Bachelor Dad, Girl Next Door

Luke stepped through the gap in the curtain and took in the situation with a sweeping glance.

Two young women in their late teens stood to one side of a gurney. Dressed to the nines in their party clothes, heavy make-up smudged beneath their eyes and an array of coloured streaks adorned their heads. He caught the tail end of the ferocious glare the taller of the two girls used to browbeat her friend.

Terri’s eyes lifted to his briefly in a moment of intense silent communication. It was obvious she didn’t believe the girls’ denial. Her eyes slid away and she moved to the head of the gurney where she bent over the patient, laryngoscope in hand.

‘Temperature up another half-degree to forty-one point five, Terri,’ said a nurse as she pulled up the patient’s skimpy knitted top and placed the diaphragm of her stethoscope on the pale skin.

‘Thanks, Nina.’ Terri glanced up. ‘Dianne, could you get us some ice packs, stat.’

‘On my way.’ Dianne slipped out of the curtained cubicle.

Keeping an eye on the activity at the gurney, Luke crossed to the teens. ‘I’m Dr Luke Daniels,’ he said calmly. ‘You’re on your way home from a party?’

‘A rave.’ The taller girl gave him a superior look. She was busily chewing gum and her eyes had the dilated pupils of someone who’d taken some sort of substance. ‘Over at Portland.’

‘Apical pulse one forty. BP seventy over forty. Sats seventy per cent.’ Folding her stethoscope, the nurse turned away to collect a monitor from the side of the room.

Luke turned his attention to the other teen. ‘Was your friend able to walk out of the rave on her own?’

‘We—we kind of, um, had to h-help her.’

‘Was she talking to you then?’

‘N-no.’

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Terri slide in the endotracheal tube.

‘Airway in. Ready for the ventilator, Nina.’ She straightened, moving aside so the nurse could attach the unit.

Stepping back around the gurney, Terri unwound her stethoscope and listened to both sides of the patient’s chest and her abdomen.

Luke looked back at the shorter girl shivering beside him. Deliberately holding her eyes, he said gently, ‘We need you to be honest and tell us how long ago she took something. Was it a tablet?’

‘Th-three hours.’

‘Shona!’

‘Well, sh-she did. We all did. They were only l-little pills, j-just to give us a b-boost.’

‘Thank you for your honesty,’ said Luke, touching her arm to reassure her.

‘They were only Es,’ said the taller girl, tossing her head. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me and Shona so it can’t be the that.’

‘Those so-called party drugs affect everyone differently.’ Luke clenched his teeth against the urge to shake some sense into the girl. ‘You two have been lucky. You’re friend hasn’t.’

‘J-Jessie had leukaemia. When she was a kid. Is that why she’s so sick now?’

A wave of despair at their folly cramped his chest and stomach. He was aware of Terri’s eyes on him, but he refused to meet her gaze. He didn’t need to see the pity that she undoubtedly felt for him.

‘She’s g-going to be okay, isn’t she?’

‘We’re doing everything we can for her.’ He ushered them towards the curtain. ‘We’ll get you to wait outside.’

Dianne came back in with cloths and the cold packs.

‘I’ll organise those, Dianne, thanks,’ said Luke, taking them from her. ‘Can you show the girls to a room where they can wait, and get next-of-kin information from them, please?’

‘C-could we have something to drink?’

Luke met the nurse’s concerned eyes. ‘A glass of fruit juice for them, please, Dianne, and perhaps see if there’s an apple or two in the staffroom.’

As Dianne showed the girls out, Terri said, ‘I’m going to have to set up a central line for fluids.’

‘Right. You scrub, we’ll monitor Jessie and get your equipment set up,’ he said, wrapping the cold packs and placing them in Jessie’s groin and armpits.

He’d organised a trolley with the required sterile packs by the time Terri had finished at the sink.

‘Gown, gloves.’ He nodded to the second trolley.

The soft rustling noises as she gowned up tormented him while he concentrated on opening the catheterisation kit and dropping drapes onto the sterile work surface.

‘Do me up, please?’

He turned to see her encased head to toe in surgical green, her elbows bent and gloved hands held relaxed in front of her, maintaining her sterile working space.

He knotted the straps at the nape of her neck, then reached down to do the same at her waist. The warmth he could feel on the tops of his fingers made them clumsy. Try as he may, he couldn’t close his mind to the enticing curve of the small of her back.

She turned to face him.

Brown eyes, huge and dark, stared at him from above her mask. His breathing hitched. He was a fool to think hospital clothing would instantly dissolve Terri’s appeal. He’d never seen anyone look quite as…sexy while preparing for an aseptic procedure.

‘Luke?’

He blinked, looked down to see she was handing him the tab for the outside string. She turned in front of him and took back the string. ‘Thanks.’

He swallowed. Perhaps he should have gone back to bed after all. Let Dianne call in the emergency back-up. Turning away, he snipped across the shoulder of Jessie’s top, exposing her clavicle and neck.

Nina came back with a bag of saline and began to set up the drip monitor.

A moment later, Dianne stuck her head around the curtain. ‘I’ve got contact details for Jessie’s mother. They’re down from Melbourne, staying with relatives for the weekend.’

‘Thanks, Dianne. I’ll make the call now.’ He took the paper from her and went to the phone. With the line ringing at the other end, Luke tucked the receiver under his ear.

‘Terri, the ambos are at your uncle’s place,’ Dianne said. ‘He’s aggressive and hypotensive. They’re concerned about trying to establish an IV so I suggested they scoop and run.’

‘Good idea,’ Terri said. ‘How’s Mary going with the rest of the race-picnic follow-ups?’

‘All done now,’ Dianne said. ‘She’s just managed to get through to Matt in Garrangay about the Macintoshes. I’ll go and set up a cubicle for your uncle.’