From Paris to Forever Read online

  “Are you done with the criticism?” Chloe didn’t even try to keep the annoyance out of her voice.

  “Don’t tell me you’re upset with me when I’m only pointing out the obvious. The ceiling is too high, and physically it is a hard job for any woman to reach those corners, let alone one with an injury. A professional painter would be more suited to the task; can’t you see that?”

  “You mean can’t I see that I’m a weak woman, and not strong enough?”

  “Well, I didn’t put it quite like that, but yes. It’s a man’s job.”

  She could hardly articulate her annoyance as she took in his smug expression.

  “Please go before I say something I’ll regret later. I think you’ve made your point.”

  Chloe pointed at the front door. “Go!”

  Todd slid his hands in his pants pockets and shot her a look of disbelief. He didn’t budge.

  Chloe marched to the front door, held it wide open and stared straight ahead, until he strode past her. She slammed the door behind him so hard the windows vibrated.

  “Arrrgggg … pompous arse. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” Annoyed and hurt by his remarks, she plunked herself down on the bottom of the stairs. “Washed out … I’ll give him washed out.”

  Furious and frustrated with herself for allowing him to spoil her good mood, she shot to her feet. Gathering up the required paint, trays and rollers, she prepared to work off some steam in the time left before Patrick arrived. She headed upstairs to make a start on painting the ceiling. Calculating the height of the cathedral ceilings, she selected an appropriate extension pole and locked the roller in place. The ladder, propped open ready and waiting, appeared to be taunting her on the landing. His words rang in her ears… . “a hard job for any woman, let alone one with an injury.”

  On the top step of the staircase, Truffle sat licking his paws, which he then used to clean his head and ears. He looked unconcerned by all the fuss. She had to edge him out of the way with her foot to open the ladder a fraction wider. Truffle gave her a disdainful look, resettling a few inches away to continue his grooming.

  “Men! They think they know everything; they think their opinion’s all that matters. A man’s job, is it? They think women are helpless little flowers, put on this earth only to cook and clean and do their bidding!”

  She poured a generous supply of paint into the tray and loaded up her roller. “I am just as capable as any man. And I don’t need to be told what I can and what I can’t do!”

  Chloe ascended the ladder as far as she could safely go. Gripping the extended pole tightly in one hand, the top of the ladder in the other, she swung the roller up to begin painting in the corner. Consciously aware of her frustration and the need to take it out on something, she angrily pushed the roller back and forth in the corner of the ceiling. She stretched out, momentarily loosening her grip of the ladder, and shifted her weight onto her bad leg. No sooner had the thought of that foolhardy action formed in her head, the consequences followed. The agonising pain which shot up through her thigh stunned her, she cried out as she tried to regain her balance and her hold of the ladder. It wobbled, and she moved the other way to compensate. The ladder tipped.

  Intense fear of causing more damage flashed through her consciousness, and she twisted her body to protect her leg. The roller fell out of her grasp, landing heaving on the tray, and splashing paint up the walls. The tray spun, careening into the paint pots, which emptied onto the floor. Startled, Truffle squawked and jumped out of the way. Oh no …what a mess!

  Her head struck the wooden banister with a loud crack.

  Chloe fought desperately to open her eyes, aware of Truffle licking her face, of his rough tongue noisily scraping against her skin. She heard a phone ringing downstairs, then her mobile ringtone emanating from her handbag on the hall table. Come on, Chloe. Get up! Strangely, she couldn’t move an inch. Her heavy limbs would not comply. So tired, so very tired. She drifted under again.

  Patrick had been calling Chloe from the worksite, on and off for an hour, without any response. He had attempted to call both her landline and her mobile but, in the end, had to be content with leaving a voicemail. The current renovation in Warragul, which appeared to be so simple in the first few days on the job, had turned out to be more complex than he thought. He had a contract which needed to be completed on time, or face heavy penalties. Nothing he could do about his date at this late stage. Dinner with Chloe would have to be rescheduled. Making it back to Melbourne before midnight would be impossible at this rate.

