The Baby of Their Dreams (Contemporary Medical Romance) (11 page)

CHAPTER TWELVE

C
AT
WOKE
AND
stretched and went to take a sip of her tea, then pulled a face when she realised it was stone cold.

She gave a small yelp when she saw that it was a quarter past ten.

Yes, she might need help with a light bulb but she didn’t need help with her shifts at work. She had a long drink of water in the kitchen and then walked quickly to the department, retying her long hair as she did so and trying to convince herself that she wasn’t too tired to work.

She heard a raised voice coming from a cubicle and frowned as somebody told Dominic incredibly inappropriately just where he could go and to please get away from him. Cat had this sinking feeling in her stomach as she recognised the voice.

‘Sir.’ Dominic’s voice was crisp and calm. ‘I’m very concerned about you. I want you to lie down. I’m going to get you a scan now. I believe that you have a serious head injury.’

He looked up as Cat came into the cubicle and she realised he hadn’t been covering for her. He’d been busy trying to calm a very agitated patient.

‘Nigel.’ Cat went over and she knew instantly just how serious this was. She was grateful that Dominic had recognised this wasn’t a drunken man. This was gentle, kind Nigel, who at first didn’t recognise even her.

‘Nigel, it’s Cat, you’re at the hospital.’

He told her what she could do with that information and then he frowned as the familiar face came near him and he started to cry, angry, frustrated tears.

‘Cat, what the hell is going on?’ Nigel begged. ‘Cat, help me.’

‘We’re going to help you, Nigel,’ she said, and he finally lay down. She glanced up at Dominic. ‘What happened?’

‘We think he was mugged,’ Dominic told her. ‘We’re just taking him to be scanned now. You know him?’

Cat nodded. She was trying not to cry herself as she held Nigel’s heaving shoulders. ‘This is my friend Gemma’s husband. Nigel Anderson,’ Cat said. ‘He’s thirty-two.’

‘Any medical history?’

‘I don’t think so,’ Cat said. ‘This is nothing like him.’

‘I get that,’ Dominic said, his voice grim.

Nigel had given up fighting now. He had finally lain down but then he suddenly sat up and started vomiting.

‘I’m going to go with him,’ Dominic said. ‘The neurosurgeon and on-call anaesthetist are meeting me there.’ Joe, the porter, was running over.

Everything was under control, Cat realised. No, Dominic hadn’t been covering for her. He’d been busy trying to give Nigel the acute care he needed.

‘Call his wife,’ Dominic said as he headed off with the patient.

For a moment Cat stood there, simply stunned, but then she went to the nurses’ station and pulled out her own phone.

She had made many difficult calls in her life, it was part of her job, but this would be, by far, the hardest she had made.

‘Hey, Gemma,’ Cat said.

‘Cat!’ Gemma answered, and then she must have realised the time, or perhaps heard the distress in her friend’s voice, even though Cat was doing her best to sound calm. ‘Is everything okay?’

‘Gemma...’ She took a breath.

‘Is the baby...?’

Oh, poor Gemma, she was busy putting her doctor’s hat on and now Cat had to put on hers. ‘I’ve just started my shift. Nigel’s been brought in.’

Gemma gave a shocked gasp. ‘He’s at his French lesson.’

‘He was found in the street, Gemma. He has a head injury and is having a CT scan now.’

‘Is he unconscious?’

‘No,’ Cat said, but she didn’t want to offer too much reassurance because Cat knew that Nigel’s condition was serious. ‘He’s very confused, Gemma.’

‘How confused?’

‘He was agitated.’

‘Yes, well, he hates hospitals.’ Gemma pushed out a nervous laugh. ‘He doesn’t even like coming in to have lunch with me and—’

‘Aggressive,’ Cat broke in, and she knew that in saying that Gemma would understand just how serious this was.

‘How long will the scan take?’

‘Not long at all,’ Cat said. Fortunately, they had one of the newest machines and the results would be in very quickly, though she was quite sure that Nigel wouldn’t be returning to the department. He would, she guessed, be going straight up to either Theatre or ICU. ‘Can you get someone to watch the twins and come here?’

‘I’ll call my parents.’

Cat looked up and saw that the light that meant there was an emergency in the radiology department was going off.

‘Ask Gill to come in and watch them,’ Cat said, referring to Gemma’s neighbour. ‘Andy can drive you in. I have to go now, Gemma.’

