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‘Yes, I think so.’
‘Get four units of blood into him stat—use O neg while you wait for cross-match. There should be some coming up.’
There was, and she was glad to see it. Her patient’s pulse was very weak and thready, although they had boosted his blood volume, and she wondered how much he was losing into the thigh and how much through what she was beginning to be sure was a ruptured spleen.
‘Should we do a peritoneal lavage to see if he’s haemorrhaging?’ she asked Ryan.
He shook his head. ‘No. Treat as if he is—there should be a general surgeon on his way down to check. If he’s not here in five minutes—or if the lad deteriorates—I’ll stick a needle in and see what we come up with. Better catheterise him anyway—he’s going to have to go to Theatre. Do we have any ID?’
The sister lifted her head from the catheter she was already inserting. ‘Yes. The police are on it, apparently. They’re contacting relatives now.’
A man came in then, tall and rangy, his white hair in sharp contrast to the bushy black brows beneath. ‘Query abdomen for me?’ he said in a soft Scottish burr.
‘Oh, hi, Ross. Yeah, Virginia’s got it. She’ll fill you in.’
She met his eyes and smiled briefly. ‘Hi. I think his spleen might have gone. His ribs have penetrated his left lung low down, but he’s also got a possible head injury and his left femur and right wrist have gone.’
Ross nodded. ‘OK. Can I have a trocar, please?’
He scrubbed quickly while they prepared the abdomen for his incision, then Ginny watched as he carefully pushed the sharp instrument into the abdomen and pressed gently.
Blood welled rapidly out of the little hole, far too much and too fast to be because of the incision.
‘Damn. Right, we’d better have him now. Have we got head and spinal X-rays?’
‘Just done.’ They were snapped up on the light box by the radiographer, and Ross scanned them quickly. ‘That looks OK. Right, we can assume his head injury is of secondary importance to his internal haemorrhaging. The spleen looks enlarged and the abdo contents are displaced—aye, I’m sure it’s gone. I’ll get the orthopaedic boys to sort his leg and arm out after I’ve finished with the spleen and chest. How stable is he?’
‘Not bad,’ Ginny replied. ‘I think he’s improving. He’s certainly not getting any worse, but his blood pressure’s still a bit low.’
Ross nodded. ‘OK. Can you send him up as soon as he’s stable enough, please? I’ll go and scrub. How about this one?’
Ryan grunted. ‘Smashed mandible, lacerated tongue—I’m just suturing it now to stop the bleeding. Apart from that and the coma and the leg fractures, she’s fine.’
Ross snorted and left the room.
Ginny’s patient’s parents arrived at that point, so he was covered with a blanket; Ginny warned them about the breathing tube and the chest drains and IV lines, and then they came in for a few moments.
They were shocked and upset but, as Ryan said later, at least they knew he was still alive and recognisable, which was more than could be said for the girl who had been on the back of his bike. Her facial injuries were extensive and would require the intervention of a plastic surgeon—if she survived the head injury. Ryan thought her helmet must have been too big for her, as it had come off at the scene. Either that or it had been ripped off, thus damaging her jaw.
The boy’s parents were distressed by her condition, as well as their son’s. It seemed they were going out together and had been for some time.
‘Do you know where the police might find her parents?’ Ryan asked them.
‘Possibly.’
‘Would you talk to them? Sister has some forms for you to sign first, then if you could talk to the police?’
‘Of course.’ With shaking hands they signed the consent form for surgical treatment of their son’s various injuries and, as Ginny was happy with his blood pressure and pulse, he went off to Theatre.
Ryan’s patient, on the other hand, was still causing concern. The fragments of her fractured lower jaw had penetrated her mouth and tongue and were causing serious problems. Ryan had been unable to get an airway in and had had to do a tracheostomy to allow her to breathe because of the blood in her throat and her swollen tongue, but he had been able to suture the worst cut on the tongue to halt the outpouring of blood into the back of her throat that was threatening to drown her.
Her parents hadn’t yet arrived, but she was at least stable now. Ginny went over to Ryan and asked if she could help.
He grinned tiredly. ‘No, not really. You could finish off that patient you abandoned. I’ll be through here in a minute and she’ll be transferred to ITU. I’ll come with you if you hang on.’
Ginny had quite forgotten the woman whose infected finger she had been about to lance. ‘It seems hours ago,’ she murmured.
‘Only half an hour.’
He was still working. Ginny watched him as he checked the girl’s pupils again. ‘How’s her head injury?’
