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Alessandro looked at her blankly and she just smiled and turned to Donna, who was hovering nervously. ‘Can you speak to Nicky?’ she said quietly. ‘Ask her to talk to one of the elves and call the school.’
Visibly relieved to be given an excuse to leave, Donna backed out of the room.
Alessandro watched her go with an ominous frown in his dark eyes. ‘She’s nervous.’
‘She’s learning and you can be scary,’ Christy said calmly. ‘Do you want to immobilise the limb now?’
He looked at her. ‘I’m scary?’
‘Not everyone is born with your confidence. Derek, we’re going to splint this leg of yours and for that I need to take some measurements on your uninjured leg.’ Having offered an explanation, Christy moved the blanket and measured the uppermost part of the patient’s thigh.
Donna slipped back by her side. ‘It’s done,’ she said breathlessly. ‘They’ve phoned the school and everyone is fine.’
‘Good. Well done.’ Christy smiled at her patient. ‘You can stop worrying. Even Father Christmas is allowed to be held up when he’s delivering presents.’
He smiled weakly. ‘You probably think I’m mad, worrying about that while I’m lying here with a broken leg, but I don’t want to disappoint the children. I think the pain is getting easier.’
‘The splint will help the pain, too,’ Christy explained, and then turned to Donna and handed her the measurements she’d taken. ‘We’re going to use a Thomas splint. Can you go and fetch me one, please? You’d better get the size above and below, just in case. It will save you making another journey.’
Working as a team, they prepared to fit the splint and Christy applied the adhesive tape and then wrapped the leg from ankle to mid-thigh with gauze bandage, talking Donna through what she was doing.
The girl lost her nervous appearance and moved closer to the trolley, her expression keen and interested.
Alessandro applied traction to the leg, gently pulling the ankle with one hand and supporting the knee with the other.
Katya stood closer to him than was strictly necessary and Christy tried not to mind and concentrated instead on helping Donna.
‘You can see that he’s correcting the abduction and the external rotation,’ she explained as she helped manoeuvre the splint onto the leg until it was in the right position.
She and Alessandro worked together smoothly, closely observed by both Katya and Donna.
Once the cords were tied and twisted, Christy put wool roll padding under the thigh. ‘Now we just need to bandage the whole splint from thigh to lower calf,’ she said to Donna, ‘lift and support the leg on a pillow and check the distal pulses.’
‘Great.’ Alessandro turned to Katya. ‘Can you arrange for X-rays and then we’ll refer him to the orthopaedic team? I want X-rays of the pelvis, hip and knee.’
Katya gave a feline smile. ‘Of course, Alessandro.’
Donna shot a questioning glance at Christy, who dragged her gaze away from her scrutiny of Katya and volunteered the information she knew was needed.
‘For the femoral shaft to fracture, there must have been a violent high-energy impact and that is associated with other injures.’ He wouldn’t be sleeping with Katya, she told herself firmly. Alessandro wouldn’t do that. He might be the archetypal alpha male, but he was an honourable man with strong principles. ‘So when we’re X-raying, it’s important to check pelvis, hip and knee.’
But if he considered their marriage to be over, would he do that?
CHAPTER THREE
CHRISTY started to clear up some of the debris that had accumulated while Katya and Donna arranged the X-rays. She knew how important it was to keep Resus tidy and well stocked, and she thought that the comfort of routine might relieve the sick feeling building in her stomach.
Forcing herself to be rational and mature, she hung a fresh bag of IV fluid from the drip stand and then started to replenish the drugs that they’d used.
Eventually the patient was transferred to Theatre and she was left alone in the room. She picked up a laryngoscope from the intubation tray and snapped it open, testing that the bulb worked. She stared down at the curved, silver blade in her hand and didn’t hear the door open behind her.
‘So—working in A and E is obviously like riding a bike.’ Alessandro’s deep, masculine drawl came from directly behind her and she turned, her stomach jumping. There was no reason to feel nervous, she told herself firmly. They’d worked together as a smooth, efficient team. She hadn’t done anything wrong.
‘It came back to me.’
‘Obviously.’ His dark eyes lingered on her face. ‘You’ve missed it, haven’t you?’
She caught her breath. It had been years since she’d stopped working in A and E and yet that was the first time he’d ever asked her that question. ‘Yes,’ she breathed. ‘I missed it terribly.’
