something wrong?’ Cathy asked.
Kitty lowered the sheaf of papers. ‘Lara Fletcher,’ she said. ‘The twenty-four-year-old in Bay Four with breathlessness and swollen ankles. She’s been back and forth to her GP for months with a host of vague symptoms. Not once has he or anyone else ordered a blood test. She’s been fobbed off by two other medical clinics. One of them even gave her antidepressants, telling her she was depressed.’
‘You found something?’ Cathy asked, looking over her shoulder.
‘Aplastic anaemia,’ Kitty said heavily. ‘How could that have been missed for all this time?’
‘Not everyone is as meticulous as you.’
‘All it took was a blood test.’
‘Tell that to Jake Chandler next time he bawls you out for over-testing the patients,’ Cathy said with a little wink.
‘I will,’ Kitty said.
* * *
‘I didn’t realise you were working this weekend,’ said Trish Wellington, one of the more senior A&E specialists, when Jake came on duty on Saturday evening.
‘I’m just doing a fill-in shift for David Godfrey,’ Jake said. ‘He’s going to his sister’s wedding.’
‘Well, how about that?’ Trish said with a speculative smile. ‘Kitty Cargill’s doing a double tonight. Mike called in sick at the last minute.’
Jake slung his stethoscope around his neck. ‘I hope she’s not overdoing it,’ he said.
Trish leaned against the wall as she toyed with her hospital lanyard. ‘She’s a sharp little tack, isn’t she?’
Jake soaped up his hands at the basin. ‘She’s competent enough.’
‘Pretty little thing,’ Trish said. ‘Gorgeous grey eyes.’
‘Haven’t noticed.’
Trish laughed as she pushed herself away from the wall. ‘So glad I’ve worked here long enough to see it.’
He frowned at her darkly. ‘Long enough to see what?’ he asked.
She pointed at his chest. ‘To see your heart get a run for its money,’ she said.
Jake rolled his eyes. ‘Oh, for pity’s sake.’
‘Dr Chandler?’
Jake felt the hairs on his arms lift up when that posh little voice sounded behind him. He turned and looked at Kitty’s heart-shaped face looking up at him. She had smudges under her grey eyes and her skin was paler than usual, making the light sprinkling of freckles on her nose stand out.
‘Dr Cargill,’ he said formally. ‘Thanks for doing overtime.’
‘That’s OK,’ she said.
A beat of silence ticked past.
‘Was there something else?’ he asked.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t make it to the drinks thing,’ she said. ‘I hope you didn’t think I snubbed…everyone?’
‘I was only there for a couple of minutes myself.’
‘Oh…’ Her expression faltered for a moment. ‘Well, I got held up with a patient.’
‘Taking down their family tree, were we?’ he asked.
Her eyes blinked and then hardened like frost. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I diagnosed a blood disorder that had gone undetected for several months. I lost count of how many GPs the patient had seen. Not one of them performed a blood screen on her.’
‘It happens.’
She frowned at him. ‘How can it happen? How can someone slip through the cracks like that?’
‘GPs are pushed for time just like everyone else in the medical profession,’ Jake said. ‘The larger medical clinics are problematic because the patient doesn’t always see the same doctor each visit. There’s not much continuity.’
‘Then all the more reason to check and doublecheck,’ she said.
‘Testing every patient for every disease is expensive and time-wasting,’ he said. ‘Diagnostic skills vary between doctors, but mostly they get it right.’
‘Not in this case,’ she said. ‘That young woman’s outcome could be severely compromised.’
‘We can’t save everyone, Dr Cargill,’ he said. ‘There will always be people who slip through the system.’
‘I don’t want to miss anyone,’ she said. ‘It’s our job to diagnose and treat patients, not fob them off with a couple of painkillers.’
‘You can’t CT scan every patient who comes through the door,’ Jake argued. ‘Not on this campus, in any case.’
Her grey eyes challenged his. ‘Are you forbidding me from conducting the tests I deem appropriate?’ she asked.
‘I would hope your diagnostic skills are of a standard such that you don’t require exposing a patient to high levels of radiation in order to confirm your diagnosis.’
‘I’d rather not leave patients’ lives up to gut feeling,’ she said with an insolent look.
‘What do you mean by that?’ he asked.
Her grey eyes flashed at him. ‘You can’t possibly get it right all of the time,’ she said. ‘It’s not a matter of guesswork or intuition. We have to rely on cold, hard science.’
‘The human body isn’t an exact science,’ he said. ‘Patients don’t always give a complete history. Tests can be inconclusive. We need to be able to understand anatomy and physiology in order make a correct diagnosis.’
‘Will that be all, Dr Chandler?’ she asked stiffly.
Jake looked at her mouth and felt a tidal wave of raw, primal need course through him. He couldn’t stop thinking about that kiss. He thought of how soft her mouth was, how sweet it had tasted, how yielding it had been, how tentative and shy her tongue had been and then how brazen and uncontrollable it had become when she had let herself go. He thought of how her slim little body had pressed against his as if she had been tailored exactly to his specifications. He thought of how much he wanted to kiss her again, to move his hands over her creamy skin without the barrier of clothes. He wanted to run his hands through the chestnut silk of her hair, to breathe in its flowery fragrance.
He wanted her.
Had he ever wanted someone more? It was this wretched bet, that was what it was. It had to be. He’d been celibate too long. He wasn’t cut out for the life of a monk. It wasn’t that he was developing an attachment to Kitty. She wasn’t staying in Australia long enough to consider anything more than a casual fling. She would probably go back when her term was over and pick up again with someone
