by Fiona Lowe
It had taken Tom weeks to convince Jared to return to school and he wasn’t going to let him miss the test, even though it meant he was going to have to ask for assistance from The Harbour. He swallowed against the acrid taste in his mouth that burned him every time he had to ask for anything. ‘You can’t miss a chem test if you want to get into medicine.’
‘Yeah, but what if someone sets up your computer all wrong?’
Tom gave a grim smile. ‘They wouldn’t dare.’
‘Push fluids!’ Evie Lockheart tried not to let the eviscerating scream of the monitors undo her nerve. She had a patient with a flail chest and she knew without the shadow of a doubt that he was bleeding, but from where exactly she was yet to determine.
‘See this bruise?’ She hovered the ultrasound doppler over her patient’s rigid abdomen.
James, a final-year medical student, peered at it. ‘From a seat belt?’
‘Yes. So we’re starting here and examining the spleen and the liver first.’
‘Even though he’s got a haemothorax?’
‘With his pressure barely holding, we’re looking for a big bleed.’
Everyone stared at the grainy black-and-white images on the small screen. ‘There it is.’ Evie froze the frame. She pointed to a massive blood clot. ‘Ruptured liver, and they bleed like a stuck pig. He needs to go to—’
‘Why the hell isn’t this patient upstairs yet?’
Evie’s team jumped as Finn Kennedy, SHH’s head of surgery, strode into the resus room, blue eyes blazing and his face characteristically taut under the stubble of a two-day growth. His glare scorched everyone.
‘Catheterise our patient,’ Evie instructed the now trembling James, before flicking her gaze to Finn. He looked more drawn than usual but his gaze held a look of combat.
In the past she might have thought to try and placate him, but not now. Not after the night he’d obviously spent with Suzy Carpenter, the nurse from the OR who had the reputation of sleeping with any male who had MD after his name. That Finn had slept with that woman only a few hours after what they’d both shared in the locker room left her in no doubt that she, Evie, meant nothing to Finn.
She lifted her chin. ‘If you want him to bleed out in the lift on the way to Theatre, by all means take him now.’
‘It looks like he’s doing that here.’
‘He’s more stable than he was ten minutes ago when his pressure was sixty over nothing.’
‘Better to have him on the table stopping the bleeding than down here pouring fluids into a leaky bucket.’
‘Five minutes, Finn.’ She ground out the words against a jaw so tight it felt like it would snap.
His eyes flashed brilliant blue with shards of silver steel. ‘Two, Evie.’
‘Catheter inserted, Ms Lockheart.’
‘Excellent.’
‘Packed cells.’ A panting junior nurse rushed in, holding the lifesaving red bags aloft.
‘Check O positive.’
‘Check O positive.’ The nurse stabbed the trocar through the seal and adjusted the flow.
‘Ninety on sixty. Good job, people. James, get the lift,’ Evie instructed, before turning to Finn. ‘He’s all yours.’
‘About damn time.’ Finn kicked off the brakes of the trolley and started pushing it despite the fact that the nurse was putting up a bag of saline. ‘Move it, people!’
A minute later Evie stood in the middle of the resus room with only the detritus of the emergency as company. She could hear Finn barking instructions and knew the nurses and the hapless med student would be shaking in their shoes. The staff feared Finn Kennedy. She had been the one SHH staff member to see a different side of him—the one where she’d glimpsed empathy and tenderness—yet it had been shadowed by overwhelming and gut-wrenching pain.
She swallowed hard as she remembered back to their moment of tenderness in the locker room two weeks ago after one of the worst days of her career. How he’d leaned back into her, how she’d rested her head against his shoulder blade and they’d just stood, cradled together as one with understanding flowing between them. Understanding that life can be cruel. Understanding that some days fear threatened to tear you down. Understanding each other.
Hope had flared inside her, along with flickering need.
And then he’d slept with Suzy.
