how she could help him best.

The next second she was stripping off her comfortable PJs and yanking on a pair of the burgundy-coloured scrubs she kept in the top of her rucksack. She grabbed her matching soft shoes and ran across the grass, back towards the hospital.

Even though it was the middle of the night, every corridor was brightly lit. Vivienne followed the others. Lien was talking rapidly in Vietnamese and Duc was nodding. She tried to focus. She’d worked here a few times and had picked up a few phrases in Vietnamese. For a midwife they mainly comprised of ‘push’, ‘stop’ and ‘breathe’, but her brain was struggling to remember them right now.

Duc walked through to another room. Viv tried to keep track. She hadn’t familiarised herself completely with this place again. Between that, the jet-lag, and the overwhelming sweep of tiredness, she wasn’t firing on all cylinders. Thank goodness she’d had time to eat.

Her hands caught her hair and coiled it at the back of her neck, twisting it back on itself until it was anchored in place. Lien’s gaze caught hers. ‘Neat trick.’ She gave Viv an anxious smile.

Viv shrugged. ‘Years of people stealing my hair elastics. Had to improvise.’

The anxiousness of Lien’s smile made Viv’s stomach clench. Last time Viv had been here she’d been impressed by the relaxed nature of most of the deliveries at May Mắn Hospital. Hoa had very much believed in letting the woman take the lead for her labour—much like most of the midwife-led units back home—and Viv shared this philosophy. But right now? When there was a clinical emergency? Things were different. Now it was the job of the professionals to guide the woman and baby to the safest possible conclusion, and from the look on Lien’s face it was up to Viv to take the lead.

Duc pulled his T-shirt over his head, swapping it for a pale blue scrub top that he grabbed from the pile on a rack on the wall. Viv tried not to stare. But it had been a long time since she’d seen Duc in a state of semi-undress. His chiselled abs weren’t lost on her. She wasn’t blind. She pulled her eyes away just as Lien moved closer. ‘Do you want to come and meet our patient, Viv?’

Viv nodded. ‘Of course.’

Lien gave her a small smile as she pushed open a door. ‘I’ll introduce you.’

Lien gestured to the woman in the bed. There was another man with light brown hair by her bed. ‘This is Resta. She’s thirty-nine weeks, or thereabouts. Presented in labour with what appears to be shoulder dystocia. We have no prenatal history.’

Viv nodded. Because she’d worked here before with Duc she knew it wasn’t entirely unusual for women not to present for prenatal care.

Lien pointed to the other guy in the room. ‘My husband, Dr Joe Lennox.’

Joe was in position at the bottom of the bed, one hand cradling part of the baby’s head. He gave a quick glance up. ‘I hope you’re the cavalry,’ he said in a hushed voice, keeping his expression neutral, ‘because I’m no obstetrician and I’m out of options.’ His Glasgow accent was thick, and Viv immediately recognised the stress in his voice.

Viv drew in a breath. Shoulder dystocia. Every midwife and obstetrician’s nightmare. A baby whose shoulder got stuck and stopped the baby being delivered safely.

Viv looked around the room quickly, locating some gloves. ‘Would you like me to take a look?’

Joe nodded gratefully. ‘Please.’ Lien turned to the woman on the bed and spoke to her in Vietnamese, introducing Vivienne to her. There was no getting away from it, the woman looked exhausted and terrified. No wonder. Shoulder dystocia could rarely be predicted. Women typically got to the end of a long labour and once they’d delivered their baby’s head thought it was only a matter of minutes until it was all over.

Vivienne glanced around the room again, quickly taking note of the equipment available to her.

She took a deep breath. Lien and Joe were both doing their best to keep their faces neutral, but Joe had already told her this wasn’t his field. From what she’d gathered from Duc, this was nobody’s field right now at May Mắn Hospital.

Hoa was dead, and the other obstetrician who normally helped out was off sick, having just been diagnosed with breast cancer.

It looked like Vivienne was the total of midwifery and obstetric knowledge here.

