Her Boss and Protector

Connor nodded.

‘Good. Then perhaps we can be friends.’

Connor clearly wasn’t so sure about that. It was something he would have to think about. Giving the stranger a look from under his lashes, he sidled away, putting the stick in a safe place in a gap between the side of the fridge and the kitchen wall. He probably thought Callum wouldn’t bother trying to remove it from there.

Going over to the kitten, Connor coaxed it up into his arms. Then he stood and watched the man from a corner of the room, silently weighing him up, until Rebeccah whispered to him and led him outside.

Jade studied her new neighbour. ‘I didn’t realise that you owned both properties,’ she said. ‘I hope that’s not going to be a problem while I’m living here. I prefer to deal with the children in my own way, and if you have any issues with them I would rather you spoke to me about them than to them.’

He nodded. ‘That’s fair enough. At least now we both know where we stand.’ He picked up the birdhouse and feeder. ‘I’m glad that we’ve had the chance to talk,’ he said, ‘but I should go now. I have a lot of things to be getting on with.’

She nodded and started to move towards the hallway.

‘You don’t need to trouble yourself,’ he said. ‘I’ll see myself out.’ He glanced towards the garden. ‘I expect you’ll want to go and keep an eye on the children.’

‘They’ll be fine,’ she murmured. She went to the front door. Opening it, she said, ‘I’m sorry that we had such a bad start, but I’m sure you won’t have any cause for complaint from now on.’ She fervently hoped that was true. The last thing she needed was to be embroiled in a battle with her landlord.

He gave a brief smile. ‘I’m sure we’ll get along just fine.’

As soon as he had gone, she went back to the kitchen. The children were playing with the kitten on the lawn, and she watched them, thinking about her mother and her sister-in-law, and feeling sad inside for everything that had happened. She was all that the children had for the moment, and she would do all in her power to see that they were safe and happy.

Picking up the phone, she called the hospital and asked for news. The encounter with Callum Beresford had unsettled her, but she had to let it go. She had enough problems on her plate, without worrying about her dealings with her aloof, unsociable neighbour. She would try to put him out of her thoughts, and with any luck they would be able to avoid running into each other for the foreseeable future.

CHAPTER TWO

‘CONNOR—put the kitten down and start getting dressed for school, please. We need to hurry up.’ Jade was becoming increasingly anxious about the way time was slipping away from her. Looking after children was an entirely new thing for her, an undertaking that was strewn with pitfalls, and so far, no matter how efficiently she had tried to organise things, nothing seemed to be going right.

Added to that, she was supposed to make a start in A and E that morning and she was desperate for everything to go well. It wouldn’t do to be late on her first day, would it? Despite her nervousness, she wanted to make a good impression.

She recalled the first meeting with her new boss—at her interview just a short time ago—when she had quickly learned to respect him for his obvious skill and experience. Mr Ramsay, the consultant, was an older man, in his fifties, she guessed, a kindly, thoughtful man, and she didn’t want to let him down. They had got on well together, and she felt that he would be supportive, but it was still up to her to give of her best.

‘As soon as you’re both dressed, I want you to go downstairs and get your breakfast. I put some cereal out in your bowls but then I found out that there’s not enough milk, so you’ll have to leave those and eat the toast I’ve made for you instead.’ She hadn’t realised that Connor had been busy filling up the kitten’s saucer at regular intervals, and it was too late now to go and get fresh milk.

‘Can we keep the kitten?’ Rebeccah asked, picking it up as it escaped Connor’s clutches.

‘I don’t know.’ Jade made a face. ‘I know how much you both like him, but we don’t know where he’s come from. We’ll keep him for now, to make sure that he’s safe, but I’ll have to put some notices out to see if someone’s looking for him. He might belong to another family.’

Rebeccah wasn’t deterred. ‘But if no one comes for him, he might get to stay with us for always,’ she said, smiling happily.

‘Perhaps, but don’t get your hopes up too much. His real family might be missing him.’ She glanced at Rebeccah, who was nearly dressed. ‘You’re doing very well,’ she said. ‘I want to go and have a quick shower—I’ll be five minutes, that’s all. Will you take Connor downstairs and make sure he gets his breakfast? I should be down before you’ve finished.’

