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She felt good about working on 2B. Yvonne was a great boss and Rilla and Beth and her father were all close by. She adored her apartment. Rilla had been muttering about selling it and she was seriously considering buying it from her. She wasn’t going to let whatever it was between her and Callum derail her life.
It would help, of course, if she could just stop remembering their passionate exchange. The feel of his chest, smooth and warm beneath her palms, taunted her. The taste of his mouth, the shape of his lips, the sound of his deep appreciative groan played relentlessly in her head. The heat of him stayed with her, the smell of him clung to her. The look, the hungry, devouring look he had blasted her with still twisted her insides into knots.
And she was supposed to interact with him like she didn’t know these things? Like she didn’t remember them? Like there wasn’t an erotic movie playing in her head every time she clapped eyes on him?
Good luck!
Surprisingly, though, it was a few days before their paths did cross and not quite in the way Hailey had envisioned.
‘Hi, Rosemary, is this the new admission?’ Hailey asked, walking into the medical bay and parking herself at the end of bed eight’s cot. Yvonne had asked her to relieve Rosemary so the junior nurse could go to lunch. The ward lights had been dimmed and the curtains pulled for the daily afternoon rest period.
‘Yep,’ Rosemary confirmed.
‘Gosh, he is a skinny minny,’ she commented.
Little Timothy Dunbar was three weeks old and had come up from Emergency for intravenous fluids to correct his mild dehydration. He’d been admitted under Callum’s team and would have his vomiting and failure to thrive investigated during his stay. It was suspected that the babe had pyloric stenosis.
He was guzzling his bottle like he’d been wandering in a desert. She noted the intricate taping of the IV that had been placed in a scalp vein. With his dehydration venous access had obviously been difficult to find and a scalp vein had been the only option. At least Timothy was bald and they hadn’t had to shave any of his hair.
‘Yes,’ Rosemary agreed, as Timothy finished scoffing his bottle and she sat him on her lap to burp him. ‘Nothing wrong with his appetite, though.’
‘Here, I’ll take him.’ Hailey moved closer, holding her arms out. ‘You must be starving.’
Timothy chose that moment to prove once and for all that he was heading for the operating theatre. A large fountain of vomit surged from his mouth, covering the metre distance that separated him from Hailey, reaching her uniform in a perfect arc.
Hailey leapt back, her reflexes well honed from years of nursing vomity babies, but unfortunately, this time, not fast enough. Warm, regurgitated milk seeped into her clothes, soaking them and her underwear beneath. She looked down at the mess in dismay as the baby started to cry.
‘Shot! Great aim, young Timothy.’
Had she not been covered in baby vomit, Hailey might have felt self-conscious about seeing Callum again for the first time, but the current circumstances weren’t conducive to erotic thoughts.
She turned and gave him a quelling look.
He grinned at her. ‘Well, I think that confirms our suspicions of pyloric stenosis.’
‘Great. A comedian,’ she said, reaching for the clean towel on Timothy’s bedside cabinet.
Rosemary was looking at a wet Hailey with a horrified expression as she jiggled the fractious Timothy. Hailey had noticed that the junior nurse had been nervous around her since the blocked trachy incident. This was, no doubt, her last straw. Rosemary looked like she expected to be sacked on the spot.
‘It’s OK, Rosemary. This wasn’t your fault. If I had a dollar for every time a patient’s thrown up on me, I’d be a rich woman. Why don’t you go on to lunch? Dr Craig…’ she turned and shot Callum a sarcastic smile ‘…obviously has time to sit around and be funny. He can hold Timothy while I get changed.’
Callum inclined his head. ‘It will be my pleasure. Especially now you appear to be wearing the entire contents of his stomach. I think that makes me safe.’
Callum plucked a still bawling Timothy from Rosemary’s lap and cradled him in his arms. ‘Shh, Timothy,’ he crooned. ‘It’s OK. You and I are going to have a little chat.’ He took the chair that Rosemary had vacated. ‘You know it’s never polite to throw up over a girl, Timothy. Never.’
Hailey looked down at Callum and rolled her eyes. He winked at her and she shook her head. It was all right for him, he wasn’t covered in baby sick. He returned his attention to Timothy and afforded her a view of his downcast head. She remembered how it had felt beneath her hand the other night and her fingers itched to run over it, to feel the velvety stubble tickle her palm again. She threw the towel down on the floor instead, soaking up the puddle on the floor.
