Assignment: Single Father

He nodded his understanding. ‘I’m sorry, that’s tough. It does happen, though. In all branches of medicine, I suppose, but especially on the front line. Sometimes it just gets too much, doesn’t it?’ he said, and suddenly she found herself telling him all about it, about the blood and the waste of life and the endless failures, day after day, even though it was never their fault.

‘We had a run of fatalities,’ she told him. ‘One after another, all young, all foolish, all so unnecessary. I just realised between one patient and the next that I couldn’t go and talk to another set of bereaved parents and try and make sense of it for them where none could be made. I just couldn’t do it any more.’

‘So what happened?’

‘My boss sent me home, but the next day wasn’t any better, or the one after that, so he told me to go away and think about it, and he’d have me back when I was sorted, if ever. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to go back, though. It’s only ten days ago, but it feels like a lifetime, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do it again. And now I just feel so lost. I thought I knew what I was doing with my life, and now suddenly I don’t, and I don’t know what’s going to happen.’

She shrugged again, just a tiny shift of her shoulders, but he must have caught the movement out of the corner of his eye because he shot her an understanding smile.

‘It’s hard when everything seems to be going smoothly and then fate throws a spanner in the works. I know all about that and the effect it can have on you.’

She closed her eyes and groaned inwardly. Oh, what an idiot! ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean it to come out like that. It’s nothing like as bad as what’s happened to you and your children, and I didn’t mean to imply—’

‘You didn’t. It was me that drew the parallel, and it does exist. In my case it was a bit more dramatic, but yours is no less valid. Life-changing moments are usually pretty drastic, by definition. Let’s just hope we aren’t going to find one here.’

He swung into a driveway and cut the engine, and Fran followed him up the path of a neat little bungalow. The front door was open by the time they reached it, and the elderly woman waiting for them was wringing her hands with worry.

‘Oh, Dr Giraud,’ she said, clutching his arm. ‘Oh, he’s worse. He looks all grey and waxy—come in.’

Fran followed them down the hall to a bedroom at the back. An elderly man was lying in bed, his skin every bit as grey and waxy as Mrs Donaldson had said, and Fran took one look at him and her heart sank. He was obviously hypovolaemic and shocky, and his condition was all too familiar.

Please, no, she thought. Don’t let him bleed to death. Not the first patient I’m involved with.

‘Mr Donaldson, tell me about the pain,’ Dr Giraud said, quickly taking his blood pressure and pulse, scanning him with eyes that Fran sensed missed nothing.

‘It’s just here,’ he said, pointing to his midsection. ‘So sore. It’s been getting worse for days.’

‘Any change in bowel habits? Change of colour of stools?’

‘Black,’ he said weakly. ‘I read about that somewhere. That’s blood, isn’t it?’

Xavier nodded. ‘Could well be. I think you’ve got a little bleed going on in there. Fran, could you get a line in for me?’ he asked, turning towards her and giving her a reassuring smile. ‘A large-bore cannula and saline to start. I’m going to phone the ambulance station and bring the oxygen in from the car. Are you OK to do that?’

‘Sure,’ she said, quelling her doubts, and found the necessary equipment in his bag. Part of her interview, or just another pair of qualified hands? Whatever, within moments the line was in, she was running in the saline almost flat out and checking his blood pressure again with the portable electronic monitor.

‘What is it?’ Xavier asked, coming back in just as the cuff sighed and deflated automatically.

‘Ninety over fifty-two.’ It had been ninety over fifty-six before, she’d noticed, so it was falling too fast for comfort.

He frowned. ‘OK, I’ve told them to have some O-neg standing by. We’d better take some blood for cross-matching and a whole battery of other tests while we wait for the ambulance, because once they start the transfusion it’ll be useless. Could you do that for me? There are bottles in my bag.’

He turned to the patient. ‘Right, Mr Donaldson, let’s put this mask on your face and give you some oxygen, it’ll help you breathe more easily.’

Once that was done he sat on the edge of the bed and explained to them what was happening and what Fran was doing.

‘The ambulance is on its way—Mrs Donaldson, could you find him some pyjamas and wash things to take with him? They’ll be here in a minute and you don’t want to hold them up.’

