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‘No. You know we haven’t kept in touch.’ They had agreed on a clean break—that had been his suggestion, not hers—and she’d spoken to him exactly twice in three years. He had called her once when her father had suffered his first stroke and again when he had died. That had been their only contact. Henry wasn’t part of her life anymore.
‘How did your date go last night?’ Maia asked as she tugged the pale-blue cotton shirt down over her head.
‘Don’t change the subject.’
‘I’m not. Henry being back is not a subject. Not one that affects me anyway.’
Carrie raised an eyebrow. ‘You sure?’
Even though Maia had known the fairy tale hadn’t had the happy ending she’d wanted, and she’d pretended he hadn’t broken her heart when he’d left, it had taken her a long time to recover. But eventually she’d been able to consign him to her past and to think of him without feeling like her heart was being ripped in two. They’d wanted different things in life. Things had worked out for the best.
‘Positive,’ she said as she lifted her hand to gather her long, dark hair into a ponytail, wrapping and tucking the end to make a messy bun. Her engagement ring caught the light, reminding her to remove it, and she slid it off her finger and onto the necklace where she wore it while she was working.
She was engaged to be married. Henry was an ex-boyfriend. Not the love of her life.
‘He’s an ex-boyfriend, that’s all.’
Henry was her past. Not her future.
He wasn’t her Henry any more.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_9598d44c-0a1c-57e0-acbc-f44202ac76d1)
TWO AMBULANCES PULLED into the loading bay as Maia and Carrie returned to the ED, creating a flurry of activity. Maia’s fiancé, Todd, was a paramedic. He had a day shift and she peered through the windows of the closest ambulance and scanned the bustling medicos, looking for his familiar figure. Looking for his sturdy frame, his short, neat brown hair and his gentle hazel eyes.
A girl of about eight or nine was pulled from the back of the first ambulance. There was no sign of Todd. The girl’s eyes were closed and she had a firm cervical collar around her neck.
‘Carrie, this child needs a neuro consult, possible head injury. Jim Edwards is on his way down but can you monitor her until he arrives?’ Brenda relayed the paramedics’ summary of the girl’s condition.
‘Sure.’ Carrie had worked at the Children’s since graduating from nursing. She was one of the most experienced emergency nurses and there wasn’t much she hadn’t had to deal with before. She crossed straight to the first stretcher.
The doors of the second ambulance swung open and Maia saw Todd climb out. She headed for her fiancé, closely followed by Brenda. Despite the fact that he’d just come from what she imagined was a complicated and messy motor-vehicle accident with multiple casualties, Todd looked as immaculate as ever. He was fastidiously neat and somehow his uniform had remained clean and still had perfect creases in the trouser legs. In contrast Maia could sense that her thick dark hair was already escaping from the bun she’d fixed it in. She couldn’t count how many times people had uttered the phrase ‘opposites attract’ when they’d been talking about her and Todd.
He pulled a stretcher from the back of the truck. A young boy was sitting up on it. He was alert and seemed quite fascinated by the whole experience. He was dressed in his school uniform, shorts and a T-shirt, and Maia could see that his left knee was swollen. The paramedics had rolled up a towel and stuffed it under his knee to support it.
‘Adam has undiagnosed knee pain,’ Todd told them. ‘And he’s unable to weight bear. Vitals all with normal limits.’
‘Henry.’ Brenda nodded as she called Henry over to join them. ‘Ortho injuries; can you take this one?’ she said as she pointed to Adam. ‘Maia, you go with him.’
She wondered if that was a coincidence or if Henry had requested to work with her. Don’t flatter yourself, she remonstrated as Todd handed her a little green whistle-shaped inhaler.
‘He’s had the Penthrox inhaler on the way here,’ he said.
Maia nodded and tucked the pain-reliever alongside Adam, then put her hands on the stretcher, ready to wheel it away. Before she had moved Todd reached over and gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. ‘I’ll see you later,’ he said.
