Tender Touch

‘He’s a lovely man,’ Evie said with a sigh as Laura did her observations and entered the results on the chart. ‘The consultant’s nice enough, but Dr Jones—I don’t know, he’s so caring, as if I really matter to him.’

‘I think you do,’ Laura assured her. ‘You matter to all of us, Evie. All the patients do. That’s why we’re here.’

Hanging the chart back on the end of the bed, Laura smoothed her hand, the skin still plump and firm, and felt a great sadness that this brave and funny lady was going to be snuffed out like a candle at any time. ‘Why don’t you try and sleep now for a while? I’ll have to disturb you again in half an hour, so you may as well nap if you can.’

She did doze, off and on, and in between Laura read to her from a magazine and told her about her childhood on her father’s farm.

‘How come you’ve never married?’ Evie asked her later.

Laura hesitated, then answered carefully. ‘You have to be very sure you want to spend the rest of your life with someone before you make that commitment. It’s very hard to be so sure in advance, when you don’t know what they’re like in the morning, or when things go wrong and the bank gets uppity, or if your health lets you down. No matter how hard you try, sometimes it’s not possible to know all the answers.’

Evie studied her closely. ‘You sound as if you’ve been through it,’ she said softly.

Laura avoided her eyes. ‘There’s so much talked about it these days. It’s turned us all into experts! Now, I think it’s time we turned you. I’ll just get one of the other nurses to give me a hand.’

The other staff nurse on was Linda Tucker, and Laura called her over as she passed.

‘Could you give me a hand to turn Evie?’ she said.

‘Sure. Hello, darling—how are you? We’ve missed you while you were in ITU—fancy going down there, you traitor! Right, my love, let’s have you over—one, two, three—there we go.’

She helped Laura settle their patient, then left as Laura gently rubbed Evie’s bottom and hip to get the circulation going again in the skin.

Visitors were starting to arrive, and Laura warned them as they came in that they were to stay only a very few moments. Evie’s husband she allowed to stay longer, but even he taxed her strength.

Laura could see Evie flagging with the effort of being brave and cheerful, and she apologised to Mr Peacey as she asked him to leave. ‘She’s still very drowsy and sore, and needs her rest. She’ll be much better tomorrow. Why don’t you pop in and see her in the morning?’

He nodded. ‘I will—thank you, Nurse.’ He blew Evie a kiss from the door and left, and as he did Laura could see Evie crumple.

She tucked the bedclothes round her shoulders and smoothed her hair back from her damp brow. ‘You have a rest, now. Well done. I won’t let anybody else in to see you, so you can go to sleep.’

Her eyes drifted shut, and after a moment Laura realised she’d slipped quietly off. She watched her breathing, watched the silent heart trace on the monitor, and watched her patient’s face in turn. Of them all the face was the most interesting. The lines were nearly all laughter lines, but there were some, probably from pain, that were newer.

She was sixty-four, no age really, and there was certainly nothing remotely wrong with her mind. Her husband looked sad, though, a lingering sadness deep in his eyes, and a sort of suspense. It must be awful for him, too—maybe worse, because he would have to carry on after Evie had slipped away.

Laura checked the monitor again, the trace nice and steady, the respirations even if a little shallow. That was only to be expected as the abdomen was tense and so all her breathing was being done using the chest wall.

A head popped round the door. ‘Are you all right for a little while?’ Linda asked softly. ‘I’m just going for my break, so it’s only you on who’s qualified. Is that OK?’

‘So long as I don’t have to leave Evie.’

‘Someone else can always cover her if there’s a problem. I won’t be long.’

Laura nodded. ‘Leave the door open and tell the others where I am.’

There was a crisis, of course. Wasn’t there always when things were tight? Laura thought.

One of the post-ops began to look decidedly dodgy, his pulse racing, his blood pressure falling through the floor, and it looked as though he was haemorrhaging.