‘Of course not. I’ll get everything ready.’

She started going through drawers, clearly flustered and panicked, and Mr Donaldson watched her worriedly.

‘Betty, not those, the blue ones,’ he said as she pulled out his pyjamas, and while he was distracted Fran caught Xavier’s eye.

‘I’ll check his BP again,’ he murmured, and while she labelled her blood bottles he repeated the test. It was eighty-seven over forty-eight, and he winced almost imperceptibly. Only a slight drop, but in a very short time, she thought, so the fluids weren’t holding him stable.

‘Open it right up,’ he said quietly, indicating the saline with a slight movement of his head. ‘I’ll call the ambulance station again, ask them to hurry. I’ve spoken to the surgical reg on call and told him to stand by, but there’s not much else we can do here.’

An endless five minutes later the ambulance arrived, and Mr Donaldson and his worried wife were whisked away, leaving Fran and Xavier standing on the drive watching them go.

They didn’t speak. There was nothing much to say. They both knew it was touch and go, and Mr Donaldson was already weakened from the slow and steady blood loss he’d suffered over the last few days.

Reaction set in, and Fran’s legs started to tremble. She didn’t think he’d noticed, but once they were in the car and driving back towards Woodbridge, Xavier shot her a weary smile.

‘Bit close for comfort, eh?’ he said softly, and she swallowed and nodded.

‘I thought it would be easier—less cutting edge.’

‘It is—or your part of it is under normal circumstances. Don’t forget, you wouldn’t usually have been there. Still, I’m glad you were with me. I needed that extra pair of hands, and you got the line in amazingly fast considering his low pressure. Thanks for that. Thanks for all your help, in fact, you were great.’

Odd, how those few words of praise and thanks could make her feel so very much better. She’d done nothing she hadn’t done hundreds of times before, but to have gained his approval was somehow extraordinarily uplifting.

She put Mr Donaldson firmly to the back of her mind, settled back against the seat and let the tension drain away. ‘So where to now?’ she asked after a minute.

‘My house. We can have coffee without interruption, I can show you the accommodation which goes with the job and if we get really lucky we might even find time for some lunch.’

‘Sounds good,’ she said, realising she was starving hungry.

‘And then,’ he added with a grin, ‘if I still haven’t managed to put you off, you can meet the children.’

CHAPTER TWO

THE house was wonderful. It was situated in one of the best parts of town, the gateway set in a high brick wall, and as Xavier swung in off the road, Fran’s breath caught in her throat.

The house was Georgian, built of old Suffolk White bricks that had mellowed to a soft greyish cream, and with a typically Georgian observance of symmetry it had a porticoed front door in the centre and tall windows each side. Across the upper floor, just like a child’s drawing, were three more windows nestled under the broad eaves of the pitched and hipped roof, but unlike a child’s drawing the proportions were perfect.

Despite the elegance of the house, it wasn’t so grand that it was intimidating. It looked homely and welcoming, the garden a little on the wild side, and the fanlight over the front door was echoed in the sweep of gravel in front of the house on which he came to rest.

One thing was sure, she realised. It might not be intimidatingly grand, but he hadn’t bought this house on a doctor’s salary, not unless he had a thriving and possibly illegal private practice!

He ushered her through the door into a light and gracious entrance hall, and Fran tried to keep her mouth shut so her chin didn’t trail on the ground. It was gorgeous.

The floor was laid in a diamond chequer-pattern of black and white tiles, and on the far side the staircase rose in a graceful curve across a huge window that soared up to the ceiling on the upper floor.

The simple beauty of the staircase was marred by the presence of a stairlift, but apart from that and the ramp by the steps to the front door, it was just as it had been built, she imagined.

The doorways were wide, the rooms large enough to accommodate a wheelchair with ease, and as she followed him through to the kitchen at the back, she felt a pang of envy. She’d always loved houses like this, always dreamed of living in one, and here he was owning it, the lucky man.

Then she caught sight of another photograph of his wife amidst all the clutter on the old pine dresser in the kitchen, and the envy left her, washed away by guilt and sympathy.

