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‘Seth, he’s never here. If he’s not off to some conference, he’s away at a seminar. He wants out of A and E. You know it, and so do I.’
Seth did, but it didn’t make him feel any better. In fact, it made him feel worse. He gazed round the examination room, at the peeling paint, the tattered cubicle curtains, and bit his lip. ‘Jerry, do you ever feel like you’re stuck in a rut?’
‘Can’t say I do. I get the blues occasionally—everybody does—but there’s far too much variety in A and E for me ever to get bored.’
Once Seth would have agreed with him, but just lately he’d had the worrying feeling that their patients were beginning to merge, to blend, into faceless, nameless anonymity. ‘I think I’m getting too old for this job.’
‘Seth, you’re thirty-six,’ Jerry protested. ‘You don’t get burn-out in A and E until you’re fifty.’
‘Maybe I should sign up as a doctor on one of those luxury cruise liners,’ Seth continued as though his specialist registrar hadn’t spoken. ‘The ones that sail the Mediterranean or the Caribbean.’
‘Dispensing sea-sickness pills and fighting off the advances of the blue-rinse brigade?’ Jerry grinned. ‘I’d give you a month, and you’d be bored out of your skull.’
‘Médicins sans Frontiéres, then,’ Seth murmured. ‘They’re always looking for new doctors.’
Jerry started to laugh, then stopped when he saw his boss was in earnest. ‘Okay, let’s forget all this crap about Dr Mackenzie, cruise ships, and Médicins sans Frontiéres. What’s wrong, Seth—and I mean really wrong?’
The consultant picked up the whiteboard eraser from the table, stared at it for a second, then tossed it down again. ‘I don’t know—and that’s the honest truth. All I do know is nothing seems fun any more. Not my job, not dating, not even sex.’ He frowned. ‘Especially not sex.’
‘I don’t see how changing your job is going to make your sex life any better,’ Jerry pointed out. ‘Look, who are you dating at the moment?’
Seth looked over his shoulder, then lowered his voice. ‘Nobody. I haven’t been out on a date since June.’
‘You haven’t had sex for three months? Seth—’
‘I’m losing it, aren’t I?’ the consultant exclaimed. ‘If I can’t even be bothered to have sex any more, I’m definitely losing it.’
Jerry stared thoughtfully at him. ‘No, you’re not. I think you’re just beginning to realise there’s more to life than work and a string of casual relationships. I think what you need is to settle down with just one woman.’
‘Are you crazy?’ Seth spluttered. ‘The minute a bloke settles down, he’s brain dead.’
‘Hey, I take great exception to that,’ Jerry exclaimed. ‘Carol and I have been married for a year, and I’m certainly not brain dead.’
‘Not yet, but you soon will be,’ Seth said darkly. ‘In a couple of years’ time your idea of a sparkling evening’s entertainment will be sitting in front of the television, poring over some DIY magazines. And when the kids start arriving…’ He shuddered. ‘I’ll ask how they are—just to be polite—and you’ll whip out their latest photographs and start telling me all about little Isolde’s first tooth and Tristram’s first step.’
‘That isn’t being brain dead,’ Jerry said uncertainly. ‘It’s…it’s being proud of your family, loving them, being committed to them.’
It also meant waving goodbye to any exciting foreign holidays because little Isolde didn’t like travelling, Seth thought glumly. Goodbye to any visits to a restaurant or to the movies because little Tristram got upset if he was left with a babysitter. And it wasn’t just the kids who made you brain dead. It was living with the same woman for the rest of your life, having to see the same face over the breakfast table every morning.
‘Seth, listen—’
The consultant couldn’t have, even if he’d wanted to. The examination-room doors clattered open and the paramedics who’d attended the multiple car crash appeared, each clamouring for attention.
‘Twenty-six-year-old male, Doc. Open leg wound, Glascow coma scale 3-3-4. Blood loss extensive, definite class 11 shock. His saturation levels are falling and he’s hardly moving any air.’
‘My bloke’s in really bad shape, too, Doc,’ another paramedic declared. ‘Chest and head injuries. GCS 2-2-4. We’ve tubed him and set up an IV line, but his BP’s been falling steadily since we lifted him.’
