Chapter 6
The next morning McKenzie was happily ensconced in a bed in her own private room at St Auburn’s.
She was comfortable here, her home away from home, unworried as she watched television that she couldn’t hear but engrossed nonetheless.
Peyton sat by her side, her heart splitting in two, her heart palpitating wildly every time she thought about her daughter’s imminent surgery.
She’d wanted this. She’d wanted it for so long.
But now it was here, it seemed too much.
Too much for a little girl who’d already been through enough.
She was jumpy and nauseous. Her empty stomach growled at her and she ignored it.
She just hadn’t been able to face the usual piece of toast she forced down every morning.
Now, if Valentino had been here hand-feeding her olives and cheese…
‘Buongiorno.’
Peyton started as the man she’d just been thinking about lounged in the doorway, taking in his lazy grace, his charming smile and those dimples. He wore dark trousers and a deep green business shirt with a paisley tie and looked relaxed and confident, which was a balm to her stretched nerves.
‘McKenzie?’ Peyton touched her daughter’s arm.
McKenzie looked away from the television and her face broke into a wide smile as she waved. Valentino grinned back as he approached the bedside. ‘Are you ready?’ He signed as he spoke.
McKenzie nodded and when he held out his hand to her, she high-fived him.
Peyton, currently shredding a tissue into a million pieces, wished she could say the same. She was barely keeping it together. A hand slid gently onto her shoulder and squeezed. ‘How are you?’
His empathetic tone had her biting down hard on her lip. She would not cry. She just wouldn’t. Glancing up at him, she faked a smile. ‘Terrified.’
‘That’s only natural,’ he said, his voice low but oozing confidence and capability. ‘But please know, I’m going to take very good care of her.’
Peyton nodded. She did know – she’d seen him in action. But she was too emotional to speak. Too scared to open her mouth lest she break down.
‘Here.’
She looked down as he thrust another one of those brown paper deli bags from yesterday at her. ‘I brought you some biscotti. It’s to die for.’
Peyton took it automatically even though the thought of food made her want to throw up. ‘I’m not hungry.’
He shrugged. ‘You have to pass the time somehow. You may as well eat really good food.’ Another squeeze to her shoulder. ‘See you after the op.’
Another high-five to McKenzie and he was gone before she could tell him she really couldn’t eat a thing, which was just as well because, three hours later – three interminable hours – the bag of biscotti was half devoured when they pushed a sleeping McKenzie, her head swathed in bandages, back into her room.
All the nerves and anxiety Peyton had endured in the interim fell away like the biscotti crumbs in the bottom of the bag.
Relief coursed through her, strong and sweet, her legs wobbling as she grabbed hold of the bedrail.
Her breath caught in her throat as she surveyed her daughter lying so still and pale against the white hospital sheets.
For a moment McKenzie looked like her sister, and memories of Daisy swamped her, those last horrible days rising large in her mind as an awful feeling of dread rose in her chest.
Was McKenzie even breathing?
The nurse busied herself around the bed as Peyton leaned over her and pressed kisses to her daughter’s face, so different without her blonde curly halo. She needed to touch her, needed to know, to be sure.
McKenzie stirred, her eyelids fluttering open for a second, and tears stabbed at Peyton’s eyeballs. ‘Hello, baby,’ she whispered.
A small smile flitted across her daughter’s face before her eyes drifted shut again, and Peyton dropped her forehead to McKenzie’s chest, shutting her eyes, riding the surge of relief as the cold, hard grip of worry slackened its hold.
And that was pretty much where Peyton stayed, right by her daughter’s side, holding her hand as McKenzie slept and her nurse came and went.
The nice even beep of her saturation monitor was a familiar comforting noise, which Peyton eventually drifted off to.
She’d not had a lot of sleep these past few nights thinking about all the things that could go wrong and it had caught up with her.
‘Peyton?’
Waking with a start, Peyton looked around to find Valentino standing by the chair, his hand once again on her shoulder. Slightly disorientated, she sat up straight, glancing at McKenzie. ‘Is everything okay?’
‘Yes.’ He smiled and, lordy, he had such a great smile. ‘Everything’s great.’
‘What’s the time?’
‘Just after one.’
Peyton nodded, her brain slowly clearing of the sticky fog of sleep.
He must be finished his morning list and doing his post-op rounds.
He was wearing the same clothes as earlier sans tie, showing off the bronzed column of his throat, which she had the strangest urge to press her face to and shut her eyes.
