‘It’s very kind of you to offer but I think it would be best if I went straight home. I’m second on call tonight so I can’t have anything to drink. Don’t let that stop you going, though.’ She held out her hand, relieved to have found an excuse to bring the evening to a speedy conclusion. ‘Thank you for coming with me tonight. I really appreciate it.’
‘It was my pleasure.’ He took her hand but instead of shaking it, as she’d expected him to do, he squeezed her fingers. ‘And I think I’ll give that drink a miss. It’s no fun drinking on your own so I’ll find us a taxi. Why don’t you wait here? There’s no point you standing outside in the cold.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of spoiling your evening,’ she protested, her heart knocking painfully against her ribs. Maybe it was silly to make a fuss but the thought of Dylan accompanying her back to her flat made her feel very on edge. It would be rude not to invite him in for coffee after he had gone to so much trouble, but something told her that she could be playing with fire if she asked him into her home.
‘And leave you to make your own way home?’ He shook his head. ‘No way. For one thing my mother would have my guts for garters if she found out. She’s a stickler when it comes to good manners and drummed it into me that I should never, ever let a lady travel home on her own at night. You wouldn’t want to get me into trouble, would you?’
‘I…um…’ Joanna began, completely flummoxed by the idea of Dylan being in trouble with his mother.
He grinned at her. ‘Good! That’s settled, then. I’ll go and find us a taxi.’
He didn’t waste any more time debating the issue as he hurried away. Joanna shook her head in disbelief. How had she ended up falling in with his plans when it had been the last thing she’d intended? She still hadn’t worked it out by the time he came back to tell her the taxi was waiting outside, but she knew that she must be on her guard in future. Dylan Archer had a positive talent for getting his own way, it appeared.
It was an unsettling thought and Joanna found it hard to dismiss it as Dylan escorted her out to the cab. She got into the back then glanced round when she realised Dylan had said something to her. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘I was just asking where you live so I can tell the driver where to take us,’ he explained.
‘Oh, yes, of course.’ She quickly told the cabby her address then slid along the seat when Dylan climbed in beside her. His thigh brushed hers as he made himself comfortable and Joanna bit her lip when she felt tiny pinpricks of heat prickling her skin. She stared out of the taxi’s window as they set off but she was so conscious of Dylan sitting beside her that she didn’t dare look at him in case he guessed how she felt. Frankly, she couldn’t understand why he had this effect on her. She wasn’t a complete innocent even though the few relationships she’d had hadn’t lasted very long. However, she knew enough to state categorically that no man had made her feel the way Dylan did.
‘I never get tired of the hustle and bustle of London, do you?’
She jumped when he spoke, feeling the vibrations from his deep voice strumming along her taut nerves. ‘I’ve never really thought about it,’ she murmured distractedly, trying to get a grip on herself.
‘Then you must be a committed townie. You don’t notice the downside of living in the city because you accept it as part and parcel of your life?’
He turned to look at her and Joanna felt her nerves tighten that bit more when she saw the curiosity in his eyes. Dylan really wanted to know how she felt about this issue. He wasn’t just making conversation for the sake of it—he wanted to find out all about her. The thought made her feel both scared and elated, a potent combination when her emotions were so finely balanced.
‘I love the city,’ she admitted, knowing that she couldn’t let him see how vulnerable she felt. It was as though the past twenty years had disappeared and all the confidence she’d gained during that time had melted away so that she was back to being a gauche teenager once more. A teenager who was out on her very first date as well!
‘I certainly can’t imagine living anywhere else,’ she hurried on, wanting to rid herself of that crazy notion. She wasn’t a teenager and this wasn’t a date, and the sooner she got those facts straight in her head the better it would be. ‘Oh, I’ll admit that I enjoy spending time in the country but I like the convenience of city living too much to ever consider relocating.’
‘How about if you had a family? City life isn’t exactly conducive to raising children so maybe you’d change your mind then?’
