A Courageous Doctor

by Alison Roberts

  ‘Oh, you will,’ Joan said confidently. ‘You’ll find you don’t want to be away from that person for a minute longer than you need to be. You’ll think about them all the time and miss them whenever you’re not together.’

  Hugo was missing Maggie. He spent a lot of his time thinking about her.

  ‘They’ll make you laugh even when what they say isn’t funny to anyone else.’

  Maggie made him laugh. There had been more laughter around him in the few weeks they had lived together than Hugo could ever remember. Apart from those years of Maggie and Felicity being together, of course.

  ‘And taking things slowly simply isn’t an option when you want to touch somebody that badly,’ Joan added softly.

  Hugo sighed. He knew whom he had wanted to touch that badly. And still did.

  ‘You won’t have to look very far, you know.’ Joan was smiling again. ‘Maggie loves you.’

  ‘I’m a big brother as far as Maggie’s concerned,’ Hugo said flatly. ‘Of course she loves me. And I love her. But it’s not that kind of love.’ The echo of his words prompted a mental image of Maggie lying in the nest of her duvet and pillows and her sleepy acceptance of his gentle rejection.

  ‘Isn’t it?’ Joan raised an eyebrow. ‘I’ve seen the way Maggie looks at you, Hugh. I was jealous without realising quite why, but now I know. I know how I feel when I look at Lewis and I know that the way Maggie feels about you has nothing to do with being part of a family. She’s not your sister, Hugh. And she doesn’t want to be.’

  ‘It could never work.’ Hugo shook his head firmly. ‘Maggie would drive me nuts. She’s untidy and often irresponsible and even reckless occasionally.’ His smile was wry. ‘She’s frankly naughty sometimes. Like a big kid.’

  ‘So maybe she needs someone like you around.’

  ‘Maybe she does.’ Hugo smiled as he made a move to leave Joan’s apartment, although he knew his portrayal of Maggie as still being a child was not the whole picture. She was quite capable of being as responsible and professional as he was when she needed to be, and she was funny and courageous and fascinating as well. She was just…Maggie. ‘And maybe we’ll find out one day.’

  ‘I know you will.’ Joan followed Hugo to the door and gave him a hug. ‘Still friends, Hugh?’

  ‘Of course, Joan. Still friends.’

  Hugo walked the short distance to where his Jeep was parked. The temptation to believe what Joan had suggested was very strong. Almost as irresistible as the impulse that had led Hugo to climb into Maggie’s bed that day. And maybe Joan was right. It had been Maggie’s invitation after all that had provided the opportunity to hold her that closely. One that could, so easily, have led to more. He had used Joan as a shield on that occasion, thinking that he was protecting both himself and Maggie. And Maggie had accepted it. By tomorrow, however, Joan’s engagement was likely to be common knowledge around the hospital and Maggie would know that the shield was no longer there. There was nothing to stop them getting closer.

  Not if that was something they both wanted.

  Hugo slowed the Jeep more judiciously than was really needed as he approached the intersection. The new temptation was to turn and drive into Queenstown instead of the opposite direction that would take him home. He could go and see Maggie right now. It would be risky. Maggie might back off and the foundations of their friendship could be irretrievably shaken, but if Joan was right then the risk was more than well worth taking.

  But what if Joan was wrong? It had been Maggie’s confused and drowsy state that had prompted the invitation to her bed. It hadn’t been even hinted at since. Other memories flicked in to provide further warning. He was the same age as her previous lover—the boring hunk. He was mature. And safe. And Maggie had made it very clear that she didn’t want someone who might try to tone her down. She had moved out of his home. How could that be interpreted as anything other than a signal that she wanted more, rather than less, distance between them?

  And it was late. Just how did he intend to pass off an unannounced visit at this time of night with her flatmates as a curious audience? It wasn’t as if he and Maggie were spending any real time together at present. Hugo hadn’t even seen or spoken to Maggie in three days now and leaping into a conversation of this nature without giving Maggie any warning would be unfair.

  More than unfair. Allowing impatience or sheer desire to rule his approach might undermine any chance of success. With a heartfelt sigh, Hugo pulled the steering-wheel of the Jeep to the right and let his headlights illuminate the way home. Tomorrow, he promised himself. Tomorrow he would find a way to talk to Maggie.

