The Italian Surgeon's Christmas Miracle (12 page)

For what he’d done for Summer…and for her.

For simply being
him
.

Luke saw Amy leave.

He was deep in conversation with the other consultants, talking about ventricular function and wedge pressures and when they could start thinking about weaning Summer from the ventilation, but he had sensed Amy’s departure.

He tried to catch her gaze, to signal that he wanted to talk to her, but her focus was still on Summer as she slipped from the unit.

Things were well under control here. Luke had done his part and it had all gone extremely well. As close to a perfect procedure as anyone could have wished. Amy knew that. He’d seen the relief on her face when he’d pushed open the doors of the theatre, accompanying Summer to the recovery area, and had paused to tell Amy how happy he was with the way it had gone. He’d seen tears on her cheeks and had had to resist the strongest urge to brush them away himself. He couldn’t, of course, not with a dozen colleagues so close and a child that needed intensive monitoring for hours yet.

The chance to share more than those few words hadn’t come again but Luke hadn’t pushed it. He wanted their next conversation to be private. No distractions, so he could see the effect of what he had to tell her.

That her Christmas gift would be the house. He would instruct Reginald Battersby to do whatever necessary to overrule his father’s will and put the house into the ownership of the Phillips family.

He could catch her now, couldn’t he? There was nothing more he could do here than watch and wait, to keep in close touch with the consultants now responsible for Summer and to keep himself available in the unlikely event of a complication that needed surgical intervention.

If he hurried, he could catch up with Amy. He’d have to grab his coat, which would look a little odd over his scrubs and white gumboots, but if he ran, he could probably close the distance before Amy reached the park. And how many people would be out and about this early on Christmas Eve?

Way too many people, it seemed. The traffic was heavy and everybody stared at the white gumboots beneath Luke’s long, black coat. He hadn’t bothered to grab his scarf or gloves and the first flurry of snow was finally starting to fall. His hands were frozen by the time he was striding rapidly though Regent’s Park. Just short of running, so he didn’t alarm too many people. He stuck his hands in his pockets and he could feel something he’d forgotten for the moment.

The photograph.

He pulled it out as he walked, shaking his head at how uncharacteristic a thing it had been to do—to steal this item.

Except, it was his, wasn’t it—from a moral point of view?

The first, and only, inkling he’d had that he had been conceived and born with love. Surrounded by it when he had been too young to remember.

Possibly not too young. Did his soul remember? Was that why it recognised that what he’d found with Amy was so precious?

Something he couldn’t afford to lose?

Luke increased his pace, which had unconsciously slowed as he’d looked at the photograph, but he’d been further behind Amy than he’d realised. She was about to leave the park and start down Sullivan Ave. She would be at her house in less than a minute.

The house she didn’t know was really going to be hers.

‘Amy!’

She turned, saw Luke and stopped dead in her tracks. Took in the white gumboots and the flash of pale blue scrubs that were showing with his coat flapping. He could see the way her face paled and her gloved hand touched her chest over her heart.

She thought he was chasing her to tell her something dreadful.

That Summer had died?

‘It’s all right,’ Luke called. ‘I just need to talk to you.’

She was still afraid and Luke wanted to take her into his arms. As he closed the distance between them, he became aware of a loud sound behind him. A siren that was coming rapidly closer.

Just as he reached Amy, the fire engine passed them. So close it was automatic to grab Amy and pull her further onto the safety of the footpath. The siren was switched off but the beacons were still flashing. Snow was falling more thickly now and the dense grey white of the sky and snowflakes reflected the bright colours of the beacons, making them seem twice as bright. Twice as urgent.

The huge vehicle had stopped just down the street and another came around the corner, also silencing its siren the way they did when they reached their destination and no longer had to warn traffic to move. Both Luke and Amy watched as firemen in boots and helmets and fire-retardant clothing jumped from the vehicles. Luke let go of Amy’s shoulders and somehow her hand slipped into his.

A fire hydrant was being opened and hoses unrolled—all in the space of seconds. Some of the firemen were wearing breathing apparatus, with masks on their faces and oxygen cylinders in packs on their backs.

