same.’
Yes, David thought bitterly, watching her retreating back. Holly had always done things her way, and to hell with the consequences. Even though he had the nasty suspicion that it was going to rake open old wounds, he knew they had to talk.
An hour and a half later—by which time Holly had calmed down a hysterical toddler and removed a bead from his nose, put a dislocated elbow back in place and removed broken glass from a nasty wound and then stitched it—she was in definite need of caffeine.
‘I’m taking five,’ she told Michelle, and headed for the rest room.
She’d just fixed herself a black coffee from the vending machine, poured the top quarter off and added enough cold water so she could drink it straight down, when David walked in.
‘Strong stuff, is it?’ he asked, seeing her holding the coffee-cup beneath the tap on the water cooler.
‘No. Just temperature regulation,’ she said, and drank her coffee. ‘Ah. I needed that.’ A caffeine fix might just jolt her body back into reality and stop it overreacting any time he came anywhere near her.
‘Holly,’ he said quietly.
Unwillingly, she faced him. Looked him in the eye. Was that regret she saw there? ‘What?’
‘I had no idea you worked here.’
She shrugged. ‘Why should you?’
He sighed. ‘I think we need to talk.’
Way too dangerous. On the ward, she could cope; in a quiet corner in a bar, it would be too much like old times. Just the two of them. ‘There’s nothing to say.’
‘We need to clear the air.’
‘There’s nothing to say,’ she repeated. Nothing either of them could say would change what had happened.
He raked a hand through his hair and she watched his fingers, mesmerised. She could still remember them running through her own hair. Hair that she’d had cut short the moment she’d recognised the truth, to wipe out the memories. Except it hadn’t really worked.
‘What happened between us was a long time ago.’
Was this his idea of an apology? It certainly wasn’t hers!
‘And in the emergency department we need to be able to work as a team.’
He’d phrased that very carefully. Good. Because if he’d dared to say anything about being able to rely on each other, she would have murdered him. ‘Of course,’ she said, as neutrally as she could.
‘We’re going to have to work together. And it’s better if we can do it without…problems.’
Did he think that she was going to weep and wail and ask him why he’d done it? No. Been there, done that, worn the T-shirt—when she was eighteen. She was older. Much wiser. So she could feel relieved that she’d had a very, very lucky escape. And she most certainly wasn’t going to act on that flicker of attraction. Blue eyes spelled danger. She didn’t make the same mistakes twice. ‘Of course,’ she said again.
At least he hadn’t suggested that they could be friends. Because she didn’t think she could go that far. Just in case he was entertaining the idea, she leapt in fast to state the ground rules. ‘We’re perfectly capable of being colleagues.’
‘Good.’
Just to underline the point, she added, ‘How’s Lucy?’
‘Fine. I’ve just had the results back and they’re pretty much what I expected, so I’ve written up the drugs and admitted her. How come she didn’t go to her GP before? She must have had symptoms.’
‘She’s just been promoted. She’s been busy at work, thought maybe she was going through the menopause early and she’d picked up a bug that was doing the rounds.’
‘A pulmonary bug?’
Holly nodded, knowing that a pulmonary infection was the most common event that could spark off a thyroid storm. ‘Thanks for seeing her for me.’
‘Pleasure.’
She wished he hadn’t said that word. She scrunched her cardboard cup into a ball and threw it at the bin. It went straight in first time. ‘I’d better get back to my patients. I told Michelle I was just taking five minutes. And we’re short today.’
‘Right.’
She’d half expected him to say, See you. But he hadn’t. Just as well. Because she didn’t want to see David any more than she had to.
Did she?
IT WASN’T working.
Holly gritted her teeth, adjusted the incline on the treadmill and increased the speed. But running uphill to the beat of the rock music she was playing on headphones—even at high volume—wasn’t enough to drown out her thoughts. It wasn’t enough to stop her remembering.
The past is over, she reminded herself harshly. You got through it. You don’t have to go back there. You’re thirty years old, you’re a registrar in the emergency department and everybody at London City General respects you. You are not eighteen years old with your world collapsing round your ears. Get a grip.
But the pep-talk didn’t work.
Even though she knew it was pointless and stupid and wasn’t going to change anything—yada, yada, yada—she still couldn’t get David out of her head. Couldn’t stop the memories replaying. David, leaning over her in the orchard next to her parents’ house. Those blue, blue eyes, the same colour as a midsummer sky, glittering with love and laughter. The smile on his face, making him more handsome than ever—and then suddenly growing serious as he lowered his mouth to hers. Kissed her. Made love with her, their textbooks and revision forgotten. Skin to skin with sunlight dappling over them, the scent of apple blossom in the air and the sound of birdsong all around.
Stop. Just stop. Holly slammed the ‘stop’ button on the treadmill, switched off the music and leaned with her arms on the supports and her forehead resting on her arms.
She hadn’t thought about this for years. Hadn’t allowed herself to think about it for years.
Oh, who was she trying to kid? She faced it every time there was an obstetric emergency. Every time a child was brought in. Faced it for a second, blanked it and made the professional in her take over. She was a doctor. First, last and always. Nothing else.
And yet her hands crept instinctively to her flat stomach. Rubbed. Splayed in the protective gesture that all newly pregnant women made, cradling the little life in their womb.
The little life hadn’t been there for long. Just long enough to disappoint her parents—nice, middle-class Mr and Mrs Jones, in their big house in the posh bit of Liverpool, with their orchard and their two big cars and their terribly nice, clever children.
Ha.
