The Consultant's New-Found Family

She didn’t mind the questions, because she knew he was doing his job. She was his junior, he hadn’t worked with her much, and he needed to know how competent she was—how far he could trust her to deal with patients on her own or whether she needed closer supervision. ‘It’s an angulated fracture, so I’ll refer him to the orthopods for manipulation under a general anaesthetic. He’ll have a cast on for a while, and I assume you have fracture clinics here in Paeds so I can get him booked in there for a follow-up.’

‘Yup. Obviously you know what you’re doing and you’re sensible enough to ask if you need help. Carry on just as you are,’ he said with a smile.

‘Cheers.’ Before she could stop herself, she added, ‘Are you coming out with the team for the Chinese meal tonight?’

‘No.’ His voice was noticeably cooler. And he didn’t offer an explanation, she noticed.

Not that she should expect one. He was a colleague—a senior colleague; he was barely an acquaintance, let alone a friend, and he didn’t have to explain himself to her. Really, she shouldn’t even have asked. It was none of her business.

‘Um, I’ll get back to my patient,’ she said, and escaped back into the cubicle to show Sam his X-rays, as promised, and explain to him and his mother what was going to happen next.

Lisa didn’t see Joel to speak to for the rest of the afternoon, and she’d put it out of her mind when she met the others at the local Chinese restaurant that evening.

‘So how are you settling in?’ Nell, the other registrar in their ward, asked Lisa.

‘Fine.’ Lisa smiled back at her. ‘Everyone’s really friendly, and I love my job.’

‘So much that you volunteer for extra duties on your day off,’ Julie said. ‘On the air ambulance.’

Lisa blinked. ‘Blimey. The hospital grapevine here’s pretty fast, isn’t it?’ She hadn’t said anything to anyone in the department, not wanting to sound…well…boastful. Setting herself up either as a heroine or a martyr. That wasn’t where she was coming from at all. She had her own reasons for doing her rescue work—reasons she didn’t want to share. And she enjoyed doing it, too.

Julie chuckled. ‘My boyfriend Marty’s one of the full-time paramedics with the air ambulance. He saw your name on the list and asked me if I knew you. Your first duty’s next week, isn’t it?’

Lisa couldn’t help smiling. ‘Yes. I’m doing two slots a month. I’m really glad they accepted me, because I was on secondment to HEMS in London, and I loved every second of it. Though we could only do a six-month stint so we weren’t over-exposed to trauma.’

‘Rather you than me. I don’t know how you do it.’ Julie shivered. ‘Winching out of a helicopter into thin air…No way would you get me doing that!’

‘It’s fine, once you get used to the idea,’ Lisa said. ‘You’re perfectly safe.You’re clipped into a harness, and when you go up with a stretcher, it’s pretty smooth—you don’t spin around on a rope and you don’t even feel the downdraught from the blades. It’s not like these action movies where you see someone hanging onto a ladder and blowing around madly in the wind.’ She grinned. ‘Oh, and you don’t have all the baddies firing at you or have to dive through plate glass into a skyscraper, run out the other side and leap onto the rope ladder from several hundred feet up feet up.’

Julie laughed. ‘Nope, you still haven’t convinced me. I’d rather keep my feet firmly on the ground in the department!’

‘If you’re working with the air ambulance, you’ll end up doing a rescue with the coastguard team at some point, then,’ Ben, one of the other house officers, said to her.

‘Not necessarily. You know as well as I do most of the work of the air ambulance is with RTCs or falls,’ Julie said.

Not surprising, Lisa thought. Road traffic collisions, falls and suspected heart attacks were the most common reason for callouts in all the air ambulance services, usually in cases where it would take too long for a land ambulance to get through or the access to an accident site was poor.

‘But Ben’s right, we do get a few rescues on the cliffs and sea rescues. Joel’ll introduce you to the coastguard team, if you ask him,’ Nell suggested.

Lisa remembered what Joel had told her earlier. ‘It’s a bit unusual, a doctor being a volunteer coastguard.’

‘It probably makes him feel he’s giving something back,’ Ben said quietly.

Lisa frowned. ‘I’m not with you.’

‘His wife died in an accident on the cliffs,’ Nell explained.

It took a moment for it to sink in.

Joel wasn’t committed elsewhere.

