Emergency at Bayside (7 page)

For once the place was deserted and Jess greeted them with a smile. ‘Why don’t you grab a coffee, Meg, before I head off for my meeting?’

‘Good idea,’ Flynn answered, and, silently fuming, Meg followed his broad back around to the staff room.

Sitting down, she slipped off her shoes as Flynn headed straight for the kettle. ‘White with one,’ she said cheekily, and as he turned around with the kettle in his hand Meg gave him a smile. ‘Oh, sorry, Flynn. Didn’t I tell you? I’m not one for small talk.’

Okay, so the earth didn’t move. Meg didn’t suddenly become the social butterfly of the Emergency Department and Flynn didn’t roar with laughter and crack open a packet of chocolate biscuits. But he
did
make her a coffee, and he did sit on the same side of the room as her and ask how she felt she was coping on for her first morning back after her accident.

‘Better now.’

‘Is my coffee that good, then?’

Meg stood up and spooned another teaspoon of sugar into her cup, and just to annoy him added a touch more coffee. ‘No. I meant that I finally feel back in the saddle, so to speak. I know I’ve only been off a couple of weeks but it seems much longer.’

He turned then to the television, and for something to do Meg gazed unseeing at the screen. ‘What was it like for you? I heard you did research for a couple of years before you took up this post.’

‘That’s right.’ He took a long sip of his coffee before continuing. ‘It was a bit hard, I guess,’ he admitted finally. ‘It still is.’ There was something in his voice that made Meg look over, that told her she had just hit upon a raw nerve.

‘In what way?’

‘Four pounds two, with eyes of blue.’ Carla burst into the staff room brimming with excitement, her smile so infectious even Flynn’s suddenly serious face broke into a grin.

‘What did she have?’ Meg immediately asked.

‘A little boy. He’s so tiny, but just beautiful. Thanks so much for asking if I could stay, Meg. It was just amazing—and so quick!’

‘Sit down. I’ll get you a coffee—I reckon you’ve earned it!’ Meg laughed. ‘How’s Debbie doing?’

‘Well, they’re stitching her up, and the sister said that she’d be in Recovery for a while before they transferred her, but the anaesthetist said to tell you, Flynn—’ another blush crept across Carla’s face as she addressed him ‘—that they’re happy with her obs and she’s haemo…haemodynamically stable now.’

‘That’s good. Ideally we would have liked to transfer Debbie with the baby in utero—there’s no better incubator than the mother. But in this case we had no choice but to deliver there and then…’

Meg watched as he went into detail, patiently explaining the merits and pitfalls of the crucial choice he had made that morning in resus. And though he spoke about nothing but the patient, though he was nothing but friendly and professional, Meg couldn’t help but notice how easily and readily he chatted with the student. How familiar they seemed with each other. And, more pointedly, even if she had wanted to, Meg couldn’t miss the rapt expression on Carla’s face, the flirty way she looked up at him from under her eyelashes.

There was something going on here that Meg didn’t quite understand. And what was more, Meg realised as she left them to it and slipped away unnoticed, she wasn’t entirely sure that she wanted to.

‘A
NYONE
there catch your eye?’ Kathy breezed into the living room and Meg hastily put down the guest list she had been stealing a look at.

‘There must be a hundred names there!’ Meg exclaimed.

‘I’m sure Mum can stretch to one hundred and one if there’s someone I’ve missed out.’ Kathy’s voice was loaded with innuendo and Meg deliberately chose to ignore it.

‘I’m sure there’s enough there to be going on with.’

There was. The one name Meg was interested in— Flynn’s name—was right there near the top. Unfortunately Kathy had listed the guests randomly, so there was no way of telling if the ‘Maria’ above his name or the ‘Louise’ below it was his partner. And more worrying was the utter relief she felt that Carla’s name most definitely wasn’t there. But if she asked Kathy, Meg might just as well take out a full-page advertisement in the local paper telling the world she had a crush on Flynn Kelsey.

A bit more than a crush, Meg admitted to herself reluctantly, but she wasn’t in any rush to give her heart away again—and certainly not to someone so effortlessly divine, so overtly charismatic as Flynn Kelsey. After all, hadn’t she left her last job because of a disastrous relationship? Even though Vince
hadn’t worked with her, his infidelity had permeated her workplace. A casual fling—and Meg thought glumly that that was all it would be to Flynn—was a recipe for disaster. It wasn’t just her heart she had to look out for either, her resumé simply wasn’t up to another update. Inevitably it would end in tears— most probably hers—and three jobs in six months wasn’t a record Meg wanted to achieve.

