Читать книгу One Night With Dr Nikolaides - Tina Beckett - Страница 15

CHAPTER FIVE

CAILEY STARED AT the empty space Theo had just occupied.

What on earth...?

Bossy so-and-so.

Hadn’t changed a bit. Still lording it about as if he knew everything which—well, in this case he probably did.

You’re working with me. And that’s an order.

Typical Nikolaides privilege. Just because she was a nurse, and had failed to get into med school, and had taken twice as long as anyone else to get her nursing degree—

Stop! She didn’t need to keep raking it all up again. The all too familiar pounding of her heart suddenly leapt into her head, drowning out everything else as she forced herself to take in a deep, steady inhalation and then breathe out again.

You’re a nurse, she told herself. There are patients. This isn’t about you. Or Mr. Bossypants.

She was scared, that was all. The trauma ward wasn’t her optimum work zone. But she’d done it before—admittedly getting one teensy-tiny panic attack on her score card. Never mind. She could do it again—minus the panic attack part. There was no way she was leaving this island with her tail between her legs a second time.

A quick wash and she’d get her priorities back in order. She’d returned to Mythelios to help, not to swish around Theo Nikolaides praying he’d notice her. That ship had long since sailed.

* * *

When Cailey entered the trauma area it was sheer madness. The number of people had doubled. The volume was higher. The urgency of tone was even more shrill.

A shot of fear jettisoned through her bloodstream and exploded in her heart. This was a far cry from the calm, hushed corridors of the maternity ward she’d left behind in England. There the serene environment helped her stay calm—particularly when she struggled with writing up notes and tackling new medicines and...well...any new words. They all took extra time. Her brain processed things differently.

For the most part she’d beaten her dyslexia into a new, workable form of submission. But this?

This was bedlam. She was going to have to shore up every ounce of courage and nursing know-how she had to avoid falling to bits. It had happened before and she never wanted to go back there again. Especially not in front of—

“All right? Ready to go?”

Theo.

Theo was putting his arm round her shoulders and giving her a squeeze. Everything faded for an instant as she just...mmm...inhaled the scent she hadn’t realized was all but stitched into her memory banks.

Could he sense her fear? Had he seen the blood drain from her face when she walked into the trauma unit? Spotted the tremor in her hands before she wove them together to stop their shaking?

He squared himself off in front of her, one large, lovely hand on each shoulder. “Just remember: I’m a humble country doctor and you’re a big city nurse. You can do this, koukla mou. Okay?”

Surprisingly, the term of endearment wrapped around her like a warm blanket. She looked up into his rich green eyes and drew strength from them, felt her breath steadying as he continued.

“I know it seems crazy in here. It is. But this situation is new to all of us and we will each do the best we can. One patient at a time is how we’re going to deal with it. All right? One patient at a time.”

When their eyes caught she felt her heart smash against her ribcage. The man was looking straight into her soul, seeing her darkest fears and assuring her he would be there to help no matter what. She stared at his chest, half tempted to reach out and touch it, to see if his heart was doing the same.

When their gazes connected again he was all business. He steered her over to a gurney that was being locked into place by a couple of rescue workers.

“Right! Cailey, this is Artemis Pepolo. I’ve known this feisty teen since she was born.”

The dark-haired girl nodded a fraction, the rest of her body contracted tightly in pain.

“Artemis has just been rescued after a pretty uncomfortable night under a beam—but you hung in there, didn’t you, my love?”

Artemis’s breathing was coming in sharp, staccato bursts and her lips were rapidly draining of color. She tried to smile for Theo but cried out in pain. Her arm lay at an odd angle and one touch to the side of her throat revealed a rapid heart-rate.

“Pneumothorax?” Cailey asked in a low voice.

Theo gave an affirmative nod, his gloved hands running along the girl’s ribcage as he spoke. “Good. Yes. Traumatic pneumothorax, in this case. The beams of her house shifted when they were getting her out and broke a couple of ribs. No time to get her X-rayed before we relieve the tension. Can you snap on a pair of gloves, get some oxygen into her and clean her up for a quick chest tube?”

