Fiona Lowe - The Doctor Claims His Bride

A trickle of laughter sprinkled her words. ‘Oh, dear, we could be in strife, then. All chiefs and no Indians.’ Her smile expanded, dancing down into the deep creases that formed around her plump mouth.

Irrational disappointment streaked through him when she looked away and spoke to Jimmy.

‘Are you OK?’

‘Just OK.’ Jimmy’s scared voice was barely audible.

‘Walter, go and get Ruby.’ Flynn knew the father wouldn’t want to be in the clinic and the boy needed his mother.

‘I’ll bring her.’ The stressed man hopped into the truck and drove off.

‘Let’s go.’ Flynn flicked the brakes on the trolley upward with his foot, releasing the wheels, and together he and Mia quickly pushed the trolley inside.

‘How about I prime the Hartmann’s and insert the IV while you examine him?’ Mia ripped open an IV set and plunged the metal-tipped top into a bag of electrolyte fluid.

He caught the subtle change in her tone. She’d tried to convert her ‘in-charge’ statement into a question. ‘Good idea.’ He had to agree with her—the division of jobs was in Jimmy’s best interests.

He pulled his stethoscope off the hook and pushed it into his ears. He listened intently to the air entry, even though the puncture wound was probably lower than the lungs. Who knew which direction the spear was lying internally?

‘Jimmy, I need to put a needle into your arm so we can give you something to drink through your veins.’ Mia wrapped the tourniquet around Jimmy’s thin, left arm. ‘I promise it will hurt a lot less than the spear.’

The boy squeezed his eyes shut as if he didn’t want to think about it.

‘Air entry good, respirations slightly elevated.’ Flynn wrapped the blood-pressure cuff around the boy’s arm and listened to the sound of the whoosh and thump of the blood pounding in the arteries. He swung the stethoscope around his neck. ‘BP’s dropping slowly. He’s bleeding somewhere.’

‘Or leaking somewhere?’ Her brows drew together in concentration as she examined Jimmy’s arm. ‘He’s not exactly in shutdown but some of his veins have collapsed.’

‘A slow bleed.’ He mulled over the idea, enjoying having someone to talk to about a diagnosis.

She tapped the sluggish vein on the boy’s arm, her eyes glued to the spot. The tip of her pink tongue ran across her top teeth in an action of pure concentration.

Flynn’s gaze zeroed in on her lush, red lips, the moist tongue holding his gaze like a magnet. An age-old surge of lust—hot, hard and intense—rocked through him so unexpectedly he almost staggered.

Her mouth closed and with practised care she slid the wide-bore cannula into the dark vein just below his elbow. ‘I’m in—line established.’

Her words broke over him and it was like being released from a trance. What was wrong with him today? He didn’t react like this. He knew only too well it led to heartache and loss. He cleared his throat and spoke gruffly. ‘Great. Give him five hundred millilitres stat while we work out what’s going on.’

He bent down so his face was close to his patient’s. ‘Jimmy, I have to roll you onto your side for a moment so we can put some dots on your chest.’

‘Why?’ The young lad gripped the trolley’s mattress.

‘So we can see your heartbeat on the screen.’ Mia pointed to the ECG machine. ‘It’s pretty cool to watch.’

‘Will you help me?’ Jimmy asked Mia.

‘Of course I will.’ Mia smiled down at him.

‘But it hurts to move.’

The plaintive wail tore at Flynn. ‘I know, mate, and as soon as I’ve examined you I can give you something for the pain. You just have to be brave for a bit longer, OK?’

Jimmy’s brown curls bobbed sadly as he nodded his acquiescence.

‘You steady his hips and protect the spear while I fix the dots,’ Flynn instructed.

Mia nodded and quickly placed her hands into position. ‘Ready when you are.’

Flynn tore the backing paper off the dots in preparation. ‘One, two, three.’

Mia eased Jimmy into position with a smooth movement and a worried frown. A frown which carved three horizontal lines across the bridge of her nose, giving her a pixie look that clashed with her competent ‘in-charge’ persona. Nothing about this woman matched up or made sense.

Nothing about your reaction to her makes sense either .

With speed borne of experience, it only took Flynn a minute to have Jimmy connected to the ECG. ‘And roll him back.’ He didn’t look at Mia, he wasn’t risking any more crazy lust-fuelled reactions. Instead, he stared at the ECG and the ever-increasing pulse rate.

‘Well done, Jimmy.’ Mia stroked his head. ‘You’re doing so well.’

‘Where’s my dad?’

‘I’m here.’ Walter rushed through the door, quickly followed by Jimmy’s mother, Ruby.

‘Good timing, Walter.’ Flynn tilted his head toward Jimmy. ‘Ruby, you get up near Jimmy’s head and stay with him. He needs his mum.’

Ruby didn’t speak, she just moved quietly beside her son, her hand gripping his.

Walter immediately backed out of the room to wait outside.

Flynn pulled the stethoscope from his ears, having just taken Jimmy’s blood pressure again. ‘His pressure’s still dropping slowly.’ He turned up the drip rate on the IV.

‘Do you want plasma expander?’ Mia quickly wrote the current IV bolus on the fluid balance chart.

The thought had crossed his mind a moment before she’d spoken. She certainly knew her emergency medicine. ‘I’ll keep it as an option. I’ll do the ultrasound and then reassess.’

‘Pethidine first?’ Mia half turned toward the drug box.

He raised his brows. ‘Mind-reading again?’

She nodded slowly. ‘It’s what I do.’

Her deadpan expression made him want to laugh. He realised she had a knack of being right without being dogmatic. ‘Ruby, any idea how much Jimmy weighs?’

The worried mother silently shook her head.

‘We just done that at school for maths. I was forty-five kilograms.’ Jimmy’s voice sounded muffled against the trolley mattress.

‘Good going, mate. Thanks.’ He gave Jimmy a reassuring pat before turning back to Mia, who was priming the pump. ‘Given we’re not sure what is bleeding or not, it’s best to be cautious. We don’t need him going into respiratory distress as well.’

‘So…zero point two five per kilogram rather than zero point five?’ She flicked back some stray hair from her face and then slowly brought the back of her hand under her chin in a caress of concentration as she worked out the dose.

The action mesmerised him and he was horrified to find he was staring. ‘Yes, I’ll draw it up.’ He seized the proffered needle and syringe and concentrated on opening the ampoule, drawing up the solution, crosschecking the dose with Mia and injecting it into a small bag of saline.

Concentrating on the job rather than speculating on the intriguing nurse working next to him who wasn’t fitting at all into the power-hungry, bossy role he’d assigned her at the start of the emergency. ‘Jimmy, you might start to feel a bit sleepy.’

The pulsometer pinged loudly and Mia rechecked Jimmy’s blood pressure. ‘It’s steadied but still too low.’ She turned on the oxygen and carefully placed the prongs in Jimmy’s nostrils. ‘You just breathe normally, Jimmy, OK?’

The lad silently accepted the elastic being put around his head and gripped his mother’s hand more tightly.

‘How’s that spear hurt him?’ Ruby spoke for the first time.

Flynn pulled the ultrasound machine into place and squirted gel onto Jimmy’s back. ‘That’s what we’re going to find out.’

The black and white swirl of the ultrasound slowly morphed from a snowstorm into clear vision. Flynn’s eyes adjusted to the images on the screen.