The Rebel and the Baby Doctor (12 page)

She glanced across the table. Alex was talking, but although he was listening, Connor’s gaze was fixed on
her, and his expression was one that she couldn’t begin to fathom. There was no smile, no look that said he wanted her and could not bear to be without her. Instead, his jaw was rigid, his mouth held in a straight line. Was he disturbed because Alex had kissed her? She hadn’t invited the kiss, but perhaps that made no difference to the way he felt about it.

‘I heard that they were about to draw the raffle any minute,’ Alex said. ‘Who’s doing that? Will you be the one picking the numbers, Phoebe?’

She shook her head. ‘No, my boss is going to do it. Since she runs the neonatal unit, I thought it best to ask her.’ She didn’t move for a moment, trying to get herself together, but then she said, ‘I’d better go and organise things. Excuse me.’

She stood up, walking over to the far side of the courtyard, where her boss was talking to Katie. For a while, she joined them in chatting about the events of the evening, and then after a minute or so she looked over to where Connor had been sitting.

Only he was no longer there. He was standing by the water’s edge, deep in conversation with Lisa from A and E, his arm resting lightly around her waist.

She stared at them, a sick feeling gathering inside her.

‘D
ID
I cause a problem for you with Connor last night?’ Alex asked. ‘Only I might have been a bit carried away with the results of the case presentation. I wanted to tell you about it straight away. It was only afterwards that I realised that I might have been interrupting something.’

Phoebe looked up from the notes she was studying, and sent him a thoughtful glance. ‘I had no idea that you ever realised what was going on around you,’ she said with a whimsical smile. ‘You always seem to be such a man of the moment, jumping in and tackling things as they come about, without thinking too deeply about any of it.’

He shrugged. ‘I generally aim to take life as it comes…otherwise I might get hung up on things, and to my way of thinking, what’s the point in worrying? It might never happen.’

She chuckled. ‘That seems a sound enough reason.’ Then, more seriously, she added, ‘No, there was no problem. I’m sure it didn’t bother Connor much at all. Why would it? He doesn’t seem to have any difficulty finding other girls to soothe away his troubles at short notice.’

She was still sore about him turning right away to seek out the company of the senior house officer.

‘I’m not so certain about that,’ Alex said with a frown. ‘This thing with Lisa, it may not be all it seems, you know. They work together, so they’re bound to be chatty and at ease with one another. Going around together outside work doesn’t have to mean anything.’

He stopped suddenly and looked at her, watching her expression change. ‘Perhaps I should shut up. I’m making things worse, aren’t I?’ His mouth turned down at the corners.

She replaced the folder in the wire tray on the desk. Even Alex had picked up on Connor’s friendship with the woman.

‘You don’t have to pacify me, Alex,’ she murmured. ‘I’m all grown up. I can deal with things all by myself.’ Connor hadn’t denied any involvement with her, had he, so maybe she wasn’t wrong in jumping to conclusions?

Alex winced. ‘I know that Connor thinks the world of you. He always has.’

‘And I’ve always thought the world of you.’ She studied him musingly. ‘I wasn’t sure if you’d noticed, or whether you were hoping I would cool off, given time.’

He smiled. ‘I knew you weren’t really sure about your feelings for me, one way or the other, and I was so deeply involved in trying to get my grades, I wasn’t going to push it. And then Connor came along, and I could see which way the wind was blowing.’ He pulled in a long breath. ‘The thing is, we’ve always been a bit like family, haven’t we, you and I? For some reason, I always wanted to look after you, and I think it was because I thought
perhaps I was in love with you. But then I began to realise that I had feelings for someone else.’

Phoebe’s eyes widened. ‘You do?’ She was stunned by this news. ‘Why didn’t I know about this?’

He winced. ‘Because I felt foolish, and I didn’t want anyone to know, least of all her. She doesn’t even acknowledge that I exist half the time, and for the rest, she has a very low opinion of me. So I plan to keep my feelings to myself. I do have some pride, you know.’ He tried to look nonchalant, but failed miserably.

Phoebe was staring at him. ‘But I’ve never seen you even looking at another woman. As far as I know, the only woman in your life apart from me is…’ She broke off, clapping a hand to her mouth. ‘Oh, my…are you saying it’s Jessica that you’re interested in?’

‘I’m not saying anything,’ Alex said, his voice gruff. ‘And whatever I’ve said to you, I’ve said in confidence, because I trust you as though…’ His voice trailed off.

‘As though I were your sister,’ Phoebe said, shaking her head. ‘It all makes sense now. I wonder why I didn’t see it?’