Laura went to investigate, reminding herself of his condition. He had had a rectal bleed, and on investigation a roughened area of rectum had been found and cauterised in a very minor procedure. He was due to go home the next day, but Laura had a funny feeling he wouldn’t be.

‘I feel so faint,’ he told her.

‘Any pain?’

‘Colicky—like diarrhoea.’ He moved, his eyes widened and he grabbed Laura’s hand. Oh, no—I think I just messed up the sheets,’ he told her. ‘Is it another bleed?’

She turned back the covers, controlled her own response to the lake of blood appearing on the bed and pressed the bell.

‘I’m afraid so. I’ll get Mr Russell to have a look at you.’

A junior nurse appeared, covered her shock admirably and looked at Laura.

‘Shall I page Tom?’ she asked.

Laura nodded. ‘Would you?’

Tom Russell was on the ward in moments, took one look at him and whisked him off to Theatre again. By the time Linda came back from her break Laura had relieved the nervous student with Evie and was back in the little room, sitting on the same chair and flicking through a magazine.

‘Everything OK?’ Linda asked cheerily.

Laura got up and went to the door, pulling it to behind her. ‘If you discount Mr Long and his bleed.’

Linda’s brows drew together in a quick frown. ‘Richard Long? The man with the ulcerated bowel? I thought they’d cauterised the suspect area?’

Laura nodded. ‘They did. He’s back in Theatre—had another bleed. It was pretty major. They’re opening him up and having a more thorough look.’

‘Oh, my lord—how is he?’ She laughed. That’s a daft question. Sorry. I suppose we’ll have to wait and find out. How’s Evie?’

‘Stable.’

‘Good. She deserves a break. Perhaps her post-op could be nice and smooth, unlike the rest of her history. Talk about Murphy’s law. If anything could have gone wrong with that sweet little lady, it has. It’s so unfair.’ Linda glanced at her watch. ‘Want to go and grab a bite? I’ll keep an eye on Evie.’

It was almost nine, hardly worth worrying about. ‘I’ll go later, after I finish. I’m not really hungry.’

‘Sure?’

She nodded.

‘I’ll go and prepare Dick Long’s bed for his return, then. I suppose he will come back.’

Laura pursed her lips. ‘I wouldn’t like to count my chickens. He looked pretty grim.’

Linda sighed. ‘I’ll check with Theatre.’

She went into the office, made the call and came back. ‘He’s in Recovery—they got to him in time. He’ll be transfused until he’s stable then returned.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘Look, I’ll go and hand over to Jean Hobbs, then you can go, OK?’

Laura nodded and went back in to Evie. It was three minutes to nine. She recorded her resting pulse and respiration, took her blood pressure and checked her temperature, hardly disturbing the sleeping woman at all. As she worked she thought about her new home, and Gavin, her landlord. What would he be like?

Unobtrusive and rather fun, she thought. She couldn’t imagine him playing heavy rock all night, or drilling walls at three in the morning. More important, she didn’t feel that he was likely to put her under the microscope.

Off duty at last, she made her way back to the cottage and turned onto the drive, killing the engine. The lights were off in his sitting-room, and there was no sign of him when she went in. She almost felt she ought to knock, as she had to use his sitting-room as the entrance. The last thing she wanted to do was barge in on his privacy, and, attractive as he was, although not to her, she was sure he must have a serious girlfriend.

Imagining the scene she could walk in on made her cheeks heat, and she was standing by the door, her lip caught in her teeth, when he wandered through from the kitchen dressed only in a pair of jeans.

He flicked the light on, and her eyes widened. His chest was spangled with dark curls glistening with moisture, the flat copper coins of his nipples just visible against the paler skin, and she could see clearly the ripple of muscles down his board-flat stomach. His hips were narrow, emphasised by the jeans hanging on them held up only by the zip. The stud was undone, as if he had tugged them on hastily, or perhaps just temporarily. His feet were bare, so almost certainly he was naked beneath the jeans …

He grinned, quite undisturbed by his undress. ‘Hi. Good day?’

