The Doctor's Lost-and-Found Bride (5 page)

When their waiter brought cold drinks and hot, crispy nachos, Max’s discomfort was magnified a hundred times, because he reached for the snacks at the same time as Marina and his fingers brushed against hers. It was the lightest, most casual touch, but every nerve-end in his body screamed into life. It felt as if his blood were fizzing through his veins.

He was extremely glad that his jeans were relatively baggy. The last thing he wanted was anyone noticing his arousal, or guessing his reaction to Marina—especially Marina herself.

Cool, calm and casual. That was how Marina had decided to play it tonight, when Max had turned up.

Except he
would
have to wear a T-shirt that brought out the slate-blue of his eyes. She’d fallen in love with his beautiful eyes all those years before, though she’d forgotten how long his lashes were. How he’d looked when he was asleep, like a fallen angel. Sexy as hell.

Yet there were also definite changes in him. She could see dark shadows underneath his eyes, and there was a kind of wariness and a reserve about him that she didn’t remember from before, though maybe that was a result of his years working for Doctors Without Borders. She knew from talking to colleagues in her last hospital that the experience changed you.

But the thing that she really noticed was that Max looked…
unloved.

It made her want to hold him close, tell him that everything would be OK because she was there, and she…

Oh, hell. She really had to stop thinking like this. It hadn’t worked out last time; admittedly, they were both four years older and wiser now, but there was too much debris from the past for it to work out this time.

Though she couldn’t deny that the attraction was still there between them. When their fingers had accidentally brushed each other’s over the nachos, pure desire had rippled down her spine. And when she’d glanced at him he’d masked his expression quickly—but not before she’d noticed how huge his pupils were. Given how bright the lights were in the bowling alley, she had a pretty shrewd idea that Max was remembering the same kind of thing that she was.

Touching.

Tasting.

Losing themselves in each other.

They were really going to have to talk about this. But not at the hospital, and nowhere that they were likely to be spotted together or overheard; the last thing she wanted was for them to become the hottest topic on the hospital grapevine. She’d think about it over the weekend. Plan her strategy. And she’d tackle him on Monday.

E
XCEPT
on Monday there wasn’t any time to think. Marina was working with Max in Resus, and there was a constant stream of cases—a woman with chest pain, a man with severe abdominal pain and an elderly man with a transient ischaemic attack. The team was working flat out, and they had just about enough time to grab half a sandwich before the next shout.

Max looked grim. ‘We have a teenager on his way in. He was on his bike, not wearing a helmet; a car clipped him and he came off and hit his head. GCS 7.’

A Glasgow Coma Score of 7 meant that the boy was unconscious and unresponsive—and it was harder to judge his injuries. Given that he’d hit his head, his injuries could be severe. Life-threatening, even.

‘Stella—can you warn radiology that we’ll need an urgent CT scan, please, and get neurology on standby?’ Max asked.

Moments after the handover, Marina could see that the neuro obs weren’t good. She wasn’t happy with the boy’s pulse rate or his blood pressure, and even less happy that he still hadn’t regained full consciousness twenty minutes after the accident.

‘Witnesses say he was playing chicken, crossing the
road on his bike between parked cars,’ Max told her drily. ‘Apparently the car driver tried to avoid him and did an emergency stop, but he didn’t stand a chance.’

‘The boy or the driver?’

‘Both,’ Max said. ‘They’re bringing the driver separately. He has whiplash—and he’s pretty distressed.’

‘Anyone would be, in his shoes.’ She’d once accidentally backed into a car and broken her rear light, and that had been upsetting enough; when the collision hurt a person rather than a fixable object, even if it wasn’t the driver’s fault, it must be unbelievably frightening. ‘What a mess,’ Marina said.

Max swiftly intubated the boy and they set up ventilation. The boy’s cervical spine was still protected by the board. ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this one,’ Max said.

‘Skull fracture?’ Marina said.

Max nodded. ‘And maybe a haematoma.’ A blood clot that caused the brain to swell and pressure to rise within the cranium was a problem often caused with head injuries, and it could be fatal.

Max grimaced as he reviewed the CT scan. ‘Look,’ he said, pointing out the fracture at the base of the boy’s skull. ‘And here.’ There were definite signs of a haematoma.

‘Hurts,’ the boy said, opening his eyes and closing them again almost straight away.

But at least he was talking; that was a good sign.

‘Where does it hurt?’ Marina asked.

The boy mumbled something neither of them could catch—and then was silent.

Marina and Max shared a glance. ‘I hope this isn’t a textbook case,’ Max said.

She knew what he meant: ‘talk and die’. They’d both
seen cases like this before in Bristol, where a patient seemed to start recovering, said a few words—and then died just minutes later.

‘His BP’s rising,’ Marina said.