Cailey clenched her eyes tight, forcing herself to picture the chart she’d made for herself on how to go through the procedure. Images always worked better for her than words. Miraculously it came to her in a flood of recognition.

And then, as one, they flew through the treatment as if they’d worked together for years.

After snapping on a pair of gloves from a nearby box, Cailey swiftly pulled an oxygen mask round the girl’s head and placed it over her mouth, ensuring the tube was releasing a steady flow. She then took a pair of scissors from a supplies trolley, cut open the girl’s top, applied monitors, checked her stats and covered her with a protective sheet, leaving a mid-sized square of her ribcage just below her heart exposed. She swabbed it with a hygiene solution as Theo explained the protocol he was going to follow.

“I’m using point-five percent numbing agent to numb the second intercostal space and then a shot of adrenaline-epinephrine before we insert a pigtail catheter, yes?”

“Not a chest tube?” she asked.

The doctor she’d worked under during her stint in the London trauma unit had been old school. Very old school. She wouldn’t say it had been entirely his fault she’d had her...blip...but he most certainly hadn’t helped.

Theo put the tube over a tiny metal rod. “Most hospitals are using the pigtail catheter now. Far less painful for the patient.”

She looked for the sneer, listened for the patronizing tone, and heard neither. Just a doctor explaining the steps he was going to take. But better. A doctor saying his patient’s comfort was of paramount importance to him.

And then it was back to business. Cailey gave the region around the fourth and fifth intercostal space of the girl’s ribcage a final swipe of cleansing solution and then stood back as Theo expertly inserted the needle into the pleural space, his fingertip holding just above the gauge for a second. Their eyes connected as he smiled.

“Ha. Got it. I can feel the air releasing.” He turned to his patient and gave her a gentle smile. “Hang in there, love. We’re almost there.” He attached a syringe to the needle. “I’ll just do a quick aspiration to make sure we get all that extra trapped air out.”

Once he was satisfied, he expertly went about inserting the thin wire and tube as if he had done it a thousand times. Within seconds the tube was in, the wire was pulled out and Cailey had attached the tube to a chest drainage system.

“Right, Artie. We’ll just leave you here to rest up for a bit and then see about moving you somewhere a bit more peaceful where we can check out that arm, all right?”

He pulled off his gloves, smiled at Cailey and tipped his head toward the main trauma area. “Ready for the next one?”

She was impressed. For a man who professed to be a humble country doctor, he knew his stuff.

“Did you study trauma medicine?” She couldn’t help but ask the question after pulling the curtains round Artemis and watching Theo give notes to the nurse who, he’d explained, was in charge of moving patients out of the trauma area.

He nodded. “I thought if I was going to be running this place on my own sometimes I’d better be prepared.”

“You’re here alone ?”

“Well, not alone, alone. There are interns who come in from Athens to have a spell, but they usually get bored with island life eventually and want to get back to the mainland. And the lads come back on and off at certain times of the year in a sort of unofficial rotation; they’re just not here at the moment.”

She nodded. He must mean Chris, Deakin and Ares—the other Mopaxeni malakas he’d set up the clinic with. She wasn’t so sure malakas was the right word for them anymore. Miracle workers, more like. This place was a far cry from the crumbling old clinic she’d gone to as a girl. And Theo was completely different from the elitist snob she’d been expecting.

“Right.” He rubbed his hands together as if preparing for a fantastic adventure. “How are you with broken bones?”

* * *

Broken bones. Fractures. Lacerations. Internal bruising. Heart palpations. A massive blood clot... The list went on.

And no matter what he threw at her Cailey stayed bright, attentive and, much to his surprise, willing to learn. There were holes in her knowledge—as to be expected for someone whose specialty wasn’t trauma—but she seemed capable of everything short of reading his mind, and even that was sometimes questionable.

Whatever he needed—a particular gauge of needle, a certain type of suture thread, the correct scalpel—she already had it ready before he could ask for it.

