Emergency in Maternity

by Fiona McArthur

  Early on he hadn’t seemed so self-centred and perhaps she’d encouraged him to expect her to look after him. Iris’s comment that Brett needed someone to lean on him to bring out his best could be very true. She’d thought that together they could have made a good life, although to be honest she’d seen herself as the stronger of the two. To achieve a love affair like her parents’ might have been stretching the fantasy, but her dream of a caring husband and a home and family had seemed within her grasp.

  And Cate had always admired Iris. Over the course of her twelve-month engagement with Brett, she’d stifled the doubts that had crept in occasionally because of that. She wasn’t proud of almost marrying a man she hadn’t loved. She should really thank her brother Ben for making it impossible for her to follow Brett to Sydney like he’d wanted. With the choice between leaving her parents to manage on their own and her loyalties to Brett, who had wanted Cate to himself, Brett had come a poor second.

  But now her future alone seemed to stretch ahead of her. It would be better once Brett was here and she could stop worrying that he might expect to take up where he’d left off—or that she might be tempted…

  Speaking of temptation, there had been that feeling of Noah Masters’s hands not so long ago, resting gentle but strong on her shoulders. Cate shrugged her shoulders and stormed to her office. Of course the phone was ringing and Cate reminded herself that there was no time for temptation when there was work to be done.

  She reached across the desk to lift the phone to her ear just as a shadow darkened her doorway. Noah Masters blew into the room like a hail-filled cloud and seemed to shrink her office to half its size.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE pertly rounded rear and long, long legs of Cate Forrest as she leant across a desk was a sight to gladden any hot-blooded male’s day. Noah just wasn’t used to it happening to him. He’d barely noticed any woman’s femininity for the last two years and here he was stifling a wolf-whistle like some callow youth. He must be going potty with the rain.

  He dragged his eyes away and took a turn around the room to divert his libido from more of those fantasies of tall, leggy women he’d resurrected since yesterday. He glared out of the window and stoked up the embers of annoyance that had sent him to search her out. The wretched rain still teemed down and the idea of a flood was becoming more believable every day. A brief scenario entered his head of Cate and himself marooned together on an island for a couple of days with nothing to do…

  Cate concentrated on the phone call and tried to pretend her heart rate hadn’t accelerated at Noah’s presence. She had to admit he had a presence—but it was just the unexpectedness of his entrance that had startled her. She spoke into the phone and her voice was even. ‘Sister Forrest. Nursing Supervisor.’ She straightened to perch on the edge of the desk and the phone cord pulled tight as she turned her body to watch Noah prowl around the office impatiently.

  Annoyed with how much he distracted her, she tried not to tense as she ignored him to listen to Stella Moore. The emergency sister had called to warn she might be late for work.

  Cate’s attention returned to the phone call. ‘Take care. We’ll manage until you both get here. I think it’s a great idea to come in together. But if it looks too dangerous, don’t even attempt it, Stella. Let me know as soon as you both arrive. We’ll probably have to catch up on some shifts if the casuals have to cover for too long so I appreciate you coming. Thanks for the warning and make sure your husband looks after that new carpet. Bye.’

  Well, that saved her having to find another experienced emergency sister to work the night shift. Stella had arranged to share a lift with the night resident doctor in his heavy-duty four-wheel-drive vehicle.

  She put the phone down gently and glanced up at Noah, who was glaring out of the window again at the weather. ‘Yes, Dr Masters?’ Cate searched in her memory for something recent she might have done to annoy him, but couldn’t come up with anything.

  His eyes were more like frozen chocolate this time and his usually beautiful lips were a straight line. ‘Sister Forrest, would it be too much to assume that you could have kept at least one free room in the staff quarters for me to sleep in during this crisis? I’ve just been to the nurse manager for a key and Miss Glover tells me all rooms are taken.’

  Cate’s brow wrinkled. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve given them to the nursing staff who live out of town and are willing to stay and be available for at least one shift or more a day.’