He crouched beside the chair and spoke in a low murmur so as not to disturb a still sleeping McKenzie. ‘It all went really well. In a few weeks we should be able to switch the device on.’
Peyton was suddenly overwhelmed by the gift his skilled fingers had given her daughter, a rush of emotion swamping her chest as tears filled and stung her eyes. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, the tears spilling down her cheeks.
‘Hey, she’s okay,’ he murmured as Peyton’s face crumpled, and he pulled her head onto his shoulder. ‘Everything’s okay.’
She nodded as she leaned into his embrace, a sob escaping. Then another. Because for the first time in years, Peyton believed that it was really, actually going to be okay. And she had Valentino Lombardi to thank for it.
Today was the big day. Or the next big day, anyway. And it was utterly surreal for Peyton, walking into St Auburn’s, McKenzie in tow, three weeks after her operation, pressing the lift button for the fourth floor, stepping out, turning right and walking through the open doors marked Audiology.
The same path she’d trodden three days a week for the past couple of years. Except it wasn’t. Everything was different.
Today was the day they’d know whether the operation had been a success or not. Today was the day McKenzie would hear.
A week ago Valentino had seen McKenzie for her routine two-week post-op check. He’d been pleased with her progress and they’d set this date for the activation of the device.
‘Hi, Peyton. Hello, McKenzie.’ Greg Palmer, the team’s social worker, was first to greet them. He grinned at McKenzie as he signed. ‘Today’s the day, huh?’ he said to Peyton.
Peyton gave him a tight smile as McKenzie went straight to the corner of the large entrance lounge to where she knew the puzzles were kept. ‘Yes.’
He squeezed her arm. ‘It’ll be fine.’
Peyton nodded as she pressed a trembling palm against her stomach. Of course it would be okay. ‘I’m a little early. Is Ellen in yet?’
Greg frowned. ‘I think Valentino’s going to do the honours.’
‘Oh.’ She hadn’t counted on that. Ellen was one of the two audiologists in the department and today was her day on, so Peyton had just assumed… Valentino must have made room in his schedule to be there for McKenzie.
The knot of nerves in her belly twisted even tighter.
Today, if all went according to plan, was probably going to be quite emotional. And she’d cried in front of Valentino one too many times as it was.
‘I think he’s already in his office.’
Peyton shot a nervous look towards Harry’s office. Valentino’s office. She wanted to go in, was eager and excited on one hand but scared and nervous too.
What if they got no result?
‘Go,’ Greg urged, squeezing her arm again. ‘It’ll be fine.’
Peyton took a deep breath and nodded. ‘Come on, McKenzie,’ she said, crossing the room to her daughter and crouching down next to her. ‘Let’s go and see Dr Valentino,’ she signed.
McKenzie smiled and took her mother’s hand, and they headed for the door behind which lay a whole new life. Peyton knocked lightly and entered at Valentino’s command, finding him at his desk, a pile of charts to one side but only one in front of him – McKenzie’s, she presumed.
‘Peyton,’ he said as he stood, sending her a smile so full of calm confidence her nerves settled if only temporarily.
She returned his smile before he transferred his attention to McKenzie. ‘Hello, there,’ he said, grinning as he signed. ‘Are you ready?’ When she nodded, he ushered her closer. ‘Come in.’
But Peyton held fast to her daughter’s hand. ‘You don’t have to do this. Ellen will be in soon. You have surgery.’
She didn’t know why she was so resistant to Valentino switching on the implant.
A few weeks ago she wouldn’t have cared less had it been a trained monkey.
But this man, this sexy Italian model-dating surgeon, was different.
There was more than a professional connection between them, no matter how they tried to avoid it.
There was intimacy. And Peyton knew from bitter experience that intimacy left you vulnerable. Something she swore she’d never be again when it came to men.
She doubted it would have mattered had she not slept with him. But she had. And while he was obviously a pro at separating himself from that, standing before him now, she doubted she could entirely. So much of her life these past few months was already tangled up in him.
He shrugged. ‘I had a cancellation.’
Peyton frowned as she searched her memory for this week’s theatre cases. ‘Who?’
‘Peyton.’ His voice was thick with reproach.
‘I know. It’s just…’ It wouldn’t have made sense to anyone else that she was stalling after all this anticipation, but it made sense to her. ‘That’s why we have two audiologists so the surgeon is free to, you know, do the surgery.’