‘There’s not much chance of that happening.’
‘You mean that you wouldn’t change your mind, or that you can’t see yourself ever having a family?’
Joanna frowned when she heard the husky note in his voice. She felt her heart race when she saw the expression on his face. There was no doubt that her answer was important to him, but why? She didn’t understand. Why should it matter so much to Dylan how she felt about having a family?
Dylan realised he was holding his breath as he waited for Joanna to say something. He made himself breathe out then in but it didn’t alter the fact that her answer really mattered to him. That he would have a family at some stage in his life had always been a foregone conclusion. He’d never had to think about it because he loved kids and knew that he wanted some of his own one day. There had never been any sense of urgency about having them because he’d also known that he needed to find the right woman first. Was Joanna that woman?
The thought caught him completely unawares and he gasped. He saw Joanna frown as she leant across the seat and thumped him on the back. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Fine. Just a bit of tickle in my throat.’ He managed to suck in a little air, enough to stop the wheezing, and dredged up a smile. ‘That’s better now.’
‘Good.’ She sat back in her seat and looked out of the window again. It was obvious that she’d forgotten about his question in all the commotion and he couldn’t think of a way to raise the subject again without arousing her suspicious. Joanna would probably leap out of the cab and run off screaming into the night if she had any inkling about what he’d been thinking!
It was a deeply depressing thought so it was almost a relief when he heard the familiar sound of his beeper tweeting. He dug it out of his pocket then looked round when Joanna’s beeper began to chirrup as well. ‘Sounds ominous if we’re both being paged,’ he observed, checking the number on the display and unsurprised to find that it was the hospital paging him.
‘It does.’ Joanna turned off her beeper and took her mobile phone out of her bag. ‘I’ll find out what’s going on.’
She quickly put through a call to the hospital and listened intently for a moment. ‘I understand. I should be there in roughly five minutes time. Dr Archer is with me so tell the switchboard, will you? And make sure that all three Theatres are ready prepared.’
‘What’s happened?’ Dylan asked as she ended the call and put her phone away.
‘There’s been a gas explosion at a block of flats near Vauxhall station.’ She leant forward and told the cabby to take them to St Leonard’s before continuing. ‘Some of the debris landed on the station’s platform so it could be some time before the exact number of casualties is known. The emergency services are talking in double figures, though.’
‘Sounds grim.’
‘It does. Every hospital in London has been put on standby,’ she explained as the cab drew up in the hospital’s forecourt. ‘We’re taking any patients who need immediate surgery so we’ll be dealing with a real hotchpotch from the sound of it.’
‘Does that include burns patients? I imagine there will be some if it’s a gas explosion.’ Dylan quickly paid the fare as they got out of the cab, brushing aside Joanna’s offer to take care of it. Even though he was concerned about the people they would soon be treating, he found it strangely touching when she thanked him. He had a feeling that it had been some time since she’d allowed a man to take care of incidentals like cab fares which
other women took for granted in a relationship.
His heart suddenly hiccuped because he was getting ahead of the game again. This wasn’t a relationship. Not yet.
‘They’ll go to St Saviour’s. We don’t have the facilities here to deal with major burns cases, but they have a specialist unit there which includes an excellent plastic surgery department.’
‘We’ll probably have enough to keep us busy without them,’ he concluded, struggling to keep his mind on work. He opened the door for Joanna then took a deep breath before he followed her into the building. Now they were here he couldn’t afford to let himself be sidetracked again. The patients came first and he would make sure they had his full attention from now on.
Joanna didn’t say anything else as they made their way up to Theatre. The whole floor was ablaze with lights when they stepped out of the lift and he could see staff milling about. He was aware of the interested glances he and Joanna attracted as they hurried along the corridor. The staff must know by now that he and Joanna had been together when they’d been paged and were bound to be speculating about what had been going on, but there was nothing he could do about it. Anyway, it wasn’t a crime to be out with his boss.