‘Not good. Her pupils are both equal and reacting, but she’s still very deep. She’s got multiple fractures in both legs and one arm, but all in all she’s got away with it lightly if the head injury isn’t anything too sinister. I think she was wrapped round a tree branch, from what I can gather. It may be just whiplash or it may be worse. She’s got a nasty cut on her leg as well. She’ll need a tetanus jab.’
He did that as they talked, and Ginny was able to see the long, jagged cut up her thigh. ‘Are you going to stitch it?’ she asked.
He looked horrified. ‘No. It’s dirty—we’ll pack it and leave it for a few days with antibiotics, then it can be sutured on the ward. If you close it now you trap all that road dirt in it and she’d get a nasty infected wound for sure.’
Ginny suddenly felt the yawning void of her ignorance opening up under her feet. ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled.
Ryan lifted his head and met her eyes over the patient, and grinned. ‘Don’t apologise. That’s why you’re working with me—to learn these things. You did really well with that lad, by the way. Well done.’
His eyes glowed with appreciation, and Ginny felt as if the sun had come out from behind the clouds.
All the blood and gore receded and, as she returned his smile, her confidence came back and she straightened up.
‘Thanks,’ she murmured, and her voice sounded husky and emotional. ‘Um—what now?’
‘Your lady?’ he prodded gently.
She laughed and pulled herself together. ‘Oh. Right.’
She was heading out of the door when his pointed cough stopped her in her tracks.
‘Try removing some of the blood before you go out there,’ he said mildly.
She looked down at her coat, fresh this morning, and her eyes widened in surprise. ‘Mmm—I see what you mean.’
Ryan’s patient was collected and taken to Theatre while she cleaned herself up, and he joined her at the sink. Their eyes met in the mirror.
‘Shall we finish off that poor woman now?’ she said.
His grin was worth waiting for.
‘She’s probably got better on her own by now, but I suppose we ought to check.’
Chuckling, they left the devastation behind, and the team of nursing staff waded in for the clean-up, ready for the next onslaught—whenever that might be. While the nurses checked the instruments and relaid the trolleys and prepared the room Ryan and Ginny discovered that another doctor had taken over and finished treating Ginny’s patient, so they went into the staffroom. While a fresh pot of coffee brewed Ryan talked her through the treatment both their biker patients would go on to receive. Then, just as the coffee-machine chugged and spluttered to a halt, they heard a siren again.
Ryan looked at her with those extraordinary green eyes and arched a brow expressively. ‘We’re on again,’ he murmured. ‘You stay here and have a coffee, if you like; I’ll handle it.’
‘Are you being kind or was that a dismissal?’
He grinned. ‘Dismissal? You have to be kidding. I tell you what—you go and see to it, I’ll have the coffee.’
She got instantly to her feet. ‘I tell you what—we’ll both go and deal with it and we’ll both have a coffee!’
Well, as first days went, it had been a good one, Ginny mused. She kicked off her shoes, dropped tiredly onto her extremely comfortable bed and closed her eyes. Thank God she wasn’t on duty that night. She wouldn’t have been at her best, although she would have done it as she’d done it countless times over the past couple of years.
She replayed the day—or, at least, she meant to, but she didn’t get a great deal further than Ryan.
Ryan’s voice, Ryan’s laugh, Ryan’s hands on her shoulders, Ryan’s chest squashed up against hers—well, the other way round to be exact, as Ryan’s chest wouldn’t squash with anything as trivial as her impact on it. Hers, on the other hand, had squashed most convincingly. She peered down at her bust, full and ripe and overtly feminine, and wondered how Ryan’s hands would feel gently cupping that softness.
A dull ache started up behind her eyes. She was tired. She must be, to start imagining things like that about her new boss. After all, after that first initial contact, he’d been very circumspect and had kept his distance both physically and verbally.
No little jokes, no innuendo—nothing to give her any indication that the attraction she thought she’d seen in his eyes had been anything other than her imagination or a fleeting interest dispelled by time and further exposure.
Which was just as well—wasn’t it? And, anyway, he was probably married.
‘Did you have a good day today?’
Evie nodded, her eyes wide and sparkling with mischief. ‘Granny took us to the beach again. We had ice cream and went on the little train and Gus was sick from eating too much popcorn.’
Ann’s mother smiled apologetically. ‘I don’t think it’s anything to worry about. Children are often sick if they overindulge. I shouldn’t have let him have so much, should I, Angus?’
