A Proposal Worth Waiting For

Was Miranda here, then?

She must be. He hadn’t had time to

think about it. So this was the

day, then, that he…or they…had

managed to put off for so long.

And there she was, right in front of him,  almost exactly the way Nick remembered  her—the way he’d glimpsed her two years  ago, before making that very fast and very  firm decision to pull back. There she was,  stepping into the breach with her cheerful,  elfin and slightly mischievous face, her calm,  sweet voice, her practical attitude, her slim,  almost tomboy build and her heart worn  carelessly and innocently on her sleeve.

‘Hello, Nick,’ she said.

Bestselling romance author

Lilian Darcy

 has written  over seventy-five novels for Mills & Boon® Medical™  Romance, Special Edition and more. She currently  lives in Australia’s capital city, Canberra, with her  historian husband and their four children. When she  is not writing or supporting her children’s varied  interests, Lilian likes to quilt, garden or cook. She also  loves winter sports and travel.

Lilian’s career highlights include numerous  appearances on romance bestseller lists, three  nominations for the Romance Writers of America’s  prestigious RITA® Award, and translation into twenty  different languages. Find out more about Lilian and  her books or contact her at www.liliandarcy.com

Recent titles by the same author:

THE CHILDREN’S DOCTOR AND THE SINGLE MUM

LONG-LOST SON: BRAND-NEW FAMILY*

PREGNANT WITH HIS CHILD*

*

Crocodile Creek

A PROPOSAL WORTH WAITING FOR

BY

LILIAN DARCY

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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PROLOGUE

HE SAW her through the open doorway of Josh’s hospital room  and stopped, his body dropping instantly into a silent, wary  freeze, half-masked by the door itself, while he prayed she  hadn’t seen him.

Miranda Carlisle.

The name shouldn’t mean so much to him after so long. It  had been eight years since they’d last seen each other. And if  the intervening time since he and Miranda had studied  medicine together provided a protective cushion, then surely  his marriage to Anna should do so even more.

But my marriage is in so much trouble

…

Nick shut his eyes for a moment, not willing to face the  thought. He could hear Anna’s murmuring voice as she sat in  the chair beside Josh’s bed, just out of his line of sight. She  had her usual barrage of almost obsessive questions and  concerns. Miranda’s replies sounded patient and cheerful and  clear, but he doubted whether they would quieten Anna’s  fears for long.

When he opened his eyes again, he saw Miranda scribbling  some lines in Josh’s notes, her head bent a little to reveal  the delicate shape of her neck and her elfin ears showing pale  pink through her silky dark hair. She still wore it in that swinging ponytail he remembered, and it made her look young  and vibrantly energetic, like a jazz dancer or the leader of a  troop of Guides.

She was Josh’s doctor now. His new respiratory specialist,  because the previous one, Dr McCubbin, had just retired.  Anna was thrilled with Dr Carlisle, after Josh’s emergency admission  yesterday, and had said so in her usual over-detailed,  stress-filled way.

But Nick hadn’t admitted to their past association, other  than to say to Anna in passing, ‘We went through medicine  together. She worked bloody hard every step of the way. I’m  not surprised you think she’s good.’

Good, and dangerous.

Dangerous?

He was shocked to recognise the fact, but he was in no  doubt of it. If their brief, passionate past relationship was  going to flare in his memory in such vivid colours every time  he saw her, then he should steer clear of her in the future as  much as he could. For the sake of his very shaky marriage.  For the sake of politeness and professionalism. For the sake  of…yeah…a few things inside himself that it wouldn’t be productive  or relevant or safe at this point to confront, when  there was so much else of more importance going on.

On paper, you’d think that avoiding Miranda Carlisle  wouldn’t be possible at all. Nick’s own son. His son’s doctor.  The scarily unstable nature of Josh’s asthma attacks. The relationship  between Miranda and little Josh would definitely  be ongoing.

But when Nick thought of the way Anna had been  reacting to Josh’s illness since it had been diagnosed eleven  months ago, he knew with his usual frustration and sinking  heart that his wife would be only too happy if he kept out of the way and left all the questions, the emotions and the sacrifice  to her.

Now, for example. She wouldn’t be pleased to see him,  wouldn’t appreciate how much he’d shoved his schedule  around at Royal Victoria Hospital in order to get here at this  time of day.

