Tempted by Dr. Morales

by Carol Marinelli

Cate felt anything but.

  Last night had been amazing, possibly the best night she had ever had, except she had got too close, had given away too much. Not just with words; last night had been way more intimate than she had intended.

  Perhaps more intimate than Juan had intended too, for he didn’t quite meet her eyes when he walked into the bedroom and waited while she sat up in bed and then handed her a mug. ‘Sorry that the coffee took so long.’

  ‘Is it your birthday?’

  ‘No,’ Juan answered. ‘Why?’

  ‘All the calls?’

  ‘Just family.’

  He wasn’t so upbeat now; if anything, things between them were back to being a touch awkward.

  ‘What time are you working?’ Juan asked.

  ‘Twelve,’ Cate said, glancing at the clock. ‘What about you?’

  ‘I have the rest of the week off till Friday. I have to move out of here on Tuesday.’

  ‘Where will you go?’

  ‘I am staying with a couple of nurses I met, travelling, who work at the Children’s Hospital.’

  Nurse Purple Face, Cate thought. This was big-girl’s-pants time: it was time to hide the truth and lie; it was time to smile and pretend it had been good while it lasted.

  Good didn’t even come close.

  Cate gulped down her coffee and then climbed out of bed. ‘Well, I’m going to head home.’ She started to pull on her clothes.

  ‘Have a shower,’ Juan offered. ‘I’ll find a towel...’

  ‘I’ll get one at home.’ She didn’t want a beach towel or a Juan towel wrestled from a backpack. She wanted a cupboard with towels in it and a home that wasn’t about to be abandoned without a backward glance a couple of days from now.

  Even if the views were to die for.

  Even if it had been fun.

  ‘I’ll see you.’ He gave her a kiss and she returned it briefly, because it was very hard to not ask when, not to know if this was the last time.

  ‘Cate...’ He walked her to her car. ‘I’ll call you.’

  ‘Sure.’

  His phone was ringing again and she gave a cheery wave and drove off, her hands so tight around the steering-wheel that she turned the wipers on instead of the indicators as she turned into her street. She ignored the horn and the abuse from a driver behind.

  She waved to Bridgette as she climbed out of her car.

  ‘What time do you call this?’ Bridgette joked, and Cate gave another wave and bright smile but it died the moment the door closed.

  Pull yourself together, Cate, she told herself.

  She’d done it.

  Slept with him.

  Succumbed to him.

  Now she just had to work out how to put together the pieces of her heart...

  * * *

  ‘Are you even listening?’ Kelly asked as they sat in the staffroom, waiting for their shift to commence.

  ‘Sorry?’ Cate said. ‘I was miles away.’

  ‘It must be hell for those firefighters,’ Kelly said, pointing to the news. ‘Imagine having to wear all that gear in this heat and be near the fires.’

  Cate couldn’t imagine it. The fires were inching closer. It took up half the news at night and everyone was just holding their breath for a change to cooler weather to arrive, but there was still no sign of it.

  They headed around to work and, though it would be tempting to hide in the office she still hadn’t got around to sorting out, there were, of course, a whole heap of problems to be dealt with.

  ‘I’m not happy to send him home, Cate,’ Sheldon said.

  There was a child, Timothy, who Sheldon had referred to the paediatricians. They had discharged the boy but Sheldon wasn’t happy and wanted a second opinion.

  Cate agreed with him, except Dr Vermont had called in sick.

  Again.

  Which meant there was no senior doctor to call in.

  ‘What about Harry?’ Sheldon said, but Cate shook her head.

  ‘Harry needs this weekend,’ Cate said. ‘Unless there’s a serious emergency, we should try not to call him. I’ve let him know that Dr Vermont is sick but...’

  ‘What about Juan?’ Sheldon suggested. ‘He’s senior.’

  She could not face calling him, so instead she asked Frances on Reception to ring and ask if he could come in.

  ‘He’s not available today.’ Frances came off the phone and then smiled as Jane, a new ward clerk, came over. ‘I’ve got a job for you,’ Frances said. ‘Start from here and work your way down and see if you can get any of these doctors to cover from now until ten p.m. I’ve already tried the names that are ticked.’

  Cate stood there as Timothy’s screams filled the department and his anxious mum came racing out.

  ‘Do you really think he should be going home?’ she demanded.

  ‘We’re just waiting for someone to come and take another look at Timothy,’ Cate said. ‘Kelly, can you go and run another set of observations on him...’ Cate let out a breath then turned to Sheldon. ‘I’ll ring Harry.’

  Harry sighed into the phone when Cate called him and they briefly discussed Dr Vermont. ‘He’s never taken a day off until recently for as long as I’ve known him,’ Harry said. ‘Did he say what was wrong?’

  ‘No,’ Cate admitted. ‘And I didn’t really feel that it was my place to ask. I just said I hoped he got well soon and I would arrange cover.’ She gave a wry laugh. ‘Which is proving easier said than done on a Sunday afternoon. Sheldon is concerned about a two-year-old who’s really not right. They’ve diagnosed an irritable hip and the paediatricians have discharged him...’

