Bride at Bay Hospital

by Meredith Webber

  But as he examined the boy’s injuries—Meg was right, intubation could have moved the broken bone and caused more problems—he began to consider whether he could pay the oral surgeon. But if he started doing things like that, where did he stop?

  Wouldn’t there always be someone who needed treatment that cost money?

  ‘I’m Sarah Jensen, Riley’s mum.’

  The anxious woman came bursting through the curtain, her face so stressed Sam forgot his doubts. He explained the injury briefly, showed Sarah the X-rays then left her with the nurse and her son and slipped away, following Meg’s path to the admission desk, speaking quietly to the woman there, asking her to phone the oral surgeon.

  ‘Meg’s already phoned him—he’ll look after the boy,’ the woman said.

  ‘So you found some money to pay him?’ Sam asked, delighted at this outcome, not because he didn’t want to pay the bills but because it solved his dilemma of when to give and when to hold back. Although that was something he’d have to consider.

  Maybe another special fund, set up like the one from the service clubs…

  It was at this stage in his considerations that he realised the woman behind the desk was still talking, explaining something about Meg and money, but what he had no idea.

  ‘The surgeon can operate tonight—as soon as the theatre’s free.’ Meg whisked back into the department just as a youngish man came in through the emergency entrance, and the wail of an ambulance siren as it came through the traffic lights on the hill told them their new patient was almost here.

  A nurse Sam hadn’t met came through from the hospital, introducing herself as Annabel Cromer, explaining she was a midwife and introducing the obstetrician, Matt Carter.

  Sam waited until the new patient, with Annabel and Matt in attendance, had been wheeled into the trauma room, then returned to Riley’s cubicle, where Meg was explaining to Sarah about service club money available for emergency treatment like Riley’s.

  ‘Did you lie to that woman about the money?’ Sam demanded a little later, catching up with Meg as she supervised the tidying up of the ED. Riley had been mildly sedated and was awaiting his operation in a room close to Theatre, and the pregnant woman had been admitted, although drugs had, temporarily at least, stopped her premature labour.

  ‘No, there is money to pay for it,’ Meg told him, though something in her voice made him suspect she was the person providing the money.

  ‘Can you afford to do that kind of thing?’

  Innocent green eyes looked into his.

  ‘What kind of thing?’

  ‘Paying for that boy’s op,’ Sam said. ‘It’s stupid because you set a precedent and there’s no way you can always be coughing up for every poor person who comes into the hospital.’

  ‘It came from the fund,’ Meg told him, but the fiery colour in her cheeks gave her away. She must have known, too, for she gave him a defiant toss of her head and added, ‘Well, it will. Other people can put money in the fund—it doesn’t just have to be service clubs. Sometimes some of the big developers here put in money. Anyone can!’

  ‘Even you?’

  She shot him a fierce glare.

  ‘If I wanted to!’ Then she weakened. ‘Anyway, I’m going to phone some of the developers and the service clubs now. Someone’s sure to be willing to kick in some cash for Barry Jensen’s boy. It’s just that they didn’t know we’d run out.’

  She strode away, then must have remembered what she’d been doing and had to come back, reminding the nurse to restock both the cubicle supply trolley and the trauma room supplies.

  Sam was still standing there and she hesitated, studying him, before saying, ‘There’s just one other thing.’

  ‘Let me guess,’ he said. ‘The poor staff have been on duty for hours and hours, standing on their feet in Theatre, and you just wondered if perhaps I’ve had enough theatre experience to assist in Riley’s op tonight.’

  His smile was so smug she wanted to slap it off his face, but her temper was back under control.

  And having a fresh doctor assisting would be the optimum for Riley.

  ‘You don’t have to do it. Kristianne wants to specialise in surgery when she goes back to South Africa so she’s always willing to do an extra shift, but she will have been in Theatre for seven hours and that’s a long stint. The anaesthetist side of things will be OK. All the doctors have some training in it, and whoever’s due on night duty will do it.’

