Page 15 of New Year, New Guy
‘Cubicle four should be free.’ Laura sprang back up. ‘He’s got a possible head injury.’ She must remain professional at all costs. Her job involved clinical coordination, managing patient care and maintaining the quality of service and carein the accident and emergency department – not devoting all her attention to one favoured patient. Back inside she tracked down Pam. ‘Would you mind taking over in four please and let me know when the doctor’s evaluated the patient?’ Putting her most trusted staff nurse in charge of Hunter was the best she could do. No doubt there was already a buzz bouncing around after her set-to with Mike. She’d seen, and deliberately ignored, several staff members who were hanging around outside her office when she came out but they must have overheard everything. This newincident would raise her several notches higher on the hospital gossip ladder.
Retreating to her office she returned to her neglected paperwork and dealt with multiple interruptions while keeping one eye on the clock. Exhaustion nibbled at the edges of her concentration and she found herself counting the minutes until it was time for the shift change.
‘Sorry to bother you.’ Pam stuck her head around the door. ‘Mr McQueen’s conscious but not up to talking and we need some information.’ She appeared slightly uncomfortable. ‘Nurse Richards said he’s a personal friend of yours and thought you might be able to help.’
‘Of course.’ She raised her voice enough to carry through the half-open door. ‘He’s actually an old friend of my sister’s fiancé and simply staying with me until the pre-wedding party tomorrow night. I only met him a couple of days ago and know very little about him.’ That wasn’t a complete lie because she had no clue what the man even did for a living.
The phrase ‘private life’ means you conduct it outside of this hospital.
Mike was within his rights to reprimand her earlier even if his attitude needed work. He was a perfect example of the theory that surgeons didn’t need a good bedside manner because their patients were generally asleep.
No one else would have cause to question her behaviour today.
* * *
Through the avalanche of hammers beating against his skull Hunter struggled to focus on what Laura was saying. A few phrases drifted in and out of his hearing about a possible concussion and the need for next of kin details.
‘Are you in pain, Mr McQueen?’
‘Nah, I’m good.’
‘We can give you something stronger—’
‘—No!’ His attempt to shout worsened his headache. He would grit his teeth and put up with any amount of pain rather than go down that particular rabbit hole again. His teenage years were strewn with bad decisions and stealing his mother’s prescription painkillers on a regular basis to numb the emotions he couldn’t handle ranked high up there on the list.
‘We won’t administer any drugs without your permission unless it’s medically necessary and you aren’t able to give consent.’ Laura’s firm, quiet voice soothed him. ‘I promise. We’ll send you up for a CT scan soon and, depending on the results, we may keep you tonight for observation.’
He almost cracked a joke about being happy for her to observe him anytime she liked, but he’d caused her enough embarrassment already. Before she came in he’d pretended to be worse than he really was when the examining doctor asked pertinent questions about what happened to him.
Would you recognise the person who hit you again? Do you want to report it to the police?
For Laura’s sake he kept his mouth shut.
‘I’ve written myself down as your point of contact for now, unless you prefer to use your family in America?’
‘No. There’s . . . no one close. You don’t mind?’ For a fleeting second her gaze softened and the woman behind the carefully maintained nurse’s mask popped out. He hated lying to her but the truth would stir up more questions.
‘Not at all. I’m sorry but I must return to my other patients. I’ll check on you again later.’
Hunter gave himself up to the ministrations of a vigorous male nurse determined to practise his blood-drawing skills.
* * *
She enjoyed puzzles. From complicated jigsaws to mystery novels and cryptic crosswords, they all intrigued her and Hunter was her newest challenge.
There’s no one close.
She doubted that very much but for whatever reason he didn’t want to discuss his family.
‘It’s pants out there.’ Daisy Mullins burst into the office, tugging down the hood of her fluorescent pink raincoat and shaking out a mass of frizzy black hair. ‘It’s been tipping down all night.’ She hitched her coat over the back of a chair where it began to drip on the floor. ‘Please tell me it’s quiet in the madhouse today.’
‘Hangover?’
‘Moi? Never.’ Her throaty laugh filled the room. ‘Some of us have a social life. Sorry about that.’
In many ways they were on the same page because both women were childless divorcees who professionally had no patience with inefficiency or laziness. There the similarities ended, because Daisy regarded her own disastrous marriage as nothing more than a blip on the radar of life. Party invitations, blind dates and Tinder – she happily tried them all. Daisy was convinced that her true love was out there somewhere and her mission in life was to find him. Laura’s lack of interest in throwing herself back in the dating pool bewildered her, and they’d had many late-night discussions on the subject. Laura stuck to the mantra that she was content with her single life.
Compared to being stuck in her miserable marriage shewascontent. Outside of work she answered to no one. That was an incredible lightening of the burden Mike had laid on her so stealthily it took her a while to recognise the difference between protective and possessive. Her quiet well-ordered existence might not be how she had envisaged her life playing out, but sheknew how much worse things could be. She wasn’t chasing after another man to satisfy her longing for a child.