He saw Miranda tuck Josh’s notes into the plastic pocket  at the end of the bed. It looked as if she was leaving. He  ducked quickly back against the corridor wall before heading  into the nearest visitor’s toilet.

She hadn’t seen him. Good. He would wait until she was  certain to be gone—as a reconstructive surgeon who made  these kinds of hospital rounds himself on a daily basis, he  knew how to time these things—and then he’d go in to greet  his wife and son.

Nick was wrong. Miranda had seen him, although she guessed  he didn’t know it. When he’d first appeared and then ducked  back, the movement had caught her eye at once. She’d been  steeling herself for the encounter, so she had been on the alert.

Her focus had been on Josh and his mother, but she’d  glimpsed the figure in the doorway and managed to catch a  couple more angled, hidden glances as she’d written in  Josh’s notes.

Handy things, those notes.

As soon as she’d seen the name Devlin, Nicholas, listed as  the patient’s father, she’d wondered. Her former colleague,  James McCubbin, had mentioned in passing a young patient  named Devlin with a surgeon for a father. Now James had  retired, and his patients would be parcelled out to the other  three doctors in the practice.

By virtue of being the one on call when Josh had come into the emergency department with his mother yesterday afternoon,  she’d inherited him, and a quick check of the contact  details had confirmed that his father was

that

 Nick,

her

 Nick,  the one who had sneaked up on her heart without her knowing  it during the course of six years of shared medical studies and  had then shattered it to pieces in one single night.

Or maybe she’d broken her own heart by giving it away  too eagerly. She’d never really been sure how those things  went. Her fault, or his? She could see, now, how much her  failed six-year relationship with Ian Mackenzie had been the  result of the lessons she’d learned…or had thought she’d  learned…from what had happened with Nick.

And now she was Nick’s son’s doctor, and he’d disappeared  from the doorway, and she wondered if the reason had  anything to do with her. Maybe it was only that his pager had  gone off. But if he was trying to avoid her…

Well, he couldn’t do that forever. At some point, they’d  have to connect.

CHAPTER ONE

INCREDIBLY, it took two years.

Having taken on Josh Devlin as a patient when he was  three years old, Miranda didn’t see his father again until the  little boy was five…

‘I can’t come, Miranda. I have to pull out of the whole first  week. Maybe even the whole trip.’ Anna Devlin looked white  with stress and half-blind to anything else going on around her.  She grabbed Miranda’s arm in the middle of the check-in concourse  at Melbourne’s Tullamarine Airport and made the announcement  before Miranda even had time to greet her properly.

‘Hey…’

‘My mother’s broken her leg. She’s not going to manage. It  just happened today. She slipped on her front steps. I’ve been  in six places at once, on the phone, at the hospital. And, of  course, it all falls to me. My sisters are saying they can’t possibly  come down. I’m so sorry, Miranda. I’m a complete mess.’

‘It’s OK. Slow down a bit, Anna.’ Miranda took a couple  of controlled breaths herself in an attempt to encourage her  patient’s mother to find some calm. ‘First, is Josh upset that  you won’t be going with him? Where is he?’

Anna shook her head distractedly. ‘N-no, he’s all right. Sort  of. He’s here, minding his suitcase. A bit overwhelmed. Am I doing the right thing? I can’t see any other option. I’m the  one who’s really panicking. I’m trying not to let it show.’

Trying, and failing dismally.

Anna was often emotional and tunnel-visioned, verging on  obsessive, although Miranda had tried in various ways to get  her to see that it wasn’t good for her son. Anna said all the  right things, but couldn’t put her resolutions into practice.

‘Do you want to look at cancelling? Rescheduling for  another time?’ Over Anna’s shoulder, Miranda saw two more  families arrive, but there was still plenty of time. The flight  to Queensland wasn’t due to board for another half-hour.

Anna shook her head at Miranda’s questions. ‘No, Josh  would be so disappointed. We’ve been talking about it for  weeks. No, he definitely has to go. It would take months to  schedule him another stay, wouldn’t it?’

‘Probably,’ Miranda had to admit.

Places at the Crocodile Creek Kids’ Camp on Wallaby  Island off the coast of northern Queensland were in high  demand. Miranda had a zing in her spirits this afternoon,  herself, even though she was going there not on a private  holiday but in her professional capacity.