She swallowed and dragged her eyes up to his. ‘Yes—fine. Peaceful. Evie’s doing well.’

‘Good. Let me just get dressed and I’ll be down. Have you eaten?’

She shook her head. ‘No—there wasn’t time. We had an emergency.’

His mouth quirked and her heart turned over. This was ridiculous, she scolded herself. He was her landlord, a colleague and anyway it was the last thing on her mind—

‘I knew you wouldn’t get round to it, so I hung on for you. There’s a curry—give me a tick and I’ll be down. I’ve been working in the garden and I’ve just had a shower. There’s a bottle of wine open on the side—help yourself.’

He opened the door at the bottom of his stairs and ran lightly up, and then she could hear the boards creak under his feet as he moved around his room.

Quickly, trying to avoid thinking about what he was doing, she went up her own stairs, peeled off her uniform dress and replaced it with the jeans and sweatshirt she had had on that morning, and made her way back to the kitchen just before Gavin.

He was respectable now—at least, he had tugged on a sweatshirt to cover that surprisingly muscular chest, and his feet were clad in slipper-socks, bright pink with purple rubber paw-prints all over the soles.

‘I like the socks,’ she said drily, and he chuckled.

‘Christmas present from my sister. Have you poured the wine yet?’

She shook her head. ‘I’ve only just come down.’

He reached past her, smelling of fresh soap and clean skin and healthy man, and she moved away slightly to give him room.

He filled the glasses and handed her one, then raised his. ‘Here’s to us—long may we not fight over the toothpaste and whose turn it is to wash up!’

It was an innocent toast, but as she laughed and lifted her glass to clink it against his she met his eyes and for the merest second blue fire burned in their depths.

Or did she imagine it?

She sipped the wine, turning away to look through the window.

‘So, what have you been doing in the garden?’ she asked in as normal a voice as she could muster.

‘Reclamation,’ he said drily. ‘It was a disaster. I’m going to have to get a skip to put all the junk in—I think everyone for miles around has used it to tip their rubbish into.’

‘Can I see?’

Of course.’ He reached past her and opened the door to the lobby, then the back door. She followed him out into the garden, inhaling the scents of the night.

The lilac was intoxicating. She found the bush halfway up the garden, sprawling across the neglected lawn and begging for attention.

‘It needs rather more know-how than I’ve got to sort it out, I’m afraid,’ he said ruefully from beside her. ‘I can get the old car tyres and bed frames out of the way, and cut the grass and dig and light the bonfire, but after that I’m lost. I don’t suppose you know the slightest thing about gardens?’ he asked hopefully.

Oh yes—and I love gardening.’

‘You do—lifesaver! I tell you what—I’ll wash up, you garden. OK?’

She laughed. ‘Done. I loathe washing up.’

‘I knew we’d make a great team,’ he said softly, his voice close in the dusk. His arm reached out and broke off a piece of the lilac, and then without warning he moved closer—far too close—and tucked it behind her ear. For a perilous moment she waited, expecting him to draw her into his arms and kiss her, ruining everything, but then to her surprise he moved away.

‘We ought to eat—I don’t know about you but I’m starving,’ he said, and she wasn’t sure if she’d imagined it or if his voice was strained, as if he, too, had felt the moment and retreated from it.

Then they were back inside, leaving the tensions behind, banished by the bright lights and the everyday actions of dishing up and eating the meal.

It was delicious. She hadn’t realised how hungry she was, or how tired.

By the time they had cleared away the kitchen she could hardly keep her eyes open, and Gavin put the kettle on. ‘Go and get ready for bed,’ he instructed her gently. ‘By the time you’ve come down and washed, there’ll be a cup of tea here for you to take up to bed with you. You look bushed.’

‘I am,’ she admitted, and with a small smile of gratitude she went up to her room, changed into her sexless and ancient Winnie the Pooh nightshirt and ratty old towelling dressing-gown, and, bringing her wash things down, she made use of the little bathroom.

