Their Twin Christmas Surprise

He nearly fell asleep standing under the shower, the fierce pummelling of the water jets on the back of his neck and across his shoulders almost as blissful as a massage.

Not that he’d had the time or inclination for massages recently. In fact, not since the last time Sara had taken pity on him in the very early days of their fledgling relationship.

‘Don’t go there!’ he groaned aloud, but that did nothing to stop the images playing through his head.

It had been a rough shift, not unlike the last twelve hours, and he’d made the mistake of sitting down at the table in the staffroom rather than going straight home. The next thing he’d known had been Sara’s voice in his ear, calling his name and waking him to the realisation that he could barely move his neck for the crick in it.

‘Can I see if I can get rid of that stiffness for you?’ she’d offered, and for a moment he hadn’t been certain which stiffness she’d been talking about. Waking up with her soft voice and the warmth of her breath in his ear had matched perfectly with the dream he’d been having, and both had had a predictable effect on his body.

Her fingers on his neck and shoulders, alternately stroking then firmly kneading only helped his neck and shoulders. His other reaction he’d had to keep to himself until he’d returned to his bachelor digs with images of persuading Sara to join him there as soon as possible playing in his head.

Had there been a hormonal overload in his system at the time, because it had been just days later that he’d met Zara and been completely bowled over by her blatant interest in him … so different to Sara’s more reserved manner and so flattering to the male ego.

The steam followed him out of the shower as he padded through to the wardrobe with nothing more than a towel wrapped around the back of his neck.

He was operating on auto pilot now, knowing that he needed clean clothes and to put something in his stomach and knowing that his duty was to support his in-laws while they waited impatiently for the scant five minutes in each hour that they were allowed to spend at their daughter’s bedside. It was so wearing to sit with them knowing that they were pinning their hopes on finding a dramatic improvement each time they went in.

He was already running on his reserves and knew he needed to sleep, and sleep soon, but somehow … somehow he couldn’t think about sleeping while Zara’s condition was unresolved and especially while Sara was valiantly sitting with her parents, waiting for better news. She had worked just the same killer hours as he had and had then suffered the trauma of being run over.

The clean shirt made him feel a bit less ragged and he was just reaching for some bread to toast to fill the gaping hole where his stomach should be when his pager shrilled.

‘Daniel Lomax,’ he said, his heart in his mouth by the time the phone was answered in ICU and he was switched through to the consultant’s office. He wasn’t on duty but had told the ICU staff he was taking his pager home with him if they needed to contact him.

‘Daniel, I thought you’d like to know that we’ve had another set of results back from the lab and—’

‘I’m on my way, sir,’ Dan interrupted, when he heard the strange note in the consultant’s voice. Suddenly he knew that something was wrong, and a surge of adrenaline instantly banished his exhaustion. ‘I’ll be there in about eight minutes,’ he promised, already halfway out of the door as he ended the conversation.

By the time he reached the street he’d fought his way into his jacket and had his keys and phone safely in his pocket. The rain was still lashing down and for a moment he considered going round the back of the flats for his car, then shook his head. The flat had been chosen because of its proximity to the hospital but the security system protecting the cars from opportunist thieves would take longer to get through than if he ran. Nothing was going to interfere with getting to ICU as quickly as possible.

He was soaked to the skin and so wound up that he was shaking by the time he made it up the last flight of stairs.

‘What’s happened?’ he gasped as he reached the interview room, one of the nurses having pointed the way as soon as she’d seen him.

‘It’s good news!’ Audrey exclaimed with tears in her eyes. ‘They’ve found out that Zara hadn’t taken an overdose of barbiturates after all. I told you she wouldn’t. She’s not into all that drugs nonsense.’

‘Not barbiturates?’ Dan said with a frown, turning towards Mr Shah. ‘But the bottle was on the bed beside her when I found her. I don’t understand.’

‘It’s possible that it was some sort of …’ he hesitated a second and threw a glance in Audrey and Frank’s direction. ‘A decoy of some sort, to make you think she’d taken something else.’

‘Well, it worked,’ Dan said flatly, hating the thought that even in something as serious as an overdose of drugs Zara was playing stupid games. ‘So what had she taken?’

