Cort Mason - Dr Delectable

‘You’ve never partied in your life.’ Elise grinned at her rather serious older brother. ‘So, no, I don’t expect you to start at thirty-two.’ Elise had come here not just to see how her brother was doing since Beth’s death but with intention too, and she was determined to see this conversation through. ‘But there is more to life than work. You need to start going out a bit, do something you haven’t done before, try new things …’

Cort knew she was right—had it been Elise in his position he’d have said exactly the same, except he just didn’t know how to start. Cort had moved back to Sydney three years ago and had chosen not to tell his colleagues about his other life in Melbourne. He had moved back to Sydney to get away from the endless questions from colleagues, and pointless platitudes that did nothing to help.

The last years had been spent working in Sydney and then travelling back to Melbourne on his days off to sit in a nursing home and watch a woman who had once been so educated, so dignified, dribble her food and strip naked at whim. He had watched endless seizures erode what had been left of her brain and, yes, Elise was right—bit by bit, over these past years he had mourned.

‘Say yes.’ Elise drained her glass and bade her brother goodnight.

‘Say yes to what?’ Cort asked.

‘Just say yes next time someone suggests something.’

‘Sure,’ Cort said with absolutely no intention of doing so.

‘For Beth,’ Elise said as she headed to his apartment door. ‘She’d hate both your lives to have been cut short that night.’

She was right.

Cort knew that. He crossed his apartment and could hear the ocean from the open French doors, but he closed them to shut out the roar and the noise, and the room fell silent. Not just from the sound of the ocean but from the roar and the noise in his head. Beth was gone.

CHAPTER ONE

‘ARE you free to give me a hand in the suture room?’ Cort Mason, the senior emergency registrar, asked, and Ruby swung around. ‘It might take a while, though.’

Ruby jumped down from the footstool she was perched on while restocking the cupboard and turned to the voice that was aimed in her direction. She decided that she’d be delighted to give him a hand.

It had nothing to do with the fact he was gorgeous.

Really, it had completely nothing to do with it.

She just wanted an empty Resus before it filled again, which it inevitably would. Sheila, the NUM, had told her to stay in there today, that this was her area, but with a senior registrar asking for her to assist with a patient, well, surely she had no choice in the matter?

None.

‘I’d be happy to.’ Ruby beamed, except her smile wasn’t returned. In fact, he wasn’t even waiting for her response. Already Cort had walked off and was heading into the suture room, rightly perhaps assuming that a student nurse wasn’t likely to say no to his request for assistance.

‘Mr Mason has asked if I can give him a hand.’ Ruby let Connor, the RN in charge of Resus, know where she was going. ‘Is that okay?’

‘Sure,’ Connor said. ‘It’s not as if we’re doing anything.’ He frowned at her. ‘Ruby, why have you got a crepe bandage in your hair?’

‘Sheila!’ Ruby rolled her eyes, because the NUM was surely out to get her. Not only had she insisted that Ruby be allocated the most grisly part of Emergency, she also had a thing about Ruby’s long auburn hair, which was so thick it often defied the hair ties and clips she attempted to hold it back with. This afternoon Sheila had handed her a bandage and told her to sort it once and for all.

‘She’s really got it in for you.’

‘I remind her of her daughter apparently—I’ve no idea why. Anyway, Mr Mason will be wondering where I’ve got to. He said it might take a while.’

‘You might as well go to coffee afterwards, then,’ Connor said. ‘And we’re on first-name terms here—it’s Cort.’

She’d stick with ‘Mr Mason’—her dad was Chief of Surgery at another hospital and had drilled it into her over the years just how important titles were so Ruby had decided it was better to play safe than offend anyone.

She had a quick look around for Sheila and seeing she was busy up the other end darted off, more relieved than Connor could know. Sheila had been very specific in her allocation, ensuring that Ruby was working in Resus, but apart from a febrile convulsion and couple of patients who had been brought over briefly while awaiting blood results it had been delightfully quiet.

‘Put some gloves on,’ Cort said as she entered the suture room. ‘I just need someone to hold Ted’s arm while I suture it. He keeps forgetting to stay still, don’t you, Ted?’

The elderly man grunted and Ruby could smell the brandy fumes that filled the small room.

‘How are you, Ted?’ Ruby asked, pulling on some gloves and looking at the wound, happy, though not for the patient, to see it was a huge cut that would hopefully take ages, and then it would be time for her coffee break and with her assessment and everything, well, she might just not have to go back out there.

She loathed Accident and Emergency, not that anyone could tell. She was always light, breezy and happy and had chosen not to tell even her closest friends just how hard this final unit of her training had been, knowing there was nothing they could do to fix it and choosing just to soldier on.

She had never expected to like it, but the loathing was so acute Ruby was seriously wondering if she would even make it through these last weeks of her training. There was no tangible reason for hating it, nothing Ruby could point to as the reason she hated it so, but walking to her shift, every ambulance that passed, every glimpse of Eastern Beaches Hospital made her want to turn tail and run for home.

Looking back, there had been a few wobbles that might have given warning that Emergency might be unsettling for her—a young man suddenly collapsing after a routine appendectomy and the crash team being called while she was on the surgical ward had stunned Ruby and made her question her decision to study nursing—but she had, for the most part, liked her training. Only liked, though—her real aim was to work as a mental health nurse, but general training was a prerequisite if she wanted to get anywhere in her future career.

‘Okay?’ Cort said. ‘We might be here a while, so I’d make yourself comfortable.’

He took off his jacket and tied on a plastic gown, then washed his hands, dragged a stool over with his foot and settled in for the long haul.

‘He’s asleep,’ Ruby said, stating the obvious, because Ted was snoring loudly now, and even Ruby could see that she might be better utilised elsewhere.

‘I don’t want to wrestle with him if he wakes up.’ He gave a tight smile. ‘Sorry if it’s boring.’

‘Oh, I’m not bored. I’m delighted to be here,’ Ruby said, hearing a noise from outside, a relative arguing with a security guard close to the suture-room door. She gave Cort a wide smile, a smile so bright that he hesitated for a moment before returning it with a slightly bemused one, then he turned his attention back to his patient. He cleaned the wound and injected anaesthetic as Ruby watched and only then did he offer a response, not looking at her, just concentrating on the wound as he spoke.

‘It’s not often you hear that in this place.’

‘What?’ Ruby asked, her mind elsewhere.

‘People saying that they’re delighted to be here.’

‘I’m a happy apple,’ Ruby said, and watched as his hands stopped, the first knot of the stitch neatly tied. He seemed to be waiting for her to do something.

‘Are you going to cut?’

‘Oh!’ She picked up the scissors with her free hand. ‘I feel like a real nurse. Where do I cut?’ She held the scissors over the thread.

‘A bit shorter.’

There was something lovely and soothing about sitting here and actually doing something, rather than just holding the patient’s hand. And contrary to what she’d heard, Cort Mason was far from grumpy. One on one with him, he was really rather nice.

She’d heard his name mentioned a lot of times. He’d been on annual leave for the first four weeks of her time here and had only been back a week, but he was nothing like the man she’d imagined, the staid man her colleagues had led her to believe he was.

Nothing.

From the way she’d heard people speaking about him Ruby had expected a dour serious man in his fifties.

Instead he’d be in his thirties, with brown hair and hazel eyes, a long straight nose and, not so much dour, or sharp, just … She couldn’t really sum him up in word, and she tried for a moment Outside the suture room, she’d never been privy to small talk with him, had never really seen him smile. He was formal with the patients, distant with the staff, and any hint of ineptness or bureaucracy seemed to irritate him.

Crabby was the best she could come up with.