by Amy Andrews
She was aware of Callum as his team lingered in the nurses’ station. His voice was totally distracting, deep and well modulated—very easy on the ear. His laugh practically shimmied along her nerves, shattering her concentration.
They eventually took their leave. Callum said goodbye and she returned it, not looking up from the chart, feigning complete absorption in her task. But her hand shook betrayingly and she let out a breath as Callum, his voice and his laugh finally left the ward.
An hour later, Hailey was counting down the minutes to the end of her shift—ten, to be exact—and the start of her days off. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Callum’s comments and she was looking forward to having a few days’ respite from his presence.
She was checking all her patient’s fluid charts when Joyce, the ward cleaner, approached. Joyce had been cleaning 2B’s floors and keeping everything spick and span for over two decades. Hailey had no doubt that at any given time she could eat off the floors safe in the knowledge that no bacteria would dare challenge the cleaner’s authority. Joyce was almost part of the furniture around the ward and was regarded as one of the team.
There was an old adage in nursing. Patients told doctors a little, nurses a lot and the cleaning staff everything. And a good nurse knew it. Joyce was her first port of call when one of the parents was reticent with information.
‘There’s an alarm going off next door.’ Joyce jabbed her thumb towards the high-dependency bay. ‘There’s no one in there.’
An urgent beeping from a saturation monitor worked its way into her consciousness. She realised then that it had been going off for a while. Hailey frowned. There was no one there? She’d subconsciously blocked the noise out, knowing it was Rosemary’s bay and the other nurse was supposed to be there.
The alarm persisted and Hailey thanked Joyce, making her way next door. She didn’t hurry, knowing that it would probably be just a dislodged probe. The bay was empty of any parents and also empty of Rosemary, as Joyce had indicated. She wasn’t supposed to leave the high-dependency bay without getting someone to take her place. The alarm was coming from Henry’s bed and Hailey strolled over, still unconcerned.
But when she got there, it was immediately obvious the alarm was for real. The sats monitor was recording Henry’s oxygen saturations as seventy per cent and one look at Henry confirmed the dire figure. He was flailing his arms around, gasping for air, like a fish out of water, his lips and peripheries tinged with blue, sweat beading his forehead.
‘Oh, no,’ Hailey muttered. Was Henry’s trachy blocked or had he just worked himself into a state, exacerbating his malacia? She hit the emergency call button on the wall near the end of the cot with one hand as she manoeuvred the cot side down with the other.
Callum, who had returned to the ward to fill out the paperwork for a pending admission, was at the nurses’ station when the distinctive tone of the emergency call went off. He looked at the nurse call board that displayed all the bed numbers and quickly located the source of the emergency.
He strode into the high-dependency bay to find a very worried Hailey frantically suctioning Henry’s trachy. One look at the little boy’s panic-filled gaze and cyanosed lips was enough to confirm the urgency of the situation.
‘What happened?’ he demanded, yanking the resus bag off the wall and twisting on the oxygen meter it was connected to, satisfied to hear the hiss of gas inflating the bag.
‘Not sure. I think he must have plugged his trachy,’ Hailey said, withdrawing the suction catheter from the artificial airway. ‘It’s no use. I can’t pass it. It must be completely blocked.’
Callum nodded, trusting her assessment. ‘We’re going to have to replace it.’
The alarm continued to trill in the background, the tone getting lower as Henry’s saturations continued to plummet further. Fifty, forty-nine, forty-eight. The little boy’s colour was getting worse the more oxygen deprived he became.
Hailey glanced at Callum, her heartbeat thundering in her ears. A red flush was creeping up her neck. She hesitated a split second before she nodded.
‘What’s the matter?’ Yvonne demanded as two other nurses, including a very pale-looking Rosemary, joined them.
‘Get the resus trolley,’ Hailey ordered, her gaze not leaving her patient as she fumbled with the emergency box of supplies kept on Henry’s bedside cabinet.
‘I’ll dilate the stoma,’ Callum said as he snipped the tapes that secured the useless trachy in place. ‘You place the airway.’
