JOSHUA’S HEAD WAS in knots. One of his doctors had quit. Well, not actually quit. He’d had to leave due to a family emergency back in Portugal. But he’d made it clear he regretfully couldn’t come back, and the space in the rota seemed to be multiplying by the second. Two others had been struck down by the norovirus which was currently storming its way through the hospital, their paediatric anaesthetist had chickenpox—so severe he’d be lucky not to be admitted to ITU himself—and one of his junior doctors was expecting, and it turned out she had one of the worst cases of hyperemesis gravidarum he’d ever seen.

His pager sounded again and he muttered, ‘I swear, if that’s someone else sick...’

‘You’ll what?’ Clara appeared at his elbow, a smile on her face, even though he knew she was run ragged covering here, there and everywhere.

‘I’ll probably run and hide,’ he admitted. ‘We’re too many staff down already.’ He wrinkled his brow. ‘Don’t you have a clinic?’

Clara nodded. ‘But Ron’s contacted them all, and I’m seeing them up here rather than at the other side of the hospital. It means that I can keep an eye on the assessment unit too.’

Joshua stopped walking and looked at her for a second. ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’

Clara grinned up at him. He breathed in and it was a little shock to the senses. She was wearing that perfume again that reminded him of a garden after a rainstorm. It made him lose the ability to concentrate—hardly good for today.

They’d come to some kind of truce. He couldn’t quite understand why she’d started off pushing all his buttons in the wrong way, but now he’d taken time to take a step back, be patient and leave his judgement unclouded, he actually quite liked her.

She’d been so good about Hannah, particularly when he’d burst into her apartment. The conversation that night had seemed to put them on an uneven balance—one that could easily teeter in one direction or the other.

But she’d rapidly proved herself at work. The rest of the staff liked her, and she seemed clinically sound. On the few occasions he’d brought Hannah into work, Clara had gone out of her way to chat to her and spend time with her. Auntie Georgie’s flat had quickly become Clara’s place, and he wasn’t sure if he liked that or not.

But, more than that, she was just...there. It was as if his senses picked up whenever she was around. He could hear her laugh before he walked through a door, sense her presence in the ward before he ever set eyes on her. She was patient with anxious parents. Good with teenagers. Magical with the terrible twos.

His brain was trying to deal with the fact that he was enjoying her being around. Maybe it had been that first glance. The shock to the system, realising he’d noticed how attractive she was. The colour of her lips. The curve of her hips.

Sure, he’d dated a few women over the last year or so. But none that had been special to him. None that had given him that suck-in-your-breath-for-a-moment feeling. He’d kind of forgotten what that felt like and had thought himself incapable of feeling like that again.

Maybe it was his history. He’d got used to being on his own. It was hard to learn how to trust again when his trust had been so badly broken. It was harder still when he’d loved the person who’d broken his trust completely, and she had loved him. He’d thought he was over things; he was sure he was ready to get back out there. But the slightest hint that the person he was dating wasn’t being completely up front with him was enough to send him in the other direction without a second’s hesitation. It didn’t matter that it was ridiculous. Everyone was entitled to their privacy. But he just couldn’t shake off the underlying conviction that was buried deep down inside of him—a relationship meant no secrets, no lies. It wasn’t just his own heart he had to protect now; it was Hannah’s.

But Clara? She was dancing around the edges of those thoughts on a pretty permanent basis. Which was a shame, as she was only here for six months and there was no way he’d introduce a potential girlfriend to Hannah unless he thought she might be important.

So it was easier to keep Clara in a different kind of box—one where he didn’t think about her that way.

But sitting on the sofa with her a few weeks ago had pushed hard at those boundaries. She was easy with the touching; it came so naturally to her. She probably didn’t realise it had been a long time since someone other than a parent or his sister had touched his hand in that kind of way. With affection. With care.

Clara stopped walking, spinning around until she was facing him. ‘You didn’t think of it because your brain doesn’t function that way.’ She gave a good-natured shrug. ‘You’re a man. Multi-tasking is a whole new language to you.’ She gave him a wink as she walked away. ‘Anyhow, I’ll never admit it was Ron’s idea.’