Maia saw Henry watching. His eyes moved from Todd’s hand to Todd and then to her face. Maia blushed under his scrutiny. She almost felt like she shouldn’t have let Todd touch her. Not that she could have stopped him, nor was she sure why she would have wanted to, but his familiar gesture made her feel awkward and uncomfortable under Henry’s gaze. His expression was unreadable but he gave the stretcher a push, starting it moving towards the entrance, and Todd’s hand dropped from Maia’s shoulder with the movement. Henry wasn’t watching her now, he was focused on manoeuvring the stretcher, but Maia knew his movement had been deliberate. She said nothing as she and Henry wheeled the stretcher away and Todd turned back to his other patient, to the girl with the broken collarbone.
‘Hey there, mate, what’s your name?’ Henry had always had a good bedside manner and everyone, young and old, loved him. He had an easy charm. People were starstruck by his arresting looks initially but he always won them over with his personality to match.
She needed to be careful. Before he’d left she’d had him on a pedestal; she couldn’t let that happen again. But, listening to him chat to their young patient, she could tell he hadn’t changed.
‘Adam Evans.’
‘Nice to meet you, Adam. I’m Henry and this is Maia,’ he said. ‘You’ve hurt your knee, have you?’
Adam nodded.
‘We’ll get you comfortable in here and have a look at it. Have you been in hospital before?’
‘No,’ he said. Maia grabbed a blank patient file from the triage desk as they wheeled the stretcher past.
‘Seen it on telly?’
He nodded again as they pushed his bed into a cubicle and Maia pulled the curtain around to give them some privacy.
Maia helped Henry transfer Adam to a hospital bed before she wheeled the stretcher into the corridor. She knew one of the ambulance crew would collect it before they left the hospital but she didn’t want them to have to interrupt, especially if it was Todd. She wasn’t ready to deal with two sets of inquisitive eyes.
‘Maia will attach a few leads to you,’ Henry told Adam as he washed his hands before pulling on a pair of disposable surgical gloves. ‘She’ll check your pulse and a few things like that but I reckon that’ll all be pretty normal, seeing as you’re talking to me.’
They had worked together at the Queen Liz when Henry had been doing his fellowship. They’d worked well together then and slotted back into an easy rhythm now. It didn’t feel like three years since they’d worked side by side.
Maia took a hospital ID bracelet out of the file and wrote Adam’s details on it before fastening it around his wrist. Next she snapped gloves onto her hands, connected Adam to the monitors and recorded his observations—blood pressure, oxygen sats and pulse rate.
‘Do you know what day it is, Adam?’ Henry asked as he shone a penlight torch into Adam’s eyes and checked his pupils.
‘Tuesday.’
‘Do you remember what happened?’
‘I was standing up in the bus when the driver swerved and I went flying, and my knee slammed into the side of one of the seats. It hit that metal bar that made up the seat frame. My brother was on the bus too. Do you know if he’s okay? His name is Bailey.’ Tears welled in Adam’s eyes and Maia could tell he was trying to be brave. She could imagine how she would have felt if she’d been in his situation at the same age.
‘Let’s get you sorted and then we’ll find out about Bailey,’ she told him. She wouldn’t tell him that she was sure Bailey was fine; she couldn’t promise that when she had no idea of the situation. Promising to investigate was the best she could do.
‘All right, Adam, I need to have a look at your knee, but first I want you to tell me about your pain. Can you give it a score out of ten? Where zero is no pain and ten is unbearable.’
‘Maybe a six?’
‘I need to have a feel of your knee but you can hold Maia’s hand if you like and squeeze it tight if your knee gets too sore and you want me to stop. I reckon holding Maia’s hand might help.’ Adam blushed and looked away and Maia almost felt sorry for him until she realised that Henry had started palpating the knee joint and had successfully distracted Adam so that he’d been able to start palpating without Adam even noticing. Obviously he hadn’t struck anything painful yet but as a technique Maia was impressed.
The pain-relieving inhaler was lying where Maia had left it, on the bed. She picked it up and offered it to him. ‘You can use this if you like?’
But Adam shook his head. ‘I’ll be okay,’ he said, still putting on a brave face.
‘Good choice, Adam. I’d choose to hold a pretty nurse’s hand instead too,’ Henry added as he palpated the medial and lateral ligaments and winked at Adam, who grinned. Now it was Maia’s turn to blush but she held out her hand and Adam latched onto it.