Rebeccah nodded, looking older and wiser than her tender years. ‘Mummy always asks me to help get Connor ready. He’s not very good, you know. He takes ages to get his clothes on because he always stops to play with his toys.’

Jade made a wry smile. ‘I’d noticed that.’ She made sure that the children had finished getting dressed, and then went to the bathroom. Ideally, she wanted to sit down with the children and have breakfast with them, but things were running away from her this morning. Instead, she took the quickest shower she’d ever had and then hurried downstairs. To her relief, she found that the children were sitting at the kitchen table, munching away at their toast and also at their breakfast cereal.

‘Are you fetching us from school today?’ Connor asked. He looked up at her, his mouth smeared with a creamy white covering of milk, and Jade frowned, wondering where that had come from.

‘No, your mummy’s friend, Libby, is going to meet you when school finishes, and she said that she’ll look after you until I come home from work. You’ll be able to play with her children, won’t you? I expect you’ll like that.’

They both nodded. ‘We sometimes go to Libby’s for tea.’ Rebeccah’s expression became serious. ‘When will Mummy and Nanna be coming home?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Jade told her. ‘I talked to the doctor on the telephone a little while ago, and he said that he’s doing everything he can to make them feel better. I’m going to see them at the hospital today, and I’ll let you know how they are when I come home. I’ll give them a kiss from both of you, shall I?’

‘Yes,’ Rebeccah said, and Connor began blowing kisses across his palm. Jade watched the children for a moment then glanced at their breakfast bowls. Their cereal was already half-eaten, and that struck her as odd. Scanning the table, she saw that there was a white jug in the centre, filled to the brim with milk.

‘Where did that come from?’ she asked. ‘There wasn’t any milk left in the fridge.’ Her brows met in a furrowed line. Come to that, she didn’t even recognise the jug.

‘We got it from the man next door,’ Connor told her.

Jade stared at him. ‘I don’t understand. Are you saying that you went round and asked him for a jug of milk?’

‘Yes, we both did.’

She blinked, trying to take that in. Surely they hadn’t? ‘How could that be? I thought you were afraid of him. How did you pluck up the courage to do that?’

‘I wanted my breakfast,’ Connor said in a matter-of-fact tone, as though he was amazed that she still didn’t get the full picture. ‘I didn’t want toast. I always have wheaty flakes for my breakfast, so I took my bowl round and asked him to put some milk on them.’

Jade felt a wave of heat rise up inside her and flood her cheeks. Was it possible for her to be humiliated any more? Could the floor open and swallow her up?

‘I think he felt sorry for us,’ Rebeccah piped up, ‘because he went and fetched a jug and filled it up for us. He said, “Are you two getting enough to eat?” and Connor said, “Well, sometimes we don’t get no tea if Mummy’s too busy.” And the man said, “Oh dear,” and I said, “But we might have a take-away instead.”’

Jade closed her eyes and groaned inwardly, the wave turning to a tide of embarrassment that surged through her. What must her neighbour have thought when these two little waifs and strays had appeared on his doorstep, holding out their cereal bowls and pleading for sustenance? It didn’t bear thinking about. If he believed she was their mother he probably had her marked down as a serious candidate for neglect of her responsibilities, given their previous encounter.

There was no time to remedy the situation right now, though. ‘I think you should leave it to me to sort out the milk situation next time,’ she said. Jade braced herself. ‘Now, we need to get a move on. We have to leave here in a few minutes, so I want you to hurry up and finish your breakfast and then we must get in the car and set off for school.’

Thankfully, she didn’t run into her new neighbour as they left the house. She wasn’t ready to face him, and she certainly hadn’t the wherewithal for a confrontation with him just now. There were enough butterflies in her stomach already at the thought of starting work in A and E. It was one of the most demanding specialties and, being relatively inexperienced in emergency work, she would need all the help she could get.

As it was, things turned out quite differently to what she was expecting when she arrived at the hospital. Instead of a gentle easing in and a helping hand from one of the nurses to show her where everything was, she found herself being plunged straight into chaos.

