The Maverick Doctor and Miss Prim

“I don’t care about my reputation—”

“Obviously.”

“I care about these staff.”

He spun around as the crates were wheeled into the treatment room and the vaccine started to be unloaded. One of the contact tracers came up and mumbled in her ear, “We’re going to start with a limited number of people affected. The kids, their parents, Dr. Sawyer, yourself and these other four members of staff who’ve had limited contact.”

“What about Alison?”

The contact tracer hesitated, looking from one to the other. “That’s not my decision,” he said as he spun away.

Callie swallowed. She could do with something cool to drink, her throat was dry and scratchy. “Alison will have to make her own decision on the vaccine. There isn’t enough data for us to give her reliable information.”

She saw the look on his face. He looked haunted. As if he’d just seen a ghost from the past. Was this what had happened to his wife? Had she been exposed to something that couldn’t be treated because of her pregnancy? This might all be too close to home for Matt Sawyer.

“Okay.” He ran his fingers through his hair. It hadn’t got any better now it had been released from the cap. In fact, it seemed to have grown even longer. “Do me a favor?”

She lifted her head from the clipboard she was scribbling on. “What?”

“Let me be the one to talk to Alison about it. If there hasn’t been any more research in the last six years, then I’m as up to date as you are.”

She took a deep breath. She didn’t know this guy well enough to know how he would handle this. He was obviously worried about his colleague. But was that all? And would his past experience affect his professional judgment?

“You can’t recommend it one way or the other, you understand that, don’t you?”

She could tell he wanted to snap at her. To tell her where to go. But something made him bite his tongue. “I can be impartial. I’ll give her all the facts and let her make her own decision. It will come better from someone she knows.”

Callie nodded. He was right. The smallpox vaccine came with a whole host of issues. She was already questioning some of the decisions that she’d made.

Alison was at the end of the corridor in a room on her own, partly for her own protection and partly for the protection of others. She’d been in direct contact with the disease—without any mask to limit the spread of the infection. In theory, because she hadn’t had prolonged exposure in a confined space, she should be at low risk. But she’d also been exposed to—and had touched—the erupting spots. The most infectious element of the disease. Pregnant or not, she had to be assessed as being at risk. “You know I have to do this, right?”

He was glaring at her, his head shaking almost imperceptibly—as if it was an involuntary act.

“We have the three major diagnostic criteria for smallpox. This is a high-risk category. Those parents look sick already. They’re probably in the prodromal stage of the disease.”

The implication in the air was there, hanging between them. If they waited, it could result in more casualties and the DPA being slaughtered by the media for wasting time. That was the last thing anyone wanted.

“Callie? We have a problem.”

Both heads turned to the DPA contact tracer standing at the door. “What is it, Hugo?”

She stepped forward and took the clipboard from his hand.

“It’s the parents. They can’t say for sure if the rash came out during or after the plane trip home.”

“You’re joking, right?” Callie felt the hackles rise on the back of her neck. This was one of the most crucial pieces of information they needed. Once the rash was out, the person was infectious. This was the difference between three hundred passengers on a plane being at risk or not.

Hugo looked pale. “Mrs. Keating is sure they didn’t have a rash before they got on the plane. And she’s almost sure they didn’t have it on the plane, because the kids slept most of the journey. They went straight home and put the kids to bed—she didn’t even get them changed. It wasn’t until the next day she noticed the rash, but it could have been there on the plane.”

Callie cringed, as Sawyer read her mind. “Prodromal stage. Did they sleep because they were developing the disease or did they sleep because it was a long flight?” He put a hand on Hugo’s shoulder. “You have to establish if she noticed either of the kids having a fever during the journey.” He paused, then added, “And make sure they didn’t change planes anywhere.” Sawyer rolled his eyes to the ceiling, “Or our contact tracing will become a nightmare.”

Hugo nodded and disappeared back through the door.

Sawyer watched her as she fiddled with the clips in her hair. She was consulting the plan again. There seemed to be one in every room he entered. A list of procedures. A multitude of flow charts.

She didn’t like it when things weren’t exactly to plan. Then again, she’d never been in charge of an epidemic before.

He could be doing so much more for her. He could be talking her through all this, helping her out. Liaising more with the team back at the DPA—even if that did mean dealing with Evan Hunter.

He knew all this stuff inside out and back to front.

But he just couldn’t.

It didn’t matter that he was stuck in the middle of all this. There was a line he didn’t want to cross. He had to take a step back. He had to focus on the sick children.

He picked up another disposable gown and mask. “The IV fluids on the kids probably need changing. I’m going to go and check on them.” He paused and turned his head just as he left. “You need to go and make an announcement to all the staff. You need to bring them up to date on the information that you have.” He hesitated, then added something else.