As the young boy squeezed her hand, Maia wondered if anyone watching her and Henry would guess they had a history. Henry seemed relaxed; working with her didn’t appear to be throwing him off-kilter. Perhaps it was only her on tenterhooks, only her who still felt the spark of awareness in the air. There was no denying she was still affected by his easy charm.
Henry moved his fingers centrally over the quadriceps tendon and muscle belly. There was marked oedema of this knee compared to the other and Maia watched as Adam grimaced, but he didn’t cry out.
‘Are you a cricketer, Adam?’ Henry asked.
Adam nodded.
‘So, you’d be getting ready to watch the World Cup?’
The World Cup was scheduled to start in India at the end of February. It was only a few days away and New Zealand’s citizens could barely talk about anything else. Maia knew that Henry also loved his cricket. He would slot straight back into the Kiwi culture even if he did barrack for the wrong team.
‘Do you reckon the Black Caps can beat my team—England?’
Henry was having difficulty finding the borders of the knee cap. Adam flinched and his fingers tightened their grip on Maia’s as Henry’s fingers probed his patella but his bravado remained strong as he replied, ‘The Black Caps can beat everyone.’
‘I like your confidence.’ Henry laughed. ‘I’m looking forward to watching some cricket. I’ve been living in America—they’re not into cricket there. See if you can bend this knee for me. I’ll help you.’ Henry had again successfully distracted Adam but his assessment wasn’t over yet. He slipped one hand under Adam’s knee to support it. It was resting in about thirty degrees of flexion and he was able to bend it another thirty degrees before the pain got too much. But Maia knew that flexion of sixty degrees was well off the normal range of one hundred and forty degrees for thin adolescents.
But Henry praised his efforts. ‘Well done, Adam. Now try to straighten it for me.’
Adam tried but he couldn’t do it. His knee got stuck at thirty degrees.
‘Can you lift it off the bed?’
Maia could see from Adam’s expression that he was trying but his quadriceps wasn’t following orders and his leg didn’t budge.
‘These kids are primary school age, yes?’ Henry asked Maia. ‘How old are you, Adam?’ he asked when she nodded.
‘Twelve.’
‘All right. I reckon you might have busted your knee cap; we need to get that X-rayed.’
Maia frowned. Patella fractures weren’t common in children and she wondered why Henry suspected that. He must have seen her doubting expression. ‘I’ve seen a few in this age group, boys more than girls,’ he explained. ‘Once the patella has ossified it’s susceptible to fracture. Can we organise an X-ray? AP and lateral views?’ he asked.
‘Sure. They can bring the mobile X-ray machine in to do that. But we’ll need to get permission first, I suspect. Why don’t you ask Brenda to organise that when you get your next case and I’ll wait with Adam?’ Maia didn’t want to leave the young boy alone. He would be apprehensive, if not scared, and with the added worry of his brother’s whereabouts and potential injuries. ‘And see what you can find out about Bailey,’ she added as Henry pulled the curtain back and stepped out.
She watched him leave the cubicle. His dark hair was neat at the nape of his neck. His back was straight, his shoulders square. He seemed relaxed, unhurried, in control, and Maia knew his calm demeanour was good for the patients.
Henry turned to pull the curtain closed and saw her watching him. He grinned and winked as he tugged the curtain across, cutting off her view.
Maia busied herself checking Adam’s obs again while she waited for the blush that stained her cheeks to fade. She needed something to occupy her mind; she couldn’t afford to fill it with thoughts of Henry.
She heard the curtain move again. The sound of the plastic clips sliding in the rail made her look up. She was hoping to see Henry but it was a lady’s face that appeared.
‘Excuse me,’ the woman said as she ducked around the curtain. ‘Sorry to interrupt—I’m Amelia Cooper, the deputy principal at Canterbury Primary School.’
Maia spotted an identification badge hanging around Amelia’s neck that had her photograph and the school crest printed on it. She hoped she wasn’t a journalist with fake ID. That had happened before, on more than one occasion.
‘Hello, Adam,’ the woman said, and Maia decided she would give her the benefit of the doubt, although she wasn’t sure what she was doing in her cubicle.
‘Is there something I can help you with?’ Maia asked.
‘I need to make sure all the children are accounted for,’ Amelia explained. ‘The school is contacting the parents. Some are already on their way to the hospital, but I was told we might need permission for some treatments. The school has all that information on file.’ She indicated the electronic tablet she held in one hand. ‘It’s all in here.’
