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The nurse attending the woman turned and frowned.
‘I’m sorry, sir, you must stay in the waiting room and ring the bell if you need to see the doctor.’ She yanked the curtain of the cubicle closed as she came towards him.
‘Is Dr Mitchell around?’
‘Yes, but you must—’
‘I’m Luke Daniels. The new director. And you are?’
‘Oh, Dr Daniels.’ The line of her mouth thinned even further. ‘I’m Dianne Mills, one of the nurses. Terri’s busy with an urgent case at the moment.’
‘I’m here to help. Where is she?’
‘I’ll take you through to her.’ The woman’s subtle unfriend-liness seemed to say that his assistance wasn’t required or particularly welcome.
Luke smiled grimly as he grabbed a gown from the shelf and followed her. Maybe she was right. Judging by the praise heaped on her by his parents, Terri was a very competent doctor. She’d recognised the signs of his father’s myocardial infarct even though Will Daniels had insisted it was just indigestion. What had the stubborn old cuss been thinking? A call to the cardiologist had confirmed that Terri’s prompt actions had minimised damage to the cardiac muscle. Tests had shown life-threatening partial occlusions in several other vessels and his father had been whisked in for triple bypass surgery.
‘What’s the urgent case?’ he asked as he tugged the gown over his clothes.
‘An unconscious teen brought in by two friends. The girls couldn’t wake her when they got her home. We’ve got food poisoning cases coming in as well. I was just about to call for back-up.’ She sent him a speculative look.
‘I’ll cover.’ He smiled. ‘We can reassess later with Dr Mitchell if necessary.’
Dianne nodded. Her brief response wasn’t encouraging. Perhaps he needed to work on his people skills.
They were still a distance from a closed curtain when Luke heard a young woman’s clipped voice say, ‘I thought she should sleep it off.’
‘But I s-said we should b-bring her here,’ added a second, shakier female voice. ‘Even th-though it’s, like, two o’clock in the morning.’
‘You’ve made the right decision for your cousin.’ Terri’s even husky tones sent a light shiver over his skin. Sudden doubt needled at the belief that familiarity with her would help him. He swallowed.
‘Are you sure she hasn’t take anything? Drugs?’ Terri asked.
‘Um, sh-she—’
‘No, of course not,’ said the aggressive voice of the first girl. ‘Never.’
Luke stepped through the gap in the curtain and took in the situation with a sweeping glance.
Two young women in their late teens stood to one side of a gurney. Dressed to the nines in their party clothes, heavy make-up smudged beneath their eyes and an array of coloured streaks adorned their heads. He caught the tail end of the ferocious glare the taller of the two girls used to browbeat her friend.
Terri’s eyes lifted to his briefly in a moment of intense silent communication. It was obvious she didn’t believe the girls’ denial. Her eyes slid away and she moved to the head of the gurney where she bent over the patient, laryngoscope in hand.
‘Temperature up another half-degree to forty-one point five, Terri,’ said a nurse as she pulled up the patient’s skimpy knitted top and placed the diaphragm of her stethoscope on the pale skin.
‘Thanks, Nina.’ Terri glanced up. ‘Dianne, could you get us some ice packs, stat.’
‘On my way.’ Dianne slipped out of the curtained cubicle.
Keeping an eye on the activity at the gurney, Luke crossed to the teens. ‘I’m Dr Luke Daniels,’ he said calmly. ‘You’re on your way home from a party?’
‘A rave.’ The taller girl gave him a superior look. She was busily chewing gum and her eyes had the dilated pupils of someone who’d taken some sort of substance. ‘Over at Portland.’
‘Apical pulse one forty. BP seventy over forty. Sats seventy per cent.’ Folding her stethoscope, the nurse turned away to collect a monitor from the side of the room.
Luke turned his attention to the other teen. ‘Was your friend able to walk out of the rave on her own?’
‘We—we kind of, um, had to h-help her.’
‘Was she talking to you then?’
‘N-no.’
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Terri slide in the endotracheal tube.
‘Airway in. Ready for the ventilator, Nina.’ She straightened, moving aside so the nurse could attach the unit.
Stepping back around the gurney, Terri unwound her stethoscope and listened to both sides of the patient’s chest and her abdomen.
Luke looked back at the shorter girl shivering beside him. Deliberately holding her eyes, he said gently, ‘We need you to be honest and tell us how long ago she took something. Was it a tablet?’