And yet…

In the past few weeks Meg had found herself glancing at the medical staff’s roster with more than a passing interest, and to her dying shame had agreed to an overtime shift just because Flynn was on duty. And though she loved working with him, adored the constant verbal sparring, the undeniable flirting, each shift was tempered with a sense of frustration, a need to finish whatever it was they had both started, to somehow let them draw their own natural conclusion.

Flynn Kelsey was more to Meg than just another colleague, and to deny it would be an outright lie.

‘What are you daydreaming about?’

Meg shook her head. ‘Nothing.’ How she would love to confide in Kathy—ask her for some insight, find out once and for all if she was wasting her time. Contrary to what Flynn had said about Kathy playing matchmaker, Flynn’s name had never even been brought up once. But Meg knew her sister only too well, and subtle certainly wasn’t her middle name. If Meg even remotely asked about him, and
if
Flynn did turn out to be single, Kathy would think nothing of seizing the day and engineering a dance or three at the party, or some quiet little dinner with Flynn and
Meg making up the numbers—by chance, of course! That was the sort of help she could do without. It was far safer all round to keep quiet and steer the conversation back to the party and the wedding.

‘I know that look.’ Kathy picked up the list. ‘Come on, Meg, surely someone there catches your eye? What about Lee—six foot two, blue eyes…?’

‘I don’t think I’m ready for a man with three kids,’ Meg said dryly.

‘Okay, point taken. How about Harry, then? At least he comes without baggage, and he’s a plastic surgeon so he must be loaded.’

Meg gave a cynical laugh. ‘He’s certainly not loaded with personality.’

‘So you want personality
and
a clean slate?’ She ran her eye down the paper. ‘Well, that rules out just about everyone here. Looks like you’ll be dancing round your handbag with me and Mum.’

‘You’ll be with Jake, remember?’

Kathy poked out her tongue. ‘Jake’s the last person I’ll be dancing with; he might be gorgeous to look at, but, believe me, propped up at the bar is the best place for him; dancing really isn’t his forte.’

‘That’s right; I’d forgotten! Do you remember when Vince and Jake got up and danced at that nightclub? The bouncers thought they were drunk and they’d only been on orange juice all night.’

‘Oh, my goodness.’ Kathy blinked slowly a couple of times, her face breaking into a grin. ‘That’s the first time I’ve heard you mention Vince without getting that misty look in your eyes.’

Meg nodded. ‘I’m
so
over him, Kathy. That
accident was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. Hanging upside down in a smashed up car is a pretty good reminder of how precious life is, and a couple of weeks licking my wounds, with an excuse to cry if I wanted to, was just the tonic I needed. Vince could walk through the door this moment and tell me he’s left his wife and I’d just promptly show him the way out. I’ve wasted enough of my time on him.’

‘Well, good for you.’ Kathy’s beaming smile belied the trace of doubt in her voice, but Meg homed in on it straight away.

‘I’m over him,’ Meg insisted.

Kathy put her hands up in mock defence. ‘I believe you! And to prove it, how about I treat you to a glass of champagne to celebrate the demise of ‘‘bloody Vince’’? There’s a new wine bar just opened on the Bay Road…’

‘Not for me. I’m on a late shift.’

‘Well, an iced coffee, then? I need to get some shoes for the party. I could really use your opinion.’

Meg shook her head. ‘When did you ever need my opinion on anything? Anyway, you know I can’t walk in a shoe shop without buying something. I’ve already spent enough on my dress—speaking of which, that’s why I’m here. I’m heading off to the beach to get a bit of sun; I’m so pale you can’t tell where the fabric ends and my legs start. Look, tell Mum I’m sorry I missed her. I’ll pop back for a shower before I go to work, but tell her I’ve already eaten or she’ll be warming up the soup in the freezer!’

‘If you don’t stay for lunch you know she’ll moan
that you’re using the house as a beach hut again?’ Kathy warned

‘I’ll risk it.’ Grabbing her bag from the couch, Meg gave her sister a cheery wave and, savouring the delicious morning, walked the couple of hundred yards from her parents’ house to the beach.

