CAROL MARINELLI - Special Deliveries - Wanted - A Daddy - Dr. Dark and Far Too Delicious / Royal Rescue / Father by Choice

She wasn’t so much worried about Jed’s reaction—no doubt he was privately relieved—but Lisa gave her a less-than-impressed look and inwardly Jasmine kicked herself.

‘Sorry,’ Vanessa winced. ‘Me and my mouth.’

‘It’s my fault for saying anything,’ Jasmine said, but there wasn’t time to worry about it now. Instead, she took over from Lisa.

‘Aiden Wilkins. His temp is forty point two,’ Lisa said. ‘He had a seizure while Jed was examining him. He’s never had one before. He’s already had rectal paracetamol.’

‘Thanks.’

‘He’s seizing again.’ Just as Lisa got to the Resus door, Aidan started to have another convulsion. Jed gave him some diazepam and told Jasmine to ring the paediatrician, which she did, but as she came off the phone Jed gave another order. ‘Fast-page him now, also the anaesthetist.’

‘Everything okay?’ Penny stopped at the foot of the bed as Vanessa took the mum away because she was growing increasingly upset, understandably so.

‘Prolonged seizure,’ Jed said. ‘He’s just stopped, but I’ve just noticed a petechial rash on his abdomen.’ Penny looked closely as Jed bought her up to speed. ‘That wasn’t there fifteen minutes ago when I first examined him.’

‘Okay, let’s get some penicillin into him,’ Penny said, but Jed shook his head.

‘I want to do a spinal. Jasmine, can you hold him?’

Speed really was of the essence. Aiden needed the antibiotics, but Jed needed to get some cultures so that the lab would be able to work out the best drugs to give the toddler in the coming days. Thankfully he was used to doing the delicate procedure and in no time had three vials of spinal fluid. Worryingly, Jed noted it was cloudy.

Jasmine wheeled over the crash trolley and started to pull up the drugs when, as so often happened in Resus, Penny was called away as the paramedics sped another patient in.

‘Penny!’ came Lisa’s calm but urgent voice. ‘Can I have a hand now, please?’

‘Go,’ Jed said. ‘I’ve got this.’

The place just exploded then. The paediatrician and anaesthetist arrived just as an emergency page for a cardiac arrest for the new patient was put out.

‘Jed!’ Penny’s voice was shrill from behind the curtain. ‘Can I have a hand here?’

‘I’m kind of busy now, Penny.’ Jed stated the obvious and Lisa dashed out, seeing that Jed was working on the small toddler and picked up the phone. ‘I’m fast-paging Mr Dean …’ She called out to the anaesthetist, whose pager was trilling. ‘We need you over here.’

‘Call the second on.’ Jed was very calm. ‘He’s stopped seizing, but I want him here just in case.’

‘You call the second on,’ Lisa uncharacteristically snapped and looked over at the anaesthetist. ‘We need you in here now.’

It was incredibly busy. Jed took bloods and every cubicle in Resus seemed to be calling for a porter to rush bloods and gasses up to the lab. Jed was speaking with the paediatrician about transferring Aiden to the children’s hospital and calling for the helicopter when Lisa came in to check things were okay.

‘We’re going to transfer him,’ Jasmine explained.

‘I’ll sort that,’ Lisa said. ‘Jasmine, can you go on your break?’

‘I’m fine,’ Jasmine said. After all, the place was steaming.

‘I don’t want the breaks left till midday this time. Let’s get the breaks started. I’m sending in Greg to take over from you.’

Jasmine loathed being stuck in the staffroom when she knew how busy things were out there, but Lisa was a stickler for breaks and really did look after her staff. That didn’t stop her feeling guilty about sitting down and having a coffee when she knew the bedlam that was going on.

‘There you are.’ Lisa popped her head in at the same time her pager went off. ‘I just need to answer this and then, Jasmine, I need a word with you—can you go into my office?’

Oh, God.

Jasmine felt sick. Lisa must have heard her say she was thinking of handing her notice in. She should never have said anything to Vanessa; she should have at least spoken to Lisa first.

Pouring her coffee down the sink, Jasmine was torn.

She didn’t want to leave, except she felt she had to, and, she told herself, it would be easier all round, but she loved working in Emergency.

Would Lisa want a decision this morning? Surely this could wait.

She turned into the offices, ready for a brusque lecture or even a telling-off, ready for anything, except what she saw.

The registrar’s office door was open and there was Penny.

Or rather there was Penny, with Jed’s arms around her, oblivious that they had been seen.

He was holding her so tenderly, his arms wrapped tightly around her, both unaware that Jasmine was standing there. Blinded with tears, she headed for Lisa’s office.

Her mind made up.

She had to leave.

‘I’M SORRY!’ LISA walked in just as Jasmine was blowing her nose and doing her best to stave off tears. ‘I really tried to speak to you first before you found out.’

So Lisa knew too?

‘How are you feeling?’ Lisa asked gently. ‘I know it’s a huge shock, but things are a lot more stable now …’ She paused as Jasmine frowned.

‘Stable?’

‘Critical, but stable,’ Lisa said, and Jasmine felt her stomach turn, started to realise that she and Lisa were having two entirely separate conversations.

‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,’ Jasmine admitted. ‘Lisa, what am I here for?

‘You don’t know?’ Lisa checked. ‘You seemed upset … just then, when I came in.’

‘Because …’ Because I just saw my sister in Jed’s arms, Jasmine thought, and then she wasn’t thinking anymore, she was panicking, this horrible internal panic that was building as she realised that something was terribly wrong, that maybe what she had seen with Penny and Jed hadn’t been a passionate clinch after all. ‘What’s going on, Lisa?’ Jasmine stood up, more in panic, ready to rush to the door.

‘Sit down, Jasmine.’ Lisa was firm.

‘Is it Simon?’ Her mind raced to the childcare centre. Had something happened and she hadn’t been informed? Was he out there now, being worked on?

‘Simon’s fine,’ Lisa said, and without stopping for breath, realising the panic that not knowing the situation was causing, she told Jasmine, ‘Your mum’s been brought into the department.’

Jasmine shook her head.

‘She’s very sick, Jasmine, but at the moment she’s stable. She was brought in in full cardiac arrest.’

‘When?’ She stood to rush out there.

‘Just hold on a minute, Jasmine. You need to be calm before you speak to your mum. We’re stabilising her, but she needs to go up to the cath lab urgently and will most likely need a stent or bypass.’

‘When?’ Jasmine couldn’t take it in. She’d only been gone twenty minutes, and then she remembered the patient being whizzed in, Lisa taking over and calling Mr Dean, Penny calling for Jed’s assistance.

‘Penny?’ Her mind flew to her sister. ‘Did Penny see her when she came in?’

‘She had to work on your mum.’ Lisa explained what had happened as gently as she could. ‘Jed was caught up with the meningococcal child and I didn’t want you finding out that way either—unfortunately, I needed you to be working.’

Jasmine nodded. That much she understood. The last thing she would have needed at that critical time in Resus was a doctor and a nurse breaking down before help had been summoned.

‘And Penny told me to get you out of the way.’ Jasmine looked up. ‘She told me you were her younger sister and that you were not to find out the same way she had … She was amazing,’ Lisa said. ‘Once she got over the initial shock, she just …’ Lisa gave a wide-eyed look of admiration. ‘She worked on your mother the same way she would any patient—she gave her the very best of care. Your mum was in VF and she was defibrillated twice. By the time Mr Dean took over, your mum was back with us.’