The Pregnancy Proposition

by Meredith Webber

  “I’ve tried to think of ways to say it that don’t sound bad, but I can’t.

  “The thing is, Peterson, since that night—you know the one I mean—well, I can’t help thinking how good things were between us, and I wondered if you felt the same and how you’d feel about kind of regular contacts like it.”

  Amelia frowned at him as she tried to make sense of this garbled sentence.

  “‘Kind of regular contacts’?” she repeated faintly. “Are you suggesting we start going out together?”

  “Good heavens, no,” Mac said, promptly disabusing her of that idea. “Not a relationship. I’m no good at relationships, I told you that. But getting together every now and then…”

  “Physically? As in sex? You’re suggesting you pop over to my apartment now and then for a quick—” She couldn’t think of a polite word that covered this unbelievable suggestion, but fortunately Mac had cut in anyway.

  “No, no, nothing like that. I mean, we enjoyed the dinner, too, didn’t we? So I thought dinner, as well….”

  Dear Reader,

  Generally speaking, my heroes are really nice guys, reasonably housebroken and often quite domesticated, so, needing a challenge to liven up my life, I decided to try a hero who was a grouch. You know, one of those busy, grumbling, pessimistic types whose cup is always half-empty! Not that Mac, the hero in this book, doesn’t have some redeeming qualities deep down. It’s just they’re very deep and he needs a heroine who’s willing to do a bit of digging to find them. As I got to know them, I grew to love the people in this book. I hope you enjoy their company as much as I did.

  All the best,

  Meredith Webber

  The Pregnancy Proposition

  Meredith Webber

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  EPILOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  FRASER MCDOUGAL, known to friends, staff and those patients of St Patrick’s Hospital conscious or lucid enough to remember his casually informal introduction as Mac, sat in the small partitioned-off space laughingly called an office and wondered what the treatment was for a doctor drowned in paperwork.

  A frustrated, headachy doctor drowned in paperwork.

  ‘On autopsy, would they find masses of shredded paper blocking my lungs?’ he mused, frowning at the untidy piles as if his disapproval might magically make them disappear. ‘Paper petechiae in my eyes?’

  ‘Talking to yourself, Mac?’

  He looked up and smiled.

  For some reason, most people smiled at Peterson. It wasn’t that she was wildly attractive. In fact, she was quite ordinary-looking if you considered her bit by bit—short in stature, body slim as a boy’s, brown hair ruthlessly hauled back into some kind of bunched arrangement at the back, though after even an hour at work, bits of it stuck out every which way on her head—but she had good bones and the kind of mobile face one knew instinctively would smile easily.

  ‘No more than usual,’ he replied. ‘But if you’ve come to tell me I’m needed out there, forget it. I’ve been officially off duty for two hours, and even in Accident and Emergency I think I’m entitled to a break.’

  ‘If you want a break, you have to leave the hospital—you should know that by now.’ Without waiting for an invitation, Peterson cleared a pile of papers off the spare chair and plonked herself down on it. ‘Anyway, I don’t want you to see a patient. I want to ask a favour.’

  Mac frowned. He had no idea what Peterson’s favour might be, but he hated being put in situations where he had to say no. Best he get in early.

  ‘If it’s to partner you to the hospital dance, then no. You know I don’t do that stuff. And if it’s to—’

  ‘Hospital dance? What hospital dance?’

  Mac felt his frown grow deeper—just what he needed, ploughed-field-furrow-type wrinkles!

  ‘Isn’t there always a hospital dance?’

  Peterson shrugged.

  ‘Not that I know of, but, believe me, Mac, I’d as soon ask the lad who delivers gorilla-grams as ask you to a dance. Though, if he wore his gorilla suit, people might think I was with you.’