“It’s not only the natives that will be getting restless. We’ve got patients here who’ve been quarantined. They won’t understand what’s going on. They won’t know what to tell their relatives.”

She gave the slightest nod, as if the thought of what she was going to say was pressing down on her shoulders. He almost withered. “There’s a public address system at the front desk—use that.”

His phone beeped and he headed out of the room and down the corridor, pulling the phone from his pocket.

Violet.

He should have known.

No, he should have texted her first. She must be frantic.

He flicked the switch to silent and pushed it back into his pocket. She would just have to wait. He would deal with her later.

Callie could hear the raised voices as she strode down the corridor. “Why can’t I leave? I’m fine. If I stay here, I’ll get sick. You can’t make me stay!”

It was inevitable. People always reacted like this when there was an outbreak. It was human nature.

The hard part was that Callie didn’t want to be here any more than they did. But she couldn’t exactly say that, could she?

The reality check was starting to sink in. She was in a strange city, in the middle of a possible outbreak of a disease that had supposedly been eradicated. She wasn’t ready for this. If she closed her eyes for just a second, she could see Isabel in the middle of all this. This had been her dream from childhood—to work at the DPA at the cutting edge of infectious disease. She wouldn’t be feeling like this. She wouldn’t be feeling sick to her stomach and wanting to go and hide in a corner. Isabel would be center stage, running everything with a precise touch.

But Isabel wasn’t here.

And that was Callie’s fault. Her beautiful older sister had died six years earlier. Callie had been behind the wheel of their old car, taking a corner too fast—straight into the path of someone on the wrong side of the road. If only she hadn’t been distracted—been fighting with her sister. Over something and nothing.

That was the thing that twisted the most. It was the same argument they’d had for years. Pizza or burgers. Something ridiculous. Something meaningless. How pathetic.

She fixed her gaze on the scene ahead. Isabel would know exactly how to handle a man like Sawyer. She would have had him eating out of her hand in five minutes flat.

Okay, maybe not five minutes.

Sawyer probably wasn’t the type.

But, then, Isabel had been a people person. She’d known how to respond to people, she’d known how to work a crowd. All the things that Callie didn’t have a clue about.

The voices were rising. Things were reaching a crescendo.

It was time to step up. Whether she liked it or not, it was time to take charge.

She pushed her way through the crowd around the desk and jumped up onto the reception area desk. “Is this the PA system?”

The clerk gave her a nod as she picked up the microphone and held it to her mouth. Adrenaline was starting to course through her system. All eyes were on her. She could do this. She pressed the button on the microphone and it let out a squeal from automatic feedback. Anyone who hadn’t been listening before was certainly listening now.

“Hi, everyone. I’m sure you know I’m Callie Turner from the DPA. Let me bring you up to speed.”

The anxiety in the room was palpable. The eyes staring at her were full of fear.

“You all know that we’re dealing with two suspected cases of smallpox. That’s the reason why the E.R. has been closed and we’ve enforced a quarantine. The samples have been collected and sent to the DPA lab for identification. The laboratory tests for smallpox are complicated and time-consuming. We should hear back in around forty-eight hours what type of virus it is—whether it’s a type of pox or not—but it takes longer to identify what strain of virus it is. That can take anything up to seven days. So, until we know if it’s a pox or not, we need to stay here. We need to try and contain this virus.”

“I don’t want to be in isolation,” one of the men shouted.

“You’re not,” Callie said quickly. “You’re quarantined—there’s a difference. Isolation means separating people who are ill with a contagious disease from healthy people. The children who are affected have been isolated. Quarantine restricts the movement of people who have been exposed to someone or something, to see if they will become ill. That’s what we’re doing with all of you.” Her hand stretched out across the room.

She could still feel the tension. Anxious glances being exchanged between staff and patients. She could see the questions forming on their lips. Best to keep going.

She tried to keep her voice calm. “The incubation period for smallpox is around twelve days but it can range from seven to seventeen days. Smallpox is spread person to person by droplet transmission. It can also be spread by contact with pustules or rash lesions or contaminated clothing or bedding.

“A person with smallpox is considered infectious when the rash appears, but at the moment we’re going to consider any affected person infectious from the onset of fever. This should help us control any outbreak. It’s important to remember that only close contacts—those who were within six or seven feet of the infectious person should be at risk.”

She was talking too quickly, trying to put out too much information at once. She was hoping and praying that someone wouldn’t pick up on the fact that they could be quarantined together for seventeen days.

“Should? What do you mean, ‘should’? Don’t you know?”

Callie took a deep breath. She didn’t blame people for being angry. She would be angry too. But as she opened her mouth to speak, Sawyer got in there first. He’d appeared out of nowhere, stepping up alongside her, his hand closing over hers as he took the PA microphone from her.

