wasn’t easy, however. She had haunted his every waking moment and his every dream at night for five long years—ever since the moment she had shattered his heart and his reason for being.
The silence, the loneliness, the darkness of his time without her had cut deep. He had loved her…truly, deeply, completely. She had brought fun and sunshine into his otherwise grey, joyless life. A life that had returned to being colourless and dull without her effervescent presence and the warmth of her love. The light had gone when she had left him and had never returned. Now with the other responsibilities that had burdened his life for so long in some kind of order, he had needed to find Annie again, to bring closure to a part of his life that felt unfinished.
Part of him had hoped he would see Annie and feel nothing—that the love would have gone and he would be set free, released from the prison he’d been in for five years. A prison in which he had been in solitary confinement and to which only Annie held the key to release him. Then perhaps he could put the past behind and move on with his life without Annie haunting him. But it wasn’t to be. The second he had seen her again he had known with a mix of excitement and despair that the love and desire was still there and the craving had not gone away. Being near her again was overwhelming his senses. Annie still held his emotions in a stranglehold.
It would be far better for him if he did feel nothing. Yet one look and he knew he still cared for her with everything in him. Despite what she had done, despite the hurt she had caused him running away as she had, he still wanted her, needed her, loved her. Which made his life horribly complicated and uncertain. Given her reception of him, the chance that they could reconcile the past, let alone re-establish any kind of relationship, was seeming less and less likely. Once again he was opening himself up to inevitable heartbreak and rejection, and he wasn’t sure he could survive that a second time.
The sound of sirens drew him from his troubled thoughts, and he watched the flashing blue lights of the two ambulances come closer as they moved up the hill through the lingering mist and turned in at the hospital entrance. As the first backed into the bay, Robert moved forward to hurry the elderly woman through to Resus.
When the back doors of the second ambulance opened moments later, Nathan and Annie helped the paramedics manoeuvre the stretcher out, ready to speed the badly injured patient inside. One of the paramedics was keeping pressure on an open wound in the man’s right thigh, temporarily stemming what Nathan could see was a bad bleed.
As Annie led the way to Resus, she looked at him, and he recognised in her the same charge of adrenalin and call to duty that sang in his own veins. Then her dark blue eyes narrowed briefly, and her voice was cool and professional.
‘Right, Nathan, let’s see how good a doctor you still are.’
‘Be careful issuing challenges, Annie,’ he murmured, keeping his voice low, so no one else could hear, seeing the surprise and alarm on her face as she hesitated. ‘In the days and weeks ahead I plan to show you what you walked away from and what you are missing out on. And I’m not just talking about my medical skills.’
Aware he had shaken her, he left Annie to mull over his words. Snapping back into professional mode as the paramedics wheeled the stretcher inside the designated resus bay, and the patient was transferred to the trolley bed, his focus was now solely on the man who needed the team’s attention and medical know-how.
Dealing with Annie—and confronting their past—would have to wait a little longer.
CHAPTER TWO
ANNIE was shaking as she followed Nathan inside Resus Bay Two. If only she hadn’t been foolish enough to issue that meaningless challenge. Now she fretted over his words, worried about what he had meant. Surely he didn’t think there could be anything left between them? Anxiety tightened inside her, and she cursed herself for allowing him to fluster her, derail her. The last thing she needed was to have to work closely with Nathan in the days ahead.
‘This is Len Gordon. Age fifty-nine. Multiple lower limb fractures, plus femoral break and bleed. Query possible damage to his pelvis. He’s in shock and his blood pressure is low.’
Annie forced herself to set her private concerns aside, and listened as the paramedics finished their report on the patient’s condition, running through GCS score, level of consciousness at the scene and since, BP, respiration, pulse rate and oxygen saturation, plus details of the fluids and drugs already given. Her job as Team Leader was to coordinate rather than be hands-on, so she stood back and watched as the trauma team swung smoothly into action, each focusing on their individual role yet combining as one unit. Once the initial examination had been made, she would be called upon to make decisions about what to do next.
The department’s resus teams were well prepared, and the best Annie had worked with. While the anaesthetic nurse was calming and reassuring the patient, getting what details she could from the distressed, confused man and keeping him informed about what was going on, the anaesthetist concentrated on securing Len’s airway, breathing and circulation.
Annie checked the ECG and vital function monitors one of the nurses was attaching to the patient. She listened carefully as Len’s clothes were cut off and Nathan carried out his primary survey, with each member of the team calling out necessary information. The designated scribe recorded everything on the Trauma Sheet, including relevant timings, plus drugs, fluids and treatments given.
‘Airway clear, bilateral air entry…both lungs sound fine. Pupils normal and reactive. No sign of any upper body, neck or spinal injuries.’
Annie acknowledged the information, gathering updates on Len’s blood pressure, pulse, sats and respiration rate. Gus, aided by Gail, had gained additional IV access, and was administering the fluids Annie had requested to counteract Len’s shock and blood loss. Gus had also drawn up blood for cross-matching and for the tests she asked for, including full blood count, urea and electrolyte concentrations, as well as blood gases. A nurse runner was ready to go to the lab for those tests not able to be done in Resus, to request the cross-matching and order units of blood.
‘Gus, can you see to a urinary catheter next?’ Annie asked.
The young doctor nodded, accepting the items he needed from the trolley Gail had made ready before the patient’s arrival. ‘I’m on it now.’
‘Thanks.’
‘We’re going to need that orthopod down here.’
The sound of Nathan’s voice caused a ripple of awareness to run through her, but Annie fought against her reaction to him. ‘What have you got?’ she asked, moving closer as he delivered his verdict on the patient’s lower limb injuries.
‘Open tib and fib fractures of both lower legs, dislocation of the right patella, and the right femur is broken…probably in two places. X-rays will confirm the extent of the damage. We also need an idea of any pelvic injury before he can go up to surgery, but first I need to stem the femoral bleed at the site of this deep laceration,’ Nathan informed her, concentrating on his task to halt the haemorrhage in the man’s right thigh.
Annie couldn’t help but admire Nathan’s skill and calm composure. He was just as special a doctor as she remembered, always unflappable, whatever the extent and urgency of the crisis. She trusted him completely in terms of his clinical judgement, technique and treatment of patients. It was his treatment of her heart that had been so lacking. Thrusting that painful thought aside, she ensured that the replacement fluids were running correctly, then checked the stats and the time elapsed since the patient had been under their care.
‘How’s the bleed?’
‘Under