‘Oh, my God,’ Amy said. ‘Something must actually be on fire.’

They started moving, drawn towards the vehicles, as were other people who had started to gather on the footpath.

‘It’s close to our house,’ Amy noted. A heartbeat later, she gasped. ‘It
is
our house! Oh…
Luca
!’

He still had hold of her hand.

They both began to run.

‘S
TAY
out,’ a fireman ordered. ‘You can’t go in there.’

‘It’s my house,’ Amy shouted. ‘There are
children
in there!’

‘We’ll get them out. Stay back!’

There was smoke pouring through a broken window in the drawing room but there was no sign of any flames or smoke from upstairs. A fireman lifted an axe to break open the front door.

‘No!’
The cry was one of despair. This looked like an execution. Her house was being sacrificed, which wouldn’t have mattered a damn if it affected the safety of her children, but it wasn’t necessary. ‘Don’t do that! Please. I’ve got a key.’

‘Hurry up, then.’

Amy fumbled with the key. Luke was right beside her and he took it from her hand, slid it into the lock and pushed the door open.

Heat and smoke billowed out and Amy felt it scorch her throat. Her eyes stung and watered and she started coughing.

‘Oi!’ Someone sounded furious but she couldn’t see through the smoke. Rough hands grabbed her arms and she was pulled backwards and then turned towards where an ambulance was backing towards the scene, its beacons flashing.

Amy craned her neck, blinking. The first rush of smoke through the front door had lessened and it didn’t look nearly as bad as it had. Hoses were being unrolled and carried into her house.

Where was Luke?

‘Mad bastard,’ she heard someone shout. ‘We couldn’t stop him.’

Amy’s heart did a peculiar kind of somersault. Had Luke gone in there himself? Why? There were firemen here with safety equipment. Luke had to be risking his life to go inside the house. Had instinct overridden common sense? Was he doing it for
her
family?

For
her
?

‘What?’ Another man was wearing a fluorescent jerkin with the words ‘Scene Commander’ in bold, black letters. ‘Get him out.’

The back doors of the ambulance were flung open. A paramedic urged Amy to climb the steps.

‘Let’s give you a bit of oxygen,’ the young woman said. ‘You’ve inhaled a good dose of smoke.’

But Amy shook her head. She just had an irritated throat, which was making her cough if she tried to take a deep breath. No big deal, and she wasn’t going anywhere she couldn’t see her front door. She didn’t need to breathe deeply at the moment. She couldn’t. Not until she saw everyone she loved coming out of that door safely.

Including Luca.

Especially Luca.

The first figures came through the smoke and then into the now thickly swirling snow. Bare feet and pyjamas. Robert was holding Kyra’s hand and right behind him came a fireman with a twin under each arm. Marco and Angelo were shrieking with fright.

They all came towards Amy. A second ambulance was pulling up and there seemed to be people everywhere, holding blankets and oxygen cylinders.

‘
Zietta
…Amy…’ Marco was coughing and sobbing, holding his arms out.

‘
Mi
! Me, too!’ Angelo made an identical picture and already the distressed boys were shivering uncontrollably.

Amy found herself sitting on the back steps of the ambulance with a child clinging on each side. Blankets were wrapped over them all and paramedics fussed with oxygen masks and stethoscopes.

Robert was right beside the steps, refusing to climb into the second ambulance. Kyra was clinging to him, sharing his bright red woollen blanket, and they both needed to be close to Amy.

There was still no sign of Luke. Or Zoe or Andrew or Chantelle. Amy’s heart pounded and then stopped for a beat as a new figure emerged. Another fireman, with Andrew in his arms. Andrew was also crying and held his arms out to Amy. Robert and Kyra wriggled closer and her view of the front door was completely obscured.

‘Robert?’ Amy tried to disentangle herself. ‘Can you sit here? I need to find Chantelle and Zoe.’

And Luke.

‘No!’
the twins wailed. ‘Don’t go away, Zietta Amy!’

‘I’ll be right back,’ Amy promised. ‘You’re safe now. Be brave for just a minute or two. Can you do that for me, darlings?’