  Mac’s facial expressions shifted from frown to scowl. There’d been some ridiculous movie a few years ago in which, as far as he could make out, an idiot man who thought he was a gorilla was rescued by an unlikely blonde and brought to the big city. Most of the staff had decided Mac could have been his double, and gorilla jokes had raged around the department for weeks. And all because he rarely had time for a haircut, and looked more unshaven than most other male doctors after a twelve-hour stint in A and E.

  ‘Hardly a diplomatic remark, Peterson, when you’re here to ask a favour!’

  ‘I know,’ she said penitently, though the sparkle dancing in her brown eyes belied the contrite look on her face.

  But still she hesitated, and Mac, feeling more and more certain it was something he definitely didn’t want to do, decided he’d better take the initiative. Again!

  ‘Well, whatever it is, don’t bother,’ he growled at her. ‘I’m rarely in the mood to do favours for anyone, and right now I’m even less compliant—or complacent, come to that. Can’t you see this paperwork? Can’t you see I’m under siege here? And the department’s as short-staffed as ever, so taking time to do it during working hours just isn’t an option. The paperwork, not whatever favour you want.’

  Peterson returned his scowl with one of her own.

  ‘Oh, spare me!’ she said. ‘I could practically recite your complaints, I’ve heard them all so often. If you didn’t think you had to see, personally, every drifter who wanders through our doors, and if you didn’t feel you had to check on the work of every medical officer under you, and most of the nursing staff as well, you’d have plenty of time to do your paperwork during your shift.’

  Incensed by this unjust criticism, Mac scowled harder.

  ‘You know how many of the medical staff we get lumbered with couldn’t give a damn about A and E patients. They consider their time here a necessary evil in their intern year and treat the patients like objects on a conveyor belt,’ he reminded her. ‘And some of those drifters just might be hatching something deadly so, of course, I like to keep my finger on the pulse of things.’

  ‘A finger’s OK,’ his visitor retorted, ‘but you give the whole hand, and all the rest of yourself. You’ve no idea of delegation—’

  Mac held up his hand to halt the flow, and Peterson grinned at him.

  ‘OK,’ she conceded. ‘You can recite off my complaints as word perfect as I can spout yours. Quits?’

  Mac nodded and, forgetting she’d come in for a reason as yet undivulged, pulled a tray of papers towards him.

  Amelia Peterson sighed.

  She’d dropped in to ask a simple favour and somehow they’d got sidetracked. Now the wretched man had forgotten she was there.

  ‘Mac!’

  He glanced up, and the face that would have been handsome if it hadn’t been almost permanently etched with tiredness took on a puzzled expression.

  ‘The favour,’ she said patiently.

  Mac’s hazel eyes with their heavy lids and dark rich fringe of lashes peered suspiciously at her.

  ‘Haven’t you already asked? Didn’t I say no?’

  ‘You said no to a hospital dance!’ she said crossly. ‘As if!’

  If he hadn’t been six-two to her midget dimensions of five-three, she’d have shaken him. Instead she
sighed.

  ‘The favour I want is simple enough. You’re on the medical advisory committee, aren’t you?’

  ‘The other MAC? Yes, for my sins. I can’t imagine why they wanted me on it—and a bigger waste of time I’ve never known. I mean, I know it’s necessary to have one and there are—’

  But Amelia wasn’t going to let him get sidetracked again.

  ‘Don’t start!’ she warned, holding up her hand to emphasise the warning. ‘Just listen! I want to set up a structured in-service training process here for the A and E nurses, but it would need the approval of the director of nursing—’

  ‘Well, I’m sure I’d be influential there!’ Mac said dryly. ‘She doesn’t attend all the MAC meetings but even if she did, I doubt we’ve ever met without having a difference of opinion about something.’

  ‘She’s not that bad,’ Amelia protested. ‘You just don’t like women.’

  ‘Me not like women?’ He overdid the reaction. ‘Of course I like women. I was even married to one once!’

  Sidetracked again, Amelia rolled her eyes.

