SHE WALKED ON AIR, her smile so wide that people turned their heads to look at her as she walked the dogs, curious as to what had made her so happy.
She could have told them in one word.
Ethan.
Ethan, Ethan, Ethan.
“You look as if Christmas came early,” Glenys said as they walked slowly along Fifth Avenue. “So it’s going well then with the doctor?”
“Oh—” Harriet blinked. Was it that obvious? “Well, he’s working a lot of the time of course, but we’ve seen each other occasionally.” And each time had been better than the last. She never would have believed dating could be so easy.
“I knew right from the beginning that he was the one for you.”
Harriet felt her heart skip. “I don’t believe in ‘the one.’ How can there only be one person for us? What if ‘the one’ lives in Peru and I’m in New York? How am I supposed to find him? I don’t think my internal GPS is that reliable.”
“You found him, didn’t you? Life has a way of sending us to the right place at the right time.”
“You think spraining my ankle was all part of some master plan? Because that wasn’t even the start of it. If it hadn’t been for the dog sitting, I never would have seen him again.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” Glenys was cryptic.
Harriet sidestepped a patch of ice. “Be careful here. How’s your hip?”
“Much better thanks to you. The doctor says all the walking has been good for me.”
“I’m pleased to hear it.”
“Are you seeing him later?”
“Your doctor?”
“No, your doctor, honey.” Glenys gave her a saucy wink and Harriet rolled her eyes.
“You’re worse than my sister.” And she was conscious that she had yet to tell Fliss what was happening. But what was happening exactly? She didn’t know, which was why she was avoiding the conversation. Fliss would turn it into more than it was and Harriet didn’t want that.
“We love you, that’s all. We want you to be happy. You’re like a granddaughter to me. If you didn’t already have a grandmother who loves you, I’d try and officially adopt you. Because of your chocolate chip cookies of course. Not for any other reason.”
Harriet stopped and hugged her. “I promise you a lifetime supply.”
“Have you cooked for that man of yours yet? Because if you have, he’s a goner. He’d soon give up all this ‘never getting married again’ nonsense if he knew the way you cooked.”
“I cooked a little when I was in his apartment, but everyday stuff. Nothing special.” After that painfully embarrassing incident on the first night, she’d kept the food simple. No one could read seduction into spaghetti with red sauce.
“What are you waiting for? Seduce his taste buds. Blow his mind.”
“Funny you should say that because tonight I’m really going all out to impress him.” She’d been planning the menu all week. It was ambitious and potentially full of things that could go wrong, but she wanted the evening to be special.
Ethan only had one more week in the city before he left for his ski trip and she wanted to make sure he went away thinking of her.
Back in her apartment she chopped, sautéed and did all the initial preparation for the meal.
Telling herself that she was just killing time, she went onto YouTube and watched an episode on life in the ER, with Ethan in the starring role. She could see why they’d decided to make a series. He was movie-star handsome, but not in an inaccessible movie-star way. He seemed human. Real. And he seemed cool and calm no matter what came through the doors of the ER. Drunks, knife wounds, gunshot wounds—he dealt with it all. It didn’t surprise her to discover he had a huge female fan base. Of course he did.
When the scenes on the screen became too graphic, she clicked off and then on impulse searched for the name of his ex-wife.
She clicked on a clip of Alison reporting from Africa. There she was in the dust and the heat looking cool and elegant in khaki and crisp white, her hair a sleek bob. Apparently neither the heat nor the pressure was allowed to affect her performance.
She spoke directly to the camera about the current political situation. She was poised and eloquent. Not a single um.
This woman had never stammered in her life. She spoke clearly and without pause, the words emerging with an almost musical fluency. Harriet watched, transfixed and dismayed. She wanted to switch it off, but she couldn’t stop watching. For her, the words, certain letters, could so easily be jammed. Trapped in her mouth. Sometimes she’d practice speaking in front of the mirror, but talking to herself didn’t present the same challenge as talking to a stranger. She’d learned that most people preferred to talk than to listen so she often stayed silent, even though she knew by doing so she’d be labeled quiet or shy. There had been so many times when Fliss and Daniel had leaped in, taking on the role of understudy when her brain and mouth had refused to perform as expected.