Lucky? No, she had no reason to envy him. The house was just bricks and mortar, and living in it were three people whose lives had been devastated by their loss. How could she possibly have envied them that?

Xavier was patting the dogs, two clearly devoted and rather soppy Labradors, and when he’d done his duty he turned to her.

‘Are you OK with dogs? I forgot to mention them.’

‘I’m fine. I grew up with Labs. Come on, then, come and make friends.’

They did, tongues lolling, leaning on her legs and grinning up at her like black bookends, one each side. ‘You soppy things,’ she said to them, and their tails thumped in unison.

‘The thin one’s Kate, the fatter one with the grey muzzle is Martha, her mother. Just tell them to go and lie down when you’ve had enough. Shall I put the kettle on?’

Fran straightened up and grinned at him. ‘That sounds like the best thing I’ve heard in hours. I could kill a cup of tea.’

He chuckled. ‘Ditto. And while it boils, I’ll put the dogs out for a minute and then show you the flat.’

He went through a door at the back of the kitchen into a lobby and opened the outside door to let the dogs out, then turned back to her with a smile. ‘Right, you need to be careful, the stairs are a little steep.’

She followed him through a door in the corner of the lobby that led to the narrow, winding back stairs, and at the top they came out onto a little landing in what must have been the servants’ quarters. To the left, its ceilings atticky and low, was a small but comfortable sitting room overlooking the garden; to the right was a bedroom with a double bed under a quilted bedspread, all whites and creams and pretty pastels.

Fran looked around her in slight disbelief and felt a lump in her throat.

‘Oh, it’s gorgeous,’ she murmured.

‘There’s a bathroom there, and a tiny kitchen so you can be independent if you want. And through here is the rest of the house.’

He opened a door at the end of the landing and went through it onto the much larger landing at the head of the main stairs. There was a wheelchair parked by the stairlift, in readiness, Fran imagined, for his daughter’s return, and she could see through the open doors into their bedrooms.

One was immaculate, one reasonably tidy, the last chaos.

‘That’s Nick’s room,’ Xavier said with a wry smile, indicating the messy one. ‘This one’s Chrissie’s.’

He pushed open the door of the reasonable one, and she looked around it, at all the pictures of horses and boy bands and other images dear to the heart of a young teenager, and she wondered what Chrissie was like and what had really happened.

‘Tell me about her,’ she said softly, and he sighed and tunnelled his fingers through his hair.

‘She’s…complicated,’ he said slowly. ‘She’s in a wheelchair, and she doesn’t speak, but they can’t find anything wrong with her. They’ve done a million tests and can’t detect anything, and she moves and talks in her sleep, but when she’s awake, she just won’t communicate—well, not a great deal. She has a little hand-held computer that she uses for important stuff, but mostly she doesn’t bother. And it’s not that she can’t, because she’s doing fine at school, even without speaking. There’s nothing wrong with her academically. It’s bizarre.’

‘Was she badly hurt in the accident?’

‘No. Nick had a broken arm, and Sara was killed instantly, but Chrissie was untouched. That’s the odd thing about it. She’s seen therapists and psychiatrists and every other sort of “ist”, but nobody’s found the key. She’s locked in there, and I can’t let her out, and I’m a doctor, for God’s sake!’

He broke off and turned away, his voice choked, and Fran lifted her hand to touch him, to reach out to him. She didn’t, though. She let it fall to her side, because there was nothing she could say to make it right, nothing she could do to make it better.

Well, only one thing.

‘If you were hoping to put me off, you’ve failed,’ she said softly.

Xavier turned, a flicker of hope in his anguished eyes, and his mouth kicked up in a crooked smile. ‘Well, so far, so good. Of course, you haven’t met them yet.’ He looked down, studying his hand as it rested on Chrissie’s doorknob, and then looked up at her again.

‘I really am in a bit of a fix with this at the moment. I don’t suppose there’s any way I could talk you into taking it on immediately, even just temporarily, at least the domestic side? I’m more than happy with your nursing skills, but this week I’m stuck completely on the domestic front unless I can get some help, and I can’t expect you to take us on without trying it. Would you consider a week’s trial? Give the kids a chance, give me a chance? And if you hate it, maybe I can find someone else…’

He finally ground to a halt, the flicker of hope fading in his eyes as she watched. He thought she was going to refuse, she realised. Well, she wasn’t.