Hailey nodded as she handed him the trachy dilators. The noise of the alarm and the controlled panic that surrounded her as Yvonne barked orders and nurses performed their much practised roles faded as adrenaline honed her instincts. She was aware only of Callum and Henry as they worked in tandem to secure the little boy a patent airway.
Callum whipped out the old trachy and inserted the dilators into the hole in Henry’s neck. Hailey, her fingers trembling, ripped open the packaging of a new trachy and deftly inserted the sturdy, plastic airway into the tract. She held it in place for Callum as he attached the resus bag and gently puffed some breaths into Henry’s lungs.
The little boy pinked up almost immediately, the tone on the sats monitor getting higher and higher as his oxygen saturations climbed rapidly back into the nineties. Henry started to cry as panic was replaced with relief. The whole episode had obviously terrified him.
‘Crisis averted,’ Callum said, letting out a pent-up breath.
Hailey nodded. It had seemed like an hour, though, in reality, only two minutes had passed since Joyce had alerted her to the emergency. But their job wasn’t over yet and she wasn’t going to break out the champagne until it was. ‘Let’s secure it,’ she said.
Despite not being able to make any noise due to the position of the trachy, Henry was still bawling, great silent sobs, taking full advantage of being able to fill his lungs with air.
‘It’s OK, baby,’ Hailey murmured as she tied the trachy tapes, anchoring them around the back of his neck. It was a finicky job at the best of times, made that much more difficult by an aggrieved Henry and her badly trembling fingers.
Henry’s crying was exacerbated by frequent coughing bouts and by the time the tapes were tied and Hailey had suctioned him, the little boy was in a state. Hailey didn’t give it a second thought. She scooped the little boy up into her arms and hugged him tightly to her.
‘Shh, baby, shh,’ she crooned, rocking him, her own heart rate galloping as she allowed herself to think about the potential consequences had she not responded to Joyce’s comment.
Callum put a hand on her shoulder and one on Henry’s back, rubbing it gently, also murmuring soothing words to the fractious child. Hailey didn’t object, too pleased to have had Callum with her during the incident to reject his company now.
She could hear Yvonne talking to Rosemary about the importance of vigilance somewhere behind her. Henry was settling and she pressed her forehead against his, shutting her eyes.
‘You OK?’
Hailey looked up into Callum’s concerned grey gaze. She gave a half laugh, half sigh. ‘I am now.’
Callum smiled. He was seeing a different side to Hailey. She was holding Henry tightly reminding him of a mother lion with one of her cubs. Like the way she’d drawn Tom close the other night. He’d been right earlier—she was a natural. She’d known instinctively that Henry had needed comfort. Just as she had known how to talk to Tom the other night. Not like a bratty, unwelcome kid, but like an equal.
‘Thank you. You were great.’
‘Really?’ She grimaced. ‘I felt all fingers and thumbs.’
He nodded, still stroking Henry’s back. ‘You were very cool under pressure.’
She did laugh this time. ‘Didn’t feel very cool inside.’
He shrugged. ‘That’s only normal. We wouldn’t be human if something like this didn’t freak us out a little.’
Hailey rubbed her cheek against Henry’s head as he
snuggled into her neck. ‘You, too?’
‘Just because I wear a white coat, it doesn’t mean that an emergency situation won’t send my blood pressure up.’
Hailey nodded. She’d dealt with quite a few emergency situations over the course of her nursing career but they still managed to turn her into jelly on the inside. It was nice to hear an experienced paediatrician admitting to similar feelings.
‘He’s asleep.’
Hailey looked down into Henry’s sweet, sleeping face. ‘I’m sure he’s utterly exhausted, poor darling.’ She laid him gently back in his cot.
Callum watched as she covered him with a colourful bunny rug and lingered, caressing his cheek. She obviously cared about her young charges. She would make a great mother. The kind of mother Tom had been nagging him about to give him that baby brother.
‘I’d better get back to my paperwork,’ he said, dragging his thoughts away from the realm of fantasy.
