flick in a heartbeat to a heat that no other woman had ever evoked.
Jack had to stifle a groan. The morphine was clearly scrambling his brain. He shouldn’t be thinking of something like that. It was over. Dead and buried. And he’d been the one to kill it.
Emma must have heard the small sound. ‘What’s hurting?’ she asked. ‘What’s bothering you?’
Oh...that was a question and a half. Would she actually want to know about the guilt over abandoning his brother’s child that had been hanging around his neck like an ever-increasing weight?
The shame of the way he’d behaved in those dark days? The way he’d treated her?
Even if she was prepared to listen to him, it would have to be a very private conversation and there were others around. He could feel the sting of the damaged skin on his arm being cleaned and redressed. Of his lower leg being unwrapped from its temporary splint. And he could hear the voices of new arrivals—the radiographers, probably—who would be preparing to operate the overhead X-ray machines.
‘Is it your neck? Was it here?’ Her fingers were pressing again on the last spot she’d touched at the bottom of his cervical spine.
‘No...my neck feels fine.’
‘Really?’ Emma’s face appeared as she moved to one side of the bed. So close to his own he could see those unusual golden flecks in the soft brown of her irises. ‘And you really haven’t been drinking?’
That hurt. He might have been a complete bastard in those last weeks but he’d never been less than honest with her. With anyone, for that matter.
He saw the flicker in her eyes. ‘Sorry...I just needed to be sure.’
‘Yeah...you always were very thorough, Dr Matthews. It’s a commendable attribute.’
That earned a tilt of her lips that was almost a smile. ‘There’s a checklist for determining whether a cervical spine is stable, as you well know. You don’t seem to have any midline tenderness and there’s no evidence of intoxication. You seem to be reasonably alert and oriented to time and place.’
Jack could feel his own lips curve. ‘Cheers. Under the circumstances, I’ll take reasonably alert as a good thing.’
Emma unclipped her small pen torch from the top pocket of her scrubs tunic and flicked the light on. Jack kept his eyes open and stared straight ahead as she moved the beam to check his pupil sizes and reactions.
‘Equal and reactive,’ she said. ‘There’s only one other thing on the checklist. Do you remember what it is?’
Clever. She was throwing in something completely different as another check on his neurological status.
‘Whether there are any painful, distracting injuries, like a long bone fracture.’
‘And is anything painful enough to qualify as a distraction?’
‘No.’
‘Mmm... Okay, then, I reckon you pass.’ She looked away from him to someone he couldn’t see. ‘I’m happy to leave the collar off but I’d still like a cervical X-ray series, please. Along with chest, pelvis, left tib/fib and the left forearm.’
‘Do you want a lead apron?’ someone queried.
Emma shook her head, looking down at Jack again. ‘I’m happy that your condition hasn’t deteriorated in any way. I’m going to duck out and get up to speed with what’s happening in the rest of the department until I get your X-rays up on the computer. I won’t be far away and someone will come and get me if I’m needed.’
Jack nodded. He closed his eyes as he did so because he didn’t want Emma to see how much he would have preferred for her to stay here.
He had no right to put any kind of pressure on her.
About anything.
* * *
Alistair had beaten her to the patient board and he was frowning as he scanned the changes that the last ten minutes or so had produced.
‘We’ve got to clear some space,’ he said. ‘Waiting times are getting to an unacceptable level.’
‘I’ll see if we can get another registrar or two on board.’
‘We’ve got an ambulance arriving in the next few minutes,’ Caroline warned them. ‘And the police. Sounds like a turf war broke out between a couple of Santas selling hats or something.’ She tried to suppress a grin. ‘Could be serious. One of them got stabbed, by the sound of things.’
‘I’ll take it,’ Alistair said. ‘But do you want me to help with that dislocated shoulder in Curtain Two first? He’s been waiting a while.’
‘I’ll get one of the housemen. It’s only brute strength required.’ One of the junior doctors—a young Australian called Pete—was heading towards her, in fact, but Emma didn’t get the chance to speak first.
‘Can I get you to have a look at my patient when you’ve got a minute? Twenty-nine-year-old with epigastric pain but I don’t know if it warrants a scan.’ Pete was frowning. ‘There’s something about her I just can’t put my finger on.’
It didn’t sound too urgent. ‘Can she wait for a bit? I need you to help me get a shoulder back in. Set up a sedation trolley in Curtain Two and I’ll be with you shortly.’ She paused beside one of the bank of computer screens available to call up patient records, check test results and review X-rays. The first digital image from the resuscitation room Jack was in had come through. A chest X-ray.
Emma peered at the screen as she zoomed in and hovered over the area that was so bruised. There didn’t seem to be any broken ribs. This was good. Maybe she could stop worrying about the possibility of a pneumothorax and a sudden deterioration in Jack’s ability to breathe.
Another worry resurfaced in the wake of that relief. Picking up the desk phone, she punched in an internal number.
‘CCU, Charge Nurse speaking.’
‘Hi, Steve. It’s Emma Matthews here, from ED. Any word on Stuart Cameron yet?’
‘They’re just finishing up in the cath lab. He’s had three stents put in. Apparently there was a hundred percent occlusion of his left main stem. ECG changes are resolving already, though, so he’s been incredibly lucky.’
‘Oh...thank goodness...’ The wave of relief was enough to make Emma’s legs feel wobbly.
‘We’re expecting him in here shortly. We’ve got the private suite ready.’
Emma smiled. ‘Tell him I’ll be up to visit the moment I get a break.’
‘How’s it looking down there?’
‘Usual festive season chaos. A surprise around every corner.’
Ending the call, Emma went to find Pete, who was waiting for her outside Curtain Two, alongside a pretty young nurse.
‘Really?’