‘Th-three hours.’
‘Shona!’
‘Well, sh-she did. We all did. They were only l-little pills, j-just to give us a b-boost.’
‘Thank you for your honesty,’ said Luke, touching her arm to reassure her.
‘They were only Es,’ said the taller girl, tossing her head. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me and Shona so it can’t be the that.’
‘Those so-called party drugs affect everyone differently.’ Luke clenched his teeth against the urge to shake some sense into the girl. ‘You two have been lucky. You’re friend hasn’t.’
‘J-Jessie had leukaemia. When she was a kid. Is that why she’s so sick now?’
A wave of despair at their folly cramped his chest and stomach. He was aware of Terri’s eyes on him, but he refused to meet her gaze. He didn’t need to see the pity that she undoubtedly felt for him.
‘She’s g-going to be okay, isn’t she?’
‘We’re doing everything we can for her.’ He ushered them towards the curtain. ‘We’ll get you to wait outside.’
Dianne came back in with cloths and the cold packs.
‘I’ll organise those, Dianne, thanks,’ said Luke, taking them from her. ‘Can you show the girls to a room where they can wait, and get next-of-kin information from them, please?’
‘C-could we have something to drink?’
Luke met the nurse’s concerned eyes. ‘A glass of fruit juice for them, please, Dianne, and perhaps see if there’s an apple or two in the staffroom.’
As Dianne showed the girls out, Terri said, ‘I’m going to have to set up a central line for fluids.’
‘Right. You scrub, we’ll monitor Jessie and get your equipment set up,’ he said, wrapping the cold packs and placing them in Jessie’s groin and armpits.
He’d organised a trolley with the required sterile packs by the time Terri had finished at the sink.
‘Gown, gloves.’ He nodded to the second trolley.
The soft rustling noises as she gowned up tormented him while he concentrated on opening the catheterisation kit and dropping drapes onto the sterile work surface.
‘Do me up, please?’
He turned to see her encased head to toe in surgical green, her elbows bent and gloved hands held relaxed in front of her, maintaining her sterile working space.
He knotted the straps at the nape of her neck, then reached down to do the same at her waist. The warmth he could feel on the tops of his fingers made them clumsy. Try as he may, he couldn’t close his mind to the enticing curve of the small of her back.
She turned to face him.
Brown eyes, huge and dark, stared at him from above her mask. His breathing hitched. He was a fool to think hospital clothing would instantly dissolve Terri’s appeal. He’d never seen anyone look quite as…sexy while preparing for an aseptic procedure.
‘Luke?’
He blinked, looked down to see she was handing him the tab for the outside string. She turned in front of him and took back the string. ‘Thanks.’
He swallowed. Perhaps he should have gone back to bed after all. Let Dianne call in the emergency back-up. Turning away, he snipped across the shoulder of Jessie’s top, exposing her clavicle and neck.
Nina came back with a bag of saline and began to set up the drip monitor.
A moment later, Dianne stuck her head around the curtain. ‘I’ve got contact details for Jessie’s mother. They’re down from Melbourne, staying with relatives for the weekend.’
‘Thanks, Dianne. I’ll make the call now.’ He took the paper from her and went to the phone. With the line ringing at the other end, Luke tucked the receiver under his ear.
‘Terri, the ambos are at your uncle’s place,’ Dianne said. ‘He’s aggressive and hypotensive. They’re concerned about trying to establish an IV so I suggested they scoop and run.’
‘Good idea,’ Terri said. ‘How’s Mary going with the rest of the race-picnic follow-ups?’
‘All done now,’ Dianne said. ‘She’s just managed to get through to Matt in Garrangay about the Macintoshes. I’ll go and set up a cubicle for your uncle.’
‘Thanks, Dianne,’ Terri said. ‘Nina, can you see if there’s any word from the lab tech on call? We’ll really need to be able to run some bloods through tonight.’
‘Will do.’
Luke pressed redial when the ring tone timed out. With the receiver held to his ear he turned to look in Terri’s direction. Her work was quick, neat, methodical. He congratulated himself on being able to view her nimble fingers with detachment. Sure, she was a pleasure to watch but, then, he always enjoyed seeing someone perform a task well. The peculiar feelings that keep threatening to muddle his mind when he was close to her, had to be a product of his stressful few weeks organising his trip back here.
