Once Upon a Christmas

Bryony was concentrating on the baby’s wrist. She found a tiny, thready vein and wondered how she was ever going to hit such a tiny target. It seemed almost impossible.

‘Gifted,’ Jack said cheerfully, squinting down at the baby’s hand. ‘You’ll be fine. She’s got good veins. Stop dithering and just do it.’

So she did and the needle slid smoothly into the tiny vein on her first attempt.

Relief and delight flooded through her.

‘I did it.’ She looked up, unable to hide her pride, and Jack smiled, his eyes creasing at the corners.

‘As I said. Gifted. Now you just need the confidence to go with it. You’re a good doctor. Believe in yourself.’ His eyes held hers for a moment and then he looked at Nicky. ‘OK, we need a full blood count, U and Es, BMG, blood culture and viral titres. And Nicky, let’s give the child some humidified oxygen.’

Believe in yourself.

Well, she did believe in herself. Sort of. It was just that she was afraid of making a mistake and Jack Rothwell never seemed to be afraid of anything. He just did it. And it turned out right every time.

Bryony busied herself taking the necessary samples. ‘Should I do arterial blood gases?’

‘They can do them on the ward,’ Jack said immediately. ‘Nicky, can you call Paeds and get them up here? This little one is going to need admitting. She’s a poorly baby.’

Bryony looked at him. ‘You think it’s bronchiolitis?’

‘Without a doubt.’ He smothered a yawn and looked at her apologetically. ‘Sorry. I was up half the night.’

It was Bryony’s turn to look mocking. ‘Was she nice?’

‘She was gorgeous.’ He grinned, that wonderful slightly lopsided grin that affected her knees so acutely. ‘She was also eighty-four and had a fractured hip.’

‘You love older women.’

‘True.’ He checked the monitor again. ‘But generally I like them mobile. OK, Blondie. What’s the likely causative organism here? Exercise your brain cell and impress me twice in one evening.’

‘RSV,’ Bryony said immediately. ‘Respiratory syncytial virus causes 75 per cent of cases of bronchiolitis.’

He inclined his head, his expression mocking. ‘All right, you’ve impressed me. And you’ve obviously been studying your textbook again. Now we’ll do some maths. What’s two plus two?’ His eyes were dancing. ‘No need to answer immediately and you can use your fingers if you need to. Take your time—I know it’s tricky.’

‘No idea,’ Bryony returned blithely, batting her eyelashes in a parody of a dumb blonde and handing the bottles to Nicky for labelling. ‘Jack, should we pass a nasogastric tube?’

‘No. Not yet.’ He shook his head, his gaze flickering over the baby. ‘When you’ve finished taking the samples we’ll set up an IV and get her to the ward. I’ve got a bad feeling about this little one. She’s going to end up being ventilated.’

‘I hope not,’ Bryony murmured, but she knew that Jack was always right in his predictions. If he thought the baby was going to need ventilating, then it was almost certain that she would.

He looked at her quizzically. ‘Is the mother around?’

As he asked the question the doors to Resus opened and the paramedics came back in, escorting a tall woman wrapped in a wool coat. Her face was pale and her hair was uncombed.

‘Ella?’ She hurried over to the trolley, her face lined with anxiety, and then she looked at Jack.

Bryony didn’t mind that. She was used to it. Women always looked at Jack.

Even before they knew he was the consultant, they looked at him.

And it wasn’t just because he was staggeringly, movie-star handsome. It was because he was charming and had an air of casual self-assurance that attracted women like magnets. You just knew that Jack would know what to do in any situation.

‘I’m Dr Rothwell.’ He extended a hand and gave her that reassuring smile that always seemed to calm the most frantic relative. ‘I’ve been caring for Ella, along with Dr Hunter here.’

The woman didn’t even glance at Bryony. Her gaze stayed firmly fixed on Jack. ‘She’s been ill for days but I thought it was just a cold and then suddenly today she seemed to go downhill.’ She lifted a shaking hand to her throat. ‘She wouldn’t take her bottle and she was so hot and then tonight she stopped breathing properly and I was terrified.’

Jack nodded, his blue eyes warm and understanding. ‘It’s always frightening when a baby of this size is ill because their airways are so small,’ he explained calmly. ‘Ella has picked up a nasty virus and it is affecting her breathing.’

The woman blanched and stared at the tiny figure on the trolley. ‘But she’s going to be OK?’

‘We need to admit her to hospital,’ Jack said, glancing up as the paediatrician walked into the room. ‘This is Dr Armstrong, the paediatric registrar. He’s going to take a look at her now and then we’ll take her along to the ward.’

‘Will I be able to stay with her?’

‘Absolutely.’ Jack nodded, his gaze reassuring. ‘You can have a bed next to her cot.’

Deciding that Jack was never going to be able to extricate himself from the mother, Bryony briefed Dr Armstrong on the baby’s condition.

She liked David Armstrong. He was warm and kind and he’d asked her out on several occasions.

And she’d refused of course. Because she always refused.

She never went on dates.

Bryony bit her lip, remembering Lizzie’s letter to Santa. She wanted a daddy for Christmas. A pretty tall order for a woman who didn’t date men, she thought dryly, picking up the baby’s charts and handing them to David.

Dragging her mind back, she finished handing over and watched while David examined the baby himself.

A thoroughly nice man, she decided wistfully. So why couldn’t she just accept his invitation to take their friendship a step further?

And then Jack strolled back to the trolley, tall, broad-shouldered, confident and so shockingly handsome that it made her gasp, and she remembered the reason why she didn’t date men.

She didn’t date men because she’d been in love with Jack since she’d been five years old. And apart from her one disastrous attempt to forget about him, which had resulted in Lizzie, she hadn’t even noticed another man for her entire adult life.

Which just went to show how stupid she was, she reflected crossly, infuriated by her own stupidity.

Jack might be a brilliant doctor but he was also the most totally unsuitable man any woman could fall for. Women had affairs with Jack. They didn’t fall in love with him. Not if they had any sense, because Jack had no intention of ever falling in love or settling down.

But, of course, she didn’t have any sense.

It was fortunate that she’d got used to hiding the way she felt about him. He didn’t have a clue that he’d featured in every daydream she’d had since she’d been a child. When other little girls had dreamed about faceless princes in fairy-tales, she’d dreamed about Jack. When her teenage friends had developed crushes on the boys at school, she’d still dreamed about Jack. And when she’d finally matured into a woman, she’d carried on dreaming about Jack.

Finally the baby was stable enough to be transferred to the ward and Nicky pushed the trolley, accompanied by the paediatric SHO, who had arrived to help, and the baby’s mother.

Bryony started to tidy up Resus, ready for the next arrival, her mind elsewhere.

‘Are you all right?’ David Armstrong gave her a curious look. ‘You’re miles away.’