The Doctor's Tender Secret

‘OK. Here we go, then. Now, tell me, who’s going to be top of the Premier League this year?’

‘Manchester United!’ the little boy said. ‘They’re my team. Dad’s going to take me to see them.’ His voice wobbled. ‘Ow, that hurts.’

‘I know, sweetheart, but it’s only for a little while and I’m doing it so I can make you better,’ Zoe soothed. ‘So who’s your favourite player?’

She managed to keep him talking about football until she’d finished capping her sample and put the line in for the antibiotics. Then she smiled at the little boy and took her sheet of stickers out of her pocket. ‘You were so brave, I think I’ll let you choose your own,’ she said.

‘That one. It’s not like the one my dad flies, but it’s cool,’ Andy said. Then remembered his manners. ‘Thank you.’

‘My pleasure. I’m going to get this off to the lab now, so they can test it for me.’ She looked at Mrs Solomon. ‘I’ll be back to see you later on. In the meantime, if you need anything, buzz one of the nurses. June’s going to be looking after you—she’s really nice and very experienced, so she’ll be able to answer a lot of your questions. I’ll make sure she brings you a card for the coffee-machine and tells you where everything is.’ She ruffled Andy’s hair. ‘And then you can choose what you’re having for lunch.’

‘Cool,’ Andy said.

Later that day, Zoe rapped on Brad’s office door.

‘Come in,’ he said.

‘Andy’s bloods are back. His white blood cell count is completely normal.’

‘Well, it doesn’t always alter in osteomyelitis.’

She nodded. ‘But his ESR—’ the erythrocyte sedimentation rate ‘—is elevated, and so is his C-reactive protein. That’s pretty suggestive. I’ve had a look at his X-ray, too.’

‘You got the films back already?’

She grinned at his surprise. ‘I’m good at nagging. Anyway, there’s haziness and a rounded shadow pretty much where you’d expect it. I’d say it’s osteomyelitis in the upper tibia.’

He took the proffered films and checked them on the light-box. ‘Spot on, Dr Kennedy. Looks like there’s some loss of bone density there, too, so we need to keep a close eye on it. What about the biopsy?’

‘It’ll be another couple of days before the culture’s ready, but it’s bound to be Staph aureus. It usually is.’

He sighed. ‘Right. Now to explain it all to Andy’s mum.’

‘Want me to come with you?’

Why on earth had she said that? He was the consultant—he didn’t need anyone with him to hold his hand and help him with a patient’s parents. ‘Um, just that I got talking to her earlier. A friendly face, and all that. And…’ No, she was only digging a deeper hole for herself.

But instead of the sarcastic comment she was expecting—and which she knew she deserved—he merely said, ‘Thanks.’

And then she made another mistake. She looked into his eyes. They were mesmerising: that was the only word to describe them. Why else would she feel her lips parting slightly? Why else would they be so dry that she needed to lick them? Why else would she suddenly start imagining his face closer and closer to hers, his mouth growing nearer and nearer until it finally touched hers, first with gentle kisses, and then coaxing a response from her until…?

But it wasn’t going to happen. No matter how attractive she found Brad, she wasn’t making any exceptions to her rule.

Damaged goods. Remember that, she told herself.

Somehow she managed to get her thoughts together and followed him through to the bay to Andy Solomon’s bed. Andy was asleep and his mother was sitting there, holding his hand and looking desperately worried.

‘We’ve had the results of the tests back, Mrs Solomon. It’s osteomyelitis, as we suspected. What that means is that the bone’s infected and inflamed.’ Brad drew a quick diagram to show her what he meant. ‘The bones are covered with a membrane which contains the nerve endings, plus lots of small blood vessels that deliver the nutrients to the bone. Pus collects beneath it and forms an abscess which makes it stretch—that’s why Andy says it hurts. It also squashes the blood vessels—and because the bone isn’t getting the nutrients it needs, it starts to die off.’

‘So is he going to lose his leg?’ Mrs Solomon asked, aghast.

‘Not at all. In the days before antibiotics, it killed a quarter of people who got it, and crippled another quarter. Nowadays, the antibiotics do the hard work for us and he’ll recover perfectly—especially as you brought him in so quickly.’