It made her feel vulnerable to know her tongue could still let her down. Speech was a fundamental part of a person. And maybe it was wrong, but people judged.
Having thoroughly depressed herself, she flipped her laptop shut and stood up.
Alison was lovely, and eloquent, but Ethan wasn’t with her anymore.
She wasn’t going to feel envy about a relationship that no longer existed.
If anything she felt sad for him. Because, personal feelings aside, anytime a marriage failed was sad.
She distracted herself by cooking the perfect meal.
Ethan had said he’d be home by seven, so she planned to eat at 7:30 to allow him time to be late.
She switched on the Christmas tree lights, lit two of her favorite cinnamon and orange scented candles.
Humming along to carols, she prepared the duck and slid it into the oven.
By seven thirty everything was ready but there was no sign of Ethan.
She stared at her phone. Should she call? No. If he wanted to call her, he’d call. He didn’t exactly have a nine to five job, did he?
She poured herself a glass of red wine and stood by the window.
It had finally stopped snowing but the city was bathed in an ethereal glow.
Her phone told her it was past eight, but still there was no sign of him.
What had possessed her to cook a soufflé?
Maybe she should ditch it and serve smoked salmon instead.
After an hour she poured herself another glass of wine.
After two hours she was starting to get seriously worried.
Maybe he’d had second thoughts. Maybe cooking dinner at home sent the wrong signals.
THERE WERE DAYS when he loved his job. Today wasn’t one of them.
“Remind me. Why do I spend my Saturday nights in this place?” Susan ripped off her gloves. “I could be at the theatre or having sex with a hot guy. I could be having a life instead of always being in on the worst moments of someone else’s.”
They’d lost the patient and it had been a harrowing few hours.
Ethan was exhausted. He knew the rest of the team was too.
Each member would go home and process the loss in the way that best suited them. Some might use counseling, some might reach for the bottle, some might just bury it deep and keep going. All of them would analyze. They’d go over every step of the care they’d given, looking for holes.
In this case there hadn’t been any.
He knew they’d done everything that they could have done and that the odds had been stacked against them.
The man had been drunk when the car he’d been driving had rammed into a wall. The car had caught fire, something that happened more in the movies than in real life but in this case the guy had been unlucky, as was the woman he’d hit with the car before he’d made contact with the wall. His passenger had crawled from the wreckage moments before the car had exploded. The driver had been brought in with most of his skin toasted and his aorta severed. His friend had walked away with nothing more than a cut finger.
Alcohol and driving. Two words that shouldn’t ever appear in the same sentence, Ethan thought as he watched Susan try and haul her emotions back inside. She kept up a stream of her usual black humor, but it was different from usual and Ethan knew why. He knew what most people didn’t. That her husband had been killed by a drunk driver. He knew that this case wasn’t just professional for her, it was personal.
He also knew it would take her a few days to get back to her normal self. In the meantime he’d help all he could.
“You’d hate living a normal life.”
“I don’t think so.” She looked tired and for once there was no sign of the humor or banter that characterized their relationship. “This place shows you the worst side of humans.”
“Maybe. Or maybe it shows you the truth about humans.”
“Jeez, Black, that’s depressing. You need someone to lighten your dark side. Go to the theatre. Do something happy. Speaking of which, how is Harriet?”
He decided a little teasing might be good for her. “Who?”
“Cut me some slack. If I can’t have my own sex life, I’m going to enjoy yours.”
“What makes you think I have a sex life?” He could already see that he’d pulled her away from that dark, dark place. Not completely, but at least she seemed to be clear of the edge.
“You smile more.”
“You’re thinking of someone else. There’s nothing to smile about here.”
“True, which makes it all the more appealing when you do smile.” She patted his hand. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing.”
“What am I doing?”
She sighed. “You’re being a good friend, that’s what. And I’m grateful for it. And relieved to know you’re human.”
“Who said I was human?” They’d get through it, Ethan thought. They’d find a way through this bad day the way they’d found their way through all the others.
The department was swarming with cops looking for answers.
Ethan wasn’t sure they’d find any other than the obvious.
