Seize The Day. Sharon Kendrick

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Seize The Day - Sharon Kendrick Mills & Boon Medical

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to Sonia. Moaning about the junior nurses—that made her feel very old!

      She was shown into Sonia Walker’s office, and Sonia rose from behind her desk immediately, as immaculate as always in her smart blue dress, but with an anxious expression in her eyes.

      ‘Jenny!’ she exclaimed. ‘Do sit down. I’m so sorry to have had you come back from your holiday to such sad news.’

      Jenny glanced at her, alarmed now. ‘Sad news? What news?’

      ‘You mean you haven’t heard?’

      ‘Heard what? I don’t know what you’re talking about, Sonia.’

      Sonia rested both hands on the desk, her eyes compassionate. ‘There’s no easy way to tell you this—I’m afraid Dr Marlow is dead.’

      Jenny’s knuckles whitened as she gazed at the nursing officer disbelievingly. ‘Dead? Harry, dead? But. . . He can’t be. . .’ She stared at Sonia. ‘He was one of the fittest men around.’

      Sonia shook her head. ‘I know. It happened so suddenly. He was driving to work. One minute he was fine—the next, gone. It was a terrible shock. The P-M showed that he had a massive stroke—he wouldn’t have suffered.’

      Jenny let her head fall into her hands, willing the tears to stop, but unable to do anything to quench them. She had known Harry Marlow for as long as she could remember. He’d worked alongside her mother for years, and then with Jenny herself. He’d eaten his Christmas lunch with them every year, bar the time when he’d visited his sister in Australia. He had bought Jenny the engraved fob-watch, which she still wore, on the day she’d passed her finals.

      Sonia moved from behind her desk to place a comforting arm around her shoulder, and handed her a wad of tissues.

      Jenny wiped her eyes and blew ner nose. ‘I’m sorry, Sonia,’ she whispered. ‘It’s just come as such a shock. When—when. . .?’

      ‘It happened two days after you went away. We didn’t know where to reach you.’

      Of course, she had left no word. She hadn’t even left a phone number.

      ‘So the funeral. . . ?’

      ‘Was last week. I’m so sorry, Jenny.’

      So there wouldn’t even be a funeral for her to attend. No occasion for her to pay her last respects to the man who had been almost like a father to her.

      ‘And Dr Trentham thought it best not to try and trace you—to bring you back from wherever you were to be confronted with a funeral.’

      Jenny had hardly been listening, but she raised her head a little. ‘Who?’ The tear-filled, green eyes stared at Sonia, who shifted in her seat a little.

      ‘Dr Trentham—he’s the new surgical attachment, replacing Dr Marlow. He didn’t think it wise to disrupt your holiday, and I agreed with him. He was right, Jenny. You needed the holiday. Everyone knew how hard you’d been working. What was the point of dragging you back?’

      Sorrow, guilt and rage combined to form an icy hand which clutched at her chest. ‘This—Dr Trentham,’ she spat the name out as if it had a bad taste. ‘He had no right to make a decision like that, and I’m surprised that you allowed him to, Sonia.’

      ‘I wanted to do the right thing—and what he said seemed eminently reasonable at the time. I know you’re upset——’

      ‘How has Judy taken it?’ she interrupted in a small voice which seemed to come from a long way away.

      Sonia looked as if she was about to wring her hands. ‘Judy has left, Jenny. She’s gone.’

      Jenny looked blank. ‘Gone? What do you mean—gone?’

      ‘She’s left. She left when Dr Trentham joined. I think she found all the changes too much. She was only a couple of years off retirement, and I think that——’

      Uncharacteristically, Jenny interrupted her nursing officer again, but Sonia Walker could see that the normally cool and efficient ward sister was in a state of shock.

      ‘Let me get this right.’ She spoke very slowly, as if checking her statement’s veracity while she uttered it. ‘Not only has this new doctor effectively prevented me from attending Harry’s funeral, but he has also made Staff Nurse Collins leave—after twenty years of loyal service?’

      Sonia raised her eyebrows a little. ‘I wouldn’t have put it exactly like that. . . Listen, I can arrange for cover for your ward for today. Why don’t you go home and rest? It’s all been a terrible shock for you.’

      Jenny had stood up, like an automaton, her eyes unseeing. Sonia sprang to her feet.

      ‘Jenny—Jenny, dear! Let me get someone to take you home.’

      With a huge effort of will, Jenny shook her head. ‘No, honestly. I must get back to the ward; there must be so much to be done. And I want to speak to this—this Trentham man.’

      ‘Jenny—you won’t do anything foolish, will you? He acted in your best interests——’

      ‘He doesn’t even know me,’ Jenny pointed out coldly.

      ‘Yes, I know, but——’ her anxious expression returned ‘—Jenny, I couldn’t bear to lose you as well.’

      Jenny managed a small glimmer of a smile, and shook her head emphatically. ‘Oh, don’t worry, Sonia. I’m not going anywhere.’

      Sonia appeared gratified by this. ‘And you’re sure you’re up to a late duty?’

      ‘I’ll be fine,’ said Jenny with more conviction than she felt. But she could think of nothing worse than retracing her steps to her small cottage, to sit alone and in silence while her mind tried to grasp the enormity of what had happened—that Harry Marlow was dead, and that Judy Collins had been driven away by his replacement. She felt as if all the carefully arranged order and calm of her life was slipping into utter chaos and disarray. She felt like a holidaymaker who saw glorious sand beckoning, and then stood in fear as she realised that it was quicksand.

      She clip-clopped her way back to the ward in her neat, shiny black shoes, her slim legs in the sheer black tights. She held her head high, her neck long and elegant, the frilly cap perched neatly on top of the thick, glossy hair and she was oblivious to the admiring glances cast at her by an elderly woman who was visiting her husband.

      Inside, however, she felt far from serene, and as she approached Rose Ward she hesitated very slightly. Should she have Dr Trentham bleeped and confront him now? Or better to wait until her anger had subsided and she was more in control of her feelings? And besides, wasn’t unity the most important thing at the moment? She must gather her staff around her now, show all the girls that she was still in charge, that things were going to be all right, and that they could slip back into their trusted and familiar pattern.

      She would carry on as normal. She would take a report from the agency staff nurse and then send the morning staff to lunch. She would wait until they returned before giving a full report to the three staff who would be with her this evening, and in the meantime she would go round and see all the patients, check the progress of

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