* *
Beatrice Lindford. The new consultant. The one who’d just been appointed to the job everyone had thought had Daniel’s name on it. A job that part of Daniel had wanted; but part of him hadn’t, because he knew he couldn’t give the department what it needed from him in that role at the same time as being a good single parent to Iain.
If things had been different with Jenny, he wouldn’t have hesitated to apply for the job.
But it was pointless dwelling on might-have-beens. The situation was as it was. Jenny was remarried now—to someone else. He had custody of Iain. And his son would always, always come first.
Beatrice wasn’t what Daniel had expected. She was tall, maybe four inches shorter than his own six foot two. Almost white-blonde hair that she wore tied back with a scarf at the nape of her neck. The bluest eyes he’d ever seen—the colour of the sky on a late summer evening. And an incredibly posh accent, which made her his polar opposite: clearly she came from a privileged background, whereas Daniel was the son of a teenage mum who’d been brought up mainly by his grandparents until his mother was able to cope with being a parent. They were worlds apart.
But the bit that really threw him was when he shook her hand. That handshake was meant to be businesslike, maybe even slightly on the cool side. Instead, it felt as if every single nerve ending in his body had just woken up. He’d never been so physically aware of anyone before.
Absolutely not.
Even if Beatrice Lindford was single, and even if she was interested in him, he wasn’t in the market for a relationship. Iain was his world, and that was the way it was going to stay.
And he wanted a bit of distance between himself and Beatrice until he could get himself perfectly back under control and treat her just like any other member of the department, instead of behaving like a teenager who’d just felt the heady pull of sexual attraction for the first time in his life.
‘Welcome to the department, Ms Lindford,’ he said, giving her a cool nod. ‘Josh, shouldn’t you be in Resus?’
‘As should I,’ Beatrice said, narrowing her eyes slightly at him. ‘Michael Harcourt asked Josh to show me round and introduce me to everyone, and he’s been kind enough to do just that.’
He liked the fact that she’d stood up for the junior doctor. But he didn’t want to like Beatrice Lindford. He wanted to keep his distance from her, at least until he could get this unwanted attraction under control. ‘Indeed,’ he said.
‘There are brownies in the staff kitchen,’ she said. ‘Do help yourself.’
There was a touch of haughtiness to her voice. She sounded for all the world as if she’d just taken over their department. Which, he supposed, she sort of had, being their new consultant. ‘Thank you,’ he said.
‘And I’m buying drinks at the Red Lion after my shift,’ she said.
Drinks he definitely wouldn’t be going to. ‘Noted.’
‘I guess Josh and I had better get back to Resus.’
Daniel knew he hadn’t been particularly friendly to his new colleague, and he felt slightly guilty about that. But his response to her had flustered him, and right now there was no room in his life for anything other than his son. ‘Uh-huh,’ he said, and turned away.
* * *
Daniel hadn’t been openly hostile, but there had definitely been something there. Beatrice couldn’t understand what the problem was. They’d never met each other before or even knew of each other by reputation. Or was Daniel just offhand like that with everyone, and that was why Josh had looked so awkward before he’d introduced them?
Not that she wanted to put the younger doctor in a difficult position by asking him outright. It wouldn’t be fair. Instead, she encouraged him to chatter on their way back to Resus. And then she didn’t have time to think about Daniel Capaldi when the paramedics brought in a patient. Dev, the lead paramedic, did the handover.
‘Mrs Jane Burroughes, aged sixty-seven, otherwise healthy until today when she slipped in the garden and banged her head on the rockery. She remembers blacking out but she was conscious when we arrived. We put a neck brace on and we think she’s fractured her cheekbone and her arm. I’m not happy about her eye, either,’ Dev said.
From the amount of blood on Jane Burroughes’s cheek, it was entirely possible she’d damaged her eye and they’d need to bring in a specialist.
‘Pain relief?’ Beatrice asked.
‘She refused it,’ Dev said. ‘I haven’t put a line in.’
‘Thank you,’ she said.
She introduced herself and Josh to Mrs Burroughes. ‘We’d like to make you a bit more comfortable while we check you over. I know you refused pain relief in the ambulance, but can I give you some pain relief now?’
‘I don’t like the way it makes me feel, woozy and sick,’ Mrs Burroughes said. ‘When I had my wisdom teeth out and they put stuff in my arm, I felt drunk for two days afterwards.’
‘I could give you some paracetamol?’ Beatrice suggested. ‘That won’t make you feel woozy, and it’ll take the edge off the pain. It won’t be as effective as a stronger painkiller, but you’ll feel a little bit more comfortable.’
Finally Mrs Burroughes agreed to have paracetamol.
‘We’ll need to do a CT scan of her neck,’ Beatrice said to Josh, ‘and call the ophthalmology team for their view on Mrs Burroughes’s eye.’
Thankfully the CT scan showed no problems with Mrs Burroughes’s neck, so they were able to remove the neck brace; the ophthalmology team was able to confirm that the laceration was fixable and Mrs Burroughes wasn’t going to lose her sight. Finally the X-ray showed that the break in Mrs Burroughes’s arm was clean and could be treated with a cast rather than surgery.
Beatrice had just finished treating her patient and arranged a handover to the ward when Sam Price came in.
‘Beatrice, it’s lunchtime,’ he said, ‘and Hayley—my wife, who’s coming back to work here part time next month—suggested meeting us in the canteen. Josh, are you coming with us?’
The younger doctor blushed. ‘I...um...’
Sam raised an eyebrow. ‘Got a date?’
Josh nodded, and Sam patted his shoulder. ‘Just be yourself and don’t worry. She’ll adore you.’
Sam took Beatrice to the canteen. ‘So how was your first morning?’ he asked.
‘Fine.’ Apart from Daniel Capaldi. Not that she was going to let herself think about him. ‘Josh is a sweetie.’
‘He’s a nice lad. Though I feel a bit guilty because—well, I assume you must’ve heard about the staff day out I organised?’ Sam asked.
‘Go-karting on ice, you mean?’
‘It’s great fun,’ he said with a grin. ‘But I’m a reformed character now. No bungee-jumping, no go-karting
