She hadn’t noticed anything being wrong with Charles while they worked, but now he was having a heart attack right in front of her and she didn’t have a clue what to do. While she helped people that needed her, she was okay, but faced with the pain of someone she’d struck up a relationship with—albeit temporarily—Frankie was frozen.
She looked up as Lucas hurried over the makeshift bridge. The panic lodged in her shifted. With Lucas by her side, there was nothing she couldn’t do, nothing she couldn’t achieve. His calming presence moved her from semi-clueless volunteer to qualified nurse mode.
Lucas examined Charles while Frankie rifled through the rucksack full of supplies Lucas had thrown to the ground next to himself.
“What do you need?”
“Aspirin, the tablets are in the front pocket,” Lucas said, checking Charles’s blood pressure. “We’ve got to assume this is a heart attack and treat it as such until we can get him to the hospital. Oxygen will help, too.”
Frankie unzipped the pocket and pulled out a foil packet. Popping out a tablet, she gave it to Charles. “This helps your blood thin so it keeps flowing to your heart. Just chew it, everything is going to be fine.” It had to be. She didn’t think she could cope with another patient dying on her, not when she was already so worried about Victoria.
She arranged the oxygen mask over Charles’s face and gave his hand a squeeze. She knew better than to promise him he’d be okay, but the fear in his eyes was easy to read and she longed to reassure him.
“The baby looks as though he’s watching you.” Frankie indicated Victoria’s baby who now lay on the ground next to Charles. “And he’s not crying for his dinner. He knows we’re busy.”
“I told you not to bring him.” Lucas’s voice was tense as he shot Frankie a loaded look.
“He’s been no bother,” Frankie asserted. “It’s easy to work with him strapped to me.”
Lucas looked pointedly between the baby and the empty sheet that was still tied around her body. “Uh huh.”
“Everything was fine, Charles was going to feed him for me before he fell ill.”
“A rescue site is no place for a baby, Frankie.”
She refused to admit he was right, but she knew he was. She just hadn’t wanted to leave the baby behind when he could be cocooned against her body. He deserved to know that someone cared about him. With one hand gripping Charles’s, she put the other out to the baby.
Immediately he grabbed her finger and held on. She smiled at him, loving that he had responded to her. Turning her head slightly, she wanted to share her joy with Lucas, but his face was hard as he shook her head at her.
“That baby isn’t yours, Frankie.”
“I…I know that.”
“You’re a nurse. You need to stop mothering him. No good can come of you getting too attached.”
“Don’t be so harsh, Lucas. He’s a defenceless baby, he needs someone to look out for him.”
“That someone is his mother, Frankie. Not you.”
Charles squeezed her fingers and Frankie put aside her disagreement with Lucas. Now wasn’t the time to tell him how wrong he was, that she wasn’t getting attached to the baby, and that she knew exactly what she was doing.
Especially given she wasn’t really sure the last part was right. Ever since she’d arrived on Astoria, she was doing things that were not ‘her’, things that were alien to her, and yet they felt so right. She was learning to go with her gut and ignore any warning bells that went off in her head. She’d spent years doing exactly what she thought she should. Now was time to live a little and take a few risks.
#
Lucas watched Frankie as she stoically moved around the patients they worked with that day. A quick meal after they’d settled Charles was all they had managed in the twelve straight hours they had worked. Hettie helped Frankie feed and change the baby before taking over for the night.
He stopped by Victoria’s bed. “Can I leave tomorrow, Doctor Lucas?”
“I’d usually keep you in another few days, make sure you and your son are not feeling any ill effects front the traumatic birth.” Lucas shrugged. “But here everything is different and we need the bed space. I’d rather you stayed another day though, Victoria.”
“It is time I go.” Victoria nodded. “Doctor Lucas, can I ask you something?”
“Of course.” Lucas stopped tracking Frankie’s movements and focussed on the woman in front of him. Her earnest tone demanded his full attention.
“What is your father called?”
The unexpected question pierced the wall Lucas kept strong around his own private pain. His father, who would’ve lived if Lucas hadn’t been responsible for the death of his own brother. “My father was called Edward.”
“That’s a good, strong name.”
“Yes.” Lucas forced the word past his tight throat. “I suppose it is.”
“It is the name I will give to my child.” Victoria nodded, her decision made. “Edward Charles. Now I will sleep, for I will need all of my strength when I leave.”