Joanna swiftly set about organising everyone into teams. Dylan nodded when she told him he would be heading up the same team he’d worked with during that day. Tom had already changed into scrubs but he followed Dylan into the changing room, grinning broadly as he leant his massive frame against the door and watched Dylan getting ready.
‘What? Or do you normally stand around at this hour of the night, grinning like the Cheshire cat?’ Dylan demanded, stripping his evening shirt over his head without going through all the hassle of trying to unfasten the studs down its front.
‘I’m just standing here in awe of you, oh, Great One,’ Tom replied, his smile widening even more.
Dylan rolled his eyes as he unzipped his trousers and stepped out of them. ‘Whilst I appreciate the fact that you obviously recognise your betters, I’m not sure what I’ve done to earn that accolade.’
‘Oh, come now, don’t be modest. I know it’s supposed to be a wonderful quality but personally I’ve never believed you should hide your light under a bushel.’
‘If I had any idea what a bushel was then maybe I’d agree with you,’ he retorted, dragging on the green cotton trousers that comprised the bottom half of his Theatre garb. He picked up a top then tossed it aside when he spotted a huge rip in the side seam. Theatre clothes got a real hammering and there was nothing glamorous about the boiled-thin cotton garments which more often than not were full of holes. He selected another top off the pile and dragged it over his head then flattened down his hair with the palm of his hand.
‘OK, then, I’ll give up trying to be tactful, seeing as you obviously don’t appreciate subtlety. What’s the secret of your success with our lovely boss? Believe me, man, people have tried—and failed miserably—to get that woman to go out with them, yet along you come and sweep her off her dainty little feet!’ Tom suddenly dropped to his knees and began genuflecting. ‘Impart the secret to me, oh, Great One. Let me share this wondrous talent you have that I, too, might earn my lady’s love.’
‘Get up, you idiot!’ Dylan began, then stopped when there was a knock on the door before Joanna poked her head into the room. He saw her mouth drop open when she spotted Tom, spread-eagled on the floor at his feet, and shook his head.
‘Don’t ask. You really don’t want to know,’ he assured her, thinking how true that statement was. Joanna would be mortified if she found out what Tom had said and he thanked heaven that the other man had kept his voice down this time.
‘Oh, right. Um…A and E has just been on the phone. Can you go and take a look at a patient? They need an opinion on whether or not he will survive surgery.’
‘Will do.’
‘Thanks. I’ll be in Theatre two if you need me.’ She shot another look at Tom, who was still sprawled on the floor, opened her mouth to say something then obviously thought better of it and left.
Dylan grinned unsympathetically as Tom scrambled to his feet looking thoroughly embarrassed. ‘It’s your own fault.’
‘I know, I know, so don’t go rubbing it in,’ Tom grumbled as he made for the door. ‘Anyway, I’ll go and do what I’m good at and leave you to carry on with your charm offensive. It’s obviously working because Joanna would never have let me get away with that before you arrived on the scene.’
‘Some people don’t know when to stop,’ Dylan retorted, double-knotting the cord on his pants as he followed Tom into the corridor.
‘So long as you don’t stop the good work then I’ll put up with the insults,’ Tom said loftily, waving a laconic hand as he disappeared into Theatre three.
Dylan sighed as he made his way to the lift. The situation was getting out of hand. He wasn’t offended by Tom’s teasing but he would hate any gossip to get back to Joanna. She would be terribly embarrassed if she realised her staff were making such personal remarks about her. Not that there was a grain of truth in what Tom had said, of course, because he couldn’t in all honesty claim that he’d brought about any changes in her attitude in such a short space of time.
He got into the lift and punched the button for the ground floor, vowing that from that point on his mind would be solely on work. Not only did he owe it to the patients to give them one hundred per cent commitment but he certainly didn’t want to let Joanna down when she had such high expectations of her team.