  ‘Do you want me to come and have a look at him?’

  ‘I want you to finally have a weekend off, without being called in.’

  ‘Well, that’s not going to happen for a while.’ Harry let out another long sigh. ‘Have you tried Juan?’

  It was a compliment indeed that Harry was thinking of asking Juan to cover for the rest of the weekend because, despite his impressive qualifications, Juan only covered as a locum resident.

  ‘We tried,’ Cate said. ‘He can’t.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll be there in ten minutes but I’ll have to bring in the children.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ Cate said. ‘I’ve got Tanya sitting in the obs ward, watching one elderly patient, I’m sure she won’t mind.’

  * * *

  Juan ended the call with Frances.

  He had thought for a moment about accepting the shift at Bayside but he knew that he might not be the best company today.

  Martina would be ringing him soon, pleading with him to give them another go. She would say that she had just panicked, that in time, of course, she would have come around to his injuries.

  Juan turned off his phone, not trusting Martina not to use a different number just so that he wouldn’t recognise it and pick up.

  He would go for a drive, Juan decided. For the most part, while in Australia, he had enjoyed not driving, but now and then he hired a car. It was just so that he could explore, but today he wanted to do something different.

  Juan hired a motorbike—it was his main mode of transport back home.

  Or once had been.

  Juan felt the machine between his legs and guided it up the hills, felt the warm breeze whipping his face and arms, and he relished it.

  The view was amazing; to the left was the bay, and ahead he could see the smoke plumes far in the distance where bush fires were still raging, swallowing hectares of land but thankfully no homes.

  He had enjoyed travelling around Australia—it was an amazing and diverse country and it had been everything he needed. It had been the last few weeks that had made him feel unsettled, wondering if it was time to think of returning home.<
br />
  He swallowed down a mouthful of sparkling water, thought about New Zealand and Asia, and was suddenly weary at the thought of new adventure. He just couldn’t get excited at the prospect of starting over again, and finally he knew he had to acknowledge the day.

  His family had been ringing all morning, trying to see how he was coping, whether or not he was feeling okay.

  Juan really didn’t know how he was feeling.

  He sat there, staring into the distance, trying to picture how his life might have been had the accident not happened. He and Martina would have been married for a year now—perhaps there would have been a baby on the way by now.

  Juan asked himself if he would have been happy.

  Yes.

  Then he asked himself if he was happy now.

  There was no neat answer.

  Juan dragged his hands through his hair and his fingers moved to the back of his neck. For a moment he felt the thick scar and recalled pulling Cate’s hand away from it.

  He hated anyone knowing.

  Not just about the accident but about what had happened afterwards.

  Still, eighteen months on, he could not quite get his head around the moment when everything had fallen apart—and it hadn’t been the moment of impact.

  Juan closed his eyes, remembered when he had looked up into the eyes of the woman he was due, in six months’ time, to marry. He had realised then that it was not a limitless love.

  Juan didn’t want to dwell on it, he hated the pensiveness that swirled like a murky haze, that billowed in his gut like the plumes of smoke in the distance.

  He should be enjoying himself, Juan told himself, heading back to his bike. He should be getting on with life, living as he had promised to on those dark, lonely nights when his future had been so uncertain. He should not be thinking about some imagined past that had never happened, a marriage that hadn’t taken place. He should be embracing the future, living for this very minute, not dwelling on a wedding that had been cancelled and a future that had never existed.

  He was happy being free, Juan told himself, and he intended to remain that way. He climbed back on his bike and started the engine, ready to move on with his life—as he had said to Cate last night, nothing lasted for ever. It was about enjoying what you had now—and Juan was determined to do that.

  He was happy.

  Juan rode the bike up the hill, along the curved roads, hugging the bends and telling himself he loved the freedom, loved the thought of a world that was waiting for him to explore it.

  A small animal burst out of the bushes and his mind told him not to swerve, but instinct won.

  The bike skidded and he tried to right it but failed. But he was skilled on a motorcycle and he was not going fast, so he controlled the landing. He felt the bitumen burn along his shoulder as he and the bike skidded into the bush, regretting that he had ridden without leathers.

  Great.

  He lay there a moment, getting his breath back, winded, a bit sore. His ego was a touch bruised, especially when Juan heard a voice and the sound of someone running towards him.

  ‘Stay still!’ He heard the urgent command. ‘It’s very important that you stay still.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Juan called back, and moved to sit up, to get the bike off that was pinning him down.

  ‘You have to stay still.’ A man was looking down at him. ‘I’m a first-aider.’

  Brilliant.

  ‘My wife’s calling an ambulance.’

  Better still!

  ‘I’m fine, really,’ Juan said through gritted teeth. ‘If you could just help me move the bike.’

  ‘Just lie still.’

  ‘I know what I’m saying—I’m an anaesthetist,’ Juan said. ‘I work in Emergency...’

  ‘They say that doctors make the worst patients.’ Still he smiled down. ‘I’m Ken.’

  Trust his luck to get an over-eager Boy Scout come across him. Juan lay there as Ken’s wife came over, telling them that the ambulance was on the way.