She could see the baby’s head tight against the perineum. This wasn’t the first time she’d dealt with a shoulder dystocia. But usually a diagnosis was followed by hitting the emergency buzzer, with two other midwives, an anaesthetist and an obstetrician all rushing to assist.

Those people weren’t here now. It was her. It was just her.

Deep inside, part of her wanted to scream for this poor woman. She’d worked with Duc over the years, and she knew he was a good doctor. The absolute worst-case scenario here would be the Zavanelli manoeuvre, where they had to try and put the baby’s head back into the vagina and perform an emergency caesarean section. Duc was the only surgeon here. She doubted if he’d performed a caesarean section before but, if need be, she could talk him through it.

She pushed that thought away and tried not to think about it, taking a note of the time on the clock on the wall.

Viv moved automatically into midwife mode, reassuring her patient, even though she didn’t speak the language, and letting Lien or Duc take time to translate everything she said.

It was a stressful situation for everyone in the room. Joe and Lien were calm influences, moving smoothly and easily. They seemed to foresee each other’s actions. It was interesting to watch them work together.

Vivienne took charge. Assessing her patient. Directing her not to push. She attached a monitor to the baby that would alert her to any signs of distress.

‘Okay, folks,’ she said calmly. ‘We’re going to try a change of position. It’s called the McRoberts manoeuvre and it’s used in this condition to try and release the shoulder. What we really want to do is create some space in the pelvis, and we need to move mum and, sometimes, baby to do that.’

She gave Lien a nod, waiting for her to explain to Resta that they were going to help her to lie on her back and move her legs outwards and up towards her chest. As this was a delivery room there was no end on the bed and Vivienne could move easily to try and assist.

She kept her face completely neutral. ‘This entirely depends on the baby’s position. If it’s the anterior shoulder caught under the symphysis pubis, this tends to work.’

‘And if it’s not?’ Duc’s dark eyes met hers. He’d moved behind the patient, supporting her position.

Vivienne kept her voice calm and low. ‘If it’s both shoulders, they’ll be stuck under the pelvis brim and this won’t help. But this is where we start.’

She kept calm. Running through the mental checklist in her head. Waiting to see if the change of position would have any effect on the baby’s ability to be delivered. She was lucky. This baby wasn’t showing signs of distress. Yet.

After a few minutes she shifted to the side of the bed, giving Duc a nod. ‘I’m going to press on the abdomen just above the pubic bone to try and release the shoulder. Can someone explain to Resta and keep reassuring her?’

Duc nodded and spoke in a deep, low voice, his hand gently on the woman’s arm. She could tell that the woman seemed to trust what he was telling her, even though she was clearly exhausted. Viv understood that at this stage all any woman wanted was to deliver her baby and have it safely in her arms.

It was interesting. She was in a room with three doctors, who were all perfectly willing to allow her to take the lead. There were no power struggles in here. Everyone just wanted this baby out safely.

Vivienne kept a careful eye on the clock and the baby monitor. Timing was crucial.

‘Okay, time to try something else, I’m going to do something called the Rubin manoeuvre to try and release the baby’s shoulders.’

She explained carefully, then slid fingers in on either side of the baby’s head, trying a number of techniques, without success.

The baby’s heart rate started to slow. Both mum and baby were tired, and the baby was starting to get distressed.

She was calm and methodical, secretly glad that the heart monitor wasn’t on her instead of the baby because, despite everything, panic was definitely setting in. She wasn’t quite sure how long it would take them to set up a theatre if need be.

‘Okay,’ she said. The baby’s head was still wedged tightly, with very little room for a blade to make an episiotomy. ‘Let’s try mum around on all fours. Let’s see if a further change of position lets things move on.’

In another few minutes she would need to attempt to deliver one of the baby’s arms or give Duc the nod that they needed to head to Theatre. She was running out of options.

Lien explained in a reassuring manner to Resta what they wanted her to try, just as Vivienne sent a little prayer skyward. Joe and Duc helped mum around and baby let out a little grumble at the change of position.