Don’t go there. She bent down and picked up the discarded sterile bag that had held the intravenous tubing and absently dropped it into the bin. It wasn’t her job to clean up but she needed to keep moving and keep busy because thinking about Finn made her heart ache and she hated that. She wouldn’t allow it. Couldn’t allow it. Letting herself care for Finn Kennedy would be an act of supreme stupidity and if growing up as a Lockheart had taught her anything, it was that being self-contained was a vital part of her life.
‘Move the damn retractor,’ Finn yelled. ‘It’s supposed to be helping me see what I’m doing, not blocking me.’
‘Sorry.’ James hastily moved the retractor.
Finn wasn’t in the mood for dealing with students today. Two minutes ago he’d made an emergency mid-line incision and blood had poured out of the patient’s abdomen, making a lake on the floor. As he concentrated on finding the source of the bleeding, pain burned through his shoulder and down his arm, just as it had done last night and most every other night. It kept him awake and daylight hadn’t soothed it any. Even his favourite highland malt whisky hadn’t touched it.
‘Pressure’s barely holding, Finn.’ The voice of David, the anaesthetist, sounded from behind the sterile screen. ‘Evie did a great job getting him stable for you.’
‘Humph.’ Finn packed more gauze around the liver. He sure as hell hadn’t been in the mood to see Evie. The sharp tilt of her chin, the condemning swing of her honey-brown hair, which matched the reproving glance from those warm hazel eyes, had rammed home how much he’d hurt her the night he’d slept with that nurse from OR.
He’d had no choice.
You always have a choice. You chose to hurt her to protect yourself.
The truth bit into him with a guilt chaser. Giving in and letting his body sink into Evie’s and feeling her body cradling his had been one of those things that just happened between two people in the right place at the right time, but the rush of feeling it had released had been wrong on so many levels. Letting people get close had no value. It just paved the way to heartache and despair, so he’d done what he’d needed to do. But a kernel of guilt burrowed in like a prickly burr, and it remained, making him feel uncomfortable, not just for Evie but for the nurse, whose name he couldn’t remember.
Finn grunted his thanks as the surgical registrar kept the suction up while he zapped another bleeder. The blood loss appeared to be easing, and with the patient’s pressure holding he was confident he was winning the battle. ‘You’re new. Who are you?’
Tired eyes—ones that could match his for fatigue and lack of sleep—blinked at him for a moment from above the surgical mask. ‘Hayley Grey. I’ve been at The Harbour a few weeks, but mostly on nights.’
More blood pooled. His chest tightened. God, this liver was a mess. ‘I don’t need your life story.’
She spoke quietly but firmly. ‘I’m not giving it. This is my final rotation. By the end of the year I should be qualified.’
‘You hope. The exam’s a bastard.’ The packs around the liver were soaked again. ‘More packs.’ He removed the old ones and blood spurted up like a geyser. Monitors screamed with deafening intent.
‘Hell, Finn, what did you do?’ David’s strained voice bounced off the theatre walls. ‘More blood. Now.’
‘It’s under control.’ But it wasn’t. Blood loss like this only meant one thing—a torn hepatic vein. Damn it, the packs had masked it and he’d been dealing with minor bleeders as a result. He pushed the liver aside and gripped the vein between his thumb and forefinger. ‘David, I’m holding the right hepatic vein shut until you’ve got some more blood into him.’ He raised his g
aze to his pale registrar. ‘Ever seen a rapid trauma partial liver resection?’
She shook her head. ‘Will you use a laser?’
‘No time.’ With his left hand he pointed to a tear in the liver. ‘I learned this in the army. We start here and do a finger resection. I can have that liver into two pieces in thirty seconds.’ He was gripping the vein so hard that his thumb and index finger started to go numb. ‘Ready, David?’
‘One more unit.’
‘Make it quick.’ He pressed his fingers even harder, although he couldn’t feel much. ‘I’ll need a clamp and 4-0 prolene.’
‘Ready.’ The scrub nurse opened the thread.
‘Be fast, Finn.’ There was no masking of the worry in the anaesthetist’s voice.
‘I intend to be. Keep that sucker ready, Ms Grey.’