Anna let go of her arm at last and she spotted five-year-old  Josh just a few metres away, sitting obediently on his suitcase  near the check-in counter. He looked far more calm than his  mother. Too calm, maybe. A little subdued. He was still essentially  the same kid Miranda had first met two years ago—small  for his age, endearingly gap-toothed and urchin-like, a real  sweetheart with a healthy capacity for mischief and numerous  hospital admissions under his belt. Anna was totally and  single-mindedly devoted to him, and he was her only child.

There wouldn’t be any more now.

Anna and Nick were divorced.

‘He’ll be fine,’ she promised Anna. ‘We’ll take care of  him. We have a couple of other kids coming without parents.’

She gestured towards awkward, unconfident Stella  Vavunis, aged thirteen, whom she’d already ticked off on her  list. Stella’s dad was supposed to be coming later in the week.  As one of the major donors to the new medical centre on  Wallaby Island, he would be a guest of honour at Saturday’s  official opening. For the first few days, however, Stella would  be on her own.

In remission from bone cancer, Stella wasn’t one of  Miranda’s own patients, but her heart went out to the girl  anyway. Her dark hair was growing back wispy and thin after  her chemo, and she’d lost the lower half of her right leg.  Adept on her elbow crutches, she was intensely self-conscious  about her lost limb and had her new prosthesis covered  in a pair of heavy jeans that would be way too hot for the  climate of North Queensland.

‘He’s not coming without a parent,’ Anna announced, her  stress level visibly rising again. She had an exotic, compelling  kind of beauty, with huge eyes, high cheekbones and full  lips, and the combination of her good looks and high emotion  had begun to draw some attention.

Miranda frowned, a little slow.

Too

 slow, considering  how long she’d been waiting for something like this to  happen. ‘But…?’

‘That’s the whole thing, Miranda.’ Miranda’s arm was once  again captured in a tight grip. ‘That’s the whole reason—well,  abig part of it—why I’m so stressed.’ She added in a tone that  was half wail, half whisper, ‘He’s coming with Nick.’

Right. With Nick.

She must have looked shocked—and shouldn’t have let it  show—because Anna said in a tight voice, ‘Please. Don’t make me dread this any more than I am already. Don’t make  Josh dread it, especially.’

‘I didn’t mean—’

‘Nick should be here within the next ten minutes. He  promised me he wouldn’t muck me around on this.’

‘So he’s coming for the whole two weeks? At such short  notice?’

Anna rolled her eyes and drawled, ‘I know. It’s a miracle.  Actually making a sacrifice for his son for once.’

‘Well, I meant—’ Miranda meant that it was a miracle, just  as Anna had said, but without the other woman’s edge of  sarcasm and bitterness. It was great that the persistently absent  surgeon could step in to fill the breach, just hours in advance  of the flight. Her initial shocked gut reaction was her own  problem, not Anna’s.

‘I’m hoping it’ll only be for the first week,’ Anna was  saying. ‘I’m going to find a way to get up there for the second  week if it kills me! Two weeks with Nick will ruin Josh’s stay.’

Had the little boy heard? Miranda wondered. Anna wasn’t  sufficiently careful in what she said around her son.

Whether it was one week or two, Nick must have called in  some favours, Miranda realised. He would have made a lot of  phone calls that morning to get everything organised and taken  care of. His willingness to make the effort did surprise her  somewhat, when she thought about it. She’d been forced, by his  persistent non-appearance, to the conclusion that he was a very  uninvolved parent, and the fact bothered her more than it should.

Anna and Nick had been divorced for months, now, but  even before that, Anna was always the parent who brought  Josh in for appointments, always the one who phoned with  questions, and whose signature appeared on admission and  consent forms when Josh was in hospital.

Miranda knew that Nick had made the odd appearance  since that first time when she’d seen him pause and stand half- hidden by the open door. She’d seen his name in Josh’s patient  notes a couple of times—‘7 p.m. Dad visited.’ But they’d  never come face to face. To be honest, for reasons that she  didn’t want to examine too closely, she’d been relieved about  that. Maybe she’d even contributed to it, in how she timed her  hospital visits and routine check-ups.

Their failure to connect with each other gave a nagging,  unfinished quality to her memories of their past, however.  Everything she knew about Nick Devlin’s attitudes and behaviour  as a father over the past couple of years she’d heard  from Anna. Very little of it was good. Nick was apparently  cool, distant and uncaring, and Josh shrank from him  whenever father and son were together.

Funny how things happened.