But within a few seconds it was clear it was the right move. Resta was on all fours on the bed. Viv hated the fact she no longer had eye contact with mum, but this was a case of needs must.

Almost instantly she could see a change. ‘Give me a second,’ she said to the others. The baby’s face looked a little more relaxed. ‘I think the shoulder’s been dislodged. Tell Resta to give me a push on her next contraction.’

One minute later the little bundle slid out into her arms. After a few seconds of shocked silence the baby started screaming. Vivienne did a few quick checks. Colour was good. Baby was breathing.

Joe appeared at her side and held out his hands for the baby. Duc helped her clamp and cut the cord, then they helped Resta turn back around to deliver the placenta. Viv caught Joe’s eye. He gave a hopeful nod. When shoulder dystocia had a complicated delivery there could be injuries to the baby’s shoulders and nerves. The baby would need to be observed. But for now he brought the baby over to let mum have a cuddle. ‘Đó là một cô gái,’ he said.

A girl. She recognised the word. Mum looked thrilled. The relief in the room was palpable, all the professionals exchanging glances. Duc shot her a smile and gave a grateful nod of his head as he walked back towards her. ‘Thank goodness you were here,’ he whispered.

Viv looked around the room as she started to tidy up. ‘I’m sure you would have all got there.’ The clenching in her stomach was only just starting to ease.

Lien came over and rubbed Viv’s arm. ‘Thanks so much.’ She glanced at her husband. ‘Sorry for the rude introduction earlier. Joe and I can take it from here. You must be exhausted.’

Viv nodded. ‘I am, but let me finish the notes and a few final checks on mum.’ It didn’t matter how tired she was. She would always make sure her clinical work and her paperwork were completed.

One of the aides brought in some jasmine tea, and Joe did some more checks on the baby. As Vivienne made sure she was satisfied that mum and baby were settled and well cared for, Duc slung an arm around her shoulders.

‘You look as if you haven’t slept in a week. Let’s go. Those jammies are still waiting.’

They walked back out into the cooler night air. Viv stopped for a moment, putting her hands on her hips and arching her aching back.

‘Okay?’ He was right next to her, the warmth from his body crossing the minuscule space between them.

She looked up into his dark eyes. ‘You weren’t joking, were you—when you said you’d no one for obstetrics?’

His dark eyes clouded. He shook his head. ‘No. No one. I don’t know when, or if, our other doctor will be back. This was an area that my mother always took care of—was always on top of. The last few days...’ he looked up the dark night sky ‘...I guess we’ve just been lucky.’

‘You can’t rely on luck, Duc,’ she said quickly. ‘That’s not fair on the staff, or the patients.’

He sighed, and she could literally see the energy sagging out of his body. He’d come into that situation tonight, knowing that performing an unfamiliar surgery could be the difference between life and death for that mum and baby. She hadn’t seen him halt or contemplate refusing. He’d been there. Ready to perform if required.

She turned to face him, their bodies almost touching. ‘What would have happened if you’d needed to do a section?’

He paused for only a second. ‘Then I would have done a section.’ He looked down at her. ‘I’m sure you could have talked me through it.’

Viv’s skin prickled—and not in a good way. ‘But that puts horrible pressure on you, and me.’ She shook her head. ‘This can’t happen again.’

He stepped back and ran his hands through his hair. ‘You think I don’t know that?’ He threw his hands upwards. ‘You think I wasn’t in there absolutely crapping myself?’ He turned his back and took a few steps away from her, his momentary flare of anger starting to dissipate. ‘You think I want any of this, Viv?’

His voice broke and she stepped forward and took his hands in hers. He kept talking. ‘Of course I don’t. But tonight would have been considered emergency surgery. Whether obstetrics is my area or not, I’m still a general surgeon. I would still be expected to perform emergency surgery as and when required.’

His hands were shaking, and she realised just how scared he had actually been.