Slipping off her sarong, Meg laid it on the sand before stretching out luxuriously on it. Closing her eyes, she waited for the little dots dancing before her eyes to fade, wriggling her toes into the warm sand and feeling the heat of the late morning sun bathing her body. This was the best time of year to be at the beach; apart from a couple of mothers with young children, and a few older couples strolling along, the place was practically deserted. It would be a different story in two weeks’ time, when the schools broke up for the summer break. Then she would have to share the beach with seemingly hundreds of screaming children and overwrought parents, but for now it was pretty near perfect.

Perfect, even.

An alarm clock would be good, though, Meg thought as she drifted off, her mind flicking back for a moment to her accident, remembering Flynn beside her, holding her hand as they waited for the firefighters to secure the tree, imagining the sound of the ocean. It was almost a pleasant memory, made better because this time she could close her eyes, this time she could sleep…

At first Meg felt only relief when a child’s screams dragged her awake. Focussing on her watch, she stood up with a yelp and shook the sand out of her sarong.
Never mind the soup, there wouldn’t even be time for a shower at this rate. Fuzzy from sleep, and the bright midday sun, it took Meg a second or two to register that the screaming hadn’t stopped—in fact it had multiplied. A woman was screaming.

Loudly.

Swinging around, Meg watched in horror as she saw a woman running hysterically along the beach, twisting and turning, carrying a screaming child in her arms.

A bleeding child.

That second was all it took for Meg to break into a run, to shout her orders to the stunned onlookers who were watching helplessly, frozen with shock.

‘Get me a towel. Someone call for an ambulance.’

The screaming grew louder, and Meg acknowledged with relief that the child was screaming also as the woman practically threw the infant into her arms. ‘He stood on a bottle. Oh, God—help him, please!’

‘It’s all right, darling.’ Despite her own fear Meg spoke soothingly to the child. Lying him down, she immediately raised his leg. The blood was pouring from his foot. Meg swallowed hard. It wasn’t pouring; it was pumping. He had a large arterial bleed. Immediately she applied pressure behind his knee, holding the leg as high as she could as an elderly gentleman thrust a towel at her.

‘Here—can you use this?’

‘I can’t let go of his leg.’

‘Tell me what you want me to do.’

Meg nodded, relief washing over her. Her fear was real. Nothing scared her in Emergency—there she
knew what she was doing, could put her hand on the necessary equipment in an instant, summon help at the touch of a button or the buzz of an intercom. But here she was on her own. Apart from this man no one had done a single thing to help—all were standing uselessly. Meg didn’t blame them for a moment, but it didn’t help matters in the least. But this man was sensible. The sweat was pouring off him, and there was a grey tinge to his lips, but he was at least listening, ready to help. ‘Hold his leg up and push like I am behind his knee. I need to have a look before I wrap it up.’

As soon as Meg released the pressure the blood started spurting again. By now the child had stopped screaming; he was lying there shocked and pale, which worried Meg far more than the noise.

‘Has someone called for an ambulance?’ she asked as she examined the foot. There was no glass visible so, taking the towel, she wrapped it tightly around the foot, pulling it as hard as she could in an attempt to stem the flow of blood. ‘Has someone called an ambulance yet?’

One of the women was frantically pushing the buttons on her mobile. ‘It isn’t charged.’

‘Has anyone else got a mobile?’

‘I could run up to one of the houses,’ the man offered. Meg looked down at the child. He was becoming drowsy, and despite her best efforts already the towel was bright red. ‘Or my car’s just there. My wife could drive…’

Meg did a swift calculation. By the time he had run up, and assuming he got straight in to someone’s
house, it would be at least another ten minutes until the ambulance got here—and that was if their luck was in. If they dashed to a car she could have him straight in within five minutes.

‘We’ll go by car. I have to keep pushing—keep his leg up.’

He nodded. ‘June—go and start the car.’

Spurred into action, the assembled crowd finally moved, helping to carry the boy the short distance along the beach to the waiting car. The mother sat in the front, sobbing loudly as Meg and her helper squeezed into the back and the car jerked away.

‘Drive carefully,’ Meg warned the woman.

‘But step on it, love.’ The man gave Meg a small smile. ‘She’s as slow as a snail normally. My name’s Roland.’