Years ago, younger and more naive about men in general  and about Nick Devlin in particular, Miranda would have  predicted he’d make a great father. She was so sure that in  their one night together she had suddenly seen—had been 

allowed

 to see—beyond the arrogant, unapproachable exterior  to the person he really was. But apparently she hadn’t understood  him anywhere near as accurately and deeply as she’d  thought back then.

Ships that passed in the night, and all that. Women were  sometimes way too good at kidding themselves about that  stuff. Was that the problem? Her own poor judgement? Had  she learned enough since then to avoid similar mistakes in  future? The memories were still strong, but Miranda didn’t  trust them any more. She

must

 have read him wrong when  they’d been medical students together. A wife—even an ex- wife—would know him better.

How am I going to feel about seeing him?

For better or for worse, she was about to find out.

Nick paid off the cab driver, grabbed his duffel bag from  beside the kerb and headed for the terminal. He’d promised  Anna that he wouldn’t be late and he wasn’t.

Or almost wasn’t.

He’d had a sick-making fifteen minutes of panic at home  about what he should be bringing for his son, and as usual he  couldn’t deal with the strength of the emotion because it  brought so much other stuff with it.

He had some snacks and a drink for the flight, a couple of  picture books and the kind of cheap toy that a five-year-old kid  could play with on an aircraft tray table, and Anna would have  Josh’s asthma gear, of course, as well as his clothing, but…

Should he be bringing a proper gift? A camera, or snorkelling  equipment? He already had Josh’s Christmas present, a  substantial addition to his Lego collection. Should he bring  that, make it a going-away treat, and get him something else  for Christmas, which was still two months away? Or did that  smack far too much of an attempt to bribe his son for love?

The decision paralysed him.

Yes, he, Dr Nicholas Devlin, MB BS FRACS, Plastic and  Reconstructive Surgeon at Melbourne’s renowned Royal  Victoria Hospital, who was normally able to make life- altering decisions in seconds if he had to, could not for the  life of him decide how to handle the issue of his son’s gift.

He knew what Anna would say. ‘Oh, no, Nick, you didn’t!’

Inevitably, whatever decision he made, it would be drastically  and utterly the wrong one as far as she was concerned.  It was a pathological condition in their impossible relationship,  and a basic tenet of her maternal faith, that everything he did with, or to, or for their asthma-stricken son, everything  he felt, everything he planned and almost every word he said,  was and always had been wrong.

Although this was probably not the major reason for their  divorce, it hadn’t helped, and things hadn’t improved since.

OK, so since he couldn’t win no matter what he did, he’d  go with his own convictions and not try to second-guess what  she would want. Unless she asked directly, he wouldn’t tell  her about what he had and hadn’t brought for Josh. The Lego  could stay at home, and if Josh wanted to take photos or try  snorkelling, they’d pick up what they needed on the spot.

Decision made.

Jaw squared.

Emotion pushed safely below the surface where it couldn’t  get in the way.

Sorted.

By the time he’d thrown off the panic and the bitterness,  remembered how to act like a surgeon instead of a powerless  and frustrated non-custodial parent, and realised he hadn’t yet  called for a taxi, a vital fifteen minutes had passed and he was  running late.

He saw Anna’s pale, accusing face as he approached the  check-in concourse. She must have been looking for him,  scanning for his figure above the heads of the crowd.

And she

wanted

 him to be late. He knew it. Later than this.  Really, unforgivably, flagrantly, uncaringly late, so that she  could tell people about it— ‘Can you

believe

 he missed the  flight? Josh had to go up

on his own

!’—and it would count  as yet another black mark against his name.

‘What happened?’ she asked with angry accusation as soon  as he came up to her, as if she expected at minimum a six-car  pile-up on the freeway.

‘Taxi.’ He’d stopped making lengthy excuses long ago.  Had stopped arguing, stopped appealing to her common sense  and her notion of justice, stopped trying to get her to see how  obsessively over-protective she was, and how much she shut  him out of their son’s life. Maybe she was right to consider  that he didn’t belong there, he sometimes felt.

Before he could get past her to greet Josh, Anna delivered  a stinging, rapid-fire round of instructions about their son’s  care and finished, ‘Nick, if you stuff this up, Josh has a miserable  time, I will

kill

 you!’

Ignoring the threat to his life, which his ex-wife found a  reason to hit him with almost every time they spoke, he said  through a tight jaw, ‘I’m not going to stuff this up. Why do  you think I would?’