‘The lab results say that the majority of the tablets were paracetamol but there was definitely some phenobarbitone, too.’

‘See!’ Audrey exulted, obviously completely oblivious to the serious expression on the man’s face. ‘It was nothing more than some over-the-counter tablets. We’ll soon have her home again, good as new.’

‘We knew in A and E that there was something wrong when her stomach was pumped,’ Dan said, remembering his shock when he’d seen just how many tablets there’d been. It had looked like handfuls of them still largely undissolved, to say nothing of the ones that must have already dissolved and entered her system. ‘The label on the bottle meant it should have been capsules but they were bringing up plain white tablets.’

‘Well, it looks as if she thought she was taking just enough phenobarbitone to send her to sleep, and miscalculated. She’s still comatose.’

And that wasn’t the worst of it, Dan knew with a sinking feeling, already working out for himself what Mr Shah was going to tell them next.

‘She was given activated charcoal when she was brought into A and E after her stomach was pumped,’ he recalled with a feeling of dread.

‘Unfortunately, not long after the IV was set up, she had an adverse reaction to the antidote we were giving her,’ the consultant said, obviously trying to keep things simple for Frank and Audrey. ‘We’ve given her antihistamine to dampen the reaction but, because she’s had the charcoal, methionine won’t be an effective alternative.’

To say nothing of the fact that she was still unconscious and would be unable to swallow the methionine tablets, Dan added silently. He’d been horribly right in what he’d feared. ‘That means you’re going to have to start the same IV again at the lowest possible infusion rate so you don’t trigger the reaction for a second time.’ And that meant it would take that much longer before the drug in her body was rendered harmless—time in which it could be doing untold damage to her liver and kidneys, especially to someone who was borderline for malnourishment, the way so many fashion models were.

‘So, how long will it be before she wakes up?’ prompted Audrey eagerly. ‘How long before we can bring our little girl home?’

The consultant sent Dan a wry look, sharing the knowledge that here was yet another set of parents who were only hearing what they wanted to hear.

‘We’re giving her medication to mop up the drugs still in her system, but everything else is largely up to her own body. She won’t wake up until the sleeping pills she took have worn off, and we have no idea how long that will take. It’s just a case of waiting,’ he explained kindly, and Dan knew that the man had recognised that neither of his in-laws was capable of taking in the possibility of any other outcome. As far as they were concerned, Zara would wake up as quickly and easily as though she’d fallen asleep in front of the television the way she sometimes did after a long flight.

‘Excuse us,’ Frank said suddenly, getting out of his seat after a quick glance at his watch. ‘It’s our time to go and sit with Zara. We wouldn’t want to miss it.’

‘By all means,’ the consultant said, getting up courteously to open the door for them. He glanced back at Dan as though asking whether he wanted to leave, too, but he didn’t move. There were so many more questions he needed to ask, particularly about the lab results and the level of concentration of the paracetamol that had been found in Zara’s blood.

At the last moment, just as the door swung closed, he caught sight of a slight cotton-clad figure in a wheelchair out in the corridor.

‘Just a moment, sir,’ he requested, and hurried across to open the door again, to find Sara making her laborious way towards her sister. Her parents must have passed her just seconds ago but had clearly left her struggling on her own.

‘Sara,’ he called gently to attract her attention, and stifled a wince when he saw how gingerly she turned her head towards him. She shouldn’t be wheeling herself about when she was so badly bruised. She should be lying in bed, giving her body time to heal.

‘Did you want to have a word about Zara?’ he invited. ‘The latest lab results are in.’ He glanced over his shoulder to find that the consultant hadn’t been quite so quick to mask his reaction to Sara’s injuries. ‘Do you have any objection if she joins us, sir? Zara is her twin, but Sara is a doctor on the staff here, down in A and E.’

‘I’ve no objections at all. Come in, my dear. Let me hold the door for you.’ He hurried to hold the door wide while Dan strode out to take hold of the handles and provide the propulsion she needed. ‘My word, your family is in the wars. What on earth happened to you?’ he asked as he gently shook her hand as though afraid she would shatter.

