Читать книгу Her Baby Out of the Blue - Алисон Робертс - Страница 5

‘YES! I think we’ve found her.’

Dylan McKenzie straightened in his chair, his heart beating a little faster as he recognised the figure. The bundle in his arms squirmed at the soft sound of his voice but Sophie didn’t wake, bless her. She had been as patient as he’d had to be, waiting for this Jane Walters to answer her pager.

Not that it had been a problem. You couldn’t just walk into an emergency department and demand that a surgeon be summoned from Theatre. Even for something as important as this.

He couldn’t cross the busy department and introduce himself either. He had to leave that up to the cute triage nurse, Mandy, who had been kind enough to let him sit in this empty cubicle while he waited. He tried to catch Mandy’s attention now, to alert her to the brisk arrival of the woman in surgical scrubs who had entered through the double doors leading further into this big city hospital.

But Mandy was bending over an ambulance stretcher, talking to an elderly woman.

‘Are you having any chest pain now?’

‘Just a little, dear. Nothing to bother about. It’s much better than it was.’

‘She’s had five milligrams of morphine,’ a paramedic told Mandy.

Dylan took a second look at the latest arrival to the department. Was it her? She looked to be in her mid-thirties and a wisp or two of dark blonde hair had escaped the disposable hat she was wearing, but she didn’t look exactly like the photograph he had currently tucked away in his pocket next to his passport and a crumpled boarding pass.

The baggy scrub suit was a good disguise but it was more the way this woman held herself that prompted the doubt. Dylan had the feeling that when she got changed, her civvies would be very smart. A slim-fitting black skirt, perhaps, with a tailored jacket to match. And boots. Definitely boots. Black, with spiky heels.

‘Let’s get her into Resus 2. I think it’s free.’ Mandy turned to check the availability of a space with cardiac monitoring facilities and must have seen the surgeon, because her head swung around to look for Dylan and her quick smile and nod suggested she would be able to attend to his request as soon as this patient was sorted.

So it was her. Even though the woman in his photograph was wearing jeans rolled up to her knees with her toes covered by soft white sand and had hair that kind of flowed to rest on her shoulders and—maybe the biggest difference—she was smiling.

This woman, now being intercepted by Mandy, was not smiling.

‘Dr Walters?’ Mandy’s call sounded faintly through the hum of the activity around them.

It was inconvenient the way many female surgeons preferred to be called ‘Doctor’. Now that Dylan had confirmation of her identity, it would have been useful to add her marital status to the information he was gathering. Was there a husband in the picture? Children?

He hoped not. Why hadn’t he thought to ask Josh about details like that? Because it hadn’t seemed important at the time, that’s why. Dylan’s breath escaped in a sigh as he shut away memories fresh enough to have the potential to derail him.

It was impossible to hear what Mandy was saying now but it was obvious she was informing Dr Walters that he had asked to see her. Maybe that he’d been waiting a long time. He felt the intensity of the glance that came his way and saw how her eyes widened just enough to advertise surprise.

OK, it had been a slight exaggeration to say he knew her. That he was a friend. But they would hardly have paged her otherwise, would they?

She was frowning now. Quite possibly displeased at having her busy schedule interrupted by something this random. She would be trying to make sense of it. Wondering whether she had, in fact, ever met him before.

Dylan could sense imminent dismissal. He couldn’t let that happen so he did something that almost always achieved the desired result.

He smiled at her.

Who the hell was he?

Attractive young men did not generally sit in the ED and smile at her as if…as if just seeing her was enough to make him happy. His curly hair was far too long and he was wearing a black T-shirt beneath a leather jacket that looked old and very soft. His blue jeans were so faded the knees were white and did those scuffed-looking toes belong to cowboy boots? He probably had a gold ring in one of his ears.

While he didn’t look at all put out to be holding a baby, Jane had the distinct impression he would look even more at home holding a guitar. Sitting by a camp fire, maybe, with a gypsy caravan in the background. Certainly not the type of person she ever encountered in her limited social circle.

‘He said he knew me?’

Mandy nodded. ‘He’s got a baby with him. Her name’s Sophie and she’s about four weeks old. Such a cutie—’

‘Is the baby sick?’ Was he a parent of a recent patient? No. The last neonate she’d been called to see had been a couple of weeks ago. A newborn boy with a cleft palate serious enough to make feeding an issue.

‘No.’ Mandy shook her head this time. ‘At least, I don’t think so. All he said was that he really needed to see you.’

‘And he’s been waiting how long?’

‘A couple of hours? Maybe more. I rang Theatre as soon as he arrived but you were just starting a case.’

A long, complicated case. The end of a back-to-back load that had left Jane with aching muscles and a strong desire for a hot shower and a break she couldn’t afford to take. A ward round that would probably keep her in this building until 8 p.m. was waiting. She should have sent her registrar to deal with this. Irritation at precious time being wasted surfaced.

‘And you’ve let him take up a cubicle space in Emergency for that whole time?’

Mandy flushed. ‘He was so…I…’

Jane could feel her lips pressing themselves into a thin line. He’d smiled at her, hadn’t he? Of course Mandy would have melted under a smile like that, especially when it belonged to a tall, more than slightly disreputable-looking young man with a mop of unruly black curls and a cute baby in his arms.

Why was he here with a baby?

Jane made the mistake of taking a second glance. She didn’t know him and she certainly wasn’t a friend. For whatever reason, this man had lied in order to see her and now he was sitting there, taking up valuable space in a busy department with the most unrepentant smile she had ever seen. Charming, maybe. Irresponsible, definitely.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ she muttered. ‘Fine. I’ll talk to him.’

She’d talk to him all right. He was going to get an earful of just how busy clinicians in this hospital were. How short-staffed nurses were. How unhelpful it was to take up space that could be used by someone who genuinely needed it.

Just who did he think he was?

What did he think he could possibly have to say to her that would justify the kind of arrogance he was displaying? Demanding to see her.

He was still smiling as Jane marched into the cubicle. She didn’t bother pulling the curtain.

‘Hi.’ He stood up, adjusting the burden he held carefully.

Jane said nothing. He had three seconds, max, to say something that might get him off the hook. And if he didn’t manage that, he was going to feel the brunt of every frustration and extra bit of pressure she’d been under for the entire week. Jane was drawing in a long, slow breath. Ready to let loose.

‘Meet Sophie,’ the stranger said, holding out the bundle in his arms. ‘Your daughter.’