  Todd had driven around for the past hour, unaware of his surroundings, trying to reason with himself while dealing with the peak hour traffic. He pulled into the car park under his apartment, letting the car idle. Go back and apologise. His stubborn nature had held him back, and he battled with it constantly. I was only looking out for her. Jealousy had wormed into his brain and removed rational thinking. The little voice in his head couldn’t be denied. Admit it. You’re a jealous idiot. The blood pounded in his temples when he thought of Chloe going out with Patrick. He had phrased his comments badly. In trying to point out how much she had taken on, he had insulted her. To make matters worse, he had entrenched himself deeper into her bad books with every word he uttered. No wonder she asked me to leave.

  He threw the car into gear and reversed out of his bay. With tyres screeching, and the engine roaring, Todd exited the parking garage and sped off down the street. Angry at his own stupidity and lack of finesse, he was determined to fix it as soon as possible. He called the house. It rang out. He had to apologise in person if she hadn’t left yet, and make this right between them. He wouldn’t sleep until he did. Losing her friendship was not an option: it was better than nothing at all.

  Todd rang the doorbell, but no one responded. Various tools and paint tins still littered the front porch. Todd found this odd. Chloe secured everything inside at the end of the day. He could hear Truffle mewing loudly in the house. Concerned now, he tried the handle and found the door unlocked. No lights illuminated the ground floor.

  “Chloe?” Still no response. “Chloe, are you still here?” His voice boomed loud, even to his own ears. Truffle mewed upstairs.

  He took a few hesitant steps to the bottom of the stairs and looked up into the semi-darkness. Moonlight shone through the skylight. He could just make out the end of the ladder, wedged between the wall and the banister. Paint dripped down slowly between the banister railings, and with a loud plop, added to a puddle on the timber floor below. He located the light switch at the foot of the stairs, and he began to climb.

  It took only a heartbeat for him to see Chloe splayed out on the floor, and to be at her side.

  Waiting for news of Chloe’s condition became more unbearable for Todd with every passing moment. In the two hours since they had arrived at Emergency, he had been left alone, left to worry; his thoughts constantly returning to the moment he found Chloe unconscious, blood seeping from the back of her head. Apart from the rush through the evening traffic in the ambulance, everything appeared to be happening in slow motion.

  When a nurse and a doctor approached the waiting room, he jumped straight up from the plastic chair. The nurse nodded in Todd’s direction. The doctor, dressed in green scrubs, with his face mask hanging loosely around his neck, came towards Todd.

  “Is she okay? How badly hurt is she? She lost a lot of blood. Can I see her?” Todd held his breath, waiting for the doctor to answer.

  “I’m Dr Morgan, the neurologist looking after Miss Armstrong. I’ve just come out of surgery to check on her condition. Unfortunately, we don’t know the extent of the damage as yet. We’ve given her a transfusion, and she’s stable. The blunt force trauma to the head is causing concern, and we’re worried about bleeding on the brain. She hasn’t regained consciousness, so we will be keeping her in ICU and monitoring her closely.” Dr Morgan looked grave.

  “When can I see her?”

  “Are you family? On
ly family members are allowed in ICU.”

  “I am her fiancé.” Todd lied without hesitation.

  It would be too late to do anything about the lie later. He needed to see her now, to see for himself that they were looking after her. She had been so still while they waited for the ambulance. He thought she had … well … No, don’t think about it! He needed to see her, end of story.

  “Then that shouldn’t be a problem.” Dr Morgan squeezed his shoulder reassuringly. “I’ll let them know. You can see her when they’ve finished cleaning her up.”

  Todd accompanied Dr Morgan to register his name with the ICU duty nurse, and reluctantly returned to the plastic chair in the waiting room.