  ‘Forget the DON, forget your ex-wife, forget all women, and just listen,’ she said sternly. ‘At the moment—well, almost always, in fact—the majority of the A and E nurses are older, and have worked in every other hospital department before coming here. They need that experience to be able to make the quick assessments necessary down here. But spending ten years in A and E doesn’t necessarily make you better at the job, whereas a structured programme of in-service training would enhance professionalism and give emergency nurses the opportunity to pursue a distinct clinical career.’

  The heavy lids lifted so the hazel eyes could look more closely at her.

  ‘You sound as if you’re reciting something you read in a textbook. Tell me what good would it do. How it would improve nursing services in this department.’

  Determined not to sigh again, Amelia closed her eyes—briefly—and took a deep breath.

  ‘Let’s take communication skills as an example,’ she began. ‘With conscious patients, assessment begins with communication—establishing a dialogue with the patient. Shirley Cribb is probably one of the most experienced nurses in the department and certainly one of the best at inserting an IV catheter. But any patient unlucky enough to strike her for initial assessment would wonder why he’d bothered to come to hospital.’

  Mac actually smiled.

  ‘And what’s wrong with you?’ he growled, imitating Shirley’s gruff voice to perfection. ‘Don’t you have a GP you could have seen rather than wasting our time down here?’

  ‘Exactly,’ Amelia said. ‘And though we all try to encourage casual attendees to use their own GPs—or a twenty-four-hour clinic—rather than the hospital, that’s not the way to do it.’

  ‘And you think sending Shirley on a communication course would help? Would she go?’

  ‘Probably not voluntarily,’ Amelia admitted. ‘In fact, the courses are already offered by the hospital’s professional development team, and Shirley certainly hasn’t taken advantage of the offer up to now, but if it was part of a structured in-service training programme, then she’d have to go.’

  ‘I can see that,’ Mac agreed, ‘but what’s it got to do with me? You’re the senior A and E nurse. You can do what you like with your staff, arrange whatever programmes you want, can’t you?’

  This time Amelia’s sigh escaped. She might have known this would be his reaction. If Mac wanted something done he just did it and worried about the consequences later. Which was OK for a medical head of department, but not quite so OK for a nurse—however senior she might be.

  She shook her head. There were days when she was just too tired to talk to Mac, but this was too important to let slide.

  ‘To a certain extent—yes! But with a programme like this—there are courses in bereavement counselling, in paramedical emergencies, in respiratory therapy, so many things that are relevant to an A and E nurse—you need to have the in-service training as a policy so staff can be allocated paid leave to attend the courses, and the rosters altered so the department isn’t left short-staffed.’

  ‘Ha! Money! It’ll never happen. You know how tight the budget is, and you’re suggesting I suggest they spend more. Nice one, Peterson!’

  ‘I’m not suggesting anything of the kind,’ Amelia said crossly. ‘In-service training is supposed to be compulsory in all workplaces, and it’s in place in the hospital, so there’s already a budget for it. But there are no A-and-E-specific courses, so the nursing staff down here ignore the other courses which could be beneficial to them, and no one follows up to see whether they’re complying with the overall hospital policy.’

  ‘So, how do you get around that? If the courses are already there and no one wants to take them, how do you make people trot along?’

  He was worse than a two-year-old with his questions!

  Praying for patience, she sorted through her thoughts, still anxious, in spite of his lack of interest, to win his support.

  ‘By structuring them into an incentive programme. In the US, there’s been an enormous rise in the number of nurse-practitioners, nurses who are able to take more responsibility than regular RNs. And the first of these nurse-practitioners has recently been appointed in New South Wales. They can give drugs without a doctor’s permission, and initiate treatment—’

  ‘And your nurses would take on those roles?’ Disbelief reverberated in his voice.

  ‘No, but they’d be on their way to that position should it be introduced here. It makes sense, Mac, because it would free up doctors for more important matters and be a great financial saving throughout the hospital. And the nurses would achieve seniority, and subsequent pay rises, through training, rather than the length of service—or as well as length of service.’

