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Luke eyed up the new recruit suspiciously. Was there a reason he’d been so keen to hang onto Abby? She may have had an out-of-date box of condoms in Pelican Cove, but what about her home in San Francisco? Was there something more to this relationship?
Lincoln Adams pulled uncomfortably at his crumpled T-shirt. ‘Is there somewhere I can get changed, Abby? And somewhere we can get our equipment set up? I want to make sure that we are ready.’
Abby gave a quick nod. ‘We’ve designated a room for you …’ she rolled her eyes ‘…and all your equipment. Have you brought some extra staff?’
Lincoln gave a quick nod.
‘That’s great. I’ll also assign one of our NPs to your team to familiarise you all with the surroundings. Come with me and I’ll show you where the room is and you can let your staff start to unpack.’ She placed her hand firmly at the small of his back. ‘In the meantime, you look like death warmed over. I’ll show you where you can shower and change, and then I’ll take you for something to eat with David Fairgreaves. It’ll give the two of you a chance to discuss your patient.’
Lincoln nodded gratefully. ‘You do know that’s the only reason I came here, right? The chance to work with David Fairgreaves was too good an opportunity to miss.’
‘And the fact you’ve looked after the First Baby won’t be too shoddy on your résumé either, will it?’
Lincoln shook his head and the two of them walked down the corridor together, leaving Luke with an uncomfortable feeling twisting around inside him. What was this? Why did he feel uneasy about the relaxed relationship Abby obviously had with her professional colleague? Wasn’t it just what he would expect from her?
He was sure that Lincoln Adams looked and felt exactly the same as he did. Like a fish out of water. In a strange place, with strange people and patients he didn’t know.
Luke glanced at the piece of paper he had clutched in his hand. The list of cardiac patients he’d seen that morning at the clinic. Everything had been straightforward, easy almost. He’d been assigned a secretary and a nurse that morning who’d sorted out every test he’d ordered or prescription that he’d written for the patients. This place ran like clockwork and it made him a little envious of his overloaded clinic back in Washington.
He wandered back through to the emergency room.
‘Dr Luke!’
Lucy, Reuben’s childcare worker, came careering through the doors towards him. ‘Oh, thank God it’s you,’ she gasped as she sat Reuben down on the worktop of the reception desk. Reuben was crying at the top of his voice, holding his arm outwards away from his body. ‘He cut his hand, playing on the beach.’ She glanced over her shoulder. ‘Is Abby here?’
Luke shook his head. ‘She’s just taken one of the new doctors through to the other side of the hospital.’ He looked down at the red-faced child and shook off his feelings of unease. He could do this. He was a professional. ‘So what do we have here?’
He gently lifted the handkerchief that was held tightly on Reuben’s hand and assessed the damage in an instant, lifting Reuben up into his arms and signalling for Lucy to follow.
‘We’ll go through to one of the suture rooms,’ he said quickly. ‘Can you give Dr Tyler a page please and tell her to come back to the ER?’ he asked one of the receptionists.
The woman gave him a quick nod and picked up the nearest phone.
Luke placed Reuben on the bed in the suture room, pulling one of the angled lights a little closer. He quickly set up a trolley and scrubbed his hands under the sink, before putting on some gloves and opening the sterile suture pack. Lucy kept her arm around Reuben, whispering in his ear and pointing out the characters painted on the walls.
‘So what happened, Lucy?’
She shook her head. ‘He wanted to try and find the rock pool you showed him yesterday but he slipped and he cut his hand on a broken bottle hidden in the sand. I can’t believe it happened. The beach is usually so clean.’
Luke bent down and looked Reuben in the eyes. ‘Okay, big boy. I’m going to spray some magic stuff on here to make this nice and numb. Then I’ll be able to clean it.’
The tears still rolled freely down Reuben’s face and he sniffed loudly. ‘I want my mommy.’
‘I know, Reuben, but she will be here in a minute. Let me see if I can make this better.’
He gave the laceration a quick spray and waited a few minutes before touching it. The cut was deeper than he’d first thought and would definitely need sutures. ‘Can you give your fingers a wiggle for me, please, Reuben?’
