The Surgeon's Miracle Baby

‘Thanks.’ Daniel nodded, letting out a long breath. ‘Thanks,’ he said again, clearly appreciating the fact that it was still just the two of them in the room.

‘Have some water,’ she offered, splashing some water from the jug into a beaker and lifting it to his lips, knowing as surely as the sun rose every morning that if it had been anyone else other than her who had walked into the room, they’d have been shooed away with a stern bark, and he’d have ended up on the floor. She was glad for the chance to be able to look after him—at least for this short time.

‘How’s your pain?’ Louise asked. ‘And, please, don’t fob me off.’

‘Between you and me?’ he said.

‘Sure.’

‘Bloody agony,’ he admitted. ‘But if I have another jab of pethidine, I know that they’ll want to keep me in till after lunch.’

‘What about a couple of Panadeine Forte,’ Louise offered, checking through his chart. ‘You’re written up—’

‘A couple of tablets aren’t going to help,’ Daniel retorted, proving that doctors really did make the worst patients!

‘Well, they definitely won’t if you don’t take them,’ Louise pointed out. ‘Why does it have to be all or nothing with you—that if you can’t have pethidine then you’ll just have to suffer on?’

‘OK,’ he bristled as Louise marched out and returned a couple of moments later with two white tablets, which he reluctantly swallowed.

‘You’re too damn proud for your own good!’ she scolded, hoping for bossy nurse mode, trying to keep a grip here as she attempted the impossible—to treat him solely as a patient. ‘And what on earth have you done with your T-shirt?’

‘I couldn’t work out how to feed the drip through—you nurses make it look easy.’

Louise collected a towel from the bathroom and then dried his back, before turning off the IVAC and dismantling the IV, pulling the tubing through the free arm of his T-shirt then feeding his hand through.

‘This is probably coming down after the round.’

‘Hope so,’ Daniel said. ‘I just want to go home. Is it awkward for you?’ He looked up at her. ‘Looking after me, I mean?’

She even managed to laugh. ‘Not at all! I’m a bit miffed, actually—I was kind of looking forward to giving you a good dressing down!’

‘Sweet revenge?’ Daniel asked, a hint of a smile ghosting on his pale lips.

‘Something like that,’ Louise answered. ‘I ought to check your wound really, but if you’d rather leave it for the round, I understand.’

‘I’ll leave it, thanks.’

‘Sure,’ Louise said, quietly relieved. The thought of seeing him so black and bruised held no appeal. ‘I’ll just do your obs again.

‘Aren’t cricketers supposed to wear a shield or something?’ she asked as she wrapped the blood-pressure cuff around his arm.

‘It’s called a box,’ Daniel answered. ‘And, yes, the batsman wears a box, only I wasn’t batting at the time—I was supposed to be fielding.’

‘I didn’t know you played cricket.’

‘I don’t play much, but an Englishman in Australia has to defend his honour.’ He smiled, then changed the subject back from vaguely friendly to painfully personal. ‘So, how come you’re here, Louise?’

‘There wasn’t really much work back home—well, not with the hours that I wanted,’ Louise said, giving him her standard response, but Daniel knew her too well to be fobbed off.

‘It must be hard in the city with your family so far away,’ he delved, and as Louise rolled her eyes he gave a low laugh. ‘They’re not still fighting?’

‘You’ve no idea.’ Louise gave a dramatic sigh. ‘Catherine’s getting married in a few months.’

‘Your sister?’

‘My half-sister,’ Louise corrected him.

‘How’s your mum taking it?’ he asked, matching her grimace, and it was so nice that even after all this time he understood, so very nice to put the animosity on hold and talk to him again.

To talk as they once had.

‘Terribly,’ Louise admitted. ‘Though, in her defence, there’s just no escaping it—in a small country town a wedding’s a big thing, especially this one. The local baker’s doing the cake, Mum’s close friend is a dressmaker and she’s working on the wedding dress and all the bridesmaids’ outfits, and the reception is being held in the local pub. You’d think it was European royalty that was getting married…’

‘That’s your mother talking!’ Daniel checked, and Louise laughed as she nodded.

‘Well, she found out a couple of months ago that Dad was paying for the wedding and even though they’re divorced, even though financially it doesn’t affect Mum a bit—well, let’s just say it wasn’t exactly a soothing environment with a new baby on board. I think I’ll be staying in Melbourne for a while, at least until after the wedding!’

‘So how are things—how are you finding the ward?’

‘Good.’ Louise nodded. ‘I’m starting to find my way around.’

‘Who are you looking after this morning?’

‘A couple of easy ones—or they would be easy if they didn’t go taking showers and fainting on me and then…’ She gave an uncomfortable shrug. ‘I shouldn’t really be discussing the patients.’

‘They’re my patients,’ Daniel pointed out. ‘Who else have you got?’

‘Jordan Adams,’ Louise answered.

‘How’s he doing now he’s on the ward?’

‘OK,’ Louise answered thoughtfully. ‘Well, he seems OK. He’s being weaned off the tracheostomy and he’s starting to eat a little…’

‘How’s his mood?’ Daniel asked perceptively, because it was Jordan’s mood that was worrying Louise most. Most patients, after coming out of ICU, were so used to the intense one-on-one nursing contact that they tended to panic once on the ward and demand attention, but instead Jordan’s mood was flat, making little eye contact when Louise tried to talk to him, refusing to see his friends when they arrived to visit him—instead, just staring unseeingly at the television above his bed.

‘It’s not great,’ Louise sighed. ‘I think he saw himself in the mirror for the first time over the weekend and he hates that colostomy with a passion.’