There was no sign of him, but by the time she emerged, face scrubbed and devoid of make-up, her long, dark hair down and brushed until it gleamed, Gavin was back in the kitchen with a cup of tea for her.

‘You’re wonderful,’ she murmured, taking it gratefully.

He gave a soft snort. ‘Because I made a cup of tea?’

She shook her head. ‘Because you realised I needed it. Because you noticed I was tired. Because you’ve made me so welcome, fed me, put sheets on my bed, found me a bedside table and lamp—everything.’

His eyes locked with hers for an endless moment, and then he gave a little twisted smile. ‘You haven’t seen the garden in daylight yet,’ he warned.

She laughed softly. ‘No, I haven’t, but it would have to be pretty bad to get the balance of payments right.’ On impulse—an impulse she later found herself regretting—she went up on tiptoe and brushed her lips against his. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, and then, clutching her tea in one hand, she turned and fled.

Gavin watched her go, his lips tingling from the fleeting contact. His fingers touched his lips, expecting them to feel different—on fire, perhaps.

They weren’t, but he was. Heat scalded along his veins, quickening his pulse and shattering his composure.

He rested his hands on the edge of the worktop and dropped his head forward against the wall cupboard. Hell’s teeth, he thought raggedly. The way she’d looked at him with those bruised brown eyes, shot through with navy blue like dark pansies against her pale skin—

He dragged in a much-needed breath and lifted his head, tipping it back and staring up at the patchy ceiling.

His lips still tingled, his blood still raced, his heart was bounding against his ribs …

‘You’re in trouble, old son,’ he advised himself. ‘Deep trouble.’

He picked up his tea and went out into the dark garden. The scent of the lilac filled the air, reminding him of her. Need, sharp and savage in its intensity, raked through him and he groaned softly.

Her light was on. He wondered what she was doing, and stamped on that train of thought instantly.

She had problems. He had to keep reminding himself of that. No matter how he felt, if he didn’t keep it under wraps he wouldn’t be able to help her, and that was why she was here.

Not, he told himself, to entertain him when the evenings grew lonely and boring, and passion stalked him through the long hours of the night.

He would have to tread carefully with her, look after her, nurture her. He mustn’t frighten her off, because he had a feeling it would be all too easy to do, and deep inside he knew that if he lost this wary and gentle woman he would lose something infinitely precious and absolutely irreplaceable…

CHAPTER THREE

OVER the next few days Laura settled in both at work and at home.

She thought of it as home, at least, even though it was Gavin’s and not strictly speaking hers. Largely, she realised, it was down to him and the way he had welcomed her so unquestioningly into it, sharing it with her without rules or regulations, no requests that she do this or that, just an unwritten understanding that they would each respect each other’s privacy.

It was an extraordinary thing that, even though she was so aware of him, she never in any way felt threatened or compromised by his presence.

It might have been the separate staircases, or the fact that he never set foot over the threshold of her sitting-room, but, although she shared all the rest of his house with him and often sat with him in his kitchen after supper, her space was definitely her own.

And so she began to relax with him, and in doing so, for the first time in her life, she had a real friendship with a man.

They talked, argued, laughed together and generally hashed over the day’s events, but above all they talked.

One subject, though, was taboo, and that was her past. She never mentioned it, avoided all reference to it and diverted Gavin away from it whenever he came too close.

By the Monday of the bank-holiday weekend, they had established an easy, comfortable relationship, so when they each found the other was off duty it was an obvious step to spend the day together working on the house.

‘How about your inglenook?’ Laura suggested as they ate breakfast in the garden.

‘Inglenook? I haven’t got one.’

‘Yet.’

‘You reckon it’s there?’

‘There’s only one way to find out.’

‘It could make a hell of a mess,’ he warned.

Laura laughed. ‘I don’t doubt it. There’s always my sitting-room if we totally wreck it, and, anyway, you’ve still got the skip outside until tomorrow. It would be a shame to waste that last little space in it!’