  ‘But you’ll be there?’

  Meg nodded. ‘I know the Jensens. After he retired, Dad used to go out on Barry Jensen’s boat. It seems only right I should be there.’ She threw him a defiant look, then added, ‘Besides, I like theatre work and don’t get many opportunities to do it.’

  His silence made her wary, and she studied his face but could read nothing in it, then he smiled and touched her lightly on the shoulder.

  ‘You were always too soft-hearted for your own good, Megan Anstey,’ he said, then his smile widened. ‘And more often than not, you dragged me into your rescue schemes.’

  His hand slid up beneath her hair and cupped the back of her skull and for a moment Meg thought he was going to kiss her, right here in the bright light of the ED.

  But all he did was squeeze her neck then release her.

  ‘My surgery skills might be a little rusty, but I can certainly work under direction from an expert so you’ve got yourself an assistant. Shall we duck down to the canteen and have a bite to eat while we’re waiting?’

  Meg was still getting over her reaction to his touch. Though a squeeze on the back of the neck could hardly be called intimate, it had certainly seemed that way, and had left a patch of heat on the skin where his fingers had been.

  Having dinner with him seemed a very bad idea.

  ‘I’d better go and work the phones so we’ve got some money to pay the man,’ she said, but before she could escape, Sam caught her wrist.

  ‘Every telemarketer in the world will tell you people hate being called at this time of the day. They’re enjoying their after-work drink or preparing dinner. The man won’t want paying tonight, so working the phones tomorrow makes a lot more sense.’

  ‘I might not get time tomorrow.’ Meg cringed as she heard the words issue from her lips. Not only was it a pathetic excuse, but they’d come out in a desperate squeak.

  And Sam’s smile told her he knew them for what they were.

  ‘Come on. It’s your duty really, because, although Bill showed me the canteen on my guided tour of the place, I doubt I can find it again—and even if I do, how will I know what’s best to eat?’

  Caving under the pressure of Sam’s words and common sense, Meg led the way to the canteen. She was so confused in Sam’s presence it was a wonder she was still functioning normally.

  That’s if slopping coffee everywhere could be called normal.

  While her heart seizing up when she’d seen him in his suit in the meeting couldn’t even come close to normal.

  Seeing the suit, the pristine white shirt, and a blue-green tie that picked up the colour of his eyes, she’d been mesmerised by Sam as he’d stood in front of her at the meeting—a stranger she knew but didn’t know.

  Though the Sam she had known had been just as good at camouflage—hiding his emotions not behind a suit but behind a couldn’t-care-less attitude that had kept even his friends at bay.

  Hiding them from everyone but her…

  Because she hadn’t been a local? Because she had only been there for holidays?

  ‘Likely to be someone prepared to give the money?’

  She turned to Sam, aware she’d missed most of whatever he’d been saying, suddenly relieved he’d left off the suit jacket so was back in slacks and his white shirt, as he’d been before the meeting—the tie gone again.

  ‘Are you listening to me?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘I keep thinking of how you looked in the suit. Somehow, you in a suit just doesn’t jell in my head.�
��

  He grinned at her.

  ‘I’m having the same kind of trouble with some of my mental images of you,’ he said, the teasing glint in his eyes suggestive enough to make Meg blush all over.

  She barged through the doors into the canteen, thankful they’d reached their destination, then the thankfulness dissipated as she realised she now had to eat with him.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  EATING dinner with Sam had been difficult—although talking to someone about hospital routine while battling physical reactions to the same someone probably needed a stronger word than difficult. But worse was to come, Meg realised as she slipped into a scrub suit and pulled paper slippers over her shoes.

  Operating theatres had an intimacy all of their own. Was it the soft background music, or the desultory chat, or the fact the only part of the others you could see were their eyes, protected by clear glasses but still sending all the messages only eyes could send?

  And it proved just as bad as Meg had suspected it would. Because this particular surgeon liked his theatre nurse to pass instruments across the patient, Meg was standing close to Sam. Close enough to feel the heat of his body. Kissing close when she turned towards him to pass him something or ask for direction.