‘Because you never take his health seriously enough.  Because you hardly know him, and he hardly knows you. He  doesn’t trust you.’

‘And that’s my fault, is it?’ he added quickly, almost  growling the words, ‘Forget it, forget it.’ They’d been through  that one a thousand times. ‘Look, I know you’re not happy  about this. But Josh and I will be fine.’ He took a deep breath  and prepared himself to say the L-word. ‘I love my son, Anna,  and don’t you ever, ever dare to suggest otherwise!’

‘Love isn’t enough,’ she muttered, turning away from him  so that her face was screened by her well-cut fall of light  brown hair. ‘Nowhere near enough.’

For her, it was a pretty generous concession, so he left the  subject alone, said a stilted goodbye, and looked over at Josh,  his stomach already sinking at the thought of what he might  see in his son’s face.

Indifference. Dislike. Fear…

Anna reached their little boy first, of course. While Nick was still three paces away, she bent down and engulfed Josh  in a huge, constricting hug as she prepared to say goodbye.  She was actually shaking, Nick saw, as she let forth an intense  stream of words close to his ear. Nick only caught a few  words. ‘Don’t want…terrified…every single minute.’

Josh nodded. Was he wheezing? What the hell was Anna  saying? That she was terrified?

‘And you’ll phone if there are any problems,’ she finished,  beginning to stand so that Nick could hear her better.  ‘Anything that’s making you unhappy.’

If Dad is making you unhappy

, Nick heard in her tone. At  least she managed not to say it out loud for once. He stepped  forward. ‘Go, Anna,’ he said, more calmly than he felt. ‘Josh  and I will be fine, won’t we, little guy?’

‘Don’t call him that,’ Anna snarled through the side of her  mouth, and tore herself away, disappearing behind a noisy  tour group before he could reply.

Hell.

He’d meant it as an endearment. If Josh was sensitive  about being small for his age, Nick hadn’t known. But, then,  how would he? Anna made it so difficult for them to spend  any real time together, and she never willingly shared her  insights about their son. If Josh was wary and distant, it was  her doing, wasn’t it?

Or was it his own lack of perception that was the problem?  His tendency to pull back when emotions grew risky and ran  high? His reluctance to show his deepest feelings?

A wave of self-doubt washed over him and he stepped  away, didn’t drop into a Josh-level squat as he’d intended and  wanted to, didn’t pick up the colourful backpack with the  inhalers and spacer and written asthma action plan inside,  even though he could definitely hear that Josh was wheezing. And he didn’t put his arm around his son’s little shoulder in  case Josh pushed him away.

This kind of self-doubt had been such a rare thing in his  life until Josh’s birth that he still didn’t know how to handle  it. He’d been taught to believe in himself, to act as if he was  in the right even when he wasn’t, to keep the façade of  strength and ego and self-control in place at all times, no  matter what he might be feeling inside. He’d doubted himself  at times, of course, but he’d always mastered it, never let it  hold him back.

The slow, horrible breakdown of his marriage to Anna and  the gulf in their attitudes to Josh had thrown a new light on  everything he’d thought he knew about himself, and it was  still doing so. Did he listen to the doubts, ignore them, or  shoot them down?

In a stark moment of anguish, he decided that Anna was  right. He and Josh didn’t know each other or trust each other  well enough to be doing this—going away together, going to  camp, father and son. He blamed her for it, but however it had  happened…perhaps he was more at fault than he’d ever  admitted…it was a reality. He felt ill-equipped and at sea,  daunted at the prospect of fulfilling all Anna’s dire predictions  and fears, and messing this up.

Hurting Josh.

Scaring him off.

Saying and doing all the wrong things.

Sabotaging the holiday’s hopes and promises the way he’d  sabotaged his personal life in so many other ways.

‘Dr Carlisle?’ Josh’s voice sounded small and scared.

Dr Carlisle…

‘Dr Carlisle, I think I need to use my inhaler.’  The name jolted Nick out of his negative thoughts. Was Miranda here, then? Was she—hell!—

coming

 on this camp?  She must be. Of course there would be medical people accompanying  the group. He hadn’t had time to think about it. So  this was the day, then, that he…or they…had managed to put  off for so long.

‘Hey, are you wheezing?’