‘Tony—where’s Tony?’ Seth demanded, and to his relief the junior doctor appeared. He looked as though he’d been dragged out of bed, but at least he was there.
‘Seth, the child with the burns needs attention, and fast,’ Babs declared, casting her professional eye quickly over the trolleys. ‘He’s cyanotic for sure.’
The child was. Even from where he was standing Seth could see the characteristic blue tinge of the boy’s face which indicated his blood wasn’t receiving enough oxygen.
‘Jerry, you take the bloke with the head and chest injuries, I’ll take the child. Tony, the guy with the open leg wound is yours. Tube him, but keep a careful watch for any signs of a tension pneumothorax or major rupture of his diaphragm.’
‘Right,’ the junior doctor replied, looking anything but happy.
‘What about my patient, Doc?’ one of the paramedics protested. ‘Diane Lennox, late thirties. She’s fractured both her femurs, and I think she could be bleeding internally.’
Seth stared indecisively at the badly burnt child, then across at the female casualty, and exploded. ‘This is ridiculous! We need another pair of qualified hands. We need another doctor—any kind of doctor!’
‘Will I do?’
Seth spun round to see a tall, slender woman wearing a pair of baggy tracksuit bottoms and a sweatshirt emblazoned with the words MAKE MY DAY, gazing back at him, and shot a fulminating glance at Madge from Reception who was hovering beside her. ‘Madge, could you escort this lady through to the relatives’ waiting room? She shouldn’t be—’
‘Seth, she’s not a relative,’ the receptionist interrupted. ‘She’s a bona fide doctor. I’ve seen her ID, and Admin have verified it. She starts work tomorrow, and she’s actually—’
‘Boss, I’ve got the tube in, but this bloke’s trachea has definitely shifted to the left,’ Tony Melville exclaimed, panic plain in his voice.
‘Then he obviously needs a needle thoracotomy,’ Seth retorted, more caustically than he’d intended, and the junior doctor flushed.
‘I know, but I’ve never done one before, and…’
Impatiently Seth snapped on a pair of surgical gloves, strode across the examination room and deftly thrust a needle into the patient’s chest.
‘I’ll insert a thoracotomy tube for you in a minute,’ he declared when a satisfying hiss of air came from the patient’s lungs, ‘but in the meantime start him on a two-litre infusion of Ringer’s lactate and then get a sterile pad over his leg and apply pressure to stop that bleeding.’
The junior doctor nodded, and Seth swung round to discover that Madge had disappeared and Dr Sweatshirt had not only donned the spare white coat they kept hanging on the back of the examination room door but she’d also slipped an IV line into the badly burnt child’s arm and was in the process of inserting a catheter into his bladder.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ he exclaimed, shooting back across the examination room and elbowing her roughly aside.
‘What it looks like,’ Dr Sweatshirt protested. ‘The child urgently needs fluids to counteract shock, and surely we need to know how much smoke he might have inhaled?’
She was right, but even if her ID was legit that still didn’t mean she knew anything about A and E medicine. She could be a dietician or, even worse, a chiropodist.
‘What’s your specialisation?’ he demanded.
‘I majored in surgery, but surgery isn’t my specialisation now. Look, I think I can set your mind—’
‘Paediatrics, or adult?’
‘Adult, and if you’d just let me finish—’
‘Seth, my head and chest injuries need Neurology,’ Jerry called. ‘I’m stabilising him as best I can, but he’s definitely got an intracranial haematoma.’
‘OK, I’ll—’
‘Seth, could you please come and take a look at Mrs Lennox?’ Babs exclaimed. ‘Her BP’s all over the place.’
‘I’ll be there in a—’
‘This child’s urine is very dark,’ Dr Sweatshirt observed. ‘Looks like possible myoglobinuria to me—iron and protein being released from a damaged muscle into his blood and urine. You really should be taking blood samples.’
‘And do I look as though I’ve got six pairs of hands?’ Seth exclaimed with frustration, then swore under his breath when a tide of hot colour washed across Dr Sweatshirt’s cheeks.
