about Henry.
Why was he back?
The comms system crackled overhead. ‘All ED staff to triage.’ Maia heard the voice of Brenda, the ED director, summoning the staff.
Her hand shook as she added sugar to her coffee and picked up the cup. Henry held the door open and fell into step beside her. She wasn’t going to escape the past that easily.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked. When Henry had left Christchurch three years ago she had never expected to see him again. He had never mentioned coming back; he’d made her no promises. He’d gone off to save the world, leaving her behind, and Maia could only assume that she didn’t feature in his future plans at all. That had been a bitter pill to swallow but she’d managed to do it eventually.
‘I’m doing project work in disaster management and the New Zealand government offered me a grant to come back. I’ll be looking at the systems in place in the hospitals and how they would cope with mass-casualty incidents. But I’ll be attached to the Children’s. I thought it was an offer too good to refuse.’
That surprised her. Not his project choice—he was an emergency-medicine specialist and she’d known about his interest in disaster management—but the fact that he was back at all was a surprise. When he’d left he’d had plans that were bigger than New Zealand.
‘Well, your timing couldn’t be better,’ she told him. ‘You got an earthquake to order.’
‘Looks like I did but it hasn’t caused too much havoc—and, although that’s fortunate for Christchurch and her residents, it’s not very useful for my purposes.’
‘I guess you can’t have everything.’
‘I guess not.’
Henry’s indigo eyes searched her face. He seemed able to look through her brown eyes into her soul and his gaze, intense, powerful and passionate, made her knees go weak. She remembered this look. It was the look he would give her when they’d made love. The look that had made her think she was the only girl in the world he would ever need.
She looked away.
That wasn’t the case and she wasn’t that girl anymore.
‘When did you get back?’ she asked.
‘A couple of days ago. I spent yesterday in orientation and induction and now I hope I’m ready to go.’
Yesterday she’d been rostered off. Today her world was changing.
As she and Henry assembled in triage along with the other staff, Maia saw Carrie, her best friend, standing on the opposite side of the group. She raised her eyebrows in a silent question at Maia when she saw who was by her side. Maia gave a slight, almost imperceptible shake of her head. She didn’t want Carrie asking questions.
‘If I can have everyone’s attention …’ the ED Director said as she scanned the group, obviously deciding everyone was present and accounted for. Brenda waited for the conversational noise to cease before continuing. ‘There’s been an accident involving a school bus and we’ve got several ambulances headed our way.’
Maia shouldn’t even have thought about it being quiet.
‘Apparently the earthquake triggered a landslide which caused the bus to crash but I don’t have any more detail than that. The bus driver has been airlifted to the Queen Elizabeth and the plan is to bring all the kids to us. There were sixteen primary school children on the bus. Varying injuries—fractures, cuts, bruises, some suspected head injuries and possible spinal injuries—and all of them will be in shock.’ She glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘ETA five minutes.’
‘It seems you got your disaster after all,’ Maia said quietly to Henry as Brenda went on.
‘For those of you who haven’t met him yet, I’d like to introduce Dr Henry Cavanaugh. Henry is a UK-trained emergency-medicine specialist with a special interest in disaster management. He did part of his fellowship in Christchurch at the Queen Liz but this time he is seconded to our hospital and he will be looking at our management systems, as well as taking on a clinical workload.’
Maia could see Carrie making a beeline for her and by her expression she could tell she was in for a grilling. She really needed to process Henry’s return before she was ready for it to be dissected in a discussion with anyone, even her best friend. But she knew her chances of putting Carrie off were next to none so all she could do was ensure that the conversation didn’t take place in public.
Henry was about to be swamped by other emergency staff who hadn’t yet met him so Maia headed for the change rooms, deciding she would quickly change into surgical scrubs. Carrie followed her, as she’d known she would. She and Carrie had been best friends since their first year of high school. For thirteen years Carrie had been by Maia’s side. She’d been through everything that had happened to Maia over the past three years and longer.
The moment the door closed behind them, Carrie asked, ‘Did you know he was back?’
Maia stripped off her uniform and hung it on a spare coat-hanger, exchanging her clothes for hospital-issued scrubs. ‘Who? Henry?’
‘Yes, Henry,’ Carrie replied as Maia stepped into a pair of surgical pants and tied the drawstring at her waist.
‘No. You know we haven’t kept in touch.’ They had agreed on a clean break—that had been his suggestion, not hers—and she’d spoken to him exactly twice in three years. He had called her once when her father had suffered his first stroke and again when he had died. That had been their only contact. Henry wasn’t part of her life anymore.
‘How did your date go last night?’ Maia asked as she tugged the pale-blue cotton shirt down over her head.
‘Don’t change the subject.’
‘I’m not. Henry being back is not a subject. Not one that affects me anyway.’
Carrie raised an eyebrow. ‘You sure?’
Even though Maia had known the fairy tale hadn’t had the happy ending she’d wanted, and she’d pretended he hadn’t broken her heart when he’d left, it had taken her a long time to recover. But eventually she’d been able to consign him to her past and to think of him without feeling like her heart was being ripped in two. They’d wanted different things in life. Things had worked out for the best.
‘Positive,’ she said as she lifted her hand to gather her long, dark hair into a ponytail, wrapping and tucking the end to make a messy bun. Her engagement ring caught the light, reminding her to remove it, and she slid it off her finger and onto the necklace where she wore it while she was working.
She was engaged to be married. Henry was an ex-boyfriend. Not the love of her life.
‘He’s an ex-boyfriend, that’s all.’
Henry was her past. Not her future.
He wasn’t her Henry any more.
TWO AMBULANCES PULLED into the loading bay as Maia