‘I want my mommy.’
‘She’s just coming, I promise. Now, let me see you wiggling your fingers.’
Reuben stuck out his bottom lip, before wiggling his fingers. Luke checked carefully, ensuring there was no further damage. He gave Lucy a rueful smile. ‘There’s no permanent damage,’ he said, ‘but I’m going to have to suture this.’
‘You’re going to have to what?’ Abby had appeared in the doorway, white-faced and breathless. She crossed the room in two strides, wrapping her arms around Reuben and brushing against Luke’s gloves in the process.
He stepped back to give her a few minutes.
‘What happened, Lucy?’
‘I’m really sorry, Abby, but he cut himself on the beach. Luke said that he needs some stitches.’
Luke was back over at the sink, throwing one set of gloves in the disposal bin and scrubbing his hands again. As he pulled on a fresh set of gloves, his eyes were drawn elsewhere. One of Reuben’s trousers legs had bunched up and revealed a dark purple bruise on the soft tissue at the back of his shin. Had that been there last night? He didn’t think so. Or had it happened yesterday when they’d been surfing? One thing he knew for sure—a child shouldn’t bruise that easily.
He gave Abby a quick smile. ‘Are you okay with me doing this, or do you want to get someone else?’ He was more than capable of suturing the laceration but if Abby would prefer one of her other colleagues, that was fine.
Abby shook her head. ‘Sorry about the gloves,’ she murmured. ‘I should know better.’
‘No worries. You’ve got your mommy head on right now. Do you want me to do the sutures?’
‘Yes, please. As long as you don’t mind his over-anxious mother hanging over your shoulder.’
Luke smiled. ‘No problems. But I should warn you, I expect some singing while I’m doing this.’ He raised his eyebrows at Lucy, who quickly realised he wanted something to distract Reuben.
‘We can do that, can’t we, Abby?’ She started to sing a nursery rhyme.
Abby quickly joined in as Luke bent his head and expertly inserted a row of sutures along the laceration then covered it with a white dressing.
‘All done. Well done, Reuben.’ He ruffled Reuben’s hair with his hand. ‘I think that deserves a special treat. How about I give Lucy some money to buy you a huge pancake at the canteen with chocolate syrup?’
Reuben’s eyes widened like saucers, his injury quickly forgotten. ‘Can I, Mommy? Please?’
Abby smiled. She didn’t often indulge his sweet tooth, but her heart had stopped when her page had gone off, saying Reuben was in the ER. She was so relieved it was nothing serious.
‘Of course you can, honey,’ she said. ‘I’ll need to fill out a little paperwork at the front desk. I’ll be there in a minute.’
Lucy picked up Reuben from the bed and headed towards the door with him. Luke caught Abby’s arm as she headed towards the door.
‘Abby …’
She noticed the expression on his face. ‘What’s wrong, Luke?’
‘Maybe nothing. It’s just, I noticed a new bruise at the back of Reuben’s shin. Maybe it was there yesterday, but I don’t remember it.’
Her face paled. A whirlwind of possibilities started flooding her mind. The last thing that the mother of a child with ALL wanted to hear. New bruises.
‘But I watch him so carefully. I mean, I check all the time, I hadn’t noticed anything …’ Her
voice drifted off.
A chill spread across her skin. She hadn’t checked him carefully that morning. Not like she usually did. This morning her head had been filled with hot and steamy memories of the night before. Had she missed the bruise?
Luke slipped an arm around her waist. ‘It might be nothing, Abby, I wasn’t trying to alarm you. It’s just …it caught my eye when I was stitching his hand, so I thought I better mention it.’ Her weight had sagged against him and he could see the distress on her face as her mind raced to its own conclusions. He walked over to the reception desk with her. ‘Look, you fill out the paperwork and I’ll meet you in the canteen with Reuben, okay?’
She gave a little nod, her mind obviously distracted, and he bent over and lightly kissed her cheek. Her fingers lifted to her cheek and her eyes flickered over to meet his. ‘What? Yes, okay. I’ll see you in minute.’