But he was so young to be a widower—he couldn’t be more than in his early thirties. Obviously with his work on the coastguard team he was trying to make sure someone else didn’t have to suffer the same kind of loss—just as she was, with the air ambulance.

Then she became aware that Nell was continuing. ‘That’s why he doesn’t work nights or weekends.’

‘Sorry, Nell. I didn’t catch what you said. Joel doesn’t do nights or weekends?’ Lisa prompted.

‘Childminders don’t tend to do weekends and nights, and his parents are getting on a bit so they don’t help out that much. Actually, to be honest, they were pretty hopeless when it happened,’ Nell confided, ‘and Vanessa’s parents live the other side of the Pennines so they’re no help either. Beth’s a lovely kid but she can be a bit…well…demanding. As any kid would be when there’s only one parent around.’

Oh. So Beth was Joel’s daughter. And he was a single parent. Lisa flushed. ‘Oh, no. I really put my foot in it today. I asked him if he was good with kids.’

‘He is. And you weren’t to know,’ Ben said with a sympathetic smile.

‘How old is she?’ Lisa asked.

‘Five. The accident happened a couple of years back.’

So Beth had been three when she’d lost her mum. It had been hard enough for herself at the age of sixteen, but three was so young. How tough it must be for Beth, seeing all her friends with a mummy and daddy—or even a step-parent—and wondering why she was different. ‘Rough on her. Poor kid.’

‘Yeah. But Joel’s made it clear he’s not looking for a mother figure for her,’ Nell said.

‘Warning received and understood,’ Lisa said quietly. More than Nell would ever know. Because she understood exactly where Joel was coming from, too. She’d learned it well from her mother’s example: nobody would ever match up to the man Ella Richardson had lost, and she’d loved him too much to want anyone else in her life.

Joel clearly felt exactly the same way about his late wife. So he was the last man on earth Lisa should want to get involved with.

‘Joel’s a lovely bloke. Salt of the earth. He’ll do anything to help anyone. All I’m saying is, there’s no point in any woman falling for him—gorgeous as he is—because no way will he let anyone into his life,’ Nell said. ‘Even though it would do him good.’ She sighed. ‘You can’t live in the past. You have to move on, eventually.’

Ha. It had been twelve years, and Ella hadn’t moved on. Lisa had the feeling that she never would. ‘Some people just love one person too much to have room for anyone else,’ Lisa said softly.

‘Maybe.’ Nell grimaced. ‘Sorry, this is a bit of a miserable conversation for a Monday night. Especially as we’re supposed to be welcoming you to the team.’ She topped up Lisa’s glass. ‘Ignore me. I didn’t mean to imply that you’d throw yourself at him. I mean, you might be married.’

Lisa chuckled at the obvious fishing. ‘Actually, I’m single. And that’s the way I like it. I’ve got a career to think of.’

‘Make sure you never sit in our receptionist’s chair, then,’ Ben warned darkly. ‘Every woman who’s sat there for the last three years has been married and off on maternity leave before you can blink!’

‘Oi, you, don’t start spreading rumours. I’m not pregnant,’ Ally, the receptionist, called across the table. ‘And I don’t even have a boyfriend!’

Ben tapped the side of his nose with a forefinger. ‘Just you wait. Give it six months, and you’ll be getting your gran to knit you lots of bootees. That chair’s got a reputation.’

Lisa laughed. ‘Thanks for the warning. I’ll remember that.’ Though she wasn’t planning on getting pregnant or even getting involved with anyone any time soon.

If ever.

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_e6ca7feb-7919-54c5-b3c9-baa01dbbba63)

‘DADDY, you look growly,’ Beth said.

Joel ruffled her hair. ‘I’m fine, kitten.’ Actually, he wasn’t fine. Far from it. But he had no intention of worrying his daughter. ‘Come on. Let’s go to school.’ Being on late shift meant that Beth was usually ready for bed when he picked her up from Hannah, her childminder, so he didn’t get time for more than a bedtime story—and most of the time she fell asleep before he’d finished. But the good thing about late shifts was that instead of having to get her ready for school and dropping her off at Hannah’s at the crack of dawn, he was able to take her to school himself. Which meant he saw her smiling, meeting her friends in the playground and running around with them, playing some sort of game or other. He could see for himself that she was happy and well adjusted and settled.