‘I don’t have time to talk now,’ the triage nurse said, pushing a hand through her chestnut-coloured hair. ‘We’re run off our feet. There was an accident at one of the factories in town, and we’ve multiple casualties to deal with. Dr Franklin is co-ordinating everything, and you’ll just have to pitch in as best you can. There’s a man being brought in by ambulance—a suspected heart attack. He should be here in about ten minutes. Perhaps you can take the lead with that one.’

‘Yes, of course.’ Jade hoped that she was up to it. Glancing around, she asked, ‘Where is the consultant…Mr Ramsay? I haven’t seen him around anywhere.’

‘No—you won’t be seeing him.’ The nurse frowned. ‘He was taken ill—but you wouldn’t have heard about that, would you? He was away on holiday for a few days and went down with some sort of food poisoning. It’s affected his kidneys, and now he’s being treated in the renal unit. For a while it was touch and go as to whether he would pull through.’

Jade was shocked. ‘I’m so sorry. I had no idea. I hope he’ll be all right.’

‘So do I. We all think the world of him. As it is, he’s going to be laid up for some time, from the sound of things. That is bad enough, from his point of view, but it’s left us all in a state of upheaval here.’ The nurse managed an apologetic smile. ‘Look, I have to go. I’m supposed to be helping out with a multiple fracture. I’m Katie, by the way. If you need any help, just yell.’

Jade winced. Everyone was snowed under, and she doubted if anyone would be able to spare the time to spoonfeed a new senior house officer. She was being thrown in at the deep end, and she guessed it was a case of swim or go under.

Katie hurried away, and Jade decided that maybe the best way for her to prepare for the incoming patient would be to find out where everything was kept, so that she could lay her hands on whatever it was that she might need. She went and collared a nurse who was fetching supplies, and showered her with questions.

‘Blood and lab forms are in boxes behind the reception desk,’ the girl said. ‘Medications are next to the A and E makeshift laboratory, and other supplies are in the room opposite the doctors’ lounge. If you need anything else, ask Dr Franklin, the registrar, or James in Reception.’ The nurse hurried away, leaving Jade floundering.

‘But surely, I need a key for the drugs cupboard?’ she called after her, but she was too late. The nurse had disappeared round a corner.

‘Is there a problem here?’

Jade froze at the sound of that voice. It couldn’t be, could it? A prickle of tension ran along her spine. There was no getting away from it…the deep, gravelled tones were somehow disturbingly familiar. Turning around slowly, she looked up at the owner of the voice and immediately felt as though the stuffing had been knocked out of her.

‘What are you doing here?’ The words were dredged up from inside her, shock draining the blood from her face as she took in the sight of Callum Beresford’s long, lean frame.

‘I could ask you the same question.’ His glance moved over her, taking in the white doctor’s jacket that she wore over smoothly fitting black trousers and cotton top. He looked as though he was almost as stunned as she was.

She lifted her chin. ‘I work here, as of today. I’m the new senior house officer—Dr Holbrook.’

He shook his head. ‘No, surely not? That can’t be…Fate wouldn’t be so unkind, would it? I was expecting someone sensible and efficient, someone who would be in control of the situation…a doctor that I could rely on to be on top form.’

Her shoulders stiffened. ‘What makes you think that I’m not all of those things?’

His mouth made a wry slant. ‘We’ve met before, remember? I imagine you have a fulltime job looking after those two wayward children. I would have thought that they would be more than enough to keep you occupied and at home.’ He laid a slight emphasis on that last word.

She lifted a brow. ‘Are you seriously suggesting that a woman’s place is in the home, by the kitchen sink, surrounded by young children?’ She frowned and shook her head. ‘If so, I have to tell you that isn’t always the case these days.’

He studied her broodingly. ‘Yes, I realise that. In some instances it seems that’s an unfortunate fact.’

She stared at him, about to make a pithy comment in reply, but then a siren sounded in the distance, and she said, ‘I have a patient coming in, and I need to get ready for him. Do you know where I can get a key to the drugs cupboard?’

‘I’ll sort one out for you, just as soon as we’ve checked your details. I’ve been busy transferring patients to Theatre or I would have dealt with this earlier.’ He made a brief grimace. ‘You had better come with me.’

‘My patient?’ she queried. ‘I was supposed to be looking after a heart-attack patient.’

‘I’ll get Dr Franklin to supervise that one.’