  ‘I still don’t see where I come into it,’ Mac told her. ‘It’s really got nothing to do with me.’

  ‘Having more efficient nurses in A and E is nothing to do with you? I’d have thought it had a great deal to do with you!’

  Unable to deny this point, he made do with frowning at her. ‘I’d have thought hands-on experience in A and E would be worth a thousand courses. Look at you. How long have you been here? Were you here when I arrived? I seem to remember a little bit of a thing scurrying around the place. Thought we had mice!’

  She picked up a medical journal and threw it at him.

  ‘I’ve already done a range of extra courses and, yes, I think it makes me a better nurse. It’s made me see the job as more than a station on a conveyor belt, where people come in and are either shunted out or shunted up to somewhere else. It helps me remember that each patient is an individual, and that the process of nursing involves treating him or her as such.’

  She held up her hand to stop him interrupting again.

  ‘I know that kind of thing is written in stone in all the hospital aims and objectives and in its mission statement, but in A and E it’s easy to use the excuse of being busy and to duck a lot of the issues involved in measuring up to the highest possible standards.’

  Tired though he was, Mac still had the urge to smile at Peterson’s enthusiasm. She was like that whatever she did—whether organising to get the waiting room redecorated or selling raffle tickets for some obscure fundraising appeal—she threw herself whole-heartedly into it.

  But he wasn’t going to be inveigled into more effort by Peterson’s enthusiasm.

  ‘I still don’t see where I come into it,’ he told her, hoping she’d finally get the message that he wasn’t going to get involved. ‘It’s a nursing problem.’

  ‘Not if you see A and E as an integrated service,’ she snapped, glaring at him, though her eyes glinted as if she knew she’d won the point. ‘Which,’ she added in softer, almost dulcet tones, ‘you are always telling us it is.’

  ‘Smug doesn’t suit you!’ Knowing he was trapped, he glared right back at her. ‘So forget all the flowery stuff about mission statements and tell me
what you think I could possibly do about this great idea.’

  ‘You could bring it up at a MAC meeting, and then it would be tabled, and next time I talk to the DON, she can’t mouth placating phrases and do absolutely nothing.’

  ‘You mean you’ve already spoken to her about this?’ Mac demanded. ‘And you expect me to air it again?’ He knew he sounded incredulous, but the word didn’t begin to describe his disbelief. ‘To Enid Biggs? That woman already hates my guts. We argue every time she’s present at a meeting. She—’

  ‘She won’t be there.’ Peterson interrupted him before he could get into full flow on the problems he’d had with the DON. ‘She’s off at a conference for like-minded autocrats. Won’t be back for a fortnight.’

  Peterson’s finely boned face looked momentarily remorseful.

  ‘That was mean!’ she said quickly. ‘She does a good job, and most Directors of Nursing were excellent nurses before they went into management, but it’s because she won’t be here that I thought now was the time to get it tabled.’

  ‘Sneak it in under her guard? Couldn’t that bounce back on you?’

  Peterson’s elfin face lit up as she smiled with mischievous delight.

  ‘On me? I didn’t bring it up.’

  Mac shook his head.

  ‘Look, I’d like to help out, but I know damn well what something like that would mean. First they’ll want an analysis of the current system—’

  ‘There isn’t one!’

  He ignored Peterson’s interruption and continued, ‘And evaluations of this, comparisons of that and more paperwork to add to the conglomeration of bumf already accumulated in my office.’

  He frowned severely at her, partly because he wanted her to understand no meant no but also because he felt slightly bad about not helping.

  ‘And don’t bother telling me that I won’t be affected by any change. I spent years convincing the hospital it needed a specialist director of A and E, and when they finally decided I might be right and appointed me, they realised they had somewhere to dump all the stuff other people didn’t want to do. I’m supposed to spend half my life evaluating and analysing and comparing one system with another and I just don’t have the time. So, no, Peterson, count me out.’