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Effie it had felt like the kind of victory she couldn’t even have dreamed of a few hours before. Before Tak. Before his advice.
Yet with his words resounding in her head—his assurance that she was doing a good job and his instruction to give herself a break—she’d felt a renewed confidence to tackle Nell. And the rest of her conversation with her daughter, including about the shoplifting, had followed from there.
None of it had been ground-breaking. It had just been everything she should have known for herself. Probably did know, deep down. But somehow, somewhere along the line, she’d lost confidence in herself and begun second-guessing the way she was with her own daughter.
It made her wonder exactly how Tak had understood the situation so well.
And what was it that made Hetti so very protective and fiercely proud of her brother? Because it was more than just the fact that he was a renowned neurosurgeon.
Suddenly Effie was more than keen to find out.
* * *
It had taken Tak hours of ward rounds, surgery and ultimately hated paperwork for Tak to finally push Effie out of his head. Even when he was focussed on his job she still lurked there. Somewhere in the back of his subconscious.
He was sure she had been lying about the repair to the boiler in her flat being in hand.
Taking the stairs two at a time—always faster than waiting for the hospital elevators at this time of day—Tak thrust all thoughts from his head. It shouldn’t matter to him. They weren’t his business. Not Effie. Not her daughter. Not their boiler.
Effie had been a means to an end—as he had been for her—a mutually convenient arrangement for one night only. There was absolutely no reason for him to think about her any more. No reason for him to tell himself he needed to find something to douse this thing that was simmering dangerously inside him.
It had almost been a relief when he’d managed to walk away back there in the hospital corridor. He’d managed to break the spell Effie had unknowingly woven around him.
Yet he couldn’t shake the memory of the way she’d watched him. With a look approaching disappointment in her eyes. And something else, too. Something altogether too much like hurt.
Consequently, the last thing he expected was to get an emergency call from Resus, patching through a familiar, if crackly voice from the air ambulance.
‘Effie?’
Had she called just to talk to him?
‘Tak?’
The shocked tone was too palpable to miss. Clearly she hadn’t asked for him by name.
And then she shook off her shock and plunged in. ‘I’m with a casualty—forty-year-old female. Road traffic accident. GCS six. Pupils uneven with left pupil dilated and fixed. Infrascanner showed a subdural haematoma.’
‘So get her in to me,’ he barked.
‘We can’t,’ she replied simply. ‘We’re not cleared to fly. There’s been an explosion and there’s thick, black smoke around us so we can’t see to fly out and no one can see to get to us right now.’
He processed the scenario in moments. This patient needed surgery to alleviate the pressure on her brain. A delay of mere hours could result in permanent brain injury. Which meant someone needed to do it out in the field. Now.
A tiny part of him was relieved that it was Effie on the other end of the phone rather than anyone else. But he could process that bit of information later. In his own time.
‘You’re going to need to perform an emergency burr hole evacuation.’
‘Yes.’
That quiet, calm affirmation was like the final puzzle piece slotting in. Any residual doubts Tak had dissipated quietly.
‘Okay—the patient is intubated?’
‘Yes, and in a C-spine.’
‘You’re going to need a knife, a drill, swabs, a self-retainer... Saline should ideally be hypertonic...’
‘Tak, we’re not an emergency department or an operating room. We’ve got some kit on board, but the rest is mix and match and DIY stuff. I really need you to talk me through it.’