  ‘Hold his head, darling,’ Ken said. ‘I’ll lift the bike.’

  ‘What about the helmet?’ She looked down at Juan. ‘I’m Olive, by the way.’

  ‘Don’t try and remove it,’ Ken warned. ‘Leave that for the paramedics.’

  His day could not get any better, Juan thought, lying there. Of course he could shrug them off, get up and stand, but they were just trying to help. He should be grateful, Juan told himself. Technically they were doing everything right, except, apart from a grazed shoulder, there was not a thing wrong with him.

  He was grateful.

  Juan looked up at Olive and remembered the last time he’d had an accident. He had been lying on his side, begging bystanders not to touch him, not to roll him, not to move him.

  It’s not like last time.

  Over and over he told that to himself and held onto the scream that was building.

  He’d explain things to the paramedics, Juan decided, closing his eyes and hearing the faint wail of a siren far in the distance. He tried to calm himself, but there was an unease building as he thought of the paramedics’ response when he told them about his previous injuries. An appalling thought occurred when he tried to work out his location and the nearest hospital.

  He did not want Cate to know.

  Juan did not want his past impinging on the little time they’d had, yet he could hear the paramedics making their way over to him and knew that it was about to.

  ‘Juan!’ Louise smiled down at him, shone a torch in his eyes as she spoke to him. ‘What happened to you?’

  He told her. ‘It was a simple accident. I have only grazed my shoulder. I’m not going to hospital.’

  ‘Let’s just take a look at you, Juan.’ Louise was calm. ‘Were you knocked out?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How did you land?’

  ‘On my shoulder.’

  Her hands were feeling around his neck. ‘Do you have any pain in your neck?’

  ‘None.’ He felt her fingers still on the scar and then gently explore it.

  ‘Is there any past history that we need to know about, Juan?’

  He stared up at the sky at the tops of the trees and he absolutely did not want to reveal anything, except only a fool would lie now.

  ‘I had a spinal injury.’

  ‘Okay.’ Louise waited for more information.

  ‘Eighteen months ago.’

  He just stared up at the trees as the routine accident suddenly turned serious. ‘I’m fine, Louise.’ He went to sit up but hands were holding his head.

  ‘Just stay still, Juan.’

  ‘My neck is stable, better than before...’

  ‘What injury did you have?’

  ‘I had an incomplete fracture to C5 and C6.’

  He lay there as they carefully removed the helmet and he was placed in a hard collar, and the spinal board was brought from the ambulance.

  ‘I don’t want to go to Bayside,’ Juan said as they lifted him in.

  ‘I’m sorry, Juan. We need to take you to the nearest Emergency.’

  ‘Nothing is wrong.’

  ‘We have to take all precautions. You know that.’ Louise cared only for the health of her patients and pulled out the words that were needed. ‘I’m following protocol.’

  He couldn’t argue with that.

  The best that he could hope for was that Cate might be on her break, that he could somehow slip in and out of the department unnoticed by her. She might even be holed up in her office.

  Except she wasn’t Christine.

  She wasn’t like anyone.

  Cate was like no one he had ever met.

  Juan stared up at the ceiling of another ambulance and said it over and o
ver again to himself.

  It’s not like last time.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CATE REGRETTED THAT she’d had to ask Harry, she truly did, but she had never been more grateful about how approachable Harry was than when he came in to examine young Timothy.

  The boy was, in fairness to the paediatricians, markedly more distressed by the time Harry arrived. Harry took some bloods, called the lab and asked for the tests to be put through urgently. Then he called the orthopaedic surgeons as it began to look more and more as though the child might have septic arthritis, which was a surgical emergency and needed to be dealt with as quickly as possible.

  ‘They’re going to take him up for aspiration of the hip under sedation,’ Harry explained to Cate a short while later, ‘and they’re getting started immediately on antibiotics.’ He was just writing up his admission notes when Lillian, the director of nursing, came and asked Cate if she could have a word.

  ‘Over here.’

  Lillian gestured to a place away from the nurses’ station and as they walked up to the drug fridge and out of Harry’s earshot, Cate took a deep breath, because she knew what was coming next. ‘Why,’ Lillian asked, ‘is the student nurse sitting in the observation ward, drawing pictures with Harry’s children?’

  ‘Because Dr Vermont, who was supposed to be the on-call consultant this weekend, has rung in sick. Sheldon was worried about a patient the paediatricians have discharged and luckily for us Harry came in. As it turns out, it would seem that the child has septic arthritis.’

  ‘Then why,’ Lillian persisted, ‘is a student nurse, who should be getting clinical experience, acting as a childminder, instead of being out on the floor?’

  ‘Because she was already rostered on the observation ward...’ Cate was saved from having to explain herself further when she looked up and saw that Louise was signalling her to come over so that she could have a word.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Cate said. ‘I’m needed.’

  ‘We’ll discuss this later.’ Lillian said. ‘This really can’t continue.’

  Cate knew it wasn’t over yet, but for now she was happy to escape a lecture and walked over to Louise.

  ‘What you got for us?’ Cate asked.

  ‘A very reluctant patient,’ Louise said.