Jennifer Taylor - Reawakened By The Surgeon's Touch

They transferred the injured driver onto the bed and then Bill Arnold arrived.

‘You were supposed to be fetching us back a new surgeon not another patient,’ he grumbled as he came into the room.

‘Stop complaining,’ Claire retorted, well used to the middle-aged Yorkshireman’s dry sense of humour. ‘I could have left the surgeon and just brought you the patient!’

‘In other words, count my blessings, eh?’ Bill laughed as he came over to the bed and held out his hand. ‘Bill Arnold. Nice to have you on board, Dr Slater. What have we got here?’

The two men shook hands before Jude briefly outlined the man’s injuries. ‘He’ll need a CT scan for starters,’ he concluded. ‘Once I have a better idea what I’m dealing with, I’ll want an MRI scan doing as well to check the full extent of soft tissue damage...’

‘Whoa! Steady on.’

Bill held up his hand and Jude immediately stopped speaking, although Claire could tell that he wasn’t pleased about being interrupted. He was probably more used to people hanging on to his every word, she thought cynically as she began to remove the patient’s clothes. Some surgeons seemed to think they ranked second only to God in the pecking order and if that were the case, Jude was in for a nasty shock. The surgeons on the team were treated exactly the same as everyone else, i.e. they were expected to knuckle down and get the job done without a fanfare.

‘Is there a problem, Dr Arnold?’ Jude asked coolly.

‘It’s Bill. I dispensed with the formalities a couple of years ago when I retired,’ the older man told him. ‘And yes, I’m afraid there could be a problem in so far as we don’t have access to the equipment you mentioned.’

‘What do you mean that you don’t have access to it?’ Jude demanded. ‘Is the radiographer not on duty today?’

‘Oh, the radiographer’s here all right,’ Bill explained easily. ‘The problem is the equipment. We don’t have a CT scanner or a Magnetic Resonance Imager in the hospital.’

‘You don’t have them,’ Jude repeated, looking so stunned by the news that Claire almost felt sorry for him. Obviously it had come as a shock to him to learn that the hospital wasn’t equipped with all the usual technology, but had he really expected that it would have been? Deliberately, she whipped up her indignation, not wanting to fall into the trap of sympathising with him.

‘No. We don’t have a CT scanner or access to MRI or PET scanning either, Dr Slater,’ she repeated coolly. ‘Mwuranda has undergone years of civil unrest and there’s no money available for equipment like that. It’s difficult enough to maintain an adequate supply of basic drugs, in fact.’

‘Then how do you suggest we do our jobs?’ he snapped, glaring at her as though he held her personally responsible for the state of the country’s medical facilities.

Claire made herself return his stare but the chill in his eyes was unnerving. She couldn’t stop her mind darting back to the way Andrew had looked at her whenever she had done something to annoy him. She had to make a determined effort to focus on the present moment. ‘The old-fashioned way—through good diagnosis. Isn’t that right, Bill?’

‘Harrumph, well, yes.’ Bill looked uncomfortable about being drawn into the decidedly frosty discussion. He sighed when Jude looked sharply at him. ‘I understand your concerns, of course, but in the absence of any modern technology, we just have to do the best we can.’

‘I see.’ Jude turned and glared at Claire again. ‘Well, I want it putting on record that I’m not happy with the situation. Is that clear?’

‘As crystal. I shall make a note of your comments in triplicate, Dr Slater, and ensure that the appropriate authorities are informed forthwith.’

Bill looked even more uncomfortable when he heard the sarcasm in Claire’s voice but Jude ignored it as he plucked a pair of gloves out of the box. He bent over the patient, his hands moving over the injured man’s skull with the same skill and dexterity which Claire had admired earlier. Maybe he was upset about the lack of modern aids, but he was able to contain his emotions while he got on with the job. And it was a salutary reminder of the way her former boyfriend had been able to emotionally detach himself as well.

Claire quickly excused herself and left. She knew it was unprofessional to leave in the middle of an examination but she simply had to get away. Fortunately one of the local nurses was standing in Reception, so Claire asked her if she would assist in triage then made her way to the office to sign in. Every member of staff had to sign in and out whenever they entered or left the building. Although it was a bit of a bind, they all understood how important it was to know where everyone was in case of an emergency. Now Claire sighed as she realised that she hadn’t explained the procedure to Dr Slater. It meant that she would have to speak to him again and that was something she had been hoping to avoid. She’d had more than enough of the man for one day!

Lola was sitting behind her desk when Claire opened the office door and she grinned at her. ‘I see you made it back safely, then, hon.’

‘Only just.’ Claire scrawled her name on the sheet then poured herself a cup of coffee. Walking over to the one and only easy chair, she flopped down onto its lumpy cushions. ‘We found the truck on our way back. And the driver.’

‘And?’ Lola prompted when she paused to sip some of the muddy brown brew that passed for coffee.

‘And we ended up starring in our very own version of the shoot-out at the OK Corral.’ She grimaced as she put the cup on a pile of medical journals which served as a coffee table in the absence of anything else. ‘That coffee is disgusting! How long has it been stewing in the pot?’

‘Who knows?’ Lola dismissed the coffee’s pedigree with a wave of her hand. Anxiety was etched all over her face as she looked at Claire in concern. ‘Are you sure you’re all right? It must have been real scary for you, so don’t think you have to pull that stiff-upper-lip routine you Brits are famous for. If you want to bawl your eyes out then go right ahead.’

‘I’m fine. Really,’ Claire assured her. ‘OK, so it was a bit hairy at the time, but I was too angry to be really scared.’

‘Angry?’ Lola repeated. ‘You mean with the guys who were shooting at you?’

‘No. With Dr Jude Tobias Slater!’

Claire stood up and started to pace the room, her temper rocketing as she thought about all the things he had done that day. Ignoring her instructions to stay with the motorbike had been his first offence and his second had been the high-handed way he had taken charge. Maybe they were only minor misdemeanours in most people’s eyes but they were far more than that to her. Jude Slater had tried his best to undermine her at every turn and she had too much experience of the harm it could cause to allow that to happen to her again.

She turned and glowered at Lola. ‘The guy is a liability! He’s pushy and overbearing and, what’s more, he seems to think that he knows everything about what it takes to survive out here when he knows nothing at all. Would you believe that he actually expected there would be an MRI scanner in the hospital?’

‘It’s his first mission, though, hon.’

Lola shrugged, obviously trying to defuse the situation, but Claire didn’t want it to be defused. She wanted there to be tension between her and Jude, and lots of it, too, because it would help to blot out everything else. The one thing she mustn’t allow herself to do was to like him.

‘So?’ she scoffed. ‘I remember when you arrived, Lola. It was your first mission as well, but you didn’t expect there to be all kinds of fancy equipment here, did you?’