‘I don’t want to be here, Viv. I don’t want any of this. But what can I do? The worst part about all this—I don’t even feel myself right now. I can’t be myself. I need to be Khiem and Hoa’s son.’ He had a bit of a wild, panicked look in his eyes. ‘The one who will sort out the hospitals and make sure the patients are looked after. The one who will make sure everything keeps running exactly as it did before—supplying all the same services for patients, even though we’re two doctors down. Maybe I just wave my magic wand and whip them out of thin air? I tried to place an advert and begin the recruitment process yesterday—but apparently there’s some red tape and I need to meet with the lawyer first. How can a hospital run with no doctors?’

He put his hands on his hips and took a few deep breaths, his head downcast. Now she understood the pressure he was truly under. Before, she’d just been thinking about the grief of losing his parents. But it seemed she really should have paid much more attention to his panicked phone call. He raised his head and met her gaze, pressing a hand to his chest. ‘I can’t just be Duc Nguyen, surgeon from Philadelphia. The guy who was just about to sign on a house he’s spent the last six months looking for. The guy who had been tipped that he was going to be offered the next slot on the team at the teaching hospital. I’d even been told to start thinking about recruiting my own team.’ He threw up his hands. ‘This is just not where I thought I would be.’

She reached over and put her hand on his arm, gently bringing it back down. Part of her had always envied Duc and his lovely family life. But now she could see how much pain it had unlocked for him. Maybe her detached way of life was actually easier.

She hadn’t known about the house, or the potential to become a permanent member of the team in Philadelphia. That was huge. He must have done so well. It was clear they were impressed by him. Now she understood exactly how much being here was costing him.

He closed his eyes and spoke quietly. ‘The reading of the will is in a few days and then I’ll find out what my parents’ plans were for this place.’ His face crumpled. ‘They always mentioned they wanted me to take over—and I always told them my heart was in surgery. But we never had a truly serious conversation—not one with plans and lawyers. Our half-hearted discussions took place at the dinner table or between seeing patients when I came back and helped out during the holidays. Now I’m realising how much I don’t know. I guess we just never imagined that something like this would happen.’

He shook his head. ‘Until it did.’ He held out his hands for a few seconds, before walking closer and resting them down on her shoulders.

His head dipped towards hers. And they stood there for a few seconds in the moonlight with their foreheads touching. ‘I’m just glad you’re here, Viv. I couldn’t cope with any of this without you.’

She had so much she wanted to say right now—about the hospital, the responsibilities, the issues that needed to be sorted out straight away. But it wasn’t the time. He didn’t need that right now. What Duc needed right now was his friend.

She reached up and put her hand over his, giving it a squeeze. ‘And you don’t need to.’

They stood for a few more moments, before Duc slung his arm back around her shoulders and they walked back to the bungalow.

As he pushed open the door, he gave her a half-smile. ‘Hey, Viv?’

She was already eyeing her discarded white pyjamas, dying to jump straight back into them. She glanced back at him. ‘What?’

He gave her a weary smile. ‘Welcome to Hanoi.’

CHAPTER FOUR

VIVIENNE HAD WORKED in a lot of places. She generally lasted between six months and a year before moving on. She made friends superficially at each new workplace. She was good at her job and generally had a good feel for people—she naturally knew who to avoid and who to trust. Her instincts had always been sound—except, of course, when it came to men.

Viv seemed to have an inbuilt ability to find the worst man in the room—no matter where she was. Her love life had been one disaster after another. The only guy that had been half-good was Archie, an electrician she’d met when she’d worked in Bristol. Archie had been too good, too nice—even Duc had liked him. But Archie had got too close. He’d tried to support her when she’d tried to trace her birth mum and then found out she was dead. His sympathy had felt overwhelming. His questions about how she was feeling had probed into emotions she wasn’t ready to deal with. It was almost like he had been trying to ‘fix her’—and Viv didn’t need to be fixed by anyone.

So she’d done what she did best, and retreated quickly. Instead, seeking out men who were their own natural disasters, and emotionally unavailable to her, made her life simpler. It made it easier to keep the shell she’d constructed around herself unbroken. Duc was the only person who’d ever been allowed to tap at the surface—the only man she’d ever really trusted. Which was why she was here, trying to get her head around her role within this hospital.

