Emergency In Maternity

He chose his words carefully. ‘I believe Maternity can be the showcase of the hospital. Front-line public relations are an important facet of any hospital’s success.’ And the most common area of overspending. But he didn’t say it.

Public relations led back to the dollar again, Cate correctly deduced, and shrugged.

When they walked into Maternity two of the room buzzer lights were on and the nursery was lined with bassinets in which most of the tiny occupants were crying. Mothers with their babies in their arms, crowded around the sink as they waited for weighings and baths.

Noah frowned. ‘Where are all the staff?’

Cate almost snorted. ‘Both midwives are doing fifty things at once.’ She felt like saying, Can you see anywhere to save money here? But she didn’t. Well done. What control, Cate. She patted herself on the back then moved away from him to punch some numbers into the phone.

‘Hi. It’s Cate Forrest here. Can you send Trudy over to Maternity to help in the nursery for an hour, please? Yes, they’re snowed under.’ She smiled into the phone and he realised he hadn’t seen her smile before. It lit her face with a sweetness that warmed the ice around his heart. She had a smile that reached the corners of the room and shone up the walls. Noah wondered what it would feel like to have that wattage directed solely at him. It would be a smile worth waiting for. He blinked and refocused on the ward around him.

‘Thanks,’ she said to whoever was on the phone. ‘I owe you one.’

One of the midwives came out of the birthing unit and grinned at Cate. ‘Two new admissions, both in established labour, right on bathtime, and four babies are waiting for discharge weighings.’

‘Trudy is coming over for the nursery. Have you guys had lunch?’

Noah nodded at the mothers who walked past as Cate rearranged staff. He listened to her acknowledge the good job the midwives were doing with the workload and then she proceeded to address several of the mothers by their first names and enquire about their other children. She seemed to know and have one of those smiles for everyone. Except him.

But, then, he guessed she was a people person. He wondered if he still had that knack after two years in administration. Had he lost the knack of emergency surgery, too? Noah squashed that last thought down ruthlessly, and the guilt that rose with it.

Cate caught him studying her and excused herself from the mother she was speaking to. She moved across to his side with the light of battle in her eye. ‘Do you advocate breastfeeding, Dr Masters?’

Under attack, Noah looked around at the mothers watching him. ‘If at all possible, of course I do,’ he said cautiously.

‘So you’d agree it’s important that first-time mums in particular have access to help for at least the first few days after the baby is born to establish lactation? Especially if you believe that breastfeeding is best for babies.’

A glimmer of light appeared and Noah narrowed his eyes. Before he could ask if this had to do with his suggestion to shorten postnatal stays, she continued.

‘Were you aware that, unlike larger hospitals, Riverbank clients don’t have access to early discharge follow-up by midwives? Only overworked early childhood nurses?’

Her blue eyes bored into his and he had to admire her passion, if not her subtlety.

‘No, I wasn’t aware of that.’ He was going to continue but Cate cut him off.

‘Or that we have some of the best long-term breastfeeding rates in New South Wales?’ She looked justifiably proud about that.

She was like a steamroller and from one steamroller to another he couldn’t help admiring her—but a public hallway was unfair. ‘No. I wasn’t aware of that either, Sister Forrest,’ he replied sardonically. He didn’t understand why he wasn’t more annoyed with her. Perhaps it was the obvious undeniable passion she had for her work.

‘Pity!’ She’d scored her point and was ready to change the subject. ‘Seen enough?’

Before he could answer, her pager went off and she was thinking of something else. ‘I’m off to Accident and Emergency, Dr Masters.’

He knew she wanted to get rid of him but he wasn’t going to be shaken off that easily. ‘I’ll tag along, then.’

He lengthened his stride to keep up with her, which was quite a startling change from usually having to slow his pace for women. He found himself smiling again—Cate Forrest was certainly different.

Thunder rumbled outside and Noah shook his head as he glanced out of the window to see the sheets of rain falling even harder. ‘This is some storm.’

Cate paused and followed his gaze out of the window. ‘It’s more than a storm.’

Noah frowned. ‘Meaning?’