‘And he’s bradycardic. Looks like a Cushing response to me.’ Max’s mouth tightened.

The Cushing response was when blood pressure rose and the heart rate fell; it meant there was increased intracranial pressure. Given the circumstances surrounding the boy’s accident and what they’d seen on the CT scan, Marina knew Max thought the problem was caused by the haematoma getting bigger.

‘I’ll call the neuro team,’ she said. A few moments later, she came back over to Max. ‘The neurosurgeon says give him a bolus of mannitol—it’ll buy time to get him upstairs to Theatre so they can drain the haematoma.’

But they both knew it might not be enough time.

Max administered the mannitol, and the boy was rushed upstairs to Theatre.

Although they were rushed off their feet for the rest of the afternoon, Marina knew that Max was thinking of the boy, just as she was. And the longer it went without any news the more worried she became. Neurosurgery was delicate and draining a haematoma took time, especially when a fracture was involved too, but surely they should have heard by now?

In the one break she managed to snatch between patients, she called her mother to say that it was frantic in the department and asked her to pick up Phoebe. So at the end of her shift, while Max was doing the handover, instead of rushing to the hospital crèche she called the neuro team to see if there was any news on their patient.

‘I was on my way down to see you.’ Fergus Keating, the neurosurgeon, sighed heavily. ‘Sorry, Marina. We did what we could, but right when I thought we were on our way out of the woods we lost him on the table.’

‘I’m sorry, too.’ Brief, bare words, but she knew that Fergus understood what she meant: sympathy, because he’d tried his hardest, but the boy’s injuries had been too severe for him to save the lad. And he also had the task of breaking the bad news to the boy’s parents; giving bad news to the next of kin was one of the toughest parts of their job. ‘I’ll tell the others.’

‘Thanks.’

She put the phone down and took a deep breath.

Max, who’d been doing the handover, noticed the pallor in Marina’s face as she replaced the receiver.

‘Marina?’ he asked, going over to her.

She shook her head, as if unable to speak, and just walked out of Resus.

Max recognised the signs. Apart from the fact he’d seen this happen to colleagues a few times in his Doctors Without Borders days, he’d seen Marina crumble like this before. He also knew what it probably meant: that Marina had just been talking to the neurosurgeon and it was bad news.

He remembered that losing a patient had always hit Marina hard, and she’d always taken it personally. Four years’ more experience in the emergency department clearly hadn’t changed that. Her family was so good at fixing things that she simply couldn’t deal with it on the rare occasions when it didn’t happen—and it didn’t matter that nobody else could’ve fixed things in the situation, either. In her view, she’d failed.

He followed her into the staff kitchen. She was halfway through filling a glass of water when she doubled over, shaking and not saying a word.

He put his arms round her, spun her round and held her close. ‘It’s OK,’ he said softly. ‘Talk to me. Let it out.’

She was still shaking, but clearly she was too upset for tears. ‘He—he didn’t make it,’ she whispered.

Max had guessed as much.

‘I hate losing patients, Max. I
hate
it when we can’t save them.’

‘We do our best, but we’re only human. We can’t save everyone. You know that.’ He stroked her hair; he could smell the familiar scent of rosemary, and it felt so good to have her back in his arms. What kind of selfish pig was he, to be thinking of his own gratification and pleasure when she was upset? ‘Marina, we did our best for him. So did the neuro team. Nobody could’ve done more.’

‘I know.’ She shuddered. ‘But it always feels so much worse when we lose a child. It’s bad enough when someone’s old, but at least they’ve had a chance to live—a child has barely started living. And what about his family? There’s going to be a huge hole in their lives. I mean, if he was playing chicken he was probably a difficult kid and hell to live with, but even so he was still their child. Losing…’ She choked on the word.

‘I know, honey.’ He kept his arms round her, telling himself it was so she could draw strength and comfort from him, and knowing full well that he was taking just as much strength and comfort back from her.

But he really needed to make her feel better, and there was only one way he knew how.

‘I’m pulling rank. Making an executive decision,’ he said.

‘What?’ She looked at him, her dark eyes filled with incomprehension.

‘At a time like this, the only thing that works is comfort food. Come on. We’re both off duty, and I’ve done the handover.’

‘Max, where are you…?’

‘Taking you for some comfort food,’ he repeated. ‘And, before you ask, I’d do the same for anyone on my team.’

It wasn’t a complete fib. He’d take an upset team member for a coffee and a sandwich and let them talk it out; debriefing was important. But he’d probably take them to a quiet corner of the cafeteria, whereas he intended to take Marina somewhere much more private.

He shepherded her to the staff room; they collected their coats and she grabbed her handbag from her locker. Then he took her back to his flat. During the five-minute walk, she didn’t say a word and she was still shivering.

‘Where…?’ she began as he opened his front door for her and stood aside.