The driver had a blood alcohol so far over the legal limit it was a wonder he’d focused enough to pick up his car keys and drive. But he had, and that answered the question of what they were all doing here. Why he’d thought consuming that level of alcohol was a good idea was a question that was beyond Ethan’s understanding.
He was about to suggest to Susan that they grab a quick coffee, when a man appeared in the doorway.
Ethan recognized him as the passenger of the car, and it seemed he was as drunk as his friend had been. It showed in his eyes. In the way he walked. There was a scrape on his cheek and his left hand was bandaged.
“Who’s in charge?” He slurred his words. “Are you the doctor?”
Ethan knew trouble when he saw it and he was looking at it now.
“I’m Doctor Black. Let me take you somewhere more private where we can talk.”
The man lifted his finger and pointed to Ethan, stabbing the air. “You killed Nick. You fucking killed my brother.”
“You’re upset. I understand that. We did everything that could humanly be done. Unfortunately Nick’s injuries were serious and life-threatening.” Ethan spoke calmly, trying to diffuse the situation, but reasoning and logic weren’t much use when a man had that much alcohol in his system.
The man’s gaze transferred to Susan and the anger in his face turned into something uglier.
“You’re the bitch who had her hands on him when he was brought in. I saw you.”
Susan opened her mouth to reply, but never got a chance.
It happened so quickly that afterward it was hard to recall the exact sequence of events. One minute they were talking and the next minute Ethan saw the quick flash of a blade as the guy pulled a knife. He moved fast, but so did Ethan. Without thinking he put himself in front of Susan and felt a flash of white heat and agony as the blade connected with his arm. With a neat move he hooked his leg behind the other man and dropped him to the ground. He went down hard, arms and legs flailing. The noise must have alerted security because moments later the room was crawling with cops and hospital security.
“Get a medical team in here,” one of the cops called and Ethan shook his head.
“It’s all right.” His voice sounded gruff. “It’s just a superficial wound.” And then he realized they weren’t looking at him, they were looking at Susan.
She’d collapsed to the ground and Ethan saw a red stain darkening and spreading across her scrubs.
“Jesus, no. Susan.” He was by her side in an instant, dimly aware that one of the nurses was tying something around his arm to stop the bleeding.
Susan’s eyes flickered open. “Trying to be a hero again. You’re bleeding.”
Nowhere near as much as she was.
He couldn’t work it out. Couldn’t work out how she was the one lying on the floor bleeding out. And then he realized the man must have somehow managed to get one last stab in before Ethan had floored him.
“The things you do to get attention.” His voice shook as he lifted her scrubs and saw the knife wound and the steady pump of blood. Mentally running through all the vital organs the man might have hit on his quest to take revenge for his brother’s death, Ethan barked out orders.
Get a line in. Let’s do an abdominal ultrasound. Call the surgeons.
It was automatic, another case—except that this wasn’t another case. This was Susan. Susan, who worked by his side every day. Who he trusted with his life. Who had trusted him with hers. It tore at his gut and his heart.
The team swarmed round Susan and the next few minutes passed in a blur of action.
Liver? Spleen? Ethan examined her, scanned her abdomen, watched her blood pressure dip and her pulse accelerate.
He didn’t like the way she looked. Her skin was waxy pale and her pulse thready. “How soon until we can get her into the OR?”
“Couple of minutes.”
It was the longest couple of minutes of his life. His hands were covered in her blood.
She opened her eyes again but this time he could see it was an effort.
“Hey there.” He gave her his best reassuring smile. “You’re going to be fine.”
“You’re a terrible liar.” Her eyes closed. Her voice was faint. “I’m going to die right here in my own department and your ugly face is the last thing I’ll see. There’s no justice.”
“You’re not going to die. It will ruin my reputation if you die. Time for the surgeons to take over and find out whether he hit something important.” He started to straighten up when she reached out and caught his arm.
“Promise me something, Ethan.” This time her tone was serious. Her face was white and he felt fear lurch from his chest to his throat. This was how people felt every day in this department, but not him. He was always on the other side of it. He was the one fixing, reassuring, dealing. He wasn’t the one worrying. Until now.