As he opened the curtain for their next patient he stopped. Ah. Marina Serkos. They’d gone to school together until his father had deemed the local primary unfit for purpose and shipped him off to boarding school.

“Looks like someone’s due soon.”

This was his one bugbear. The baby checks. He knew he should be happy for others. Share in the joy of a new innocent life being brought into the world. But all he could think each time he saw a pregnant patient was, Good luck. You’ll need it.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement for “happy families”. But happy families hadn’t been the remit in the Nikolaides household. Appearances were everything. No one outside the family knew he wasn’t his father’s success story. Nor did they know he was adopted. And no one—not even his sister—would ever know his silent vow never to bring a child into this world.

Pawns. That was what he and his sister had been. Pawns in a game that hadn’t seemed to have any rules.

“Theo?” Cailey had helped Marina up onto the exam table and was wheeling a sonogram machine into place. “Do you want to do the exam?”

Both women were looking at him a bit oddly. If they’d been exchanging information he hadn’t a clue.

He scrubbed his hands over his face and forced a smile. “Apologies, Marina. It’s been a long day.”

“Marina’s worried about her baby,” Cailey explained in a confident voice.

Ah! Of course. This was her terrain. He nodded for her to continue. It was a relief not to have to ooh and ah each time a fist curled, or a hiccough came halfway through an exam. In his darker moments he sometimes wondered if the only thing his fellow islanders could think to do during the slow winter months was procreate.

“She’s not experienced any blunt trauma, thank goodness, but when the quake struck she was taking a much-needed nap, I presume...”

Both women smiled at Marina’s large bump. She was probably near full term by now.

“Are you at seven months, Marina?”

“Eight,” she answered, her brow creasing with worry. “The baby used to kick all the time, but when the bed collapsed, I just—Ooooh...” She blew out a steadying breath as tears popped into her eyes. “I haven’t really felt the little one move since.”

“Well, then.” Cailey pulled on a fresh pair of gloves. “I guess we’d better take a look at the little one.”

Her tone was bright, efficient, and exactly what a worried mum needed to hear at a time like this.

She held out the scanning wand to Theo. “No, no, you go ahead. This is your terrain,” he said.

“You’re a maternity doctor?” Marina asked, her eyes brightening.

A flash of something crossed Cailey’s eyes before she answered. Frustration? Sadness? But when she turned back to Marina it was as if he’d imagined it.

“No, no. I’m a nurse working on a neonatal ward in a London hospital.”

“No chance you want to stay here, I suppose?” Marina asked, then threw an apologetic glance at Theo. “Apologies, Dr. Nikolaides, but sometimes it’s nice to have a woman to speak with about...you know...”

He nodded. He knew. But they were a small, charitable clinic running on a limited budget on an island few doctors wished to call home all year round. He’d tried to get female obstetricians to come in at least once a month, but with weather, budget constraints, people’s busy schedules—things didn’t always pan out.

He didn’t blame them, those doctors who refused his invitations to take a massive pay-cut and cope with small-town life complete with an unlimited supply of Mythelios Olive Oil.

Big-city hospitals, well-funded research clinics...those were the places that drew talent. Look at Cailey—she’d gone to London and stayed there. And his best friends had left. Add to that an earthquake, and... Oh, well. No need to go down that rabbit hole again.

Obstinacy—or something like it—was the only reason he stayed. Whether it was a relentless showdown or a twisted truce he and his father were engaged in...

He shook his head and forced himself to tune in to Cailey’s exam. There were no answers when it came to his father. But there were in medicine. Which was why he all but lived in the clinic. Long shifts were a damn sight better than “family time.”

Cailey had just slid up Marina’s top to expose her swollen belly, complimented her on her lack of stretch marks—something he would have felt like an idiot doing—and was about to apply a huge dollop of gel when she pulled it back.

“Have you eaten or drunk anything in the past few hours?”

Marina shook her head, then stopped herself. “I did drink a lot, because I remember from my last scan they needed me to have a full bladder. It doesn’t take much these days!”

“I’m not surprised.” Cailey laughed, then put the gel tube above Marina’s stomach. “Ready for the cold?”