She loathed leaving her friend hanging. She knew the panicked state she had placed her friend in, but there wasn’t time to wait for Gemma’s parents. They were slow and annoying and would ask five hundred questions before they even started to reach for their car keys.

She rushed to the radiology department but the anaesthetist had arrived already and was intubating Nigel.

‘He’s got a small subdural,’ Dominic explained. ‘He started seizing and has just blown a pupil. We’re going to race him up to Theatre.’

Nigel was now sedated and Dominic told her that the neurosurgeon had gone ahead to scrub as they started to move Nigel out. It was calm and controlled, the only panic in the room internal, and Cat looked at her friend’s husband, perhaps the kindest man she knew, lying there fighting for his life.

She held his hand as they ran along the corridor. ‘I’ll look after Gemma and the twins,’ she said to him, and at the elevators she gave an unconscious Nigel a very brief kiss as they went to move him in. ‘You look after you and get well.’

She was breathless from her brief run and wanted to sit down on the cold tiled floor and cry but instead she pushed herself to turn around and head back down.

She could only guess at what was about to greet her.

‘Where is he?’ Gemma was frantic, running towards Cat just as she got back to the emergency department.

‘I’ve asked at Reception...’

‘Come in here,’ Cat said, leading her to a small interview room.

‘I want to see him now.’

‘He’s in Theatre, Gemma.’

Her friend simply crumpled. She just lost it.

She stood there and folded over and it dawned on Cat she had never seen Gemma anything other than calm before. Even when there had been a scare about the twins Gemma had remained upbeat and positive. Now, though, she couldn’t even make it to a chair and it was Cat who held her up.

Thankfully, Dominic, back from taking Nigel to Theatre, came in and took over. He explained what was going on.

‘They’re operating on him now. He has a small subdural haematoma.’ Dominic explained that Nigel was bleeding on his brain and that he had been rushed to Theatre to evacuate the bleed and relieve the pressure that was building. ‘Mr Dawson is the one doing the surgery and he’s one of the best.’

‘He’s brilliant,’ Cat said.

‘I don’t understand what happened, though,’ Gemma wept. ‘He was at his French class.’

‘It would seem he got jumped,’ Dominic said. ‘He had no wallet with him, no phone or ID. A passer-by found him lying down outside a pub. Luckily they called for an ambulance instead of just assuming he was drunk.’

‘Nigel doesn’t drink.’

‘When he arrived here he was confused, he said that he needed to get home. His blood pressure was high and I arranged for an urgent CT scan. At that point Cat came on duty and of course she knew who he was. It all happened that quickly. He was drowsy during the CT and only at the last minute did he become unconscious.’

All poor Gemma could do now was wait.

‘Cat will go with you to wait,’ Dominic said, and Cat gave a grateful nod.

It was only as she walked out of the department that she started to realise she wouldn’t be coming back to work until she was a mother.

Just as Nigel and Gemma had dropped everything for her when she’d had Thomas, it was time for Cat to do the same.

‘Will you speak with Andrew and explain I won’t be able to come in?’ Cat said to Dominic.

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Just take care of your friend.’

She did.

It was the longest night.

Nigel came through Theatre and Mr Dawson was cautiously optimistic but he explained that Nigel would remain in an induced coma for the next forty-eight hours at least.

‘I can’t believe someone would do this for a wallet.’ Gemma sat, holding his hand. ‘He’s got two little boys who need him. I need him.’

And Cat, who had sworn she’d never need anybody, knew what she meant.

She needed the breakfast that Dominic bought them when he dropped in in the morning, having finished his shift.

She needed his support and she got it.

Her shifts were covered, Gemma’s parents moved in to take over the twins and Cat went home at lunchtime and packed a bag for herself, then went to Gemma’s and did the same for her friend.

When she got back to the hospital, they holed up as the world went on.

Just as Thomas had never been left alone, she and Gemma took turns to sit by Nigel’s bed while the other slept. Even when his parents and brother visited, either Cat or Gemma were there.

Gemma trusted Cat to notice things she wasn’t sure anyone else would, and it was the only way she’d consider getting some rest herself.

‘How is he?’ Dominic came into Cat’s line of vision late on the second afternoon.

‘The same,’ Cat said. ‘It’s just a matter of waiting.’

‘How’s Gemma?’

