LITMIR.BIZ

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a red-letter, stop-press, post-it-to-the-world-on-Twitter day if Rita managed to get through one day without complaining.

      ‘And no-one can say I’m not doing my best,’ Rita continued, ‘but, without a nurse unit manager, I’m fighting an uphill battle.’

      Brianna was sorely tempted to tell the woman she might find her job considerably easier if she didn’t spend half her time prying into everyone else’s business and the other half spreading gossip, but the trouble was the ward clerk was right. They were finding it tough without a nurse unit manager, and though Admin had promised to advertise the post after Diego Ramirez returned to Spain, there had been no sign yet of them doing anything.

      ‘I’m sure the auditor will make allowances for us,’ she declared, ‘and now, if you’ll excuse me—’

      ‘Selfish, that’s what I call it,’ Rita continued. ‘Mr Ramirez leaving us all in the lurch. In my day people had a sense of duty, a sense of responsibility, but nobody cares about standards nowadays. Look at all the unmarried mothers we get in NICU. Feckless, the lot of them. In my day—’

      ‘I’m sure every family behaved like the Waltons, and nothing bad ever happened,’ Brianna interrupted tersely, ‘but right now, if you’re so anxious about making a good impression, wouldn’t it be better if you simply got on with your job?’

      Rita’s mouth fell open, she looked as though she’d dearly like to say something extremely cutting, then she strode away with a very audible sniff, and Brianna gritted her teeth.

      She would undoubtedly pay later for what she’d said—Rita would make sure of that—but the ward clerk had caught her on the raw today. Actually, if she was honest, Rita always caught her on the raw with her ‘holier than thou’ attitude to life.

      ‘Walk a mile in my moccasins.’ It was one of her mother’s favourite sayings, and her mother was right, Brianna thought as she washed her hands thoroughly then applied some antiseptic gel to ensure she didn’t carry any bacteria into the unit, excepts…

      She bit her lip as she caught sight of her reflection in the small mirror over the sink. ‘The country mouse’. That was what her colleagues had called her when she’d been a student nurse, but that had been fourteen years ago. She wasn’t a country mouse any more. She was thirty-two years old, the senior sister in a neonatal intensive care unit, and time and life had changed her. Especially the last two years.

       Don’t, Brianna, she told herself as she felt her heart twist inside her. Don’t start looking back, you can’t, you mustn’t, not now, not ever.

      And normally she didn’t, she thought as she took a steadying breath before tucking a stray strand of her auburn hair back into its neat plait, only to realise her hand was shaking. Normally she lived in the now, determinedly refusing to look back, or forward, and it was all the fault of this damned auditor. His arrival was upsetting everyone, turning what had been her refuge into a place of uncertainty, and she didn’t want uncertainty. She wanted the hospital to stay exactly as it was. Her haven, her sanctuary, her escape from all that had happened.

      ‘Blasted number-cruncher,’ she muttered as she used her elbow to push open the door leading into the NICU ward. ‘Why can’t he just go away and play on a motorway?’

      ‘You wouldn’t be talking about our esteemed visitor, would you?’ Chris, her senior staff nurse, chuckled, clearly overhearing her.

      ‘Got it in one,’ Brianna replied, feeling herself beginning to relax as the familiar heat in the unit enveloped her, and she heard the comforting, steady sound of beeping monitors and ventilators. ‘Anything happen over lunch I should know about?’

      ‘Mr Brooke’s not back from Theatre yet and neither is Amy Renwick.’

      ‘So Rita told me,’ Brianna replied. ‘It looks as though he’s had to remove part of Amy’s intestine after all.’

      It was what they’d all been hoping the consultant wouldn’t have to do. Amy Renwick had been born twelve weeks premature, and scarcely a month later she’d been diagnosed with necrotising enterocolitis. The condition wasn’t uncommon in premature babies—their intestines were frequently insufficiently developed to handle digestion—but generally it could be controlled with antibiotics. In Amy’s case, however, the antibiotics hadn’t worked. Mr Brooke had thought he might only have to drain the infected fluid from her stomach, but, from the length of time he’d been in Theatre, it looked very much as though that solution hadn’t proved to be an option.

      ‘Is Mrs Renwick here?’ Brianna asked, and the staff nurse nodded.

      ‘She’s in the parents’ restroom—very upset, of course—but her family’s with her.’

      And they’d been a tower of strength over the past few weeks for Naomi and her husband, Brianna thought as she lifted a file from the nurses’ station. Not all of their parents were so lucky. Some families lived too far away to provide emotional support, while other families simply couldn’t deal with the constant up-and-down pressures of having a very premature baby.

      And sometimes the people, the person, you were so sure you could depend on let you down, she thought with a sudden, unwanted, shaft of pain.

      ‘You OK, Brianna?’

      The staff nurse was gazing uncertainly at her, and Brianna manufactured a smile.

      ‘You’re the second person to ask me that today, and I’m fine,’ she replied. ‘I’ve just got a bad attack of Monday blues, not helped by the imminent arrival of this blasted auditor—’

      ‘Who, if I’m not very much mistaken, has just arrived with Babbling and Rita,’ the staff nurse warned in an undertone. ‘And, if that is him, he looks scary. Good looking in a designer-suited, high-powered sort of way, but most definitely scary.’

      Quickly, Brianna glanced over her shoulder, and in that split second her world stood still. Dimly, she heard their NICU consultant introduce the man at his side as Connor Monahan, but she didn’t need the introduction. The six-foot-one rangy frame, the thick black hair and startling blue eyes, the expensive city suit and equally top-of-the-range laptop that he was carrying…It was the man she hadn’t thought about—had refused to allow herself think about—for the past two years, and the file she’d been holding slipped from her nerveless fingers and landed on the floor with a clatter.

      From beside her she heard Chris’s small gasp of surprise at her unusual clumsiness, saw Mr Brooke’s glare of irritation, but what pierced her to the core as she quickly retrieved the file then straightened up was the way the familiar blue eyes had flashed instantly from recognition to anger. How those same blue eyes were now boring deep into her, tearing her heart apart just as it had been torn apart two years ago.

      ‘I can assure you my staff are not normally so clumsy, Mr Monahan,’ she heard Mr Brooke declare, and saw Connor shake his head dismissively.

      ‘Accidents happen,’ he replied, ‘and, please, everyone, call me Connor. I’m not here to judge anyone. My visit to this hospital is merely as an observer, to find out how a hospital like this serves its local community.’

      ‘Yeah, right,’ Chris muttered. ‘And like we don’t all know that he’s been sent in to find out which department should be closed, so he can give up on the “let’s all be friends” routine. And, oh, Lord, Mr Brooke is now insisting on introducing everyone,’ the staff nurse continued, rolling her eyes heavenwards. ‘What’s the bet he won’t remember half our names?’

      Brianna didn’t care if the middle-aged consultant did or not. She was too busy keeping her eyes fixed firmly on the file in her hand, wishing she was anywhere but here, but, out of the corner of her eye, she could see the inexorable approach of a pair of mirror-bright black shoes, could smell an all-too-distinctive sandalwood aftershave, and she sucked in an uneven breath, willing this moment to be over.

      ‘And this is Sister Flannigan,’ Mr Brooke announced when he drew level with her.

      ‘Sister

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