‘Jim always says I make a fuss,’ Mrs Solomon said wryly. ‘But it’s hard, with him being a pilot and away so much—half the time it feels like I’m a single mum. There’s only me to make the decisions.’

‘You made the right one here,’ Brad reassured her.

‘But how did it happen?’ she asked.

‘Acute haematogenous osteomyelitis is caused by a bacterium which entered Andy’s body—maybe through a throat infection, maybe through a graze—and lay dormant for a while before it seeded in the bone. The most common site is in the long growing bones, in the arms or legs—it affects the growing area, at the ends. It’s twice as common in boys than in girls,’ Brad explained. ‘The infection can spread to the soft tissues and joints, and if the bone tissues die you need surgery to get rid of the dead tissue so the bone can regrow itself.’

‘So he’s not going to be lame or anything?’ Mrs Solomon asked.

‘No. What we’re doing now is giving him antibiotics which will penetrate the bone. It’s a broad spectrum at the moment because it takes a couple of days to grow the bacterium from the sample I took,’ Zoe explained. ‘Once we know what it is, we might need to change the antibiotics, and he’ll need to stay in for a couple of weeks so we can keep an eye on him. If he needs surgery, we’ll be able to pack the hole in his bones to help him grow new bone tissue. In the meantime, we’re giving him a splint to hold his leg still.’

‘He’ll be on antibiotics for the next couple of months,’ Brad continued. ‘He can probably go home in a couple of weeks and take them in a tablet form, but he has to keep taking them until we’re happy with his blood count and his X-rays. Once the bone’s healed, it should continue to grow properly, but we’ll have him in for regular checkups to keep an eye on it.’

‘He might need building up for a few months afterwards, too,’ Zoe added. She grinned. ‘Which he’ll take as an excuse for scoffing all the chocolate he can get his hands on!’

‘Who needs an excuse?’ Brad teased.

‘Don’t listen to him. He’s addicted to chocolate brownies,’ Zoe said.

‘You two must have worked together for a long time,’ Mrs Solomon commented. ‘You’re so in tune.’

Not that long. A handful of days, Brad thought. And the worst thing was, he couldn’t remember being this in tune with anyone else, ever. Even Lara. Which made him feel even more guilty. He really shouldn’t be thinking about another woman so soon after Lara. Particularly one who was committed elsewhere—Zoe had made that clear when he’d walked her home. The lack of a ring on her left hand meant nothing: she didn’t need a wedding ring or even an engagement ring to be deeply in love.

Though he couldn’t help wondering what sort of man Zoe would choose. The tall, dark, Celtic type, he guessed, with clear skin and blue eyes. Someone laid-back. Or would he be more like her, always on the go, always coming up with new schemes? Somehow he couldn’t imagine Zoe putting up with someone wishy-washy, a man who never made decisions. She was too much of a whirlwind, she’d lose patience.

He shook himself. It wasn’t any of his business anyway. He wasn’t a relationship-breaker. Zoe was off limits and she was staying that way. She had to. For his sanity’s sake.

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_a937333f-7e6c-568c-9619-07285f3e0f5a)

THE following Wednesday, Brad spotted his name on the staff notice-board. On a poster for Judith’s Wednesday Night Music Club, billing him as the ‘star guest’. And in bright pink highlighter pen, the words ‘Sold Out’ were printed neatly across the poster.

He went to find Zoe. ‘How many people are going to be there tonight?’ he asked suspiciously.

‘I’m not sure. People often give Holly the money for a ticket or the raffle, but don’t actually come to the show.’

‘How many tickets have you sold?’

At least she had the grace to blush. ‘A hundred and fifty. That’s the maximum we can have in the social club because of the fire regulations.’ She looked at him in dismay. ‘Please, don’t tell me you’re having second thoughts. Not now.’

Second? He was having third—and fourth! ‘It’s been a while since I played in public.’ He coughed. ‘And you said there were usually only about thirty people there.’ There was a big difference between thirty and a hundred and fifty. Like five times as many.

‘They probably won’t all come.’

‘But you’ve sold more tickets than usual?’