He shouldn’t be taking out his frustration on her. It wasn’t right, and it wasn’t fair. She hadn’t needed to offer to help, especially as she didn’t officially start work at the Belfield until tomorrow. ‘Look, I’m sor—’
‘Seth, I really do need you,’ Babs protested. ‘Fiona and I have got an IV line into Mrs Lennox, and we’ve checked her ABCs, but we’re not doctors.’
Ms Sweatshirt was. She’d been right about the possibility of myoglobinuria, and with a specialisation in surgery she probably knew as much—if not more—about burns patients as he did.
‘OK, Dr whatever-your-name-is,’ he said brusquely. ‘Can you take care of the child while I check out Mrs Lennox?’
Dr Sweatshirt nodded. She didn’t meet his gaze but she nodded, and he hurried across the examination room.
‘I’ve paged Orthopaedics,’ Babs declared. ‘Do you want Fiona to get the technicians down for a scan?’
‘Yes, please, and, Babs…’ He lowered his voice. ‘Would you assist Dr Sweatshirt? Watch what she does, and if you’re worried—’
‘Seth, I’ll assist her with pleasure, but you heard what Madge said. She’s a bona fide doctor, and she starts work in the hospital tomorrow, so stop stressing. Ye gods, if ever a woman looked as though she knew what she was doing, she does.’
She did, Seth thought as he glanced across at Dr Sweatshirt. She looked calm, in control and completely professional. She was also quite attractive if a man’s taste ran to women with soft brown eyes and riotously curly brown hair pulled back into a lopsided ponytail. His didn’t. He preferred big-busted blondes with pizzazz, not skinny, wholesome-looking women who looked as though they could have got a part in a remake of Anne of Green Gables, but that didn’t excuse the fact that he’d been quite unforgivably rude to her.
He sighed as he inserted a catheter into Mrs Lennox’s bladder, then checked her femoral pulses. Time for an apology. Time for a quick blast of the old Hardcastle charm.
He cleared his throat pointedly, and saw Dr Sweatshirt’s head come up.
‘I owe you an apology, don’t I?’ he said. ‘I’ve been quite appallingly rude to you when you didn’t need to volunteer to help, so if you want to lob an IV bag in my direction I promise I won’t duck.’
She looked momentarily startled, but when he threw her one of his guaranteed gotta-love-me Hardcastle grins he was the one who blinked when an answering smile slowly curved her lips. Hey, but that smile was quite something. It lit up her face, completely transforming her. Maybe she could be his type after all. Not permanently, of course, because he didn’t do permanence, but maybe for dinner tonight, a few dates…
‘I’ve just realised I don’t even know your name,’ he said, upping his smile a notch. ‘I’m Seth Hardcastle, A and E consultant, and you are—’
‘OK, which of you jokers called for a brain expert?’
Seth turned to see the consultant from Neurology standing in the doorway, and laughed. ‘Jerry did, but I wouldn’t say no to a quick brain transplant.’
‘I don’t do freebies, Seth.’ The consultant grinned, but as he walked towards Jerry it wasn’t Seth who sighed but Olivia.
She needed a quick brain transplant too or, perhaps more accurately, a quick course in self-assertiveness. She should have told Seth Hardcastle who she was. She should have said, Look, sunshine, I’m your boss, but the trouble was she’d never been the ‘Look, sunshine’ type. She’d always favoured the softly-softly approach both in her personal and her professional life, coaxing by persuasion rather than by confrontation, and it had worked. Well, it had worked in her professional life at any rate.
‘Liv, Phil was a jerk, and you divorced him,’ Deborah had said. ‘Get over it, move on.’ And she would. Eventually. But six months wasn’t nearly long enough to forget that the man who had promised to love and cherish her had been bedding his secretary on a depressingly regular basis throughout their short married life.
‘Are you all right?’
Babs was gazing at her curiously, and Olivia forced a smile.
‘I’m fine. It’s just…Is the department always this chaotic?’
The sister chuckled. ‘You should see us on a Saturday night. I don’t know how we’d manage without Seth and Jerry.’
Jerry Swanson. The department’s specialist registrar. Thirty-two and married to one of the nurses in Women’s Surgical, according to his file. She could handle him, but Seth Hardcastle…
The trouble was he looked even more impressive up close than he’d done in the waiting room. He shouldn’t have done. His blue eyes were bloodshot, his chin was dark with stubble and his black hair was falling carelessly over his forehead. He looked as though he hadn’t slept for days. He also looked as sexy as hell, and it wasn’t a reassuring combination.
