LITMIR.BIZ

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smile appeared a trifle strained. ‘Your best is good enough for me.’

      There was a moment when she thought that he was going to say something else but then his pager beeped. He frowned as he unclipped it from his belt and checked the display. ‘Theatre. I wonder what’s wrong. I’d better go and see. Page me if you have any problems, Staff.’

      He was back to normal again, his tone coolly professional once more. Maggie sighed as he hurried towards the lifts, feeling the tension oozing out of her. It was good to be back on a firm footing again. She far preferred the status quo to any surprises when dealing with Luke.

      She went to find Mrs Atkins, expecting to have a battle on her hands. However, the older woman accepted what she told her without question.

      ‘What did you say to her?’ Lauren asked in astonishment as her mother happily waved on her way out of the ward. ‘It just isn’t like Mum not to make a fuss!’

      Maggie shrugged, although she had to admit to being surprised by Gloria Atkins’s easy acquiescence. ‘I just told her that Dr Fabrizzi had suggested you should rest. She seemed quite happy to accept it.’

      ‘Figures.’ Lauren gave a relieved sigh. ‘He sort of exudes confidence, doesn’t he? It’s no wonder that Mum’s decided he knows what he’s talking about. I just wish I could bottle some of his confidence and take it home with me when I leave here. Maybe I’d be able to stand up for myself then.’

      Maggie didn’t say anything. Frankly, there wasn’t much she could think of to say. She left Lauren fiddling with the radio and went back to work. Doreen and Angela came back from lunch soon afterwards and then the other new admissions arrived. The afternoon flew past because they were so busy but several times she found her thoughts returning to what Lauren had said about Luke. It disturbed her because it made her question her own view of him once again.

      Had she been wrong about him all along? Had she misread his confidence for arrogance? She couldn’t decide and that was the real problem, of course. She would need a lot more to go on before she was prepared to alter her opinion of him.

      There was a party being held that night to which Maggie had been invited. One of the nurses from the surgical ward, who worked a different shift, had got engaged, and she and her fiancé had invited everyone round to their house to celebrate. Everyone was meeting up at the pub beforehand so it was a bit of rush to get ready once she arrived home.

      She took a shower and washed her hair. She tried to avoid using a hair-dryer whenever possible because her hair was naturally curly and tended to frizz up. However, with time marching on, she had no choice but to use the dryer that night, which resulted in a frothy mass of curls which defied all her attempts to pin them up.

      Sighing, she decided that she didn’t have the time to do anything else. She simply brushed her hair then left it loose. It didn’t look too bad, she decided critically after she’d slipped into a raspberry pink blouse and pair of silky grey trousers. The tousled look was a bit girlish perhaps but it could have been worse.

      She slid her bare feet into a pair of high-heeled sandals then grabbed her bag and headed for the door. It was mid-August and the night was warm enough for her not to need a coat. However, she began to rue her choice of footwear before she’d gone very far. She wasn’t used to wearing such high heels and her feet were hurting by the time she arrived at the pub, a huge blister already forming on her heel where the strap had been rubbing. Still, the sandals looked a lot more glamorous than her usual sensible flatties so she would just have to grin and bear it.

      ‘Maggie! Over here. We’ve saved you a seat.’ Angela stood up and waved when she saw Maggie coming in. The pub was used a lot by staff from the hospital and it was packed that night. It had just gone eight and the middle shift had just finished work; quite a few of them had stopped off for a drink on their way home.

      ‘Thanks! What a scrum. Anyone would think we were all alcoholics if they saw how many hospital staff used this place,’ she declared pithily, squeezing into a gap on the wooden settle.

      ‘Not that any of us fall into that category, of course,’ Donna Parsons put in, rolling her eyes expressively. ‘We aren’t here for the drink but purely for the pleasure of each other’s company!’

      ‘Speak for yourself. I make no bones about the fact that I need a drink after the day I’ve had!’ Robin White, the newest houseman on the surgical team, picked up his pint glass and took a long swallow. ‘At one point I found myself wondering why I had willingly gone in for medicine as a career. I mean, I could have been a solicitor or an accountant or…or anything rather than a doctor!’

      Everyone laughed, but Maggie could tell that Robin hadn’t been joking. Something had obviously upset him that day and she couldn’t help wondering what had caused the normally easygoing young doctor to feel like that.

      ‘So what happened?’ she asked under cover of the conversation.

      ‘What didn’t happen would be an easier question to answer!’ Robin set his glass on a coaster. His pleasant face looked unusually grim. ‘We had an emergency in Theatre. Jefferson was operating on this chap who had been thrown off his motorbike and suffered multiple fractures. He was a mess, I can tell you, and it was obvious that old Jeffers was out of his depth.’

      Maggie sighed. Norman Jefferson had worked at Dalverston General for more years than anyone could care to count. It was rumoured that he’d refused to retire when he’d been offered the chance a few months earlier. There was no doubt that he must have been a skilled surgeon in his younger days, but those days were long past. Frankly, it was fast reaching the point where he was becoming a liability. Maggie knew that the surgical team had a tacit agreement to make sure that Jefferson was never left to deal with any difficult surgery by himself, but obviously the system had fallen down that day.

      ‘So what went on?’ she asked softly, glancing round to make sure that nobody was listening. Although everyone in the hospital was aware of the situation, she guessed that Robin would feel uncomfortable about the others hearing him criticise the older man.

      ‘Just about everything that could go wrong did so. Everyone was on pins as soon as they discovered that Jefferson would be operating. Normally, someone would have headed him off at the pass, so to speak.’

      He gave her a grim smile. ‘It was just unfortunate that another casualty had been brought into A and E a few minutes earlier, needing urgent surgery. It meant that everyone was tied up when the motorcyclist was sent up to Theatre so there was nobody there to step in when Jefferson announced that he would deal with the case.’

      ‘Tricky situation,’ she murmured sympathetically.

      ‘You can say that again! Anyway, we were all keyed up, as you can imagine. It seemed to be going quite well at first and then somehow or other Jefferson nicked the femoral artery…’ Robin shrugged, not needing to explain the problems that had caused.

      ‘What on earth happened after that?’ Maggie exclaimed in horror, trying not to visualise the scene of chaos that must have ensued. She felt quite sick when she thought about the injured motorcyclist possibly bleeding to death on the operating table. ‘He didn’t—well, you know?’

      ‘Die? No, but it was a close call, I can tell you. Jefferson just seemed to go to pieces, he didn’t appear to have any idea what to do. I just grabbed the phone and rang for help—’ Robin broke off. A smile brightened his face as he looked towards the door. ‘Aha, here he is now, the hero of the hour!’

      Maggie looked round and felt her stomach sink when she saw that Luke had come into the pub. She’d had no idea that he’d been invited to the party that night, although she should have guessed, she thought as she watched him making his way towards them. The staff at Dalverston General had taken to him in a big way, as was evident from the number of people who greeted him en route. It wasn’t just the staff from the surgical wards either—everyone seemed to know him and be pleased to see him.

      Her brow furrowed. Everyone liked Luke. Everyone admired him. Robin considered him to be a hero, even. So how come she didn’t

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