Miracle Times Two. Josie Metcalfe

the door firmly against any intrusion.

      She was just in time to see him reach out to the keening woman and gasped in disbelief when Aliyah turned on him like a rabid dog, her eyes wild and her fingers stiffly curved as though ready to rip him to shreds.

      ‘No, Aliyah, no,’ Daniel said, his deep voice almost crooning as, far from backing away, he stepped straight into the danger zone and wrapped a consoling arm around her shoulders. ‘Gently. Gently,’ he said. ‘This is not good for the babies. Think about those precious babies.’ His words were almost hypnotic in their gentle rise and fall, but it took several racking moments before Aliyah’s devastation would allow her to hear what he was saying.

      Suddenly, she flung herself into Daniel’s arms and he had to ease himself onto the side of the bed to support her weight as she sobbed, clearly broken-hearted.

      ‘Why?’ she wailed at intervals, but there was obviously no answer for the randomness of chance. If her husband had decided not to go back to his office, or if he had decided to leave even a couple of minutes earlier, this would not have happened.

      It was only when she finally drew back from Daniel’s comforting hold and looked up at him from tear-swollen eyes she demanded, ‘Why did he have to die before he could even see our sons?’ that Jenny understood the enormity of her devastation.

      For a moment, she wondered whether the information was true. Then she put her rational head on and recognised that the person who had answered the phone in A and E was unlikely to have more up-to-date news than Daniel.

      Still, she reached for the phone and pressed the relevant numbers.

      ‘Theatres,’ said a crisply efficient voice when the call was answered.

      ‘This is Jenny Sinclair calling on behalf of Daniel Carterton,’ she announced. ‘Can you give me an update on Mr Farouk’s surgery? His wife’s a patient in our unit.’

      ‘Oh, no!’ the voice exclaimed, instantly sympathetic, then, ‘Just give me a minute to check,’ but Jenny wasn’t worried about a moment or two’s delay. It might give Aliyah time to comprehend the fact that her husband hadn’t died at the scene of the accident, as she seemed to believe.

      ‘Surgery’s still ongoing,’ the voice reported in her ear while she watched Daniel try to calm his patient enough to listen to what he needed to explain. ‘There are three of them working on him at the moment—a thoracic surgeon, an orthopod and a neurosurgeon. They said they’ve managed to stop the bleeding but there’s still a long way to go before they’ll know anything definite. Do you want someone to phone with updates?’

      ‘Please,’ Jenny confirmed. ‘Updates would be good,’ and she put the phone down.

      ‘He’s still alive?’ Aliyah breathed with tremulous disbelief, her thick dark lashes clumped by tears. ‘Please, tell me he’s still alive.’

      ‘So far,’ Jenny cautioned, stepping close enough to take the hand the young woman held out to her. She squeezed it reassuringly between both of hers as she paraphrased the information she’d just been given. ‘So far, they’ve managed to stop him bleeding, but that’s only the first step.’

      ‘What else do they have to do? When will I be able to see him?’ She flipped back the covers and started to slide her feet over the side of the bed. ‘Please, can I go to him? I need to be with him.’

      Daniel had to step in with a doctor’s authority before they could persuade their patient that there was absolutely no point in trailing through the hospital only to have to sit in a surgical waiting room.

      ‘We’ll probably receive news, here, before you would, there,’ Daniel pointed out. ‘Jenny has arranged for someone in the surgical department to phone through updates as soon as there is anything to tell us.’

      ‘You promise?’ Her dark eyes flicked frantically from one to the other. ‘You will tell me as soon as you hear anything?’

      ‘I’ll promise if you’ll promise, too,’ Daniel said firmly, then pointed to the figures on the monitor panel. ‘You must lie back and relax and concentrate on bringing your pulse and blood pressure down, for your babies’ sakes. Do you think your husband would forgive himself if worrying about him damaged your sons?’

      The rest of her shift seemed interminable and it almost felt to Jenny as if they were all holding their breath while they waited for news of the surgery.

      The report that Aliyah’s husband had survived the removal of several large shards of bone from his brain and that the plate of skull they’d removed to access them would not be replaced until some of the swelling had gone down was the final part in the lengthy process.

      Not that surviving the complex operations would guarantee the patient’s survival, and there was still an extremely long way to go before they would even begin to know how much permanent damage his brain had suffered in the impact and its aftermath.

      ‘Are you as exhausted as I am?’ Jenny demanded as she emerged from the locker room still sliding her arms into the sleeves of her jacket to find Daniel performing almost exactly the same task as he walked towards her.

      ‘Probably,’ he grumbled. ‘And it’s not as if the day was unusually busy.’

      In fact, the unit had been relatively quiet, beyond the usual round of clinics and assessments. Of course, there was an almost electric buzz in the air every time the phone rang, with everyone seeming to hold their breath in case it was news about Sheelagh Griffin’s desperately struggling baby or the outcome of Faz Farouk’s lengthy surgery. It was always that way when one of ‘their’ patients had bad news, and in a unit that saw the highest-risk patients, they saw more sadness than most.

      This seemed somehow different, almost as if the whole world was waiting to hear the outcome. And still the tiny baby clung to life as though oblivious to the fact that his fight was doomed to failure, while Aliyah Farouk waited impatiently to be given permission to go to her husband’s side.

      ‘I never realised that tension could be so draining,’ she said as she automatically fell into step beside him, both of them heading towards the exit after their brief detour to glimpse the tiny scrap that was barely as long as her hand. ‘But I suppose that when everything revs into high gear every time the phone rings …’

      ‘And your body gets flooded with adrenaline in anticipation of news,’ he added.

      ‘So your pulse and respiration speed up, causing you to burn up so many calories that you feel completely limp and empty even before the situation resolves itself.’

      ‘ So, you’re saying that you’re about to collapse with lack of nourishment and are in imminent need of sustenance?’ he asked and she was grateful that he’d changed the topic to something so mundane and normal.

      ‘How did you guess?’ Jenny pulled a face as she rubbed a hand over the noises coming from her stomach. ‘I know it’s not the best thing nutritionally, but I think I’m going to get a takeaway, for speed.’

      ‘I could do tagliatelli carbonara, if you’re interested?’ he offered tentatively and she blinked in surprise, then wondered if, like her, he didn’t want to be alone with his thoughts just yet.

      She had to squash the bubble of excitement that started to swell inside her at the idea that she’d be spending some off-duty time with him. After all, it hadn’t been so long ago that he’d let her know he saw her as more of a little sister than an attractive woman.

      ‘How long would I have to wait to eat?’ she demanded, concentrating on looking suspicious. ‘Is that a crafty way of getting me to do the shopping so you’ll have the ingredients to cook?’

      ‘I’m mortally wounded that you could think me so devious!’ he complained as he stepped aside to allow her to exit the automatic doors first. ‘When have I ever given you cause to think that I’m anything other than honest and straightforward?’

      His teasing words