‘I know Seth can be a bit abrasive,’ the sister continued, clearly misinterpreting her silence, ‘but he’s one of the best consultants I’ve ever worked with.’
And if I don’t toughen up, he’s going to walk right over me, Olivia thought as she heard Seth snap at something Tony Melville had said.
‘Oh, hallelujah,’ Babs exclaimed with relief. ‘Here come the crispy squad.’
The crispy squad. The irreverent name most A and E units gave to the burns unit. The crispy squad would take care of the little boy, Neurology was attending to the chest and head case, and Seth and Jerry could look after Mrs Lennox and the man with the open leg wound. She wasn’t needed any more. She could simply slip away, and she fully intended doing just that when she suddenly heard Seth say her name.
‘I’m afraid Seth’s on his high horse about our new clinical director,’ Babs said ruefully as a slight crease furrowed Olivia’s forehead. ‘He’s not very happy at her appointment.’
Not very happy was the understatement of the year, Olivia thought as she heard Jerry declare, ‘Look, all I said was I can’t see Admin appointing somebody with no A and E experience,’ and Seth flashing back, ‘Well, if she’s not a pen-pusher, I bet her so-called experience consists of performing unnecessary cosmetic operations on women with more money than sense.’
A spurt of anger flared inside Olivia as she stared at the consultant’s irate face, a spurt she hadn’t felt since she’d found out about Phil’s extra-marital affair. Just who the hell did Seth Hardcastle think he was? Well, she might not be able to tell him who he was, but she sure as shooting could tell him what he was.
She strode across the examination room, her brown eyes flashing, and arrived in time to hear Seth declare, ‘Just don’t come complaining to me when you discover she’s as much use as a plastic bag in a thunderstorm. This woman—’
‘This woman feels she ought to introduce herself before you say anything else,’ Olivia interrupted, her voice ice-cold. ‘I’m Olivia Mackenzie, your new pen-pushing clinical director.’
Jerry let out an anguished groan, but Seth didn’t look one bit discomfited. Instead, he met her gaze squarely.
‘I suppose you’re expecting an apology?’
‘Well, your manners could certainly do with some work—’
‘We don’t have time for manners in A and E, Dr Mackenzie, not when our patients are often bleeding like stuck pigs.’
‘No, but you seem to have plenty of time to bad-mouth a colleague behind her back,’ she snapped. ‘For your information, I worked for ten years in the A and E department of the Edinburgh General, and even if I hadn’t I would have expected you to extend me the courtesy of at least meeting me before you tore my character to shreds!’
A wash of bright colour flooded across Seth’s cheeks, and Olivia only just restrained herself from punching the air in triumph. She’d taken the wind right out of his sails, and it hadn’t been hard. In fact, it had been easy. She could be the in-your-face type after all, and it felt wonderful.
‘I…um…Our shift finishes in half an hour, Dr Mackenzie,’ Jerry Swanson said, far too brightly. ‘Would you like to stick around, join us for coffee in the staffroom?’
Seth didn’t second the suggestion. From his rigid expression she reckoned he was probably too busy wishing her dead.
‘I’m afraid I can’t,’ she said, summoning up her most gracious smile for the specialist registrar. ‘I told George I wouldn’t be long, and he must be wondering where I am.’
And with a nod to Babs and Tony Melville, she turned on her heel and walked out of the examination room, knowing Seth’s eyes were following her the whole way.
‘Arrogant, rude, obnoxious man,’ she muttered to herself as she drove home. ‘Somebody should have chopped him down to size years ago, and I don’t take back a word of what I said. I don’t.’
George clearly agreed with her when she told him all about it. At least, he followed her into the kitchen, keeping his eyes fixed firmly on her, which sort of suggested he agreed.
‘It’s not a bad department, George,’ she told him as she slid a chill-cook curry into the microwave. ‘Their treat and street times are far too long, and the waiting room is a disgrace, but at least they all seem to know what they’re doing. Even Seth Hardcastle.’