  Their gloved hands touched time and time again, and although Meg also felt the touch of the surgeon’s fingers as well, those gloves sent no messages along her nerves—caused no distraction.

  ‘We insert a titanium plate in here to hold the bone together, ’ the surgeon was explaining, while Meg held the tiny screws that would hold the plate in place. ‘Although it would mend with the teeth wired to close the gap, it would remain weak at this point, hence the plate.’

  He inserted the plate into Riley’s gums then indicated to Sam to screw it into the bone. Meg handed him one screw and the small electric tool he’d need to screw it home, then passed him the second screw, wincing at the noise of the tool.

  ‘Great job,’ the surgeon said, then prepared to wire the teeth together, finally wiring the lower jaw to the upper one, leaving enough room for Riley to sip liquids—the only nourishment he’d get for the next month.

  ‘He’s Barry Jensen’s boy?’ the surgeon asked, as Sam snipped the last piece of wire.

  ‘Yes,’ Meg replied, wondering how an oral surgeon would know the fisherman.

  ‘Is he here at the hospital?’ the man persisted.

  ‘He should be by the time we come out,’ Meg told him. ‘Sarah called him on the boat and he was coming straight back to dock.’

  ‘Missing his night fishing,’ the surgeon said. ‘Anyway, I’ll have a talk to him. Man brings in the best prawns of the whole fleet. Soaks them then cooks them in some way that they’re free of grit. I reckon a couple of kilos of prawns every now and then will more than pay my fee.’

  Meg was so relieved she could have flung her arms around him and given him a big hug, but it was hardly the time, and she barely knew the man. Instead, she smiled at Sam, and the reflected delight in his blue-green eyes sent ripples of excitement down her spine.

  ‘Good result all round,’ he said a little later, when, back in their ordinary clothes, they met in post op where a sleepy Riley was realising just how hard it was to talk with his mouth wired shut.

  ‘He talks too much anyway,’ Barry said gruffly. ‘Be nice to have a bit of peace and quiet around the place.’

  But the fingers he rested against his son’s cheek were gentle, and the way he held tightly to Sarah’s hand betrayed his dismay at seeing his injured lad.

  Meg swallowed hard. What was it with this emotional stuff that kept swamping her? Surely it couldn’t all be laid at the door of Sam’s return to the Bay!

  ‘Time you went home,’ he said, guiding her out of the room with his hand in the small of her back.

  He’d been talking to the doctor who had done the anaesthetic, and who would stay with Riley until he was transferred to a ward.

  ‘Everything’s fine here.’

  Meg let him guide her, relishing the warmth of his hand, although she knew she shouldn’t. There was still something bothering her—something she couldn’t pin down—but all the early warning systems in her body were on full alert, reminding her not to get too close to Sam.

  ‘Walk on the beach?’

  They were walking together to the car park and it had seemed such a natural thing for Sam to ask—a long day followed by a relaxing stroll on the beach—he was surprised when Meg jumped as if she’d been shot and spun to face him.

  ‘With you?’

  ‘Why not?’

  She frowned at him.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, sounding as crabby as she used to sound thirteen years ago when she’d been out of sorts over something.

  Then she added, ‘If we do, I don’t want you kissing me.’

  Sam hid a smile and held up his hands in surrender.

  ‘I only suggested a walk.’

  ‘I know, but I don’t trust you.’

  ‘Or don’t trust yourself?’

  The scowl she shot at him told him she was still crabby, but she was honest enough to add, ‘That, too!’

  He opened the door of her beat-up old car for her, then drove home behind her, hoping she’d decided on a walk, wondering if she’d really mind a kiss.

  Or two…

  But when she’d parked her car in the little carport beside the house, she walked across to where he was getting out of his.

  ‘I think I’ll give the walk a miss tonight, Sam,’ she said quietly. ‘I got a bit of sleep last night, but not enough. Some other time, perhaps?’