He turned away and she hurried after him. ‘It’s all very well you giving me orders,’ she said on a terse note. ‘I don’t even know who you are—or what your position is here.’

‘I’m the acting consultant while Mr Ramsay is away. I was brought in to take over from him.’

She winced. She might have known. He certainly looked the part. He was wearing another immaculate grey suit, which sat well on his tall, firmly muscled frame, and he appeared to be every inch the consultant, an authoritative, confident man, totally in command. Her spirits sank.

He stared at her. ‘If what you say is correct, I’m afraid it looks very much as though you and I are going to be working together for some time. Perhaps we had both better get used to the idea.’

He wasn’t taking any chances, though. It was only after he had verified that she really was supposed to be there that he reluctantly allowed her to go and start work. As she moved away from him and went in search of her patient, she felt his gaze searing into her back and she had the feeling that he was going to be watching her like a hawk.

She tried to put him out of her mind and hurried to meet the ambulance crew as they wheeled in a little boy on a trolley.

‘This is Dean Matthews,’ the paramedic said, bringing the trolley to a halt in a side bay. ‘He’s four years old, suspected poisoning from beta-blockers—propranolol. Apparently he took some pills out of his grandmother’s bag. We have the bottle, and it’s almost empty.’

Jade was worried. The child looked very ill, and she knew that a propranolol overdose could be fatal. ‘Do we know how many he took?’

The paramedic shook his head. ‘No, but there should have been a fair few in the bottle, and the family think he must have taken them well over an hour ago. His heart rate has fallen dramatically and he’s hypotensive. We’ve been monitoring his cardiac output on the way here.’

‘It doesn’t look good, does it?’ Jade said in an undertone. She signalled for a nurse to come and help. ‘I’m going to get him on activated charcoal right away.’ She worked quickly, hoping that the charcoal would help to remove any of the drug that hadn’t already been absorbed into his bloodstream. The boy was being given oxygen through a mask, and her main concern was that the drug had reduced the activity of his heart to an extent where it could damage his organ systems. Her priority was to restore perfusion to those systems.

‘Thanks,’ she told the young paramedic, who had hung around to await results. She could see that he was worried. ‘We’ll take over from here. Do you want me to let you know how he gets on?’

He nodded. ‘Please. I’ve another call coming in, but I would like to know what happens here.’

‘Of course. I’ll update you when you come in again.’

‘Thank you. I’m Sam, by the way.’

‘OK, Sam.’ She acknowledged him briefly, and with that he went away. With the nurse’s help, Jade wheeled the child into an available treatment room and made sure that he was hooked up to the monitors. Just as they settled him, though, the little boy started to convulse, and a few seconds later he lost consciousness.

‘I’m not getting a pulse,’ Jade said anxiously. ‘He’s gone into cardiac arrest.’ She worked as fast as she was able to put in an endotracheal airway, and then started chest compressions with the palm of her hand, while the nurse took over with the oxygen.

Jade was desperately afraid that her efforts were to no avail, but after a while the nurse glanced at the monitor and said, ‘He’s back with us.’

Jade was relieved, but she was still feeling apprehensive. The child’s cardiac output was thready, and she swiftly established an intravenous line and gave the child atropine.

It didn’t appear to be having much effect. ‘Helen,’ she said, “we’ll start him on the charcoal. You’ll need to watch him in case of vomiting.’

The nurse nodded. ‘What about blood tests?’

‘I want U and E and blood glucose, a complete blood count and a toxicology screen. We’ll monitor him for pulse, blood pressure and perfusion.’

‘OK.’

A woman came into the treatment room and clutched at Jade’s arm. ‘What’s happening to my little boy? Nobody’s telling me anything. He’s just lying there. Can you do something to help him?’

‘We’re doing everything that we can,’ she told the woman, using a soothing tone. ‘He’s absorbed a lot of his grandmother’s medication, and that has had the effect of slowing down his heart and causing a collapse of his vital functions. We’re working to restore his heart and circulation.’

‘But he’ll be all right, won’t he?’

‘I hope so,’ Jade said gently. ‘We’ll need to admit him for observation, so that we can monitor his condition over the next few hours.’

