Maggie Kingsley - A Consultant Claims His Bride

‘But—’

‘You need to spend time with them, and you need to take care of yourself,’ Nell continued. ‘Even if all you do is go for a walk, or read a book for an hour, it will relax you, make you less stressed, and the less stressed you are the better you’ll be able to cope.’

‘I guess so,’ Sheila said uncertainly, then tears filled her eyes. ‘It wasn’t supposed to be like this, Sister. I thought I’d just take Donna home after she was born, like I did with my other kids, but life—it has a horrible habit of slapping you in the face sometimes, doesn’t it?’

Tell me about it, Nell thought as she gave Mrs Harrison’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze before walking towards the unit door. That morning, when she’d got up she’d thought she had it all. A fiancé, her new promotion to ward manager of the neonatal intensive care unit of the Belfield Infirmary, and now…

Now nobody’s eyes would light up any more when they saw her. Nobody would make her feel loved, and special, the way Brian had.

‘Nell?’

Jonah looked apologetic and her heart sank.

‘Tell me the worst,’ she said.

‘Admin want a word about your patient through-put figures, the rep from the pharmaceutical company has just arrived, and Maternity are querying your transfer documentation for Adam Thornton.’

‘What’s there to query?’ she protested. ‘Adam was born in Maternity on Saturday. He developed breathing problems on Sunday and they transferred him down to us.’

‘Apparently you didn’t complete the form in triplicate. Sorry, Nell,’ Jonah added as she groaned. ‘It looks like it’s going to be one of those days.’

He didn’t know the half of it, she thought, but, then, neither did she. It turned out to be a nightmare Monday. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong. One of the ward nurses dropped Tommy Moffat’s new blood samples just after they’d been taken, Bea screwed up the time the ophthalmologist was supposed to arrive to check Donna Harrison’s eyes, the pharmaceutical rep overstayed his welcome by a good hour, and as for Admin…

‘I tell you, Fiona,’ Nell said as she shut the drawer of her filing cabinet with a bang. ‘If Admin had phoned me one more time today I would have—’

‘Marched down to the second floor and rammed the phone down their throats?’ the departmental secretary suggested, and Nell shook her head grimly.

‘I was thinking of somewhere considerably more painful.’ She glanced at the clock on her office wall. ‘Lord, is it half past eight already? I’m off home for a bath, and a mindless evening spent curled up on the sofa in front of the TV.’

‘But you can’t,’ Fiona protested. ‘We’re all supposed to be going down to the function suite after we finish our shifts. For Wendy’s leaving bash, remember?’

Nell hadn’t remembered, and now she’d been reminded she didn’t want to go. Wendy might be a lovely girl, and terrific at hurrying up their test results when they sent them down to Urology, but she was leaving because she was pregnant. Which meant tonight’s event would be dominated by jokes about bumps and stomach-churning Oh-my-God-but-I-thought-I-was-being-torn-in-two stories, and she didn’t want to listen to either.

‘Fiona, I’m sorry, but—’

‘Jonah, tell Nell there’s no way she can duck out of Wendy’s farewell buffet,’ Fiona interrupted, as the specialist registrar appeared at Nell’s office door. ‘We’re all expected, aren’t we?’

‘Nobody is going to notice if I’m not there,’ Nell protested. ‘I’m so tired, and by the time I go home, get changed—’

‘You don’t need to change,’ Jonah declared. ‘Just take off your uniform and put on what you came into work in. That’s what I’m going to do.’

Yes, but I bet you didn’t come into work wearing your oldest denim shirt and tatty jogging trousers, Jonah.

‘We’re not going to take no for an answer, Nell,’ Jonah continued as she opened her mouth to say just that. ‘And I bet you anything, you’ll have a ball.’

He’d been wrong, Nell thought, an hour later as she stood rammed up against the wall of the function suite unable to move because of the crush of people around her. An hour spent having her bikini line waxed would have been infinitely preferable to listening to everybody enjoying themselves while she felt as though her heart was breaking.

Tears welled in her eyes and she sniffed them back. Lord, but she was getting maudlin now, and she hadn’t even had that much to drink. Just two glasses of wine because Jonah still hadn’t returned from the scrum around the bar with another one for her.

‘What are you doing hiding away in this corner?’ Liz Fenton, the sister from obs and gynae, demanded as she pushed her way through the throng towards her. ‘You’re usually right out there in the middle of everything.’

‘Rough day, Liz,’ Nell muttered, trying to sidestep her colleague without success.

‘Fiona was telling me Maddie and Gabriel are in Sweden at the moment, then they’re off to Philadelphia and Boston, before coming back to Glasgow via Rome.’

Nell nodded. ‘They’ll be away for six weeks in all.’

‘Nice for some,’ Liz said dryly. ‘My honeymoon was two weeks in Inverness. It rained every day.’

‘Be fair, Liz, Gabriel’s never taken all of his annual leave,’ Nell protested. ‘And he’s using part of his honeymoon to check out all the new developments in neonatal care in Europe and the States.’

‘Poor Maddie.’ Liz laughed. ‘I hope you’ve told Brian you’ve no intention of spending any of your honeymoon visiting anaesthetic departments.’

I want to go home, Nell thought. I just want to go home.

‘Wendy looks radiant, doesn’t she?’ Liz continued. ‘Have you and Brian decided whether you’re going to try for a baby right away after you’re married, or wait for a bit?’

‘If she’s any sense, she’ll wait,’ Fiona said, appearing at their side. ‘Not that I’d ever be without George, but when I remember all the stitches I needed after he was born. Maternity said…’

Get me out of here, Nell thought as Fiona launched into a wince-inducing account of how George’s head had been so big he’d torn her vagina in two places. Somebody—anybody—please, get me out of here.

‘Maybe I should help Jonah with our drinks,’ she said quickly. ‘It’s so crowded in here.’

Liz groaned. ‘Oh, hell, Patty’s crying again.’

‘Patty?’ Nell repeated. ‘Who’s Patty?’

‘Patty Burton, one of the radiology technicians. Her boyfriend dumped her at the weekend.’

Nell glanced in the direction of Liz’s gaze and saw a girl in a tiny, figure-hugging black dress, sobbing into a handkerchief. Know how you feel, Patty. Well, she didn’t know how it felt to wear a tiny, figure-hugging black dress, but she did know all about the being dumped part.

‘Maybe one of us should go over, see if we can help?’ Nell said uncertainly, and Liz shook her head.

‘Not unless you want her to listen to her repeat “But I love him” for the rest of the evening.’

‘Maybe she does,’ Nell protested. ‘And if she does, she must be feeling awful.’

‘Agreed.’ Fiona nodded. ‘But walking around like a wet lettuce isn’t going to get him back, is it? What she needs is to start dating somebody else, make her rat-fink ex-boyfriend jealous, let him see what he’s missing.’

Which was fine in theory, Nell thought, except the world wasn’t exactly overflowing with eligible, fanciable men.

‘I know it must be tough if you’ve picked a jerk,’ Liz observed, ‘but there’s lots of good men out there. Look at my Sandy.’

Nell preferred not to. No man who was obsessed with rare chicken breeds could ever light her fire.