  It had been three days since Maggie had seen Hugo. She kept hoping that the few calls they got in that time would be to patients who would need transporting to the emergency department of the hospital but they were frustratingly easy to deal with where they were. A person confined to a wheelchair had fallen and, although uninjured, had required the assistance of the ambulance service to get mobile again. A diabetic who normally managed his condition well needed IV glucose after a collapse but they declined transport to hospital and his family was quite happy to monitor him at home.

  At the second minor car accident they attended, Maggie tried to persuade a woman with seat-belt bruising that a check-up at the local hospital might be prudent before continuing her journey. She was getting desperate for an excuse to get into the hospital but it needed to be work-related. She couldn’t just bounce in and congratulate Joan on her surprise engagement to Lewis Evans when she’d only heard about it that morning. Or corner Hugo to see if he was upset about the unexpected development in his life. Unfortunately, the accident victim wasn’t impressed by her persuasive efforts.

  ‘I’ve waited too long for this holiday already. I’m not going to waste a minute of it sitting in some hospital waiting room.’

  ‘It’s quite a nasty bruise.’

  ‘I’ll probably have a few more by the time I’ve been skiing for a week. Look, it’s nice of you to be concerned but I’m fine. If it gets any worse I’ll go and see a doctor.’

  The call to a young baby late that afternoon felt far more significant. Recognising the address, Maggie drove full tilt to the Jessops’ house. Marie’s baby daughter was less than a month old and as an experienced mother of four, Marie was not likely to call an ambulance for anything minor. Catching sight of Jason’s face after a rapid manoeuvre through heavy traffic on the open road was almost amusing.

  It reminded Maggie of Hugo’s expression when she’d driven him to Charlie Barker’s. Fortunately, the loud wail of the siren covered Jason’s fervent oath.

  Marie was apologetic at having called an ambulance. ‘Sorry, Maggie, but I didn’t know what to do. The doctor said to bring her in to the medical centre but I have to wait for my neighbour to come and look after the other kids and I’m really not happy about Lucy.’

  Two-year-old Michelle was toddling towards Maggie with a huge smile on her face and her arms extended. The twins, Christopher and Max, had also spotted their visitors.

  ‘Bikkies!’ they shouted. ‘Let’s make bikkies!’

  ‘Not today,’ Maggie said sadly. She ruffled the twins’ matching dark curls. ‘I’ve come to see Lucy this time.’ She turned back to Marie and the grizzling baby she held in her arms. ‘What’s been happening?’

  Ten minutes later, the neighbour arrived to care for the older children and Maggie was in the back of the ambulance with Marie and Lucy on the way to hospital.

  ‘Couldn’t we just go to the medical centre?’

  Maggie shook her head. ‘I think Lucy might need more tests and treatment than they could manage. There’s nothing obvious that could be causing her fever and, like you, I don’t feel happy about the way she is. You can’t be too careful with tiny babies like Lucy. And I’ve told the hospital we’re on our way now. Hugh will be expecting us.’

  Maggie met Hugo’s gaze as she helped Marie from the back of the ambulance. For a split second she thought that
he was experiencing the same sharp jolt of pleasure as seeing him had given her, but the moment was gone too quickly as Hugo’s attention focussed on the mother of his new patient.

  ‘Marie!’ His arm went around her shoulders as he guided her towards the assessment room. He was looking at the baby in her arms as they walked. ‘What’s been happening with Lucy?’

  ‘She’s been really fussy since early this morning. She’s not feeding well. She’s crying a lot and she seems floppy.’

  Hugo looked up at Maggie who was walking on Marie’s other side.

  ‘Lucy has a temperature of 39.5. She’s tachycardic at 174 beats per minute. Her airway’s clear but she’s in mild respiratory distress with sternal retractions and a respiration rate of 60. Her lung fields are clear. No rashes or petechiae and no vomiting or diarrhoea.’

  ‘Anyone else sick in the family at the moment?’ Hugo queried. ‘How are the twins? And Michelle?’

  Lizzie was tucking a clean sheet over the bed in the resuscitation area. She greeted Marie warmly but the young mother responded with only a distracted smile as she answered Hugo.

  ‘Someone’s always got a runny nose or a cough in our house. Nothing major. Is it an ear infection, do you think? Max had one when he was only three months old.’ Marie bit her lip. ‘It couldn’t be meningitis, could it, Hugh?’

  ‘We’ll have a good look at her. You sit up on the bed here and hold Lucy. It’ll be less upsetting for her that way.’