“Anything.”
“If I live, I get to be godmother to your children.”
If I live.
“I don’t have children.”
“But you will, one day. Two children and a dog. White picket fence. Maybe a rosebush.”
His laugh was shaky. “Don’t you ever give up?”
“Promise me.”
“I promise. If I ever have children, you’re godmother. It’s a deal.”
It was only later, when he’d washed Susan’s blood from his fingers and gone to sit on one of the hard plastic chairs near the operating room, that he realized he’d forgotten to call Harriet. A glance at his phone told him he was four hours late for their date.
She’d cooked him a special dinner, which no doubt was now congealed and ruined.
It had happened many times when he’d first got together with Alison, which was why they’d resorted to eating out. Solo eating in a restaurant wasn’t as frustrating as laboring for hours over food that was scraped into the trash.
This was the first time it had happened with Harriet.
He pulled out a phone but couldn’t face talking to anyone, so instead of calling he sent a text. Brief. Factual.
He’d deal with the fallout later.
How to ruin a relationship before it started.
A short time later he felt a hand on his shoulder and one of the nurses handed him a cup of coffee. Not the sort people gathered in coffee bars to drink. The vile-tasting stuff the hospital produced to make sure no one lingered longer than they had to.
He managed to thank her, although he was thanking her more for the sentiment than the actual coffee. He didn’t know its exact chemical makeup, but he doubted it had ever seen a coffee bean.
He knew he wasn’t the only one waiting for news of Susan, but he was the only one waiting outside the operating room. The police came to talk to him, hospital staff came and went, sent him sympathetic glances, murmured the occasional word, but mostly left him alone. They probably would have let him inside if he’d asked, but he wasn’t sure he could cope with that much reality right now.
He felt as if the edges of his world had blurred. Right now he was both doctor, and concerned friend. The doctor side of him kept thinking about all the various scenarios that could be taking place inside the operating room. The friend kept thinking about how he and Susan had been chatting only minutes before the man had appeared in the room.
He felt a hand on his shoulder again. He looked up expecting to see a nurse and was surprised to see Harriet.
Her coat was buttoned unevenly and she wasn’t wearing gloves. She’d obviously left the apartment in a hurry.
“I came as soon as I got your text.”
She’d come in person? It hadn’t even crossed his mind that she’d do that. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“The ruined dinner. I should have called, not sent a text.”
“Do you really think I care about that? In the circumstances I’m surprised you even managed to text. How is she doing? Any news?” She sat down next to him on another of the hard plastic chairs that seemed to have been chosen for their discomfort. It was a place no one would choose to linger, as if the painful psychology of waiting had somehow oozed into the furniture.
He was still processing the fact Harriet was here, sitting in the uncomfortable chair next to his. “No news. But why are you here?”
“Isn’t that what friendship is? Supporting another friend in trouble?”
He stared down at his hands, trying not to think about Susan’s blood. “I’m fine. I don’t need support.”
“I know. Dr. Tough. So big and strong you don’t feel anything. You’ve told me that before. But I’m not here for you. I’m here for Susan. I liked her. A lot. I want to be here when she wakes up. She might need chicken soup or something.” She looked at the coffee in his hand. “I don’t think you should drink that.”
He stared at the drink and realized his hand was shaking. Dr. Tough? Not so much. Maybe he had more feelings left than he’d thought. “It’s caffeine. It will do the job.”
“Of poisoning you? If it’s caffeine you need, I can do better.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a flask. The liquid she poured into the cup was strong and black and tasted like heaven.
“What did you put in this? I’ve never tasted anything like it before.”
“It’s coffee. Real coffee. I grind the beans fresh. I thought you might need it.”
He did.
He drank two cups and felt the caffeine kick through his veins, firing him up. Maybe he should grind his own coffee beans too, if this was how the finished product tasted.
Unfortunately the sudden energy boost also kick-started his brain. He should have seen it coming. The moment the man had appeared in the door with his eyes glittering like LED lights, he should have got Susan out of the room. He should have moved faster. He should have called security straight off, but the whole incident had taken—what? Less than thirty seconds he was guessing. How the man had smuggled a knife past security he had no idea.