  He glared down at her. She still wasn’t used to looking up at men and he was almost intimidating when he was annoyed. Almost. But she didn’t like even a fraction of that feeling. Cate walked around her desk and sat down where she felt more in control. For some reason she liked the desk between them. ‘Take a seat.’

  He was still glaring at her. ‘So I’m to sleep in my office? Is that correct?’ He almost growled as he perched on the edge of her desk exactly where she’d been sitting. She wondered if the desk was still warm and the thought caused an uncomfortable tension in her stomach. This was ridiculous. He was here to complain.

  Cate tilted her head. ‘That’s right. As the nurse manager will be in hers. And goodness knows where I’ll sleep.’ The man was behaving like a spoiled baby, and impatience tinged her voice. ‘As someone who, I assume, spent some time as an intern during your medical training, surely you’ve roughed it before between shifts.’

  His expression hardened for a moment then cleared. ‘Oh, I’ve done my time in Emergency and roughed it to get some sleep. But I’m older and wiser now and would have preferred not to have had the choice made for me.’ His eyes lightened. She couldn’t see what she’d said to restore his good humour but maybe he didn’t hold grudges. Good. She hated grudge-holders.

  He picked up a pen from her desk and started to doodle on her notepad. Without his jacket, the overhead light gave a sheen to the swell of muscles in his arms. Quite impressive they were, too. Amber had said he was a nicely packaged calculator.

  When he spoke she jumped. ‘So. You’re not going home either?’

  She glanced away as she realised she’d been staring and tried to marshal her thoughts. Going home. Right. ‘I doubt I’d get through, and if I did I wouldn’t get back. Most of the bridges upriver are flooded so some roads downriver will close about twelve hours later. Hopefully the rain up at Point Lookout, that’s our main catchment area, will stop and all this will be over in a day or so.’ Since when did she babble? Cate snapped her mouth shut.

  Noah swung his leg and his thigh muscles bulged and relaxed under the fine material of his trousers. Bulged and relaxed, bulged and relaxed, and hypnotised her. She restrained the urge to shift her chair further back, as if he were invading her space. There was some sort of aversion-attraction thing going on here and it needed to stop right now.

  Then, when he smiled at her, she couldn’t help but smile back until she realised what she was doing. What was she doing? She was not going to become obsessed with this man.

  This was a man who worshipped the dollar more than his Hippocratic oath. He would return to the city after the downgrade of Riverbank Hospital. She needed to remember she had loyal staff like Stella Moore willing to be cut off from her family to ensure the hospital was covered during the crisis. Cate looked away from him.

  He looked at her quizzically. ‘Now what’s made you frown?’

  ‘You don’t want to know,’ she said, and looked back at him with her lips compressed. ‘Is there anything else I can do for you, Dr Masters? I have to get on with my work.’

  ‘Damn. The ice maiden is back.’ He dropped the pen on the desk and stood up. ‘Let’s call a truce, at least until after the rain stops. If you call me Noah, I’ll go off and leave you alone quite happily.’

  Cate considered the first part of his request and was surprised how much she wanted to stop fighting with him. It looked like this flood drama was going to continue for a few days and it would be more sensible if the two of them worked harmoniously. Or at l
east tried to keep every discussion away from being based on who was going to win.

  She didn’t quite meet his eyes. ‘As for the truce, I’ll give it a go, but if I disagree you’ll know about it.’

  He laughed. ‘I never dreamed of anything less. And calling me Noah?’

  She shook her head. ‘I’d prefer to keep things professional, if it’s all the same to you.’ His face became more serious as he stood up, and this time his tone contained no laughter. ‘Then I’ll settle for Mr Masters. I prefer not to be called “Doctor”.’

  When he left the office she stared at the empty space where he’d been and considered his parting comment. Why did he dislike being called a doctor? Why had he given up practising medicine? There was a story here. Maybe he had a good reason. Then the phone rang. She glanced at the clock. It was almost teatime. She did have work to do and thinking about Noah Masters wasn’t getting it done.