‘Hello?’ The sleepy voice pulled his attention back to the phone. A short time later, he hung the receiver back on the wall cradle and allowed himself a brief moment to close his eyes. Weariness washed through him as his sympathy went out to Jessie’s mother. What a nightmare for a parent.
He straightened and turned around to find Terri’s eyes on him as she stripped off her gloves and mask. The beauty she brought to the everyday movements stopped the words in his mouth.
‘She’s on her way in?’
‘Yes.’ He cleared his throat, relieved when muscles moved back to normal function. Stepping back to the side of the gurney, he said, ‘Her brother’s bringing her in.’
Terri moved to stand beside him. Even with the pervasive smells of the hospital, he was piercingly aware of the subtle scent of soap she brought with her. Of her vitality, her fine-boned femininity, the warmth in her dark eyes.
‘This must have been a hard case for you on your first night here.’
His mind abruptly went back to the night of the kiss, the parallels with the sympathy she’d shown him then. He wanted it just as little now. He wasn’t sure what it was that he did want from her—but he knew it wasn’t that.
He rolled his shoulders. ‘It’s always hard seeing someone as young as Jessie taking risks like this with the rest of her life.’
‘Yes.’ Her lashes lowered, but not before he’d seen a quick flash of hurt at his brush-off.
An apology hovered on his tongue. Instead, he picked up Jessie’s chart and began detailing her treatment. ‘We’re looking at an ICU transfer for her?’
‘I haven’t made the call yet. The first priority was getting her stabilised.’ Her voice was all cool business. He must have imagined the moment of vulnerability.
He nodded and recorded another complete set of observations. The girl seemed to be holding her own, with her oxygen saturation and blood pressure markedly improved. Her temperature was steady. ‘You’ve done a good job, Terri.’
The curtain rattled beside them. ‘Terri, your uncle’s two minutes away.’
‘Thanks, Dianne. Be right there.’
‘You happy to take Mick’s case?’ Luke asked, glancing at her as he slotted his pen into the shirt pocket under his gown.
‘Yes, of course.’
He nodded. ‘I’ll call the air ambulance, organise Jessie’s transfer.’
‘The number’s on the wall by the phone.’ Terri turned to leave. He couldn’t stop his gaze from following her for the few paces it took her to clear the cubicle.
He breathed out a sigh, aware of the odd tension ebbing from his body with her disturbing presence gone. His physiology was more like that of a teenager.
He was a grown man.
A widower, with a daughter.
He dragged a hand down his face. The effect she had on him had to wear off.
Soon. For his sanity, it had to be soon.
Terri hurried through the department, confusion churning through her stomach. Luke had shut her out. Just as he had all those years ago on the beach. Well, what had she expected? They weren’t friends. Ryan had been his friend. She was just Ryan’s bratty little sister. It was probably all the years of hero worship and then that kiss on the beach that made her feel as though she knew Luke better than she did.
She sighed. Still, he’d be good to work for—which was a relief. She could see that much from this short stint. It had been a pleasure the way he’d fitted in so well, picking up the reins, knowing what she needed and facilitating treatment. He’d deferred to her position as the doctor on call while still commanding respect from everyone in the cubicle. The nurses, the teens, herself.
The teens’ rebellion had melted away in the face of his charm, information just flowing out of them under his non-judgemental questioning. The way he’d spoken with Jessie’s mother had been wonderful, his velvety voice so full of compassion and caring.
And he’d complimented her handling of the case. In all the years of working with Peter, her husband had never done that.
Luke’s praise meant a lot.
More than it should.
Not good! Scratch the surface and there was still a really bad case of hero worship going on underneath.
She was going to have to keep clear of him as much as possible—at work and away from it. Which might be difficult as she lived at the bottom of his parents’ garden.
Still, she had no reason to think that he would seek her out. She’d been the one doing the chasing all those years ago—even if she hadn’t realised it at the time. Things were different now. She wasn’t chasing anyone. She had enough on her plate.
To try to find her courage.
To learn to like the woman she was.
CHAPTER THREE
TERRI met the ambulance at the door, desperately trying to look as professional as possible. Her uncle lay still and pale, his beloved face slightly distorted beneath the oxygen mask. A large white dressing was taped to his forehead. Seeing him like this made her heart twist but she pushed the feeling away. He needed her competence now, not her love.