Gus shook his head cheerfully. ‘My sick was all full of popcorn and bright green from my lolly—’
‘OK, Gus, we don’t need the details,’ Ryan said wearily. How many times had he told their grandmother not to spoil them so much? They always had too much sun, too much food, too much everything. He hustled them to the car, strapped them in and took them home, tired but happy, and decided he was being too strict. So what if she spoiled them a little? They were kids. God knows, they had little enough fun in their lives.
It was funny how bathtime and bedtime always seemed endless, and yet when it was done and the children were tucked up in bed sound asleep the evening seemed to stretch on into the hereafter.
He showered and changed into old jeans and a scruffy T-shirt, meaning to tackle the garden a little before he went to bed, but it was a gorgeous evening and he found himself sitting down after his solitary meal with a beer in one hand and the local paper in the other, enjoying the last of the evening sun—and thinking about Virginia.
Lord, she was pretty. Her soft, lush curves had squashed up against him most invitingly, and he really hadn’t wanted to let her go. He’d forgotten what a real woman felt like—how solid and robust and positively right.
His heart started to thud more heavily, just with the memory, and his jeans tightened to an embarrassing degree. He closed his eyes and tipped his head back against the sun lounger and sighed. Was it wrong to want another woman? It didn’t feel wrong. It felt frighteningly normal and right.
It wasn’t as if Ann was still alive.
And he was. If he’d had any doubts about that in the past two years, today had dispelled them all. Yes, he was definitely alive—alive, well and in the market for a scorching affair.
Just sex, he promised himself. No commitment. Nothing long term or permanent, just a little diversion to help ease life along a little. After all, the kids needed him and there was very little left over to give anybody else.
But an affair with Virginia—oh, yes. He could handle that.
She’s a colleague, his alter ego was nagging gently. He switched it off. She understood the rules. She was a woman of the world—that was obvious from the assessing look she had given him that had thrown him for a loop.
They could work together and play together.
It would be fine. He’d make it fine.
His heart thudded a little faster, the beat heavy and strong under his ribs.
Anticipation.
He’d forgotten the taste of it, it had been so long.
He’d flirt with her a little, draw her out, see if she was interested. Maybe dinner, a play or the movies—something like that.
He wondered how Ann’s mother would feel about babysitting for him while he entertained a new woman.
Perhaps he’d ask the girl next door…!
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_6fb808d7-3646-5dc2-a444-4bbd3694fe09)
So MAYBE she’d been mistaken. Maybe Ryan was interested. Either that or she was reading him all wrong, which could be fairly embarrassing!
She wasn’t. Every chance he had he made eye contact with her, and his eyes were ultra-expressive. She wasn’t sure if he meant them to be or if they just gave him away, but he was certainly interested in her.
She still didn’t know anything about him, however, but she was willing to bet from what she’d seen of him at work that he wasn’t the sort of man to cheat on his wife. The easy thing, of course, was just to come out and ask him, but she didn’t like to.
It was Patrick Haddon, one of the senior registrars, who told her in the end. They’d been working together on a patient and as the trolley was wheeled away to the ward he stripped off his gloves, dropped them in the bin and grinned at her.
‘Well done. I can see why Ryan speaks so highly of you—apart from the obvious attraction he feels, of course.’
His eyes were twinkling, and Ginny felt a soft tide of colour brush her throat. She ignored the compliment on her work in favour of the rider he had added. ‘Meaning?’ she fished.
Patrick laughed softly. ‘Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed the way he looks at you.’
She shrugged, pretending indifference. ‘Is it so obvious?’
‘It is to me. It makes a change to see him notice the sex of his colleagues. Not that anybody’s criticising, Ginny. We’re all vulnerable to the right pretty face. Anyway, it’s good to see him taking an interest in a woman. Two years is a long time.’
‘Two years?’ she asked, trying not to let her curiosity be too obvious.
‘Since his wife died. I don’t think there’s been anyone since.’
She felt the shock of his words in a wave of regret for Ryan. How had she died? Slowly, or instantly? Did he know it was going to happen? Did he have time to say goodbye? How much had he been hurt?
So many questions without answers. There was only one Patrick could answer that she was prepared to ask, and even that was a loaded question. ‘Did they have children?’ she asked slowly.
‘Yes—two. A girl and a boy.’
Ginny felt a pang. She wasn’t sure which was worse—to have them and die, or live and not have them.
To die. Yes, of course. Her life was full, after all. Her work was demanding, interesting and stimulating. Her private life was about to flourish, if Ryan’s eyes were to be believed, and everything in her garden was rosy.
Well, almost. There was that little corner where nothing grew—where nothing would ever grow—but it was engulfed by the glorious mass of busyness that threatened to swamp her on occasions.
Yes, it was good to be alive.
