Читать книгу The Doctor's Surprise Bride - Fiona McArthur - Страница 9

BY LUNCHTIME Mary had departed to rest as ordered by her doctor.

Eliza glanced around at the eight elderly patients seated at the dining table to eat their lunch. She’d handed out the medications and done a ward tidy with Vivian.

If Eliza looked on the workload as just a normal ward with diverse patients, and not a whole hospital, there was nothing she hadn’t done before.

By six-thirty that evening she’d found most things she could possibly need, had had in-depth conversations with all the inpatients, as well as read their medical records and helped with the evening meal.

She’d glanced through the rosters to see how they worked and spent ten minutes on the phone to Julie, her friend at the nursing agency, to say she was settling in.

Now all she had to do was a ward round with the distracting Dr Dancer and she’d be finished for the day.

Eliza glanced at the clock again and drummed her fingers on the nurses’ station desk.

He was late.

She was getting more unsettled by the minute with a waiting-for-the-dentist kind of tension and Eliza wished he’d just arrive. Surely Dancer wasn’t so spectacular he’d turned her into a bundle of nerves?

Apparently he was. When Jack breezed in he brought more devastation to her peace of mind than she needed. So much for saying her imagination had been over-active. His wavy black hair was tousled as if he’d been dragging distracted hands through it all day, and he’d even jammed a couple of curls behind his ears. That was when she noticed he had a tiny diamond in his right ear lobe. How on earth had she missed that this morning?

‘Ready for the round?’ He seemed very businesslike and Eliza allowed some of the tightness to ease from her shoulders. Businesslike sounded good. He’d want to get home, too. The brusquer the better, Eliza thought gratefully.

‘Let’s go.’ She picked up a notebook in case she needed to take notes.

He glanced across at her briefly, and she saw he had dark chocolate eyes, not black, as she’d previously thought, a strange thing to notice when she was supposed to be immune.

‘So how was your day?’ Jack was brief and Eliza even briefer.

‘Fine.’ She picked up the pace to get the next few minutes over as quickly as possible. Noticing too many things about this man, Eliza, she thought grimly.

‘Are we racing again?’ Laughter in his voice and Eliza felt her face stiffen. Please, don’t let him be nice to me or flirt with me or in any way endear himself to me, she prayed. There was something about him that pierced her skin like a poison dart and was just as irritating. She was not playing man games any more.

‘I just know you’ll be emotionally scarred and unable to have a worthwhile relationship,’ she muttered.

Jack stopped walking and Eliza carried on a few more steps before she realised she’d said what was on her mind out loud! She closed her eyes and then opened them again. Oh, boy!

He tilted his head. ‘I’m sorry? What did you say?’

She glanced down and then lifted her chin resolutely. ‘Sorry. Ignore that.’

He looked stunned.

She shrugged. ‘Look, I may seem mad, but I’ve had the worst run of luck with men and I’m still spinning from the last one. I seem to have a penchant for poor sods who have been a victim of some unscrupulous woman. They find me, I heal their poor broken hearts, and then they happily marry someone else. I usually get invited to the wedding. For some bizarre reason, I don’t want to play that game any more.’

She was sure his eyes were glazing over but it was imperative she make this clear. ‘This may seem more than you need to know, but I am trying to explain my stupid comment.’

He moved his lips a little but didn’t actually say a word. Eliza sighed. ‘Forget I spoke and we’ll do the ward round.’

Jack felt as if someone had just popped a paper bag in his unsuspecting face. He’d known there was something odd about her. The chameleon fairy was mad and Mary was gone. What the heck were they going to do? He’d had a hell of a day already.

After the dash out for Mia’s asthma attack, he’d returned to his office and realised today was the anniversary of the worst day of his life. He hadn’t been able to believe it had slipped his mind for a few hours.

After he’d fought his way out of that depression, a desperate young couple, distant relatives on his mother’s side, had miscarried their second IVF baby. Then one of his uncles had come in for results on a mole he’d excised last week, and the specimen had proved to be a particularly vicious melanoma.

Now this!

The new fairy matron was a man-hating elf with issues.

He heard her voice from a long way off. ‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘Forget it.’

He blinked, the hallway came into focus again, and he shelved her replacement problems for a minute. Deep breath, Jack, he suggested to himself.

She was still talking as if nothing had happened. ‘You should have a look at Keith’s wound. I know he’s supposed to go home tomorrow but I believe he’s brewing an infection.’