‘That sounds fine,’ she said, and his eyes fell for a moment. When he raised them to her face the hope was back, hope and relief in equal proportions.

‘Thank you,’ he said fervently, then he dragged in a deep breath and pulled himself together visibly.

‘Right, now that’s sorted, how about that cup of tea? And if you’re really unlucky, I might even cook you lunch.’

They went back to the surgery after lunch, Xavier to his antenatal clinic, Fran to acquaint herself further with Angie and familiarise herself with the room she would be working in from the following morning. At three-thirty promptly, Xavier came into the office where she was talking to Angie about her routine.

‘I’m going to collect the children from school. Do you want to come? It would help you to see it at first hand, before you have to do it yourself.’

‘Good idea,’ she agreed, and wondered why she hadn’t thought of it. Lack of sleep, she decided, or just plain shell-shock.

She went with him out to the car park, noticing for the first time that his people carrier had a rear seat missing, presumably where Chrissie would go in her wheelchair. The enormity of what she was taking on suddenly sank in, and she felt a little flutter of doubt about her ability to do this part of the job.

She must be crazy, she thought. She didn’t know the first thing about looking after children of that age—except, of course, that she’d been thirteen once and had had a younger brother, so she knew all about the dynamics of that! But—Chrissie?

Still, she had no choice. It was a job, it was a home, albeit perhaps only for a week, and with a steadying breath she put the doubts aside.

If Xavier was prepared to take her on, she’d give it a go, at least for this trial period. She knew enough about children to cope for that long, and, besides, Chrissie had problems. Maybe she could help get to the root of them. She’d certainly give it her best shot, although if the girl’s own father had failed, it seemed unlikely that a total stranger could do better.

Except, of course, that it was often easier for an outsider to see the situation clearly.

‘I phoned the hospital, by the way,’ he was saying as he drove. ‘Bernard Donaldson’s made it through surgery—he had a perforated duodenal ulcer.’

Fran dragged her mind back to the earlier events of the day and nodded. ‘Figures. I’m glad he’s OK. They seemed a sweet couple.’

‘They are—truly devoted. Hopefully he’ll be all right now. OK, we’re at the school. You need to go through this set of gates, not the ones further down, so you can get right up to the school to collect them. Otherwise you can’t get close enough.’

Xavier went slowly along the drive and over the speed ramps, parked the car, and then they waited. Children were pouring out of the school, running and pushing and laughing, heading in their droves for the bus pull-in, others going down the drive to their parents, and then the crowd cleared like mist and she saw them.

A slender girl in a wheelchair, her hair hanging long and blonde around her shoulders, her trousers dangling on skinny legs, she looked tired and defeated.

Behind her was a boy the spitting image of Xavier, with a big smile and untidy hair. His shirt was un-tucked on one side, his tie was hanging askew, his face was grubby, but he looked bright and cheerful and disgustingly healthy in contrast to his frail older sister.

He was pushing the wheelchair towards them, and Xavier went over to them and hugged him, bending to kiss his daughter’s cheek. She didn’t respond, just sat there expressionless, and Fran felt the flicker of doubt return in force.

Give her time, she thought, but the girl was looking straight through her as she stood there beside the car, waiting.

‘Children, this is Miss Williams,’ he said. ‘She’s going to stay with us for a while and help me look after you.’

‘Can you cook?’ Nick asked her directly, and she laughed.

‘Most things. It depends what you want.’

‘Pizza—and Chrissie likes spag. bol.’

Fran nodded thoughtfully, transferring her gaze to the unresponsive girl. ‘I think I can manage that.’

Chrissie looked away dismissively, and Fran thought that even without words she managed to communicate her feelings—and just now, her feelings were less than friendly.

‘She’s vegetarian, though,’ Nick was adding. ‘So no meat, worse luck. She doesn’t do meat.’

‘I’m sure Miss Williams knows what a vegetarian is, Nick,’ Xavier put in drily, and opened the side door of the car. ‘Fran, this board slides out of the floor like this, and locks, and then you can push the chair up and it clips into place.’