  When a nurse eventually arrived after midnight to escort him to her private room in ICU, he had nearly worn a track in the tiles on the waiting room floor. He entered her room with trepidation. Chloe’s head had been swathed in bandages to just above her eyebrows. Dark shadows had spread beneath her closed eyes. Gold-tipped eyelashes fanned out on her sharply defined cheekbones. She appeared so thin, so gaunt in the hospital gown, his heart retracted in his chest when he looked down on her. The stark white of the cotton pillowslips did little to conceal her pallor. In the tiny room, the warm cloying smell of antiseptic caused his stomach to lurch with painful memories of hospital visits in the past. It didn’t help that his last meal had been lunch the day before.

  An armchair sat adjacent to the window, and a serviceable straight-backed visitors’ chair had been placed beside the bed. He chose the latter, comfort the last thing on his mind. He took her cool hand in his and willed her to open her eyes. Seconds ticked by and became minutes, minutes became an hour. The only noise in the room came from the monitors attached to her body.

  The night shift nurse etered the room so quietly she took Todd by surprise when she appeared at the foot of the bed to pick up Chloe’s chart. Short and stocky, she had grey curly hair tucked into a bun. Dark-framed spectacles hung around her neck on a chain. She exuded kindness.

  The nurse spoke softly, looking down at Chloe. “Poor wee lass. Talk to her.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Talk to her. They say that talking helps to bring your loved ones back to consciousness.” The nurse replied softly in her Scottish accent.

  “What shall I talk about?” Todd looked a little uncertain.

  She consulted her notes. “It doesn’t matter what you talk about, Mr Baker.” She raised her head, and smiled reassuringly. “Just talk to her.”

  The nurse moved about the room silently, patting Todd’s forearm encouragingly as she passed by. “Just ask at the desk for Nurse Andrews if you need me. I won’t be far away.” She clipped the chart back onto the bottom of the bed, and left the room as quietly as she had arrived.

  Todd talked. He talked about his business. He talked about the apartment at Docklands. He talked about the house they inspected in Portsea, and his plans to expand his business to open in another state. He related a few of the shenanigans Patrick had gotten into as a child, and told her about his younger sister Audrey, who was studying in Switzerland.

  Nurse Andrews came in regularly to check on Chloe. She smiled benevolently as she performed her duties and listened to his monologue.

  Hours passed, but Chloe didn’t wake up. Mentally and physical exhausted, he found it hard to keep his eyes open.

  “Chloe, please wake up. There are so many things I want to say, but you need to be awake to hear me. I am so sorry for upsetting you. I don’t know what came over me. Me and my big mouth, Sam would say. I came back to apologise. Just as well, eh? You really gave me a scare, Chloe, you’ve no idea. When I saw you lying there with all that blood, I had to stop myself from picking you up and taking you to the hospital myself.” He lay his head down on the bed for a moment, still clasping her hand.

  “I know I like to be in control, but this is different. I’ve never been this protective about anyone outside the family before.” As he drifted off to sleep, he murmured, “Chloe, please wake up. I think I’m in love with you, and I really want to tell you.”

  Nurse Andrews, as quiet as a mouse, continued to slip in and out of the room monitoring her patient. She left Todd slumbering by Chloe’s bedside. When Nurse Andrews transferred her patients over to the day staff at 6 am, she told the nurses of the handsome fiancé Mr Baker, and how kind to have stayed with Chloe all through the night, talking to her, and holding her hand.

  Todd stirred. Bleak early morning light filtered through the functional hospital blinds. Fuzzy-headed, stiff and dehydrated, he stretched his stiff back and tried to stand straight. Not surprisingly, the last few hours blurred into his restless dreams. His whispered declaration of love had been forgotten, lost to him in the mists of sleep. It took less than a minute to work out, however, that nothing had changed. Chloe remained unconscious.

  Todd left his mobile number with the nurse on reception, and requested to be notified immediately of any change. He needed to go home to shower and change out of his bloodstained clothes. A gallon of strong coffee would help to sharpen his reflexes.

  He planned to secure her house, check on the cat, and find her mobile phone to call her relatives, when and if they needed to know. He had to inform Patrick, and ask Samantha to move all his appointments for the day. So much to do, when all I really want to do is stay here until she wakes up.