Hailey watched him go, her hand still on the sleeping bundle in the cot. Working side by side with Callum to bring Henry back from the brink had been real nail-biting stuff but she couldn’t deny how alive it had made her feel or how long it had been since she’d felt this invigorated.
It would be wrong to read too much into it.
CHAPTER THREE
THE buzz that had infused Hailey immediately after the emergency with Henry dissipated quickly and she left the hospital feeling edgy. Coming down from an adrenaline rush always left her with a jittery, strung-out feeling. The best antidote for that? Shopping.
She drove to her apartment and had a quick shower, pleased to be rid of her uniform. She’d always worn it with pride but some days it was too much a reminder of work and her hand trembled slightly as she remembered the events of the day. She wished she could be sure it was the effects of the adrenaline but she suspected Callum’s touch, as she had held Henry, was also having an impact.
Damn the man. Things were finally getting back on track in her life. She didn’t need to derail her progress like this. She threw on some clothes, picked up her bag and strode out of her apartment, determined not to think about work or Henry’s blue lips and panicked face or Callum Craig.
The noise of the crowds and the hustle and bustle were instantly distracting. The announcements over the PA and the piped music gave her something else to think about. The concentration required to calculate discounts and specials and colour co-ordinate with her existing wardrobe was wonderfully absorbing. OK, her local shopping mall was hardly Oxford Street but it was good therapy nevertheless.
Yes, there were probably healthier ways of dealing with work stress. Fitness freaks probably would have jogged it out of their system. Or gone to the gym. Or to their favourite health-food bar and overdosed on carrot juice and wheatgrass smoothies.
Or some may even have rung a close work colleague or their best friend and debriefed. Gone out for a drink. Shot the breeze. Sought some female comfort. But Hailey had felt too disconnected from her friends since her return from overseas to have even considered that option.
Still, shopping was better than some pursuits. A nurse she’d befriended in London used to go out to a nightclub and pick up a man after a particularly harrowing shift. She’d maintained that there was nothing like sex to make you forget. And perhaps she’d been right. But Hailey was hard pressed at the moment not to think of sex and Callum Craig together so that definitely hadn’t been an option.
Hailey’s mobile rang while she was in a fitting room. It was Rilla.
‘Hello?’ she murmured in a low voice, not wanting every other customer in the change rooms to be privy to her conversation.
‘Hailey? Is that you?’
‘Yes,’ she murmured again.
‘Why are you whispering? I can barely hear you.’
‘I’m not whispering!’ she muttered crankily. ‘I’m kind of occupied right now. What do you want?’
‘Beth and I are coming over. We’ll be there about seven. Don’t cook—we’ll bring food.’
‘Rilla.’ Hailey shook her head. Her sisters must have heard about Henry. One disadvantage to having your entire family working in the same medical facility. ‘There’s no need.’
‘Yes. There is. See you later.’
Hailey stared at the dead phone. She looked at her watch. Five-thirty! An hour and a half, and the apartment was a mess. She wriggled out of the jeans she was trying on and dressed quickly.
Peak-hour traffic was the pits and she tapped impatiently on the steering-wheel as her time narrowed further. She screeched into her parking space with less than thirty minutes to spare. She loaded herself up with her parcels, shunning the often slow lifts and thinking of how great seven flights of stairs would be for her butt and calves. If they didn’t kill her first.
She took them steadily, pleased to realise her afternoon of shopping and the mad dash home had left her no time to think about the way her shift had ended. Or Callum Craig either, for that matter. Not his quiet confidence in the face of a crisis or his hand on her shoulder, asking her if she was OK.
Although his wicked wink during the ward round did rear its head at her as she dashed up the last ten steps, her thighs screaming in protest. Her foot faltered briefly as she thought about his panroom visit. In that split second, distracted by the memory, she misjudged the tread and stumbled, pitching forward, her ankle twisting as she landed unceremoniously in a crumpled heap, her parcels covering her, half spilling their contents over the hallway.
Hailey cried out as a stabbing pain tore through her ankle and she shut her eyes against the quick sting of tears that filled her vision.
‘Are you all right?’