By day three she’d begun to get a feel for the place again. May Mắn Hospital had always been a little different. She’d only been here for short spells, but there was something about this place—it had a little buzz around it that she couldn’t explain. Before, she’d just imagined it was because of the connection to Duc. His parents had always been the heart and soul of the place.

Walking through the corridors, she could almost sense the echo of them. She half expected to turn a corner and walk into either one of them.

Trouble was, the staff had relied on them so much for, well, everything.

Lien seemed to have a good head on her shoulders for the day-to-day running of the hospital. For the general medical patients she was the go-to clinician. But she didn’t know anything about rotas, ordering supplies, or maintenance of the building. Her husband, Joe, helped out at some of the antenatal clinics. He’d worked as a GP back in Scotland, and could do general antenatal care, as well as regular hospital duties. But what was most interesting was the fact he seemed to have a real panache for working with the kids. They seemed to gravitate towards him—even though he still struggled with the language barrier, much the same as she did. It probably helped that he had a young son of his own, but watching her colleagues gave Viv a chance to understand the skills of those around her.

While all that was well and good, she hadn’t found anyone who had the skills she needed as an obstetrician. There was a visiting plastic surgeon, there was Duc, and there was a whole host of part-time nurses working within the hospital.

Trouble was that between Hoa and the other obstetrician there really had been no one else to look after the steady stream of pregnant women who came to the hospital. Viv had learned quickly that not all women in Hanoi presented early enough in their pregnancy to have any kind of antenatal screening.

Viv was lucky. One of her jobs had been on a Scottish island and had required her to have further training in carrying out sonograms. This meant she found herself doing routine sonograms on a whole range of women at different gestations, coming up against a whole host of potential issues.

The truth was, she couldn’t do this on her own. She was a midwife. Not a consultant.

She wandered through the corridors in the midst of another busy day. Duc was sitting at the desk in her father’s office, his head resting on one hand.

‘Knock, knock,’ she said as she walked in.

He looked up. There were dark circles under his eyes. Even though she knew he went to bed at night, it was clear he wasn’t sleeping.

He started to stand up but she shook her head as she sat in the chair opposite him. ‘Don’t. There’s no emergency. But we need to talk.’

His brow creased. ‘Just don’t tell me you’re leaving.’

She gave a weak smile. ‘Not yet. But you know me. I never hang my hat anywhere for long.’

He opened his mouth as if he was about to respond, then shook his head and held out one hand. ‘So, what’s up?’

She nodded. This was business. It had to be. She could see gaps that she wasn’t comfortable working around.

‘Things need to be clearer. At any other hospital I’ve worked at, we have protocols. A strict set of guidelines that everyone follows for certain events, certain conditions.’ She gave him a weak smile. ‘Thing is, at May Mắn? The protocols were your mum—literally. She knew everything, and everyone just went on her say-so. While that was fine when she was here...’

Duc winced and she cringed at her choice of words, but Viv kept going, this was too important. ‘Now...she’s not. Staff need guidelines to work to. Written-down guidelines. Maybe even stuck-to-the-wall guidelines. Your mother and Dr Tan were their safety net. Not all the nurses are midwives here. Some of them don’t know the first thing about dealing with maternity patients. In lots of cases the care isn’t difficult. They just need specifics. What to do, what to look out for, when to raise the alarm.’ She paused for a second, letting her words sink in.

Part of her was amazed at herself. She never really stayed anywhere long enough to look at procedures and protocols. Last time she’d been here, she’d been just as guilty of using Hoa as her sounding board. But Hoa wasn’t here now, and staff were unsure.

‘This could be relatively simple. There are protocols and guidelines for most things in hospitals the world over. We can choose the ones that work here, and you can get someone to help me translate them. The staff can do short training sessions, and we can put the most important ones in easy, visible places as reminders.’

Duc put his head in his hands. He was shaking it. ‘I can’t believe something so basic isn’t in place.’ He glanced back up, an incredulous look on his face. ‘How come this wasn’t done before?’