  ‘Mind if I stay?’ Maggie asked. ‘I’m nearly off duty now and I’m curious to see what you find. I might have missed something I shouldn’t have.’

  ‘Please, do.’ Hugo smiled. It was a brief invitation that Marie echoed but the smile stayed with Maggie for several minutes as she watched him.

  She had almost forgotten the way Hugo’s eyes crinkled when he smiled and the way he moved and spoke with such measured confidence and skill. He was handling baby Lucy so gently that Maggie had to swallow the lump that came to her throat. She was missing Hugo far more than she had even realised.

  ‘She’s running quite a fever,’ Hugo said a few minutes later. ‘And she certainly seems off colour. Her ears are fine, chest is clear and I can’t find anything amiss with her tummy. She’s a little pale with slightly delayed capillary refill but no rashes.’

  ‘So it’s not meningitis?’

  ‘We’ll do some tests to exclude it properly but there are no real signs of it,’ Hugo told Marie. ‘Her neck’s not stiff and she doesn’t mind the light in her eyes and, as Maggie noticed, there’s no sign of any rash.’

  ‘I would have got us here a lot faster if there had been,’ Maggie said.

  Hugo grinned at Marie. ‘And you wouldn’t have enjoyed that. Maggie’s a fiend when the siren’s on.’ The glance Maggie received was affectionate enough to spark a warmth that threatened to turn into a blush.

  Marie hadn’t noticed the glance. ‘The boys wanted her to stay and make biscuits,’

  Maggie was trying to divert her blush. She reached out and touched the top of Lucy’s head gently. ‘She’s not showing signs of real dehydration, is she?’

  ‘Not yet. The fontanelle’s normal. With this temperature and respiration rate, along with her reduced feeding, I think we should definitely start fluids, though, and we need IV access anyway for blood samples.’

  ‘What for?’ Marie asked anxiously.

  ‘It looks like Lucy has a generalised infection of some kind.’

  Maggie was nodding. ‘Neonatal sepsis,’ she murmured. ‘Marie did have perinatal complications with that bleeding.’

  ‘And Lucy was a few weeks early,’ Hugo added. ‘They’re both factors for increased risk of neonatal sepsis.’

  ‘What’s causing the infection?’ Marie asked anxiously.

  ‘We don’t know yet. We’re going to need to take a throat swab and some blood and urine samples. We’ll have to do a lumbar puncture as well so we can be absolutely sure it’s not meningitis.’

  ‘A lumbar puncture!’ Marie’s face paled. ‘But that’s awful.’

  ‘It’s not too bad,’ Hugo said gently. ‘It involves using a tiny needle in Lucy’s back to take a sample of the spinal fluid. We’ll use some local anaesthetic so it won’t hurt her very much. It’s an important test, Marie, and if we find where this infection is then we’ll know exactly what sort of antibiotics we need to get on top of it.’

  ‘I don’t think I could watch that, Hugh, I’m sorry.’

  ‘You don’t have to.’ Hugo turned to his nurse. ‘Lizzie, could you take Marie down to the kitchens and make her a cup of tea? Give Steve a call and make sure he stays to keep the lab open for these tests and you might like to give Dave a ring and let him know what’s happening. Tell him we’ll probably need to keep Marie and Lucy in hospital for a day or two.’

  ‘Oh, no! Why?’

  ‘We need to start Lucy on antibiotics and the quickest way for them to be effective is to give them intravenously. We’ll use a broad cover until we can identify exactly what sort of bug we’re dealing with but I’ll be waiting for the test results in case we need to change things and they may take a few hours to come through.’ Hugo gave Marie’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. ‘Lucy’s not feeding well and she’s losing body fluids by having a high temperature and fast breathing rate. We’ll have to give her replacement fluids intravenously as well.’

  ‘But we can stay here? You’re not going to send us away somewhere like Invercargill?’

  ‘Only if Lucy shows any signs of getting worse in the next few hours. If that does happen we’ll be sending you straight off to a specialist.’

  ‘Dave will never cope.’

  ‘I’m sure he will.’ Lizzie had her arm around Marie who was now looking thoroughly frightened. ‘Come on, we’ll go and talk to him.’ She raised an eyebrow as Marie reluctantly handed her baby over to Hugo. ‘You’re going to need some help with these tests.’