  When Todd called Patrick to inform him of the accident, it took him a few moments to register Chloe had been rushed to the hospital. The pitiful amount of sleep he had achieved after the long drive home in the early hours of that morning had left him less than alert. Now Patrick understood why Chloe hadn’t answered his calls. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, jotting down the details of the hospital, the floor, the ward on a pad on his bedside table. He cut the call short and headed for a cold shower to fully wake him up.

  He couldn’t refuse the request to stay with her until Todd returned. He had pangs of guilt knowing he hadn’t been there to pick her up last night. Although he reasoned he hadn’t been the cause of her accident, if he had been on time … well … it might never have happened.

  McCafe’s drive through provided a double shot of caffeine to shock his system into overdrive. Luckily Todd had given him the full directions. Patrick bypassed the nurse’s station and headed directly for ICU and her private room. He entered quietly, startling a nurse holding Chloe’s wrist, gauging her pulse.

  Patrick’s first sight of Chloe had been a complete shock. He hadn’t expected her to look so frail, so deathly still and tiny in the large hospital bed. In the short time he had known her she had been so animated, always talking and laughing.

  “Mr Baker, is it?” the day nurse enquired in her lovely Irish lilt.

  Patrick sunk onto the chair beside Chloe’s bed and took her hand in between both of his, willing her to open her eyes. “Yes.“ Patrick spoke softly.

  “Has there been any change?” Patrick stole a glance at the nurse. She reminded Patrick of his primary school teacher.

  “No. No change as yet.” The nurse noted Chloe’s vitals on her chart and clipped it to the end of the bed. “I’m Nurse Mahoney. I’ll be lookin’ after your girl here, for today. I’ll write my name on the board here by the bed. Ring the bell if she wakes up.”

  Patrick had forgotten to turn off his phone when he entered the hospital, and it buzzed into life in his pocket. The deafeningly loud ringtone reverberated in the small room. Patrick looked across to where Nurse Mahoney stood glaring and tut-tutting at him. He immediately switched it off without answering the call. He cast eyes full of apology her way, and gave her his famous lopsided coy smile, which no red-blooded woman had ever been able to resist.

  She instantly softened her glare. “No mobile phones in here, young man. They interfere with the medical equipment. You must turn them off at the hospital door!”

  Tall and slim, mid-fifties, with short dark brown hair and a ruddy complexion, Nurse Mahoney tried to look authoritative. She strai
ghtened her back, pulling herself up to her full height, and folded her arms over her meagre chest. “Now, no more calls when I leave the room.”

  They couldn’t be sure if the noise of the phone or the sound of voices had startled her into wakefulness.

  Chloe opened her eyes, turned her head and looked directly at Patrick.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Chloe’s remarkable recuperation took the doctors by surprise. This allowed her to be moved out of ICU and relocated into another private room on the same floor. Dr Morgan had given the all clear to go home on the weekend, if she continued to improve. The only proviso being that she had someone to look after her. Now the million-dollar question was whose home?

  She experienced dizziness from time to time, which was not uncommon after such a traumatic incident. Negotiating the stairs between her bedroom, kitchen and living areas, would be foolhardy while home alone. The spare bedroom downstairs could not be considered an option either, due to the stripped walls and bare floor, not to mention the lack of furniture.

  She had an alternative. Todd had generously invited her to stay at his apartment in the Docklands, with the offer of a nurse/companion to drop in, so that she wouldn’t be alone through the day. He wouldn’t hear of her returning to her house in Port Melbourne. Grateful for his help and friendship, she mulled over his offer to stay, although she didn’t imagine a nurse would be required. I wonder how long it will be until I can get back to finish the renovations?

  She ate her mediocre hospital dinner and pondered her immediate future.

  The day shift nurses in ICU completed their duties and the evening shift began. Nurse Andrews took receipt of a flower arrangement for Chloe at ICU Reception, and elected to deliver it personally before her rounds.