girls at the table stood up. He recognised her from the hospital, she was one of the nurses. He thought her name was Victoria.
‘Would you like to dance?’ she asked him. Her voice was quiet and he had to lean in closer to hear her. Had she done that deliberately? She was standing awfully close to him. She was pressed up against his thigh, her hand on his arm, and she was looking at him as if she had no place she needed to be.
Joe didn’t dance and he’d had enough to drink. He definitely had somewhere better to be. ‘I’ve got a better idea. Do you want to get out of here?’ he said, and was not surprised when she agreed.
Victoria was thin and blonde, the complete opposite of Kitty. She was exactly what he needed to take his mind off what had just happened.
* * *
‘Kitty and Anna, incoming patient, three minutes,’ Davina said. ‘I don’t have much information. He’s a surfer, picked up by the coastguard, suffering from exposure and dehydration. That’s all I’ve got.’
Kitty grabbed a fresh gown and gloves and made her way to the ambulance bay. Dr Anna Lewis was already there.
The ambulance pulled in, followed by a couple of news vans, and Joe jumped out.
Kitty took a deep breath. She hadn’t seen him for several days, not since she’d almost kissed him, but she’d known their paths would cross again. She’d also heard that he’d gone home with Victoria that night. Victoria had made no secret of that fact the next time she and Kitty had had a shift together. What was that all about?
She was still fuming about it. Annoyed with him and annoyed with herself for caring. She didn’t normally have an issue about Joe’s dalliances or relationships, but something about him and Victoria was bugging her and having to work with Victoria was only making things worse. She knew it was because she’d stupidly thought he’d been about to kiss her at the pub. Until he hadn’t. Obviously, that had been the last thing on his mind. He’d probably been about to ask if Victoria was single. Did everyone assume Kitty would just play matchmaker now that she was pregnant? Why didn’t anyone imagine that maybe she wanted sex? She was pregnant, not dead.
But Kitty had fled the pub after that. She hadn’t wanted to give Joe a chance to read what must have been written all over her face. He’d always known what she was thinking and she didn’t think she would have managed to hide the fact that she’d thought he’d been about to kiss her—and that she’d desperately wanted him to. What was wrong with her? That would be the surest way to ruin their friendship.
But she still wished he hadn’t hooked up with Victoria. That was just rubbing salt into the wound. Victoria was tall and thin and blonde. All the things Kitty wasn’t, and Kitty was unusually irritated by the thought of them together.
But there was nothing she could do about it.
Joe pushed the stretcher towards them and Kitty deliberately went to the opposite end, knowing she’d be able to avoid eye contact. She virtually ignored him as he gave them a rundown on the situation while they transferred the patient into an exam room.
Their patient was of Asian appearance, slim with a badly sunburned nose and shoulders. According to Joe he was Japanese. ‘This is Toshi. He got into strife in the surf yesterday and spent the night drifting out to sea on his board.’ That caught Kitty’s attention but she still avoided looking at Joe and instead looked at Toshi. He’d spent a night in the ocean on a surfboard? ‘He is dehydrated, tired and sunburnt but otherwise in reasonable shape considering the circumstances. He’s had a litre of saline, this is the second litre running through now. His English is better than my Japanese but I think you should call an interpreter.’
Despite his ordeal, Toshi was able to transfer himself from the stretcher to the examination bed, and Joe smiled at Kitty as he wheeled the stretcher from the room. If he’d noticed her less than friendly attitude towards him it didn’t appear to bother him. He wouldn’t imagine he’d done anything to upset her and, in reality, she wouldn’t normally have been upset by his behaviour. He was just being regular Joe. It was hardly his fault she was a hormonal mess.
Kitty hung up the bag of saline and attached leads to Toshi’s chest and finger to record his vital statistics. Anna connected him to the oxygen as a precaution but Joe’s assessment seemed accurate. Toshi seemed physically in quite a good state, although Kitty wasn’t sure what a night spent drifting in the Pacific Ocean would do to a person’s mental state. She knew she would have been terrified, imagining sharks circling and all sorts of deadly sea creatures just waiting to pounce. It was just the sort of thing that could lead to PTSD, but there wouldn’t be much discussion about Toshi’s mental health until the interpreter could be contacted.
‘Can you organise some food for him?’ Anna asked Kitty when she’d finished her physical examination and declared that he was, indeed, in remarkably good shape. ‘Something simple to start with, perhaps soup, a salad and some juice?’
‘Sure,’ Kitty replied.
‘And then we’d better see if we can get an interpreter on the phone if one doesn’t turn up shortly. He can have half-hourly obs once he’s eaten, providing he keeps something down.’
Kitty organised a tray of food and then took her scheduled break while she waited for it to be delivered. The television in the staff kitchen was on the news channel and Kitty recognised the hospital ED entrance in the background of the shot. A reporter stood in the ambulance bay, speaking to the camera. Kitty wondered if this was the same news crew that had followed the ambulance bringing Toshi. She supposed it was an interesting story.
The emergency doors slid open behind the reporter and Joe stepped outside. Kitty increased the volume when she saw the reporter turn to Joe, thrusting the microphone towards him. Joe stopped, and Kitty wondered if he’d been asked to speak to the media. If so, he was a good choice—after all, he had been one of the paramedics who had transferred Toshi to hospital, and the camera loved him. The angles of his face were thrown into sharp relief by the fluorescent overhead lights of the hospital entrance but his skin still managed to look tanned and healthy and his blue eyes were clear and bright.
‘I’m speaking now with one of the paramedics who brought the Japanese surfer here to North Sydney Hospital after his harrowing ordeal lost at sea for sixteen hours,’ the young reporter said to the camera, before turning to Joe. ‘Mr Harkness, what can you tell us about the man’s condition? Is he going to be all right?’
The reporter knew his name, so Joe must have been asked to speak and from past experience Kitty knew it was the only way to get them to move on. You had to give them something otherwise they’d be hovering around all night.
‘He was very dehydrated and sunburnt but in remarkably good spirits considering his ordeal. He’s understandably relieved to be back on dry land,’ Joe replied.
He looked fresh and relaxed. No one would guess he was nearing the end of his twelve-hour shift. The dimple in his chin appeared as he smiled at the young news reporter. Kitty just knew the effect his smile would be having on the young woman. She’d be surprised if she could remember her next question.
‘How did he come to be on his surfboard in a shipping lane six kilometres off the east coast of Australia?’ the reporter asked, and Kitty was sure she could see a blush colouring her throat as Joe looked directly at her.
‘As far as we know, he got dragged out to sea in a rip and was unable to paddle back in as the waves were too big.’
‘And how did
