Emergency: Wife Lost and Found Read Free Page B

when he looked up to her would stay with May for ever.
    ‘She’s just been moved to ICU.’ May dragged a chair over and sat beside him. ‘She has some fractured ribs and a small hairline fracture to the skull, but…’ Jamesknew the score, but he still needed to hear it. ‘She did make some movement when her temperature came up but Khan was worried she was about to convulse, so he’s keeping her paralysed and intubated for forty-eight hours. She’s had a CT, which shows cerebral swelling, but really…’
    ‘We won’t know for a while,’ James finished for her.
    ‘No, we won’t. But, James…’ She took his hand, because she cared about him, and because he really didn’t need false hope, she made herself say it, ‘It really is minute by minute at the moment. She’s very unstable. Khan’s not optimistic about her chances and neither is Abby. We’re just hoping her parents get here soon. According to the papers in her car she was here in London for an interview. The police just contacted her next of kin—her parents. Apparently they’re on their way.’
    ‘Great!’ There was a bitter note to his voice that May had never heard from James before.
    ‘I’m sorry, James.’ May patted his arm then rubbed it, hating to see him like this. ‘You obviously know her.’
    ‘I haven’t seen her in ten years…I knew something was up, though not with her, of course, but since I got back from the accident…’ His logical, analytical mind just tripped at that point. ‘I knew something was wrong, I knew something wasn’t right—it just doesn’t make sense.’
    ‘It does to me,’ May said. ‘How many times have we had babies brought in a whisper from death because their mums suddenly woke up to check them, or daughter who popped into their dad’s for no real reason only to find him on the floor…’
    ‘I just knew something was wrong.’
    ‘And you were right,’ May said, but she couldn’t hold back any longer, she just had to know who this pale red-haired beauty was. ‘Have you worked with her?’ May asked, frowning because she would recognise most of the doctors who had been through the department and certainly Lorna, with her stunning hair, would have stood out, except May couldn’t recall her at all.
    ‘I knew her from medical school.’
    ‘That’s right—you went to medical school up in Scotland. Was she in your year?’
    James shook his head. ‘No, she was a couple of years below me.’
    Even though he was sitting down he still looked as if he was about to pass out and May knew that Lorna must have been more to him that a fellow student a couple of years his junior. One of the downsides of working in Emergency was when friends or relatives came in unexpectedly, and she’d been on duty when James’s own father had suffered a heart attack, yet still he had held it together that day.
    He wasn’t holding it together now.
    ‘Did you used to go out with her?’ May asked gently.
    ‘A bit more than that.’ James’s voice was suddenly urgent. ‘I need to go and see her, before her parents get here.’
    ‘Of course,’ May said. ‘I’ll walk up to ICU with you.’ Only she couldn’t hold back the question that was on her mind any longer. They were just past the canteen and turning left for the lifts when May finally cracked and asked what she wanted to know. Yes, she was curious, but it wasn’t just that that had her probing. She wantedto help James just as she did with any friend or relative of a critically ill patient—and to do that, it would help to know.
    ‘Who is she, James?’
    It took till they were in the lift and heading upwards toward ICU for James to answer.
    ‘She’s my ex-wife.’

Chapter Three
    M AY HADN’T SEEN that one coming. Oh, she knew they all had pasts but she’d been working with James since he’d come to the department on his emergency rotation as a senior house officer, had known him since he’d been fresh faced out of his internship, yet never once