Amy Andrews - Earthquake Baby

All he had to do was glance out the corner of his eye and he would see her, but he was much too professional for that. His gaze and attention was one hundred per cent fixed on the person who was talking. They had his complete and undivided attention. She tried to sink further from view.

‘Ah…one in every crowd,’ he joked. ‘Something to hide?’ Jack shifted in his chair to get a better view of the staff member beside the bookcase.

He recognised her immediately. Felt his eyes widen as shock and disbelief engulfed his body.

‘Laura?’ The question rasped from his throat.

The laughter in the room subsided as speculation and curiosity took hold.

‘You two know each other?’ Marie asked.

Jack did not answer. He was speechless. It was her…really her. After ten years of wondering…wishing. Here she was. In front of him.

A little different maybe, considering the last time he had seen her she’d been naked and sated beside him. He remembered his dissatisfaction on waking to find that she had left some time in the night. It felt like yesterday.

There were so many things he wanted to ask, to know. His mind crowded with questions, each more urgent than the previous one. How she was and what had she been doing and why the hell had she left him like that? He had wanted to hold her some more, talk some more, make love some more.

When Marie had talked about a Laura, it hadn’t occurred to him that it would be her. His Laura. He had given up reacting to the name years before.

He watched as her eyes widened and he read the plea expressed in their blue depths. Please, don’t reveal me.

‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘We go back a bit.’

He was rewarded with a look of such gratitude he forgave himself the little white lie. Good grief, he thought. They don’t know. These people, her colleagues, don’t know who she is or what she’s been through. How had she managed that?

‘Well…’ He cleared his throat. ‘We must catch up…later.’

‘Mmm.’ Laura nodded.

She listened but did not hear any of the group debrief session. Her thoughts whizzed chaotically around her head at a million miles an hour. It was him. Jack. It was really him!

The same Jack who had occupied too many waking and nearly all her sleeping hours for a decade. What was she going to do? She couldn’t think. The beginnings of a headache crawled across her temples.

Somebody laughed loudly, jarring across Laura’s taut nerves. She had to admire Jack’s skill. He had a knack at drawing people out. The stresses of the last few weeks had affected everyone. It was his job to be their pressure valve, allowing the steam to escape. Ease the tension.

Patients and situations were openly discussed, putting them into perspective. Unlike her, the people she worked with were much more open to this form of communication. They felt it helped and Laura knew, in reality, that these sessions were invaluable. But circumstances had given her a few coping strategies of her own.

‘What about you, Laura?’

‘Huh?’ she asked belatedly, becoming aware of people looking expectantly at her.

‘Marie was saying that you were looking after Mr Reid when he tried to clock out today.’

‘Yes.’

‘How do you feel about that?’

Still shrouded in the mental fog of disbelief, she groped around for a generic answer he couldn’t analyse too much.

‘Concerned.’

‘Is that all?’

For God’s sake, she wanted to yell, stop talking to me. Leave me be. I need to get my head around this. ‘Worried for his family.’ She shrugged.

‘You don’t seem very concerned or worried.’ Jack observed. Brown eyes watched her carefully from below long lashes.

‘Oh?’ That’s because all I can think about now is you!

Silence filled the space between them. Laura just wanted to get away. She didn’t want to indulge in a philosophical debate. She wanted to be gone.

Jack finally spoke. ‘He was a long-term patient. He looked like he’d turned the corner. Surely his setback was a shock?’

‘This is an intensive care unit. People are critically ill. Sometimes they get worse before they get better.’ Now his persistence was really irking her.

‘Sometimes they don’t get better.’

‘Sometimes.’

Jack read her body language loud and clear. Arms crossed, legs crossed, back erect. Subject closed. She didn’t want to talk about it. He wondered how often she did that. Laura had been through a major trauma ten years ago. The emotional baggage from that, mixed with a high-stress work environment, was not a good combination. She was a prime candidate for burnout.

She was thinner than he remembered. Her blue eyes still troubled. He wished he’d known her when they had sparkled with life and fun. Before the terrible events of Newvalley. Before they had mirrored the part of her spirit that had died in the tragic building collapse.

Laura was saved further scrutiny by Marie who came to the rescue, diverting his attention with a question. She gulped air into suffocating lungs. His shrewd gaze weighing her up had felt as restrictive as bricks against her chest. No doubt he had been analysing her every word, every gesture.

Five minutes later a beeper rang out, interrupting the conversation. Jack pulled it off his belt, checking the message.

‘I’m sorry, folks, I have to take this call.’

‘Use the phone in my office,’ Marie offered. ‘Across the hall.’

Seeing her chance to escape, Laura stood, ignoring the speculative looks from her colleagues. Her shift finished in fifteen minutes but she was sure no one would begrudge her knocking off now. Just a quick word to the afternoon staff about Mr Reid and she was out of here. Too much had happened today—confronting a ghost from her past was beyond her.

Laura grabbed her bag from her locker. She just wanted to get away from the hospital. St Jude’s had been her sanctuary for the last eight years. Suddenly it didn’t feel safe here either. Jack Riley’s presence caused too many complications.

She pushed the lift button. It arrived promptly and she got in.

‘Hold the lift, please,’ a voice commanded, followed closely by a big hand preventing the doors’ closure.

‘Laura.’ His brown eyes smiled gently.

‘Hello, Jack.’ Her earlier testiness dissolved as the years melted away.

He took her hand and squeezed it. They stood quite close in the small lift, looking at their joined hands. Her slim, pale one in stark contrast to his, large and tanned. There was so much to say. Where to begin?

‘It’s nice to see you again.’ His voice was husky. ‘Can we go somewhere and talk?’

‘I’m really tired.’ She needed time to think.

He lifted her chin. Yes, she looked done in. He yearned to embrace her. ‘Please.’

‘OK.’ She sighed. ‘But not the canteen.’

He raised an eyebrow.

‘Gossip.’

He raised the other eyebrow.

‘Oh, come on, Jack. You know what a hospital’s like! The grapevine will already be working overtime with what happened in the staffroom.’

‘Let them talk.’ He shrugged.

‘No. Attention is one thing I don’t need,’ she said, and marched out of the doors as they opened onto the foyer.

Laura steamed ahead, leading Jack to the deserted area around the staff pool. It was a cool, peaceful haven set in the beautifully landscaped grounds of St Jude’s. She sat down at one of the shady, poolside tables, removed her sunglasses and watched him sit down opposite her.

It was a strange moment. Despite brimming with questions, neither seemed to know how or where to start. For now, Laura was content to just be near him as decade-old memories were rekindled. The good as well as the bad.

‘Laura…how…how have you been?’ He reached for her hand and she allowed him to take it.