AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘Come on, tell me what’s happened, my dear,’ he said. ‘Have you had some trouble?’
Georgie decided it wouldn’t hurt to get an ally on board, especially a senior clinician. ‘Ben Blackwood and I got off to a very bad start,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to put things right between us.’
‘It’s probably more to do with your father than you, Georgie,’ he said in response. ‘I suppose you know Ben failed his fellowship first time around.’
She felt a frown tug at her forehead. ‘No … I didn’t know that.’
‘Your father was the examiner who failed him.’
The pennies were starting to drop rather loudly in Georgie’s head. ‘Oh … I didn’t know that either.’
‘Petty of him, if you ask me,’ Richard said. ‘Ben, I mean, not your father, of course,’ he added with a little smile. ‘Just do your best, my dear, and I’ll make sure my report on you more than makes up for anything Ben Blackwood might say against you.’
‘Thank you, Mr DeBurgh. That’s very kind of you.’
‘Please, call me Richard,’ he said as he got to his feet. ‘Unlike some others around here, I don’t stand on ceremony.’ He offered her his hand across the desk. ‘Welcome to the unit, Georgie. It’s a pleasure to have you on board.’
Georgie smiled as she shook his hand. ‘Thank you, Richard. I’m looking forward to working with you.’
CHAPTER FIVE
‘HAS anyone seen Dr Willoughby about?’ Ben asked in the unit later that day.
‘I think she’s left for the day,’ the afternoon shift nurse Carla Yates informed him. ‘She was on call last night so I expect she was feeling a bit tired. It was a busy night. Do you want me to get her on the line for you?’
‘No,’ he said, reaching for his phone. ‘I’ll call her myself. It’s not urgent.’
‘She’s nothing like her father, is she?’ Carla asked after a little pause.
Ben looked at her with as little animation as possible. ‘What?’
‘Georgie Willoughby,’ she said. ‘She’s rather a sweetie, don’t you think?’
He gave the nurse a noncommittal shrug. ‘She’s OK, I guess.’
‘Jennifer Patterson was telling me Georgie quite possibly saved a young baby’s life this morning,’ she carried on.
Ben felt another wave of remorse begin to tighten his stomach. ‘Oh, really?’
‘Yes, she was first on the scene at a minor accident but insisted on the baby being brought in for observation. It turns out the little girl had an undiagnosed cardiac murmur. She was echoed this afternoon and has mitral incompetence.’
‘That was a lucky pick-up,’ he said, mentally escalating his apology. ‘Sure was.’
‘Well, then,’ he said giving the nurse a quick smile, ‘I’ll be off.’
‘Doing anything special this evening, Ben?’ she asked. ‘Not really. A quick session in the gym and then dinner and bed.’
‘Sounds a bit boring to me,’ Carla said. ‘Isn’t it time you put Leila behind you and went on a da
te?’
‘My lack of dating recently has nothing whatsoever to do with my break-up with Leila,’ he said with a brooding frown. ‘I just haven’t had the time.’
Carla patted his arm as she moved to answer the ringing phone. ‘You should make the time.’
I might just do that, Ben thought as he pressed the button for the lift.
Georgie hated going to the gym in the evenings. She was a morning person and liked the feeling of having put her exercise behind her for the day so she could concentrate on work and study. But being on call two nights a week and every third weekend was going to disrupt her routine and she decided she’d better try and be a bit more flexible.
