it was the last thing Charles wanted to think about. The urge to offer help of some kind was powerful but that might not be something Charles wanted, either. But, he’d opened up to her about the tragedy, hadn’t he? And he’d said that he never talked about it but he’d told her. Oddly, that felt remarkably special.
Grace bit her lip, absently scratching Houston’s ear as he leaned his head against her leg.
‘I wonder if they do Halloween costumes for dogs,’ she murmured.
Clearly, Charles picked up on this subtle offer to help make this time of year more fun. More of a celebration than a source of painful memories. His startled glance reminded her of the one she’d received the other day when she’d told him what a lucky man he was to have such gorgeous children. As if he was unexpectedly looking at something from a very different perspective.
If so, he obviously needed time to think about it and that was fine by Grace. Maybe she did, too. Offering to help—to become more involved in this little family—might very well be a mistake. So why did it feel so much like the right thing to do?
Charles was watching the boys again as they emerged from the other end of the tunnel and immediately ran back to do it all over again.
‘Enough about me,’ he said. ‘I was trying to remember the last time I heard about you and it was at a conference about ten years ago. I’m sure someone told me that you’d got married.’
‘Mmm.’
Charles was leaning against the wrought-iron rails between them, so that when he turned his head, he seemed very close. ‘But you’re not married now?’
‘No.’
He held her gaze. He’d just told her about the huge thing that had changed his life for ever. He wasn’t going to ask any more questions but he wanted to know her story, didn’t he?
He’d just told her about his personal catastrophe that he never normally told anyone. She wanted to tell him about hers. To tell him everything. To reveal that they had a connection in grief that others could never understand completely.
But it was the recognition of that connection that prevented her saying anything. Because it was a time warp. She was suddenly back in that blip of time that had connected them that first time. Outside, on a night that had been almost cold enough to freeze her tears.
She could hear his voice.
‘Grace? Oh, my God...are you crying? What’s wrong?’
He hadn’t asked any more questions then, either. He’d known that it didn’t actually matter what had gone wrong, it was comfort that she’d needed. Reassurance.
‘Come with me. It’s far too cold to be out here...’
He could see that there was something huge that had gone wrong now, too. And maybe she wouldn’t need to say anything. If that rail wasn’t between them, maybe Charles would take her in his arms again.
The way he had that night, before he’d led her away to a warm place.
His room.
His bed.
It was a very good thing that that strong rail was there. That Charles couldn’t come through the gate when he had to be in that playground to supervise his children.
Even though she knew it couldn’t happen, Grace still pulled her layers of protective clothing a little more tightly around her body. She still found herself stepping back from the fence.
‘I really should go,’ she said. ‘It’s not fair to make Houston wait any longer for his walk.’
Charles nodded slowly. His smile said it was fine.
But his eyes told her that he knew she was running away. That he could see a lot more than she wanted him to.
He couldn’t see the physical scars, of course. Nobody got to see those.
Grace had been confident that nobody could see the emotional scars, either.
Until now...
IT MIGHT WELL have been the two cops standing outside a curtained cubicle that attracted his attention as he walked past.
If he’d had any inclination to analyse it, though, Charles would probably have realised that it was the voice on the other side of the curtain that made him slow down.
Grace’s voice.
‘Looks like we’ve got an entrance wound here. And...an exit wound here. But it’s possible that they’re two entrance wounds. We need an X-ray.’
One of the cops caught his gaze and responded to the raised eyebrow.
‘Drive-by shooting,’ he said. ‘He’s lucky. It was his arm and not his head.’
With a nod, Charles moved on. Grace clearly had things under control. She always did, whenever he noticed her in the department and that was almost every day now that he had adjusted his hours to fit around nursery school for the twins. More than once a day, too. Not that he went out of his way to make their paths cross or anything. It just seemed to happen.
Okay, maybe he was choosing to do some necessary paperwork at one side of the unit desk instead of tucked away in his office but that was because he liked to keep half an eye on how the whole department was functioning. He could see the steady movement of people and equipment and hear phone calls being made and the radio link to the ambulance service. If anybody needed urgent assistance, he could be on his feet and moving in an instant.
It had nothing to do with the fact that Grace would be in this area before too long, checking the X-rays that would arrive digitally on one of the bank of departmental computer screens beside him.
He had a sheaf of statistics that he needed to review, like the numbers and types of patients that were coming through his department and it was important to see how they stacked up and whether trends were changing. Level one patients were the critical cases that took the most in the way of personnel and resources, but too many level four or five patients could create barriers to meeting target times for treatment and patient flow.
Grace Forbes certainly wasn’t wasting time with her patients. It was only minutes later that she was logging in to a computer nearby, flanked by two medical students and a junior doctor. As they waited to upload files, she glanced sideways and acknowledged Charles with a smile but then she peered intently at the screen. Her colleagues leaned in as she used the cursor to highlight what she was looking at.
‘There... Can you see that?’
‘Is it a bone fragment?’
‘No. Look how smooth the edges of the humerus are. And this is well away from it.’
‘So it’s a bullet fragment?’
‘Yes. A very small one.’
‘Do we need to get it out?’
