could do the hard bit for her. No one could take away her very real fear of that place.
Cort had.
She undressed and ran her fingers over the mark his mouth had made, and tonight, with him, for a while she had honestly forgotten.
So too had he.
She didn’t know what, but as she climbed into bed and looked at her frazzled worry dolls, they reminded her of him, taking all her cares and carrying them for a while, and somehow she did the same for him. He was a different Cort when it was just them together, a lighter, funnier, terribly sexy man that sometimes he allowed her to glimpse.
And despite fighting words, despite telling her friends that it couldn’t go further, there was this little question mark burning inside her, a tiny flame of hope that she dared not fan in case she blew it out completely.
Hopefully, in a couple of weeks she’d be finished with Emergency for good—and then it wouldn’t be a problem.
Unless she failed.
Unless she had to go back.
It was a very good reason for closing her eyes and willing sleep to come.
She had work to do tomorrow.
And she had to do it well.
WALKING out had been tough, but walking back was so much harder.
Tilly walked with her to work and even if Ruby felt she couldn’t tell her the full extent of how difficult it was, she was grateful for her friend’s support.
‘Just get through today!’ Tilly said, and Ruby nodded, putting on her brightest smile and walking in through the department.
‘Morning,’ Ruby offered to Hannah in the locker room.
‘Morning,’ Hannah answered, though her voice was flat. ‘Hopefully today will be better.’
Ruby suddenly got a little of what Cort had been saying—that Hannah, even though she was one of the most senior nurses, even though she was so much older and wiser, would have had a rough night processing yesterday’s events too.
Ruby had timed it so that she wouldn’t have to face the staffroom, so she headed straight to handover, where the early shift were starting to gather.
There was Cort, talking to an intern, but thankfully he didn’t look over as she joined the group and neither did he later when Sheila did the allocations.
‘Connor, take Ruby through with you to the obs ward.’
She wasn’t sure if she was relieved as she headed round there—the obs ward was the easiest place to be. There were a few patients to be assessed and either discharged or admitted to the main wards, and there was the hand clinic to be held there later. But there was also plenty of time for gossip and chatter and Connor seized on it the second the night nurse had handed over and left.
‘What happened?’ Connor was the biggest gossip in the world and loathed missing out on anything. ‘I heard that you walked out in the middle of your shift.’
‘Yes,’ Ruby said because she had.
‘Was Siobhan giving you a hard time?’ Connor rolled his eyes. ‘She can be a right bitch.’ But Ruby refused to say any more about it, she just wanted it forgotten, and she did her best to just chat and be her usual happy self with the patients. She even managed not to blush, well, maybe just a little bit, when Cort came in to discharge the patients or have them moved to a ward.
He sat writing at the desk as Ruby stripped some beds and, really, they had no need to worry about gossip. For all the attention he paid her, no one could have known that just a couple of nights ago …
‘Ruby.’ Sheila’s voice came over the intercom and Ruby went over, expecting another admission. ‘Can you come to my office?’
‘She said she wouldn’t say anything about it.’ She forgot for a moment where they were.
‘What’s the problem?’ Sensing gossip, Connor bounded over.
‘Sheila wants to see me. I think it’s about my dummy spit yesterday.’
‘Then you’d better get there.’ Connor grinned. ‘I’ll have a nice coffee waiting for you afterwards.’
Ruby wanted it forgotten, wanted to get back to happy, not sit in an office and go over things.
‘I thought we’d agreed that you wouldn’t say anything.’ Ruby was shaky as she sat down.
‘I meant officially,’ Sheila said.
‘Oh.’
‘I meant if you were back at work this morning then I wasn’t going to have to go through all the official channels.’ She peered at her student. ‘Ruby, you gave no indication you were unhappy, or that the place was distressing you so much. I just thought you were avoiding work.’
‘No,’ Ruby said, because she’d take a mop now and clean the whole length of the hospital and every toilet in between rather than go through yesterday again.
‘You had every opportunity to tell me at your assessment how you were feeling. You coped marvellously with the resuscitation yesterday …’
‘I was devastated.’
‘We all were,’ Sheila said. ‘But we all got on with the job—as did you.’ Sheila paused for a moment. ‘But then suddenly you’re running off.’
‘I honestly couldn’t have gone in there.’
‘And I honestly couldn’t have known how distressed you were.’ Sheila gave an exasperated shrug. ‘There has to be communication. How can we help you if we don’t even know you’re having problems?’
‘Well, you know now,’ Ruby said.
‘Which is why I’ve given you a gentle day today. You can stay in Obs and run the clinics and I’ll bring you out to observe anything interesting … is that what you want?’
‘No,’ Ruby said. ‘Yes.’
‘You’re supposed to be on nights next week.’
‘Is it possible to stay on days?’
‘No, Ruby.’ Sheila shook her head. She glanced at the roster. ‘I don’t just give out passes—you chose a busy teaching hospital for your placements, and that means there are certain things that are expected from you. A pass from Eastern Beaches means a lot.’ She did, though, relent a touch. ‘What if I change your shifts so you’re with Connor, Siobhan and I? We’re doing nights next week, but we’re on over the weekend. It’s even crazier then.’
‘I don’t know,’ Ruby said, because night duty with Siobhan wasn’t particularly enticing,
