LITMIR.BIZ

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‘OK, so she should have known that all soft toys need to be wrapped in plastic before they’re put into an incubator to guard against possible infection, but she’s a student nurse, only in the unit to observe, and yelling at her—destroying all her self-confidence—isn’t the best way to give her information.’

      ‘He’s had a bad morning—’

      ‘I don’t care if he’s had a lifetime of major catastrophes,’ she interrupted. ‘Nothing gives him the right to talk to people the way he does.’

      A tide of uncomfortable colour crept across the specialist registrar’s cheeks. ‘I know he can sometimes be a little rough—’

      ‘A little?’

      ‘But Gabriel and I have known one another since med school and he sets himself—and others—very high standards. There’s no room for failure in his life. His background…let’s just say his family has a lot to answer for, but he truly doesn’t mean to be cruel. He just speaks before he thinks.’

      ‘Oh, yeah, and I expect Captain Bligh’s men were always saying, “Well, old William might be a tad over-enthusiastic with the cat o’ nine tails but deep down he’s all heart.”’

      Jonah shook his head and laughed. ‘At least he’s never ripped into you, has he?’

      It was true, he hadn’t, Maddie realised with a frown as the specialist registrar sped away. Not even on her first morning when she’d screwed up the office database by hitting ‘Escape’ on the computer instead of ‘Enter’. He’d simply smiled tightly and said it could have happened to anyone. It was weird. It was more than weird. It was unnerving.

      ‘Miss Bryce?’

      Talk of the devil.

      ‘Yes, Mr Dalgleish?’ she said, quickly closing down Jonah’s file before she could do something stupid, like deleting it.

      ‘I’d like you to meet Dr Annie Caldwell from Obs and Gynae,’ he replied, ushering forward the young woman who was standing behind him. ‘Annie, this is Madison Bryce, our new departmental secretary.’

      ‘Madison,’ Annie Caldwell repeated. ‘That’s a most unusual first name.’

      ‘I’m afraid my parents had a very quirky sense of humour,’ Maddie said ruefully. ‘They named me after the hotel I was conceived in. I suppose it could have been worse. I could have been conceived in the Pig and Whistle or the Dirty Duck.’

      Annie Caldwell laughed, but not a glimmer of a smile appeared in Gabriel’s grey eyes, and Maddie wondered if he ever laughed. Probably not. He probably considered laughter a waste of time and energy.

      ‘My friends and family call me Maddie,’ she continued.

      ‘It suits you,’ Annie said. ‘Don’t you think it suits her, Gabriel?’

      Gabriel didn’t look as though he cared one way or the other and it was on the tip of Maddie’s tongue to say he didn’t look like a Gabriel—a Lucifer, perhaps, but not a Gabriel. But she didn’t.

      ‘Would you like a cup of coffee, Dr Caldwell?’ she said instead.

      ‘I’d love one, and please call me Annie. Whenever anybody says “Dr Caldwell”, I always think my husband has arrived and caught me doing something I shouldn’t.’

      Maddie laughed, but not so much as a muscle moved on Gabriel’s dark, lean face. Oh, for crying out loud. Maybe she ought to buy those whoopee cushions or, better yet, one of those telescopes which left you with a big black ring around your eye when you looked through it. It would give his staff a laugh if nothing else.

      ‘I don’t want to hurry you, Annie,’ Gabriel said, ‘but I really think we should go to the unit now and have coffee later. Tom will be anxious for an update on Diana’s condition, especially as he couldn’t come down here himself as he’d planned.’

      Annie nodded. She also didn’t look as though a visit to the unit was high on her list of ‘must do’ activities and Maddie wondered if the young doctor didn’t like neonatal units. A lot of medics didn’t. They found the smallness of the babies, their all-too-obvious vulnerability, difficult to cope with. But before she could say anything Gabriel had begun steering Annie towards the door, only to pause as though something had just occurred to him.

      ‘Miss Bryce, Lynne was asking for the blood-test results for the Thompson twins, so why don’t you come along to the unit with us and give them to her?’

      Because I’ll bet my first pay cheque Lynne won’t want them, Maddie thought angrily. Lynne never wanted anything he kept sending her along to the unit with, so why the hell did he keep on doing it?

      Well, this would be the fastest visit to the unit she’d ever made, she decided as she grabbed the blood-test results from her out-tray and followed Annie and Gabriel with ill-concealed bad grace. A brief hello to Lynne and she’d sneak away and get on with the work she was supposed to be employed to do.

      ‘Gabriel told me you used to be a ward manager in the NICU of the Hillhead General,’ Annie observed, as Gabriel keyed the security code into the pad on the neonatal door, ‘but you gave up nursing because you had to look after your niece and nephew.’

      ‘Wanted to,’ Maddie replied. ‘Not had to.’

      ‘Ah.’ Annie smiled. ‘Big difference.’

      An ill-disguised snort from Gabriel showed what he thought of that opinion, and Maddie waited for him to voice what he was thinking, but he didn’t.

      ‘We think Diana may have PDA—patent ductus arteriosus,’ he said instead, ushering them both into the unit and down the narrow corridor towards the intensive care ward before Maddie could escape into Lynne’s office, as she’d planned. ‘The ductus arteriosus is a blood vessel which allows blood to bypass a baby’s lungs while it’s in the womb. Normally it closes just before birth, but in some premature babies it can remain open, flooding the vessels in the lungs and causing respiratory problems.’

      ‘Is it curable?’ Annie asked, and Gabriel nodded.

      ‘We’ll perform an ultrasound scan to confirm she does have PDA, then we’ll try medication to close it. If that doesn’t work we’ll operate.’

      ‘Operate?’ Annie repeated, when they drew level with Diana’s incubator and she stared down at the little girl. ‘But she’s so tiny, Gabriel. That little hat she’s wearing—it would barely cover a tennis ball. How can you operate on someone so tiny?’

      ‘Smaller babies than this have survived major surgery,’ he replied, pulling on a pair of surgical gloves and reaching into the incubator to ease Diana further up the heat-retaining cover she was lying on. ‘Our current record for survival is a baby who weighed only 560 grams.’

      ‘But look at her—all those tubes and wires,’Annie said, distress plain in her voice. ‘She’s even got a catheter in her little umbilical stump, and a pulse oximeter taped to her foot. She’s so small, Gabriel, and to inflict all of this on her…’

      ‘Annie, I wouldn’t do it if it hurt her,’ Gabriel said and, as he gently stroked the little girl’s cheek, Maddie felt her throat tighten.

      He cared. He really cared about this baby. One look at the expression in his eyes as he gazed down at Diana Scott was enough to tell her he would have crawled over broken glass if he thought it would help her. How could he feel and show such compassion towards this tiny scrap of humanity and yet be so appallingly insensitive to adults? It didn’t make sense. He didn’t make sense.

      ‘Sorry to interrupt, Mr Dalgleish,’ Nell said as she appeared at their side, ‘but the radiology technician is here to take X-rays of Bobbie Duncan, and you said you wanted a word with him.’

      He nodded. ‘Sorry about this, Annie, but—’

      ‘It’s OK—I know how it is,’ she replied, but when he’d gone she let out a shuddering

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