‘My flat. I’m making you something to eat,’ he said.

‘Max, I…’

He smiled wryly. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to leap on you.’

‘That wasn’t what I was worried about.’

‘Then what?’

Her eyes were huge, dark and anguished.

He gave a muffled exclamation and hauled her back into his arms. This time, she wrapped her arms round him too. He kissed the top of her head, feeling as if he were drowning in the scent of rosemary from her hair. He really had to stop this, before it was too late.

But then her arms were round his neck, her fingers were
sliding into his hair, and she was pressing tiny kisses into the column of his throat.

It was like lighting touch-paper; the next thing he knew, his mouth was jammed against hers, his arms were wrapped tightly round her and her fingertips were pushing hard against his scalp, urging him on.

Unable to help himself, desperately needing the feel of her bare skin against his fingertips, he untucked her white shirt from the waistband of her tailored, black trousers. He slipped his hands underneath the cotton and splayed his fingers flat against her bare midriff. Her skin felt so soft—and he’d missed this so much.

Then she was doing the same to him, tugging his white shirt out of the waistband of his suit trousers and smoothing her palms along his back.

This was all so familiar, and yet so new at the same time. It was more than four years since Marina had last touched him like this, and they were different people now, yet they were still the same. They still responded to each other in the same way. It almost felt as though they’d never been apart.

Lost in the moment, Max moved his hands higher, his palms stroking against her ribcage. She inhaled sharply and he traced the lacy edge of her bra with one forefinger. One thing that definitely hadn’t changed: Marina still wore ultra-feminine underwear. And right now he really, really wanted to see it. Wanted to see her. Wanted to touch and taste, and let her fill the emptiness inside him.

He undid the buttons of her shirt, his hands shaking; to his relief, she didn’t stop him. He pushed the soft cotton off her shoulders, revealing pure-white lace against her slightly olive skin, and desire licked down his spine. He
could see her nipples through the lace, hardening as he looked at them, and he just couldn’t help himself. He dipped his head, closed his mouth over one nipple through the lace, and sucked hard.

Marina moaned aloud and slid her fingers back into his hair, urging him on rather than pulling him away, and he was completely lost. He undid the clasp of her bra and let the lace fall to the floor; he cupped her breasts in his hands, remembering their weight and their warmth.

This felt like coming home.

Where he longed to be.

Where he
needed
to be

He wanted Marina so urgently, so desperately. But, more than that, he needed her to want this as much as he did.

He kissed his way up the column of her throat, then took her mouth again, nibbling tiny kisses along her lower lip until she opened her mouth and let him deepen the kiss. Then she was kissing him all the way back, unbuttoning his shirt and tugging it off his shoulders with the same urgency.

Working purely on instinct, Max lifted her up and carried her through to his bedroom, still kissing her. He set her back on her feet again by the window, drew the curtains and switched on the bedside lamp. Still neither of them had said a word; they were lost in a deep, deep hunger and need.

He kissed her again, and then her fingers were fumbling with the buckle of his belt. Struggling. He gently pushed her hands aside, still kissing her, and dealt with it himself.

He wasn’t sure which of them removed which items of clothing, but at last they were how he wanted them to be, skin to skin. And she felt so good: soft and warm, just as he remembered. Just as he dreamed. He drew her closer, and simply fell back on the bed, pulling her with him so
she landed on top of him, her glorious hair falling all over his face and her bare skin right next to his.

Heaven.

Marina knew this was all wrong, that she shouldn’t be doing this. That Max was off limits. For goodness’ sake, he was her ex-husband and her colleague, and when this all blew apart it would be impossible to work together. Not to mention all the mess of their shared past. This was a seriously bad idea.

But she was lying on top of him. Both of them were completely naked, with Max’s arms wrapped tightly round her. And, oh, it felt good. Like coming home.

Being in his arms, kissing him, seeing his slate-blue eyes darken almost to black with desire…She’d missed this. Badly. Missed the way Max made her feel as if she were the centre of his universe. Missed the way he made her feel that he were the centre of hers. There was nothing else outside this room, outside this bed. Nothing but the two of them.

The miserable day she’d spent at work, the sense of failure and despair, had all vanished: there was only Max. Max, who was kissing her as if he couldn’t get enough of her—just as she couldn’t get enough of him.

She shifted slightly, eased a hand between them so she could position the tip of his penis just where she wanted it and gently lowered herself onto him.

Lord, it felt good, the way he filled her, stretched her. The perfect fit. He always had been. Experimentally, she tightened her internal muscles around him.

He sucked in a breath.

And then he began to move. Slowly, at first, then faster,
harder, pushing deep inside her. She matched him thrust for thrust, drive for drive, needing this as much as he did. Needing to feel her body sing at his touch. Needing to reaffirm the fact that she was alive, and life was good.