“How serious is it?”
“Too soon to say. The wound was pretty deep and it was close to some vital organs.” And he didn’t want to think about the possibilities or he’d drive himself insane. He was about to ask if there was any more coffee in her flask when she took the cup from his hand and topped it up.
He wondered how it was that she always seemed to know exactly what he needed.
She put the flask back in her bag. “When did you last eat?”
“I don’t know. Lunch?” His memory of the day was cloudy. The last hour had eclipsed everything. “In fact I think I missed lunch. I had caffeine at some point.” One hastily drunk cup of disgusting hospital coffee that had scalded his tongue and made him question his choices.
Harriet reached into her bag again and this time put a food container on his lap. “If we’re going to be here all night, you’re going to need to eat. You fainting from hunger won’t help Susan.”
He thought back to the first night she’d cooked for him in his apartment. Before he’d known better, he’d thought it was a romantic gesture. Now he understood that, for Harriet, cooking wasn’t a gesture of romantic interest but of comfort. That first night she’d been stressed and comforting herself by cooking, but she also comforted others. Chicken soup for him. Same for Susan when she’d visited. Cookies to Glenys. The sandwich she’d brought him wasn’t her making a point that he’d ruined dinner. It wasn’t her trying to win his heart. It was her trying to make things better. “I’m not hungry. Will you be offended if I don’t eat it?”
“No, but maybe take one bite.” Her tone was soft and coaxing. “It’s duck. The bread is from a sourdough loaf I made this morning. You couldn’t make it to dinner, so I brought dinner to you although not quite in the format originally planned.”
He took one bite to please her, but after one bite he discovered he was starving. And having eaten, he felt better.
The bread was the best sourdough he’d tasted outside of San Francisco. A perfect crust and chewy center.
He glanced along the corridor, knowing it would be a while until they had news of any sort. “This is a restricted area. I’m surprised they didn’t try and stop you.”
“They did.” Her cheeks turned pink. “I may have told a lie.”
“I thought you were no good at lying?”
“Apparently I’m getting better. I said I was Susan’s cousin and that you’d called me.”
He could imagine her standing there, channeling all her energies into telling a lie. Challenge Harriet. “In that case you’ve definitely earned bad-girl status.”
“I think so.”
“There’s only one problem—Susan doesn’t have any family.”
Harriet folded her hands in her lap and didn’t move from her chair. “She does now.”
Something sprang to life inside him, something he hadn’t felt in a long time.
“You’re a good person, Harriet Knight.”
“I think what you meant to say was that I’m a badass, kick-ass serious piece of work.”
He couldn’t help it. He laughed. Out loud. Here in the stark hospital corridor, where the air seemed to be filled with nothing but tension. “If you’re going to say those words, you need to have an expression that matches it.”
“At least I didn’t stammer. Lucky for me, badass isn’t a word I stammer over. I think it might spoil the effect. Can you imagine? B-b-badass doesn’t sound right, does it?”
He was still smiling when she covered his hand with hers.
“They told me you were hurt too. Are you in a lot of pain?”
He’d barely thought about his arm. At some point someone had checked it and dressed it. “It’s a scratch, that’s all. I was trying to stop him getting to Susan. I still can’t quite work out how he did.”
“And because he did, you’re blaming yourself.”
“It was my fault.” He ran his hand over his face. “I should have anticipated it. Should have stopped it.”
“How? Are you a mind reader? Bad things happen, Ethan. It’s life.”
He knew about life. He saw it every day, just as he dealt with the consequences of the bad things.
He wondered why she was still here, in this soulless place that no one would ever visit through choice.
She was as out of place as a gerbera daisy in a garbage heap.
“You should go home.”
“Do you want me to go? Because of course if you want me to, then I’ll go. But I thought you might like company.”
It was true that he’d barely noticed the thirty minutes that had elapsed since her arrival.
He opened his mouth to tell her she should go, but discovered he really didn’t want her to.
Something about her quiet presence made it not quite so difficult to handle.
“If you could stay,” he said, “that would be good. But it’s going to be a long night.”
She crossed her legs and settled into the chair. “I’m not going anywhere.”