Marina flinched as it hit her skin and gave a nervous laugh. “This is my third pregnancy. You’d think I would be used to it by now.”

“Skin never gets used to a sudden hit of cold,” Cailey soothed as she placed the baton on the far right of Marina’s stomach and began the scan. “So...let’s see what your little one has got up to.”

Theo rocked back on his heels and crossed his arms. It was nice to take a backseat for a change, to watch Cailey slip naturally into a role that obviously suited her. He’d never known why she hadn’t followed her dream of becoming a doctor and had instead opted for neonatal nursing, but if her complete calm and confidence at this moment exemplified her professionally he’d bet that London hospital would be holding on to her for dear life. Dedicated quality nurses were like rare jewels—something you kept close.

Soon enough, the tell-tale rush of a liquid-sounding heartbeat was accompanied by the whooshed release of air from everyone’s lungs.

The women’s eyes connected and together they laughed, then returned their attention to the screen. where they could see the curled-up form of a baby sucking its thumb.

Theo picked up Marina’s chart, which Petra had somehow magicked out of the mayhem despite the ongoing chaos at the clinic. “Want me to take notes?”

The women turned to him, almost surprised to see him still there.

“Sure. Feels like a luxury to have a doctor take the notes,” Cailey said with a smile.

“Consider it payback for all your excellent help today.”

Cailey’s brows contracted together briefly, as if she were trying to divine something deeper from his words before turning back to the monitor. “The good news is we have a steady, regular heart-rate. One-thirty.”

“Isn’t that a bit low?”

“Mmm...it’s at the lower end of the spectrum, but well within what we would expect. Anything below one hundred or above one-seventy would be of concern.” She winked at Marina. “Your baby is obviously made of stern stuff! Now, I presume you’re up to date on all your antenatal scans?”

“Yep. Dr. Nikolaides makes sure of that.”

Theo nodded and lifted up the clipboard as a reminder that he was here to take stats. These lapses into chit-chat with mothers always made him nervous. There were the inevitable questions—when are you planning on tying the knot? Starting a family of your own? Bringing a little shining star into the world for your parents to spoil? Conversations he normally actively avoided.

Cailey threw him a hold-your-horses look, but gave him the baby’s BP in the same steady voice she’d been using with Marina.

She checked the baby’s growth, matched the results with the previous figures and pronounced them excellent. She measured the blood flow between the placenta and the baby, and checked the amniotic fluid.

Cailey pointed at the screen, then clamped her fingers over her mouth. Her fingers dropped to her chin and she threw an uh-oh look in Theo’s direction before asking Marina, “Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?”

Marina nodded her head. Yes, she did. “It’s another boy! I’m going to be officially outnumbered when this one is born.” A look of panic crossed her face. “If everything’s all right?”

“Well, he’s moving around just fine, from what I can see. You probably received a big shock yesterday, and perhaps he was sensing your need for stillness. It sounds pretty scary.”

“It was,” Marina said. “But now that I know my baby’s safe I can relax.” She smiled at Cailey. “Have you got any of your own?”

Theo’s eyes snapped to Cailey. He knew how well he responded to that question...

“No,” she said simply, taking the baton off Marina’s belly and wiping it clean.

Irritation lanced through him as he finished off the notes.

No. That was it? No, Maybe one day. No, Yes, I’ve left him back in London with my lover. No, Perhaps when I meet the right guy...

What the hell? What did it matter to him if she wanted children or not?

They all started as shouting erupted beyond the curtained cubicle. There were calls for the defibrillator, for more blood.

Theo didn’t need to hear more. “Apologies ladies, I’d better get out there.”

“All right if I finish up in here?” Cailey asked, clearing the monitor and scanning equipment to one side.

“Yeah. Fine. You wrap things up then I’ll see you out there?”

She nodded.

“Good.”

Just a few hours in and already he was growing a little too used to having Cailey by his side.

Which was not good. Because whoever came too close into his orbit would also come into his father’s orbit...and that never went well.