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Abby gave a little smile at her pet name for her husband, the most important man in America, and gave her hand a squeeze. ‘Has someone told your husband that you’re here?’
Jennifer rolled her eyes in response. ‘Oh, yes.’
Abby glanced over the notes Nancy was making of the foetal heart rate and the First Lady’s blood pressure. Everything looked good.
‘Don’t worry, Jennifer. We’ll take good care of you. I’m going to examine you in a few minutes to confirm that your waters have broken. Have you had any contractions at all?’
Jennifer shook her head. ‘No, just the back pain. It’s still there now.’
Nancy raised her eyebrow then moved quickly towards the door as it started to open. ‘Yes, can I help you?’ Her voice echoed around the room.
‘Just to give you these, Mrs Taylor’s medical records. Dr Storm said that you would need them.’ A black-covered arm appeared through the tiny space in the doorway, brandishing a thick brown envelope, which Nancy snatched away before banging the door shut again.
Jennifer slumped back against her pillows. ‘Poor Luke,’ she murmured. ‘I thought he was going to blow a gasket when he realised what was going on. I didn’t know what else to do when Dr Blair started having chest pain—he seemed the most obvious person to call.’ Her voice drifted off.
Abby felt as if she was missing something. ‘How do you know Luke?’
‘He’s my husband’s cardiologist.’
‘The President has a cardiologist?’
‘My husband has a doctor for everything—whether he needs it or not.’ Jennifer gave a wry smile.
Abby gazed in wonder at the most watched woman in America. She might be the First Lady but she was still a first-time mom-to-be, who was probably just as worried as every other potential mother in the whole world. Her waters had broken early and the first thing she’d done had been to phone a doctor for the man having chest pain. She hadn’t thought of herself first at all. This was some woman.
Abby gave a nod and slid the notes out from inside the envelope. ‘I’ll have a quick check over these and give our local obstetrician a call.’ She moved towards the door. ‘Nancy will stay with you for now and I’ll be back in five minutes.’
She stepped outside and directly into the path of six black-suited men. They seemed to be multiplying by the minute. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, sidestepping them and heading over to the nearby desk. She bent over to pick up the phone but was stopped as a firm bronzed hand slid in front of hers, picking up the phone first.
‘Hey!’
Luke shot her a dazzling smile. All white teeth and tanned skin. Just the way she liked him. Just the way she remembered him. More little sparks fired inside her, sending a feeling to the pit of her stomach like … like what? It had been so long she couldn’t remember.
‘Sorry, Abby, I’m first. I need to take Dr Blair to the cath lab. He’s a definite inferior MI.’ He waved the ECG under her nose. ‘Look at the ST elevation.’ Then he paused for a second, the smile draining from his face. ‘You do have cath-lab facilities, don’t you?’
Abby nodded as a look of relief swept visibly over his face. ‘Wait a minute, though, Luke. You’ve just come from Washington DC—you won’t have a licence to practise medicine here.’ Her brow furrowed. ‘Or is there some crazy dispensation for the President’s staff I don’t know about?’
He raised his eyebrow as the corner of his mouth turned upwards. ‘Yes and no. I can treat the President, but only the President, in any state. However, here …’ he swept his arm outwards ‘…I’ve just been lucky. I’ve been working with two of California’s universities and needed a licence to practise in the state. So don’t worry, Abby, I’m covered.’
She gave a little nod. ‘Just dial 032 and tell them what you’ve got. One of our nurse practitioners will monitor the patient for you and I’ll get one of the residents to come and assist you with the procedure.’
‘Will there be any issues with your own cardiologist?’
‘Absolutely not. Our own cardiologist is currently thirty-eight weeks pregnant and has a full clinic this morning.’ She gave a wave of her hand. ‘I’ll speak to her, you don’t need to worry.’ She listened while he finished the call, glancing over the medical records in front of her. Everything seemed good: no underlying conditions; no obvious problems with the baby. All antenatal care meticulously charted. Dr Blair was obviously no slouch—but then, this was the President’s baby.
She reached over to grab the receiver as he hung up, her hand brushing against his. A delicious little zing shot up her arm. One that she hadn’t felt in—how long? He must have felt it too as their eyes locked. And Abby stayed there. Frozen in that second in time. A whirlwind of electric memories all came back instantly—the long, lazy afternoons they’d spent together, the easy, comfortable relationship that they’d had together, the times when they’d both opened their mouths to speak and both said the same thing simultaneously, and the long, hot nights they’d spent locked in each other’s arms. In that instant she was twenty-four again, her long blonde hair blowing in the wind as they’d stood at the top of the hill in Washington and he’d promised that he would stay with her for ever. A promise that had soon been broken. Broken on that same hill only a few months later. A promise that had broken her heart and sent her tumbling into an abyss.
