than a little unnerving.
And she was mad with herself. Being caught dancing by him had thrown her off her usually professional stride. Gibbs hadn’t told her anything about the doctor coming to work with her and last night it had seemed too forward to pry.
He’d said he was a navy brat. What exactly did he mean? The guy could speak ten languages? Really? It kind of stuck in her throat. Languages had been one of her major failures as a royal. Mirinez bordered three countries, France, Italy and Monaco. Her native language was French. English had been instilled in her as a child and spending her university years and training time in the UK had served her well.
At a push she could stammer a few words in a few other languages. The same standard statements required by doctors. I’m a doctor, can I help? Are you in pain? What’s your name? But that was it. Languages had always been her Achilles’ heel.
She’d spent her life being top of all her other classes. Her brother, Andreas, had consistently been annoyed that his younger sister could out do him in every academic subject.
And being a doctor was kind of a strange thing. She’d worked with plenty of other doctors who were experts in their fields—just like she was in hers. But she’d never really met a guy who seemed smarter than her.
Mr Ten Languages felt like a little bit of a threat. It was making her stomach curl in all kinds of strange ways. She wasn’t quite sure if it was pure and utter attraction or a tiny bit of jealousy.
She flipped open her laptop to check the list of patients for today. Her emails blinked up. Three hundred and seventy-six. She’d read them all soon. The sixteen-hour shifts here were all-consuming. By the time they got back to camp, washed up and had some food, she didn’t have much energy left. Reviewing patient details and stock supplies was a must. Reading hundreds of emails when a large percentage of them were probably spam? That could wait.
She ran her eyes down the list. The work was never-ending. TB was a relentless disease. There was no quick fix here.
‘All set.’ Gretchen, the pharmacist, appeared at the entrance to the tent with a smile on her face. ‘I’ve just met our new doc.’ She winked at Gabrielle. ‘In some parts of Switzerland, we would call him eye candy.’
Gabrielle burst out laughing at Gretchen’s turn of phrase. They’d worked together for Doctors Without Borders for the last six years—always on the TB programmes. It had been Gabrielle’s first official diagnosis of a patient when she’d been a medical student and had been her passion ever since.
‘I don’t know what you mean.’ She smiled in return. ‘I’m far too busy working to contemplate any kind of candy.’
Gretchen wagged her finger at her. ‘Don’t think I don’t know about the hidden candy.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘Maybe it’s time to contemplate another kind.’
‘Gretchen!’ The woman ducked as Gabrielle flung a ball of paper at her.
There was a deep laugh and Sullivan appeared with the crushed ball in his hand. ‘Anything I should know about?’
She could feel the heat rush into her cheeks. It was like being a teenager all over again. She stood up quickly, grabbing the laptop and her backpack. ‘Not at all. Let’s go, Dr Darcy, time to learn some new skills.’
She was baiting him and she could tell he knew it. He shook his head and slung his own backpack over his shoulder. ‘I like to learn something new every day.’
* * *
He wasn’t joking. And Gabrielle took him at his word.
As soon as they’d travelled to their first stop and set up, she took him aside. ‘You know the drill. Ordinary TB is horrible enough. It kills one point four million people every year with another nine million suffering from the disease, mainly in developing countries like Narumba. Along with malaria and HIV it’s one of the three main killer infectious diseases. Drug resistance and multi-drug-resistant TB numbers are increasing all the time. Because it’s spread through the air when people cough and sneeze, it’s virtually impossible to stop the spread. One third of the world’s population is infected with mycobacterium tuberculosis but it’s dormant in their bodies. Ten per cent of these people will develop active TB at some point in their life.’
There was passion and enthusiasm in her voice. There was also a hint of anger. She was angry at what this disease was being allowed to do to people all around the world. He liked that about her.
‘We’ve been using the same archaic test for the last one hundred and twenty years and the test is only accurate half of the time—even less so if the patient has HIV. I hope you’re comfortable with kids. We have a new test for TB but it’s not suitable for kids. They need the traditional test and we have the facility for chest X-rays if necessary. Mainly, we go on clinical presentation and history.’
He nodded. He’d read more notes after Gabrielle had gone to bed. He was happy to do something to pass yet another long night when he couldn’t sleep.
She kept talking, her voice going at a hundred miles an hour. ‘You know the clinical presentation, don’t you? A persistent cough, fever, weight loss, chest pain and breathlessness. The nurses will bring through anyone who has tested positive and is showing resistance to rifampicin. You’ll need to check them over clinically before starting their prescription.’ She pointed to a printed algorithm. ‘We have a chart for adults and a chart for paeds. The new test also doesn’t show anyone who has non-pulmonary TB. The nurses will bring through anyone with a history who gives concern.’
He blinked as he looked at the clinic list. ‘You see this many patients every day?’
She nodded, her brown hair bouncing. It was tied up on her head again. She was wearing a high-necked, long-sleeved shirt and long trousers, even though the temperature was soaring. He was lucky. He had on shorts and a T-shirt, but even so the heat was causing trickles of sweat to run down between his shoulder blades.
She gave a little tug at her neck. ‘Okay?’ he queried.
She gave a nod. ‘Let’s just get started. We need to see as many patients as we can.’
She wasn’t joking. It was only seven a.m., but news of their clinic must have spread because there was already a queue forming outside.
Four hours later he’d seen more kids in this TB clinic than he’d ever want to. Doctors Without Borders might be there to try and tackle the TB epidemic, but to the people of Narumba he was just a doctor. His surgical highlight of his day so far had been grabbing some equipment and a scalpel to drain a few abscesses. He’d also seen a huge variety of skin conditions, variations of asthma, diabetes, polio and sleeping sickness. He’d seen multiple patients with HIV—mixed with TB it would be deadly for many of the people he’d seen today. He could barely keep track of how many patients he’d actually seen. And the queue outside? It just kept getting longer and longer.
Long queues were good. He had never been work shy. Long days were much more preferable to long nights. If he exhausted himself with work, he might actually get a few hours’ sleep tonight.
He kept a smile on his face as another mother came in, clutching her child to her chest.
He nodded towards her, speaking in Narumbi. ‘I’m Dr Darcy, one of the team. What’s your name, and your son’s name?’
She