Viv pressed her lips together. It wasn’t up to her to judge. She’d no right to. She was just an outsider here. All she knew was that some of the staff were out of their depth and dealing with cases that stretched their abilities. They didn’t have the back-up that was normally in place.

‘We need some safeguards.’ She put her hand on her chest. ‘And I need some safeguards. Have you thought about getting another obstetrician, or at least another midwife?’

Duc sighed. ‘Of course. But my hands have been tied with red tape that I don’t understand. I am so out of my depth I don’t even know which way to turn.’ He held up both hands. ‘This?’ He looked around. ‘This was just a place to come and help out. Do a few ward rounds, prescribe some antibiotics, help with the occasional clinic. Cover the on-call so my mum and dad could have a few nights together.’ He leaned back in his chair. ‘What I know about obstetrics I could write on the back of a postage stamp. I’ve spent the last two days panic-reading about emergency caesarean sections just in case it happens in the next few days.’

He shook his head. ‘Have you any idea how long it takes to advertise a post, check someone’s credentials, then wait for them to give notice at a previous post?’

Vivienne leaned across the desk towards him, put her head on her hand and raised one eyebrow, obviously waiting for the penny to drop.

After the briefest of seconds Duc realised what he’d said. ‘Yeah, sorry about that. Did I wreck your chances of ever getting another job with that health authority?’

Vivienne sat back and gave a half-hearted shrug. Truth was, she’d quite liked the place where she’d been working. The staff were pleasant enough, and she’d managed to rent a flat in a nice area. A flat that was now currently empty. Maybe she was getting old. It was the first time she’d ever really thought like that. ‘You know me,’ she answered flippantly. ‘Only take one job per health authority then I move on.’

‘Keep that up and you’ll eventually run out,’ said Duc. He was watching her carefully.

‘That’s why every now and then I throw a whole different country into the mix.’ She leaned right back and put her feet up on the table. ‘I was contemplating Ireland next. Probably Dublin. Anyway, I told my boss it was an unexpected family emergency. I might have left them in the lurch a little, but I’d just finished two weeks on call—and that’s definitely not allowed. I’d bent over backwards to help them cover shifts, and I worked hard.’

Duc’s eyes clouded a little. ‘Family,’ he said softly.

Vivienne gulped. ‘That’s what we are,’ she said simply. ‘At least, that’s what I think we are.’

She meant it. Getting into midwifery college at seventeen had been a blessing. A year later her adoptive parents had died and when she’d tried to track down her birth parents it hadn’t exactly been good news. Her birth mother had died from cancer years earlier and her father had spent his life in and out of prison. She didn’t have any idea where he was right now. When she’d qualified at age twenty, she’d taken every opportunity that had come her way.

Her salary was enough to rent somewhere reasonable in whatever city she took a job—some of the hospitals even had staff accommodation at reduced rates. Duc had been the one reliable, relatable friend she’d made along the way. Her ground level. The person she spoke to most. The person she always connected to.

It was odd. Although they’d visited before, she was now seeing Duc in a completely new light. It was clear he’d never seen himself as an integral part of May Mắn hospital. His career aspirations had never been here. He’d always been focused on being a surgeon.

But now? With his parents dead, she did wonder if he might reconsider.

Duc gave her a sad smile. ‘Family. Yeah. It’s just you and me now. Maybe you should reconsider, I don’t know if I’m that lucky right now.’

He stood up, pushing his chair back, and headed for the door. As he reached the doorway he paused and looked back at her. The circles under his eyes were so dark. He was still hurting. Of course he was. She was supposed to be here to take some of the burden. Instead, she’d just come in and heaped a whole lot of trouble on top of him. What kind of a friend was she really?

‘After the will reading tomorrow,’ he said slowly, ‘I’ll get to some of this stuff. I will. I promise.’

He looked as though the weight of the world was on his shoulders. Tears brimmed in her eyes. She gave a stiff nod.

He’d just lost both parents. How on earth could she expect him to think straight? If she really wanted to be a friend, she was going to have to step up.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.