Jack blinked. He’d just play along with her until after the round. ‘Fine. I’ll look at that. How’s Keith’s temperature?’

‘Creeping up, and it spiked to thirty-nine this afternoon before it went down again.’

Jack glanced at the chart the madwoman handed him from the end of Keith’s bed and he saw that she was right. Blast. They’d have to start intravenous antibiotics again because Keith had little reserve to fight infection after his brush with peritonitis.

She’d pulled the curtains and had Keith supine in the bed with his shirt up before Jack could ask, and when she removed the dressing, tell-tale red streaks were inching away from Keith’s wound.

He glanced at Keith’s face and realised his patient did look more unwell than this morning. ‘Sorry, Keith. No home until we sort this out.’

Keith sighed with resignation. ‘Matron warned me it could be that way.’

Eliza spoke from beside his shoulder. ‘Do you want me to put an intravenous cannula in?’ Jack saw that she had the IV trolley waiting and she’d probably decided which antibiotics Keith should be on, too. Just who was the doctor here? He couldn’t help the bite in his voice. ‘Have you drawn it up as well?’

He should have known she’d be immune.

‘Almost,’ she said. Was there a hint of laughter in her voice?

Jack scowled. She went on, ‘What would you like him started on?’

She had two choices there for him and they would have been first and second if he’d chosen them himself. What was wrong with him? He wanted her efficient. ‘We’ll go with the Ceftriaxone, but see if you can get a wound swab before the first dose.’

She didn’t look at him and he couldn’t tell if she was smiling. ‘Did that earlier when I took today’s dressing off,’ she said, as she prepared the antibiotic before laying it down and assembling the cannulation equipment.

‘Shall I pop the cannula in?’ Eliza glanced at him.

Jack almost said, I’ll do that thank you, but he changed his mind. ‘Let’s see how good you are,’ he said out loud. Nothing like a bit of pressure to put someone off. He knew from bitter experience that Keith’s veins were nowhere near the young bulging ones that Mia had. Matron May was too darned cocky.

‘Just a sting for a second, Keith,’ Eliza soothed as she slid the needle into an almost invisible vein with disgusting ease. She seemed to have three hands as she juggled cannulas, bungs and even took blood. ‘Did you want blood cultures?’ She taped the line securely and stood back. They both glanced at the antibiotic waiting to be injected.

‘Can I do this?’ He sounded petty and she made a strange sound that he hoped wasn’t her laughing at him. He normally wasn’t like this and he needed to get a grip. He looked at her to apologise but realised she was amused. Amused!

Today had been anything but amusing. He didn’t say a word, just gave the antibiotic, wrote up the orders and patted Keith’s hand carefully. ‘Sorry, mate. You’ll probably be in for another couple of days yet.’

Keith nodded. When they pulled the curtain back Jack was surprised to see that Joe was asleep. He frowned and raised his eyebrows at Eliza and she drew him from the room.

‘I found out today he hasn’t been taking any pain relief. He didn’t want Keith to think he was a baby,’ she said quietly, and shrugged. ‘I spoke to Joe when Keith was out of the room and we’ve come to an agreement. Since the first lot of medication he’s been asleep and Keith tells me Joe’s hardly slept.’

Jack frowned and then nodded. ‘OK. Let’s get on, then.’

They completed the round and had a quick look at Janice and her baby in less than ten minutes. There was very little conversation between them.

As he was leaving, Jack looked back and paused. He had been abrupt. ‘Matron?’

Eliza glanced up from the notes she was making. ‘Yes, Doctor?’

‘Well done with the cannula, and Joe as well. If I seem brusque, I’ve had a wild day.’

‘No problem.’ The woman seemed to be staring at some point over his left shoulder and disinclined to talk, so Jack forced himself to leave. It was surprisingly hard to take that first step away. He was more confused about her than ever and he didn’t like it. Until today his world had been pleasantly uncomplicated.

He’d put the horror of three years ago behind him and he’d immersed himself in work. He’d assumed he’d get married again someday but hadn’t dated a woman since Lydia had died.

And he wasn’t thinking of dating this one—but she certainly unsettled him.

Eliza headed back to the hotel. Except for a young blonde woman reading in the corner, the bar was quiet as she walked past the door.

‘So you’re the new matron,’ the blonde drawled, and Eliza’s step slowed to a stop.

‘Hello.’