So they put on scruffy clothes and heavy work gloves, smothered the room in dust sheets and laid about the wall with hammers.

‘I’ve found something,’ Laura said excitedly. ‘Look! It’s like the edge of a piece of boarding.’

Gavin poked it, worked a screwdriver under the edge and levered, and a huge crack appeared, running across the wall and then down. ‘It’s been covered over,’ he told her unnecessarily, and he shot her a cheeky grin, looking more than ever like a little boy in search of treasure.

‘It’s probably just a hole in the wall,’ Laura warned, but there was no holding him now and he seized a crowbar, worked it under the board and levered it away from the wall. With a splintering crack it broke free, and a huge cloud of soot and dust erupted into the room.

Gavin reeled away, coughing, and when the dust had settled they peered into the gaping hole.

‘I knew it,’ Laura announced with satisfaction.

‘Look at that—what a lovely bressummer!’ Gavin squinted at the beam. ‘I expect we’ll find a bread oven somewhere.’

Laura eyed the beam suspiciously. ‘You realise it’s probably full of dry rot or something.’

‘Rubbish. Look. Hard as a rock.’ He took the screwdriver from the floor and poked the wood. It was absolutely sound, and Gavin, wiping his face in the crook of his arm to get the dust and soot off it, shot her a victorious grin. ‘See? Perfect. Now all we need to do is find the bread oven.’

Six hours later the plaster was chipped away from the wall and the inglenook revealed, complete with bread oven as Gavin had suspected.

Laura looked around at the chaos. ‘Um, Gavin?’

He followed the direction of her eyes and shrugged. ‘We knew it would make a mess. It’ll vacuum up.’

‘It will?’ She was sceptical, but Gavin was riding on an adrenaline high and nothing could dent his good humour.

‘Of course. Here, take that end of the dust sheet,’ he instructed, and, opening the door, he seized his end and half dragged, half carried the mess of dust and plaster out into the front garden.

They manoeuvred the mess into the skip, shook off the dust sheet and repeated the process with the other sheets.

By the time they had finished, the carpet was covered in white footprints, but remarkably little of the dust had percolated under the sheeting, to Gavin’s relief.

‘I probably should have done this sort of thing before I put the carpets down,’ he said with a rueful smile, and Laura laughed.

‘Probably. Let’s see if we can suck this mess off the floor before it’s trodden in forever.’

She fetched the vacuum as Gavin cleared away the last of the tools, and as soon as the floor was restored and the beam and hearth vacuumed as well, using the tube, the cottage suddenly looked much more homely.

‘Wow,’ Gavin said with a satisfied groan as he dropped into his favourite chair. ‘How about that?’

Laura ran her hand through her hair, stiff and dry with plaster dust, and shook her head. ‘Amazing. You are clever.’

He shot her a look. ‘Are you being sarcastic?’

‘I thought it was my idea to look for it?’ she offered nonchalantly.

‘Damn women—they want all the credit,’ he grumbled, but he couldn’t keep the grin off his face. ‘I tell you what, why don’t you go and wash that dust out of your pores and put on something clean while I’ll finish off in here, then we’ll celebrate our good idea? OK?’

‘My good idea,’ she flung over her shoulder. Lord, the thought of a bath was tempting. She stripped off her filthy clothes, choking on the dust as she did so, and ran the bath, humming softly. Her hands hurt, and she was tired, but there was something so satisfying about getting to grips with the house.

The bath was wonderful—hot, clean, and gradually her hair became her own again as she finally rinsed out the last of the choking dust.

She could hear the vacuum again, and as she pulled on her towelling robe and wound her hair up in the towel she wondered what he was doing.

She found him in her sitting-room, pushing the vacuum round the dusty floor.

‘It drifted under the door—sorry. I should have thought of that and blocked the gap.’

She laughed. ‘It’s fine by me—it needed a good clean, anyway.’

He turned the machine on and chased her up the stairs with the hose, but in her haste she caught her foot in the hem of her dressing-gown and fell against the steps, winding herself slightly.

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