She kept her eyes shut, ignoring the concerned male voice as the pain gripped relentlessly. She nodded, holding her breath, biting her lip against the very unladylike oath on the tip of her tongue. Did she look all right sprawled on the floor like this?
‘Will she be OK, Daddy?’
Hailey’s eyes shot open, the pain temporarily overridden. It couldn’t be. Tom stared down at her. She blinked. Callum was kneeling on the floor beside her, his worried face peering down into hers. Suddenly, despite the pain slowly releasing her from its grip, things just got a whole lot worse.
‘What are you doing here?’ It slipped out before she could stop it but honestly! Was he stalking her?
Callum frowned. ‘Hailey?’
‘Hailey!’ Tom grinned, waving at her frantically.
Tom’s waggling fingers were nauseating from that angle so she moved gingerly, rising up onto her elbows, wincing as pain clawed at her ankle again.
‘Don’t move,’ Callum ordered, placing a stilling hand on her shoulder. ‘You may have injured your neck.’
‘I did not injure my neck,’ she grouched. Just my pride. ‘I hurt my ankle, that’s all.’
Tom knelt beside her too, mimicking his father. She noted his torch firmly ensconced under his arm. He placed a hand on her arm. ‘My daddy’s a doctor,’ he said solemnly. ‘Better do as he says.’
She looked at Callum, who was having trouble suppressing a smile. ‘Over my dead body,’ she muttered under her breath, levering herself into a sitting position. She reached for the closest article of clothing that lay strewn on the carpet and plucked it up, shoving it back in a bag.
‘Here, let me help you,’ Callum said, also reaching for the spilled contents. His hand fell on a black lace bra and knicker set. The fabric felt cool beneath his touch and he couldn’t help but wonder how it would look adorning her as he passed it to her.
Hailey met his gaze and saw the flare of heat in his eyes. She snatched it from him, annoyed at the tremor of lust that coursed through her body just like the night on the balcony. ‘I can manage, thank you,’ she said primly.
She gathered the stuff quickly, very aware of Callum and Tom watching her. ‘What are you doing here anyway?’ She repeated her unanswered question from earlier as she shoved the last garment back into its bag.
‘I live here,�
� Callum stated. ‘Three doors down.’
Hailey looked at him sharply. He lived here? Was there some conspiracy out there that she didn’t know about? ‘I’ve never seen you here before.’ Not that she was that up to date on the comings and goings in the complex. Shift work made it difficult to keep tabs on anything. ‘When did you move in?’
‘Two weeks ago.’
Two weeks? They’d been here for a fortnight? She searched back in her mind. She’d been on a run of nights then.
‘What are you doing here? Are you visiting someone?’
Callum’s question cut into her thoughts. ‘I live here, too,’ she said miserably. She pointed to her door three down in the opposite direction.
Callum looked at the door, the full implications dawning. ‘So we’re neighbours?’
‘It would appear so,’ Hailey admitted, her heart beating a little too fast at the thought.
‘Oh, goody, Daddy. Hooray! Hailey is our neighbour!’
Tom jumped up and down excitedly while Callum tried not to think about black lace underwear. She looked sexy enough in her strappy, clingy sundress. The last thing he wanted was temptation living down the corridor.
They looked at each other for a few moments, both unhappy about the unexpected development. Hailey broke eye contact first.
‘Anyway, sorry to have intruded on your day. I’ll be going now.’ She grabbed the railing and hoisted herself into a standing position, gritting her teeth at the jab of pain.
‘Whoa,’ Callum chided as Hailey swayed and he placed a steadying hand on her shoulder. ‘Careful. Let me help you.’
‘I’m fine,’ she said, ignoring the proffered arm and gingerly putting her sore foot to the floor. It was probably only ten metres to her door but it suddenly seemed ten kilometres as her ankle protested the movement.
Callum rolled his eyes at the obvious wince on Hailey’s face. ‘Lean on me,’ he ordered, putting an arm around her waist.
‘I’m fine,’ she reiterated, even though she knew it was going to take some time to cover the distance.