she said. ‘I didn’t see you there.’
‘I gathered that,’ he said dryly. ‘It helps if you look around, you know.’
Amber winced. ‘I was thinking about the patient I’ve just attended to. You’re right, though. I’ll look where I’m going next time.’
‘You can come and examine the youth in room two,’ he said, ‘since you’ve finished in there. He’s having some difficulty with his breathing. I’d be interested to see what you make of him.’
Amber followed him to the room. She guessed he was intent on watching her at work, as he was in between patients just now. She might have known he would check up on her.
Going into the room, she greeted the youth. ‘Hello, Sam. I’m Dr Cavell. I understand you are having some problems with your breathing?’
The young man nodded, and she guessed from the way he spoke and outlined his symptoms that he was suffering from asthma. ‘I’ll just listen to your chest, if I may,’ she said. Reaching into her pocket, she searched for her stethoscope. It wasn’t there.
She looked around, a sense of impending doom settling on her.
‘Is anything wrong?’ Nick asked.
‘Uh…no…that is, I seem to have put my stethoscope down somewhere.’ She turned back to the youth. ‘If you will just excuse me for a moment, I’ll go and retrieve it. I’m fairly sure I know where I left it.’
The boy nodded, seeming unfazed by her lapse, but before she left him, Amber placed an oxygen mask over his face. ‘Just breathe in as deeply as you can,’ she said. ‘I’ll leave you with the nurse for a moment.’
She felt like a complete fool, and she daren’t imagine what Nick was thinking. He didn’t say anything aloud, but his expression said it all.
He followed her over to the desk, and watched her scan the surface. ‘Is there a problem?’ he said.
‘Um…well, I know I put it down here,’ she began, looking around, ‘but it doesn’t seem to be here any more.’ She frowned. Where could it be?
‘I’d advise you to keep your equipment close to you,’ he said crisply. ‘I wouldn’t like to think of a patient expiring through lack of attention because you aren’t able to examine him.’ His eyes narrowed on her. ‘Are you sure that you left it here?’
‘Yes, I’m quite sure.’ Her gaze ran over the desk and the assorted clutter. The stethoscope was nowhere to be seen. ‘Perhaps,’ she said weakly, ‘I could borrow one?’
‘Ask the desk clerk to issue you with one from supplies until you retrieve your own,’ he said, his voice curt. ‘But do try not to lose it, won’t you?’
‘I’ll guard it with my life,’ she said.
His brows drew together in a dark line. ‘You know, Amber, I was brought in here by the management because they thought I could do something to improve the star rating of this department. Up to now, I consider that I have been doing a fairly good job. I would hate to think that all my work was going to be for nothing because you have joined my team. Bear in mind that we are already shorthanded because we have lost one of our senior house officers after the fire the other night, and I really need everyone to pull his or her weight.’
She stared at him, her expression stricken. ‘I’ll do my best, I promise,’ she said feebly. From the way he was looking at her, she wouldn’t be at all surprised if he wasn’t thinking that she had been responsible for the fire in the first place.
‘I really do hope that your best is good enough,’ he murmured. He walked away from her and walked towards the treatment room they had just left. Halfway there, he turned, and said, ‘Perhaps when you have found the equipment you need, you would do us the honour of joining us.’
Amber wished that the floor would swallow her up. He had sarcasm off to a fine art, didn’t he? Wasn’t she allowed to make any mistakes?
Mandy approached the desk. ‘I’ve just had word that the ophthalmologist is on his way to see to your patient with the eye problem,’ she said. She glanced at Amber. ‘I couldn’t help hearing some of what Nick was saying.’ She made a faint grimace. ‘You shouldn’t take it to heart, you know. I think he’s a bit under pressure just now, with Rob going off sick because of the burns, and now Chloe’s asked if she could go home with her little girl. He’s usually not too bad to work with.’
Amber made a face. ‘I don’t think I’ve made a very good impression,’ she muttered. ‘I don’t know if he’s going to take to having me around.’
A few minutes later, she picked up a chart and headed towards the treatment room where Jack Carstairs was waiting. With any luck, the specialist would be a bit more amenable than Nick Bradburn.
She wasn’t very hopeful about her future working relationship with her new boss. He was cool and calm and in control, and he exuded authority from every pore, and that was all very well, but she had looked forward to working alongside someone with just a little more give and take.
Right now, it seemed that Nick was on his way to being a faint copy of her father, except that Nick had far more subtlety about him. He was an unknown quantity, but she hoped he would lighten up. She’d had her fill of overbearing, high-handed men.
She wasn’t at all happy about what lay in store.
CHAPTER THREE
‘HAVE you met the new senior house officer?’ Mandy asked a few days later. ‘I must say I didn’t think we would have a replacement for Rob so soon. Nick did well to find him so quickly.’
Amber finished writing out her lab request forms and glanced up at the nurse. ‘You mean Casey? Yes, I met him this morning as I was going for my break, and we shared a table in the cafeteria. He said that he was here as a locum until Rob was well enough to come back to work. I thought he was really nice.’
‘I did, too. He wasn’t too uppity to ask the nurses if he wasn’t sure of anything, and I thought that was really good. Some doctors think it’s beneath them to ask a nurse for advice.’ She had been leaning on the reception desk, but now she straightened, saying quickly, ‘Present company excepted, of course.’
Amber laughed. ‘It’s all right, I know what you meant.’ She put her forms to one side and said, ‘I wonder how it was that he was available at such short notice? Like you say, Nick was lucky to find anyone to fill in.’
‘Casey said that he was in between jobs just now. He’s just finished a stint working with the lifeboat rescue service, stationed just a few miles away from here along the coast, and he wanted a change. He said he was looking to specialise in emergency medicine, but by the time his contract had finished, all the posts had been taken. I think he was really glad to get this job.’ Mandy paused, glancing at her. ‘I’m surprised he didn’t tell you that when you were in the cafeteria together.’
‘Actually, we spent most of the time talking about how he covered for me this morning,’ Amber confessed. ‘I only just made it here on time, and I was praying that Nick hadn’t seen me. I didn’t want him to think that I was completely useless and that I wasn’t ready to