‘A hit-and-run accident on my way home from work,’ she said, as she used her hand to shift her cast to a more comfortable position, the wry smile that she sent him doing nothing to lift the evidence of pain from her face.

Dan ached for her, wishing there was something he could do, but there was no one on earth who would be able to persuade her to take painkillers if she’d decided against them.

‘How bad were the results?’ Sara asked quietly, as ever going straight to the point. ‘How much damage has she done to herself? I suppose she got the barbiturates on one of her foreign trips.’

‘Actually, my dear, it’s not the barbiturates that are causing the biggest problem,’ Mr Shah explained. ‘The majority of the drugs your sister took were paracetamol.’

Dan wouldn’t have believed that Sara could have gone any paler until he saw it happen. Her lips were almost colourless and she had to lick them with a flick of her tongue before she could speak.

‘So, she’s on IV N-acetylcysteine? What concentration has the paracetamol reached? Is it still rising or is it on the way down now?’

‘It’s not rising any more, but it hasn’t started dropping yet,’ the consultant said apologetically. ‘As you say, we put her on IV NAC, but she quickly developed side effects. We’ve had to administer antihistamine and drop the dosage of the drip right down.’

The small frown pleating her forehead told Dan that she had worked out for herself the reasons why they couldn’t use the alternative antidote, and admired the fact that her brain was still working just as fast as usual in spite of everything that had happened over the last day.

‘Also,’ Mr Shah continued inexorably, ‘we have no way of knowing how long the drugs have been in her system. If it is only a short time—less than eight hours—then it will not be such a big problem, but we cannot assume anything.’

Dan was watching Sara’s face as the consultant was speaking, so he saw the sudden widening of her eyes and the deepening of her frown. The expression must have pulled her stitches if the wince and the protective hand that came up to cover the dressing was any indication.

For a moment it was obvious that she was conducting some sort of internal debate and the way her hazel eyes darkened told him it wasn’t a pleasant one. Then her hand dropped to the curve of her belly in a protective gesture as old as time and panic roared through him. Was she in pain? Was she suffering a delayed reaction to her accident? Was she miscarrying?

‘Sara,’ he began, fighting for self-control when all he could think of was the precious picture propped on his mantelpiece, ‘is everything all right? Are you feeling—?’

The sudden sound of a hasty knock at the door cut him off as the consultant excused himself before calling, ‘Enter.’

‘Mr Shah, Zara Walker seems to be waking up. Did you want to—?’

‘Thank you. We will come now,’ he said swiftly, already pushing back his chair. ‘Do you want to follow me?’ he threw over his shoulder, but didn’t wait for a reply as he hurried out into the corridor.

‘Here, let me. It’ll be quicker,’ Dan said as he took over the propulsion of her wheelchair, leaving Sara to slump back into the seat.

She must be really close to the end of her tether, he realised when he saw the slump of her shoulders. Zara might be the professional model but Sara had an innate elegance and style of her own and poor posture wasn’t a part of it.

‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ he asked, taking advantage of the fact that there simply wasn’t enough space for the wheelchair in Zara’s room—there were just too many people in there at the moment. ‘For a moment, back in the interview room, you looked … worried. Is it the baby? You’re not having contractions, are you?’

‘Babies,’ she corrected softly. ‘And, no, I’m not having contractions, thank goodness. I was just …’ She paused for a moment, then shook her head. ‘No. It’s nothing.’

‘Are you sure?’ Some sixth sense was telling him to press her. ‘If it was something that could possibly help Zara …’

There it was again, a look of indecision, as though she couldn’t bring herself to say something … detrimental about her twin. He had no right to insist that she speak to him and was still trying to find a way to persuade her to trust him with … well, with whatever it was putting that frown on her face when an all-too-familiar voice called his name.

‘Danny?’ it quavered, but whether the weakness was real or feigned he wouldn’t like to hazard a guess. It could just as easily be either, knowing Zara. ‘Is Danny there?’ There was a plaintive note this time and he had to stifle a wry smile. Now certainly wasn’t the right time to question Sara, but he was definitely going to make a point of it before he left the hospital this time.

‘I’m here, Zara,’ he confirmed lightly, straightening up so that she could see him above the general mêlée of medical staff and her parents. Her vital signs had already been checked and if he wasn’t mistaken, there was more blood being drawn for another lot of tests to track the progress of the antidote.

