was ready Jake was applying the scalpel in a midline incision.
Maggie had suction ready for the moment he opened up the body cavity, but she was horrified by the amount of blood filling the visual field.
‘Has the heart been pierced, or is it the aorta?’ she asked, her words almost hidden by the continuing sound of suction as she tried to clear enough away for Jake to see what had happened.
‘Aorta,’ he said succinctly, reaching into the cavity to find out exactly how extensive the damage was. ‘Not too bad,’ he conceded after a moment. ‘Puncture rather than dissection.’
‘But bad enough that we’re having trouble maintaining enough pressure to keep him alive,’ the anaesthetist butted in tersely.
‘In other words, get on with it?’ Jake challenged without looking away from his task, but Maggie could still see the familiar gleam of determination in his eyes that appeared every time he knew he had a fight on his hands.
Knowing that time was of the essence if the young man was to survive, she could only look on in admiration at the speed with which Jake effected a workable repair, concentrating on stabilising their patient so that he would survive the trip up to Theatre.
‘Pressure’s better!’ the anaesthetist reported. ‘Not great, but better.’
In the background, Maggie heard the phone ring.
‘That was Liam Blake,’ a female voice called a moment later. ‘There’s a table free in Theatre, if you’re ready for it.’
Maggie felt a swift jolt at the unexpected mention of her ex-fiancé’s name and a wash of heat over her cheeks at the sudden silence that told her that the rest of her colleagues had suddenly remembered that neither she nor Liam should have been at the hospital. This should have been their wedding day.
‘Is he good enough to go?’ Jake asked, deferring to the overriding expertise of the man at the head of the table. ‘I’d rather not mess about with him any more down here if I can help it, especially with a cardiothoracic surgeon available.’
‘A.s.a.p.!’ the anaesthetist said with feeling as he systematically disconnected the various leads connecting their patient to the main life-support and monitoring systems, immediately reconnecting them to the portable system that would maintain him until he reached Theatre.
Even as the doors were closing behind him, they were pushed open by the next trolley, with a second following closely behind.
‘There isn’t going to be time to breathe today,’ muttered one of the nurses as she dodged around the paramedic directing the transfer of their next patient, frantically clearing the detritus from the previous one.
‘Maggie,’ Lina Mackey called from the doorway, beckoning her over with a flustered expression on her usually calm face.
‘Problem?’ Maggie asked, puzzled to find herself drawn out into the corridor.
‘I’m so sorry!’ the woman exclaimed, almost wringing her hands. ‘I’d completely forgotten that you’re getting married today or I’d never have called you in. You should be getting ready for the ceremony…having your hair done or something.’
‘It’s not a problem,’ Maggie soothed, half of her attention on the sudden burst of staccato instructions that told her Jake had another problem patient on his hands. Everything inside her wanted to return to the room to do her part in taking care of the patients. She didn’t have the time or the inclination to explain the shambles of her private life when there were more important things to do.
‘But…what about your wedding?’ Lina demanded. ‘This could go on for hours. You could be stuck here—’
‘Honestly,’ Maggie interrupted, the sound of Jake’s muttered curse so clear that she knew the rest of the team must be able to hear every word being said outside the door…they were probably all but falling over in their efforts to hear more clearly. ‘It’s not a problem, Lina. I can stay as long as I’m needed.’
‘But—’
‘There isn’t going to be a wedding,’ she blurted, then had to stifle a groan when a nearby gasp drew her eyes and she recognised the avid gaze of one of the biggest gossips in the whole department.
‘Oh, Maggie, I’m so sorry,’ Lina said as she patted her arm, but whether it was in support for her cancelled wedding or the fact that her private business would shortly be spread far and wide, Maggie wasn’t certain.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ she said with a weak attempt at a smile, and leant her shoulder against the swing door as she backed away from the encounter. ‘Just be pleased that I was available to come in today and keep wheeling the patients through.’
Maggie had been prepared to be the focus of at least one pair of eyes when the door slapped shut behind her, but everyone seemed to be concentrating on what they were doing, far too busy to even have noticed that there was a conversation going on outside the room. Then she realised with a wash of embarrassment that there was an almost unearthly silence hanging over a room that would normally have been a babble of orders, requests and the odd quip, and knew that she was the reason.
‘I call it true dedication,’ Jake muttered, just loudly enough for everyone in the room to hear, even though they were pretending not to listen, ‘coming in to work when she could have been jetting off into the sunshine.’
Cancelling the honeymoon was something else she’d completely forgotten to do, Maggie realised, and wondered if she would be able to use today’s emergency events as a valid reason to be able to reclaim the cost. If not, perhaps she should just leave this evening as scheduled.
Her primary examination of the patient over, and vital signs recorded, she stepped back behind the screen as a series of X-rays were taken of her next patient and speculated idly that, in the absence of a new husband, she could always ask a handsome Mediterranean waiter to rub sunscreen on the bits she couldn’t reach. With nothing and no one to distract her, she might even end up with a decent tan.
At least if she went away she wouldn’t have to worry about where she was going to be sleeping tonight, but that still left her with the problem of storing her belongings.
‘Fracture at C4, transversely across the vertebral body’ was the verdict, even as her hand hovered over the cervical collar, hoping for the all-clear to remove it.
‘How bad?’ Maggie demanded, suddenly worrying that she might have missed something vital while her thoughts had wandered into her personal life.
‘Whatever you do, don’t take the collar off,’ the radiologist said dryly. ‘It’s a good job the paramedics know their stuff or we’d probably be looking at paralysis.’
Maggie started breathing again, grateful that her medical faculties had been performing in spite of herself. With her patient stabilised as far as possible, all she had to do was hand the rest of his treatment over to someone from Orthopaedics…that and renew her resolve to keep her mind on her job.
When the current crisis was over would be soon enough to worry about moving her belongings out of her place and sorting out the rest of her life.
‘How are you doing?’ Jake murmured some time later, his deep voice breaking into her concentration, startling her when it emerged