‘Staying here will get a little noisy on a Friday night.’

‘I’ll be fine.’ Eliza smiled and crossed the room to hold out her hand. ‘I’m Eliza May.’

‘Carla.’ There was something elusively appealing about this too-thin girl-woman and then there was the ice that frosted the outside of her glass in the cloying heat.

Eliza licked dry lips and put her handbag down on the stool beside the girl. ‘It’s hot this evening.’

‘Always is this time of the year.’ Carla stood up, walked behind the bar and filled a glass with ice. Then she opened an under-bar fridge and removed a beaded bottle of lemon squash and unscrewed the lid. ‘I should ask you first.’ She grinned. ‘But you’d like a squash, wouldn’t you.’

Eliza grinned back at her. ‘Dying for one! Thank you. Do you work here?’

‘No. Rob’s gone to the loo. I’m just minding the bar for a minute.’

Carla glanced out the door and back. ‘I’m off for a swim in the river when I finish my drink. If you want, I’ll show you a spot you can swim in when the days are like this.’

‘Local knowledge.’ Eliza smiled as she put two dollars down on the bar for her drink. She remembered local knowledge as a child, it had usually got her into trouble.

‘Something like that.’ There was a hint of fun which dared Eliza to take her up on the offer. After the unease she’d felt round Jack Dancer, it would be nice to loosen up and get cool.

Eliza downed her squash. ‘I’ll slip up and grab a towel.’

The swimming hole was through two fences at the back of the pub but worth the climb down a steep bank to get to. It was under a cliff face and two large weeping willows shaded the pool. There was an aging PRIVATE PROPERTY sign, adorned with a few grass necklaces from previous floods, prominently displayed near the edge.

Carla ignored it. The water looked too good to forgo.

Eliza yanked down the sides of her bathers—they seemed to like crawling too high on her leg and up her bottom. She stood hesitantly at the edge. She hated wearing swimming costumes because they made her feel so self-conscious. Carla was already in and the water looked wonderful.

The first step wasn’t too bad and the temperature of the water grew colder the further out through the reeds Eliza walked.

‘It’s freezing,’ Eliza gasped. The shock on her face when she finally forced her whole body under the water made Carla laugh when Eliza surfaced beside her.

‘Yep.’ Carla swam languidly across the pool and Eliza watched her for a moment before she turned on her back and floated with her arms out. The icy water was gorgeous against her heated skin. This had been an excellent idea.

‘Get out of there!’

Eliza recognised that voice and the enjoyment drained out of the moment as if he’d pulled the plug.

‘You know better, Carla.’ Jack Dancer was cross, there was no doubt about that, Eliza thought, and her heart pumped as if she were a ten-year-old again caught crossing a forbidden field.

‘You’re such a sourpuss, Dr Jack,’ Carla said as she drifted languidly to the shallow water.

‘It would serve you right if you got bitten by a bullrout. Smithy was stung here yesterday and you wouldn’t be so relaxed if you’d seen his face as I filled him up with morphine. But you shouldn’t have put Eliza at risk—she’d from the city and probably doesn’t know what a bullrout is.’

‘I know what a bullrout is,’ Eliza said quietly. The camouflaged fresh-water fish could look like a rock and wore three venom pouches on its spines. Its sting was excruciating. She glanced warily at the reeds as she followed Carla out of the water. The spot was lovely but not worth those kinds of stings. Eliza wrapped her arms around her blatant nipples. Well, the water had been cold, for crikey’s sake. Now she had to get out of here, wet, bathers glued to her too-generous curves, and all under the gaze of that man. The day just kept getting better and better. Eliza compressed her lips.

Finally both women stood at the edge of the innocent-looking water wrapped in towels. They both glared across at the man on the opposite bank.

Carla tossed her hair and turned her back on Jack. ‘You can go home happy, now, you grump. You’ve spoiled our swim so you can relax.’

Jack didn’t say anything or seem perturbed by Carla’s rudeness, and Eliza stood indecisively. She resisted her own impulse to emulate Carla but had the maturity to realise it was a response to being caught in the wrong. Even worse, she hated being caught in her bathers. It was too late to worry now. She half waved to a still waiting Jack and followed Carla up the bank.

When they got to the top, Eliza was almost as hot as when she’d started and not all of it from the sun. She should have gone with her instincts and avoided the local knowledge.

