Emergency In Maternity

There was that fire and passion for the patients again. He had to harden his heart. ‘So what you’re saying is that if it wasn’t raining you’d be happy to send them home?’ She would fight him all the way, but that wasn’t a problem. He felt more alive than he had for years—perhaps it was the country air he hadn’t looked forward to.

She did look determined, though. ‘What I’m saying, Dr Masters, is that an early discharge for these clients would most probably result in readmissions—which cost more money by the way—so nothing would be gained by putting them at risk.’ She folded her arms across her chest.

‘What about the risk here if you have an influx of sick patients and minimum staff to care for everybody? I’ll have a list of other possibles anyway, please, Sister Forrest.’

He watched her shrug and realised she probably thought he hadn’t heard a word she’d said.

Cate tilted her chin. ‘Then it’s on your head.’

‘That’s what my head is here for.’ His attempt at humour failed to draw a smile and she stared stonily back at him. He shrugged. He had other things to worry about. ‘I assume you’re aware that I’ve taken over from Mr Beamish in the interim as this hospital’s CEO?’

‘The news had made it to my desk, yes.’ She glanced at her watch.

Noah could feel his temper rise. So he was holding her up, was he? ‘I hope I can rely on your support during this unsettled time, then.’

‘Of course,’ she said. So why did he feel that her fingers must be crossed behind her back?

Then she said, ‘I always have the hospital’s best interests at heart.’ This time her voice wasn’t so meek. Her pager sounded and she tilted her chin before moving away.

Noah shook his head. Right. He’d have her support as long as she totally agreed with his plans, and he watched her turn the corner towards Intensive Care without looking back. But she didn’t know whom she was up against. He narrowed his eyes thoughtfully at the spot where she’d disappeared from view.

Cate couldn’t get away fast enough. Bumping into Noah Masters straight after seeing Iris had left her in turmoil. She’d actually felt comforted by his strong grip on her arms and her step back had been a defence against the inexplicable desire to stay and lean on him for a moment.

Of all the people to feel like leaning on! She needed to get a grip on things. Why hadn’t Brett come so she could stop worrying about it hanging over her head? She hoped it wasn’t going to be awkward to see Brett but it was the first time face to face since they’d broken their engagement.

Luckily she was busy. The rain continued and the calls from marooned staff members also flooded in. Cate glanced out of the corridor window as she made another trip to Maternity and realised that if the rain kept up she’d be one more person blocked by rising waters from going home. Though after her phone call to her parents earlier, she knew her brother was at home now. They said they’d manage fine without her. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

Cate pulled open the door to Maternity. Michelle and Leif were going home a day early with baby Lachlan and they were waiting to say goodbye. Early on Tuesday morning, Cate’s sleep in the nurses’ quarters had been interrupted to set up for an emergency Caesarean section when baby Lachlan’s descent through his mother’s pelvis had apparently stopped.

To everyone’s relief, he’d made his precipitous arrival in the normal way in the operating theatres before the surgeon had scrubbed his hands.

‘Lachlan looks much better this morning, Michelle. And so do you.’ The new parents looked up and smiled, and Cate’s day brightened to see the baby feed contentedly at his mother’s breast.

Michelle was small-boned and blonde, and she stroked her son’s thick crop of black hair. ‘Thanks, Cate. It’s amazing how much they change in just two days. He was so blue and his head was such a strange shape when he was born.’

Cate grinned as she remembered the marked moulding of Lachlan’s head caused by his squeeze through his mother’s pelvis. ‘I remember. Thank goodness babies’ skull bones are designed to do it. If he’d just tucked his chin in he would have made it much easier on both of you.’

Leif laughed. ‘And your sleep. He was such a cone head. When I asked if his head would change shape, the doctor said if newborn heads didn’t there’d be a lot of funny looking people walking around town. That’s when I knew he was going to be all right.’ They all laughed at the mental picture of a town full of people with misshapen heads. ‘Everyone has taken such good care of us.’

‘And so we should.’ Cate had gone to school with Michelle’s older sister. The beauty of working in a small town hospital was that she knew most of the patients or at least one of their relatives.

The new parents wanted to make sure they could make it home before their road was cut off.

‘Now, you’re sure you have enough supplies?’ Cate stroked Lachlan’s tiny hand as he lay in his mother’s arms.

Michelle reached up and kissed Cate’s cheek. ‘Leif’s picked up everything on the list this morning and we have enough stuff to last us a couple of weeks. Hopefully the flood won’t linger, but luckily our house is on a hill. At worst we’ll be on an island, but I want to be home if that happens.’

‘Of course you do. Good luck and hopefully the roads won’t be shut long. Remember to ring the ward if you’re unsure about anything to do with you, breastfeeding or Lachlan.’

Cate left them to pack the car in dashes through the rain, and got on with her own work, but she couldn’t help comparing her life to that of Michelle.

Michelle was five years younger than Cate’s thirty years. She already had a husband who adored her and a new son and her own tiny farmhouse on the outskirts of town. It sounded idyllic and Cate sighed.

Something was missing in her life and she could almost see herself ending up alone, with nothing but patients and cows to look after, when all she had ever wanted had been a home and family. Even Iris had had a child and Cate was beginning to wonder if she’d ever have a baby of her own.

Perhaps that fear had been a factor in allowing her relationship with Brett to grow. She’d grown up with the local boys as friends. As casual boyfriends they hadn’t seemed to mind the fact that she was better at most things than they had been, but Cate had never found any reason to become heavily involved with someone she’d known.

Until Brett had returned from medical school to complete his residency in Emergency at Riverbank. He’d stormed her citadel with flowers and pretty words and hadn’t been intimidated by Cate being in charge—quite the opposite. Their pairing had seemed to suit all round.

Early on he hadn’t seemed so self-centred and perhaps she’d encouraged him to expect her to look after him. Iris’s comment that Brett needed someone to lean on him to bring out his best could be very true. She’d thought that together they could have made a good life, although to be honest she’d seen herself as the stronger of the two. To achieve a love affair like her parents’ might have been stretching the fantasy, but her dream of a caring husband and a home and family had seemed within her grasp.

And Cate had always admired Iris. Over the course of her twelve-month engagement with Brett, she’d stifled the doubts that had crept in occasionally because of that. She wasn’t proud of almost marrying a man she hadn’t loved. She should really thank her brother Ben for making it impossible for her to follow Brett to Sydney like he’d wanted. With the choice between leaving her parents to manage on their own and her loyalties to Brett, who had wanted Cate to himself, Brett had come a poor second.

But now her future alone seemed to stretch ahead of her. It would be better once Brett was here and she could stop worrying that he might expect to take up where he’d left off—or that she might be tempted…

Speaking of temptation, there had been that feeling of Noah Masters’s hands not so long ago, resting gentle but strong on her shoulders. Cate shrugged her shoulders and stormed to her office. Of course the phone was ringing and Cate reminded herself that there was no time for temptation when there was work to be done.

She reached across the desk to lift the phone to her ear just as a shadow darkened her doorway. Noah Masters blew into the room like a hail-filled cloud and seemed to shrink her office to half its size.