Frank began his handover as they wheeled the trolley through to the treatment room. She was aware of Dianne and the police sergeant following them.
Between them, they transferred him to the hospital gurney.
Frank stepped back and continued his report. ‘There was a smashed bottle of beer on the floor. Looks like he’d slipped in it and hit his head on the corner of the sink. I’ve dressed the laceration on his forehead. It hadn’t bled much,’ he said. ‘We found him sitting against the kitchen cupboard. After we got the go-ahead to scoop and run, all the fight went out of him. He’s been as quiet as a lamb.’
‘Okay, thanks, Frank.’ Terri leaned over her patient, her hand on his shoulder as she tried to rouse him. ‘Uncle Mick? Open your eyes if you can hear me.’
The lashes flicked up and his dry lips stretched into a smile that was more of a grimace. He fumbled with the mask and Terri helped him pull it away, noting the sweetish, ketotic odour of his breath.
‘Tee.’ He used his nickname for her and for some reason that gave her an instant of misgiving. Should she have stayed with Jessie, handed this case over to Luke as he’d offered? ‘What’re you doing here, love?’
She shook off the doubt. Responsibility for the emergency department was hers tonight. Luke being here was a bonus, not an opportunity to get him to deal with her family. ‘Do you remember what happened, Uncle Mick?’
But his eyes closed again and he mumbled an indistinct response.
‘BP is ninety over sixty,’ said Dianne.
‘Right.’ Terri slipped her stethoscope on and listened to the irregular rhythm of his heartbeat. ‘Let’s get an ECG going, please, Dianne.’
As the nurse snipped off his T-shirt and began attaching the leads, Terri slipped a tourniquet on Mick’s arm and bent over his hand. After a moment, she moved on to his wrist and then quickly to his elbow. Beneath her fingertips she could feel the tell-tale springiness of a small vein. Good enough to establish an intravenous line? She hoped so. It would be so much quicker and less complicated than putting in a central line. The sooner Mick started rehydrating, the sooner they could get him stabilised. ‘I’m going to put a needle in your arm, Uncle Mick.’
She slipped the cannula into place and released the tourniquet, permitting herself a moment of relief as she taped it securely. She carefully drew off a syringe of blood. ‘How’s that ECG looking?’
‘Typical hypokalaemic changes,’ replied a deep voice.
Luke.
Terri took a breath, willing her heart to settle. Surely Jessie hadn’t been picked up already.
‘Nina’s specialling Jessie,’ he said as though he’d read her mind. ‘She’ll call me if she needs me. The transfer chopper is still half an hour away.’
She glanced over to where he examined the ECG strip. He tilted the readout so she could see the flattened T peaks. ‘Thanks. It’s what I expected. Let’s get him started on normal saline IV with thirty millimoles of potassium.’
‘I’m on it.’ Dianne pivoted away to the bench.
Luke held out his hand for the syringe. ‘The lab tech’s in. You’ll want a priority on the electrolytes and glucose. When they can for the CBC, urea and creatinine?’
‘Yes, please. Thanks.’
She’d just opened her mouth to add a request when he said, ‘I’ll organise a strip reading for the blood glucose so you can set the insulin infusion.’
‘Right.’ There it was again—that intuitive understanding of her work rhythm. It was fantastic and a little unnerving. With anyone else, she was sure she’d have revelled in the experience. But because it was Luke, there seemed to be a level of intimacy associated with it that she badly needed to deny. But what could she say? Stop reading my mind—stop doing such a great job? Terri shrugged mentally and settled for ‘Thanks.’
She turned back to her patient and flicked on her pen torch. ‘I’m going to shine a light in your eyes, Uncle Mick.’
She lifted each eyelid and watched as the pupils in the deep brown irises expanded and contracted readily. Equal and reactive. At least it looked like he didn’t have a head injury to complicate things further.
‘Blood sugar, twenty-three,’ said Luke.
‘Okay.’
Dianne appeared beside her. The nurse reeled off the potassium level in the saline bag then held it so Terri could check the label.
‘Correct,’ Terri said.
She walked around to the other side of the gurney so she could more easily examine the wound on his forehead. ‘I want to have a look at your cut, Uncle Mick.’
‘Fluids set, Terri,’ said Dianne.
‘Thanks.’