  When Stella Moore and the resident failed to turn up for the night shift, Cate chewed her bottom lip. She’d tried the resident’s mobile phone but there was no answer. Evening staff had agreed to stay back until further notice but most of them had already been rostered for the next morning and they needed their rest.

  An hour after they were due, an ambulance pulled up outside Emergency with the missing pair inside. Stella’s cheek was cut and Dr James was scratched, bruised and had suffered minor head injuries. Thankfully, with rest, they’d be fine. But the tree they’d hit had blown Cate’s night shift staffing out of the water.

  Relieved that neither was hurt badly, Cate left the evening staff to treat their injuries while she assessed her options.

  Noah Masters could sort the medical part. Militantly she knocked at his office door but her battle plan hadn’t included Noah opening the door half-dressed.

  ‘Yes?’ He wore his lack of clothing like a night at the opera. Cate stared and suddenly the oxygen content in the room fell below the usual twenty-one per cent.

  Noah’s voice was impatient. ‘You knocked, Sister Forrest?’

  Cate blinked and tried to stay focused on Noah’s expression and the warmth of a blush embarrassed her even further. This was ridiculous. She must be more tired than she’d thought. Her eyes travelled down and she wrenched her gaze away from what seemed like acres of firmly muscled chest and a sprinkling of dark springy hair—hair that curled out of sight into his unbuckled trousers—and she bit her lip. Compared to her previews of what she now saw as Brett’s pigeon chest, she was impressed.

  Just when she thought she had her brain back in gear he confused her again.

  ‘Why aren’t you off duty? Don’t you know how to delegate?’ His voice was clipped and the exasperation in it jolted her out of her sensual haze quicker than anything else could have.

  ‘I don’t have the luxury,’ she snapped back. ‘Delegation is more your angle.’

  His eyes narrowed at her response. I’ve annoyed him now, she thought. Good. The problem needed a fix. She glanced at her watch. The evening staff needed to get to bed.

  ‘Well, come in.’ He stood back to allow her past him into the office and the momentum of the moment carried her through the door and dumped her in the middle of the room. His trundle bed was pushed up against the wall and the door shut behind her with a click. Cate turned to face him and realised it was a very crowded room and most of it seemed to be filled with Noah Masters.

  Exasperated and half-naked, Noah glowered at her and Cate moistened suddenly dry lips and tried to remember why she was here. Thankfully, her thought processes came sluggishly to life. Staffing.

  Cate cleared her throat. ‘The night emergency team have been involved in an accident and we need to find replacement staff for this shift…’ Noah walked across the room to lift his shirt from the chair back and Cate’s voice trailed off.

  He looked up and caught and held her gaze. Noah shrugged his way into the sleeves slowly as if staring at her had slowed his fingers. Cate couldn’t help but stare back. There was something disturbingly intimate in the way he was so steadily arranging his clothes in front of her. The muscles in his shoulders and chest rippled as he lifted his arm to slide it through the sleeve, and Cate’s breath lodged somewhere deep in her chest. This man affected her way more than he should, especially when she knew he was in Riverbank for such a short time. She shook her head in denial of the attraction, and tried to concentrate on the problem she’d come with, and not the way his fingers fastened the buttons on his shirt.

  She looked away with a jerk. ‘I need to replace the evening staff so they can still work the morning shift. I don’t have any more emergency sisters to pull from anywhere, at least until daylight, because I’m not putting more people at risk to drive in this weather.’ She glanced back just as Noah tucked his shirt in and tightened his belt. Her gaze flicked away again but then his voice drew it back.

  ‘And you want me to do what?’ The words were very soft as he leaned his long fingers on the desk and of all the things she wanted, she wished he’d left the door open the most.

  Cate shrugged with a forced nonchalance. ‘Find me a doctor to work with and I’ll do the nursing part of night shift in Emergency.’

  Noah scanned the options in his mind. ‘We don’t have any spare doctors.’ He rubbed the back of his head and Cate only just heard the oath he muttered. He looked up. ‘It would take too long to drive another resident in from one of the other hospitals. I suppose I could ask the rescue helicopter to fly in a locum.’ He shook his head as he finished the thought. ‘But you’re right about the risk. The rain is still too heavy for safe flying.’

