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He gave her hand another squeeze before dropping it. ‘The day after tomorrow, then.’
‘Sure.’
CHAPTER TEN
HAILEY’S STOMACH fluttered uneasily, feeling like a herd of elephant butterflies had taken up residence when she returned to work. She knew she’d see Callum at some stage today. Hell, she’d be lying if she didn’t admit that a large part of her was looking forward to it. But mostly she felt nervous. She knew he wanted answers. But the truth was she didn’t have any—just more questions. It should have been clear cut but it wasn’t.
The day was busy, for which she was grateful. No time to glance at the swing door every time it opened. No time to worry about who was on the other end of the constantly ringing phone. No time to wonder why he hadn’t appeared yet or speculate about to when he would.
Morning tea came and went, so did lunch. Home time was only an hour away and Hailey couldn’t figure out if she was relieved or annoyed. Was he trying to punish her, give her a dose of her own medicine? Or had he just got caught up with his private patients or down in Emergency? They’d already had several admissions from them that day as it was.
Soon though, Callum’s presence, or lack of it, quickly faded as Hailey became worried about the two-month-old that had been admitted a couple of hours ago. The little girl, Sarah, had come up via Emergency for investigation of a febrile illness, query viral in origin. She had a two-day history of lethargy, poor feeding and vomiting. All the usual tests had been run in Emergency—blood and urine—and she had a peripheral drip running. Prophylactic antibiotics had been commenced until the cause of the infection had been isolated.
In the two hours she’d been on the ward she’d been stable but her condition in the last ten minutes had worsened. Her fever had just spiked to forty-one and her extremities were now mottled, with very poor perfusion. Worst of all she was becoming less and less responsive.
Rosemary smiled at her as she ducked into the bay, looking for one of the ward’s tympanic thermometers. ‘Do you know where Yvonne is?’ Hailey asked.
‘She was in her office a minute ago,’ Rosemary said.
‘Can you, please, get her for me?’ Hailey asked, trying to keep the feeling of dread from rising in her chest and escaping in her voice.
Still, she must have looked pretty serious because Rosemary left immediately, returning with Yvonne.
‘What’s wrong?’ Yvonne asked, cutting to the chase.
Hailey breathed a sigh of relief. ‘I don’t like the look of her.’ She rattled off her concerns to Yvonne. ‘Can you page the reg, please?’
Yvonne left immediately and Hailey placed some flow by oxygen near the baby’s face. She noted that Sarah’s pulse displayed on the saturation monitor seemed to have plateaued at about one hundred and ninety. The fever was no doubt responsible for some of the alarming figure, but she checked it herself to make sure it was right. The brachial pulse bounded beneath her touch so rapidly it was hard to count. In fact, Sarah’s entire abdomen pulsed with the pounding of her heart.
‘Do you know where her mum went?’ Hailey asked Rosemary.
‘She said she was going home to sort out the other kids. She said she’d only be an hour.’
‘OK, thanks.’ Hailey nodded as she hit the button to take another blood pressure measurement and checked the baby’s pupils while she waited. Still briskly reactive but Sarah wasn’t responding to any of Hailey’s interventions.
Callum entered 2B quickly. Yvonne had left him in no doubt that it was urgent and he hadn’t wasted any time getting here. He strode to the bay, faltering when he saw Hailey at the bedside. He’d known it was her first shift back, had been trying his damnedest to get here all day, but things had been crazy and everything had conspired against him. And one look at the baby told him now wasn’t the time for chatting.
‘What have we got?’
Hailey looked up from her tiny patient, startled to find Callum here. She’d been expecting his registrar, Adele Nolan, who was an excellent doctor, more than capable of handling the situation.
Anyway, it didn’t matter. Not even this moment that she’d been dreading and anticipating all day mattered. Seeing him again after their tête-à-tête the other night was strange, and she felt her pulse leap at his sheer masculinity, but she paid it no heed. There was enough adrenaline charging around her system at the moment to kick-start a generator. And all their issues had to take a back seat to the grimness of Sarah’s situation.
Hailey filled Callum in on her recent deterioration as if they’d been doing this together for ever. ‘I think she’s septic.’