She put the tablet down on the end of Adam’s bed and took a thick marker pen from a clipboard which she had been holding in her other hand. ‘I’m also supposed to correctly identify the children,’ she said as she printed Adam’s name onto a sticky label which she peeled off and stuck to his shirt. Some things obviously still had to be done the old-fashioned way, although Maia knew her method of identifying the children was more secure. Adam’s arm would go wherever he went, unlike his shirt, which could easily be removed, taking his ID with it. But she kept quiet. The children could be identified at a glance and another form of ID wasn’t going to create any problems, as long as it was accurate.
‘And I’ll keep a list of their injuries so the parents can check in with me as their initial point of contact. I’ll be the liaison person, according to your ED director that will leave you all free to get on with treating the kids.’
That made sense. Maia filled her in on Adam’s condition and Amelia flipped over the page of sticky labels and jotted a summary on another page of her clipboard.
‘Do you have authority to give permission for Adam to have an X-ray?’ Maia asked.
‘I do,’ she replied. ‘I spoke to Dr Cavanaugh who was in here before and told him.’
‘Okay. Do you have any news about Adam’s brother, Bailey?’
Amelia ran her finger down the list on her clipboard. ‘He’s fine. He’s got some cuts and bruises and he’s waiting for some treatment to clean those up.’
Maia could see Adam relax. ‘That’s good news, isn’t it?’
‘I’ve got more good news, Adam,’ Amelia said. ‘The school has spoken to your mother and she is on her way.’
The radiographer arrived and Maia left him to do his job while she went looking for Bailey.
The waiting room had filled with parents and some of the less seriously injured kids who were still waiting to be treated. Maia scanned the room and spotted a boy who, despite the large dressing that was bandaged to the top of his head, looked similar enough to Adam that she walked closer to check the sticker on his shirt. It read, ‘Bailey Evans’.
Maia sought out the ED Director next. She was standing at the whiteboard behind the triage desk, updating the list. ‘Brenda, have you got anyone urgent for me or can I take Bailey Evans?’ she asked. ‘I’ve got his brother having X-rays taken and I think they’d like to be together while they wait for their mother.’
Brenda scanned the board quickly before she nodded. ‘Sure,’ she said as she added a note on the board beside Bailey’s name. ‘According to the ambos he’s got a head laceration that might need stitching. Your call, once you’ve cleaned him up.’
Maia introduced herself to Bailey as she pushed his wheelchair into the cubicle beside Adam’s. They could talk to each other through the curtain while she cleaned Bailey’s cuts—she didn’t think Adam needed to watch that—but once they were both taken care of she could pull back the curtain and they could wait together.
Maia gently lifted the dressing on Bailey’s head. It was soaked in blood from a nasty cut that ran along his hairline. The paramedics had been right; the gash would probably need a few stitches. She re-covered the wound with fresh padding and called for a doctor. The wound would need to be cleaned but she knew the doctor would administer a local anaesthetic and she preferred to wait for that before she started cleaning. She would make a start on his other more straightforward injuries while she waited. She could see several cuts on his hands and knees as well as on his face and head.
‘How did you get all of these cuts?’ she asked him.
‘Some of the windows in the bus exploded when the bus rolled over.’
‘The bus rolled over?’ Maia hadn’t been aware of that part.
Bailey nodded his head.
‘The bus driver swerved so hard to miss the landslide that the bus crashed through the rail on the side of the road and rolled down the hill.’ Adam’s voice came through the curtain, explaining the sequence of events.
‘You didn’t tell me that part before, Adam.’
‘That wasn’t the bit where I hurt my knee,’ he said matter-of-factly.
‘The window next to me smashed,’ Bailey added. ‘And then some of us had to break the emergency window and crawl out that way. That’s how I cut my hands and knees.’
Maia picked fragments of glass out of his wounds, disinfected them and bandaged them before she tackled his face and head. She cleaned the cuts and scratches on his face before she carefully unwrapped the dressing on his head.
The curtain rustled on its tracking, flicking open to admit Henry. ‘This is Bailey, Adam’s brother,’ Maia told him. ‘He’s got a laceration on his head that needs cleaning and suturing.’
