Алисон Робертс – Hot Single Docs: Happily Ever After: St Piran's: The Brooding Heart Surgeon / St Piran's: The Fireman and Nurse Loveday / St Piran's: Tiny Miracle Twins (страница 19)

It was good.

It was. And if she reminded herself of that often enough, it would be true.

It should have been a relief to get Christmas and the start of the new year over with.

To get back to business as usual and away from all the forced cheerfulness of so many people trying to spread the joy of the season. Even patients were wishing him a happy new year, and there’d been far too many invitations to social events to find plausible excuses to avoid. So many smiles to produce.

Theatre had been the best place to be, of course. No tinsel allowed in there and nurses had to remove any silly seasonal earrings. He didn’t tolerate small talk either so he didn’t have to hear people talking about how excited their children had been as they had counted down the sleeps or what people were planning to do to see in the new year.

The only downside of being in Theatre had been that Anna had followed through her threat of supervising him. His response had been a form of attack in a way. If she wanted it to be like this and pretend she was there to improve her knowledge and skills then she could jolly well put the hard yards in instead of watching.

To his surprise, Anna had embraced the perspective and anyone in the gallery would have been convinced that that was the only reason she was in Theatre with him. Even more surprising was how much he enjoyed teaching her. At some point during that first operation on the woman with that nasty tumour threatening her cardiac function, Luke had stopped watching like a hawk to catalogue things he could be doing better than Anna and, instead, began channelling his knowledge and watching how quickly she understood what he was saying and how deftly the information was put into use.

He not only enjoyed the session, if he was really honest with himself, it had also been a relief to have her there.

Just in case.

Having watched Anna so closely during that surgery, Luke found himself continuing to watch her. He justified the scrutiny by telling himself he was watching her to see whether she was watching him. He watched her on ward rounds and in meetings. Even in the canteen. It was easy to create any number of opportunities to watch his assistant. He could find patients in the intensive care unit whose condition needed review. Departmental issues to discuss. Research projects to plan and monitor.

He discovered that Anna spent almost as much time in the hospital as he did. Way too many hours to have any kind of life away from a career. How did she find time to work on renovating that small cottage she lived in or to give her pet the attention it needed? Not that it was any of his business.

Or was it? At one point, he had to wonder if Anna’s willingness to put in so much extra time was purely due to her dedication to her career or whether it had something to do with him still being in some kind of probationary period. Was he just aware of it because he was trying to keep one step ahead of her?

Or … was he watching for a signal of some kind that she remembered that kiss?

That she might find herself thinking about it as often as he did? Sometimes he would catch her gaze and he’d feel an odd buzz. A hint that she might remember.

That she might be wondering if it would be as extraordinary if it happened again.

Wanting it to happen again.

On one of the first days of the new year, Anna was with Luke and one of her registrars in his office. They were discussing one of the new research projects due to get under way.

‘The main causes of prolonged hospital stay, morbidity and mortality following cardiac surgery are haemorrhage and infection,’ Luke was reminding the young doctor present. ‘And, quite often, infection is one of the sequelae of haemorrhage.’

Anna was listening quietly. This was an occasion when she was in Luke’s company but his attention was on someone else. Even when he involved her in the discussion, he would forget to glare at her and the simmering undercurrent that she was waiting on for further evidence that Luke was unfit for the position of responsibility he held vanished. She could interact with—and enjoy—the company of an intelligent and stimulating colleague.

Bask in it even.

The registrar was nodding. ‘Is that because they’re more susceptible to infection due to a low cardiac output?’

‘That’s one of the parameters we need to keep in mind. There’s also the issue of how long the chest has been open, whether they’ve been on bypass or whether hypothermia has been employed. There’s a lot of stuff that’s been written on aspects of this in other studies. What we’re aiming to do is possibly challenge their findings with more current information or testing methods and/or add in any other significant parameters. Here, I’ve printed off some of the articles for you.’