  ‘Maggie trained as a nurse before she became a paramedic. She’s probably better than I am at finding IV access.’ Hugo’s gaze shifted. ‘Is that OK, Maggie? Can you stay a bit longer and give me a hand?’

  ‘Sure. I’m officially off duty now.’ Maggie realised that Hugo could just as easily have asked her to keep Marie company elsewhere instead of Lizzie. She was quite confident Hugo could manage whatever invasive procedures were needed but if he was using her skills as an excuse to keep her around then Maggie was more than happy to oblige. ‘I’d love to help.’ She smiled at Marie. ‘I was a paediatric nurse for quite a while. Don’t worry, we’ll take very good care of Lucy.’

  Taking blood samples and doing a lumbar puncture on a three-and-a-half-week-old baby took time and all the skill that both Hugo and Maggie possessed. It was a focussed and, at times, tense period that precluded any kind of personal exchange, and it wasn’t until baby Lucy had been settled in the medical ward under the care of her mother and Megan with full antibiotic cover started and fluid replacement under way that either of them could relax.

  ‘You deserve a coffee,’ Hugo told Maggie. ‘Have you got time?’

  ‘Sure.’ It was hard to keep her tone light. This was the opportunity Maggie had been hoping for to spend some time alone with Hugo. Of course she had time. If she hadn’t, she would have created it out of thin air. Maggie walked away from the ward with Hugo by her side and found she had to take a deep breath to cope with a new—and odd—sense of trepidation. Hugo had been delighted to see her, she was sure of that. She also knew that Hugo had gained as much satisfaction as she had, working together as such a close team. Maggie had been watching for and hadn’t spotted any signs of Hugo being upset in any way at Joan running off with someone else, but that didn’t mean he was ready to contemplate a new relationship, did it? Especially not with her.

  ‘Are you going home now?’

  ‘No,’ Hugo responded swiftly. ‘I’ll hang around till we get all the results back on Lucy’s tests. We haven’t managed to collect that urine sample yet and I won’t leave
unless I’m sure it’s safe. Neonates can deteriorate rapidly, as I’m sure you know. I may end up staying here all night.’

  ‘I could go and feed the dogs for you if you like. And maybe give them a run on the beach.’ Maggie’s glance at Hugo was almost forlorn. ‘I’m missing them.’

  ‘They miss you, too,’ Hugo told her. ‘They seem to have aged ten years in the last week. I think they’re pining.’

  ‘Oh, sure.’ Maggie snorted softly. ‘I was only a visitor for a few weeks. It’s hardly likely to have changed their lives.’

  ‘It changed mine.’

  By an unspoken signal both Maggie and Hugo stopped walking. They stood in the empty and now dimly lit corridor and simply stared at each other. Maggie felt as though an unseen switch had been flicked, releasing a current of electricity that brought the very air they were breathing alive.

  ‘I miss you, Maggie.’ The expression in Hugo’s dark eyes reached out to touch Maggie. To caress something deep inside her, in a place no one else had ever come close to touching. The whole world seemed to be holding its breath, as Maggie was, waiting for Hugo’s next words. ‘I…I think I might be in love with you.’

  For a second, Maggie could say nothing. She could do nothing but hold the gaze and let the words sink in. Then she found she could breathe again. ‘Don’t you know, Hugh?’

  ‘Well, yes. I do know,’ Hugo admitted.

  ‘And?’ Maggie’s eyes were locked on his. This was it. Time to take the risk. Here he was, knowing that he was free to love Maggie any way she wanted him to. And it was terrifying because the thought that she might not want him as much as he wanted her had the potential to destroy something Hugo knew he could never find again. But Hugo hesitated for just a fraction longer.

  ‘Have you heard about Joan’s engagement to Lewis Evans?’

  ‘Mmm.’ Maggie’s gaze was still fixed on Hugo’s face. ‘How do you feel about that?’

  ‘Fine,’ Hugo said honestly. He smiled fleetingly. ‘Relieved, really. Joan and I were never more than good friends. We both knew it wasn’t the real thing. It was Joan, in fact, who tried to persuade me that you and I should be together.’ Hugo took a deep breath. ‘I’ve always loved you, Maggie, but now I’m in love with you as well and I can’t imagine my life without you. I want you—more than I ever thought it was possible to want someone—but given our history I wasn’t sure that I should feel the way I do. Or that you would want me to.’