He laughed as she disappeared through the doors. Clara was full of quips. And he liked that. He liked her sense of humour. It reminded him not to take life too seriously, and he needed that when some of the days here were tougher than others.

Half an hour later she was back, her expression serious. She didn’t beat around the bush. ‘Help,’ she said quickly, ‘I need a second opinion on a kid.’

He was on his feet in seconds. ‘No problem—what’s wrong?’

He started walking with her as she rattled off the child’s symptoms and her suspicions. ‘Lewis Crawley is seventeen months—temperature, abdominal pain, drawing his knees up to his chest, jelly stools, vomiting bile...’

He put his hand on her arm. ‘Clara, stop. What is it? This sounds like a textbook case. Why are you worried? You clearly know what’s wrong.’

She was the palest he’d ever seen her. Jittery even. Not the cool doctor who’d diagnosed a weird and wonderful disease in the first week he’d worked with her.

‘I... I just want a second opinion. And we don’t have our normal anaesthetist. Who will take the case? Who will do the surgery?’

Joshua stopped and put both hands on her shoulders. ‘Do you know this kid?’

She shook her head, and he could see the gleam of un-spilled tears in her eyes.

He had no idea what was going on here. And he’d have to get to the bottom of it. But, in the meantime, if this toddler had intussusception and the bowel had telescoped inside itself it was a surgical emergency.

‘Okay, let’s see him.’ The examination took moments. Clara was right with every call. He could see she was trying to keep her emotions in check, so he went back over things with the parents to satisfy himself that they understood what was happening. Then he contacted the surgeon on call for the day, and phoned an alternative paediatric anaesthetist.

Clara typed up the notes as he spoke, recording every extra detail. She’d done everything she could—even ordered all the tests and completed the emergency consent form with the parents.

On a normal day, Joshua would have given any colleague a second opinion and then left them to carry on. But this wasn’t a normal day. And he wasn’t going to leave her.

He waited until both the surgeon and anaesthetist had come up to the ward, and the theatre staff had appeared to take Lewis and his parents down to surgery, then he glan

ced around to make sure there were no eyes upon them, slid his arm around her shoulders and guided her into the nearest room, closing the door behind them.

The nearest room was the stationery cupboard, not the best venue for a discussion like this. He took his arm away and turned to face her. ‘Okay, Clara, you did everything perfectly. Tell me what’s wrong.’

She was shaking—her body was actually shaking—and he watched as she dissolved into tears, muttering a curse under her breath.

Her head was shaking, but her face was covered with her hands. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I just...’ she took a deep breath and dropped her hands and her gaze ‘...panicked.’

The word struck him as odd for Clara to choose. She was a member of staff who’d proved herself clinically competent over the last six weeks, and panic wasn’t something he’d seen in her before.

‘Tell me why you panicked,’ he said steadily. He had to unpick this. If she needed support, it was his job to offer it.

She leaned back against one of the shelves in the cupboard, taking a few moments before she lifted her dark gaze to meet his.

‘I didn’t expect this to happen.’ Her hands were still trembling and instinct made him reach out and take one of them in his own.

‘What happened?’ His voice was almost a whisper, just willing her to continue.

Her eyes closed and she rested her head back. ‘I had a kid, older than Lewis, back in Edinburgh. I wasn’t at work.’ She winced. ‘I had norovirus.’

Just like today—two staff off with norovirus.

‘By the time I got into work early the next day, I saw there had been a kid admitted overnight. He might have been a bit older, but the symptoms were all there. A locum had been covering for us and had dismissed intussusception and was querying a grumbling appendix and had ordered a scan for the next day.’

She swallowed and a tear slipped down her face. ‘I knew what was wrong with him as soon as I saw him. We got him to Theatre as soon as we could, but...’ she shook her head ‘...part of his bowel was necrosed. Dead. He ended up with a permanent stoma.’

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