but I’m making up a story for Sadie. About the prince from under the sea.’ She laughed. ‘Right up your street. Or it would have been, had you not met Theo.’ She paused. Madison had her finger on the pulse. She might know more about Rhys Morgan. ‘Have you met our new consultant yet?’ she asked, trying her best to sound casual.
‘Rhys Morgan?’ Madison nodded. ‘I called him into Theatre last week during a difficult birth—and the baby was absolutely fine, before you ask. He’s a nice guy. Knows his stuff but doesn’t throw his weight around.’
Oh, doesn’t he? Katrina thought, remembering what he’d said about Sadie.
Madison’s eyes sparkled. ‘Since you’re asking about him, Kat, does that mean you’re—?’
‘No, it doesn’t,’ Katrina interrupted, guessing what her cousin was about to ask. Since she’d found happiness with Theo, Madison had been trying to find the same for her cousin, and the matchmaking was driving Katrina crazy. ‘He’s nice enough, as you say—a good doctor—but he’s a bit reserved. And he told me off this morning for getting too emotionally involved with my patients.’
‘He has a point, hon. You do get too close to your patients,’ Madison said gently.
Katrina rolled her eyes. ‘I love my job. I love the ward. And, actually, telling stories to the kids is good for me. It’s the best stress-reliever I know, going off into a world of make-believe and seeing all these little faces smiling back at me.’
‘But you still worry about them when you get home. You never quite switch off.’
‘It goes with the territory.’ Katrina glanced at her watch. ‘I’d better get back. I promised Sadie a story over lunch, and I don’t want to upset the new consultant by being late for ward rounds this afternoon.’
‘Sounds to me as if you just got off on the wrong foot with each other. Give the guy a chance. He’s OK.’ Madison paused, looking concerned. ‘Not all men are like Pete, you know.’
‘I know that.’ Katrina rolled her eyes. ‘But not all men are potential partners, either. I’m happy to keep men as friends and colleagues.’
‘Hmm. When you find the right one, you’ll change your mind.’
Katrina ruffled her cousin’s hair. ‘I know you’ve found Mr Right, but it doesn’t happen for everyone. Anyway, I like my life as it is. I love my job, I have good friends, and I have the best family in the world. Not to mention the fact I’m going to be an auntie and godmother to the most gorgeous little girl in about four months’ time.’ Madison’s amniocentesis results had come through just before Katrina had left for Italy; to everyone’s huge relief, all was well. ‘I don’t need anyone, Maddie. I’m happy as I am.’
‘If you say so,’ Madison said.
‘I do.’ And the fact that she couldn’t get Rhys Morgan’s incredibly blue eyes out of her head, the fact that they reminded her of the colour of the sea on the Amalfi coast—well, that was just post-holiday silliness, Katrina told herself sternly. ‘I’ll see you later.’
She had enough time to tell Sadie a story about the princess and the merman meeting in the magic grotto, and then it was time to face Rhys again.
‘I see you admitted a couple of patients from the assessment clinic this morning,’ Rhys said.
He’d been in a different clinic that morning—so when had he had time to check what she’d been doing? Or maybe he’d just caught sight of the ward’s whiteboard where they listed the patients and their named nurses and he wanted a quick rundown on what she’d done before they did the ward round. Fair enough. She didn’t have any doubts about her clinical judgement.
‘There’s Jennie Myerson—the GP sent her in because her face was swollen, her blood pressure and temperature were up, she said her joints hurt, and there was blood in her urine,’ she explained. ‘She’s not on medication for anything, so it’s not an allergic reaction, but apparently she did have a sore throat a couple of weeks ago. So I wonder if it’s a staph infection causing interstitial nephritis.’
‘You’ve given her something for the blood pressure and paracetamol to deal with the pain and get her temperature down,’ he said, reading swiftly through the notes.
‘I also took bloods and I asked if her urine output could be measured. Are the results back from the lab yet?’
‘Not according to these notes.’
‘Then I’ll chase them after the ward round. But if I’m right and her ESR and urea are up, I’d like to do a renal ultrasound.’
‘I think you’re going to be right,’ he said, surprising her. ‘Her urine output’s way below what it should be. Did you ask if she’s allergic to penicillin?’
‘Yes, and there’s no family history, so they don’t think so.’
‘Good. You talk to the lab while I sort the ultrasound on her kidney. If the blood results are what you think they’ll be, we’ll start her on penicillin. This sort of condition can make a little one feel really rough.’
He went through the other patients on their list equally thoroughly, taking account of what Katrina said and also of the observations recorded by the nurses. Definitely a team player, Katrina thought. Someone who listened to others. Which was a good thing, as far as the ward was concerned.
So why was there still that wall between them?
Because, although Rhys was great to work with—intuitive, quick to sum up what was going on, understanding how their patients felt and calming the parents’ worries as they went from bed to bed—she was aware of a definite barrier between them. He barely even made eye contact with her.
Had it not been for Lynne’s comment earlier, she would’ve thought maybe it was just her. Although he hadn’t seemed to have a problem with her clinical judgement, he’d made it clear earlier that he thought she was too emotionally involved with their patients.
And there had been that weird prickle of awareness when he’d shaken her hand, which she was pretty sure he’d felt, too. Maybe this distance was his way of telling her that he had no intention of acting on it.
Well, that was fine by her. Because she didn’t want to act on it, either. She’d learned her lesson well: getting involved with a colleague was the quickest way to heartache. Never, ever again.
Later that afternoon, Rhys was walking past the ward’s playroom to his office when he heard laughter. Loud laughter. As if the children in the playroom were watching some kind of show, rather than being the general hum of noise of little ones playing independently. He couldn’t remember anyone talking about a visitor coming to entertain the children, and he knew there wasn’t a television in the playroom. So what was going on? Curious, he looked through the doorway.
And there at the far end of the room was Katrina. Sitting on a beanbag, with her feet tucked under her, surrounded by the more mobile children from the ward and what looked like most of the children from the waiting room. At first he thought she was reading them a story—and then he realised that she wasn’t holding a book. The story she was telling was straight out of her head, illustrated by a couple of glove puppets. She was getting the children involved, too—asking them questions so they made suggestions to shape the
