LITMIR.BIZ

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      They left side by side but emotionally separate. There was no picking his son up and carrying him out, not even a guiding hand on the back. Something, anything that said, even on a subliminal level, I love you, I’m here for you.

      Nat hoped for Julian’s sake that it was grief causing this strange disconnectedness between father and son and not something deeper. There was something unbearably sad about a four-year-old with no emotional expectations.

      Having grown up with an emotionally distant father Nat knew too well how soul destroying it could be. How often had she’d yearned for his touch, his smile, his praise after he’d left? And how often had he let her down, too busy with his new family, with his boys? Even at thirty-three she was still looking for his love. She couldn’t bear to see it happening to a child in her care.

      But something inside her recognised that Alessandro Lombardi was hurting too. Knew that it was harsh to judge him. As a nurse she knew how grief affected people. How it could shut you down, cut you off at the knees. He had obviously loved his wife very deeply and was probably doing the best he could just to function every day.

      To put one foot in front of the other.

      Maybe he was just emotionally frozen. Not capable of any feelings at the moment. Maybe grief had just sucked them all away.

      She sighed. It looked like she’d also developed a soft spot for the father also. Yep, it was official—she was a total sucker for a sob story.

      The next day Nat had finished her stint in Outpatients and was heading back to the accident and emergency department for her very late lunch. She’d been sent there to cover for sick leave and was utterly exhausted.

      She didn’t mind being sent out of her usual work area and had covered Outpatients on quite a few occasions since starting at St Auburn’s six months ago but it was a full-on morning which always ran over the scheduled one p.m. finish time. There hadn’t been time for morning tea either so her stomach was protesting loudly. She could almost taste the hot meat pie she’d been daydreaming about for the last hour and a half.

      Add to that being awake half the night thinking about Julian’s situation, and she was totally wrecked. And then there’d been the other half of the night. Filled with images—very inappropriate images—of Julian’s father and his rather enticing mouth.

      She’d known she was going to dream about that mouth.

      ‘Oh, good, you’re back. I need another experienced hand,’ Imogen Reddy, the nurse in charge, said as Nat wandered back. ‘It’s Looney Tunes here. Code one just arrived in Resus. Seventy-two-year old-male, suspected MI. Can you get in and give the new doc a hand? Delia’s there but she was due off half an hour ago and hasn’t even had time for a break. Can you take over and send her home?’

      Nat looked at the bedlam all around her. Just another crazy day at St Auburn’s Accident and Emergency. And they wondered why she kept knocking back a full-time position. Nat’s stomach growled a warning at her but she knew there was no way she could let a seven-months-pregnant colleague do overtime on an empty stomach.

      She smiled at her boss. ‘Resus. Sure thing.’

      Nat stopped just outside the resus cubicle and pulled a pair of medium gloves out of a dispenser attached to the wall. She snapped them on, took a deep breath, flicked back the curtain and entered the fray.

      ‘Okay, Delia. You’re off,’ she said, smiling at her colleague who happened to be the first person she saw amidst the chaos. ‘Go home, put your feet up and feed the foetus.’

      Delia shoulders sagged and she gave Nat a grateful smile. ‘Are you sure?’ She turned and addressed the doctor. ‘Are you okay if I go, Alessandro? You’re getting a much better deal. Nat here is Super-Nurse.’

      Alessandro? Nat swung around to find Alessandro Lombardi, all big and brooding, behind her. The bustle, the sounds of the oxygen and the monitors around her faded out as she stared into those coalpit-black eyes.

      They were alert, radiating intelligence, but if anything he looked more tired than he had yesterday. He stared back and Nat felt as if she was naked in front of him.

      She dropped her gaze as some of the images from last night’s dream revisited. Bloody hell. He was the new doctor? Working part-time generally kept Nat out of the loop with medical staff rotations and she’d just assumed Imogen had meant a new registrar. Surely Julian’s father was a little too old to be a registrar?

       So much for her surgeon theory.

      Alessandro took in the woman who had been the cause of another sleepless night. A new cause, granted, but still a complication he didn’t need. She was different today, out of her shorts and T-shirt. Very professional looking in the modest white uniform with the zip up the front. Her hair was a little neater in her ponytail and in this environment he felt on a more even keel around her.

      Still, his gaze dropped to the zip briefly and before he could stop it, an image of him yanking the slider down flitted across his mind’s eye.

      He looked at Delia briefly. ‘Yes. We’ve met.’

      Then he turned back to the patient and Nat felt thoroughly dismissed. If only he knew what he’d done to her in her dreams last night…

      Had she had time she might have been miffed but her patient caught her attention. ‘Super-Nurse, hey?’ he croaked behind his oxygen mask.

      Nat dragged her gaze away from the back of Alessandro’s head to look at the patient. He was sweaty and grey with massive ST changes on his monitor. Multiple ectopic beats were worrying and as she watched, a short run of ventricular tachycardia interrupted his rhythm.

      His heart muscle was dying.

      He was also in pain despite the morphine that she noted had already been administered, but there was still a twinkle visible in his bright eyes. He was obviously one of those stoic old men who didn’t believe in complaining too much.

      ‘Yes, sir.’ She reached for his hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘That’s me. To the rescue.’

      The patient gave a weak chuckle. ‘Ernie,’ he puffed out. ‘Looks like I’m in safe hands, then.’

      Nat glanced at Alessandro. She hoped so. She hoped he was better at doctoring than he was at communicating. At fathering. ‘The very best.’

      ‘What’s the ETA on the CCU docs?’ Alessandro asked no one in particular.

      Seeing Nat Davies from the crèche was a bit of a surprise but he didn’t have time to ponder that, or her damn zip, now. He had to focus on his patient, who needed that consult and admission to the coronary care unit pronto.

      Ernie’s ECG was showing a massive inferior myocardial infarction. They were administering the right drugs to halt the progress of the heart attack but these patients were notoriously unstable and with age against him, Alessandro worried that Ernie would arrest before the drugs could work. Or that his heart was already too damaged.

      ‘Couple of minutes,’ someone behind him said.

      As it turned out, Ernie didn’t have a couple of minutes and Alessandro’s worst fears were realised when the monitor alarmed and Ernie lost consciousness.

      ‘VF,’ Nat announced as the green line on the screen developed into a series of frenetic squiggles. Her own heart rate spiked as a charge of adrenaline shot through her system like vodka on an empty stomach.

      Alessandro pointed at Nat. ‘Commence CPR. I’ll intubate. Adrenaline,’ he ordered. ‘Charge the defib.’

      Nat hiked the skirt of her uniform up her thighs a little as she climbed up onto the narrow gurney. She planted her knees wide and balanced on the edge of the mattress, a feat she’d performed a little too often, as she started compressions.

      Any ill will she may have been harbouring towards Dr Lombardi fizzled in an instant at the totally professional way he ran the code. It was

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