‘Sorry about that.’ Carla held up her hands in an I-didn’t-mean-for-that-to-happen gesture. ‘No one’s been stung there for two years. I didn’t know about Smithy. It’s such a top spot if Dr Jack doesn’t catch you.’

‘So Jack polices the waterholes as well as does the doctoring?’ Eliza could see the amusing part of being caught by Jack—just.

‘He owns the land on both sides of the river,’ Carla said as she headed back to the pub. She glanced over her shoulder to Eliza. ‘But nobody owns the river.’

The next day every person Eliza met in the hospital mentioned her being caught by Jack down at the rout waterhole. She knew there was a reason she’d avoided returning to the country.

Apparently Carla’s friend Rob from the pub thought it a hilarious story and had mentioned it to everyone who’d come into the hotel. They’d passed it on to anyone they’d seen in the next twelve hours and by the time Eliza came to work the story had been embellished to include her and Carla topless with a few men from the pub watching.

‘Spare me.’ Eliza closed her eyes and shook her head. Janice tried to stifle her giggle so as not to wake her baby but she was having a hard time of it.

‘The topless bit was from old Pat, and nobody really believes him, but it seems you’ve made a name for yourself as a good sport already.’

‘Well, I hope nobody believes “Old Pat”. If I meet that delightful old gentleman for a tetanus shot, he’s in for a larger-than-normal-gauge needle.’

Janice dissolved into giggles again and Eliza had to smile at her, but the smile disappeared when Jack Dancer walked into the room.

The memory of him watching her as she’d left the water yesterday warmed her cheeks and she fought the sudden urge to fold her arms again. She was too darned aware of this guy and survival meant he wasn’t to know.

‘All well in here, ladies?’ Jack’s face was expressionless but Eliza suspected a twinkle behind those pseudo black eyes of his. The swine.

‘Eliza was just saying how hot it was yesterday,’ Janice said cheekily, but Jack wasn’t playing.

‘Yes, it was. How’s Newman this morning, Janice?’

Eliza tried to let her relieved breath out unobtrusively as Jack concentrated on his patient.

Janice went on. ‘Fine. We’re both fine. My mum arrives from Melbourne today so he’s going to meet his nana when she comes in to visit.’

‘Say hello to your mum for me if I don’t see her.’ He stepped back from the cot. ‘I’ve a lot on this morning so I’ll leave you in Matron’s capable hands.’

Eliza followed him out of the room. She hoped he didn’t think she’d been discussing yesterday. ‘I didn’t tell her. Apparently it’s all over town that you chased us out of the river.’

Jack glanced up from the notes he carried. ‘Bellbrook is a small town. People find out and embellish all the time.’ He looked at her fully and she saw the wicked twinkle in his eyes. ‘I particularly enjoyed the naked version, with me throwing you a towel.’

Eliza rested her hand over her mouth as she felt the heat rise again in her face. Then she surprised herself with a tiny gurgle of laughter as the funny side of the situation tickled her again.

Just when he thought he had her on the back foot she surprised him again. Jack had spent most of the night trying to rid himself of delightful memories of Eliza, tiny but perfectly packaged, as she’d stepped from the water.

Intriguingly, her breasts had been stunningly full and globular beneath the wet one-piece costume as she’d bent to pick up the towel. Even now that day-old snapshot in his mind made his mouth dry.

Her breasts hadn’t jumped out at him yesterday morning, he mused, and then his own sense of humour caught up with him. Impossible fantasy. He pulled himself back under control and tried to quieten the sudden increase in his heart rate. Now she was giving him palpitations. What on earth was the matter with him?

‘Most people from the city would have a problem with being the object of small-town gossip,’ Jack said without looking at her.

‘I’m not “most people”,’ she replied calmly, and began to talk about Keith, but he didn’t believe her. Her cheeks were just a little too rosy.

By the end of the round Jack was again impressed with Eliza’s ability to manage situations. She’d steered him back onto the job, calmed Keith despite the older man being bitterly disappointed he’d be laid up for probably another week, managed the most painless removal of Joe’s dressing they’d had yet, and was obviously a favourite with the seniors on the wing.

‘You’re doing a great job, Matron. It feels like you’ve been here for much longer than a day and a half.’

‘It feels like that to me, too,’ Eliza said dryly.

Jack wondered at her parting comment as he walked around the side of the hospital to his surgery. The woman intrigued him far too much and he didn’t think she was immune to him either.