‘She’s just gone home to check in on the twins. She’s all upbeat and positive now. She’s talking as if he’s just had his wisdom teeth out.’

‘How are you?’

Cat shrugged.

‘Are you getting any sleep?’

‘Some. Gemma and I have taken over one of the on-call rooms.’ She looked up and smiled as her friend came back and Dominic spoke for a moment with Gemma and then left.

‘How were the twins?’ Cat asked.

‘Teary and clingy. Mum and Dad keep asking when I’ll be back. I know that the twins are too much for them but what else can I do?’

‘I can look after them,’ Cat offered.

‘I need you here, though.’

‘Have you managed to get hold of your sister?’ Cat asked. Gemma’s sister was in the army and not immediately accessible.

‘Finally, and she’s asking for urgent leave and should be back in a couple of days.’

It was another long night and as Gemma slept through the morning part of it Cat sat with Nigel.

They were going to try to extubate him later and it was scary, to say the least.

‘You have to be okay, Nigel,’ Cat said. ‘Your family needs you.’

‘They do,’ Gemma said, and Cat looked up and smiled at her friend. ‘Thanks for being here.’

‘Where else would I be?’

‘And I must thank Dominic.’

‘For what?’

‘Covering all your shifts, bringing me decent coffee. He’s gorgeous,’ Gemma said, and took her seat by Nigel. ‘I don’t blame him for not saying he’s a widower.’ She took Nigel’s hand. ‘See, Nigel, you have to get well or I’m going to be getting loads of offers for sympathy sex...seriously,’ she said to her comatose husband. ‘I’ll have all the single dads lining up to fix the car or the leaky roof. I’ll have to fend them off.’ She turned to Cat and smiled. ‘Go and have a sleep. I’m going to talk dirty to my husband and remind him of all he’ll be missing out on if he dares to leave.’

Cat slept.

The very second she lay down in the on-call room she fell asleep and awoke with a jolt only when the door opened and there was Dominic.

‘What’s happened?’

‘Good news, well, cautiously good.’ He was holding a large mug and he waited for her to sit up, which was rather difficult to achieve, and then he handed it to her and brought her up to date.

‘He was fighting the tube and they’ve extubated him.’

‘Is he speaking?’

‘No.’

‘Has he opened his eyes?’

‘No, but he responds to voices and is moving all limbs.’

‘I should go...’ Cat went to get out of the bed but he took her shoulder and pushed her back.

‘No, no. Gemma’s in with him. I’ve just come from speaking with her. Her mum’s not well. Well, she’s got a cold...’

‘They’re useless,’ Cat hissed.

‘I said that you’d go and watch the twins.’

‘What did Gemma say?’

‘She was relieved, I think.’

Cat let out her own sigh of relief. If Gemma was happy for her to go, then, really, things must be starting to look better for Nigel.

‘I thought he was going to die,’ she admitted.

‘I know you did.’

For the past couple of days, since the moment she’d heard Nigel swearing and cursing, she had honestly thought he would die, or that the Nigel she’d known was gone.

Now there was hope that he was on his way back.

‘Have your tea, then I’ll drive you. There’s no need to rush.’

‘Are you working?’

‘Just till five. Hamish worked last night and again tonight. I’m back in at nine tomorrow, but I can take half an hour to drop you at Gemma’s.’

Cat nodded. She was way too tired to drive.

He sat on the edge of the bed and she looked at him—unshaven and exhausted—and she could see the strain in his features, and whether or not she was allowed to ask, she did.

‘Is this hard on you too?’ They both knew she was referring to his late wife.

‘Yep.’ He took a drink of her tea and then handed it back to her.

‘Heather ended up in ICU and she hated me for it. She never said it, of course, but it was something she dreaded and not how she wanted it to be...’ He didn’t tell her any more and Cat sat there, not feeling slighted in the least. The sharing part was so incredibly hard at times. They’d been sort of thrust on each other by the baby.

That hurt Cat.

It was a niggle in her heart, a wound that gnawed.

That day when she’d thought he was cheating, instead of correcting her he had simply let her go—that was how much she had meant to him then, which made it hard to confide in him now.

‘I’m going to see Nigel,’ she said, ‘and get Gemma’s keys and things.’ She looked around the room—in two days she’d accumulated quite a lot of stuff. Toiletries, clothes, towels...