Hell’s teeth!
‘It’s always safer to get a second opinion in a case like this, Ben.’
Heather smiled at the young registrar, praying that he couldn’t tell how on edge she felt. Was it her imagination or had the tension level suddenly upped several degrees?
She glanced at Abby McLeod, the sister in charge of the A and E unit that shift, and was relieved to receive a calm smile in return. Abby obviously hadn’t noticed anything amiss so it must be her imagination. Time to knock this on the head. Once Ross Tanner was off their hands then she could get back to normal.
Hopefully…
Heather blanked out that last thought by dint of sheer will-power. She turned to Ross Tanner again, finding it less stressful to focus strictly on professional matters. Tanner was a patient and it was her job to treat him as such.
‘I can find no indication of there being anything wrong with your heart, Mr Tanner, but, as I said, I shall recommend that you be kept on a monitor overnight.’ She shrugged. ‘We would have kept you in until we were sure that your lungs were clear so it’s simply a matter of attaching you to a bit more machinery.’
‘I had a medical last week and my heart and everything else that matters were fine.’
Ross Tanner had eased the mask away from his mouth. Heather just managed to suppress a shiver when she heard his voice for the first time. Although the swelling in his throat would have caused some changes to its tone, she guessed that he normally had a wonderfully deep voice. She was overcome by a sudden desire to hear how it sounded once he’d recovered before she briskly dismissed the idea. Once Ross Tanner left Resus that would be the last she saw of him.
‘That’s good to hear, Mr Tanner.’ It was hard to ignore how disquieting she found that idea but Heather had become an expert at controlling her feelings. ‘I know how rigorous the fire brigade’s medical examinations are and can only repeat that I don’t believe there is a problem with your heart. It’s purely a precaution, you understand.’
‘The old belt and braces approach?’ Ross Tanner grinned at her, his teeth gleaming whitely through his smoke-blackened skin, his hazel eyes sparkling with amusement. ‘Well, I certainly can’t argue with that approach, Dr Cooper. If there’s one thing the brigade teaches you, it’s always to try and minimise any risks.’
‘I would have thought that was impossible in your job,’ she said tartly, praying that he couldn’t tell how mixed up she was feeling. Why on earth had her heart started racing because Tanner had smiled at her? What could it mean?
‘Surely every time you attend a fire you’re putting yourself at risk? The unexpected can always happen and nobody—nobody—can guarantee that it won’t!’
Heather only realised that she’d raised her voice when she saw the startled expressions on everyone’s faces. She took a deep breath but it was hard to pretend nothing was wrong and pointless, too, when everyone could tell just by looking at her that she was upset.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.’
Ross Tanner reached over and touched her hand, just lightly, but it was still too much. Her emotions were too raw at that moment to withstand anyone’s sympathy and especially not his. Heather jerked her hand away and turned from the bed, ignoring Ben’s look of concern as she brushed past him.
‘Phone the bed manager and tell him that we have a patient who needs admitting, please. I’m taking my break now but page me if anything urgent crops up.’
She didn’t wait to hear what Ben said in reply. She strode to the door but was forced to stop when Melanie and a porter came back with the trolley they’d used to take Damien to the burns unit. Heather waited while they wheeled it into the room then hurried out of the door, cursing under her breath when the hem of her white coat snagged on a rough splinter of wood.
She stopped to disentangle herself, automatically glancing round and shaking her head when Melanie offered to help. Through the gap in the doors she could see Ross Tanner watching her and her heart felt as though it was going to burst right out of her chest when she saw the compassion in his eyes. He knew that comment she’d made about the unexpected happening had been based on experience. He had recognised her pain and empathised with it. He wanted to help her.
The idea terrified her. The last thing Heather wanted was to talk about what had happened to Stewart. She couldn’t deal with the heartache it would unleash all over again. She needed to keep this pain safely locked away inside her. Opening her heart to Ross Tanner wasn’t an option.
‘Hey! I thought those were supposed to be for me?’
Ross upended the paper bag and sighed when a solitary grape dropped onto the bed. ‘Thanks, guys—I don’t think!’
‘Blame Jack. He said there was no point giving you grapes because you wouldn’t be able to swallow them with your throat. He said he might as well save you a job.’ Terry Green grinned as he drew up a chair and sat down, but Ross could see the troubled light in the older man’s eyes.
It was way past evening visiting hours but the crew from Red Watch had managed to persuade the ward sister to let them in to see him. Fortunately, Ross had been put in a side room off the main ward and the only other occupant—an elderly man—was watching television in the lounge. At least he didn’t need to feel guilty about disturbing anyone. He seemed to have caused enough upset for one day.
He forced himself to concentrate on what Terry was saying, but the pain he’d glimpsed in Heather Cooper’s eyes had haunted him. There was no doubt in his mind that something dreadful had happened to Heather in the past and he resolved to find out all he could about it, although why he should be so interested was beyond him. However, if there was one thing Ross had learned to do it was to trust his instincts, and his instincts were telling him that this mattered. A lot.
‘I had no idea you’d turned back. One minute you were right behind me and the next time I looked you’d disappeared.’ Terry shook his head in dismay. He was obviously having a hard time dealing with what had gone on earlier that day.
‘I said that you needed your hearing testing,’ Jack Marsh—another of the crew—chipped in. ‘You have the telly turned up that loud in the break room that you have to be going deaf, and this just proves it!’
‘It was my fault,’ Ross cut in before a squabble could break out. Tensions always ran high after a member of the team was injured and he didn’t want to be the cause of an argument. ‘I was following you out, Terry, when I glimpsed something out of the corner of my eye and went to check it out. I should have told you what I was doing but there wasn’t time.’
‘Damn good job you did—check it out, I mean.’ Jack popped the last grape into his mouth and chewed it. ‘Another minute and the kid would have had it. The cupboard where you found him, Ross, ended up in the basement.’
There was a moment’s silence as they all reflected on how close the child had come to being killed that day. Most of the men at Hexton fire station had children of their own and it was easy for them to imagine how they would have felt.
At thirty-six, Ross still hadn’t found the right woman to settle down with and start a family, although he certainly hadn’t ruled out the chance of it happening. He loved kids and adored his sister’s twin boys. However, he was realistic enough to know that a woman who committed herself
