the mention of the senior consultant a shiver of dread ran up Jenny’s spine, every hair standing up on end in its wake.
Whatever it was, this did not sound good; not if it involved the man who took charge of all the seriously premature babies or those with peri-natal problems.
‘What’s happened?’ she asked as soon as he took the phone away from his ear.
Her words collided with his as he rapped out, ‘There’s been an accident, right outside the hospital.’
‘Not one of our mums,’ she pleaded, but the grim expression on his face was enough to confirm the bad news.
‘Sheelagh Griffin,’ he said, already tapping to access the young woman’s file on the computer. ‘Apparently, she started spotting heavily and cramping this morning, so her husband insisted on driving her in. He hit a pedestrian as he was turning in through the gates and smashed their car into one of the granite pillars.’
‘Do you need me to come down with you?’ It was a given that he would be going down to A and E to speed the young woman’s admission to the unit, otherwise she could be caught up in the nightmare of paperwork until it was too late to do anything for the precious babies.
‘Stay up here, for now,’ he said after only a moment’s hesitation. ‘I can call you down if I need to, but you’ll be my eyes and ears up here while I’m away.’
Jenny was immensely flattered that he would already think her competent for such a responsibility. She had done extra training for this new position but she was a nurse rather than a doctor—much to her parents’ enduring disappointment.
‘Let me know if you want me to get anything organised,’ she said, startled to realise that what she’d really wanted to say was Hurry back.
And how stupid is that? she berated herself before he was even out of sight. She and Daniel didn’t have that sort of relationship, and there was very little chance that they ever would. After all, no matter what her parents’ narrow-minded view was of people who had risen to the top in spite of starting off at one of the less elite medical schools, Daniel was something of a high-flier, and as such, was stratospherically beyond the reach of a humble nurse, no matter how well trained and good at her job.
Anyway, hadn’t Daniel categorised their relationship just a short while ago when he’d invited her to ‘tell big brother’ about her troubles?
Colleague … little sister … friend, perhaps? She might slot into several niches in Daniel’s life, but there was very little chance that he would be interested in seeing her in a role that she was only now beginning to realise might be the one she really wanted.
The phone rang stridently at her elbow, snapping her out of her pointless reflections and doubling her pulse rate with the expectation that she would hear Daniel’s voice when she answered it. It was a complete letdown to realise that the caller had simply been connected to the wrong department.
‘Jenny?’ Daniel’s voice behind her had her whirling to face him, the first of at least a dozen questions on the tip of her tongue until she saw his face.
‘Daniel? What’s happened?’ she demanded, automatically reaching out to take his arm. ‘Are you ill?’ He looked positively grim, and in the short time he’d been away from the department, his face had somehow become hollow-looking, his eyes filled with shadows.
‘I was too late to do anything to slow down Sheelagh’s labour,’ he said bluntly, and she could hear the same defeated tone that always emerged in his voice whenever something happened to one of their special babies, but this time there was something more, something infinitely darker.
CHAPTER TWO
‘ARE the babies still alive? Have they gone to Josh’s unit?’
Even babies that premature were often born alive and a few of them actually pulled through, albeit with a legacy of permanent disabilities, but it was an outside chance that they would have survived anything other than a Caesarean birth.
‘One is.’ Daniel grimaced, silently, the brilliant colour of his dancing blue eyes strangely flat. ‘I’ve admitted Sheelagh into the isolation room overnight. I told her it was in case of complications, but they both know it’s just a matter of time before …’
She nodded her understanding even as she thought that they really should think of a better name for the little suite at the furthest end of the unit. Apparently, that little area had been one of the arrangements Daniel had instigated within the first few days of his appointment—a place where mothers who had lost their babies could stay for monitoring and treatment without fear that their devastation would be made worse by the sights and sounds of pregnant women or healthy newborn babies all around them.
‘Did it happen because of the accident?’ Jenny demanded, something about the tension surrounding him like an electrical field warning her that there was worse news to come.
‘My guess is that one of the babies died in utero and that triggered a spontaneous abortion of both foetuses.’ He sank heavily into the chair and came to rest with his hands tightly linked together on the array of happy photos still spread over the inevitable pile of papers in front of him. He gazed blankly at them for several endless seconds while she fought the urge to go to him and throw her arms around him, to cradle his head against her and ask if there was anything she could do.
‘The person they ran down was Aliyah’s husband,’ he announced rawly, and his devastated expression rocked her back on her heels.
‘Dear Lord,’ she gasped, sinking heavily onto the edge of the nearest chair when her legs refused to support her. ‘Is he …?’ She couldn’t bring herself to say the word, but she didn’t need to for him to know what she was asking.
‘He’s in theatre. Depressed skull fracture, punctured lung, broken leg … you name it, he’s got it,’ he listed grimly and she felt her eyes widen with each additional injury on the list.
‘But he’s still alive?’ she pleaded anxiously.
‘For the moment,’ he agreed and it only took the tone of his voice to know that the prognosis wasn’t good.
Her heart sank like a stone. ‘What are you going to tell Aliyah?’ The image in her head of how tenderly the injured man had been supporting his wife less than an hour ago was so clear that it was almost painful.
‘How on earth was he injured so badly?’ she demanded on a sudden surge of anger for the destruction of such a perfect couple made even more tragic by the fact they were finally expecting the babies they both wanted so badly.
‘Did he forget where he was and step out into the traffic, or …?’
‘Apparently, the Griffiths’ car went out of control and mounted the pavement at the entrance to the hospital. He was slammed against one of the pillars and trapped.’
Jenny winced as she imagined a human head coming into contact with that impressive construction of unforgiving Cornish granite.
‘And I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to say to Aliyah,’ he said finally, his voice as rough as gravel. ‘She’s still shaky after that scare with the baby and we’re waiting for the antibiotics to do their thing. I don’t know whether