He pulled and clicked and then wheeled Chrissie effortlessly into the car, then with a clunk her chair was secure and he was sliding the board home and closing the door.

Fran decided to practise with the empty wheelchair before she had to do it for real. She didn’t want to mess up and dump Chrissie on the drive, and she was sure Xavier would be less than thrilled, too, not to mention Chrissie herself!

Nick was piling all their bags into the back and climbing into the seat behind Xavier, chattering nineteen to the dozen about what he’d done and the goal he’d scored in football and that he needed new football boots and could he go on the field trip in February to France, and Harry had been kicked in the chin and had to go to hospital after football because his jaw might be broken.

Finally he ground to a halt, and Xavier shot Fran a wry glance. Still not put off? it seemed to say, but in truth she thought Nick was delightful, just a normal, healthy boy bursting with energy.

Chrissie, on the other hand, was almost unnerving with her silent watchfulness, and Fran wondered how on earth she would communicate with her. The hand-held computer would surely have its limitations, but she’d just watch Xavier and see how he did it, and then talk to him later after the children were in bed.

She’d already established to herself that Chrissie could convey her feelings. It was her needs that were more of an issue here, and of more concern to Fran. She didn’t need to be liked. She did, however, need to be able to do her job, and she was on a week’s trial. The last thing she wanted was to screw up yet another job.

Xavier couldn’t believe his luck. He’d actually found someone—and not just anyone, but a highly skilled professional who by a freak of fate needed a live-in post, just when he was getting desperate.

He wouldn’t trust Chrissie to an amateur—he couldn’t. There was too much at stake, and a nurse of Fran’s experience would be alert to any slight change in her. Not that it was likely, after all this time, but he still wasn’t sure he really believed there was nothing wrong, and all the time he felt as if he was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

But Fran—Fran was a gift from the gods, and he hardly dared believe it. He’d phoned her old boss at the London hospital and had received such a glowing reference that he daren’t tell her about it because she’d be so embarrassed. It seemed a tragic shame that her career in trauma had been cut short, but he wasn’t complaining, not if it meant she was free to work for him.

He went into his study, the dogs in tow, and dropped into the chair behind his desk, swinging his feet up onto the worn and battered top and resting his head against the high leather back of the chair with a sigh.

He had some phone calls to make and one or two bits of paperwork to deal with, but he just wanted to grab a few precious, quiet minutes to himself. The children were tucked up in bed, the television was finally silenced and Fran was unpacking her possessions in her flat.

He closed his eyes and pictured her, those beautiful blue-grey eyes that said so much, bare lips the colour of a faded rose, full and soft and ripe. There was something incredibly English about her looks, the pale alabaster of her skin, the warm glow in her cheeks, the fine cheekbones. Her hair had been up, the dark, gleaming tresses scraped back into a loose knot and secured at her nape with a clip.

It made his fingers itch. He’d wanted to remove the clip, to free her hair and watch it fall in a curtain around her shoulders, to thread his fingers through it and touch the softness.

He’d wanted all sorts of things, like the feel of her body against him, the taste of her mouth on his tongue, the slide of her skin against his own, but he would never know these things.

She was an employee, a member of his team at work, a pivotal part of his home life, please, God, and he needed her in that capacity far more than he needed the mere gratification of his sexual desires. He’d managed without since Sara had died, and he could manage for as long as it took to sort Chrissie out.

Maybe then he’d allow himself the luxury of an affair—if he could find anyone stupid enough to take him on.

With a short sigh he swung his feet to the ground and went out to the kitchen, pouring himself a glass of wine from the bottle in the fridge. It was nothing special, just a supermarket cheapie that he’d picked up the other day, but it was cool and refreshing and it might blur the edges a bit, if he was lucky.

Not a chance. Fran came down the back stairs and through the door, her hair down around her shoulders, wearing jeans and a simple sweater that hugged her waist and showed off the soft, ample fullness of her breasts, and desire slammed through him like an express train.

Dear God. He was going to have to live with this woman, work with her, share almost every detail of his life with her.

Mere sexual gratification? Mere? He set his glass down with exaggerated care and forced himself to meet her eyes. ‘Wine?’