‘My father says we’re in for a flood—and when a farmer predicts a disaster, it’s a definite worry.’

Farmers predicting weather. He’d heard of that but he didn’t believe in it. ‘So how often does it flood around here?’

Cate turned from the window and started walking again. ‘Nineteen sixty-three was a big flood but 1949 was the biggest in recent history. That flood washed right through the centre of town, killed six people and left others stranded on the roofs that didn’t wash away. The locals still talk about that one.’

Her pager shrilled and she glanced down and muttered, ‘Outside call.’ Then picked up the pace again.

‘The staff with creek crossings can have problems getting in when it’s like this. That will be the first of those who can’t get in.’ She smiled sweetly at him. ‘They get flooded-in leave.’

He frowned. ‘Can’t you make them stay in town before they get flooded so the hospital will be staffed properly?’

Cate raised her own sardonic eyebrow. ‘Perhaps if that was a permanent rule, we could have our hospital staffed properly at normal times?’

He flicked a questioning glance across at her until he realised she was baiting him—again.

A small frown marred her forehead and he realised that he had only a fraction of her attention. Another thing he wasn’t used to. ‘I’ll leave you to it, Sister Forrest. I can see you have your hands full.’

For the first time she smiled at him, and he couldn’t help but smile back. As he turned down the opposite corridor towards his car, he acknowledged wryly that all he had to do was leave her and she’d smile.

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_43807a92-c9c0-5c43-9ec0-56a5c9d92f22)

AFTER work, Cate tried to concentrate on the road home to her parents’ farm in the torrential rain, but it required more attention than she wanted to give. She knew she needed to be less fixated on scoring against Noah Masters and more focused on the rising river and her father’s cattle.

Compartmentalising had never been a problem with men before. Even during her engagement she’d been able to parcel Brett up in to one part of her life while she carried on with something else. So why did thoughts of Noah Masters not stay where she told them to? She grimaced. Maybe he was too big.

She couldn’t help the image of Noah popping so clearly into her memory. And she couldn’t help the awareness of her attraction to him—something she’d been fighting all day—from stealing her concentration.

Cate’s utility rattled over the cattle-grid and the sheets of rain made it hard to make out the figure sitting in the wheelchair on the verandah. She waved anyway as she drove past and parked in the garage. Shaking rain off as she came, Cate hurried up the verandah steps to drop a kiss on her father’s leathery cheek. ‘Hi, Dad.’ William Forrest was another big man and her heart ached to see him confined to the wheelchair. Oddly, he’d adapted to being paralysed better than his family had.

‘Hello, love. River’s rising,’ he said, and they both turned to look towards the bottom paddock river flat. The thickened brown snake of the river was spreading slowly across the lowest areas. ‘Your mother’s trip to town yesterday was in good time. We’ve enough supplies for a month.’

‘Hopefully the rain won’t last a month.’ Cate grinned wryly at her father and laid her hand on his shoulder. ‘I’ll change after my coffee and move the cattle up to the house paddock.’

His bushy white eyebrows drew together. ‘I thought the fence had snapped up in the house paddock?’

‘I fixed it yesterday before I went to work but the gate’s only just hanging on.’

He put his hand over hers and gripped it as if to say, Hear me out. ‘The farm is too much for you and your mother. I’ve asked your brother to come home.’

Cate tried not to feel that she’d failed him. Her father shouldn’t have had to do that. ‘Oh, Dad, there’s no point worrying Ben! We can manage. I’ll fix the gate this evening.’

William was still very much the head of the family and knew how to be firm. ‘It’s too much. You’re a fine daughter and as good as any man on the farm. But you have your own life. And I’ll need him for the flood, if it comes.’ There was no doubt her father believed they were in for a big flood.

Cate turned away and tried not to think about the changes that Ben’s return would make. Her brother had left home without a backward glance as soon as he’d turned eighteen. He had chosen to work in the Northern Territory on another man’s property, leaving her parents to manage with only her. Cate was really proud that she and her mother had managed. They still could—but it was her father’s choice. This day couldn’t get worse.