Alex picked a file out of the tray. ‘Maybe you were too busy thinking about Connor. You and he are made for each other, anyone can see that, only neither of you seems to be able to get over the hurdle of the past. It keeps rearing its head, so that you think he’s always going to mess up or fly the coop, and he thinks that you only have eyes for me.’

She let her gaze drift over him. She was astonished by his revelations. ‘You know, Alex, it seems to me that you ought to have studied psychology. You seem to under
stand other people very well, and it looks as though you can see things that others miss. Perhaps you ought to put your insight to the test and have a heart to heart with Jessica. You might be surprised at what comes of it.’

‘Did I hear my name mentioned?’ Jessica came over to the desk and started hunting for a file. ‘I hope nobody is planning on giving me a job to do, because I’m up to my eyes. Mr Kirk’s planning to sit in on the case conference—he wants to follow up on recent patients with cardiac problems who have turned up in A and E.’

‘We were just saying that you’re a good listener,’ Phoebe murmured. ‘Alex is trying to get on the good side of his consultant, and the case presentation was just a beginning. I think you’d be a great help to him if you were to go through some of the patients’ notes with him. You’ve already done your orthopaedic rotation, haven’t you? It might be a good idea if you and he were to get together some time.’

Alex was looking horrified by Phoebe’s intervention, and trying to warn her off by making wild signals with his hands and mouth, but Jessica was too busy thinking things through to take any notice.

‘That could actually work two ways,’ Jessica said, pondering the idea. ‘I didn’t do too badly in Orthopaedics, but I’m finding Cardiology quite difficult.’ She glanced at Alex. ‘Maybe you could help me out with that?’

‘Um…yeah, sure…any time,’ Alex said, blinking, his body jerking a little in surprise. ‘I had no idea you were struggling.’ He frowned. ‘You should have said.’

‘As if I’d do that.’ Jessica’s tone was scornful. ‘Your dad’s a GP—I thought he kept you topped up with in
formation so that you were nigh on invincible. I thought you had a problem with ortho because you were too busy taking time out and enjoying other things to be able to keep up with your studies.’

Alex rolled his eyes heavenward. ‘I wish…I wish.’

Phoebe could well imagine what he was wishing for, but she didn’t stay to hear any more. She left the two of them and went in search of her patient.

Connor was in the case review room, flicking through a pile of X-ray films that went along with patients’ notes, but he looked up as she passed by, and said, ‘Hi, Phoebe. Are you sitting in on the follow-up meeting?’

She shook her head. ‘I’m expecting a patient to arrive in the next few minutes.’ Her glance shifted over him. ‘You look as though things haven’t been going too well. Is there a problem?’ She slid into a seat beside him. When the ambulance arrived with the baby, the siren would alert her.

‘I’m concerned about the man who was admitted yesterday—the forty-year-old with the young family. I did everything I could for him—morphine, oxygen, nitro and aspirin. Then I put him on thrombolytic therapy to try to reduce the size of the blood clot and buy him some time. What he really needs is surgery, to remove the clot and put a stent in place to keep the artery open. I still don’t know if he’ll end up with a decent quality of life. It all depends on how much of the heart muscle was damaged after this second attack. I just feel that if the waiting lists for surgery weren’t so long, problems like this could be avoided.’

‘You can’t put the world to rights overnight,’ she
murmured, laying her hand on his. ‘Anyway, there are other factors to take into account, like preventative measures, diet, exercise, cutting out smoking, and so on. For the rest of it, you do the best you can, and that’s all any of us can do.’

‘Maybe.’ His mouth flattened, and she could see he wasn’t convinced.

She changed tack. ‘I saw your friend John earlier, going from one person to another in A and E, doing interviews. Is he gathering material for his TV programme?’

Connor nodded. ‘He tried to talk to Mr Kirk, but the man wasn’t best pleased. He said there was no way he was going to be interviewed on TV, and while there might well be a long waiting list for surgery, he was doing everything possible to clear it, but he wasn’t Superman.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘I think John went away with a flea in his ear.’

‘Oh, dear. That doesn’t bode well for the case review this morning, does it? I’ll be with you in mind, if not in body.’

She squeezed his hand, and he covered her fingers with his palm, giving her a warm, sexy smile. ‘I like the bit about the body,’ he murmured, looking her over. ‘Shall we make a date for later? Say lunchtime, around one o’clock?’ Then he frowned. ‘Or will you be too busy with Alex?’

Her mouth twisted in a wry shape. ‘Like I said before, you’re incorrigible, totally beyond help. And as to Alex, I wasn’t expecting him to kiss me, you know. He took me totally by surprise.’ She paused momentarily. ‘Though I can’t say the same for you and Lisa,
can I? You knew what you were doing when you went and put your arm around her.’

An ambulance siren sounded in the distance, and she stood up, tugging lightly at her hand so that he reluctantly released her.