But time had passed now. Time that appeared to have etched a few fine lines into Luke’s forehead, making him seem older and maybe a little more careworn.
‘Hello? Hello? Is someone there?’
Abby jolted from the daydream she’d been hiding in and stared at the phone receiver in her hand. She’d dialled the number automatically without even realising that she’d done it.
‘Hi, David, it’s Abby Tyler here. I’ve got a bit of an obstetric emergency. I wondered if you would mind coming in for a consult?’
A smile danced across her lips as she listened to the voice at the end of the phone. She could sense Luke’s eyes on her, willing her not to say anything that would reveal the identity of their patient.
‘Ten minutes would be great. Thanks, David.’
She replaced the phone and grinned. ‘That’s our emergency obstetrician. He’ll be here soon.’
Luke leaned back against the nearby wall and folded his arms across his wide chest. His brow furrowed suspiciously. ‘Why do I get the feeling you’re not telling me something, Abby?’
She shook her head and winked at him. ‘You’ll see.’
A wave of fear swept across Luke’s chest. ‘No funny stuff, Abby. He’s definitely an obstetrician?’
‘Oh, yes, he’s definitely an obstetrician.’ One of the nearby nurse practitioners walked up quickly and touched Luke’s arm.
‘Dr Storm?’
He nodded swiftly.
‘We’ll be set up for you in the next ten minutes, I’m just going to get the patient.’ She nodded towards Abby. ‘Dr Tyler will tell you where we are.’ She carried on down the corridor and into the trauma room to collect Dr Blair.
‘Some things never change.’ Abby surveyed the surrounding chaos around her. Her once peaceful emergency department looked as if it had been invaded by a black-suited army.
‘What?’ Luke glanced around him.
‘Storm by name, Storm by nature.’
‘You know I hate it when you say that.’
‘That makes it all the more fun.’ She watched as one black-suited man talked into his jacket lapel, while holding his finger to his ear, as if listening for a reply. She raised her eyebrow at Luke. ‘We still have a problem here, Luke.’
‘What do you mean?’ The last thing he needed was more problems.
‘I’m a paediatrician. I do children—kids.’ She wiggled her hand in the air. ‘I do some babies but certainly not early babies. Not neonates. We might have an obstetrician but what we really need is a neonatologist. And I’m not that.’ She shook her head. ‘This really isn’t my specialty.’
Luke folded his arms ac
ross his chest. ‘I’ve never known you to run from a challenge.’
Abby waved her hand around her. ‘In an emergency situation I could probably muddle through. But if the baby needs supported ventilation then we just don’t have the facilities, and this is the President’s baby, Luke.’
‘I know that.’ He ran his fingers through his hair in exasperation. ‘Well, what the hell are you doing here? Mendocino Valley, of all places?’ His arm swept outwards across the expanse of the department.
Abby was instantly irritated. ‘What do you mean by that?’
Luke tilted his head. ‘Last time I saw you, you had just been offered the job of a lifetime in San Francisco. Five years later I find you here, in some backwater clinic in the middle of nowhere. What happened, Abby?’
Abby shook her head and carefully closed the notes in front of her, bringing them up and clutching them to her chest. ‘Just shows how little you really knew me, Luke. It might well have been the job of a lifetime, but it wasn’t my job of a lifetime. You happened, Luke. You made me re-evaluate my life. And even though I didn’t think it at the time, you probably did me a favour. I love being here in Mendocino Valley. I do still work in San Francisco, but I only took the job because it means I can work here, in Pelican Cove, for twelve weeks a year. This is where I want to be.’
Luke’s cool eyes watched her carefully, a wave of guilt sweeping over him. For the second time in five minutes he wondered what she wasn’t telling him. She was holding the case notes to her chest as if she were protecting a closely guarded secret. The Abby Tyler he’d known had had the world at her feet. She’d been approached by three prestigious university hospitals to take part in their paediatric residency programmes. She’d been dedicated and focused. Something about this wasn’t quite right. Why would the woman who’d been top of her class and had had the pick of any job be working in a backwater place like this?
CHAPTER TWO
ABBY watched with a sinking feeling in her heart as the nitra-zine paper turned the tell-tale shade of blue. She raised her head and gave Jennifer a rueful smile as she showed her the paper. ‘Well, I think we can safely say that your membranes have ruptured.’
‘They have?’
