nodded. ‘As a picture.’
‘She’s not as pretty as Maggie, though.’
Nash, fully aware that his knee was almost brushing her thigh, glanced at her face and smiled as Maggie’s cheeks bloomed with another flush of red.
Out of the mouths of babes.
‘No,’ he agreed, his gaze holding hers. ‘No one’s as pretty as Maggie.’
There was a strange couple of seconds when everyone else in the room ceased to exist. And it was in that moment that Maggie saw the difference in Nash. He wanted her, she could tell, but there was something more there. Respect maybe. Whatever it was it was infinitely more seductive than flirty Nash of yesterday.
‘Okay,’ Christine said, pulling the earphones away again while simultaneously jiggling her new assistant on her lap. ‘After this song you’re up, Dr Reece. Are you ready?’
Nash reluctantly flicked his gaze from Maggie to Christine, giving the teenager his full attention. ‘Ready when you are.’
Maggie watched Christine blush under Nash’s gaze. It was apparent the girl had a massive crush on him, a fact of which he was obviously aware as he carefully navigated the interview. He was charming and gentlemanly to a fault, and everything a teenager hooked on Jane Austen could ever hope for, but Maggie could tell he was constantly aware of the boundary.
He spoke about growing up on a huge cattle property hundreds of kilometres west of Sydney in rural New South Wales and taking his school lessons via a radio through the School of the Air and mustering cattle in a helicopter.
‘And why did you decide to become a doctor?’ Christine asked.
Maggie, who’d been preoccupied with colouring a pink flower, looked up at the question. Christine had her back to Maggie but Nash was facing her. She noticed that at some stage Brodie had switched laps and was once again cuddled into Nash’s side. She wouldn’t have thought it possible but he looked more masculine, more appealing. Their gazes locked as he answered.
‘My sister was sick a lot when we were kids and she had to go to Sydney frequently for treatment because there just weren’t the services in the bush. I promised her then I’d become a doctor and change it.’
Maggie noticed the lightness to his voice and the smile he flashed Christine as he broke eye contact with her, but it was too late. For a brief moment she’d seen a vulnerability in his gaze as he’d spoken about his sister that called to her more than any amount of sexual attraction. And who could resist a fervent boyhood promise?
‘You told me the other day that Radio Giggle was a life-saver. What did you mean by that?’
Maggie gaped at the very grown-up question. Forget community radio, Christine was heading for a career with 60 Minutes.
‘The hospital in Sydney where Tammy…stayed had its own kids’ radio station. My sisters and I used to ring up and put in requests for her. She listened every day, she said it helped her miss home a little less.’
Goose-bumps broke out on Maggie’s arms at the streak of raw emotion in Nash’s not-quite-steady voice. His family had obviously been close and the connection with his ill sister through a hospital radio station, no matter how far in the past, clearly still resonated with him.
She’d never thought of that aspect of Radio Giggle before, more concerned with its diversionary attributes. But as a way for inpatients to feel connected to home, it was extraordinarily touching and she was proud all over again to be part of such a great organisation.
‘Do you have a special request for us today, Dr Reece?’
Brodie started to grizzle and Nash shifted him to the other hip and jiggled him a little. ‘I sure do. I’d like to hear “Puff the Magic Dragon.” It was Tammy’s favourite.’
Maggie was pleased for Dougy and her enforced activity as the mournful strains of ‘Puff’ filtered through the studio. She gripped the crayon hard, the goosebumps multiplying.
‘Thanks, Dr Reece,’ Christine enthused, pulling her headphones off.
Nash smiled and stood. Brodie was becoming more fractious, rubbing his eyes. ‘No probs.’ He started to sway as Brodie’s grizzling became louder. ‘Better get this little one back to the ward.’
Christine nodded. ‘See you later.’
He nodded to the teenager then looked down at Maggie, who was colouring in studiously. ‘See you, Maggie.’
Maggie looked up, unprepared for the picture Nash made as he swayed with bandage-headed Brodie. He was lean and sexy and utterly endearing. Yesterday she had thought how totally out of his league she was but today, child on hip, amidst the background chaos of Radio Giggle, he looked totally down-to-earth. Easily within reach. Temptingly so.
‘Bye,’ she dismissed, returning her attention to Dougy almost immediately.
She gripped the crayon harder as his sexy chuckle lingered in the studio well after he’d gone.
If she was ever granted the use of a magic wand for even just a few seconds, Maggie would use it to completely annihilate night duty from existence.
She hated it. With a passion.
Her first night in particular. So, she wasn’t in the best of moods the next night when she switched off her ignition and climbed out of the car beneath a star-studded sky. Ten hours stretched before her and she yawned. Not a good sign!
Oh, she knew once she actually walked through the doors and greeted her fellow sufferers she’d be fine— it was the thought that was the most depressing. And the older she got the harder they were to get over. Back in her student days she’d bounce straight back. Twenty years later it took her a good couple of days to get over a run of nights.
After communal handover in the tearoom Maggie was allocated bed three and took bedside handover from Ray, the nurse who’d been looking after Toby Ryan since his admission to the unit at lunchtime.
Toby was a three-year-old boy who’d been born with a rare hereditary haematological disease. He’d been in and out of hospital most of his brief life, undergoing a multitude of different therapies in a bid to cure him. When everything had failed a bone-marrow transplant had been his only option and he was now fifty days post-procedure.
But not out of the woods. Unfortunately nothing had gone smoothly for little Toby and his chest X-ray had deteriorated in the last few days and was looking very pneumonic. He’d been started on antibiotics and had had sputum collected for analysis, but it had become obvious that morning that he required closer monitoring and further respiratory support so he’d been shifted to PICU.
She watched her patient carefully, noting even in his sleep he was using the accessory muscles in his chest to help him breathe. The sound of high-flow oxygen whooshing through his face mask and filling the attached plastic reservoir bag was surprisingly loud in an already noisy environment.
He was as cute as a button with tight black curls crowning his head, clutching a raggedy-looking teddy bear that was missing an eye and half an ear. He was wearing only pyjama pants, leaving his upper half exposed. Maggie frowned. He was working really hard, which was concerning especially considering his