  Cate raised her chin and forced herself to meet his eyes. ‘There is still one doctor left who could work.’ He didn’t react to her suggestion and she wondered how he’d take it when he realised what she meant. She shrugged again and hammered the option home. ‘You do still have your registration, don’t you?’

  Any subtle awareness of his attraction to Cate, awareness he’d been trying to ignore in the closeness of the room, evaporated at her words. Rumbling lust was driven clear away by the knee-jerk denial of her suggestion.

  Him in Emergency? He’d sworn he’d never go into front-line medicine again after Donna had died. And Cate Forrest had no right to push him towards it!

  To be fair to the woman, she had no idea how disturbing the idea was to him, that the chance of someone else dying because he couldn’t save them scared the life out of him. He just hoped she couldn’t see it.

  ‘No.’ His voice was firmer than he’d intended but he couldn’t help that. The word hung in the air and there was no room for argument. ‘Get the evening resident to stay on and I’ll arrange a replacement for him in the morning.’

  Cate put her hands on her hips. ‘He’s already done a sixteen-hour shift.’

  ‘I’m the CEO and it’s my call—not yours. Thank you, Sister Forrest.’ He crossed the room and opened the door for Cate. She glared as she went past but by the time she was halfway up the corridor she couldn’t help trying to figure out why he was so adamant. His harsh denial only confirmed her suspicion that there must be a reason he was so determined not to work as doctor.

  Noah watched her stride away. He’d thought he’d been safe in administration. Then this had to happen. Of course he still had his registration.

  Noah kicked the door shut behind him as he went back into his office. As an administrator, was he willing to run the risk that the overtired resident would be up to handling the night’s emergencies as they came in the door? He swore softly under his breath. If anything happened, he’d be morally to blame anyway. He’d have to do the shift himself. Damn the woman.

  Noah strapped on his watch and checked his pocket for a pen. He’d be interested to see just how good Sister Forrest was at the clinical stuff.

  An hour later Noah had to admit she was good. Very good.

  Emergency wasn’t overrun with patients. The rain had kept the usual minor illnesses at home but the range of complaints was challenging.
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  After her initial pleased surprise at his presence, Cate had all the cubicles prioritised and waiting, so that Noah almost felt like a production line worker as he moved between them. It suited him. Emotional involvement was the last thing he needed when doing something he’d sworn never to do again.

  Unfortunately, the man in cubicle five was a challenge to ignore. Mr Ellis had been washed into a tree while herding his cattle across a small creek which had turned into a raging torrent. Noah tried to remain impervious to the friendly man who peered intently around the forceps to see the sutures go into his own leg.

  ‘That’s not a bad job, you’re doin’ there, Doc.’

  ‘I’m glad you think so, Mr Ellis,’ Noah said dryly, and continued to pull the edges of the deep ragged wound together. ‘What time did you say you did this?’

  ‘After lunch. I taped it together but the bandage kept soaking through and the missus said I better get it fixed ’cause I had a lot of work to do in the next couple of days.’

  Noah grunted but the silence stretched. He sighed inwardly as he felt compelled to chat with this nice old bloke in spite of his better judgement. ‘Did your wife come with you?’

  ‘Nah. She hates boats and our creek’s flooded the road. Lucky I parked the car on the other side yesterday. She’s at home, putting most of the stuff from the house up into the roof in case the river comes over the verandah.’

  Noah tied off the final suture. ‘Don’t you think it would be more sensible for you both to stay in town until the rain stops?’

  The grin died in the weathered face. ‘No. We’ll ride it out.’ The man looked down at the neat line of stitches running across his calf. ‘Thanks for that, Doc. Better get going, then.’

  ‘Sister has to dress that first.’ Noah turned just as Cate entered with a roll of bandage and a bottle of friar’s balsam. He raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Friar’s balsam to help keep it waterproof. Mr Ellis will try to keep it dry, won’t you, Mr Ellis?’ She smiled at the farmer and he grinned back.