It seemed a shame to wake either of them, so Allie left them to it for a little while. Sleep was probably more useful than anything to the baby at the moment, and the mother was exhausted.

She looked across at Claudia’s bed and saw Mark had arrived and was chatting to them. He had one hip hitched up on the edge of the bed, and he was smiling and teasing Claudia into smiling back. He was good with children, she realised, and wondered why he didn’t go into paediatric surgery.

He’d been so keen, so certain of his choice—

She shook her head. She was still stunned by his revelation, and was trying to reconcile herself to the bitter fact that there could be no future for them beyond the immediate one of a few dates—except maybe, because he was the only man she’d ever felt like this about, a brief affair.

Nothing lasting. Nothing permanent. No happy ever after. Just something to remember him by when he moved on.

She swallowed hard and found herself something to do at the other end of the ward, away from him and his laughing eyes and wide, ready smile that made the sun come out.

Her reprieve was short-lived, though, because he asked her to assist him with Claudia’s intravenous line. He was putting in a long line, not as long as a Hickman line that went all the way to the heart, but one that went into the arm in the crook of the elbow and up into the top of the chest.

‘As you know it lasts longer than a needle cannula,’ he explained to Jayne and Claudia, ‘and this treatment’s going to take a couple of weeks. We don’t want to have to keep putting in another line and messing you about, do we, Claudia?’

Claudia shook her head, and they moved her into the treatment room where they undertook the more sterile procedures. Allie was the ‘clean’ nurse, and a younger staff nurse was the ‘dirty’ nurse, the one who handled the outside of the packets and opened them for Allie, who was scrubbed and gowned and ready to assist.

Mark scrubbed as well, and then they settled down with Claudia to insert the line into her little arm. It was splinted straight, and would stay like that until the line came out, which was a bit restricting but one of the penalties for not having to have the line changed constantly.

Her mother was there, of course, supportive as ever, and Allie wondered how Mark would deal with Claudia and her independent attitude. Her mother had brought her up as far as possible with input and control over her illness, and her quiet courage and calm dignity were terrifying.

As for Mark, it was the first time Allie had seen him doing any procedure, and she was impressed. Claudia cried, of course, but only a little, and he was very kind and gentle with her, and it was over in no time. Allie secured the end of the line with tape and made sure the splint that kept her elbow straight was comfortable, and then she was given the first dose of antibiotic through it.

It seemed such a shame to have to put her through it, Allie thought sadly, but it was a small price to pay to combat the germs in her chest which were playing havoc with her breathing and damaging the already fragile structure of her lungs.

‘All right now?’ Mark asked, checking his handiwork and smiling at Claudia.

She nodded, looking wan and exhausted against the white pillows. Allie wanted to cry for her. She wanted to cry for all of them, but she couldn’t, of course, so she smiled and hugged and dished out sensible advice and struggled on.

Just like Jayne, she thought with sympathy, struggling on with her softened pelvic ligaments so that every movement made the two ends of her pubic bones scrape together at the synthesis, the join in the middle at the front. It wasn’t a joint anyone was ever aware of, unless something like this happened.

It must be horribly painful and difficult, Allie thought with another surge of sympathy as she pushed the bed back to its place in the ward. Still, not for much longer. It would soon recover once the pregnancy hormones disappeared from her system.

‘Can I go and see who’s in the playroom?’ Claudia asked her, and Allie nodded.

‘If you want to. Take a paper hat with you, just in case you’re sick. Want me to introduce you to the others?’

She shook her head. “S OK,’ she said pragmatically. ‘I’ll do it.’

‘She’s so independent,’ Jayne said in admiration, sinking into the big armchair by the bed. ‘You’d think she’d be clingy, but she’s not. She just gets on with it, no matter how awful. She’s got such guts—’

Jayne broke off, her lips pressed together in a firm line, and Allie wondered what it must be like to have a child with CF and know there was a one-in-four chance that the baby she carried would have inherited the same dreadful and debilitating disease.

She patted her shoulder, giving quiet comfort and support, and then left her to grab a few precious moments alone to rest in the comfy chair. Allie reckoned she’d earned it.

She managed to slip up to the canteen for lunch, by a miracle, and was sitting propped up in an easy chair in the corner nursing a cup of tea when Beth strolled over.

‘He’s gorgeous,’ she said without preamble. ‘I saw him today in Outpatients. I had to cover. He is just luscious.’

Allie didn’t pretend not to understand. ‘I know,’ she said glumly.

Beth dropped into the chair opposite and gave her a curious look. ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked. ‘I’m the one that should have the long face. At least he’s interested in you—he wouldn’t have noticed if I’d got six legs!’

Allie laughed. ‘Beth, you’re silly. He’s going to be a GP,’ she added after a pause.

‘How wonderful. There are far too few of them out there.’

‘I don’t want him to be a GP. It’s so stressful.’

‘Isn’t that rather for him to decide?’ Beth said pointedly. ‘And anyway, what does it matter? He’s here now, he’s giving out all the right messages—you’d have to be mad to ignore it. Well, mad or dead or totally sexless.’

Beth was right—and Allie wasn’t any of those things, at least not where Mark was concerned. Well—mad, maybe, but that was different.

She finished her tepid tea and set the cup down. Happy ever after was probably a figment of the imagination, anyway, but there was no time like the present. Who said every relationship worth having had to end in marriage?

She gave the bemused Beth a dazzling smile. ‘You’re a love. See you later.’

And feeling much brighter than she had all day, she went back to work.

CHAPTER THREE

HE DIDN’T ask her out again until the weekend, and she was beginning to wonder if her imagination had read more into their relationship than was warranted.

If you could call it a relationship.

Maybe she’d presumed too much from their slight acquaintance. Maybe Anna was more appealing to him than he’d let on—although there was no sign of anything blossoming there either, she thought, and told herself that the only reason Mark had shown so much interest in her was because he was lonely in Audley and didn’t know anyone else!

So she put it out of her mind, and carried on with her work and tried not to notice when he was around, but it was pointless. Her radar wouldn’t switch off, and she was constantly aware of every breath he took when he was on the ward.

Still, her patients were a good distraction, and she tried to concentrate on them.

Little Claudia Hall was doing all right on her antibiotics, despite feeling sick, and her mother and father had taken over her antibiotic therapy and were giving her the injections through the catheter in her arm. It saved the nursing staff a job, and her parents were already so involved with their daughter’s care that they were utterly reliable.