Robert towered over the younger children. ‘We can do that.’ He coughed harshly. ‘Can’t we, guys?’

A chorus of assents, coughs and stifled sobs was what Amy left as she ran towards the people now coming out of the house.

Four people. Two firemen. One was carrying Chantelle and the other had his arm supporting Zoe. He peeled his mask from his face.

‘The kid had locked herself in the bathroom,’ he said. ‘That bloke got her out.’

‘She was…too scared…to open it.’ Zoe had runnels of black eyeliner on her cheeks and looked a lot younger than her sixteen years. ‘Amy…I’m so sorry.’

‘It’s not your fault,’ Amy said firmly. ‘And you’re all safe, that’s all that matters.’

Except they weren’t all safe, were they?

Where was Luke?

The fireman was obviously thinking the same thing. He looked over his shoulder. ‘He was supposed to follow us out. Where the hell has he gone now?’

Amy helped guide Chantelle towards the others. The twins had been persuaded to get into the shelter of the ambulance and they were both cocooned in red blankets. Wide-eyed, they stared out at the scene.

‘Firemen!’ Marco said, awed. ‘And policemen!’

‘And doctors,’ Angelo added, looking at the uniform of the paramedic.

‘There’s flames,’ Chantelle sobbed. ‘Our Christmas tree is burning up.’

Could that have been what had caused the fire? All those paper streamers and an open fire not that far away and a rogue draft, maybe? But Amy had checked the fire carefully. The guard had been in place. The children all knew how important it was to be careful not to knock the guard.

Self-recrimination hovered but the extent of the damage was an unknown.

Nothing material mattered, anyway.

Where was Luke?

‘
Where
is he?’ Amy shouted at the scene commander. ‘You have to find Luke. Mr Harrington. The man who went in first….’

‘We’ll find him. Go back to your children, lady. They need you.’

So does Luca, Amy thought desperately.

‘For God’s sake,’ the man beside her growled. ‘He risked his damn life for a
mutt
?’

‘What?’ Amy whirled back to face the house and there was Luke, stumbling a little with a fireman on either side of him, his arms full of a large, limp-looking dog.

‘Monty!’ Amy had completely forgotten about the newest member of their family. Luke’s face was blackened by smoke and she could hear the harsh rasp of his breathing as he came closer.

‘Monty!’ Children poured from the back of both ambulances and crowded around as Luke laid the dog down gently.

Zoe was crying again. ‘Is he dead?’

Luke shook his head. ‘Too…much…smoke.’

‘Same for you, mate. Here.’ A paramedic slipped an oxygen mask over Luke’s face.

‘Monty needs one, too.’ Robert’s voice was deep. It had a new edge to it that Amy hadn’t heard before. A commanding edge. The teenager eyed the paramedics’ raised eyebrows. ‘He’s not just a dog, OK? He’s one of us now.’

Luke had taken as deep a breath of the oxygen as he could. He coughed, took another breath and then slipped his mask off. He held it over Monty’s huge black nose.

‘Hey!’ The paramedic sounded concerned. ‘You need that more than the dog.’

But Luke shook his head and the paramedic shrugged. ‘Guess I’ll find another cylinder, then.’

‘And a blanket?’ Chantelle pleaded. ‘It’s awfully cold out here.’

A minute or two later the children were red blobs crouched beside Monty, who was also covered in a red blanket. Luke’s breathing sounded almost normal again and to everyone’s intense relief Monty was recovering. He tried to get up but Marco and Angelo were hugging him too tightly so he gave up and thumped his tail a couple of times instead.

‘Thank goodness,’ breathed Amy. She turned to thank Luke for saving the dog, but he was standing beside the scene commander.

‘The kitchen seem’s fine,’ he was saying. ‘A lot of smoke but nothing was burning. The dog was still trying to bark and warn everybody but he’d lost his voice and then he got another lungful of smoke and collapsed.’

There were people all around. The numbers and levels of activity had been steadily increasing but Amy hadn’t noticed because she had been standing with an arm around both Chantelle and Kyra, watching for any sign of Monty’s recovery.