A jagged flap of skin had curled back from the triangular laceration but the area looked quite clean. A simple irrigation and suturing job.
‘No! No!’ Her quiescent patient erupted into unexpected action. So quick. One moment she was lifting the dressing and the next she was flying across the room. In slow motion she watched the horror on Frank and Dianne’s faces from the other side of the gurney, their hands uselessly reaching towards her. She saw the sergeant step forward, his mouth tight as he restrained her flailing patient.
Any moment now she was going to hit the floor. Paradoxical that she had so much time to notice everyone’s expressions but none to organise her limbs to save herself from the inevitable painful sprawl.
But it didn’t happen.
Hands reached her, catching her from behind, cradling her against a hard, warm body. Her uncle lay back down in the milliseconds in which she struggled to understand what had happened. She turned her head and looked up into Luke’s grim face. How had he managed to get across the room to save her?
‘Are you all right?’
Pain bloomed in her cheekbone, replacing the numbness of a second ago. His face dissolved and she realised her eyes were tearing up. ‘Yes. Thanks.’
She tried to move away but his hands held her firmly, preventing her escape. Short of an undignified struggle, she was helpless to free herself. Luke was so large and hot and solid. She felt fragile. Insubstantial. Utterly feminine.
Though it must have only been seconds, time seemed elastic, stretching to allow her to feel every square inch of contact. He turned her slightly. She could feel his bracing arm behind her back, the fingers that curved around the top of her arm.
‘Go and get some ice on that.’ He sounded gruff. His eyes, still fixed on her face, were dark.
She blinked the tears into submission, embarrassed at this sign of weakness. ‘I have a patient to attend to.’
‘I’m taking over.’
‘I need to—’
‘You need to stand down and let someone else handle this, Dr Mitchell.’ His voice lowered, losing its sternness. ‘I can feel you trembling, Terri. You need to go and sit down.’
Her defiance ebbed away, making her realise how shaken she felt. ‘Yes. Okay.’
He frowned suddenly and tilted his head to look at her more closely. His fingers tightened on her flesh. ‘You have a slight nosebleed.’
‘Do I?’ As soon as she spoke, she could feel the trickle just below her nostril. Knowing there was physical evidence of her injury made her feel even more vulnerable. An uncomfortable sensation.
She pulled out of his grip and this time he released her.
‘Go and clean up. I’ll finish here then come and have a look at you.’ He turned back to her uncle on the gurney.
She hesitated briefly, then realised that the others had meshed into a team around Luke to treat her uncle. She spun on her heel and left the room.
‘I found you at last.’
At the sound of Luke’s voice from behind her, Terri jumped. The boxes of twelve-gauge needles she’d been handling scattered across the shelf.
‘I wasn’t hiding,’ she said, not entirely truthfully. How long had he been standing there, watching her?
‘Hmm. How are you feeling?’
‘I’m fine.’ When she’d re-stacked the boxes and regained some of her composure, she turned. He was leaning against the doorjamb, his arms folded, one foot crossed over the other. A plain black T-shirt stretched over the chest she’d so recently been clamped against.
‘Good. Let’s have a look at you, then, shall we?’ A slow smile curved his mouth as though he read her reluctance and thought it amusing.
‘I don’t think we need to. But thank you anyway,’ she said, shooting him a discouraging stare.
She’d never appreciated how absurdly claustrophobic the long narrow room was with the well-stocked shelves towering along the walls. It was all his fault, of course, the way he was blocking the only exit.
‘I think we might let me be the judge of that.’ His smile took on a distinctly determined edge. ‘Just think of it as my self interest.’
Terri picked up her clipboard and hugged it tightly in front of her torso. ‘Self interest? In what way?’
‘If I don’t think you’re up to it, I’ll take over the rest of your shift.’
He waited with an expression of polite interest as she thought of and discarded several weak excuses.
‘Oh, all right. Let’s get it over with, then,’ she muttered. The thought of his hands on her, even in a professional capacity, was nerve-racking. The imprint of their earlier contact still plagued her. Her back to his chest, his fingers on her arms as he turned her…
She forced down a swallow and pushed away the distracting memory. ‘Where do you want to do it?’
He raised a brow and his lips tilted.
She felt heat leap through her system. Oh, God, had she really said that? Please, let the floor open up and swallow her now. ‘The exam.’