‘That was different,’ he murmured. ‘And I’m not a completely hopeless case. You could do a lot to soothe my furrowed brow.’ He gave her a puppy-dog look. ‘Ditching Alex would be a start. He’s never going to swear undying love for you, you know?’

‘That had crossed my mind,’ she said, beginning to move away. She wasn’t going to admit to him that she’d realised some time ago that Alex wasn’t the man for her. Neither would she tell him about her conversation with Alex. That way, she might manage to keep a defensive wall in place for a while, at least. ‘But that still doesn’t mean you’re in the running.’ She frowned. ‘I have to go.’

Hurrying away to meet the ambulance, she thought wistfully about what Connor had said. How deep did his feelings for her really go? Could she trust him to love her and cherish her for the rest of her life?

The baby who had been brought into the hospital was clearly ill. ‘He was born prematurely, but was released home a couple of weeks ago,’ the paramedic told her. ‘His mother says he’s floppy and is breathing fast, and hasn’t been feeding well. He’s also had a couple of episodes of jerking in the last few hours, so I’m guessing he had seizures. His temperature is low at 35 degrees.’

‘Thanks. We’ll get him into Resuscitation and I’ll do a complete work-up.’ She glanced at the paramedic.
‘Is there anything else I ought to know? Any illness in the family?’

‘His brother and sister both have runny noses and are coughing.’

‘Okay. I’ll keep that in mind.’

As soon as the baby was in Resus, Phoebe began to make a thorough examination. ‘I’ll have to do blood tests, take a urine sample and send cerebrospinal fluid to the lab,’ she told Katie, who was assisting her. ‘There’s possibly a viral cause for all this, but I’ll get him started on antibiotics anyway, in case there’s a bacterial infection. All’s not well with his lungs, and it could possibly be pneumonia. We can’t run the risk of leaving it until we have the test results back…And we need a chest X-ray.’

Katie was busy preparing the equipment trolley so that Phoebe could carry out the procedures, and some time later Phoebe began to write out the forms that were needed for the laboratory.

‘I’m concerned about the seizures,’ she said, gazing down at the baby. The child was lethargic, and had a nasal discharge along with his lung problems. ‘He’s had another one since he’s been here, and that means there could be some inflammation of the brain.’

‘Are you going to do an EEG?’

‘Yes.’ Phoebe nodded. ‘And we’ll need a CT scan of the head. In the meantime, I’ve started him on medication for the seizures. I’ll do a nasal washout, and we’ll send that for testing as well.’

A short time later, Katie went to organise the chest X-ray and CT scan, before taking the samples over to the lab.

Phoebe stayed behind and gently stroked the baby’s arm. ‘I’m so sorry to put you through all that, Ryan,’ she said softly, looking down at his tiny, fragile figure, ‘but we’re doing everything we can to make you better. It’s not fair that you should be so ill when you’re so little.’

She moved away from the crib, and went to talk to the parents. It was never easy doing that, but she’d learned that if she kept people informed about what was happening to their children, and explained carefully what was going on, the parents were a little easier in their minds.

It would be some time before the test results came back, though, and perhaps it would be sensible to go for her lunch-break now, while things were quiet. She checked her watch. There was a good chance that Connor would be free around about this time, too.

She went to the cafeteria to pick up some sandwiches and coffee before going in search of him.

He was giving medication to a middle-aged man when she stopped by the treatment bay a few minutes later, and she heard him quietly explain to him how it would work.

‘Just try to relax,’ he murmured. ‘This will help to widen the blood vessels, and you should find that the pain starts to ease off fairly soon.’

He waited a moment, and then said, ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Better,’ the man said cautiously, nodding. ‘You were right.’

‘That’s good. You need to rest now, and the nurse will keep an eye on you. I’ll arrange for you to be admitted
so that we can see how you go over the next couple of days. We’ll need to do some more tests, but they’re nothing to worry about.’

He spoke to the nurse for a moment or two, and then came out into the central area where Phoebe was waiting.

‘Are you busy,’ she asked, ‘or do you have time to go for a lunch-break?’

‘I should be okay for the next hour,’ he said. ‘You must have read my mind…or maybe you decided to take me up on my earlier offer?’ He sent her a questioning, hopeful glance.

‘I don’t know about you,’ she said, giving him a quelling look, ‘but lunch was what I had in mind.’

He grinned. ‘Then I guess that goes for me, too.’ He started to walk with her out of the emergency department. ‘I was thinking I would like to get out of here for a while, maybe go for a walk along by the stream at the back of the hospital. Would you like to do that with me? I know there was a shower of rain earlier, but the sun is out now, and a drop of rain makes everything all the more fresh.’