And there she was, right in front of him, almost exactly the  way Nick remembered her, the way he’d glimpsed her two  years ago, before making that very fast and very firm decision  to pull back. There she was, stepping into the breach with her  cheerful, elfin and slightly mischievous face, her calm, sweet  voice, her practical attitude, her slim, almost boyish build  and her heart worn carelessly and innocently on her sleeve.

‘Hello, Nick,’ she said.

Ten years. Miranda wasn’t going to count the near-miss from  two years ago. Of course he remembered her and knew  exactly who she was, exactly where she fitted into his past.  She saw it in his face, when he reached out a hand for her to  shake. ‘We haven’t…uh…managed to connect since you  started treating Josh,’ he said.

He wore the same aura of cool and rather distant confidence  that she recognised, and that she’d only once seen truly  and seriously slip. He used his body the same way, too. He  never paraded his height or the strength in his shoulders, but,  then, a man didn’t need to when he was as tall and strong as  Nick. He was imposing without even trying.

‘No, we haven’t.’

On the surface, their words took care of the subject, but she  strongly suspected it would come up again.

Physically, he’d barely changed. His lightly tanned skin  had done a little more living, and it showed in the fine creases beginning to form around his eyes and mouth. His body had  hardened. She could imagine him running several kilometres  a day, or going for gym sessions at six in the morning before  starting surgery or hospital rounds.

‘Anna has a lot of confidence in you,’ he added, ‘which is  great.’

‘I’m glad you were able to come at such short notice,’ she  told him. And meant it, because ten years was a long time,  and this man was a patient’s father now, nothing more. She  had to remember that.

Had

 to. Hell, what was the alternative?  ‘It’ll be great for Josh to have his dad there.’

‘You think?’

‘Well, yes.’

Didn’t he agree? Was that a cynical drawl, or something  else? Anna had been very nervous and wound up about the  whole thing, which was typical, but her fears did have some  basis in reality—at least as far as Josh’s health was concerned.  Maybe the man seriously didn’t want to be in for this assignment,  and his reluctance and lack of interest would ruin Josh’s  whole camp experience.

But Miranda couldn’t think about that abstract possibility  right now. In fact, she couldn’t think about Nick Devlin at all.  She had to deal with the concrete reality that Josh’s asthma  attack was getting more severe by the second. With a sinking  heart, she saw the Allandales arriving with their thirteen-year-old  daughter—verging on late, heavily laden with luggage, instantly  wanting and expecting her full attention, as they  always did.

Pretending she hadn’t seen them, she bent down to take  Josh’s backpack, wanting to pull out his inhaler and spacer. His  breathing was getting worse and he looked increasingly distressed  as the seconds passed. He was scrabbling at his backpack now, trying to get it open, but the zip seemed to be stuck and he  hadn’t considered his father as a possible source of help.

‘Give the backpack to me, sweetheart,’ Miranda urged him.  ‘Don’t try to do it yourself. You just keep breathing, OK?’

‘Dr Carlisle!’ Rick Allandale reached her, his knees  roughly at her eye level.

Cutting off what would probably be a lengthy list of questions,  explanations or complaints, none of which she needed  now, she told him, ‘Let me tick Lauren’s name off on my list  in a minute, Mr Allandale. We’re waiting until everyone’s here  before we check in.’

‘Do you know his action plan off the top of your head?’  Nick asked in her ear.

Miranda felt rather than saw him. He’d squatted down to  Josh’s level, just as she had done, and his well-muscled upper  arm bumped her shoulder while his backside rested on his  heels. She caught the faint waft of some very pleasant male  grooming product. Aftershave or shampoo, or maybe just  plain old soap.

He didn’t wait for her answer. ‘Because I do. You have  other people to take care of. Let me handle this.’

‘Everyone else can wait,’ she answered, not sure if he understood  the urgency. He must surely realise that the attack was  being exacerbated by Josh’s mix of anxiety and over-excitement.

Too aware that he hadn’t moved further away, Miranda  uncapped the Ventolin inhaler and attached it to the spacer,  helped Josh get the other end of the spacer ready at his lips.  ‘OK, ready to breathe out? Now…’

But Josh couldn’t concentrate and, even with the spacer,  he mistimed the dose and took the spacer from his lips too  soon. Miranda saw a puff like smoke as most of the drug  escaped into the air.

Lauren Allandale was watching Josh’s struggle for  breath and his clumsiness with the inhaler, as were a couple  of other kids and a parent or two. The atmosphere was  chaotic and claustro