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‘It’s a complication perhaps. Though not inappropriate. But in any case it means there’s a clear line between the two things. Here, and there.’
And he was damned well going to ignore the niggling doubt that it wouldn’t be that easy. That drawing that line, and sticking to it, were very different things. Especially, it seemed, where his libido and Bridget Gardiner were concerned.
‘A line,’ she repeated carefully. ‘Like What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas?’
‘Exactly,’ he declared, fighting the almost overwhelming urge to move his hands to her hips.
She eyed him dubiously.
‘And that works? It’s that easy?’
‘Why not?’ he answered, shoving aside the simple truth that he’d never had to worry about it before because he’d never been tempted to cross his own self-imposed lines before.
Or the fact that, with Bridget, he hadn’t merely crossed them as much as skidded over them, blotting them out altogether.
‘Or we can stop,’ he forced himself to say, even though he knew that stopping himself from touching this particular woman might well kill him.
Colour flushed her cheeks and she dropped her eyes to his chest, following the trail as her hands moved over the ridges they found.
‘I don’t think I could stop,’ she whispered.
‘Then we won’t,’ he ground out, need overtaking him once more.
And he used his hands to guide her onto him, wanting to take his time but driven on by the sight of her body moving on him, and as she dropped her head back, pushing herself down onto him, he thrust his way home as though it had always been this way.
CHAPTER SIX
THE FLAP TO the ICU room was snapped back and one of her colleagues burst through, carrying a young child in her arms, malnourished and pale. Bridget snapped her head up from task of finishing up loose ends at the end of her shift and hurried over.
‘He was brought into the paediatric outpatient feeding centre. But he isn’t breathing, and his pulse is slow,’ Lisa announced, laying the child on the bed.
Swivelling around, Bridget grabbed the bag mask ventilator and connected it to the oxygen and began prepping the adrenalin as another nurse called the time, and Lisa began chest compressions.
Briefly it crossed Bridget’s mind that the weight loss could be a symptom of malaria, TB, measles or any number of other issues out here on the African continent, but until they got him breathing and stable, there was no way they could even begin to diagnose. She wasn’t sure how long they worked for, sweat pouring off them in the forty-degree heat, but eventually the boy was breathing on his own again, albeit wearing an oxygen mask, his pulse returning to normal.
She sent out a silent thanks that it was a better outcome than the previous day when they’d worked for thirty minutes, only for the little girl to have to be declared dead. This time, at least, it was a happier end to what had been a long, draining shift.
‘It’s quiet this evening,’ she observed, looking around the room.
‘There were no new admissions so the clinic was shut down early,’ Lisa agreed. ‘Skeleton crew on for tonight—some last-minute plan, I heard. Anyway, your shift is done. Go. Relax. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘Okay, ’night, then.’ Bridget hesitated, looking around one more time to check there was no work still to do.
‘Go,’ Lisa ordered with a laugh, making her slink sheepishly to the door.
‘Yes, yes, I know. I’m going.’
As Bridget walked out of the tent, she stood in the heat and turned her face up to the sun for a few moments. Breathing in the hot, fresh air, and trying to remember if she’d ever felt so tired. She’d only been in the medical camp for four days, yet it felt like a lifetime. It was terrifying, exhausting, and—when they managed to save a life—the most satisfying feeling in the world.
Not that she hadn’t felt that way back home, but it was always different out here where even the most basic medical supplies weren’t freely available to these people.
Her first day in—arriving by plane and flying over miles and miles of dry arid, pretty much barren land—she’d been brought to the clinic, such as it was, to
witness a little boy of about six, comatose and seizing.
The probable diagnosis had been meningitis, which back home would have meant the young child would have been sedated and ventilated, and he would have been monitored. He would have a feeding tube and a catheter, whilst a central line would have been put in, and a neuro monitor would have been attached to catch low-grade seizure activity. But out here none of that was available.
Even now, Bridget could remember her very first case on her very first mission, many years ago. A small child very similar to this little boy. She recalled listening as her mentor had explained to her that she would simply have to monitor regularly herself by lifting the eyelid and looking for faint flickering, or even just test the arm for rigidity, to determine whether there was seizure activity. Then it was a matter of using the vitals to determine fluid boluses or diazepam.