The registrar’s eyes widened. So did Anna’s.

How long had Luke been in here already today to search out and print off this stack of material? And this was supposed to be a day off for him. Didn’t he have other places he wanted to be? Or other people he wanted to be with?

And why was the thought that he’d rather be here, having a meeting with her, a cause for a rather pleasant internal glow? Not that Anna was going to analyse her reaction. She didn’t get a chance to, anyway, because her pager sounded.

The disruption earned her a sharp look from Luke and Anna sighed inwardly. ‘Can I use your phone?’ ‘Of course.’

She found Ben Carter on the other end of the line and listened intently.

‘I’m on my way,’ she said a short time later. ‘Luke’s here as well. We’ll both come.’

‘What’s going on?’ Luke demanded as she put the phone down.

‘Helicopter’s due to land any minute bringing in a thirteen-year-old boy. He’s hypothermic and unstable. Ectopic activity increasing so he could arrest at any time. Ben wants us on standby in case rewarming via bypass is necessary. He’s put a theatre on standby as well and called in a technician.’

‘You’re the one on call. I’m not even supposed to be here today.’

Anna was at the door already. She turned to see the registrar looking slack-jawed at the potential case and Luke looking … good grief … wary? Or hopeful? Why?

She didn’t have time to consider any personal issues. There was a child’s life at stake here and if it came to trying to rewarm him by using cardiopulmonary bypass it was new territory for her. She’d read about it but never even seen it done. A flicker of something like panic had to be crushed.

She held Luke’s gaze for a heartbeat despite—or perhaps because of—knowing he could probably see that flash of fear.

‘But you are here,’ she said quietly. The presence of the registrar in the room ceased to matter. ‘And I need you, Luke.’

They both followed her but it was Luke’s tall form striding beside her that gave Anna confidence. They moved fast enough for him to be limping by the time they reached the emergency department but they were still side by side.

A team.

The main resuscitation area in Emergency was crowded. Helicopter paramedics in their bright overalls and helmets were there with the medical staff, transferring their patient with great care. There was a bustle of activity and a buzz of urgent instructions.

‘Gently! Don’t bump him. Cardiac function is fragile.’

‘Is the Bair Hugger on?’

‘Dextrose, not saline. Get some more in the microwave to get warmed.’

‘Make sure that oxygen is warmed and humidified.’

‘Get some more dots on. We need a twelve-lead ECG.’

‘What’s his temperature now?’

‘Nineteen point five degrees Celsius.’ Luke whistled silently.

‘The lowest ever temperature that someone’s survived without neurological impairment was around thirteen degrees, wasn’t it?’ Anna kept her voice low. The boy’s mother was on the other side of the room, looking terrified.

Ben Carter was leading the resus team and he wasn’t happy with the oxygen saturation level of the boy’s blood.

‘I’m going to intubate,’ he decided. ‘Anyone who’s not directly involved step back a bit, please. It’s critical we do this with minimal movement.’

One of the paramedics stepped well back, close to where Anna and Luke were watching. Standing by.

‘What happened?’ Anna asked.

‘Kid got ice-skates for Christmas,’ the paramedic said quietly. ‘They live on a farm up north a bit and there’s a dam. He and his brother went skating and he hit some thin ice and went through. Took his brother about thirty minutes to find a branch big enough to get him out and another half an hour to run home and raise the alarm. Probably ninety minutes before we arrived on scene and the wind chill was significant. First temperature we got was eighteen degrees.’

‘Cardiac rhythm?’ Luke was watching Ben and his team securing the boy’s airway but he was listening to Anna’s conversation with the paramedic.

‘Slow atrial fibrillation. Marked J waves.’

Anything below a core temperature of thirty degrees was enough to put someone at risk of cardiac arrhythmias and arrest. This boy was dangerously cold but there was still hope. Anna remembered a lecturer at medical school talking about hypothermia.

‘You’re not dead until you’re warm and dead,’ he’d said.