could feel the sweat pouring down between her shoulderblades as she tried again to intubate the girl. The sun was burning down like a blowtorch on the top of her scalp. Panic was no longer fluttering in the pit of her stomach; it was flapping like a bedsheet in a hurricane-force wind.
This was not a dummy patient.
This was someone’s daughter, someone’s little girl, someone’s sister and someone’s friend. If this young girl died someone’s life—many people’s lives—would be shattered.
The sun burned even more fiercely and the trickle of sweat down between the straps of her bra became a torrent. Her head started to pound as if a construction site had taken up residence inside. The sunlight was so bright her vision blurred. She blinked and white flashes floated past her eyes like silverfish.
‘What’s the problem?’ Jake asked as he came over.
‘This is not the ideal environment to do an intubation,’ Kitty muttered in frustration. ‘It’s too bright and I can’t see the cords.’
‘Accidents don’t happen in ideal environments, Dr Cargill,’ he said. ‘We’re not moving her until the airway and neck is secured. You stabilise her neck while I intubate.’
Kitty moved aside as Jake came around to the head of the patient and took over the laryngoscope. ‘Hold the head from below,’ he ordered.
She did as he directed and watched as he inserted the laryngoscope. It was genuinely a difficult task, which should have made Kitty feel less of a failure, but it was pretty obvious Jake had had extensive training and was far more experienced at resuscitating on site. Everything he did he did with cool and calm confidence. He kept his emotions in check. Not a muscle on his face showed any sign of personal distress or crisis. He was simply getting on with the job.
‘Listen to the chest, Dr Cargill,’ he said. ‘What’s the air entry?’
Kitty listened to the patient’s chest. ‘There’s no air entry on the right and mediastinal shift to the left.’
‘Get a needle in the chest,’ he said. ‘We can put a chest tube in inside.’ He called out to the nurse. ‘Kate—here. Ventilate the patient while I get the collar back on and get a drip in.’
Finally the patients were transferred inside and taken to ICU once stabilised.
‘Good work, everyone,’ Jake said, stripping off his gloves and tossing them in the bin.
Kitty couldn’t help feeling she didn’t deserve to be included in that statement. She concentrated on washing her hands at the basin, hanging her aching head down, feeling the sweat still sticky beneath her clothes.
‘You too, Dr Cargill,’ Jake said as he reached for some paper towels alongside her basin. ‘That was a tough call.’
Kitty looked up at him. ‘I was out of my depth and you know it,’ she said.
‘You’ll get better once you do EMST,’ he said. ‘It’s all a matter of confidence. The same skills apply inside here or outside there.’
‘I was nearly roasted alive out there,’ she said. ‘It looked like you didn’t even break a sweat.’
His dark blue gaze scanned her flushed face. ‘You look like you caught the sun,’ he said. ‘Your nose is a little pink.’
‘Great,’ she said with a rueful grimace. ‘More freckles.’
‘Kisses from the sun,’ he said. ‘Or so my mother called them when I was a kid.’
‘But you don’t have any freckles.’
The corner of his mouth tipped up and a glint appeared in his eyes. ‘None that you can see.’
Kitty flushed to the roots of her hair but stalwartly held his gaze. ‘I’ll pass on the guided tour, thanks very much,’ she said.
‘I wasn’t offering one.’
His blue eyes played tug-of-war with hers in a moment that vibrated with palpable tension.
‘Sorry to interrupt, Jake,’ Gwen said as she approached. ‘Your brother is here to see you. He’s waiting in Reception. He told me to tell you it’s important.’
Jake’s expression tightened, and then locked down to a blank impenetrable mask. ‘Call me on my mobile if anything urgent comes in,’ he said gruffly to Kitty. ‘I’ll be ten minutes.’
Gwen let out a sigh as Jake disappeared through the entrance to A&E. ‘I wish Jake would tell me what’s going on.’
Kitty frowned. ‘Going on?’
‘With Robbie,’ Gwen said. ‘I can tell Jake’s worried sick about him but he won’t talk about it. I guess he’s used to dealing with his family on his own. God knows he’s been doing it long enough.’
‘What do you mean?’ Kitty asked.
‘Jake’s mother was killed in a car accident when he was sixteen,’ Gwen said. ‘And that’s another thing he won’t talk about. I only heard about it because one of the paramedics who attended the accident worked with my husband in the fire department. A drunk driver hit Jake’s mother head-on. She made it to hospital but died a few hours later.’
‘That’s terrible,’ Kitty said. ‘What about his father?’
Gwen rolled her eyes. ‘That’s another one of Jake’s no-go areas,’ she said. ‘I don’t think he’s seen his father since he was a kid. I don’t think Robbie has even met him.’
‘Who looked after Jake and his siblings after their mother was killed?’ Kitty asked.
‘I think they stayed with his mother’s parents for a bit, but it didn’t last,’ Gwen said. ‘They’d disowned their daughter when she hooked up with Jake’s father. They didn’t even know the kids when they were plonked on their doorstep. Jake got his own place as soon as he could afford it and made his own way. Can’t have been easy. He’s done such a good job of taking care of them all, but now Robbie’s got some sort of issue. God knows what it is. Jake certainly won’t let on.’
Kitty looked towards the doors Jake had just gone through. She thought back to her conversation with him about why he hadn’t travelled abroad. Had he stayed home in order to watch over his siblings? How had he coped financially? Had his mother left them well provided for or did he have to struggle to make ends meet? What else had he sacrificed to be there for his family?
The image of him as a protective father figure was at odds with her impression of him as a fun-loving, laid-back playboy. But then she thought of the day she’d seen him at the beach with his young nephew. No one could ask for a more devoted uncle and mentor. Strict but fair, strong but nurturing—all the things young kids and in particular boys needed to grow. Jake had apparently had no such mentor himself. Instead he had been the man of the house for most of his thirty-four years.
Kitty turned and saw Gwen looking at her speculatively. ‘What were you two talking about just then, anyway?’ Gwen asked. ‘You looked rather cosy.’
Kitty felt