He released his grip and slid his fingers through the liver. The expected tingling of his own blood rushing into his numb fingers didn’t come. They continued to feel thick and heavy. ‘Clamp!’
He grabbed it with his left hand and saw surprise raise the scrub nurse’s brows.
‘Hurry up, Finn,’ David urged. ‘Much longer and there’ll be more blood in the suction bottle than in the patient.’
Blood spewed, the scream of monitors deafened and sweat poured into his eyes. You’re losing him. ‘Just do your job, David, and I’ll do mine.’ He snarled out the words as he managed to apply the clamp.
He flexed his fingers on his right hand, willing the sensation to return to his thumb and index finger. He could do some things with his left hand but he couldn’t sew. He accepted the threaded needle from the scrub nurse and could see the thread resting against the pad of his thumb. He couldn’t feel it. With leaden fingers he started to oversew the vein but the thread fell from his numb fingers. He cursed and tried to pick it up but the lack of sensation had him misjudging it. He dropped it again.
Another set of fingers entered the field, firmly pushing the sucker against his left palm and deftly picking up the thread. With a few quick and dexterous flicks, the registrar completed the oversewing before taking back the suction.
Finn’s throat tightened and he swallowed down the roar of frustrated fury that she’d taken over. That she’d needed to take over. He barked out, ‘Remove the clamp.’
Hayley removed the clamp. All eyes stared down.
The field mercifully stayed clear of blood.
‘Lucky save, Finn,’ said David from behind the screen.
Except David hadn’t seen who’d stopped the bleeding.
Brown eyes slowly met Finn’s but there was no sign of triumph in the registrar’s gaze, or even a need for recognition that she’d been the one to save the patient. Instead, there was only a question. One very similar to the query he’d seen on Luke’s face. And on Evie’s.
Don’t go there. He stared at Hayley. ‘And next, Ms Grey?’
‘We complete the resection of the right side of the liver?’
‘And you’ve done that before?’
‘I have, yes, during elective surgery.’
The pain in his arm grew spikes and the numbness in his finger and thumb remained. Any hope that it would fade in the next few minutes had long passed. ‘Good. You’re going to do it again.’ He stepped back from the table and stripped off his gloves then spoke to remind her of hospital protocol.
‘Oh, and, Ms Grey, as surgical registrar you must attend the series of lectures that start today. They count toward your professional hours. Your log book needs to be verified and notify my secretary of the conferences you wish to attend so they can be balanced off with the other registrars’ requirements.’
He didn’t wait for a reply. As chief of surgery it was his prerogative to leave closing up to the minions. The fact that today he’d needed to scared him witless.
Hayley accepted the tallest and strongest coffee the smiling barista said she could make and hoped the caffeine would kick in fast. The plan for the day had been to sleep and arrive just in time for the six o’clock lecture, but the moment her head had hit the pillow she’d been called in to work again due to a colleague’s illness. This time she’d found herself scrubbed in with the chief of surgery. Finn Kennedy was every thing everyone said—tall, brusque and brilliant. The way he’d finger-dissected their patient’s liver to save his life had been breathtaking. But his gruff manner and barked commands made it impossible to relax around him. Cognisant of the fact that he was her direct boss, she’d been determined to make a good impression. Ironically, she’d effectively killed that idea by acting on pure instinct and taking over in mid-surgery when he hadn’t been able to make the closure. She’d fully expected Mr Kennedy to order her out of his theatre, but instead he’d been the one to leave. She wondered if she’d be reprimanded later.
Probably. She sighed, not wanting to think about it, so she set it aside like she did a lot of things—a survival habit she’d adopted at eleven. She’d deal with it if it ever happened. Right now, she needed to deal with no sleep in twenty-four hours and staying awake through an hour-long lecture. Some of the lecturers were so dry and boring that even when she wasn’t exhausted she had trouble staying awake. She’d been so busy operating she hadn’t even caught up with the topic, but she hoped it was riveting because otherwise she’d be snoring within five minutes.
Gripping her traveller coffee mug, she walked toward the lecture theatre and stifled a slightly hysterical laugh.