‘Come closer, Danny,’ invited Audrey, beaming widely and beckoning with the arm not wrapped around her precious daughter’s shoulders. ‘Look! Isn’t it wonderful? Our Zara’s back with us as good as new. Isn’t she beautiful?’

Zara had been born beautiful, Dan thought dismissively. It was all on the surface, not something she’d had to work for … unlike Sara’s medical qualifications.

Zara’s initial expression when her mother drew her attention to him was one of open delight, then her wide hazel eyes drifted to one side as though she was trying to see what had attracted his attention away from her at such an important moment.

He took a step aside so that she could see her sister sitting in the wheelchair beside him. He was totally shocked when, instead of an expression of concern or, at the very least, an equally welcoming smile for her sister, her look was one of … what? It was definitely more than horror at the fact that she’d suffered such injuries, it was almost revulsion, or even … hatred?

Impossible. He must be more exhausted than he’d thought if he could imagine such a thing. Twins were closer than almost any other people, and in their case, with Sara putting herself through pregnancy on her sister’s behalf, they were bound to be closer than most.

Then, without a single question about how Sara came to be so injured, Zara held out a hand towards him in a blatantly theatrical plea.

‘Oh, Danny, I’m so sorry for putting you through this but …’ She bit her lip and peered up at him. ‘I just couldn’t cope with it any more. It was all just too much.’

‘Couldn’t bear what?’ he asked, not buying her pantomime for a minute, although there must be something serious behind her actions. Someone as self-centred as Zara didn’t do anything without planning it down to the last step, like her plan to seduce him.

‘Well, didn’t you read my note?’ she demanded crossly. She was clearly wrong-footed by the fact that he didn’t know what she was talking about, but he had no doubt he would be hearing all about it in exhaustive detail.

‘I didn’t see any note. When did you write it? Where did you put it?’ he demanded. It certainly hadn’t been on the mantelpiece when he’d put the picture of the scan there, although he hadn’t really been looking at anything other than those two indeterminate dark blobs with the bright flashes where their hearts were beating.

‘Oh, Danny,’ she cried, and accepted the pretty handkerchief her mother offered, actually managing to squeeze out a tear or two. ‘I poured my heart out to you … told you how insecure I was feeling … how afraid that … Oh, what’s the use?’ she said petulantly, and turned her back on him.

‘She’s overwrought,’ Audrey said in a stage whisper. ‘She’ll feel better when she’s had a good night’s sleep in her own bed.’ She turned her attention to Mr Shah. ‘When can we take her home? Do we have to fill in any papers?’

‘Oh, my dear Mrs … Mrs Walker,’ he said after a quick glance at Zara’s notes to refresh his memory. ‘Your daughter is perfectly within her rights to sign her self out of hospital, but I certainly wouldn’t advise it.’

‘Why on earth not?’ challenged Frank. ‘We’ve all been waiting for her to wake up and now she has. Surely that’s an end to the whole miserable episode.’

‘I wish it were, sir, believe me,’ the consultant said with a shake of his head. ‘Unfortunately, the fact that your daughter has woken doesn’t mean that all the drugs have left her body, and until the drip has neutralised the paracetamol, the drug could still be doing damage to her liver.’

‘But …’ Audrey looked almost comically disappointed.

‘It really would be better if she stayed until we can give her a clean bill of health. She probably still feels rather shaky and tired and would rather not make a journey before she’s absolutely ready.’

Dan smothered a grin when he recognised the way the ICU consultant had got the measure of the Walker family. To suggest, obliquely, that Zara needed specialist attention for a little longer was the one strategy that her parents wouldn’t want to argue with.

After that, it wasn’t very long before the senior sister had used a similar technique for persuading Audrey and Frank that it would be in everybody’s best interests if they went home and had a good night’s sleep.

Sleep! It had been so long since he’d done it that he felt quite punch-drunk, but something still wouldn’t let him leave until he’d gone to check that Sara was finally getting some rest. After Zara’s little pout he’d turned to say something to her, but neither the wheelchair nor its occupant had been anywhere in sight.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ he growled when he found her clothed in a set of baggy blue scrubs and trying to work out how she could use a pair of crutches with one shoulder taped up after a dislocation. ‘Are you completely crazy? You should be in bed, allowing your injuries to start healing.’