He sighed because being a worthy member of the team wasn’t the only thing he wanted to be in her eyes. He wanted her to think of him as much more than that, but at the present moment he would have to put such ideas on the back burner. He got out of the lift and headed for the accident and emergency unit, thinking wryly that the problem with that was they would just keep simmering away.
‘What’s his BP now?’
Joanna paused while Terry Griffith, who was her anaesthetist that night, rattled out the reading. It was very low but at least the patient still had some pressure, which was something.
She bent over the table again, wondering if she was wasting her time. Noel Price had been in bed when the gas main had exploded. He’d been almost buried by falling masonry when the ceiling had caved in on top of him and his insides were a mess. His liver, stomach, duodenum and pancreas had all been crushed. Joanna knew that his chances of recovering from such horrendous injuries were very slim but she carried on anyway, carefully removing a damaged section of his stomach. The old adage about where there was life there was hope might be trite but it was also true.
Three hours later, she finished packing the wound and straightened her aching back. She had decided to leave the wound open because there was a strong risk of infection setting in owing to the stomach’s contents spilling into the abdominal cavity. If the patient survived she would stitch up the incision in a few days’ time.
‘That’s about all we can do for now. What’s his BP, Terry.’
‘Would you believe it’s slightly up?’ Terry sounded surprised and Joanna smiled.
‘It’s a miracle, isn’t it? Thanks, everyone. We’ll take five before the next one. I think we could all do with a breather.’
A chorus of heartfelt agreements followed her out of Theatre. There was a list taped to the wall by the door, giving the names of all the patients who were still waiting for surgery, and she grimaced when she saw that there were still three people left. It was almost four a.m. and she longed to go home to her bed, but it looked as though it would be some time yet before she could leave.
She stripped off her soiled gown and tossed it into the overflowing laundry hamper then went to scrub up again. Her hands were raw from all the antiseptic she had used on them that night and she winced when the hot water stung her skin.
‘One of the hazards of the job,’ Lucy observed sympathetically as she joined Joanna at the sinks. ‘Oh, to have lily-white hands as smooth and soft as swans-down, eh?’
>
‘Fat chance of that in our line of work,’ Joanna agreed, reaching for the nailbrush.
‘What we need are a couple of handsome millionaires to take us away from this life of pain and drudgery,’ Lucy declared, then glanced round when the scrub room door opened. ‘Ooh, d’you think our wish is about to be granted?’
‘I doubt it!’ Joanna laughed as she glanced over her shoulder. She felt her breath catch when she saw that Dylan had come into the room and quickly turned back to the sink.
‘So do I, unless Dr Archer here is keeping any secrets from us,’ the irrepressible Lucy continued. ‘Are you, Dylan?’
‘That all depends on what you want to know,’ he retorted as he came over to join them.
‘We were just wishing that we could be swept off our feet by a couple of millionaires who would save us from this life of drudgery,’ Lucy informed him airily. ‘So if you happen to have the odd million or two hidden away under your bed, now is the time to confess.’
‘Sorry, but I’m afraid I can’t help you. I’m just a poor, hard-working medico like the rest of you.’
‘Just our luck, eh, Joanna? Next time you hire someone don’t forget to do a proper check on his background. There must be some surgeons out there whose family are millionaires!’
Lucy chuckled as she went away to fetch some more towels. Joanna shut off the taps, wondering what Dylan must think about her indulging in such a ridiculous conversation.
‘So you fancy meeting a millionaire, do you?’
‘It was just a bit of fun,’ she replied shortly, going to the shelf for a towel before remembering they had run out. She shook her hands to air-dry them then looked up when Dylan laughed.
‘I’m just trying to picture you giving all this up so you can sit by a swimming pool all day and sip Margaritas. It doesn’t seem to be quite your scene, I have to say.’
‘It isn’t. I enjoy my job far too much to give it up.’
‘I can tell.’
The Pregnant Surgeon Page 5