One Night With Dr Nikolaides

“Right, Artie. We’ll just leave you here to rest up for a bit and then see about moving you somewhere a bit more peaceful where we can check out that arm, all right?”

He pulled off his gloves, smiled at Cailey and tipped his head toward the main trauma area. “Ready for the next one?”

She was impressed. For a man who professed to be a humble country doctor, he knew his stuff.

“Did you study trauma medicine?” She couldn’t help but ask the question after pulling the curtains round Artemis and watching Theo give notes to the nurse who, he’d explained, was in charge of moving patients out of the trauma area.

He nodded. “I thought if I was going to be running this place on my own sometimes I’d better be prepared.”

“You’re here alone ?”

“Well, not alone, alone. There are interns who come in from Athens to have a spell, but they usually get bored with island life eventually and want to get back to the mainland. And the lads come back on and off at certain times of the year in a sort of unofficial rotation; they’re just not here at the moment.”

She nodded. He must mean Chris, Deakin and Ares—the other Mopaxeni malakas he’d set up the clinic with. She wasn’t so sure malakas was the right word for them anymore. Miracle workers, more like. This place was a far cry from the crumbling old clinic she’d gone to as a girl. And Theo was completely different from the elitist snob she’d been expecting.

“Right.” He rubbed his hands together as if preparing for a fantastic adventure. “How are you with broken bones?”

* * *

Broken bones. Fractures. Lacerations. Internal bruising. Heart palpations. A massive blood clot... The list went on.

And no matter what he threw at her Cailey stayed bright, attentive and, much to his surprise, willing to learn. There were holes in her knowledge—as to be expected for someone whose specialty wasn’t trauma—but she seemed capable of everything short of reading his mind, and even that was sometimes questionable.

Whatever he needed—a particular gauge of needle, a certain type of suture thread, the correct scalpel—she already had it ready before he could ask for it.

As he opened the curtain for their next patient he stopped. Ah. Marina Serkos. They’d gone to school together until his father had deemed the local primary unfit for purpose and shipped him off to boarding school.

“Looks like someone’s due soon.”

This was his one bugbear. The baby checks. He knew he should be happy for others. Share in the joy of a new innocent life being brought into the world. But all he could think each time he saw a pregnant patient was, Good luck. You’ll need it.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement for “happy families”. But happy families hadn’t been the remit in the Nikolaides household. Appearances were everything. No one outside the family knew he wasn’t his father’s success story. Nor did they know he was adopted. And no one—not even his sister—would ever know his silent vow never to bring a child into this world.

Pawns. That was what he and his sister had been. Pawns in a game that hadn’t seemed to have any rules.

“Theo?” Cailey had helped Marina up onto the exam table and was wheeling a sonogram machine into place. “Do you want to do the exam?”

Both women were looking at him a bit oddly. If they’d been exchanging information he hadn’t a clue.

He scrubbed his hands over his face and forced a smile. “Apologies, Marina. It’s been a long day.”

“Marina’s worried about her baby,” Cailey explained in a confident voice.

Ah! Of course