She’d always known that training to become a surgeon would be a tough gig and she wasn’t afraid of hard work, but it had become apparent that operating was the easy part of the training. It was all the lectures, tutorials, seminars and conferences that came on top of her regular workload that made it unbelievably challenging. Even with all the extra work and the fact she had no desire for a social life, she could have just managed to cope, but lately her chronic insomnia, which she’d previously be able to manage, was starting to get on top of her. Had she been able to get more than three hours’ sleep in twenty-four she could function, but that wasn’t possible now she had to work more days than nights. She preferred night work, but as she was in her final year, she needed more elective surgery experience, which meant working more days.
She paused outside the lecture theatre, wondering why the foyer was so quiet, and then she glanced at her watch. She was early. No matter, she’d take the opportunity to hide up at the back of the lecture hall and take a quick ten-minute power-nap. She’d doze while she waited for the coffee to kick in. Her colleagues always used the dark on-call room but for her the brighter the light, the better she slept. She gripped the heavy door’s handle and pulled.
Tom heard the click of the door opening and immediately breathed in the heart-starting aroma of strong, black coffee. A buzz of irritation zipped through him. Had the IT guy stopped for coffee, even though he’d already kept him waiting for fifteen minutes? Tom had deliberately booked him half an hour earlier than his lecture start time to avoid any stress on the run-up to the Jared-less evening lecture, but right now he could feel his control of the situation slipping due to his unwanted dependence on others. He tried to clamp down on the surge of frustration that filled him, but it broke through his lips.
‘It’s about damn time. I’ve attempted to connect the computer myself, but there’s no sound.’ The person didn’t reply and Tom turned, seeking out the shadowy outline. As he did, he caught the hint of an undertone of a floral scent. A very feminine scent. He let out a low groan. ‘You’re not the IT guy, are you?’
‘Should I be?’
‘I would have preferred it.’
‘Sorry to disappoint you.’
Her seductively husky voice, edged with a touch of sarcasm, swirled around him, leaving him in no doubt he was speaking to Hayley Grey. An image of soft, creamy breasts exploded in his head and he tried to shake it away. ‘That’s hellishly strong coffee you’re drinking.’
‘It’s been a hellish kind of a day.’ She sighed as if standing in the lecture hall was
the last place on earth she wanted to be.
He knew exactly how that felt.
‘Do you need a hand, Mr Jordan?’
I need eyes. He forced his clenched fingers to relax and ran them over his braille watch, realising that the IT technician was now twenty minutes late. Need won out over pride. ‘Do you know anything about computers?’
A lilting laugh washed over him. ‘I can turn one on and off.’
‘I suppose I’ll have to work with that, then.’ God, he hated incompetence and right now he was ready to lynch the absent IT professional. It was bad enough having to ask for help let alone be supported by someone who didn’t have the skills he needed. ‘Can you follow instructions?’
He heard her sharp intake of breath at his terse question. ‘I can follow civil instructions, yes.’
He found himself unexpectedly smiling. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had spoken back to him and just recently most people—with the exception of Jared—tiptoed around him, making him want to scream. ‘Good. We’re in business, then. Follow me.’
He used his cane to tap his way to the lectern because when he was stressed he didn’t do echolocation at all well, and falling flat on his face in front of Hayley Grey or anyone else from The Harbour wasn’t going to happen. ‘I can see light on the screen so I assume the picture is showing?’
‘Your screensaver is. Nice picture.’ Genuine interest infused her voice. ‘Is that the Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia?’
He had no clue which one of his pictures Jared was currently using and he really didn’t care. ‘Probably.’ He ran his hands around his computer until his fingers located the cord he knew he’d plugged into the sound jack. ‘Is this green?’
‘Yes.’
‘Look on the lectern. Have I plugged it into a matching green jack?’
He felt strands of her hair brush his cheek as she leaned past him and this time he caught the scent of coconut and lime. It took him instantly to a beach in the tropics and for some crazy reason he thought of a bright red bikini and a deep cleavage. He felt a tightening against his pants.
