Dr Blake's Angel

It was the sort of scenario that’d normally make him run a mile.

‘Wrap yourself around that,’ Nell told him, and she smiled.

Who could resist an invitation like that?

‘Wash your dishes afterwards,’ she said blithely. She hauled her dog up into her arms. ‘We’ve done enough. Ernest and I are very, very tired and we’re off to bed. We’ll leave you to it.’

She left, and the room was desolate for her going.

CHAPTER THREE

SOMEONE was trying to smother him.

Blake woke to fur balls. Or fur mats. Something warm and heavy and limp was lying right across his face, threatening to choke him while he slept. He sat up like he’d been shot, and Ernest slid sideways onto the floor.

The stupid dog lay like he was paralysed, four legs in the air, eyes frantic, waiting for someone to set him to rights. Good grief!

‘You dopey dog. Don’t you have any respect?’

Ernest whimpered.

Was the creature injured? Blake flung back the covers, climbed out of bed and stooped to see.

Ernest promptly found his feet, took one agile leap and landed in the warm spot vacated by Blake.

‘You damned dog… You’re out of here.’ Blake put a hand on his collar to haul him away, but it was easier said than done. Ernest lay like a dead dog. His eyes were closed and he snoozed as if he’d been asleep for hours, seemingly totally oblivious of anyone else’s comfort but his own.

‘It’s either you or me, mate,’ Blake muttered, and glanced at the clock. And then glanced again. Hell. That couldn’t be right. The clock said eight-thirty. His alarm was set for six.

The alarm had been turned off.

She’d sneaked in while he’d been sleeping, he thought incredulously, and then wondered how on earth could she have done it. He would have woken. Surely?

The thought of Nell tiptoeing across his bedroom had him as unnerved as…as did her stupid dog sleeping in his bed!

‘OK. I know. I have to get up,’ he told Ernest. ‘Sure, you can use my bed. Any time. Don’t mind me.’

Ernest didn’t.

He’d have to skip breakfast. There was a ward round to do before surgery at nine, and there wasn’t time. At least no one had rung during the night, he thought as he showered and dressed, but that in itself was unusual. Worrying even.

He’d had the best sleep he’d had in months and he felt like a million dollars for it, but he’d have to pay by working doubly hard now. Harriet’s heart problems needed urgent attention. He needed to persuade her to be transferred at least to Blairglen but preferably to one of the major coronary-care units at Sydney or Melbourne. That by itself would take hours.

Damn, damn, damn…

And on the other side of the wall, Nell must still be in bed.

‘She’s been a great help,’ he told Ernest as he hauled a comb through his unruly thatch of hair. ‘Some Christmas present she turns out to be. She turns off my alarm, she lands me with her dog and then she sleeps in…’

She was seven months pregnant. And she had made him apricot chicken the night before.

‘But I don’t need domesticity,’ he told the somnolent Ernest. ‘I’d rather eat baked beans on toast and be on time. How on earth can I fit everything in?’ He slammed the bedroom door on the sleeping dog, walked out through the living room—trying to ignore just how good the newly furnished room looked in the early morning light—and stalked through to the hospital.

‘Some Christmas present,’ he muttered again, anger building at the thought of what lay ahead. ‘Now I’ll be late all day.’

Only he wasn’t. Everything had been done.

Donald, the charge nurse, came to greet him, his face wreathed in smiles. ‘Well, well, if it’s not Captain Snooze. Our Dr McKenzie told us you were having a wee sleep in and we could hardly believe it.’

‘Your Dr McKenzie?’

‘She’s been here for two hours,’ Donald told him. ‘She had breakfast with the staff and we feel we’ve really got to know her. She’s a great kid.’ Donald was fifty. Anyone forty-nine or under was a kid to him—Blake included. Now he beamed like a Scottish patriarch, solving the problems of the world.

‘And she’s very, very competent,’ Donald told him, ignoring the look on Blake’s face and sounding as pleased as Punch. ‘Louise couldn’t get Elmer Jefferson’s drip back in last night and she did it first go. Louise says she has fingers like you wouldn’t believe.’

‘You’ve let her near the patients?’ Blake’s voice rose to incredulous and Donald took a step back—but he wasn’t a nurse to be intimidated by a mere doctor. They worked on equal footing, these two.

‘Now, why wouldn’t I have done that?’ he demanded. ‘Don’t be a fool, man. She’s a registered doctor, she’s approved and paid by our hospital board, and Jonas and Emily from Bay Beach both rang me up personally to vouch for her training. I knew her when she was a kid, so I was tickled pink to hear she was coming back.’

Tickled pink hardly described how he was feeling. Blake stared at his charge nurse through narrowed eyes. ‘You knew she was coming?’

‘We all did,’ Donald said smugly. ‘Happy Christmas, Dr Sutherland.’

Great. The world had gone mad.

‘Where is she now?’

‘She’s done a full ward round, sorted out any problems—not that there were any—only Elmer at five a.m.’

‘Elmer’s drip packed up at five and you didn’t ring me? You know he—’

‘Yeah, we know it’s important. That septicaemia isn’t going to go away without a few more days of antibiotics. It was some spider bite he got.’ He grinned, enjoying Blake’s annoyance. ‘So Louise rang Nell—just like she told us to.’

‘When did she tell you to?’

‘Last night, of course.’ Donald grinned again. ‘A couple of the nurses stopped by to lend her a hand with the furniture moving when they finished late shift. Me included. She got us hanging pictures and said you were taking turns with calls, starting last night, so when the drip packed up at five Louise rang her.’

‘Rang my phone? I would have heard.’

‘Louise rang Nell’s cellphone,’ Donald said patiently. ‘She gave us the number. Easy.’

Easy…

His life had been turned upside down. By a nutcase.

‘Is she wearing her purple patchwork pants?’ he couldn’t help asking, and this time it was Donald’s turn to look astonished.

‘Now, why should she wear purple patchwork to work? She’s a professional. No. She’s wearing a white coat over some sort of floral skirt. Very demure. See for yourself. She’s in with Harriet.’