‘Fire’s out!’ A fireman was reporting to the scene commander now. ‘Started in the main room, by the look of things, with a Christmas tree by the fire.’

‘Is the house structurally damaged?’ Luke asked.

‘It will need to be properly assessed and that isn’t likely to happen today. It’s uninhabitable for the moment, that’s for sure. Smoke and water creates one hell of a mess.’

‘What about the occupants?’

He sounded so clinical, Amy thought with dismay. ‘The occupants’? She was the woman he’d made love to so recently and these were all children that had already had more than their fair share of heartbreak in their lives.

‘The police will deal with that side of things,’ the scene commander told Luke. ‘And Social Services. You don’t need to worry about it.’

Paramedics were trying to herd Amy and the children back to the ambulances.

‘We’re taking you all to the hospital,’ they said. ‘You’ll all need proper check-ups.’

Amy could hear Luke’s pager sounding and saw him flip open his mobile phone. The thought that he might be being summoned because of some complication with Summer added a new level of anxiety. She broke away from the children and hurried towards Luke. Only days ago she wouldn’t have dreamed of interrupting a telephone conversation he was having, but things had changed.

‘Is that about Summer?’

He gave his head a curt shake. ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can. I’m five minutes away.’ He snapped the phone shut.

‘Is Summer all right?’ Amy asked. ‘I need to get back to her but I’ll have to go with the others. They’re taking them to hospital, hopefully Lizzie’s, seeing as it’s the closest, but—’

But Luke was looking down at himself rather than at Amy. The white gumboots were black and the scrub pants wet and filthy from the knees down. ‘I’ll have to get changed,’ Luke said. ‘I can’t appear in ICU and talk to Liam’s parents looking like this, can I?’

‘Miss Phillips?’ A policeman approached them. ‘Can I talk to you, please? We need names and details for all the children involved here. And does this belong to you?’

It was Amy’s red tote bag that she must have dropped ages ago when they had been running towards the house.

‘Yes, it’s mine.’ She almost didn’t want to claim it, knowing that her cellphone was in there. And that she was going to have to call her mother and tell her about this disaster.

‘I have to go,’ Luke said.

‘Please…check on Summer? I’ll be there as soon as I can.’ Amy was being torn in too many directions and she was close to tears. She wanted to be with the children. To be with Summer.

To be with Luke.

‘Of course,’ he said.

‘And…and thank you.’

‘No need. Anyone would have done what I did.’

No, Amy thought, watching him stride away, dismissing a paramedic’s renewed attention with a wave of his hand to indicate he needed no further attention. Not everyone would risk themselves to save other people’s children, let alone their dog.

Even fewer people would brush off the chance to be seen as a hero. Or to get involved with the people that had been rescued.

Maybe Luke didn’t want to be involved. With any of them.

Amy turned to look at the house. Her home. The front door stood open, snow swirling in to land in puddles in the hallway. Windows were blackened and broken and the reek of hot timber and sodden ash was everywhere. A policeman was putting tape across the gate to forbid entry.

She and the children were now officially homeless. Their clothing, toys and Christmas presents were being closed off from being claimed. Maybe those gifts had been destroyed. They were under Uncle Vanni’s bed and his room was right beside the drawing room where the fire had started.

The engines of the ambulances were running and they were about to all be taken away. Amy would have to start answering questions about the children. Who they were and why they were in the house and why the level of supervision had clearly been inadequate.

Another child who needed her lay in the intensive care unit, fighting for her life, and the only other adult members of her family were still twenty-four hours away.

Amy had never felt more alone.

Luke had vanished through the crowd of onlookers, presumably intent on getting back to Lizzie’s and his work as soon as possible. He hadn’t looked as though he would have preferred to stay and help.

He had looked almost relieved.

And why not? He had got what he’d wanted all along, hadn’t he?

The house was, at least partially, destroyed. The authorities were going to make sure that Amy and children couldn’t return in the near future. It was possible that even minor structural damage from the fire would be enough to tip the balance and have the house condemned.

With dawning horror, Amy took in the implications.

It was the day before Christmas and she and her family were homeless.