‘And that’s exactly where I’ll be as soon as I get home,’ she countered with a stubborn lift of her chin.

‘And exactly how were you intending getting there?’ he asked, wondering what it would do to his credibility as a doctor if he stood in the middle of the corridor and screamed out his frustration. Why wouldn’t the wretched woman see that he was trying to take care of her?

‘Well, as walking is plainly out of the question until I’m a little more proficient, I would have thought that the obvious alternative is a taxi,’ she snapped in frustration, standing on one leg and clearly in danger of losing her balance and falling over as she tried to put her coat on.

‘And when you get home?’ he persisted. ‘How were you going to get up all those stairs to your little eyrie?’

He almost felt sorry when he saw her shoulders slump in defeat.

‘I can’t stay in here, Dan,’ she said turning those golden hazel eyes on him in mute appeal. ‘Won’t you help me?’

‘If you’re really adamant about leaving, you’ve got two choices. Either I can drop you off at you parents’ house—’

‘No way!’ she exclaimed with a shudder. ‘I haven’t spent a night there since I left for medical school and I don’t intend changing that. What’s the other alternative?’

‘That I take you home to my flat.’ ‘Your flat?’

Her expression was so shocked that he hurried to continue. ‘I—we—do have a spare room, Sara, and I’m sure that your sister would be delighted to know you’re somewhere safe.’

Under her breath she muttered something that sounded very much like, ‘I doubt it.’ He almost asked her to explain but as she was conceding defeat over donning her coat it looked as if he’d at least won that round, even if was only to get her to stay here for the few hours left till morning.

‘I’ll give you a lift after morning rounds if the orthopod gives you the all-clear, and see what we can do to make you comfortable and safe … all three of you,’ he added quickly when she bristled again at the suggestion that she couldn’t take care of herself. He wasn’t above using her pregnancy as a weapon if it got her to take care of herself. ‘The last thing you need is to have a fall down the stairs. You might not be so lucky a second time.’

CHAPTER FIVE

SARA felt as if she’d been tricked into staying in hospital for the last few hours.

It had taken her some time to recognise the way Dan had played on her concern for the two tiny beings residing inside her to persuade her to agree, and she’d even had to smile at his astuteness, but she had no intention of staying any longer. Now was the perfect time to make good her escape, while the staff were all too busy elsewhere to notice her going. What did it matter that she would now be leaving in daylight in a pair of oversized scrubs that looked like a clown’s baggy pyjamas and a coat that looked as if someone had rolled in the gutter in it—which she had.

‘Maybe the dry-cleaners will be able to do something with it,’ she muttered as she awkwardly balanced her borrowed crutches across the arms of the wheelchair to reach for the button to call for the lift. If the coat wasn’t salvageable … well, it was easy come, easy go. It had been one of the items Zara had been throwing out because she’d needed to make room for more up-to-the-minute items, irrespective of the fact that it was made of some horrendously expensive fabric like cashmere or vicuna. All Sara knew was that it was the most deliciously warm coat she’d ever worn and she’d be loath to lose it. She certainly wouldn’t be able to replace it with anything as good.

‘Making your escape?’ said a deep voice behind her, and she jumped so high she had to scrabble to hold onto the crutches.

‘Dan! Don’t do that!’ she snapped as her heart gave its familiar leap in response to his closeness.

‘I had a feeling you wouldn’t be waiting about this morning,’ he said wryly. ‘It’s nice to be proved right.’

‘Actually, I was just going to call in to ICU to see what Zara’s latest results are. Have you already been? Do you know?’

The lift gave a quiet ding and the doors slid open to disgorge half a dozen assorted staff and visitors. ‘Let’s find out together,’ he suggested as he took charge and wheeled her into the lift. Then the doors slid closed and the two of them were trapped in the enclosed space, isolated and alone in a way she’d been careful to avoid ever since the day Zara had turned up to be introduced to her tall, dark and handsome doctor friend.