“This isn’t like some disaster movie, folks. A person with smallpox doesn’t walk, coughing and spluttering, through a crowd and infect everyone around them. For a start, most people infected with smallpox don’t cough anyway. And the last data available from the DPA shows that the average person affected can infect around five to seven people. And those would only be the close contacts around them. Let’s not panic. Let’s keep this in perspective.”

She was watching him, her breath caught her in throat. He was doing what she should be doing. He was keeping calm and giving them clear and easy-to-understand information.

Part of her felt angry. And part of her felt relief.

She was out of her depth and she knew it.

The DPA was a big place. And she was a good doctor—when she was part of a team. But as a leader? Not so much.

Put her in a room with a pile of paperwork and she was the best. Methodical, good at interpreting the practical applications of a plan.

She could do the patient stuff—she could, obviously, or she wouldn’t have made it through medical school or her residency. Actually, some of it she had loved. But she’d enjoyed the one-to-one patient contacts, patients a physician could take time with, understand their condition and give them long-term advice. Not the hurried, rushed, wide perspective of the DPA.

But, then, the DPA had been Isabel’s dream, not hers. She’d never wanted this for herself.

And now? She was stuck with it.

“So, that’s it folks. We’ll let you know as soon as we hear back from the labs. In the meantime, we’ll have arrangements in place to make everyone more comfortable with the facilities we have here.” He raised his eyebrows at her. “It could be that in a few hours we move to somewhere more suitable?”

She nodded wordlessly. He must have known that Callum would already have put the wheels in motion to set up a category C facility for containment.

“In the meantime, follow the infection control procedures on the walls around you. Take a deep breath and show a little patience. We’re all scared.” He pointed at the figures lining the walls with their clipboards, “It’s important we help these guys out. Tell them everything you know.” He looked back at Callie. She was sure that right now she must resemble a deer caught in a set of headlights. “And if you have any questions, Dr. Turner is in charge. That’s it for now.”

He jumped off the table and headed back down the corridor.

The room was quieter now, the shouting had stopped. Her legs were trembling and she grabbed hold of a hand offered to her as she climbed down off the table. Heads were down, people working away, going about their business. One of the security guards was helping one of the nursing aides carry linen through to another room to help set up some beds.

Callie knew she couldn’t leave this. She knew she had to talk to him. Even though he was trying to put some space between them.

“Sawyer.” She was breathless, running down the corridor after him. “I just wanted to say thank you. For back there.”

His green eyes fixed on hers, just for a second, before they flitted away and he ran his fingers through that hair again. Her heart clenched, even though she couldn’t understand why. He was exasperated with her. “That was a one-off, Callie. Don’t count on me to help you again.” He turned and strode back down the corridor, leaving her standing there.

Alone.

CHAPTER THREE

“YOU NEED TO manage things better.” He couldn’t help it. There were probably a million other ways to put this more delicately, but Sawyer didn’t have time to think about nicer words.

Her head shot upwards. There it was—that rabbit-in-the-headlights look again from her.

He hated it. Because it made his stomach churn. He didn’t know whether to be irritated by it or whether he really wanted to go over and give her a quick hug.

“What on earth do you mean, ‘manage things better’?” She made quote marks in the air with her fingers as she repeated his words back to him. He could see the lines across her brow. She was tired and she was stressed. And he understood that. It was part and parcel of the job at the DPA.

He could feel his lips turn upwards. She looked even prettier when she was cross.

“What are you smirking at?” She stood up from behind the desk. A desk lost under a multitude of piles of papers—no doubt more copies of plans and protocols. A few sheets scattered as she stood.

His smile broadened. He could tell she really wanted to stop and pick them up.

She was in front of him now, her hands on her hips. “What?”

He liked that. Sometimes she just got straight to the point. No skirting around the edge of things.

He gestured to the door behind him. “You need to clarify some things about the vaccination. There are still a lot of questions out there.”

She sighed and ran her fingers through the short side of her hair. “I know. I’ll get to it. I’ve got a million and one things to deal with.” Her eyes flickered in the direction of the hidden desk.

“Then delegate.”

She started, as if the thought of actually delegating horrified her.

“But I’m responsible—”

“And you need to be visible. You need to be seen. You have to be on the floor—not stuck in some office. You can make your decisions out there, not from behind a desk.”

He could see her brain ticking, thinking over his suggestions. Truth be told, she’d been delegating from the minute she’d walked in the door—just not the important stuff.

“And you need to do something about Alison.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I thought you wanted to deal with Alison.”

“And I have—we’ve had the discussion about the vaccine. She hasn’t decided what to do yet, but I think she’ll opt on the side of caution and say no.”

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