The woman was near to tears. ‘We had no idea that he’d been searching in his grandmother’s bag. It was up on a high cupboard, and we didn’t think he could reach that far. Then we found out that he had pulled up a chair, and climbed on to it. He thought his grandmother had some sweets for him.’

Jade was sympathetic. ‘I know that it can be hard to watch children every minute,’ she said. ‘He’s at an age, though, where he’s likely to be into everything, and you need to make sure that any tablets and medicines are locked away securely.’

‘I will. I won’t ever let this happen again…if only you can save him…’ She sent Jade a pleading look. ‘I want to stay with him.’

Jade nodded. ‘That’s all right. He seems to be stable for the moment, and the nurse will be here to answer any questions that you might have. I have to go and see to my other patients, but I’ll come back and check on him in a few minutes.’

She was glad that the child’s mother was by his side. Seeing them together made her think of her own mother, lying ill in a hospital bed, and a feeling of sadness overwhelmed her. She had been trying so hard to keep going, to do everything that was necessary, but all the time she was struggling with the knowledge that people she loved were fighting major battles of their own. Just as soon as she had the opportunity, she was going to look in on them. She needed to know that her mother and sister-in-law were going to be all right.

‘How is the child?’ Callum was waiting for her as she left the treatment room. He was looking over the boy’s chart, and she wondered if he was checking to see if there was anything that she had omitted to do.

‘It’s too early to say, just yet. His condition has stabilised for the moment, but he isn’t out of danger just yet. Helen is monitoring him.’

‘All right. Perhaps you could go and look at the patient in treatment room four. He appears to have trodden on a nail.’ He handed her the chart, his hand brushing hers, and a shower of invisible electric sparks shot along the length of her arm, confusing her and rooting her to the spot.

He seemed to hesitate momentarily, and she hardly dared look at him in case he had registered her sudden tension. Perhaps he was waiting for an answer, but her voice seemed to be stuck in her throat. Instead, she simply nodded.

He moved away from her, and she hoped that would be the end of it, but for the rest of the morning she had the nagging feeling that he was keeping an eye on her. He never made it too obvious, but she was aware that he was checking up on her, either by glancing through the tests she had ordered or by inspecting her notes and scrutinising the medications she had prescribed.

By the time her lunch-break came along, she was glad to get away. It was one thing to be supervised, but it was quite another to be under constant surveillance as though he expected her to make some dreadful mistake at any minute.

Keyed up, and thoroughly on edge, she went up to the ward where her mother was being cared for. Her mother was lying propped up in bed, looking frail and lost, her fair hair falling in soft tendrils against her cheeks. Jade could see that her left arm was in a sling.

Jade gave her a gentle hug. ‘I can’t believe this has happened,’ she said, ‘but I’m so glad that you’re at least sitting up and able to talk to me.’

‘It was all a bit of a shock,’ her mother said. ‘I thought I’d just fractured my shoulder, but then I started to feel really ill and they all started to rush about doing tests and things. They said that I was bleeding inside, and they didn’t know what was causing it, but in the end they had to send me to Theatre for an operation. I feel much better now, but I’m a bit sore.’

‘I expect you will be for a while,’ Jade said. ‘I had a word with the doctor. He said that they found a small tear in your liver, but they managed to stitch it up. As long as you rest, you should be all right, but they’re going to keep you in here for a few days, just to make sure.’

Her mother looked at her, her green eyes troubled. ‘How are you coping? You’re looking after the children, aren’t you? Is everything working out all right? How are they bearing up?’

‘Everything is fine,’ Jade said. ‘Don’t worry yourself. The children are worried, obviously, but they seem to be taking it all in their stride. Rebeccah is older, so she seems to have more of an inkling about what’s going on, but she’s coping. They were both hoping that Ben would come home, but he’s still in the decompression chamber. I should think he’ll be here as soon as he’s able.’

‘That will make Gemma feel better, I expect.’ Her mother frowned. ‘How is she?’

‘I’m not absolutely sure, but I’m going to see her in a few minutes. As far as I know, they’ve managed to stabilise her pelvis in Theatre. She’s lost a lot of blood, though.’

They talked for a while longer, and then Jade gave her mother a kiss and stood up, ready to go. ‘I brought you some magazines,’ she said. ‘I’ll hunt out a few more for you and bring them along tomorrow. You take care now, and get some rest.’