  Sam opened his mouth to argue then closed it again. She probably was tired, but beyond that there’d been something else in her voice. Some nuance that told him Meg was distancing herself from him.

  Protecting herself?

  If she was feeling half the physical symptoms he was whenever they were together, then he could understand she might be wary.

  But might she not want to see where they would lead?

  He certainly did…

  Inevitably the next day was Wednesday, and although knowing they always followed Tuesdays, Sam was disconcerted by the confirmation of this when he saw Sally’s neatly typed schedule on his desk.

  Every morning she did that—typing up a list of his appointments and explaining where he should be when, and until today—for a whole two days—he’d been grateful. But today seemed to be entirely taken up with meetings, the first one with the director of nursing.

  The same director of nursing who’d closed herself off from him the previous evening, refusing even a guaranteed kiss-free walk on the beach.

  But would it have been kiss-free?

  The part of him that registered his physical reactions every time he saw her—even in the distance—doubted it.

  He shut his mind to the distracting thoughts, though he was aware as he did so that the detachment on which he’d always prided himself didn’t seem to be working too well. Refusing to give the matter any more time, he tried to concentrate solely on work. His first meeting of the morning with the DON was so, Sally had written, they could review patient numbers for the week, discuss staff issues, equipment concerns and general ‘running of the hospital’ business.

  And according to the timetable Bill would then join the pair of them for a working lunch so their needs could be put to him and budgetary matters thrashed out.

  Meg came in looking as if she hadn’t slept for a month, although the pale blue of the hospital uniforms did little for her anyway.

  Mentally, he stripped the uniform away, seeing her in the tiny thong and an itty-bitty bra like one of those in the drawer full of undies he still had in his wardrobe.

  His body stirred.

  When did keeping someone’s undies go from a kind of accident to a fetish?

  He had to get rid of them!

  He had to think work—look at her face!

  The dark circles under Meg’s eyes moved him to pity, a reaction that annoy
ed him too much to give in to it.

  ‘Maybe you should have walked—you might have slept better,’ he said, although he knew this was totally unprofessional behaviour.

  ‘Telling me I look shocking? Thanks, Sam. My ego needed a boost.’

  He considered blustering into some kind of apology but one look at her face, white and tight, warned him to back off.

  ‘Bad night?’

  She sighed and sank down into the chair.

  ‘You could say that,’ she said, with a smile so pathetic it caused a little hitch in his heart. ‘Debbie Waring—the pregnant woman who came in last night? She gave birth at three this morning. Tiny, premmie twins. When Matt realised she had gone back into labour he phoned the special neonate team and they were here by three-thirty, and had the babies stabilised in humidicribs by four. They flew out shortly afterwards, babies and mum, but they were so tiny, Sam—there’s a lot of doubt…’

  She brushed a hand across her forehead as if to clear away her emotions, and though Sam longed to speak—knew he should—his own emotional reaction prevented it. A reaction caused not by this news about the babies of a woman he didn’t know, but by the echo of the news he’d learned yesterday—that Meg had had a baby and that baby had died.

  ‘We can put off this meeting,’ he said, when he finally got his head into order and decided concentrating on work was the best thing to do.

  ‘No way! If I go back to my office I’ll fall asleep at my desk then wake up stiff and sore and probably find I’ve drooled on my notes.’

  Sam felt a frown forming on his forehead and willed it away, not wanting Meg to think he was frowning at her. But it was at her—or rather at her ability to tamp down her emotions. He’d always been the one who could do that. Meg—well, the Meg he’d known—was more likely to let them all flow out, excitement, despair, whatever. He’d always known what Meg was feeling about something…

  ‘OK,’ he said. If she could switch so quickly from personal to professional, so could he. ‘Let’s meet! From the little experience I have of it, the hospital appears particularly well run. As I’m only here in an acting capacity, I’ve no intention changing anything, so it seems to me these meetings will mainly be about issues you want to raise.’