Baby Twins to Bind Them

‘I can’t wait to hear it, Nurse Candy.’

He had the deepest voice that she’d ever heard. Like a headmaster, he was stern and bossy, yet it was all somehow softened by a very beautiful mouth that she could barely drag her eyes from. ‘You’ll never hear the story of my name,’ Candy said.

‘Oh, we’ll have to see about that.’

Had they been flirting? Candy wondered as sexy-as-hell Steele walked off.

‘Who’s that?’ Kelly said as they started to strip one of the resuscitation beds.

‘Steele!’ Candy said in a deep low voice, making Kelly laugh. She continued speaking gruffly while they bent over and tucked the sheet in. ‘Or Dr Guy Steele if we want to be formal and, young lady, I’m going to make your eardrums reverberate with my deep—’

‘Nurse Candy?’

Candy froze when she realised that Steele was behind her.

‘Could I borrow your stethoscope?’ he asked.

She laughed at being caught impersonating him and turned around and took her stethoscope from her neck and held it out to him, yet pulled back as he went to take it. ‘You can,’ she said, the stethoscope hovering. ‘Just so long as you stop calling me Nurse Candy.’

He just took the stethoscope, smiled and walked off.

They made up all the beds and checked the crash trolleys and then gave up pretending to be busy, given that Lydia, the manager, was in her office. Instead, they took a jug of iced tea to the nurses’ station, where Steele was tapping away on the computer. It was a lovely early summer day but the air-conditioning was struggling and it was nice to sit on the bench and gossip, though Steele had a couple of questions for her.

‘How do you get into the pathology lab to check results?’ he asked, not looking around.

‘You’ve got your password?’ Candy checked.

‘I have and I’ve got into …’ He tapped again. ‘Got it.’

‘Have you told your parents about Hawaii yet?’ Kelly asked Candy, resuming the conversation they’d been having in the kitchen as they’d made their drink.

‘No.’

‘You go in four weeks’ time,’ Kelly pointed out.

‘They might not notice that I’ve gone,’ Candy said hopefully, then let out a sigh. Her parents were Italian, strict and very prone to popping over to her flat unannounced. They also spoke every day on the phone. ‘I know I’ll have to tell them or I’ll be listed on Interpol as a missing person.’

Candy had, on a whim, booked a holiday to Hawaii. Well, it hadn’t been purely on a whim—she had already been aware that she needed to get away when the infomercial had appeared on her screen with a very special offer for the first ten callers. She’d been tired, a bit jaded and upset over a stupid fling with Gerry, one of the head nurses here. Thankfully he was in Greece for a couple of months, which spared Candy her blushes, but when she’d reached for the phone and, lucky her, been amongst the first ten callers, she’d known she needed this break.

She couldn’t wait for two weeks in which to lie on a beach and explore the stunning island at leisure while she attempted to sort out a few things that were on her mind.

‘They’re going to freak when I tell them,’ Candy admitted. ‘They know that I can’t really afford it.’

‘It’s all paid for?’ Kelly checked, and Candy nodded.

‘All except for spending money, but I’ve just spoken to the hospital bank and I’ve got loads of shifts. Actually, I haven’t got a single day off until I fly.’

‘Where are your shifts?’

‘In the geriatric unit.’

Kelly pulled a face. ‘Yuk.’

Candy didn’t mind. She had enjoyed working in the geriatric unit during her training and was really grateful for the extra work. Even if she was exhausted at the prospect of nearly four more weeks without so much as a day off.

As her parents would point out, when she finally got around to it and told them about her holiday, it was foolish to be working extra shifts because you were so tired that you needed a break—but Candy just wanted to get away for a while.

‘When do you start working there?’

‘The weekend. I’m working Friday night and then I’ve got a four-hour shift on Sunday morning, then back here Monday.’

‘Okay.’ Steele turned around. ‘I want Mr Heath pulled over to Resus. He needs to be monitored while I start him on some medication. His bloodwork’s dire.’

‘Sure.’ Candy jumped down from the bench and she and Trevor brought Mr Heath over.

Candy wrote his name on the whiteboard and turned to Steele. ‘Sorry, what specialty is he under?’

‘Geriatrics,’ Steele said, then he gave her a thin smile. ‘Yuk!’

Candy’s cheeks went pink; she wanted to point out that she hadn’t been the one who had said that.

‘It’s okay,’ Steele relented when he saw her uncomfortable expression. ‘You hit a nerve—I hear that sort of thing a lot.’

‘So are you a new geriatric consultant?’ Kelly asked, but Steele shook his head.

‘No, I’m only here temporarily. I’m covering for six weeks while Kathy Jordan is on extended leave.’

‘Just six weeks?’ Kelly asked shamelessly.

‘Yep,’ Steele said, and walked off.

‘Wow, talk about bringing the schmexy into geriatrics,’ Kelly said. ‘And you’re going to be working there, you lucky thing. I bet you’re not complaining now.’

She hadn’t been complaining in the first place, Candy was tempted to point out.

They soon paid for the lull in patients because, not an hour later, the department had filled and she and Kelly were busy in Resus, Kelly with a very ill baby and Candy attempting to calm down Mr Heath. He was rather shaky from the medication and was getting increasingly distressed and trying to climb down from the resuscitation bed.

‘The medicine makes your heart race, Mr Heath,’ Candy tried to explain to the gentleman. ‘It will settle down soon …’ But he couldn’t understand what she said and kept trying to climb off the bed so Candy tried speaking louder. ‘The medicine—’

‘You do it like this.’ Steele saw that she was struggling and came over. ‘Mr Heath!’ he boomed.

The people in the Waiting Room surely heard him, Candy thought as he gave the same explanation to Mr Heath that she had been trying to give. The gentleman nodded weakly in relief and then lay back on the pillows. ‘Good man,’ Steele barked and smiled at Candy and, in a comparatively dulcet tone, added, ‘I have the perfect voice for my job.’

‘You do,’ she agreed.

‘So you’re going to be doing a few shifts up on the geriatric unit?’

‘Yep.’